Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Featsbeyond50]

Volkswagen Shares Jump After News Of Possible Porsche Listing | OilPrice.com

VW is contemplating spinning off Porsche in an IPO. What do we make of this? Is VW divesting a brand it thinks will not survive the transition to EVs? How much does VW need the cash to fund its own transition to EVs? Or does this have little to do with EVs?

This is a good move. Porsche will survive on their own and VW needs the capital to help them transition.

 

[new_sneakers]

What are the new products this year that Elon and Zac alluded to on the Q4 2020 conference call?

I am slightly suspicious about Elon’s suspicious downplaying of solar efficiency improvements in his recent Joe Rogan interview.

I agree with the part of his answer that said solar will never replace charging, but he basically said solar would not progress past 25% efficiency.

To me, it is likely new panels will break through this mark. Electrek has an interview on this topic today.

I wonder if he is sandbagging, avoiding the Osborne effect, or waiting for a reveal (or just being honest, or choosing to make his answer a flat and simple no).

 

[JohnnyEnglish]

What are the new products this year that Elon and Zac alluded to on the Q4 2020 conference call?

I am slightly suspicious about Elon’s suspicious downplaying of solar efficiency improvements in his recent Joe Rogan interview.

I agree with the part of his answer that said solar will never replace charging, but he basically said solar would not progress past 25% efficiency.

To me, it is likely new panels will break through this mark. Electrek has an interview on this topic today.

I wonder if he is sandbagging, avoiding the Osborne effect, or waiting for a reveal (or just being honest, or choosing to make his answer a flat and simple no).

The new product referred to by Elon is included in the Q4 ER pack on page 8 which is headed vehicle capacity. So it is a vehicle, not a solar product.

 

[WarpedOne]

New vehicle? But of course ... china made Model 2.

 

[st_lopes]

Rob Maurer made an interesting point in today’s video. By lowering price on SR and increasing for Performance, Tesla can sell more cars for a given supply of batteries if more people choose the SR instead of LR or Perf. The end result is slightly lower margins but more revenue and profit. Additionally, every car on the road will become a source of recurring revenue from premium connectivity and upcoming FSD subscription.

Accounting at its finest!

If we assume the battery pack in an SR requires 80% of the cells of a Performance model, 5 SR can be sold with same number of cells as 4 Performance models.

So, as long as your margin is not 20% higher in a Perf model, you’ll always come out ahead with that mix of models - just on total auto margin.

Plus with the Tesla fly wheel, you actually want to have 5 vehicles on the road instead of 4. More premium connectivity subscribers, more accessories sold, more FSD, more future arcade, more robotaxi, more owners considering solar for home, more potential insurance customers, etc.

 

[ifish]

I was quoted 12 weeks for delivery of a solar roof at a cost of $55k then Fed & State credits bring it to $43k ,Now waiting on engineering to do their thing.I live in South Jersey, next on the list is Starlink.

 

[st_lopes]

Reuters:
Analysis: Carmakers wake up to new pecking order as chip crunch intensifies

Analysis: Carmakers wake up to new pecking order as chip crunch intensifies

No paywall and does a decent job covering the current landscape in chip making for the automotive sector.

 

[2daMoon]

Reuters:
Analysis: Carmakers wake up to new pecking order as chip crunch intensifies

Analysis: Carmakers wake up to new pecking order as chip crunch intensifies

No paywall and does a decent job covering the current landscape in chip making for the automotive sector.

Nice write up providing more evidence of how the legacy OEMs have rested on their laurels raking in money to hang beneath their golden parachutes by avoiding investment into innovation of aging product lines.

This does not actually come as a surprise, does it?

Now, which companies are the ones that need to be concerned about the competition coming?

 

[2daMoon]

Anyone else notice that unusual color on the SP this morning?

(hope I didn't jinx it)

 

[mltv]

OT: French village says 'non' to Elon Musk's space-age internet

 

[jeewee3000]

Rob Maurer made an interesting point in today’s video. By lowering price on SR and increasing for Performance, Tesla can sell more cars for a given supply of batteries if more people choose the SR instead of LR or Perf. The end result is slightly lower margins but more revenue and profit. Additionally, every car on the road will become a source of recurring revenue from premium connectivity and upcoming FSD subscription.

ARK invest has put out the same reasoning (don't know where I read or heard this specifically, but it was ARK I'm sure):

ARK believes that a fully autonomous Tesla Network ridehailing app will be a much greater source of profits for Tesla than their automotive division selling cars.

Therefore the "long con" is to allocate resources (i.e. battery cells) in such a way as to maximize the amount of Tesla vehicles out there.

Since they are "appreciating assets" as Elon likes to call them since the cars in the fleet can become autonomous from one day to the next by OTA updates, the Tesla Network will provide way more revenue by having more cars (in more locations).

While this still sees somewhat futuristic, the logic is solid and I for one follow it. Better to have more low range Tesla's out there than fewer performance versions.

Added bonus is that people see more Tesla's on the road this way, increasing the strength of the Tesla brand.

TL;DR: very exciting years ahead!

 

[ZeApelido]

Janet Jellen

Your linguistic slip-up has exposed your cover as an obvious Scandinavian Robot.

 

[Nocturnal]

ARK invest has put out the same reasoning (don't know where I read or heard this specifically, but it was ARK I'm sure):

ARK believes that a fully autonomous Tesla Network ridehailing app will be a much greater source of profits for Tesla than their automotive division selling cars.

Therefore the "long con" is to allocate resources (i.e. battery cells) in such a way as to maximize the amount of Tesla vehicles out there.

Since they are "appreciating assets" as Elon likes to call them since the cars in the fleet can become autonomous from one day to the next by OTA updates, the Tesla Network will provide way more revenue by having more cars (in more locations).

While this still sees somewhat futuristic, the logic is solid and I for one follow it. Better to have more low range Tesla's out there than fewer performance versions.

Added bonus is that people see more Tesla's on the road this way, increasing the strength of the Tesla brand.

TL;DR: very exciting years ahead!

Even before robotaxis are workable there is a benefit. Assuming the take rate of FSD is the same with performance and non-performance (probably not but can't be too far off) then selling 100 base models with 20 FSD packages is more profitable than selling 80 performance cars with 16 FSD packages. Not the actual cell math of course, just random numbers. Plus that means more vehicles providing data.

 

[Budding]

"According to the Dutch financial newspaper „Het Financieele Dagblad“, #VW may have to recall ALL electric ID cars (#ID3 and #ID4) due to major software issues."
https://twitter.com/ceo_plus_ch/status/1362749294219001883?s=21

 

[ZeApelido]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1362722649777045508

The best part about Elon responding to this tweet is there is no reference to him in it, only @Waymo.

Meaning he was awake at 3am and searched for Waymo content on Twitter.

I'm thinking he really wants to slay Waymo.

 

[ZeApelido]

"According to the Dutch financial newspaper „Het Financieele Dagblad“, #VW may have to recall ALL electric ID cars (#ID3 and #ID4) due to major software issues."
https://twitter.com/ceo_plus_ch/status/1362749294219001883?s=21

Very minor issue. All the vehicles are already on VW property anyways since they bought all their own ID3's.

 

[S3XY]

"According to the Dutch financial newspaper „Het Financieele Dagblad“, #VW may have to recall ALL electric ID cars (#ID3 and #ID4) due to major software issues."
https://twitter.com/ceo_plus_ch/status/1362749294219001883?s=21

Time to hire 5,000 more coders. /s

 

[bkp_duke]

What are the new products this year that Elon and Zac alluded to on the Q4 2020 conference call?

I am slightly suspicious about Elon’s suspicious downplaying of solar efficiency improvements in his recent Joe Rogan interview.

I agree with the part of his answer that said solar will never replace charging, but he basically said solar would not progress past 25% efficiency.

To me, it is likely new panels will break through this mark. Electrek has an interview on this topic today.

I wonder if he is sandbagging, avoiding the Osborne effect, or waiting for a reveal (or just being honest, or choosing to make his answer a flat and simple no).

For current technology, there is a theoretical limit on efficiency, and 25% is darn close to that. You need to change things up significantly (i.e. perskovites, etc.) to break past 25%. It may happen, but it won't happen overnight, and Elon knows that. It took 3+ decades to get from the single-digit efficiencies to where we are now (~22% in the best panels). That was a very slow walk, not overnight advances.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I was quoted 12 weeks for delivery of a solar roof at a cost of $55k then Fed & State credits bring it to $43k ,Now waiting on engineering to do their thing.I live in South Jersey, next on the list is Starlink.

That's awesome, so great to see reasonable pricing! Did Tesla also monetize your SRECs as an upfront discount? If they did, and you don't need the cash right now, I'd think about keeping them yourself. It's an amazing option Tesla offers, but I think you only end up with about 2 years of credits worth of value.

Don't forget to share your experience in the Energy Forum, we are interested!

Can't wait to see your Cybertruck fishing of the beach in Brigantine. 14 weeks til Memorial Day.

 

[2daMoon]

For current technology, there is a theoretical limit on efficiency, and 25% is darn close to that. You need to change things up significantly (i.e. perskovites, etc.) to break past 25%. It may happen, but it won't happen overnight, and Elon knows that. It took 3+ decades to get from the single-digit efficiencies to where we are now (~22% in the best panels). That was a very slow walk, not overnight advances.

Something occurred to me, is there any reason a "battery layer" could not be built into every solar panel/solar roof tile? Further expanding the capacity of storage at any given PV installation?

Well, other than the obvious reason that the raw materials are all going into the batteries for cars for the near future.

Once raw materials and battery production have ramped would this be a far-fetched idea, or might doing so be a way to increase overall storage and add value to the PV products?