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

[floydboy]

Don't even try.. most likely patented by NKLA already...

TSLA is down but NKLA is up, on news that they may be patenting 'uphill' next.

 

[insaneoctane]

Do we have any figures on what area needs to be covered by solar panels per 100 kWh dispensed by a supercharger?

I'm assuming that whatever panels they can cram into a parking lot (on roofs over stalls or whatever) are going to be pretty insignificant compared to the energy dispensed on a daily basis. I feel like I heard a car or CyberTruck covered in solar could get like 30 miles a day (8-10 kWh?), so even if there's 10x that many panels on-site, it covers maybe 2 charges daily. Not nothing, but not free charging either.

As such, I'm assuming that if Tesla wanted to supply superchargers with "free" energy to dispense, they'd need to be building solar farms. And I haven't seen them doing that.

I'm not exactly sure why -- with billions in the bank you'd think it would be a sensible investment to power the supercharger network.

Maybe batteries are the start so at least they can time-shift off-peak energy rates, and once the batteries are in place then solar makes more sense? And then cell constraints would be stalling this whole idea?

Well, it would take around 300 panels getting full sun for one hour to output 100kWh.
Here’s a guide:

SOLAR SIZE	NUMBER OF PANELS	POWER RATING	ROOF AREA COVERED
Small	12	4.08 kW	240 sqft
Medium	24	8.16 kW	480 sqft
Large	36	12.24 kW	720 sqft
X-Large	48	16.32 kW	960 sqft

Superchargers really move a crazy amount of energy very quickly. While superchargers often have lots of idle time, on the whole, it’s seems obvious to me that evening and night time charging either need LOTS of storage or the grid…

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Maybe batteries are the start so at least they can time-shift off-peak energy rates, and once the batteries are in place then solar makes more sense? And then cell constraints would be stalling this whole idea?

As you've pointed out, the amount of solar to fully compensate for the use at the supercharger really needs to come from utility-scale solar installations.

The main reason to do solar and battery storage is to reduce Tesla's demand charges, I think. I think it's likely that battery storage would be more useful for this, but of course solar can help smooth things out and overall could reduce Tesla's costs over time, if they can get it cheap enough and install enough of it. It's nice to have shelter over superchargers - a good place for a little bit of solar power but not enough to substantially reduce the supercharger's consumption.

Making Sense of Demand Charges: What Are They and How Do They Work?

Two commercial buildings, a factory and an aerospace research facility, both consumed 40,000 kWh of energy in January 2017. However, their energy consumption patterns were very different. The factory maintained a uniform energy consumption of 1,333 kWh per day, and for no given period did their...

www.renewableenergyworld.com

 

[jerry33]

Do we have any figures on what area needs to be covered by solar panels per 100 kWh dispensed by a supercharger?

I'm assuming that whatever panels they can cram into a parking lot (on roofs over stalls or whatever) are going to be pretty insignificant compared to the energy dispensed on a daily basis. I feel like I heard a car or CyberTruck covered in solar could get like 30 miles a day (8-10 kWh?), so even if there's 10x that many panels on-site, it covers maybe 2 charges daily. Not nothing, but not free charging either.

As such, I'm assuming that if Tesla wanted to supply superchargers with "free" energy to dispense, they'd need to be building solar farms. And I haven't seen them doing that.

I'm not exactly sure why -- with billions in the bank you'd think it would be a sensible investment to power the supercharger network.

Maybe batteries are the start so at least they can time-shift off-peak energy rates, and once the batteries are in place then solar makes more sense? And then cell constraints would be stalling this whole idea?

The issue is that you just can't throw money at it. There are permits, property owner permissions, utility considerations, and a host of other things to retrofit existing sites. New sites may be even harder with the government funded charging sites that may be coming. Property owners are likely to wait to see whether Tesla will pay more than the government before deciding.

 

[jerry33]

3) the salesperson actually chose to ask a long term customer rather than speculating.

I'd suggest that this spoke well of the salesperson. Better to admit you don't know something than to give a customer incorrect information.

 

[Doit]

Progress on turning Maxwell's dry battery electrode tech into volume production:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1417948576647286787

 

[Carl Raymond]

Progress on turning Maxwell's dry battery electrode tech into volume production:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1417948576647286787

Will be listening intently through the earnings call for anything that clarifies what “not quite done” means.

 

[Prunesquallor]

So does anyone think that other manufacturers are really going to have their navigation systems route the cars through Tesla SuperChargers?

Tesla SuperCharger and Tesla SuperCharger app will the first real advertising Tesla does and they will get paid for it. Paid with an adapter, paid with the charging fees and paid with pushing Tesla energy and Tesla cars in the app.

Plus the “Powered by Tesla” bumper stickers!

 

[traxila]

Great article from thestreet

Tesla Software Defies Critics

Shares ready to roll as full self-driving capability shocks pessimists

www.thestreet.com

Yeah I love the idea, but outside of wishing for a stock explosion, don’t know what makes it so great.

Little light on details…

Just sounds like someone talking their book.

 

[hacer]

... Those who imagine that the other members are trying to impede Tesla are dabbling with conspiracy theories.

The CCS standards were driven more by electrical suppliers and utility providers than by OEM members. That is why they're cumbersome and sometimes arcane. In context, understand that equipment providers and utilities are obsessed with electric transmission safety. For that reason, and only that reason, adapters are discouraged unless they provide unusual safety coupled with complying with communication standards...

Lets assume your premise that non-OEM CharIN members are driving the CharIN position (as stated in their position paper) on adapters for the reasons you describe. They have no objection to a CCS charger to Tesla connector adapter. There is nothing unique to that adapter the prevents it from being affected by all of the things CharIN sites regarding the danger of adapters: there were no standards for such adapters that Tesla designed to, there are no CharIN approved tests it has passed, there can be differences between the grounding schemes of the Tesla vehicle and the CSS charger, etc.

Now imagine a use case where a CCS charger built by one of the non-OEM members operated by another non-OEM member and installed and powered by a non-OEM utility member is used to charge a Tesla via one of these adapters. Suppose somehow the user is electrocuted when trying to hook up to charge. Is this not a nightmare scenario for all of these non-OEM members? Are they not in danger of wrongful death lawsuit just as the adapter maker and car maker would be? Yet they have no objection to this adapter.

Now let's consider what they do object to: an Adapter that allows a US ID4 (with CCS socket) to plug into a Tesla supercharger and charge. Let's say the same thing happens - the user is electrocuted and dies. Who might be worried in that case? Only Tesla, VW, and the adapter manufacturer are at risk here. So only OEM members are at risk. Yet this is the case that you claim drives the non-OEM members to object to.

It's ridiculous and proves the point that the objection MUST be driven by the car maker (OEM) members. They do not want Tesla to earn revenue from their customers. What other rationale for this dual view on allowed adapters is there? It certainly can't be technical.

 

[kengchang]

In case there are others like me who don't really understand what impact redeeming the bonds early has...

This means Tesla will pay $1.8477 billion, or almost $48 million over the face amount to redeem these bonds. Of course, it is saving $95.4 million in interest per year over the next four years, so this redemption makes economic sense, particularly considering Tesla currently has significant cash on its balance sheet.

This would mean that all the outstanding notes are paid for.

 

[UkNorthampton]

The recent carwow video will be seen by millions & will lead to huge demand for Tesla in UK. In my opinion it could move sentiment in the UK (and presumably other countries). Truly "Crossed the Chasm" into "Mainstream" (Pragmatists, Early Majority). Further videos will include Matt's Mum picking up the Tesla, getting an EVSE (charger) fitted at her house & presumably living with the TM3SR+ doing long trips, Superchargers etc.

Nearly half a million views in 10 hours. It's this kind of exposure which leads to far more demand than Tesla can meet for many years.

To me, the view count is indicative of a lot of interest, from normal car buyers & particularly from groups that don't typically SEEM to be depicted as Tesla buyer stereotypes (eg UK 'little old ladies'). Plus the channel has a lot of subscribers. She wanted an SUV originally, but was enthusiastic about the Model 3 SR+

Interestingly, 4 out of carwow's 6 most popular videos include Teslas. None of Car & Driver's videos are above 9 million. Consumer Reports highest is at 10 million (but rapidly goes down, second is only 3.8 million). Munro Live has 1 video above 1 million at 2.3 million

 

[StealthP3D]

Interesting hypothesis. A counterargument is that Tesla will not stop building factories and hiring new employees for the next decade at least. There's a long way to go from ~1M vehicle deliveries this year to 20M+ in 2030 (not to mention Tesla's other products, known and currently unknown).

Because of this enormous growth, the stock will have lots of upside even after it pops to the 900s and 1000s. Future employees will have lots of financial incentive, even if hired much higher on the S curve of this historic company.

Right, but he has two factories and multiple production lines to ramp. I'm sure he wants his most valuable employees in charge of these ramps before they become too valuable to work anymore.

 

[AimStellar]

 

[Nocturnal]

So if Tesla isn't done perfecting the dry electrode process, does that mean 4680 aren't scaling? Or does that mean it's just a slower process?

 

[Buddyroe]

Does anyone know what the status of the Model X is? I'm starting to think it may go the way it the Plaid+. Hard to believe it's just delayed for 6 months due to a refresh. Or maybe it's just the Plaid X that will go away and the Long Range Plus will go back into production (and just call it Long Range - "Plus" would seem irrelevant now).

 

[Chunky Jr.]

So if Tesla isn't done perfecting the dry electrode process, does that mean 4680 aren't scaling? Or does that mean it's just a slower process?

I'm guessing it means they can build 4680 w/o needing the dry electrode process. Maybe dry electrode is an optimization, not a requirement.

 

[Dancing Lemur]

Marginally on-topic, this fairly long read on Blue Origin by Eric Berger at Ars is excellent (he wrote Liftoff, the book on SpaceX). The premise is, now that Bezos had his little jaunt and has exited Amazon, is he going to focus on Blue Origin and make it a real competitor in commercial spaceflight?

Lots of Elon references, like this fun quote: “Bezos is not great at engineering, to be frank.”

Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

“What we know about Jeff Bezos is that he doesn’t like losing."

arstechnica.com

 

[MC3OZ]

As such, I'm assuming that if Tesla wanted to supply superchargers with "free" energy to dispense, they'd need to be building solar farms. And I haven't seen them doing that.

I am expecting that for combined Megacharger/Supercharger sites with lots of stalls.

I think they may be able to get at least 1 kW of solar panels on a typical parking spot.
A lot varies with location but I think 6 kwh per pay per spot is a fairly conservative number. it could be higher say 10 kWh.
But if we say 10 stalls, the site generates 60 kWh per day, while it is a low amount, it will pay for the solar panels.

Sites need to be Supercharger V3 and have batteries to install solar, as sites get larger, it makes more sense.

 

[ZsoZso]

I'm guessing it means they can build 4680 w/o needing the dry electrode process. Maybe dry electrode is an optimization, not a requirement.

Sure, technically it is not a requirement. However, the dry electrode process is the one that saves very significant cell-factory footprint (don't remember the figure from battery-day presentation but it was large portion, over 3/4 of space saving) and it is also a significant cost saving factor (no need for the energy intensive drying ovens). So if they want to achieve very large scale cell production in a small footprint and at low cost, they need the dry-electrode process to be operational at mass-production factory-scale.

Sure, they can produce 4680s in smaller volume for test vehicles but they would not want to build out the cell factories in Austin and Berlin using the wet process for mass production -- unless they think there are fundamental problems with the dry that would delay years, but I do not think that is the case.