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

[insaneoctane]

PG&E likely sparks another massive fire, pledges to bury 10,000 miles of power lines

Utility says undergrounding will take 10 years to complete.

arstechnica.com

"The utility said on Wednesday that it will bury 10,000 miles of power lines in places that are at the greatest risk for wildfires. The ten-year project will touch 10 percent of PG&E’s transmission and distributions lines, and it will cost tens of billions of dollars."

Burying 1,000 miles of power lines every year will be a herculean task for the company. In recent years, PG&E has been burying only about 70 miles annually. In total, the company owns 20,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 80,000 miles of distribution lines. The utility already has around 27,000 milesunderground, though most of that is not in areas of high fire risk. Burying power lines can be challenging, particularly in hilly and rocky terrain, which describes large parts of California. In fact, the regions that are most prone to wildfire are in some of the most challenging topography."

If only there were a company trying to exponentially increase the speed of boring tunnels while exponentially lowering the cost.

Does make you wonder if this decision wasn’t driven in part by market data that shows people run-do-not-walk to get home solar and battery systems when their power has been (repeatedly) shut off due to fires or in order to avoid them.

It’s also like linked to how power companies and California PUC are conspiring to destroy the value of solar in California….need more people to pay the bill here.
Save California Solar

 

[gene]

According to Sawyer Merritt, the cargo space on both Y and 3 have been increased by 8 cubic feet. No explanation how this was achieved

Over the air software update.

 

[Singuy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslainvestorsclub/comments/opguww

 

[Chenkers]

Germany clearly has better green energy construction requirements as in Berlin the skylights are everywhere, and I saw what looks like racking for solar panels to come also. it bothers me that Tesla would not employ "best practices" in support of the mission everywhere. And they get them at cost! Any thoughts?

I can echo these and @Cattledog thoughts about the varying sustainable design approaches across the gigafactories, particularly Berlin vs Austin. I consider Berlin to be easily the greenest of the gigafactory designs so far with its large skylights, solar PV arrays and better levels of insulation. During one of his visits Elon even claimed it will be the most environmentally friendly factory in the world. It helps that Berlin is mostly single level and based on internal drone shots, the skylights are very effective. There is also a large body of evidence that shows that natural daylight improves worker satisfaction and performance, aides circadian rhythm and allows improved visual perception for quality and safety. Although I'll reserve some judgement until Austin is finished as Shanghai installed a lot of its skylights after the roof was done and places like Nevada are still installing solar panels.

One point of clarity on the racking currently installed on the roof at Berlin. This is not for PV panels but instead to mount air handling units (AHU) for air conditioning and also cooling towers (CT) for heat rejection. Below is part of the roof plan for the BIW area at Berlin. The pink areas are the rack mounts for AHU's and CT's, the blue is the skylights and the orange are areas for Solar PV panels installation. The skylights also serve an important function of being smoke vents in the case of a fire.

 

[Singuy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslainvestorsclub/comments/opmdf5

 

[Criscmt]

Confirmed. Base starts at 68600. Question. If one orders a car and three months from now it is available, can one delay delivery for 6 or 8 weeks? We have a potential out of country trip coming up...possibly.

From what I heard, in US such a delay for delivery from customer end is ok.

 

[mltv]

GM is bringing its upgraded hands-free Super Cruise driving system to 6 vehicles in 2022 | TechCrunch

GM is rolling out three major upgrades including automatic lanes changes and towing support to its hands-free driver assistance system Super Cruise and

techcrunch.com

Seems like all kind of competitions feeling the need to response to Tesla latest releases.

 

[insaneoctane]

GM is bringing its upgraded hands-free Super Cruise driving system to 6 vehicles in 2022 | TechCrunch

GM is rolling out three major upgrades including automatic lanes changes and towing support to its hands-free driver assistance system Super Cruise and

techcrunch.com

Seems like all kind of competitions feeling the need to response to Tesla latest releases.

Imagine the yelling going on at legacy auto boardrooms….

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

This is what I found:



Link to thread:

National-wide Delivery Hold on All Refreshed Model S (Plaid and LR)!

As an investor I’m glad this is happening when there are still more than two months left in Q3. Plenty of time to sort things out and get those cars in the hands of customers this quarter (and hopefully also clear out the parking lots at Fremont).

 

[lascavarian]

Imagine the yelling going on at legacy auto boardrooms….

Seems appropriate and about time.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Elon is committed to the yoke.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1418476111957270528

 

[EVMeister]

Elon is committed to the yoke.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1418476111957270528

A snappy response. He doesn't seem to like questions from people named "Fred".

 

[Buckminster]

Elon is committed to the yoke.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1418476111957270528

Good chance that Berlin/Austin Ys and 3s will get a yoke. They of course don't benefit in the same way without a dashboard screen but I'm not sure that will prevent Elon of bringing in the future.

 

[Mengy]

Good chance that Berlin/Austin Ys and 3s will get a yoke. They of course don't benefit in the same way without a dashboard screen but I'm not sure that will prevent Elon of bringing in the future.

I honestly hope not. I'm planning on buying an Austin Y as soon as they are available and I'd rather have the wheel and stalks. The yoke makes sense on the S/X due to the forward screen but on the 3/Y I think it would just look out of place.

 

[CLK350]

Elon is committed to the yoke.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1418476111957270528

Makes perfect sense from first principles thinking - what Elon didn't bother elaborating:
1/ Circular driving wheel made sense when there was no power assist and only direct mechanical connection in order to turn the wheels
2/ Yoke lets you see the driver assist screen, huge improvement for security as FSD continues to improve - not possible with circular wheel
So, no reason to perpetuate a bad system when no longer necessary.

 

[jbcarioca]

This is the investor thread, so I won't belabor it, but here's a last set of thoughts. Windows provide several things: views, daylight, opportunity for natural ventilation, sometimes doors to patios or decks. Tesla won't use the ventilation. For daylight, generally you can bring effective daylight into a building 30'-35' from the south with proper lightshelves and ceiling planes, and 20'-25' on the east, west and north (harder to control on the east and west). We like to say 'a skinny building is a healthy building' because it easily admits all these biophilic aspects. A really wide building like a Gigafactory requires toplighting to introduce daylight into the middle of the structure because there's so little penetration from the perimeter.

On the earlier comment on how much solar would you be giving up to introduce skylights, the answer is very little. Somewhere around 3% of the roof area + 1% would be the optimal skylight area to effectively daylight the whole floor plate underneath it. Its value in worker productivity would really dwarf the energy output of keeping those solar panels.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I am an architect and our firm has won the most awards for environmental sustainability in the US over the last 20 years. The environmental engineers in our office who run our softwares and do post-occupancy verifications really know their stuff, which I am parroting back here. Tesla should be doing these things in Austin, Berlin, Shanghai and every future factory, but they seem to have a different focus when it comes to the sustainability of architecture vs. autos. It doesn't make me want to sell my investment or my Teslas, it's simply a missed opportunity.

Let's hope for a share price rise into earnings...

Many of those principles including passive cooling were traditional in Middke East desert building, most obvious in old Iranian and Gulf building. There are comments on that in another thread. Even in modern building there has been increasing attention to such issues, including external structures to allow ventilation without direct sun.

It is heartening to see modern architecture rediscovering ancient solutions. In my personal view, cheap access to electricity and air conditioning reduced the incentive for such procedures. One of my few irritants with Elon Musk enterprises is the lack of attention to energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings, including factories. You know better than I but doing this is also cheaper in the end.

A huge mitigation may be in the Giga-Brandenburg. Much of that is driven by German requirements but such devices as planting the roofs will be very helpful, will they not?
Othwise, I think it is more than just a missed opportunity. Even Fremont could use some of these principles couldn’t it?

 

[Krugerrand]

Article out today about Tesla petitioning India for a reduction of import taxes and such for all EVs.

So it begins…

 

[Krugerrand]

Many of those principles including passive cooling were traditional in Middke East desert building, most obvious in old Iranian and Gulf building. There are commonent on that in another thread. Even in modern building there has been increasing attention to such issues, including external structures to allow ventilation without direct sun.

It is heartening to see modern architecture rediscovering ancient solutions. In my personal view, cheap access to electricity and air conditioning reduced the incentive for such procedures. One of my few irritants with Elon Musk enterprises is the lack of attention to energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings, including factories. You know better than I but doing this is also cheaper in the end.

A huge mitigation may be in the Giga-Brandenburg. Much of that is driven by German requirements but such devices as planting the roofs will be very helpful, will they not?
Othwise, I think it is more than just a missed opportunity. Even Fremont could use some of these principles couldn’t it?

The disagree is for the assumed conscious dismissal of the subject, unless of course you’ve spoken to him/tweeted it to him/or some such and he’s specified in some way he’s not interested in those ideas - then irritate away.

It seems the more he does, the more people demand of him.

 

[AZRI11]

GM Bolt 2nd recall GM issues second recall of Chevy Bolt EVs after vehicles catch fire

 

[mickificki]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1418562070702866432