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

[Svetlin]

There is no proper way to actually measure the effect of cold on your winter range that doesn't actually involve actually seeing how far you can drive on a trip that actually depletes the vast majority of your pack. These "well, it read that I was burning X Wh/mi, so I just divide the pack size by that..." things that people do tend to give highly distorted results. And to have meaningful data, one also has to do a comparison summer drive with the same speeds, configuration, etc, and when quoting their data, cite what sort of conditions (temperature, road conditions, vehicle config, driving style, etc) the measurements were made in.

Which, BTW, is what the AAA study did - went through an almost entire charge depletion in controlled circumstances, on different types of drivecycles and in varied conditions.

Fair points. To anyone looking to get a clearer picture of winter consumption, I recommend signing up for teslafi and looking at your 'temperature efficiency' over time. My daily commute is less than 5 miles one way, and I was getting terrible results (46% of rated efficiency) at 20° F. However, if I look only at drives longer than 10 miles, I get close to 70% efficiency at the same temperatures. I'm sure things would be better on an actual trip of 100 miles or more.

P.S. Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to convince my wife that it's OK to take the Model 3 for a day trip to a ski area 90 miles away.

 

[sundaymorning]

To clarify, I did sell few puts short last few days, so I'm not scared, just less exuberant than in the past...

I agree, Elon has to change his ways. His com

Someone? Why don’t you? Why don’t we all spam it all over the place? It’s not like it’s not a public You Tube video. Why don’t you tweet it to Elon? Why doesn’t Zach do an article about it and spam that article all over the Internet? Why doesn’t Gali do the same?

These are of course rhetorical. We already know why it’s not being done.

You know I’ve been spamming a lot of other sites. I spend about 30 minutes to an hour spamming those sites per day. There’s only so much I can do. I don’t have twitter, no social media for me. I’m not interested in getting screwed like Elon over tweeting/facebook...

I wish I had 8 hands like an octopus to be everywhere at once typing away but I’m only human.

 

[ZachF]

To be fair there's a slow motion housing market crash in Australia happening right now:

Real Residential Property Prices for Australia​

which could lead to a long and painful recession. Drop in new car sales is often a leading indicator of recessions.

The same thing is, IMHO, happening in China... But China's market is so large and the transition to EVs so fast that Tesla wont really notice.

Automakers who have relied on Chinese ICE sales heavily the last few years (like VW) may feel the pain as they are dealing with declining overall demand and rapid EV growth simultaneously.

ICE demand has also peaked in Europe and the USA as well.

 

[Causalien]

Thanks, the bit that struck me about the history of Tall Poppy is the ancient practice of assasinating all who are especially successful in a community as a means to keep it under control of the king, and the parallel drawn with modern day “cyberbullying”:

« Research performed at the University of Waikato in New Zealand in 2015 shows that a culture of tall poppy syndrome may result in a reduction in average performance of up to 20% for an organisation and explains how electronic cyberbullying can be considered a modern extension to the physical assassinations of King Tarquin's day. »

Very interesting that instinctive dislike and distrust of successful that we see today has been around for millennium, and the implication that we should not blame any particular political ideology for it. There was another related concept in the wiki article that I read: “zero-sum prestige”, the idea that there is only a finite amount of prestige available, so to gain some you have to sabotage someone. Actually seems pretty accurate for small, isolated communities, and for street gangs, but the mentality really holds us back when applied to a large modern society that allows for economic and social mobility. Works for short sellers though.

Here’s the wiki article I read and enjoyed:
Tall poppy syndrome - Wikipedia

Ya if you think about it. The number of top 1% are going to stay pretty much constant. 1% of the population. Population growth mitigate that, but if you take away the immigrants the native population is decreasing. This is also the reason why many top 1%ers teach their kids to be less flashy. You stand out you get whacked. A very heavy lesson from my own grand parents from lessons in a time of turmoil.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Does anybody know whether the Autopilot price went up also? It's now 3000 + 5000.

 

[BozieBeMe2]

The shorty force is just too big for retail investor to make a dent. We should hold on. The real game would be ultra rich tech guys. Like Larry if a few join the force and vote collectively for Tesla’s future, it will be a clear signal to the old industry to move and give way to the future. I guess the other tech guys have their own battles keeping them busy. Or they want to be avoid limelight to themselves.

True, we don't drive the bus, we merely ride in the bus

 

[BozieBeMe2]

OT, but isn’t he lovely?

View attachment 388026

Damned good looking panel gaps

 

[ZachF]

Are we seeing an iPhone moment? Ie. as people moved from phones to smartphones, they didn’t want to buy just any Smartphone, but an iPhone.

This is why me, and many others have been saying that the transition to EVs is going to start with a collapse in ICE sales first.

IMHO, eventually at some point, ICE automobiles will have a depreciation rate that will collapse the current collateralization model for auto loans. People who want to buy new ICE won't be able to, because of this. They'll need much higher down payments, their tradeins wont go nearly as far, and they will be forced to take shorter-term loans because of this increased depreciation rate.

 

[KarenRei]

This is why me, and many others have been saying that the transition to EVs is going to start with a collapse in ICE sales first.

Which is why the transition is so urgent for ICE makers - something that many don't seem yet to have comprehended. Switching to EV mass production is incredibly expensive (and only gets more expensive as the scales for what's "competitive" keep rising)... yet as your ICE sales collapse, you have to start writing off ICE production assets (particularly in rapidly-going-electric markets like China). This can leave you unable to borrow against said assets and with debts/obligations that you can no longer pay off, at the same time your revenue is greatly reduced. It's a death-spiral.

 

[Nocturnal]

On the model S/X demand side, I think this depends on what the buyer of those vehicles is like. Did most of them buy a model S because that's really what they wanted? Or did most of them buy one because Tesla was cool and exclusive? That exclusivity is definitively eroding. On the other hand, people love spending 100k on BMWs and Mercedes and you can certainly buy one of those for 35k.

We got $800 back as a rebate from PG&E, though I saw elsewhere on TMC that some of those checks bounced.

Yeah, PGE is the only one that I'm aware of that does this. Utilities move slow which makes my job fun at times. :/

This is why me, and many others have been saying that the transition to EVs is going to start with a collapse in ICE sales first.

IMHO, eventually at some point, ICE automobiles will have a depreciation rate that will collapse the current collateralization model for auto loans. People who want to buy new ICE won't be able to, because of this. They'll need much higher down payments, their tradeins wont go nearly as far, and they will be forced to take shorter-term loans because of this increased depreciation rate.

I've definitely been in this line of thinking. Recently I do wonder what the used/cheap market will look like though. People that are buying used cars for $5k or $500 probably won't have access to charge at home. What does this look like for them? For it to work we will need to see V3 superchargers or better everywhere, or L2 chargers nearly everywhere.

 

[goinfraftw]

More from the GEO-6 UN Report for a chart showing industry to impact. I'll be posting more charts as I find interesting ones.

 

[SteveG3]

It's an important first step though, the context is that VW threatened to quit their shared lobbying group, the "VDA". The CEOs of VW, BMW and Daimler have now agreed to send to the VDA a new position paper that directs their lobbying efforts. Key points are going to be that:

• fuel cell technologies are dead
• BEVs are the future
• BEVs are the ONLY technology that are able to meet EU emissions standards

I.e. this excludes hybrids too to the best of my knowledge (although hybrids are not explicitly mentioned) - so it's a big step forward.

VW is also demanding for significant new EV incentives for BEVs:

VW will deutliche Änderungen an Kaufprämie für E-Autos - electrive.net​

While the VDA probably won't be lobbying for those incentives, just yet - this new position means they won't be lobbying against it either, which is important.

I.e. the background is that ICE makers want EV incentives from Germany so that they are able to build EVs profitably and are able to weather the ICE->EV transition.

Unless there's some underhanded way to exclude Tesla, those EV incentives should help Tesla too.

From what I’ve seen so far, the messaging might be “electrification” is the future rather than explicitly saying “BEVs.”

Might be a heavy emphasis of plugin hybrid vehicles for quite a few more years.

 

[Antares Nebula]

Tesla, GM, and Lear Look Like Good Bets on the Future of Transportation

"For more than a quarter-century, Rod Lache has been in the top tier of Wall Street analysts, first at Deutsche Bank and now at Wolfe Research, a New York firm where he is a managing director. His most famous call—that General Motors stock was headed to zero—came eight months before the 2009 bankruptcy of the Detroit auto giant, on which he’d been bearish for years. Institutional Investor has ranked him the No. 1 U.S. auto analyst in every year since 2012..."

 

[M3Rider]

Fair points. To anyone looking to get a clearer picture of winter consumption, I recommend signing up for teslafi and looking at your 'temperature efficiency' over time. My daily commute is less than 5 miles one way, and I was getting terrible results (46% of rated efficiency) at 20° F. However, if I look only at drives longer than 10 miles, I get close to 70% efficiency at the same temperatures. I'm sure things would be better on an actual trip of 100 miles or more.

P.S. Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to convince my wife that it's OK to take the Model 3 for a day trip to a ski area 90 miles away.

90 miles is perfectly fine for LR (mine is AWD).
I ski all winter with resort being 80+ miles away.
I usually charge to 90% (scheduled) and when I get up in the morning turn on the charging again from the phone, so the range is about ~300 miles when I leave.
Never came back home with less than a 100 miles. It varies between 100-135 miles based on temp, traffic jams etc. After the first few trips I stoped caring much about efficiency and drive as I like.

One thing to keep in mind is you see more range loss going uphill, but the return trip is almost free(of range loss going downhill), so it averages out like a regular straight road with no inclination.

 

[replicant]

I feel so bad now. Buying some Tesla and cupious amounts of organic lapsang souchong won't even make up for half of it.

Or you can support Fully Charged. They're informative, well-meaning, forward thinking and funny. I wish they were more popular than the stupid petrolheads, but in a world where making a quick buck is all that matters, it's no surprise the most advertised and broadcasted TV shows are a promoter of fossil fuels.

 

[KarenRei]

As for Side-Effects-From-Musk's-Other-Big-Company news....

The road to the Hopper is closed for test firing, and will remain closed for the next several hours. Hopper has been spotted venting:

Live video here... but again, remember the word "hours".

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

From what I’ve seen so far, the messaging might be “electrification” is the future rather than explicitly saying “BEVs.”

Might be a heavy emphasis of plugin hybrid vehicles for quite a few more years.

I don’t know, I think car companies are regretting their decision to wait to get into BEVs. They know they’re behind and investing in hybrids will put them further behind.

 

[Zaxxon]

Wait! What?

AP repositioned the car to miss potholes and debris? For real?!?! Like the car drove off center? To specifically miss potholes and debris? For real?!?!

Sure did. Now, before you get too excited, it wasn't an 'always' thing. I noticed what I am pretty sure was AP taking that sort of action twice over ~475 miles yesterday. It also happily hit several potholes. But it's a start.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was one this summer. Then again, I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't. If there is one, I wouldn't expect a complete overhaul. IMHO: Interior electronics, most likely. Interior styling, next most likely. Exterior styling, average likelihood. Drive units, average likelihood. Pack architecture, below average likelihood, but possible. Cell type, very unlikely.

Pretty much my thoughts. As a prospective X owner, all I really want is a few simple changes--phone key, the 3's turn signal stalk (which auto-resets its position), mirror/steering controls matching the 3 (funny how antiquated side mirror adjustment buttons seem now), and the 250 kW max Supercharger rate. A mild range increase to hit the magic 300 would be nice.

If they do those things, I'm probably in.

 

[jbcarioca]

Since he's talking to an Australian, about Australia, "winter" clearly means the southern-hemisphere winter. Making vehicles half a year before you deliver them makes no sense.

To the two who disagreed with my post and to you, who explained yourself I offer the explanation that to me, living in the Southern hemisphere, to invert my own weather when this is the very beginning of Fall, only one day ago, is potential proof that I am senile or worse. I have deleted my ridiculous error.

 

[AudubonB]

...because it is SO obvious when autumn begins in Rio....