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

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I don't think those are Gigapress parts. Although the blue-topped crates look like the IDRA ones.
The casting presses are big, but not especially heavy. (Relative to other machinery) It's 'just' some big cylinders in a frame pressing on a mold in the middle.
Additionally the casting area is in the north east, while those pictures are from the south east corner. This is the stamping area.
So it's most likely another stamping line getting installed. Those are the multi-storey high and heavy bruteforce machines with massive foundations.

The Gigapresses are pretty heavy at 410 tons weight for the 5500 ton (clamping force) version. I expect the 8000 ton will be a lot heavier. Maybe it’s aen exoskeleton stamping press? Either way I hope it’s for the Cybertruck since the Model Y casting & stamping presses have been in place for a while now. And I want my cybertruck.
 
I didn't hear JJ give a timeframe for his crazy price target of 1000X (which he calls conservative, haha). I generally don't think it's very useful to look beyond 5 years but it's fun to speculate what could be in 30 or 50 years, no?
Yeah, but any so called "price target" (AKA, WAG) without a time frame for context is pretty meaningless, isn't it? Even when our US congressfolk obfuscate huge costs or benefits of a bill by spreading it over 5 or 10 hears, they usually at least SAY "spread over 5 years" or "over 10 years".
 
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Good morning. Stonk 🚀

True: $1,190.98 @ 09:47 ET

sc.TSLA.10-DayChart.2021-11-22.09-47.png


From Oil Change International

"Internationally, governments provide at least $775 billion to $1 trillion annually in subsidies, not including other costs of fossil fuels related to climate change, environmental impacts, military conflicts and spending, and health impacts.​
"This figure varies each year based on oil prices, but it is consistently in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Greater transparency in reporting would allow for more precise figures.​
"When externalities are included, as in a 2015 study by the International Monetary Fund, the unpaid costs of fossil fuels are upward of $5.3 trillion annually - which works out to a staggering $10 million per minute.​
"As of October 2017, Oil Change International estimates United States fossil fuel exploration and production subsidies at $20.5 billion annually.​
"Other credible estimates of annual United States fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually - yet none of these include costs borne by taxpayers related to the climate, local environmental, and health impacts of the fossil fuel industry."​

Cheers!
 
I get your point, thanks. Ya the extra HP doesn't make it that much heavier or more "impactful", but reaction time comes into play and that's measureable. It could be that I freaked on someone predicting a 3,000 HP Roadster, someday. Aren't tires the weak link at some point? Seems pointless after a while as we seem to be up against a local maximum with 0-60 in 2 sec on the Plaid and Roadster.
Ahem.
There was an accident, I think roughly a year ago, involving one of the actors who was in the Fast and Furious franchise. He and his passenger were dead, dead, dead after the Extremely Sporty Car the actor was driving went out of control and wrapped itself thoroughly around a tree somewhere in California. The road was, I think, a somewhat curvy road through a manicured industrial district, on the flat, I think.
Interestingly, either the anti-skid had been disabled or the car didn't have it (can't remember which), the better to do 4-wheel drifts through turns until, of course, the road turned but the car didn't. Comments by disinterested observers of this type of car reported that, if memory serves, "Only extremely skilled drivers should be driving this car; it's dangerous for others to even try." Yes, the car had an Extremely Good Suspension and Handling; but it also had Supercar-style horsepower that, with a bit of light pushing around on the accelerator, would break traction on the driven rear wheels without any trouble whatsoever.
Which brings the S.O. in the house to the fore. She happens to be a Human Factors engineer; one of those people who design systems and machines to work with humans. You know - humans who have reaction time, psychology, muscle strength, eyeballs, and all that jazz. Being around her has sensitized me to the issues.
The field was founded back in the early days of WWII when Too Many Airplanes Were Crashing. In those airplanes, it wasn't just that different manufacturers were putting different gauges in different places, or had levers that did things that ran opposite to how other manufacturers did things, so that muscle memory learned on one aircraft would get one dead on another. That was bad enough: But other things.. Like how fast and under what circumstances the airplane would move when the ailerons/rudder/elevators were incompatible with how and how fast, or slow, humans could react. It is very definitely possible to build an aircraft that, despite having controls in all the right places, is dangerous as all get-out for a human to drive.
In fact, as an aside, we all know of a vehicle exactly like that: It has been stated, multiple times, that the late, lamented space shuttle of NASA fame was impossible to fly from orbit to the ground without letting the Computer Do It. Humans are simply not capable of being part of the direct control loop. At least, with the Space Shuttle.
So, back in WWII, physiologists, medical doctors, psychologists, physicists, mechanical engineers, and aeronautical engineers collaborated upon the problem and came up with recommendations and standards. As a result, airplanes became slightly safer to fly around. (This was WWII, after all). But those standards about instrument and control placement are followed to the present day. Nowadays, specialized engineers of the Human Factors type get involved in the design, early on. And, yeah, the coursework they take is somewhat eclectic; they're usually grouped as a subspeciality of Industrial Engineering.
So, just like it's possible to build an airplane to Not Be Usable By Humans, it is very definitely possible to build a car that is difficult, impossible, or just plain dangerous to put a human inside. I would hazard that things just Happening Too Darn Fast would be the first problem; but, under the folder of, "What could possibly go wrong?" things happening too slow, or with too much delay, coupled with other things.. it can get bad, in a hurry.
There's Reasons an M3P rigged for track mode has to go through lots of steps to disable the anti-skid and, normally, "regular" Teslas, all of which have serious horsepower available, drive around with anti-skid up and operating. Putting a 900 HP motor in a car? Um. In Elmer Fudd mode, "Be Wery, Wery Careful."
First off: 900 HP at speed = 0 is likely to break traction right off. So, the HP has to be reduced, lots. As the speed increases, more of the power from the car goes to pushing air out of the way; at some velocity, say, 600 HP might be going to pushing air, then 300 HP to the tires. Um. How much HP would break traction at, say, 100 mph? 150 mph? Does the full 900 HP ever actually get used? If not, then why have it there? And then there's the questions about driveability, as in that late lamented actor/driver. You get the idea.
 
By the time that supply of Tesla vehicles matches the current demand curve, Tesla will have such an amazing advantage in margins that they will be able to price anyone else out of the market if they chose to. Tesla is looking at the situation on the right, where benefit from the credit is shaded area. Demand for EVs and Tesla's in particular is so high (and growing) that price elasticity of demand is relatively inelastic. Other makers whose products are just "decent" or "not a bad choice" will face the situation on the left. I'm sure the Kia Niro, VW ID5, and Kona are all decent EVs, but I don't believe buyers feel compelled to choose one over the other. An ID5 buyer just wants a decent small EV crossover, a Model Y buyer wants a Tesla.

1637592581885.png


That diagram on the right might even be too conservative. It's possible the demand curve for Tesla's closer to having a slope of zero. It's worth noting also that auto dealers are likely to absorb the lion's share of the small producer's gain on the left, leaving even less for the OEMs.

First off: 900 HP at speed = 0 is likely to break traction right off. So, the HP has to be reduced, lots. As the speed increases, more of the power from the car goes to pushing air out of the way; at some velocity, say, 600 HP might be going to pushing air, then 300 HP to the tires. Um. How much HP would break traction at, say, 100 mph? 150 mph? Does the full 900 HP ever actually get used? If not, then why have it there? And then there's the questions about driveability, as in that late lamented actor/driver. You get the idea.
It won't be too long before any maker can product stupid fast EVs for reasonable prices. I'm pretty sure the government will wind up stepping in and limiting things. Nobody seems to care when it's "rich people" in Ferraris crashing, but when 20 year olds are buying 6 year old plaids, people will take notice.
 
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Ahem.
There was an accident, I think roughly a year ago, involving one of the actors who was in the Fast and Furious franchise. He and his passenger were dead, dead, dead after the Extremely Sporty Car the actor was driving went out of control and wrapped itself thoroughly around a tree somewhere in California. The road was, I think, a somewhat curvy road through a manicured industrial district, on the flat, I think.
Interestingly, either the anti-skid had been disabled or the car didn't have it (can't remember which), the better to do 4-wheel drifts through turns until, of course, the road turned but the car didn't. Comments by disinterested observers of this type of car reported that, if memory serves, "Only extremely skilled drivers should be driving this car; it's dangerous for others to even try." Yes, the car had an Extremely Good Suspension and Handling; but it also had Supercar-style horsepower that, with a bit of light pushing around on the accelerator, would break traction on the driven rear wheels without any trouble whatsoever.
Which brings the S.O. in the house to the fore. She happens to be a Human Factors engineer; one of those people who design systems and machines to work with humans. You know - humans who have reaction time, psychology, muscle strength, eyeballs, and all that jazz. Being around her has sensitized me to the issues.
The field was founded back in the early days of WWII when Too Many Airplanes Were Crashing. In those airplanes, it wasn't just that different manufacturers were putting different gauges in different places, or had levers that did things that ran opposite to how other manufacturers did things, so that muscle memory learned on one aircraft would get one dead on another. That was bad enough: But other things.. Like how fast and under what circumstances the airplane would move when the ailerons/rudder/elevators were incompatible with how and how fast, or slow, humans could react. It is very definitely possible to build an aircraft that, despite having controls in all the right places, is dangerous as all get-out for a human to drive.
In fact, as an aside, we all know of a vehicle exactly like that: It has been stated, multiple times, that the late, lamented space shuttle of NASA fame was impossible to fly from orbit to the ground without letting the Computer Do It. Humans are simply not capable of being part of the direct control loop. At least, with the Space Shuttle.
So, back in WWII, physiologists, medical doctors, psychologists, physicists, mechanical engineers, and aeronautical engineers collaborated upon the problem and came up with recommendations and standards. As a result, airplanes became slightly safer to fly around. (This was WWII, after all). But those standards about instrument and control placement are followed to the present day. Nowadays, specialized engineers of the Human Factors type get involved in the design, early on. And, yeah, the coursework they take is somewhat eclectic; they're usually grouped as a subspeciality of Industrial Engineering.
So, just like it's possible to build an airplane to Not Be Usable By Humans, it is very definitely possible to build a car that is difficult, impossible, or just plain dangerous to put a human inside. I would hazard that things just Happening Too Darn Fast would be the first problem; but, under the folder of, "What could possibly go wrong?" things happening too slow, or with too much delay, coupled with other things.. it can get bad, in a hurry.
There's Reasons an M3P rigged for track mode has to go through lots of steps to disable the anti-skid and, normally, "regular" Teslas, all of which have serious horsepower available, drive around with anti-skid up and operating. Putting a 900 HP motor in a car? Um. In Elmer Fudd mode, "Be Wery, Wery Careful."
First off: 900 HP at speed = 0 is likely to break traction right off. So, the HP has to be reduced, lots. As the speed increases, more of the power from the car goes to pushing air out of the way; at some velocity, say, 600 HP might be going to pushing air, then 300 HP to the tires. Um. How much HP would break traction at, say, 100 mph? 150 mph? Does the full 900 HP ever actually get used? If not, then why have it there? And then there's the questions about driveability, as in that late lamented actor/driver. You get the idea.
Sorry for contributing to this thread-crash on user interfaces, but I could contribute one data point. Skip it at no loss of context.

Some 30 years ago Saab had a prototype of the new combined capability military aircraft Gripen undergoing testing. By an amazing (?:rolleyes:) combination of unbelievably bad decisions, the Mayor of Stockholm invited the test crew to show it off as an attraction during Stockholm Water festival, and they accepted. :mad: Above several hundred thousand spectators, the pilot lost control o_O over Riddarfjärden, ejected and let the plane drop to the ground wherever it would.:eek: By some kind of miracle, it crashed into a patch of thickets on a small island where nobody had ventured so no person was injured (physically). But it was a very close call; a friend of mine stood only 50 m away! (Actually, she had just taken refuge to another bush due to an urgent call of nature. :oops:)

It was later revealed that what had caused the incident was precisely a misalignment between the feedback loop of the controlling joystick and the pilot's expectation of how the plane would respond to his actions. A potentially lethal lag-time.

Exactly how I crashed my first line control model plane when I was nine or so. But I chose a different career ... ;)
 
Sorry, I think I contributed to this thread-crash last night talking safety. So...

I placed a sell order of some chairs at 1,200 before bed - trying to find a way NOT to sell chairs by picking a price that likely wouldn't happen on a Monday at least before I wake up on the west coast. (Everything is for sale at the right price, so just raise the price to nearly infinity if you don't want to sell.) Now thinking it's got even more room to run and almost at 1200 already, but it's a very short week. Seems it's looking for a new ATH.

What would Tesla like people to talk about over Turkey is the question for me. So maybe we get some huge news soon, but who knows.
 
Ahem.
There was an accident, I think roughly a year ago, involving one of the actors who was in the Fast and Furious franchise. He and his passenger were dead, dead, dead after the Extremely Sporty Car the actor was driving went out of control and wrapped itself thoroughly around a tree somewhere in California. The road was, I think, a somewhat curvy road through a manicured industrial district, on the flat, I think.
Interestingly, either the anti-skid had been disabled or the car didn't have it (can't remember which), the better to do 4-wheel drifts through turns until, of course, the road turned but the car didn't. Comments by disinterested observers of this type of car reported that, if memory serves, "Only extremely skilled drivers should be driving this car; it's dangerous for others to even try." Yes, the car had an Extremely Good Suspension and Handling; but it also had Supercar-style horsepower that, with a bit of light pushing around on the accelerator, would break traction on the driven rear wheels without any trouble whatsoever.
Which brings the S.O. in the house to the fore. She happens to be a Human Factors engineer; one of those people who design systems and machines to work with humans. You know - humans who have reaction time, psychology, muscle strength, eyeballs, and all that jazz. Being around her has sensitized me to the issues.
The field was founded back in the early days of WWII when Too Many Airplanes Were Crashing. In those airplanes, it wasn't just that different manufacturers were putting different gauges in different places, or had levers that did things that ran opposite to how other manufacturers did things, so that muscle memory learned on one aircraft would get one dead on another. That was bad enough: But other things.. Like how fast and under what circumstances the airplane would move when the ailerons/rudder/elevators were incompatible with how and how fast, or slow, humans could react. It is very definitely possible to build an aircraft that, despite having controls in all the right places, is dangerous as all get-out for a human to drive.
In fact, as an aside, we all know of a vehicle exactly like that: It has been stated, multiple times, that the late, lamented space shuttle of NASA fame was impossible to fly from orbit to the ground without letting the Computer Do It. Humans are simply not capable of being part of the direct control loop. At least, with the Space Shuttle.
So, back in WWII, physiologists, medical doctors, psychologists, physicists, mechanical engineers, and aeronautical engineers collaborated upon the problem and came up with recommendations and standards. As a result, airplanes became slightly safer to fly around. (This was WWII, after all). But those standards about instrument and control placement are followed to the present day. Nowadays, specialized engineers of the Human Factors type get involved in the design, early on. And, yeah, the coursework they take is somewhat eclectic; they're usually grouped as a subspeciality of Industrial Engineering.
So, just like it's possible to build an airplane to Not Be Usable By Humans, it is very definitely possible to build a car that is difficult, impossible, or just plain dangerous to put a human inside. I would hazard that things just Happening Too Darn Fast would be the first problem; but, under the folder of, "What could possibly go wrong?" things happening too slow, or with too much delay, coupled with other things.. it can get bad, in a hurry.
There's Reasons an M3P rigged for track mode has to go through lots of steps to disable the anti-skid and, normally, "regular" Teslas, all of which have serious horsepower available, drive around with anti-skid up and operating. Putting a 900 HP motor in a car? Um. In Elmer Fudd mode, "Be Wery, Wery Careful."
First off: 900 HP at speed = 0 is likely to break traction right off. So, the HP has to be reduced, lots. As the speed increases, more of the power from the car goes to pushing air out of the way; at some velocity, say, 600 HP might be going to pushing air, then 300 HP to the tires. Um. How much HP would break traction at, say, 100 mph? 150 mph? Does the full 900 HP ever actually get used? If not, then why have it there? And then there's the questions about driveability, as in that late lamented actor/driver. You get the idea.
FYI, the two people in the car were in fact very skilled drivers, including the actor Paul Walker. Simply, the driver was speeding and lost control of the car, which burst into flames. I don’t recall if they were both knocked unconscious and/or also trapped in the car.

People make bad choices all the time, even in 4 cylinder beater cars that can’t accelerate as fast as a fat man walking backwards.

Your points are at best, moot.
 
Piper Sandler's technical market strategist Craig Johnson inspired my first TSLA share purchase in early 2013 – Here's what he wrote this morning:

Tesla Inc (TSLA - $1137.06):

Indicated higher this AM: Shares have cleared resistance off the January ‘21 highs (near $883).

Recently confirmed support off the rising 10-week WMA.

RS has bounced back into positive territory and notable TechniGrade ranking.

Add to positions, a retest of the ‘21 highs near $1,230 appears likely.
 
Ahem.
There was an accident,...
It is not popular to promote such views, but I agree. The aviation examples are well known: More than half the Learjet 23 fleet crashed in it's first few months. That actually was the largest factor behind aircraft type ratings. The (in)famous Cessna 411 was so deficient in controllability with an engine out and so prone to engine failure that it was soon 'transmogrified' to the enormously popular and safe Cessna 414.

The car cases most popularized might have been the Chevrolet Corvair and it's swing axle, copied from the VW. The VW was not terribly stable either, but did not attract quite the notoriety of the Corvair, partly because of the Monza version that was vastly overpowered and great fun top the very competent but deadly to others.

Without belaboring the many other cases we do have numerous innovations and control differences between Tesla and all others. The Model S yoke and shifting are cases in point that attract lively different views among us, mostly Tesla enthusiasts as we are. That ignores all the updates, FSD/autopilot issues and the entire screen-based and/or voice activated features. These attract 'reliability' rating penalties when they really are training issues.

Imagine >100,000 Hertz and other rental floating around.

People will disagree, but there is an acute need for training to enable most normally competent drivers to use a Tesla, any Tesla, beyond the simplest maneuvers.

Just imagine the typical parking lot attendant safely handing a Plaid!

FWIW, I used to teach polite for their Airline Pilot License in a Learjet. They paid a big premium for that because getting the same rating in the more commonly uses Cessna Citation (deservedly dubbed 'near jet') did not impress airline employers. Before I would allow one of those aspirants anywhere close to the Lear I made them take an aerobatic course in a 'taildragger' so they'd learn basic 'stick and rudder' skills. To this day one crucial difference between airline pilots that service crises and those that do not is basic piloting skills.

The Tesla Performance versions, specially my beloved Plaid, should not be driven by either novices or imprudent people. People die who are not fit for the machine. I firmly believe that Tesla should make some basic training a part of Performance Model sales. That should include strong cautions about allowing non-training people to have access to those vehicles.

FWIW, I personally know about two recent fatal crashes, one Model S Plaid (less than two hours after pickup of the car) and one Model 3 having a 3AM 'demonstration of speed' on a city street, 30mph speed limit, a few blocks away from my residence. Not all fo these accidents will be eliminated by training, but many will be.
 
By the time that supply of Tesla vehicles matches the current demand curve, Tesla will have such an amazing advantage in margins that they will be able to price anyone else out of the market if they chose to. Tesla is looking at the situation on the right, where benefit from the credit is shaded area. Demand for EVs and Tesla's in particular is so high (and growing) that price elasticity of demand is relatively inelastic. Other makers whose products are just "decent" or "not a bad choice" will face the situation on the left. I'm sure the Kia Niro, VW ID5, and Kona are all decent EVs, but I don't believe buyers feel compelled to choose one over the other. An ID5 buyer just wants a decent small EV crossover, a Model Y buyer wants a Tesla.

View attachment 735978

That diagram on the right might even be too conservative. It's possible the demand curve for Tesla's closer to having a slope of zero. It's worth noting also that auto dealers are likely to absorb the lion's share of the small producer's gain on the left, leaving even less for the OEMs.


It won't be too long before any maker can product stupid fast EVs for reasonable prices. I'm pretty sure the government will wind up stepping in and limiting things. Nobody seems to care when it's "rich people" in Ferraris crashing, but when 20 year olds are buying 6 year old plaids, people will take notice.
I don’t think Tesla will ever purposely price out others; it’s just going to happen organically like it is now.

I predict the government/s is/are/will lose their power to dictate any such nonsense down the road. I actually think that Tesla/Elon will address *this* down the road. Not sure how, but it falls under the categories of ‘safety first’ and ‘do the right thing’.

It’s interesting that for such a forward looking crowd, we’ve still got a lot of people thinking by analogy and 1960 standards.