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

[CLK350]

**IT just got real!

I think we all know the answer to the second question

https://twitter.com/x/status/1514683079968931841

Screen shot just for the record, just in case that unfortunate (for the Saudi bigwig) Tweet is deleted ..

And in case some aren't aware how tough (dangerous, too - remember the gruesome murder/ dismemberment probably while alive, of the journalist they didn't like... not counting more horrors they perpetrate in their own country w/ complete impunity) that response of Elon was .. from the BBC and elsewhere on YouTube

Not really relevant for HODLERs but next week fireworks promise to be wild, the Saudis will add their weight to the FUD over the weekend, and what else can be cooked for next week ??? Tesla's saga has to be the most entertaining show of all, real life, 24x7 tho in exact proportion to what the audience knows.

Edit: after market close, Elon going ballistic with a Twitter poll ( 85% YES) Note also the choice of the Twitter algos, Cowards - referrring to theTwitter board maybe? or reverse psych of Elon's approach, ballsy

Like some said .. ballsy indeed

 

[ZachF]

So you must be looking at installing offshore wind around the scale of today's total grid capacity? Don't get me wrong......I'm on board. Just seems like a LOT of power.

When we go (practically) all solar, there is going to be a gigantic summer surplus.
Gigantic.

 

[Prunesquallor]

**IT just got real!

I think we all know the answer to the second question

https://twitter.com/x/status/1514683079968931841

I think we saw the answer to the second question.

 

[dhanson865]

Test drives of 4860 Model Y in Texas

from

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/u2fflj

 

[Knightshade]

Test drives of 4860 Mode Y in Texas

I think this is being misread- it's offering a test drive in a regular Y or 3 (3s aren't even made in Texas or with 4680 today)-- and that might cause you to order one of the new 4680 Texas ones.

I'm pretty confident there's not so many spare 4680 cars today that they're at sales centers across the country ready for test drives.

(if this were only going out to Austin-local folks that'd be another story, but the "some states" language and the reddit thread suggests it's generic and going out to CT reservation holders all over)

 

[StealthP3D]

I'd really like to know what the mission is in this case. It's got to be about more than just "Freedom of speech on Twitter". And I think it's obviously about more than just making Twitter more profitable or more useful.

Anyone care to take a guess at how Twitter fits into the overall mission of making the world better? I just don't see "Freedom of speech on Twitter" as something worth the effort.

If you are sincerely interested in how social media shapes society in profound ways, and how screwed up it currently is, then I recommend you read this recent essay on the subject:

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

It’s not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

It starts out a little slow but it's worth sticking to it. I'm not going to approve every single perspective presented but, for the most part it's on point and will help make sense of Elon's bid for Twitter and why this is so important for humanity. If you are the type of person who thinks anything longer than 280 characters is too long and deals with too many useless nuances, then this article will not be to your liking. If you want to understand the things shaping our world in profound ways, this is a very good read.

From a dollars and sense perspective, Elon's bid for Twitter is a no-brainer. He can see how they are floundering when they should be flourishing, how it has impacted the value of the company, and how easy it will be to fix it (relative to building a global world-class automotive manufacturing empire). I'm sure Elon sees a way to unlock tremendous value that has been blindly cast aside by current management in a misguided attempt to be politically correct and do what they believe is "the right thing".

Elon understands that not every action has the consequences one might expect because the world is a complex, nuanced place. The near certainty of financial success is not what's driving Elon, but it's what gives him the confidence to take bold moves with huge amounts of capital. The driving force is something deeper and more noble. Assuming this goes through, it will benefit humanity for decades at a minimum, probably centuries, by reforming social media as we know it. Social media is in its infancy, so now is a ripe time for reform.

edit: I see @betstarship and @Nocturnal have beat me to it!

 

[thx1139]

If you are sincerely interested in how social media shapes society in profound ways, and how screwed up it currently is, then I recommend you read this recent essay on the subject:

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

It’s not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

It starts out a little slow but it's worth sticking to it. I'm not going to approve every single perspective presented but, for the most part it's on point and will help make sense of Elon's bid for Twitter and why this is so important for humanity. If you are the type of person who thinks anything longer than 280 characters is too long and deals with too many useless nuances, then this article will not be to your liking. If you want to understand the things shaping our world in profound ways, this is a very good read.

From a dollars and sense perspective, Elon's bid for Twitter is a no-brainer. He can see how they are floundering when they should be flourishing, how it has impacted the value of the company, and how easy it will be to fix it (relative to building a global world-class automotive manufacturing empire). I'm sure Elon sees a way to unlock tremendous value that has been blindly cast aside by current management in a misguided attempt to be politically correct and do what they believe is "the right thing".

Elon understands that not every action has the consequences one might expect because the world is a complex, nuanced place. The near certainty of financial success is not what's driving Elon, but it's what gives him the confidence to take bold moves with huge amounts of capital. The driving force is something deeper and more noble. Assuming this goes through, it will benefit humanity for decades at a minimum, probably centuries, by reforming social media as we know it. Social media is in its infancy, so now is a ripe time for reform.

edit: I see @betstarship and @Nocturnal have beat me to it!

Honestly what does flourish mean when it comes to Twitter. The flaw I always saw with Twitter was that all roads pointed to advertising as the way to pay. We all hate advertising. The other choice is pay for it. I certainly wont pay for Twitter. I see a drastic drop off in Twitter if you need to pay for it.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Honestly what does flourish mean when it comes to Twitter. The flaw I always saw with Twitter was that all roads pointed to advertising as the way to pay. We all hate advertising. The other choice is pay for it. I certainly wont pay for Twitter. I see a drastic drop off in Twitter if you need to pay for it.

There NEEDS to be a drastic drop off in Twitter. I think that’s part of the point.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

Honestly what does flourish mean when it comes to Twitter. The flaw I always saw with Twitter was that all roads pointed to advertising as the way to pay. We all hate advertising. The other choice is pay for it. I certainly wont pay for Twitter. I see a drastic drop off in Twitter if you need to pay for it.

The valuation is around $150 per user. That includes all bots and fake accounts. That is a lot of ads.

I see Tsla do a 10x before I see Twitter do a 2x at that valuation. Elon or no Elon.

 

[wtlloyd]

NY, LA, Chicago, SF, Boston and Seattle metro areas are all shrinking now. 5 years ago Seattle was one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations out there. SF metro area shrank 2.6% and the city itself shrank almost 7%.

Texas, Florida, Utah, Idaho, and Tennessee are growing 2-3% per year now.

Ya, but not fir the reason you originally stated. That was the point of my first comment.

 

[thx1139]

So have a notification that said a moderator deleted a post. Is there anyway to see what post. I dont know what I would have posted today that merited a delete. Sure would be helpful to know what was deleted so I could figure out why.

 

[Curt Renz]

When we go (practically) all solar, there is going to be a gigantic summer surplus.
Gigantic.

More towns should be joining the solar revoulutin like this one, where every home garage has a NEMA 14-50 outlet for EV charging.

The Sunshine State's first solar community is still shining four years after its foundation

 

[winfield100]

The US hit the glass ceiling for fossil fuels in the 70s, energy use per capita has been flat since then.

View attachment 793693

I don’t think most people are ready for the age of solar abundance when we shoot past that old ceiling, and the question becomes what to do with all this extra power in the summer.

@ZachF
ground based laser powered spaceships. aka "Beam riders" small ships earth to mars in 3 days, up to 0.3C.
manned ships in less than a month, constant acceleration/deceleration

Beam Rider: New 'Self-Centering' Laser Sail Could Enable Interstellar Travel

Diffraction gratings could allow laser-sailing craft to hold the line.

www.space.com

 

[MABMAB]

I love this darn TED talk and the "I hate to lose" stuff coming out these days!

I've been following Musk and Tesla for more than 10 years. Back in the day there were so many problems, reports, issues and he was quick to respond, fight back, make it right. All sorts of things from complaints to FUD to falsehoods. I cant think of an example other than stuff like CR braking and the car running over the hitch hurting batteries and all cars getting free titanium plate upgrades.

The fighting SPIRIT in this man is that of a warrior, a warrior great for leading this company. It is so nice to see the warrior coming out again, this time more offensive!

PR team be damned, this stuff is golden!

 

[Gigapress]

Hopefully we will get seasonal-duration storage going. I've been looking for developments on multi-month storage for a while - major problem to solve as we go full renewable... Found a fascinating little article on laboratory development on that front from CleanTechnica:

"Hibernating" Energy Storage Solves Seasonal Power Generation Problem - CleanTechnica

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed a long duration "hibernating" battery made with an electrolyte that can be chilled from a liquid to a solid when excess renewable energy is abundant, then thawed to release energy when needed.

cleantechnica.com

TL;DR article describes a common-materials molten salt battery that can solidify for months on end to avoid losses. Charge it in summer, discharge in winter as needed. Requires external heat source to wake it up from its room-temperature efficient "hibernation".

Someone like Tesla's energy division could really take that from lab to commercial product at scale. Combining that Megapacks at scale, and they could cover short and long term storage.

Some might even think the share price would go up then

This looks like potentially huge technology for long-term storage needs and the research institution is reputable. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is one of the premier scientific organizations in the world as a part of United States Department of Energy, and one of its areas of specialty is sustainable energy, which makes me less skeptical of this just being yet another Battery Breakthrough announcement about dead-end technology.

“Pumped hydro storage is the most used long-term energy storage mechanism across the globe, but power distribution is limited due to regulatory concerns and geological constraints. Conversely, green hydrogen generated by excess electricity from renewable energy is a possible solution for seasonal storage, but it is hampered by hydrogen storage challenges and low roundtrip efficiency—the amount of energy put into storage that can later be retrieved. Finally, conventional batteries are not a recommended solution because of self-discharge, limiting storage to only days or weeks.

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a solution for long-term, seasonal energy storage. The innovative Temperature-based Hibernating Battery effectively cuts off the self-charge function during the battery’s idling period, making it ideal for long-term electricity storage without loss of electricity for several months.”

So basically, it’s a battery that only does anything when at least 180 degrees Celsius, so it doesn’t gradually leak ions like regular batteries.

It seems to check all the boxes:

• Simple, probably easy to manufacture
• Raw Materials are cheap ($23/kWh now, claimed future technical roadmap to $8/kWh if iron replaces nickel), abundant, not environmentally or ethically disastrous to obtain, fully recyclable, geographically widespread, and flexible with respect to anode & cathode metal choices
• 90% Energy Efficient per charge-discharge cycle, even for long term use
  • Can save energy for YEARS if desired, although main usage would be more profitable weekly and seasonal storage
• Safe - won’t burst into flames, explode, shock anyone while “hibernating”, nor emit uncontrolled toxins
• Mechanically robust, not fragile
• Stable in wide temperature range
• Decent energy density for stationary storage (246 Wh/kg theoretical max; no data provided on actual achieved current value)

Clean Technical intro article
PNNL Brochure
PNNL Paper for Nerds

 

[jhm]

Plan B: TMC hostile takeover

 

[Thekiwi]

Will be interesting to see the full 80 minute pre-recorded-in-Texas-factory TED interview video, they said before the live interview portion of show that they will release the full prerecorded video to the public on Sunday (they only showed a 9 minute clip of it today)

 

[Ogre]

I think this is being misread- it's offering a test drive in a regular Y or 3 (3s aren't even made in Texas or with 4680 today)-- and that might cause you to order one of the new 4680 Texas ones.

I'm pretty confident there's not so many spare 4680 cars today that they're at sales centers across the country ready for test drives.

(if this were only going out to Austin-local folks that'd be another story, but the "some states" language and the reddit thread suggests it's generic and going out to CT reservation holders all over)

Seriously doubt the differences between driving the new Austin MY will be noticeable unless you are a professional driver anyhow.

I'm just happy they are promoting the 4680 Model Ys now. Maybe this means they will add it to their site so we can order it soon?

 

[Discoducky]

Test drives of 4860 Model Y in Texas

I read this as test drives in 4680 Model Ys built in Austin. Seems very straightforward and I can't wait to hear the reviews!

 

[ggr]

So have a notification that said a moderator deleted a post. Is there anyway to see what post. I dont know what I would have posted today that merited a delete. Sure would be helpful to know what was deleted so I could figure out why.

Someone posted old, debunked FUD, also completely off topic for this thread. You (and 9 others) replied within minutes. One of the replies (not yours) was about to lead down a real rathole, not to mention being completely against the terms of service.

I don't do moderation much any more, but I was on the spot. Nuked.