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

[Buckminster]

pewdiepie has moved to Japan and debating on whether to buy a Tesla or retro Toyota. He will probably choose the Toyota but 111m followers seeing how positive he is on Tesla will do no harm:

 

[scaesare]

About 12% of the energy of crude oil gets lost at the refinery, some small percentage is lost in transporting the fuel, and about 70% of the energy is wasted as heat in whatever engine is consuming the gas/diesel. The net effect is that around 25% of the starting oil energy actually does anything useful.

If 12+70=82% of crude energy is lost, doesn't that leave 18% of useful energy left to do actual work?

 

[mongo]

If 12+70=82% of crude energy is lost, doesn't that leave 18% of useful energy left to do actual work?

(100%-12%)*(100%-70%)
0.88*0.3=0.264 = 26%
(Dropping the .4 to make mod less sad)

 

[Thumper]

Not vouching for the percentages, just the math. Start with 100 loose 12% 88 left. Loose 70% of that 26.4 units left. Approximately 25.

 

[scaesare]

Things being imperfect right now is different than being past the tipping point. If I have a big pile of dry leaves and I use a lighter to burn a couple leaves, then a tipping point has been reached where even if I walk away, the whole pile will burn on its own from a self-sustaining chain reaction. This is true even when 99% of the pile is not currently on fire.

Those lies and fossil fuel corruption long predate Elon's involvement in the automotive and energy industries and he's been mostly unsuccessful in stopping it, yet Tesla and the rest of the industry have managed to make exponential growth happen at astonishing rates, and now Tesla and the industry have hit positive cashflow and market competitiveness. That's what the tipping point is: when the technology has matured enough that capitalism and politicians' desire for power will make the most efficient solution dominate very quickly. Whoever moves fastest and innovates quickest can make the most money and the solar and utility storage markets are already brutally competitive. Model 3, Y and Cybertruck are market-slaying products and demand for them would be 10x higher if more people actually understood the value proposition. Finally, from the sounds of things, Tesla's Solar Roof tech just needs some relatively straightforward installation problems solved and it'll be a killer product that people will want whether Elon's in charge or not. The Governor of freaking Texas just rolled out the red carpet for an electric vehicle and battery factory that will directly help kill oil & gas demand. That is also a sign that we've passed the tipping point.

The best thing a good leader can do is leave behind a culture that persists and I think Elon has done that.

I see both sides of the argument you and @Krugerrand are making.

While Tesla has advanced the EV/sustainable energy movement significantly, the thing that gives me pause as to if it's really past the tipping point, is that it seemed that way previously, even apparently to Elon. And yet he has had to take a number of actions for things to continue moving forward:

• Plans to radically increase production when other manufacturers didn't step up
• Building their own battery (giga)factories when supply didn't come online
• Adopting radical manufacturing improvements to drive cost/price down
• Ramping fast-charging infrastructure even more aggressively when gov't/industry didn't respond
• Advancing the state of the art in battery design
• Improvements in battery material extraction and refining
• Getting in to the Solar market, and building new compelling products
• Aggressively building out stationary energy storage offerings
• etc...

All of these were necessary long after the introduction of the Model S (to many accolades), that would have seemed to be the impetus for other manufacturers to follow suit.. and there seemed to be such movement with the Chevy Bolt, etc.... However much hemming and hawing on the part of other manufacturers commenced, and the gov't didn't do much to help the situation, and if anything tended to stall things. There's a good chance Big Oil is working behind the scenes to Kill (or at least delay) The Electric Car yet again.

How many more advancements need to yet happen before we are guaranteed liftoff? And I suspect Elon is the impetus for many of them.

This being a Tesla forum, the focus is on those products, but similar push continues to happen for Boring, SpaceX, NeuraLink, etc...

 

[scaesare]

(100%-12%)*(100%-70%)
0.88*0.3=0.264 = 26%
(Dropping the .4 to make mod less sad)

Ah, 70% of the remaining energy is lost, my bad. Thanks @mongo

 

[jeewee3000]

There's a good chance Big Oil is working behind the scenes to Kill (or at least delay) The Electric Car yet again.

How many more advancements need to yet happen before we are guaranteed liftoff? And I suspect Elon is the impetus for many of them.

This being a Tesla forum, the focus is on those products, but similar push continues to happen for Boring, SpaceX, NeuraLink, etc...

I think we are past the tipping point (ICE -> EV transition) given the multiple governments banning ICE from (insert year) onwards. Also Tesla has shown the path and - even if Tesla were to stagnate now - other companies could over time build up the momentum Tesla has going for it right now. (Since Tesla wouldn't be a fierce competitor in this scenario).

However, Tesla/Elon need to keep pressing the accelerator to speed up the transition since without Tesla the transition will take decades longer.

 

[scaesare]

I think we are past the tipping point (ICE -> EV transition) given the multiple governments banning ICE from (insert year) onwards. Also Tesla has shown the path and - even if Tesla were to stagnate now - other companies could over time build up the momentum Tesla has going for it right now. (Since Tesla wouldn't be a fierce competitor in this scenario).

However, Tesla/Elon need to keep pressing the accelerator to speed up the transition since without Tesla the transition will take decades longer.

Your post brings up a good point: Not only do we need to be past the tipping point, the subsequent adoption needs to be rapid enough that we don't get TO the global warming tipping point...

 

[BrownOuttaSpec]

We will, when the time is right. I don't think the profit margins will be very large as a percentage of Supercharging revenues, but they should be building up in absolute dollars as the fleet expands and cars with free Supercharging for life become wildly outnumbered by cars that must pay.

What's interesting to me is how Elon/Tesla navigated the auto industry's revenue stream.

With knowing that BEVs need way less service over the long run so that service revenue stream doesn't exist so they go out and build their charging network to get 10%+ profit perpetually through their Supercharger network. Meanwhile Ford, GM, LICE doesnt have this and have given away all the potential profits to the 3rd party companies like EVgo, Chargepoint, Electrify America (VW?). Even though it isnt much, there is something to be said about a never ending, slowly increasing source of profit.

I agree, Q3 could be the start of some mind blowing numbers from all facets of Tesla's business. I can't wait!

 

[ZeApelido]

Tesla superchargers have no benefit over Electrify America they said.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I'm predicting perhaps some head fakes, but then MM's letting this thing start to rocket just before 2Q earnings. I've got us nearing $1550 by Thanksgiving.

Keeping in mind that $1550 by Thanksgiving quickly turns to ~96 PE in January. Which is lower than today.

I'm now certain all this money flowing into "energy" knows it's just a Russia bubble AND that Tesla will be dumping earnings on the market. Even Cramer is sitting on CNBC right now saying the tech re-entry is happening.

This all will reverse muy rapido. One big leg up nowish, then another once Russian export supply is clarified.

 

[Singuy]

What's interesting to me is how Elon/Tesla navigated the auto industry's revenue stream.

With knowing that BEVs need way less service over the long run so that service revenue stream doesn't exist so they go out and build their charging network to get 10%+ profit perpetually through their Supercharger network. Meanwhile Ford, GM, LICE doesnt have this and have given away all the potential profits to the 3rd party companies like EVgo, Chargepoint, Electrify America (VW?). Even though it isnt much, there is something to be said about a never ending, slowly increasing source of profit.

I agree, Q3 could be the start of some mind blowing numbers from all facets of Tesla's business. I can't wait!

When you spend the last decade thinking EVs are a fad like 3d movies until it's not, it was in legacy best interest to not legitimize EVs by creating charging stations.

I would say charging stations are a chicken and egg problem. On the surface it doesn't look profitable when gas stations are not profitable from just selling gas. But when you start applying smart manufacturing, taking away complexity, and knowing how to make them reliable then it can be profitable. Lots of work to get there and we have yet to see competitors to turn a profit.

 

[Nocturnal]

Crypto looks to be recovering a bit which is good news. I know most here don't care about crypto per se, but it's an indicator of risk tolerance and obv Tesla holds a big chunk.

What's interesting to me is how Elon/Tesla navigated the auto industry's revenue stream.

With knowing that BEVs need way less service over the long run so that service revenue stream doesn't exist so they go out and build their charging network to get 10%+ profit perpetually through their Supercharger network. Meanwhile Ford, GM, LICE doesnt have this and have given away all the potential profits to the 3rd party companies like EVgo, Chargepoint, Electrify America (VW?). Even though it isnt much, there is something to be said about a never ending, slowly increasing source of profit.

I agree, Q3 could be the start of some mind blowing numbers from all facets of Tesla's business. I can't wait!

They pay a price either way. If these networks wind up being very profitable then they lose out on that cash, if these networks struggle then their vehicles won't have as many places to charge (without parking under a giant Tesla advertisement).

I'm still not convinced these 3rd party networks will be profitable enough to scale anywhere near to the size we will need.

 

[henchman24]

Strong attempt at getting the Nasdaq to break 12k at the open here.

 

[JRP3]

No, your choice is not even close to being good enough.

There won't be another Elon. If Tesla and the EV movement can't survive without him then it's a house of cards based on nothing, and I don't believe that for a second. The technology is sound on a first principles level and has progressed past the tipping point. Tens of thousands of people at Tesla have been exposed to the "Elon way" of questioning everything and pushing forward in the face of adversity. That influence doesn't disappear with him.

 

[ZachF]

Market returning to its regularly scheduled plunge… oil at $120+…

JFC

 

[mickificki]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1531622814234583040

 

[ZachF]

Even Cramer is sitting on CNBC right now saying the tech re-entry is happening.

Cramer is the ultimate contra-indicator!!

At this point, I think the probability of recession is 75%+

Tesla will probably recover a lot sooner, but it’ll probably take the market as a whole until like 2025 to surpass its 2021 peak.

 

[Gigapress]

There won't be another Elon. If Tesla and the EV movement can't survive without him then it's a house of cards based on nothing

Also, if he is the irreplaceable lynchpin without which all will fail, we’d have to wonder why powerful people in Russia or Saudi Arabia or wherever have not had him assassinated yet, especially with him publicly taunting their governments. Russia in particular:

• has been spitting in his face since 2002 when he tried to buy one of their rockets and they disrespectfully told him to go away so he started SpaceX and wiped out most of the monopoly Soyuz rockets had on the launch industry
• has been annoyed by the rapid deployment of Starlink in Ukraine
• has had Elon challenge Putin to meet him for hand-to-hand combat with Ukraine as the prize
• has a long (LONG) history of assassinations

Prior to 2020 I might have agreed that without Elon the transition, especially in automobiles, might have been halted.

As @scaesare said, the biggest question now is speed. Do we transition to solar fast enough and start sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and oceans to make methane fast enough to prevent ecological catastrophe?

I think in the final analysis it’s simple economics. Solar is now the cheapest energy in history in many areas of the world, and many of those cheap areas happen to currently be economically dependent on oil & gas (Texas, Louisiana, parts of Latin America, North Africa, Middle East) and even they are installing solar. In these locations, the greedy, selfish decision is now to install solar as fast as possible, which will continue to drag prices down globally because solar PV is a technology, not an extracted resource. This is why I view the industry development as a self-sustaining chain reaction at this point.

The existence of $10/MWh solar projects has been underappreciated.

 

[elasalle]

Cramer is the ultimate contra-indicator!!

At this point, I think the probability of recession is 75%+

Tesla will probably recover a lot sooner, but it’ll probably take the market as a whole until like 2025 to surpass its 2021 peak.

Schedule of Releases for the Consumer Price Index

www.bls.gov

May CPI numbers due on Jun 10th ... it will likely redefine the debate of where we are ... cheers!!