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

[JRP3]

<---not the WiTricity Forum.

Referenced link and quote was from WiTricity, thus the topic being discussed.

 

[electracity]

Agreed, somehow I expect it's less expensive than land around Austin or anywhere in CA. I'm also wondering if they might consider housing for workers and their families on-site. Not sure what the housing situation is like in that region. or if there are sufficient potential workers within a commuting distance.

lots of people in Monterey who would like a $10/hour job

 

[JRP3]

Topography looks a tad challenging.

Seems much less so than the mess they started with in Texas.

 

[oldTAVguy]

OT but SpaceX...

About 12:30 Giga Texas Time (GTT).

 

[electracity]

It is funny how WS and critics want Tesla to be more like failing legacy with premature, Osborning product reveals. Tesla is doing all their homework ensuring that they have a capital efficient manufacturable/scalable next gen car for the masses fully understood without surprises. Quite the opposite of the hundreds of empty product reveals that the competition has demonstrated for which they have know idea when they'll actually be offered or how to scale...

A glance at history will show you that large traditional auto makers know how to scale

 

[Buckminster]

Good catch, it's a must, maybe even separated cooling systems for front and rear so no hoses has to be connected? Or even the battery pack has connection for cooling that just snap into place as you assemble

Also

https://twitter.com/x/status/1631708001487962112

This thread is a must read.

Another factory in parallel to Monterrey.
Gen 3 may not have paint.
⁃The benchmark for rolling Model Y’s off the production line is 45s. Current times: China 37s, Berlin 55s, Austin 75s. 7/

 

[nativewolf]

Seems much less so than the mess they started with in Texas.

Texas was a Marietta minerals aggregate shallow open pit mine. Not challenging at all. Overburden was still mostly on site. Granted they really only need 1-2 hundred flat acres. They don’t even need to all be on same planar . So they could blast and carve off a 50 acre parking storage site and dump that into the site for fill.

 

[Kenypowa]

Good catch, it's a must, maybe even separated cooling systems for front and rear so no hoses has to be connected? Or even the battery pack has connection for cooling that just snap into place as you assemble

Also

https://twitter.com/x/status/1631708001487962112

Tom Zhu absolutely gives the Tim Cook vibe. His presentation on gigafactory ramps was excellent. AAPL became a very boring but a far more profitable (and valuable) company after Tim took over.

I am more than happy for Tom to take over after Model 2, Tesla van, Robotaxi and Tesla Bot has been introduced. By then Elon should focus his time on Mars colonization.

 

[UncaNed]

That has nothing to do with WiTricity's claim. Plus Tesla already allows us to choose settings to optimize pack life. There is no magical software that would significantly improve this.

True for you and most of us, but so far as not benefitting from pack life optimizing software, IMHO you give too much credit to many Tesla end users, I've often plugged in in a hurry with the charge level overlooked at some ridiculous setting from a recent trip.

 

[SageBrush]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in all this V2G discussion is, and sorry if this is very dumb and/or obvious, what if you need to drive somewhere, then your house goes down

Is your home off-grid ?

 

[bkp_duke]

You don't effect the power (wattage) by going from 12-48V, you impact the current draw. For the same power you use 1/4 the current. In general anyway-lower current means smaller components, smaller wires and less weight, which should slightly help power draw.

Not true. At current designs (12V and very long harnesses) the resistance is so high there are substantial losses. Tesla had a slide in the deck showing current cars use ~250W for LV, and they expect this to drop by 75%.

 

[Ogre]

Good catch, it's a must, maybe even separated cooling systems for front and rear so no hoses has to be connected? Or even the battery pack has connection for cooling that just snap into place as you assemble

Also

https://twitter.com/x/status/1631708001487962112

EVERYONE ABSOLUTELY MUST READ that thread (Link to Twitter Thread).

Cliffs notes for search/ posterity only. Read the original.

Tom Zhu

• Gen 3 platform built in Mexico First. Confirmed
• Will Roll off production line in 18-24 months.
• When asked “Stainless Steel or painted”, Zhu smirked and replied “paint is expensive”.
• Another GF will be build in parallel with Mexico.
• All GF architecture, design and construction done in-house.
• Benchmark for rolling out Model Y is 45s. Shanghai currently 37s, Berlin 55s, Austin 75s.
• Midnight Red and Quicksilver not coming to Texas.
• Tesla should be more proactive with comms “Soon” — this is from Zhu not Musk.

Literally everything people are crying wasn’t announced on Investor Day, Zhu spilled to a private investor in an exclusive after the event.

 

[UncaNed]

Can't wait to attempt to pull into my parking spot and see a bunch of people with their smartphones sitting on top of my Tesla charging pad to charge their phones!

or some idiot puts a sewer lid cover on it, making an induction powered barbecue grill.

 

[Gigapress]

Many of us have Power over Ethernet (PoE) in our homes which delivers 48V at up to 70 watts or so depending on the specific variant over twisted pair cabling (cat 5). There are special variants for automotive use. So I wonder if Tesla is using some variant of this standard for combined communications and power cabling?

Anyone know the power draw for various 12V components in a modern car? 70W may very well be way too little.

Ive also heard rumors that in the future Tesla may use wireless communications for some of the internal car module communications. Afterall, the tire pressure sensors are already wireless…

Elon Musk: 12 volts, I mean, what are we still doing with 12 volts?

Sandy Munro: 42 is where everybody should be.

Elon: I think 48.

Sandy: Or 48, yeah. But at the end of the day we need to do something. That’ll reduce the wire diameters and stuff like that, and that’s just nothing but cash in the bank.

Elon: Yeah.

…

Elon: 12 volts is very much a vestigial voltage. It’s like absurdly low. So, I mean even, like, basically powered ethernet is like around 50 volts. … That’s really what the car’s low-voltage system should be at.

Sandy: Yeah, absolutely, I agree. In fact when we tore apart the Y I was expecting to see that, because you said you were getting rid of weight and the length of wires and whatnot, and when I pulled it off the harness it looked kind of similar.

…

Elon: You really want to put power and data over the same wires and have it be higher-speed than CAN bus, so you can like basically dump data on the bus instead of having all these point-to-point wires.

 

[petit_bateau]

There may have also been something built into the deal with the government that required purchasing and developing a certain amount of land in exchange for incentives etc. There are legitimately so many potential reasons I can think of along with a list of reasons why producing and delivering multiple millions of vehicles from one factory becomes increasingly difficult as you continue moving up in volume.

Things that matter in the real world, like loading and shipping 14,000 vehicles every day on average.

That does raise one issue.

There is no rail line coming pas this site. There is a rail line from Monterrey/Saltillo down to the main port at Altamira (which is what I/we generally sent our containers via) but that line goes Saltillo - Garcia - Monterrey using the valley to the north of the large hill behind the site.

I'm afaid Google maps doesn't really like displaying rail lines very effectively so it is hard to pick them out. The nearest place to connect on to the rail line is at El Durazno. I've circled El Durazno in the picture below and put a oblong box where the site is by Rancho Carvajal. I think they will need to ultimately bring in a rail spur and a rail loading/logistics area as part of a full-sized plant. I've sketched where the turn outs might go.

It is quite possible that a lot of the land grab is to secure the necessary rail and logistics yard areas.

The volume gosspi re Moneterrey also tends towards the internal decision making inside Tesla settling more on the fewer/larger sites (4m/tr each, perhaps) rather than the many/smaller sites (1-2m/yr each) for auto manufacturing. That in turn would suggest one more in Asia/Pacific, one more in India (if India ever gets the message re 100% Tesla control), and one more in Europe. Does that mean in turn that Canada or north-east USA are now out of the running for a Tesla auto plant ? It also means we should probably expect auto site decisions at about one yearly intervals for the next few years. Plus more storage assembly site decisions.

 

[bkp_duke]

That does raise one issue.

There is no rail line coming pas this site. There is a rail line from Monterrey/Saltillo down to the main port at Altamira (which is what I/we generally sent our containers via) but that line goes Saltillo - Garcia - Monterrey using the valley to the north of the large hill behind the site.

I'm afaid Google maps doesn't really like displaying rail lines very effectively so it is hard to pick them out. The nearest place to connect on to the rail line is at El Durazno. I've circled El Durazno in the picture below and put a oblong box where the site is by Rancho Carvajal. I think they will need to ultimately bring in a rail spur and a rail loading/logistics area as part of a full-sized plant. I've sketched where the turn outs might go.

It is quite possible that a lot of the land grab is to secure the necessary rail and logistics yard areas.

The volume gosspi re Moneterrey also tends towards the internal decision making inside Tesla settling more on the fewer/larger sites (4m/tr each, perhaps) rather than the many/smaller sites (1-2m/yr each) for auto manufacturing. That in turn would suggest one more in Asia/Pacific, one more in India (if India ever gets the message re 100% Tesla control), and one more in Europe. Does that mean in turn that Canada or north-east USA are now out of the running for a Tesla auto plant ? It also means we should probably expect auto site decisions at about one yearly intervals for the next few years. Plus more storage assembly site decisions.

View attachment 913424

View attachment 913427

As far as rail spurs go, that's not a significant extension. In fact, allows for a clean sheet design custom built for Tesla's needs.

 

[Dikkie Dik]

Don’t know what to make of this but I’ll throw it out here: apparently a new Supercharger station in the Netherlands has the new V4 stalls:

Height is about right at 1.90 meters. Station has 16 stalls and is located in Harderwijk NL.

 

[electracity]

has this been posted?

Mexico Nationalizes Lithium; Sets Up State-Owned Company | White & Case LLP

On August 23, 2022, President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador issued a Decree (published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on August 24, 2022) setting up a new state-owned company called LitioMx (Litio para Mexico), which will be responsible for managing the exploration, mining...

www.whitecase.com

 

[Gigapress]

This thread is a must read.

Another factory in parallel to Monterrey.
Gen 3 may not have paint.
⁃The benchmark for rolling Model Y’s off the production line is 45s. Current times: China 37s, Berlin 55s, Austin 75s. 7/

+1

This is a good thread and I hope the info is true.

Biggest thing is that Ber/Tex ramped slower than Sha due to figuring out the structural pack. Originally Tesla had guided for them to ramp faster, and the failure to do so was one of the main sources of error in my short term forecasts for 2022. This means Shanghai ramp probably wasn’t a fluke or caused by something special about China.

 

[nativewolf]

or some idiot puts a sewer lid cover on it, making an induction powered barbecue grill.

You mean genius