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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Thermoplastics have a higher coefficient of linear thermal expansion (CLTE) than metals. This requires more space to grow and shrink, which is the primary reason the Z1 (and later Saturn cars) were built with wider, unappealing body gaps. But, that was 30 years ago, before Tesla (and it's materials science teeam) even existed. Again, panel gaps likely will not be an issue for Robotaxi, where durability to abrasion is more important to the Operator. Same for commercial Operators (ie: cargo/tradesman van).
Still, there is an even larger issue at play here for Tesla and Master Plan 3: what to do with all that oil that won't be needed as fuel stock, but at the same time is at risk of becoming a stranded asset for many large 1st-world countries, and politically-powerful multinational companies? Using oil stock to make plastic body parts for 680M vehicles alone (cargo plus small car in Tesla's ID slide deck) may provide a way to use that resource w/o burning it into CO2. After that, the recyclability of the part becomes the issue. Again, Materials Science will guide the enginneering.
Cheers!
Probably just a data point that had nowhere else convenient to go. Should have been listed as a feature of the vehicle architecture overall rather than the drive unit. Semi related in a batteries are related to power train way. I think the message we should be receiving is not to worry about what battery your "model 2" has, it can be anything provided by anyone, just trust Tesla it will meet whatever it's rated for.
I figure that even from a single factory we'll see 4680 in both lithium ion and lfp flavors, as well a various prismatic lfp from catl, lg, or whomever, and they'll be interchangeable on the assembly line such that there won't be any kind of change or stop to the line when switching between them. They'll be functionally equivalent black boxes with identical extension physical dimensions and connectors, and if necessary software limited to the least common denominator.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Thanks for that. Interesting info on thermoplastics in the Bricklin SV-1 - Wikipedia
Technical features:
"The SV-1 is a two-door, two-seat hatchback with gull-wing doors, hidden headlamps and a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Its bodywork is a composite material made up of acrylic resin bonded to a fibreglass substrate. The acrylic is impregnated with the body's colour, which had the potential to reduce costs, as it eliminated the need for the factory to paint the cars in a separate step. The five "Safety" colours offered were one of the few options buyers had.[31]
This history is obviously well-known to Tesla. Could this approach reduce the cost of paint for Gen 3?
Cheers!
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Zero EV Sales potential. It's like Troy hasn't heard that ALL cars will be electric in the future.
ChatGPT (or at least the one available to the public) doesn't have any information past 2021 if I recall correctly. It doesn't have current Internet access, just the stuff prior to 2022, so it couldn't have answered your inquiry.
How will Tesla proceed if China does not let them build a less expensive car? I think a factory in eastern Europe. Slovakia builds some of the Land Rover models we get in the U.S.
If they can't build in China for the EU then a lower income EU member is perhaps the best choice.
Any South American residents here that feel there is a market for a half million $25K Teslas?
If they can't build in China for the EU then a lower income EU member is perhaps the best choice.
Is Troy required to only post the literal truth?
Any South American residents here that feel there is a market for a half million $25K Teslas?
It’s a market which Tesla has 0% market share and has fairly low EV adoption.
An ideal market for Tesla. Yes, it’s a small market, but Tesla imports cars into New Zealand. How many vehicles are sold in New Zealand every year? I think it’s less than 200,000 total. Tesla would use the same strategy they use in every region, put service centers in large cities and let people come to them.
Troy’s opinion is exactly as valid as anyone’s… and in this situation almost certainly wrong. His bizarro logic would mean Tesla would never enter a new market which is laughable.
Truth is usually considered good in my book.
You yourself said there is a market for 4 million vehicles a year. If Tesla takes 20% market share, that’s 800,000 vehicles a year. Just 10% share is 400,000 and with an affordable electric car, that is highly possible.
But it’s not going to be half a million for some time. Lots of demand in Mexico and Central America first. Very possible they export to Canada as well. Most likely Tesla starts importing small numbers of cars first. They have to establish service centers and a Supercharger network to get the ball rolling.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Going from 30% gross margin to 50% on a $100K car adds $20K in g.m. (that's an optimisitic maximum). For 100K annual production (Tesla's stated global market for S/X), such a change adds $2B in g.m (less retooling).
In contrast, going from 30% gross margin to just 31% g.m. on 8 million $25K cars ALSO adds $2B in g.m. See why Tesla is playing for g.m. with the high volume Gen 3 platform? Which do you think is the bigger opportunity?
Cheers!
Imho, Troy has gone from signal to noise.
You're welcome! Both the SV-1 and Malcolm Bricklin have fascinating histories. Mr. Bricklin is still with us, and his current endeavours include attempting to transition auto dealerships into art dealerships.
One of his MANY business ventures was an EV startup in the early 90's. It didn't get beyond an E-bike product lineup- mostly due to the technical limitations of the lead acid batteries they were using at the time. Founding Subaru of America was probably his biggest success.
Anyhow, perhaps a similar reinforced, color impregnated thermoplastic construction material could work well on a Tesla gen 3/4 vehicle. Recyclabilty would be my main concern- but that could likely be solved.
Captkerosene
Member
A 25K Tesla would have a 10 Million deep order book overnight. (I'll take 1,000 thank you.) The only solution to rampant position flippers will be higher initial pricing. So, the 25K Tesla may start at 35K or more ... and have huge margins. Maybe some kind of auction process needs to be incorporated into the CT, Semi and Model Q. Dump inventory onto the market at very high prices initially and then lower the prices as demand dictates. (Dutch auction.) Options to purchase based on position in line.
Um. You're right. Kind of. It's an engineering optimization problem. In no particular order the reason that one chooses a particular gauge of wire involves:
Even before games, they saved 3/4 of the copper mass. Trying to save more will run into ampacity limits
- Ampacity limits. This is the point where power dissipated in the wire causes the wire to heat up to the point where it (typically) chars the insulation around it. (Even higher currents melt the wire, which is cool for things like fuses, but kind of counterproductive in terms of moving energy from point A to B.) Interestingly, the choice of an insulator gets into this equation, since insulators vary as regarding how much heat they can take and how well they transmit thermal energy elsewhere. For example, wires in a house (!) have different current capacities when they're embedded in an outside wall where they're in with the housing insulation which limits heat flow as compared to an interior wall, where there's no insulation and there's some convection cooling from Ye Air Passing By.
- Power dissipation. If one is trying to move energy efficiently from point A to B then the power being dissipated in the wire goes (for wire resistance << load resistance) as I^2*R, where I is current and R is the resistance of the wire. Shorter wires dissipated less energy (goes as the length); thinner wires dissipate more (inverse of the cross-sectional area). There's fun stuff with DC or AC. DC tends to have electrons moving along throughout the body of the wire; AC tends to have electrons moving nearer the surface and, at high frequencies (1 MHz and up) are concentrated in an annular cylinder along the length of the wire, thus raising power dissipation. (This is why radio frequency, high power electronics tend to have silver plated wires. And why, above a certain frequency, waveguides are used, since that spreads the current density out. And the waveguides have silver plated surfaces on the inside, you betcha.)
- Mass, as mentioned before. Less copper in a car means less cost (copper's not cheap) and less mass to lug around the landscape.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Lol, if you amended the cutoff date for knowledge to June 28, 2010 that would explain Wall St. analysts confusion nicely...
Cheers!
You may notice that New Zealand and Hawaii have characteristics not present in South America. Count the superchargers and service centers needed to support sales.
Tesla will obviously expand into south america at some point. But they don't do that by building a factory thousands of miles away that will output a half million cars a couple of years from now. They will start in the wealthiest areas and sell all the vehicles Tesla currently exports to the affluent early adopters.
Why am I not just buying a model 3? We know the current demand for Tesla in major markets by price point. In the U.S. supply and demand are currently in balance.
Demand at $25K may be 4X $35K. But the $25K vehicle needs to sell at $25K
Very true. In addition, eliminating brake fluid you eliminate a service issue (fluid is hydroscopic). My initial reaction is that it's a lot more complicated to make an electric brake actuator, but perhaps not. You can put all the ABS functionality in that actuator, rather than a separate pump. eliminate a master cylinder, etc. With hydraulic brakes, you could certainly do QD hydraulic couplings on the brake lines, but not sure it's worth it. Not sure how much of a safety concern electric actuation would be, given that you have no backup like you do if a power brake booster fails. BTW, does anyone use electric actuation now?
Backup could possibly be designed in the motor. Plus each ebrake can be independent. From a clean sheet perspective hydraulic brakes would probably look less safe compared to an EV with ebrakes. But we know in reality that hydraulic is very safe.
"Fail On" is also a possibility with ebrakes, like air brakes.
I suspect on aspect that makes ebrakes more attractive on EV is that subtle braking isn't important. That type of braking is normally handled by the motor.
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