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

[Cosmacelf]

Except, as we talked about yesterday, the announcement specifically discusses Tesla handling payment, but makes an explicit point about the Property Manager setting the price, and no monthly fees. I can't imagine Tesla is going to take a cut of the charging price without bothering to mention that...

Tesla has to charge per session charges of some sort if only to recover credit card processing fees, and they’d be idiots to not also tack on a Tesla network charge there as well.

 

[Mengy]

I am also bullish long term.

Short term? More «indifferent», Q3 below Q2 is perfectly acceptable to me as long as I still trust the Tesla Team - which I do.

Exactly. We know why Q3 will be less than Q2, they were doing factory upgrades which will lead to increased production in Q4 most likely, plus gearing up for Highland launch, which is underway. The reasons are all very positive, but Wall Street will still probably use the lower numbers to play options games and such.

 

[Cosmacelf]

One of the easy to see reasons the ‘competition’ is blown away by Tesla’s production of the Model Y:

FYI, the knowledgeable guy who is assembling the car before our eyes is with Caresoft, a Munro competitor. I got more out of that short video than I have out of any Munro video of the same length.

Benchmarking, Cost Reduction, and Engineering.

Drive Technology Optimization, Refine Design Fitness, and Reduce Costs. Take advantage of our fully integrated approach for Benchmarking, Cost Reduction Interventions, and Engineering Services to drive actionable results.

www.caresoftglobal.com

 

[Skryll]

I'd be very surprised if Tesla gets to double digit % market share for L2 chargers. The L2 charger is basically a commoditised product at this stage because it is trivial for any company that already manufacturers electrical products to move into this adjacent product and they all know how many are needed in the long run. [...] Tesla's offering isn't the cheapest. When building management is deciding to purchase hundreds of L2 chargers there are cheaper offerings.

Tesla wall connector 475 USD, mobile connector 230 USD.

Most offerings for wall connectors I see are more than $500-$800 but your statement prompted me to check and I found this:

LEFANEV 32A 7.68KW EV Charger Level 2 Station, NEMA14-50 20ft Wall Electric Vehicle Charging Station for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles https://a.co/d/gDEZrWp $280 USD

So yes looks like more downward pressure on those prices coming, promising for the mission but also making your point.

 

[JimS]

I traded in my 2018 Model 3 for a 2023, to take advantage of the FSD transfer and $7500 tax credit, and picked up the new car today at Mt Kisco NY. It was very busy there.

Did your 2018 M3 have the glass roof that turns raindrops into beautiful orange pearls? How could you part with such a classic? (I gave you a “love” anyway. I’m jealous of the white interior, it wasn’t available when I configured mine.). Enjoy your new M3 and I’m sure someone will enjoy your old one!

 

[hobbes]

Shanghai and Austin factories were shut down a bit... haven't there been little Q3 shutdowns at Fremont too? (Can't remember exactly)

But... GigaNevada never shut down to my knowledge. Still cranking out 2270s and drivetrains. Which means there is a U.S. stockpile, and in Q4 the factories will be able to use more batteries due to the efficiency ramps.

i.e. BUMPER Q4

Neither Berlin - not at full capacity, but nice and steady.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Darn it, I was hoping that he was basing his 650k estimate off of an estimate that Tesla had provided to analysts recently or something. Wishful thinking, I suppose.

Just ask Gojo, according to him, Detusch Bank has the inside info that Tesla will be flat for 2024 and wont deliver 1.8M total in 2023

 

[mongo]

Tesla wall connector 475 USD, mobile connector 230 USD.

Most offerings for wall connectors I see are more than $500-$800 but your statement prompted me to check and I found this:

LEFANEV 32A 7.68KW EV Charger Level 2 Station, NEMA14-50 20ft Wall Electric Vehicle Charging Station for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles https://a.co/d/gDEZrWp $280 USD

So yes looks like more downward pressure on those prices coming, promising for the mission but also making your point.

That unit is basically a wall mount mobile connector.

Wall connector installed cost is a lot closer to mobile once you correct for GFCI vs non-GFCI breaker, no high grade 14-50 outlet, and 3 conductors instead of 4.

Tesla's ecosystem also handles load balancing between units on top of the payment system (not that others can't).

 

[hobbes]

Wow, did anyone else see Steve Westly's interview? Jacob Hilton talks us through it on his youtube channel, but Steve Westly still expects 2M for this year... he is estimating over 650k units in Q4 of this year! That's got to be a stretch goal, right?

View attachment 978610

Haha, "4Q deliveries in 2023 & 2022 were both record setting" - info from the future

 

[JimS]

I guess that will be true for non-Teslas, but most charging stops in a Tesla are around 15 minutes--barely enough time for a pit stop and to get a drink. Eating at a restaurant or watching a movie takes much longer. I don't see it in the artist's renditions, but there had better be a lot of non-charging or L2 charging stalls to accommodate the restaurant and movie (or there will be a lot of idle fees).

Maybe the charging stops will show “short subject” films. Remember them? The ones they used to show before the feature film and after the news real. (Okay, maybe most of you don’t.) Every year I’m never able to see all the nominated short films before the Oscars, maybe these will bring back that market.

 

[unk45]

Tesla can play in two commoditized markets: EVSE and electricity. The NACS adapter may be on most of the EVSE but that does not imply a Tesla product, and it certainly does not imply a $5 a day revenue on top of electricity.

Actually, I'll guess that multi-dwelling charging will mostly follow the path of wi-fi at coffee shops. It will become an expected service, not an expensive boutique offering. The Apt owners will be happy to recoup their installation costs, and Tesla will be elated that a huge market opens for their cars. As for Tesla profit from the service, I'll guess that you over-estimated revenue by 10x, and over-estimated the Tesla share of the EVSE market 2x. That turns your $4B annual Tesla profit into $200M, worth a couple dollars to the share price.

and even yours is wildly optimistic. Based on my condominium quotations a year ago I'll suggest Tesla will have no material profits from this business, maybe a few charger sales, but those are already very competitive commodity-priced simple devices.

 

[hobbes]

Well they haven’t been able to deliver any of the highlands yet right? So maybe not that great a transition. I gather its due to china not issuing the certificate yet allowing sale, but still not great regardless.

I think there was info about a permit for China being granted, but can´t find anything definitive. This article says it was registered with some authority and sales should start in Q4, just like Europe. Looks to me as if Tesla is deliberately delivering only in Q4 everywhere at the same time to get more attention for the launch. Maybe also shown at Cybertruck presentation?

Tesla's Model 3 Highland officially registered in China

Tesla new Model 3 refresh from Project Highland has been officially registered under China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

www.teslarati.com

 

[unk45]

Tesla has to charge per session charges of some sort if only to recover credit card processing fees, and they’d be idiots to not also tack on a Tesla network charge there as well.

That sounds right but current practice, per my condominium offers from last year, includes the host option for administering all payment processes. Most third party networks offer the option for the host to allow the network to manage payments, for a fee, assume the payment risk, for a higher fee or just install and maintain the charging units. There are quite a variety of choices but these days the pricing is highly competitive and network profitability is not great.

Even eleven years ago when I installed my first network-sponsored EV charger it really way not that expensive. At that long ago time, the fee basis was predicated on the network providing all-risk insurance to the Condominium. Eleven years ago that was expensive due, believe it or not, the elevated fire risk from electric cars.

As has been previously explained there is no prospect at all for Tesla to have material profitability from Level 2. Without a doubt there is benefit from the network attachment to Supercharging, but the generalized solution today is urban Supercharging (the 72kW version) while the Destination charging network is, in most markets, still predominately free. Further many of those are limited to 'customers only'.

FWIW, check hotels etc in most of the world and find free level 2 charging. In the bulk of the world with normal power 220v or so, the charging is often through customer EV adapters.

There is no plausible way for Tesla to make much profit from level 2 apart from covering costs. As a policy including the option is always good, but Tesla is now, and probably will remain, the 'high priced spread' option for Levei 2. A decade ago Tesla was in desperate need of new charging wherever so Destination charging was innovative and essential to many of us early adopters. I know it was for me. Now, though, they're a nice thing to find but hardly important and likely to continue only as a convenient choice for business 'Teslaphiles'.

FWIW my condominium choice was less than 1/4 the tesla offer.

 

[H Mak]

One of the easy to see reasons the ‘competition’ is blown away by Tesla’s production of the Model Y:

Really informative. The way Tesla make the charging port part of the light cluster, meaning the cover doesn't have to colour-match the body paint, never occurred to me. So one part fits all, regardless of car colour. Its simple but clever. I will now be looking for other manufacturers' charging point covers, to see how they compare.

 

[SageBrush]

and even yours is wildly optimistic.

I won't be at all surprised if you are right. We probably agree that the Tesla profit angle here is car demand. And after thinking about this a bit more, I'll say that Tesla has every motivation to make EV charging as dirt cheap as possible, even to the point of offering subsidy like they have been for a decade. The profit here is in car sales, and *perhaps* in the future from energy TOU arbitrage.

 

[scaesare]

No monthly fees (fee regardless of usage) doesn't mean no per-session fees.
For example, unless Tesla passes on the credit card processing fee, Tesla is subsidizing every use.
Price selected - credit card fee - Tesla fee = gross to property owner. So property owner can adjust the user rate to match their desired gross receipts.

IOW, Tesla must charge to handle charging for charging otherwise the charge for using a charge to charge will be large.

Sure, they obviously have to recoup the processing costs... but as I mentioned, to do something like was suggested and take 50% without mentiong any revenue sharing seems out of character for them.

 

[scaesare]

Tesla has to charge per session charges of some sort if only to recover credit card processing fees, and they’d be idiots to not also tack on a Tesla network charge there as well.

Yeah, @mongo said much the same... I agree with a processing fee, but the basis of what I was ultimately challengeing was taking a revenue bite as significant as 50%, as was suggested, while saying nothing about that...

 

[NicoV]

That also applies to the many OEM’s that still supply L2 chargers with EV sales, but surely those are diminishing as adoption rates rise. Otherwise there are almost countless L2 suppliers around the world, including many that supply multi-unit installations for shopping centers, commercial buildings and multi-family housing. I think even a 5% share is unlikely because of that context.

Fast charging clearly is a very different matter precisely because the infrastructure is more complex, maintenance is greater and energy infrastructure is more expensive to operate. That combination is the only structural advantage to the Supercharger network. Specifically for North America the unreliability and fragility of CCS1 provides powerful incentive for OEM change to NACS. Because the EU is CCS2, as is Supercharging, the EU advantage is primarily a single EU-UK standard network vs the many dozens of national/regional ones.

Under current conditions Tesla L2 charger solutions are very much the premium priced solution, which thrives in part by having the capacity to directly recognize individual VINs. Others with very slightly less functionality are sometimes less than half the price. L2 also easily acts as ‘just another plug’ with only reduction in amperage due to being a continuous load.

Those and other factors ensure that Tesla will not derive significant financial benefit from L2. FWIW, the many third party multi-unit solutions from ChargePoint, EverCharge, and dozens of others are far cheaper than those postulated by @Usain above.

From my European perspective, the 500 euro Tesla wall charger is the cheapest charger on the market. A quick google says that typical chargers are 500-1200 euro. That’s for the hardware only. Installation by a competent electrician will cost about the same, assuming no major rework of the distribution box is needed (or even worse: digging in the ground).

 

[unk45]

I won't be at all surprised if you are right. We probably agree that the Tesla profit angle here is car demand. And after thinking about this a bit more, I'll say that Tesla has every motivation to make EV charging as dirt cheap as possible, even to the point of offering subsidy like they have been for a decade. The profit here is in car sales, and *perhaps* in the future from energy TOU arbitrage.

Yes! but the evolution of Autobidder and the licensing of Virtual Power Plants is already generating significant revenues and profits to Tesla VPP participants, also. The role of Destination charging. In that process may build on the linkage of energy storage, probably both Powerpack and Megapack. Including L2 charging in that equation is logical, even if only a factor to decrease charger operating costs.

Without question various evolutionary TE developments will continue to yield financial benefit in Supercharging as well as the entirety of TE. Equally clear is that we are only in the beginning stages of these developments.

within a year or two these will be material factors in TSLA, if they are not yet in 2023.

 

[Bet TSLA]

For those holding out for a discount (like me), Walter Isaacson's Elon biography is now available with significant savings at Costco. Found this at it's BC Canada location for CAD $26.89
View attachment 978642

Discount? I'm listening to the audiobook I got from the library. Something like: "the best cost is no cost"?