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

[nativewolf]

Please understand that the stationary storage market is global. There are numerous major competitors in large scale stationary storage, well documented both here and elsewhere. From CATL, Huawei, BYD , and Siemens and so on, noting a lost that includes some you've never imagined:

7 Battery Energy Storage Companies and Startups - GreyB

This report will discuss some major companies and startups innovating in the Battery Energy Storage System domain.

www.greyb.com

What many of us fail to recognize is that although Tesla invented the Autobidder and established the Hpornsdale Power Reserve, the rest of the world has been rapidly developing and now is far more wides[read than has been Tesla.

Indeed Tesla Energy has a bright future, which would have been much brighter had TE ramps been far faster and the sales and service functions and been staffed to support finicky public utility and commercial customers. Yes, growth, but much of that growth has been taken by those dozens of competitors.

Indeed, pouring cash into bright shiny objects 6 years ago starved both the 4680 development and the development of TE worldwide. There were virtually no players but Tesla did the worst thing possible. Created a market and business model and then did not invest. It is a mind boggling bad. It was at that point that I had my huh moment with Tesla. Today they are a tiny tiny niche player and CATL, LG, Samsung, BYD and many others are racing to fill it along with 100 generic entities.

Tesla will expand but what an opportunity missed. This would have dramatically moved the sustainability needle, it would have shifted the solar market forward by several years & shuttered many many more old plants.

I remain unconvinced as to either the profits nor sustainability outcome of TaaS. Energy though was perfectly aligned with very little capital required.

 

[Tony73]

I disagreed because there definitely is not a "staggering advantage" anymore. Ask anyone familiar with global storage projects who are the leaders today. Surprisingly Tesla is not on the list. In all those listed capabilities the established large commercial suppliers and large battery manufacturers are today capably of every feature Tesla has. Autobidder once was a big advantage, now there are several others with equal and superior technology partly because of integration with established technologies. In that arena companies such as Huawei and Siemens do have advantages, as do the major wind and solar equipment providers.

Just think about how CATL and BYD cooperate with China Energy Investment Group and National Grid, just to name two. Then thing of Samsung, supplier to many public utilities and corporations and a major battery manufacturer. LG is there too. This is a tiny, Asia-centric view. The Europeans are absolutely NOT asleep. GE, especially with wind, should be in this list too, but they are rather preoccupied with other issues so are just holding their own.

Tesla is a narrow specialist in this world, and they'll still thrive, but they are losing ground quickly because they have not grown with market maturity. Bluntly, the US is rapidly losing ground in many of these issues,
protectionism simply is not a suitable success factor when the rest f the world is evolving with lightning speed.
Next in the global target: AI it is quite impossible for the US to slow the global progress including China. protectionism never has worked and still does not.

Tesla’s competition in the stationary storage space are the big, vertically integrated Asian cell manufacturers; BYD, CATL, LG and Samsung. No western entity other than Tesla is going to achieve the scale needed to compete in that space. We should see a shakeout in the next few years. Many Tesla bulls are hoping security concerns will lock the Chinese out of the North American market but security concerns are way overblown. Chinese manufacturers can always integrate their systems with third party software.

Tesla is not losing ground; they are holding their own. This was never a market that one company was going to dominate.

 

[GatorMeat]

Indeed, pouring cash into bright shiny objects 6 years ago starved both the 4680 development and the development of TE worldwide. There were virtually no players but Tesla did the worst thing possible. Created a market and business model and then did not invest. It is a mind boggling bad. It was at that point that I had my huh moment with Tesla. Today they are a tiny tiny niche player and CATL, LG, Samsung, BYD and many others are racing to fill it along with 100 generic entities.

Tesla will expand but what an opportunity missed. This would have dramatically moved the sustainability needle, it would have shifted the solar market forward by several years & shuttered many many more old plants.

I remain unconvinced as to either the profits nor sustainability outcome of TaaS. Energy though was perfectly aligned with very little capital required.

Is Tesla building a top sales force? Or does Elon think they can just sell MP online and ignore sales and marketing? If TE customer service/sales is anything like automotive (non-existent and hard to find) then no wonder they don't get many projects.

 

[dhrivnak]

Please understand that the stationary storage market is global. There are numerous major competitors in large scale stationary storage, well documented both here and elsewhere. From CATL, Huawei, BYD , and Siemens and so on, noting a lost that includes some you've never imagined:

7 Battery Energy Storage Companies and Startups - GreyB

This report will discuss some major companies and startups innovating in the Battery Energy Storage System domain.

www.greyb.com

What many of us fail to recognize is that although Tesla invented the Autobidder and established the Hpornsdale Power Reserve, the rest of the world has been rapidly developing and now is far more wides[read than has been Tesla.

Indeed Tesla Energy has a bright future, which would have been much brighter had TE ramps been far faster and the sales and service functions and been staffed to support finicky public utility and commercial customers. Yes, growth, but much of that growth has been taken by those dozens of competitors.

How true. After trying to get PowerWalls for years I installed FranklinWH batteries for me and now 5 other clients. Tesla has been sleeping at the wheel over promising and under delivering from my perspective. Just look at the promises of the Semi and next generation Roadster

 

[wtlloyd]

Indeed, pouring cash into bright shiny objects 6 years ago starved both the 4680 development and the development of TE worldwide. There were virtually no players but Tesla did the worst thing possible. Created a market and business model and then did not invest. It is a mind boggling bad. It was at that point that I had my huh moment with Tesla. Today they are a tiny tiny niche player and CATL, LG, Samsung, BYD and many others are racing to fill it along with 100 generic entities.

Tesla will expand but what an opportunity missed. This would have dramatically moved the sustainability needle, it would have shifted the solar market forward by several years & shuttered many many more old plants.

I remain unconvinced as to either the profits nor sustainability outcome of TaaS. Energy though was perfectly aligned with very little capital required.

You make it sound like today's battery supply existed 6 years ago. There are other intelligent entities beyond Tesla in this world, and they too saw an obvious mass market opportunity being birthed. Henry Ford had competition even though he brought unprecedented scale to manufacturing vehicles.

 

[mongo]

Indeed, pouring cash into bright shiny objects 6 years ago starved both the 4680 development and the development of TE worldwide. There were virtually no players but Tesla did the worst thing possible. Created a market and business model and then did not invest. It is a mind boggling bad. It was at that point that I had my huh moment with Tesla. Today they are a tiny tiny niche player and CATL, LG, Samsung, BYD and many others are racing to fill it along with 100 generic entities.

Tesla will expand but what an opportunity missed. This would have dramatically moved the sustainability needle, it would have shifted the solar market forward by several years & shuttered many many more old plants.

I remain unconvinced as to either the profits nor sustainability outcome of TaaS. Energy though was perfectly aligned with very little capital required.

6 years ago the LFP chemistry used on Megapacks currently was restricted by worldwide patents which expired in 2022. China largely ignored them. How exactly was Tesla supposed to build more storage? Where was the cell supply?

6 Years ago, Tesla had under $3 Billion in cash and was just coming out of production hell. With what resources should they have pushed these products? Megapack was introduced 2019, that seems pretty reasonable.

What shiny objects did they pour cash into 6 years ago? Battery day was Sep 2020.

 

[Tony73]

Indeed, pouring cash into bright shiny objects 6 years ago starved both the 4680 development and the development of TE worldwide. There were virtually no players but Tesla did the worst thing possible. Created a market and business model and then did not invest. It is a mind boggling bad. It was at that point that I had my huh moment with Tesla. Today they are a tiny tiny niche player and CATL, LG, Samsung, BYD and many others are racing to fill it along with 100 generic entities.

Tesla will expand but what an opportunity missed. This would have dramatically moved the sustainability needle, it would have shifted the solar market forward by several years & shuttered many many more old plants.

I remain unconvinced as to either the profits nor sustainability outcome of TaaS. Energy though was perfectly aligned with very little capital required.

Tesla could only advance their storage business as fast as cell availability and market readiness allowed. It is only in the last couple of years that those factors have converged to create the environment we see today.

Last year, Tesla deployed 14.7 Gwh out of a total 97 Gwh globally. That is 15% market share globally. It’s even more impressive when you consider that the Chinese market is effectively closed off. Non-China marketshare is around 30%.

They should be able to maintain that marketshare in the long run.

 

[growler23]

It's weird that any teenager can learn to drive in a few months but to become an astronaut it takes years of training an only an elite few qualify. I agree though the path to fly into space is known and usually zero obstacles to worry about when the flight path is planned. Similar to creating autopilot to drive on an empty highway/motorway in terms of navigation.

This reminds me of a thought I often have about FSD.
We are spending billions of dollars ... running cutting edge AI chips ... employing world-leading AI experts ... burning GWh of energy ... toiling for years ...
to create a teenage brain that can barely pass the driving test
(I know, I know, but it is sort of true)

 

[Krugerrand]

Tesla is not losing ground; they are holding their own. This was never a market that one company was going to dominate.

Tesla never set out to dominate any market. It was created to spur on the world. It some ways that’s happened. In others not so much. The path has wandered a bit; the goal’s the same.

 

[Musskiah]

I understand there are several new entrants in the BESS market. Thank you @unk45 for the info, I very much value your insights along with @nativewolf and @2daMoon

FACT: Tesla is at the top, and will remain at the top of the BESS market. How do we know this? Two simple points (point (1) has 2 parts):

(1) "According to the IEA's Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions published on April 25, the global market for BESS doubled in 2023, reaching over 90 GWh."***

TESLA DELIVERED 14.7GWh OF A 90GWh market in 2023. In other words, TESLA ENERGY provided 16.3% of the entire BESS market in 2023 with many NEW players (still far fewer than the 60+ ESTABLISHED auto brands, still very dissimilar).

"Analysts at S&P Global Commodity Insights forecast global battery capacity in the power sector to rise above 600 GW in 2030."***

FROM LATHROP AND LINGANG ALONE, TESLA WILL HAVE MINIMALLY 80GWH OF CAPACITY BY 2030, LIKELY MUCH MORE AS SEVERAL MORE MEGAFACTORIES WILL BE DEPLOYED BY THEN. EVEN WITH ONLY 2 MEGAFACTORIES IN 2030 (AND THERE WILL BE MORE), TESLA ENERGY WILL MAINTAIN 13.3% (80GWH/600GWH) BESS 2030 MARKETSHARE.

***SOURCE: https://www.spglobal.com/commodityi...age-systems-capacity-doubles-in-2023-iea-says

(2) @unk45 According to your article, CAGR for BESS is expected to be 27% through 2030. Simply put, we know Tesla will grow faster than this until 2027 thanks to Lathrop and Lingang, likely nearer to 100% CAGR by deployment volume. The logic is simple: If Tesla Megapack production/deployment grows more than the global BESS market (~100% > 27%), they will capture more market share than the BESS competition. Furthermore, as they announce more Megafactories (Southeast Asia looks to be imminent), we will get more clarity to 2030.

 

[elasalle]

The world has been battery constrained- Tesla has been battery constrained

So should Tesla have prioritized its megapack/ powerwall business at the expense of car business?

 

[elasalle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784257467481756130

bottom line- try FSD

 

[Musskiah]

The world has been battery constrained- Tesla has been battery constrained

So should Tesla have prioritized its megapack/ powerwall business at the expense of car business?

^THIS

6 Years ago, Tesla had under $3 Billion in cash and was just coming out of production hell. With what resources should they have pushed these products? Megapack was introduced 2019, that seems pretty reasonable

^THIS

 

[Snerruc]

No wonder Teslackies want to fire him as CEO!
[/QUOTE]

It has been disappointing that there aren't already ten or so Megapacktories cranking out product. It has always seemed like another in the Central states (at GigaTexas?) and one on the East coast could have been built by now. Two or three in China as well, while we are waiting for the first there to begin production.

Fortunately, Tesla has the know-how and the bankroll to make strides. It would be nice to have a few more folks with key Elonesque qualities to spread the management load across in order to get 'er done.

Unfortunately, as Mr Musk said, there wasn’t sufficient battery supply to ramp, and we are not yet to the predicted oversupply. Without batteries no ramp.

 

[Usain]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1784247662121816424

Troy created this rumour and now Jordan has jumped on it…

I know it's fun to speculate on what the new models will be like, but it's just speculation. I've heard so many people give so many adamant opinions on this topic and yet nobody outside Tesla seems to really have a clue.

It sounds like we will get some answers on 8/8. I can wait.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Indeed, pouring cash into bright shiny objects 6 years ago starved both the 4680 development and the development of TE worldwide. There were virtually no players but Tesla did the worst thing possible. Created a market and business model and then did not invest. It is a mind boggling bad. It was at that point that I had my huh moment with Tesla. Today they are a tiny tiny niche player and CATL, LG, Samsung, BYD and many others are racing to fill it along with 100 generic entities.

Tesla will expand but what an opportunity missed. This would have dramatically moved the sustainability needle, it would have shifted the solar market forward by several years & shuttered many many more old plants.

I remain unconvinced as to either the profits nor sustainability outcome of TaaS. Energy though was perfectly aligned with very little capital required.

I think you are just making stuff up.

 

[2daMoon]

I disagreed because there definitely is not a "staggering advantage" anymore. Ask anyone familiar with global storage projects who are the leaders today. Surprisingly Tesla is not on the list. In all those listed capabilities the established large commercial suppliers and large battery manufacturers are today capably of every feature Tesla has. Autobidder once was a big advantage, now there are several others with equal and superior technology partly because of integration with established technologies. In that arena companies such as Huawei and Siemens do have advantages, as do the major wind and solar equipment providers.

Just think about how CATL and BYD cooperate with China Energy Investment Group and National Grid, just to name two. Then thing of Samsung, supplier to many public utilities and corporations and a major battery manufacturer. LG is there too. This is a tiny, Asia-centric view. The Europeans are absolutely NOT asleep. GE, especially with wind, should be in this list too, but they are rather preoccupied with other issues so are just holding their own.

Tesla is a narrow specialist in this world, and they'll still thrive, but they are losing ground quickly because they have not grown with market maturity. Bluntly, the US is rapidly losing ground in many of these issues,
protectionism simply is not a suitable success factor when the rest f the world is evolving with lightning speed.
Next in the global target: AI it is quite impossible for the US to slow the global progress including China. protectionism never has worked and still does not.

Maybe this is why Tesla isn't moving faster. If someone else is capably achieving that aspect of the Mission, it would be on par for Tesla to shift to technologies that will be more impactful where there is an absence of leading players.

Still, they could manage a 5% share of world megapack production and make good bank for decades, and also focus on other projects like BEV, AI, robotics, and whatever they come up with next.

 

[Musskiah]

no wonder they don't get many projects.

You could actually say they DO "get many projects": Tesla went from 6.3GWh (of 43 GWh total global BESS; or 14.6% market share) deployment in 2022 to 14.7 GWh (16.3% market share) in 2023. They GREW market share in a BESS market that MORE THAN DOUBLED (43 gWh ==> 90GWh) from 2022 to 2023. This is because they grew faster than 100% YOY; so they got many projects.

 

[2daMoon]

How true. After trying to get PowerWalls for years I installed FranklinWH batteries for me and now 5 other clients. Tesla has been sleeping at the wheel over promising and under delivering from my perspective. Just look at the promises of the Semi and next generation Roadster

Stop with the word "promises" already. Nobody at Tesla ever promised you anything.

They made projections and told us there might be hurdles to overcome.

This is not, in any stretch of the imagination, something any but a person addicted to drama might consider being a promise.

Just because someone hopes it will come true doesn't make it a promise.

 

[2daMoon]

This reminds me of a thought I often have about FSD.
We are spending billions of dollars ... running cutting edge AI chips ... employing world-leading AI experts ... burning GWh of energy ... toiling for years ...
to create a teenage brain that can barely pass the driving test
(I know, I know, but it is sort of true)

Okay, there is something to that.

Though, for context, think about how long it took to get the teenage brain to that point. (millennia)