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

[RobStark]

I've never considered a car that had meteorite protection.

Rather have same day fender. Like 99.5% of the population.

 

[lascavarian]

OT- having a hard time with the physics of this scenario, wouldn't the model three oscillate back and for and eventually end up at the center, and be crushed by gravity?

I love this thought experiment. Always seems to me that once having gotten to the exact center, weight is essentially zero since all the mass of Earth is attracting equally from above in all directions thus canceling out. Also implying zero atmospheric pressure. If correct it would seem that compression heating would also diminish so there might be a coolish solid sphere or even a void at the center surrounded low density but hot liquid but I have no guess of what size.

 

[RobStark]

Forget the one more thing. The minute Y reservations are opened, I submit my deposit. I'm quite sure there are at minimum many tens of thousands of other 3 owners in the same boat.

Elon said he is not sure they will do reservations for Model Y.

Outside North America there was not that much advantage to having a reservation for almost 3 years vs ordering January 2019. It remains to be seen whether there will be much advantage for Americans wanting a SR Model 3 or a base stripper $35k Model 3.

They did reservations to gauge demand.

They can now extrapolate Model Y demand based on Model 3 demand.

Giving new set of customers and circumstances, Model Y reservations might be underwhelming. Actual demand will not be underwhelming, just a greater percentage of people will wait to just place orders directly without a reservation once configurator opens to the general public.

 

[MXWing]

Giving new set of customers and circumstances, Model Y reservations might be underwhelming. Actual demand will not be underwhelming, just a greater percentage of people will wait to just place orders directly without a reservation once configurator opens to the general public.

Unless there was an incentive to reserve and put down a deposit.

Special color run or something of that nature.

 

[mongo]

In a hypothetical hyperloop, built to withstand the pressure and temperature at the center of Earth and evacuated to a perfect vacuum, the hyperloop pod could travel from one side of the Earth to the other without any energy spent. To account for very small friction losses, the pod could be made to arrive at the bottom of some tunnel, and then energy equivalent to the friction losses would need to be spent to elevate the pod the last distance up to the surface.

The gravity in the mid point of this hyperloop would actually be zero (and thus not crushing). This can be understood from thinking of Earth as consisting of two symmetric halves each pierced by their half of the hyperloop and each pulling with forces that cancel each other out when the pod passes the center (at very high speed, with a kinetic energy exactly equal to the energy it would take to elevate the resting pod from the center and back to the surface).

If the pod would not be grabbed when its speed reaches zero (at its ending station), it would fall back towards the other end. These falls back and forth would indeed oscillate and any friction losses would cause the magnitude of the falls to decrease. In this scenario, the pod would end up weightless at the center. Any perturbation of the pod away from the center would bring it into a (small) gravity field (proportional to its distance from the center), from which it would again oscillate back to the center.

This is all hypothetical until someone figures out how to build a hyperloop that can with stand the pressure and temperature at the center of the Earth - and completely evacuate the tunnel. It could maybe work better on Mars, which I think has a solid core...

There is actually a Wikipedia article that describes this,
Gravity train - Wikipedia

PS. The maximum speed reached by the pod, which is when it passes the center, must be less than Earth's escape velocity (since that is what it takes to completely leave Earth's gravitational pull), but it must be more or less of the same magnitude, so several km per second - unless I am too tired to think straight.

This works with any frictionless straight tunnel whether it goes through the center or not.

I love this thought experiment. Always seems to me that once having gotten to the exact center, weight is essentially zero since all the mass of Earth is attracting equally from above in all directions thus canceling out. Also implying zero atmospheric pressure. If correct it would seem that compression heating would also diminish so there might be a coolish solid sphere or even a void at the center surrounded low density but hot liquid but I have no guess of what size.

The core is hot from radioactive decay and original formation. The air at the center has net zero force, but you still have column of air up to space pressing down, along with the subsurface air that has move force on it as you move away from the center.

 

[gringotuanis]

That's just not true. Tesla (and SpaceX too for that matter) have a vision of the future that I share at least in part. Not completely, but moreso than, say GM, Ford, BMW, et al. I am retired now but if still in the market, I would love to work at Tesla (or SpaceX). I wouldn't work at most of the other car companies. All my life, I have cared about my job as well as my company's interests. IMHO that is what made me enough of a valuable employee that I lasted 31 years before retiring.

There is no such loyalty like companies used to have for employees anymore. That's why we younger folks just leave. The company will cut you in a heartbeat.

 

[gringotuanis]

AI is better at bluffing than professional gamblers

The timing of this tweet was odd. One day before the firing happened. I thought more ppl would comment on Musk posting this and am surprised this is the first one ive seen. Tesla may have some tricks coming up...

 

[HG Wells]

No comments about Q4 results January 30th ?
Or did I miss it ?
Tesla's Full Year, Q4 2018 financial report and earnings call set for January 30

 

[dc_h]

Also consider increased MPG of the fleet as older guzzlers drop out. If the world's fleet of ICE stays ~constant but MPG raises, then that also decreases demand in theory.

More important will be ride self driving and taxi services (if FSD is delayed) in major urban centers. Many EV’s will be driving 100,000 and more miles a year. Madrid is banning diesel from the city center, which is great, beauty clean city with too much diesel stink. EV taxis in Europe will displace miles of many cars. If FSD happens by 2020-2021 miles driven for EV will rise many times the rate of EV sales increases. If only 10% of Tesla’s are rented out for FSD robocabs, 10 cars would replace 20 ICE car miles. 10 million EV’s could displace 20 million ICE car miles and that could be a very conservative estimate, if 20% of owners turned their cars into robocabs they could replace 30 million ICE miles, assuming robocabs would drive 100,000 miles a year. In big cities FSD cabs could drive 200 or 300,000 miles a year.

 

[EVNow]

Also consider increased MPG of the fleet as older guzzlers drop out. If the world's fleet of ICE stays ~constant but MPG raises, then that also decreases demand in theory.

I had some posts on this before. Currently for every 1 EV sold, 35 first time owners are buying an ICE.

BTW, recession seems to have a far more meaningful impact on petroleum demand now than other things.

 

[KarenRei]

Elon said he is not sure they will do reservations for Model Y.

It's dangerous. If fewer people place reservations (after seeing how little having a reservation affected your place in line in many cases with the Model 3), then it'll look like there's not as much demand for Model Y as with Model 3, which could spook the markets.

Model 3 reservations were also useful as a source of cash (even though it came with a corresponding debt obligation) to help fund the scaleup. But Model 3 is turning into a cash cow now, so it's not as critical. Still, that said, Tesla can certainly use every dollar they can get, so...

 

[anthonyj]

No comments about Q4 results January 30th ?
Or did I miss it ?
Tesla's Full Year, Q4 2018 financial report and earnings call set for January 30

It’s flying under the radar. Last time early ER was announced it was all over stocktwits, yahoo message boards, media

 

[dc_h]

Exactly. It's the relative dip piece that those miss when asking why folks didn't buy the last time the stock was at a particular level. If it's dropped over several weeks and a lot of news, I may not add more. But when something that's clearly not valid bad news brings a significant overnight drop, then I buy some trading shares. It's basically free money.



Forget the one more thing. The minute Y reservations are opened, I submit my deposit. I'm quite sure there are at minimum many tens of thousands of other 3 owners in the same boat.

I wonder if they’ll try to manage deposits and make reservations 2500 and be more clear that year one will be all high end models?

 

[AudubonB]

In a hypothetical hyperloop, built to withstand the pressure and temperature at the center of Earth and evacuated to a perfect vacuum, the hyperloop pod could travel from one side of the Earth to the other without any energy spent. To account for very small friction losses, the pod could be made to arrive at the bottom of some tunnel, and then energy equivalent to the friction losses would need to be spent to elevate the pod the last distance up to the surface.

The gravity in the mid point of this hyperloop would actually be zero (and thus not crushing), decreasing gradually from 1 g. This can be understood from thinking of Earth as consisting of two symmetric halves each pierced by their half of the hyperloop and each pulling with forces that cancel each other out when the pod passes the center (at very high speed, with a kinetic energy exactly equal to the energy it would take to elevate the resting pod from the center and back to the surface).

If the pod would not be grabbed when its speed reaches zero (at its ending station), it would fall back towards the other end. These falls back and forth would indeed oscillate and any friction losses would cause the magnitude of the falls to decrease. In this scenario, the pod would end up weightless at the center. Any perturbation of the pod away from the center would bring it into a (small) gravity field (proportional to its distance from the center), from which it would again oscillate back to the center.

This is all hypothetical until someone figures out how to build a hyperloop that can with stand the pressure and temperature at the center of the Earth - and completely evacuate the tunnel. It could maybe work better on Mars, which I think has a solid core...

There is actually a Wikipedia article that describes this,
Gravity train - Wikipedia

PS. The maximum speed reached by the pod, which is when it passes the center, must be less than Earth's escape velocity (since that is what it takes to completely leave Earth's gravitational pull), but it must be more or less of the same magnitude, so several km per second - unless I am too tired to think straight.

Alas, it is all for naught*, as that tunnel departing Fremont and passing through the center of the earth ends up.....here====>

* Unless it's Mr Musk's Lotus, of course.

 

[Zaxxon]

Elon said he is not sure they will do reservations for Model Y.

I'd bet that they do reservations. You make good points, but at the end of the day it's easy money, esp now that Musk is in full-on no cap raise mode.

No comments about Q4 results January 30th ?
Or did I miss it ?
Tesla's Full Year, Q4 2018 financial report and earnings call set for January 30

Yes, you missed it. If you spot news that isn't single-digit minutes old, it's *always* here first. I'm amazed that people still genuinely and routinely come to this thread with day-old newsnews think there's any chance they're first. Maybe in obscure cases, but never something coming straight from Tesla.

 

[Krugerrand]

Rather have same day fender. Like 99.5% of the population.

Stop. Nobody gets same day fender let alone thinks about it. It’s only on some people’s mind because Tesla is under a microscope. Plenty of others have dealt with bodywork delays for other makes of cars.

 

[Krugerrand]

I've never considered a car that had meteorite protection.

Why, not? That’s top 3 concern on my list.

 

[printf42]

The timing of this tweet was odd. One day before the firing happened. I thought more ppl would comment on Musk posting this and am surprised this is the first one ive seen. Tesla may have some tricks coming up...

Don’t need to be something special, just casually mention Elon & Friends owns 101% of TSLA now.

 

[gringotuanis]

Stop. Nobody gets same day fender let alone thinks about it. It’s only on some people’s mind because Tesla is under a microscope. Plenty of others have dealt with bodywork delays for other makes of cars.

Yeah but months for a part in the US is unheard of. Tesla really needs to get their service and parts areas together. Gotta retain customers.

 

[gringotuanis]

Don’t need to be something special, just casually mention Elon & Friends owns 101% of TSLA now.

I think that would qualify as special. Just so they buy me out at $450 per share I'm good with it.