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

[Dreadnought]

The other car must have been made by a manufacturer that advertises, and sold by a dealer that advertises.

Crashes involving a Lamborghini or Porsche usually feature the brand name in the headline, too and these companies do advertise. It's serving schadenfreude ("rich AF but doesn't know how to handle a fast car") to those secretly envious and through this gets eyeballs. It will eventually subside as Teslas become more commonplace and the average Joe realizes that they are no longer a plaything for the rich.

My last attempt at reading between the lines didn't go so well but here I go again, unable to stop myself from dissecting the article. In particular, I got hung up on this piece:

Los Angeles Fire dispatcher Margaret Stewart said two patients had to be extricated from one of the vehicles. A woman was declared dead at the scene.

No mention of the condition of the occupant(s) of the other car. My conclusion: The Tesla driver walked away unharmed. Otherwise, it would've been mentioned at least three times and AP blaimed. English not being my first language, I may be wrong again. But if they "forgot" to mention that the Tesla occupant(s) remained unscathed whereas in the other car one person died and another one almost - now that would be some great example of creative journalism.

Ed: punctuation and wording

 

[Buckminster]

Even wilder possibility: they will announce cybertruck, regular pickup, panel van, people carrier and camper all based on the same platform. Where the platform consists of: battery, drive train, electrics, sensors, electronics, software, FSD. But not mechanics, stampings, moldings.

I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed. Expect a bog standard Cybertruck straight out of 2030. Standard features - bullet proof, amphibious with occasional flying capability.

 

[Fact Checking]

In case Elon is reading this, please tell Einhorn that shareholders appose the idea to give a short special treatment. Real investors should have priority to meet with Elon and tour the factories. After all investors had their turns, than shorts can have a chance (maybe in 2045). Einhorn doesn't deserve it.

While you are right for most shorts, I do think what Elon is attempting here might work out to the advantage of Tesla investors:

• David Einhorn isn't just any short, he is perhaps the biggest, most well known Tesla short. Taking out an enemy general - via arms, money or persuasion - and weakening his army is well accepted military tactics.
• There's reliable reports that Einhorn isn't an anti-social douchebag - instead he somehow got sucked into the TSLAQ cult and is still short Tesla more due to stubbornness than conviction. I.e. Einhorn might be a "weak short", a weak link, and if Elon manages to turn or pacify Einhorn, it would be a major coup with far reaching consequences. Note how Elon didn't attempt any communications with Jim Chanos, who is a lying scumbag who knows exactly what he is doing.
• Highly visible acts of de-escalation would also weaken the "Tesla is targeting shorts unfairly" media narrative.
  
• I also suspect Elon is intellectually curious about the arguments of one of the "leaders" of the shorts who seems to be genuinely convinced that Tesla should be shorted.
• Technically if Einhorn lost 1 billion dollars shorting Tesla, then he transferred those funds to Tesla investors - and didn't get any shares in return. I.e. big shorts deep in the red can be considered involuntary Tesla investors, who, despite their best efforts to harm Tesla, actually ended up transferring money to Tesla investors.

I.e. I think the risks of this stunt going bad seem fairly low at the moment, and the potential upsides are significant.

I do agree that Elon shouldn't make a habit out of this - shorting Tesla shouldn't be rewarded. Or at minimum there should be a clearly formulated policy:

"If you are a Tesla short you are only eligible for a Fremont factory tour if you have a proven track record of losing at least 1 billion dollars. If your losses are higher than 2 billion dollars then Elon might accompany you. Beyond losses of 5 billion dollars you are eligible for the gold plated "Biggest Loser TMC award", funded by TMC members."​

 

[Mars ☰mperor]

Holy moly, the order rate is like rocket launch.

When will TMC support emoji? Using the rocket emoji would be super fitting in this occasion.

T☰SLA Mania on Twitter

Latest leak shows how fast Tesla is receiving orders for Giga Shanghai Model 3

Simply mind blowing

FYI, ”新订单通知” means “New Order Notification”

​

 

[CorneliusXX]

Einhorn could visit the factory and still claim it's all a fraud because he didn't see a $5B pile of cash anywhere.

It was hiding behind their other $600mm

 

[Tslynk67]

Mark Spigel having an absolute meltdown on Twitter, its such a treat to watch

As always, please provide a relevant link so we don't have to go wading through tweets...

 

[SpaceCash]

As always, please provide a relevant link so we don't have to go wading through tweets...

I don't even care what Shmark Snibbles is doing

 

[Tslynk67]

In case Elon is reading this, please tell Einhorn that shareholders appose the idea to give a short special treatment. Real investors should have priority to meet with Elon and tour the factories. After all investors had their turns, than shorts can have a chance (maybe in 2045). Einhorn doesn't deserve it.

Maybe but imagine the scenario where Einhorn was to go to Tesla, see the progress, chat in-depth with Elon and Zachary, and come away understanding his short position was only going to get worse and cover.

How would you think the market would react to that? I think it might be rather positive.

Of course he's probably too stubborn and entrenched in his beliefs to do that even when handed all the facts, but would be a very interesting development.

 

[Singer3000]

Maybe but imagine the scenario where Einhorn was to go to Tesla, see the progress, chat in-depth with Elon and Zachary, and come away understanding his short position was only going to get worse and cover.

How would you think the market would react to that? I think it might be rather positive.

Of course he's probably too stubborn and entrenched in his beliefs to do that even when handed all the facts, but would be a very interesting development.

I doubt he’ll change his position until the SolarCity case is over. But if he’s a savvy investor he’ll then listen to new facts, get reasonable answers to any reasonable and unreasonable questions and change his view accordingly.

It’s quite hard to take a neutral or positive view on a company once a negative opinion has formed and requires intellectual flexibility and courage.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Maybe but imagine the scenario where Einhorn was to go to Tesla, see the progress, chat in-depth with Elon and Zachary, and come away understanding his short position was only going to get worse and cover.

How would you think the market would react to that? I think it might be rather positive.

Of course he's probably too stubborn and entrenched in his beliefs to do that even when handed all the facts, but would be a very interesting development.

Agreed. Elon is so convincing in direct conversation. When you see in depth interviews, or even some of his depositions to a certain extent, the level of detail he can dive into and his capacity to frame the situation from the base level assumptions and building from there is mesmerising.

I think there is a reasonable chance that if Elon showed the unicorn around the factory, detailing the technical achievements, explaining where the MY will start production in the near future, hundreds of thousands of more vehicles will be produced per year will little capex cost, etc. Then Zach walked him through the balance sheet in more detail, there is a reasonable chance of flipping Einhorn.

as @Fact Checking said. the potential upside of flipping one of the prime shorts is worth some risk.

It also would bring in an argument that the only reason people are short is because they don't understand the business. And now we have evidence of that.

 

[lklundin]

Cognitive dissonance. He has lost a sh%t-ton of money on his ideas that Tesla is a fraud and will crash. His mind is protecting itself by blocking out any information that disputes this. Even intelligent people can fall victim to this.

I will not speculate that David Einhorn's reaction is emotional.

It is just as possible that he is questioning Tesla and Elon Musk because he assumes that other short sellers are basing their trading on his reaction and he wants to dupe them into short selling TSLA even more, as opposed to them buying back any short sold TSLA, which would drive his own short position even more into the red.

Edit: To conclude, I read Einhorn's reaction not as a reply to Musk, but as (misleading) guidance to short sellers who look to Einhorn for trading advice.

 

[printf42]

OT:
I didn’t follow very closely who started to steer the “one more thing” expectation for the truck event.
But I would suspect there are trolls trying to setup a disappointment for the event, by pushing unrealistic expectations.

My take is, there is no “one more thing”, no normal looking truck, no panel van, no other derivatives of the same platform.(except concept drawings maybe)

But, one feature could become the highlight of the day, in Elon’s Air Force event speech, he used the phrase “it’s literally bulletproof” to describe the pickup, I think he really means the truck will be bulletproof.
Fireside Chat: Lt Gen Thompson & Elon Musk
We know the semi has bulletproof windshield so Tesla is already researching those glasses. Plus we are almost certain the windshield of pickup span all the way from roof top to front bumper, means it could(or have to) become a structural component, which need to use very strong glass. Btw, it’s perfectly flat, probably the best shape for thick ballistic glass without distorting the view.
For doors and other body panels, they could be fitted with titanium plate similar to the under body panel in Model S, all even directly made of titanium panels(in that case the base color of the truck would be naked titanium, ).

So my “one more thing” is, Tesla will announce the expected Protection Level Rating of the truck, which may not be as good as an APC, but enough to survive a zombie apocalypse.
Even the civilized Model X has the bio defense mode, is it really too much to ask for a bulletproof truck?

 

[ReflexFunds]

A replaceable electrolyte design is a very interesting idea. Remember several months ago Dahn’s group published research on a lithium metal anode cell design (this is the key benefit of solid state batteries) but with a liquid electrolyte.
The key problem with the early iteration of this R&D was that the cell could get to around 90 cycles before the dual lithium salts in the electrolyte began to be depleted.

Tesla could potentially create very high energy density cells (perhaps supporting 500 mile+ range cars in a model 3 LR sized pack), then with some limited improvements to cycle life of Dahn’s lithium metal anode cell (perhaps to 200-300) Tesla could create a car battery pack which just needs to have a simple electrolyte replacement every 100-200,000 miles.
Of course it’s questionable how simple electrolyte replacement could ever really be in practice.
Perhaps the best application of this could be in electric planes where higher energy density is so critical. Here the cost of electrolyte replacement is likely to be much less of a barrier to adoption.

A few thoughts on how the pieces of Tesla’s future battery strategy will come together (based on acquisitions, press leaks, published scientific papers, patents and speculation):

• Use relatively short term contracts for cell supply from CATL/LG/Panasonic to bridge to ramp of in-house cell production.
• Tesla builds a huge factory to build Grohmann/Maxwells/Hibar/in-house manufacturing equipment at scale - bringing down equipment capex cost.
  
• Maxwell dry electrode tech to reduce manufacturing cost and footprint.
• Maxwell dry electrode tech leads to better physical properties, in particular allowing thicker cathodes.
• Hibar designs systems for their electrolyte insertion IP during the cell manufacturing process.
• Build single crystal cathodes - possibly helped by Maxwell process/other in-house R&D. This was a big part of the 1 million mile cells tested by Dahn.
• Use very carefully selected electrolyte additives following Dahn research.
• Highly automated manufacturing process to reduce staffing bottlenecks to production ramp.
• Integrated cell, module, pack design and manufacturing process to simplify production, reduce footprint and reduce cost.
• Dahn lithium metal anode allows for much thinner anode, higher energy densities and longer cathode/anode life, but at the expense of shorter electrolyte life.
• Replaceable electrolyte design allows to replace the electrolyte and extend lithium metal anode battery life.
• Develop Hibar machines to allow easy electrolyte replacement in service centres.
• Dahn research is used to eliminate cobalt from the cathode leaving just Nickel Aliminium or Nickel Manganese.

Missing pieces (presumably many are happening behind the scenes):

• Reveal other in-house cell manufacturing processes which have been developed in-house over the past 10 years.
  
• Buy Panasonic’s GF1 business for cell manufacturing employee experience and other cell IP.
  
• Buy out other GF1 suppliers.
  
• Buy/build Cathode powder manufacturing expertise. Nanoone could be a good target if their process will help make single crystal cathodes.
• Buy Nickel processor expertise - this will be a huge % of cell cost.
• Buy lithium carbonate/hydroxide integrated mine/processing expertise.
• Reduce cathode kg per kWh to reduce raw material cost

I'll note that none of this will happen at the same time. These are various steps and incremental improvements that may or may not be introduced once they have been proven ready for affordable mass manufacturing.

 

[lklundin]

Anyway, what I stopped by to ask is, how is it possible that MIC Tesla Model 3's are roaming the streets of Shanghai without (temporary/dealer) registration plates?
See e.g.
T☰SLA Mania on Twitter

- to my knowledge Tesla has not yet received permission to sell their MIC Model 3's so I would have expected these cars to at least have some kind of dealer plates (which would still assume the vehicles are at this point allowed on public, Chinese roads, which does not seem an obvious thing).

PS. Answered:
Jay in Shanghai on Twitter

 

[GFernandes]

Looks like average 1 per second. That's 57,600 orders per 16hr day. This is probably at the peak time of day and obviously cherry picked so let's say 20,000 per day?

It looks more like 5 minutes have passed and 5 orders were received.

Assuming its peak time this would be around 900/day on the 16hr day so maybe 50% of that would be the real rate of orders?

450-500/day its 3500/week which is slightly above of the production capacity, this would be great and very efficient for Tesla

 

[mongo]

You guys talking about engine displacement reminded me of an old rule of thumb that was etched in stone:

There's no replacement for displacement.

So, what's the displacement of a P100D?

A P100D has a 8,256 cylinder power plant displacing* around 130 liters (8,000 cubic inches).

Aaannnd - it's the weekend!

"There's no replacement for displacement"
Is what they used to swear by.
Those now rely on grandma's basement
To live...and EVer rue ICE thereby.

What days are these when even the mods tempt fate with poetry on the investor thread. End times. Golden years. Halcyon?

*displacement may be a stretch since they never (hopefully) have combustion or exhaust cycles.

 

[jschwefel]

A few thoughts on how the pieces of Tesla’s future battery strategy will come together (based on acquisitions, press leaks, published scientific papers, patents and speculation):

• Use relatively short term contracts for cell supply from CATL/LG/Panasonic to bridge to ramp of in-house cell production.
• Tesla builds a huge factory to build Grohmann/Maxwells/Hibar/in-house manufacturing equipment at scale - bringing down equipment capex cost.
  
• Maxwell dry electrode tech to reduce manufacturing cost and footprint.
• Maxwell dry electrode tech leads to better physical properties, in particular allowing thicker cathodes.
• Hibar designs systems for their electrolyte insertion IP during the cell manufacturing process.
• Build single crystal cathodes - possibly helped by Maxwell process/other in-house R&D. This was a big part of the 1 million mile cells tested by Dahn.
• Use very carefully selected electrolyte additives following Dahn research.
• Highly automated manufacturing process to reduce staffing bottlenecks to production ramp.
• Integrated cell, module, pack design and manufacturing process to simplify production, reduce footprint and reduce cost.
• Dahn lithium metal anode allows for much thinner anode, higher energy densities and longer cathode/anode life, but at the expense of shorter electrolyte life.
• Replaceable electrolyte design allows to replace the electrolyte and extend lithium metal anode battery life.
• Develop Hibar machines to allow easy electrolyte replacement in service centres.
• Dahn research is used to eliminate cobalt from the cathode leaving just Nickel Aliminium or Nickel Manganese.

Missing pieces (presumably many are happening behind the scenes):

• Reveal other in-house cell manufacturing processes which have been developed in-house over the past 10 years.
  
• Buy Panasonic’s GF1 business for cell manufacturing employee experience and other cell IP.
  
• Buy out other GF1 suppliers.
  
• Buy/build Cathode powder manufacturing expertise. Possibly Nanoone’s process will help.
• Buy Nickel processor expertise - this will be a huge % of cell cost.
• Buy lithium carbonate/hydroxide integrated mine/processing expertise.
• Reduce cathode kg per kWh to reduce raw material cost

FWIW, Tesla patented a hybrid battery design about five years ago. At the time they were pairing lithium ion and metal air for 400+ mile range. The lithium ion portion would be used for short trips (daily use), and the metal air would be used for the occasional long trips. Maybe this concept is still alive but with different battery technologies.

 

[mongo]

Historically naive, that's rich. The plant was not built for Silevo. Construction did not start until three months after SolarCity bought Silevo in June 2014. The original Silevo design was very different, and much smaller with a 475 job target. SolarCity upsized the design, and the cost to taxpayers, sixfold.

Numbers I dug up for reference:
Original plan was $225 million R&D center with 475 jobs. This expanded to a $350 million production building and up to $400 million in equipment with peak of 2,000+ jobs. On a job per $ incentive basis, SolarCity would have been a better deal. Depending on sales taxes and corp revenue, a production operation also seems more favorable.

A chunk of the base cost was likely site remediation, so the true delta on a percentage basis is probably higher.



Gigafactory 2 - Wikipedia

Is SolarCity's Buffalo Solar Plant a Failure? Tesla Thinks So | The Motley Fool

 

[hobbes]

Model S/X is off the list due to 60,000 EUR limit (I think I was wrong on that before as I remembered there used to be a 59,999 version of Model S which Tesla dropped later though). But that limit also keeps Audi etron off the list. Proposed limit on length for 2020 which would have cut out Model 3 did not make it.

Starting in December, even California will have a $60,000 MSRP limit for eligibility, so the same in Germany should not be too suspicious I guess (What should I know about the December 3rd program changes?).

Another update on German incentives - according to nextmove weekly news the upper limit will be dropped, which means both Model X and Model S will be back on the list, along with Audi etron, Taycan... Now you can say the timing is suspicious (dropping it after Taycan and etron are out and not for Model S)... But still, going to help all of them and our/Tesla´s goal is to move the world to renewable energy, right ?!

Source (sorry, German):
youtu.be/AGOyPnsOF5g?t=358

 

[Krugerrand]

It looks more like 5 minutes have passed and 5 orders were received.

Assuming its peak time this would be around 900/day on the 16hr day so maybe 50% of that would be the real rate of orders?

450-500/day its 3500/week which is slightly above of the production capacity, this would be great and very efficient for Tesla

Looks like a bunch of Chinese characters and random tiny boxes of various shades of grey to me.