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

[KarenRei]

This is probably very helpful for those who can understand what the person is saying.

You can't see how ridiculously slowly the display is responding?

 

[LN1_Casey]

You can't see how ridiculously slow the display is responding?

I can, as well as the weird AF twist nob operation; but IDK how that would translate to OTA updates. I mean, they probably only need a dial-up connection to download their OTA updates, since it's so basic. ;-)

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

that touch screen looks awful, and seems to have a framerate that makes my MCU1 model S screen look silky smooth!

 

[jerry33]

Unless there have been some improvements in airless tires that I don't know about, you will be disappointed. Airless tires have unacceptable disadvantages at the moment (noise and harshness, lack of high-speed capability and difficulty with heat dissipation) which is why even vehicles in Presidental motorcades have run-flats, not airless tires.

100% agree with the addition of high rolling resistance. Even if everything in the list has been solved, the reduced range would keep airless tires off the Cybrtrk. As far as I know, the state of the art of airless tires is they are great for backhoes.

 

[jerry33]

Dealerships everywhere, service centers everywhere

So does Nissan. Just try getting service for a Leaf, unless you are willing to leave the car for an extended period, or perhaps go to a different Nissan dealer because the single Leaf tech has quit or is on vacation. We have a Leaf because Denise didn't want to drive an S size car and in 2015 there wasn't a viable alternative. Ford will do no better. You're assuming that Ford will have Tesla quality service--ain't gonna happen. All you'll get from Ford is dealer type service with pressure to have extra unneeded, but costly, service performed.

 

[ReflexFunds]

Dealerships everywhere, service centers everywhere (to include model Y and maybe 3) and a back door to full federal tax rebate. That is what Ford offers. Look at the specs and versions. There is almost 0 chance this is not a model Y skate. Will they actually announce the partnership and will Elon be there are my only unknowns.

How are service centers full of engine mechanics valuable to an EV company?
You need battery and motor experts and electrical engineering expertise. This a completely different skillset and it is not going to be easy to hire new staff with these skills. It only makes sense to hire these new staff in proportion to EV fleet size - hence Ford will have far fewer than Tesla with less geographical coverage.
You also need different machinery to repair EV powertrains.

Model Y skate? Have you not seen the efficiency and charge speed differential? This is all that matters. Any specs are possible if you don't care about production cost and put a large enough battery in. And it is production cost that determines if you are really incentivised to grow EV sales as fast as possible or whether you are just going to build for compliance limits.

Model Y SR+: Likely a 55kWh battery. Range - Likely 240 miles.
Mach-E base: A 76kWh battery. Range - Hoping for 230 miles.

 

[electracity]

I like the Mach E a lot. But I agree that many aspects of owning the car will lag behind Tesla. The Bolt is an unexciting yet competent car. The Mach E seems to be a car that some people can get excited about. If The Mach E matches the Bolt in quality and function it should sell decently IMO.

But the horrid history of big auto designing the software interface may be the biggest risk here.

 

[Mike Smith]

Toni Sacconaghi reiterates 325 price target

3 Reasons Tesla's (TSLA) Pickup Unlikely to be a Major Catalyst - Bernstein

 

[jerry33]

It has that big hood with a largish frunk but my experience is that most people use the frunk reservedly so I don't know if that space will be optimally utilized.

We use the frunk on every trip. It's the best suitcase ever.

 

[jerry33]

From what we know, or what is rumored, battery PACKS have NOT been a limiting factor since about Fall 2017 when Tesla replaced the useless junk automated bty pack robots with Grohmann v1 bty pack robots.

Obsolete would be a better term then junk. They certainly weren't junk when first installed--it's just that the technology has advanced.

 

[jerry33]

View attachment 478224



View attachment 478222

2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E Is an Ambitious Electric Crossover With a Muscle Car's Name

The part about Ford matching Tesla service will be a joke in practice.

 

[bhtooefr]

Here's one thing that I don't think anyone's pointed out: the dev cycle for the Mach-E has only been 2 years so far per the launch presentation, with one more year planned before the cars ship.

Three years is ludicrous, especially on a new platform. Not even Tesla's pulled that off (AFAIK WhiteStar (Model S) was started in 2007, and BlueStar (Model 3) was on the roadmaps in 2007).

I expect this to either be late or half-baked. (Or both. Why not both?)

 

[Unpilot]

Toni Sacconaghi reiterates 325 price target

3 Reasons Tesla's (TSLA) Pickup Unlikely to be a Major Catalyst - Bernstein

Paywalled

 

[jerry33]

Unfortunately, many Tesla owners need to take their cars to actual service centers where waits can be very long.

You mean like the three month wait for one the of Prius' services, or the one month wait for one of the VW services? Compared to the one day wait for the Tesla?

Most of the car buying public trust traditional auto companies more than Tesla

If that wasn't somewhat true, there would be a three year wait for your next Tesla. Though I haven't trusted traditional auto companies for decades--just couldn't do anything about it while still driving a car (anecdotal, not data).

 

[JRP3]

Wrong on most points.
Prismatic cells (or rather packaging) wont change those properties of the batteries. Other car makers are using NMC type cell material which is safer but more expensive. Tesla uses NCA which is cheaper, has slightly higher energy density but not as safe (lower thermal runaway temperature).
NMC lasts longer than NCA. So wrong on that point as well.

This actually correct. There is a reason Tesla has had more battery fires per unit than any other EV. NMC density is improving and newer formulations using less cobalt should be cheaper. Remember that all of Dahn's work has been with NMC chemistry, I expect Tesla will eventually switch to it, probably already being used in the Semi.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

There's a "Tesla Competition Developments" thread, right?

 

[svp6]

The efficiency of the electric drivetrain is clearly below Tesla. However, since Ford took a lot of "inspiration" from Tesla I expect it can follow also on the software tweaks and improve the range in the process. They stated that all cars are logged on - much like Tesla - which will enable them to have real world data feedback. I suspect the range may slightly increase within the first year of production.

As for the rage of using the Mustang name on a CUV - I think the idea is spot on. When I think of Ford I think average cars - except for the Mustang, which was always a halo car for the company. Ford took another page from Tesla's playbook: start at the top vehicle, make it sexy and fast - make it an exciting car. I definitely like it better than any other current electric SUV.

 

[X Fan]

At purely the cell level, using generic NMC and NCA cells from some random battery supplier, in a figurative (not literal) vacuum, these points may be valid.

However, everyone else continues to struggle and/or give up developing the necessary surrounding methods and technologies to take advantage of the supposed NMC advantages, piling inefficiency on inefficiency (packaging, thermal, production, materials costs, etc) to come out far behind what Tesla can achieve with the "inferior" NCA batteries. And that is ignoring the advances in chemistry Tesla has achieved, which nullify most of those supposed NMC advantages on their own ...

If you compare the fully integrated Tesla battery system to any other battery system, for essentially any metric nobody surpasses Tesla (or if they do, it comes at a significant cost or compromise - whether it be more expensive subsystems, reduced longevity, etc).

In theory, if Tesla decided to apply everything they know to using NMC cells, they could make a "superior" (based on your claims) battery system, but having already achieved being able to go a million miles with NCA the "longer lasting" is moot, and as for safer, Tesla has thus far shown that engineering can "solve" the thermal runaway issue (even with some older vehicles having had fires they are far slower and less deadly than equivalent ICE fires, with nearly everyone walking away from accidents they shouldn't have in an ICE, so NMC lasting just a few degrees longer before self igniting is moot - in most cases, they would have still burned if they were NMC, and especially comparing prismatic cells to cylindrical the difference in effective cooling might make a NMC prismatic more problematic than NCA cylindrical)

great post, hit all the appropriate points ....some recent member trolling chiming in I see.

 

[generalenthu]

I’ll try to find time this weekend (remote consulting gig this week) to dust off the model and rerun with the new FCA emission numbers (worse) and the possible effects of the merger.

The only thing the model will tell us is FCA's 2020/21 through 2024 penalty reduction as a function of EU ZEVs in the pooled fleet (from what we saw earlier this year, the numbers were grim for FCA to eliminate all penalties). What I don’t have insight into is 1) the number of in-house EU ZEVs FCA/PSA thinks they are going to sell (their current sales are minuscule), 2) the fraction of the penalty reduction FCA plans to pay Tesla in exchange for joining the pool. We can all play those games a posteriori when we know the penalty reduction value per ZEV.

@generalenthu performed some similar calculations and pointed out some potential issues with my methodology (since corrected), so his input would be valued.

@Fact Checking thanks for linking to the FCA transcript. Not much has changed other than the targets drifting higher as diesel share goes down, though the worst offenders will be dropped to compensate, from 2020.

There's certainly an upside from the PSA merger if it goes through. More of Tesla's sales can be counted towards super credits that are 2x as valuable. I have to dig up the model, to be accurate, but I think ~300 million upside may be a good fairway estimate assuming a 50% sharing of avoided fines if the merger goes through.

I will try to run it through the model sometime. Got a bit busy at work and personally and didn't have the time to fully keep up here.

 

[bhtooefr]

This actually correct. There is a reason Tesla has had more battery fires per unit than any other EV. NMC density is improving and newer formulations using less cobalt should be cheaper. Remember that all of Dahn's work has been with NMC chemistry, I expect Tesla will eventually switch to it, probably already being used in the Semi.

AFAIK, Tesla's actual goal for road batteries is to eliminate the cobalt entirely, moving to a NA chemistry from NCA (and their NCA chemistry is already lower cobalt than everyone's NMC chemstries). They are buying NMC cells for some applications (storage, and IIRC Chinese Model 3s will get NMC cells once pack assembly is in China, before Tesla has their own cell lines), but otherwise...

And, IIRC, Dahn's work was generally applicable to other cathodes, he was just using NMC because that's what was easiest to get premade for his electrolyte studies?