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

[SO16]

Am I the only one freaking out about the fact that Tesla has had to lower the price twice since the start of the year? I really thought, at least in Q1, that Tesla would be able to sell out 6000 to 7000 per week at $46,000 and up in the face of the large European and Chinese backlogs.

I think it’s great that Tesla can reduce the price because of process improvements while the Federal tax credit is still in affect (albeit 50%). They certainly are still selling well.

All EV manufacturers should lower their price when they can if they can still be profitable. The tax credit isn’t meant for car companies to keep that as extra profit to make EVs. I applaud Tesla for doing this.

 

[EVNow]

Some 300K was from IS and Canada? I don’t remember reading something like that. Can you provide additional info?

Just some estimates I found - Tesla has not disclosed the official numbers, AFAIK.

 

[avoigt]

Interesting insight about e-tron, Taycan versus Tesla battery cooling systems and the implications.

Either Audi & Porsche are just smarter than Elon which is a possibility but hard to believe if we talk Batteries or they did make some marketing statements and users won't have long fun with it...

Audi e-tron Battery TMS: How Does It Stack Up Against Tesla Model 3?

 

[Fact Checking]

Although I was expecting a full horn-blowing release announcement for HW3, they might be doing a stealth rollout of the hardware and saving the horn-blowing for the next software release.

Right now they obviously don't want to Osborne Effect themselves, that's why they are mum about HW3, even if it's already in EU/China models.

Even in early April they might not want to go full horn-blowing - only once the first FSD features like stop signs, traffic lights and left/right turns are released. Then I'd expect full horn blowing, coast-to-coast FSD trip and the whole nine yards.

Because that's when HW3 will start generating more sales and more revenue for real.

 

[KarenRei]

Interesting insight about e-tron, Taycan versus Tesla battery cooling systems and the implications.

Either Audi & Porsche are just smarter than Elon which is a possibility but hard to believe if we talk Batteries or they did make some marketing statements and users won't have long fun with it...

Audi e-tron Battery TMS: How Does It Stack Up Against Tesla Model 3?

You know, I'm tired of dancing around the "buts" and "maybes" and "what ifs". Let's just call it as it is: Porsche and Audi are willingly frying their cells, because most people won't fast charge that often and they can afford to eat the warranty costs on those who do.

There is no other explanation that meets Occam's Razor. There is no magic cell that somehow only they have that nobody else has heard of, that manages to be simultaneously energy dense and power dense. Their cooling design is primitive. They're not "locking out" half of the pack to make the C-rate appear faster than it is.

Let's call a spade a spade: they're frying their cells.

 

[Fact Checking]

Interesting insight about e-tron, Taycan versus Tesla battery cooling systems and the implications.

Either Audi & Porsche are just smarter than Elon which is a possibility but hard to believe if we talk Batteries or they did make some marketing statements and users won't have long fun with it...

Audi e-tron Battery TMS: How Does It Stack Up Against Tesla Model 3?

So:

'Here’s how ME systems chief engineer Keith Ritter summed it up:

“I have concluded that the Model 3 TMS with glycol-cooled micro-channel snake tubes glued directly to the cells has better heat transfer capacity than any system that uses flat glycol bottom-plates with either passive conductive fins or natural-convective thermal loops. It is just physics and geometry. more effective heat transfer area + better effective U value. So I don’t see how Jaguar, Audi, Merc or Porsche can beat Tesla in the charge rate game if pure TMS heat transfer capacity is governing. The only way I can see that Audi (and maybe Porsche) can get away with high charge rates is because they “may” have significant electrode/tab-cooling (if our engineered-fluid scenario is correct) and therefore can let the cells get hotter than other designs. Safely charge despite a lower W/ deg. K”'​

I believe @KarenRei came to a similar conclusion as this article.

My cynical guess is that Audi and Porsche are going to use their proven technologies they share with their corporate owner Volkswagen AG: misleading, lying, cheating, stonewalling about the negative effects of high speed charging on cell longevity, and once all these measures fail, buying their way out of trouble via warranty costs and by wearing customers down.

It will take years for cell damage to show up, and they are playing for time.

 

[KarenRei]

My cynical guess is that Audi and Porsche are going to use their proven technologies they share with their corporate owner Volkswagen AG: misleading, lying, cheating, stonewalling about cell longevity, and once all these measures fail, buying their way out of trouble. It will take years for cell damage to show up, and they are playing for time.

And this sort of stuff is going to hurt the reputation of all EVs when it happens. :Þ

 

[VValleyEV]

So:

'Here’s how ME systems chief engineer Keith Ritter summed it up:

“I have concluded that the Model 3 TMS with glycol-cooled micro-channel snake tubes glued directly to the cells has better heat transfer capacity than any system that uses flat glycol bottom-plates with either passive conductive fins or natural-convective thermal loops. It is just physics and geometry. more effective heat transfer area + better effective U value. So I don’t see how Jaguar, Audi, Merc or Porsche can beat Tesla in the charge rate game if pure TMS heat transfer capacity is governing. The only way I can see that Audi (and maybe Porsche) can get away with high charge rates is because they “may” have significant electrode/tab-cooling (if our engineered-fluid scenario is correct) and therefore can let the cells get hotter than other designs. Safely charge despite a lower W/ deg. K”'​

I believe @KarenRei came to a similar conclusion as this article.

My cynical guess is that Audi and Porsche are going to use their proven technologies they share with their corporate owner Volkswagen AG: misleading, lying, cheating, stonewalling about the negative effects of high speed charging on cell longevity, and once all these measures fail, buying their way out of trouble via warranty costs and by wearing customers down.

It will take years for cell damage to show up, and they are playing for time.

Thx much to you and @KarenRei. I have a friend who is a Porsche enthusiast and I suspect a Taycan reservation holder, and have forwarded him the article link along with my synopsis of the cynical hypothesis. He is likely to consider this to be FUD from rabid Tesla fans, but it will give him something to chew on. IMHO Karen has nailed the strongest argument for cynicism as Occam’s Razor.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

My cynical guess is that Audi and Porsche are going to use their proven technologies they share with their corporate owner Volkswagen AG: misleading, lying, cheating, stonewalling about the negative effects of high speed charging on cell longevity, and once all these measures fail, buying their way out of trouble via warranty costs and by wearing customers down.

It will take years for cell damage to show up, and they are playing for time.

At least they won’t have that many packs to replace. Batterygate 2021?

 

[CaliBear1]

Spice must flow!

I see what you did there FC.

Great idea to electrify bulk shipping!

A couple of thoughts:

• Business model: I believe it would make sense to approach this issue from the high end as well, just like Tesla approached automotive electrification: instead of bulk cargo, go for really high speed sea delivery, with an electric fleet. Delivery times to Europe and China within 1 week will already favorably compete with air freight - which is a big and lucrative market. A 4x speedup to ~80 mph (radar assisted, of course) would cut delivery times to Europe from 20 days to 5 days and to China from 30 days to ~7 days. 100 mph+ speeds would push things from a safety POV though, but would be even more lucrative - and might allow approaches like a catamaran design, which would lower sea resistance and reduce energy costs.
• Cell longevity is going to be an issue, as the major depreciation factor. The current global commercial shipping fleet's average age is over 20 years. Steel ship hulls can go on forever, and are expected to. How long are the best, most durable cells going to last, and what is degradation curve and how predictable are the failure modes, and is there a continuous maintenance mode that effectively refreshes all cells over the long run?
• Battery module safety: that's a lot of energy stored, many tons of TNT-equivalent, with the nearest fire trucks thousands of kms away. Robust, yet environmentally friendly modes of fire suppression of a battery fire have to be found - probably by compartmentalizing/sealing battery modules where a fire could not escape even if a runaway thermal reaction triggers inside. There's a billion dollar ship to protect ...
  
• Electric motors have other advantages over diesel motors: the huge engines of the really huge cargo ships can take more than an hour to warm up for departure. With an electric ship the ship is immediately ready for departure the moment the containers are loaded. More 'just in time' logistics are possible with an electric fleet.
• "On the go" recharging: it takes capital investment but it's possible to do recharging "on the go": "recharging ships" which carry nothing but huge batteries, shuttling between cargo ships. The recharging ships would then periodically dock with the off-shore wind farms to recharge themselves. If there's enough of them then the offshore wind farms don't need any battery capacity at all: there would always be a "recharging ship" docked, using up available generated electricity.
• What are the risks of weather patterns with too little or too much wind, and the resulting disruption to available deep sea wind energy? Delivery times must be guaranteed even in the face of hurricanes or doldrums. There must be a fail-safe plan to keep the spice going, probably by having the 'recharging ships' go back to the coast for electricity, or enough solar energy to keep things going in the worst case.

 

[Beltsbear]

The

And this sort of stuff is going to hurt the reputation of all EVs when it happens. :Þ

I don’t agree. I don’t think all gas cars suck because VW forgot how to make transmissions for a while. I just know VW transmissions suck.

 

[EVNow]

Just some estimates I found - Tesla has not disclosed the official numbers, AFAIK.

@Mars ☰mperor : Troy's estimate was much lower - 200k.

 

[EVNow]

The

I don’t agree. I don’t think all gas cars suck because VW forgot how to make transmissions for a while. I just know VW transmissions suck.

Depends on how well you know the subject. The more you know - the better you can pin point.

For eg., most people might say Leaf's batteries degrade very fast. But those who have more experience will say - Leaf's batteries degrade fast in hot climates.

 

[Mark's Beagle]

I'm old enough to rmeemrem when peolep were freaking out if there car had HW 1.0 or 2.0. In the end 2.0 was much Ado about nothing.

3.0 hype may end up bursting in similar fashion.

 

[Intl Professor]

Physically Unable to Perform....

Good question...... And soon, foretelling of the future...

I resemble that!

 

[EVMeister]

I'm old enough to rmeemrem when peolep were freaking out.

You typing whilst brushing your teeth again?

 

[Buckminster]

What's the general opinion on S/X now? Are Tesla likely to sell 20% less than Q4 in Q1 but maintain Q4 level profits? ReflexFunds shows a significant drop in Q1 profit in his model.

 

[KarenRei]

What's the general opinion on S/X now? Are Tesla likely to sell 20% less than Q4 in Q1 but maintain Q4 level profits? ReflexFunds shows a significant drop in Q1 profit in his model.

Nobody knows the answer to this yet, but Q1 is usually a poor quarter. And Q1 sales are generally biased toward March. It's interesting that S/X January numbers are up over their equivalent in 2018. Hmm, when did 75D sales terminate exactly?

But yes, I expect annual sales to be roughly 80% of what they were last year, offset by the improved margins.

 

[VValleyEV]

The

I don’t agree. I don’t think all gas cars suck because VW forgot how to make transmissions for a while. I just know VW transmissions suck.

I think I agree with @KarenRei that this would hurt reputations of all EVs.

I suspect that VW’s scam/scandal, getting caught cheating on emissions levels of their diesels, led many folks to believe that “yeah, diesels are all terrible polluters, it can’t be fixed”. Similarly, frying batteries from Porsche will make them think that “yeah, EV batteries are all unreliable, it can’t be fixed”.

 

[22522]

You know, I'm tired of dancing around the "buts" and "maybes" and "what ifs". Let's just call it as it is: Porsche and Audi are willingly frying their cells, because most people won't fast charge that often and they can afford to eat the warranty costs on those who do.

There is no other explanation that meets Occam's Razor. There is no magic cell that somehow only they have that nobody else has heard of, that manages to be simultaneously energy dense and power dense. Their cooling design is primitive. They're not "locking out" half of the pack to make the C-rate appear faster than it is.

Let's call a spade a spade: they're frying their cells.

They may have a lower internal resistance in each cell (better pathways inside each cell). This means less heat is generated.