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

[dl003]

This reminds me of GM touting their new “modular” battery design (that will come out in just a few years ) Meanwhile Tesla shifts on the fly and incorporates different battery configurations to keep their momentum going! Pace of innovation is incredible!

Tesla discovered the diagonally stacking technology.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Good questions. Some comments:
1) For the Standard Range Model 3, the battery pack only needs about 55kWh, so cells with a lower volumetric energy density (due to a different chemistry) can be used.
2) It appears that Tesla has decided that since they are cell supply constrained, they can thus use different types of cells with a lower energy density for their SR variants without compromising the vehicle's performance.
3) This in turn allows Tesla not only to build more SR cars, but also,
4) frees up their proprietary cells for use in LR (and S/X) cars, as well as
5) denying the lower density cells to their competition.

There are even indications that Tesla has created a variant of their battery pack that can take prismatic cells (so a whole different form factor), presumably while maintaining their ability to use their liquid cooling to control the temperature of these cells in the pack. If true, this means Tesla can extend the range of possible cell suppliers to those who have capacity for making prismatic cells.

Well if Chinese media reports are true that the LG cells will use NMC811 chemistry, that's the new 2x life formulation developed by Dr. Jeff Dahn at Dalhhousie and patented by Tesla.

Lots of papers, vidz, and discussion here about the benefits of NMC811 especially using the new Sodium difluorophosphate (Tesla patented) electrolyte additives. This could be a 4,000 cycle, cobalt-free battery cell that avoids the huge royalties for the IP rights to use Lithium difluorophosphate as an additive.

Cheers!

 

[StealthP3D]

The Big Orange One’s tweet about gasoline-powered cars? Do we have a face palm emoji in here??

The link says "This Tweet is unavailable". Did it go to the rant about Democrats wanting to take away your cars?

 

[Tslynk67]

There is something about these deals I don't understand, perhaps I missed something, and any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Question(s): These LG Chem and CATL cells - are the chemistries in them their standard ones? If the chemistries are proprietary Tesla(Panasonic) know-how/Tesla(Panasonic) secret sauce, does Tesla ensure that LG Chem and CATL do not use the chemistry for other clients?

As there are no reports I know of of Chinese buyers complaining about the differences in performances of MIC Model 3s between ones with Tesla/Panasonic and without Tesla/Panasonic batteries, it seems that the battery performances are rather similar.

I know that Tesla has much supperior cooling, BMS etc design, but a large part of the superior Tesla perfomance aer also at the cell level, which leads me to believe that the LG Chem and CATL cells for Tesla China are specially made.

There's probably some space in the packs to add a few extra cells to make up for the difference.

That being said, we don't know that LG and CATL aren't going to be supplying using Tesla's chemistry. Do we?

 

[Nocturnal]

Giga KC incoming. I'm actually really torn on that. Seems like KC would be an underdog (though there are lots of tech companies here relative to the rest of the middle and Google picked KC to roll out fiber for a reason). It would be cool to have a factory nearby and would help my home value, but would also bring more traffic etc. I suspect this whole "central" thing is a bluff to get Texas to provide better terms.

Side note. If a Lexus deal sticks a flyer on my car, I'm going to stop by that dealer and glue the same flyer to one of their windshields.

 

[StealthP3D]

Man, really seems like TSLA wants to rise but the market is just dragging it down along with the rest of the trash.

My take on this is that the manipulators planned to let it open in the green and then take it down hard and fast through support around $610. But they encountered buying pressure that was unexpectedly deep and wide (and not nearly as many weak hands as they expected). I'm guessing they will still try to take it through $610 after re-grouping and building up some ammo but that it might be more difficult than they imagined.

This strength is encouraging for the coming days/weeks before P&D numbers and earnings come out.

 

[JustSaying]

What bank is that? That sounds too good to be true, there must be a catch...

Also, if it is not a mortgage, do you have to make minimum payments? Or just pay the interest?

3.30% for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (a 50 year low) seems like a good deal to me. Take it while you can get it
These low rates might not last forever and I would like to be almost right than exactly wrong.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Mortgage rates haven't had a chance to come down at the same rate of treasuries. I have to believe we'll be at 3% as standard in a moment. Obviously there is a certain amount of risk in waiting, but does anyone really see us returning to 2% 10yr treasuries next week?

 

[Lessmog]

Giga KC incoming. I'm actually really torn on that. Seems like KC would be an underdog (though there are lots of tech companies here relative to the rest of the middle and Google picked KC to roll out fiber for a reason). It would be cool to have a factory nearby and would help my home value, but would also bring more traffic etc. I suspect this whole "central" thing is a bluff to get Texas to provide better terms.

Side note. If a Lexus deal sticks a flyer on my car, I'm going to stop by that dealer and glue the same flyer to one of their windshields.

Some rascals informed me long ago that sodium silicate bonds well on glass ...

 

[TheTalkingMule]

$450 Jan2022 puts are getting $98 today. Just sayin'.

Would anyone be terribly upset to add 100 shares at an effective price point of $352?

 

[j6Lpi429@3j]

A positive move in the UK regarding Model S, model X, and maybe some higher price variants of the model 3:

Vehicle Excise Duty rates for zero-emission vehicles

Basically in the UK car tax is zero for electric vehicles, but theyr ecently introduced a punitive car tax rate for ALL vehicles that cost over £40,000. This is now also scrapped for EVS only.

So basically a £50k EV pays zero tax, but a £50k ICE pays tax .

Its literally a no-catch piece of good news for tesla sales in the UK, and apparently effective immediately

 

[vikings123]

Today's overall market action seems indicative of a potential sell off coming at some point, some covid19 news headline will be the catalyst.

TSLA is holding strong considering how much the MMs are trying to push it down.

 

[Nocturnal]

$450 Jan2022 puts are getting $98 today. Just sayin'.

Would anyone be terribly upset to add 100 shares at an effective price point of $352?

I sold my first put yesterday with an expiration Friday @$582. I had a chunk of cash ready to buy tsla so if I have to buy at 582 I'm good, and if not I'll pocket the grand. Seems like a no-brainer if you are definitely going to buy anyway.

Today's overall market action seems indicative of a potential sell off coming at some point, some covid19 news headline will be the catalyst.

TSLA is holding strong considering how much the MMs are trying to push it down.

We aren't allowed to talk about it but my bet is that US cases explode within the next 2 weeks. People aren't taking it seriously at all.

 

[StealthP3D]

I sold my first put yesterday with an expiration Friday @$582. I had a chunk of cash ready to buy tsla so if I have to buy at 582 I'm good, and if not I'll pocket the grand. Seems like a no-brainer if you are definitely going to buy anyway.

It's actually a better deal if you are ambivalent about buying more. If you are definitely going to buy anyway, you might lose your opportunity if the puts aren't exercised.

 

[vikings123]

I put the wrong ticker symbol and look what I found-another covid19 pump and dump.

 

[dl003]

Some balance sheet recap before recession begins:
GM
D/E ratio: 1.43
Debts: $66B
Cash: $23B

Ford
D/E: 3.05
Debts: $101B
Cash: $35B

Tesla
D/E: 1.56
Debts: $12B
Cash: $8B

Guess who can weather a recession better?

 

[Nocturnal]

It's actually a better deal if you are ambivalent about buying more. If you are definitely going to buy anyway, you might lose your opportunity if the puts aren't exercised.

That's why I'm sticking to very short expiration. I want to make sure this cash is deployed before the end of the quarter. (for good or ill)

 

[humbaba]

Waymo pulling out from competing with Tesla Network directly has not been discussed much here. This is great news for Tesla for several reasons:

1. Suggests Waymo are less confident in FSD generally
2. Tesla have a clear run at dominating this space - Waymo enabled competitors will be flawed - Lidar at different heights etc.
3. Disparate ecosystem from competition - multiple apps
4. Waymo won't be buying EVs from Tesla competitors like the iPaces
5. Shareholders should see this all emerging at least 5 minutes before it happens

Uber should be the main competition now - with or without FSD.

Citation? All I can see is that they continue to push forward with even more LIDAR! I mean, way to double down after Elon threw down the gauntlet. Why settle for one top mounted LIDAR unit when you can have four more corner mounted LIDAR? And 360 radar. And cameras. But no ultrasonics, I guess the corner mounted LIDAR are supposed to handle that need.

Somehow it doesn't feel like their FSD package is getting cheaper and, given the poor airflow from the all the external mounting, only intended for intracity traffic. While it might work as a cab replacement its higher upfront costs would seem to be a disadvantage.

 

[Mike Smith]

In a recession the first thing the OEMs will cut is EV/battery development, while Tesla continues to grow and iterate. A few years from now Tesla isn't going to have a moat, they're going to have a monopoly.

 

[dl003]

I wonder when the pre P&D run up is going to begin or if there's going to be one at all. WS cannot be so oblivious that they think Q1 is going to be bad, can they? Or are we playing the who can call the bottom game.