StealthP3D
Well-Known Member
Fair enough (and thanks for that). In light of that, I'll modify my conclusion: he wanted to avoid the appearance of wanting the award during a time that is so difficult for many.
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
Fair enough (and thanks for that). In light of that, I'll modify my conclusion: he wanted to avoid the appearance of wanting the award during a time that is so difficult for many.
There's a bit of a confusion here. We use growth rate to determine future cash flow and rate of return to discount that future cash flow. For example if you think Tesla will be $1200 next year and 10% is an appropriate rate of return, then it should be worth $1100 today. The rate of return or discount rate depends on how risky we view the investment. For a company like Tesla someone lacking insight might assign it a 20, 30% annual discount rate while bulls might give it a 10, 15% which is why our PT is always higher, assuming we can all agree on what Tesla will be worth 5,10 years from now with perfect execution.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
Yes, that’s at least part of the motivation for it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Musk do something extraordinarily philanthropic with most of the money.
OK maybe CNBC got that interpretation from Cal Matters. I still think it's wrong, because it doesn't make sense. I can't find a relevant quote from Newsom.
Regardless, today's tweet says to me that all types of manufacturing in California can open tomorrow, except for the Bay Area counties. Hopefully those counties will loosen up that restriction soon.
That story is about the city of San Francisco only.
The stock price is too high doesn't mean the value of the stock is too high, it means that it's unaffordable to many who might wish to purchase (unless they are with a broker that can do fractional shares).
I dunno, I interpreted it to mean that he genuinely judged that it was too high given the challenges and uncertainties introduced by the virus crisis.
My own view is that there is added upward pressure on the SP due to the combined effects of the feds printing money and the prototypical flight to quality during a crisis that now includes TSLA. Elon might or might not agree with this or feel this is as it should be. Any of a number of factors could materially influence this effect and swiftly.
Personally, I am happy both with a go-go-go CEO pushing hard for his company and with public health officials using their judgment even though that puts them at odds with each other.
Yes, I think Tesla can probably inculcate safe processes at Fremont. I’m much less confident about other companies.
Also, company and county decision makers may not be operating entirely from the same information. Tesla may be looking at their China experience. The county’s officials may be looking at information that is not widely known — for example, one Southern California GP told me that 80% of those that need ventilators for COVID-19 die. That is not a statistic that I’ve seen in the press and may or may not be accurate here in the Bay Area.
For me, current forces at play continue to imply two things:
First, my buy and never sell strategy remains brilliant.
Second, those betting the short term movement of the SP are just plain nuts.
He can't sell the shares for years, so it isn't like he gets any money right away.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
You know he can't take out a single cent of that stock grant for at least 5 yrs right, and you further know that Elon has already said he won't take any money from the 12 tranches before the entire CEO compensation plan has run its course?
Elon also said, "my money was the first in, and it will be the last out". The only motivation Elon has for accumulating wealth is to help pay for his Mars city. A Trillion Dollars is gonna be a down-payment on that, but he's got Space-X, and the Boring Company.
Someday, folks here will figure out what the combination of the two companies can do on 4 Vesta. There's $15 quintillion of precious metals waiting for the first company to plant its flag.
The Massive Prize Luring Miners to the Stars | Bloomberg
That'll pay for a city on Mars, you betcha. Elon's not short of ideas, drive, or money. Soon enough, he'll be toasting his success on Mars.
Cheers!
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StealthP3D
Well-Known Member
When I was 6 years old my dad was busy harvesting some vegetables from our family's garden for dinner. I will never forget this as it made a lasting impression on me. I had recently been granted a small allowance and was learning about money and what it was and wanted to know more. I was asking my dad how much different items were worth. He gave me approximate dollars/cents answers on the first couple of things I asked him about. Then I asked him how much a cow was worth. He stopped working, thought a minute and then looked me right in the eye as he said "Son, it's just like anything, it's worth exactly as much as someone is willing to sell it for and someone is willing to pay for it."
Now here was a smart answer I thought. It even allowed for the value of the same item to change over time depending upon how badly someone needed the money or how much someone wanted the item. All of a sudden the world of dollars and cents made a lot more sense.
And understanding this one principle that stuck with me over the years is what I attribute the fact that I became a millionaire at age 36. Because if the answer to that question didn't stick with me, if I didn't understand that reality, I would have sold my stock when I thought it was over-valued (but before it appreciated another 10 fold).
Elon doesn't value TSLA stock, investors with real money do. And there's a lot of money out there looking for the most productive place to be.
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Ameliorate
Member
Isn't the only reason he owns any shares at all completely detached from their value? His ownership purpose is to hold enough shares to have influence on the company and decision making. This dumb "ooh look he's a multi billionaire" thing the media is doing is ridiculous. Of course the general public has no idea Elon doesn't have 40 billion in his bank account, no it's tied up in Tesla, and it needs to remain there for good reason. Yes the consequences of that is his "net worth" has greatly increased, but in reality he owns roughly the same portion of the company he always has.
So it's not like he gets the money at all or certainly not all of it until he sells out of Tesla. He Might be able to sell some of these bonuses and keep the share amount he needs, I can't comment on how many shares he needs to run the company. I imagine it changes as they give out employee bonuses and do stock offerings.
It doesn't say Alameda explicitly but the 6 counties formed an alliance and the article does read
"Health officers in six Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley warned residents Thursday that the regional COVID-19 coronavirus shelter-in-place guidelines will remain in place through at least May 31 despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announced changes to the state’s order. The joint announcement by health officers stated that Berkeley and Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties will continue to prohibit curbside pick-up at non-essential, non-outdoor businesses."
Curbside pick up is a direct reference to the retailers that would be allowed in phase 2.
feigen66
Member
Just give it a few more days. The pressure to reopen bay area is mounting, especially after Newsom easing the restrictions and LA, which has 4x higher death / capita, is going to reopen.
Bay Area health officers can keep moving the goal post until they run out of the space to move. Eventually people will get sicked of it and demand blood.
Bay Area health officers can keep moving the goal post until they run out of the space to move. Eventually people will get sicked of it and demand blood.
Unfortunately, manufacturing comprises such a small part of the Bay Area
Bay Area support for shelter-in-place is the strongest among California regions. Here's why
new_sneakers
Member
Jordan from The Limiting Factor has a new streamed video about the Tabless Patent. He is excited. Link and my partial transcript:
Tabless Patent: The Limiting Factor
There is a triangle of competition amongst discharge and charge rate, cathode thickness, and cell volume. You can’t do all of those things at the same time.
If you crank the discharge and charge rate up too high, or make the cathode too thick, or make the cell too large, it creates too much heat. Of course, discharge and charge rate are positives. If you increase the cathode thickness by 25%, you get a 10% specific energy increase, e.g. from 300 Wh/kg to 330 Wh/kg. And if you increase the cell internal volume by 30 %, that reduces the number of cells you need to create by 30%, which makes it a lot cheaper and easier to manufacture the battery pack (30% fewer welds, separators, cell cans, etc.).
There are 2 ways to "shrink the triangle" to try to fix all of this at once.
The first is Maxwell’s dry electrode technology which uses less additive material, and because the additive material isn’t being corroded by a liquid solvent, the electrons are able to get out of the cell much more quickly, which creates less resistance and therefore less heat.
The other way to combat it is to improve the thermal management system of the battery. Those are the only two solutions that Jordan at The Limiting Factor says he has been able to come up with.
Currently what happens is that the electrons get in and out of the cell through on of two little tabs which is a huge-ass bottleneck, going through all the spirals and reaching one of two little tabs.
Tesla has said the best part is no part, and gotten rid of the tabs.
How is the cathode or anode material going to get to the collector and get to the battery if you don’t have those tabs? They have created an offset at the top of the battery cell, so all you have to do is put some conductive adhesive on the top and the bottom, jam it into the cell, and and all of the electrons can access it at any point from any layer, and you don’t have to fiddle around with those little tabs and weld those fickle little pieces of metal to each other.
A. That makes the manufacturing a lot easier
B. If you’re an electron trying to get through all of that mess and all of that maze, you’re bumping into a lot fewer other pieces of material, and if you’re bumping into fewer pieces of material, it’s creating less heat because there is less friction. That adds a way that we can solve our triangle problem.
The implications of this: Jordan says it looks like this means that Tesla should be able to greatly simplify the manufacturing process by making the cells bigger, so they need fewer cell cans, fewer tabs, less tab welding, fewer separators – all of a sudden, the number of pieces of each material could be cut by 30-70% depending on how big they make the diameter of the battery cells. It also allows for increased discharge and charge rates, because there is less heat generated by the little silver beer cans. It also means increased energy capacity because whenever you keep the can thickness the same and increase the internal volume, the proportion of this metal decreases as the cell gets bigger, so you get more energy capacity per given volume. So you should be able to increase the energy density and potentially increase the cathode thickness. If they can even increase the cathode thickness by 10%, they’d be getting another 3-5% specific energy capacity. This is really cool.
Jordan was hoping Tesla would unleash something straight out of left field that he hadn’t anticipated, and this is it.
Tabless Patent: The Limiting Factor
There is a triangle of competition amongst discharge and charge rate, cathode thickness, and cell volume. You can’t do all of those things at the same time.
If you crank the discharge and charge rate up too high, or make the cathode too thick, or make the cell too large, it creates too much heat. Of course, discharge and charge rate are positives. If you increase the cathode thickness by 25%, you get a 10% specific energy increase, e.g. from 300 Wh/kg to 330 Wh/kg. And if you increase the cell internal volume by 30 %, that reduces the number of cells you need to create by 30%, which makes it a lot cheaper and easier to manufacture the battery pack (30% fewer welds, separators, cell cans, etc.).
There are 2 ways to "shrink the triangle" to try to fix all of this at once.
The first is Maxwell’s dry electrode technology which uses less additive material, and because the additive material isn’t being corroded by a liquid solvent, the electrons are able to get out of the cell much more quickly, which creates less resistance and therefore less heat.
The other way to combat it is to improve the thermal management system of the battery. Those are the only two solutions that Jordan at The Limiting Factor says he has been able to come up with.
Currently what happens is that the electrons get in and out of the cell through on of two little tabs which is a huge-ass bottleneck, going through all the spirals and reaching one of two little tabs.
Tesla has said the best part is no part, and gotten rid of the tabs.
How is the cathode or anode material going to get to the collector and get to the battery if you don’t have those tabs? They have created an offset at the top of the battery cell, so all you have to do is put some conductive adhesive on the top and the bottom, jam it into the cell, and and all of the electrons can access it at any point from any layer, and you don’t have to fiddle around with those little tabs and weld those fickle little pieces of metal to each other.
A. That makes the manufacturing a lot easier
B. If you’re an electron trying to get through all of that mess and all of that maze, you’re bumping into a lot fewer other pieces of material, and if you’re bumping into fewer pieces of material, it’s creating less heat because there is less friction. That adds a way that we can solve our triangle problem.
The implications of this: Jordan says it looks like this means that Tesla should be able to greatly simplify the manufacturing process by making the cells bigger, so they need fewer cell cans, fewer tabs, less tab welding, fewer separators – all of a sudden, the number of pieces of each material could be cut by 30-70% depending on how big they make the diameter of the battery cells. It also allows for increased discharge and charge rates, because there is less heat generated by the little silver beer cans. It also means increased energy capacity because whenever you keep the can thickness the same and increase the internal volume, the proportion of this metal decreases as the cell gets bigger, so you get more energy capacity per given volume. So you should be able to increase the energy density and potentially increase the cathode thickness. If they can even increase the cathode thickness by 10%, they’d be getting another 3-5% specific energy capacity. This is really cool.
Jordan was hoping Tesla would unleash something straight out of left field that he hadn’t anticipated, and this is it.
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feigen66
Member
Manufacturing is not the only jobs being hurt though. And no, I really don't trust San Francisco Chronicle their *unbiased* reporting.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
I don't think he thinks of shares as money. I think to him shares help him maintain control of the thing he built. He doesn't see dollar signs he see voting rights.
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