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

[DurandalAI]

So the police don’t have a way to break the glass?

For some reason police don't know how, but Bay area residents have thieves with superhuman skills on breaking rear glass panels.

 

[elasalle]

Police say officers tried to save the driver but couldn’t open the door because there was not a handle.

Wasn't there some system in place that after crash doors open automatically?

I saw this same logic repeated by LLoppez on TWTR with like caps "OMFG"

Most cars lock automatically. Now if the door is locked, will the police be able to open a locked door?
The Axe FF carry should be able to break the glass window.

 

[InDaClub]

For some reason police don't know how, but Bay area residents have thieves with superhuman skills on breaking rear glass panels.

But seriously, all police officers and EMTs should carry...

 

[Curt Renz]

IMHO sensible article, the headline is just click-bait, the author is a Tesla owner and economist.
The potholes in our roads are about to get worse because of electric cars

He criticizes some of the proposed solutions for funding highway maintenance in the face of the EV solution, and comes up with a good alternative: tax a percentage of revenue from charging stations. Making it a percentage helps protect from inflation which the gas taxes expressed in cents do not.

So I like the educational tone and recommendations from this article, all of which helps with acceptance of EV adoption and success of TSLA, and his recommendation sure sounds better than flat taxes or mileage monitoring.

Only real STRANGE thing is his comments on home charging vs commercial stations: “... because charging at home is a hassle — requiring eight to 20 hours — I believe most drivers will increasingly choose the convenience and speed of the charging stations, which can fill up an EV in as little as 30 minutes.“

I get it that home charging is a “hassle” if you live in a condo or apartment that doesn’t/won’t support it. But how can an EV owner not be delighted at never having to stop to re-fuel except on road trips, because of the ability to just plug it in at home (again, author says he owns an M3)? And most EV owners than can charge would agree that the expense of adding a L2 charger to your garage that can charge overnight (in way way less than 20 hours), is a very small price to pay for one of the biggest advantages of having an EV period. What am I missing?

In my retirement I drive little more than 2000 miles per year. I would not want to be taxed as much as those who drive much more. If that were done, it would be a disincentive for low mileage drivers to buy an electric car. If mileage is recorded by a car's internal computer, with over-the-air accessibility by the manufacturer, I can see a government mandating that that information be shared with them. Then we could be taxed based on actual mileage. It's no more an invasion of privacy than our stock brokerage being required to send information about our trading to the IRS.

 

[KarenRei]

But seriously, all police officers and EMTs should carry...

Um... don't police officers in the US have... you know... guns?

Even if they can't physically break the glass with the barrel, can't they... you know, shoot it out?

Aren't they trained to shoot guns accurately enough so as not to accidentally shoot a person who's not moving, from point blank range? I mean, even a Star Wars storm trooper isn't that bad of a shot...

 

[Cherry Wine]

Yeah, that announcement could drop at any moment.

I'm thinking that they may want until at least a few days after the announcement about having paid off the convertibles, so as not to waste the opportunity and have two separate pieces of good news overlap.

The sentiment here about the Osborne effect turned me bearish on a March Model Y announcement -- I'm surprised you are taking a contrary position.

 

[KarenRei]

Not sure how much of an Osborne effect there will be for a car that won't be launching until next year. And is in a totally different size class. And will probably launch with its most expensive versions, while Model 3 will be down to releasing its cheapest versions.

 

[KarenRei]

Interesting news on Wednesday:

Labour move to back new Brexit referendum

"Jeremy Corbyn is to tell Labour MPs later that the party will move to back another vote if their own proposed Brexit deal is rejected on Wednesday."

(No need to discuss the politics of Brexit, just wanted people to know that this was coming up on Wednesday)

 

[Zaxxon]

It's really anyone's guess at to when they show it off. Elon said March in a tweet a while back but that could be Elon time so maybe in Q2.

March 15 keeps getting thrown around as the date that Musk 'said would happen,' but he never actually said that seriously as a hard date (he 'made it up' because 'the Ides of March sounded good.'). His actual words in immediate follow-up tweets were "We could unveil Model Y anytime from late this year to mid next year, so March 15 is about right." (Emphasis mine.) He wasn't saying March 15 is the day it will happen, but rather that March 15 falls in the relative middle of the range that he/Tesla was considering. Revealing on 6/30/19 also fits with the 'late 2018 to mid-2019' range that he mentioned.

This is not to say that I think Tesla's going to wait until June. Just that I can envision defensible reasoning why they would. If we were looking at March 15th, I would expect invites to go out this week or next. I'd bet on next, so they occur as a separate news event to the convertible payoff on/around 3/1. If we don't see them next week, I think we're likely looking at an early summer reveal.

 

[jerry33]

Um... don't police officers in the US have... you know... guns?

Even if they can't physically break the glass with the barrel, can't they... you know, shoot it out?

Aren't they trained to shoot guns accurately enough so as not to accidentally shoot a person who's not moving, from point blank range? I mean, even a Star Wars storm trooper isn't that bad of a shot...

I thought they were just trained to shoot minorities and family pets--at least in some states.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

IMHO sensible article, the headline is just click-bait, the author is a Tesla owner and economist.
The potholes in our roads are about to get worse because of electric cars

He criticizes some of the proposed solutions for funding highway maintenance in the face of the EV solution, and comes up with a good alternative: tax a percentage of revenue from charging stations. Making it a percentage helps protect from inflation which the gas taxes expressed in cents do not.

So I like the educational tone and recommendations from this article, all of which helps with acceptance of EV adoption and success of TSLA, and his recommendation sure sounds better than flat taxes or mileage monitoring.

Only real STRANGE thing is his comments on home charging vs commercial stations: “... because charging at home is a hassle — requiring eight to 20 hours — I believe most drivers will increasingly choose the convenience and speed of the charging stations, which can fill up an EV in as little as 30 minutes.“

I get it that home charging is a “hassle” if you live in a condo or apartment that doesn’t/won’t support it. But how can an EV owner not be delighted at never having to stop to re-fuel except on road trips, because of the ability to just plug it in at home (again, author says he owns an M3)? And most EV owners than can charge would agree that the expense of adding a L2 charger to your garage that can charge overnight (in way way less than 20 hours), is a very small price to pay for one of the biggest advantages of having an EV period. What am I missing?

Making it a percentage of charging station costs isn’t going to get you nearly enough to maintain roads. I’ve spent, quite literally, $0 charging my EV’s at charging stations in the last 2 years of having them. I charge almost exclusively at home. When I occasionally charge outside, it’s either at work, which provides free charging, or, on road trips, at Superchargers. Admittedly, the free access to the latter is a special case that no longer exists, but even if you added in that cost, you’d be looking at something like $500 in 2 years. For a 5500lb car. Even if you charge a relatively high usage tax rate(say, 10%), you’re looking at $25/year.

I think the only way to make it work is to charge either per car or per mile driven, depending how willing you are to invade privacy over it. And that should be really *per car*, not just for EVs.

 

[TradingInvest]

March 15 keeps getting thrown around as the date that Musk 'said would happen,' but he never actually said that seriously as a hard date (he 'made it up' because 'the Ides of March sounded good.'). His actual words in immediate follow-up tweets were "We could unveil Model Y anytime from late this year to mid next year, so March 15 is about right." (Emphasis mine.) He wasn't saying March 15 is the day it will happen, but rather that March 15 falls in the relative middle of the range that he/Tesla was considering. Revealing on 6/30/19 also fits with the 'late 2018 to mid-2019' range that he mentioned.

This is not to say that I think Tesla's going to wait until June. Just that I can envision defensible reasoning why they would. If we were looking at March 15th, I would expect invites to go out this week or next. I'd bet on next, so they occur as a separate news event to the convertible payoff on/around 3/1. If we don't see them next week, I think we're likely looking at an early summer reveal.

I think it makes sense to delay Model Y unveiling until it's very close to real production. Model Y will be a very popular vehicle that could pull demand from Model X, 3 and S buyers.

Tesla could unveil the pickup truck in a few months.

 

[KarenRei]

I kind of like the idea of taxing tires. Tire wear corresponds directly to road wear, when you take into account the type of tires (e.g. studded vs. non, what sort of loads they're designed to bear, etc). The only issue is that due to how expensive tires would get, it'd be a significant counterincentive to people replacing them at proper intervals; you'd have to significantly tighten enforcement on that.

 

[Drumheller]

Um... don't police officers in the US have... you know... guns?

Even if they can't physically break the glass with the barrel, can't they... you know, shoot it out?

Aren't they trained to shoot guns accurately enough so as not to accidentally shoot a person who's not moving, from point blank range? I mean, even a Star Wars storm trooper isn't that bad of a shot...

Off topic:

In an absolute emergency, sure, but that should be an absolute last resort. That bullet could ricochet and harm someone. And firing a gun is going to do hearing damage to anyone nearby without ear protection.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Apparently negative articles on Tesla get more clicks.

Sometimes. I’ve mentioned this before, but there was near radio silence when there was confirmed industrial sabotage on the painting robots in Fremont, with only a single offhand mention in an article in the NYT.

 

[jerry33]

I kind of like the idea of taxing tires. Tire wear corresponds directly to road wear, when you take into account the type of tires (e.g. studded vs. non, what sort of loads they're designed to bear, etc). The only issue is that due to how expensive tires would get, it'd be a significant counterincentive to people replacing them at proper intervals; you'd have to significantly tighten enforcement on that.

This would be a non-issue if commercial trucks paid their fair share. Cars and light trucks do almost no damage because roads are designed for heavy trucks. The balance is mostly frost heaves which really comes out of general revenue.

Also, in many states, EVs pay the same tolls that ICE vehicles do, so there no difference in that revenue stream.

 

[abasile]

He criticizes some of the proposed solutions for funding highway maintenance in the face of the EV solution, and comes up with a good alternative: tax a percentage of revenue from charging stations. Making it a percentage helps protect from inflation which the gas taxes expressed in cents do not.

That is a really terrible idea. What about all of the times that we've charged from an RV outlet while camping? Would the government make it illegal to charge from any commercial source that's not metered and taxed?

Best would be just to take odometer readings. Some may try to hack these, but the great majority won't. Better yet, the government could also tie road taxes to vehicle weight, and have trucks start paying their fair share. I'd be fine with this increasing the cost of shipping if it means a fairer system.

The bottom line is, we don't want a system that complicates or discourages EV ownership.

 

[Zaxxon]

I kind of like the idea of taxing tires. Tire wear corresponds directly to road wear, when you take into account the type of tires (e.g. studded vs. non, what sort of loads they're designed to bear, etc). The only issue is that due to how expensive tires would get, it'd be a significant counterincentive to people replacing them at proper intervals; you'd have to significantly tighten enforcement on that.

Certainly better than the flat-fee surcharge ridiculousness like we have here in CO.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Off topic:

In an absolute emergency, sure, but that should be an absolute last resort. That bullet could ricochet and harm someone. And firing a gun is going to do hearing damage to anyone nearby without ear protection.

I’m curious: would it even work particularly well? You’d want the entire pane to shatter. I’d imagine a bullet could just put a fairly neat small hole in the glass.

 

[KarenRei]

In an absolute emergency, sure, but that should be an absolute last resort.

Like, say, a person burning to death in a crashed car? The situation we're talking about here? The officer said that he got up to the car (several minutes after the accident), tried to break the window but couldn't, then had to back off because of the flames.