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

[Words of HABIT]

Can you say "range anxiety" for ICE? 25 gas stations in Greater Toronto Area close due to storm.

Gas shortage causes closure of 25 Petro-Canada stations | CBC News

"The first thing that I would say to Ontarians is 'Let's stay cool. Let's stay calm. We're going to get through this together,'" Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.

 

[jbih]

I know that @KarenRei disapproves of 18,650 vs. 21,700 discussions, but my take is the following:

• There's been persistent and credible seeming speculation that Panasonic's 18,650 lines in their Japanese factories could be converted over to the 21,700 cell format: a large percentage of equipment is cell format agnostic, and most of the format specific machines apparently can 'just about' accommodate the 21,700 format.
• It seems unlikely in the extreme to me that Panasonic would build 35 GWh/year 21,700 capacity without having a good forward plan for the 18,650 equipment - especially that 'closing factories and firing employees' is a social taboo in Japan.
  
• Panasonic's 18,650 manufacturing capacity in Japan is about 8 GWh/year.
• The Shanghai Gigafactory will only make Standard Range Model 3's.
  
• The Standard Range Model 3 will come with a ~50-55 kWh battery, which means 8 GWh/year supply is enough for 2800-3100 Model 3's at Shanghai.
• The targeted capacity of the Shanghai factory happens to be 3000 cars/week, matching the available cell supply in Japan very well ...

So I believe the conclusion is obvious: if Panasonic's Japan 18,650 output could be reconfigured to make 21,700 cells in a relatively low capex fashion, then that could form the basis for the initial Model 3 production in China. There would be no tariffs, and Japan->China transportation costs are lower as well as Japan->U.S. or U.S.->China.

But, obviously, this is probably under negotiation, and Panasonic would have to commit to this plan - and I bet Tesla wants a price reduction as well - they could after all probably buy cells on the Chinese market as well.

All of this is speculation only of course.

This is a paper that investigates 18650 vs. 20700/21700:

JES : J. Electrochem. Soc.

Conclusions
We investigated several commercial types of 18650, 20700, and 21700 cells. It was found that

1. The energy content per cell can be higher by ∼50% for 21700 compared to 18650. Therefore, for certain applications, less cells have to be built and used to deliver the same amount of energy.
   
   
2. The higher energy content on cell level leads to potentially lower effort and costs in the production of 21700 compared to 18650 type cells and their packs. The benefit of lower cell hardware costs is likely to be caused mainly by less cell housings, fewer jellyroll insertions/closings/tab welding, and less cell formations per Wh. More produced Wh per existing station might also have a trickledown effect on the cost.
   
   
3. The energy density does not increase significantly by changing the cell format from 18650 to 21700 type. Instead, for state-of-the-art cells, the energy density is mainly a function of the anode coating thickness, i.e. high energy cells with current material combinations usually have thicker electrodes. The study showed that it is very important to use comparable coating thicknesses or electrode loadings when comparing different active materials or at least give the coating thickness for later comparison.
   
   
4. The cell resistance is negatively influenced by the electrode thickness and positively by the electrode area. For cylindrical cells these parameters correlate with each other. This contributes to the lower performance of high energy cells. Going from the 18650 to the 21700 format, the cell resistance decreases noticeably and shows a relatively flatter correlation to anode coating thickness. The reason is the larger usable coated cathode area in the larger 21700-type cells, especially due to the outer windings of the jelly roll.
   
   
5. Increasing electrode thickness in commercial cells has a negative impact on the discharge rate capability. Cells with thicker electrodes experience higher losses by limited transport, resulting in lower discharge energy and underutilized electrode active material. The general trend for all tested cell types was found that the rate-capability is limited by the temperature on the cell surface due to current flow.
   

Extensive data evaluation in the present study lead to valuable new insights regarding energy density, energy content, internal resistance, and heating behavior of 21700 compared to 18650 cells. State-of-the-art 18650, 20700, and 21700 type cells are similar in their specific energy and energy density.

Our results emphasize that specific energy and energy density can mostly be enhanced on the level of materials and electrodes, i.e. new energy storage materials for future battery generations are needed. Additionally, an optimization of the electrode structure, electrolyte, formation, and cell design is necessary for each individual cell type.

A direct comparison by building 18650 and 21700 cells with the same types of electrodes is underway in our lab.

 

[RobStark]

.
While it's no doubt SUVs will become more popular as EVs drastically improve fuel economy, my guess is that the 50-50% equilibrium shown by Model S/X sales is probably the natural preference of customers globally, all other things equal. Sedan sales are no way going to zero - as the Model 3 has shown it already.

In fact as Tesla walks down the price ladder consumers tend to become more price sensitive, and the fundamental cost difference between SUVs and sedans will shift demand more towards sedans as we go to $35k cars and below.

I think this a very Eurocentric view.

The Chinese not only prefer bigger cars but they prefer the Model X over Model S specifically for Falcon Wing Doors.

Many Americans avoid Model X specifically because of Falcon Wing Doors. Put conventional doors on Model X and sales would increase substantially in the US.

South Koreans also prefer bigger cars.

US/Canada/China/South Korea long term represent at least 2/3 of Tesla vehicle sales IMO.

Long term Tesla SUV will outsell Tesla sedans at least 2:1

 

[SO16]

If someone especially here in Austria is interested:
I have reserved my Model 3 on the first day possible.
Got an automated SMS from Tesla two days before christmas to order. I did.
Just now I got a call from Tesla. He asked if all my data in the order are correct?
And: My Performance M3 will be delivered mid to end of february!!
(I was – pessimistic – expecting it late March.)
Yippie! ;-)

Celebrate AFTER you get it and it looks good. But if all goes well, you’re going to love it.

 

[Words of HABIT]

Awesome Q4 and CC Tesla. Many thanks to all Tesla employees, suppliers, consultants and contractors that made these results happen, from Elon to the assembly line workers and service coordinators. It takes a village.
I'm stoked!

 

[Sudre]

Has anyone gone thru GS misleading forecasts from last year and made a simple list off which items were misses..... make it a nice meme and tweet it all over Shorts pages.

I am guessing there is no way to get that to all fit on one page.

If there was room for a last line it should read, “For this year...... do the math. Not the GS way.”

 

[brian45011]

re Zack Kirkhorn taking over the role of CFO from Deepak, worth remembering,

1) Deepak will remain at Tesla for a few more months, and then the plan is for him to serve as a "senior advisor"

2) Tesla's new Chairwoman, Robyn Denholm, 56, will be leaving her job as CFO of Australia's largest telecom company, as her role as Chairwoman of Tesla will be her full time occupation (in my experience very rare for the Chair role to be a sole full-time position).

from Tesla's 11/7/18 release re Robyn,

"Tesla’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Robyn Denholm has been appointed as Chair of the Tesla Board, effective immediately. So that she will be able to devote her full attention to the Tesla Chair role, Robyn will be leaving her role as CFO and Head of Strategy at Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, once her six-month notice period with Telstra is complete. Robyn will be serving as Tesla Chair on a full-time basis.

....

Her global experience in both Australia and Silicon Valley encompasses leadership roles across a range of technology companies, including Telstra, Juniper Networks, and Sun Microsystems. She is widely credited with leading a team that drove significant increases in Juniper’s revenues, overseeing Juniper’s corporate transformation during her nine-year tenure as Chief Financial and Operations Officer. Her experience also includes numerous finance management roles in the automotive industry while at Toyota."

Announcing Robyn Denholm as Tesla’s New Board Chair

Who signs the 10k certification?

 

[sweter]

In January 2019, during the first 9 days where the Model 3 has been officially approved for the German BEV incentive, 911 Model 3 have been applied for, an average of 101 /day Model 3 Long-Range Dual Motor AWD: 748 Model 3 Performance Dual Motor AWD: 163

Cautions this is just applications and not orders.

Assuming that this 9 days would be representative & we have to recognize most Germans do not know yet that you can apply for the incentive once you did a firm order but before you even paid for the car, an average of 36,946 M 3s would be sold in the 1st year in
Germany alone

http://www.bafa.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Energie/emob_zwischenbilanz.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=39 …

Interesting. How does that relate to the 10-11k number we have discussed before? Is this the same incentive? This document says there were total 62,912 applications for BEV's? And Audi A3 and VW e-Golf are biggest, above 6k? Sorry, it's a bit confusing for non-German speaker, could you elaborate a bit on this?

 

[Hock1]

Now that the SEC is operational again it has posted both halves of December's and the first half of January's fails-to-deliver data. Tesla once again is mysteriously absent in all three files. The same anomaly appeared throughout November. It is completely implausible that there were no failures to deliver Tesla stock at settlement on any day in November, December and the first half of January. This raises the question: what has happened at NSCC and why isn't FINRA (or better yet, the SEC) doing anything about it?

This IS very curious. You are right: there is no chance, with all the MM's selling unborrowed shares into the system, that there aren't ANY FTDs. It is, and has been for a while, my opinion that there are significant TSLA FTDs throughout the system. This is the reason why the share price is staying in a pretty narrow range and, just as importantly, the reason why the shorts can cover without moving the stock up. Re: NSCC and FINRA. Don't forget, these SROs are owned and operated by GS and friends.

EDIT (Add): Putting no FTD numbers out at all bolsters my belief that lenders of shares of TSLA (and probably many other companies) are actually lending out the same (fake) shares to multiple short sellers. If true, that would explain the lack of any numbers because if they reported the actual number of FTD's they would immediately expose the fact that FTDs are way above allowable number of FTDs and would require buys to cover. They don't want to make up and report numbers that are below the allowable limits because (ironically), they don't want to lie!

 

[gora321]

Honda profit tumbles 40% on higher incentives, weaker sales mix

 

[gora321]

Porsche informs authorities of possible issue with emissions

 

[Fact Checking]

I think this a very Eurocentric view.

The Chinese not only prefer bigger cars but they prefer the Model X over Model S specifically for Falcon Wing Doors.

Note that while China is more populous, median income is only around $3,000 per year (!), while median income in western Europe is around $25,000 per year.

So the European car market is significantly larger in Tesla's $35k-$55k price segment.

This is also the reason why Tesla is only going to make Standard Range Model 3's in China, and is eventually going to sell them for less than $30k IMHO.

Long term Tesla SUV will outsell Tesla sedans at least 2:1

Maybe, but they don't currently, and even a 33%/66% split is a long way from "way of the Dodo" status.

(BTW., long term I'd expect the "minibus" form factor to dominate, once FSD is so reliable that cars will start coming without a steering wheel. The interior will dramatically change and is going to be work and entertainment optimized, not driving optimized.)

 

[gora321]

ARK Invest on Twitter

 

[shootformoon]

Energy Generation and Storage Gross Margin declined from 17.2% in 3Q18 to 11.5% in 4Q18. It's difficult to discern how much OpEx should be allocated to that business segment, but unlike autos where Tesla has the luxury EV segment pretty much to itself, there have been other established domestic and international players in stationary storage and ,especially, solar. It's likely there is on-going R&D expense in figuring out how to reduce the cost of installing and connecting solar tiles--all instances of installations so far appear to have been on relatively low pitch, simple shed type roofs, and there have been reports in the Buffalo News that Panasonic has been selling solar cells manufactured at GF-2 to competing solar companies.

i still think solar city merger was a strategic mistake. The billions of working capital/opex/capex spent on the solar side, if put into use on the auto side, would be another GF already running. I understand elon does not want to give up solar. But tsla has no moat in solar(it's a commodity business and thus low gross margin). He can return to it when 5 GFs are running and tsla has so much cash nowhere else to spend. The capital allocation priority was clear.

I also still think shorts already won the battle of 2018. Through keeping the SP artificially low, they forced tsla to focus on profits and efficiency instead of hyper growth. The growth projection has been lowered for at least three years. Sadly the best solution to climate change gets this kind of treatment by those supposedly liberal media. Several more years of extreme weather would produce trillion dollar damage and thousands of deaths.

 

[gora321]

ARK Invest on Twitter

 

[KarenRei]

Supercharger expansion has been proceeding at a record pace the past two quarters. So what are you talking about? I guess it could be considered low on a percentage basis since the base number has gotten so big, but supercharge.info shows >80 in the permit process and >40 under construction worldwide. Numbers this high have been rare in the past.

Can only be tracked when close to land unless you have the upgraded (paid) account, so it appears in its last known location.

Azores is land; you get live tracking there. The delay is due to a storm.

In the UK where I live the model X isn't just a big car, its like a bus. There is NO WAY it is practical on many of the roads I drive down. In fact my model S is annoyingly wide, long and inconvenient. People in the US vastly underestimate how many European, and especially UK customers will be waiting for the model 3. When your road layout is still based on a single medieval horse and cart width, you do NOT want to buy an SUV, and so much of Europe is like that.

I don't know how you put up with lanes like that; whenever I drive in the UK and Ireland I find it really stressful because you have to be so centred in the lane. Our lanes here are US-sized. (Reminder to everyone: Europe is diverse, so one can't make general statements like "European roads are..." or "Europeans drive like....").

I know that @KarenRei disapproves of 18,650 vs. 21,700 discussions

Meh, Tesla made it clear enough I have no objection to discussions on the concept of 18650s being switched out for 2170s or another format at some point in the future. But the constant "They're going to switch them out imminently!" in this thread was getting annoying. I'm very thankful to Tesla for finally putting that to rest.

BTW, did everyone here watch the Jack Rickard build and note his determination of the difference in energy density between the 18650 and 2170 cells? Of course, a pack's density isn't just its cells' density, but it's a good point to rub in. (They were almost identical, the 2170s were only slightly more energy dense... and of course the 18650s have a lot more surface area).

 

[gora321]

Boersenmillionaer.de on Twitter

 

[anthonyj]

I also still think shorts already won the battle of 2018. Through keeping the SP artificially low, they forced tsla to focus on profits and efficiency instead of hyper growth. The growth projection has been lower for at least three years. Sadly the best solution to climate change gets this kind of treatment by those supposedly liberal media. Several more years of extreme weather would produce trillion dollar damage and thousands of deaths.

It’s amazing how Elon is giving WS what it wants and TSLA gets punished

 

[KarenRei]

Each of the 16 modules in a powerpack has its own DC-DC converter

Who says they're using powerpacks?

An unnecessary DC-DC converter is as expensive as an unnecessary AC/DC converter, requiring high-speed switching and powerful capacitors.

That is a huge lossy heat source

Not in the least. ~4V - the worst case - is 1% of the total power you're outputting. Since when is 1% any sort of bad heating figure in terms of charging?

Also, as mentioned, that's totally unnecessary if you deliberately unbalance bricks, because then you can choose an arbitrary combination of whatever bricks whose voltage adds up to your desired voltage.

That takes extra balancing HW

No. You simply switch specific bricks between parallel and series. Wherever there's many parallel, they'll drain slowly; wherever there's few in parallel, they'll drain quickly. Thus offbalancing bricks from each other. No new hardware needed, just the exact same low-speed switching circuitry. There's also the option of switching bricks entirely into or out of the series path rather than between parallel and series.

Low-speed high power switching relays are a lot cheaper than DC-DC converters, which require high-speed high-power switches (IGBTs/MOSFETS) and powerful capacitors.

Note that I'm not saying that this is how it "would" be done - rather, how it "might" be done.

 

[hobbes]

I did some number crunching and statistical home work to investigate how many 3s have been filed for the German incentive.

Results show that with a statistical error of lets say 10% that I would apply, 11,650 Model 3 has been filed in the first week in Germany.

Below all details

German bafa EV/PHEV/FC inventive Applications
All Numbers in Units
Total Applications at Dec 31st 2018: 91.498 Applications added

Date Total Number of Applications Added per period Added per week*** M3 Additions Jan 23rd - 29th

Nov 18 3,917 3,917 979 11.650
Dec 18 3,614 3,614 904
Year 2018 * 91,498 91,498 1,759
22.01.19** 105,186 13,688 4,355
29.01.19 121,191 16,005 16,005

* Company car tax reduction by 50% started Jan 1st. Data Source: bafa.de
** Model 3 approved by bafa for incentive at Jan 22rd
*** Averages or for full 12 months in 2018 beside date 01.01.2019, for 3 first weeks in 2019 and in the last row between 23.01. and 29.01.19

Data Source: BAFA Umweltprämie für Model 3 • TFF Forum - Tesla Fahrer & Freunde
BAFA - Elektromobilität
Zwischenstand des Umweltbonus zum 30. November 2018 | Elektroauto-News.net

Assumptions: The official from the bafa announced 91.498 applications correspond with a similar serial # end of 2018
The 2 at beginning of the serial number is a key charackter of the number but not a counter
Application Numbers from Bafa are serial numbers

Conclusions: At January 1st with the introduction of the 50% company tax cut the applications for all BEVs, PHEVs & FC increased strongly from average 1,759/week to 4,355/week. The company car tax reduction initiated a 5 fold increase of application in January versus average weekly applications end of 2018. The introduction of the Model 3 to the program at January 22nd initiated an addition of 11,650 Model 3s in the first week the program was opened.

View attachment 373075

P.S. apologize for the table that I feel unable to include correctly. See attachment

O.k., looks like we have been waaaay too bullish here (like by more than a factor of 10). Official number is out and it is.... 911 . To put it into context, Model 3 is between the Prius and the Kona Electric for cumulative numbers, and while Model 3 has only been on the list for a week, the others have been there much longer.

Toyota Prius (PHEV): 916
Tesla Model 3: 911
Hyundai Kona Elektro: 909

We also learn that there were applications for 163 Performance Versions and 748 for LR AWD (about 22% Performance).

Note: All those numbers are not the total numbers of orders but only of those people who already applied for Umweltbonus.

Note 2: What went wrong was that we interpreted some serial number to be the number of applications when it really was an "Internet ID" according to someone who talked to the BAFA administration on the phone (I take that to be something like a session ID which counts up everytime someone accesses the online form for an application):

97.645 Umweltbonus-Anträge bis Ende Januar 2019 - electrive.net
http://www.bafa.de/SharedDocs/Downl...wischenbilanz.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=39