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

[skitown]

It was great hearing Joe wax broetic about the car but cringey listening to them mangle the technology of evs and hybrids.

Agreed. It’s amazing how little some folks know. But man he’s got the ear of so many people that hopefully will now learn about Tesla with him. This is pretty huge. Rogan attracts a really interesting demographic for Tesla IMO that like to think a bit outside the box but might also be pretty traditional. A good demo to start working on converting.

 

[reddit_tl]

Guys,
For a long time (at least 4 months, I think) tesla is battery constrained in my view. I have been saying this for a while. Elon was not happy about Panasonic because they dropped the ball during production hell and apparently, they are still not achieving the 35G that was targeted by the end of 2018.

It is now still constrained by batteries with both TE and cars wanting more packs to be delivered. Is this related to today's purchase? Clearly, going forward, battery issue has to be cleared in order to occupy even more market share in different segments. Dropping the ball again on battery will hurt Tesla in the long run because it reduces the first mover advantage and allows demand to be filled by competitors.

This is my thoughts. Anyone who has solid numbers?

 

[Sudre]

I don't think that is true. Tesla Model 3: Exclusive first look at Tesla’s new battery pack architecture.

Don’t trust Electrek to get things completely correct. EV trip planner is using the 80kWh for calculations and they are rarely wrong because they hear about it real quick when someone runs out of charge using their website. Did you actually read the thread I linked to or just jump to a media site that gets things wrong because they are in a hurry to get to the presses?
You may not realize but people are actually driving Model 3s now and can figure out the size of the battery when they sit at a supercharger and put in more that 75kWh. I do not own a Model 3 so I can not be 100% certain. Heck if they charge more than 72kWh the pack has to be larger than 75 just for the cushion Tesla leaves.

If you read the comments on the article you linked you would see they corrected his numbers. The SOC is 78.27.

 

[Curt Renz]

Reuters - this evening: Panasonic shares plunge after profit warning, Tesla's Maxwell deal | Reuters

 

[jpterpsfan]

Don’t trust Electrek to get things completely correct. EV trip planner is using the 80kWh for calculations and they are rarely wrong because they hear about it real quick when someone runs out of charge using their website. Did you actually read the thread I linked to or just jump to a media site that gets things wrong because they are in a hurry to get to the presses?
You may not realize but people are actually driving Model 3s now and can figure out the size of the battery when they sit at a supercharger and put in more that 75kWh. I do not own a Model 3 so I can not be 100% certain. Heck if they charge more than 72kWh the pack has to be larger than 75 just for the cushion Tesla leaves.

If you read the comments on the article you linked you would see they corrected his numbers. The SOC is 78.27.

I stand corrected, several sites still list 74 kWh as the total pack size. It appears the pack size is 80 kWh with 74 kWh of usable capacity.

Modifying the pack size used in the calculation up from 75 kWh to 80 kWh moved the total GWh used for 7k/week for 13 weeks (all LR packs) up by 0.4 GWh. So still roughly 1 GWh of excess capacity each quarter, even with the completely unrealistic all-LR 7k/week production. There will almost certainly be at least 30% SR pack production before consistent 7k/week production is achieved.

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

 

[Buckminster]

If I misread your post, apologize. VW and Toyota are more easy to compare. VW is more vulnerable than Toyota today just because where their consumers are and in which segments.

I do not think VW is anywhere near to be a #2 behind Tesla. I really hope they develop into that position one day but in the last years have been falling further behind. One of the issues VW has is the size. It take decades to transform a large corporation like VW into a BEV company and they just don't have the time because of Tesla. It may be easier for BMW but they have their own challenges.

With every day falling behind VW loose the ability to compete and execute a strategy. Many reasons for it. The larger you are as a ICE automaker the higher the utilization of assets needs to be to make a profit. If you make one you have leverage and make a hell lot of money. If you don't..... well then its the other way around.

I understand that folk dislike VW. I am no different. I am just trying to get to the truth. You mention Toyota and BMW - surely you don't think either are number 2 in EVs or likely to be in the near future. If we can't be a little bit positive about any other credible manufacturer, then surely my other unpopular thesis must be true (in some cases, Tesla are not accelerating move to EVs because they are too good).
If VW were considered to be number 2, it would be good for TSLA I think. VW are a known player. They have no unique tech and are playing Tesla's game. What we don't want is news that some Chinese company has worked out how to make solid state EVs for $10k by the million starting later this year.

 

[sundaymorning]

Speaking of Twitter, can we make some noise and get after f’ing Cramer. He posted Anton wahlman of all the credible people.

Swarm!

Jim Cramer on Twitter

It would not surprise me for Cramer or other networks to frequent TMC, pick a known bear and quote them to stir the pot. Tesla is the biggest name in the game for the media right now, and they know it’ll sell like S3X. Cramer’s Twitter is click-batty, but that’s how he makes a living. He doesn’t care who succeeds or fails, as long as the clicks come rolling in then he can go to sleep at night knowing his kids will be fed and his wife can buy a new pair of shoes.

 

[RobStark]

His name is not about Peterson, but being a Maryland Terrapin's fan (tarps). They are terrible at sports, so I wouldn't trust him.

I hear Longhorns are deadly afraid of Terrapins.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

‘Drop right off’ must be a local expression. I did not mean drop to zero, merely to a low value, hence energy used must climb.

Power by definition is rate of energy transfer, it is not ‘acquired’, used, stored, accumulated, drawn, etc. To use those words is to confuse power with energy, as your cited study did.

Although technically correct, you're missing the forest for the leaves.

"drawing power" from the batteries gets the point across, even if it's worded incorrectly. Yes the y-axis should have been in watts, but if you looked at a leafspy log (which is probably what this author used), the data points are in Ah and volts per 1 second interval, as that's the info available. So Wh is readily available info, whereas watts is not. The chart shows energy consumed/recovered per interval of time, aka power.

The end result is still the same, regen rates are limited by the motors, not the batteries. If you still feel otherwise, then there's nothing more I can say.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Source: TeslaStars on Twitter

 

[Cobos]

Except for the fact that good articles from good writers have been outright rejected while garbage articles such as Anton Wahlman claiming new Jeep Grand Wagoneer or something similarly ridiculous is the next Tesla killer. The editors favor anti Tesla articles.

I'm not disputing this at all, but especially Randy Carlsen and I seem to recall our own SPadival has both gotten good Tesla articles through.
My point was rather that judge the actual writers rather than the platform. The writers in question is are usually either thuroughly short or long.

 

[Gavyne]

Joe Rogan bought a S P100D, fully endorses the car.

People thought it was a bad idea for Elon to go on Joe Rogan's, but this shows you it was mission accomplished. Elon converted a muscle car, rough & tough guy into loving electric. This is exactly what needs to happen in order to make EV's mainstream. Hearing Joe drool over his new P100D is surely going to get more people to look into buying a Tesla.

 

[KarenRei]

My big issue with SA is that they're sort of like Fox News: they keep around a couple bulls "for balance", while the overwhelming majority of what they publish (not just on personal blogs) is bearish. To be fair, I don't personally have experience with their editorial decisions, but I can tell you from personal experience that they nasty habit of censoring comments from bulls in the comments section. For a random example, they repeatedly blocked my attempts to question Montana Skeptic on his three-times-changing story about why he was retiring from posting.

That's not to say that every bullish comment will get censored - it's anything but that. Again, they like the illusion of "balance". But if you're a bull, they're going to use a much harsher standard on you than anyone else. Bears can shout whatever conspiracy theory they want, but if you're a bull, you better be careful what you say.

 

[KarenRei]

Reuters - this evening: Panasonic shares plunge after profit warning, Tesla's Maxwell deal | Reuters

If the Maxwell thing is negatively affecting Panasonic - e.g. market realization that this is a move toward Tesla inhousing more of their profits in the future - it's ridiculous that such an effect wouldn't correspond with a Tesla surge. The dilution was just a little over a dollar. Tesla was up yesterday $0,68. The market is attributing almost nothing to Tesla for a move toward inhousing profit, while simultaneously punishing Panasonic for it. It's nonsense.

 

[Mobius484]

Rogan is the kind of guy who will drive the car for a while and really start to see through the bullsugar and pass that along to his peeps. That could be good for FUD busting.

The maxwell acquisition looks promising.

Wasn’t it on the rogan cast that Elon’s talked about the energy density needed to make electric airplanes work, was it 500w/kg? I saw in the maxwell stuff that they were potentially seeing that kind of level of density.

I need a neuro link in order to keep up with this thread. Whew!

 

[KarenRei]

It's important to look at this in terms of cost savings, too. At 35GWh/year and $100/kWh, Tesla will be spending $3,5B annually on cell production. Even if dry electrodes equates to just a 10% reduction in production costs, that's $350M/year in savings.

Inhousing the tech so that they're the exclusive owners of it and don't have to license it to a third party has very obvious benefits. Even small savings in cell production cost justify that.

The other aspect is that what's being discussed here isn't a one-hit wonder. From the sound of it they use a polymer binder that's stable against charge cycling / does not interfere with ion flow to bind together tiny grains of active material. Well, that applies to any active electrode material, not a specific one. Tesla can continue upgrading their active materials, while benefiting from this tech.

Note that this is a lot more than simply packing electrode materials until they adhere, or blending them into a liquid binder. It's very important that electrode materials be loose, with as much accessible surface area and pore space as possible - otherwise, the formation of the SEI can interfere with lithium ions reaching to/from deeper electrode materials. If there was no pore space, or it was filled with a non-permeable polymer, the formation of the SEI would ruin the cell capacity and you'd have severe degradation.

One last thing: if this improves the overall binding properties without interfering with conductivity (or improving it), it also opens up the possibility of new electrode materials. For example, the energy dense anode materials like silicon (which manufacturers sometimes try to work in in small quantities) can intercalate vastly more lithium than graphite or amorphous carbon, but they swell tremendously, which cracks and destroys whatever structures they're part of. Techniques to utilize silicon better in anodes are all about how to "cage" tiny particles in a way that they're free to expand as they need to, but are still packed close enough to allow for proper conduction of charge. This sort of process might well do the trick (it's hard to say without knowing more about their work).

 

[RobStark]

Tesla direct sales in New Mexico gains ground as "Tesla Bill" gets approved

According to Teslarati Tesla has a clear path to victory in New Mexico dealership fight.

Voting has been on strictly partisan lines with Democrats in favor and Republicans against. Democrats control both houses of the legislature plus the Governorship.

 

[ZachShahan]

Pics rolling in: First ~3,000 Tesla Model 3s For European Customers Arrive In European Port — Pictures! | CleanTechnica

Your long wait is over, Europe.

Enjoy! (And send pics, videos, & stories. )

 

[SPadival]

I seem to recall our own SPadival has both gotten good Tesla articles through.

That's news to me. You must have mistaken me for Sid Dalal.