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

[AlexS]

according to @ihors3, $TSLA shorting is just under 30% of float. Spring? check. Compressed? check. Released? Still waiting...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D6oa_XhW4AEYugZ.jpg

...and again I'm left wondering what he thinks the float is. According to marketwatch it is 119.18 which results in short interest of 32.38%. Someone with a twitter account might ask for clarification?

If you are looking for a short squeeze you need to get short interest around 40%, meet production and delivery guidance and start knocking out one by one each leg of the bear case.

One leg is knocked out - can't raise capital. There are many more left to knock
Meet delivery target in Q2 seems unrealistic at the moment

History lesson is here:
Tesla Short Squeeze

 

[FreqFlyer]

Right, so removing the ovens is going to reduce volume needed to produce cells by a factor of 16?

Originally the Gigafactory 1 was going to eventually produce 150 GWh / year.

Will this allow it to get to 2000 GWh / year if desired?

World's first Terafactory?

Could be the reason why G1 has not expanded, with the new production methods needing less space, there is no need to expand the building.

 

[capster]

I'll disagree with that statement. He's responsible for a lot of EC funded research in a wide number of areas and is very highly respected. As a scientist you challenge everything until you have proof, and then you challenge it more. Given that Li-ion batteries have quite well-known degradation parameters over time and charging cycles I can understand doubts over the longevity of Tesla battery packs. In fact there are any number of tricks you could pull that would be easier than actually coming up with newer chemistries and super-efficient thermal management that would improve the life of the pack.

I hasten to add that I disagree with him, but it's based more on belief than knowledge. I believe Tesla has superior chemistry and thermal management, plus other sh1t we don't know about...

Ask him how many accelerated, destructive testing regimes with attempts to correlate results with the cycling approach he’s attempted please.

In other words, battery testing has historically been slow, but who’s to say Tesla hasn’t found a shortcut there too?

After all, battery development arguably seems to have been rate limited by business requirements at least as much as by chemistry in the last half century before Tesla.

 

[oneday]

Anyone know the status of the maxwell merger? Offer expires at midnight.

 

[AlexS]

Yes but you're ignoring the other immediate and important benefit, elimination of space taking and time consuming energy wasting drying ovens from the manufacturing process

BTW there is new technology available - laser drying of electrodes to drastically decrease time in the oven, it is not yet widely in use, but being more and more implemented day by day as advantage is big. I tried to ask Elon on twitter if he ever considered it, but probably he never saw my tweet.

 

[JRP3]

AFAIK he's not spreading anything, it's just discussions we have over a few beers or when driving to gigs - we share the same fine taste in music, other than his liking for Genesis...

The problem is we've had available cycle life data from Panasonic from almost 10 years ago showing how long a 200+ mile pack would likely last in regular driving cycles. I'm not a cell chemist but Tesla packs are lasting the way available evidence suggested they would. He's either unaware of industry data or ignoring it, along with ignoring the real world examples we have for high mileage packs. He's also ignoring the data from people who have taken apart Tesla packs and tested them, there is no mechanism to "game" the system.

 

[AlexS]

Raven has homologation issue in US, that's why deliveries are delayed. Probably fixed in next few days

 

[ReflexFunds]

Raven has homologation issue in US, that's why deliveries are delayed. Probably fixed in next few days

That's good news, suggests just a small admin issue rather than continued production problems delaying the new S/X deliveries. Hopefully that means they already started ramping production back up to speed when Raven was announced 3 weeks ago.

 

[humbaba]

If you are looking for a short squeeze you need to get short interest around 40%, meet production and delivery guidance and start knocking out one by one each leg of the bear case.

One leg is knocked out - can't raise capital. There are many more left to knock
Meet delivery target in Q2 seems unrealistic at the moment

History lesson is here:
Tesla Short Squeeze

I'm not talking about a short squeeze, just waiting for a not-quite-so-depressed-marvin-the-robot stock price

 

[humbaba]

BTW there is new technology available - laser drying of electrodes to drastically decrease time in the oven, it is not yet widely in use, but being more and more implemented day by day as advantage is big. I tried to ask Elon on twitter if he ever considered it, but probably he never saw my tweet.

Something that I'm surprised gets only an aside mention here is that Maxwell eliminates the toxic solvent and thus improves the ecological impact of battery manufacturing. I get that other companies likely don't care, but I think that even if all else were equal Musk would want it for that alone.

 

[SpudLime]

FFS, take the battery tech talk to your own thread.

 

[mongo]

Raven has homologation issue in US, that's why deliveries are delayed. Probably fixed in next few days

Yeah, they seem to have another issue too, no (published) VIN decoder, and they seem to be using the old VIN code for the drive units.

It should cover motor type, that's why I was wondering if the rest of your VIN matched the old standard.
From the requirements Vehicle Identification Number Requirements:


Table 1:


From the VIN decoder Tesla submitted to NHTSA previously:
Digit 8: Motor/Drive Unit
1= Single Motor – Standard (Designated for Model S)
3= Single Motor – Performance (Designated for Model S)
2 = Dual Motor (standard) (Designated for Model S & Model X)
4 = Dual Motor (performance) (Designated for Model S & Model X)
A= Single Motor – Standard (Designated for Model 3)
B = Dual Motor – Standard (Designated for Model 3)

 

[Krugerrand]

I'll disagree with that statement. He's responsible for a lot of EC funded research in a wide number of areas and is very highly respected. As a scientist you challenge everything until you have proof, and then you challenge it more. Given that Li-ion batteries have quite well-known degradation parameters over time and charging cycles I can understand doubts over the longevity of Tesla battery packs. In fact there are any number of tricks you could pull that would be easier than actually coming up with newer chemistries and super-efficient thermal management that would improve the life of the pack.

I hasten to add that I disagree with him, but it's based more on belief than knowledge. I believe Tesla has superior chemistry and thermal management, plus other sh1t we don't know about...

Yeah. No. I’m good with scientific questioning. But there’s more than enough data out there supporting Tesla’s superior battery chemistry and very good (low) degradation. A crap ton of real world data.

His assumption that Tesla must be cheating because nobody else had achieved what Tesla has a achieved isn’t very scientific.

 

[elasalle]

Anyone know the status of the maxwell merger? Offer expires at midnight.

After Midnight. We gotta let it all hang out

 

[elasalle]

OT Bloomberg - Are you a robot?


+ Yun Lin on Twitter

 

[Beaver]

Exclusive: Tesla's solar factory is exporting most of its cells - document - Reuters

And..

Tesla says solar factory will now make EV chargers and other products - Reuters

 

[Reciprocity]

Unless Maxwell has some unannounced method to remove the liquid electrolyte from the cell their dry electrode manufacturing does not make a solid state cell. I see no explanation how their dry electrode manufacturing removes cobalt from cells. I've seen Jack's video, I don't remember him talking about Maxwell allowing solid state cells or cobalt free cells, maybe you could point out the specific parts in the video?

Jeff Dahn has already shown that cobalt can be removed completely from the current NCA cells that Tesla uses. The DBE is just using more stable materials so that might in turn make some of the technologies more easy to implement. The material is much more stable because its more controlled throughout the entire manufacturing process. More stable temps, the material does not change from beginning to the end, its flexible and easy to work with and non-toxic. This means it wont react badly to future materials required for Solid State for example.

Solid state exists today, Dr Goodenough invented it and it works in the lab, its just not been mass produced yet. In part because its based on a glass like material. You tell me how you roll up glass and stick it into an aluminium tube. Or take a larger roll and mash it like flat and stock it into a rectangular cell. The thought is that whatever that final material is, it will be easier to work with DBE vs the current tech.

 

[Alphacrux]

Received an email from my delivery advisor saying that they would match my order to a VIN within the next 2-5 weeks. SP100DL Raven ordered 4/30.

 

[elasalle]

Exclusive: Tesla's solar factory is exporting most of its cells - document - Reuters

And..

Tesla says solar factory will now make EV chargers and other products - Reuters

-->Tesla informed the state Wednesday that it exceeded all its job and spending milestones it had agreed to as part of the governor's Buffalo Billion program

Another FUD logic, out the door - speculation out there that Tesla would have to may back a big amount to NY, for not meeting obligations.

 

[Todd Burch]

S/X news is a relief if true. If they are in fact building the cars and parking them in the factory lot until homologation is approved, it means they should have time to get them delivered by EOQ.

S/X will get delivery priority...they should be able to handle that in the 6 weeks remaining.