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

[dqd88]

Wouldn't be a bad pick IMO - certainly would bring more to the table than Murdoch.

Plus would be worth it just to watch the CNBC video when they announce it, plus the shorties would go apoplectic.

Haha, for sure.
I think Bob is repenting for his sins now. I think he was very jealous of Elon. The Model 3 is the car that he wishes he could have built. And the audacity to start a car company from scratch - "who does Elon think he is!". Bob could not synthesize it. Now he's there.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Because eventually we'll need to dispose of those batteries.

Where do you get this idea? Tesla batteries will NEVER be disposed. They will first be repurposed for stationary storage by folks like Jack Rickard, and then finally recycled for their contents by new companies like the one JB is creating. Lithium atoms (and all the other battery ingredients) don't wear out.

Your argument consists of repeating FUD without providing any credible source to back it. Decisions based on false assumptions will not solve the actual problem. Indeed they lead down the wrong path. That's because FUD is designed to attack the one problem faced in common by its originators: Tesla is a threat to their continued existence as a viable business.

The polluting economy will end. Either in environmental disaster and society collapse, or by transition to renewables (as Elon is trying to achieve). The old boys are afraid. They should be. Their days are numbered.

 

[dqd88]

Dream or nightmare? Why India should postpone its electric vehicle plans for ten years

Can the wise men/women out here help me fight this FUD please..? it says, India should not think about EVs for a long time due to shortage of Cobalt and Lithium.

I understand that Cobalt percentage has come down dramatically in current Tesla cells, and the expectation it would reduce even more to a level where it not of any concern at all.

Lithium is abundant. Although much of it is coming from Chile today, many parts of the world, Litium is available for relatively easy extraction including US. Can someone expand on this?

While the title is a bit FUD-ish, I don't think that's what the author is going for; they seem to present a rational perspective, imo (note; not necessarily a "good" perspective, but a rational one).
A better, and still fitting, title would have been: India should plan carefully to become a global leader in EVs

You said "it says, India should not think about EVs for a long time"
The article doesn't say that. Kinda the opposite. They are saying that India SHOULD think about EVs, and plan for the undeniable paradigm shift that is ahead. They want to adequate time to plan for it. The article acknowledges the advantages of EV:

"India should use this time to take care of two pressing issues.

First, prepare for the coming disruption in the automobile industry. EV electric motors produce a constant torque at all speeds, eliminating the need for auto parts like multiple speed transmission system, clutch and gearbox. And no exhaust pipe since the EV is emission free. An EV has 20 moving parts, while a regular petrol or diesel vehicle has more than 2,000."​

But they are concerned that this will cause economic disruption, too quickly:

"For this reason, when fully adopted EVs will kill most auto component firms. Survivors will have to move to an industry 4.0 format. India would also need to reskill a large number of motor mechanics. They cannot repair EVs because of the sophisticated electronics. End of ubiquitous roadside motor garages."​

They know that China is leading. They don't want to increase reliance on China. (the two countries aren't exactly best friends)

"Second, and, more important, India should use the next ten years window to become a leader in next-generation battery technology. This is an honourable way to pursue EV dreams without being critically dependent on any country. This will require setting up of a high-ambition, well-funded institution headed by a recognised expert. That would be a project worthy of investing our national pride in."
​

I would not be too concerned about this article. I think your points about mining are a good rebuttal though.
I did not get the sense that India wants to prevent Tesla from entering. It would be a luxury item there that much of the population would not be able to afford. Tesla's limited impact wouldn't kill off "auto component firms." So I think they'll let Tesla in. This article is probably aimed at Tata Motors, et al.
Elon said they'll prob be in India next year. I know many Indians want that. I think it will happen.

​

 

[Christine69420]

The key question is, then, how much of the nickel sufide ores are "good enough grade".

I'll happily donate all my cheap jewelry. Should be plenty of nickel in those. Tesla has my contact info.

Here is the clip

Shocking new video appears to show man asleep behind wheel of self-driving car on LA freeway

30mi with driver sleeping - good benchmark for AP !

Or a clever prankster with his hand on the bottom of the steering wheel?

 

[dqd88]

Where do you get this idea? Tesla batteries will NEVER be disposed. They will first be repurposed for stationary storage by folks like Jack Rickard, and then finally recycled for their contents by new companies like the one JB is creating. Lithium atoms (and all the other battery ingredients) don't wear out.

Your argument consists of repeating FUD without providing any credible source to back it. Decisions based on false assumptions will not solve the actual problem. Indeed they lead down the wrong path. That's because FUD is designed to attack the one problem faced in common by its originators: Tesla is a threat to their continued existence as a viable business.

The polluting economy will end. Either in environmental disaster and society collapse, or by transition to renewables (as Elon is trying to achieve). The old boys are afraid. They should be. Their days are numbered.

Not sure how I'm saying FUD when I want Tesla to come out with more models and have a bigger product roadmap. I want Tesla to become the biggest car company in the world.
I didn't know batteries will never be disposed. That's great to hear!
You're preaching to the choir.

 

[Fact Checking]

Dream or nightmare? Why India should postpone its electric vehicle plans for ten years

Can the wise men/women out here help me fight this FUD please..? it says, India should not think about EVs for a long time due to shortage of Cobalt and Lithium.

I understand that Cobalt percentage has come down dramatically in current Tesla cells, and the expectation it would reduce even more to a level where it not of any concern at all.

Lithium is abundant. Although much of it is coming from Chile today, many parts of the world, Litium is available for relatively easy extraction including US. Can someone expand on this?

Cobalt reduction in Tesla cells:

Tesla Model 3 batteries have 75% less cobalt than Volkswagen's current cells
​

Tesla also disclosed that they hope to eliminate much of the remaining cobalt from their chemistry as well. Cobalt prices collapsed in the past ~1.5 years to about 50% of the peak price in late 2017.

If India is worried about cobalt supply limits, they could invite in a Tesla Gigafactory, or two.

Lithium is comparatively abundant, and supply (mining) has been expanding faster than demand, which dropped lithium prices and price expectations:

Morgan Stanley claims lithium price will plunge 45% by 2021, Pilbara Minerals not fazed
Subscribe to read | Financial Times​

Li-ion cells are IIRC using less than 0.15 kg/kWh metallic lithium, so a 100 kWh EV would use less than 20 kg.

While lithium is certainly rare with ~20 ppm abundance, lithium is still the 32th most abundant one in the Earth's crust:

Abundance of elements in Earth's crust - Wikipedia
​

Lithium is more abundant than lead, tin or iodine.

Concentrated deposits (lithium salts) that are much cheaper to mine are relatively abundant too, there's major deposits on every continent - mining is primarily a function of extraction cost, not availability, and China is indeed ramping it up quickly but they are by no means the only deposit or supplier.

I'd not be surprised if India has major deposits of lithium, not yet discovered, and there's plenty of lithium outside China as well:

India gains access to Bolivian lithium reserves - ET Auto​

India could become a major EV player too, if they get ahead of the western automotive industry.

I.e. the whole article reeks of "the future is uncertain hence we should do nothing" defeatism, mixed with a bit of concern trolling.

 

[dqd88]

Sorry, why is this bad? Or, more accurately, why is this worse than ~100MM cars spewing CO2(and CO and...) into the atmosphere?

You’re stating that would be “Bad.”, but provide no evidence for that. Even if it devastated some local environments(yet to be proven), that’s still less than the wholesale, worldwide destruction worsening climate change will do.

If I may clarify my stance -- I like EVs. I hate gas.

 

[brian45011]

There's an abandoned Lithium mine here in NC that could yield up to 20 tons of lithium ore a year for as long as 20 years according to the new owners. They're planning a slow startup with production restarting in 2021 but I bet Elon could speed that up if he purchased the company... NC was once a top source of lithium. Growing demand could lead to a mine near Charlotte. About :: Piedmont Lithium Limited (PLL)

Might be an option if the new owners would accept TSLA shares like the owners of Grohmann, Central Valley Auto Transport, and management at MXWL. Market cap for PLL is ~$75 mm
PLL | Stock Snapshot - Fidelity

Looks like CapEx plans are about $0.5 billion, but

Joint commitment to lithium-ion with BMW and Daimler...
Batteries to be sourced from new SK Innovation plant in Georgia​

https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.ne...orate+Presentation+May+29+ASX_Final+Draft.pdf

How would Elon speed up current plans? Wouldn't that take additional capital?

​

 

[HG Wells]

SR/SR+ thread has several people who wanted to order plain SR being told 6-8 weeks.
See
SR/SR+ Waiting Room

Supposedly won't downgrade a SR+ to plain SR anymore.

 

[jerry33]

Are you saying that you can buy those various Tesla adapter cables and plug and play into the standard Tesla hard-wired wall connectors?

Wasn't it previously shipping as one unified product back in January?

FYI, I know this is OT, but not finding much info about this, neither on the net or on TMC and Tesla forums. Somebody on a TMC forum elsewhere said that Tesla ran out of inventory and so removed it from their website. ?!?? What's going on with this? Anybody??

I believe they don't ship them with the car anymore, but you can purchase the ones you need. The cars just come with the 120 V adapter.

 

[Electroman]

Thank you @dqd88 and @Fact Checking

Lot of good info. Much appreciated

 

[KarenRei]

I don't see much unwinding of the wave this quarter, either. They sent fewer cars to Europe and especially China, but first and last ships set sail on roughly the same dates. Unless they start loading ships again before Q2 ends,, which would represent a partial unwinding.

That is indeed the distinguishing factor: whether Tesla continues to load ships late in the quarter.

I kind of worry that they're not going to have enough production capacity this quarter to do so as planned, given how huge sales have been.

 

[RFernatt]

Wouldn't be a bad pick IMO - certainly would bring more to the table than Murdoch.

Plus would be worth it just to watch the CNBC video when they announce it, plus the shorties would go apoplectic.

"Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer" kind of thing maybe...

 

[KarenRei]

Cobalt reduction in Tesla cells:

Tesla Model 3 batteries have 75% less cobalt than Volkswagen's current cells
​

Tesla also disclosed that they hope to eliminate much of the remaining cobalt from their chemistry as well. Cobalt prices collapsed in the past ~1.5 years to about 50% of the peak price in late 2017.

If India is worried about cobalt supply limits, they could invite in a Tesla Gigafactory, or two.

Lithium is comparatively abundant, and supply (mining) has been expanding faster than demand, which dropped lithium prices and price expectations:

Morgan Stanley claims lithium price will plunge 45% by 2021, Pilbara Minerals not fazed
Subscribe to read | Financial Times​

Li-ion cells are IIRC using less than 0.15 kg/kWh metallic lithium, so a 100 kWh EV would use less than 20 kg.

While lithium is certainly rare with ~20 ppm abundance, lithium is still the 32th most abundant one in the Earth's crust:

Abundance of elements in Earth's crust - Wikipedia
​

Lithium is more abundant than lead, tin or iodine.

Concentrated deposits (lithium salts) that are much cheaper to mine are relatively abundant too, there's major deposits on every continent - mining is primarily a function of extraction cost, not availability, and China is indeed ramping it up quickly but they are by no means the only deposit or supplier.

I'd not be surprised if India has major deposits of lithium, not yet discovered, and there's plenty of lithium outside China as well:

India gains access to Bolivian lithium reserves - ET Auto​

India could become a major EV player too, if they get ahead of the western automotive industry.

I.e. the whole article reeks of "the future is uncertain hence we should do nothing" defeatism, mixed with a bit of concern trolling.

Anyone who thinks the world is going to "run out of lithium" must not be aware that sea salt is about 5ppm lithium It's an effectively limitless reserve.

Lithium is produced today from salar brine and spodumene, as well as some new emerging sources (none of which are "running out") because it's cheaper than from sea brine. But the price to recover lithium from sea brine is not at all "prohibitive" for EVs.

 

[brian45011]

Who's lined up the battery supply for electric cars?
(1) Tesla
(2) BYD
(3) that is all

That was due to long-range supply chain thinking.

Nearly a decade ago Daimler dabbled in a JV with Evonik. Lately, they seem to be pacing cell supply with their perception of EV adoption.
Global battery production network of Mercedes-Benz | Daimler
Volvo just signed a deal with CATL
https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-...ion-dollar-battery-supply-deal-828522567.html
There has been some press about possible future cell supply shortages for the Korean manufacturers Hyundai and Kia, but no real indication that it is constraining sales.

What some may perceive as incompetence in supply chain management of other auto manufacturers could alternatively just be a more conservative approach to matching supply with expected demand. Most OEMs conduct market research to guide their planning.

 

[Fact Checking]

I kind of worry that they're not going to have enough production capacity this quarter to do so as planned, given how huge sales have been.

It's a happy problem to have so high organic demand that just the fraction of demand within a ~1,000 miles radius of the factory can absorb 100% of the output in June...

As @neroden pointed it out a few weeks ago they'll probably have excess supply in July to send overseas, and the end of Q3 might see more unwinding of the "wave".

Plus they might switch the factory in the final week to EU/China/RHD production and fill a ship with at the end of the quarter - although the typical pattern is to make U.S. units for July in the final week.

 

[dc_h]

That is indeed the distinguishing factor: whether Tesla continues to load ships late in the quarter.

I kind of worry that they're not going to have enough production capacity this quarter to do so as planned, given how huge sales have been.

There’s a new ship in SFO harbor now. So at least one more load is likely. In theory it could be hardware for Shanghai GF, but I think it is more RH cars for UK or Australia. So maybe partial unwind is happening, but maybe not completely until Shanghai is running.

 

[Fact Checking]

Anyone who thinks the world is going to "run out of lithium" must not be aware that sea salt is about 5ppm lithium It's an effectively limitless reserve.

Lithium is produced today from salar brine and spodumene, as well as some new emerging sources (none of which are "running out") because it's cheaper than from sea brine. But the price to recover lithium from sea brine is not at all "prohibitive" for EVs.

Yeah, and extraction of lithium from sea water is relatively straightforward with reverse osmosis filters - no evaporation ponds needed.

Just to visualize how much lithium there is in sea water, in the context of the article @Electroman linked to:

• Average salinity of sea water is ~3.5%,
• if you go down to the beach anywhere on the shores of India, you'll see about 40 km² of sea surface,
• average oceanic depth (over the whole surface) is 3.6 km,
• this means that there's about 144 km³ of sea water you can see on the oceans on average, which is a tiny, tiny (one millionth) fraction of all sea water which is 1,350,000,000 km³.
• This comparatively tiny fraction of 144 km³ sea water contains 5 billion tons of salt (!), in which there's about 25,000 tons of lithium, enough to make 1,000,000 EVs with a 100 kWh battery.
• As a comparison, Chile's entire lithium production is 14,000 tons per year...

Lithium supply is effectively inexhaustible, calling it a "rare earth" is one of the more brazen TSLAQ lies.

 

[Frank Einstein]

Saw a fascinating video today on Reddit of Elon being interviewed back in 2007. Send it to anyone who says Elon doesn't ever get the things done that he says he will. The thing that struck me most about the video was how much more freely and fluently Elon was speaking compared to today; he was so much more relaxed. It's such a shame that he has to think and rethink every word he says -- and even then everything he says gets twisted out of all recognition regardless.

We should be putting up statues of him, not assassinating his character at every opportunity.

 

[dc_h]

OT
There was some interest about Elon updating his twitter profile to the Roadster dude drinking coffee on Mars. I think this discussion and apparent book from Robert Zubrin was the reason. SpaceX is what got me into and eventually over-invested in Tesla. The short version of the video is that SpaceX is a game changer and will allow concurrent landing and exploration of the moon and Mars. Zubrin is an influential rebel from NASA and Martin Marietta, pushing for Mars exploration in the 1990’s using an earlier and streamlined version of the SLS (yep, design is basically over 35 years old). I hope this is of interest if OT.

Robert Zubrin - Mars Direct 2.0 with Starship