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

[Cobbler]

Can I join?

There is room for at least 6.... Why not?

 

[jerry33]

No matter what, Cybertruck is going to turn off a lot of people.

What we really care about is how many people it Turns ON.

Also something to keep in mind is few people have seen it in person, ridden inside, etc.

I was on the turned off, 50/50 side and became a convert over the course of a few hours.

The initial gut reaction on any new design is always Yuuck. It takes a few minutes, hours, days, longer to get to liking it.

 

[jerry33]

The windows breaking from a giant steel ball being thrown at them. Why do so many people care about this? It’s baffling to me. It was a funny moment, but how many people were expecting a truck with unbreakable glass? This trucks not for me, the glass breaks too easily. It’s just a big nothing burger. And I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever used the phrase “nothing burger”.

Having had the driver's window shatter from road debris thrown up from a vehicle going the opposite way, I wouldn't call it a "nothing-burger" . I would say it's not that common, but it's rather annoying when you get showered with glass cubes while driving.

 

[knowitall]

Also, a large charging station is being built in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Not for use by customers. I feel that the new Tesla is going to be built in Hurt, Virginia. Hurt is only a 3 !/2 hour train ride from Hampton Roads and I feel that this Tesla station is to charge the new TESLA cars or trucks and will be charged before being loaded onto ships. Have been studying on this for a long time.....Does anyone know if I am correct?

 

[MrQc]

I consider myself left-leaning, but indeed, the Guardian's coverage of everything Tesla-related has been consistently negative. As a technologist, Wired's coverage has been negative as well, which as a technology-oriented magazine ought to be raving...

 

[mongo]

Also, a large charging station is being built in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Not for use by customers. I feel that the new Tesla is going to be built in Hurt, Virginia. Hurt is only a 3 !/2 hour train ride from Hampton Roads and I feel that this Tesla station is to charge the new TESLA cars or trucks and will be charged before being loaded onto ships. Have been studying on this for a long time.....Does anyone know if I am correct?

Sounds like a megacharger semi recharge depo.
Production vehicles don't need topped off on the way to shipping.

 

[knowitall]

Space Cash..... Read my new post.

 

[ZachF]

So now that we had the chance to sleep once after the reveal of the amazing Tesla stainless steel Cybertruck, here are my thoughts about the economics of the mass manufacturing of stainless steel cars and its implications for the car industry.

I believe Tesla's design is even more advantageous than I initially thought - Tesla achieved a significant manufacturing break-through here - as described in more detail below.

Firstly, a bit of historic background. Somewhat ironically, carmakers have experimented with stainless steel designs as early as 1936, when Ford built six stainless steel sedans for the Ludlum Steel Co. to promote using their product.

This is how well they held up after almost 100 years:

But carmakers had many, many good economic reasons why they didn't make stainless steel cars in volume:

• Much more expensive tooling:
  • Stainless steel is just too hard, and even the latest high-tech press-die alloys don't allow more than just a couple of ten thousand runs - i.e. amortization of these long lead time tooling items is incredibly high because dies that are durable enough to stamp hundreds of thousands of panels before wearing down are incredibly difficult to design and manufacture. I.e. the best, most important property of high precision stamping dies (durability) increases their cost and their lead time significantly.
    
  • Stainless steel is not malleable enough and the press springs back hard which wears down other parts of the press as well IIRC. I believe @Krugerrand wrote about this a year ago or so? (@ReflexFunds might have mentioned it too.)
    
  • Welding of stainless steel is rather difficult - there's contractors out there who do nothing but install and weld stainless steel as a specialty.
• Planned obsolescence: this was one of the major reasons given in a short article about stainless steel cars: they last too damn long and a major source of revenue for established carmakers is from maintenance of the fleet, much of which is out of warranty.
  
• Mass and efficiency disadvantages: stainless steel body panels are not structural, most of them are not load-bearing, so the extra weight and drop in fuel efficiency is significant.

And here comes Tesla and turns all of these economic factors upside down with their first-principles stainless steel car design break-through:

• Much less expensive tooling and assembly:
  • The folded-stainless-steel design requires no stamping.
  • This also reduces tooling lead time significantly. Note how Tesla has announced to make it in 2021 already - basically 1.5 years from now. This is incredibly fast for a new product that changes basically everything about how cars are made, and future iterations will be even faster.
  • Folded stainless steel doesn't have to be welded.
• Making durable cars is actually an advantage for an upstart carmaker like Tesla, whose average fleet age is less than 3 years - even if we ignore the whole benevolent 'save the planet' part of Tesla's mission.
• Vehicle mass and fuel/energy efficiency advantages: the "exoskeleton" design is load bearing, so the stainless steel has a triple role as a frame, skin and crash protection. The inherent weight disadvantages of stainless steel turn into weight advantages. That's I think a big part of how the Tesla Cybertruck will be able to reach 500 miles range - not just battery chemistry and pack manufacturing advances. Low mass also allows sports car properties ...

There's also a couple of unique advantages to stainless steel, which were mentioned here before, but which I believe are important to sum up to get a complete picture about the mass manufacturing economics:

• No paint required: No chemical bath to de-grease and clean the body before painting. No robots to spray several layers of paint. No ovens to dry the paint. No paint chemistry risk - which is still a source of expensive recalls even for much older carmakers.
  
• Corrosion resistance: corrosion of the car under-body, frame and chassis has been a bane of the automotive industry with expensive recalls, significant warranty risks and a longer design and testing cycle. Stainless steel is one of the most corrosion resistant materials, it is used all around in public transportation and construction with a ~100 years track record of the durability of the various stainless steel alloys.
• Stainless steel is significantly more fatigue resistant than the current material of choice of carmakers: aluminum. Stainless steel has 5-10 times the fatigue strength of aluminum, and within its (generous) plastic deformation constraints stainless steel has an infinite fatigue life:

View attachment 480319​

I'm sure with time we will find some disadvantages of stainless steel - such as lower scratch resistance unless made really hard with chromium - but those are solvable IMHO and all the advantages are stacked up a mile high already...

The beauty of Tesla's design: I believe other carmakers will have no choice but to embrace the stainless steel design.

On a final note, Elon disguised the true motivation for the Cybertruck masterfully, without warning the competition prematurely: what everyone thought to be a childhood dream and a personal folly of Elon (Blade Runner truck), was in fact dictated by the economics of this radically new stainless steel based vehicle mass manufacturing paradigm.

Excellent writup. Here in the Northeast USA, rust absolutely destroys most cars, long before their time.

I wonder if we will see 3D printed stainless steel framed cars in the future?

Another thing that will be important, is that by 2022 Starship should be flying, and "This thing is made like a spaceship" should be a huge selling point.

 

[ZachF]

All I can say after ~30 hours with this new car - all current "trucks" look like clay flower pots. Old, fragile and boring.

This cybertruck has been the change of world trends that has not happened for a loooong time, or ever.

Good night to you all.

Cybertruck doesn't rust, doesn't ding, and stops bullets.

Your "Built Ford Tough" F-150 will get a $2,000+ dent if your 5 year old kid pushes a shopping cart into it.

 

[StealthP3D]

And the vast majority still won't be buying $40k plus pickups.

The "vast majority" of 10 million people still leaves a million or two who could potentially compete with me to get their hands on their own Cybertruck. And they are but a tiny fraction of the total market of people who could be in the market for such a truck.

How many of these trucks do you think Tesla can make in the first 4 years of production? They might be production constrained for a very long time. I have concerns about a lot of things but demand for the Cybertruck is certainly not one of them!

 

[electracity]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, it's been hard to keep up with this thread recently. Some people are raising concerns about the safety aspects of the Cybertruck and how economical any repairs would be. With the panels being very costly and difficult to replace (insurance cost concerns) and a lack of crumple zones. The vehicle perhaps being too damaging to others in a crash? Any thoughts on this?

Cybertruck obviously has to have front and rear crumple zones. Presumably horizontal skin creases would be designed to fold from a relatively weak horizontal force.

This vehicle is a form of unibody which also has to be weak to some forces while strong enough to support the vehicle.

 

[elasalle]

Hummer

And the vast majority still won't be buying $40k plus pickups.

Hummer was a Bummer,
but People are Dummer

..just saying. Cheers!!

 

[ZachF]

Of course the “majority” won’t be buying it. Any company would kill to have this kind of interest from “possible” future consumers. Why you downplay it so much is baffling.

Pewdiepie will buy one
Ahhnold will buy one
Joe Rogan will buy one
Kanye will buy thirty five
It will for sure show up in a "Fast & Furious" movie.

 

[2virgule5]

This is serious crack pipe smoking.

It takes a long time to change minds this drastically in terms of aesthetics.

If it does happen it will take a lot longer than 4 years.

This is the equivalent of saying in 4 years the blue business suit will be on the way out in favor of silver sci fi suits.

If aesthetic was the only motivation then yes it would take decades or even infinite time to convert a majority. But take into account economics, specs, savings, performance... and I would’t be surprised by a quite fast (<decade) conversion. It also leaves a lot of space for incumbent to fill so they can stay relevant.

 

[Sunlight]

Hello all,
After being shocked and bewildered by the Cybertruck event, I'm following the crowd in slowly 'coming around' - beginning to love it!

I now realize that the whole broken window thing was the huge joke (not the design) and must have left Frans and Elon wetting themselves backstage afterwards....... then post the Twitter blog showing the window coping just fine!

It was planned and deliberate to generate front page MSM coverage worth how much? And at no real long term cost to Tesla.

Just brilliant!

And funny....

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

Maximize insolation by having Smart Summon park the car in different positions to keep the sun at optimum angle throughout the day! /s

Use air suspension to optimise tilt angle.

 

[ZachF]

Anyone remember when Apple unveiled the iPad?

It was panned and laughed at in the media and Apple's Stock lost almost 10% of it's value ($29.70 to $27.44) over the next 2 days.

In the long term, how did that pan out though?

 

[StealthP3D]

Ho, you're way out over your skis here. The truck bed is 2.8 sq. m in area. Assume 20% panel efficiency and 5 hrs/day insolation @ 1 kw/sq.m.

That's just 2.8 KWh per day. Pick any other values you want, just state your assumptions and show your math.

How do you get bty size out of that? You can't. As long as the pack is physically capable of storing the amount of energy captured in a single day, solar power rating tells you nothing about the vehicle's energy storage capacity.

Now if Elon had said it takes 35 days to fully charge the SR pack, we'd have the straw we need to make our bricks. That'd make it a 100 kwh bty pack. But as is, the revealed specs tell us nothing about the size of the bty. We can only estimate the avg daily charging rate, and even that given some assumptions.

Not so fast! Wasn't Elon talking about a solar kit that folded open (when parked) to expose more area? And we just don't know what that area he was talking about is. But, if we did (and also knew the other factors I mentioned with accuracy), we could use the range added per day to calculate the vehicle's efficiency.

And knowing the vehicle's efficiency and the vehicle's specified range, allows one to calculate battery size.

The only problem is we don't know the specifics with enough accuracy to come up with an accurate efficiency (or range for that matter). It's not clear why you would take issue with this.

 

[EVNow]

I don't think it much matters what the final number is

$100 refundable deposit is not a serious commitment to buy.

In 2010 Nissan LEAF looked like a world beater with $99 deposits.

Nissan takes reservations for 6,635 Leafs in 3 days

6,635 reservations in 3 days. I’d not call it looked like a world beater.

But Leaf did sell 100k in 3 years. This is WW but the reservation was US only.

 

[Don TLR]

Gooseneck towing is more commonly done with a dual wheel setup for more stability but is can be done in a single wheel but that's not the market for this truck.
The wife is worried about travel to Baja with it and the lack of charging south of the border. Good thing the Trip Motor will have more range and Elon claims you can get a few extra miles with (optional possibly) solar panels. That would require breaking down your camp daily which would be a bit of a pain but if you need the range..