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

[ReflexFunds]

I don't hear much on recycling Tesla batteries. Cheaper than mining the materials?

Historic cumulative global battery production is only a fraction of what Tesla will be using annually. It will be a very long time before battery volumes reach steady state and recycling can become a significant % of raw material supply.

 

[nativewolf]

Okay, first off, let's include what you omitted:

Supercharger connections (the first actual stat that matters): +34%. Why do you care about the number of Supercharger stations, rather than the number of stalls?
Mobile fleet: +81%

So the # of service centres is only up 13%. But the mobile service fleet growth vastly outpaces vehicle sales growth. I see no problem. They're doing more and more with mobile vehicles these days. Also, the growth in the number of service centres says absolutely nothing about whether they're hiring more people to work at existing service centres. Adding new service centres is just to increase geographic coverage.

Back to Superchargers. Here's the things you're not including:

• Power was upped from 120kW to 145kW (ignoring the relatively small % of V3s out there). In ideal circumstances, that's an extra 20% throughput. In practice, you're probably averaging more like 10% of an increase in throughput. But in general: the sooner you move out a car, the sooner a stall is free.
• Pack preheating as you approach a Supercharger (to accelerate charge rates) is now enabled. This also speeds up Supercharging, and thus frees up stalls.
• The vast majority of the world's Supercharger stations spend most of their time idle. There is no need to increase the density in these areas until they hit their limits; the amount of vehicle growth just moves them from "mostly idle" to "not as idle". Supercharger growth is only needed to A) expand the geographic extent of the network, and B) in areas where the existing network needs more capacity.
• They're now switching to V3 stations. With a 250kW peak and no throttling between "shared stalls", V3 will have much higher throughput per stall than V2.

Overall, I think these numbers are great, all things considered.

ED: Whoa! Just checked Supercharge.info... they're already building in both Macedona and Bulgaria? Awesome! They'll be in Greece and Turkey soon!

Then you will be able to drive from Iceland to sunshine in Greece...


... hey...what do you mean there's no bridge? With you recent massive bearish diversification I guess you can park an extra M3 or My or Mx or CT or even a Semi in France and head whichever direction makes the most sense.

On a serious note the need for more Supercharger density is almost entirely a California issue at this time. I could see it emerging as an issue in the NL (hint- don't park your extra tesla in the NL- gray and flat anyway..ok so sue me I rarely stay serious).

Did you note that energy is still almost entirely discounted by the "analyst" ?

 

[electracity]

Thoughts on what Tesla will announce on battery day in April & how Tesla’s future battery strategy will come together:

• Use cell supply from Panasonic/LG/CATL to bridge to ramp of in-house cell production (possibly towards ~90GWh contracted from these three suppliers).
• Announce that in-house cell production has just started (Apr-20) on a small scale (likely for Semi or Plaid Model S), with plans to ramp significantly in 2021 (potentially for all future new capacity from 2021).
• Announce a roadmap to reach 2TWh of annual in-house battery cell+module+pack production capacity by 2030. Enough for ~20 million annual EV sales and ~750GWH annual stationary battery storage sales.

Possible relatively short term technology breakthroughs:

• Tesla will apply agile development to its in-house cell manufacturing as it does everything else - so flexibility for rapid upgrades and iterations of the process to accelerate cost experience curves.
• Use Maxwell dry electrode tech to reduce manufacturing cost and footprint.
• Maxwell dry electrode tech leads to better physical properties, in particular allowing thicker cathodes (higher cathode % per cell) & possibly new chemistries.
• Move to use of single crystal cathodes - possibly helped by Maxwell process/other in-house R&D. This was a big part of the 1 million mile cells tested by Dahn.
• Use very carefully selected electrolyte additives following Dahn research.
• Highly automated manufacturing process to reduce staffing bottlenecks to production ramp.
• Tesla Hibar designs systems for electrolyte insertion during the cell manufacturing process.
• Combine all this with further in-house developed cell IP and possibly third party licensed tech. (Remember there are many steps in cell manufacturing and Maxwell/Hibar are only part of this)
• Reduce cathode kg per kWh to reduce raw material cost
• Next generation in-house module/pack lines for continued reduced cost & capex.
• Build a huge factory to build in-house cell/pack manufacturing equipment at scale (the machine that builds the machine that builds the machine) - significantly reducing capex per GWh capacity

Possible Longer term breakthroughs:

• Integrated cell & pack design & manufacturing process to reduce footprint & cost.
• Dahn lithium metal anode allows for much thinner anode, higher energy density & longer electrode life (at the expense of shorter electrolyte life).
• Replaceable electrolyte design to extend lithium metal anode battery life. Develop Hibar machines for easy electrolyte replacement in service centres.
• Dahn research is used to eliminate cobalt from the cathode leaving just Nickel Aluminium or Nickel Manganese.

Note these are all just possibilities (based on acquisitions, press leaks, published scientific papers, patents & speculation):
These various steps & incremental improvements may or may not be introduced once they have been proven ready for affordable mass manufacturing.

Some things I thing would help accelerate and de-risk Tesla’s battery cell ramp plans:

• Buy Panasonic’s GF1 business for cell manufacturing employee experience (who can be used to train new employees on Tesla’s cell lines) and other cell IP.
• Buy/build Cathode powder manufacturing expertise (currently Panasonic mostly uses Sumitomo). Cathode powder is likely ~20% premium to its raw material constituents & the process can be key to cell properties.
• Buy Nickel Sulphate & lithium carbonate/hydroxide processor expertise - this will be a huge % of cell cost & Tesla’s plans require ~10x the current Nickel sulphate & Lithium market size.
• Buy other suppliers in the cell manufacturing chain

Tesla cannot trust & rely on third parties to deliver such critical components of its business plan, particularly when the metals market leaders do not believe in an EV transition as aggressive as Tesla is targeting.

Tesla is not going to switch to in-house cell production. They may add in-house production. They need all the lower cost high volume batteries they can get.

Tesla doesn't have a battery quality/feature problem. They have a battery volume problem. A dramatic high risk approach to bring everything in house doesn't improve ROI.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Thoughts on what Tesla will announce on battery day in April & how Tesla’s future battery strategy will come together:

• Use cell supply from Panasonic/LG/CATL to bridge to ramp of in-house cell production (possibly towards ~90GWh contracted from these three suppliers).
• Announce that in-house cell production has just started (Apr-20) on a small scale (likely for Semi or Plaid Model S), with plans to ramp significantly in 2021 (potentially for all future new capacity from 2021).
• Announce a roadmap to reach 2TWh of annual in-house battery cell+module+pack production capacity by 2030. Enough for ~20 million annual EV sales and ~750GWH annual stationary battery storage sales.

Possible relatively short term technology breakthroughs:

• Tesla will apply agile development to its in-house cell manufacturing as it does everything else - so flexibility for rapid upgrades and iterations of the process to accelerate cost experience curves.
• Use Maxwell dry electrode tech to reduce manufacturing cost and footprint.
• Maxwell dry electrode tech leads to better physical properties, in particular allowing thicker cathodes (higher cathode % per cell) & possibly new chemistries.
• Move to use of single crystal cathodes - possibly helped by Maxwell process/other in-house R&D. This was a big part of the 1 million mile cells tested by Dahn.
• Use very carefully selected electrolyte additives following Dahn research.
• Highly automated manufacturing process to reduce staffing bottlenecks to production ramp.
• Tesla Hibar designs systems for electrolyte insertion during the cell manufacturing process.
• Combine all this with further in-house developed cell IP and possibly third party licensed tech. (Remember there are many steps in cell manufacturing and Maxwell/Hibar are only part of this)
• Reduce cathode kg per kWh to reduce raw material cost
• Next generation in-house module/pack lines for continued reduced cost & capex.
• Build a huge factory to build in-house cell/pack manufacturing equipment at scale (the machine that builds the machine that builds the machine) - significantly reducing capex per GWh capacity

Possible Longer term breakthroughs:

• Integrated cell & pack design & manufacturing process to reduce footprint & cost.
• Dahn lithium metal anode allows for much thinner anode, higher energy density & longer electrode life (at the expense of shorter electrolyte life).
• Replaceable electrolyte design to extend lithium metal anode battery life. Develop Hibar machines for easy electrolyte replacement in service centres.
• Dahn research is used to eliminate cobalt from the cathode leaving just Nickel Aluminium or Nickel Manganese.

Note these are all just possibilities (based on acquisitions, press leaks, published scientific papers, patents & speculation):
These various steps & incremental improvements may or may not be introduced once they have been proven ready for affordable mass manufacturing.

Some things I thing would help accelerate and de-risk Tesla’s battery cell ramp plans:

• Buy Panasonic’s GF1 business for cell manufacturing employee experience (who can be used to train new employees on Tesla’s cell lines) and other cell IP.
• Buy/build Cathode powder manufacturing expertise (currently Panasonic mostly uses Sumitomo). Cathode powder is likely ~20% premium to its raw material constituents & the process can be key to cell properties.
• Buy Nickel Sulphate & lithium carbonate/hydroxide processor expertise - this will be a huge % of cell cost & Tesla’s plans require ~10x the current Nickel sulphate & Lithium market size.
• Buy other suppliers in the cell manufacturing chain

Tesla cannot trust & rely on third parties to deliver such critical components of its business plan, particularly when the metals market leaders do not believe in an EV transition as aggressive as Tesla is targeting.

I dunno. I’m going to wait and see what the CNBC guys say about this. 'Cause they're on TV.

Seriously, great research and write-up.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Tesla is not going to switch to in-house cell production. They may add in-house production. They need all the lower cost high volume batteries they can get.

Tesla doesn't have a battery quality/feature problem. They have a battery volume problem. A dramatic high risk approach to bring everything in house doesn't improve ROI.

Eh I think most of us here would agree, Tesla's long term plan is to make all cell and pack production in house. I don't even think it's really a question anymore, just a matter of when.

To me, it's more risky and dangerous to try and keep growth intact while using 3rd party providers and the sooner they can do cell and pack production in house, the better. Better efficiencies, no cost of a middle man, and they can implement new tech or upgrades at the pace they want. While publicly they'll say Panasonic has been a great partner and such....in reality, Panasonics's inability and unwillingness to take risk with their ramp caused major issues with ramping the 3.

 

[Bet TSLA]

He's a biz student with a year of watching youtube vids and hyperventilating over his incorrect assumptions.

Yes, I can't stand listening to him. He's another one of those Youtubers who thinks that enthusiasm is a good substitute for knowledgeable analysis.

 

[Rashomon]

Tesla is not going to switch to in-house cell production. They may add in-house production. They need all the lower cost high volume batteries they can get.

Tesla doesn't have a battery quality/feature problem. They have a battery volume problem. A dramatic high risk approach to bring everything in house doesn't improve ROI.

Every indication is that Tesla will produce their own cells. Not only did they buy Maxwell, with unique dry-electrode technology, they also bought Hibar systems, a Canadian battery manufacturing tech company. It's the Grohmann purchase all over again. Musk plans to be using multi-TWh of cells in the next decade. Having access to a guaranteed, low-cost cell supply is the key to both the automotive and the network storage business. What better way to do that than control the supply yourself? Particularly as Musk has shown himself completely capable of making bet-the-company bets with both Tesla and SpaceX.

The in-house production will not immediately replace Panasonic and LG suppliers, but likely supplement them.

 

[Nocturnal]

I've a $164 sell on them - with that it means I'd get $100k back from the 10 in total (counting the ones I sold for $36 a couple of weeks back), so 9990% return, I think it would be.

Plenty of time to run on these though, so I'm not stressed. Feb 7 $650's are more urgent.

But boy am I kicking myself for not buying more of this 2021's. I could have got 35 if I'd gone "all in" with my play money, then I'd be looking at probably getting $500k out of it - that's a once-in-a-lifetime trade for an oik like me. As it is, it's still spectacular.

Yeah same. I started my options plays with about 3k, now that is worth about 80k. Of course hindsight is kicking me for not putting down 30k (heck, or 300k) but I went in assuming I'd lose it all. I'm making sure to keep telling myself that I got lucky with timing and it's very unlikely I can get those returns ever again.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Historic cumulative global battery production is only a fraction of what Tesla will be using annually. It will be a very long time before battery volumes reach steady state and recycling can become a significant % of raw material supply.

I was only thinking long-term (as with the battery concern given the 500K+ vehicles next year guidance). Recycling would eventually help global supply unless another chemistry emerges. Plus, it's for a good cause. And like oil, there is a limited supply of materials on the planet.

I was more concerned with the cost of recycling vs mining, because costs tend to win the bid. Would be interesting to know how much recycling would be needed to justify costs. And maybe there's another way to build the battery that makes it easier to recover materials down the road... just curious is all.

 

[Open Interest]

Can’t wIt to watch this tonight! Stocking up on popcorn...

Anyone else get bored and buy 2/21 700 calls?

I bought 3/20 $700 calls a couple of weeks ago.

 

[wipster]

Thoughts on what Tesla will announce on battery day in April & how Tesla’s future battery strategy will come together:

• Use cell supply from Panasonic/LG/CATL to bridge to ramp of in-house cell production (possibly towards ~90GWh contracted from these three suppliers).
• Announce that in-house cell production has just started (Apr-20) on a small scale (likely for Semi or Plaid Model S), with plans to ramp significantly in 2021 (potentially for all future new capacity from 2021).
• Announce a roadmap to reach 2TWh of annual in-house battery cell+module+pack production capacity by 2030. Enough for ~20 million annual EV sales and ~750GWH annual stationary battery storage sales.

Possible relatively short term technology breakthroughs:

• Tesla will apply agile development to its in-house cell manufacturing as it does everything else - so flexibility for rapid upgrades and iterations of the process to accelerate cost experience curves.
• Use Maxwell dry electrode tech to reduce manufacturing cost and footprint.
• Maxwell dry electrode tech leads to better physical properties, in particular allowing thicker cathodes (higher cathode % per cell) & possibly new chemistries.
• Move to use of single crystal cathodes - possibly helped by Maxwell process/other in-house R&D. This was a big part of the 1 million mile cells tested by Dahn.
• Use very carefully selected electrolyte additives following Dahn research.
• Highly automated manufacturing process to reduce staffing bottlenecks to production ramp.
• Tesla Hibar designs systems for electrolyte insertion during the cell manufacturing process.
• Combine all this with further in-house developed cell IP and possibly third party licensed tech. (Remember there are many steps in cell manufacturing and Maxwell/Hibar are only part of this)
• Reduce cathode kg per kWh to reduce raw material cost
• Next generation in-house module/pack lines for continued reduced cost & capex.
• Build a huge factory to build in-house cell/pack manufacturing equipment at scale (the machine that builds the machine that builds the machine) - significantly reducing capex per GWh capacity

Possible Longer term breakthroughs:

• Integrated cell & pack design & manufacturing process to reduce footprint & cost.
• Dahn lithium metal anode allows for much thinner anode, higher energy density & longer electrode life (at the expense of shorter electrolyte life).
• Replaceable electrolyte design to extend lithium metal anode battery life. Develop Hibar machines for easy electrolyte replacement in service centres.
• Dahn research is used to eliminate cobalt from the cathode leaving just Nickel Aluminium or Nickel Manganese.

Note these are all just possibilities (based on acquisitions, press leaks, published scientific papers, patents & speculation):
These various steps & incremental improvements may or may not be introduced once they have been proven ready for affordable mass manufacturing.

Some things I thing would help accelerate and de-risk Tesla’s battery cell ramp plans:

• Buy Panasonic’s GF1 business for cell manufacturing employee experience (who can be used to train new employees on Tesla’s cell lines) and other cell IP.
• Buy/build Cathode powder manufacturing expertise (currently Panasonic mostly uses Sumitomo). Cathode powder is likely ~20% premium to its raw material constituents & the process can be key to cell properties.
• Buy Nickel Sulphate & lithium carbonate/hydroxide processor expertise - this will be a huge % of cell cost & Tesla’s plans require ~10x the current Nickel sulphate & Lithium market size.
• Buy other suppliers in the cell manufacturing chain

Tesla cannot trust & rely on third parties to deliver such critical components of its business plan, particularly when the metals market leaders do not believe in an EV transition as aggressive as Tesla is targeting.

Thank you Reflex for a good reasoned vision of Tesla's potential path in battery technology. Very enlightening! I wonder how much of the plan they will share on battery day plus how it will affect current battery manufacturing and also change from whom future BEV creators procure their batteries.

The future is looking brighter every day (for renewable power and energy storage at least).

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

Darn macro's keep spoiling our party to break 650 lol. Having said that, I'm surprised at the stability and strength of the stock today. Earnings was good, but there wasn't necessarily blockbuster improvements in the business or any news on the conf call. The main announcement was Model Y deliveries this quarter and maybe that's enough to hold these gains and move a bit higher in Q1. But I would not have been discouraged or disappointed if the stock gave back a good portion of it's gains today.

 

[wipster]

Remember when 420 was a thing?

It still is a thing... just for time though, not for SP.

 

[rsm287]

Did ARK raise their price target yesterday? I remember reading something like that, but I'm afraid it got lost in all the excitement. They announced a few weeks ago they had run the numbers again and would come out with a higher bull case target. Did they already publish it?*

According to a tweet by Ross Gerber.......ARK Invest are going to be talking about Tesla earnings on the TD Ameritrade Network at around 10:40 am PST. Maybe they'll talk about their latest price target:
Your First Trade | TD Ameritrade Network

Here's the source: Ross Gerber on Twitter

When they released the CT, I think even Elon had doubts that it would be accepted by general truck-loving customers. He has been taken by surprise on how well it was accepted and the shear volume of reservations. Plus most reservations were for the higher priced models! So I would think the numbers are well above 3 and Y

According to this Google docs spreadsheet, the estimated number of pre-orders is around 406K currently:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1--6OR9ECwSwZdkOtWkuslJVCyAAfQv1eJal1fdngfsk/htmlview#

You have to request permission to view it. Sometimes the spreadsheet seems to get corrupted (like now), so you might have to wait and refresh it after a while.

 

[wipster]

Darn macro's keep spoiling our party to break 650 lol. Having said that, I'm surprised at the stability and strength of the stock today. Earnings was good, but there wasn't necessarily blockbuster improvements in the business or any news on the conf call. The main announcement was Model Y deliveries this quarter and maybe that's enough to hold these gains and move a bit higher in Q1. But I would not have been discouraged or disappointed if the stock gave back a good portion of it's gains today.

To each his or her own, but now I find myself feeling disappointed it's not trading at 700 (or greater).

 

[sparcs]

Tesla is not going to switch to in-house cell production. They may add in-house production. They need all the lower cost high volume batteries they can get.

Tesla doesn't have a battery quality/feature problem. They have a battery volume problem. A dramatic high risk approach to bring everything in house doesn't improve ROI.

none of those other suppliers are going to scale as fast and drop prices quickly enough. Eventually, Tesla will cut them loose when they have cell production ready in USA, Europe, and China.

 

[Krugerrand]

I do think Starlink is a natural fit for providing wifi at Supercharger locations.

But it baffles me that you think people will be watching movies (much) while charging. Our Model 3's charge so fast there is simply not time to pick a movie to watch, let alone watch it. Our Model 3's don't need a charge until we have been driving for hours on the Interstate and by then we need to relieve our bladders and get a quick snack. By the time we are able to do that, the car is charged and ready to go on the next leg of our journey.

When are people going to find time to watch movies while Supercharging?

This is true. Just experienced this situation last weekend. Got to the Supercharger, relieved myself, walked back to car and literally the second I put my seat in the seat the car was done charging.

Was charging at a full Supercharger Station on V2 and charging at 321 mph.

 

[LJS22]

Is there a video available? Thanks

Yea I’ll try to find it! I was hoping they’d post it by now

 

[Skryll]

none of those other suppliers are going to scale as fast and drop prices quickly enough. Eventually, Tesla will cut them loose when they have cell production ready in USA, Europe, and China.

Unlikely. Cells will be needed from more than one source and in more than once chemistry. Lines that are producing now are not going to get shut down for a while, chemistry and purpose may be adjusted. The bonehead institutional investor with all those blatantly wrong assumptions baked into the battery question was basically given that answer, too.

 

[electracity]

however the team convinced him that cell supply is constraint so might as well do smaller runs at Fremont where parts and suppliers are already set up.

They are clearly setting up to build either the Y or 3 depending on what customers want. It's not a question of Y capacity.

It also doesn't matter if the Y tanks 3 demand, except in the short term.