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Part of the reason I am back in this thread is because early in the year about the time I stopped posting it seems a moderator thought I was "spreading FUD" simply because I discussed the possibility of Tesla not continuing to be profitable. I think one of my posts even mentioned the "remote" possibility that the coronavirus would have some impact on sales. I dropped in to ask about an issue with my car (seems the vampire drain is greatly reduced lately) and looked up the post I was warned about. Next thing I know I'm discussing trading the stock. lol

I'm no troll. I wish people could just discuss the issues rationally and not get so wound up about it all.
You spread FUD in almost all of your posts. Spreading FUD is what you do. Here is just one example from President of GM taught us what it takes for EV to go mainstream

While EVs will be the norm in 10 years or so, for now they are still an oddity and not as convenient for many as an ICE. The jury is still out on the longevity of the battery and motors. There was an article on a Tesla that reached 1,000,000 km. But it took two batteries and three motors. While that still sounds good, it's not any better than many ICE which typically run for 100's of thousands of miles. At $20,000 per battery, I expect that sucker to last for more than 20 years in normal use. The information available presently is mostly anecdotal. In other words, the jury is still out.

I don't recommend to anyone to buy a Tesla or any other EV for at least 5 years. Hopefully by then the dust will settle a bit.
 
Analyst never explain exactly.

How would I do it?

A 2020 Toyota Camry V6 gets a combined 26 MPG and has a 16 gallon gas tank. So roughly 400 miles of range. And does 0-60 in ~5.8 seconds and 1/4 mile in ~14.5 seconds.

So roughly how much does it cost to get roughly equal performance in an electric powertrain in a similar sized form factor.

I guess you can also do a BMW 3 Series 4 cylinder turbo etc.
I would have to agree with others here that in this case when you figure power-train comparison you have to consider the Toyota and all the fuel cost that go into it for the 12,000 yearly average driver. Yes costs do change per region. Even the non-EV owner people/friends I talk to absolutely agree that is how to do it based on local gas and electricity prices. People are not as stupid as many think. They know in many areas EVs are cheaper to run and they will be saving monthly on fuel costs so they can add that onto the monthly car payment (people are doing 5 year loans now!). That is about a $50-$100 more car payment depending on your electric costs per month. SO that's about $3000 to $6000 over 5 years in fuel savings. People do not pay cash for cars. It's about the monthly payment and that check to check spending. I have never talked to any real buyer who cared much about HP or 0-60 when buying a Toyota... not in the slightest. It is ALWAYS "What's the bottom line per month?".

The gas station paradigm is so deeply ingrained.
This is actually a bigger issue even tho many here do not believe it. ALL of my close friends that have been riding with me and even vacationed with me still do not understand fueling my Tesla even tho they are sort of along for the ride. One even bought a Model 3. Even tho they can charge at home they still charge at the super charger when not needed. They feel when they get home from work if the charge is under XX amount there is a fear they will have an emergency and need to drive further than they have so they stop at the supercharger to "fill up".... even tho they have never in their life been in that situation. I do think it might be more of a Midwest thing.

As a total separate hated subject. Maintenance and service is not really cheaper. While I am not buying oil, belts and brakes, I am buying much more expensive things less often. Expected for having a luxury car but it still cancels the saving. MCU's, door handles and that stuff adds up very quick. SO when comparing to a Toyota (my wife's is 20 years old now and still very cheap on that end) Tesla's are very expensive on the up keep. Technically tho Tesla has not put out the car to compete with a Camry yet. One local here is already looking at replacing his first Model 3 MCU. Luckily it is under warranty. I am looking at my second already. Having to reboot every 5 days.
 
Nearly everyone pays measurably more for smart phone service, than was paid for traditional landline service. Because, it is worth it.
My smart phone is a phone, internet, letter delivery and much more. I am actually paying about equal or less than I did for Cable TV, land line, DSL, mailing letters back when that was a thing.
I think local TV channels only was like $14
DSL was a little less than $30
Land line was $18
My current Smart phone monthly is about $20 but the highest I've paid was $50.
If you want to include equipment... my computer in 1992 that did less than my smart phone was $2000.
 
If GS is negative then take that as a big positive.

I’m sorry. I’ve seen this GS nonsense too may times. Their analyst, Mark Delaney, has the success rate of a coin flip (58%) and an average return slightly better than a good CD (3.9%).
Whenever the sell side guys at Goldman downgrade Tesla, it's a signal their buy side guys are looking to go long and want a sweeter entry point. Goldman is also Elon's personal banker, a lot of people don't realize this.
 
I know this doesn't belong on this thread. Here goes :oops: covid-19 is a coronavirus. Coronavirus is another name for a "cold" this one is much more serious, yes. When in the history of the world have we been able to stop a cold virus (other than SARS-CoV-1) that has already had an outbreak, never. Test and trace, and keep an eye on ICU capacity. Wear your masks. Sorry :( to the moderator.

You are right about one thing, this does not belong here. You are wrong that the SARS-CoV-19 is just another "cold". Try telling that to Nick Cordero.

Meanwhile Texas is still a tough place to buy a Tesla. Is any progress being made on that front? How many states are still not letting Tesla sell from their own showrooms?
 
You are right about one thing, this does not belong here. You are wrong that the SARS-CoV-19 is just another "cold". Try telling that to Nick Cordero.

Meanwhile Texas is still a tough place to buy a Tesla. Is any progress being made on that front? How many states are still not letting Tesla sell from their own showrooms?
My point was it can't be stopped. Unless you live on an island and quarantine (New Zealand). Herd immunity or vaccination is the only way to end this. Apology (again) to the mods.
 
They would probably make 10M compact models for a price around 20K-25K.

If they could make a compact model to sell for $25k, why wouldn't they do that now???

4M Model 3 and Model Y with 2M in the 35K price bracket.

Not sure what you are saying, I don't see a verb. Personally I don't think they could sell anywhere near that many at that price. That is the big issue that will need to change and that is the big issue everyone is working on for the next 5 to 10 years to reach that point.

People will probably pay a bit more for an EV because of lower running costs, and longer life, and higher resale.

Yes, once they are convinced of the lower operating costs and the longer life. I have one and I'm not convinced of the longer operating life. I also dread the repair costs once the warranty runs out. It may eat me alive.

I think the plan for Tesla to sell up to 20M vehicles is serious.

I was not aware of such a plan. Did Musk say this? I think that number came from me which I calculated from a 10 year, 50% annual growth number someone cited from an analyst.


The Chinese plan to make a lot more than 20M...

Companies only plan to make what they believe they can sell.

If you are a Tesla owner and shareholder, I don't understand why you are so negative...

Why is being realistic about things "negative"??? Do I have to wave pom-poms and cheer to invest in a company??? Is anything less than believing in 50% annual growth for the next 10 years being negative???

What?

IMO COVID-19 has scrambled peoples thinking, people are worried and thinking short term, rather than being pragmatic, thinking long term and seeing the big picture.

Which big picture would that be?
 
Once the public are savvy, know an EV driver and have ridden in a EV, they will be better informed and make progressively smarter buying decisions, because the right decision should be obvious to all but the terminally stupid.. or those who really like the sensation of driving an ICE.

Legacy auto has a culture of denial, because moving to EVs is hard, risky and expensive, it takes them well out of their comfort zone..

For the car buyer it is different, they are looking for a product that works for them... driving 450-mi without stopping only works as an argument, if it is something they regularly do... They will notice friends, family,and neighbours buying EVs and having no trouble with road trips.. sure there are late adopters just like early adopters .. most customers are in the middle and more pragmatic..

I agree with much of what you write, but I don't agree about the range on trips. The current 300 mile range vehicles are only good for a little over 200 miles or roughly a bit more than 3 hours for most people. On trips lots of people want to drive until they drop before stopping. Even if they only do it once or twice a year that is a mental issue with them.

I met a gal at a charger who had her model X for a bit over a year and ended up selling it. She had taken it on a trip to Kentucky and it took something like 18 hours for a trip that was normally 12 or 13. I expect she didn't understand not to charge to 90% each time since that just slows you down. Still, on trips people simply don't want to charge for 20-25 minutes every two hours. It's a paradigm shift that will take time for people to adapt to. I have not met anyone who is ready to buy an EV after I give them the honest facts of ownership.

EVs haven't got far beyond the early adopter phase, the next stages of growth are typically more rapid...

There's some humor there. A couple of years ago I would talk to Tesla owners who told me they were the early adopters and I was part of the mainstream. I think it is still early adopters and won't be otherwise until charging is simply not an issue. Public charging is much better than before, but still nothing like it needs to be.

Once every town of 25,000 people has the red lights of Tesla superchargers highly visible somewhere along a main drag, charging will be that nagging voice saying, "what if I run out?"

I try to explain to people that simply doesn't need to happen, but it did almost happen to me once. Rural South Carolina doesn't have many J1772 chargers unless you are in the bigger cities. I lucked out and the town had one working unit at the library. I even wrote to them to thank them and never heard back.


It isn't that obvious, but the products have matured, production is becoming optimised, economies of scale are kicking in, and R&D is starting to deliver results. So better products at lower prices, in higher volumes is a likely trend..

Sure, but the volumes need to increase hugely to have a $25,000 EV with 300 mile range. Heck, that's not even possible at $35,000 currently. Someone told me there's a general principle that 10 fold increase in production nets a halving in price. I think in this case even that won't be a hard rule as materials are a big factor and when world EV production increases 10 fold we might be seeing shortages of battery materials. Is it Cobalt that is the hard one to find? I hear someone has a Cobalt free battery they plan to use. Was that Tesla or GM maybe?
 
I think horsepower performance does not have mass appeal to the public like you said. Software functionality however is what breaks a Tesla into mass market WITHOUT dropping the price. So there will be an infection point in which once the software becomes as magical as we all think(FSD, summon, and reverse summon all working as intended), then the world will not get enough of Tesla at 35k because it will be transportation 2.0. So the 50% yoy growth is possible as long as software can keep pace making each car more and more valuable to the customer. You no longer have to convince people to buy a Tesla because it's a new era. (flip phones to smart phones, mail to emails, offline to online shopping).

Do you really think lots of people will pay not only the starting price (which is over $35k if you want summon I'm pretty sure) by the extra for that sort of feature? I'm too nervous to even try to use summon on my car because of the legal issues. I expect we will find the legal issues to be a real challenge for a lot of the software. At least one of my friends won't even touch my car because of the fancy features even though I've explained she doesn't need to use any of that.

I think most people would prefer one of the base models without the "fancy" stuff. A $25k price will overcome a lot of barriers without any software.

Musk knows this. He said there's only a small chance of success as a new car company with an electric car having FSD. He was not confident in the successful transition to EVs without FSD.

Sorry, did you mean a small chance "without" FSD?

I think the cars can do great without FSD. They've done well so far and the damn FSD can try to kill you in it's present state. When it works, it's great, but it's clearly not ready for prime time as yet. I've had it want to slow to 25MPH on a 65 MPH highway. How many people are willing to tolerate that? I can't imagine FSD won't actually be FSD for another five years and that's the nuclear fusion five years that stretches out a year every year.
 
If GS is negative then take that as a big positive.

I’m sorry. I’ve seen this GS nonsense too may times. Their analyst, Mark Delaney, has the success rate of a coin flip (58%) and an average return slightly better than a good CD (3.9%).

Sure, few analysts actually are better than a coin flip, obviously since they so disagree. But they influence the market and they flipped at the time when they were clearly right. A kilobuck is just too high for this stock at this time. Even Musk said that I believe. Or was he misquoted?
 
They 100% would need a factory somewhere, since there is a lot of heavy, weather sensitive equipment/people who would assemble the Semi's. And the Semi are painted, so they have to have a paint factory that is large enough to fit the cab. For the material, I don't recall it ever being listed. Probably aluminium, or carbon fiber since it doesn't need to be structurally supportive, just a wind break for the trailer behind it.

If the cabin doesn't need painting, maybe they can assemble the Semi somewhere like Lathrop and hand paint the frame (lower volumes) or have the frame arrive pre-painted..

So I wonder if aluminium or carbon fibre need to be painted, many truck buyers might prefer to wrap it....

The other cab alternative is softer thinner stainless steel...

Thought I'd take a moment to access the Semi Reveal event video to grab this frame of the Semi's structure w/o its skin. Obviously from that statement alone, it rules out a stainless steel 'exoskeleton' style of construction (ala Cybertruck).

Now if its some sort of fiberglass or composite prepreg construction, a simple mold and gel coat would be enough to both fabricate and 'paint' (coat, actually) the body, with a finished part coming out of the mold.

More to that, since there's obviously fitted skin panels in smaller sections, those individual pieces could be composite molded as well, what ever is fastest to build w/o needing a spendy new paint shop just for Semi? ;) BTW, powder coat the frame FTW...

Tesla Semi cut-away.jpg


Also visible in this cut-away are the 4 battery modules. It's pretty likely the SR Semi (300+ mi) will have 2 modules, and the LR Semi will have 4 modules, as pictured above. So, also plugs into either a 2- or 4-headed v2 Supercharger stack to recharge at 500KW or 1,000KW respectively :cool:

Cheers!
 
I met a gal at a charger who had her model X for a bit over a year and ended up selling it. She had taken it on a trip to Kentucky and it took something like 18 hours for a trip that was normally 12 or 13. I expect she didn't understand not to charge to 90% each time since that just slows you down. Still, on trips people simply don't want to charge for 20-25 minutes every two hours. It's a paradigm shift that will take time for people to adapt to. I have not met anyone who is ready to buy an EV after I give them the honest facts of ownership.

Did this gal sell it before or after you met her at a charging station? If before, what Tesla did she get to replace it? If after, does your spouse know you got his/her digits after a brief charging meeting so you could find out that she sold it???
 
Do you really think lots of people will pay not only the starting price (which is over $35k if you want summon I'm pretty sure) by the extra for that sort of feature? I'm too nervous to even try to use summon on my car because of the legal issues. I expect we will find the legal issues to be a real challenge for a lot of the software. At least one of my friends won't even touch my car because of the fancy features even though I've explained she doesn't need to use any of that.

I think most people would prefer one of the base models without the "fancy" stuff. A $25k price will overcome a lot of barriers without any software.



Sorry, did you mean a small chance "without" FSD?

I think the cars can do great without FSD. They've done well so far and the damn FSD can try to kill you in it's present state. When it works, it's great, but it's clearly not ready for prime time as yet. I've had it want to slow to 25MPH on a 65 MPH highway. How many people are willing to tolerate that? I can't imagine FSD won't actually be FSD for another five years and that's the nuclear fusion five years that stretches out a year every year.
Okay it's not a discussion if people are willing to pay for FSD in current form(even though people are). It's about the value of FSD IF it is completed which is a feature that helps hold resale value and spike demand which will lead to cars sold for 35k with near unlimited demand. Read my post again. I said as software catches up and completes FSD, not alpha FSD.

If FSD, even when it's not robo taxiable, just allowing the car to drive itself is well worth the 5k mark up from a camry or a Rav 4. I say 5k because base price Rav 4 has cloth seats and basic equipments.
 
Tesla's 5-yr revenue CAGR is 50.4%. Tesla's 7-yr revenue CAGR is 79.3%. Elon stated on the most recent conference call that, barring a force majeure event, he sees continued growth at 50% (40% at the lowest). Your "BEVs are less than 2% of car sales in the US and will increase fairly slowly in quantity even if more rapidly in percentage" statement basically tells me that you don't see Tesla sustained CAGR in the past continuing into the future.

I don't want to be argumentative, but you seem to be honestly asking so I'll respond. The big % growth in revenue came from starting the sales of the model 3. The S and X were never going to be large sellers. Tesla did a good enough job getting the model 3 out the door and then did a good job of starting production in China before the virus clamped down on things. So that would give excellent growth numbers for any period longer than two years... simply because they made so few before 2018 rather than because they made so many since.

But what will 50% require going forward? With two large production factories up and running now, they will need to get model Y production up fully by the end of 2020. That is likely if the virus doesn't continue to be a problem bringing annual production up to 600k or more.

In 2021 they will need to add at least 300k more, so the factory in Germany has to be pumping out as nearly as many models 3 and Y as are being made in the Fremont facility.

2022 they need to bring up two factories, in 2023 four factories, 2024 eight factories, 2025 16 factories...

Along with all that they need to expand the supercharger network and expand the sales channels and just keep selling in ever increasing numbers.

No, I don't believe this is going to happen. Just as the coronavirus stopped growing exponentially, the things allowing Tesla to grow so quickly the last two years will not continue as they grow beyond the model Y.


I'm not straight out calling you a liar -- I'm saying you're either a bad liar or a bad investor (I agree this was a little blunt and harsh). My question still stands, though - If you don't believe that even half of Tesla's 7-yr revenue CAGR of 80% is sustainable regardless of Elon's statements regarding future growth, then why did you invest in the first place?

I really hate that you use the liar word. There's no reason at all to think I am lying. It's not "harsh", it's just plain rude.

I invested in Tesla to make money. I bought at prices between roughly $200 and $300 believing the stock would increase as various difficulties were resolved. I've done that in the past with other companies when I though the market was undervaluing them. Again it has paid handsomely earning me somewhere close to a quarter mil. So maybe not shrewd since I sold one block that matured into long term gains around $500 when the next one sold for over $900. I actually pulled the trigger on $920 the other day and it would have traded before end of day if I hadn't canceled it because I don't want to pay all those taxes this year.

In my opinion, based on your projections for Tesla and the EV market in general, you should have sold the rest of your stake when Tesla stock price was quite a bit lower. Selling now for you would be a huge win if your forecast is accurate.

I think this statement shows you still don't understand why I invested. I can make money in the company without expecting to hold the stock for the next five years. I don't know how the market will respond to the next quarterly report, but at some point before the end of the year I expect the stock to drop back to $500 just because it is highly volatile and there is always something negative with any company. The difference is one company might drop 10% or 20% while Tesla can drop like a rock when it is this high. Then I will get back in to wait another year before reaping profits. I just don't believe the company is worth a kilobuck until they show steady GAAP profits.

BTW, it doesn't matter how high the stock price gets. No profit is made until the stock is sold.
 
Did this gal sell it before or after you met her at a charging station? If before, what Tesla did she get to replace it? If after, does your spouse know you got his/her digits after a brief charging meeting so you could find out that she sold it???

Lol. I ran into her several times while charging. I hit one charger a lot on my regular trips and she lived nearby. Very cute, but far below my age. She was not the sharpest pencil in the box for some things (had trouble using apps on her phone), but I think she knows people well.

She replaced her X with a Mercedes, or so she said she was doing the last time I saw her. That was at least a year ago. Her X might have had the transferable free charging. I told her to make sure she got a good price because of that. If you use it a lot it could be worth $30,000 or so over the life of the car.

It's a bit funny that in other public groups where I say the same things as here I get hammered for seeming very pro Tesla and called a troll. Here I am called names because I am honest about my opinions and am thought to be a troll. It's amazing what people hear compared to what I say.
 
You spread FUD in almost all of your posts. Spreading FUD is what you do. Here is just one example from President of GM taught us what it takes for EV to go mainstream

While EVs will be the norm in 10 years or so, for now they are still an oddity and not as convenient for many as an ICE. The jury is still out on the longevity of the battery and motors. There was an article on a Tesla that reached 1,000,000 km. But it took two batteries and three motors. While that still sounds good, it's not any better than many ICE which typically run for 100's of thousands of miles. At $20,000 per battery, I expect that sucker to last for more than 20 years in normal use. The information available presently is mostly anecdotal. In other words, the jury is still out.

I don't recommend to anyone to buy a Tesla or any other EV for at least 5 years. Hopefully by then the dust will settle a bit.

Reporting facts is not spreading FUD. I think when I posted that someone pointed out a mistake I made. Maybe it was only one battery replacement or only two motors, but otherwise that is just facts, no? I even pointed out this was one example and so not the whole story.

No, I had my facts right...

Over the course of 1 million km (621,000 miles), it had 2 battery packs and 3 drive unit replacements.

Discussing negative facts is not the same thing as "spreading FUD". On the other hand you discussed nothing about the facts or the car. You just complain about the fact that I am discussing the car not in an entirely positive light.

Are we only allowed to talk about positive aspects of the car? We are never allowed to mention anything potentially negative???
 
But what will 50% require going forward? With two large production factories up and running now, they will need to get model Y production up fully by the end of 2020. That is likely if the virus doesn't continue to be a problem bringing annual production up to 600k or more.

The annual production rate is already past that at ~700k, with it slated to go up to ~800k by the end of the year, and that doesn't count the Model Y factory under construction in Shanghai.

In 2021 they will need to add at least 300k more, so the factory in Germany has to be pumping out as nearly as many models 3 and Y as are being made in the Fremont facility.

2022 they need to bring up two factories, in 2023 four factories, 2024 eight factories, 2025 16 factories...

It seems like you are missing that there are currently three Model Y factories being ramped/built right now:
  • Fremont: currently running with ramp finishing later this year.
  • Giga Shanghai: Production expected to start in about 6 months.
  • Giga Berlin: Production expected to start in about 12 months.
And from what we have seen the Model Y Gigafactories in Berlin/Shanghai are going to be significantly larger than the Model 3 one in Shanghai.

And the next Gigafactory, now rumored to be a Terafactory, is supposed to be announced in the next couple months. With construction to start soon after. (It seems like they are starting another factory every ~6 months, with each bigger than the last. And at some point they might start more than one at a time.)

As they scale the factories up they don't have to build double the number of them every year.

And of course production of the Semi appears to be starting soon, if it hasn't already, so yet another big driver for revenue.

I expect that we are in for a big update in just under a month. (Annual stockholders meeting.)
 
I came up with the idea of buying tesla paraphernalia whenever trolls/shorts post a while ago. I posted my purchases on here each time a particular (probable) short posted and the mods ended up deleting at least some of my posts. I understand that decision - something like that is more suited for Twitter.

Because of certain recent posts here, I'm going to get back to buying stuff on the Tesla store, but I won't clog up this thread with screenshots of my purchases. Consider doing the same. If you're active on Twitter, which I no longer am, consider retweeting shorts and uploading pics of Tesla stuff you've purchased as a result of their lies and hatred. "I just bought this *insert screenshot of purchase* because of your tweet." Just a suggestion.

I appreciate you supporting Tesla in this way because every little bit helps, but there’s an old saying that you should pay yourself first; thus why I buy demand shares. ;)
 
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Okay it's not a discussion if people are willing to pay for FSD in current form(even though people are). It's about the value of FSD IF it is completed which is a feature that helps hold resale value and spike demand which will lead to cars sold for 35k with near unlimited demand. Read my post again. I said as software catches up and completes FSD, not alpha FSD.

If FSD, even when it's not robo taxiable, just allowing the car to drive itself is well worth the 5k mark up from a camry or a Rav 4. I say 5k because base price Rav 4 has cloth seats and basic equipments.

It may be worth it to you, but many people don't even use cruise control. The "extra" value in a Tesla is not the issue when comparing to ICE. The majority of people simply want transportation at a good price. I'm pretty sure you can still get a Corolla for under $20,000, but still, I think something close to $25,000 will get the attention of well over 50% of the market. At $35,000 it will be more like 20% of the market, but of course those numbers are part of the 76.4% of statistics that are made up... just my opinion.

The "extra value" in a Tesla will get them plenty of sales now for sure. There's a good market for them. But at what point will that semi-luxury market cap out?