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

[PeterJA]

7) Ugh... Hate that I have to bring this up. Couldn't find in that report where/if it states that recent lock down measures were accounted for when comparing to seasonal flu numbers, as well as accounting for what 1918 numbers might have looked like with modern medical treatments and protocols and facilities, modern instantaneous communication abilities, modern travel patterns, and modern population densities and patterns. If they did take all that into account to do the comparison (possible to do with much accuracy?), thumbs up. If they didn't, then seasonal flu numbers would likely be way lower with lock downs and distancing happening world wide each season like we are doing presently, and 1918 numbers would probably have been less with all those modern things applied, perhaps closer to current Covid numbers. Likewise, today's covid numbers would be possibly way way higher if this exact strain happened and we were using 1918 technology and practices not to mention if we had done no lock downs or distancing.

Case-fatality rate measures the percentage of cases that are fatal, not the number of cases. Lockdowns can reduce the number of cases, but not their fatality rate, unless effective treatment is available. But since mainstream medicine (unlike natural medicine) currently offers no effective treatment for Covid-19, nor for flu, it is quite reasonable to compare these pandemics, and their case-fatality rates are similar.

That's all I can say in this thread (I hope) without being banned, so please take any further discussion to the Corona thread. I stand by my primary point that more Tesla factory shutdowns are unlikely.

 

[SouthSeas]

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.



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.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned the Fremont facility where they are ramping the Y... that's this year.

So that gives the model Y this year, the Berlin factory next year. Isn't that what I said? I guess I did omit model Y next year in Shanghai. Still, that's the immediate forecast. The hard part will be building ever more factories in the coming years, one, two, four, eight, etc.

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.)

You do realize that is just a name, right? They don't actually build 1000 times more cars than a gigafactory.

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

They do need to produce as well as sell 50% more cars each year. It's the years after the first two or three that I wonder about. It's not like they can just build all the cars they can and sell them all.

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 will be very interested in hearing about the semi. I would find it hard to believe they have a factory under construction for the semi with no one knowing. The Nevada facility is planning to make the batteries and power train, but the rest of the vehicle elsewhere. I don't expect the semi to take off like the model 3 did. That will be sold to companies who are rather conservative and will only buy trial quantities at first. There's also the issue of charging. Not sure if they are going to have megachargers scattered around or companies will install their own. Trucking companies just won't be in a big rush to buy tons of electric semis. They will be interested in the million mile battery.

 

[MC3OZ]

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...

View attachment 550974

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

Cheers!

Fibreglass is a good guess, I do think the semi cab looks a bit like fibreglass.

While we are playing "guess how they will build the semi" .....

I've often wondered if the semi doesn't have a single battery pack, but has 4 battery packs....
Specifically 4 x 150 kWh (SR), 4 x 250 kWh (LR) in both cases charging could be 4 x 250 kWh.
There are 4 motors so each pack could drive 1 motor, they might possibly have some way of shuffling a bit of energy between the packs, or selecting which pack drives HVAC etc,,,

While 4 packs is kinda funky it has one big advantage, 1 pack fails and the semi keeps rolling on...

Also you can swap out the failed pack easier and that is only 1/4 of the total.

If a motor or pack dies, you loose a bit of power/regen, so I think it would go a bit slower

And it might not be too hard to create some sort of bypass switch, taking the failed pack offline and driving 2 motors with one of the other working packs...

Cheers!

 

[EV forever]

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.

I think I will join you in a certain way - but not with demand shares, instead with 'Ignore' shares. Anytime I add someone to my ignore list, I will buy myself a few shares - maybe 10? I hit the ignore button once today - so will take the opportunity to add some shares next week. Nice payback for some obvious trolls, and long term profit for me.

 

[MC3OZ]

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

Specifically because they need to design it first...

It will be designed in China and and might use a cheaper cell chemistry like LFP...

As cell/pack prices drop that creates the opportunity to design cheaper models... if Tesla is targeting producing 20 Million cars per year, they need some of those cheaper models, at the right time.

To be 100% clear I think the optimistic base price for the cheapest Model 3 Tesla could make in the next 5 years or so is 30K, a 25K compact model needs to be designed and built to that price target.

 

[heltok]

While the market is down, here is a great article by Andrej Karpathy:
Biohacking Lite

I don’t think we need to worry about the health of Tesla anymore...

long term battery. Adipose tissue (fat) is by far your primary super high density super high capacity battery pack. For example, as of June 2019, ~40lb of my 200lb weight was fat. Since fat is significantly more energy dense than carbohydrates (9 kcal/g instead of just 4 kcal/g), my fat was storing 40lb = 18kg = 18,000g x 9kcal/g = 162,000 kcal. This is a staggering amount of energy. If energy was the sole constraint, my body could run on this alone for 162,000/2,000 = 81 days. Since 1 stick of dynamite is about 1MJ of energy (239 kcal), we’re talking 678 sticks of dynamite. Or since a 100KWh Tesla battery pack stores 360MJ, if it came with a hand-crank I could in principle charge it almost twice! Hah.[/qoute]

 

[Tslynk67]

Holy f*ck, that's almost 4 pages of my life I'll never get back...

 

[Mike Smith]

Tesla Model 3 gross margin could be as high as 39% in China: report

'Sina indicates that the MIC Model 3 SR+ delivered by Tesla in Q1 2020 has a gross margin of 39.37%. This means that with its ¥271,550 price tag ($38,275), the vehicle actually costs ¥188,700 to produce ($26,653). Assuming that Sina‘s figures are accurate, Tesla China could be making a profit of around ¥82,285 ($11,622) per Model 3 SR+ sold.'

 

[Buckminster]

Forget lockdown, life without Elon tweets is unbearable.

 

[Artful Dodger]

OT: B1059.3 sticks the landing!

Spoiler: Video of Launch/Landing

Cheers!

 

[CorneliusXX]

I'm dubious around how genuine you are, but will take your comments in good faith for now.

The high uncertainty/doubt about the long term future is curious, but a non issue really. Tesla is valued at only $1,000 per share which only reflects a relatively low percentage of value that would be generated by a 50%+ growth rate for the next decade. If there was a high level of certainty of that level of growth (by the broader market, most here i believe have high conviction) over the next 10 years the stock would already be at $10k. But that's the thing with predictions - they're always about the future. Tesla just needs to execute on the projects already at foot for $1k to be a bargin price.

So that gives the model Y this year, the Berlin factory next year. Isn't that what I said? I guess I did omit model Y next year in Shanghai. Still, that's the immediate forecast. The hard part will be building ever more factories in the coming years, one, two, four, eight, etc.

You're doubling factories when the growth rate is only 50% and each incremental factory is growing in scale - leading to the growth rate sounding far more difficult than it is in actuality. If their Texas factory is going to produce 10x+ the KWh output of GF1 then we don't need the multiples of factories alluded to.

You do realize that is just a name, right? They don't actually build 1000 times more cars than a gigafactory.

It's not just a name, it's also a reference of the relevant order of magnitude of annual KWh cell production. Factories are getting bigger

They do need to produce as well as sell 50% more cars each year. It's the years after the first two or three that I wonder about. It's not like they can just build all the cars they can and sell them all

The growth rate being discussed is not clearly defined (it could refer to vehicle units, vehicle revenue, or total revenue including energy and other products) but i'll assume vehicle units which is the most difficult to achieve. Tesla is riding declining cost curves (c.18% for each cumulative doubling of production off memory from an ARK video) and with growth at 50% per year cumulative production doubling occurs roughly every 18 months. That means that Tesla can cut prices of its vehicles roughly 10% per year and maintain margins. That will lead to an almost 40% reduction in costs over the next 5 years - making it far easier to sell at high volumes.

I will be very interested in hearing about the semi. I would find it hard to believe they have a factory under construction for the semi with no one knowing. The Nevada facility is planning to make the batteries and power train, but the rest of the vehicle elsewhere. I don't expect the semi to take off like the model 3 did. That will be sold to companies who are rather conservative and will only buy trial quantities at first. There's also the issue of charging. Not sure if they are going to have megachargers scattered around or companies will install their own. Trucking companies just won't be in a big rush to buy tons of electric semis. They will be interested in the million mile battery.

This leads back to the uncertainty concerns that make your posts somewhat dubious. Every product Tesla has produced has been a roaring success. The specs of the semi are out and they're compelling and lead to significant cost savings. Tesla is the best in the world at scaling charging production. With all that history you have low expectations on the product's growth. While success isn't fait accompli, having low expectations is not overly reasonable either.

 

[UncaNed]

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.

You could add a small photo on the corner of your avatar and mention it in your tagline at the bottom of your posts without bugging the mods perhaps. Not convinced the trolls care though.
__________
Better we all stop feeding the trolls with our endless responses; disagree and report them instead.
__________
EDIT - What's the deal with all the recent posts not quoting who they're replying to? They start out referencing someone without saying @who they're answering/talking to. I don't get it. (EDIT- I just figured out that they are probably replying to people I ignored)

 

[Artful Dodger]

Samsung's "Breakthrough" 900wh/l Solid State Battery (Deep Dive) | The Limiting Factor | Jun 11

"If you're battery savvy, watch at 1.25X. In this video I do a deep dive into Samsung's 'Breakthrough' 900wh/l Solid State Battery that delivers a cycle life of 1000 cycles. Samsung's researchers have claimed that their battery reduces dendrite formation. They plate a smooth layer of lithium metal by introducing a silver-carbon layer to reduce nucleation energy and increase conductivity of the lithium ions. This is kind of like adding water to pancake batter and increasing gravity to make smooth flat pancakes."

• 00:00 - Background
• 01:07 - Key Concepts
• 03:17 - Abstract Paraphrased
• 04:27 - Battery Design
• 09:39 - How it works
• 13:26 - My Review and Thoughts

• #Battchatt on Youtube
• #BatteryTwitter search

Cheers!

 

[MS 60]

I haven't posted here in a few years. Took me the better part of a decade to figure out that spending time to educate my adversary in this battle didn't make any sense. The short sellers needed to be confident in themselves.

I'm here because I have to share an impossible story, but I have no one to tell in my personal life (for obvious reasons).

I've been an investor in this company for almost 10 years. I tried to ignore my investment as much as I could, doing my best to not let it get to my head too often (on the ups AND the downs). I managed to survive and stay true through every 50%-75% dip over a decade. Even when it was unbearable, and things were out of control, having me think I was watching $$$ disappear forever, I told myself to STFU and ignore the noise. I bought as much as I could afford to lose, knowing anything could happen. But I knew that my knowledge was not false and that, yes, everyone else DID have it wrong this time.

Today, I succumbed to temptation. Today, my ability to withstand faded after a long hard-fought decade of patience and resilience. Today, for the first time, I sold half of all the shares I've ever owned at $1000 each.

And with that, Tesla and it's employees, Elon Musk, and SpaceX and it's employees have changed my life. While this was true every day until now...let's be real...it's never real until it's cash. Because of this miracle, I'm going to be getting an X and it's going to cost me nothing. I now have financial security in ways I never thought would be possible. It is unreal. My decade of patience has changed my life. Stuff makes me tear up. I can't even believe it.

I plan on keeping the other half of my shares for as long as I'm alive. I have many years left on this planet, and I'm not getting off this ride.

Finally, I want to say that I never declared victory at any point in the past decade. My advise to everyone here - you can't declare victory when you are still sitting at the table. Quoting Bane from Dark Knight - "Victory has defeated you" (best fricken quote in the universe) - Never let winning let your guard down! You never say you've won until you've walked away from the table. Stay vigilant, this battle is not over!

I, on the other hand...well...today I walked away from the table today after 10 long painful years...and I'm ****ing declaring me some victory.

I won. And it's ****ing magnificent and glorious. Somehow, I fricken did it. And I am able to give to my family in ways I never thought possible. I feel like the luckiest person on the planet.

To those who bet against my shares for the past decade, you lost. You had malicious intent, and you lost.

God bless Tesla's employees, SpaceX's employees, Elon Musk and his family, and all the people who made this day possible.

I am so happy for you Since I had already owned an MX, (and love it), I used the funds to buy my home. Yes, I waited a long time, with many friends and family members telling me virtually every day that the stock ride was too volatile for anyone, let alone me- someone who only owned Tesla stock and not even my own home anymore. Still, I ignored them all, and now I live in a much nicer home than I have ever owned, and I continue believing in the dream.

 

[Unpilot]

OT: B1059.3 sticks the landing!

Spoiler: Video of Launch/Landing

Cheers!

Never get's old!

Unlike some recent "wall of worry" post's

 

[AlMc]

MS downgrade= cash raise coming soon

GS downgrade= cash raise coming soon

MS + GS downgrade same day= biggest cash raise yet. ( cheap money available...don't go for $5bil EM, get $10 bil and build out a couple factories asap )

'soon' timing is 'battery investor day'

 

[AlMc]

Never get's old!

Unlike some recent "wall of worry" post's

Beautiful night time 'rainbow'. https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1271752557610725377

 

[Singuy]

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?

Wtf bro. You compared cruise control to fsd? You think insurance premiums will compare the two like that when fsd if complete will statistically have less crashes? Elons purpose for fsd is not to have something cool, but to meaningfully reduce deaths and crashes. It changes everything and if you counter argue this by telling me how autopilot still crashes into x,y, and z then you are going on the ignore list.

 

[Creekstalker]

I'm dubious around how genuine you are, but will take your comments in good faith for now.

The high uncertainty/doubt about the long term future is curious, but a non issue really. Tesla is valued at only $1,000 per share which only reflects a relatively low percentage of value that would be generated by a 50%+ growth rate for the next decade. If there was a high level of certainty of that level of growth (by the broader market, most here i believe have high conviction) over the next 10 years the stock would already be at $10k. But that's the thing with predictions - they're always about the future. Tesla just needs to execute on the projects already at foot for $1k to be a bargin price.



You're doubling factories when the growth rate is only 50% and each incremental factory is growing in scale - leading to the growth rate sounding far more difficult than it is in actuality. If their Texas factory is going to produce 10x+ the KWh output of GF1 then we don't need the multiples of factories alluded to.



It's not just a name, it's also a reference of the relevant order of magnitude of annual KWh cell production. Factories are getting bigger



The growth rate being discussed is not clearly defined (it could refer to vehicle units, vehicle revenue, or total revenue including energy and other products) but i'll assume vehicle units which is the most difficult to achieve. Tesla is riding declining cost curves (c.18% for each cumulative doubling of production off memory from an ARK video) and with growth at 50% per year cumulative production doubling occurs roughly every 18 months. That means that Tesla can cut prices of its vehicles roughly 10% per year and maintain margins. That will lead to an almost 40% reduction in costs over the next 5 years - making it far easier to sell at high volumes.



This leads back to the uncertainty concerns that make your posts somewhat dubious. Every product Tesla has produced has been a roaring success. The specs of the semi are out and they're compelling and lead to significant cost savings. Tesla is the best in the world at scaling charging production. With all that history you have low expectations on the product's growth. While success isn't fait accompli, having low expectations is not overly reasonable either.

Just want to comment (on a slow weekend) that I've enjoyed reading this thread over the past 24 hours. I don't care if South Seas is a troll, care bear, TSLAQ, or whatever. He is polite and seems reasonably well-informed. What I really like though, is what Cornelius just did right here. Calmly, rationally, logically countering those concerns. This is the kind of discussion I'm here for, and I have enjoyed the way some of you (not just Cornelius) have risen to the challenge in a very respectful manner.

Hats off to everyone!

 

[jeewee3000]

Just want to comment (on a slow weekend) that I've enjoyed reading this thread over the past 24 hours. I don't care if South Seas is a troll, care bear, TSLAQ, or whatever. He is polite and seems reasonably well-informed. What I really like though, is what Cornelius just did right here. Calmly, rationally, logically countering those concerns. This is the kind of discussion I'm here for, and I have enjoyed the way some of you (not just Cornelius) have risen to the challenge in a very respectful manner.

Hats off to everyone!

In principle I agree: polite rebuttal of nonsense is better than fanboism.

However:

the problem with that approach is that after multiple polite rebuttals the nonsense is repeated over and over, up to the point of frustration. Everyone projects his frustration differently: some go in attack mode, some just click ignore, some stay in Jesus-polite-mode.

Reading the past few pages it took me only a few of Southseas' posts to categorize him as a troll. For future reference, the red flags are:
- never posting on TMC and suddenly posting more than I post in a month;
- bringing up demand issues without any proof/source;
- bringing up growth stagnation without any proof/source;
- replying to all sensible arguments without any proof/source;
- ignoring data and previous Tesla accomplishments;
- assuring us multiple times they are not trolling;
- citing the "TMC is a bull echo chamber" theorem;
- feigning surprise when - ultimately - they get a harsh response.

I was at first going to reply to him, but others have done so already. (For example @CorneliusXX 's great post above)

Now I'll just use that button one more time.