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

[Curt Renz]

The SP going down is partly Tesla’s fault. They tend to have these presentations 1-2 years before the tech has fully developed. They kinda need to sandbag their tech innovations as well.

Indeed, in my opinion a _____ Day should not be announced until about a week prior. Related products should be available for delivery within a few weeks.

I expect that fairly soon the industry dominating benefits of the projects described today will sink into the minds of investors and Wall Street. Meanwhile, short-term traders may have begun providing a few scares that could quickly turn into gifts.

 

[floydboy]

I was hoping for 3x battery cell manufacture throughput, shooting for the moon at 4x.
They're going for 7x! That's straight jacket territory!

 

[cusetownusa]

I have been researching buying a model y for awhile now and have just read god knows how many pages of this thread. The knowledge of the people here is amazing. I am excited about Tesla’s future but I admittedly don’t have any expertise in buying individual stocks (all index funds) as I always thought the risk wasn’t worth it.

however, I am contemplating buying a sizable amount of Tesla stock (maybe 5-10% of my investment portfolio-approx $75,000+) and was wondering if now would be a good time to jump in or if it’s too late? FYI, my investing horizon is 10+ years easily. Wish I got the urge to do it 6 months ago and feel that I have already missed out.

 

[gabeincal]

One of the Li circles is approximately where Piedmont’s Lithium Project is in North Carolina,View attachment 591116

I noticed that also... I think there are more announcements coming out this week.

Hugely impressive figures presented today - we just need shareholders and analysts to understand the significance of it in due time.

 

[kengchang]

My biggest concern that arose out of the presentation was Elon's comments during the "powder into film" video on the dry electrode process after Drew was being over the top positive. Elon replied "there's still a lot of work to do, I wouldn't say this is completely in the bag" when referring to going from Maxwell's proof of concept to scaling volume production of the dry electrode process. I sensed concern from Elon as so much hinges on what many assume is already "in the bag". He followed those comments up with “To be clear, I would like to not say that right now it’s just totally working. It's close to working, but it's not even now at the pilot plant level. It is close to working. All I can think it's fair to say probably it does work, but with not a good … not a high yield.”

Thoughts/Comments?

It takes time to perfect the process, look at Intel, still stuck on 10nm cause their yield sucks on 7nm

 

[gabeincal]

I have been researching buying a model y for awhile now and have just read god knows how many pages of this thread. The knowledge of the people here is amazing. I am excited about Tesla’s future but I admittedly don’t have any expertise in buying individual stocks (all index funds) as I always thought the risk wasn’t worth it.

however, I am contemplating buying a sizable amount of Tesla stock (maybe 5-10% of my investment portfolio-approx $75,000+) and was wondering if now would be a good time to jump or if it’s too late? FYI, my investing horizon is 10+ years easily. Wish I got the urge to do it 6 months ago and feel that I have already missed out.

Yep, this is how you start and end up spending 3-4 hours here every day (yes, even on family holidays). Then you start looking into options. It will take years getting used to TSLA's volatility. When it drops, you come here for comfort. When it rises, you come here for camaraderie, memes, and good times. Oh and in the meantime, you become rich. Welcome to the Thread.

 

[Singuy]

It takes time to perfect the process, look at Intel, still stuck on 10nm cause their yield sucks on 7nm

Intel is stuck on 14nm cause their 10nm yield sucks. And their 7nm yield is even in worst shape. Tesla is no where near what Intel is. They sat on their butts for 5 straight years not working out the 10nm problems until TSMC took the node crown and never looked back.

 

[Green Pete]

IF Tesla does have a deal with Piedmont Lithium I will stop believing Elon is open and honest. It was made clear that the lithium in Nevada is more than enough for TSLA for many years to come. AND they told us they have the option to mine 10,000 acres. And they made it a point to tell us about how little environmental impact it would have on the desert.
And that having the material close to the battery plant is a significant advantage.

This is a misunderstanding of how things work. He has said for years the entire us could be powered with solar panels covered a small area of texas - or maybe he said utah. His point was never "we are going to put solar panels in a small area of utah". Amd today the point wasn't "we are going to go walk around and pick up lithium off the ground in nevada".

Mining isn't just picking stuff up off the ground. There's a lot that going into a mining operation.

That isn't to say maybe Tesla won't start mining in nevada, but those statements he made don't imply that is what they are doing either.

 

[Singuy]

My biggest concern that arose out of the presentation was Elon's comments during the "powder into film" video on the dry electrode process after Drew was being over the top positive. Elon replied "there's still a lot of work to do, I wouldn't say this is completely in the bag" when referring to going from Maxwell's proof of concept to scaling volume production of the dry electrode process. I sensed concern from Elon as so much hinges on what many assume is already "in the bag". He followed those comments up with “To be clear, I would like to not say that right now it’s just totally working. It's close to working, but it's not even now at the pilot plant level. It is close to working. All I can think it's fair to say probably it does work, but with not a good … not a high yield.”

Thoughts/Comments?

Material science and manufacturing is kind of Tesla's bread and butter. I would say Elon and his team at SpaceX and Tesla have never failed at these type of problems especially when physics dictates that it works already but just with bad yield. They are the masters of getting X to work consistently.

 

[floydboy]

Tesla basically said that there is so much demand for their products that they need to massively increase the world's battery supply and have all kinds of innovations to make that happen quickly and cheaply. Yet there are people who hear that and decide to sell TSLA. Crazy.

If you're an MM, sell hard, couple thousand shares ought to get the truck...er ball rolling downhill, then scoop up a big bunch on the cheap from the 'weaks'.

 

[traxila]

Are we done with this Battery Day stuff?

Hey, I read that because TSLA has shown profit over the past year they qualify for inclusion into the S&P 500 index!

Index funds could be forced to by a lotta shares! I mean a lot!

Have you guys heard about this? This is a thing, right?

/s

 

[RobStark]

Before today I was hoping Tesla bought out Piedmont Lithium.

Proven Lithium Reserves in North Carolina and proven methodology to mine it and refine it.

Mining companies have been trying to figure out how to process lithium from clay economically for over 50 years. Bad move to acquire rights to Nevada clay lithium.

Elon "Pour table salt on clay, pull lithium right out, put back clay where it was. No fuss no mess no ugly huge pit after done mining. Enough lithium in Nevada to transition entire US vehicle fleet to BEV and then recycle. Easy peasy"

That was a minor point in Today's presentation.

 

[Kevin_Freeman]

Elon mentioned no more fluid circulating between cells in the new architecture, instead a paste that hardens into a solid that turns the battery structure into a stiff structural member. If taken at face value this means either passive thermal management by transferring thermal load to the upper and lower aluminum shell, or perhaps routing thermal management through the upper and lower aluminum battery enclosure. This implies to me that Tesla have effectively lowered the temperature at which the new cells can be charged / discharged at high C-rate, as it seems impractical to heat the entire thermal mass when the vehicle is exposed to very low temperatures in order to enable full acceleration or regen.

Or maybe he was describing an iteration of the 3/Y pack which already routes cooling channels through a hardened paste as seen in the Munro teardown of the model Y.

I did like the graph which implied very little taper while charging beyond 60% capacity.

 

[Singuy]

Apparently you need a parachute just to drag race this Plaid because it'll hit 150mph+ at the quarter mile.

 

[S3XY]

Auto manufactures----dead
Power plant's------------dead

Niedermeyer! ------------

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Have not said this in a while.....The sentiment on this board will be much more cheerful in um....let's say....10 days or so. Good night y'all!

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Apparently you need a parachute just to drag race this Plaid because it'll hit 150mph+ at the quarter mile.

I believe you will also need a four-point harness and a roll cage to protect the driver.

Drag racing has pretty strict regulations, because it happens that if you crash or roll a car over doing 150+ mph the results are not good for the human inside the car, regardless of how durable the car is. Humans are not very durable when subjected to sudden changes in velocity from 150+ mph to zero.

 

[Krugerrand]

This is a misunderstanding of how things work. He has said for years the entire us could be powered with solar panels covered a small area of texas - or maybe he said utah. His point was never "we are going to put solar panels in a small area of utah". Amd today the point wasn't "we are going to go walk around and pick up lithium off the ground in nevada".

Mining isn't just picking stuff up off the ground. There's a lot that going into a mining operation.

That isn't to say maybe Tesla won't start mining in nevada, but those statements he made don't imply that is what they are doing either.

They’re going to mine.

 

[phantasms]

There are exceptions for stock cars. They'll adjust the rules.

FWIW.

I have been kicked out of a drag strip for going too fast in a stock car without a roll cage AND I've driven a car with a parachute on the street a decent amount.

PS I ordered a Plaid but honestly hope not to take delivery. I'd probably rather a ludicrous Model 3 or a Roadster. If they redesign the Model S and make it more nimble, well, that's a different story. The main reason I ordered was to lock in FSD price on a fully refundable item that wouldn't be available for some time to come. The cybertruck on the other hand....that's coming home.

 

[steve3]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1308562698137821184?s=21

Elon keeps referring to this as the most challenging year ever. Why is this? COVID?

Solving hard problems, it’s what t(he)y do. Problems nobody else can even imagine, much less take on.

I believe he’s referring to the problems that were/are being solved along the way to realizing today’s announced step change were challenging enough in their own right. Add the backdrop of Covid-19’s disabling their usual face to face collaborative processes, the county’s shutdown orders, the need to re-start the factory & all of its supply chain; how many people’s daily routines were hampered by the wildfires in the area, the horrendous air quality? And then come up with a proven path to 56% $/kWh reduction, 54% range increase, and make 7X cells in 10% of factory space...all to create a realistic path to 100GWh in 2 years & 3TWh by 2030.

edit: Oh, add in a few new factories on 3 different continents to nurse along. AND assure profitability.