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

[Yuha]

Wonder how much Ford paid for this tweet:

View attachment 658063

Congratulations Ford on continuing in your ICE "old fashioned way".
ford-plunges-almost-10-chip-204014818.html
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Ford really did have a pretty good Q1 but the rest of year, especially Q2, is looking much worse, which is why the SP dropped.
This is from their earnings presentation:

Adj. EBIT: Q1 expected to be the best quarter. Due to the Renesas fire, Q2 expected to be a loss with Q2 losses recovered in second half
Adj. FCF: Significantly negative free cash flow expected in Q2 with recovery in second half

For Tesla, Q1 is likely to be the weakest quarter of the year.

 

[Criscmt]

I'm not bullish on the transition to subscription base at all. If V9 is very good, we should see a substantial tick rate for cash purchases if subscriptions does not exist. There is this thing about novelty and can wear off especially if it's a system that requires monitoring (as in it's hard to justify it long term unless this system allows you to work while driving, or sleep while driving). However with a full cash purchase, the novelty will wear off however you have paid it in full.

Just think of pretty much everything you have. You care less about it after the novelty wears off, but in this case it's a hard pill to swallow paying 200-300/month to keep it going.

Those who drive significantly will likely notice how less stressful it is to drive with FSD, even if with monitoring.

 

[RobStark]

GM to invest $1 billion in Mexico for electric vehicle production, angering UAW members

The facility will begin producing at least one EV beginning in 2023, GM said. The company declined to discuss what vehicle or vehicles will be produced there.

www.cnbc.com

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Does this mean GM won't qualify for the EV credits???

Does Tesla investments of billions in Germany and China mean that Tesla won't qualify for US Federal EV credits?

I mean Tesla China will export Model 2 to USA and RoW.

 

[RobStark]

Ford has an arrangement for collaboration on EVs with VW. Collaboration with both VW and Tesla isn't impossible but seems unlikely.

Ford has a collaboration agreement on EVs with VW in Europe.

Ford has no plans to sell MEB EVs in China or USA.

Ford China is a niche player. It plans to build the Mach-e in China for local consumption.

Ford doesn't need to offset emissions of a large fleet of ICEv in China.

Ford sells the F-150 Raptor in China, believe it or not. It can very well sell the F-150 Electric too.

 

[MC3OZ]

I mean Tesla China will export Model 2 to USA and RoW.

Maybe,,,,

But I can't see why they would not eventually make Model 3 and Model 2 at Austin, for the primary purpose of being US Robo-taxis..

There are plenty of other countries that are candidates for Chinese made Model 2 exports...

I also give Model 3 in particular a strong chance of being made in Berlin....

IMO Model 2/3 with LFP Battery Packs are the bulk of the Robo-taxi fleet.
Most trips are relatively short duration, with 1-2 people, and minimal luggage.

 

[RobStark]

Maybe,,,,

But I can't see why they would not eventually make Model 3 and Model 2 at Austin, for the primary purpose of being US Robo-taxis..

There are plenty of other countries that are candidates for Chinese made Model 2 exports...

I also give Model 3 in particular a strong chance of being made in Berlin....

IMO Model 2/3 with LFP Battery Packs are the bulk of the Robo-taxi fleet.
Most trips are relatively short duration, with 1-2 people, and minimal luggage.

And anything made in Mexico could easily be made by GM in Michigan or Tennessee if Biden goes full Trump. Despite WTO and USMCA obligations.

USA doesn't have a FTA with China.

 

[Maarten]

The difference being in the "Frame Structured Pack" the cells are cargo, just along for the ride. The frame provides the structure.
The Structural Pack is, lighter, stiffer and has the weight more centred, but we know a Model Y with a "Frame Structured Pack". is viable.

The aspect not completely addressed in the Youtube movie of The Limiting Factor is that only the top and bottom of the cells are shown connected with the overall casing.
However, for better integral structural stiffness, also the individual cells can be glued to each other.
The result will be a 'honeycomb of tubes', which will be much stiffer than the above.
(However, not as stiff as a 'true' honeycomb. Bees have proven to be top engineers! )
Calculations of stress/deformations of such a pack can be done with FEM (Finite Element Method).

The structural pack will probably present some challenges, however.
One of the potential problems ('terra incognita'): stresses in the cell casings will mean uneven deformations of the cell casings.
Maybe small, but nonetheless. How will that affect the working and durability of the batteries in the long term?
Furthermore: it will be near impossible to extract a defective cell, unless the bonding with other cell casings can be deactivated in a clever way.
So: one cell fails -> a whole new batterypack will be needed.
One more reason why the cells will have to be very durable.

A lot of technical challenges, but the outcome could provide a high payout in structural (torsional) stiffness versus weight.
Tesla has shown in the past to be up to these challenges. It will mean a car with great driving characteristics.
I am very much looking forward to the PlaidX and the new Roadster!

 

[MC3OZ]

The aspect not completely addressed in the Youtube movie of The Limiting Factor is that only the top and bottom of the cells are shown connected with the overall casing.
However, for better integral structural stiffness, also the individual cells can be glued to each other.
The result will be a 'honeycomb of tubes', which will be much stiffer than the above.
(However, not as stiff as a 'true' honeycomb. Bees have proven to be top engineers! )
Calculations of stress/deformations of such a pack can be done with FEM (Finite Element Method).

The structural pack will probably present some challenges, however.
One of the potential problems ('terra incognita'): stresses in the cell casings will mean uneven deformations of the cell casings.
Maybe small, but nonetheless. How will that affect the working and durability of the batteries in the long term?
Furthermore: it will be near impossible to extract a defective cell, unless the bonding with other cell casings can be deactivated in a clever way.
So: one cell fails -> a whole new batterypack will be needed.
One more reason why the cells will have to be very durable.

A lot of technical challenges, but the outcome could provide a high payout in structural (torsional) stiffness versus weight.
It will mean a car with great driving characteristics.
I am very much looking forward to the PlaidX and the new Roadster!

I am also wondering about the delay in the Model S/X ramp.
If the pack was a structural pack made with 18650s, that may be why extra testing was needed. If it isn't a structural pack, it has some other change like more silicon in the anode.
They cited the energy density of the pack as a reason for the delay.

 

[Chenkers]

So: one cell fails -> a whole new batterypack will be needed.

I'd be very surprised if this was the case! If one cell fails it will impact the charge voltage the BMS can acheive across the cells in series so the percentage drop in capacity will be the single cells capacity compared with the number of cells in the string.

Sandy Munro calculated 960 cells in a 4680 structural pack arranged into 96 bricks of 10 cells per current collector string. So at max the complete failure of a battery cell would result in a 10% loss of capacity for the current collector string. The loss of capacity in the overall 4680 structural pack will depend on what smarts Tesla puts into the BMS to be able to mitigate an affected string. I very much doubt that Tesla would not have anticipated this in the design of the 4680 structural pack and BMS to avoid costly replacements.

 

[saniflash]

During the call, Zach made a comment regarding the transition from cash purchases of FSD to subscription.


In my opinion, it is not very bullish for V9 in the short term.
His comment makes sense if the take rate remain similar during the transition. But if V9 was so much better, I would assume the take rate would probably compensate for the losses in cash purchases. We shall see.

I have a different read on these comments. It sounds like they want to remove the option to buy FSD altogether, which would lead to a cash trough at the beginning of the contract like with every recurring contract -- mechanics like this:

(source: SaaS Economics – Part 1: The SaaS Cash Flow Trough )

 

[Dancing Lemur]

And anything made in Mexico could easily be made by GM in Michigan or Tennessee if Biden goes full Trump.

Imagine the amount of Tesla-hate that would have been generated had they chosen Mexico rather than Austin.

 

[RobStark]

Imagine the amount of Tesla-hate that would have been generated had they chosen Mexico rather than Austin.

It is normal for automakers in North America to build their full size trucks and near luxury CUVs like Model Y in the United States. And their non-premium vehicles in Mexico. Ford choosing final Mach-e assembly in Mexico is unusual.

Mexicans buy about 1.2M new cars per year. Mexicans also buy about twice that of American 3-7 year old used cars that support American used car prices. Mexico should have some local production.

The whole point of NAFTA/USMCA is to level up Mexico so there are not millions of desperate Mexicans coming into the USA illegally every year. The efficiency gains by trading freely with Mexico for the US economy is negligible.

The rants of xenophobes should be ignored.

 

[LiveLong&Profit]

The aspect not completely addressed in the Youtube movie of The Limiting Factor is that only the top and bottom of the cells are shown connected with the overall casing.
However, for better integral structural stiffness, also the individual cells can be glued to each other.
The result will be a 'honeycomb of tubes', which will be much stiffer than the above.
(However, not as stiff as a 'true' honeycomb. Bees have proven to be top engineers! )
Calculations of stress/deformations of such a pack can be done with FEM (Finite Element Method).

The structural pack will probably present some challenges, however.
One of the potential problems ('terra incognita'): stresses in the cell casings will mean uneven deformations of the cell casings.
Maybe small, but nonetheless. How will that affect the working and durability of the batteries in the long term?
Furthermore: it will be near impossible to extract a defective cell, unless the bonding with other cell casings can be deactivated in a clever way.
So: one cell fails -> a whole new batterypack will be needed.
One more reason why the cells will have to be very durable.

A lot of technical challenges, but the outcome could provide a high payout in structural (torsional) stiffness versus weight.
Tesla has shown in the past to be up to these challenges. It will mean a car with great driving characteristics.
I am very much looking forward to the PlaidX and the new Roadster!

"So: one cell fails -> a whole new batterypack will be needed.
One more reason why the cells will have to be very durable."

For sure - matches up with Elon stressing in ER that battery yield, quality and longevity is really important.

But - are we all that sure that just one or a couple cells failing is a big problem?

I recall various videos from Jack Richard from EVTV where he praised both individual cells and the battery pack as a whole after taking them apart and testing them rigorously.
As I recall Tesla has the least amount of variance between individual batteries he ever tested. Also, the batteries were grouped and various monitoring and error handling was added, both in software and hardware on both the modular and pack level, enabling very good pack performance and longevity despite minor battery variation and/or a few failing batteries, out of the ~3000 cells in the 2017 pack.

(I do think that the 4x modules per pack design was a conservative hedge by Tesla: They could replace one of the 4 subsections instead of a whole pack.)

The structural pack and 4680 is a whole new deal of which we know very little. But, it would make sense if Tesla employed some of the same methods they have developed over the years. It could perhaps be possible to fabricate a top layer (to glue to the cells) of both conducting material and perhaps also with embedded measuring hardware, enabling one level of error handling, as well as serving as a structural member - a kind of very large and rigid circuit board.

Another possibility is that they made the conscious decision to skip one or two layers of 'error handling or mitigation' techniques in order to drive down the cost of structural batteries.

If so they would likely only do this if the error rate on the pack level is tested to be really low.
How to determine this reliably? Here they have the long-standing cooperation with Jeff Dahn from Dalhousie to draw lessons from: One of his great contributions is to measure batteries very precisely, enabling continuous testing to yield useful result with a high degree of reliability in time frames of a few quarters to a year, instead of 5-10 years.
Tesla likely has testing rigs for the new 4680 packs where they can elicit useful quality assessments quickly.

To speculate further, Tesla might very well have a wide range of variants of 4680 batteries and structural pack assembly method. They could then test both the battery yield and longevity and structural stress of the pack of all these variants.
Even though the testing methodologies developed by Dahn et al yield results quickly, the measurements still gain in reliability over time. So it all comes down to how much risk you are willing to take, how well you can pivot and recover from mistakes and sunk cost from earlier decisions that turned out to be not right enough vs the opportunity cost of not acting fast, based on incomplete information.

Luckily, Team Elon has a lot of experience in navigating fluid and complex problems like that.

Edit: Chenkers beat me to it.

 

[TRC84]

Haha, seems VW is following Tesla/Elon strategy in every possible direction!

Volkswagen Cars, News and Reviews | Motor1.com

Get the latest on new Volkswagen models including spy shots, first drives, in-depth reviews, concept car photos, new features and more.

www.motor1.com

 

[Baumisch]

So GM released the new fix for the 2019 bolt (fix for 2018 and 2017 comes in a few weeks)

oh and of course it's not OTA so you have to take the car to the dealer to get the updates, and then possibly go back if you have any failed or failing components they don't catch on the day of the update.

• Spoiler: Bolt recall

  increase max charge to 100% aka 4.2v (undoing prior workaround that limited charge)
  [*]changes diagnostics to better detect failing packs (so you can go get a new pack from Chevy if needed)
  [*]updates diags for HVAC (so you know if you have to get the HVAC repaired, again see Chevy if needed)
  [*]updates diags for DCFC (fast charging aka L3, so again you can tell if something isn't right)
  [*]updates OS on the car so it supports all the new diags.

generally just makes the car smarter about finding failed components or components that are likely to fail so you can go get your car fixed.

but the good news for us is this is going to take over the news cycle and reduce the fud factor on TSLA

Less room in the news feed for TSLA fud if they are pushing out fresh GM fud.

Well - bashing GM aside - Tesla could take note of the transparency on S/W changes here - I would love to see those details in changelogs - but we don't

 

[22522]

Is Mother’s Day the FSD Beta button day, because it saves lives and eliminates drunk driving?

 

[Itsame]

$666 premarket not ominous at all

 

[Nolimits]

Happy Friday everyone. Check your couches, sofas, and rugs. Today will be another great day to pick up some chairs. Future outlook is too good for this minor suppression to keep up.

 

[Cape Coddess]

Happy Friday everyone. Check your couches, sofas, and rugs. Today will be another great day to pick up some chairs. Future outlook is too good for this minor suppression to keep up.

Buy orders that didn't hit on the last dip are still in place.

 

[Nolimits]

And if couches and rugs have more spare change, do not fret. After SNL may8th - would likely provide another great opportunity, as the FUDsters will probably skew whatever announcements he may make, which could bring down the SP for paper hand hodlers