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

[CLK350]

How about, Elon told us for certain during the 2020 Q4 conference call that Plaid Model S would continue using the 18650 form factor for at least a few years?

That's not to say it's the same old bty cell: it's the soup that matters, not the can it comes in.

Plaid+ (scheduled for a mid-2022 debut before being cancelled) is a different story. One that should be allow to rest now.

Thanks in advance.

The only people that know for sure are Tesla. At the Q4 2020 ER Elon stated that the S uses 18650. Bear in mind that was in January 2021 when the S/X line was in the process of being rebuilt - far too late for any significant design changes to be incorporated.

In this situation my tendency is to believe Elon's statement. There does not seem to be any benefit to him misinforming shareholders and analysts when the form factor is bound to become public quickly through a teardown (or inspection of a crashed unit).

Edit: @Artful Dodger beat me to it

If you're not going to believe both the most reliable source that actually works at GFNV (Bill Wright) who explicitly said Plaid was 18650, and you're not going to believe Panasonic who has reported no disruption to their business of supplying 18650s to Tesla, and you're not going to believe Elon Musk, who also explicitly said Plaid is 18650, I'm not really sure who you will believe.

I guess the same applies to that "tesla economist" guy in the video.

On the 4680 in Plaid S theory - thanks guys for re.minding me - TMC heads rock!

Which means the Kato road 4680 production is probably headed to Texas for the few Semis scheduled to be delivered this year

 

[capster]

Does anyone here expect FSD, Autopilot, or safety features to work at 200 MPH? Seems pretty likely that Tesla would state that they don’t work above XX MPH. Even if the safety features were allowed to function beyond that warning, certainly they would degrade the more you exceeded the warning speed?

Hmmm, good question. Perhaps the upper speed limit depends on the depth, if any, of the gravity well involved?

 

[insaneoctane]

Perhaps to be a little more helpful. The cheapest installed cost of solar is just slightly over USD1c per KWh in Portugal, which at it's southern most point is similar in latitude to San Francisco. That rate leaves plenty of room for additional CapEx to be amortised over 20 years and keep the 7c figure in tact.

Also, we don't know what the exact deal is from Tesla, is it 7c fully installed or does the truck company need to pay up front for certain items of the equipment and then the energy supplied is 7c?

Thanks for the information. I’m curious about how much batt storage and array size are required to fully support a mega charger… Knowing the semi pack size is so big, and the charge rate is so fast, it’s not a small setup. If the semi uses 2x the current SC standard, 250kW x2 = 500 kW per semi. That’s 1,500 solar panels using 340 watt/panel! Typical house array is, say, 6 kW, so 1,500 panels is 250x bigger than a typical home array size. That’s big! Thats also per semi. So, next if you add storage to reduce, that’s over 70 powerwalls to store ONE semi‘s worth of energy. Granted, they would actually use powerpacks with 230 kWh per, so they’d need 4 powerpacks to store ONE semi’s worth. My whole point here is to illustrate the nutty scale of these megachargers and the capital to stand them up. Imagine a few semi’s queued up to charge…. I’m sure there’s a scale where the ROI works, but it’s not obvious to me!

 

[Singuy]

Auto Journalist Jason Cammisa on the Plaid

Verdict Tesla Model S Plaid: Sorry, S-Class, your reign is over.

Tesla has released basically no info on the Plaid except 1020 hp and < 1.99 seconds 0-60. I can verify that it’s easily the fastest car in the world. Ever. Of all time. With nothing else close.

I banged off a 2.14-second 0-60 with a VBox. With a passenger. With the A/C blasting. With only 63% battery. After climbing a mountain.

I have no doubt the magazines will see sub-2-second runs. But that’s not the big deal: the big deal is that the speed doesn’t relent. The #Plaid Model S pulls as hard from 100 mph as a Model 3 Performance does from 30.

It just. Doesn’t. Stop. Pulling.

You’d be a fool to race one of these, full stop.

But it’s not a Hellcat: this is no one-trick pony. The new interior is a genuinely huge improvement, combining the best of the Model 3/Y UX with some great new features and the fastest-responding screen I’ve ever seen.

The yoke? NBD if you normally drive with your hands at 9 and 3 — until you go to park the thing. Then, you grab for the rim that’s not there. Gimmick.

Auto-gear selection worked way better than I expected on my short test drive.

Highway cruising is obscenely quiet - and the ride is incredible. Those are most certainly magnetic dampers to give the level of control and adjustability they do. (See the screen.) Criticism: a little too much spring for the dampers, so the ride gets flinty over bumps in its most aggressive setting. But that’s nitpicking. This is a hell of a luxury sedan.

Handling is way improved. Great body control, some understeer. Aggressive ESC that you really want with this level of power — but I’d want it off for track. On slow mountain roads, you don’t feel any torque-vectoring from the rear, but you do get torque-steer up front through the yoke.

The seats are supportive and the rear is no longer a park bench. This car had not one squeak or rattle.

Judged as a Chiron-beatingly fast, everyday luxury car, I must say with apologizes to Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Bugatti, Mercedes-Benz, and every automaker on the planet: good luck catching up. You’ll need it.

And at $130k nobody has a chance.

Jason Cammisa on Instagram: "Verdict Tesla Model S Plaid: Sorry, S-Class, your reign is over. Tesla has released basically no info on the Plaid except 1020 hp and < 1.99 seconds 0-60. I can verify that it’s easily the fastest car in the world. Ever

12K likes, 883 comments - jasoncammisa on June 16, 2021: "Verdict Tesla Model S Plaid: Sorry, S-Class, your reign is over. Tesla has released basically no info on the Plaid except 1020 hp and <..."

www.instagram.com

 

[Mokuzai]

Plaid+ (scheduled for a mid-2022 debut before being cancelled) is a different story. One that should be allow to rest now.

Plaid+ is still on my account as a reservation. Still waiting to find out what they'll do with us, then the story can rest. I contacted my advisor and offered to switch to Plaid if they would transfer my unlimited supercharging over to it and he said they couldn't do that. Not that the supercharging matters all that much, I mostly charge at home. But I was struggling to find a use for the S75 if I got a plaid and didn't want to trade it in because it has free supercharging/connectivity. So for now I'll save the $130k to put towards a roadster.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Which means the Kato road 4680 production is probably headed to Texas for the few Semis scheduled to be delivered this year

Again, Elon already told us during one of the many conference calls since Bty Day that Kato Rd would support Giga Berlin at first. They are just starting construction on the new bty cell plant there, and face permitting issues. Kato Rd cells will be needed there until that's running.

Austin has already completed the primary structure for it's first bty cell plant, but again at a nameplate 20GWh/yr capacity, the 1st bty cell line will produce only enough for about 250K Models Y per year. They will likely build bty cell lines continuously (as fast as the new factory now under construction at Telsa Grohmann Automation in Germany can build the bty manufacturing equiment).

Then there's the Giga Texas cathode plant which is now undergoing site prep in advance of building construction. Tesla will need that up an running before they can add massively to the number of bty cell lines in operation (have to feed the beast).

Semi? My guess is a small number at first, using 2170s from Giga Nevada. But that's conjecture, the salient detail is the 'small numbers at first' provision.

Cheers!

 

[kanweg]

OT news from the Netherlands

The Shell court case, where Shell as a private company was still held responsible for emissions, has an effect. Tata steel, which planned to switch to hydrogen in 2040 (excuse me?!), is now apparently going to study to do this much sooner. Hydrogen should come from windturbines, but may come from natural gas until then and perhaps by ship from Iceland instead.

Car assembly plant VDL Nedcar may start producing cars for US EV company Canoo (limited numbers as of 2023).

on topic: right now the SP is less low. It has to go up only $15 to arrive at the SP where I bought the dip (5 shares). (And then it has to go quite a bit up for the next dip. Oh well.)

 

[M|S|M MYP]

$TSLA up 2.5%? SEC....halt the stock!!

 

[MP3Mike]

Which means the Kato road 4680 production is probably headed to Texas for the few Semis scheduled to be delivered this year

We have already been told, by Bill I think, that the initial Semis are going to be built with 2170s.

Initial 4680s are going to Model Y in Berlin/Austin. Then probably Cybertruck, followed by Roadster and Semi...

 

[Chunky Jr.]

Looks like early plaid+ orders will not have to pay the recent $10K price hike...

 

[Pezpunk]

Plaid+ is still on my account as a reservation. Still waiting to find out what they'll do with us, then the story can rest. I contacted my advisor and offered to switch to Plaid if they would transfer my unlimited supercharging over to it and he said they couldn't do that. Not that the supercharging matters all that much, I mostly charge at home. But I was struggling to find a use for the S75 if I got a plaid and didn't want to trade it in because it has free supercharging/connectivity. So for now I'll save the $130k to put towards a roadster.

yeah, same here. i check in on it once a day just in case i can break some news here. i figure most likely they'll make one last ditch effort to switch me to a Plaid, then if unsuccessful, they'll simply refund my deposit. i guess we'll find out.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Rough $RIDE ahead, this is why dumb analysts have no clue about $TSLA:

 

[goinfraftw]

Perhaps it was both catch up and overshoot? Clearly the market was waiting for confirmation of profits before sufficient buying came in to overwhelm “machinations”, and the enthusiasm and S&P/other events probably caused the overshoot which has now settled back down. This is a common pattern with many stocks. It will be interesting to see if the same cycle happens again with TSLA, or if increased confidence in future financial achievements reduces the lag (which we all greatly benefit from). A by-product of being completely convinced by the HODL approach is missing out on over-bought situations (partly hindsight) like TSLA at $900, and not pulling a move like Gary Black did.

beyond me, just learning how all of this stuff works and is way over my head tbh

 

[Tim S]

Plaid+ is still on my account as a reservation. Still waiting to find out what they'll do with us, then the story can rest. I contacted my advisor and offered to switch to Plaid if they would transfer my unlimited supercharging over to it and he said they couldn't do that. Not that the supercharging matters all that much, I mostly charge at home. But I was struggling to find a use for the S75 if I got a plaid and didn't want to trade it in because it has free supercharging/connectivity. So for now I'll save the $130k to put towards a roadster.

You're spending $130K on a car and you're worried about losing free supercharging? That's worth maybe $200 a year. You can get the fastest car in the world right now... go for it! You can always trade it in for a roadster in a year or two.

 

[Paul_SF]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1405594337300213760

 

[Siksfive]

Hmmm, good question. Perhaps the upper speed limit depends on the depth, if any, of the gravity well involved?

The top speed the system can function at is based on the resolution of the camera(s) and the processing speed of the FSD system. The higher the resolution (pixels), the further out the system can detect an object. However, the higher the res, the more processing power the system will need. So requires a balance

 

[hobbes]

Please read carefully. It says two different Model Y versions, not two different cell types. So do not jump to conclusions. Could be LR and Performance versions.

I suppose you don´t realize you are replying to the author of the article linked...

 

[CorneliusXX]

The Elon the 2nd Twitter handle points more to the 2nd Roadster / S / X.

Too simple?

2nd? weak. twentieth is where it's at. An order of magnitude better.

 

[PeterJA]

Unless Cruise and GM are completely delusional,I no longer believe Tesla Robotaxi will be as lucrative.

The Origin would definitely be a preferable ride to a Model 3. Much easier entry/exit, tons of legroom, sitting up high…. In fact if they converted the interior to 4 separate compartments with nice touchscreen, workstation, recliner…, it would make a great commuter vehicle.

The stunning part is their claim of half the cost of a current EV SUV, when they hit scale. Maybe $35k? With 1M mile life that’s less than $0.05 / passenger mile! That does not leave a lot of room, for Tesla to beat them.

If they have enough miles, then even the cost of mapping and map maintenance may amortize down to a low cost per mile.

I guess removing airbags, wheel, pedals… saves enough money to pay for the 40 sensors?

Tesla needs a dedicated purpose built Robotaxi. I am sure Tesla can win on efficiency eking out another few cents / mile advantage.

On the good side from a Tesla investor perspective, they’re only claiming a few thousand San Francisco miles between accidents (or human interventions where it might have wrecked?), so they have a long way to go to get to the safety needed. We really don’t know how close Tesla is at this point.

Also they’re projecting a price only $5k annually below Uber in San Fran.

Main questions:
1. Is GM delusional at hitting a cost of $35k, and how long to hit scale?
2. How long for them to hit safety/nuisance intervention targets compared to Tesla?
3. Will Tesla provide a very nice pure Robotaxi soon. Of course I do not believe scale would be the problem for Tesla.
4. Maybe it’s OK to have competition, as if they hit cheap enough, there will be a very large demand.
5. Does their price assume you have to share the vehicle. In which case, it’s a pretty high price.

Thanks for the video. It increased my confidence that Tesla will dominate robotaxis.

I'm sorry, but Tesla's engineers are just smarter. Cruise bragged about their camera on a motorized swivel, because an owl sees that way! My God, if you're gonna imitate an animal, pick a housefly. Its compound eyes are very tough to sneak up on.

Cameras are dirt cheap. The only reason to use only a few on swivels, rather than many pointing different directions, is because you don't have the computing power to process many camera views at once. That means Tesla is ahead in the second-most important prerequisite for self-driving. The most important prerequisite, of course, is driving data. Cruise bragged about having a million miles of data, while Tesla has billions.

Even little things like the doors indicate shallow thinking. Cruise bragged about sliding doors because passing cyclists won't hit them. Right, cyclists will hit you stepping out the door.

I agree that $35k per vehicle is only possible with massive scale. But who will have that scale long before Cruise can build millions of owl-sensored minibuses and expand their high-definition maps worldwide? Tesla has a million vehicles now, and a general driving solution on the way. It only needs a software update, which FSD Beta progress suggests is coming soon.

In short, if Cruise can do it, then Tesla can do it cheaper, faster and sooner, I believe.

 

[Nolimits]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1405594337300213760

i dont understand how that man has time to run multiple businesses, let alone respond to all the trolls on the interwebz.