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

[Ocelot]

Had to disagree.

Just drove 1,600 miles lately. I was 'stuck' for 55 minutes at 250kW charger in the middle of the night with no stores / restrooms/ anything. I would have much preferred to be there for half of that instead. This is just a one example.

Frankly, I really want to see various tests for TX 4860 made Tesla.

Yeah, obviously @StealthP3D is not travelling in a 2016 model x.
For an”full day” of driving which to me is around 5 to 6 hundred miles…will add about 3 hours to trip over gas. Not including reduction of speed.

 

[ThisStockGood]

Yeah, obviously @StealthP3D is not travelling in a 2016 model x.
For an”full day” of driving which to me is around 5 to 6 hundred miles…will add about 3 hours to trip over gas. Not including reduction of speed.

I agree. The charging expierience in a Model S from 2015 is a bit underwhelming as well. Long trips are a pita. All trips under 300 km are nice.

 

[lascavarian]

Story time?

I try not to be to dark about it but there is little more corrosive on the soul than an “audience” and what people will do to keep one.

There is a great movie out right now titled “Nightmare Alley“ and it continually brought up memories of TV for me.

In other media news, reports are now surfacing that EM will not be joining the board of Twitter.

Barron’s has a story up.

 

[EVMeister]

I predict this is one of those "don't watch the ticker too closely" days. So a normal day for all you smart HODLers.

 

[Todd Burch]

Given the amount of respect Musk has among the Chinese people/government, I’d be surprised if he isn’t privately trying to convince China to loosen their zero Covid policy.

Interesting that Elon has been virtually silent on the Shanghai shutdown, as he probably knows it would be much riskier to criticize the decision in China compared to the US. It also wouldn’t surprise me if this triggers them to build future factories nearby but not IN China. South Korea may be a good choice.

You just know Elon’s gotta be pissed about a huge chunk of production getting shut down over this.

 

[AudubonB]

I suppose it would be sticking straws up the dragon’s nose to place one in Taiwan - which anyway (correct, @jbcarioca ?) doesn’t have an auto manufacturing history.

 

[elasalle]

In past interviews EM has made it clear that he is a US citizen and is thus not as critical of foreign governments
He has avoided direct criticism of China and am sure he understands the consequences- so let’s all hope he doesn’t go on a late night twitter rant on Shanghai else we all gonna get - Shanghai’d in Shanghai

 

[elasalle]

I have seen few positive videos from this guy and he is of an opinion that we may get a sale in next few weeks due to China lockdown.

Agree that we might get a backup the truck moment
Planning on converting stocks in pigg(CC)y bank to leaps if prices drop substantially

 

[Artful Dodger]

There is a definite possibility of Tesla eventually getting into mining Lithium but I also think he could just be bluffing at this point to scare the existing miners into reducing prices lest they have to compete with Tesla.

The best bluff is two good hole cards:

• Thacker Pass - Lithium Americas www.lithiumamericas.com › usa › thacker-pass-nevada
• Tesla files new patent on lithium extraction method | mining-technology.com (Jul 21, 2021))

 

[elasalle]

Berlin and Austin opening just before Shanghai forced to close is a big lucky break

Based on past history on how Tesla has handled issues like chip shortages etc .. Tesla will likely be a bit more aggressive with the factory ramps

Btw saw only one ship from US so far, non scheduled from China

 

[Artful Dodger]

Also very likely to be an even bigger difference on the v4 350+ kW chargers coming soon.

I don't think that "up to 200 miles in 15 min" is for the 250KW SuC V2 rate; I think* that's for 350KW:

(63.4 KWh / 0.25 Hr) * (279mi / 200mi) = 354 KW​

*This is based on my previous estimate that Austin Std Y has an ~63.4 KWh pack.

Also very likely to be an even bigger difference on the v4 350+ kW chargers coming soon.

This is a common misconception. V3 Superchargers use a common power supply with full access from all charger heads (not shared between 2 heads like V1/2).

V3 Superchargers are capable of 350 KW charging now (no need to wait for V4); Tesla just needs to enable the feature in software (like when V1 was increased from 100KW to 120KW). I suspect they'll want to monitor the temps in the charger cable, too.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Berlin and Austin opening just before Shanghai

Berlin is starting production with motor/driveline units and bty packs imported from Shanghai. This needs to be a priority when production is restarted.

 

[elasalle]

Berlin is starting production with motor/driveline units and bty packs imported from Shanghai. This needs to be a priority when production is restarted.

Unless things are totally on demand-
The required volumes of above units should already be there in Berlin for Q2

 

[CaliBear1]

That 18650 production will eventually either be abandoned or retooled to something more modern, once battery production capacity can get far enough ahead of demand. Whether Panasonic ends up turning it into a 4680 plan, or simply retooling it to sell to others (as either 18650 or 4680 or anything else), remains to be seen, but long term it is silly to expect 18650's to remain relevant. And there's not enough supply there to matter to 3/Y production - it is one of the constraints on S/X production, so building a factory there to use it isn't really an improvement, since you won't be able to supply enough production capacity to be worthwhile.

As for RHD, if you want a dedicated RHD plant, I think it would make more sense to do it from the UK. Since the rest of the EU is LHD the whole Brexit thing probably won't even measurably impact it's usefulness then (the costs to export to other RHD countries likely being similar to before Brexit as long as the exchange rates are relatively stable). Japan has a larger domestic market, but it's almost certain you can sell more Teslas in the UK than in Japan, not to mention the country likely being more helpful/friendly than Japan from the perspective of setting up a factory, etc.

Another option is Thailand. It is around 10th in the world in auto manufacturing, has the requisite (and low cost) labor force and is also a significant RH drive consumer market. Plus it REALLY needs to wean itself off polluting ICE vehicles!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Unless things are totally on demand-
The required volumes of above units should already be there in Berlin for Q2

Bty packs are 1,000 lbs each. Tesla said Shanghai is capable of 5,000 packs per week supply for Berlin. That's 60 million pounds of battery packs, or 30 thousand tons if Berlin was to pre-position enough packs for the 12 weeks of Q2.

Sorry (not sorry). That didn't happen.

Even if they only planned on 2K production per week for 8 weeks in Q2, that's still 16 milion lbs, or 8 thouand tons of packs. That's not likely either, unless LG had months of notice about the shutdown.

 

[elasalle]

Bty packs are 1,000 lbs each. Tesla said Shanghai is capable of 5,000 packs per week supply for Berlin. That's 60 million pounds of battery packs, or 30 thousand tons if Berlin was to pre-position enough packs for the 12 weeks of Q2.

Sorry (not sorry). That didn't happen.

Even if they only planned on 2K production per week for 8 weeks in Q2, that's still 16 milion lbs, or 8 thouand tons of packs. That's not likely either, unless LG had months of notice about the shutdown.

Q2 volumes for Berlin not that high and yes LG had months of notice- Berlin delayed for a long time. Cheers!!

 

[traxila]

I was dismissive that China would proceed with this plan of madness to try to stop the COVID omicron variant which is by far too contagious to contain. The silver lining is Omicron’s lower virulence. I did not take into account properly the politics that Xin has engaged in regarding COVID going back to 2019. Nor did I properly take into account China’s lack of vaccinations and unfortunately the relative lack of efficacy of the vaccinations that they have been using.

Obviously this could still reverse on a dime as this is China, but let us try to figure out what this quarter might yield in terms of production.

Fremont 150K. Figure they will try their best to push here.
Berlin 10K - problems with lack of supply from Shanghai.
Austin 20K - They could probably do more, but they just opened so even this is an aggressive number, unless Tesla wants to shock the world and do 50K. Go ahead, shock me.

We are at 180K with zero from Shanghai. Shanghai has to get it together and put out 130K when finally opened for another record quarter from Tesla. This is less than two months production for them given recent run rates. Of course, when China does reopen they are likely to work like mad to catch up so the numbers they will actually produce is truly unknown.

The takeaway for me is that even with no production in in Shanghai in April at all, Tesla will probably have another record quarter. Let’s hope things calm down with the COVID and the people in China emerge unscathed from this double whammy of disease and politics.

 

[nativewolf]

Bugger - If I'd read to the end of the (linked) Time Magazine article I was referencing, I would have seen that, although they listed the number of internees at 1875 - too damn many. A relative played a fairly major role in internment - I was 100% proud of him before I knew, and it chaps me no end to have lost that...

"How Hawaii's Japanese Population Was Spared Internment During World War II"

My relatives, prior to the civil war, bought and sold slaves. That stayed in the closet for 100 years til my father actually opened the closet and started reading letters. Way off topic but just to say the first step to doing something is to be able to discuss it. Mandella forgave...we can too. Then we can do something about it.

 

[CHGolferJim]

I agree. The charging expierience in a Model S from 2015 is a bit underwhelming as well. Long trips are a pita. All trips under 300 km are nice.

Have not examined the data that carefully, but it seems like charging time is up in the range of 25%.

 

[Mengy]

The takeaway for me is that even with no production in in Shanghai in April at all, Tesla will probably have another record quarter. Let’s hope things calm down with the COVID and the people in China emerge unscathed from this double whammy of disease and politics.

Possibly, but I think we all might need to consider the very real possibility that Q2 2022 might end up being lower production totals than Q1, which would likely hit the share price negatively.

This would of course be a huge buying opportunity because we all know how production will go from here on out once Shanghai does re-open, but Q2 may end up being a bad blip in 2022's progress.