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

[Spacep0d]

I hope 2022 doesn’t repeat itself: Your graph labels contain some typo’s.

*typos. Plural, not possessive.

 

[mongo]

Elon should build in subtle differences to emails for each suspected leaker to ID them. Make it very subtle, like a space before a period or question mark, and/or an intentional typo unique to specific emails, etc. This task can be delegated to an assistant....or there might be a script or app to generate subtle differences to catch the leaker.

He tried that [in]on 2008 (didn't work because one person resent their copy).

Canary trap - Wikipedia

 

[Spacep0d]

He tried that on 2008 (didn't work because one person resent their copy).

Canary trap - Wikipedia

Seems like it could work as long as nobody knows that their email is unique. Interesting that it was tried before though.

 

[2daMoon]

Car not selling?

Wait.

What???

 

[Artful Dodger]

Elon should build in subtle differences to emails for each suspected leaker to ID them. Make it very subtle, like a space before a period or question mark, and/or an intentional typo unique to specific emails, etc. This task can be delegated to an assistant....or there might be a script or app to generate subtle differences to catch the leaker.

Lol! Why do you think Roto-REUTERS hasn't issued the original text of the Thursday email? FEAR of compromising their inside source!

 

[OrthoSurg]

Because of the newly introduced obligation to explain nonconformity: You got a "disagree" from me because I don't agree with you promoting an obvious disparagement here.

I realized something on Twitter. If you ever praise about the success of Elon on one aspect of its endeavour, then you get called a Tesla Cultist by the TSLAQ anti-Musk Cultists. If you just expose their flawed reasoning with logical arguments, they say they believe otherwise and use sophisms of all sorts. They show all the aspects of a cult, irrational, emotional arguments and lack of reasoning. They lost grasp with reality.

 

[SO16]

I realized something on Twitter. If you ever praise about the success of Elon on one aspect of its endeavour, then you get called a Tesla Cultist by the TSLAQ anti-Musk Cultists. If you just expose their flawed reasoning with logical arguments, they say they believe otherwise and use sophisms of all sorts. They show all the aspects of a cult, irrational, emotional arguments and lack of reasoning. They lost grasp with reality.

I just consider TSLAQ as “useful idiots”.

We eventually get their money. Most like to brag about a single trade where they made a killing but then fail to mention how they end up losing all and more on the next.

 

[The Accountant]

I realized something on Twitter. If you ever praise about the success of Elon on one aspect of its endeavour, then you get called a Tesla Cultist by the TSLAQ anti-Musk Cultists. If you just expose their flawed reasoning with logical arguments, they say they believe otherwise and use sophisms of all sorts. They show all the aspects of a cult, irrational, emotional arguments and lack of reasoning. They lost grasp with reality.

 

[UkNorthampton]

One thing I didn't expect was ICE car production CAPACITY falling due to parts shortages. Added bonus to EV/Tesla dominance.

How a cheap component could help kill off combustion cars - please consider reading the whole article.

Does CelLink supply Tesla?

The humble wire harness, a cheap component that bundles cables together, has become an unlikely scourge of the auto industry. Some predict it could hasten the downfall of combustion cars.

Spoiler: FurtherQuotes-Tesla

Quotes too large for tags - so best look at article

The supply crunch could accelerate the plans of some legacy auto firms to switch to a new generation of lighter, machine-made harnesses designed for electric vehicles, according to interviews with more than a dozen industry players and experts.

“This is just one more rationale for the industry to make the transition to electric quicker,” said Sam Fiorani, head of production forecasting firm AutoForecast Solutions.

The supply disruptions in Ukraine were a rude awakening for the auto industry. Carmakers and suppliers said that early in the war, plants remained open only thanks to the determination of workers there, who kept a reduced flow of parts moving in the face of power cuts, air-raid warnings and curfews.

Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Bentley, said the British luxury carmaker had initially feared losing 30-40% of its car production for 2022 due to a harness shortage.

“The Ukraine crisis threatened to close our factory fully for several months, much longer than we did for covid.”

Hallmark said finding alternative production sources was complicated by the fact the conventional harnesses themselves had 10 different parts from 10 different suppliers in Ukraine.

He added that the supply problems had sharpened Bentley’s focus and investment on developing a simple harness for EVs that will be run by a central computer. The carmaker, a division of Volkswagen, plans a fully-electric lineup by 2030.

“The Tesla model, which is a completely different concept of wiring, we couldn’t change to that overnight,” Hallmark added. “It’s a fundamental change in the way that we design cars.”

The new generation of wire harnesses, used by electric natives like Tesla, can be made in sections on automated production lines and are lighter, a key factor because reducing an EV’s weight is crucial for extending range.

Many of the executives and experts interviewed said fossil-fuel cars, which face looming bans in Europe and China, would not be around long enough to justify redesigns to allow them to use next-generation harnesses.

CelLink, a Californian-based startup, has developed an entirely automated, flat and easy-to-install “flex harness”, and raised $250 million earlier this year from companies including BMW and auto suppliers Lear Corp and Robert Bosch. CEO Kevin Coakley would not identify customers but said CelLink’s harnesses had been installed in close to a million EVs. Only Tesla has that scale, but the carmaker did not respond to a request for comment. Coakley said CelLink’s new $125 million factory under construction in Texas will have 25 automated production lines which will be able switch different designs in around 10 minutes because the components are produced from digital files. The company is working on EVs with a number of carmakers and looking at building another plant in Europe, he said.

 

[ZachF]

That's precisely what Im saying. With Megapacks all over the place, that price spike doesn't happen. It's business as usual as gas plants scramble for 35 minutes and pop back up.

These are the things we need to sort out and monetize up front.

Battery storage was already competitive with gas when gas was much cheaper, I can only imagine it’s way better now.

NG is at $8/mmbtu in the US (where gas is cheaper) converts roughly to 5¢/KWh just for the fuel even in a high efficiency (~6000 heat rate) combined cycle plant, and around 8¢ for less efficient peakers.

You can roughly triple these numbers for the prices everywhere else.

LFPs with a $250/KWh installed cost and 10,000 cycle life have storage costs of around 2.5¢/KWh, and solar in the desert SW can come in under 2¢/KWh all in.

We are going to be entering a time where the glass ceiling of fossil energy production limiting human activity is coming to an end.

 

[ZeApelido]

Order backlog is steady.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1533037966419021824

 

[ZachF]

Wind and solar in the US now have an LCOE below the fuel cost for natural gas.

Thermal plants’ efficiencies are measured in heat rate, which is the amount of btus it takes to produce one KWh. There are 3412 btus in one KWh, so if you divide that by the heat rate you find thermodynamic efficiency.

Gas turbines are basically jet engines attached to a generator. These generally have heat rates in the 10,000 range (~34% efficient). They are used to balance the grid because they spool up fast. They run off of NG or oil.

Combined cycles take the above and attach a steam generator to the exhaust of the turbine, and can be crazy efficient with heat rates under 6000.

Steam power has heat rates from 8500 to 11000 depending on the pressure. The higher efficiency numbers are basically using supercritical fluid water, and run on insane pressures. Nuclear plants are usually 10,000+ because the fuel cladding can’t handle that.

Now, if you look at NG prices, they are usually prices in dollars per million BTU, with the above knowledge you can calculate fuel costs. For example, a NG CCGT plant would need 6000 x 1000 BTUs to make 1 MWh of electricity (MWH is 1000 KWh). 6m btu of NG at current price of ~$8/mmbtu is $48 per MWh, which is above the total levelized costs in the graphs above!

There are a lot of other costs that go in to energy than just the fuel too.

 

[Usain]

How about this one?

Elon Musk Today

elonmusk.today

The press ran with it. Example: Elon Musk wants to fix your banged-up Tesla in under an hour.

The bolded part sounds like a certain politician and the excuses some people make when he said certain things: don't take him so literally.

No hidden agenda? Look at all the autonomy claims like Tesla Autopilot director contradicts Musk’s self-driving timeline points out "Musk described full autonomy as "basically a solved problem" in 2016.". I pointed out the crazy predictions that he's made over and over, yet he keeps selling a very expensive package to people are convinced that it'll arrive soon or within the time they have their car.

It's pretty clever. He's letting people pay for the privilege of being an unpaid beta tester. And, since it's beta, they wash their hands of all liability saying the driver should be in control. And, when Tesla has one of these used cars in their inventory (e.g. from trade in or lease return), they can double dip by removing it and charging that $ again. Or, they can jack up the price by adding it and raising the price. Car not selling? Flip it back to off and drop the price.

I stand by my previous statement.

Except for when he's obviously joking, he says what he believes without any hidden agenda.

A lot of people make a lot of stupid investment decisions based on their distrust of Elon.

 

[elasalle]

Truth playing catchup

https://twitter.com/x/status/1533048309144858625

 

[Stretch2727]

They clearly got an education on this trip in a non-Tesla.

-Trying to top off to 100% in the beginning of the trip.
-Walking 30 minutes from the charger to restaurants in unsafe areas.
-Stopping at dealerships to charge.
-Rain and wind causing loss of range and an emergency level 2 charge for 3 hours.
-Turning off all accessories including the low setting on the wipers to save juice.
-Uncertainty of the charger working based on reports on plug share.
-Chargers not available 24/7.

I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.

Our writer drove from New Orleans to Chicago and back to test the feasibility of taking a road trip in an EV. She wouldn’t soon do it again.

www.wsj.com

FYI. My wife and I just finished an 11 day 2200 mile road trip in our Tesla to 3 destinations. Probably my only minor mistake was not staying only in hotels with chargers. There were 3-4 days where we did not stay in a hotel with a charger. Probably cost us 1 hour of extra time at a supercharger total to charge the car for driving around and in the morning when we left the hotel with no charger. The rest of the trip was really non-eventful, 7-8 hour legs of driving including 1-2 superchargers stops with a bite to eat.

 

[spacerfc]

How about this one?

Elon Musk Today

elonmusk.today

The press ran with it. Example: Elon Musk wants to fix your banged-up Tesla in under an hour.

The bolded part sounds like a certain politician and the excuses some people make when he said certain things: don't take him so literally.

The point is to take him literally, all of these examples are either because of Elon Time or because of changed plans, doesn't mean he's not genuine when he said it. Plenty of examples when it comes to SpaceX, like how Falcon Heavy was 6 months away for several years, or how Crew Dragon was originally intended to do propulsive landing on land yet now lands on water, everybody actually understands these things knows these are minor and does not in any way make the accomplishments by SpaceX less extraordinary. The same applies to Tesla as well.

 

[ZachF]

Saturday morning thought exercise comparing today’s oil prices to the oil prices in 2008:

To take into account income growth, I am going to price a barrel of oil in terms of percentage of GDP per capita in 2008 and 2022 and see how it has changed.

Here is the 2008 list, oil barrel as a percentage of GDP per capita:
0.126% Luxembourg
0.146% Norway
0.194% Switzerland
0.221% Denmark
0.231% Ireland
0.246% Netherlands
0.252% Iceland
0.253% Sweden
0.266% Finland
0.276% Austria
0.286% Australia
0.293% Belgium
0.300% United States
0.302% United Kingdom
0.311% Germany
0.312% France
0.314% Canada
0.350% Italy
0.360% Japan
0.364% Singapore
0.404% Spain
0.441% Greece
0.448% New Zealand
0.450% Hong Kong SAR
0.469% Israel
0.522% Slovenia
0.569% Portugal
0.626% Czechia
0.665% South Korea
0.782% Estonia
0.791% Slovakia
0.824% Taiwan
0.908% Latvia
0.921% Hungary
0.959% Lithuania
1.036% Poland
1.382% Turkey
1.418% Argentina
1.466% Romania
1.629% Brazil
2.475% South Africa
4.512% China
12.798% India

…and 2022:
0.093% Luxembourg
0.124% Ireland
0.128% Norway
0.134% Switzerland
0.157% United States
0.168% Iceland
0.180% Singapore
0.185% Denmark
0.189% Australia
0.209% Israel
0.210% Sweden
0.214% Netherlands
0.214% Canada
0.232% Finland
0.238% Hong Kong SAR
0.241% Belgium
0.255% Germany
0.259% United Kingdom
0.263% New Zealand
0.289% France
0.352% Taiwan
0.353% South Korea
0.355% Italy
0.355% Japan
0.403% Slovenia
0.409% Spain
0.413% Estonia
0.458% Czechia
0.494% Lithuania
0.495% Portugal
0.590% Latvia
0.591% Slovakia
0.597% Greece
0.646% Poland
0.700% Hungary
0.920% Romania
0.940% China
0.989% Argentina
1.202% Turkey
1.258% Brazil
1.576% South Africa
4.498% India

Finally, change in oil price from 2008 peak to now, accounting for change in nominal income:

+35.4% Greece
+1.4% Italy
+1.2% Spain
-1.4% Japan
-7.4% France
-12.3% Norway
-12.9% Finland
-13.0% Portugal
-13.0% Netherlands
-13.0% Turkey
-14.2% United Kingdom
-16.3% Denmark
-17.0% Sweden
-17.7% Belgium
-18.0% Germany
-22.8% Brazil
-22.8% Slovenia
-24.0% Hungary
-25.3% Slovakia
-26.2% Luxembourg
-26.8% Czechia
-30.3% Argentina
-30.9% Switzerland
-31.8% Canada
-33.3% Iceland
-33.9% Australia
-35.0% Latvia
-36.3% South Africa
-37.3% Romania
-37.6% Poland
-41.3% New Zealand
-46.9% South Korea
-47.1% Hong Kong SAR
-47.2% Estonia
-47.7% United States
-48.5% Lithuania
-50.5% Singapore
-55.4% Israel
-57.3% Taiwan
-64.8% India
-79.2% China

Rough notes, the biggest losers have been club med in Europe and Japan, while the winners mostly have been tech leaders (SE Asia, USA, Israel)

 

[Discoducky]

Yesterday, Joe is saying possible deliveries start June 5th...let me see how many days that is from now...

Two days ago, Brad captured more video of car carriers filling up.

Roughly comparing the two videos, it seems like about ~100 cars left staging in one day. Maybe someone is better than me at estimating...

And after watching these videos I'm wondering, is there a planned test track? I'm not seeing one...

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

How about this one?

Elon Musk Today

elonmusk.today

The press ran with it. Example: Elon Musk wants to fix your banged-up Tesla in under an hour.

The bolded part sounds like a certain politician and the excuses some people make when he said certain things: don't take him so literally.

No hidden agenda? Look at all the autonomy claims like Tesla Autopilot director contradicts Musk’s self-driving timeline points out "Musk described full autonomy as "basically a solved problem" in 2016.". I pointed out the crazy predictions that he's made over and over, yet he keeps selling a very expensive package to people are convinced that it'll arrive soon or within the time they have their car.

It's pretty clever. He's letting people pay for the privilege of being an unpaid beta tester. And, since it's beta, they wash their hands of all liability saying the driver should be in control. And, when Tesla has one of these used cars in their inventory (e.g. from trade in or lease return), they can double dip by removing it and charging that $ again. Or, they can jack up the price by adding it and raising the price. Car not selling? Flip it back to off and drop the price.

Ok so he’s a genius fraudster. We already know that. You’re preaching to the choir.

 

[growler23]

SpaceX is working on it right now, and their sole target is to reduce the cost per ton to orbit.

The whole premise was that if we get 5-10 more years of 10-15% annual cost declines for solar, the economics can start to make sense compared to natural gas.

You have said this before, that SpaceX is working on ythis, but you seemed to base this on reading between the lines. Curious if you actually know more definitely that they are actively trying to make synthetic fuel this way.