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

[insaneoctane]

Not just state-level gas tax, but state and federal. Federal money is usually, eventually, dispersed back to the states. Still well under what the driver of common ICE vehicles pay in fuel tax.

Different problem to solve. The Fed collects the Fed gasoline tax and chooses to do what they want with it. Maybe they send some back to the states, maybe they don't. It's their prerogative. Sometimes they tie strings to the money. The Fed is going to have to figure out how to recoup the loss of that revenue.

It's interesting to think that the Fed is losing $0.18/gallon of revenue for each EV sold. At 12K miles per year and 25 MPG, that's $86/year. And yet the Fed is encouraging EVs by subsidizing purchases by up to $7,500. California subsidizes purchases by up to $2,500 if you're low income, but then turns around and charges an extra $175/year in registration. Jekyll and Hyde!

By the way, here's my "proof" that the state collect gasoline tax revenue doesn't necessarily go to the roads....California collects a disproportionately high amount of money in gasoline taxes ($6.8B) and our roads suck!

I apologize for the confusion. The table may have been cut off due to formatting limitations. Here is the full table with all 50 states:

| State            | Gasoline Tax Rate (cents/gallon) | Annual Gasoline Consumption (millions of gallons) | Total Gasoline Tax Revenue (millions of dollars) |
|------------------|---------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|
| Alabama          | 18.00                            | 3,055                                            | 550                                             |
| Alaska           | 14.80                            | 314                                              | 46                                              |
| Arizona          | 18.00                            | 2,855                                            | 514                                             |
| Arkansas         | 24.50                            | 1,503                                            | 368                                             |
| California       | 47.30                            | 14,278                                           | 6,766                                           |
| Colorado         | 22.00                            | 1,794                                            | 395                                             |
| Connecticut      | 43.90                            | 1,013                                            | 444                                             |
| Delaware         | 23.00                            | 403                                              | 93                                              |
| Florida          | 41.90                            | 8,367                                            | 3,506                                           |
| Georgia          | 28.70                            | 4,148                                            | 1,191                                           |
| Hawaii           | 48.10                            | 155                                              | 75                                              |
| Idaho            | 33.00                            | 626                                              | 207                                             |
| Illinois         | 38.00                            | 6,145                                            | 2,332                                           |
| Indiana          | 42.90                            | 2,871                                            | 1,234                                           |
| Iowa             | 30.50                            | 1,254                                            | 383                                             |
| Kansas           | 24.03                            | 1,043                                            | 251                                             |
| Kentucky         | 26.00                            | 1,865                                            | 485                                             |
| Louisiana        | 20.00                            | 3,555                                            | 711                                             |
| Maine            | 30.10                            | 497                                              | 150                                             |
| Maryland         | 36.00                            | 1,899                                            | 683                                             |
| Massachusetts    | 26.54                            | 1,277                                            | 339                                             |
| Michigan         | 44.13                            | 4,167                                            | 1,838                                           |
| Minnesota        | 28.60                            | 1,911                                            | 548                                             |
| Mississippi      | 18.40                            | 1,385                                            | 255                                             |
| Missouri         | 17.00                            | 2,606                                            | 443                                             |
| Montana          | 31.75                            | 372                                              | 118                                             |
| Nebraska         | 28.00                            | 743                                              | 208                                             |
| Nevada           | 33.30                            | 1,076                                            | 359                                             |
| New Hampshire    | 23.83                            | 421                                              | 101                                             |
| New Jersey       | 50.70                            | 3,194                                            | 1,620                                           |
| New Mexico       | 18.88                            | 797                                              | 151                                             |
| New York         | 44.96                            | 5,562                                            | 2,502                                           |
| North Carolina   | 36.15                            | 3,958                                            | 1,432                                           |
| North Dakota     | 23.00                            | 199                                              | 46                                              |
| Ohio             |

Sorry that the table stops at Ohio, ChatGPT refused to complete it...

 

[Fred42]

Given the heavily gerrymandered districts, something like 30-40% of all state legislature seats in Texas are unopposed (ie the incumbent is the winner before there's even an election, not even the other party bothers running someone because they have 0 chance to win let alone a primary challenger of the same party)... And most of the rest the other party runs someone and it's not especially close, but there's no primary challenge to the incumbent.

In the 2022 cycle for example only 2 state senators (out of 31) faced a primary challenge, and only 30 (out of 150) in the house (and the incumbent still wins nearly all the time).

Incumbency is stupidly sticky, and there's enough "protecting the good local businesses selling you cars" soundbites to toss right back that I can't see that being an issue moving that needle anywhere.

I do think it's an issue that'll get solved- but like most dumb things in government it'll be solved in a back room somewhere with various promises being exchanged, not at an election booth.

I anticipate the issue of Tesla sales in Texas will be resolved in the 2030's. The oil and gas industry and the car dealers have the legislators in their pockets, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

 

[heltok]

Anyone can confirm this one?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652416639353102337

 

[generalenthu]

Different problem to solve. The Fed collects the Fed gasoline tax and chooses to do what they want with it. Maybe they send some back to the states, maybe they don't. It's their prerogative. Sometimes they tie strings to the money. The Fed is going to have to figure out how to recoup the loss of that revenue.

It's interesting to think that the Fed is losing $0.18/gallon of revenue for each EV sold. At 12K miles per year and 25 MPG, that's $86/year. And yet the Fed is encouraging EVs by subsidizing purchases by up to $7,500. California subsidizes purchases by up to $2,500 if you're low income, but then turns around and charges an extra $175/year in registration. Jekyll and Hyde!

By the way, here's my "proof" that the state collect gasoline tax revenue doesn't necessarily go to the roads....California collects a disproportionately high amount of money in gasoline taxes ($6.8B) and our roads suck!

I apologize for the confusion. The table may have been cut off due to formatting limitations. Here is the full table with all 50 states:

| State            | Gasoline Tax Rate (cents/gallon) | Annual Gasoline Consumption (millions of gallons) | Total Gasoline Tax Revenue (millions of dollars) |
|------------------|---------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|
| Alabama          | 18.00                            | 3,055                                            | 550                                             |
| Alaska           | 14.80                            | 314                                              | 46                                              |
| Arizona          | 18.00                            | 2,855                                            | 514                                             |
| Arkansas         | 24.50                            | 1,503                                            | 368                                             |
| California       | 47.30                            | 14,278                                           | 6,766                                           |
| Colorado         | 22.00                            | 1,794                                            | 395                                             |
| Connecticut      | 43.90                            | 1,013                                            | 444                                             |
| Delaware         | 23.00                            | 403                                              | 93                                              |
| Florida          | 41.90                            | 8,367                                            | 3,506                                           |
| Georgia          | 28.70                            | 4,148                                            | 1,191                                           |
| Hawaii           | 48.10                            | 155                                              | 75                                              |
| Idaho            | 33.00                            | 626                                              | 207                                             |
| Illinois         | 38.00                            | 6,145                                            | 2,332                                           |
| Indiana          | 42.90                            | 2,871                                            | 1,234                                           |
| Iowa             | 30.50                            | 1,254                                            | 383                                             |
| Kansas           | 24.03                            | 1,043                                            | 251                                             |
| Kentucky         | 26.00                            | 1,865                                            | 485                                             |
| Louisiana        | 20.00                            | 3,555                                            | 711                                             |
| Maine            | 30.10                            | 497                                              | 150                                             |
| Maryland         | 36.00                            | 1,899                                            | 683                                             |
| Massachusetts    | 26.54                            | 1,277                                            | 339                                             |
| Michigan         | 44.13                            | 4,167                                            | 1,838                                           |
| Minnesota        | 28.60                            | 1,911                                            | 548                                             |
| Mississippi      | 18.40                            | 1,385                                            | 255                                             |
| Missouri         | 17.00                            | 2,606                                            | 443                                             |
| Montana          | 31.75                            | 372                                              | 118                                             |
| Nebraska         | 28.00                            | 743                                              | 208                                             |
| Nevada           | 33.30                            | 1,076                                            | 359                                             |
| New Hampshire    | 23.83                            | 421                                              | 101                                             |
| New Jersey       | 50.70                            | 3,194                                            | 1,620                                           |
| New Mexico       | 18.88                            | 797                                              | 151                                             |
| New York         | 44.96                            | 5,562                                            | 2,502                                           |
| North Carolina   | 36.15                            | 3,958                                            | 1,432                                           |
| North Dakota     | 23.00                            | 199                                              | 46                                              |
| Ohio             |

Sorry that the table stops at Ohio, ChatGPT refused to complete it...

not a good idea to refer to chatgpt for hard numbers. It has a tendency to hallucinate and if you ask the same question again it might show up with different results. That is unless you are using it just for formatting or you have a plugin which can lookup the actual numbers.

 

[JRP3]

I grew up in a backwards, regressive state that had them (NY). Went in for an inspection and was told I needed my brakes replaced. My comment-"that's funny, I just replaced them last weekend"-shut that ripoff down right away. These places see forced customers as cash cows. And...you're whining about paying a tax to operate your vehicle on the highway, at a far lower rate than most ICE drivers, who pay both state AND FEDERAL gas tax-the federal tax typically disbursed back to the states. Yet you have no compunction about forcing people to pay a draconian "vehicle inspection tax", that lines the pockets of owners of inspection centers.

My NY Tesla inspection cost me 10 bucks this month, (no emissions testing of course). No one has ever tried to rip me off like that and corrupt businesses such as you encountered should be reported.

 

[ZeApelido]

My noise to signal ratio is elite.

 

[capster]

My noise to signal ratio is elite 1337.

FTFY

 

[ggies07]

Throwing caution to the wind is the best way to live. Saddle up partner! Send me a PM with your full name so I can fill in this form. I assume you’re a registered shareholder with Tesla and all that fun business.

I want to give a shout-out to phantasms for his generosity. I've been on here since 2012 and this really is a great community - whether for amazing analysis of the company (that helps folks like myself who do not have the time to dive deep), meet-ups, or invites to places. I will definitely pay it forward if I ever have the chance.

 

[Thekiwi]

And now today Musk liked and replied to a desalination tweet.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652240207385862144

3 kWh per m^3 of water is typical energy consumption for modern high-efficiency reverse osmosis plants. Any hypothetical new technologies couldn’t improve this by very much, considering that “For typical seawater at ambient temperature and 3.5% concentration by weight of dissolved salts, the universal thermodynamic limit (TL) to separate water from the solution (but at zero recovery) is 0.78 kWh per cubic meter, as given by the Gibbs equations12,13. However, the practical specific energy consumption for seawater desalination plants available hitherto may vary from 5- to 8-folds higher than the ideal limit.” (Source: Nature)

However, as I’ve argued before, in a future of cheap solar energy, there would probably be less focus on desalination energy efficiency in order to save cost in other areas.

Humans currently use 4 trillion cubic meters of freshwater globally each year, and the long term trend has been for this number to rise. Unless there is a dramatic disruption of the agriculture industry in terms of irrigation, indoor farming, or people’s willingness to eat less animal food from conventional animal farms, then we simply need a lot of water. Getting 1 trillion m^3 from desal would require at least 1 PWh (petawatt-hour) of energy input at maximum thermodynamic efficiency. Real-world efficiency including pumping and transportation consumption, especially if the desal market switches from osmosis to distillation to exploit cheap energy, can easily exceed this by 10x or maybe even 50x. “The range of specific energy consumption (SEC) for MSF [multistage flash distillation] plants is typically 20 kWh–25 kWh per cubic meter of freshwater produced” (source).

So, we can estimate that replacing a substantial fraction of current world water consumption with desal could burn on the order of 10-100 PWh of energy per year. In comparison, in the 2022 Impact Report Tesla estimated 84 PWh of total energy consumed in a sustainable energy economy based on the figure presented in MPP3 which did not include desal.

Furthermore, this is just accounting for possible human uses. Conceivably, I’m the future we might start to actively refill parched lakes and rivers. Does this sound far-fetched? Maybe, but this year Israel is already starting to do it to maintain water levels in the Sea of Galilee. It’s still experimental and the first such project in the world, but it’s actually in operation right now and scientists are collecting data on how it’s impacting the ecosystem in the lake.

What else might have been omitted from the Master Plan?

thoughts on this solution? Tapping the massive fresh water resource of above ocean vapour which has remained so far untouched? Video linked included discussion of a recently publish research project confirming the validity at various Locations around the world. Requires far less energy than desalination of salt water.

https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjEzdKWxND-AhXXSWwGHaPbB54QwqsBegQIChAF&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dwt5xAcmfaYo&usg=AOvVaw3-o9EuOS252Wd5o7QIy_5s

 

[Curt Renz]

Real Time with Bill Maher - Elon Musk - Friday:

 

[Buckminster]

I always strive to keep on topic here to improve the signal to noise ratio, albeit with some occasional jokes. Here’s why desalination and Elon’s recent comments that he expects it to solve the water crisis is 100% relevant.

Tesla is aiming to be the world’s largest and leading energy company within the next decade. The mission is to transition the entire world economy to sustainable energy. This necessarily includes all future major use cases for energy, not just the obvious ones that comprise the current major uses.

Therefore, reasoned discussion of the TAM for Tesla Energy as well as the overall scope and scale of the business must include predictions about probable changes in macroeconomics for the energy market. When the Technoking of Tesla starts talking in public about one such new use case massively scaling in the future, I believe it’s wise for Tesla investors to take notice and consider the implications. For desalination, physics first principles of thermodynamics prove that if this actually grows really big then it’s necessarily going to become one of the top future categories of energy consumption, quite possibly larger than even the entire combined transportation sector (cars/truck/aircraft/trains/ships/etc) today. It could even consume more than transportation and HVAC combined. That means more kWh of clean electricity for Tesla to produce, manage, and sell than what Tesla has explicitly guided for investors to expect.

In the spirit of science, we ought to be skeptically scrutinizing what Tesla has published in their Investor Day and Master Plan projections to try to verify or falsify the model. In my estimation, Tesla has omitted several major upcoming new categories of energy usage, of which desalination is but one, and also has neglected to fully account for the upcoming growth of some existing major categories, like air conditioning and data centers. I think they also failed to present a realistic estimate of how cheap Gen 3 EVs (with their super-low long term total cost per mile) and potentially FSD could dramatically increase the total energy consumed for ground transportation even despite the 3-4x efficiency improvement per mile relative to ICEVs. When stuff becomes cheaper and better, markets consume more of it. I don’t see a good reason to expect the energy market to behave any differently, but the Master Plan implies that we won’t exploit cheap energy to improve our quality of life. I believe that’s an absurd prediction that contradicts everything we know about economics and technology disruptions, and investors should realize this instead of taking what Tesla published at face value.

I also suspect that if Boring Co can successfully reduce the cost of tunneling, then the case for large-scale desalination increases because underground aqueduct infrastructure will become more feasible and affordable. Boring Co is of course in the broader family of interconnected companies Tesla belongs to. More aggregate tunnel demand means more innovation, more economies of scale, and ultimately faster and cheaper construction of robotaxi racetrack in more cities worldwide, which directly benefits Tesla’s future business prospects.


The problem with the FSD posts is that they always end up being circular rehashing of the same discussions we’ve had for years and no one learns anything new. Everyone already knows robotaxis are a big deal if Tesla solves the technical challenges and everyone knows there’s great disagreement and uncertainty about how long that might take if it ever even is achieved at all. All too often FSD discussions here devolve into snippy poop-flinging battles that consume too much of the thread bandwidth. I’m pretty sure that’s why the mods put a moratorium on them. Whenever something genuinely new comes up like a big update to Dojo or whatever it seems to me that the mods have usually allowed discussion to proceed while it’s still adding significant value.

Pretty sure you keep mentioning desal because you have a bet that I will setup a dedicated thread... Maybe later but in the meantime, water shortage is already a solved problem:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1242292724084113409

Tesla HVAC

 

[willow_hiller]

Anyone can confirm this one?

I've never seen that price adjustment text before. It says"Preisanpassung: -1.710 €" which translates to "Price adjustment: -€1,710".

When Tesla modifies base prices, the change isn't written directly on the inventory page. These are likely to be showroom models with small discounts for them having been test-driven.

 

[InTheMiddle]

I always strive to keep on topic here to improve the signal to noise ratio, albeit with some occasional jokes. Here’s why desalination and Elon’s recent comments that he expects it to solve the water crisis is 100% relevant.

Tesla is aiming to be the world’s largest and leading energy company within the next decade. The mission is to transition the entire world economy to sustainable energy. This necessarily includes all future major use cases for energy, not just the obvious ones that comprise the current major uses.

Therefore, reasoned discussion of the TAM for Tesla Energy as well as the overall scope and scale of the business must include predictions about probable changes in macroeconomics for the energy market. When the Technoking of Tesla starts talking in public about one such new use case massively scaling in the future, I believe it’s wise for Tesla investors to take notice and consider the implications. For desalination, physics first principles of thermodynamics prove that if this actually grows really big then it’s necessarily going to become one of the top future categories of energy consumption, quite possibly larger than even the entire combined transportation sector (cars/truck/aircraft/trains/ships/etc) today. It could even consume more than transportation and HVAC combined. That means more kWh of clean electricity for Tesla to produce, manage, and sell than what Tesla has explicitly guided for investors to expect.

In the spirit of science, we ought to be skeptically scrutinizing what Tesla has published in their Investor Day and Master Plan projections to try to verify or falsify the model. In my estimation, Tesla has omitted several major upcoming new categories of energy usage, of which desalination is but one, and also has neglected to fully account for the upcoming growth of some existing major categories, like air conditioning and data centers. I think they also failed to present a realistic estimate of how cheap Gen 3 EVs (with their super-low long term total cost per mile) and potentially FSD could dramatically increase the total energy consumed for ground transportation even despite the 3-4x efficiency improvement per mile relative to ICEVs. When stuff becomes cheaper and better, markets consume more of it. I don’t see a good reason to expect the energy market to behave any differently, but the Master Plan implies that we won’t exploit cheap energy to improve our quality of life. I believe that’s an absurd prediction that contradicts everything we know about economics and technology disruptions, and investors should realize this instead of taking what Tesla published at face value.

I also suspect that if Boring Co can successfully reduce the cost of tunneling, then the case for large-scale desalination increases because underground aqueduct infrastructure will become more feasible and affordable. Boring Co is of course in the broader family of interconnected companies Tesla belongs to. More aggregate tunnel demand means more innovation, more economies of scale, and ultimately faster and cheaper construction of robotaxi racetrack in more cities worldwide, which directly benefits Tesla’s future business prospects.


The problem with the FSD posts is that they always end up being circular rehashing of the same discussions we’ve had for years and no one learns anything new. Everyone already knows robotaxis are a big deal if Tesla solves the technical challenges and everyone knows there’s great disagreement and uncertainty about how long that might take if it ever even is achieved at all. All too often FSD discussions here devolve into snippy poop-flinging battles that consume too much of the thread bandwidth. I’m pretty sure that’s why the mods put a moratorium on them. Whenever something genuinely new comes up like a big update to Dojo or whatever it seems to me that the mods have usually allowed discussion to proceed while it’s still adding significant value.

Hope this comes across the right way - but let me make sure I'm capturing what you're actually saying.
1. 24 days ago, Tesla published the Tesla Master Plan Part 3. (https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf) This wasn't months or years ago, where it might be out-of-date, or out-of alignment with Tesla's current thinking / current plan; this was mere weeks ago.
2. I agree we should examine it (and all things) critically (in a Socratic way, not as in criticizing).
3. In your opinion, Tesla has:
A)

In my estimation, Tesla has omitted several major upcoming new categories of energy usage, of which desalination is but one, and also has neglected to fully account for the upcoming growth of some existing major categories, like air conditioning and data centers.

B)

I think they also failed to present a realistic estimate of how cheap Gen 3 EVs (with their super-low long term total cost per mile) and potentially FSD could dramatically increase the total energy consumed for ground transportation even despite the 3-4x efficiency improvement per mile relative to ICEVs.

C)

When stuff becomes cheaper and better, markets consume more of it. I don’t see a good reason to expect the energy market to behave any differently, but the Master Plan implies that we won’t exploit cheap energy to improve our quality of life. I believe that’s an absurd prediction that contradicts everything we know about economics and technology disruptions, and investors should realize this instead of taking what Tesla published at face value.

You are straightfaced stating that you A) believe Tesla omitted major relevant things (because Tesla doesn't know them but you do? Or because Tesla knows them but intentionally chose to omit them???).

You are stating that you can estimate better than Tesla how cheap Tesla's future yet-to-even-be-prototyped next-gen car will be, and that you can estimate better than Tesla how their own FSD could change things, despite Tesla having *all* the relevant data on them that is available and *none* of that being public knowledge you would likely have access to?

You are stating that investors should realize that Tesla's published projections of how things will play out is an absurd prediction, and investors should think / act based on *your* predictions instead, pushing the company into an extremely important area but also one that is so completely different than Tesla's focus that it is laughable???

You once, replying to someone else, stated:

Let's be clear: To assert that Tesla's gap in deliveries and production was primarily caused by limited demand is to assert that Tesla's corporate communications on the matter have been misleading to the point of arguably being outright fraudulent. Just say it: "I think they're lying and you should believe my narrative that I invented instead."

Reading your post earlier today reminded me of that older post of your own words...perhaps the quoted sentence best sums up what you seem to be saying about Tesla's Master Plan 3.

 

[Thekiwi]

I've never seen that price adjustment text before. It says"Preisanpassung: -1.710 €" which translates to "Price adjustment: -€1,710".

When Tesla modifies base prices, the change isn't written directly on the inventory page. These are likely to be showroom models with small discounts for them having been test-driven.

I recall seeing the “price adjustment” language on some images of European tesla online stores during the end of quarter markdowns for new vehicles, implying it’s a limited time offer I suppose.

 

[Dikkie Dik]

Anyone can confirm this one?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652416639353102337

I just checked the German Tesla site, no discounted 3 or Y whatsoever.

Dutch site has one Y but that’s a demo vehicle.

Fake news.

 

[Gigapress]

Hope this comes across the right way - but let me make sure I'm capturing what you're actually saying.
1. 24 days ago, Tesla published the Tesla Master Plan Part 3. (https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf) This wasn't months or years ago, where it might be out-of-date, or out-of alignment with Tesla's current thinking / current plan; this was mere weeks ago.
2. I agree we should examine it (and all things) critically (in a Socratic way, not as in criticizing).
3. In your opinion, Tesla has:
A)

B)

C)


You are straightfaced stating that you A) believe Tesla omitted major relevant things (because Tesla doesn't know them but you do? Or because Tesla knows them but intentionally chose to omit them???).

I believe the purpose of the Master Plan was to communicate the minimum necessary steps to accomplish the energy transition without voluntary economic degrowth and austerity measures. In this respect, it would make sense that they examined how to eliminate fossil fuel reliance for the major sectors of energy consumption in the current economy. From what I can tell, Tesla did not suggest that it was a complete, comprehensive prediction of the changes this technology disruption will bring about. I think this omission has unfortunately caused investors to lose sight of the immense opportunities above and beyond the baseline Tesla provided, amazing though it is.

Zach Kirkhorn began the Investor Day presentation by saying, “We’ve divided today’s presentation into three parts, the first of which we’re going to go macro: What does it take to convert Earth to sustainable energy generation and use? The second: we want to talk about Tesla’s contribution to that global need…” Then Elon’s opening remarks clarified the purpose further:

“So as Zach was mentioning, the thing I think we wanted to convey—probably more importantly than anything else we talk about here—is that there is a clear path to a sustainable energy Earth. It’s not—it doesn’t require destroying natural habitats; it doesn’t require us to be austere and stop using electricity and sort of be in the cold or anything…much more than the 8 billion humans could actually be supported sustainably on Earth, and I’m just often shocked and surprised by how few people realize this. Most of the smart people I know actually don’t see this clear path; they think that there’s not a path to a sustainable energy future, or at least there’s not one that is sustainable at our current population, or that we have to resort to extreme measures. None of this is true. So we’re gonna walk through the calculations for how to create a sustainable energy civilization.

Then in the Master Plan white paper in the Executive Summary it was framed as a “a proposed path to reach a sustainable global energy economy through end-use electrification and sustainable electricity generation and storage” and concluded that the path was “technically feasible”. It then goes on to describe “6 steps [that] show the actions needed to fully electrify the economy and eliminate fossil fuel use”. This Master Plan basically showed us how the 2019 US economy (scaled up by a factor of 6 to approximate a prosperous economic future for all humans) could have been hypothetically been powered by renewables at lower cost and less mining burden than business as usual. As Elon said, most people still aren’t aware that this is even possible, and every time Tesla makes seemingly outlandishly optimistic predictions they mostly just receive ridicule or fraud accusations in return.

Plus, in the Impact Report, Tesla said “In Master Plan Part 3, we highlight five key areas that we believe can most dramatically advance the shift to sustainability.”

Clearly Tesla was describing the plan for solving the fossil fuel problem without negative economic or environmental consequences and was not expounding on the entire positive new opportunity that solar, wind and batteries will unlock. For that, the best spokesperson we have for now is RethinkX and Tony Seba.

In my prior post I characterized that as a failure on Tesla’s part, and on second thought I take that back. I wish they would’ve said more but I can see why they might have decided not to.

You are stating that you can estimate better than Tesla how cheap Tesla's future yet-to-even-be-prototyped next-gen car will be, and that you can estimate better than Tesla how their own FSD could change things, despite Tesla having *all* the relevant data on them that is available and *none* of that being public knowledge you would likely have access to?

As a matter of fact it is public knowledge. Tesla has openly stated that the robotaxi will be very low cost, and there are good reasons why it should be.

Elon said on the 1Q22 earnings call: “It's trying to achieve the lowest fully-considered cost per mile, cost per kilometer, you know, accounting everything. I think it will be a very powerful product.” And also, “Especially with the robotaxi and autonomy, I think we'll end up providing consumers with by far the lowest cost per mile transport that they've ever experienced. Looking at some of our projections, it would appear a robotaxi ride would cost less than a bus ticket -- a subsidized bus ticket or a subsidized subway ticket."

Also, on 2019 Autonomy Day, he showed projections that the robotaxi will last for a million miles and have a total cost of less than $0.18/mi (~$0.22/mi in 2023 $), which is much lower than the $0.49/mi cost estimate Tesla recently provided in the Impact Report for a $40k 2023 Model 3 SR.

We also shouldn’t need to take Tesla’s word for it, because from a business and engineering standpoint there are several inherent advantages and obvious cost optimization opportunities that become possible with a dedicated autonomous EV fleet. For some examples:

• Average vehicle size can be scaled down to accommodate the fact that almost all trips involve one or two people and little to no cargo. Ratio of occupied seats and occupied cargo volume to unoccupied will increase considerably.
• Insurance costs can be lower because of greatly reduced crash rates, improved crash hazard mitigation systems like Tesla’s new automatic seat belt pretensioning software, and more efficient litigation and claims handling thanks to cameras and other sensors recording exactly what happened in each collision.
• Maintenance can be cheaper in a fleet than for individual owners due to economies of scale.
• The vehicles can be tuned for durability and efficiency instead of performance
• Parts such as steering columns and mirrors can be deleted
• Smaller batteries can be used for vehicles staying in a small local radius than what would give a range consumer buyers would tolerate
• Gentler driving will reduce tire wear

Then, it does not require amazing analytical insight to predict that cheap autonomous cars would result in more total miles driven. Indeed, most analysts I’ve seen already have been predicting that outcome for years. If motor vehicle travel of the future costs less and is safer and more convenient, then of course people and freight will travel more. The same pattern of improved cost, safety and convenience resulting in much greater consumption happened with domesticated draft animals and then trains and bicycles and cars and airplanes, all of which originally started as luxuries for the wealthy and risk-tolerant and eventually became adopted by the masses. Why would robotaxis be an exception? This is basic economics.

You are stating that investors should realize that Tesla's published projections of how things will play out is an absurd prediction, and investors should think / act based on *your* predictions instead, pushing the company into an extremely important area but also one that is so completely different than Tesla's focus that it is laughable???

You once, replying to someone else, stated:

Reading your post earlier today reminded me of that older post of your own words...perhaps the quoted sentence best sums up what you seem to be saying about Tesla's Master Plan 3.

When a company is selling a product, a logical question is who the customers will be. If the product is a disruptive new substitute good/service that will increase supply and reduce cost, an analyst might want to estimate how much new market opportunities that might unlock, or in other words, the price elasticity of demand.

In this case the product is energy, which has a diverse range of applications that have been changing for the past two and a half centuries since the Industrial Revolution began. Mass-produced motor vehicles didn’t come around until the 1920s. Air conditioning not until the 1960s. Airplane travel for the masses arrived around the 1980s. Mass computation and data transmission not until the 21st century (and it’s still growing energy consumption at a blistering exponential pace). In light of the fundamental physical usefulness of energy, especially in the form of controlled electricity, and the long history of new use cases being discovered, investors in the energy juggernaut of the future might want to look at new trends and technologies that might become substantial energy demand sectors in the future.

So, will Tesla itself get into desal? Very unlikely in my opinion. Will the desal industry be a major buyer of electricity in the future? I think it’s very likely.

Or how about Optimus? Tesla is officially planning on making it work and scaling production into the millions of units per year, but they didn’t calculate estimates of the power requirements in MPP3. There was no mention of Optimus whatsoever. Meanwhile, on Investor Day Elon speculated that eventually there might someday be more humanoid bots than actual humans. That’s a population of 10B+ bots. I’d guess each would burn on the order of 1-10 kWh/day which is circa 1 MWh/year/bot and 10 PWh/year or more for the whole bot population. Whether this will actually happen is certainly questionable, but Tesla didn’t even include this as a possible scenario in the MPP3 white paper—because that apparently wasn’t the purpose of the Master Plan.

 

[Optimeer]

Anyone can confirm this one?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652416639353102337

I can confirm that in Switzerland and Austria, a some models have this rebate (In Switzerland some MY LR white and black, in Austria some MY LR quicksilver, white and black). I have not checked other markets.

For the first time at least for a while many Model S and X are available in inventory in Switzerland.

 

[wombat9]

I can confirm that in Switzerland and Austria, a some models have this rebate (In Switzerland some MY LR white and black, in Austria some MY LR quicksilver, white and black). I have not checked other markets.

For the first time at least for a while many Model S and X are available in inventory in Switzerland.

Exactly, some Model Y Long Range from the inventory have a discount of about 2'000 CHF / USD in Switzerland. There is no sign of an across-the-board price reduction at the moment.

 

[NicoV]

Tesla moving a whack of S/X from Fremont over to Europe

View attachment 932979
Not much historical Euro data but this might be the first time they've ever been there in such numbers?

I just checked the Belgian Tesla site and there are now lots of new Model S’es available, at the same price of custom order. In the past, there was basically no new S/X availability. It seems that Tesla has switched to an inventory sales model for S and X.

 

[stef]

Exactly, some Model Y Long Range from the inventory have a discount of about 2'000 CHF / USD in Switzerland. There is no sign of an across-the-board price reduction at the moment.

Confirm in Switzerland it’s been like this for some weeks, nothing new today.