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

[MP3Mike]

Its unfortunate because across all the utilities, and even in Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power land, where I live, the ratio of about 20% cost of electricity to 80% everything else holds true.

Here in PGE land in Oregon, on a non-TOU plan we pay $0.07002/kWh for Energy Use, $0.00585/kWh for Transmission, and $0.05447/kWh for Distribution. (And a $11/month basic charge.)

So it is a much more even split here. (On my latest bill the split was: 41% Energy, 38% Transmission/Distribution, 14% taxes/fees, and 7% basic charge.)

 

[InTheMiddle]

I just don't accept that infrastructure in Cali costs 5X what it does in other parts of the country. That's just "creative accounting", beyond the point of the utilities trying to milk us for their previous failures.

What happens when 10s of thousands of people disconnect from the grid? It's happening if this "equity-based income connectivity charge" happens. I'll die before I share my financial info with 3rd party companies and accept that I should pay a higher rate because I make more. What's next? Income-based grocery charges?

Perhaps it's not so much that the *same* infrastructure being built / maintained costs 5X more in CA than elsewhere...perhaps it is just a matter of PG&E has neglected their maintenance / expansion needs and hence has a 5X larger backlog of work that needs to be done than elsewhere. Stricter, less 'industry-friendly' oversight should have been in place decades ago. This is obvious in hindsight, but it should have been apparent even in foresight. It's one area I wish California would do much better on.

FWIW, I also wish Puget Sound Energy in Washington state would expend the maintenance / expansion investment to move more of their power lines underground. When I lived there, I had many, many large UPSes spread throughout the house to mitigate the many black-outs from each storm pushing a tree into a power line, and it being repaired rather than replaced with an underground power line.

APS in Arizona is perhaps the only place I've lived where power outages are so very rare that I don't even consider the possibility of them anymore, and it actually seems to be a quality service being provided. However, even with APS, they were not installing additional solar production at a rate I desired, so I added my own via solar panels on my roof. If APS would flood the desert with solar panels, that would be ideal and would mitigate the need for rooftop solar (although it does shade the residential roof).

All of this reinforces the point that behind the meter battery storage is a better, more resilient setup, with fewer infrastructure costs before the meter because HVDC line capacity, substation deployment, transformer capacity is greatly reduced (you are not using the grid as a battery, you have your own).

The utilities know this, and that's why they push their own power sources, because they make $$$ not just reselling the energy, but the costs they can charge are so much higher when everyone is using the grid as a battery, vs. distributed behind-the-meter storage.

If you're looking at solving this for an individual this may be true in some instances. At scale, things are different. Adding 1MW of solar capacity via many small roof-top residential solar installations is far, far more expensive than building a single new 1MW solar farm and connecting it to the grid. Similarly, installing the same capacity of utility-scale Megapacks at substations is far cheaper than installing the same capacity of PowerWalls at residences. Maricopa County has ~4.6M people...I don't have statistics for # of houses / apartment complexes readily available, but I am quite certain that adding several solar farms on the outskirts of the valley and adding Megapacks to neighborhood substations would be far less expensive (in terms of both $ and # of batteries needed) than adding PowerWalls to each of those residences. Where the exact optimization point is between fully-centralized vs fully-distributed is debatable, but I suspect that the substations are likely the best place for batteries if you're trying to solve the problem for the millions of people, not the one person, especially if transmission from substation to residence is secured underground and far less likely to ever be disrupted than above-ground transmission.

 

[ZeApelido]

we get between 5 and 9 eurocents/kWh for injection

Injecting electrons sounds like medical advice from a politician.

 

[bkp_duke]

If you're looking at solving this for an individual this may be true in some instances. At scale, things are different. Adding 1MW of solar capacity via many small roof-top residential solar installations is far, far more expensive than building a single new 1MW solar farm and connecting it to the grid. Similarly, installing the same capacity of utility-scale Megapacks at substations is far cheaper than installing the same capacity of PowerWalls at residences. Maricopa County has ~4.6M people...I don't have statistics for # of houses / apartment complexes readily available, but I am quite certain that adding several solar farms on the outskirts of the valley and adding Megapacks to neighborhood substations would be far less expensive (in terms of both $ and # of batteries needed) than adding PowerWalls to each of those residences. Where the exact optimization point is between fully-centralized vs fully-distributed is debatable, but I suspect that the substations are likely the best place for batteries if you're trying to solve the problem for the millions of people, not the one person, especially if transmission from substation to residence is secured underground and far less likely to ever be disrupted than above-ground transmission.

I understand that, but the customers have already built that 1MW distributed system, it's a sunk cost. And they want to continue expanding that (because of the bat *sugar* crazy peak pricing of 0.62/kwh).

My point - customers will continue to deploy solar as long as things pencil out for them. As that happens, the utilities don't have the need to deploy the same level of infrastructure. PERFECT example - here in SD county, SDG&E wanted to expand HVDC lines in the north of the county. They did a usage study and found that in the past 7 years utilization had DROPPED, not increased, and they attributed the reason to being behind-the-meter battery storage. Despite that study, they still pushed through to expand the HVDC capacity on those poles. At the time that seemed stupid, but SDG&E is playing a long game, wanting to provide solar themselves over HVDC lines, and not the customer producing and storing it behind the meter.

 

[Southpasfan]

Charging for the grid based on income makes even less sense then the current bad system, so I am with you there.

I will have to go a bit further down this rabbit hole and look at the financials for some other state's utility to see what their ration is.

It may be as simple as the cost of the grid simply increases with population, more people, more cost, and not ratably, but I will look it up.

Texas was hard to tell because of the way financials are set, but Nebraska Public Power has to buy some of its power.

It buys electricity at 3 cents and sells it at an average of 12 cents for residential users.

For what its worth, California spot pricing does vary, from 4, 5 or 6 cents to about 20 in extreme weather situations. Of course, not that I want to derail this thread, but at this moment CAISO is negative 2 cents per kwh, as in I guess suppliers are paying utilities to take electricity. It makes sense, its a relatively sunny day but cool.

And not to geek out but CA is probably curtailing utility level solar at this moment, because it can't curtail individual homeowners (quite yet).

I confess I am not sure how negative pricing works, probably as a credit for when it goes back to positive.

I would be, as may be said for duke, awaiting a credible explanation fore 60 cents and up charges, even if the spot price went up to 20 cents. You don't need to simply mark it up by a factor of 80% for goodness sakes.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Thinking more silverish, or light metallic blue or even BRG (British Racing Green)

Midnight Silver metallic or Cobalt Blue are possibilities. For BRG, u gonna need a wrap.

 

[Artful Dodger]

The day before robotaxi legally approved, you don’t want to make too many, they‘re dead inventory, a maintenance overhead. You can’t know for certain at that point that approval is imminent.
The day after, you want to be making as many as possible, on fully ramped lines with a fully ramped supply chain.
How is this possible?

The new Tesla powertrain will help, with it's reduced COGS and without using rare-earth magnets:

Tesla's Rare Earth Free Motor // Niron Iron Nitride or Ferrite Magnets? | The Limiting Factor w. Jordan Giesge (12 hrs ago)

Cheers!

 

[Dikkie Dik]

Also, I really doubt that they are using the dry electrode technology that Tesla is at this time.

They aren’t, and they also aren’t using Tabless but rather a multitab design. Dry versus wet electrode only matters in the production costs and it might be that with a known process they’re able to get a better energy density, albeit a higher cost

As far as I know, Tesla has never indicated that they have any intention of sourcing 4680's from Panasonic.

Officially not but we know that Tesla sources cells from various partners and there is no reason to assume they won’t do exactly that for the 4680.

There have been rumours though:

LG & Panasonic rumoured to supply Tesla’s 4680 battery cells | electrive.com

www.electrive.com

 

[CaliBear1]

Just my short summary of the terrible energy costs being forced onto Californians and how they must impact Tesla's ability to sell EVs, solar, and storage. California's 3rd version of net metering went into effect on April 15th, 2023. NEM 3.0 features a 75% reduction in export rates. Each locale is unique in California, but my TOU plan that is geared towards EV usage, charges me off-peak $0.24/kWh and on-peak of $0.62/kWh. NEM 3.0 cuts my export rate to $0.08, according to estimates. So NEM 3.0 obviously deters anyone from ever wanting to export anything extra. No oversized systems to help the grid here. Furthermore, it pushes ROI out since savings are only on reducing the rate of your own consumption and can no longer be helped by exporting. I guess you could say it encourages BES because you'd rather keep over-production for yourself than to export it at $0.08. Lastly, current proposals to increase grid connection charges based on income will further delay ROI on installing solar and/or BES, because owners will be asked to spend much of the "savings" previously used to justify ROI on grid connection fees instead.

California doesn't seem to have the same commitment to being a green energy leader as they once did and I'm not sure how it can't have some impact on California sales figures for Tesla products. I only hope these laws are repealed and this greed doesn't make its way across the country.

PG&E has to be greedy to pay out the $13.5 billion wrongful death settlement. And that means taxpayers somehow once again footing the bill. CA is in trouble on so many fronts despite having the equivalent of the 5th largest economy in the world of it were a sovereign nation unto itself. SMFH

Edit: FireMedic beat me to it.

The infrastructure is so old and vulnerable and beyond expensive to repair, so localized, micro-grid storage and distribution is the only reasonable path forward. It reduces national security risks through decentralization and bypasses the costs of refurbishing the vast number of weak spots in the current grid. But PG&E will fight this transition as ferociously as legacy auto fights the move to EVs because it cuts into the gravy train. And similarly, so many disgusting, greedy pols profit from the current system.

Former PG&E executives agree to $117-million settlement over California wildfires

Former Pacific Gas & Electric executives have reached a settlement agreement in connection with the 2017 North Bay fires and the 2018 Camp fire.

www.latimes.com

 

[Buckminster]

Threads of the day:
FSD discussion 11.4.1 release notes
The demise of the OEMs
Mustang Sally, guess you better slow your Mustang down
Oh, what I said now
Mustang Sally, now baby, oh no
Guess you better slow your Mustang down, huh oh yeah
You been running all over the town now
Oh, I guess I'll have to put your flat feet on the ground, huh
What I said now
24hr TSLA trading *New*
Project Highland (Investor impact etc.)
4680 cell design, chassis integration & factory discussion for investors Pana delay
Artificial Intelligence Google updates

 

[Opus BC fan]

PPI for final demand advances 0.2% in April; services rise 0.3%, goods increase 0.2%
05/11/2023

The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.2 percent in April. Prices for final demand services increased 0.3 percent, and the index for final demand goods advanced 0.2 percent. Prices for final demand moved up 2.3 percent for the 12 months ended in April.

 

[Stretch2727]

Good article on Zach mostly making the argument he is the Tim Cook of Tesla. Paywalled.

The Executive Who Keeps Tesla Rolling Isn’t Elon Musk

Finance chief Zach Kirkhorn is little known outside the company, but inside he is widely admired for his skill navigating the demands of his boss.

www.wsj.com

 

[InDaClub]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1656585187570925569

 

[wtlloyd]

4680 production still with unacceptable yields? I can't think of any other meaning here.

from Benzinga:

• Panasonic Holdings Corporation
  PCRFY
  will slow down the production of its 4680 battery cells endorsed by Tesla Inc
  CEO Elon Musk.
• The production delay is to improve the performance, reported Reuters. Panasonic has a pilot 4680 production line at its Wakayama factory in Japan.
• The commercial production of the batteries will happen later than previously anticipated, during April-September in 2024.
• The report noted that Panasonic had previously thought of starting production between April 2023 and March 2024.
• "Mass production rescheduled to begin during 1H FY3/25 to introduce performance improvement measures that will further enhance competitiveness," the company said.

Tesla Supplier Panasonic Delays New Battery Production To Boost Performance: Report - Panasonic Holdings Corp ADR (OTC:PCRFY)

www.benzinga.com

 

[Artful Dodger]

News Release​

PPI for final demand advances 0.2% in April; services rise 0.3%, goods increase 0.2%

05/11/2023

The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.2 percent in April. Prices for final demand services increased 0.3 percent, and the index for final demand goods advanced 0.2 percent. Prices for final demand moved up 2.3 percent for the 12 months ended in April.

---
Note: this was inline with Forecasts.

Cheers!

 

[UncaNed]

News Release​

PPI for final demand advances 0.2% in April; services rise 0.3%, goods increase 0.2%

05/11/2023

The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.2 percent in April. Prices for final demand services increased 0.3 percent, and the index for final demand goods advanced 0.2 percent. Prices for final demand moved up 2.3 percent for the 12 months ended in April.

---
Note: this was inline with Forecasts.

Cheers!

Is this good or bad for TSLA? I haven't had my coffee yet.

 

[UncaNed]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1656585187570925569

That looks too small to be a Megapack...?? Also, I'd like to see all charging stations all covered with solar canopies, at least in the south.

That is probably an original Megapack, not a Megapack XL, which is what they are currently producing.

I thought only the internals were different; these look smaller than any megapack I've seen photos of.

Thanks, @InDaCoffee .
I mean, @InDaClub

 

[MP3Mike]

4680 production still with unacceptable yields? I can't think of any other meaning here.

It sounds like Panasonic's multi-tab design wasn't performing as well as Tesla/Panasonic wanted it to, so they are making changes.

But, what Panasonic is doing with their 4680 design and production has nothing to do with how Tesla is doing on the production ramp of their own 4680 cells.

 

[MP3Mike]

That looks too small to be a Megapack...??

That is probably an original Megapack, not a Megapack XL, which is what they are currently producing.

 

[InDaClub]

That looks too small to be a Megapack...?? Also, I'd like to see all charging stations all covered with solar canopies, at least in the south.


I thought only the internals were different; these look smaller than any megapack I've seen photos of.

Yes, you should really get that coffee.

Utilities | Tesla

Every year, electrical grids around the world add more renewable energy. Learn more about how Tesla utility-scale batteries and software controls can dispatch this energy, lower lifecycle costs and create a more stable and sustainable grid.

www.tesla.com