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

[EverettRuess]

I have posted this article on the climate change board. Hope that we get a few comments from this board.

"A Climate Hawk's Issues With Electric Vehicles"

Opinion | A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles

Toyota is notoriously skeptical of a rapid transition to all-electric E.V.s. It may have a point.

www.nytimes.com

 

[scaesare]

I mean, what you actually said was using the camera to verify hands on wheel. <snip>

Which the tweet does NOT mention and as I pointed out is not actually possible since the camera can't see the wheel to tell if your hands are on it.

The camera CAN see if your head is up and facing the road....and if you don't have sunglasses on and it's not dark it can see if your eyes are facing the road... but that's it.... and a bunch of S/X don't even HAVE the camera for that matter.

Fair enough, although I think this tweet implied this could be the case:

But , as you point out, the FOV issues that may make that problematic.

 

[scaesare]

I don’t get it, if you eliminate the nag they will not nag whether using force fedback or camera. So what do you expect to happen if I still don’t touch, at all?

Well, I don't necessarily... I was pointing out the tweets were suggesting eliminating the nag. They didn't suggest the alternative action the car would take instead of nagging you.

I suppose it could audibly disengage, etc...

 

[EVCollies]

oh yes

https://twitter.com/x/status/1680121747910148099

Tesla Reservation Tracker estimates I am number 54,443 in my trim level, Tri Motor Full Self Driving Prior Tesla Owner. Maybe I'll get one Q2 2024?

 

[EVCollies]

I have posted this article on the climate change board. Hope that we get a few comments from this board.

"A Climate Hawk's Issues With Electric Vehicles"

Opinion | A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles

Toyota is notoriously skeptical of a rapid transition to all-electric E.V.s. It may have a point.

www.nytimes.com

I disagree with his claim that too many batteries are wasted in EVs that will rarely travel long distances as just about everyone needs to occasionally travel long distances. The proposed solution of hybrids for those occasional long distances disregards the complexity and increased cost and maintenance of hybrid cars. It also ignores that many with hybrid plug ins never plug in.

 

[2Pearls]

I have posted this article on the climate change board. Hope that we get a few comments from this board.

"A Climate Hawk's Issues With Electric Vehicles"

Opinion | A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles

Toyota is notoriously skeptical of a rapid transition to all-electric E.V.s. It may have a point.

www.nytimes.com

Behind a paywall

 

[betstarship]

Hey buddy! How have you been?

Hey dude, tired but excited - I bought a new house and updating the heck out of it, as its a little bit of a fixer upper, while finalizing on my 3rd close of escrow for the year...how are you?

Sorry folks, no heat pump this time around after having one installed in the last home. The heat pump was great except for 1-2 weeks out of the year (extreme cold/hot ends). Prefer to have 365 day comfort.

I'm hoping to get Tesla's heat pump tech after I get Tesla solar and that product is available in the future though.

 

[Knightshade]

But , as you point out, the FOV issues that may make that problematic.

Possibly he didn't realize how limited the view from the interior cam is.... or possibly they think eyeball/head tracking is sufficient (though it's the wrong type/placement of camera to be especially good at it- plus those pesky no-camera cars that also have FSD)

On the other hand, Gordon Johnston has a very consistent track record.

By the definition of consistent, this is technically correct.

The best kind of correct.

 

[SunnylandY]

Behind a paywall

NYT is so concerned about EVs they want to make sure only the people who pay receive the warning

 

[jerry33]

I disagree with his claim that too many batteries are wasted in EVs that will rarely travel long distances as just about everyone needs to occasionally travel long distances. The proposed solution of hybrids for those occasional long distances disregards the complexity and increased cost and maintenance of hybrid cars. It also ignores that many with hybrid plug ins never plug in.

Because EV batteries are 99.5% recyclable into new batteries (my understanding), there is no waste to start with--even the Hummer EV isn't wasteful of batteries other than if battery supply is limited there will be fewer BEVs made. In addition, a longer range car will last longer (means more miles) than a shorter range car given equal use of both cars. The hybrid hypothesis has no legs to stand on. It's only excuse was when there were no BEVs.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

oh yes

https://twitter.com/x/status/1680121747910148099

Did not take long...

First Tesla Cybertruck To Roll off the Assembly Line at Giga Texas Has a Misaligned Door

It's the start of a new era at the world's most valuable automaker. Its first pickup truck ever has now officially gained production-ready form

www.autoevolution.com

 

[Skryll]

Hey dude, tired but excited - I bought a new house and updating the heck out of it, as its a little bit of a fixer upper, while finalizing on my 3rd close of escrow for the year...how are you?

Sorry folks, no heat pump this time around after having one installed in the last home. The heat pump was great except for 1-2 weeks out of the year (extreme cold/hot ends). Prefer to have 365 day comfort.

I'm hoping to get Tesla's heat pump tech after I get Tesla solar and that product is available in the future though.

We have a daikin one heatpump. It's great in the summer to 115F and 25F in the winter. We did fix insulation and got nice milgard windows with max suncoat. Maybe you just picked the wrong model ? Looking forward to a more holistic tesla solution but at least here in CA heatpump are great. We are adding a gas insert fireplace in the living it room though; which could augment the heatpump if we had a longer power outage that drains our powerwalls too fast in the cold winter.

Now it we also could get an air exchanger to the outside that detects temperature and air quality to not use AC to cool down when colder air is available outside...

 

[AudubonB]

Heat pumps and personal conversations - there are better places for both.

 

[Stretch2727]

I disagree with his claim that too many batteries are wasted in EVs that will rarely travel long distances as just about everyone needs to occasionally travel long distances. The proposed solution of hybrids for those occasional long distances disregards the complexity and increased cost and maintenance of hybrid cars. It also ignores that many with hybrid plug ins never plug in

I think Toyota wastes too much time on the environmental aspects of EV's. They never seemed to recognize that they just are better cars.

My neighbor has a beautiful Lexus LS. Every time I walk past it, I think why is that thing not an EV more than 10 years after the Model S. My opinion is it's premium in every way except for the drivetrain.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Some humor for your Saturday morning:

The bull and bear case for Tesla ahead of earnings

Dan Ives, Wedbush managing director, and Gordon Johnson, GLJ Research founder and CEO, join 'Last Call' to give both the bull and bear case for Tesla and talk the road ahead for the company.

www.cnbc.com

 

[2daMoon]

Good point re rear bed movement, which I hadn't thought of. It definitely isn't ladder frame.

I'm not sure that the term exoskeleton is applicable any longer to the Cybertruck design that we see in front of us. It may be beneficial as marketing fluffery but looking at the pictures this seems to me to be a conventional unibody as is typical in most mass-production consumer vehicles, i.e. pretty much everything that is not ladder frame (or the rare space frame designs).

I believe some other US pickups are monococque/unibodies - for example Ford Maverick; Hyundai Santa Cruz; Honda Ridgeline.


Interesting.

The other way of looking at that is they can't get the cosmetic result they wanted from thinner gauge and so have had to thicken up the exterior panels to get the cosmetic finish they are seeking. If so that is a partial failure in design terms. The reason I say that is the main structural safety/crash cell is the inner cage. Given the observable fixings between the inner and the outer panels, then the outer panels will not be able to take as much applied force before yielding (because fixings will deform) compared with the same amount of weight being incorporated in the inner cage. There is a reason that painted steel exteriors are thin gauge - so as to reduce weight in an area where it is not needed.

I wonder what corrosion protection they will be putting on the internal / aluminium areas ? Will there be a dipping & drying process ? Maybe the non-cosmetic functions of the paint shop have not been entirely eliminated.

This vehicle is meant to be about function, not form. I don't think there was any particular cosmetic result being sought in the design process. In design terms, the goal was to reduce the cost of production by eliminating expensive processes. Maybe you didn't get the memo.

Do you believe adding thick folded stainless steel panels to the framework of simple stamped parts and castings won't increase structural strength significantly over attaching thin, stamped sheet metal? Hmmm.

Do you also believe that it is more economical to cut, then stamp thin panels, paint them and provide processes to handle these delicate parts until installed, than it is to cut and fold thick panels of stainless steel and skip the stamping processes and the paint shop for the exterior?

What sort of corrosion do you expect to have on the aluminum? The biggest concern will be where steel parts may have contact with aluminum, which can be dealt with easily enough.

We'll just have to see how it performs in the crash testing to know if any of the other speculations you have offered hold water.

Perhaps it is only that the Cybertruck isn't the sort of vehicle you would ever buy anyway and you are reaching for reasons to support that point of view.

 

[ZeApelido]

Did not take long...

First Tesla Cybertruck To Roll off the Assembly Line at Giga Texas Has a Misaligned Door

It's the start of a new era at the world's most valuable automaker. Its first pickup truck ever has now officially gained production-ready form

www.autoevolution.com

I’ll take misaligned doors over the misaligned gross margins of lagacy Auto EVs

 

[petit_bateau]

This vehicle is meant to be about function, not form. I don't think there was any particular cosmetic result being sought in the design process. In design terms, the goal was to reduce the cost of production by eliminating expensive processes. Maybe you didn't get the memo.

Do you believe adding thick folded stainless steel panels to the framework of simple stamped parts and castings won't increase structural strength significantly over attaching thin, stamped sheet metal? Hmmm.

Do you also believe that it is more economical to cut, then stamp thin panels, paint them and provide processes to handle these delicate parts until installed, than it is to cut and fold thick panels of stainless steel and skip the stamping processes and the paint shop for the exterior?

What sort of corrosion do you expect to have on the aluminum? The biggest concern will be where steel parts may have contact with aluminum, which can be dealt with easily enough.

We'll just have to see how it performs in the crash testing to know if any of the other speculations you have offered hold water.

Perhaps it is only that the Cybertruck isn't the sort of vehicle you would ever buy anyway and you are reaching for reasons to support that point of view.

Looks are a part of the function set in real-world designs. I think they worked hard to get the cosmetic waves out of the panels. They probably have had to work a lot harder to get them out of thick panels than thin panels.

Strong panels are only as good as their fastening devices in their ability to transfer that strength to the whole vehicle. That is why the panels on most endoskeleton vehicles (which is what the CT appears to be, not an exoskeleton) are as thin as possible. They are not really there for strength, so much as to be an aeroshell and cosmetic dressing. So CT appears to be carrying excess weight for cosmetic reasons, which is not normally a thing I associate with range focussed design.

Aluminium corrodes, especially in salty areas. Like everywhere that is marine coast, salt pan, or salted in winter. Or were you just planning on driving in the interior mid-West in the Summer.

I am not so much speculating, as pointing out the issues that are raised by those photos, and asking if anyone knows the inside story on how we got from a 'revolutionary' exoskeleton to a pretty ordinary Y in many ways.

 

[jerry33]

Aluminium corrodes, especially in salty areas. Like everywhere that is marine coast, salt pan, or salted in winter. Or were you just planning on driving in the interior mid-West in the Summer.

Corrosion depends on the particular aluminum alloy. It doesn't appear to affect SpaceX rockets much and my understanding is that it's the same material.

 

[JRP3]

They probably have had to work a lot harder to get them out of thick panels than thin panels.

Thicker panels less likely to have waves.

They are not really there for strength, so much as to be an aeroshell and cosmetic dressing. So CT appears to be carrying excess weight for cosmetic reasons, which is not normally a thing I associate with range focussed design.

Aero affects range more than weight and the thicker panels will be dent resistant, something which is important in a truck.