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

[hobbes]

Here's a twitter thread on the possible applications of this new tech, written by someone who has worked with superconductor for a decade:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1685088625187495936

Thread unroll for those who don't have twitter: Thread by @Andercot on Thread Reader App

Sounds like the biggest effect on TSLA may be on the energy storage front via Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES)

Wow, very helpful thread.

I have the feeling this could come true, with a few people replicating meissner effect (at least it seems for now).

Effects on Tesla judging from the thread above:

• Big push for everything electric through better efficiencies in transforming and production (fusion?) of electricity, should accelerate move away from oil -> helps Tesla
• Grid scale energy storage would move away from batteries to superconducting storage -> Tesla would have to change its product portfolio here long term, likely their high tech culture would help them here so it would be a chance as much as a risk
• As for automotive products, electric motors should get more efficient, chargers also (it seems mostly because of better transformers)

It doesn´t seem to me that this material is really that hard to make, as the people replicating it now partly seem to be non professionals and are able to do it in a few days. I don´t think it is a good idea to compare time scale for large scale production to how long it took for transistors, much more technical capabilities now to adopt to new technologies. I think for a company already making similar compounds for magnetics this would not be much more than for a car company changing to another model, or maybe changing from ICE to EV... But I am not an expert, just a somewhat educated guess here.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Although in the transistor's case, it was only manufactured because NASA wanted them. No one else could see any purpose.

Yeah, the 1st use of transistors for computers was in 1957 as part of the U.S. Air Force contract for the UNIVAC Athena guidance computer for the Titan 1 ICBM. NASA wasn't created until July 29, 1958.

Happy 65th Birthday, NASA! | Youtube (4 days ago)

Cheers!

 

[cliff harris]

I'm not saying its a lie or fake, I have zero technical expertise here. What I am saying is that the road from lab to your home is incredibly slow, incredibly long, very expensive, and often massively overhyped.
I just bought an OLED TV, after finally deciding an 8 year old TV was too old, but it works FINE. OLED isn't new tech, but its taking me this long to bother, and thats with OLED being available globally for reasonable prices.

When you introduce a completely new material, even if it has amazeballs properties, it needs testing, and refining, and optimizing, and testing, and did I mention more testing?

I have the same skepticism when it comes to new types of solar panels, or battery storage. Some things work just great in a lab, but can you leave them in a field for 25+ years while it rains, it snows, there is scorching heat, hailstorms, and sheep try and eat them? You can do accelerated wear-and-tear tests, or make some calculations, but in the real physical world, only long bitter experience will really tell you how something holds up.

Even if this stuff performs as described, with no drawbacks, you need mass manufacturing, then certification of its safety, and new products to be completely redesigned around it. This stuff all takes time. People in manufacturing are not sat on their backsides waiting for a complete product redesign and retooling starting on Wednesday if this breakthrough is real. Manufacturing has huge inertia.

I'd LOVE to be wrong, but I reckon I'll see graphene in my home before this, and AFAIK I'm still waiting for consumer graphene in any real quantity.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Comparing this to gold is a comical misunderstanding of the opportunity here. It's been a week, the most prestigious labs in the world are working on independent verification, maybe some patience before calling the 21st century transistor a flop.

Uh, you know the "99" in LK-99 stands for 1999, right? So at issue is whether this is an old-fashioned 20th Century scam...

Cheers!

 

[Tony73]

Volvo is also Chinese (Geely).

Volvo is a Swedish car maker with a Chinese parent company. It’s a subtle but meaningful difference. Volvos still come with the small Swedish flag on the side of the seat. I doubt even Geely is interested in having Volvo perceived as Chinese.

Same way, Jaguar Land Rover is a British car maker with an Indian parent company and Jeep is an American brand with an Italian parent.

 

[Tony73]

Uh, you know the "99" in LK-99 stands for 1999, right? So at issue is whether this is an old-fashioned 20th Century scam...

Cheers!

Even if it’s not a scam, it’s probably not material to anything in the commercial world for a couple of decades

 

[Artful Dodger]

Anyone have enough knowledge of materials sciences and metallurgy to comment on how well positioned tesla would be to decide to build a wing of the company that mass produces this?

Apparently there was an "International Patent" issued for this last year (ironically, you don't appear to need to prove something works to get a patent). So it's not just manufacturing issue, there would be an IP/Licensing issue as well.

Remember the saga of the NiMH (Nickel Metal-Hydrid) EV battery? After Chevron bought up the patent for it from the Academic researcher who created it, Chevron promptly banned the use of their new IP for automotive applications. That cynical move, more than anything else, is what killed the GM EV1, which was doomed with old, heavy SLA batteries while NiMH could have made it a useful car:

Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries | Wikipedia​

Even Tesla had to wait 20 years for the various patents around LFP batteries to expire before they could begin selling EV batteries with that chemistry outside of China. That patent was a major hit to progress for EVs and likely for stationary storage too, just because of product and manufacturing maturity (the "Wright's law" part of the equation).

I expect the owners of the LK99 patent are talking to all the 'big carbon' players right now... especially before it's established if it works. You know, risk off? Any slowdown in EV progress is pure profit for big carbon, hence worth money to them.

 

[Tony73]

If it is real, then it moves from a physics problem to an engineering problem. Once this happens, it's just a matter of time and money before it's being used everywhere (that makes sense).

Not necessarily. It could be real and still not be suited for commercialization.

 

[Thumper]

For a moment, let's assume LK-99 is real and can be synthesised economically, that leaves us wondering what are its mechanical properties. Can it be extruded, molded, milled, forged, rolled, or welded without loosing superconductivity? What is its tensile strength, bending strength, etc. Does it need support along its entire length? At least there should be plenty of lead from recycled gas car batteries.

 

[GOVA]

For a moment, let's assume LK-99 is real and can be synthesised economically, that leaves us wondering what are its mechanical properties. Can it be extruded, molded, milled, forged, rolled, or welded without loosing superconductivity? What is its tensile strength, bending strength, etc. Does it need support along its entire length? At least there should be plenty of lead from recycled gas car batteries.

meh. Can it be smoked? That's the real question for today.

 

[EVWatcher]

Apparently there was an "International Patent" issued for this last year (ironically, you don't appear to need to prove something works to get a patent). So it's not just manufacturing issue, there would be an IP/Licensing issue as well.

Remember the the NiMH battery? After Chevron bought up the patent for it from the Acedemic researcher who created it, they promptly banned the use of their new IP for automotive applications. That move, more than anything else, is what killed the GM EV1, which was doomed with old, heavy SLA batteries while NiMH could have made it a useful car.

I expect the LK99 patent owners will be talking to all the 'big carbon' players looking for a sweet sale... especially before it's well-known if it works.

While I don’t dispute what you’ve said, I do feel like if it is legit and as valuable as people suggest patents are likely to find a way to be irellevant.

If this stuff can change the world like it’s imagined and any one country decides that ignoring patent rights will allow their country an opportunity to dominate in a new era they will do it.

If one country does it and it’s as important suggested other countries with more complex legal structure will “find a way” to legally invalidate the patents.

 

[2daMoon]

This is getting woefully off topic so I’m just going to leave this here:

1) It’s been less than a week but in that timespan one of the most reputable labs in America have validated the results in simulation and a lab in China actually replicated it

https://twitter.com/x/status/1686286684424691712

you can choose not to believe it that’s fine but there’s enough signal here to get reasonably excited.

2) This is not difficult to replicate, any grad student at a lab could do this. Only hard part is securing purity levels, but with further research this is going to be worked around. Like when Tesla said “hey you can shove a bunch of normal batteries in a car and make it drive well” and people scoffed for a thousand reasons. Don’t be that hypocritical skeptic.

3) The implications of this are so huge for so many fields it’s not going to be decades, it’s going to be now. This is national security, ip-law-ignoring levels of impact. Like how the whole world threw resources at Covid, there’s going to be unlimited resources thrown at this.

4) lol the fud slinging around discrediting the team sounding real TSLAQ-ish. You’re going to look bad in history.

You did forget to include:

5) Production is easy

/s

 

[CorneliusXX]

If you disagree on the odds, there is some easy money for you to collect. Currently $448k has been wagered on LK99. Prediction markets have been found to greatly outperform polls and experts in many other domains such as elections. Imo it's pretty obvious that they should, if they didn't then the experts could enter the market and make easy profits and correct the odds.

Fwiw I have wagered tens of thousands of dollars on some prediction markets where I believed the odds were off and I believed I had an edge over the market. This one I would not bet on as I am not an expert. If you are then imo bet.

Prediction markets should outperform polls because a poll has 1 vote per person while prediction markets have infinite votes per person - so as long as there is some link between conviction in an idea and it's truthfulness we should see prediction markets winning out over polls. This connection could be upset by propaganda, fud, etc. but should be mostly true.

on a side note: I predict with short odds this conversation will get modus interruptus shortly as the topic is starting to drift.

 

[jkirkwood001]

This will be old news to most of us here, but to those who aren't inclined towards Tesla, it obviously bears repeating. The value of our cars is 'off the chart'.

I ran into a friend leaving our cottage area in his Mercedes AMG GLE 43. He recognized me in my 2018 Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor and said he would get an electric car next, but he loved the performance of his AMG. He said his was fast, but the AMG GLE 63 was crazy fast. I told him the Model S Plaid was way faster, and he didn't believe it. He asked me what it did in the quarter-mile. I couldn't remember off-hand and ventured "nine and a half..?" He said "no way, that's supercar territory".

I couldn't let it go. To set the record straight, when I got home, I put the numbers together of a good sampling and sent to him. He's our coop's Treasurer, so I added some financial comparisons too.

Take-aways

• The Tesla Model S Plaid is the fastest production car in the world (we knew that)
• Interestingly, from a cost / performance standpoint, my Model 3 Dual Motor is the best of the 10 I compared: $3,779 per ¼ mile second
• My car costs $24 K less than his 'performance Mercedes' (excluding incentives) but runs the ¼ mile 1.5 seconds faster *ahem*
• To 'normal' people, I highlight that Tesla's are the safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA and hold their value better than ICEs, but he seemed focused on performance
• To be fair, he knew Tesla's were heavy and we're still a long way from matching lighter ICEs around the Nürburgring.

Here's a visual comparison (note: the price axis is log scale because the Koenigsegg is so expensive):

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Sorry, too busy enjoying my Tesla to opine on TSLA.

View attachment 961436View attachment 961434View attachment 961435

Nice.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

This will be old news to most of us here, but to those who aren't inclined towards Tesla, it obviously bears repeating. The value of our cars is 'off the chart'.

I ran into a friend leaving our cottage area in his Mercedes AMG GLE 43. He recognized me in my 2018 Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor and said he would get an electric car next, but he loved the performance of his AMG. He said his was fast, but the AMG GLE 63 was crazy fast. I told him the Model S Plaid was way faster, and he didn't believe it. He asked me what it did in the quarter-mile. I couldn't remember off-hand and ventured "nine and a half..?" He said "no way, that's supercar territory".

I couldn't let it go. To set the record straight, when I got home, I put the numbers together of a good sampling and sent to him. He's our coop's Treasurer, so I added some financial comparisons too.

Take-aways

• The Tesla Model S Plaid is the fastest production car in the world (we knew that)
• Interestingly, from a cost / performance standpoint, my Model 3 Dual Motor is the best of the 10 I compared: $3,779 per ¼ mile second
• My car costs $24 K less than his 'performance Mercedes' (excluding incentives) but runs the ¼ mile 1.5 seconds faster *ahem*
• To 'normal' people, I highlight that Tesla's are the safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA and hold their value better than ICEs, but he seemed focused on performance
• To be fair, he knew Tesla's were heavy and we're still a long way from matching lighter ICEs around the Nürburgring.

View attachment 961462

Here's a visual comparison (note: the price axis is log scale because the Koenigsegg is so expensive):

View attachment 961463

The Plaid S is listed at 0-60 @ 1.99 seconds, but who's counting

 

[jkirkwood001]

The Plaid S is listed at 0-60 @ 1.99 seconds, but who's counting

Yeah, I used the zero-to-60 site for a common reference.

 

[Thekiwi]

1922 | Detroit​

Henry Ford on the Road to Riches​

Henry Ford


I quit my job on August 15, 1899, and went into the automobile business.

It might be thought something of a step, for I had no personal funds. What money was left over from living was all used in experimenting. But my wife agreed that the automobile could not be given up—that we had to make or break. There was no “demand” for automobiles—there never is for a new article. They were accepted in much the fashion as was more recently the airplane. At first the “horseless carriage” was considered merely a freak notion and many wise people explained with particularity why it could never be more than a toy. No man of money even thought of it as a commercial possibility. I cannot imagine why each new means of transportation meets with such opposition. There are even those today who shake their heads and talk about the luxury of the automobile and only grudgingly admit that perhaps the motor truck is of some use. But in the beginning there was hardly any one who sensed that the automobile could be a large factor in industry. The most optimistic hoped only for a development akin to that of the bicycle. When it was found that an automobile really could go and several makers started to put out cars, the immediate query was as to which would go fastest. It was a curious but natural development—that racing idea. I never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to consider the automobile in any light other than as a fast toy. Therefore later we had to race. The industry was held back by this initial racing slant, for the attention of the makers was diverted to making fast rather than good cars. It was a business for speculators.

Find->Replace for “Automobile”->”Humanoid Robot”

“It might be thought something of a step, for I had no personal funds. What money was left over from living was all used in experimenting. But my wife agreed that the Humanoid Robot could not be given up—that we had to make or break. There was no “demand” for Humanoid Robots —there never is for a new article. They were accepted in much the fashion as was more recently the airplane. At first the “Humanoid Robot” was considered merely a freak notion and many wise people explained with particularity why it could never be more than a toy. No man of money even thought of it as a commercial possibility. I cannot imagine why each new means of transportation meets with such opposition. There are even those today who shake their heads and talk about the luxury of the Humanoid Robot and only grudgingly admit that perhaps the Uber-Humanoid Robot is of some use. But in the beginning there was hardly any one who sensed that the Humanoid Robot could be a large factor in industry. The most optimistic hoped only for a development akin to that of the bicycle. When it was found that an Humanoid Robot really could go and several makers started to put out Bots, the immediate query was as to which would go fastest. It was a curious but natural development—that racing idea. I never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to consider the Humanoid Robot in any light other than as a fast toy. Therefore later we had to race. The industry was held back by this initial racing slant, for the attention of the makers was diverted to making fast rather than good Humanoid Robot. It was a business for speculators.”

 

[insaneoctane]

Comparing this to gold is a comical misunderstanding of the opportunity here. It's been a week, the most prestigious labs in the world are working on independent verification, maybe some patience before calling the 21st century transistor a flop.

If this comes to fruition the race to commercialize LK-99 will give the Manhattan project a run for its money.

And if this technology is verified to be the real deal, or even just valuable, I'm sure Tesla will sit back and wait for someone else to commercialize it... because that's what Tesla always does...

 

[Olle]

This will be old news to most of us here, but to those who aren't inclined towards Tesla, it obviously bears repeating. The value of our cars is 'off the chart'.

I ran into a friend leaving our cottage area in his Mercedes AMG GLE 43. He recognized me in my 2018 Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor and said he would get an electric car next, but he loved the performance of his AMG. He said his was fast, but the AMG GLE 63 was crazy fast. I told him the Model S Plaid was way faster, and he didn't believe it. He asked me what it did in the quarter-mile. I couldn't remember off-hand and ventured "nine and a half..?" He said "no way, that's supercar territory".

I couldn't let it go. To set the record straight, when I got home, I put the numbers together of a good sampling and sent to him. He's our coop's Treasurer, so I added some financial comparisons too.

Take-aways

• The Tesla Model S Plaid is the fastest production car in the world (we knew that)
• Interestingly, from a cost / performance standpoint, my Model 3 Dual Motor is the best of the 10 I compared: $3,779 per ¼ mile second
• My car costs $24 K less than his 'performance Mercedes' (excluding incentives) but runs the ¼ mile 1.5 seconds faster *ahem*
• To 'normal' people, I highlight that Tesla's are the safest cars ever tested by the NHTSA and hold their value better than ICEs, but he seemed focused on performance
• To be fair, he knew Tesla's were heavy and we're still a long way from matching lighter ICEs around the Nürburgring.

View attachment 961462

Here's a visual comparison (note: the price axis is log scale because the Koenigsegg is so expensive):

View attachment 961463

Nice! but I hope your first chart means to say price by quarter mile time, not divided by. Otherwise your price/performance gets worse the faster the car is.