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I'm a Yankees fan. Had to disagree. NYT frustrates me. Climate change story every day, but hates the solution. Hard to figure.
Ulmo
Active Member
Every car I saw or heard of delivered at Fremont Delivery Center on the last two days of the quarter (about a dozen) was Model X, Model S, or a dual motor variety of Model 3; obviously, that's a furiously inadequate sample size, but it doesn't counteract your theory at all. That is to say the margins on those cars was not the lowest. The checks were flowing. I saw dozens of people with checks in hand being handed over to Tesla. I saw almost no one arguing about financing. That was a crowd that didn't need to pinch as hard. I saw one couple decide to get a Model S instead of a Model 3 just because it had more cargo room, and they drove off with it as soon as the registration sticker was taped to the windshield, pretty much like all of the people there that day picking up cars. Another couple who lives in the Sierra Nevadas wisely got a Dual Motor Model 3, but it wasn't just any Dual Motor: it was a Performance model.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
This has been a hard one for me to figure out from 10 years. Not particularly w.r.t. NYT - but liberals in general. Apparently they are all environmentalists, except when it comes to some personal inconvenience because of (earlier) low range EVs.
We need Tesla sneakers and make them in limited editions for each batch.
Oh, btw they are sustainable transportation, although not that efficient on energy use.
I hear this harped on so much with the stripper SR Model 3. It REALLY annoys me because it ignores a basic fact about the car business: the base model rarely makes much money and they don't make many because of it! This isn't unique to Tesla but a cognitive dissonance is going on if not outright lying.
Tesla will probably dribble some out next year, but as long as the LR demand eats up production, or the SR PuP eats up production, or the SR with EAP eats up production, why would Tesla ever CHOOSE to crank out 10,000 SR ZO (zero option) Model 3s per month? To make Jim Chanos happy? I'm sure it would, and he knows why too although he and his ilk won't own up to it.
Most people buying cars think in terms of payment. Smart? No. True? Absolutely, especially for more mainstream consumers. Either PuP or EAP add about $100/month and you're full of *sugar* if you claim that most purchasers won't spring for at least one of those. Oh sure, people will COMPLETELY alter behavior in auto purchases with Teslas compared to the last 70 years. Puuhhlease!
Economies of scale will continue to drive the battery prices, etc. down as production numbers continue to increase, but even when it gets to a point where they can make a (small) profit on the SR ZO and they trickle out you'll have a long wait for one. It's more a marketing exercise than an actual option that has drawn people onto the lot to get them in a more expensive vehicle for decades. Before some troll points out that this is dishonest it's how just about damn near everything in the world is sold-it's called upselling but I guess you skipped 3rd grade business class!
Go out to the car lots and look for stripper 3 series, C class, etc. It will keep you busy long enough that maybe you won't waste people's time with this stupid argument! Deep breath- ok I'm done (for now).
Funny story regarding other car company's and base cars. Back in Nov, my parents were contemplating replacing their 7 year old Benz C300 with a new C300 AWD. Although I had my Model 3 on order, we were not expecting to get the car until late this year. So my parents went to the local Mercedes dealership and decided they just want the base model, no sport package, no fancy navigation system etc. They put a non-refundable deposit down, signed the purchase agreement and the dealership was supposed to order the car with a Feb delivery as it was a special order from the factory in Germany as they had no inventory of the base model in stock. Heck, they kept trying to convince my parents to take a Premium Sport model ready to drive off immediately, which my parents declined. Fast forward to end of Dec, we hear back from the dealership that the initial deposit wasn't enough and that we needed to double the deposit before they order the base car citing concerns with being unable to sell it if we decide to forgo the initial deposit and they then expected the earliest possible delivery to be in March.
Suffice to say, this angered my parents considerably as they've owned like 8 straight generations of Mercedes Benz vehicles since the 80s and the dealership reneged on the purchase agreement and did not even order the vehicle, delaying potential delivery for over a month (they wanted the car in Feb). My parents demanded and received their initial deposit back as the dealer backed out and it actually worked out wonderfully in the end as I picked up my Model 3 in June (earlier than I expected) and they are planning on replacing the Benz with a Model 3 sometime next year.
If it wasn't for the dealer, my parents would have been stuck with a C300 AWD for at least the next 3-4 years. Now, they will be moving to a Model 3 likely next year.
Incredulocious
LEAF → RAV4EV → Model 3 → Model Y
Just as an aside, California has about twice as much forested lands as New York State in terms of square miles, according to these web pages (first I found):
California Geography: California Regions and Landforms
New York Geography: New York Regions and Landforms
Acreage is not a tree count, but we do have some large and lovely forests (not to mention quite a selection of very large, very tall or very old trees). Too bad many folk think mostly of Los Angeles when they think of California. In fact, many folks who live in Los Angeles are unaware of their own state’s geographic diversity.
I think this is absolutely right.
Then I see Tesla's production estimate for the SR basic is getting closer by one month each month, And that makes me think.........
Even with all of today's internet-based collaboration tools (Slack, GoToMeeting, etc.), it's tough to beat face-to-face interaction and being in physical proximity to one's co-workers. Working from home is no panacea.
I've thankful to have been able to work at home for years, but mainly for personal and family reasons. If having a "normal" career were important to me, then I'd most likely want to be commuting to an office a minimum of 2-3 days per week if not full time. And I might be living a bit closer to the big city and not up in the mountains. On the other hand, assuming Tesla delivers on the "full self driving" feature that we ordered, maybe I'd just stay put and let our family's new Model 3 drive me to work!
The bottom line, as I see it, is that human beings will always value mobility and flexibility. While public transportation has its place, we truly appreciate our "personal mobility" solutions, that is, our Tesla vehicles. Cars are great. We just need to make them safer, more sustainable, and less tiresome for routine use.
That's an important part of my investing thesis for TSLA - that many millions of people are going to continue to want to own cars. Most likely fewer cars, but they aren't going away.
Are they really not organized? How come the market would collectively chose the same tick to dump with large numbers, so they are just following the same technical signal? Sometimes it's looks hard to believe they are not coordinating seeing how organized those dumps appears.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
I'm questioning why commuting is needed to have a "normal" career. My local large companies (Microsoft, Amazon) are notorious for making people feel that they have to sacrifice family, sacrifice sanity, spend lots of time in traffic to come and work in the office (if they want to be promoted).
But there are truly geographically diverse companies that are making this a thing of the past. While you do want to meet with colleagues and develop personal relations, fighting traffic for an hour everyday is not needed. If everyone commutes once or twice a week, instead of 5 days, we won't need more freeways & tunnels !
Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
But Microsoft only kept the platform "open" with very big competitive filters installed:
- On the hardware side it was "open" .. as long as Windows was installed on it. The moment any other OS was installed Microsoft used various tactics to increase the platform price, or to outright prevent other OSs: contractual barriers at the OEM level and outright technological barriers.
- On the software side Windows was "open" as long as you didn't compete with Microsoft's own applications and didn't create some new application segment with good sales that Microsoft wanted to enter to.
This significantly reduced invention in the PC market, especially on the hardware and software platform (OS) side, with heavy collateral damage on the platform security side, which contributed to the eventual decline of the Windows platform.
BTW., Trump is quite likely collateral damage of poor Windows security: the DNC was most likely hacked by the Russians through a Windows specific zero-day vulnerability based spear-fishing attack against John Podesta and key DNC staffers.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
A desert is an area that gets less than 10" of precipitation per year. The US average is 39" per year.
The Northern half of the Central Valley(where the overwhelming majority of California's crops are produced) gets 20" and the Southern half 5".
Californians bring the water to the valley. From the Colorado River and we pump groundwater to the surface.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Unless its just a handful of people doing all the shorting, its unlikely to be a conspiracy. By their very nature large conspiracies don't work - someone will talk. This is the reason 9/11 being a CIA conspiracy or Climate change being a hoax etc are unlikely to be true.
I think selling happens mostly based on some "news" - of course the "news" itself can be a conspiracy as very few people need to know.
jhm
Well-Known Member
I should also note the total stock is 1.3B, not 1.2B
Now that the market share is 2.2%, can you tell me which OEM has lost marketshare ? Who has gone down by 2.2% in terms of volumes ?
What you have to recognize is that the total market is growing. Big growth is coming in China & India with first time buyers. So, nobody is noticing any drop in sale that can be attributed directly to EVs. That's what happens with the overall market growing and EVs having such a small share.
As multiple people keep posting here, the first impact will be felt by luxury car makers in EU and US.
Perhaps you are not following the mathematics involved here. Let me spell it out. Suppose 65% growth in market share for the next few years.
2018 2.2%
2019 3.63%
2020 5.99%
2021 9.88%
2022 16.3%
Check out what happens in 2021. EV penetration jumps about 4%. Meanwhile the global auto market only grows about 3% in a typical year. So in 2021, EVs capture so much share that ICE is likely to decline in volume.
So global ICE sales are likely to go into structural decline by 2021. Certainly, one could point to certain national markets that will peak several years later than the global peak. But for OEMs that serve a broad international market this will be of little relief. Growth opportunities for ICE will quickly retreat into niches.
By 2022, another 6% market share for ICE would be lost. The pace of market share loss will quicken until EVs command about half of the market.
So the next two years could be sluggish growth for ICE, the next year will be flat to slightly declining, then 4 years out the bottom can fall out of the ICE market.
Now all this has been based on the assumption that growth continues at about 65% for the next 4 years. Many people have a hard time believing that the pace can remain that robust. But just as one can imagine scenarios where the rate slows substantially, one can also imagine that it speeds up. For example, China is more than doubling every year. If this continues, then the global growth rate will actually accelerate as Chinese and other high growth markets come to dominate. Those who want to shake their heads in disbelief need to identify a near term factor that can dramatically slow down EV uptake around the world. The problem is that we are only about 3 years from peak ICE, so that does not leave much time for brakes to be applied.
I agree that commuting five days per week is probably overkill for most people. You are correct that average traffic volumes would be reduced if everyone commuted fewer days per week.
Also, in the future, autonomous vehicles will lend themselves to traffic optimizations. Short haul airplane flights may experience a drop in demand as more people choose to let their cars drive them instead, potentially at much higher speeds on rural Interstates like I-5 between LA and SF. This is one reason I'm disinclined to support spending many billions of dollars on a bullet train in California.
In short, cars don't need to go away, they need to get smarter and cleaner.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
I have similar speculation - I’d say more like he’s trying to develop the best ways and equipments to dig tunnels so that they’d be ready to dig underground roads and cities quickly in Mars when the time comes.
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