TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[BrianZ]

Fantastic article by @neroden

The Doom Of Fossil Fuel Investments | CleanTechnica

Edit: fantastic in the modern sense of the word, not the original meaning.

I know I'm like 20 pages late, and this is off topic, but this article is so good that I happily read this while sick in my bed instead of going to sleep. Bravo Neroden! Amazing read.

 

[Analyst007]

Asia is down, all red, nasdaq futures are red. Today is going to be a very ugly day I guess, whysoever.

 

[Carl Raymond]

Asia is down, all red, nasdaq futures are red. Today is going to be a very ugly day I guess, whysoever.

At some point there's going to be a fork in the stock market. Fossils down, cleantech stocks up, and it will continue. Maybe it's starting.

 

[SpaceCash]

At some point there's going to be a fork in the stock market. Fossils down, cleantech stocks up, and it will continue. Maybe it's starting.

I was looking for a coherent way to HEC (Happiness Exuberance & Confidence) the red market update and you beat me to it

TSLA don't care about the market

 

[RobStark]

I hope Elon doesn't read this article - he will no doubt feel compelled to save the bus industry and re-sequence his priorities. Let them screw it up first - the Semi is enough for starters. Anyway, big battery, big motors - how hard can it be.... If they collectively step up just a little bit the industry will be fairly low margin in a few years.

Proterra is doing a fine job and just got a major cash infusion from Daimler Benz. BYD sells for less.... because it is an inferior product.

Will also partner with Daimler Benz subsidiary Thomas Built Buses to do school buses.

 

[KarenRei]

Model S with 2170 by 19Q2 confirmed

Tesla and Panasonic have every incentive in the world to squeeze all the life that they can out of the capital they've sunk into 18650 production.

The easy way to improve range and charge rates (mph/kph) in Model S/X, at least excluding P100D, would be to swap one of the motors out for a PM motor. This will then be used for cruising and should up their average efficiency by 5-10%

Didn’t Elon and Deepak have a small chat about this on the last conference call. If I remember correctly Deepak said they were not battery constrained and Elon interjected, ‘well maybe for a week or so we were but not really.’

But now he’s saying that they are battery constrained apart from brief moments?

Don't confuse "We don't have enough cell supply to expand production" with "We don't have enough cell supply to maintain our current production rate". Also remember that this was specifically in reference to Model 3. Model 3 has been robbing cells from Tesla Energy for quite a while; Tesla Energy has been having to get by on the scraps and whatever cells they can secure from other manufacturers.

Panasonic never has a profit because they always need to reinvest... Tesla should simply buy the battery division from Panasonic.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tesla will turn on Panasonic whenever an opportunity presents itself (either an internal program that they think they can scale, or an outside company they could acquire; both options are mostly capital limited). Tesla is obsessed with vertical integration, both for retaining 100% of the profit, and for rapid turnaround without being constrained by outside entities, whose reliability may vary.

To me it just means Tesla is spending more on the Pick-Up than the Semi.

As Musk pointed out, there's a dfference between when something "comes out", and when it's "produced in volume"; the latter is what costs a lot of money. With many vehicles, but Semi in particular, Tesla needs to get them on the market, in some minimal volume, ASAP so that potential customers can experience them. With Semi, fleets will need time to trial the vehicles and decide whether they're saving money as they're supposed to. These small trial programs will then expand to large trial programs, which will then ultimately expand to phaseouts of existing diesel fleets. If barriers come up, Tesla will need to remedy these, which is yet another delay. So to reiterate, Tesla needs to get this process rolling ASAP.

Define much faster?

"believed to be" ? But whatever it is, none of Tesla cars today can take 150 KW charging for more than a few minutes. Today it is barely sustaining 110 KW for more than say between 10 to 20% SoC.

Simply not true. Autocollected ABRP data for Model 3 LR:

Note the lack of data on the low end, so I wouldn't trust the shape of that upslope. But it's very clear that as a general rule, it's "just under 120kW" up to 50%, and deviations from this are the exception, not the rule. And indeed, Tesla has already stated that all of its current vehicles can take more than 120kW - only older vehicles cannot benefit from V3.

Also - side note: this is what the curve looks like now. This should be Tesla's conservative charge profile. But if Tesla later decides that cell longevity is meeting or exceeding conservative projections, they could well take a more aggressive charge profile with a future update.

What are Model 3's actual power limitations? It's hard to say. Factory mode and the EPA filings say 525A. Ingineerix has argued that the charge cabling is only good for 430A**. But both of these numbers are higher than V2's (350A?) limit.

** It's quite possible that both are correct. Cable nominal power ratings are generally for sustained usage - the current at which their rate of heat loss matches their rate of heat gain at their maximum safe temperature. But 5 minutes of high rate usage on a cool cable - getting them up to said temperature - followed by a rampdown - should be a perfectly acceptable alternative. I guess we'll find out. 525A is 50% more heating than 430A.

Doing some math... alumium has a specific heat of 0,9 J/g-C (Model 3's charge cabling is alumium, unlike S/X). 3-0 cable is 1,04cm in diameter, or a cross section of 0,85cm², with a mass of around 230g/m, or a heat capacity of around 207 J/m-C. Resistance should be around 0,00034 ohms/m. Heating is I²R, so ~93,7W/m, so 0,45°C temperature rise per second without accounting for passive cooling. I don't know the wire's class, but let's say that it's going from 25°C to 90°C. So without any passive cooling, it should take about 2 1/2 minutes to reach the maximum temperature. So yeah, with passive cooling, you should be able to run it at higher powers for maybe 3-6 minutes. I'm way too lasy to try to model the passive cooling to get a more precise figure than that

 

[SpaceCash]

This article tells us that Model 3 sales accounted for 52% of US luxury sedan sales in the U.S. in October.

It also details that the Model 3 generally expanded the market, only eating up ~15% of previous year's sales.

I gather that this means it stimulated a whole class/type/demographic of purchaser that wasn't going to buy ANY car, but the 3 pushed them to do so.
I haven't had a car since moving to L.A. maybe 5 yrs ago (rear wheel drive Lincoln LS V8, loved that thing), and I have since said I wouldn't get another car until I can afford a Tesla. I wonder if there are many like me who were already in-the-know and waiting for a Tesla they could afford, or if the 3 simply caught THAT many people by relative surprise and convinced them to pull the trigger who otherwise wouldn't have been in the market for a car.

Actually thinking about it further, it's probably better explained that the newer buyers would have otherwise purchased cheaper, non-"luxury" sedans, and have decided to splurge/stretch their wallet for the 3
Tesla Model 3 Accounted For Over Half Of All Midsize Luxury Car Sales

 

[Fact Checking]

The easy way to improve range and charge rates (mph/kph) in Model S/X, at least excluding P100D, would be to swap one of the motors out for a PM motor. This will then be used for cruising and should up their average efficiency by 5-10%

Another one could be 120 kWh battery packs, which might still be possible to squeeze into the S and X, without major changes to the chassis.

 

[cheshire cat]

From an economic point of view, not really.
We need the most electricity for heating in the winter when solar panels have a lot less output, so there’s no solar power surplus to store in the winter.
And the delta between peak prices and night prices is too small to make charging during the night from the grid, and consuming that during the day worthwhile.
However, if I had a powerwall I would at least have a guarantee that I would be able to heat my home during the winter. As you may have heard, due to 5 of the 6 of our nuclear plants being shutdown for maintenance, we may get electricity grid shutdowns next januari or februari. Luckily I live in an area that would be shutdown last. It would probably world news if a western country like Belgium would have to resort to such measures, but here the electricity situation is daily news.

Ah thanks for that, We have a large diff' in our "off peak" prices

 

[lklundin]

Remember for all practical purposes it is your car - the battery size, current SoC, ambient and battery temps are the constraints.

So i am not sure higher supercharger rates will help that much, unless they come with a bigger battery. The Roadster and Semi can definitely benefit, but not the sub 100 kWh cars

The Model 3 can draw up to 525 A from its charger so with its battery voltage at 350 V it can at a low SoC charge with 180 kW.

 

[FrANce]

There are bigger fish to fry now that EV adoption didn’t go as planned and thought.

Did you mean to say "didn't"? Not sure I understand

 

[SpaceCash]

Did you mean to say "didn't"? Not sure I understand

Pretty sure he meant it as written. In a parallel universe, incumbent car companies would have made a more fluid, genuine transition towards renewable energy vehicles by now, rather than digging in their heels, teasing vaporware, and begrudgingly offering up a few slow and ugly compliance vehicles once every blue moon

 

[FrANce]

Pretty sure he meant it as written. In a parallel universe, incumbent car companies would have made a more fluid, genuine transition towards renewable energy vehicles by now, rather than digging in their heels, teasing vaporware, and begrudgingly offering up a few slow and ugly compliance vehicles once every blue moon

Thanks, got it!

 

[KarenRei]

Another one could be 120 kWh battery packs, which might still be possible to squeeze into the S and X, without major changes to the chassis.

If their chemistry improvements support that, indeed.

 

[Fact Checking]

Pretty sure he meant it as written. In a parallel universe, incumbent car companies would have made a more fluid, genuine transition towards renewable energy vehicles by now, rather than digging in their heels, teasing vaporware, and begrudgingly offering up a few slow and ugly compliance vehicles once every blue moon

Yes, and I agree with @Krugerrand.

I believe Elon and Tesla did not anticipate (or know) how vulnerable ICE OEMs are to changes in ICE vehicle demand. Only very few carmakers had the profit margins and the long term management view to execute an electrification plan like Porsche plans to complete by ~2026, and of which plan the Taycan is the first iteration.

I argue that FUD and vaporware was their only rational choice, given the legacy constraints. They couldn't pull an Apple and cannibalize their own products or enter new markets, because new cars are not smartphones: they are not replaced every 12 months or so, and purchases of new cars can be deferred or redirected to used cars much easier than that of smartphones.

The EV transition is going to get much uglier before it gets better, I think. I hope I'm wrong!

 

[Fact Checking]

The Model 3 can draw up to 525 A from its charger so with its battery voltage at 350 V it can at a low SoC charge with 180 kW.

Note that Tesla would be shortsighted to expand the SuperCharger platform to only support existing vehicle platforms. I'd expect the SC v3 to support 120 kWh battery packs once they are released, i.e. SuperCharger v3 might support up to around ~250 kW if we scale up the 180 kW from the ~80 kWh Model 3 LR battery pack to future 120 kWh packs.

 

[SpaceCash]

UBS appears to have reversed their stance on TSLA

 

[AlexS]

today will be attack on the 52wks low for NASDAQ, wondering if it will hold or crack. Interesting times we have anyway

 

[lklundin]

Not as long as they keep selling at production capacity.

Profit margins on Model S/X will increase if their battery pack can be based on 2170-derived cells made at GF1, freeing up resources at Fremont.

 

[avoigt]

UBS on $TSLA profitability: "Contrary to our team's previous view, they now believe incumbent OEMs will be less profitable than Tesla in EV space. Tesla's cost advantage can be defended (at least temporarily) because other OEMs will not switch to cheaper NCA chemistry. "

Martijn Kleinbussink on Twitter

Finally they seem to understand now what TMC argued for years.

However the overall cost advantage is still completely missed out by UBS as the cell chemistry is just a tiny part of the cost advantage they have not to mention they will have in the future.

Analysts will be blown away to see what kind of profit Tesla does create from now on every quarter.