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TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

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OT,

I think its quite possible that even with Tesla succeeding, Earth can't sustain 7B people in 2050 AD.

BTW., while that might be true assuming our current non-sustainable mix of technologies, the real population limit of this planet, using high living standards for everyone and only assuming available technologies, is more like 100 billion people living comfortably (!):
  • Earth receives stupendous amounts of energy from the sun, and energy is the main physical limit,
  • ~80% of the population lives on like ~1% of the planetary surface, and that doesn't even include the 75% oceanic surface,
  • we are wasting a lot of premium surface living space and are sacrificing a lot of our quality of life on ICE based transportation infrastructure: EVs and tunnels alone will be a giant step forward.
  • Earth also still has stupendous amounts of mineral resources, there's literally no lack of anything: for example Earth's oceans contain somewhere between 50,000 and 1,500,000 metric tons of gold dissolved - up to 7x all the gold mined in history? And gold is a very rare and comparatively unimportant mineral resource - more abundant metals like lithium are probably already economically feasible to extract from ocean water.
The problem is only that we tend to mine the easiest to extract stuff that has the lowest short term expense at the place of extraction, shuffling longer term (I.e. longer time distance and longer geographical distance) costs on others.

Once that practice is superceded (by properly pricing of long term costs/damage) the road to more population growth is wide open, without compromising on living standards.
 
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Tesla not being the only offer in town validates their offering: Kia & Hyundai can't match production volume, the Germans can't get their cars to market etc.

Also note another, important effect:
  • Most ICE makers stopped FUD-ing EVs in general, because they now (have to) sell EVs. This is helping the dominant market player - Tesla - disproportionately. It's a lot harder to attack Tesla alone, without attacking their own offerings.
  • In fact ICE makers recently started advertising their (often vaporware) EVs - at least in Europe. This too is helping the dominant market player - Tesla - disproportionately.
  • This will also neuter some of the media FUD: a car magazine will think twice pooh-pooh-ing EVs in the same breath they are displaying VW I.D. or BMW iN ads.
I believe this will have a non-linear effect on EV and Tesla demand - and also on $TSLA stock.

The only big question at this point is the exact timing of these developments, IMHO.
 
OT



Yes. And there are many reasons to be cynic about that. I chose to look at this differently: For years VW & Co. were content to push PowerPoints and clay models. Now they are a step further and mock-up charging stations etc. which are at least publicly accessible. Same thing with the Ionity chargers: yes, they are not yet 350kw (so that's a vaporware promise) but they are >100kw as they stand which is great so Tesla is not the only charging network that offers these speeds.

Is all this the real deal? Nope, certainly not. But we are getting closer and closer. I wonder how many folks would cross-shop a Model X vs. iPace vs. eTron and realise that from the purchasing experience to the car (efficiency, OTA updates etc.) all the way to charging networks (superchargers & destination chargers) Tesla has the real deal while the others seem to be where Tesla was in 2013.

Tesla not being the only offer in town validates their offering: Kia & Hyundai can't match production volume, the Germans can't get their cars to market etc.
And they ALL have dealers to contend with who will initially give them a major headache, like GM (US). Don't want to sell you a low maintainance car, and have a god given right to rip you off. When a dealership asks/ demands £200-250 for an update disc for the sat nav, what sort of value does that put on an over air update from the mother ship at NO cost ?
 
VW iD in Cape Town Spiegel article (Germany).

In German, but DeepL is your friend....!

“Volkswagen has such high expectations of the new ID as it did of the Golf. The car is supposed to take the company into the electric era. Does the model live up to the expectations of the designers?”

.....

“In the next three years alone, VW plans to build five cars with this concept. The Neo will be followed by a crossover in the Tiguan format in 2020, before the E-Bulli ID Buzz and a sedan as successor to the Phaeton will be available. "If we really want to make between 15 and 20 percent of our sales with electric cars by 2025, we have to offer an appropriate selection quickly," says Welsch.”
 
Also note another, important effect:
  • [...]
I believe this will have a non-linear effect on EV and Tesla demand - and also on $TSLA stock.

The only big question at this point is the exact timing of these developments, IMHO.

Agree - I think the fact that Tesla's market share in EVs is not going to be the same market share they have in total cars right now "once the big guys start to produce" will slowly dawn on folks, too - once that becomes mainstream knowledge I think we will see quite a big pop.

On my point about competition validating the Tesla's offering: after I watched Bjorn Nyland's video where he discusses winter-charging for Kona, e-Niro, iPace and Tesla I realised a) that there is a reason that VW/Audi invite journalists to the Middle East and South Africa and b) that Tesla's technology (battery temp. mgmt) is even better than I thought it would be.

VW iD in Cape Town Spiegel article (Germany).

“Volkswagen has such high expectations of the new ID as it did of the Golf. The car is supposed to take the company into the electric era. Does the model live up to the expectations of the designers?”

.....

“In the next three years alone, VW plans to build five cars with this concept. The Neo will be followed by a crossover in the Tiguan format in 2020, before the E-Bulli ID Buzz and a sedan as successor to the Phaeton will be available. "If we really want to make between 15 and 20 percent of our sales with electric cars by 2025, we have to offer an appropriate selection quickly," says Welsch.”

I really don't think VW is getting the message at all: by the time the very first(!) ID is on the roads Tesla will have about 2 Million Model 3 in customer hands and probably already a first set of Model Y sold.

I get that VW & Co. are "now investing into e-mobility" but I think it is too little effort and I wonder if it is too late.

The key challenge with the ID (IMHO) is not that it is impossible to build such a car, the challenge is to hit the right price-point. And I don't see how they will hit the economies of scale in comparison to Tesla. I also don't think the charging work to their advantage: yes, they have Ionity now. But that's still lagging behind the Supercharger network and all new Teslas will be able to charge in the Supercharger network + Ionity (and any other network, too).

tl;dr: VW is doing an amazing PR job. They really tell an awesome story. But for the life of it, I can't make that work out if you look at time to market, cost, scale and last not least company culture (most folks in VW don't believe that BEVs are the future, they think that the US, the EU, the environmental NGOs are out to back-stab/kill VW and most of them are convinced that Diesel is the best drive train ever)
 
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Agree - I think the fact that Tesla's market share in EVs is not going to be the same market share they have in total cars right now "once the big guys start to produce" will slowly dawn on folks, too - once that becomes mainstream knowledge I think we will see quite a big pop.

On my point about competition validating the Tesla's offering: after I watched Bjorn Nyland's video where he discusses winter-charging for Kona, e-Niro, iPace and Tesla I realised a) that there is a reason that VW/Audi invite journalists to the Middle East and South Africa and b) that Tesla's technology (battery temp. mgmt) is even better than I thought it would be.
That being said, only Tesla loves using frameless windows (because Franz von Holzhausen loves them) and they cause so many problems in the winter when you try to open the door to your frozen car on a cold winter morning. Also Tesla loves using unorthodox door handle designs and these also freeze in the winter making it hard to open your car's doors. Something needs to be done about these things for sales of Teslas in markets where it gets cold in the winter.
 
Yeah, and that's proof for @RobStark's thesis: the moment the U.S. wasn't a pure imperial units country it lost a space probe to the horrors of the mixed metric/imperial system!

Reminds me of this classic:

standards.png

The good thing about standards is that everybody can have their own one.
 
So you're not spending hours here everyday under instructions from your wife to learn how to make TSLA money like the rest of us? Why stay? Don't you have any real interests? When my wife goes shopping, I sometimes read up on beekeeping - fascinating stu gtg

I’m pretty sure I’ve been making TSLA money since 2012 and in the least stressful way possible.

Tesla/TSLA isn’t considered a real interest? Note to self; get out more and read up on origami.
 
VW iD in Cape Town Spiegel article (Germany).

In German, but DeepL is your friend....!

“Volkswagen has such high expectations of the new ID as it did of the Golf. The car is supposed to take the company into the electric era. Does the model live up to the expectations of the designers?”

.....

“In the next three years alone, VW plans to build five cars with this concept. The Neo will be followed by a crossover in the Tiguan format in 2020, before the E-Bulli ID Buzz and a sedan as successor to the Phaeton will be available. "If we really want to make between 15 and 20 percent of our sales with electric cars by 2025, we have to offer an appropriate selection quickly," says Welsch.”

OT

Thanks for pointing me to DeepL. Great.
 
Can't imagine having a spuse to interfere with decision making in investments.

Many of the major discoveries I came upon happened very fast. Also, sudden dips that happens in tsla does not wait around for the consensus of a second person.

Interfere? That’s an interesting word choice.

You couldn’t have had a discussion about price buying and selling ranges for general time periods. Or about sentiment shifts and what to do? Or macro influences? Or about barrages of FUD? Or about what would make you uncomfortable enough to want to get out?

Doesn’t your life partner text you in the wee hours of the night from the other side of the planet to tell you they just started an update on the Tesla, like mine literally just did?

Okay, maybe I’m luckier than I thought that the spouse and I are on the same page, of the exact same book in life. We don’t call it interference, we call it interaction.
 
I’m so glad Napoleon Bonaparte forced us to use the metric system. Thank God shares can only bought per piece, not per foot or gallon.

Actually, I’d have no issue taking possession of a metric tonne (aka crap ton) of TSLA at any time if someone would like to gift that to me. Season of giving and all that.
 
Agree - I think the fact that Tesla's market share in EVs is not going to be the same market share they have in total cars right now "once the big guys start to produce" will slowly dawn on folks, too - once that becomes mainstream knowledge I think we will see quite a big pop.

On my point about competition validating the Tesla's offering: after I watched Bjorn Nyland's video where he discusses winter-charging for Kona, e-Niro, iPace and Tesla I realised a) that there is a reason that VW/Audi invite journalists to the Middle East and South Africa and b) that Tesla's technology (battery temp. mgmt) is even better than I thought it would be.



I really don't think VW is getting the message at all: by the time the very first(!) ID is on the roads Tesla will have about 2 Million Model 3 in customer hands and probably already a first set of Model Y sold.

I get that VW & Co. are "now investing into e-mobility" but I think it is too little effort and I wonder if it is too late.

The key challenge with the ID (IMHO) is not that it is impossible to build such a car, the challenge is to hit the right price-point. And I don't see how they will hit the economies of scale in comparison to Tesla. I also don't think the charging work to their advantage: yes, they have Ionity now. But that's still lagging behind the Supercharger network and all new Teslas will be able to charge in the Supercharger network + Ionity (and any other network, too).

tl;dr: VW is doing an amazing PR job. They really tell an awesome story. But for the life of it, I can't make that work out if you look at time to market, cost, scale and last not least company culture (most folks in VW don't believe that BEVs are the future, they think that the US, the EU, the environmental NGOs are out to back-stab/kill VW and most of them are convinced that Diesel is the best drive train ever)
Vdub diesels have been going downhill since the last of the non partic' 1900 PD's. GM had one design with potential but didn't develop it, and Ford only ever had one good if antique diesel of their own ( The Dagenham Dog, basically a small tractor engine)
 
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OT,



BTW., while that might be true assuming our current non-sustainable mix of technologies, the real population limit of this planet, using high living standards for everyone and only assuming available technologies, is more like 100 billion people living comfortably (!):
  • Earth receives stupendous amounts of energy from the sun, and energy is the main physical limit,
  • ~80% of the population lives on like ~1% of the planetary surface, and that doesn't even include the 75% oceanic surface,
  • we are wasting a lot of premium surface living space and are sacrificing a lot of our quality of life on ICE based transportation infrastructure: EVs and tunnels alone will be a giant step forward.
  • Earth also still has stupendous amounts of mineral resources, there's literally no lack of anything: for example Earth's oceans contain somewhere between 50,000 and 1,500,000 metric tons of gold dissolved - up to 7x all the gold mined in history? And gold is a very rare and comparatively unimportant mineral resource - more abundant metals like lithium are probably already economically feasible to extract from ocean water.
The problem is only that we tend to mine the easiest to extract stuff that has the lowest short term expense at the place of extraction, shuffling longer term (I.e. longer time distance and longer geographical distance) costs on others.

Once that practice is superceded (by properly pricing of long term costs/damage) the road to more population growth is wide open, without compromising on living standards.
I bring it up in conversation from time to time that we should be aiming for 70 billion. Most people get frightened about that claiming it's scary with that many humans. Many have a medieval view that wars and plagues will automatically begin to counter population growth. My response is always to mention some extraordinary humans like Elon and others since if we were to be 70 billion we could have 10 Elons instead of one. Not allowing 63 billion humans to be born is also a somewhat hateful behaviour.

We're already well on our way to have the technology to be able to sustain at least 70 billion and more. Technology will also improve exponentially as more and more humans get better education.
 
OT . . . Today I came across this ancient quote from Elon given at a press conference held in June 2008, a long long time ago.

"We have some projects in the works that could actually deliver an electric car, pure electric car, for under $30,000 maybe a lot sooner than anyone thinks. . . I’d say, it’s probably 4 years at the most."

Here we are heading into 2019 and we're still not there yet, but we're getting there. I figure an under $30K Tesla model is still 2 years out?
I'm pretty sure he was talking about 2008 dollars. Inflation adjusted $30,000 in 2008 → 2018 | Inflation Calculator, this is the $35k model that they will sell (a handfull of) next year.
 
I bring it up in conversation from time to time that we should be aiming for 70 billion. Most people get frightened about that claiming it's scary with that many humans. Many have a medieval view that wars and plagues will automatically begin to counter population growth. My response is always to mention some extraordinary humans like Elon and others since if we were to be 70 billion we could have 10 Elons instead of one. Not allowing 63 billion humans to be born is also a somewhat hateful behaviour.

We're already well on our way to have the technology to be able to sustain at least 70 billion and more. Technology will also improve exponentially as more and more humans get better education.

And we’d also get 10 more Spiegels, 10 more Chanos, 10 more Trumps.... I just decided I’m okay with you labeling me a hater for not wanting 70 billion humans on this planet.
 
I bring it up in conversation from time to time that we should be aiming for 70 billion. Most people get frightened about that claiming it's scary with that many humans. Many have a medieval view that wars and plagues will automatically begin to counter population growth. My response is always to mention some extraordinary humans like Elon and others since if we were to be 70 billion we could have 10 Elons instead of one. Not allowing 63 billion humans to be born is also a somewhat hateful behaviour.

We're already well on our way to have the technology to be able to sustain at least 70 billion and more. Technology will also improve exponentially as more and more humans get better education.
I like the natural world enough that I don't want the Earth to become a ecumenopolis like Coruscant. (Do I actually need to explain that Coruscant is the capital city planet of the Old Republic -> Galactic Empire -> New Republic in Star Wars?). I also don't want Earth to become like Holy Terra, the polluted and overpopulated capital of the Imperium of Man in the Warhammer 40k universe. I want to see the Earth's open spaces preserved, not just for today, but for the future. One day when we are a spacefaring species the homeworld of humanity should be a museum planet with a minimal human population and most of the surface restored to it's pastoral origins so humans of the future can still enjoy their homeworld.
 
We're already well on our way to have the technology to be able to sustain at least 70 billion and more. Technology will also improve exponentially as more and more humans get better education.
We've already over fished our oceans with current population, not to mention the plastic waste problem, farming discharge problem, etc. Plus think about the human waste problem. Not sure why some people seem to think we need to keep pushing population growth to the limits, and beyond.
 
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