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What are the Parallel Investment Plays?

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Cattledog

Active Member
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Feb 9, 2012
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San Antonio, TX
OK, so we're all over-weighted in TSLA. But how about the parallel plays? For example, NVidia (NVDA) makes the processor that runs the touchscreen. They make a lot of processors for mobile and gaming devices, so TSLA is not their big cookie, but it brings one helluva brand recognition benefit. Panasonic? (Someone help me with where/how it's listed). 21,000 cars = 141,000,000 laptops (not shabby). Alcoa? We'd have to be a flea on a flea's percentage of raw material. Otehrs?

Help!
 
Seems it is too late to easily buy Panasonic shares :


ADR REPORT-U.S.-listed shares of Panasonic plunge on delistings news

— reuters.com

Published Monday, Apr. 01, 2013 5:34PM EDT

Last updated Monday, Apr. 01, 2013 5:34PM EDT

NEW YORK, April 1 (Reuters) - U.S.-listed shares of Panasonic Corp fell sharply on Monday after the Japanese electronics giant said it will delist its shares from the New York Stock Exchange.

In a press release, the company said "the continued listing on the NYSE is not economically justified," as the trading volume of Panasonic's American depositary shares (ADSs) accounts for only a small fraction of the total trading volume of Panasonic's shares.
 
I picked up a few shares of Ecotality, inc. (ECTY) recently. They are behind the Blink charging network. I think they're going to do well in the next 1-5 years (indeed, I bought at $1.10 a few weeks ago, and they enjoyed a nice run-up after the announcement that Blink is partnering with Kroger stores. The joint venture between Blink and Chargepoint is also intriguing - http://www.ecotality.com/featured/collaboratev/ )

However, now that I've gotten used to charging at home and starting each day with a fresh tank of electrons, I'm not convinced that public charging stations will be as necessary 5-10 years from now when most EVs will probably be doing the same. But in the next five years? Probably some great growth potential there!

Solar City is another one on my "to research" list. :)
 
Solar City, nobody really seems to get it yet. I hope in the future my solar house exchanges power with my car. I want to be off the grid. It's kinda like cell phone, it took us awhile to figure out we don't really need a land line. Solar home electric car are meant to be together. Musk knows this already. Disruptive technology, another big idea is 3 D printing. As Tesla is messing up the auto business 3d forces us to think of production in an entirely different way. Additive manufacturing, no waste. All three public companies are pretty interesting.
 
I picked up a few shares of Ecotality, inc. (ECTY) recently. They are behind the Blink charging network. I think they're going to do well in the next 1-5 years (indeed, I bought at $1.10 a few weeks ago, and they enjoyed a nice run-up after the announcement that Blink is partnering with Kroger stores. The joint venture between Blink and Chargepoint is also intriguing - http://www.ecotality.com/featured/collaboratev/ )

However, now that I've gotten used to charging at home and starting each day with a fresh tank of electrons, I'm not convinced that public charging stations will be as necessary 5-10 years from now when most EVs will probably be doing the same. But in the next five years? Probably some great growth potential there!

Solar City is another one on my "to research" list. :)

I don't see the value in Ecotality. I've driven almost 40000 EV miles and I've never been interested in paying a dollar an hour to plug in to a 6 kW charger.
 
I picked up a few shares of Ecotality, inc. (ECTY) recently. They are behind the Blink charging network. I think they're going to do well in the next 1-5 years (indeed, I bought at $1.10 a few weeks ago, and they enjoyed a nice run-up after the announcement that Blink is partnering with Kroger stores. The joint venture between Blink and Chargepoint is also intriguing - http://www.ecotality.com/featured/collaboratev/ )

However, now that I've gotten used to charging at home and starting each day with a fresh tank of electrons, I'm not convinced that public charging stations will be as necessary 5-10 years from now when most EVs will probably be doing the same. But in the next five years? Probably some great growth potential there!

Living in San Diego, where the Blink network received enormous subsidies, I have to say that Ecotality is nearly a scam. For the first 18 months of their two-year rollout almost no chargers appeared at all. And when they do arrive, they are unreliable, expensive and slow.
 
I saw the eval results our company did when we installed chargers and was part of the final eval round. If you're going to buy stock in a charging company (or want to work with a charging company for that matter), go with Chargepoint.

Better software, better hardware and bigger network than Blink.
 
I suppose I can incorporate and let you all invest in me. I can assure you that if Tesla does well, so will I. :)

Other than that, I don't see Tesla having much impact on anyone significant besides Panasonic and Solar City. They are both small and extremely vertically integrated.

Tesla potentially drives a fair amount of business to Solar City, and there are real synergies there, even aside from the Musk effect.

And for some reason I recall an estimate floating around of Tesla accounting for 9% of Panasonic battery production in the near or medium term. There were discussions as to whether it would make sense for Panasonic to build a factory in California, and about both companies investing in each other and cooperating on R&D. I am not sure how advanced those ties are, but there is a clear potential for Tesla becoming a huge consumer of Panasonic batteries when GenIII comes out.
 
I don't see the value in Ecotality. I've driven almost 40000 EV miles and I've never been interested in paying a dollar an hour to plug in to a 6 kW charger.
After we got our Model S, but before we had our 240v outlet installed, public chargers were quite helpful for us. After we got our 240v? Not nearly as much -- though I anticipate they'll till be handy on some road trips (say, from LA to San Diego for a weekend, when we'll want to recharge for a couple of hours -- the 240 mile round trip + vampire load is just a bit too much on one charge).

But if you drive a LEAF? Public Chargers are far more important... And for the next 3-5 years, that's probably going to be worthwhile for many EV owners (until batteries are cheap enough for 250+ miles in a $30K car).

Living in San Diego, where the Blink network received enormous subsidies, I have to say that Ecotality is nearly a scam. For the first 18 months of their two-year rollout almost no chargers appeared at all. And when they do arrive, they are unreliable, expensive and slow.

That's interesting and helpful, thanks. I've used Blink chargers in West Hollywood and West Covina, and they've both been excellent. "Slow" compared to our home 240V outlet, sure, but certainly as good as Chargepoint.

If you're going to buy stock in a charging company (or want to work with a charging company for that matter), go with Chargepoint.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Chargepoint is private. :(



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Other than that, I don't see Tesla having much impact on anyone significant besides Panasonic and Solar City.

Perhaps a negative impact on GM and Ford? ;)
 
The best derivative investments relays to the energy poweri the model S, so I agree the utilities will be huge beneficiaries a decade from now but the problem is they are regulated so you need to look to be cleanest efficient energy generators that utilize nat gas and alt energies. The infrastructure will need to be upgraded dramatically so the industrial companies that make transformers... Think HON, GE, BGC. The best play however is lithium on my opinion. SQM is the largest lithium mining company on the world. If EVs expand exponentially, lithium demand will at an even greater rate.
 
:)

Other than that, I don't see Tesla having much impact on anyone significant besides Panasonic and Solar City. They are both small and extremely vertically integrated.

Taking a bit of a longer term view, if one assumes that we are at the turning point of the electrification of the transportation, there will be a huge transfer of money from oil companies selling gasoline to electric utilities selling kWhrs (with a 1/3 to 1/4 as the multiplier). It will not happen overnight, but might come to pass sooner than everybody expects. The corner gas station might follow public telephones and video stores into oblivion by the end of the next decade.

According to several studies that I've come across, there will be no need to build new generation capacity even if all cars on the road are electric, because overwhelming majority of them will be charged at the non-peak hours. Since incremental cost of producing electricity is quite low, utilities will rake in a lot of profit.

Another parallel play would be companies producing equipment for upgrading the country's transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure, which has been neglected for some time and is in dare need of investment. Utilities bringing additional tens of billions of dollars in revenue per year will spend a good chunk of this windfall on ensuring that T&D infrastructure is upgraded.

Starting shorting oil companies at some point in the future, as their empire is bound to shrink, would not be an unreasonable outcome (hope EM will pardon borrowing from his phraseology:wink:). BTW I believe that big oil plays some role in stubborn shorting of TSLA. Revenge is sweet...
 
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The best play however is lithium on my opinion. SQM is the largest lithium mining company on the world. If EVs expand exponentially, lithium demand will at an even greater rate.

Tesla notes this more or less in the SEC Filling.

They list as a risk that if EV's get really popular and demand rises then there could be a time when battery's get in high demand and the current rate of production would force Tesla to buy more expensive parts.

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Starting shorting oil companies at some point in the future, as their empire is bound to shrink, would not be an unreasonable outcome.

Keep in mind that if EV's had enough impact to drive the price of oil down, it would slow EV growth potentially a bit too as oil could become cheap enough to kill the gas-cost argument of EV's.

Tesla mentions this risk along with higher fuel efficiency .

However, if gasoline was to get cheaper and EV's still prevailed, you may want to invest in airlines then as much of their margin is driven by fuel costs. I wouldn't invest in airlines though. :)
 
Tesla notes this more or less in the SEC Filling.

They list as a risk that if EV's get really popular and demand rises then there could be a time when battery's get in high demand and the current rate of production would force Tesla to buy more expensive parts.

700 years of Lithium right here in Wyoming. That's not going to be an issue. Derivative play though, track who gets license to mine these
Onswipe
 
Summary: Ecotality no; wish I could buy Sun Country and Clipper Creek, but they aren't public

I will agree with others that Ecotality is known for poor quality. I'm up here in the Seattle area and there are lots of Blink, Chargepoint and other company chargers. Ecotality/blink has a lot of regular j1772 plus a lot of chademo.

Negatives for ecotality:
1. took lots of subsidies to build the stations, but poor results in that they are kind of low end
2. often broken (see leaf newsgroups). for some reason, don't see that about chargepoint as much.
3. lower power chargers (30 amp). it's a crying shame that the blink chargers are not higher power.

Here's the company I'd like to buy in - sun country. They seem to be the only large rollout company with high power j1772 chargers (across anada, see http://suncountryhighway.ca/). Also, I believe they manufacture or perhaps resell higher power chargers that are used in California. https://suncountryhighway.ca/chargers/

They don't appear to be a public company, but I'd be more interested in them. They are doing things right.

Chargers appear to be made at least some of them by clipper creek. They are a california company, that also doesn't appear to be public: http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/ClipperCreekInc/-strse-template/about/Page.bok