List of all June 20th announcement hints

I've made a list of the various disclosures to date surrounding the June 20th announcements. (This was moved from nested deep in another thread).

Please reply on this thread if you have any other potential sources - I'll add it here to the top-level post to have in one place. It doesn't necessarily have to be directly related - it can be something that is regarding one of the prevaling theories for the announcement.

Direct disclosures regarding announcement:

Elon, Twitter - Apr 2:
Today's Tesla announcement is actually the 2nd in a 5 part trilogy (love Douglas Adams)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/319119973366784002

Elon v. Betty Liu, Bloomberg - Apr 2:
And then there's a 3rd announcement that I won't quite talk about, but I think is pretty cool - except to say that if you're driving a Model S, it's right under your nose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS2BCL6SWYI - 8:49 min
[3rd in context here is 3rd since the Lease announcement. So 5th overall]

Elon, Twitter - May 9:
elonmusk: There is a way for the Tesla Model S to be recharged throughout the country faster than you could fill a gas tank.
realbhuwan: @elonmusk yeah, we're waiting for superchargers :wink:
pjhornak: @realbhuwan @elonmusk hint that's not a supercharger
realbhuwan: @PJHORNAK doubt it is anything else.
elonmusk: @realbhuwan Don't forget the mystery announcement. Part 5 of the trilogy.
pratik_shah: @elonmusk only in US or across the globe?
elonmusk: @pratik_shah worldwide [<---- this has since been deleted]
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/332516435488280577
Tweet capture with "worldwide" from:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showt...ncement/page34

Elon, Supercharger Announcement, May 29
It is sort'a a concentrated series of announcements, and I did say it was like "Five Part Trilogy". Athough, then we had intermission. And then the [billions of buy and see and made up an area?] that wasn't part of that plan. That was sort'a unexpected intermission. But after the Five Part Trilogy, named in honor of Douglas Adams, we're going to be queiet for a while so you should expect that after this announcement, there is one more on June 20th, which I think is going to be pretty exciting. That will be an in-person thing, and then we won't have anything to say for a while.
http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedet...leaseID=767983
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yozowduql4vggzq/rDQXdo7Hqm 21:09

Elon, Stockholders meeting 6/4/2013
Q: You recently tweeted about that it may take less time charging a Model S would take actually less time than filling a tank of gas. Is the recent announcement that it is 20 minutes. Is that it now?
Elon: No. That is not it. That is not it. I would say, you should... I mentioned there will be an announcement on June 20th, in fact, not an announcement, but a demonstration. Live demonstration.
http://www.teslamotors.com/2013shareholdermeeting 40:45

Invitation to owners to attend the demonstration 6/12/2013
The filename in the URL is battswap-hero:
http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/battswap-hero_732_448.png

Elon, Twitter - 6/18/2013
Live pack swap demo on Thurs night at 8pm California time at our design studio in Hawthorne. Seeing is believing.
Video of battery pack swap will be posted to the Tesla website around 9:30pm, so those attending will see this first.https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/346895679471357952



Associated 'Prevailing Theory' disclosures:

So far the prevailing theories I'm tracking are:

• Battery Swapping with Grid Storage
• Aluminum Air secondary
• Fast Charging (theory retired 6/12. Theory does not fit anymore after 'battswap-hero' filename was leaked).

I'll track more if you can plausibly associate a new theory with the 'direct disclosure' part above. Let me know.

2012 shareholder meeting
Q: I think last year you mentioned how there was a swap-out of the battery with the Model S and that could be done, I've been telling people, in under a minute potentially. So could comment about that and whether that looks like something that still has potential and when that might happen?
Elon: In terms of the Model S, I intentionally architected the Model S to have a battery pack in the floor pan that can be swapped out in under a minute. I think we're going to show something interesting in that regard. (Elon smiles, audience chuckles.) I've got to keep a few cards in the vest. But I think there will be something exciting to see in that regard.
http://www.teslamotors.com/2012shareholdermeeting 41:50


SEC 10-Q - May 10th
Other factors that may influence the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, and specifically electric vehicles, include:
* our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future;
http://ir.teslamotors.com/secfiling....54&CIK=1318605 - Page 39

Javier Verdura, Core77 - May 28:
Charging technology is only going to improve with time. Charging times will decrease significantly and range will increase accordingly. In the very near future, the argument that internal combustion automobiles are more convenient than electric vehicles will be a moot point. You will be able to arrive at a charging station with an empty battery and drive off with a full charge faster than you can fill up a gas tank.
http://www.core77.com/blog/announcem...tors_24947.asp
[The tie in is the "faster than you can fill up a gas tank" - wording that Elon used on May 9th]

Elon, Supercharger Announcement, May 29 on Grid Storage
Q: Can you explain how the Solar works for the stations that do have solar?
The general principle is that we want to generate more energy from the sun over the cause of the year than is used by Model S's that
recharge at the station. The recharing tends to be concentrated during pretty obvious times, like on a Friday afternoon and evening and on
a Sunday afternoon and evening, cause people are going somewhere for the weekend or on holidays days - that kind of thing. Whereas it sees
relatively low usage during the week. The solar panels are generating energy throughout the course of the week, and it cummulatively adds
up to more than the energy that the car consumes.

And I was thinking of saving this bit of information for a future announcement, but you do make a good point, we've kind'a had too much
news. So I'll just pack it in here, which is that we actually have grid storage going on at sort'a our SuperCharging stations. So we got
stationary battery packs that take in energy through the week from the Solar Panels and - the Solar Panels actually charge the battery
pack and then that stationary battery pack charges Model S's, and so it's actually capable of going completely off grid. And this is
something we expect to probably roll out to all the SuperCharging stations, and I think it's something that's sort'a fairly cool. These
stations will then operate even if the entire national grid goes down.
http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedet...leaseID=767983
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yozowduql4vggzq/rDQXdo7Hqm 22:23

Long term I expect all SuperCharger locations to have Solar and Grid Storage. It's kind'a just a matter of time. In order for us to deploy
the SuperCharger locations very rapidly we have to start of with them not having Solar and then backfill the Solar over time. The
completion of the Solar is going to lag the SuperCharger network by probably 12 to 18 months and then Grid Storage is another 6 to 12
months after that, I would imagine, but these are just rough estimates.
David Baker: So how many of the Grid Storage units do you have out there, and how big are they?
Elon: We've got 2 in operation right now. They are pretty sizable. Half a Megawatt Hour, and they're capable of putting out a Megawatt if need
be.
http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedet...leaseID=767983
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yozowduql4vggzq/rDQXdo7Hqm 39:39

Q: So how many of the Grid Storage units do you have out there, and how big are they?
We've got 2 in operation right now. They are pretty sizable. Half a Megawatt Hour, and they're capable of putting out a Megawatt if need be.
Q: Where are they located?
Actually, I'd rather not say where they are located, because I'd rather not have people go and fudging around with them. I'll tell you they're in California - there's probably only a limited number of stations. And we're actually doing this in partnership with the utlities, btw, so. The grid storage is considered a helpful thing to the utilities cause it allows them to use that pack as a grid buffer. The utilities always have a challenge of dealing with too much or too little power generation at a time, so we're able to provide that buffering capability which they like.
http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedet...leaseID=767983
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yozowduql4vggzq/rDQXdo7Hqm 40:45

Elon, Supercharger Announcement, May 29 on Battery Swapping
Kevin: With 20 minute charges, do you see any roll in the future for Battery switching?
Elon: Well, today is about charging. I should say that I'm a big fan of optionality and I talked about battery pack swap for a long time, since
really the beginning of Tesla. And I don't think pack swap is a particularly brilliant idea. I mean, obviously we swap battery packs in
cellphones and laptops, so it's pretty obvious that such a thing can be done, at least at a small scale. The question would be could you
do it with something much larger, and then, how convenient would it be, and what are the economics like. Maybe we'll have something to say
about that in the future.
http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedet...leaseID=767983
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yozowduql4vggzq/rDQXdo7Hqm 42:18

Elon, Supercharger Announcement, May 29 on Partnering:
Conceivably if we were to do a partnership with a major manufacturer that were interested in the SuperCharging system and are willing to use the same basic architecture, then it could be used by more than just Tesla. We're not closed to that idea. We're not trying to create some closed system as some sort of strategy or something like that. It's just that we need to solve the problem of long distance travel and we can't wait for others to agree with our strategy. If we wait for some sort of concensus, it's going to take too long. So we just need to keep going and then other manufacturers can either copy us or join us.
http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedet...leaseID=767983
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yozowduql4vggzq/rDQXdo7Hqm 38:30

Elon, Jim Cramer interview, May 31:
@retrowallstt: Given the downtime (20+min) at recharging stations, is there any plan to create a "customer experience" during that time?
Elon: Well, we're aiming to keep improving the charge speed, and then we got some other ideas for minimizing people's time at charge stations. But ["that's not it..."?? Maybe. What is the exact wording here? I can't decipher.]. But yeah, I think... we'll try and come up with some entertaining things over time. I mean Right now we're just really focused on expanding the Tesla stations around the country and making sure that you have the freedom to travel anywhere you want, anytime you want.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100779662 - 13:40 min

Tesla Patent 'Efficient Dual Source Battery Pack System for an Electric Vehicle', Filing Date: Dec 10, 2010:
A method of optimizing the operation of the power source of an electric vehicle is provided, where the power source is comprised of a first battery pack (e.g., a non-metal-air battery pack) and a second battery pack (e.g., a metal-air battery pack). The power source is optimized to minimize use of the least efficient battery pack (e.g., the second battery pack) while ensuring that the electric vehicle has sufficient power to traverse the expected travel distance before the next battery charging cycle.
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120041625
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...RS=20120041625

Tesla Patent 'Electric Vehicle Extended Range Hybrid Battery Pack System', Filing date: Dec 8, 2010:
A power source comprised of a first battery pack (e.g., a non-metal-air battery pack) and a second battery pack (e.g., a metal-air battery pack) is provided, wherein the second battery pack is only used as required by the state-of-charge (SOC) of the first battery pack or as a result of the user selecting an extended range mode of operation. Minimizing use of the second battery pack prevents it from undergoing unnecessary, and potentially lifetime limiting, charge cycles. The second battery pack may be used to charge the first battery pack or used in combination with the first battery pack to supply operational power to the electric vehicle.
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120041624
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...RS=20120041624

Tesla Patent 'Charge Rate Modulation of Metal-Air Cells as a Function of Ambient Oxygen Concentration', Filing date: Sep 22, 2010:
A system and method for charging a metal-air battery pack at the maximum possible rate while maintaining an ambient oxygen concentration below a preset concentration is provided, thereby minimizing the risks associated with generating oxygen during the charging cycle.
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120041623
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...RS=20120041623

DonPedro said:

Somewhere he referred to this announcement as being "for the longer term" - trying to find the reference.

Click to expand...

Right. Elon did two interviews around April 2 where he used the 'under your nose' comment. Bloomberg was the one. What was the other one?

ItsNotAboutTheMoney said:

PS I think the charging thing is just something that came up with the Supercharger. I'm hoping that June 20th will see the announcement of global production, combined with the promised resolution of the winter vampire issue (as he said in Norway) plus the intoduction of the cold weather package as an option in the USA, plus a bunch of other new cool software improvements. Bsically a big "America, we told you we'd keep improving things. We have and we'll keep doing so. World, here we come."

Click to expand...

Do you have any plausible way to connect that theory to the 'Direct Disclosures' above? If so, I'll be happy to add your theory and find additional resources in support of it.

tdiggity said:

Live Demo of filling up faster than at a gas station on June 20th. Said at the shareholders meeting.

Click to expand...

Yes, thanks. I just finished getting the wording down. Updated above.

austinEV said:

Definitely a "live" demonstration on the 20th. Any of the prevailing theories still work (battery swap, Al-Air secondary, super-supercharge).

I have to say, by the logic of "the simplest answer is usually correct":

1) Battery swap: hard to do in 5 min in the best of conditions, cost billions in buildout, and the market will probably consider it biting off more than tesla can chew (the media will have a field day comparing to better place). Unlikely, and stock -20% even if the strategy is brilliant. Will play out like the first financing announcement.

2) Al-Air: Very cool, if the system involved an installed lightweight frunk-based unit that allowed the user to insert Al plates in for trickle charging the main battery while driving. Essentially you are moving Icelandic geothermal power (Alcoa makes Al there because of dirt cheap electricity) to your car. You recycle the plates. New sealed Al plates could be sold at truckstops. BUT, no way the technology is ready. Stock +50% since the market would likely overestimate the value; overestimate how often it would be used.

3) super-supercharging. Simple. Existing tech and existing research. They are just going to show that if you want to put some wear on your battery you can move the "taper" to wherever you want. Elon flat said this was how you get to a 20 min charge. I think it will be a user selectable option. If you are late to a meeting you can just supercharge in 5 min, if you really want to. Something like "please don't do this more than 10 times a year" or something. Stock... meh to +5%

Click to expand...

3) Interesting. But the battery chemistry is not the only issue. You also need to supply 1500 AMPS of power to the car from the SuperCharger. You can't however create a 1500 A cable that is liftable by a human, so it will have to be some beefy connection points that you'll have to install somewhere under the car that a robot can connect too.

But if you spend all the money to upgrade your car to support such a connection, you're not going to just want to do it just 10 times per year.

Good theory otherwise though.

Citizen-T said:

Show me the math.

Click to expand...

Show me how the business case works. Specifically these issues:

1) Elon mentioned today that the monthly cost of SuperCharger rent is almost 0, because it's just a canopy over existing parking bays, and it draws high income customers to the business. And it's great for business because those customers have to wait for 20 minutes anyway.

How do you extend that to cover battery swapping, which is inherently about people who specifically can't wait for even 20 minutes?


2) What makes a SuperCharger and battery swap system co-exist? There has to be some draw to consumers that says: "I'm going to pick this one over the other one.". But only sometimes... since they both have to co-exist. What is that thing? (And if it's price, what is an example of a pricing structure that you'd think would work and cause balanced usage?)