Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[oldTAVguy]

Just started listening to TeslaCharts interview of Trevor Milton, Executive Chairman and founder of Nikola Motors. You can find links to the podcast here: https://twitter.com/icapulet/status/1284881956509974529

Here's what I've got so far:

• Milton admits Fuel Cells are "many times" less efficient than BEVs.
• He's focused on costs, not efficiency.
• Problem has been that hydrogen produced via electrolysis (the only way to create it with renewable energy) is expensive, like $16/kg. He claims Nikola has that cost down to $3/kg and that $4/kg is cost parity with diesel.
• First claim is that by working with Nel ASA they have standardized hydrogen creation such that the cost of the station is now $15 Million. They are not transporting the hydrogen - they intend to make it at the refueling stations.
• Second claim is that since the main contributor to the cost per kilogram is the cost of electricity, Milton has done deals with the main producers, like TVA, to buy energy off of the big federal transmission lines, bypassing utilities. AND, since they structure the deal so they only take electricity when the generator has excess energy and don't take any when the generator sees a surge in demand, Nikola is essentially acting as a generation buffer, which has great value to the generator. Thus, the electricity they get is very cheap, sometimes free. Overall he says their cost will be $0.02 to $0.04 per kWh.
• He claims they can do this since they're not in the urban areas dealing with utilities. No demand charges, for instance.
• He claims "the majority is all clean," but a few minutes earlier he was bashing BEV charging as having a dirty source.
  
• He also claims that if Tesla were to try to do this electricity arbitrage with battery storage instead of hydrogen storage it'd cost them too much. He points to needing the equivalent of each truck's battery in the charging station, and then replacing the truck battery every 3 years and the stationary battery every 5-6 years since capacity would be reduced by 30% after 2K-3K cycles for the truck and 4k-6k cycles for stationary. He says he's using Tesla's own battery life numbers for this. He talked about 10 trucks fast charging in a hour needing 20mW of power, which would result in big demand charges. Again, this can only be in rural environments, which is great for trucking anyway.
• Tesla's superchargers today charge about $0.26/kWh. They have to do that because of demand and other charges, even though the cost of electricity is less than half that. He did note that Tesla claimed $0.07/kWh to Semitruck owners.

The one advantage for hydrogen that IS real is the weight savings. Batteries are heavy and take away from the carrying capacity of the Semi trucks.

BTW, the first routes appear to be for Anheuser-Busch for hundreds of trucks on the same routes. He wouldn't say exactly what routes, but he did say close to HQ (Phoenix) and later did mention Los Angeles to Phoenix. He mentioned 18 months away from having stations on 2 routes.

And again, Nikola is not just selling trucks. They're selling usage of the trucks at a per mile cost. So, Milton says they will make money not just on the trucks, but on the hydrogen they're selling to Anheuser-Busch, who is nonetheless happy since the cost to them is less than what they pay for diesel trucks and fuel.

Nikola needs a ton of money to build this hydrogen generation/refueling infrastructure in addition to building the trucks. Beyond that, though, someone needs to work the numbers here. My instinct says the "multiple times" efficiency penalty of hydrogen is not overcome by the cost savings of electricity used to produce hydrogen, especially at the cost of those hydrogen generation stations, which is far less than any electrolysis generation station today costs.

The podcast is getting into the financials, the SPAC, him being forced to step down as CEO, etc.

When He's getting energy may only be half the time.. Therefore there would be a doubling of production systems to meet his production needs. His equipment may only be utilized half the time.

 

[smorgasbord]

Just started listening to TeslaCharts interview of Trevor Milton, Executive Chairman and founder of Nikola Motors. You can find links to the podcast here: https://twitter.com/icapulet/status/1284881956509974529

Here's what I've got so far:

• Milton admits Fuel Cells are "many times" less efficient than BEVs.
• He's focused on costs, not efficiency.
• Problem has been that hydrogen produced via electrolysis (the only way to create it with renewable energy) is expensive, like $16/kg. He claims Nikola has that cost down to $3/kg and that $4/kg is cost parity with diesel.
• First claim is that by working with Nel ASA they have standardized hydrogen creation such that the cost of the station is now $15 Million. They are not transporting the hydrogen - they intend to make it at the refueling stations.
• Second claim is that since the main contributor to the cost per kilogram is the cost of electricity, Milton has done deals with the main producers, like TVA, to buy energy off of the big federal transmission lines, bypassing utilities. AND, since they structure the deal so they only take electricity when the generator has excess energy and don't take any when the generator sees a surge in demand, Nikola is essentially acting as a generation buffer, which has great value to the generator. Thus, the electricity they get is very cheap, sometimes free. Overall he says their cost will be $0.02 to $0.04 per kWh.
• He claims they can do this since they're not in the urban areas dealing with utilities. No demand charges, for instance.
• He claims "the majority is all clean," but a few minutes earlier he was bashing BEV charging as having a dirty source.
  
• He also claims that if Tesla were to try to do this electricity arbitrage with battery storage instead of hydrogen storage it'd cost them too much. He points to needing the equivalent of each truck's battery in the charging station, and then replacing the truck battery every 3 years and the stationary battery every 5-6 years since capacity would be reduced by 30% after 2K-3K cycles for the truck and 4k-6k cycles for stationary. He says he's using Tesla's own battery life numbers for this. He talked about 10 trucks fast charging in a hour needing 20mW of power, which would result in big demand charges. Again, this can only be in rural environments, which is great for trucking anyway.
• Tesla's superchargers today charge about $0.26/kWh. They have to do that because of demand and other charges, even though the cost of electricity is less than half that. He did note that Tesla claimed $0.07/kWh to Semitruck owners.

The one advantage for hydrogen that IS real is the weight savings. Batteries are heavy and take away from the carrying capacity of the Semi trucks.

BTW, the first routes appear to be for Anheuser-Busch for hundreds of trucks on the same routes. He wouldn't say exactly what routes, but he did say close to HQ (Phoenix) and later did mention Los Angeles to Phoenix. He mentioned 18 months away from having stations on 2 routes.

And again, Nikola is not just selling trucks. They're selling usage of the trucks at a per mile cost. So, Milton says they will make money not just on the trucks, but on the hydrogen they're selling to Anheuser-Busch, who is nonetheless happy since the cost to them is less than what they pay for diesel trucks and fuel.

Nikola needs a ton of money to build this hydrogen generation/refueling infrastructure in addition to building the trucks. Beyond that, though, someone needs to work the numbers here. My instinct says the "multiple times" efficiency penalty of hydrogen is not overcome by the cost savings of electricity used to produce hydrogen, especially at the cost of those hydrogen generation stations, which is far less than any electrolysis generation station today costs.

The podcast is getting into the financials, the SPAC, him being forced to step down as CEO, etc.

I think the first step is to get Nikola to say what their cost per mile is. Tesla has come out at $1.26/mile all-in (leasing, maintenance, fueling, etc.), as a Musk "worst-case" and he says Diesel is $1.51/mile.

There may be some detraction is that the Tesla Semi capacity is less than a fuel cell truck's capacity since the battery takes away from the cargo capacity, so one needs to figure out the cost per pound of cargo per mile.

Watch the Semi video here: Tesla Semi

Of course, he said in 2017: "Order now and get the truck in 2 years, 2019."

 

[wipster]

Elon on Twitter “Lots to talk about”
View attachment 566454

 

[Mo City]

I was concerned how the futures market would start because of the steady stream of near-apocalyptic news this weekend about the economy and COVID.

So far so good. Flat is fine.

 

[HG Wells]

I was concerned how the futures market would start because of the steady stream of near-apocalyptic news this weekend about the economy and COVID.

So far so good. Flat is fine.

Darn, Darn, Darn.
I've got so many SPY puts. Can't believe we haven't had a correction yet.

 

[Artful Dodger]

The inventory has greatly reduced, prices are slowly rising, only models with less desirable color options are left. Might be seasonal, but I’d say I’ve seen a steady trend since Q1 earnings. Model X with 6 seat config are all but gone, 22 inch wheel selection is sparse now. Model S selection is shrinking. When a popular configuration comes up it’s gone within a day.

My theory is Tesla is thinning inventory in advance of a 'step-change' in the product lineup sometime around mid2late Sep. Don't want to have to move remaindered at a discount like after Raven.

 

[Subhuman]

Tesla has already stated that the monthly FSD service will cost more than buying it outright. I estimate that the monthly subscription will be closer to $200/month (with a minimum 12 month commitment, ~$350/month without.)

If you are leasing having FSD as part of the lease will always be the cheapest option.

I hope the pricing is no where near what you are suggesting at least early on. The only way $200-$350 a month makes any sense is using your Vehicle as a robo-taxiway.

Some people won’t want to do that or won’t have the ability to do that. $200-$350 a month is a car payment for many people.

 

[pz1975]

An overview of the current state of FSD, and how much of a commute it can do for you. Turns out, almost everything but dirt roads and turns.

Does this reflect the experience of TMC members who own Teslas with FSD package?

Darn, Darn, Darn.
I've got so many SPY puts. Can't believe we haven't had a correction yet.

SPY will drop as soon as we no longer expect it to anymore - right after you sell your puts for a loss!

 

[StealthP3D]

Just started listening to TeslaCharts interview of Trevor Milton, Executive Chairman and founder of Nikola Motors. You can find links to the podcast here: https://twitter.com/icapulet/status/1284881956509974529

Here's what I've got so far:

• Milton admits Fuel Cells are "many times" less efficient than BEVs.
• He's focused on costs, not efficiency.
• Problem has been that hydrogen produced via electrolysis (the only way to create it with renewable energy) is expensive, like $16/kg. He claims Nikola has that cost down to $3/kg and that $4/kg is cost parity with diesel.
• First claim is that by working with Nel ASA they have standardized hydrogen creation such that the cost of the station is now $15 Million. They are not transporting the hydrogen - they intend to make it at the refueling stations.
• Second claim is that since the main contributor to the cost per kilogram is the cost of electricity, Milton has done deals with the main producers, like TVA, to buy energy off of the big federal transmission lines, bypassing utilities. AND, since they structure the deal so they only take electricity when the generator has excess energy and don't take any when the generator sees a surge in demand, Nikola is essentially acting as a generation buffer, which has great value to the generator. Thus, the electricity they get is very cheap, sometimes free. Overall he says their cost will be $0.02 to $0.04 per kWh.
• He claims they can do this since they're not in the urban areas dealing with utilities. No demand charges, for instance.
• He claims "the majority is all clean," but a few minutes earlier he was bashing BEV charging as having a dirty source.
  
• He also claims that if Tesla were to try to do this electricity arbitrage with battery storage instead of hydrogen storage it'd cost them too much. He points to needing the equivalent of each truck's battery in the charging station, and then replacing the truck battery every 3 years and the stationary battery every 5-6 years since capacity would be reduced by 30% after 2K-3K cycles for the truck and 4k-6k cycles for stationary. He says he's using Tesla's own battery life numbers for this. He talked about 10 trucks fast charging in a hour needing 20mW of power, which would result in big demand charges. Again, this can only be in rural environments, which is great for trucking anyway.
• Tesla's superchargers today charge about $0.26/kWh. They have to do that because of demand and other charges, even though the cost of electricity is less than half that. He did note that Tesla claimed $0.07/kWh to Semitruck owners.

The one advantage for hydrogen that IS real is the weight savings. Batteries are heavy and take away from the carrying capacity of the Semi trucks.

BTW, the first routes appear to be for Anheuser-Busch for hundreds of trucks on the same routes. He wouldn't say exactly what routes, but he did say close to HQ (Phoenix) and later did mention Los Angeles to Phoenix. He mentioned 18 months away from having stations on 2 routes.

And again, Nikola is not just selling trucks. They're selling usage of the trucks at a per mile cost. So, Milton says they will make money not just on the trucks, but on the hydrogen they're selling to Anheuser-Busch, who is nonetheless happy since the cost to them is less than what they pay for diesel trucks and fuel.

Nikola needs a ton of money to build this hydrogen generation/refueling infrastructure in addition to building the trucks. Beyond that, though, someone needs to work the numbers here. My instinct says the "multiple times" efficiency penalty of hydrogen is not overcome by the cost savings of electricity used to produce hydrogen, especially at the cost of those hydrogen generation stations, which is far less than any electrolysis generation station today costs.

The podcast is getting into the financials, the SPAC, him being forced to step down as CEO, etc.

Did he explain how their hydrogen powered truck for the consumer market, the Honey Pot Badger is going to get fuel in a financially viable and ecologically friendly manner?

 

[HG Wells]

SPY will drop as soon as we no longer expect it too anymore - right after you sell your puts for a loss!

I see a way around that.
I will write a letter to my broker telling him to sell all my puts.
Then I will ask my wife to post it.
Just like the bills, it will sit in her car for a week before arriving at post office.

Result. I will make a ton of money!

 

[willow_hiller]

I hope the pricing is no where near what you are suggesting at least early on. The only way $200-$350 a month makes any sense is using your Vehicle as a robo-taxiway.

Some people won’t want to do that or won’t have the ability to do that. $200-$350 a month is a car payment for many people.

There was a spin-off thread made to discuss this outside of the roundtable, because it's a bit controversial: Subscription model (FSD etc.)

But the last time I spoke to a Tesla advisor about this (with the usual caveats of advisors not knowing all internal workings), he said that he believed the FSD subscription would be month-to-month, cancel any time.

So you can compare the monthly subscription price to the price of a long-distance train/bus ticket. I can imagine someone paying $200 for a month they're planning a long road-trip.

 

[Watts_Up]

Just started listening to TeslaCharts interview of Trevor Milton, Executive Chairman and founder of Nikola Motors. You can find links to the podcast here: https://twitter.com/icapulet/status/1284881956509974529

Here's what I've got so far:

• Milton admits Fuel Cells are "many times" less efficient than BEVs.
• He's focused on costs, not efficiency.
• Problem has been that hydrogen produced via electrolysis (the only way to create it with renewable energy) is expensive, like $16/kg. He claims Nikola has that cost down to $3/kg and that $4/kg is cost parity with diesel.
• First claim is that by working with Nel ASA they have standardized hydrogen creation such that the cost of the station is now $15 Million. They are not transporting the hydrogen - they intend to make it at the refueling stations.
• Second claim is that since the main contributor to the cost per kilogram is the cost of electricity, Milton has done deals with the main producers, like TVA, to buy energy off of the big federal transmission lines, bypassing utilities. AND, since they structure the deal so they only take electricity when the generator has excess energy and don't take any when the generator sees a surge in demand, Nikola is essentially acting as a generation buffer, which has great value to the generator. Thus, the electricity they get is very cheap, sometimes free. Overall he says their cost will be $0.02 to $0.04 per kWh.
• He claims they can do this since they're not in the urban areas dealing with utilities. No demand charges, for instance.
• He claims "the majority is all clean," but a few minutes earlier he was bashing BEV charging as having a dirty source.
  
• He also claims that if Tesla were to try to do this electricity arbitrage with battery storage instead of hydrogen storage it'd cost them too much. He points to needing the equivalent of each truck's battery in the charging station, and then replacing the truck battery every 3 years and the stationary battery every 5-6 years since capacity would be reduced by 30% after 2K-3K cycles for the truck and 4k-6k cycles for stationary. He says he's using Tesla's own battery life numbers for this. He talked about 10 trucks fast charging in a hour needing 20mW of power, which would result in big demand charges. Again, this can only be in rural environments, which is great for trucking anyway.
• Tesla's superchargers today charge about $0.26/kWh. They have to do that because of demand and other charges, even though the cost of electricity is less than half that. He did note that Tesla claimed $0.07/kWh to Semitruck owners.

The one advantage for hydrogen that IS real is the weight savings. Batteries are heavy and take away from the carrying capacity of the Semi trucks.

BTW, the first routes appear to be for Anheuser-Busch for hundreds of trucks on the same routes. He wouldn't say exactly what routes, but he did say close to HQ (Phoenix) and later did mention Los Angeles to Phoenix. He mentioned 18 months away from having stations on 2 routes.

And again, Nikola is not just selling trucks. They're selling usage of the trucks at a per mile cost. So, Milton says they will make money not just on the trucks, but on the hydrogen they're selling to Anheuser-Busch, who is nonetheless happy since the cost to them is less than what they pay for diesel trucks and fuel.

Nikola needs a ton of money to build this hydrogen generation/refueling infrastructure in addition to building the trucks. Beyond that, though, someone needs to work the numbers here. My instinct says the "multiple times" efficiency penalty of hydrogen is not overcome by the cost savings of electricity used to produce hydrogen, especially at the cost of those hydrogen generation stations, which is far less than any electrolysis generation station today costs.

The podcast is getting into the financials, the SPAC, him being forced to step down as CEO, etc.

Thanks for the summary.
Basically mostly some common sense (Battery weight...) and speculation (estimated Hy cost but not including investment, maintenance...).

Certainly the most interesting point is the local production of Hydrogen using unused energy available.

Looking for example at the Anheuser-Busch Fairfield, CA location, there are two windmill towers and a field of solar panels.
It is conceivable that there could be overproduction of electricity that could be used instead of sending it to the grid.
There are many similar example over the world of using Hydrogen as an energy storage of surplus or low cost energy by-product.​

However, most of the Hydrogen produced is extracted from Methane (CH4).

It would be in fact simple to use Methane than Hydrogen (this is what SpaceX uses now in rockets).
The recuperation of the Carbon is only the issue for getting a clean energy.​

It would be interesting to evaluate the long term cost (like 20 years, one million miles...) between BEV and Fuell-Cell.

- Battery cost ($100 / kWh), 3 years life time battery, 6 years of storage usability, lithium-ion recycling saving...
- Cost of the distribution of electricity from production to usage is negligible (mostly cost of a transformer at the end point).​

versus

- Generating pure Hydrogen is costly when extracted from Methane.
- Fuel-Cells cost, also Fuel-Cells have to be replaced quite often...
- Compressed Hydrogen requires high pressure pumps (700 bar, 10.000 psi).
- Storage tanks (vehicles and ground) needs to be re-certified or replaced regularly.
- Transport of Hydrogen is costly (liquefaction at cryogenic temperature: 20.28 K; −252.87 °C; −423.17 °F).

​

 

[ZeApelido]

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More ratings here

 

[Prunesquallor]

I suspect the calculation depends upon the number of EVs that FCA was able to ship in Q2 due to the existance of "Super Credits" (double-counting some first portion of EVs made by a manufacturer). @Prunesquallor did extensive research and may be able to point at his previous comments to help refresh our memories.

Other issues with the nature of this 'pool' contract are:

• whether it's depends solely on the number of vehicles Tesla delivers up to the agreed upon limit
• if it also allows FCA to decrease its payments if they themselves sell fewer petrol powered units total (as we'd expect during this Covid outbreak).

Cheers!

I’m trying to reconcile my model with some new Q1 data I found. I’m missing something somewhere. Still head scratching.

 

[Fred42]

And again, Nikola is not just selling trucks. They're selling usage of the trucks at a per mile cost.

Is Nikola responsible for maintenance and repair of the trucks? So the cost to the customer of excessive maintenance and repair is just the downtime of the truck?

 

[Off Shore]

Thanks for the summary.
Basically mostly some common sense (Battery weight...) and speculation (estimated Hy cost but not including investment, maintenance...).

Certainly the most interesting point is the local production of Hydrogen using unused energy available.

Looking for example at the Anheuser-Busch Fairfield, CA location, there are two windmill towers and a field of solar panels.
It is conceivable that there could be overproduction of electricity that could be used instead of sending it to the grid.
There are many similar example over the world of using Hydrogen as an energy storage of surplus or low cost energy by-product.​

However, most of the Hydrogen produced is extracted from Methane (CH4).

It would be in fact simple to use Methane than Hydrogen (this is what SpaceX uses now in rockets).
The recuperation of the Carbon is only the issue for getting a clean energy.​

It would be interesting to evaluate the long term cost (like 20 years, one million miles...) between BEV and Fuell-Cell.

- Battery cost ($100 / kWh), 3 years life time battery, 6 years of storage usability, lithium-ion recycling saving...
- Cost of the distribution of electricity from production to usage is negligible (mostly cost of a transformer at the end point).​

versus

- Generating pure Hydrogen is costly when extracted from Methane.
- Fuel-Cells cost, also Fuel-Cells have to be replaced quite often...
- Compressed Hydrogen requires high pressure pumps (700 bar, 10.000 psi).
- Storage tanks (vehicles and ground) needs to be re-certified or replaced regularly.
- Transport of Hydrogen is costly (liquefaction at cryogenic temperature: 20.28 K; −252.87 °C; −423.17 °F).

​

But Hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth!

Edit: /s

 

[M|S|M MYP]

I was concerned how the futures market would start because of the steady stream of near-apocalyptic news this weekend about the economy and COVID.

So far so good. Flat is fine.

TSLA should continue the ride up this week barring any negative macros in the market....The real fireworks begin after Market close on Wednesday.....Good luck to all us longs!

 

[traxila]

I was concerned how the futures market would start because of the steady stream of near-apocalyptic news this weekend about the economy and COVID.

So far so good. Flat is fine.

This steady stream has been continuous for months now. Market doesn’t care.

Not yet anyway.

 

[SpaceCash]

Wait, what? TSLAQ is long NKLA?
View attachment 566159
I thought they finally find something that really has everything they are accusing Tesla with?

Now they learned not to short anymore?

DAWG LMAO!!!

.

I do my honest best not to offend those of faith. I believe they have a fundamental right to practice their faith, and to proselytize. In a real sense I envy those of faith, I can only imagine that there is a real security in their belief.

I too, believe that I possess those same fundamental rights. When someone argues that they have an invisible friend in the sky, I am compelled to cry bullshit.

Try DMT brother, it cuts through all the BS and lets you communicate directly with the reptilians, which is INVALUABLE for playing the markets let me tell ya

okay fine
i give up - my very last post ever
you guys win
i am leaving TMC fpr good- forever
i just made $5 million in less than an hour
i guarantee i will be richer than all of you combined within 5 years
goodbye!
$tsla

---

Mod: I'll give you a hand with that, I think almost everyone is fed up with the chest-thumping and bullying.

I used to think u were alright, you're doing the "abrasive-yet-loveable-personality-shtick" wrong, man

 

[smorgasbord]

...
However, most of the Hydrogen produced is extracted from Methane (CH4).

It would be in fact simple to use Methane than Hydrogen (this is what SpaceX uses now in rockets).
The recuperation of the Carbon is only the issue for getting a clean energy.​

It would be interesting to evaluate the long term cost (like 20 years, one million miles...) between BEV and Fuell-Cell.

- Battery cost ($100 / kWh), 3 years life time battery, 6 years of storage usability, lithium-ion recycling saving...
- Cost of the distribution of electricity from production to usage is negligible (mostly cost of a transformer at the end point).​

Producing from natural gas via steam reforming of methane is a place Milton can't go to. He's been a big talker about Nikola being good for the environment, etc. He even goes so far as to say that the electricity Nikola is getting from the "federal transmission lines" is very clean, whereas the electricity Tesla and Tesla owners are getting from the grid is not clean at all.

As for long-term cost, that's not been discussed. Those kind of arguments don't sway people. We're far too short-sighted.