They were giddy as hell that's for sure, kinda like high school boys who had... well nevermind. But I agree, I can't wait to see the dish they're cooking! I still want a 420 mile S.
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
Carl Raymond
Active Member
There are 3000+ posts to this thread this year. Sure, some contain info Tesla should read and consider, especially comments made by polymaths such as yourself.
Where it gets tiresome however is with posts on items of obvious high level of consideration, such as:
Should Tesla advertise
Should they produce such and such model next
Should they go full Maxwell before talking about it
Pricing strategy
Priority of mission relative to share price
I happily accept that on the big things, these issues are thoroughly understood and properly analysed by those with all the inside knowledge and all the numbers. Tesla got so much right that nobody else got right, they deserve the benefit of any doubt.
Interesting. I don't read body language well. It seems that getting into mining is an "unavoidable", which would explain the body language.
Mining's a business full of shady characters -- I wouldn't want to get into it either. But there's some mineral where the supply chain just isn't building itself, even though there are plenty of deposits -- either lithium or cobalt, probably. They may simply flat out have to finance one or more of the mining operations, and I think Musk doesn't like it, but they'll do what they gotta do. The smallest one (Pure Energy) seems to only need $300 million in financing. Most of the others were half a billion to a billion.
Well, I listed off the known benefits.
Maxwell believes that they can, right now, increase gravimetric and volumetric density -- which essentially increases range and cuts cost per kwh. This is because the dry electrode techology avoids a certain sort of "waste" which is deposited in the cell during the solvent / drying process and is essentially deadweight -- I forget the details, someone else can remind us.
(Maxwell has demonstrated 300 Wh/kg, vs. Tesla's current 207 Wh/kg, but that is probably with a different or more expenisve chemistry -- if it isn't, then that's effectively a 50% range increase and 33% cost reduction per kWh.)
They also believe that they can cut the cost of the electrodes (per cell) by "10%-20%+" which is an additional cost reduction. (I'm not sure what percentage of the cell cost is the electrodes.)
Maxwell thinks they can reduce the area used for electrode production to 1/16 of what the "wet electrode" process uses, saving vast quantities of factory space. And the capital costs of new lines will be much lower than for wet electrode lines.
It's also supposed to double the battery lifetime (in terms of cycles).
In addition, because the line design is so much simpler and less time-consuming, it will definitely improve the cash flow cycle -- less time from "raw materials arrive" to "cell is ready to go in pack".
And it may even improve the line speed -- I'm not sure whether the electrode deposition was a bottleneck or not, but if it was, then it might improve the speed.
If Tesla can get this all up to factory scale in cylindricals (Maxwell's experimental batteries weren't cylinders) then it is a spectacular coup. It will enable 400 mile (or 450 mile) range vehicles which weigh less than the current vehicles, and cost less to produce, and have lower capital costs to set up the lines, and take up less space -- I mean, think about the effect on the cost structure. It's spectacular.
(BTW, if Maxwell's optimistic plans *all* come true, including the "path to 500 Wh/kg", they should be able to make the mythical $20K long-range electric car. But that is too optimistic.)
My prediction was maxwell tech would be in model Y, but they didn’t want to hurt 3 sales by announcing better specs. Then again I’m heavily biased as a probable model Y buyer.
mblakele
FSD Beta (99)
Also adds to the potential toxicity of a fire. I'm sure JB and team are aware of that, but it'll probably seed some FUD.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
I'm not sure what you mean by 'timetable FSD'. During his remarks, Elon said:
- We expect to be feature complete by end of the year
- You'll still need to supervise the autonomy, but it should be able to go from your garage to your parking space at work without intervention
- So then we'll actually put on billions of miles of testing, and then I think probably sometime next year you'll be able to have the car be autonomous without supervision
- And then sometime thereafter we'll be able to convince Regulators that the autonomy is safe enough that the car go around with no one in it.
What do you think, folks?
Cheers!
India is not going to be a large opportunity. Incomes are still quite low and import taxes are punitive for foreign built cars. Also having experienced traffic there I would not want to drive a nice car. Lanes and traffic rules are optional. 2 lane streets have traffic packed 5 lanes wide mixed with 2 wheelers trying to sneak through every free space. Autopilot is useless in that environment. Lots of people drive very small, cheap Indian made cars that lack even airbags. I’d imagine cheap low range EV equivalents of those or EV bikes are the opportunities in India. Both are way below the price point Tesla plays at.
That's fascinating. Would make sense. They're so small at this point that they can't cover all states; they don't have enough capital. Which is the usual insurance company issue, capital.
The street has had a strong belief that there is and will be a supply glut in lithium in the foreseeable future. They think there is too much supply coming online soon. I know, because this view has hurt my portfolio meaningfully since early last year. That Tesla is talking about mining now too is quite interesting to me, although I technically don’t know it would be for lithium.
I’ve unfortunately held my belief that there will still be supply issues and the inability to bring up enough mining capacity in the next few years to satisfy demand.
Luckily I don't think there have been *any* Model 3 fires. Not a single one so far.
I mean, eventually someone will have a Model 3 burn because it's inside a building which is on fire (this happened to a Model S in Canada, IIRC), so it is still an issue, but they seem to have made the pack even more fireproof than on S and X.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Yes, after all the price reductions.
Its foolish to talk about demand without talking ASP.
There has been umpteen posts on this. $1 Million a month will create enough upsell to justify spending that spending.
I think you're right. The reason I haven't invested in lithium is that I have no idea *which* companies are going to get financing. Investing in a lithium miner who does NOT get financed is a pretty bad bet.
I guess the best choice is to invest in TSLA, and thereby be invested in whichever lithium companies they decide to finance.
CalX
Member
I suggest that they use the media relations page to publish rebuttals to FUD, post timestamped requests for information and requestor info, and post timestamped replies and rebuttals
That way articles published that are false can be quickly debunked and writers who don't check or who publish false information despite receiving a prompt response prior publication will be easily identified. Once media gets use to checking this site hopefully it will slow down the propagation of false information. They can use their Tesla Twitter to point it out so that it quickly spreads in the twitterverse. They can advertise one page quick stats on the price, capabilities and other major advancements to promote the Tesla brand. Damage to the brand can have long term consequences that are more worrisome than just demand.
That way articles published that are false can be quickly debunked and writers who don't check or who publish false information despite receiving a prompt response prior publication will be easily identified. Once media gets use to checking this site hopefully it will slow down the propagation of false information. They can use their Tesla Twitter to point it out so that it quickly spreads in the twitterverse. They can advertise one page quick stats on the price, capabilities and other major advancements to promote the Tesla brand. Damage to the brand can have long term consequences that are more worrisome than just demand.
In the short term, I believe Y packs will be literally identical to 3 packs, so in the short term, either (a) no, or (b) they'll be randomly intermixed with non-Maxwell packs.
I am pretty sure the Maxwell tech will end up in ALL the cars eventually. And in all the stationary storage products. The cost reductions are just too extensive. If it really cuts $/kwh as much as it seems to, Tesla will really have no choice but to put it in everything.
They won't do the change immediately because right now the bottleneck is cell production lines, which they can't bring up fast enough, so they'll keep running all the ones they have (and keep buying cells from third parties for Powerwall/Powerpack).
But when the bottleneck on production switches to raw materials (or somewhere other than cell production) it will make sense to shutter the old wet electrode lines and replace them with Maxwell lines while they're trying to sort out the raw materials bottleneck.
I strongly suspect the Maxwell tech will go in Semi first. Then the Pickup, which really needs the extra energy density.
It may actually go into Powerwalls and Powerpacks next because they're more cost-sensitive *and* they need the longer cycle life more than the cars do.
Then into S & X so that they will be more "premium" than 3 and Y.
Then eventually into 3 and Y.
And remember, the new chip was already shipping when they had Autonomy Day. Bodes well for Battery and Powertrain Day!
TACC/ EAP is a lane following feature, besudes lsnes, the car needs to know if there is an obstacle in the road, hence general free space. FSD is not bounded by lanes so it needs to know where the curbs are on turns, and where the shoulder is on a dirt road. Using NN capacity before now on those things may not have been the best use of limited resources.
Only when the down grade contributes more energy than the truck needs to keep moving. Flat, no wind, full load, 60MPH runs around 1.8kWh/mile or 1.8kW. That's a roughly 60 ft drop in a mile or >1% grade. It would be more energy efficient to let speed drop going up the undulation and increase going down it.
They have a lot of events coming up.And remember, the new chip was already shipping when they had Autonomy Day. Bodes well for Battery and Powertrain Day!
Q2 Conference Call, Battery Day, Pickup Reveal. Not sure that Pickup will be as important in changing minds as the other two, but still a lot of events.
Keep in mind that an S or X still cannot charge as fast as a 3. Tesla has shown it isn’t afraid to have some pieces of important tech on their lower end vehicles be better than their higher end ones for at least some non trivial amount of time.
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