Jim Chanos has decided to close down his hedge fund operation. I wonder if this decision is connected to him losing essentially all of his assets? Imagine trying to start a car company. How many car companies have failed? Answer: All of them have failed since Chrysler in 1925 and essentially all of them were building vehicles which use the gasoline distribution network. Even Chrysler would have failed, were it not for the government bailout in 2009. Tesla built a global auto manufacturer while also building a global charging network. Imagine sitting in on that venture capital pitch meeting? Elon put $70M of his own money into Tesla for a total capitalization of 187M in 2009 (Note the bolded "M"). Nikola raised 12B and was partnered with GM. Look what they have to show for it. GM decided they would go bankrupt trying to electrify so they are sending all manufacturing to China where they will partner with Chinese companies. GM can't make it happen and they have both a massive financial resource and a lack of short sellers like Jim Chanos operating media smear campaigns against the brand and against the company. I don't think people realize what Elon Musk did at Tesla. He pulled the sword from the stone. He flapped his wings and flew through the air. Tesla is the ultimate Cinderella story. Earlier in the Jim Chanos short selling trajectory, Elon was extremely and publicly frustrated. Someone was operating a campaign of lies against a small, upstart, car company with the purpose of driving Tesla out of business. Meanwhile, Elon has been attacked by the SEC for saying things that are either true or, at least, cannot be proven false while the SEC has taken zero interest in Jim Chanos or others who have attacked Tesla with objectively false statements. It's been quite a ride. Jim Chanos isn't the only one ground up in the armature of the Tesla motor. The entire global auto industry has lost the lead and is reacting to Tesla.
Consider this: Ford built their first car in 1896. In 127 years, they have achieved a market capitalization of $40B. Tesla did not build a car in 2003 but they did form a loose alliance and literally did nothing before Elon and JB Straubel came along a year later and moved them in the direction of building a car based on work done by AC Propulsion. Elon became CEO of Tesla in 2008 (15 years ago). In 20 years since inception, Tesla has achieved a market capitalization of $756B. Elon started as CEO in 2008 with a company that would have gone bankrupt, had he not injected every penny of his personal capital. Is Elon Musk 20 times better at being CEO than the group of people Ford has placed at the helm of their company? It appears to me, Elon is far more than 20x better than the group of Ford CEOs over the same time period. I estimate the gap is closer to 2000x better. 2008 Elon Musk: "Electric vehicles are the future." Everyone else: "EVs don't work plus they are the ugliest cars ever made." Elon Musk: "Batteries will be the primary problem of building EV in volume. We must create capacity and partner with key players to avoid being priced out or supply constrained out of the market." Everyone else: "Kroger has plenty of batteries on the shelf at the till." Elon Musk: "We are going to innovate in every space we operate in." Everyone else: "The auto sector has been around for a century and cannot be appreciably improved."
VW is also moving production to China and laying off German workers. This is their admission they cannot compete with Tesla.
Things look dire for Mazda but I believe they still have a chance of success, despite pretending electric vehicles did not exist until a few months ago. I was surprised to learn a couple of pro Tesla analysts predict near term bankruptcy for Mazda. I'm not up to speed on Mazda, to say the least, so these analysts might be correct. Certainly, don't take my word for it.
Toyota continues to push hydrogen over BEV, despite the Japanese government nearly begging them to take BEV seriously.
Batteries are getting cheaper quickly. We have passed the threshold of batteries being cheaper than ICE drive trains. If I was an ICE car manufacturer, I don't think I would relish the prospect of converting my product line to BEV under pressure of reduced competitiveness of ICE. It only gets worse from here.
What about this solid state battery 900 mile range and 15 min charge. Wait for that before buying a electric vehicle.
Tesla's global production rate currently sits at 2.8M annual units and they have plenty of room to scale.
I'm waiting for a 1000 mile battery that recharges using methane collected from the bottom of the driver's seat.
It's criminal they have not released a fully electric Sienna. I would buy one tomorrow for my family. Idiots.
That's a shame because they have some of the best looking cars on the road. And that red soul paint. Drool!
How about a fully hydrogen Sienna? Hydrogen is the future. Toyota is going to release it any day now and battery electric vehicles will be obsolete. I hope its clear I'm being facetious. There is a reason hydrogen hasn't happened. In all the years it promised to kill BEV. Hydrogen is on the same level as the 1000 mile batter. One day, it might happen.
Until I can recharge/refill a hydrogen auto in my driveway each night, it'll never be attractive to me. Might as well stay with gas.
Something significant seems to be changing at Giga Shanghai. The logistics of the Shanghai operation are heavily reshaping toward the export market. Perhaps some people aren't aware that Giga Shanghai is only a coupe of kilometers from the pier where Tesla ships cars overseas. They had a significant export operation. They are moving toward a massive export operation. What I suspect we are seeing is an imploding Chinese economy. The domestic market can no longer absorb the output of Giga Shanghai so this product flow is being vectored internationally. The pier Tesla uses is being massively increased in size. As well as this, the bridge from pier to shore is being twinned. This is the sort of effort required to export massive volumes of cars. A crude speculative forecast might look like this: They can probably comfortably ship cars about twice per week; that is 104 loading operations per year. The biggest auto carrier ship can handle 6000 cars. That is an annual handle of 600,000 vehicles or about half of Giga Shanghai output. That would keep Giga Shanghai profitable, even if domestic consumption fell to 0. Based on watching video of car loading, I think they can load about 8 vehicles per minute average. That would put them at 12~13 hours to load a ship; a reasonable time frame. It is clear that Tesla could vector 100% of Giga Shanghai production into the East China Sea, if necessary.
Tom, do you still think we will go 100% EV in the future? I don't think that is ever happening. Certainly not in 20 years. I am hearing that China is the leader in EVs. Certainly, they are way ahead of Ford/GM/Stellantis. So it is clear to me that the US has little interest in pushing us toward EVs. Even if EVs are demonstrably better than gasoline cars (cf marijuana being illegal while millions were smoking cigarettes). There is no way we will hand another country the lead in an industry the size of automobiles. The US used to handle China with kiddie gloves, back when they thought they could lead China to a capitalist democracy. But those days are through. Beyond that theory, there are still issues with EVs. People who live in condos cannot charge at home. So they will need to go find a public charger. Others as well will probably want to use public chargers, especially if they are free. Charging their EVs in the daytime will be putting a strain on electric grids. The whole fantasy was people would plug their car into an outlet overnight, but the reality is not everyone can do that. When you account for the lithium needed to power the battery and the energy grid use to charge it, EVs are involved in as much greenhouse gas production as gasoline cars, particularly large EVs where the battery itself can weigh as much as a Toyota Corolla. If you really want EVs to be responsible for fewer greenhouse gases, you will need to avoid large EVs, which is demanding a lifestyle change for many Americans. Used EVs < Used gasoline cars. There's two aspects to this. One is the price. A used gasoline car can be had for a couple grand. Whereas a used EV has something under the hood that is very different. The electric battery costs at least $20,000. How long does an electric battery last? We will be getting real world data in the next decade. It doesn't matter what condition the used EV is in, you need to beware that once the battery goes, you will be paying the price of a brand new car to get back on the road. Bottom line, do not buy used EVs because you have no idea how much longer the battery will last. The other aspect of used EVs < used gasoline cars is a rather minor one for us: used cars are very popular in third world countries. Those countries do not have Supercharger Networks (TM). So...it looks like gasoline cars will at least have one market there. Not a desirable one, but this is another issue for getting everyone to switch to EVs.
I have never thought we would but I believe it will slam hard in the EV direction over a short period of time. The conversion will happen too quickly, there will be massive after shocks, and legacy auto will continue to put significant effort into making the worst possible electric products.
BTW, phase 3 at Giga Shanghai resumed a couple of days ago. Elon put the brakes on expansion for about a year but it's back on in Shanghai. I believe the massive port expansion serves two purposes. First, it allows Giga Shanghai to remain viable during the Chinese economic Armageddon. The west does not realize how bad it is there. Second, it will allow Tesla to market their $25K EV to the world. Satellite pics have been obscured by clouds in the winter season but long range ground photos showed work started a couple of days ago. I don't have any information from other expansion projects at this time.
I haven't mentioned the CATL Shanghai plant build in a while. It is nearly done and I believe it is not operational but is beginning to tool. An oddly large number of Teslas are parked there.
