TSLA - Tesla Inc

Is the target price still $4 trillion without all the income from a Supercharger network?

It is a smart move by Tesla to abandon further investment in the Supercharger network. The reason why they started allowing all the other automakers to use the network was to get them to take over paying for it. The network is worthless because it is too slow. Why waste any time recharging all those electric cars that will be on the road in 2030 (lol)? Besides, the electrical grid won't be able to handle everyone recharging in the middle of the day with temperatures rising to 120 degrees by then (lolol). Easier to just take out the whole battery and put in a fresh previous-night-charged one, takes 5 minutes.

I see many problems with the masses owning electric cars, and charging them. They all get solved if we go to a battery subscription system. That is to say, you pay $200 (or whatever) a month and rest assured that you will have a working battery for your car, with replacements done at what-used-to-be-gas-stations, Jiffy Lube, etc.

 

Interesting hypothesis, Advocate. Between your points and the cancellation of the affordable car, I expect they will get out of the EV game and maybe just focus on solar and energy systems.

 

That is one heck of a 180 from your posts from the last few years stating that Tesla was going to outlast most domestic auto manufacturers because they were so slow to catch on and that Tesla has years of R&D/production knowhow to put them ahead.

I sold my stock when I did because I saw the market catching up to Tesla and nothing amazing seemed to be in their pipeline. You are going way beyond that with this post. When you have the chance, could you explain your thought process?

 

I dont really know what is going on in Elon Musks mind but who would trust forbe with the most accurate real time quote of who the richest person in the world is. With over 1000 billionaires in Canada you would think one of them would return the 800 million stolen from BITFARMS capital the past month. I said it before its a great idea crypto but drawing 400 megawatts not too bright. With that said I want to get out of the house of pain. Perhaps the richest man in the world could bring us back to 4 dollars a share. Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy, kramer cracks me up.

 

I have a vast amount of respect for you so, please, allow me to provide the clarification you seek.

Post #3822 cannot be understood outside the context of post #3821. A quick scan of 3821 will reveal made up BS, a comical level of ignorance, and a hysterical conclusion (Note: hysterical *not* used hyperbolically). Basically, someone has not tuned into base reality in the last decade, as a minimum.

I try to be helpful and positive so, in post 3822, I cleaned up the 7/10 split with a high velocity, extreme spin, post. Readers may notice it took only a single sentence to connect the dot of post 3821 to the dot of Tesla getting out of EVs, altogether. To be candid, citing Tesla dropping the affordable EV as "fact" was me showing off. Please accept my apology for the hubris.

To someone who lives in an extremist bubble, the idea that Tesla would exit EVs because they stopped believing in them would seem reasonable.

When I read Tesla news, it hurts my head. People post "facts" that are straight up lies. It's not just the odd outlet doing this.

When is the last time Teslarati posted anything negative about Tesla? Media are either trying to smear Tesla with articles of negativity and doom or they are painting Tesla as the savior of humanity. I try very hard to walk a line between these two positions.

Not clear enough?

- Tesla has stated directly and clearly: The affordable EV has not been cancelled but they may reserve a significant portion of production specifically for lease hold.

- I am not aware that Tesla is getting out of the EV business and, if I were completely honest, I find the idea hilarious. It would be like SpaceX exiting the rocket business to focus on crypto. I'm sure someone is claiming this is the case but a thinking person should instantly know this is facetious.

- I consider Elon Musk to be lost to Q and anger. His decision process is clouded. In his current impaired state, he makes vastly more intelligent decisions than *every* other CEO of *every* other company. He is playing 3 dimensional chess while the rest of the industry is eating gum peeled from the bottom of the meeting tables.

- I currently hold 140 shares of Tesla. This is a purchase I documented a couple of pages back so my buy price and hold time are known. My previous hold was from 2016 to January 2021. Perhaps this provides some insight into my view on Tesla?

 

[rant removed out of respect for member's time]

 

Looks like I struck a nerve. I was just interested in the future vision of the Supercharger network.

To the highest regard, why start now?

Do you still think Toyota is going to go bankrupt?
Do you actually fear climate change?
edit to add: How many seconds until Full Self Driving is released?

 

Transcript in spoiler

Spoiler

One of the problems people have with electric cars is charging time.
0:04
Yes, modern fast chargers can get your car to 80% in about half an hour,
0:08
maybe even a little quicker if you're lucky,
0:09
but that's a long time compared to the three or four minutes
0:13
that it takes to fill up with petrol or diesel.
0:15
So when I first heard there was a car company
0:17
building automated battery swap stations,
0:20
where robots will switch out your car battery
0:22
in just a few minutes, while you stay in the car...
0:25
I assumed it'd be a weird prototype,
0:27
some pie-in-the-sky technology from a university
0:30
that would never become practical.
0:31
But that is a battery swap station,
0:34
right there, open to the public,
0:36
so let's see if it works.
0:37
- Nio has more than 2,100 stations operational in China,
0:43
and the goal is to reach 2,300 by end of year.
0:47
In Europe, we started around two years ago,
0:49
and we have now 30 operational stations.
0:52
In China, every day we have more than 40,000 battery swaps being performed,
0:58
one every two seconds.
1:00
And we have had peaks during holiday season,
1:03
more than 60,000 a day.
1:05
We're not just piloting this, it's already proven at scale.
1:07
- As ever, this is not an advert, they haven't paid me,
1:11
I reached out to them,
1:12
they have just let me borrow a car.
1:14
[Car] "Please press the brake pedal."
1:17
"Nicely done!"
1:19
"Now you can tap to start parking into the Power Swap station."
1:22
- You drive the car in front of the station,
1:24
and once you park in front of the station,
1:26
the car takes over. And it's fully automatic.
1:29
[Car] "We are parking now."
1:31
"Be aware of your surroundings."
1:33
"Do not open any door or take over the steering wheel."
1:37
"You can press the brake panel to control the speed."
1:42
- Nio users, if they want to access the Power Swap network,
1:49
they need to choose "Battery as a Service".
1:51
So that means they don't own the battery,
1:54
they lease the battery,
1:55
and so they can get access to the Power Swap station network.
1:58
You can purchase the battery and the car.
2:01
Or you can purchase the car,
2:02
but choose access to the swapping network.
2:05
You can also just subscribe to both the car and the battery.
2:08
- The idea is that you're not renting or buying a specific battery,
2:12
but you're just paying for there always being a fresh battery in your car.
2:17
Charging is still a cheaper option,
2:18
but there are plenty of people who'll pay a fee for convenience.
2:21
[Car] "Preparing. Please wait."
2:24
- We can serve the same amount of users comparable to a charging hub,
2:29
but we need only one third of the space
2:31
and we need one third of the grid connection
2:33
because we can charge the batteries at their low speed.
2:36
We provide frequency balancing services.
2:39
We charge the batteries at specific points in time
2:44
where there is a need to get rid of all that power and balance the grid.
2:49
- The thing is, I've driven electric cars on long trips before,
2:52
and charging wasn't really a big problem:
2:55
it needs a little more planning than using fossil fuels,
2:57
but turns out, I want to rest
2:59
at about the same interval the car wants charging.
3:02
Folks out there who can drive eight hours in one go...
3:05
good luck, but I am not one of you.
3:07
- The best way to charge a vehicle is at home if you have a socket, right?
3:11
With EV becoming more affordable,
3:13
there are more people who want to access an electric vehicle,
3:16
and don't have the opportunity
3:18
to have a socket close to where they park their car.
3:20
Shanghai, a city with more than 20 million inhabitants,
3:24
people live in big apartments, and so, on-street charging,
3:29
it's much less than in Europe.
3:31
People don't have access to home charging because it's a much more dense city.
3:35
Power Swap offers a great opportunity
3:38
to just leave your home, drive to the station,
3:41
swap your battery and continue your trip.
3:43
- And of course, there is the catch that this battery swap station
3:46
only works for cars that are built for it.
3:48
You can get a Nio battery swapped here,
3:49
but there's no other car on the market that can use this.
3:52
At least, not yet.
3:54
- We have been signing strategic agreements with big groups like Changan and Geely Group.
4:00
We have gained the confidence of also the other auto makers.
4:04
There's a opportunity to standardize this technology,
4:08
in China, but perhaps also in Europe.
4:10
We're going to invest in Battery as a Service.
4:13
And we're going to invest in the Power Swap network.
4:16
If you take the whole economics,
4:18
we do believe that this is better than just selling a car.
4:21
- Plenty of people,
4:22
electric vehicle enthusiasts, stock brokers,
4:24
people who've bought Nio stock,
4:26
have a running analyses on whether the company's financial model will work.
4:29
Building these stations is incredibly expensive,
4:32
and it's no secret that Nio is losing a staggering amount of money right now,
4:35
but that's the way that colossal startup companies
4:38
and finance work these days.
4:39
They hope the initial outlay will be worth it in the end.
4:42
That strategy has paid off for a lot of big corporations...
4:45
and not paid off for many more.
4:47
I looked at a lot of those financial analyses
4:49
while I was researching and my conclusion is:
4:52
I don't know!
4:52
Predicting anything about electric vehicles is almost impossible:
4:55
it's an industry filled with both radical inventions and broken promises.
5:00
I'm just astonished that something I thought was science fiction
5:03
does appear to be an actual real-world option right now...
5:07
and that a robot just swapped out my car battery.

 

Toyota: Yes.
Climate change: Yes

Toyota has crapped the bed. The best thing they have done is adopt the one stroke engine from INN (that is actually a 2 stroke engine).

I am not an automotive engineer, so we all must consider the possibility I am wildly off base, but I am stupefied why everyone isn't jumping on opposed piston technology. Halving the piston speed is wildly compelling from the stand points of both efficiency and emissions (particulates, NOx, and more). I am so nonplussed I have lost all respect for legacy auto.

Even if the efficiency gain is only 10% and if the emissions improvement is only 20%, that would be huge.

There is a cost break where ICE and EV cross paths and EV becomes more affordable. We are just passing that break, right now. Opposed piston engines would likely push that cost break back a few years.

Why are legacy auto so resistant to improvements?

As soon as one company brings opposed piston to market, and assuming the gains are even one quarter those promised, the rest of legacy auto is going to be in big trouble. Given their behavior profile, they will obviously smear and lie about opposed piston engines and do anything they can to discredit them.


Climate change is something I worry about but I'm too old to see it as an existential threat. I believe we will get it under control. It couldn't matter less, what part of climate change is caused by human activity and what part is natural. If the planet becomes inhospitable for life, it will not be ideal for us.

The best thing we can do about climate change is use our heads. If I buy a new vehicle, it will pollute less than my old vehicle but I can achieve far higher than that by simply car pooling with my wife and/or neighbor, as well as making the occasional wise lifestyle choice. We can still drive to the mountains in our two year old Mazda, once or twice per year, without a profound effect. Environment as a product is a straight up lie.

If everyone reduced their carbon footprint 25%, it would be a massive deal and it could be done with little impact to lifestyles. It won't happen but it would be wonderful if it could.

 

FSD is here. AutoPilot v12.1 is a wildly compelling experience. It's also sobering to consider the implications.

 

Elon has said they have shifted from extreme expansion to slow expansion. I see no evidence to suggest this is false information.

 

For those not paying attention, second generation sodium batteries are said to be testing in China with too-good-to-be-true specifications and a $40/KWh price tag.

I understand Tesla has a substantial order for first gen Na-Ion batteries scheduled for delivery late this year. They have been quiet regarding second gen Na-Ion news.

 

Gotcha. I did not pick up on the underlying tone. Thanks for the clarification of this and your subsequent posts.

 

There is a lot of negative spin BS about Tesla and the Cybertruck, right now. It's the most intense I've seen.

The impact these lies have on the market saddens me. A lot of people aren't smart enough to see through it.

A Ford towing a Tesla through mud and snow is not a CyberTruck failure. It's a CyberTruck with crap tires failure. In mud and snow, the vehicle with the best tires wins. That CyberTruck had street tires and crappy ones at that.

I will say this about Tesla: Their wheel program is some metrosexual bullshit. Their performance wheel options are not suitable for use on road. Their CyberTruck wheels are not suitable for use offroad (at least, not around here... maybe adequate at Moab, or something?). Somebody is making decisions based on SoCal aesthetics.

If I bought a Tesla CT or Y, I would literally have to sell or throw out the wheels and replace them with half way reasonable wheels. Part of that is because I'm old and Tesla wheels look stupid to me. A very real part is because their wheels are wrong.

Tesla should be sued. Owners should sue them for selling vehicles with wheels that are inappropriate for the task to which they are intended. Class action.

I used to think a few YouTubers were blowing the issue out of proportion. Of course, they would share their problems but that magnifies any issues and makes things seem worse. Or, so I thought. Then I started working at a power company. Lots of EVs there. Lots of replaced wheels there, also. I mean, a lot. Basically, every one of those Teslas is going to need some replacement wheels in the course of it's life. Guess how many times I've blown out tires in pot holes in my Volkswagen Jetta? Yeah. Zero.

So, forget about the CyberTruck getting stuck in the snow. Put the Ford wheels on the Tesla and the Tesla wheels on the Ford and the CT would be doing the towing.

 

Water engine on the move for the first time in history: breaks power records and is better than hydrogen
No more hydrogen with the first water fuel in history: 1000 km range and 15 times more powerful batteries
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/water-engine-first-time/674/

 

I'll put that on the list of Tesla killers, in the comedy section.