If by desperately picking at whatever he can you mean quoting the second bullet point in the summary and a key premise for the entire article, then, yea, we agree.

You're the one fixated on all of the ancillary points in the article and ignoring/accepting the authors baseless assertion that very likely at least 300k reservations will be made the in the first month. Which in turn will lead TSLA to raising 2 billion which they will promptly light on fire attempting to fill all those orders. Which they won't be able to do b/c look at this track record of dismal failures.

I brought up the article for the (many) new news points related to Tesla quietly winding back/delaying its many plans, and its chronicling of the appalling history of failure of Musk's grandiose claims (which is happening again from recent under-the-radar press from Tesla, on everything from Model X to Gigafactory to PowerWall).

I believe you don't understand what the article is saying. The bit you quote is where they're putting forward the best possible case for the bulls (which many bulls have put forward - 100K reservations in the first 24 hours is commonly discussed as it's a refundable $1K per reservation) before going through why even a strong bull argument doesn't negate the large downside factors. There's no trickery - it's very straightforward stuff.

When you say new news points are you referring to sub sections like Where are those 70D Model X's where the underlying premise the majority of the section is based on a fact that is incorrect? I won't hold my breath on Montana Skeptic updating his news article.

Oh hi there. He could just update his article like elecktrek.co did.

Or the other sub section The Model X backlog is rapidly shrinking. where he claims, again without any evidence, that the Model X backlog will be worked through by mid-May. (note how that's contradictory to his other, previously mentioned, sub section where are those 70D Model X's....if Tesla is indeed so close to exhausting it's reservations why has it not allowed an entire class of reservation holders to configure and order their vehicles yet?)

And of course his mid-May reservation exhaust doesn't jive with the facts as we know them: Somewhere between 20-30k Model X reservations; Tesla shipped 208 Model X's in Q4-2015. Tesla issues guidance of Model S + Model X delivers Q1-2016 of 16k vehicles - won't specify what % will be Model X's. Montana's own numbers point to ~2500 X's delivered in Q1. 6 weeks into Q2 Montana Skeptic says no more X reservations left. Implying he thinks 20-30k reservations will actually lead to ~5k orders. MMMkay.

Its really not uncommon for a high end new model to have a lot of issues. The clientele just prioritizes "special" (in its many variants) over reliability.

Bugatti Veyron, costing 10 times as much with even more delays, for example is notoriously unreliable.

Lambos are pretty infamous for 10k+ repair bills on a regular basis too.

Model 3 will almost certainly be using more reliable technology that's been beta tested by Model S already. It will also have fewer features, therefore fewer points of failure.

What are you talking about?

He has been completely incorrect about the company, I don't give a **** about the short term stock price:
- No one has died because of the auto pilot
- Apple talent poaching will kill the company
- Tesla's auto pilot is terribly behind

All of these three things were said to be factors but none of them occured. The stock tanked but recovered. The stock price is at the same level we talked about 4 months ago.

It is obvious that TS is a trader. All of his articles are ****ing morons talking jibberish (obvious typos, terrible sources, stupid assumptions). There is very little value to the business model of those companies. I think he would see through the bull**** of those articles if it wasn't Tesla/Musk-related. He just hates him which is fine but it clouds his judgement.

For example:
That Montana guy said the Gigafactory was delayed by three years. There is no real source for this and the one I can find is just stating the fact that they are changing their strategy because they want to start producing earlier and delay finishing the largest factory in the world by three years. We don't even know the impact of it and if the fact really matters to Tesla's day to day operations.


I don't have a seeking alpha account but I assume the article is the exact same thing as his investigative piece on the Gigafactory.


And the delay and QC issues are very common. grizy pointed them out. I mean VW has a huge ****ing problem at their hands. Every highend company has those problems. The problem is that no one is reading the BMW forums because the stock is a lot more stable. It's a laughable argument and everyone with a little bit of knowledge in the industry knows that this isn't uncommon. It's bad but it isn't a complete killer.

He is referring to his trades. None of which seem to be based on any of the incredibly dumb things he believes about the technology or Tesla in particular. (Still wondering if he is gonna take the 150mp bet or just continue to chest thump his incredibly stupid comments.)

http://electrek.co/2016/03/30/tesla-model-3-specs/

heltok,

Are you aware that usage can influence the battery life significantly? IE actually utilizing that <4s 0-60 or stop and go traffic.

I think Tesla has some great technology in a fundamentally flawed business, but I feel like both sides of the extremists suffer from deep delusions.

NB: How is battery supply looking? I know that the cells are highly constrained in production. Could they even supply that 100-200k they are looking at in a reasonable time?

re: great technology in a fundamentally flawed business; assuming you are talking about BEV's in general, specifically the battery component.

The beauty of an ICE is how cheap the energy storage is. Take a Tesla with a 90kwh battery: currently the storage container -i.e. the battery pack- costs around 42k dollars. (based on Powerwall pricing of ~470$/kwh)We can store the same BTU's of gasoline in a tank with a retail price of <50 dollars. Even adjusting for efficiency of ICE vs electric and using super round numbers of 1 : 4 you can buy an 11 gallon automobile fuel tank for like 100 dollars, actually much less at OEM volumes. What's more, the ICE fuel tank, for all practical purposes, has an unlimited life and unlimited cycles. Fundamentally, that is a huge cost Tesla will have to overcome in the long run to make BEV's a viable alternative.

Thus, the real long term problem for TSLA is battery cost, specifically lifespan and replacement cost. No one really talks about it, at least not relative to its level of importance imo, b/c TSLA offers resale value guarantee and their later models have unlimited mileage 8 year battery warranty iirc. But in the long run TSLA and owners of TSLA cars will eventually have to reconcile battery replacement/reconditioning costs with reality. At current battery pricing the cars will basically become boat anchors - really, really, expensive boat anchors - when the batteries degrade below whatever arbitrary threshold makes them worthless on the secondary market. Again at current pricing and just taking a complete guess of 50% replacement cost you are still looking at nearly 20k for just the pack on a 90kw vehicle. Ummm, no thanks.

Supposedly LG is supplying batteries for the Bolt at around 150kwh, but will those batteries match TSLA's battery performance? (lifespan and charge capacity over cycles) It's already well known Chinese Li-ion batteries can be purchased cheaper then Japanese battery suppliers; but the tradeoff is a much shorter lifespan.

Tesla is doing great things and I wish them the best, and yes I'm a fan. Having said that I have serious reservations and there is no way I would invest my money in them.

eta: US vehicle fleet average age 2014 11.4 years

I am. I assume most of the time people don't care about range since they drive short distances and charge at home.



There has been plenty of talks about it. Tesla are saying $100/kWh by 2020. Lets assume 40kW for the Model 3, that's $4k which is less than the $7.5k subsidies.

Everything I am reading suggests 60kwh for III; that is what the similar size/range Bolt has and if the III has a steel frame 60kwh is all but guaranteed afaik.

Last I looked, best case the full subsidy exists for a little more than 2 full quarters of III production. Any delay in the launch and there is a very real chance that almost zero Model III owners receive full subsidy. Bearing in mind the preference of SpaceX/Tesla employees and current Tesla owners, I wouldn't hold my breath on getting a III that qualifies for the full federal subsidy. Especially if you live outside CA.

As far as 100$/kwh by 2020....that's kind of like my whole point about the obstacle to TSLA needs to overcome. I mean that's a pretty ambitious goal and far from a foregone conclusion. It wouldn't be the first time in history a company was overly optimistic on cost reductions and/or technological improvement. That's better than 4 fold improvement from current prices in as many years. Ambitious and risky imo....that's all I'm saying.

savman,

we need to adjust those prices. As you said, GM has talked about LG offering $145 per kwh. Even if the quality is worse, 3 years from now even the better ones will need to be in that range.

For your calculations to make sense the more expensive batteries would need to be more than 3x as efficient as the "cheap" LG ones. I doubt that this is the case.

First, I don't have any basis in fact to claim the LG batteries are 'cheap' and I don't think I did. All I am saying is it's an error to simply assume the LG batteries will perform as well as the Panasonic/TSLA batteries over the long term. i.e. we should really be talking is $/life_cycle_unit (like mi/km with a time variant included) What we do know is low cost Chinese Li-ion are inferior to the Panasonic batteries in those terms.

Second, even if the LG's are a better value at ~1/3 the retail cost of TSLA/Panasonic that doesn't do you any good if you own a TSLA. TSLA cars take TSLA batteries. Which is my point. Everyone is buying these cars and it's a certainty that the battery will fail before the life cycle of the car. Right now TSLA is bearing most of the risk via resale value guarantee and warranty...but in the long term they have to drastically decrease battery_cost_per_unit_of_travel or it's gg TSLA and by extension owners of TSLA cars.

Yes, I'm hopeful they can bring down battery cost significantly. But all of the numbers I am using are real world what does it cost today; not what we hope it will cost at a date tbd in the future....All I am saying is holy cow that is a huge risk to just assume that I will be able to purchase this critical component which I am sure to need in the future at 1/3 or 1/4 the cost today. That's all I'm saying.

If we were talking incremental progress that would be one thing, but we aren't. 100$/kwh by 2020; I hope so, but consider me skeptical.

I get your argument and see where it's coming from so I don't try to put words in your mouth, sorry if I came across in that manner.

I think the $470/kwh is off given the price point the Model 3 is being sold at. Tesla already has an established relationship with LG. Given those factors I think it's fair to assume that prices in the neighborhood of $200-300 are already realized.

In the end, it doesn't really matter that much and we are arguing about details that distract from the issue of replacing batteries.

Getting some calls ahead of the TSLA event tonight. Small size (a couple of K worth) of this week's 250-270. There's a reasonable chance (10%? 20%?) they knock this out of the park and it short squeezes.

Curious what your plans are going in the Model 3 event, possibly the biggest event TSLA has ever done.

It's moved 13% against you since you shorted. If the event goes well and you get gushing upgrades, or if TSLA has an incredible number of Model 3 deposits announced tomorrow, another short squeeze as happened in years past isn't out of the question.

Given that TSLA a) understand expectations and how the market reacts, very well b) are brilliant at PR c) know how important this event is d) are compulsive liars about both timeframes, features and prices, e) can make/promise a concept car look as impressive as they like and change it later and f) need to raise a lot more capital yet, and that g)the short% of float is very high and the stock is hard to borrow, what are the odds this presentation bombs vs it knocks it out of the park?

So I'm curious where you're positioning here.

Fair enough.

Holy cow @ that line. Looking forward to tonight's unveiling.

Rooting for them to have big success with the Model 3...anything that moves us closer to quality EV vehicles is a big win.

re: lines;

There is an unofficial report how many you think are in line at your Tesla dealer thread over at TMC with a Google Sheets attached.

Current estimate is 21k people in line in the US and Canada.

With the addition of SpaceX/Tesla employees and former Tesla owners who were given early registration privileges, plus the impending tsunami of midnight online reservations, I think it's safe to say we are going to see a pretty strong number in the first day/week reservation tally.

Maybe I was wrong to dismiss 300k in the first month out of hand. Still seems like an enormous number. Who knows.

100k would be an enormous number in terms of magnitude. That's effectively a year of total EV sales in the States...for a car that most likely won't be delivered for 18-24 months. I get the reservations are refundable, but still....that's a LOT of people willing to pony up money for something they don't get for two years.

http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

If they hit something like 300k, that would be insane. Here's hoping it happens. Then ToothSayer can gripe as Musk leverages it into a big money raise event.

The need for a big money raise is the main reason I got calls jal. Musk needs to hit this out of the park tomorrow, get it up to high 200s. The good news train is slowing down after tomorrow, and he needs a ton of capital to make it to Model 3 production, even without counting the Gigafactory which he's massively scaled down already.

Considering that what he's selling is vaporware (any clown can custom build a concept car for a couple of million), he's got a lot of room to BS as well. He's being thrown a softball here.

Elon announces 115k orders in first 24 hours. Online ordering began 90 minutes ago, and 60 of those minutes were a last second rescheduling to avoid server overload. Speechless.