It is only a high quality post if you assume a perfectly spherical cow and can simply ignore things like space required for logistics, empty space/access roads required between fields of solar panels to dissipate heat island effects, transmission and storage loss, actual effective land available for solar panels to produce 1kwh per day, and so on.

Right.....basically if you handwave away everything it would take to actually make it happen it's totally doable!

The main point is not controversial: there's enough land available for the US to go 100% solar today. Same goes for the whole Earth. That doesn't mean you should definitely do it. It means there's enough land.

If your estimate of the area of land required is significantly different (ie. to the extent it would be a prohibitively large amount of land) please share it, ideally with sources. I think mine works out to about 6.6% of the area of California.

Land requirements for 100% solar change do change over time...

You're conflating (a) and (b):

(a) IF you were to go 100% solar, it would require [x] area of land.

(b) You can totally go 100% solar!

The amount of land required for solar is not prohibitive for current energy requirements. That's a fact. Even if you don't like solar (for other reasons) it is still a fact.

There's enough space in the sky for the world to build a vast city among the clouds. Solar roofed muskpods can hover effortlessly, autonomous flying muskmobiles can be the preferred mode of transportation for when the spaceX rocket is in the shop, but only if the muskmobiles IQ is high enough. Muskcoins can be mined by the muskmobile when it is out working to support the family.

*Almost forgot, you get a free ticket to paradise if you buy now because prices aint gonna be this cheap for much longer!

There's enough land available in the US to go 100% fusion power today!
There's enough land available to breed 100,000,000 unicorns!

You're a complete idiot who thinks he's a lot smarter than he actually is. You would do well to realize that while you're still young enough to do something about it.
I have a big clock on my wall. That's a fact. Even if it's not relevant to anything whatsoever being discussed, it's still a fact. <----- This is you in this discussion.

The fact is you got owned hard on your ridiculous gullible claim that
Musk basically downloaded bull**** straight into your gullible brain, and you accepted in uncritically, even parroting Musk lies like a good little cult member. Realizing you got owned hard when I pointed this out, you threw out some stupid red herring about there being ample land in the US for solar. WTF does this have to do with anything other than you wasting people's time trying to save face with a stupid red herring? And the hilarity of that is that your comment was wrong and stupid even then (no, you can't supply 100% of US power needs via solar; the amount of land is irrelevant). So now you're reduced to walking it back through 11 year old sophistry, missing the entire point and further wasting people's time. You're an idiot.

His was a high quality post because he clearly laid out his assumptions and brought sources on the points raised.

I was hoping to induce a response like yours, which although it is very terse, lays out a few points on why his post was flawed. Weird - you almost make it seem like people actually want to share information with each other on here!

Almost every other post on the past 2 pages was just trolling or flaming away at the guy. The kid is 100% correct, a one-liner throwaway from TS how wrong and stupid his post was is totally worthless. I find it weird and disconcerting that people somehow think the past 2 pages represent intellectual discourse. What is clear is that everyone here thinks he's living in a fantasy world-cool guys!

If you or someone else could actually flesh out why solar is impractical/uneconomical, you can save everyone else the next 3 pages of insults and actually help someone who is trying to learn. Don't just tell him he's an idiot and to wake up - wtf is that? One post like that from a knowledgeable person should take less time than the collective time spent insulting him.

Again, I think he's totally wrong on TSLA, but maybe you would help him see the error of his ways and save him a lot of money if you guys weren't such jackasses for no reason.

Why don't you tell me what you think the optimal energy mix is and why?

We might agree on some things.

This comparison is not valid. It compares apples to oranges.

Solar is viable and cost competitive with other forms of power. Fusion is not yet technically or commercially viable.

The levelized cost of energy from new solar plants is comparable (sometimes lower) than coal even if you (incorrectly) price negative externalities at zero . If you correctly price negative externalities solar costs less.

You are wrong.

First, I am clearly agnostic as to the power source. It does not need to be local or solar. Upstream utility scale renewable or nuclear projects consumed by the supercharger would have the same effect with greater efficiency.

Second, I said local solar production is not optimal. It would be better to solve a the utility scale (wind, solar, nuclear, etc). If that happens, and it will, the superchargers become renewable, or at least, non-emitting.

Third, and less important, superchargers have already added some solar power, and batteries, and Tesla's capacity to add to that is increasing, so it's not a ridiculous claim at all.

Your raised the land issue buddy! And you suggested I don't understand basic physics.

Now that we have context and can see that land is not yet a rate limiting factor for solar, you say it's irrelevant. Stick to your guns!

You could power the whole world's current energy requirements today with 300,000 km²/ 110,567 mi². That is the size of Nevada.

In the future (in 100-200 years) the land area probably would be a bigger problem unless the population doesn't grow and/or energy consumption per capita does not increase. But it's not prohibitive today.

Jeff Bezos argues humans will inevitably run out of energy on Earth and should move the majority of our population to space colonies (in the sky).









He argues sky/space colonies would be superior to colonizing other planets: although colonization might be doable at best it would double the human population; planets are too far away, which means few launch opportunities and no real-time communications; and there's no Earth-like gravity (for Mars 1/3rd G).

With the majority of the human population living in space colonies it would be possible to sustain more rapid growth and a larger maximum population.

Concept: large structures holding a million people or more with an artificial gravity field.



Full presentation here:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/GQ98hGUe6FM

I think people in general (not just itt) underestimate the rate of technological change.

We have limited bandwidth for conscious non-linear thought; but technological progress is extremely non-linear. Even people who understand this and attempt to incorporate that understanding into their daily thinking often fail to do so. Many people don't know this don't have a disciplined way of factoring it in to their analysis.

It’s easy to think: what would the world today look like with [x] new technology. It’s hard (or impossible) to judge: what will the world look like with [x] technology and a billion other things that have changed concurrently for the next 5+ years.

Also, people tend to be over-confident about their predictions, even over reasonably long timeframes. Confidently predicting the performance of high growth technology companies years into the future is really hard (effectively impossible imo).

It's a really hard thing to predict the probability of something like that but I would say the market almost certainly has it wrong, though I don't have an opinion about whether it's underpricing or overpricing it. Maybe others can be more helpful, but here are my thoughts…

Do I think markets accurately price the value of proposed technologies like "robotaxis" in general?

No. In general I don't think public markets accurately estimate the feasibility, or marketability, of new technologies/products/services. Take the case of a simple prediction about the number of deliveries for the most recent quarter. That is a relatively easy thing to predict: and yet, everyone undershot.

Now take a more difficult case: try to predict (a) if a complex technology is technically technically feasible + (b) commercially feasible + (c) when + (d) market conditions if/when it launches (which requires predicting the interplay of many other relevant factors in the intervening period) + (e) how the new product will perform in those conditions.

Obviously this is a much more difficult thing to predict! Yet the same people who failed to accurately predict Q2 deliveries will confidently predict the outcome of the complex long-term outcomes of tech development. I wish I shared their confidence!

The people making those predictions are analysts or active investors who are focused on TSLA. They probably have a superior understanding to the average TSLA investor, whose predictions would be even less accurate.

Do I have a confident opinion about whether Tesla will develop the robotaxi and if so will it succeed commercially?

No. I do think fully autonomous vehicles are imminent though.

Do I have a confident opinion about the expected value ($) of the TSLA stock today?

No.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. I'm mainly interested in technology and I'm sure there are people itt who are much better versed in public financial markets than I am.

I generally focus on boring high level principles you’ve no doubt heard before: What is the company doing? Are sales growing? What is the rate of growth? How (eg. advertising or word of mouth)? Are the products excellent? Is the team first class? Does the company have an effective sales strategy? Is the company targeting sufficiently large market(s)? Can the company raise sufficient capital or debt, on acceptable terms, or achieve profitability? Is there a lot of competition? Are there high barriers to entry? Is the company building durable competitive advantages?

I think this last question is super interesting in Tesla’s case. Why is Tesla’s stock price so high? If Tesla is a traditional automaker, then it's overpriced. What new business models and markets might Tesla be better positioned to dominate than traditional automakers and new entrants? How much are its datasets worth?

If Tesla survives and performs well it will look a lot different in 5 years time. If you look at early Amazon, and compare it to the Amazon of today, you might fail to predict whole businesses it developed or integrated (AWS, Whole Foods).

I’m not convinced it’s possible to accurately predict in % terms, or price it accurately; but if it is, markets are not doing that imo.

just a hint, because i definitely won't read all your bs, but saw you mention amazon while scrolling down:
read about amazon's working capital needs and how they paid for it - then do tesla or any car business.
then either use your brain or write more bs - whatever makes you happy.

@rest:
no s/x refresh sounds bad?
jaguar alone is already eating their lunch in europe.

Was comparing Amazon R&D intensity.

If end game = carbon copy of "any car company..." then Tesla fails.

But if = vertically integrated company across multiple industries and verticals then idk.

I don't think a material S/X refresh was ever really expected. Guess they can shut down S production, claim it is to make room for the Y, and go from there. Really wanted this to pump to 250+ to short or closer to 300 to enter a LEAP trade, now it seems like a waiting game for the next clear directional catalyst to come up.

I see you didn't take a look at the numbers. whatever, people here are actually trying to help you, but keep dreaming, it's easier...

sigh, I was trying to help you out, and then you bring up colonizing asteroids and other planets on top of your other craziness....

Fwiw, I assume a group of long term members of an international online gambling website is faaaaaaaar more willing to embrace high risk, disruptive tech and concepts than the average investor. I mean, the bitcoin thread started at 70 cents! Risk-tolerance is probably a way bigger challenge than risk-aversion compared to the norm.

The statement that solar can provide 100% of power is 100% incorrect. It is obvious why if you think for 2 seconds. It does not need explaining.

Besides, it misses the point. We were talking about the environmental friendliness of Tesla cars, and he comes out with the claim that Tesla superchargers are going to solar and "disconnecting from the grid". Where did he get this idea, since it's completely false? He got it from Musk lies that he swallowed uncritically - lies designed to fool exactly the kind of chump that descapito is. When I point out the facts, he throws out some red herring about how there's enough land area in the US to supply all power needs. As if that has anything whatsoever to do with his claim and its debunking (and it's wrong besides). It was a pathetic attempt to save face with a red herring.
He's a fool who can't think and can't apply reason consistently and has far too high an opinion of his own intelligence. Also little intellectual honesty. The best thing he can do is realize that. Which he won't. He's guaranteed to lose money no matter what we say...stupid + thinks he's good at reasoning = you lose money.

That was a really surprising tweet today. To me it's an admission that S&X are in the toilet and not going anywhere. Massive discounting (40K+ euro off the top!) and sales didn't recover. It's a disaster given how much of a profit is on these things.

I thought for sure the sane path is to do is a refresh and boost high profit/cash flow sales again, but if it's not happening then it means the worst imo. I agree the Y might be an angle - Musk has hinted that he might produce that at Fremont, and there is no room there unless he's using Lathrop. Which would mean a line has to go down.

I don't have a strong opinion on the stock price of Tesla but if I had a thesis it would not be based on Tesla as a car business, but as a vertically integrated technology business.

I guarantee you're better at picking and pricing quarterly results than me, but it's clear you're wrong and overconfident about some important technical trends.

You come across as just another ****ing finance guy who is often correct about the micro picture and wildly overconfident until you get run over by the steamroller you didn't see coming.

Solar + battery or thermal storage cannot provide 100% of electricity?

It's not craziness in some circles.

I agree with you about risk tolerance on this forum.

But the average investor is not a good benchmark.

We should be asking what is desirable, optimal, and possible but hard.

This is the attitude of the bears. They write pages and pages of bull**** (you surely have never contributed anything of substance), but when someone offers several lines of thoughts, they dismiss it with "bull****".

The bears have been wrong about virtually anything with the exception of the stock price in the past 9 months. Yet, they are a bunch of loudmouths constantly moving the goal post.

How is TSLA not bankrupt yet? I thought this was a virtual lock. Demand death in Q1 was supposed to be consistent and not just a one-off occurrence?

https://www.theinformation.com/artic...autopilot-team

Close to 10% of autopilot software team quits

Interesting news:
That there is zero chance of Tesla fully autonomous robotaxis by 2025 let alone 2020 was known to anyone not ******ed of course, but quite a few bulls actually believed this "2020 robotaxis" and appreciating cars bull**** and it was the nearly the entire rationale for the raise two months ago - he spent the whole call talking about it, deflecting questions. I think the news will scare some of the saner bulls who nonetheless trust Musk a little. He hyped this as recently as this weekend. Probably to get ahead of this news.

https://www.theinformation.com/artic...utopilot-team?

Hardly anyone believes the robotaxi bull****...

of course they can't meet his timelines.
waymo and gm are 5-10 years ahead of tesla and they say they won't make it in the next 10 years.

What are you talking about? You realize that the **** you make up in your head isn't real, right?

Bears were right that $420 funding secured was a fraud
Bears were right about demand death in Q1 - I extensively documented it before it happened and predicted it would tank the stock as the news spread
Bears were right that Musk's autonomous driving claims and predictions were pure bull****
Bears were right that Tesla would not have four profitable quarters and end up in the S&P 500
Bears were right that Musk wouldn't produce anywhere near 10K Model 3s by the end of last year, something that Musk claimed there should be "zero doubt" about.
Bears right that SolarCity and Tesla Energy would be huge flops
Bears were right about the likelihood of a large number of preorders for Model 3.

That's just a fraction. The list of the things that bears were right about is enormous and way longer than what they were wrong about. Contrast the facts above with your "right about virtually nothing".

I guess pure delusion is the last refuge of the insane cultist.

So you agree that Musk is a liar and fraud? That's positive progress at least. And a lot of people believe the 2020 robotaxi "bull****" if you read a number of Tesla forums.