Posted on 09/23/2020 9:31:14 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Tesla Inc. unveiled battery innovations and increased efficiencies that appeared to underwhelm investors late Tuesday at its much anticipated “Battery Day.”
Tesla stock’s TSLA, -8.89%, which had gained more than 4% after an upbeat post-shareholder-meeting presentation, turned south as soon as Chief Executive Elon Musk said that some of the innovations showcased at the event were “close to working” and some three years away from fruition.
Shares fell as much as 7.6% in Tuesday’s after-hours session, but have pared some gains to trade down 6.0% in Wednesday’s premarket session.
“It does work but not [yet] with a high yield,” Musk said, adding that Tesla has set up a pilot battery plant in Fremont, Calif., to work through the challenges, with production “ramping up.”
There’s a “clear path to success but a ton of work from here to there,” Musk said.
Long-term investors make their plans for a year away, and a three-year horizon is “just a long time,” said Gene Munster with Loup Ventures. “Everything they talked about had substance,” Munster said. “But investors wanted immediately.”
The day’s “real takeaway” was that Tesla is aiming for full vertical integration, which would position it one step ahead of the rest of the industry, Munster said.
Keeping it all in house, from mining interests to battery design and manufacturing, is “a flywheel that is difficult to catch,” he said. It would lead to cost reductions, lower prices and ultimately more demand for Tesla cars, Munster said.
Musk on Monday had already sought to tamp down Wall Street’s high expectations for the event, tweeting that some of the technologies to be revealed “will not reach serious high-volume production until 2022.”
The stock closed more than 5% lower in Tuesday’s regular trading session.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Don’t think PT ever accomplished something like this (Neither has NASA, the Russians, Chinese or anyone else)
P.S. Watch the landings at 3:51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX1Y2JMK6g8
I don’t think Powerwall will get these these battery cells until 2022 at earliest. The priority will be for the Cybertruck and Roadster (and possibly the Semi truck).
There are a lot of misconceptions about Tesla. A lot of people think of it as merely a car company. They're not. They are a technology company. Even Elon Musk says he really isn't interested in just selling cars. Their big profits in the near future will be from being a power utility. They are forming partnerships worldwide to provide power, and are making huge profits. The cars are just a means to create and build out their factories.
Correct. Tesla is down 11 percent today. A great buying opportunity, as the stock will quickly bounce up 20 percent or more within the next month or two. I bought a large number of shares early in the year, and my money quadrupled - even after the downslide today. I'm holding, and will now buy more. The battery day announcements bode well for huge profits in the next couple years.
I watched the presentation, while doing other things, but got the gist of it. The new battery, along with other improvements promises to be 50 percent cheaper while perhaps doubling the range. Key phrase is "along with other improvements". The battery itself, will allow an increase in power over the old battery, due to more efficient packing into less space, and creates much less heat while fast charging. The new battery is a really big improvement - more power, cheaper to produce, generates less heat, and the ingredients are more available. The cost per kWh will be halved in the next year or two only if the "other improvements" are done. I think this is what spooked investors; they're unsure how soon the "other improvements" can happen despite promises of it happening in the next two years.
“The new battery,along ...”
Pretty amazing if all of those improvements pan out. I view electric vehicles has having a place among those with other sources of power.
I’ve said before that local delivery vehicles and buses seem like a natural use of battery power as they have fixed routes and come home every night for a recharge.
But that ain’t happening so far and I don’t know why.
Those vehicles I mentioned are usually diesel powered.
I watched the whole presentation and the battery improvements, and the battery manufacturing improvements are remarkable, even revolutionary. Instead of waiting for the various vaporware battery technologies to sneak out of the lab, they’ve stripped down and re-imagined what makes a battery work, looking to simplify every aspect of its design and construction. They appear to have reduced the very messy process of creating the various elements of a battery by up to 90%, speeding up the process at the same time. He’s apparently offered public/corporate access to the plans and patents for the new batteries and methodology.
He’s said repeatedly that they aren’t as much a car company, but rather an engineering company, and more specifically, a manufacturing company. Rapid iteration, and a relentless focus on refining the efficiency of the manufacturing process. He’s applying the same approach to SpaceX. He wants to make large volumes of cars, batteries and spaceships, as quickly and economically as possible. I think in the future he might end up being compared favorably to Henry Ford’s impact on manufacturing.
I think the market analysts are impatient as usual, and short sighted about his real goals.
Great comment. Thx much!
I grew up in San Francisco during the 1950s. We had electric buses and trolley cars. When the poles came off the overhead wires, the buses could travel for a while on battery power before hooking up again down the block. In the last ten years, they painted over some electric buses with slogans saying "Zero Emission Vehicle!" and such, as if it was a new thing. BS, these were around since the mid-20th century. We still have a mix of electric buses, electric trolley streetcars, and diesels. It's worked for a century, and can still be done this way for another hundred years.
Agree. Many market analysts are human, with emotions and bias that cloud their decision-making. Very much like the political sphere. There is no convincing them until the present catches up to future reality. Despite what they think, Ford and GM may very well shrink and disappear, while Tesla continues to grow. The analysts are not properly analyzing the real data. Unlike Nikola, the Tesla company will achieve many of their goals, maybe not on time, but it's clear they're on the path to success within the next few years once their Gigafactories are fully operational. Then they'll build a Terrafactory. Tesla cars have their faults, but the company is continually improving their models on a daily basis. Same can't be said for ICE cars which see incremental changes many years apart - the old model is not keeping up in the 21st century.
“I grew up in San Francisco during the 1950s. We had electric buses and trolley cars.”
Wait a minute. They’re powered by overhead wires and arms off of the top of the bus that contact the wires. Interesting that they had some battery power.
I remember when they ripped out the streetcar rails and overhead wires in my home town.
Johnny Carson told a joke:
A old lady was standing by the trolley rails. She asked someone nearby if she touched both rails at once would she be electrocuted. The person said no, you’d have to throw your other leg over that wire up there to be electrocuted.
“Every crowd has a silver lining.”
Often, one electric bus would want to pass another. They'd unhook the poles at back, and run on battery power to pass the other bus and then hook up again. Something about wanting to keep on schedule, and different routes traveled along the same segments within the city. As for the streetcars on tracks, once the pole slipped off the power line the streetcar was dead. During the first half of the 20th century a lot of streetcar tracks were ripped up and removed, because cars were the future. During the last 20 years of the 21st century, new tracks were laid for new streetcar lines and auto cars were blocked from using some main boulevards. Cars are no longer desired in the city.
Muni in San Francisco, TransLink in Vancouver, and Beijing, among others, have bought trolleybuses equipped with batteries to allow them to operate fairly long distances away from the wires. Supercapacitors can be also used to move buses short distances.
“to operate fairly long distances away from the wires”
Both of you that replied are referring to “trolleybuses” whose main power source is overhead wires.
My original thought was that certain types of fully battery powered commercial vehicles should be selling like hotcakes but aren’t.
A hundred miles of range per seven minutes— interested?
Drops 11% weight from battery pack, as the new cells provide structural strength. Adds 15% more energy storage in same space. Cell electrical current path reduced by 80% for lower dissipation—internally generated heat. Will deliver a range rating in excess of 500 miles.
“... have bought trolleybuses equipped with batteries to allow them to operate fairly long distances away from the wires.”
Batteries in the trollybuses. That means they had DC motors and that means the overhead lines were DC. Since the power grid is AC that means the trollybus lines were powered either by rectified AC or they had their own DC generators. ... just a piece of trivia.
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