12 ms·

The scary thing for me with Tesla stock is primarily the risks in going to large scale mass market cars, as well as the risk of another car company, or another

by rdl 13y ago

The scary thing for me with Tesla stock is primarily the risks in going to large scale mass market cars, as well as the risk of another car company, or another startup, emerging to win the mass market EV space.

derekp7 13y ago
If another company came up with a dual-powered version of the Tesla, then I would definitely buy that. The current round of plugin hybrids don't offer enough battery-only range for me. I'd like to see about 100 mile battery only (in case I forget to plug it in), plus a small engine and 10-gallon tank. I wouldn't think the gas engine would have to be that large, especially if it were designed to use the battery as a buffer (i.e., it would only need to have enough HP to maintain highway speed, and acceleration could be handled by the battery). Which brings up a question -- how much horse power is needed just to keep a car cruising, without accounting for acceleration? Edit: just looked up on Wikipedia, the Model S gets 100 miles per 35kWh. So that works out to (assuming 65 mph) about 23 kilowatts average continuous output, or 30 HP. Considering that many car engines are 300 HP, I don't see a 30 HP engine being that extreme.
- rdl 13y ago
  Depends a lot on speed, the shape of the car, and other factors, but on the order of 10-30 HP for something like the Model S at 70mph I think. I still really want a hybrid truck, running diesel, with the ability to seat 2 people, secure cargo space (like a custom bed with lockboxes), 4wd, and the ability to run the engine for a week or two in place as a generator (e.g. at a remote comms site). Run the engine during the day to keep the batteries charged, operate at night off battery.
  - jsight 13y ago
    VIA Motors is the closest thing to this that I know of: http://www.viamotors.com/ http://www.viamotors.com/
    - rdl 13y ago
      Sadly gasoline/petrol vs. diesel. I really want diesel so I can store/transport reasonable amounts of fuel; I avoid messing with gas. I wonder how it would deal with towing. That I6 would be inadequate for peak towing, so it would depend how often a truck going up grades, offroad, etc. and towing would need battery augmentation.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  The problem is that it's not just the engine. If you want an engine then you need a fuel tank, emissions controls, either a transmission or a separate electric generator attached to the engine, etc. All of that stuff adds weight and cost, or reduces the space, weight and cost budget you have for batteries and electric motors. By the time you've paid for it you might as well forget about the 30HP engine and put in a 100HP engine, at which point you have a Prius.
- rodgerd 13y ago
  If what you want is a fast luxury hybrid, there are already high-end Lexuses (Lexii?), but I suspect you'd not like the range as much. Porche are also pushing hybrids, but again for performance, they're using the petrol. The WEC is pushing supercapacitors into the hybrid drivetrains as a superior method of scavenging (but not storing) energy.
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  >I'd like to see about 100 mile battery only electric/batteries works great for start/stops. For highway cruising, which 100 miles range would probably include a lot, internal combustion engine isn't that bad. I'd expect that there isn't much practical difference efficiency-wise between 20-30 miles battery range hybrid and a 100-miles range one, especially considering that the latter would be carrying additional at least 200kg of batteries. I think we will start to see cars' internal combustion engines which are specifically targeted to work only as generators, i.e. highest efficiency only for specific rpm value - current ICEs available are "wide rpm and load range" designed to be a primary engine of a car. Volt (and Karma) as far as i understand have such generic engine, not a "generator" one. Dropping a lot of old requirements and having the ability to match generator to the engine, we may see very different engine types coming in which would match new requirements much better.
SwellJoe 13y ago
I think the danger is in the big automakers getting EV right, before Tesla reaches the middle and low end of the market. Nissan has the Leaf, which is by most accounts, a great little car. The Chevy Volt is the best-selling in my neck of the woods, it seems. Tesla makes better electric cars...as far as the reviews indicate. But, they're also much more expensive. But, here's the reason I just placed a limit order for tomorrow morning (I'd check into TSLA a couple of times this year and thought, "Nope, still trading too high."): Tesla is currently selling as many cars in a year as Chevy sells in three days. So, the stories I can envision in my head for how this will play out are one of the two: 1. Tesla will fail to scale up. They will not be able to continue executing on their business plan effective. Growth will halt. The big auto makers will gradually move into the EV market. They will use their leverage as larger players with more money to throw around to beat Tesla on the battery front and on manufacturing costs. Tesla will remain a bit player, and be bought up for patents in a few years. The stock will not do well, long term, in this scenario. 2. Tesla will continue to execute well, if not flawlessly as they have done up to now (let's be honest, Tesla has an amazing record of doing the right thing at the right time). They will continue to grow at a very rapid clip. They will enter new markets. They will sell more cars than they can manufacture (and maybe more electric cars than anyone else can manufacture also, due to the current limited battery availability). They will continue to execute well on battery acquisition and development. They will continue to execute well on solving the cross-country EV trip problem...before any other manufacturer. And, they will become a major automaker. The market is huge. They're less than 100th the size of Chevrolet or Ford. That's a lot of room for growth, even with their share price being hundreds of times earnings (yes, it really is a very expensive stock, in that regard). So, my primary question is: Will they execute really well. History says they will. And, my next question is: Will I get other chances to buy at a discount over what it's trading at now? I don't know. I've regretted not buying stocks in the past due to it looking really expensive. I put off buying GOOG for a long time. Watched it from IPO on up to $750+. Then it went on sale for $340, and I backed up the truck as well as my stock portfolio would allow (so, I'm currently approaching a triple bagger on GOOG). TSLA is no GOOG. Probably never will be. But, it's potentially a much larger company than it is today. I'm willing to bet a few bucks that it will be. But, it is definitely gambling and not value investing.
- 13y ago
bsdetector 13y ago
Toyota is supposedly coming out in 2015 with production cars with fuel cells costing a bit more than what a Tesla battery does, but the more they produce the less costly they are. In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases. It seems like an incredible proposition that Tesla will expand fast enough to shut out fuel cells before they get established.
- r00fus 13y ago
  Toyota (and others) have been touting fuel cells for well over a decade. I'm not holding my breath - fuel cells are as sustainable and non-oil as flex-fuel (read: vaporware). Musk makes some very unrefutable points here deriding fuel cells, and Ive had that opinion long before people were listening to Musk: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/25/elon-musk-munchen-fuel-cell-bullshit/ http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/25/elon-musk-munchen-fuel-c...
  - bsdetector 13y ago
    > Toyota (and others) have been touting fuel cells for well over a decade. The cost of fuel cells has decreased to 5% of what it was then, and at least three manufacturers are coming out with limited production fuel cells cars. Just because it took 50 years to get ready doesn't mean it isn't ready. Musk's point is basically that the energy density of fuel cells is worse than batteries. That's true, but they can be refueled instead of mechanically swapped. He says the current total cost of the system is higher than batteries. That's true, but Toyota is halving the cost every 5 years as they ramp up production, where battery cost is falling maybe 10% in that time.
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago
  > In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases. This is true, but misleading. The cost of lithium is a vanishingly small component of the price of the battery, a typical quote is between 1% and 0.1% of the production cost. Lithium is one of the most common elements in the earth's crust, and is plentiful enough in seawater that it cannot run out -- before it's cost is high enough to have any real effect in battery prices, it will be well worth extracting it from the seas. (In which there is enough supply for millions of years.) The rapid increase in demand caused by proliferation of lithium-ion batteries has spiked the price over the past decade, but that is simply because mining operations take years to spin up, so large changes in demand always lead to large-scale price action. This has not yet had anything but a negligible effect on battery prices, and it will not have one in the future. I do not understand the current meme of trying to paint all economic issues as resource-limited. That's just not how the world works.

by rdl 13y ago

derekp7 13y ago

If another company came up with a dual-powered version of the Tesla, then I would definitely buy that. The current round of plugin hybrids don't offer enough battery-only range for me. I'd like to see about 100 mile battery only (in case I forget to plug it in), plus a small engine and 10-gallon tank. I wouldn't think the gas engine would have to be that large, especially if it were designed to use the battery as a buffer (i.e., it would only need to have enough HP to maintain highway speed, and acceleration could be handled by the battery). Which brings up a question -- how much horse power is needed just to keep a car cruising, without accounting for acceleration? Edit: just looked up on Wikipedia, the Model S gets 100 miles per 35kWh. So that works out to (assuming 65 mph) about 23 kilowatts average continuous output, or 30 HP. Considering that many car engines are 300 HP, I don't see a 30 HP engine being that extreme.

rdl 13y ago
Depends a lot on speed, the shape of the car, and other factors, but on the order of 10-30 HP for something like the Model S at 70mph I think. I still really want a hybrid truck, running diesel, with the ability to seat 2 people, secure cargo space (like a custom bed with lockboxes), 4wd, and the ability to run the engine for a week or two in place as a generator (e.g. at a remote comms site). Run the engine during the day to keep the batteries charged, operate at night off battery.
- jsight 13y ago
  VIA Motors is the closest thing to this that I know of: http://www.viamotors.com/ http://www.viamotors.com/
  - rdl 13y ago
    Sadly gasoline/petrol vs. diesel. I really want diesel so I can store/transport reasonable amounts of fuel; I avoid messing with gas. I wonder how it would deal with towing. That I6 would be inadequate for peak towing, so it would depend how often a truck going up grades, offroad, etc. and towing would need battery augmentation.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
The problem is that it's not just the engine. If you want an engine then you need a fuel tank, emissions controls, either a transmission or a separate electric generator attached to the engine, etc. All of that stuff adds weight and cost, or reduces the space, weight and cost budget you have for batteries and electric motors. By the time you've paid for it you might as well forget about the 30HP engine and put in a 100HP engine, at which point you have a Prius.
rodgerd 13y ago
If what you want is a fast luxury hybrid, there are already high-end Lexuses (Lexii?), but I suspect you'd not like the range as much. Porche are also pushing hybrids, but again for performance, they're using the petrol. The WEC is pushing supercapacitors into the hybrid drivetrains as a superior method of scavenging (but not storing) energy.
VladRussian2 13y ago
>I'd like to see about 100 mile battery only electric/batteries works great for start/stops. For highway cruising, which 100 miles range would probably include a lot, internal combustion engine isn't that bad. I'd expect that there isn't much practical difference efficiency-wise between 20-30 miles battery range hybrid and a 100-miles range one, especially considering that the latter would be carrying additional at least 200kg of batteries. I think we will start to see cars' internal combustion engines which are specifically targeted to work only as generators, i.e. highest efficiency only for specific rpm value - current ICEs available are "wide rpm and load range" designed to be a primary engine of a car. Volt (and Karma) as far as i understand have such generic engine, not a "generator" one. Dropping a lot of old requirements and having the ability to match generator to the engine, we may see very different engine types coming in which would match new requirements much better.

SwellJoe 13y ago

I think the danger is in the big automakers getting EV right, before Tesla reaches the middle and low end of the market. Nissan has the Leaf, which is by most accounts, a great little car. The Chevy Volt is the best-selling in my neck of the woods, it seems. Tesla makes better electric cars...as far as the reviews indicate. But, they're also much more expensive. But, here's the reason I just placed a limit order for tomorrow morning (I'd check into TSLA a couple of times this year and thought, "Nope, still trading too high."): Tesla is currently selling as many cars in a year as Chevy sells in three days. So, the stories I can envision in my head for how this will play out are one of the two: 1. Tesla will fail to scale up. They will not be able to continue executing on their business plan effective. Growth will halt. The big auto makers will gradually move into the EV market. They will use their leverage as larger players with more money to throw around to beat Tesla on the battery front and on manufacturing costs. Tesla will remain a bit player, and be bought up for patents in a few years. The stock will not do well, long term, in this scenario. 2. Tesla will continue to execute well, if not flawlessly as they have done up to now (let's be honest, Tesla has an amazing record of doing the right thing at the right time). They will continue to grow at a very rapid clip. They will enter new markets. They will sell more cars than they can manufacture (and maybe more electric cars than anyone else can manufacture also, due to the current limited battery availability). They will continue to execute well on battery acquisition and development. They will continue to execute well on solving the cross-country EV trip problem...before any other manufacturer. And, they will become a major automaker. The market is huge. They're less than 100th the size of Chevrolet or Ford. That's a lot of room for growth, even with their share price being hundreds of times earnings (yes, it really is a very expensive stock, in that regard). So, my primary question is: Will they execute really well. History says they will. And, my next question is: Will I get other chances to buy at a discount over what it's trading at now? I don't know. I've regretted not buying stocks in the past due to it looking really expensive. I put off buying GOOG for a long time. Watched it from IPO on up to $750+. Then it went on sale for $340, and I backed up the truck as well as my stock portfolio would allow (so, I'm currently approaching a triple bagger on GOOG). TSLA is no GOOG. Probably never will be. But, it's potentially a much larger company than it is today. I'm willing to bet a few bucks that it will be. But, it is definitely gambling and not value investing.

13y ago

bsdetector 13y ago

Toyota is supposedly coming out in 2015 with production cars with fuel cells costing a bit more than what a Tesla battery does, but the more they produce the less costly they are. In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases. It seems like an incredible proposition that Tesla will expand fast enough to shut out fuel cells before they get established.

r00fus 13y ago
Toyota (and others) have been touting fuel cells for well over a decade. I'm not holding my breath - fuel cells are as sustainable and non-oil as flex-fuel (read: vaporware). Musk makes some very unrefutable points here deriding fuel cells, and Ive had that opinion long before people were listening to Musk: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/25/elon-musk-munchen-fuel-cell-bullshit/ http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/25/elon-musk-munchen-fuel-c...
- bsdetector 13y ago
  > Toyota (and others) have been touting fuel cells for well over a decade. The cost of fuel cells has decreased to 5% of what it was then, and at least three manufacturers are coming out with limited production fuel cells cars. Just because it took 50 years to get ready doesn't mean it isn't ready. Musk's point is basically that the energy density of fuel cells is worse than batteries. That's true, but they can be refueled instead of mechanically swapped. He says the current total cost of the system is higher than batteries. That's true, but Toyota is halving the cost every 5 years as they ramp up production, where battery cost is falling maybe 10% in that time.
Tuna-Fish 13y ago
> In contrast, the more batteries Tesla produces the more the cost of lithium increases. This is true, but misleading. The cost of lithium is a vanishingly small component of the price of the battery, a typical quote is between 1% and 0.1% of the production cost. Lithium is one of the most common elements in the earth's crust, and is plentiful enough in seawater that it cannot run out -- before it's cost is high enough to have any real effect in battery prices, it will be well worth extracting it from the seas. (In which there is enough supply for millions of years.) The rapid increase in demand caused by proliferation of lithium-ion batteries has spiked the price over the past decade, but that is simply because mining operations take years to spin up, so large changes in demand always lead to large-scale price action. This has not yet had anything but a negligible effect on battery prices, and it will not have one in the future. I do not understand the current meme of trying to paint all economic issues as resource-limited. That's just not how the world works.