Comments by "ke6gwf - Ben Blackburn" (@ke6gwf) on "CNBC Television"
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@lamgineer I agree, GM isn't trying to compete, they just spotted a niche market that they could turn an actual profit on.
This will be sold to a particular type of person, mostly male, wants the coolest thing that no one else has, and is willing to drop the dough for it.
This will displace the Cadillac Escalade Platinum, and some Range Rover and BMW suv sales, and maybe some Ford F Series Harley Davidson or King Ranch edition trucks, but no one will be buying this as a practical vehicle, and GM knows this, but this is the only price point and volume that they think they can make a profit at with their current technology, and it's something that the movie stars will be driving, basically pumping their stock as they go bankrupt lol
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The problem is that lithium and the other materials are, quite literally, Commodities.
In other words, if demand spikes and lithium etc prices spike, driving the stock price of producers up, that will encourage others to enter the market, driving the price back down and replacing the existing suppliers with a bunch of new competitors.
And since commodities are based on price, the existing producers have no long term advantage.
On the other hand, the EV manufacturers have a brand name and a unique product, and the ability to grow exponentially if they have the best product.
The miners have already been bought up with high prices, so there's not much space to grow.
Also, once Redwood Materials etc ramp up and refine the recycling process, the demand for virgin commodities will reduce, and the prices will drop.
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As much as I despise Edison and revere Tesla, I have to say that Elon is more like a good Edison than Tesla.
Tesla chased the secrets of the universe, and invented amazing new things that others had never even thought of, and many things that we don't understand even to this day.
Tesla was a genius at finding new things, but had no interest in making products, beyond the minimum to get people to pay for his toys.
Edison was a great promoter.
He was able to take the ideas of others, and refine them into a product that would sell.
His problem was his ego and greed, and acting like the inventions were his own.
Elon takes the ideas of others, both previous generations, and his own team, and works with his team to refine and create a marketable product, but he doesn't try to take the credit for the ideas, just for guiding and encouraging them and creating a good space for them to be efficient and creative.
Tesla and SpaceX invent very few new ideas, they mostly existing ideas and products and put them together in a new and better way.
For instance, the electric car has been around for a long time, as have touch screen interfaces, battery cells, and all the other little bits that make up a Tesla, but Elon and team were the first to put them together in such a good way.
Tesla the man invented most of the stuff required to make it work, which is why it's named after him, but Elon is more like Edison, the refiner and integrator. But without the icky personality lol
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@keith6371 you don't understand the difference between Tesla designing and building a new motor design in their new Shanghai drive train plant, and Tesla buying motors from some Chinese company.
They may be using a local supplier for parts of it, but they already use various suppliers for various parts they don't make themselves, but the motor is most certainly designed and built by Tesla, which is why their motors are always the best in the industry.
The LFP chemistry batteries they are using in the base models are cheaper because they don't use cobalt, but they don't have as much capacity so aren't good in longer range vehicles.
And yes obviously they try to use local suppliers for better logistics and prices, so most of the batteries they use at Shanghai Giga are made in China or Japan, but a lot of the batteries used at Fremont come from Japan anyway.
So there is nothing that China is doing better than Tesla, and any improvements that we see in China first is just because that's where they rolled it out first, but everything is still Tesla engineered, which is through Fremont.
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@keith6371 I guess Tesla did start a design center in Shanghai, so maybe they worked with the engineers in Fremont to design a cheaper motor to go with the cheaper LFP cells, I didn't see Tesla say that but I don't read everything in detail.
But in regards to your other statements, yes, Tesla DOES have the most efficient and cutting edge motor designs, that's one of the ways they are leading the industry, because they design their own motors, with help from the SpaceX engineers and technology.
In fact the latest motor, fur the Plaid, is using never before seen carbon fiber overwrapped armatures, using SpaceX technology, to enable the high speeds without it blowing up.
And if you doubt they have better motor designs, go watch some of the Sandy Monroe videos where he tears the motors down and compares the Tesla motors to the ones from other EV brands, and see all the special features they have built in to make them better.
In regards to Autopilot, it's the only Pure Vision ADAS system on the market, surpasses the capabilities of any of the competitors, and just keeps getting better.
Panasonic makes all the batteries used in the Fremont factory, and while it's Panasonic making cells, they use the chemistry developed by Tesla, so even the cells have higher performance then what's available to other companies.
I don't know if they are using the Tesla chemistry in any of the Chinese made batteries, but I would assume they are, other than for the LFP in the base model.
And Tesla designs their own battery packaging and control systems, so patent count doesn't matter because Tesla has the best ones.
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@keith6371 we aren't talking about what off the shelf motor Tesla may have used in the past, or what might be possible if another company decides to make the investment in the future, we are talking about the technology that Tesla currently has in their cars today.
Yes, lots of people know the principles, but only Tesla has been laser focused on applying them to the EV application to get the best performance and range, even when it requires special metallurgy or complex construction methods such as a carbon fiber wrapped armature, that most would not be able to do because starting up new divisions in the company with expertise in those areas would be too expensive, but Elon already has them available, as SpaceX does a lot of carbon fiber and custom metallurgy, so it's easy to bring them together.
Show me one other EV that has the range per kw that Tesla does, or the power that Tesla does.
No one has motors comparable to the current Tesla motors.
And yes, others can start work developing better motors and might be able to match Tesla, but Tesla is constantly working on improving and finding new break throughs, and so everyone else just keeps playing catch up.
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@keith6371 efficiency isn't as important to the consumer as it is to the manufacturer, because you can give a car however many miles range you want by putting a big enough battery in, but the more efficient you can make the car, the smaller the battery you can put in, which means a higher profit margin since the battery is the most expensive part.
And so far none of the other car companies are able to get near the range that Tesla can get from a battery, which means that their costs are going to be higher for a car with the same range.
So if Tesla is able to use a smaller battery, that means that they can either increase profits, or sell cheaper than the others in the same class.
With gas cars a little difference in efficiency isn't that important, because you can just put a bigger tank in and get good range, but it's the defining characteristic for an affordable and desirable EV.
And I am sure that there will be a lot of cheap EVs in China and other countries, lacking in comfort and safety features etc, but just as BMW is not really losing sales in China to the basic model Chinese cars Tesla is aiming for a higher market where people want luxury and safety features.
Even the eventual Model 2 will still have the full safety package, setting it above the cheap cars, and aiming at a different market.
So again, comparing Tesla to dissimilar vehicles in other markets is not very useful, anymore than you would compare an AMD graphics card to some unknown brand.
Tesla currently has the best technology in the industry, and that gives it a price and profit advantage, which is why Tesla is the most common EV in the world right now, and the other companies are just starting to actually sell EVs in any quantity.
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@keith6371 you have a problem with parsing words lol
I said BMW etc are not losing sales to the CHEAP Chinese cars, the base models.
For instance in the US, BMW doesn't really lose sales to Hyundai.
My point being that while cheap EVs are going to come out, they won't really be taking sales away from Tesla, because the people who have the money to afford a Tesla aren't going to want one of the cheap ones, and the people who buy the cheap ones won't be able to afford a Tesla.
And if you can save a few hundred dollars per vehicle by having greater efficiency, thus allowing a smaller battery, and you build a million cars that way, that starts to add up.
This is why Tesla is focused on maximum efficiency.
Also its additive.
If your efficiency is lower, you have to make the battery bigger, which adds weight, which reduces efficiency, and lowers your range.
So a small reduction in the battery size helps increase efficiency, and reduce cost, and it's through pushing the efficiency that you get the best balance of battery size and range, and the lowest cost.
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The idea that it's the top 1% who care about stocks is no longer accurate. Thanks to e trading, zero commission trading, and sites and apps geared towards the retail investor, now lots of poor people like me are active in the stock market, to the point that we are diluting the big hedge funds power, and confusing analysts because we don't do things according to the normal rules lol (see Tesla as an example)
So right now, especially with a lot of people out of work, there is even more focus on stocks, because that's how some people are paying the bills now.
In addition, it effects all of our 401ks, insurance rates, mortgages, rents, and everything else.
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@chrisjct the goal was a couple of weeks at the ISS, to demonstrate the capabilities of the capsule, and deliver the cargo it was hauling to the ISS.
A couple of days in a different orbit is a failure for the mission goals.
Also, just like with MCAS, the issue isn't a simple problem with a line of code, it's a deep problem of a software system that has no error checking or fault tolerance, combined with a lack of testing and verification to find these obvious and glaring issues before launch.
And while you may say that that's why they test, this wasn't supposed to be a test flight, this was supposed to be a demonstration mission.
SpaceX is the one who does test flights and iteration, and all up qualification tests.
Boeing qualifies each part and system separately, so that when the finished product is complete, it is ready to fly with no more testing.
And in previous cases such as Apollo or the Shuttle, your first flight had to be manned, so you needed this kind of system qualification.
But they said that everything was qualified and ready for flight, but they were wrong, and that calls their ability to design and test everything into question, so it's far more than just a line of code to be adjusted.
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Considering that most of the known large outbreaks are from things like parties, bbqs, church services, workplaces, political rallies, beaches, bars, etc, and even in Portland there are more people in bars on an average night than out protesting, ya, protesting doesn't really make a big dent.
Also, a large percentage of protestors wear masks.
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@bernardbarry447
When you say it can take 3-5 years to bring a new project on line, are you talking about opening a mine or a processing plant?
I agree that new mines take time to open, but in the near term, most of the existing mines could increase output relatively easily without much delay, and so you should be able to increase raw mineral output as fast as Tesla is ramping production.
As for processing, that traditionally is done as part of the project with opening a mine, and they grow with the mine, involving years of planning and getting loans and investments in it, and then the usual pace of contractors getting such things done.
But we are in the Tesla world now, and if the existing processor plants are unable to produce enough high grade minerals, and are taking too long to expand, Tesla can take a few billion out of the bank and build a processing plant as fast as motivated contractors can put it up, and be able to handle as much unprocessed ore as needed.
And in the mean time, the new projects slowly get started, including lots of new players across the world who now have a large enough market to be worth opening mines, and the ability to raise funding for it.
And with factories opening in many countries, it will be natural for the raw materials to be mined and processed in that country to save on shipping costs.
Meanwhile, the existing suppliers will be looking like small players in comparison to the world supply.
Don't expect that things will stay at the same slow pace when the demand is taking the S curve up, people can move MUCH faster when properly motivated by fear or greeed or vision.
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