Hard to time that kind of thing. Not worth it when you risk losing your shirt. You can lose an infinite amount of money shorting, whereas going long you might only lose all of what you put in.
Yup. But it may be that some people with enough information and time to watch the stock and relevant data on it literally second by second could make a killing. And some people might be in a position to influence the time of the turning point and stimulate an avalanche of a fall.
Broadly, no way do I believe that many people, not even fleets, especially not individuals, will put up with the charging time of a battery powered car. It's just so darned much more convenient to fill up a 20 gallon tank with gasoline.
My guess is that the promise of electric cars was boosted by both the anti-fossil fuel push and the self-driving push. IMHO, with Trump, the anti-fossil fuel people just lost, big time, for a long time. E.g., we won't have carbon taxes, the theme will be "drill, baby, drill", and US gasoline prices are on the way down. For self-driving, my view is that the lawyers will make the insurance rates too high and more lawyers will pass some very restrictive laws. Then self-driving will be for some special cases and/or will need a lot of highway engineering that will take a lot of time and money and won't happen for years. For more, no way can Tesla do something significant that GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, BMW, MB, Kia, etc. can't do just as well or better. E.g., there were electric cars ~100 years ago, and the story has been the same since then or as a Ford exec once said "You build me a good battery, and I will build you a good electric car." For a while there was some hope for a capacitor, which can be charged as fast as the electric power connection permits, but that approach seems to have flopped. Finally, I'm guessing that Musk has had a lot of subsidies, and I have to guess that Trump will turn off that faucet. Net, I see no real hope for Tesla. IMHO, Tesla is going down, soon. So, some smart and/or lucky short sellers stand to make a bundle.
> Broadly, no way do I believe that many people, not even fleets, especially not individuals, will put up with the charging time of a battery powered car. It's just so darned much more convenient to fill up a 20 gallon tank with gasoline.
This may not hold true in the near future. With charging stations capable of putting out 350kW, we will have drastically reduced charging times. [0]
> Finally, I'm guessing that Musk has had a lot of subsidies, and I have to guess that Trump will turn off that faucet.
Actually, Tesla doesn't lose much if ZEV credits go away... In fact, the way things stand, other auto manufacturers are able to fully monetize their ZEV credits, while Tesla only makes 50 cents on the dollar. [1]
Sure, the grid can provide the power for fast charging, but charging a battery heats the battery, and charging it too fast heats it too much. That's my concern. If Tesla can make the charging time short enough to be convenient enough, then I'm wrong.
The charging time of the electric car is overnight in your garage, while you're asleep. So the vast majority of the time for the vast majority of people, that's not a relevant concern. On road trips, 30 minute breaks every few hours aren't the end of the world for most people.
For self-driving, there's no way that's going to be held back once it's better than a human driver. The demand is going to be incredibly high, and insurance companies will probably charge human drivers more - they tend to be very good about accurately assessing risk and charging accordingly.
Those other car companies tend to be very lacking on the software side of things.
Have you ever driven a Tesla?
Feel free to short it, but I think it's a very bad idea.
For charging overnight, my concern is that (A) if drive very much during the day and (B) the house has only a 100 A circuit breaker box, then the charging time will still be too long, that is, that overnight is not long enough. The back of the envelope arithmetic I did on overnight charging at 100 A boiled down to driving a relatively large golf cart not very far or fast. I could be wrong. Yes, a Tesla is a lot bigger than a relatively large golf cart.
> Have you ever driven a Tesla?
No, but I fully accept that a powerful electric car would be a total hoot to drive. So, it would be quiet, smooth as silk, and be the fastest accelerating wheel driven vehicle so far. The key, of course, has been known for 100+ years: A series wound electric motor has, from the view of the math, infinitely large torque at stall, that is, before the armature has started to rotate. Then, before the armature is rotating very fast, the torque is still very high.
Also, get to put a separate motor at each wheel and do without a transmission, drive shaft, differentials, etc. So, get rid of a lot of mechanical parts. Also get rid of the often corroded exhaust system.
The torque and power can get from a carefully designed electric motor now is astounding.
Moreover, there may be some good opportunities to adjust dynamically, many times a second, the motor torque separately at each wheel to eliminate wheel spin, which actually hurts acceleration.
Again, my main concern is charging time: E.g., for summer driving, will want A/C, and that can take a lot of power; in the winter, want heat, and that also takes power.
Do a lot of high performance driving, and a Tesla is to be regarded as a high performance car, accelerating onto Interstate highways, passing cars, trucks, farm equipment on two lane roads, driving at 90 MPH, etc., can use a lot of battery energy. Once when I drove from my home in Maryland to my office at FedEx in Memphis, I drove my Camaro nearly the whole way at about 90 MPH -- didn't get stopped. Once when I was driving at night from Maryland to Indiana to see my fiance, I drove my Firebird nearly the whole way at 90 MPH -- didn't get stopped. I was lusting for pencil beam high speed driving lights, an air horn that could be heard for miles, and a more powerful fuel pump for pulling long hills at 100 MPH at full throttle at about 5000 RPM (Camaro 396, Turbo 400 transmission, second gear, 2.56 rear axle ratio) -- did that daily driving home from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab!
When Dad and I went fishing in Arkansas, I did the driving, before dawn, while he slept, and I put our Buick on 100 MPH and kept it there. For people driving near the Rocky Mountains, they can want a lot of battery energy to climb hills.
Mostly just for commuting to work, I've put 200,000+ miles on each of three cars, a high end Camaro, a Buick Turbo T-Type, and a slow one, an SUV.
So, to me, a car means a lot of driving, maybe fast driving. So, that would make me concerned about Tesla charging time. That a Tesla can be considered a high performance car gives me more concern about charging time if that performance were used very much, e.g., as I have used high performance cars in the past.
My other concern about a Tesla would be the lifetime of the battery after a few thousand full rechargings as might be needed for 200,000+ miles of high performance driving.
For high performance driving,
I'm lusting for a supercharged Corvette, and I'm happy that all
it needs for energy is premium gasoline! :-)!
Well, I think 100A at 120V should theoretically be enough - 12kw. The biggest Tesla battery is 100 kwh, so assuming no charging losses (bad assumption, I know), you should be full in 8ish hours from empty. In reality, you won't want to use your whole rated electrical capacity on one thing, but on the flip side, you can go higher voltage, or upgrade your breaker, assuming your wiring isn't too marginal. Tesla sells a high voltage high amperage charging station for your garage for not too much. I think most charge on a 240V or greater line.
But yeah, charging up mountains at 100 mph will probably give you less than 3 hours :-D
Re driving fun, the torque is great, but I think the biggest thing is 0 throttle lag. Less of a problem with a supercharger than my old twin turbo, but still not instant like this. It's worth taking on a test drive, that's what really convinced me that this was the future. That and the 0-60 times of a 7 seater on par with an M5 (at the time), and the relative mechanical simplicity, and the better marginal economics, etc.
You make a point: Of course, my house here in NYS is drawing 240 V from the electric utility. So, IIRC the 100 A of the main breaker is for 100 A at the 240 V, not just the 120 V. So, just have an electrician run a 240 V line from the breaker box to the garage for the car, say, the same way as there is a 240 V line to the kitchen electic stove and the electric clothes dryer.
But, the 100 KWh is 123 HP for an hour or 61 HP for 2 hours or 30 HP for 4 hours. That's not a lota juice.
Apparently gasoline, burned, releases
33.4 KWH
So, the Tesla battery has the energy of burning 3 gallons of gasoline.
If a gasoline powered car is 33% efficient, then the 100 KWH of a Tesla is about like a 10 gallon tank of gasoline.
Hmm -- my old Chevy S-10 Blazer has a
20 gallon tank for gasoline, and
I can fill it in a few minutes.
But if only want to zip, the fantastic
acceleration, around Manhattan a little
during the week and take
a 2 hour round trip to the Hamptons
on weekends, then it appears that
a Tesla will work!
IIRC, the time I used my Firebird to
blast overnight from my place in
Maryland to my fiance in Indiana,
the whole trip was about 9 hours.
At the speeds I was driving, I
might have been using 100
HP. So, the Tesla battery might
have lasted a little over an hour.
On that trip, even with gasoline,
I had to stop a few times.
A Tesla would have been a
bummer, make me late to
get to my fiance,
in particular,
truncate my manhood -- OUCH!
Car was a Firebird 400 4 speed with,
sadly, a 3.23 rear axle ratio. The first
gear was 2.52, and fourth was 1.0.
Bummer. Now, wisely, much wider
ratios are common and more
gears, e.g., in the Corvette
automatic 8 gears. So, can
try to compete with a Tesla
for standing start acceleration
but on a highway in one of the
higher gears cruise along
at maybe 1200 RPM and get
maybe 28 MPG. Gasoline
powered cars have been
improving, too!
It just hit me: Maybe a Tesla
is using the electric motors
also for braking and, then,
also charging the battery!
Nice.
Trains and big boats commonly
have a Diesel engine driving
a generator and the generator
driving electric motors --
"Look, Ma, no or a perfect
transmission!". Could also
have a battery in there!
Use the battery around town,
and charge the battery with the
engine.
Options solve it in the sense that you limit your downside, but you can still very well lose your premium. Even if you're 100% convinced that $TSLA is overvalued, markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, and your puts may very well expire worthless.
