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Q2 2020 Update

ir.tesla.com

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Re: Q2 2020 Update

#301

TSLA in some ways reminds me of Amazon at the beginning. Way overpriced, but kept reinvesting into new things as it went and the stock price kept going up and profits stayed zero forever while the company kept building itself bigger and bigger. So I can see the bull perspective. However... Car manufacturing is not the same as slinging books online. Profits are consistently thin and Tesla's only edge is in battery tec…

No, their edge is their factories (manufacturing innovation). This is the real product. The cars don't really matter. Seriously.

Factories not for cars but for batteries?

Re: Q2 2020 Update

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been saying this for years. 2017 was supposed to be the year that legacy automakers crushed Tesla to dust. Why should 2021 be different from 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020? If you lurk on the Tesla-killer forums, most buyers are apparently people who either dislike Tesla or only buy European cars. And the used-car market is telling, too: Used 2019 i-Paces and e-Trons with less than 1,000 miles on the odometer…

I too have been surprised at the slow pace (and poor quality) of EV deployment by traditional manufacturers. That's why I bought a Model 3. However. It's pretty much inevitable that the traditional manufacturers will have to make significant inroads into the EV market in the next ten years, if only to deal with increasingly stringent EU regulations (and not to handle the market demand that Tesla has created.) It may…

> What is Tesla's moat that is going to allow it to compete with manufacturers who have almost infinitely more production capacity and a much larger customer base than Tesla?

Well, you listed a couple.

I hear that Ionity is better in Europe, but the Electrify America network is a hot mess here in the US. The forums for all non-Tesla EVs are filled with complaints about unreliable and inoperative chargers. I'm sure this will get sorted out in time, but these experiences color peoples' future perceptions. Just as everyone today "knows" that Teslas have poor build quality, everyone will "know", for the next 10 years, that it's not wise to take a road trip when relying on a different charging network.

Battery tech: Maybe, if you're open to including "charging tech patents" in "battery tech". Look at the charge curve of Tesla vs any of their competitors. Everyone else uses some variant of "constant current until voltage threshold" (often with 2-4 current steps). Tesla continuously adjusts the charging current during a charging session. Those patents will continue to be a moat for another 10 years.

I'm not optimistic about the battery longevity in VW products like the e-Tron, Taycan, and ID.3, which hammer the battery with high current and no regard to sensor feedback. It gives a good charging spec for advertising, but I think VW is going to have a battery reputation problem in 2-3 years (like Nissan currently does, thanks to the 2011-2014 Leaf).

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