This is very good news 
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The thing is is that its being priced like the Apple of EVs, and with a 26.5% gross margin last quarter you can understand why. No one is making EVs this profitably, and no one probably will for a while. Then you have the energy business which using comps is conservatively worth $80-100b on its own and its really not surprising Tesla has had this run up (although Iām sure if it was traded separately it would have been battered by those earnings because of the poor GM and solar roof troubles). So you effectively have a floor of $250b unless the entire renewables story collapses and autonomy is non-viable and Tesla loses dominance in batteries all happen at the same time. What will the floor be in twelve months time?
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Got to admit I donāt like the silent cars and was interested in the F1 push for environmentally decent fuels. This makes me wonder if a curve ball could come and knock the long term price out of kilter.
I tried watching the E cars race and it was like watching someone scratch a chalk board 
Not saying it will doom Tesla at all but I think many are being a bit short sighted on the potential for NOT getting rid of the planets cars and infrastructure that has been built but modifying the fuels.
As I said I am not predicting bad to Tesla and happy with my investment there but the future may take a few turns that may affect the HUGE value.
I actually think this could be a strong possibility in a few years time. Tesla have gone in BIG on LiPo battery technology, which is the best commercial option at the moment. However, there is continued research into other technologies like Lithium-air which have the potential to store much more energy in the same volume. None of these are commercially viable yet, but when they are, Tesla could find itself with a lot of big expensive factories that canāt easily be retooled and a more nimble upstart could get in to the new market for cheaper.
OTOH, Tesla is slowly building up its capital now, so it does have a reasonable chance of being able to aggressively move into newer battery tech as it becomes commercially viable, as long as it doesnāt become too complacent in thinking theyāre the market leaders, which has happened to so many companies in the past who were previously thought unshakeable.
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Anything could happen of course but I believe the momentum is firmly with EVs now, and its governments leading the way. Battery investment (of any chemistry) dwarfs hydrogen or any kind of alternative fuel. Every time I read up on biofuels I get more certain thatās its just a way for old fossils like Jimmy at INEOS to continue polluting. Ultimately in twenty years nothing with a tailpipe will be allowed in cities.
(to be clear I think hydrogen fuel cells and biofuels will both play a part in the energy transition, just not for consumer vehicles, whatever that market looks like in a decade).
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As I said I am not suggesting it WILL happen but just the whole EV market is going to be very very hard to actually make real. Charging points in cities is a nightmare if you live in a block and on streets will be a nightmare of people pulling plugs etc
When you get to other countries in the world then it gets even harder to ensure a charging network. I also struggle to see countries like USA embrace silent cars 
Again Iām not predicting it, just saying there could be a big change if, and it is an IF, someone comes up with a clean fuel and markets the benefits of not building EV cars which are not that clean at all to build plus the absolutely humungous amount of resources we will use/waste building it all up. After all I donāt think anyone actually hates tail pipes just the fumes and if it was water then why ban it?
Energy revenues are $1,976m for 2021 annualized for a loss of ~$400m.
How do you value that unprofitable business āconservativelyā at $80bn? (40X forward sales)?
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Yeah Iāll be honest I last looked at the peak in Feb before renewables sold off so it will be lower now, but go have a look at some US listed energy/solar/charging companies. Valuations are pretty insane. Energy business also had positive GM for most of 2020 so bit out of date hypothetical now.
@Big-g Never said its going to be easy but its the easiest of all the tech we have. Itās not like Iām against FCV in principle, but they currently cost way more, will cost more even if they are mass-produced (basic complexity compared to battery EVs) and then you have the problem of actually manufacturing and transporting the hydrogen in a sustainable way, which we canāt yet. Maybe at some point thereās an inflection, but its far away, so low ārelativeā risk.
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Actually, I totally disagree with you on this. I have an older tech PHEV myself, and charging is very slow, but actually I still use EV for 90% of my journeys despite the low range.
As soon as the majority of vehicles have 200-300 mile range, charging simply isnāt an issue for most people. With newer vehicles have 500 mile range and 80% charge in 30 minutes, you could stop for a 15 minute break at the services every 200 miles and keep your battery charge above 50% the whole time.
If you visit London, parking bays with recharging points are everywhere. Even where I live in the Midlands, theyāve started putting recharge bays in residential areas every couple of streets, so even if you donāt have off-street parking you can still easily charge. And as the government is mandating a 100% move to greener vehicles, this will only improve further.
We have petrol stations everywhere currently, but that infrastructure wasnāt there in the petrol carās infancy either. The network grew to support the demand.
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I get that and as I said I am not saying IT WILL happen but for example you said you use Hybrid 90% of time so it is an issue. Where I live I wouldnāt be able to charge and I would detest 30 min to charge. I know places offer points at the moment but that is easy but the last 30% odd will be the hardest. Edit - The last 30% of infrastructure not charge.
Hell if we canāt get internet everywhere how are we going to get charging points? Also, when everyone is charging that means the garages need to be MASSIVE as the queues are bad on a 5min top up, imagine a 30 min top up.
Again not saying it will happen but many technological advances come out of nowhere and maybe Hydrogen mini plants or something become viable. I donāt think people like Mercedes would waste money if they didnāt think it was at least a possibility.
The other thing is WILL other countries all commit? That was part of my original point that what will happen here may not happen in that big world beyond our shores
During the clean energy peak First Solar (FSLR) reached just over $10bn market cap and thatās a company that is profitable and has +50% higher revenues. I just donāt see how the energy division of Tesla could be worth as much as SpaceX.
I use electric 90% of the time because I only have 20 mile electric range, so when I go further I need to use petrol.
If I had a 200 mile range car pure EV, maybe once per year Iād be forced to wait at a services for a 30 minute charge at some point on a long trip. If I had a 500 mile range car, then if I went on a week long road trip, at some point Iād have to stop off and charge. But for me, the longest round trip I ever do (maybe once or twice a year) is 300 miles. If Iām doing something special outside that, Iāll put up with being forced to take a 30 minute charge break every 6 hours of driving.
The simple fact is that the vast majority of people (I forgot the exact stats, as it was years ago when I was looking at this, but it was something like 95%) have a typical journey distance of under 10 miles. Sure, there are people with longer daily commutes, theyāll need to get something with probably at least a 200 mile range rather than the absolute cheapest EVs with only 60 mile range.
Except that garages have a maximum occupancy of 8-20 cars depending on design. Motorway services can just stick charging points, every or every other parking bay. They are already designed for hundreds of people at a time stopping off for 30+ minutes while they have a break, grab some food, etc.
Because garages are so annoying, people only refill when almost empty or before a long journey.
Because plugging your car in is so easy, people just plug in whenever they can to top it up to full.
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I get your points but many people live in narrow streets or blocks and charging is not a simple thing. Again I go back to the infrastructure. That would be a HUGE power issue to turn garages into massive power plants. Though it still doesnāt address the global issue and lets face it the vast majority of cars on this planet are not in the western world.
I am probably talking rubbish but there are many hurdles that are much higher than people like to admit for a FULL roll out.
Thatās only an issue if everyone is charging at the maximum rate. But the beauty of electric charging is that the charger can offer any current it wants, so it can limit each vehicle to less than a street lightās worth of power if required. In theory you can build a single charger that could charge many vehicles balancing their charging rate based on how much power they need, and maybe even asking people on plug in how long theyāll be parked for.
Wouldnāt that make the charges longer though?
Yeah, itās a balancing act. But what I mean is that the chargers are in control. Most service stations are already well provided for power, but they can limit individual carās charge rates to ensure that charging for the entire site fits within their overall power budget.
But the point is that if you have a vehicle with sufficient range, most people arenāt doing a full charge each time. Theyāre just topping up because itāll guarantee theyāre not forced into a long stop somewhere less convenient.
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At peak:
Enphase had a P/S of 35, Sunnova 34, Chargepoint 94, Ballard 285, Microvast 29. Plug Power $24b mcap with no revenue at all. QuantumScape was trading at >100 2023 sales. Iām not even cherry picking. Bundling charging/battery using Alphaville is 217 aggregate.
This is all kind of irrelevant as we all know if they did decide to spinoff the hype would propel it north of $200b for no reason anyway.
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Haha thatās incredible, ok I guess I still wouldnāt call it āconservativeā but within the context of such a huge market dislocation itās actually pretty reasonable.
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I donāt have any TSLA, but I found this really interesting:
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