NACS is cheaper to implement because the billing hardware/software is part of the car's computer, rather than being built into the charger. Notice that Tesla chargers have no credit card readers, no RFID readers, and no screens. They developed the chargers to essentially be electricity spigots, while their cars were doing all the leg work of tracking the charging and submitting the information to Tesla's chargers, where their customers are required to have a credit card account on file. In other words, it required having Tesla's proprietary software and hardware installed in the cars.

As a result, when they finally did open up their networks to other brands in Europe (given that Tesla chargers in Europe use the CCS plug, not the NACS plug), it required those other brand vehicle owners to use a phone app. Something Tesla owners ironically chide other networks for. Now let me ask you... what if you're on a long drive and you drop your phone and break the screen?

I'd also point out that for the majority of Tesla's existence, their networks have been closed to other brands, even in Europe where they were using the same CCS plug... which is a pretty big failure point if other brands can't even use the chargers. Why did Tesla do that? Simple... because it was a huge competitive advantage for selling cars. To give a car company that type of power is a major issue. Tesla can, at will, decide to charge other brands more money to charge. They can at will decide to offer better terms to people who buy their cars. They only recently started opening their chargers to other brands in Europe, requiring the phone app.

When it comes to gas stations, this type of control by a car manufacturer would be unthinkable.

Now in the US, they seem to have agreed to open their chargers to other brands, which they've done at just a handful of stations by using a 'magic dock' that makes both NCAS and CCS options available. It seems they only did this after going to the Whitehouse and agreeing to terms for opening their network. In other words, they demanded to be subsidized for each instance they converted or added a new charger capable of handling CCS cars. It also seems they got away from the requirement of needing credit card readers and screens on their chargers.

I don't know if this thing with Ford is a sign they're now backing out of this agreement, but it's pretty shady.

Yeah, so they do this only AFTER the stock market hits all time highs and has run out of juice... Meanwhile, their policies would have not only told them the stock market would keep climbing through unprecedented QE, but the policy makers likely knew which equities they'd be pumping money into. Now release records on how much these officials made during all of this and on which stocks. Transparency now.

Also... FFS this world is going to hell.

Proceeds they earned for literally doing what they were going to do anyways. The emitting industry was then allowed to pay less for the environmental destruction they were causing, allowing them to continue emitting more for longer. Had they been forced to pay the full amount, maybe they would have decided that their business model required changes. Maybe they'd capture all of their emissions, or use the money to find greener solutions. Maybe they'd raise their prices, and the customers would have to pay more... but since the customers don't want to pay more, maybe they'd buy less of the product. If it's energy, maybe they'd use less energy.

As to the wood.... If there's a demand for wood, then it doesn't matter if this specific land isn't logged. Loggers will just go to the regions they're allowed to and cut down more trees there. Aren't those loggers already required to plant new trees in the areas they log anyways? In the end, this system isn't helpful.

The real goal is to both not chop down so many trees and also not inject so much carbon into the atmosphere. Simple solution for that. Tax CO2 emissions, tax other forms of pollution, and tax the destruction of carbon sinks. Companies that don't generate emissions should not be given credits for doing the right thing. Their reward is not being penalized for doing the wrong thing...

When will people learn that the only REAL solution to our CO2 and other toxic pollution issues is to avoid using the energy and resources in the first place, and for that we need a massive global societal change to reduce our energy and resource demand. Only if we can produce the energy or harvest the resources in a green way should we allow for increased energy generating / raw material harvesting.

A lot of people believe this will kill jobs. People not buying things... *gasp*. Nah... it just requires moving towards a more service based society, rather than a materialistic society. It means sacrificing convenience in favor of environmental consciousness.

True, but have you even seen the stock price of the company of said CEO's increase to more than the next 6 largest vehicle manufacturers combined? Based on the idea that "a fleet of a million Robotaxis will go online in just a few more months with a simple OTA update"? ;)

Based on previous cycles, the bull cycle has already started, explaining the huge price jump over the past few months. If you go based on time on past cycles, it'll end anywhere between July and December and the prices will see a correction. If it follows the pattern, the price will never reverse back to where it was pre-bull cycle. Then again, who knows. Maybe governments will regulate it, ban it, bring viable alternatives, or suddenly investors will decide they want to sell their holdings en masse.

Estimates are anywhere from $100k - $1 million, although the general low end consensus I've seen is around $150k-$200k based on previous cycles. But who knows, this time could be completely different. There's loads of new competition, but there's also loads of new institutional investors betting big on it. I mean Microstrategies, Tesla, and Square alone account for around $3.7 billion in BTC holdings.

New big institutional BTC purchases looking for a safe haven for their cash reserves could taper the pull back versus previous cycles, but no doubt thus far there has been a typical 4 year BTC cycle that includes a bull phase and a bear phase. Both phases can see huge prices swings, but the coin has been trending up along with plenty of other altcoins.

That said, the bull phase isn't supposed to end until somewhere around July - December. I guess we'll see if the trend continues.

Ah right, you researched them, realized they would increase 1600% in 2 years, and you bought in? Haha.. c'mon man. Luck is luck.

Hell, if you bought at the bottom of the crash, there were plenty of tech and bio stocks that could have realized 500-1000% gain. The $4 trillion in stimulus and trillions in FED QE including direct equity buys certainly didn't hurt.

No, you're not a genius for buying Tesla. Sometimes stocks bubble.

Afterhours prices usually account for much lower trading volumes which can more easily sway prices. Relying on after hour prices as if they're regular trading hour movements is silly.

Ah yes... you don't lose until you sell your stock. That's like going to a poker table, buying in for $1k, and losing $250 in your first hand. Sure, you didn't cash out yet, but I bet you'd rather not be starting off stuck 25% of your buy-in.

Tesla is a bubble stock. It used high short interest and fanatical buy and hold investors to cause repeated minor squeezes. Meanwhile, Michael Burry called it for what it is, and it seems his new "big short" on the stock has paid off. Company selling 500k cars per year worth more than every other auto OEM combined... hilarious that anyone thinks that's warranted.

Their energy division is tiny versus their auto division and all of their products rely heavily on government subsidies and government regulation emissions credit sales. Take those away and Tesla's in the hole for over a billion a year, and I highly doubt they'd so easily be raising $10 billion in new share sales with continuous annual losses.

Very doubtful Tesla dropped as a result of their Bitcoin purchase. Tesla's likely still up a good $500 million on that bet. It wasn't like their stock popped when their BTC value jumped by $1 billion. Tesla along with a lot of these new EV companies are overpriced bubble stocks. Tesla's been cutting prices on their vehicles and is making rando marketing choices with the vehicles they offer.

There's a documentary on youtube about Iceland's Bitcoin mining datacenters which that supposedly use more energy than the rest of the country combined. That's WITH the geographically colder climates helping to naturally cool the facilities that generate massive heat. I mean, it's a pretty low population country so that's not too incredible, but it is still pretty bad. Now throw these facilities in a desert nation where it's hot and you can quickly see how energy demand could skyrocket. You effectively have thousands of high powered graphics cards and other electronic equipment running 24 hours a day in a warehouse. Imagine how much additional energy they're using to cool these facilities to keep the equipment from melting.

Should also be mentioned that Tesla's regulatory credits started pulling in 3-4x more than they did last year because FCA agreed to buy $1.8 billion worth of credits between 2020/2021. $1.44 billion of that is pegged to come in 2020. Half of which has been accounted for in 1H. Expect Tesla to pull in a similar amount in 2H.

That huge windfall is due to new emissions regulations in Europe, so FCA bought up loads of European credits as a result until they can start producing their own green cars, which they plan to do by 2021.

Of course, many automakers are planning to release their lower cost EVs in 2021, so I'd imagine most of the demand for these credits will dry up in 2021. FCA is planning to buy $360 million in 2021, but if no other automaker buys credits, Tesla's revenue would effectively drop by about $1 billion next year. I don't imagine it will be that stark, but could return to 2019 levels, so about $600 million less than 2020. Not a massive drop in revenue, about 2.5% of the company's auto revenue, but it's a lot for a growth company that's seen its share price increase 6.5x y/y and is expected to grow like a weed.

7% raises their gross vehicle margins from 18% to 25%. 25% is the number they hold over the heads of other OEMs who are typically closer to 10%. They're only 10% because they include R&D costs into COGS which lowers gross vehicle margins. Tesla doesn't include R&D costs into COGS... and hence their gross vehicle margins are inflated further.

Tesla's sold just over 1 million vehicles in 8 years (since model S production start). All of the companies combined that Tesla is now considered more valuable then (all of them combined) produce tens of millions of cars per year... versus Tesla's current production rate of 500k vehicles a year.

The stock is super inflated. It really is making a mockery of everyone's favorite investment platform, the stock market.

Everyone always says other OEM EVs aren't competitive, then proceed to compare a Tesla model 3 Long Range to a the other brand's cars on features alone. In the case of the Bolt, they never mention that the Tesla costs $47k, and you can easily find a Bolt for under $26k.

Meanwhile, Tesla gets 90% of the media attention versus all other OEM offerings, and when compared to individual companies, probably gets closer to 99% of the media attention. There's a reason Tesla's winning; it's called hype and biased coverage.

"That will solve all our problems right?!"

Isn't it important to first understand what the problem actually is?

I think it's pretty obvious that we have a pretty serious issue with too much supply capability and not enough demand. Corporations have fixed this by laying off workers, which drove up unemployment, allowing corporations to pay their retained and new workers less. All of which has reinforced low demand. I have seen the idea of a "liquidity trap" thrown around, and other than people stating point of fact that it isn't true, I've yet to see a single in-depth critique stating that we are not in a liquidity trap.

In a liquidity trap, it isn't just the unemployed that matter. It's the employed who see their job security worsen, and their wages go down or stagnate. All things that lead to the employed saving a greater proportion of their money, rather than making purchases. It isn't just the rich who are saving!

By lowering unemployment, not only does the government generate greater revenue, they also have substantially lower spending due to less people on government assistance.

When unemployment drops substantially, demand goes up, forcing companies to expand production, and allowing more small businesses to survive. This generates higher job security and higher salaries. Greater job security and higher salaries leads the other 190 million working people to feel more secure in their spending. This drives up demand further, allowing businesses to safely hire substantially more laborers to meet demand. Otherwise they may lose sales to competitors.

This generates substantially higher GDP in the economy, lower government spending, greater government revenue, or a lower government budget deficit, leading to the lowering of the percentage of Debt to GDP.

To put it bluntly: Getting our ~12 million unemployed working is only the tip of the iceberg in a recovering economy. It's when the *entire* 200 million person workforce has enough security to begin demanding higher wages, to begin buying things again, to thereby drive the economy upwards.

Once the economy is in full recovery mode, *THEN* we can raise taxes on everyone and pay down the debt so that the next time we run into a recession, the government has more funds to do something about it.