Messages

1

Arctic sea ice / Re: When will the Arctic Go Ice Free?

« on: Today at 01:44:00 PM »

RE:  Oren.  Close but no cigar.  You are using E + T = V. 
It is  E * T =V.
Multiplication vs. Addition.

Of course. I am using (1-x)*(1-y)=1-(x+y), the first approximation, which works surprisingly well for small numbers.
Note my numbers are "E decline" (1-E) and "T decline" (1-T), per your definitions.
V=E*T=(1-E_d)*(1-T_d)=~1-(E_d+T_d)
V_d=1-V=~E_d+T_d
1.3%=~1%+0.3% in my example.

(Sorry, I am bored... but who wants a cigar anyway?? Yikes!)

2

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2019/2020 freezing season

« on: Today at 01:24:20 PM »

It is, but Aluminium prefers not to, I think it might be a filesize issue.

I think it's mostly a usability trade-off issue between too much cropping and too much zooming out, where I think Aluminium hit the sweet spot. And it's also a backward compatibility issue with his previous animations as he's been making these for over a year now using the same cropping template.
The downside is that at the end of the freezing season (Jan, Feb) all the action is in the far peripheral seas and the animation becomes less useful. That is the time of year when Aluminium decreases the publishing rate to once a week, IIRC.
I will take the opportunity to again thank Aluminium for this important service to the community.

3

Arctic sea ice / Re: When will the Arctic Go Ice Free?

« on: November 12, 2019, 03:24:47 PM »

Binntho I think you are wrong. Volume could be declining at 1.3% per year, and extent at 1%. Volume is declining faster than extent, and yet thickness is declining slower than extent at only 0.3% per year.

BTW, this whole discussion should be area and not extent, which has an additional component of dispersion (which has been trending upwards IIRC).

And it's quite obvious that extent and area will eventually catch up with volume, once typical thickness becomes too low.

4

Policy and solutions / Re: The Hyperloop

« on: November 11, 2019, 01:24:02 AM »

I really hope all these governments will wait to see an actual working hyperloop somewhere in the world before spending a lot of money on their planning.

5

Arctic sea ice / Re: "Stupid" Questions :o

« on: November 09, 2019, 05:54:31 PM »

Thank you Kassy. I was in a rush so gave no details.

Here's some additional information:

Model

A Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) is used for this project. PIOMAS is a coupled Parallel Ocean and sea Ice Model (POIM, Zhang and Rothrock 2003) with capabilities of assimilating ice concentration and velocity data. It is formulated in a generalized orthogonal curvilinear coordinate (GOCC) system and designed to run on computers with a single processor or massively parallel processors. PIOMAS couples the Parallel Ocean Program (POP) with a thickness and enthalpy distribution (TED) sea-ice model. The POP model is developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

The TED sea-ice model is a dynamic thermodynamic model that also explicitly simulates sea-ice ridging. The model originates from the Thorndike et al. (1975) thickness distribution theory and is recently enriched by enthalpy distribution theory (Zhang and Rothrock, 2001). It has 12 categories each for ice thickness, ice enthalpy, and snow ((Zhang et al., 2000). This multicategory TED model consists of seven main components: a viscous-plastic ice rheology that determines the relationship between ice internal stress and ice deformation (Hibler 1979), a mechanical redistribution function that determines ice ridging (Thorndike et al. 1975; Rothrock, 1975; Hibler, 1980), a momentum equation that determines ice motion, a heat equation that determines ice growth/decay and ice temperature, an ice thickness distribution equation that conserves ice mass (Thorndike et al. 1975; Hibler, 1980), an ice enthalpy distribution equation that conserves ice thermal energy (Zhang and Rothrock, 2001), and a snow thickness distribution equation that conserves snow mass (Flato and Hibler, 1995). The ice momentum equation is solved using Zhang and Hibler's (1997) ice dynamics model that employs a line successive relaxation technique with a tridiagonal matrix solver, which has been found to be particularly useful for parallel computing (Zhang and Rothrock, 2003). The heat equation is solved over each ice thickness category using a modified three-layer thermodynamic model (Winton, 2000). The configuration of the finite-difference grid of PIOMAS is shown below. 



The model grid is a stretched GOCC grid with the northern grid pole displaced into Greenland. This causes the model to have its highest resolution in the Greenland Sea, Baffin Bay, and the eastern Canadian Archipelago. This lets the model have a reasonably good connection between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean via the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Sea and the Labrador Sea. The mean horizontal resolution is 22 km for the Arctic, Barents, and GIN (Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian) seas, and Baffin Bay. The model is one-way nested to a global POIM (GIOMAS) by imposing open boundary conditions along the southern boundaries (~ 43oN). Monthly output from GIOMAS is used for the open boundary conditions. The model was driven by the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. 

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/model.html

6

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: November 08, 2019, 10:31:36 AM »

Thank you for these figures. I was hoping for GSY to make some constructive contribution to the discussion about whether Tesla has some design advantage.
Be that as it may, I make the claim that in the energy consumption numbers of the Model 3 compared to cars with similar size and range, and even compared to smaller cars and shorter ranges, one can duscern an implied deisgn advantage which is quite significant, and is not very surprising considering that Tesla has more experience designing EVs, plus it tries harder as EVs are its core business.

7

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: November 08, 2019, 08:31:04 AM »

GSY, if you want to do something useful to prove your points about Tesla having no design advantage. As I believe they have better drag coefficients, better battery pack design, better battery heat and current management, and better use of regenerative braking, resulting in higher efficiency and therefore improved range for the same battery size. (Translating into a cost advantage).

So I recommend that you compare and post the specs of kWh/km or /mile for EVs by different makers: Model 3 (LR and SR), S, e-Tron, i-Pace, Taycan, Kona, new Zoe, new Bolt, new Leaf, new Ioniq etc.
If you can't be bothered, find someone on Tslaq who bothers to back up their claims.  I think the results could teach us something useful and give you an opportunity to post something with a better signal to noise ratio.
Notes: it's good to separate city and highway specs, as they are affected by different design factors.
EVs with very short range have a higher efficiency due to lower mass, but are also less useful in replacing ICE cars.

8

Antarctica / Re: PIG has calved

« on: November 08, 2019, 08:09:22 AM »

Seriously excellent stuff, baking. Thank you.
Note the slower gifs are much clearer.

9

Consequences / Re: Global Surface Air Temperatures

« on: November 08, 2019, 12:42:35 AM »

Great, so US temperatures decreased compared to the man-made hell of the dustbowl era.

10

Arctic sea ice / Re: "Stupid" Questions :o

« on: November 07, 2019, 10:56:34 AM »

A small but important correction, PIOMAS does not use the Hycom-CICE model.

11

Arctic sea ice / Re: When will the Arctic Go Ice Free?

« on: November 07, 2019, 10:52:28 AM »

Glen, at the root of your well written post is the reversal of the Thorndike chart, which I think is wrong. The physical behaviors of melting and freezing in the Arctic are different due to the effect of the buffer of the water below the ice. Also a lot of the melting is due to direct insolation while the temperature stays near zero. So while I would tend to think thinner ice melts more easily than thicker ice for a given "melting power", this heuristic chart reversal cannot be used as the reasoning for that.

12

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: November 07, 2019, 06:39:02 AM »

I was told "sig" has blocked you from personal messaging.

This happens automatically when the user has put you on the ignore list, it's not a separate blocking as far as I know.
As your numerous and often sequential posts are low on content and high on mockery and name calling, I expect Sig is is not the only one to have taken the rational route and blocked you.

13

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: November 07, 2019, 06:18:47 AM »

Mercedes decided to block driver's door while charging...

What a weird location for the charging connector, especially since charging takes a relatively long time. At least they could have put it on the passenger side. 

14

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: November 07, 2019, 12:07:57 AM »

Cutting back on electrical use is the only way to mitigate the problem that I can see, but will more efficient appliances, thicker blankets of insulation and low wattage lighting have any effect if EVs flood the market?

As the graph clearly shows, since 2015 California has indeed cut its electricity usage, and even more so its non-renewable electricity usage. At the same time, total number of plug-in vehicles in California increased about tenfold to over 500,000 at the end of 2018, and plug-in market share is ~10% of new vehicle sales. So maybe the EV monster is not as scary as you might think. (Admittedly, these are still relatively small numbers).

15

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: November 06, 2019, 11:08:00 PM »

G, thanks for this graph.
Share of renewables appears to be higher than 25% (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal). Not too far to 33% (but it should be 100%!).
The good news is that absolute fossil fuel generation is slowly shrinking.

16

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: November 06, 2019, 10:30:11 AM »

Either

- More of the same; still cars etc. but greener. Still a high-energy lifestyle. Green BAU. GDP growth. More and more resources and waste. Microplastic etc. (In my view the whole global emergency sistuation screams for this system to STOP NOW).

Or

- Radical change, which, I am certain, is absolutely necessary. And supported by the alarmcalls from the science community.

Nanning, to be clear - I agree with you completely. But while the radical solution is not happening, I prefer Green BAU over plain BAU. EVs still have many environmental problems (tires, batteries, mining, and much more) but they are better than ICE cars.

17

Policy and solutions / Re: Greta Thunberg's Atlantic crossing

« on: November 06, 2019, 07:50:47 AM »

Greta should this and Greta should that. And yet she has 100 times the impact of other climate activists, so perhaps she is doing something right??
Ah yes I forgot, she is co-opted.

18

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: November 05, 2019, 10:36:04 PM »

Apology: this was written several hours ago and did not get posted in time, so may feel out of place. In any case, I agree the whole discussion should be made elsewhere, but still thought it worthwhile to post this little bit.


Reading the last few posts one gets the impression that the only thing causing the 3-4^oC warming, and preventing Utopian public transportation and an end to over-consumption, is those pesky little EVs.
It's as if those 100 million ICE cars sold globally per year have been completely forgotten. BAU is marching on while we are here discussing the finer points of environmentalism.

I completely agree that in order to really fix the problem we must get rid of all usage of resources that are not renewable and sustainable. If I were the global dictator, many things would be banned outright (yes, including fossil fueled flights) and the rest would be limited according to planetary capacities (yes, including births). But I am not the dictator, and you are not either, and it is what it is. The problem is not completely fixed and not partially fixed, and we and our children are destined to fry.
So even if I am not an incrementalist, I cheer for every little increment, because it's still better than the existing alternative. And a new EV sold is better than a new ICE sold, even if both should have been banned in a better-managed planet.

19

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: November 02, 2019, 05:40:25 PM »

I'll take Elon's numbers with a large grain of salt. After all that happened with the Solar Roof, I'll believe mass installaltions when I see mass installations.

20

The forum / Re: Forum Decorum

« on: November 02, 2019, 10:04:31 AM »

I should think the Freeezing Season thread. But recently discipline has been flagging.

21

Policy and solutions / Re: Is the reason for the protests in Chile an expensive green energy?

« on: November 01, 2019, 05:11:41 PM »

It would be nice not to have to read denier texts in this forum.
To the point, carbon taxes should be coupled with a dividend or some other form of distribution/relief to the population, especially to the poor, or otherwise they risk running into serious opposition. But it doesn't make them wrong, unless in the eyes of a denier.

22

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: November 01, 2019, 04:41:10 PM »

It is no surprise that FCA entered into a pooling deal with Tesla estimated to be worth $1.8bn over 4 years.

As I have written in the past, I very strongly doubt this number.
Here is a little excerpt from Tesla's 10Q form, which can help shed some light on this.

Automotive Regulatory Credits
We recognize revenue on the sale of regulatory credits at the time control of the regulatory credits is transferred to the purchasing party as automotive revenue in the consolidated statements of operations. Deferred revenue related to sales of automotive regulatory credits was $140 million and $0 as of September 30, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively. We expect to recognize the deferred revenue as of September 30, 2019 over the next 1 to 3 years.

I believe the FCA deal is nearer to this $140M, or possibly a few hundreds of millions, than it is to the $1.2B that has been mentioned before or the $1.8B that you mentioned above.

23

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: October 31, 2019, 01:39:18 PM »

Just think how much money is plowed into oil and its refinement and transportation, and you will have your answers.
With the money invested in the short-term fracking boom a lot of the problem could have been solved already.

24

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 31, 2019, 03:34:00 AM »

Here is a little chart I made, based on data from the various 10Q and the 10K SEC filings.
The 2H2018 M3 ramp in the US is apparent, as well as the 2019 ramp in Europe and the RHD markets.
Bundled in the same data is the sharp drop in models S & X, as well as some non-automotive revenues.

25

Consequences / Re: Working on (free) Climate Themed Game, advice on a post 4ºC world looks like?

« on: October 29, 2019, 03:40:47 PM »

Well I'm glad I won't be around by 2100, as I found the game too hard even at 4^oC...

26

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 28, 2019, 08:58:35 PM »

An interesting Q&A in the investor call regarding regulatory credits. Reading this, the story of FCA paying $1.2B to Tesla seems highly exaggerated, as I suspected at the time. But the same also applies to the story of Tesla living off regulatory credits and government handouts.

Great. And then, can you help us help frame the opportunity for emission credits? As the standards in the EU starts to tighten next year, and I'm not looking for an exact number, but maybe more to understand whether this is an opportunity in the tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, anything to help us frame the opportunity, and also whether you have any ongoing dialogues with OEM? Thanks.

Elon R. Musk -- Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Director

We certainly have ongoing dialogues with OEMs, but as you see from our financials, the tax credits or emissions credits are not forming a very big percentage of our revenue. They're -- I mean, Zack, what was the last quarter? It was really quite...

Zachary Kirkhorn -- Chief Financial Officer

It was over $100 million.

Elon R. Musk -- Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Director

But out of like several billion. So it's like 1.5%. It's not -- it's not exactly a giant percentage. And obviously there's credits in the US are really not -- the credit situation not particularly strong for obvious reasons, which we think is not great for the future, but anyway that's the way it is. In Europe, there's much more of a sensitivity to the environment, but we're not counting on some big windfall, maybe it will be good, maybe not, we don't know. But we're not counting on it.

Zachary Kirkhorn -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I think that's a fair way to characterize it. I mean, our expectations are that credit revenues will generally increase with time, not necessarily increasing every quarter. We did increase from Q2 to Q3, but there's a certain amount of them that are baseline based on the number of cars that we build and deliver, and there's others that are deal specific, and those deals can happen at any point. So we're constantly in conversations with auto makers about this, but within the company, we manage the business without counting on any profit or cash flows from regulatory credits, and we view it as purely incremental. And my recommendation is that everyone should feel it that way. It's just an extra that comes through.

Elon R. Musk -- Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Director

It's obviously a good thing to do that would help accelerate the advent of sustainable energy for sure. But it's -- and I think outside the US, there seems to be a strong push in that direction, which is great. And probably within the US, that over time will become a strong push.

27

Antarctica / Re: PIG has calved

« on: October 28, 2019, 09:15:00 AM »

But I do not see the SSM rift or the SIS calving as a threat to PIG since the northern margin is faster that the southern and it drives the calving of PIG.  It is however potentially a threat to the SIS and the South West Tributary.

Thanks for these great posts baking. Just a question:
Isn't the northern margin faster because of the SWT pressure? Isn't it quite possible that the southern margin will accelerate following loss of "cork" and SWT contact?

28

Consequences / Re: Hurricane Season 2019

« on: October 28, 2019, 01:56:34 AM »

For those like me who are unfamiliar with the N Indian Ocean terminology, a Super Cyclonic Storm is Cat5 or high Cat4.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone#Intensity_classifications

29

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 28, 2019, 01:31:43 AM »

Vincent (@vincent13031925) 10/27/19, 2:37 AM
Have you ever sold any of ur Tesla $TSLA position?
Ron Baron: “None, I am holding all of them.”
He also mentioned to make a car in China is 60-70% cheaper than US. So the return on investment should be going to the roof & more.

As a lot of the car's cost is hardware, so 60%-70% cheaper does sound like nonsense.
In addition, Tesla itself thinks otherwise. From the call transcript:

George Dailey -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Hi, everyone. This is George Dailey on for Adam. So, first question, is it a fair assumption to say that once the Shanghai Gigafactory is ramped, the Model 3 sold in China for China could be the most profitable car you sell, even more profitable than the average car made at Fremont right now?

Zachary Kirkhorn -- Chief Financial Officer

That one is also difficult to forecast, it's a good question. At least based on the plans that we have now, we're expecting it to be roughly in line with where Model 3 is coming out of our Fremont factory. There's still a bunch of work around cost optimization in the factory after we launch with ramp inefficiencies, and we need to work those costs down. And then there will be work to land on what the right mix is within the country and where we ultimately land on the product offering. So I think just for now, it's safe to assume that it's roughly in line with the margins that you see coming out of the Fremont facility.

30

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 27, 2019, 08:55:19 AM »

2) FSD computer is fraud 
3) Model Y is fraud
4) Solar shingles is fraud 
35k Model 3 will never be produced

To be more objective, two of these were quite right, and two are still not proven as wrong:
2) All we heard for now is just talk. The device is shipping in new cars but rate of retrofits is very low AFAIK. I am not aware of any actual improvement of Autopilot performance with it yet. I am sure it will happen and is important but the thesis has not been destroyed yet.
3) Model Y was unveiled so some of the unknowns have already been cleared, but until it ships in mass it is not out of the woods yet. I expect this thesis to be destroyed in 7 months.
4) This is the one thesis I believe. The Tile was total vaporware when it was touted in 2016 as a good reason for the colossally bad buyout of Solar City. The proof is the 3-year delay with really bad excuses, and it still hasn't actually shipped AFAIK. This looks like a product of which development has just started after it was announced as existing. Early launches (2017) were staged to support the buyout and silence criticism.
8. This is partially true but should not be held against Tesla. The base Model 3 - the "SR+"  - is priced at $39.5k. The $35k Model 3 - the "SR" - should never have neen released. It was only presented because of Musk's vanity. Tesla should have admitted that the initial cost calculations were a bit off, automatic manufacturing did not live up to its full potential, some inflation happened, and Tesla has to raise the base price by 10-15% to avoid perpetual losses. To sweeten the deal it would include AP as standard. This would have been perfectly fine, but Elon can't admit a mistake and so Tesla was forced to make a stripped-down model that it didn't want to sell, skew its product line, put SW developers on the task, and all just to lose money and still get bad publicity.

This doesn't mean that the shorts were right, just that the truth is rarely one-sided.

31

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 26, 2019, 10:05:01 AM »

The Tesla solar roof is only 15% more than what I paid. That's not bad.

If the premium is 15% it's not bad, but shouldn't solar prices have come down sharply in the last few years?

32

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 25, 2019, 10:36:48 PM »

4. I don't know how much FSD revenue they recognized. Can someone enlighten me?

"Note that with the release of Smart Summon in the US, we were able to recognize $30 million of deferred revenue."

BTW the amount of money received which is treated as a liability rather than as income has gone up from $2066 million to $2185 million in the quarter. So the $30 million released to income represents 1.35% of the $2215 million deferred revenue. At that rate of releasing revenue, it suggests it will take them 18.5 years to fully develop FSD.

Some people might think they won't achieve it in 18.5 years and the $30 million released is a bit reckless. Most reasonable people would, I think, believe they are making progress at a faster rate than that and the $30 million released looks conservative.

$30 million does not look like a lot and quarter would be profitable even if none was released.

Not all of this number is FSD.

From the investor update:
"We also expect to gradually release nearly $500M of accumulated deferred revenue tied to Autopilot and Full Self Driving features"

From the investor call:
"I mean, our cash gross margin obviously is higher than our GAAP gross margin because of unrecognized revenue associated with FSD attach rates. So that's why I think it's in the order of $600 million or in the order of $0.5 billion of unrecognized revenue. So if you were to include that, which is obviously recognized as we release the full self-driving functionalities, the actual gross margin we're operating in on a cash basis today is higher than the GAAP gross margin."

33

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 25, 2019, 05:13:45 PM »

4. I don't know how much FSD revenue they recognized. Can someone enlighten me?

"Note that with the release of Smart Summon in the US, we were able to recognize $30 million of deferred revenue."

34

Arctic sea ice / Re: "Stupid" Questions :o

« on: October 25, 2019, 04:20:04 PM »

I'm looking for recent methane concentration data from the Tiksi weather station, but the most recent data I can find on the NOAA website is over a year old.

Is the station still operational? Is NOAA still collecting this data? Or am I just being impatient?

Welcome to the forum Alumril. (Sorry I can't answer your question).

35

Consequences / Re: Hurricane Season 2019

« on: October 25, 2019, 02:16:51 AM »

This is tiresome, bluesky talks about a scientifically exceptional rain event, which you continue to ignore with your ripostes. Will you mention ACE next?

36

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 25, 2019, 02:11:38 AM »

The Model Y will, supposedly, launch with full body stamping, reducing over 70 components, which have to be assembled and welded, down to about 12 or so.  Also it will come with smart wiring.

IIRC smart wiring was mentioned for Model Y, but did not make it into the final design due to the desire for maximum parts commonality with Model 3.
Not sure about the full body stamping thing.

37

Arctic sea ice / Re: 2019 sea ice area and extent data

« on: October 24, 2019, 04:49:25 PM »

Wow. What a dismal refreeze.

38

Consequences / Re: Places becoming less livable

« on: October 24, 2019, 10:03:02 AM »

Thanks, but I'm not counting on it to balance things.

39

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2019/2020 freezing season

« on: October 24, 2019, 04:40:26 AM »

Early loss of ice area inside the Arctic Basin as well as outside easily explains the accumulated heat. Check out the series of attached charts (big thanks to Tealight / Nico Sun for providing these in real time). Note the AWP calculation does not take clouds/weather into account, just solar angles and ice/water albedo.
Not surprisingly, the same areas with the highest anomalies are the same ones with relatively delayed refreeze. I expect this pattern to continue in November and December.

40

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 24, 2019, 03:57:11 AM »

Some more details from the Q3 summary:
* Highly confident in delivering more than 360,000 vehicles this year = greater than 104.5k in Q4.
* We are planning to produce limited volumes of Tesla Semi in 2020 = actual product in 2020, but real launch in 2021.
* We have recently introduced Tesla Megapack a 3 MWh battery pack, preassembled at the Gigafactory as a single unit. First deliveries are planned to begin in Q4 2019. (I was under the mistaken assumption that this was an already existing product).
* Margin was impacted in part due to fundamental improvements in our operating efficiency, including higher fixed cost absorption, reductions in manufacturing and material costs and continued improvements in vehicle quality and in part due to Smart Summon-related deferred revenue recognition, FX and other non-recurring items. (Meaning next Q could see somewhat lower margins).
* Energy generation and storage revenue increased Q over Q while cost of revenue decreased = $88M instead of $43M gross profit.
* Selling, general and administrative expenses were reduced by $51M Q over Q. R&D expenses increased by $10M.
* Restructuring and other expenses dropped from $117M to zero, this was a one-time drag on Q2, so a lot of operating improvement is a one-time correction.
* Accounts payable grew by $334M, explaining most of the growth in cash ($383M).

41

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 24, 2019, 02:59:50 AM »

For those (like me) wondering how this surprise profitability was reached, comparing Q3 with Q2:
* For a similar automotive revenue (and without raising prices), automotive gross profit was greater by $205M.
* For a similar non-automotive revenue, non-automotive gross loss was lower by $65M.
* For a similar level of production and deliveries, operating expenses were lower by $160M.

Those are very impressive numbers. It means that stabilization of the business allowed a much higher efficiency in production and operation. Should revenue growth resume in Q4 or in 2020 and assuming costs remain under control, profits could rise substantially.

All in all, this Q moves the needle strongly towards Tesla success.

42

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 23, 2019, 08:48:21 PM »

IMHO none of the quarters are really comparable. 1H2018 saw production hell, while 2H2018 saw gross margin paradise in NA. 1H2019 had the European gross margin paradise, but also had logistics hell, sharply cut prices, and crash of S/X sales.
Changes should be smaller from now on, except for the unknown China/G3 effect, until Model Y comes along. If Tesla goes on a path of improving results (increased deliveries, reduced losses) it will be a good sign, if it continues to hemorrhage it will be a bad sign, despite various excuses.

In the investor call I will also be looking for signs of Model Y timing, and any sign of the Semi.

43

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: October 23, 2019, 06:42:11 PM »

Thanks Archimid and all for the details.

44

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: October 23, 2019, 04:03:25 PM »

Is this because of the terms of contract with the utility, and/or the way the solar is hooked up?

My understanding is that it is a technical problem. Solar energy from the panels is too variable to rely on it for large loads relative to the capacity of the panels. I believe there exist inverters that can provide some power without batteries, but they only reduce the variability problem. Starting the refrigerator motor on a rainy day will probably damage your device.

Batteries fill that gap very nicely.

I think there is another issue. If the solar panels are connected directly to the grid (for feeding back electricity), when the grid is down there is a danger if the panels power it from the home end. Utility employees could get hurt when they work on the infrastructure.
I think that if some kind of automatic cutoff switch is installed, it is possible to continue powering the home when the grid is down.

45

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: October 23, 2019, 12:39:30 PM »

Without knowing much on the subject, I would guess a solar system needs to go on your roof and the building owner/s should put it there. Putting such a system on a small balcony and connecting it to your electricity system would not be cost effective and could be dangerous.

46

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: October 22, 2019, 05:51:56 PM »

Folks I beg you all - will you stop feeding the troll please? Ignoring is the best strategy.
Not because Tesla is a 100% success (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't). Not because Elon Musk is god (sometimes he is smart, sometimes stupid). But because there is a certain posting style and a one-way duscussion channel, that cannot be reasoned with and only grows with resistance.
If I were the moderator, I would have banned such trolling from this thread a long time ago. But I am not, and banning users from specific threads is not technically feasible. So ignore. The thread will be much better, I guarantee it. I volunteer to post bad news and the negative view from time to time, as I once did during a blessedly untrolled period.
If you find it hard to ignore, put on you ignore list.

47

Antarctica / Re: PIG has calved

« on: October 21, 2019, 11:07:20 PM »

Thanks for this VM. PIG (actually PIIS) will again be in record retreat very soon. Really bad situation.

48

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: October 20, 2019, 11:07:03 AM »

Agreed, tax the carbon aggressively (including carbon in electricity production) and most economic decisions will fall in line.

49

Consequences / Re: Places becoming less livable

« on: October 20, 2019, 10:46:20 AM »

Wow. This thread is really depressing. Maybe it should be retitled to people doubling down on climate change. Many of these locations should be evacuated, rather than cool the outdoors and truck in water for toilets.

50

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2019/2020 freezing season

« on: October 19, 2019, 09:08:44 AM »

Great animation, thank you b_l.