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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Market capitalization is just simple math, multiplying a company’s stock price by the number of shares that have been issued. Tesla has issued roughly 3.2 billion shares and is currently trading at around $550, which makes their current market cap about $1.75 trillion dollars.

    I don’t understand how the value can be that high compared to all of the other companies, especially China.

    On its face it seems utterly nonsensical that Tesla is worth as much as all other auto makers combined, when Tesla only accounts for something like 5% of total US car sales. There are two reasons I can think of why this is currently so:

    • Tesla accounts for roughly half of all US electric vehicle sales, and electric vehicle sales are roughly 10% of all US vehicle sales. If electric vehicles largely replace ICE vehicles and if Tesla maintains that share of EV sales, then Tesla will be an extremely valuable company. Investors might be betting on a) electric vehicles and b) Tesla continuing to the win the lion’s share of electric vehicle sales.
    • Tesla investors are irrational. Personally, my money is on this one. I think long-term Tesla is going to get crushed by cheaper and better-built EVs, probably from China but also possibly from other existing car manufacturers. Sometimes I’m tempted to short Tesla’s stock based on this belief, but to quote John Maynard Keynes: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”



  • The software subscription fee was an ongoing cost to whoever installed the equipment, now that fee has been replaced by a per-use fee that’s part of what drivers pay. It’s easier for businesses to justify installing chargers if they know that it’s a one-time purchase with no ongoing subscriptions, fees, or management hassles.

    Off topic: how much would it cost to run a charger continuously?

    Depends where you are and how much electricity costs there. Could also depend on time-of-day if electricity metering in that area has time-of-use rates. The biggest level 2 chargers put out 19kw, where I live it would cost about $60 per day to run one of those chargers at absolute maximum. Realistically speaking it would be hard to run one full-time though, since the average EV has ~80kw of battery and would be full after 4-ish hours.