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Tesla Deal Boosts Chinese Presence in US Auto Tech (reuters.com)
From a Reuters report:China's Tencent has bought a 5 percent stake in U.S. electric car maker Tesla for $1.78 billion, the latest investment by a Chinese internet company in the potentially lucrative market for self-driving vehicles and related services. Tencent's investment, revealed in a U.S. regulatory filing, provides Tesla with an additional cash cushion as it prepares to launch its mass-market Model 3. Tesla's shares were up 2.9 percent at $277.03 in midday trading on Tuesday, enabling it to rival Ford as the second-most-valuable U.S. auto company behind General Motors. The deal expands Tencent's presence in an emerging investment sector that includes self-driving electric cars, which could enable such new modes of transportation as automated ride-sharing and delivery services, as well as ancillary services ranging from infotainment to e-commerce.
It's actually not all that expensive to add electric to the parking area, when it's properly planned. A new circuit would be run from the electric utility mains to a new transformer, which would run to a central charge controller that would in-turn supply power to receptacles or whatever at each parking space. If they have to run individual conduits to each stall or each pair of stalls they will, or they may rely on larger cables and intelligent devices on individual breakers at each spot, with some kind of data communication back to the central charge controller to log the energy drawn.
Obviously this works best where apartments have covered parking since the canopy structure acts as the mounting for the conduit and the whole system is at least partially out of the weather. Most apartments around where I live are like this, with assigned spots to given units.
Is there a security protocol for charging? It would be convenient to just be able to pull-in to one's spot and plug in and have the controller recognize the valid car, so that the person whose spot it is doesn't get billed if someone else parks and attempts to charge there while the rightful tenant is away.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Just like you or I could (except in much higher volume). Unless a special arrangement is made, they don't get anything other than minority voting rights, a share in stock price appreciation and (at least eventually?) dividends.
Which explains the weird price movements of TSLA.
FTFS:
Tesla's shares were up 2.9 percent at $277.03 in midday trading on Tuesday, enabling it to rival Ford as the second-most-valuable U.S. auto company behind General Motors.
No one is batting an eye at this.
It's 1999 again. It is impossible - yes impossible - for Tesla to become profitable enough to justify that valuation. It's the equivalent of paying a billion dollars for the corner Kwicky Mart.
Maybe 50 years from now, Tesla will be that profitable but in the meantime, the meter is running on that money.
...the latest investment by a Chinese internet company ...
That explains a lot.