For Now, at Least, the World Isn't Making Enough Batteries (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Evidence of the battery-powered era is all around us. Electric vehicles are cruising down our freeways. Household appliances thrum with stored solar energy that was until recently a daytime-only power source. Governments from California to China and South Korea -- even Donald Trump's Washington -- have taken steps that will make battery power more ubiquitous. There's just one hitch to this battery boom: The world isn't making nearly enough. All of the new demand from North America, Europe and Asia is constrained at the moment by a market that remains heavily dependent on a few producers. Data on the global supply of batteries is hard to come by, but close observers of the industry have noticed evidence of the shortfall. "We've never seen such demand," said Yayoi Sekine, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg NEF. "But the supply is struggling to keep up."

Oddly, however, lithium-ion battery-rack prices have continued their annual decline, even in the face of constrained supply and expectations of ever-growing demand. To get a clear sense of the near future, consider battery-powered cars: Today, there are more than 3 million electric vehicles on the road worldwide; by 2025, Volkswagen AG alone plans to build as many as 3 million electric vehicles per year. Those vehicle batteries -- in addition to storage batteries for homes, businesses and utilities -- will have to come from somewhere.

Comments

Re:It sucks

[bobbied]

Apple Inc in 1997 had money losing ugly computers. It was close to bankruptcy and Steve Jobs' personality made Donald Trump look like a saint. The con artist Jobs convinced stupid Bill Gates to give him money. If you shorted $50,000 of Apple in 1997 you would now need about $22,500,000 to buy it back. I've loved driving my Tesla for the past 3 years. It has not had any significant issues and has been a total joy.

Glad you like your Tesla, but the previous poster, while rude and somewhat based on the wrong things, is correct in his analysis. Tesla is rapidly falling deeper and deeper into trouble and has a lot of reasons it's not going to make it and very few reasons to think it will. Shorting Tesla is a good plan in my view and if the original poster is telling the truth about his trades, he's got results to prove it.

Your example of Apple, fits the model, their stock price took a beating. Funny you should pick 97, clearly that was it's low point. Had you shorted Apple back in 95, you could have made money covering in 97. Again, in 2000 you could have shorted at $4/share and make $3/share within a year. But hindsight is 20/20. Personally, I think we are in a similar cycle with Tesla, It's on the way down, until they can meet their performance numbers and get their Model 3 production rolling, if they ever can. Maybe if they survive the coming dark days it will be a value buy and hold play, but right now, It's a high risk volatile stock suitable for day traders and "true believers" who want to ride out the storm.

It's not that I'm opposed to other's investing in Tesla. Just understand that it's way overpriced P/E wise (it's loosing money still, even if you add back in the R&D costs) and there is absolutely zero reason to support a $300+ stock price beyond the personality cult of Musk. If they miss their next Q's numbers again, it's going to be bloody, but if they meet their numbers, I don't see much in the way of an upturn in price. They are going to need to show a profit here and soon, or it doesn't seem to be much that can push the price up.

Re:This needs to stop

[Waffle Iron]

This extreme bias is persistent and spreading.

Not all bias is incorrect. There is also an extreme bias in the media for support of the "spherical earth" theory.

The fact that the current chief of the US Federal Government is a fossil fuel-loving ignoramus is indisputable.