Liberty

Gasoline cars also have reduced range in cold climates, sometimes significantly. Norway has the most EVs per capita in the world, and I think they're doing just fine. It does help in practice that 99% of the time, when you leave in the morning in an EV you have a "full tank" because you plugged overnight. You rarely leave somewhere on your last quarter tank and then have to worry about cold weather further cutting range. There are also workarounds for really cold places, just like how people have block heaters for their gas cars.

Making a car look recognizable isn't hard even if it's based on an existing platform, or at least is of a configuration that sells well in the US. Small hatchbacks are popular in Europe, but not in the US. Making sedan EVs is a non-brainer if you want them to sell well in the US. But I also think that this is old thinking. It worked in the early Prius days, but it's going to work less and less. For EVs, early adopters were mostly environmentalists, because that's who could justify paying more for the benefit of polluting less. But as EVs move on from early adopters, targeting specifically environmentalists isn't a good strategy anymore, just like as computers moved from expensive toys for geeks to tools for everyone, their design and marketing changed a lot. Tesla has shown that many people who couldn't care less about EVs or pollution get Teslas because they are simply really good. You ride in one and can feel the difference with gasoline cars. If Ford made a Mustang-like EV that was just really good, it'd sell well. Or if Nissan made an Altima-like super practical and decent-looking sedan that also had EV benefits (lots of instantaneous torque, no need to go to gas stations, less maintenance, more silent operation, flat floors, 2 trunks, etc) tons of people would buy it. But it might cannibalize existing sales...

Did you take notes? (sounds interesting but my book pile is friggin stratospheric...) I posted excerpts I found interesting on my Twitter, if you feel like digging those up.

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/realestateeconomy/a-day-of-insanity-that-typifies-torontos-housing-market/ "A day of insanity that typifies Toronto’s housing market: When the real estate expo came to Toronto, attendees were fed a steady dose of hype and hoopla about how to get rich trading houses" Read the whole thing. It's pure gold. So many parts I'd want to quote..

New shot of a Model 3 in the wild, this time with badge on hood and what seems like revised headlights: http://theteslashow.com/model-3-spy-shots And here's a video of one on the highway: https://streamable.com/gz22s

It is correct that EV's are still an evolving technology, so it may very well be that they will become more reliable than combustion engines now. That does not matter for a customer who buys the product now however. That's always true, no? Early adopters of smartphones paid more for inferior products to those who waited a few years. That's not a downside, that's normal. That's why not everybody will buy an EV at once, and why by the time most people have them, what they have is the Nth generation and they'll get something significantly better than what is out now. Can you cite your source? I think it depends what you look at; certainly SSDs can be hosed by viruses and human errors the same way that spinning platter HDDs can, but there's certainly the potential for the solid state hardware portion to be more reliable as it mature than a mechanical hard-drive, even though spinning HDDs are actually closer to EVs than to gasoline cars conceptually (sealed, no fluids, relatively few moving parts, powered by electricity that doesn't leave gunk in the system that needs to be cleaned up periodically, etc).

https://www.amazon.com/Matchmakers-New-Economics-Multisided-Platforms/dp/1633691721 Interesting book about multi-sided platforms (Visa, Google, AirBNB, Uber, Facebook, OpenTable, nightclubs.. that kind of stuff). While the topic is very interesting and the book does a good job of explaining the main insights about it, it does feel a bit like a 20-page paper that was stretched to book-lenght, so it gets redundant. I still think it's worth getting if the topic interests you, but maybe read until it gets too redundant and then skim the rest. That's what I did.

EVs are not a mature technology and are still changing rapidly, both in their design and in how the manufacturing is still climbing up the learning curve. But it's fairly easy to see that one would require more maintenance than the other, kind of like spinning hard drives vs SSDs. Vacuum cleaners are not built with the kind of reliability goals that cars are built, just like you shouldn't compare cars to fighter jets.

Describe modern air travel, or space rockets and satellites, or a modern CPU with 2 billion transitors, to someone before it has been built and the problems with it have been solved and it'd seem crazy and impossible. Heck, I was just seeing this morning about how before the invention of the thermometer, people didn't think it would be possible to measure precisely temperature: "Before thermometers: philosophers mocked the idea of temperature ever being measurable, with all its nuance, complexity and subjectivity "

Your idea that it's a stupid idea is stupid. See, same level of detail as your analysis.

Even the brake pads don't wear out much because of regenerative braking. There's definitely a lot fewer moving parts, fluids, and maintenance requirements.

They are afraid of cannibalizing their existing line sales, so they make vehicles that they know will be more niche. They're basically holding back. Otherwise Nissan could easily make an all-electric vehicle that looks like a Sentra or Altima or Infiniti and sell more. Same thing happens at dealerships, there's been many articles written about how salespeople don't try to sell EVs and sometimes even have no idea how they work. A purely EV carmaker like Tesla has a big advantage on that front.

I think it should do well vs the competition: Bolt starts at US$37,495, Model 3 said to start at $35k, LEAF starts at $30,680. All can get a lot more expensive with options, of course, but those prices aren't comparable to gasoline-car prices since your "fuel" costs and maintenance costs are a lot lower.

There's a recent Garth Turner piece where he talks about how home inspectors' business is down 30-50% because now people buy houses without inspectors, as sellers put conditions that there won't be an inspection and they even throw people out of open houses visits if they bring an inspector: http://www.greaterfool.ca/2017/04/03/good-luck/ I'm sure thats' really healthy behavior...

Except when you look at their products (and remember that they make a lot of gasoline cars too)... http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H81tAzRTh0s/VYG-Mlr4GfI/AAAAAAAACyU/rVgjEwhhZfM/w800/BYD.jpg

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170404005774/en/Liberty-Interactive-Enters-Agreement-Acquire-General-Communication Liberty Interactive Enters into Agreement to Acquire General Communication, Inc., Combine with Liberty Ventures Group and Split-off Combined Company from Liberty Interactive

http://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives Gruber got a briefing on the Mac Pro:

thanks for fixing it, Sanjeev

It's a good one. For those looking for more, here's a couple of my other favorite business-related podcasts: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this http://investorfieldguide.com/podcast/ http://exponent.fm

Thanks. It indeeds sounds like that's what they intend to do. I wonder if they'll also stop the dividend, which has been designed to return MM capital if ROE is under 10%...

I haven't followed IBKR closely lately. Did he actually come out and say this about putting the MM capital in the brokerage, or is this more a theory that seems likely based on his actions so far? Thanks.

Good piece on how Amazon is courting CPG companies: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/amazon-wants-cheerios-oreos-and-other-brands-to-bypass-wal-mart We tend to forget how much these products are designed for brick & mortar retail... If they can get them to focus more on online, it could be a big coup.