Sunday, January 19, 2020

California Tesla Registrations Plummet -- January 19, 2020



From Reuters:
Tesla Inc's overall vehicle registrations nearly halved in the U.S. state of California during the fourth quarter.
The massive drop comes as tax credit for Tesla buyers ended in 2019. It had fallen to $3,750 at the start of the year and had halved to $1,875 in July.
An existing $7,500 U.S. tax credit for electric vehicles, which allows taxpayers to deduct a part of the cost of buying an electric car, phases out over 15 months once an automaker hits 200,000 cumulative EV sales, which Tesla hit in July 2018.
The report released on Wednesday showed registrations in California, a bellwether market for the electric-car maker, plummeted 46.5% to 13,584 in the quarter ended December 2019, from 25,402 in the same period a year earlier.
Model 3 registrations, which accounted for about three-fourth of the total, halved to 10,694.

Later, from The Wall Street Journal:
Subaru Corp.’s chief executive said he didn’t see much evidence Americans want electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids and expressed frustration at navigating between environmental regulations and consumer demand.
“The only EVs that are selling well are from Tesla,” said Subaru’s Tomomi Nakamura at a briefing for journalists. [He must have missed the memo -- see story above.]
Tokyo-based Subaru relies on the U.S. for two-thirds of its global sales, and has already had a tough experience trying to sell a vehicle that can be charged at home.
In 2018, it introduced a plug-in hybrid version of the Crosstrek. It said just 300 units of the model were selling each month on average. In this area, Mr. Nakamura said, “We think the U.S. market is really difficult.”

Later, more of the same from Bloomberg:
Tesla is the only car company looking likely to benefit in the coming years.
Look at every other corner of the U.S. auto industry -- the world’s most valuable automaker, dealers, consumer surveys and market forecasts -- and a more ominous picture emerges.
A top American executive for Toyota Motor Corp., whose market value is still more than double Tesla’s even after Elon Musk’s epic run, recently warned of electric-car catastrophe. Auto retailers caution growth will be slow, citing still-high battery costs and range constraints. And far more U.S. shoppers are willing to kick the tires on a hybrid than cars that only plug in.
The cause for concern remains as EVs start to appear in showrooms in greater numbers. The models on the market will swell almost sevenfold to 121 models in the next half decade, from 18 now, according to LMC Automotive. But the researcher sees all those vehicles claiming just 5.5% of U.S. sales in 2025.
Once the word gets out that these are tethered vehicles, their appeal will fly out the window.

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80% Of Americans Have A Brokerage Account

Really? If that's accurate, I find that amazing. From Yahoo!Finance:
The new report says 21% of Americans don’t have a brokerage account or any other way to invest other than their company 401K or pension plan. But for those who are investing there is a definite difference in the habits of baby boomers and millennials.
If I'm reading that correctly, if 21% of Americans don't have a brokerage account .... that must mean 79% do?

The Week In Pictures -- Impeachment Edition -- Powerline -- January 19, 2020

Link here

My favorite:


India About To Import A Whole Lot More US Crude Oil -- January 19, 2020

From September 25, 2019:
Howdy, Modi: for those interested in connecting the Modi-India-Houston-energy dots, this short article is a must read Data points:
  • Tellurian's proposed Driftwood LNG liquefaction and export facility near Lake Charles, LA
  • Petronet LNG Limited INDIA (PLL) 
    • Petronet: India's largest LNG importer
    • Petronet: has developed a 17.5-mtpa receiving and gasification terminal at Dahej in the country's Gujarat state and a 5-mtpa facility at Kochi, in Kerala state
  • Driftwood Project
    • unusual funding scheme
    • 27.6-mtpa project
    • includes a 96-mile Driftwood Pipeline
    • FERC-approved
    • gluten-free
  • Tellurian hopes to finalize the transaction agreement with Petronet by March 31, 2020
  • Driftwood LNG: to begin operations in 2023 
The reason for re-posting:  the Financial Express [Indid] references the "Howdy Modi" event. Data points:
  • coming off two huge trade deals, one with China, the other with North America, Trump now sets his sites on India
  • no dates have been set, but there are expectations that Trump will visit India this year
  • Iranian sanctions have greatly affected India's strategic oil reserves
  • sanctions will affect India's refining capacity which is a critical source of export earnings with strategic implications
  • US crude oil imports are expected to go up to around 10 million tonnes in the current fiscal year, and will likely double after Trump's visit
  • India had to stop the import of crude oil from Iran last year after the Trump administration refused to give further waivers
Conversion: a metric tonne = 7.33 bbls of crude oil.
  • 10 million tonnes = 73.3 million bbls
  • /365 = 200,000 bopd?
From internet:  
As on 31 March 2018, India had estimated crude oil reserves of 594.49 million tonnes (MT) and natural gas reserves of 1339.57 billion cubic meters (BCM). India imports 82% of its oil needs and aims to bring that down to 67% by 2022 by replacing it with local exploration, renewable energy and indigenous ethanol fuel.
From the Indian newspaper:
Discussions are likely to focus on concessional freight rates for Indian oil imports as well as higher credit period of 60-90 days which could be at par with what India received from Iran. As reported by Financial Express Online, these issues were also discussed at the CEO-level meet in Texas on the sidelines of the “Howdy Modi” event last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi toured the US.
Reportedly, the US is the world’s top oil producer, with Texas producing more than Iran and Iraq combined.
By the way, on a political note:
  • the "bloc" with the largest financial holdings in the US? Jewish
  • the "bloc" with the second largest financial holdings in the US? Indian
  • fastest growing language in the US: Telugu
From December 29, 2019:
  • Telugu is USA's fastest growing language -- from wiki

Iowa Poll -- Following The Last Debate Before The Caucuses -- January 19, 2020

Link here.

Spend some time on this one. There is as much to learn about the Iowa caucuses from this poll as there is to learn about the relative polling of the various candidates.

Note, for example, that among all Democrats queried in this poll, Trump polled better than Steyer and Yang combined.

Of the 300 polled:
  • 81 were 75+ years old;
  • 175 were 65+ years old;
  • 56 were less than 50 years old;
This is a contest for the geriatric vote. These are folks that have a lot of time on their hands; spend a lot of time in waiting rooms; spend a huge amount of time on Facebook (and my hunch is Facebook knows it).

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For The Archives -- US Energy Consumption -- 2018 --EIA

Link here.



The upper graph extends back to 1950.

After 68 years: as a percentage, the only way wind and solar can even be seen on a pie chart is to break out "renewable energy" as a block which includes hydroelectricity and biomass. Solar does not even break the 1% threshhold; wind, at 2.4%. This is about where the percentages were during peak interest in renewable energy some years ago.

From the report:
Crude oil production generally decreased each year between 1970 and 2008. In 2009, the trend reversed and production began to rise, and in 2018, U.S. crude oil production was 22.8 quads, the highest on record. More cost-effective drilling and production technologies helped to boost production, especially in Texas and North Dakota.
At the blog, search doofus-in-chief.