Potential 10x Stock Idea: Why I Believe Tesla Is the Next Apple

How did Tesla solve the deadlock? For its basic battery cells, Tesla uses the so-called 18650 Li-ion cells employed in laptop batteries. this is how it is riding the high horse of the electronics’ industry battery needs. the intense competition in this huge market pushes price and energy density improvements at an annual rate of 8% each.

How can one power a full-size car with laptop batteries? This is the secret sauce of Tesla’s power train. Tesla assembles thousands of them in a liquid cooled (or heated, if needed) pack that globally improves on the characteristics of individual cells: controls thermal runaways, balances charging and electric load, seamlessly isolates failed cells and keeps all of them at an ideal temperature to improve their life cycle. this is no easy engineering feat.

What’s the result? a much cheaper and more reliable battery whose building blocks are already available on the market in very large quantities.

What are the main advantages and drawbacks of electric vehicles? one should be aware that in an electric vehicle (EV), price ratios are completely different from those of an internal combustion engine car (ICE). in an EV, the “gas tank” (battery) is very expensive but “fuel” (electricity) and the “engine” (motor) are comparatively dirt cheap. an EV has less than 10% moving parts compared to an ICE car and except for breaks and tires, there is basically no maintenance. Breaks will last much longer on an EV, as the motor will be used to slow down most of the time and replenish the “tank” while doing so. With so few moving parts, the chance of failures decreases drastically.

From the consumer’s cost point of view, there are two very big unknowns that have to be addressed: How long the battery will last and how much it will cost to replace.

From an environmental point of view (I will not get into the political and security issues of oil dependence), electricity can be generated using a variety of sources. the mix of those sources can be altered several times during the life on an EV fleet as needed. one should be aware that an EV powered exclusively by coal-generated electricity (quite an unlikely situation) is considerably worse than a modern ICE car.

How cheap is Tesla’s battery? this information is not public. I will attempt to do some estimates using a 2009 DOE document (see page 16) and a 2011 investor presentation from Tesla (see page 8).

First, let’s recall that the critical number here is $ / kWh of stored energy. this should not be confused with the price of the electricity you need to travel. this is about the capacity of the “gas tank”. a light car such as the Roadster can travel about four miles on 1 kWh of energy. Tesla’s sedan, the Model S, can travel about three miles with that energy. both figures are real world numbers with A/C and other accessories taken into account.

From the DOE document we get a price of $200-$250 / kWh of 18650 cells. this means $10,600-$13,250 in a 2009 Roadster (which has a battery that holds about 53 kWh). a liquid-cooled box with sensors and connectors (excluding the PEM) could amount to $3000-$6000 (one has to guess without reliable information). this gives us a best guess of $16,500 as the cost of the 53 kWh pack or $311 / kWh. From Tesla’s document, we infer that for the Model S, the cost would be reduced to 61% of that (42% / 69%, since the Roadster sport was a 2009 model), or $190 / kWh.

This is insanely low, considering that A123 Systems’ production cost is about $1000 / kWh, according to John Petersen. Even if the Roadster’s battery pack was $10,000 to produce, the worst case of DOE estimates and the previous calculations yield a cost of $268 / kWh for the Model S. again, this is very low compared to the estimated $750 / kWh for the Nissan Leaf’s battery.

What about the product strategy? here again, I see similarities between Tesla and Apple. both offer few but exquisite products. their attention to detail is quite remarkable. Complexity is hidden behind an elegant and functional design. They expect customers to pay a premium for their products and plan to maintain healthy gross margins (Tesla estimates a 25% gross margin on the Model S; Apple has maintained a GM around 40% during the last several years). These practices are not standard in any industry, so both need their own chains of stores to be able to communicate directly to consumers and to offer a different experience. There is a reason why we do not like the usual PC or car salesman.

Both Apple and Tesla have strategies for the next five to ten years and are ready to sacrifice the current or the next quarter if needed to preserve them. Many companies’ good plans get stifled under Wall Street’s pressure to meet quarterly estimates.

How should the small investor approach TSLA? One does not have the resources to adopt the venture capital strategy of buying a few dozens stocks in a nascent industry. at the same time, a large slice of the portfolio should not be allocated to a potential ten-bagger as there is no safety net. in fact, some argue that TSLA is highly overvalued already. but the company is staying quiet and relentlessly advancing on its plans to deliver the Model S in about one year. There are no signs of the predicted delays or cost overruns for the Model S. Orders for the sedan (with a $5000 refundable deposit) are growing nicely, even without any marketing effort (which should change on October 1 when Tesla presents the beta version of the car to customers and to the media). Tesla’s next car, an SUV called the Model X, will be presented by the end of the year and should enter production by the end of 2013.

Stock price forecast. while it’s too early to do explicit earnings estimates, I think TSLA has a reasonable chance of growing 3-5x during the next three years (Tesla announced that it plans to introduce a new car every year). if Tesla follows through on its long-term plan to produce 400,000 cars per year at its factory (ex-NUMMI), including a mass-market model priced around $30,000, the stock could easily become a 10-20x in five to eight years.

Tech tips: How to turn off Apple’s new scrolling

Question: did I read right that there is a new Kindle coming out? I’d like to give my lovely wife of 25 years my old one. She loves to read. Then, I’d like to buy myself the new Kindle.

Answer: there are rumors floating around about a Kindle 4. It may feature a touch screen and finally, a color E-Ink display. Not much else is known, except it isn’t expected until late 2011 or 2012. however, Amazon is rumored to be preparing Kindle Tablets. These will run Google’s Android operating system. the tablets could come in three sizes: 7 inch, 9 inch and 10.1 inch. They’ll be tightly integrated with Amazon’s online services for movies, books and apps. Expect to see the smaller tablets this fall, possibly. the 10.1-inch tablet may not arrive until 2012.

Q: I just installed Apple’s latest operating system, OS X Lion. I like the new features, but it did something odd to window scrolling. the directions got reversed. how can I fix it?

  • MORE: Komando columns

A: One of the features Apple introduced in Lion was natural scrolling. this makes the scrolling work like it does on the iPad and iPhone. For computer users, that means it’s opposite of what it used to be. Natural scrolling makes sense if you’re using a touchscreen. On a computer, however, it’s just confusing. Fortunately, you can turn it off. Open System Preferences and go to Trackpad. Select the Scroll & Zoom tab. Uncheck the Scroll direction option. That’s all there is to it. happy scrolling.

Q: I’m trying to use my smartphone and camera outside. however, the LCD screens go black when I put on my sunglasses. It’s very frustrating. What is causing this?

A: You are probably using sunglasses with polarized lenses. Polarized lenses only let light through in a certain way. Problematically, LCD screens emit polarized light. If the light and lenses don’t match up, no light from the screen gets through. Try rotating the screen; you may see the image come back. That’s the polarization at work. the only simple fix is to take off your sunglasses. If polarization isn’t the problem, you need to turn up your screen’s brightness. LCDs rely on backlighting to work. In strong sunlight, the backlight gets overpowered. so you don’t see an image. You can try shading the LCD as well.

Q: I started an online store for my business. I’ve seen a small boost in sales but not a lot. is there an inexpensive way to attract more customers?

A: Marketing is certainly important for attracting customers. Traditional advertising works, but you probably don’t have the money. instead, consider going the free, social networking route. Start a business page on Facebook. Have your friends and family link to it. Create a Twitter account for up-to-the-minute inventory announcements. run promotions for followers in both locations. Interested people will share your store site link with their friends. You can also find groups online that are interested in your type of merchandise. Visit their forums and invite them to visit your store. Just be sure to abide by the forum’s rules about advertising.

Q: I heard you say that law enforcement could have handheld facial-recognition scanners soon. how long do you think it will be before everyone has one?

A: It probably won’t be long at all. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have already made a facial recognition app. They even sold the technology to Google. Facial recognition is scary enough. however, the researches went a bit further. Their app can recognize you and grab public information about you from online. this can be instantly compiled for the app’s user. With enough information, it can even guess your Social Security number. the researchers aren’t releasing their app. however, it’s only a matter of time before someone else makes and sells one. Now might be a good time to check the security settings of all your online accounts.

Email questions to Komando at .

Hello Kitty iPhone 4 Cases – Best iPhone 4 Cases Ever

The Hello Kitty iPhone 4 case is a world of its own. Varieties, new designs, and stunning aesthetics is what defines these cases that offer excellent protection to your iPhone besides giving great looks too. Almost everyone who buys an iPhone 4 also buys a case – it’s that important. Hello Kitty cases for iPhone 4 – as well as other variants of the iPhone – do an excellent job in protecting and adding style to the iPhone.

The iPhone 4 cases are innumerable in the type and variety. Almost all of them serve the same purpose – too add good level of protection to the device. The thing is, when you go in for too much of a style, you lose the protection ability – that’s what the high-profile, too much designer iPhone cases are. on the other extreme, we have hard cases that are highly protective of the iPhone, but do not have any aesthetic value and in fact, make the iPhone 4 look ugly.

This is where the Hello Kitty iPhone 4 cases come.Each of the Hello Kitty iPhone 4 case is a durable, sturdy and very strong case for the iPhone 4. The design is a neat-fitting one, where you get the best fit for your iPhone. this is very important because a loose fitting case would not fit the iPhone properly and might let the phone slip and the tight fitting case does not do the job ever.

Fit is not the only thing. Cases need to be sturdy and made of good quality material. Although decorations are quite good, interesting and funky with the Hello Kitty iPhone 4 Case, the durability is never compromised. The case protects your iPhone 4 very well from dust, scratches, accidental impacts and much more. most of the times, iPhones are susceptible to scratches and more – and the Hello Kitty Cases for iPhone make sure this does not happen.

There are quite a number of different types of Hello Kitty Cases for iPhone.The flip model, with the magnetic flip is one of the most bought Hello Kitty iPhone 4 case. it retails for about $9.99 and gives you the ability to keep your iPhone very secure through the magnetic flip lock. The pouch-type cases are also quite good. These also come for around $9.99 on most retail shops. The cartoon Hello Kitty TPU Cases however are quite cheaper, ranging for $3.99, and bring absolute looks to your iPhone 4.

NewsFactor Network

Chip Chick: Fuse PowerSlice Universal Family Charger Review2011-07-24 12:46am -07:00T Visit Chip Chick

Outtake:

The modern home has not one, not two, but often three or more mobile devices lying around. The result is a myriad of phone  chargers strewn about, an over flowing surge protector, and often a tangled mess of charger cables. It’s not pretty, and someone has decided to do something about it. Fuse has come out with the Powerslice Universal Charger, a device that can charge up-to four mobile devices at once.

The circular design if the PowerSlice is quite unique for a charger, and it’s also quite clever. that is because the Powerslice lets you customize it with up-to three different slices that can be swapped out and rearranged. several different slices are available to chose from, including microUSB, miniUSB, iPhone, and Sony Ericsson, Nokia, LG and Samsung specific slices. The slices are able to slide right into the base of the power slice and lock in with out too much effort. Furthermore, the Fuse PowerSlice promises to not only be space saving, but also energy saving. A power button at the center of the device lets you turn…

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Business apps on the iPhone: Dos and don'ts

A retail manufacturer wanted to replace a 3-ring, 4-inch thick binder carried by field sales reps with an iPhone app, recalls Quinton Alsbury, co-founder of Mellmo, maker of mobile BI app Roambi. but the manufacturer fell into a common trap: creating a monster app that is virtually impossible for users to navigate on the iPhone’s 3.5-inch touchscreen.

This is just one of many pitfalls facing CIOs who want to bring business analytics and field tools to their iPhone-toting workforce.

An iPhone app that delivers a terrible user experience can spell trouble for the CIO. “The user adoption threshold is very, very thin,” Alsbury says. “If it takes too long for something to happen, you’ll just put the phone back in your pocket.”

Business apps on the iPhone offer a stark contrast in styles, pitting a techie’s love of features and functions against a business user’s expectations of simplicity and speed. Here are a few dos and don’ts to help CIOs navigate these tricky waters.

Don’t replicate the laptop: Too many CIOs try to replicate data and features displayed on a laptop to the iPhone. this is a sure path to failure. just look at the highly panned user experience of the Citrix Receiver app, which basically tries to deliver a virtual desktop on the iPhone. Constantly pinching and expanding text on a phone screen and inputting data using a tiny virtual keyboard sans a mouse will turn off even the most amorous gadget lover.

Do embrace mobility: the problem with replication is that it assumes users will use the iPhone in a similar way to the laptop. but the use cases are vastly different.

Consider these three scenarios: A salesperson might be at her desk with a business intelligence (BI) dashboard open on her computer, watching data change in real-time all day. on her way to a client, she might stop off at a coffee shop, fire up her laptop, open a big spreadsheet and analyze it. while in the elevator heading up to see her client, she might whip out her iPhone to find a quick answer to something.

For CIOs, this means trying to predict where mobile users might be using the app and what kind of answers they’ll be looking for. there might not be a lot of time for the user to navigate and drill down into the data. there might not be Internet connectivity. Either way, the app needs to deliver answers with the speed of lightning.

“You don’t want users to stare at a screen with a spinning icon on it” as they wait for data to download, says Alsbury, adding, “You might want to store information locally, or at least caching inside of the app, rather than having a server-based solution, because of [limited or no] network connection.”

Don’t generalize: CIOs should take their cue from Apple and let user simplicity drive their mobile business app efforts. Too often they’ll load up too much functionality into a single app. when Alsbury took one look at the retail manufacturer’s monster app, he recommended breaking up the app into three specialized iPhone apps.

The manufacturer’s sales reps would visit major retail stores and gather and report data, such as where products are positioned and how much inventory is on the shelves. Then they would discuss with the store manager ways to improve sales using analytics–that is, they could show how similar retail stores improved performance via product positioning. Lastly, sales reps would take product orders.

All three steps were contained in a single iPhone app making navigation extremely cumbersome. Mellmo separated these three very distinct tasks into specialized apps. Each app can be opened in mere seconds and allow sales reps to perform what they needed to do at that point in time.

The idea of specialization also applies to the user base. since mobile business apps need to be as streamlined as possible, in both functions and data, CIOs should develop multiple apps aimed at specific user groups rather than a general app that ultimately becomes unwieldy and unusable for everyone.

Do spend time on requirements gathering: CIOs should be prepared to spend a lot of time learning what users want from a mobile business app before moving to app development. Speak often with users both before development and during beta testing. this is one of the most important steps in creating a solution that users will depend on.

“If done efficiently, you’re talking anywhere from two weeks to a month-plus of pure data requirements definition,” Alsbury says.

Remember, short-changing this step may result in a bad user experience out of the gate. first impressions are critical, especially in user adoption. A user base put off by a mobile app will be difficult to bring back into the fold.

Don’t pile on features: Even CIOs who understand the special use case of mobile and target specific user groups can fall prey to scope creep. Cramming more functionality, more data, more buttons, more drop-down menus into a mobile app seems to be in a techie’s DNA.

“It’s such a hard-wired habit,” Alsbury says.

Want proof? Look no further than Microsoft Excel. In order to use the spreadsheet business app, you’ll likely have to thumb through a massive user manual and an ecosystem of third-party how-to books for every little function. It’s an absurd disconnect, given that most people open Excel and click their way through the clutter just to view a simple piece of the data.

“You need to have the discipline to cut and cut and get down to the base function that the user needs in that mobile context,” Alsbury says.

Don’t worry about user pushback: A mobile business app can’t possibly have everything that its laptop counterpart does. CIOs will make informed decisions regarding what to include and what to cut. as a result there tends to be a concern/expectation that users will become upset because certain data won’t be available to them on the iPhone app.

So should CIOs worry? No, Alsbury says. “The majority of the time, the opposite is true,” he says. “The users actually love less functionality, and IT is shocked.”

Bottom line: more functionality means more complexity. Users don’t want to read a how-to manual before using a mobile business iPhone app; they just want to tap around the touchscreen in a simple, intuitive way.

Tom Kaneshige covers Apple and Networking for CIO.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on Facebook. Email Tom at tkanshige@cio.com

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BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860 Review – SlashGear

Mention all-touch and BlackBerry in the same sentence, and it’s tough not to experience an involuntary Storm-shudder. RIM’s belated answer to the iPhone failed to grab it the chunk of the touchscreen smartphone market it expected, and while the Storm 2 was an improvement, the company is yet to entirely convince when there’s no physical keyboard. Third time lucky, perhaps, with the BlackBerry Torch 9850, a compact BlackBerry 7 smartphone (aka the Torch 9860, the only difference being CDMA/GSM connectivity) hoping to convince us that QWERTY-free doesn’t mean zero appeal. Check out the SlashGear review after the cut.

Hardware

Where both Storm handsets were chunky and masculine in their styling, the Torch 9850 flexes some curves. It’s a lightweight phone, at 4.76oz, and slim too, measuring in at 4.72 x 2.44 x 0.45 inches. A bulge on the back contains the 5-megapixel autofocus camera and LED flash, capable of 720p HD video recording, while the front is dominated by a 3.7-inch 800 x 480 display.

There’s no too-clever-for-its-own-good virtual clicking here, just a regular capacitive LCD TFT touchscreen that’s reasonably bright and responsive. Underneath are the usual send, end, menu and back buttons, flanking an optical trackpad which we found too low on the fascia to convince us to use it instead of the touchscreen. Keeping things running is the same 1.2GHz single-core processor as in the Torch 9810, again paired with 768MB of RAM. 4GB of integrated storage can be extended by up to 32GB with a microSD card.

Connectivity includes CDMA EVDO Rev.A along with quadband GSM and single-band 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA, making the Torch 9850 a so-called “world phone” capable of voice and data outside of North America. There’s also WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and microUSB 2.0, a headphone socket and GPS/AGPS, though no NFC as in the Bold 9900.

The downside to the light weight is somewhat plasticky construction, and the 9850 is a fingerprint magnet thanks to its glossy finish. The battery cover is matte, but the fake chrome trim and entire front soon get shiny with fingerprint grease.

Software

The Torch 9850/9860 helps debut BlackBerry 7, RIM’s latest OS for smartphones. It’s not the QNX we’re waiting for – that won’t arrive on phones until 2012 – but it borrows some of the UI cues from the QNX-based PlayBook and the end result is a tighter user-experience than previous all-touch BlackBerries.

BlackBerry Torch 9850 demo:

Performance is swift thanks to the 1.2GHz processor, only showing some lag when pinch-zooming in the WebKit-based browser. That’s a shame, as the WVGA display offers the best internet experience of the new BlackBerry trio. It may lack the resolution of, say, the iPhone 4, and the web performance overall can seem sluggish on heavier pages when compared to dual-core Android devices, but it no longer feels quite as much of a struggle as the Storm and Storm 2 did.

For a company known for its physical keyboard prowess, switching to a virtual ‘board obviously comes with a learning curve. unfortunately, the on-screen layout still falls short of what we’ve seen on other all-touch devices: in portrait orientation, the key spacing is a little too close for decent accuracy, for instance, though landscape orientation is better. what RIM needs is a slick predictive system, like Swype, which could introduce some intelligence to counter the lack of physical keys.

Phone and Battery

Given the slim profile of the 9850, we were concerned the BlackBerry might fall short when it came to speaker or signal performance. Happily neither is the case, with the Torch clinging to a signal well and audio through both the earpiece and the speaker sounding good, if a little shallow when it comes to low-end audio.

Battery life from the 1,230 mAh user-replaceable li-ion pack in the 9850 is quoted at up to 6.8hrs of CDMA talktime or up to 13.4 days of CDMA standby. The 3G equivalents are slightly less. in practice, we managed more than a day of full use out of the Torch, though you could certainly prolong that for considerably longer by playing with the sync settings.

Wrap-Up

The Torch 9850 is a solid, capable little smartphone, and BlackBerry 7′s UI arguably suits the all-touch display most of all. With the 1.2GHz processor RIM’s handsets no longer feel like the slowest devices in the pack, and while we’d welcome more metal and less plastic in the construction, the styling is a reasonably successful compromise between classic RIM functionality and the curviness of a consumer device.

With little in the way of must-have features however, it’s tough to recommend the 9850 to those who would otherwise be considering an iPhone or Android device. RIM’s strength has always been in its text entry and messaging talents, but while the IM/BBM/email combo is present, the onscreen keyboard underwhelms. Third time’s the charm when it comes to RIM’s attempts at an all-touch device, but while the Torch 9850 is far better than the Storms that came before it, it still lacks the stand-out appeal that could break it out of the BlackBerry niche.

“We Want Super Mario On The iPhone!” Nintendo Investors Riot [Report]

Even in the dark years when they were caught off guard by the momentum of the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo has kept their characters in-house, exclusive to Nintendo brand hardware. They learned their lesson from the dark days of the CD-i.

Now, though, investors within Nintendo are pressuring the beleaguered gaming giant to bring their most well-known properties like Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and Pokemon to other platforms… specifically, the App Store.

The logic’s easy to understand. Nintendo’s latest portable, the 3DS, just isn’t selling well, and has had its price slashed just a few months after its debut. the Wii is also selling poorly, and its iPad inspired successor, the Wii U, won’t be on sale until 2012 at the earliest. Profits are in the toilet. something needs to be done.

Bring Mario to the App Store (as well as other consoles) is one way to shore up earnings short-term, but is it the best move for the future? Nintendo’s properties are a powerful incentive towards buying their hardware.

My guess is that we’re about to witness Nintendo making the transition that Sega did a decade ago: from a hardware business to a software business. I just wonder how long Nintendo will drag their feet.

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