Imagine earning an extra $30,000 a year.
You’d take that, right? Who wouldn’t?
Now imagine that you earn that money… from your car.
It doesn’t seem possible. A car is one of the absolute worst investments.
It’s not even an investment. It’s guaranteed to lose value. You know the rule of thumb: The value of a new car drops 15% the minute you drive it off the lot.
Imagine buying a stock and it being down 15% right off the bat.
So how the heck can you earn $30,000 a year from your car?
That’s what Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk says you’ll soon be able to do… if you buy one of his self-driving cars and make it part of the Tesla Network, which is a fleet of “robotaxis.”
Here’s how it’ll work:
Your autonomous vehicle (AV) takes you to work in the morning – and you don’t even have to find a parking space. You get out of your car and send it off to be basically a driverless Uber. It turns into a robotaxi for a while and then comes back later to pick you up and take you home.
Are you skeptical?
I’m guessing yes. And I don’t blame you.
I’m not skeptical about AVs or even the idea of robotaxis. I have little doubt the world will get to that point. But as much as I like Elon Musk, I do doubt that Tesla will make all of this happen next year.
To start with, Tesla vehicles are not yet fully autonomous. They have “Full Self-Driving” capability… but the company says it is “intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.” Teslas clearly have advanced driver assistance technology, but they are not ready for prime time in terms of full autonomy.
Musk says that day is coming, and that current owners will be able to get full autonomy with an over-the-air software update. He’s been overly optimistic before, and he may be again in saying Teslas will be robotaxi-ready within the next 12 months or so.
Beyond that, consumers are not yet comfortable with the idea of hopping inside an empty car and letting it drive them to their destination. A survey by AAA earlier this year showed that 71% of Americans are afraid to ride in self-driving vehicles. Those attitudes will change as the technology spreads – they always do – but we’re not there quite yet.
Be Ready for the Real Breakthrough
Then there is the question of power. We know AVs will be electric. If they are going to drive all day as robotaxis, they will need a battery that can 1) go a heck of a lot of miles on a single charge, and 2) not continually lose capacity as it’s recharged daily.
Most electric vehicles right now get about 100 to 125 miles per charge. Tesla is clearly a leader here. Its Model S and Model X Long Range get three times that – 370 and 325 miles per charge, respectively.
That’s quite good, so the next question is how long they will retain that capacity with constant recharging. And that’s where we see more big promises from Musk. He said in April that the company would soon produce a battery that lasts more than one million miles over its lifespan while losing less than 10% of its capacity.
He appears to have been on target. Last month, Tesla received a patent for a battery that looks like it meets those standards.
As Wired pointed out – and I completely agree – it’s interesting that the developers of the battery (at Dalhousie University, which has an agreement with Tesla) didn’t call the million-mile battery a “breakthrough” in a paper they published in The Journal of the Electrochemical Society.
That could be because while the battery is clearly a new and improved version of the lithium-ion battery, that technology has been around for 30 years now. It goes back to Sony’s camcorders in the 1980s, and its discoverers actually won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry just today.
The improvements are significant, but they still use older technology, which looks to be pushing its limits. The advancements also don’t change one of the big problems with lithium-ion batteries: the liquid electrolyte inside is flammable. You probably remember the problems three years ago with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 catching fire. The problem was the battery. In early 2018, HP recalled 50,000 laptops for a similar reason.
You don’t have to be a brilliant scientist to figure out that we can’t have battery-powered vehicles catching fire, especially if they drive themselves.
That’s why the real breakthrough is on its way: solid state batteries.
They are expected to provide over 1,000 miles per charge.
They recharge extremely fast.
They eliminate the flammable liquid center, which makes them much safer.
And to top it all off, they should eventually be cheaper to manufacture.
That’s about as promising as it gets. No wonder insiders are already calling this potential new battery a “paradigm shift” in energy technology. Forbes calls it simply: “The battery that could change the world.”
Trust me, it’s amazing.
This breakthrough device could change just about everything in our lives – from how we get around to how we communicate with others… even the way we think about the world.
For early investors, this also presents the kind of moneymaking opportunity that could turn a tiny initial stake into an absolute fortune.
Folks who get in on this breakthrough now, BEFORE it’s rolled out on a mass scale, will have the chance to be a part of perhaps the single largest legal creation of wealth in the last 25 years.
P.S. In my Investment Opportunities service, I recommend companies that supply this new technology — nicknamed the “Jesus Battery.”
If you ever wanted to invest in the coming electric car revolution, but weren’t sure how, THIS is your chance.
I found a company that holds key patents. Automakers like Toyota Motor (TM) are relying on this tiny company for its electric cars. Yet the company is totally off the radar.
That makes now the right time to get in before everyone else. I’ve got a full presentation on the investment opportunity in this “Jesus Battery,” which you can view for free by clicking here.
Matt McCall’s MoneyLine Podcast
Click here to listen to Matt McCall’s MoneyLine podcast! This week, Matt cuts through all the noise that is making its way through Wall Street to reveal that it is just that – noise. The talking heads are calling for a bear market, when in reality the stock market is poised to rally into the end of the year. Plus, the brokerage fee wars heat up, and once again Matt bashes WeWork and lists IPOs that have proven money can be made in newly listed stocks.
You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Learn where Matt McCall sees
huge investment opportunities right now:
How to Make Huge Profits From the Shift to Transportation 2.0
The car as we know it is on the verge of a transformative change not seen since Karl Benz invented it nearly 135 years ago. In fact, the whole transportation sector is now poised for its version of 2.0.
I’m not exaggerating when I say this will lead to trillions of dollars in money sloshing around in the coming decades. What is coming will create one of the five biggest investment opportunities you’ll ever see in your life, no matter when you were born. Learn more here.
Why the Legal Marijuana Industry is Set to Grow More than 10-Fold
Marijuana has been outlawed most everywhere for decades… but now a wave of legalization is starting to sweep the world. This will create massive new markets and massive stock market winners. Learn more here.
How to Cash In on the Biggest Battery Breakthrough in a Century
The next big breakthrough in battery technology is an innovation that will have multi-trillion-dollar economic implications. I can tell you this mega innovation isn’t a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when,” and I believe it will go down as one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century.
Those on the right side of this innovation stand to build incredible wealth… just like people did from the creation of the internet and the smartphone. Think of this as your “field guide” for profiting from the next big battery breakthrough. Learn more here.
