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That's so skewed. The next quarter they made almost nothing from ZEV credits. Tesla's gross profit per vehicle is about 25% on the Model S, and expected to be similar on the Model 3, which are excellent numbers. Damning them for also selling ZEV credits is just stupid.

I'd take those Tesla claims with a somewhat jaundiced eye. They tend to play fast & loose with accounting terms.
Even so, I doubt they'll manage 25% on a midrange car like the Model 3 and won't make any money on it for a couple years because of what they had to spend to get ready for its production.

That's so skewed. The next quarter they made almost nothing from ZEV credits. Tesla's gross profit per vehicle is about 25% on the Model S, and expected to be similar on the Model 3, which are excellent numbers. Damning them for also selling ZEV credits is just stupid.

So.... he didn't read the requirements before he started

Right, so you apparently think there was just some printed list sitting around of what NASA will and won't accept when you want to do something that's not been done before (propulsive crew landing)? As was made abundantly clear, what NASA will and won't accept came out of discussions with NASA. It became increasingly clear over time that they weren't going to allow it, so they cut it. I'm sure that you and your army of space psychics could have handled it better.

didn't look at previous NASA designs used successfully,

Yeah, let's just go back to Redstones. Because that will surely lead us to the future that SpaceX is working to achieve! The whole point is to innovate in ways that can make access to space cheaper and more routine, not to keep repeating what we know doesn't allow for cheap, routine access to space.

Even his cars are low-sales,

I love this double talk that you get from Slashdotters. On one hand, bringing a brand new mode of transportation from almost nothing to huge demand, to the degree that each new model is produced is in volumes an order of magnitude than the previous and yet accumulates even greater waiting lists, isn't happening nearly fast enough, that Tesla is "low sales" (actually, no, they're not, not when you take into account market segment). On the other hand, we're also always flooded with posts about how Tesla isn't paying dividends and keeps having to take capital rounds. So let me get this straight, Slashdot. Tesla is supposed to have, in a decade, gone from "design concept for an electric car" to "selling more cars than the major automakers", of an entirely different type of vehicle, while paying dividends and not raising capital. Am I understanding this correctly?

Tesla's rate of growth has been phenomenal. The fact that you find an automaker going from almost nothing to opening up factory lines to produce hundreds of thousands of $35k+ vehicles per year in under a decade to be way to slow, boggles the mind.

Sure, it's nice that he's throwing his money away so others don't have to, but as yet he hasn't really achieved much that couldn't have been done better, faster and more usefully than just giving that same money to NASA

For decades, US launch costs had stagnated. In the matter of a few years, SpaceX cut them to a small fraction of their former value - and they've only barely just started reuse. Again, the fact that you find this to be "not really achieving much" and that you think NASA would have done better (despite decades of distinctly not doing better) likewise boggles the mind.

n/t

Lots of typical knee-jerk reactions to this story. Most automakers do not have EV and car battery manufacturing facilities in China and China has reduced or removed subsidies making imports much less attractive. It seems, after a bit of quick basic research, that the slowdown request is to allow non-chinese car companies time to be able to ramp up the ability to product EVs on a large scale in China. It's not a plot to stay on old tech or to derail EV cars.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/08...
http://insights.globalspec.com...
https://electrek.co/2017/04/27...
https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

Likely Tesla hasn't complained because they are wrapping up their first manufacturing partnership in China and probably expect to be able to meet sales requirements.

http://fortune.com/2017/06/19/...

I don't think there is an all-year-around electric car that can be used in Canada, unless it is to be driven from garage to garage. With 20 below zero weather, batteries drop to 10% of what they can deliver in summer. Just get caught in a traffic jam with -20 and hope for the best. In my view, the best would be the tow-truck.

n/t

Lots of typical knee-jerk reactions to this story. Most automakers do not have EV and car battery manufacturing facilities in China and China has reduced or removed subsidies making imports much less attractive. It seems, after a bit of quick basic research, that the slowdown request is to allow non-chinese car companies time to be able to ramp up the ability to product EVs on a large scale in China. It's not a plot to stay on old tech or to derail EV cars.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/08...
http://insights.globalspec.com...
https://electrek.co/2017/04/27...
https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

Likely Tesla hasn't complained because they are wrapping up their first manufacturing partnership in China and probably expect to be able to meet sales requirements.

http://fortune.com/2017/06/19/...

I don't think there is an all-year-around electric car that can be used in Canada, unless it is to be driven from garage to garage. With 20 below zero weather, batteries drop to 10% of what they can deliver in summer. Just get caught in a traffic jam with -20 and hope for the best. In my view, the best would be the tow-truck.

To add a comparison point. There was recently a new EV record set from a Tesla. They drove from California to New York.
Total time: 51 hours, 54 minutes, 18 seconds
Average moving speed: 76 mph
Overall average speed: 54 mph

Sure, gas cars are the winner here. But EVs aren't far behind any longer so this is becoming more and more of an edge case.

"But, but, but, I NEED my method of transport to be able to drive cross country at more than 54mph!!!", sounds an awful lot like, "But, but, but, I NEED my method of transport to be able to jump over obstacles when they appear!!!"

n/t

Lots of typical knee-jerk reactions to this story. Most automakers do not have EV and car battery manufacturing facilities in China and China has reduced or removed subsidies making imports much less attractive. It seems, after a bit of quick basic research, that the slowdown request is to allow non-chinese car companies time to be able to ramp up the ability to product EVs on a large scale in China. It's not a plot to stay on old tech or to derail EV cars.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/08...
http://insights.globalspec.com...
https://electrek.co/2017/04/27...
https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

Likely Tesla hasn't complained because they are wrapping up their first manufacturing partnership in China and probably expect to be able to meet sales requirements.

http://fortune.com/2017/06/19/...

n/t

Lots of typical knee-jerk reactions to this story. Most automakers do not have EV and car battery manufacturing facilities in China and China has reduced or removed subsidies making imports much less attractive. It seems, after a bit of quick basic research, that the slowdown request is to allow non-chinese car companies time to be able to ramp up the ability to product EVs on a large scale in China. It's not a plot to stay on old tech or to derail EV cars.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/08...
http://insights.globalspec.com...
https://electrek.co/2017/04/27...
https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

Likely Tesla hasn't complained because they are wrapping up their first manufacturing partnership in China and probably expect to be able to meet sales requirements.

http://fortune.com/2017/06/19/...

That's not entirely accurate.....this is perhaps a better analysis of the various metals used in the batteries:

https://electrek.co/2016/11/01...

Ferret

Oh, and then there's this. Try that in an ICE car ;)

there's no evidence that the batteries wear down significantly over time. in fact, according to current data, most batteries still have over 90% capacity after 200,000 miles, and there is at least one Model S with over 500,000 miles on the odometer and it still has over 80% capacity on its original battery. keep in mind this is one of the first Model S vehicles, and their battery tech has improved by quite a lot since then, as well.

https://electrek.co/2016/11/01...

Driving, maybe. Parking, no. The cars that park themselves today are a very specialized case - it's the human that navigated up to and chooses the space.

It sounds strange to say it, but I think in many ways parking is a harder problem than driving. There are no universal rules to follow, and every parking spot has it's own unique challenges (street-side, residential garage, open lot, commercial multi-floor garage with gates, etc), and isn't mapped as part of the common street data sets.

I'm betting the first self-driving cars probably won't be able to self-park, perhaps except for your own driveway or garage if it's not too tricky to navigate.

Tesla already autoparks and soon will expand the feature, at least according to this Elon interview:

Musk confirmed that second generation Autopilot cars should also get automatic perpendicular parking and auto windshield wipers next month:
The vehicles already have automatic parallel parking in their ‘Autopark’ features powered by Autopilot, but the latest update didn’t include perpendicular parking.

Hardly anyone is doing research on breakthrough battery technology. How about pumping some dollars into increasing battery capacity 4x?

You mean other than the university research institutions all over the world, private companies working on electronics, DARPA and other millitary institutions, oh and there's someone I was forgetting. ... oh that's right at least one maker of electric cars.

Regarding the ability to manufacture at a cost below price, Musk said that the Model S costs $30,000 to produce. And since they've designed the Model 3 to be simpler and cheaper to produce than the Model S, it'll be cheaper to produce than that. But even if it were equal, they'd still make at least $5000 profit off of each car, depending on the options selected by the pruchaser.

Citation:
Model S costs $30,000 to produce

No 'subsidy' ever existed on EVs; rather, it was a tax incentive. Denmark has a huge tax on new cars, which can reach 180% of the car's value. EVs were exempted from this tax through the end of 2015; beginning in January of 2016, new EVs were assessed a 20% tax. In December 2015, as people rushed to avoid the looming tax change, 1,588 EVs were sold; the following month, 68 were sold. Last January, the tax on new EVs rose to 40%, and the tax reduction compared to conventional vehicles will be phased out completely by 2020.

Because of the collapse in EV sales as a result of this (1,300 EVs were sold in Denmark in 2016, while Tesla alone sold 1,300 EVs in Denmark in December of 2015, before the tax exemption expired), Denmark is walking back the changes to an extent; the tax rate will remain 20% until there have been 5,000 EVs sold, or until the start of 2019, whichever comes first. At that point, the tax rate returns to 40%, rising to 65% in 2020, 90% in 2021, and 100% in 2022. In addition, there will be a new tax on the electricity used to charge EVs, both private and commercial.

More details at electrek.co.

The investigator had access to Tesla’s compensation data and found that Vandermeyden’s salary was in the middle of the range and while some new hires were indeed paid more than her as her lawsuit claims, the highest paid new hire was a woman and several men were paid less than her. Therefore, Hilbert determined that gender discrimination had nothing to do with her compensation.

It doesn't say why she was fired, but most companies won't say that.

A much simpler and quicker fix is to just shift the subsidies to cleaner energy.

That would be nice, but at this point it's not necessary. Renewables are already undercutting the cost of fossil energy in most areas, even without subsidies (and even though most fossil fuels are heavily subsidized). And all indications are that renewables will only continue to get cheaper while fossil fuels will only continue to get more expensive. If we're not already past the tipping point, we will be soon.

Another tipping point in the near future is energy storage. Tesla claims to have already broken the $200/kwh threshold, and rumor has it they may in fact be closer to $130/kwh. Again, with all the VC cash that's been invested in battery tech in the last decade, this cost will keep going down for a while yet.

The future looks bright for renewables, not so much for fossils.

Flash in the pan is more accurate than you know.

The American auto industry is 127 years old. For the rest of the world it's roughly 209.

13 years is nothing compared to that record. Additionaly, rare-earth minerals aren't nearly as abundant as fossile fuels, and cannot be syntesized like fuel alcohol or biofuel can. Without any conservation effort the bottom is going to fall out of the market of batteries for *everything*. That means your cellphone is on a short time on this earth also.

Everyone drones on about fossil fuels having a limited supply when the minerals required to produce batteries are far more limited, far more destructive to mine, and much harsher on the environment to process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.batteryeducation.co...
http://energyskeptic.com/2013/...
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01...
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

I see a lot of people confidently asserting opinions here without actually giving arguments refuting much of anything in the source article. So let's do some basic cost calculations. Let's say that your electric car has a capacity of 85kWh. That capacity with the very heavy Tesla Model S will give you an approximate EPA range of 426km (265 miles). If your electricity cost was $0.15/kWh, that means the cost to charge your car fully from empty would be $0.15/kWh x 85kWh = $12.75. Since you would seldom fully empty your car battery fully, you would typically charge less than this, and it is likely the EPA range does not bring the battery to full empty. Even so, I will assume the price of driving the range of 426km would still be $12.75 (charged from the charger in your garage...fully charged when you get up). This gives an electric cost of $12.75/426km = $0.0299/km.

Now let us consider a gasoline car. I'll assume an optimistic 10L/100km. That would mean that driving 426km would use 426/100 x 10 = 42.6L of gasoline. Gasoline costs $1.32/L where I live, but let's give it a cheaper price of $1.11/L. This would give a cost for driving 426km of 42.6L x $1.11/L = $47.29. The cost per km would be $47.29/426km = $0.111/km. In other words gasoline costs $0.111/$0.0299 = 3.7 x more or 370% more than electric per km! Electric cars are simpler. The battery technology is constantly improving. There are Tesla electric cars that have driven 200000 miles with no battery replacement (the car linked to here did have its battery replaced at 200000 miles, but it actually had most of its range, and it is likely Tesla wanted to examine the battery). Recent improvements in battery technology promise batteries that will last the life of the car. The announcement referred to here was in reference to an increased voltage battery chemistry that showed 92% capacity remaining after 1200 charge cycles. If your car has a range of 230 miles per charge cycle, than that would allow the car 230 miles x 1200 = 276000 miles and still have 92% battery capacity! For most of us, that would be longer than the lifetime of a fossil fuel car.

The cost of the cells is already dropping precipitously. The trend shown over the last few years is going to continue. There is no such trend in gasoline cars. Costs are for fossil fuel cars are going up. Electric cars will appear at lower and lower points in the market, first in the used market, and later in the new car market. In the end, electric cars will be the only economical choice. It is simple physics and economics. You can deny it all you want, but in the end, physics will win. Steam won over horse transportation because it was cheaper and better. Gasoline won over steam power because it was cheaper and better. Electric will win over gasoline because it is cheaper and better.

I see a lot of people confidently asserting opinions here without actually giving arguments refuting much of anything in the source article. So let's do some basic cost calculations. Let's say that your electric car has a capacity of 85kWh. That capacity with the very heavy Tesla Model S will give you an approximate EPA range of 426km (265 miles). If your electricity cost was $0.15/kWh, that means the cost to charge your car fully from empty would be $0.15/kWh x 85kWh = $12.75. Since you would seldom fully empty your car battery fully, you would typically charge less than this, and it is likely the EPA range does not bring the battery to full empty. Even so, I will assume the price of driving the range of 426km would still be $12.75 (charged from the charger in your garage...fully charged when you get up). This gives an electric cost of $12.75/426km = $0.0299/km.

Now let us consider a gasoline car. I'll assume an optimistic 10L/100km. That would mean that driving 426km would use 426/100 x 10 = 42.6L of gasoline. Gasoline costs $1.32/L where I live, but let's give it a cheaper price of $1.11/L. This would give a cost for driving 426km of 42.6L x $1.11/L = $47.29. The cost per km would be $47.29/426km = $0.111/km. In other words gasoline costs $0.111/$0.0299 = 3.7 x more or 370% more than electric per km! Electric cars are simpler. The battery technology is constantly improving. There are Tesla electric cars that have driven 200000 miles with no battery replacement (the car linked to here did have its battery replaced at 200000 miles, but it actually had most of its range, and it is likely Tesla wanted to examine the battery). Recent improvements in battery technology promise batteries that will last the life of the car. The announcement referred to here was in reference to an increased voltage battery chemistry that showed 92% capacity remaining after 1200 charge cycles. If your car has a range of 230 miles per charge cycle, than that would allow the car 230 miles x 1200 = 276000 miles and still have 92% battery capacity! For most of us, that would be longer than the lifetime of a fossil fuel car.

The cost of the cells is already dropping precipitously. The trend shown over the last few years is going to continue. There is no such trend in gasoline cars. Costs are for fossil fuel cars are going up. Electric cars will appear at lower and lower points in the market, first in the used market, and later in the new car market. In the end, electric cars will be the only economical choice. It is simple physics and economics. You can deny it all you want, but in the end, physics will win. Steam won over horse transportation because it was cheaper and better. Gasoline won over steam power because it was cheaper and better. Electric will win over gasoline because it is cheaper and better.

Solar has reached parity in different parts of the world - e.g. California, Arizona, Saudi, South Australia. You will see many countries join this list like dominoes over 2017 to 2018. South Australia has a return for Solar + Tesla Battery under 10 years. A quarter of Australian houses have solar. Just because you are in the UK, doesn't mean it's not happening. India wants all cars to be electric by 2030 to combat air pollution. You can bet it will be a lot of solar. Subscribe to https://electrek.co/ to read what is going on. Or watch the UK channel https://www.youtube.com/user/f.... There are numerous sources of good information.

Actually we're both wrong. It's 100Kw. Tesla's supercharging is also over pairs of chargers so it's a theoretical maximum. CCS can match the rates, but as I said lower capacity batteries probably haven't made the need so pressing.

Except that because of the Leaf's poor thermal management strategy on the battery (air cooled), the battery degrades at a much faster rate than a Tesla's. This is increased depending on how hot your climate is.

Here's a resource to estimate your battery capacity for a Nissan Leaf.

Basically, a used Leaf from Phoenix, AZ that's only 2.5 years old would only have 70% its original capacity. But a used Leaf from Syracuse, NY would not get to 70% capacity until it's 8.3 years old.

A Tesla on the other hand has been shown to have more than 90% capacity after 200,000 miles (approx. 13.3 years of driving, for a 15,000 miles per year mileage). In fact, simulations have the battery still above 80% after 500,000 miles.

So, considering the Phoenix example. Let's say your lightly used Leaf requires a battery replacement straight away because it's already 2.5 years old, that's another $10,000 on your car purchase bringing the cost up to $20,000. And another $10,000 every 2.5 years thereafter. You'll have paid about $50,000 on battery replacements by the time you've made it to 13.3 years of driving, and $60,000 overall. So, by that metric, you can only afford 1.6 lightly used Leafs for the price of a Tesla.

Just for fun, in Syracuse, your money will go further. You'll only need one battery replacement in 13.3 years. So you can afford 5 lightly used Leafs for the price of a Tesla.

Except that because of the Leaf's poor thermal management strategy on the battery (air cooled), the battery degrades at a much faster rate than a Tesla's. This is increased depending on how hot your climate is.

Here's a resource to estimate your battery capacity for a Nissan Leaf.

Basically, a used Leaf from Phoenix, AZ that's only 2.5 years old would only have 70% its original capacity. But a used Leaf from Syracuse, NY would not get to 70% capacity until it's 8.3 years old.

A Tesla on the other hand has been shown to have more than 90% capacity after 200,000 miles (approx. 13.3 years of driving, for a 15,000 miles per year mileage). In fact, simulations have the battery still above 80% after 500,000 miles.

So, considering the Phoenix example. Let's say your lightly used Leaf requires a battery replacement straight away because it's already 2.5 years old, that's another $10,000 on your car purchase bringing the cost up to $20,000. And another $10,000 every 2.5 years thereafter. You'll have paid about $50,000 on battery replacements by the time you've made it to 13.3 years of driving, and $60,000 overall. So, by that metric, you can only afford 1.6 lightly used Leafs for the price of a Tesla.

Just for fun, in Syracuse, your money will go further. You'll only need one battery replacement in 13.3 years. So you can afford 5 lightly used Leafs for the price of a Tesla.

How much has tesla's supply chain on common with the other auto manuifacturer's.

Tesla is more vertically integrated than most. I've seen reports that they are around 80% vertically integrated. Problem is that ANY parts you have to get from outside suppliers can shut you down. I run a small manufacturing company that makes a tiny wire harness for some GM cars. It's not even a part that is critical to normal operation of the vehicle (hooks up a camera) but if we went bankrupt we conceivably could shut down one of GMs assembly lines. (the parts we supply have 14 week lead times due to some stupid design decisions by GM so they literally couldn't get them in a hurry) Most people don't realize just how fragile some of these supply chains really are.

So the short version is that every auto maker shares the same supply base to a significant degree. There are roughly 6 workers in the supply base for every one at the automakers and that doesn't count the companies that don't supply parts. So if GM went under they would take a LOT of suppliers with them. If the suppliers go under so will a number of other auto OEMs. If GM went under I'd expect both Ford and FCA to have a very hard time staying out of bankruptcy court. Probably several others as well.

Interestingly, GM used to be very vertically integrated and it was what made them the behemoth they are today. There can be a lot of value in being vertically integrated if you do it well and at sufficient scale. They seem to have forgotten that lesson. Of the big auto makers VW is probably the most vertically integrated with the Japanese makers just a bit behind. It's not that vertical integration is some cure-all magic formula for success but I think a lot of companies forgot about the big picture over time.

I would expect its much less than the others since the tech is all different.

The power train tech is different but the chassis, body, interior, wheels, etc are all very conventional and not much different at all from their competitors. They smartly produce as much as they can in house but there is not much unique outside of how they propel the vehicle and the software to run everything. There are some things they simply cannot do in house. Honestly if Tesla didn't vertically integrate I don't think they would have a prayer of surviving. They would be beholden to a bunch of auto suppliers who are (revenue wise) much larger than Tesla is and Tesla doesn't do enough volume to really control them. GM can get away with less vertical integration because they are big enough to crush suppliers who don't dance to their tune.

Tesla announced mid September that they've been chosen to build a 80 MWh storage facility. They cut the ribbon in late January - 4 months. Now that was in California, not Australia, but we do have airplanes ... https://electrek.co/2017/01/23...

Car Taxes
http://www.expatarrivals.com/n...

Exemptions for electrics

https://electrek.co/2016/11/09...

The claim about low wage misrepresents the reality. "Tesla also offers equity to all employees from the ground up through their stock program." The guy failed to mention that. See https://electrek.co/2017/02/09...

Here's an article with the video embedded

https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/

Here's a video of what actually happens when you TRY to catch one of the modules on fire

https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/

TL;DR... Thanks to the safety measures built in to the module, the failure is contained to the module and even parts within the burning module are still intact.

I would call 80 MWh Tesla Powerpack "Industrial scale":

https://electrek.co/2017/01/23...

Absolutely. And unless he was blinded by the sun, he should have seen the truck turning across his path.

here are details
https://electrek.co/2016/07/01...

I'm not sure the truck should have turned across the path of oncoming traffic with no light.

I was told by a friend tonight that the truck driver was ticketed for the turn.

The same investigation found that Tesla’s crash rate was reduced by 40% after introduction of Autopilot:
https://electrek.co/2017/01/19...

That AC is being dumb about the subsidies--Elon has done far more good with those than most and I cheer for his success. I sincerely wish more of our subsidies were bringing us awesome tech the way the ones going to him are. That said, your post is nonsense too.

Elon is a Trump advisory team member and they've been cooperating together.

But why let facts get in the way here when you can conjure more Russian boogeymen?

Tesla's superchargers currently manage to provide around 170 miles of range on a half-hour charge, so Samsung's planned tech could approximately double that.

Sure, this technology will beat Tesla's current capability, but it won't be available until 2021. Does Samsung think Tesla won't make improvements by then? They are already quietly increasing the capability of their charging stations, and rolling out new batteries using production tooling.

Tesla's superchargers currently manage to provide around 170 miles of range on a half-hour charge, so Samsung's planned tech could approximately double that.

Sure, this technology will beat Tesla's current capability, but it won't be available until 2021. Does Samsung think Tesla won't make improvements by then? They are already quietly increasing the capability of their charging stations, and rolling out new batteries using production tooling.

Tesla's superchargers currently manage to provide around 170 miles of range on a half-hour charge, so Samsung's planned tech could approximately double that.

Sure, this technology will beat Tesla's current capability, but it won't be available until 2021. Does Samsung think Tesla won't make improvements by then? They are already quietly increasing the capability of their charging stations, and rolling out new batteries using production tooling.

EPA ratings, which is the standard in North America to measure against is not the absolute IDEAL situation, you can actually get much higher range in ideal conditions. But the EPA range more accurately reflects the typical range that you would see in regular driving conditions. But you are correct that the actual mileage can be less in the worst conditions (winter, which requires cabin heating & traffic jam, which requires a lot of accelerating/decelerating). If you are unlucky to drive in these conditions, you'll get about 50% of the EPA range with a Leaf and about 66% of the EPA range with a Tesla. You can mitigate this to a certain degree by heating your cabin while it's still plugged in at home and rely more on heated seats than heating the air of the cabin.

100 miles is still pretty good, since according to this site, only 8% of the American population commute 75 miles or more in a day. Which means that, 92% of Americans still have at least 25 miles of wiggle room for detours or errands.

There is battery degradation to factor in, but this varies based on battery chemistry and cooling systems (or if there's no cooling system, your climate). So you can have pretty bad degradation as in the case of a Nissan Leaf, which has no battery cooling system (degrades to 70% in 8.3 years in Syracuse NY, in 3.4 years in Houston TX), or in the case of a Tesla, which has an active cooling system, has been shown to lose only 5% after 50,000 miles and about 8% after 100,000 miles.

I would imagine (or hope) that Ford would be smart enough to make their battery system more like Tesla's and less like Nissan's, leaving your friend with 132 miles of range even in the worst conditions.

Here is another take on the same story: https://electrek.co/2016/11/23...

To demonstrate that fully autonomous vehicles have a fatality rate of 1.09 fatalities per 100 million miles (R=99.9999989%) with a C=95% confidence level, the vehicles would have to be driven 275 million failure-free miles. With a fleet of 100 autonomous vehicles being test-driven 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at an average speed of 25 miles per hour, this would take about 12.5 years.

Except, Tesla doesn't have a fleet of only 100 vehicles. It has around 1000 times that, who pump out about 50,000 miles of Autonomous driving every two months (May report was 100 million miles driven on Autopilot, and July report was 150 million miles driven on Autopilot see: https://electrek.co/2016/07/11...). Given those rates, and considering that they've already amassed 150 million miles on Autopilot as of July, they'll get to 275 million miles next month. And that's without even factoring new car owners joining the fleet and adding in their own Autopilot miles.

This is hardly something that'll take 12.5 years. And if they're this far off on their estimates for how long it would take to do enough test driving, they're definitely way off on their assessment that it's too many miles to demonstrate parity in vehicle safety.

As far as I can tell (Yes, I am a forensic accountant) they sold a lot of now-obsolete cars at a big discount and did some other tricks to prop up sales and push Q4 revenue into Q3, Q3 expenses into Q4, etc.

From electrek reporting on the Q3 Statement:

The automaker disclosed that it expects to also be profitable next quarter

If Tesla's right about Q4, and your theory on changing their accounting methods is correct, then they would have had to pull next year's Q1 revenue back to Q3+Q4 and/or push Q3+Q4's expenses to next year. Your theory is appearing unlikely. Or perhaps you're wrong and they're actually just making money.

They make money selling cars, they just lose what they make thanks to R&D and CapEx. And that's before counting the carbon credits (ZEV credits) you speak of, which help offset the losses from R&D and CapEx. What you're saying is a little misleading.

Source (an article on their Q3 statement):
Tesla’s Q3 gross margin was 27.7%, up from 21.6% during Q2. That’s without ZEV credits.

It's catchy to slide in Tesla in unrelated articles but just because it uses batteries doesn't mean they are prone to fires.

The one that famously caught fire and torched a supercharger in Europe was caused by a genuine one-off assembly line defect.
The one that caught fire in France during a test drive was found to have a a faulty electrical connection.
The one that crashed on autopilot and "battery caught fire" actually didn't burned down: it smashed into a tree separating the front of the vehicle from the cabine, tearing the battery apart where a small number of cells separated from the rest and autopilot tesla crash fire caught fire, away from the vehicle and the rest of the battery pack. Driver dies of impact.
Another one caught fire due to hitting debris where car alerted driver to pull aside.

Complete list of EV fires exonerate batteries for the most part, as most EVs (Tesla and Chevy Volt) have liquid-cooled battery packs, unlike consumer electronics (esp. handheld devices).

Short lifespan batteries? Doesn't look like it, perhaps you're thinking of old laptop batteries or some such.

Tesla Model S battery pack data shows very little capacity loss over high mileage | Electrek

Additionally it would be stupid for Tesla not to incorporate any stores in the states they are in because foreign corporations are at an disadvantage legally, it would be trivial for Tesla to draw up the legal agreements Michigan requires for franchised dealer, but Tesla doesn't want to be a franchised dealer, they only want to sell cars and the two aren't the same thing.

They tried this, and got denied. Now they're suing.

It's shingles that incorporate PV cells.

Here is a better article with a picture of the panels.

They will, but only on next year's models: https://electrek.co/2016/09/09...

Clearly that thought has occurred to someone with the wherewithal to do something about it: https://electrek.co/2016/06/13...

To quote Joshua Brown, the man killed in the crash: (taken from here)

A bigger danger at this stage of the development is getting someone too comfortable. You really do need to be paying attention at this point. This is early in the development and the human should be ready to intervene if [the Autopilot] can’t do something. I talked in one of the other comments about the blind spots of the current hardware. There are some situations it doesn’t do well in which is okay. It’s not an autonomous car and they are learning HUGE amounts of data about the car doing the driving. I’m happy o help train it. I’m VERY curious what version 2 of the hardware will be like and what [it] will enable.

This seems to indicate that it wasn't a misunderstanding on his part. He was well aware that he was still piloting a potentially dangerous machine, and that it needed his full attention, but for whatever reason both he failed to react when the autopilot did not brake.

FYI, there are now many maps showing what happened as well.

There's a good one here:
http://electrek.co/2016/07/01/...