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We don't have a ZEV mandate in Texas. The state even goes out of their way to make it difficult to buy a Tesla (cannot discuss price in the "gallery", must order online, must pay in full before it can be shipped to Texas, etc), recently tried to pass a bill that would have forced Tesla to close service centers, and even prevents Tesla owners from taking advantage of the Texas $2500 EV incentive as it's only available if vehicle was purchased from a Texas Dealer.

And despite all that, if you take a look at Tesla's Carbon Impact you'll find Houston, Austin, and Dallas coming in at 11, 12, and 13 for US cities.

the intermediate and long-term goal for the factory was to pump out high-capacity batteries that would let residential and commercial solar users finally get off the grid permanently

The PowerWall is available already. And they have been used in large installations as well, in Australia and other places.

I've thought about getting one just for backup power for the house but it really makes more sense with a solar system, just waiting to see if solar shingles work out long term or what as I would prefer that form factor...

Tesla releases a quarterly safety report on their cars. About one accident for every 2.87 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. As a contrast, for the general public, it's about one accident per 436,000 miles.
So, much better but not perfect.
As long as it's better than driving without assistance, it's a win.
https://www.tesla.com/VehicleS...

Probably not, because then you'd have to train all the drivers on how to move with a trailer behind them.

On the other hand, if you're buying hundreds of electric buses, have the battery pack be modular, between the wheels on the bottom where it enhances stability, then swap using a dedicated swap station, or even a forklift. Some electronics in the bus and you could even have the bus itself unhook the battery and rehook the new one.

  https://www.tesla.com/videos/b... - showing that an in-chassis battery swap is indeed possible.

Problem is, that everybody wants to buy a superior vehicle that is also a superior value.

Until you get into a fender bender and need to have it repaired. Then you're going to be pulling out the big bucks.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/20/heres-what-7000-of-damage-looks-like-on-a-tesla-model-3/

Seriously $7000 for a minor dent? I'm not sure I see the "superior value" here. Its a value until you realize the exterior of the car is pretty much an eggshell and if you bust anything on it, watch out, you're going to be paying out the nose(or your insurance is).

It gets even worse, this poor guy had his Model 3 backed into https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/ridiculous-cost-and-time-repair-model-3

What I did not expect was that it would take the insurance nearly a month of having my car at the shop before they decided to let me know that the cost will be $16,000+ AND i would not receive my car from the shop for AT LEAST another 7 weeks. Having had my car sit there for almost 4 weeks without any information every time I called was frustrating and that is on the insurance provider but Tesla taking "3-5 weeks" to deliver some fenders is honestly ridiculous.

$16k worth of damage and weeks worth of waiting with your car in the shop? Thats insane.

I'd much rather buy a car with a well supported pipeline of spare parts and a good geographic spread of service centers.

Also there is the whole matter regarding the stability of Tesla as a company.

Will they be there in 5 years when something breaks and I need to get a replacement part?

I say this as someone who really, really likes the idea of owning a Tesla, but the costs of any potential repairs is a turnoff. We'll also ignore the fact that Tesla's are some of the most expensive vehicles to insure, due to the cost of repairs. I have a hard time seeing the real value at this point.

I don't get it. I can appreciate what the report says, that Tesla did not over extend itself or go too wild with new features and design. But to call it an SUV seems like pure marketing BS. They make a few mods on their base model and call it whatever they want to capture so and so market. They could call it a mini big rig or a suburban war tank, but that don't make it so. Take a look at the thing at https://www.tesla.com/modely. It is a small hatchback coupe that looks like my Honda did in the 1980's. Others in this thread have likened it to a VW beetle. If you got a Hot Wheels or Tonka Toy that looks like a Suburban or 4-Runner, and put a little battery and motor in it, that would be more of an SUV than that thing.

The site says:
"Model Y provides maximum versatility—able to carry 7 passengers and their cargo. Each second row seat folds flat independently, creating flexible storage for skis, furniture, luggage and more."
Granted, you have to see it in person to know for sure. But to look at the pictures, 7 people would be a huge squeeze. Furniture? A foot stool maybe. Doesn't seem like enough room for much camping gear, a surfboard, or lumberyard or garden store purchases. Sorry you say, surfboards go on the roof, but that curved hatchback ain't got no place to put a roof rack.

Site says:
"Model Y is capable in rain, snow, mud and off-road."
Off road? Sure, if pulling into your drive is off road. For that wilderness adventure, you can drive on your lawn.
Off road usually implies an alternative suspension - maybe they do, maybe they don't - but there is no clearance. Low center of gravity, as they claim, means your butt won't clear a sidewalk curb let alone rock and rubble mountain trails. Want to try a rainy wash?, wear your swim trunks and snorkel.

It's a hatchback, with a few interior seating mods so they can make you think "I bought an SUV" ... if you are an urban yuppie ... who has never driven through a ranch or a back country road.

And here's the other odd thing.
Site says:
"And when you’re on the road, it’s easy to plug in along the way—at any public station or with the Tesla charging network. We currently have over 12,000 Superchargers worldwide, with six new locations opening every week."
Six new locations a week?
Let's do the math.
6x50 weeks = 300 chargers per year.
At that rate, 12,000 units means they have invested 40 years in infrastructure build out, but we know that that is not the case. So, they put in a lot quickly in just a few years, and now they are lollygagging their way through. 300 units a year worldwide means that market self sustainability for electric vehicles will never happen. Maybe the ad got the numbers wrong. 600 a week would make sense, not 6.

Anyone else think that this ad is missing a few screws?
Any chance the vehicles themselves are missing a few screws?

Why would I buy something that comes with arbitrary limits?

People put up with bullshit because:

• They feel the other aspects of the product are "worth it." Some people like Volvos, or at least like that Volvos have the gimmick of being marketed on safety.
• They don't truly value whatever they're giving up. I have a car that can go faster, but it really is damn rare that I go over 110mph. Even on open highways with great visibility, I rarely cruise faster than low 90s and only go over 100mph to pass. Sure, that's just me, but the point is that a lot of people's general habits are such that the limitation doesn't matter much to them.. except in principle. So people might not like it, but they buy it anyway because the principle isn't practical when you want a car. People say it matters, but then they hand over the money anyway, proving that it didn't really matter ot them.
• People are very used to and acclimated buying things that have arbitrary limitations, or even work directly against the owner's interest. e.g. why couldn't Blu-Ray players output high-def to a monitor that doesn't support HDCP? No reason, but people still bought Blu-ray players anyway. I think you can't even buy a Tesla car without signing the Tesla purchase agreement, and that locks you into arbitrartion! Arbitration is both extremely weird, and also extremely common too, since you probably also have a weird contract with, for example, your bank.

Bullshit starts in one part of the economy and spreads out to splatter shit all over everything. And now it's in our computers and cars. And people vote in favor of it, with their wallets. If you have a smartphone, I bet you have voted to have arbitrary limits too. Some day you won't get to select which hand your sex-monitoring chip is planted in, so enjoy that freedom for now

Do you really think this is going to lower Volvo sales? Were you in the market for a Volvo anyway? It'll matter even less when it's two manufacturers who do this, and then there will be more.

No roof rack for the X. This is 1 of 1.5 that you got correct.
X can be ordered with a hitch. Not a problem.
The X is taken off-road by a large number of ppl.
No spare tire, though you can take one with you when off-roading. So, half point.

This vehicle is SUPERIOR as an SUV, compared to other luxury 'SUVs', such as Cayenne, After all, these are SPORT UTILITY vehicles, not necessarily major off-roaders.

Windbourne( moderating ).

Where in the warranty does it say that? Under "Warranty limitations", "Towing the vehicle" is an exclusion, but not "Towing with the vehicle".

Model X tow package here.

No. $35k before gas savings and credits. For a US buyer the MSRP minus credits is at most $31250, and depending on state credits, as little as $26250 (Colorado has the best state credits in the US). Then there's gas savings on top of that.

See for yourself. "LOL".

All of you people who've been shouting for the past year, "Tesla will never release a $35k MSRP Model 3!", take a lesson in humility from this.

Tesla says 12,500 miles or 12 months, not 25,000 miles. That puts it right along most modern ICE cars, which are typically 8,000 mile inspection/service intervals.

I was sure you were lying, but holy fuck it really is that stupid (see page 53, or 55 depending on how your viewer operates). No twisty thing to adjust the intermittent frequency, only 2 options for intermittent frequency, and instead of lifting up on the lever for a manual wipe like on every other vehicle on the market you press a button on the end of it. And is it seriously not possible to turn the wipers on/off with the lever? And why the hell is all this on the left lever and not the right? Do Tesla's not have a lever on the right?

Seriously, who the fuck thought that was a good design?

Your entire straw man argument is centered on the assumption that there actually was a violation of the agreement.

If there is no violation, then the status of being a court order is irrelevant. He tweeted information that has been publicly available since released on the Q4 analysts call that literally anybody can listen to through a web browser, right off of Tesla's investor web site.

Remember that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing? Here's to hoping you never get summoned for jury duty - it will just be a waste of everybody's time and taxpayer dollars as you'll get bounced in voir dire for being prejudiced towards law enforcement since apparently they can do no wrong in your eyes. I would hope that current events would prove beyond a doubt that law enforcement agencies are definitely fallible, but that's just me.

And yet not in a shareholder letter issued before which said

"In total, we are expecting to deliver 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles in 2019, representing a growth of approximately 45% to 65% compared to 2018. In this range, we are expecting to have posit ive GAAP net income and to generate positive free cash flow (operating cash flow less capex) in every quarter beyond Q1 2019. We believe these results will be substantially driven by our restructuring action and the ongoing financial discipl ine with which we are managing the business. " http://ir.tesla.com/static-fil...

Forward projections of material facts issued by corporation directors are required to be issued to all shareholders simultaneously, and to be accompanied by specific legal disclaimers.

The proper way to release material information is in quarterly reports, or in pre-announced earnings calls.

Issuing these projections by tweet is never ok. It is especially bad for Elon because he has already been spanked once for this behavior, and had signed a consent decree to not do it again.

You mean this earnings report released in Q4 last year which quotes the annualized 500k figure? http://ir.tesla.com/static-fil...

Tesla is literally already doing that. Their product is called a "Powerwall".

The entire Tesla enterprise is a bet on a curve. The battery price will halve and the energy density will double every seven years. Sort of a Moore's Law for the batteries. The play book of Tesla is to find which segment of the car/suv market can be attacked at what price batteries. Roadster in 2008. S in 2012. X in 2015. 3 in 2018.

The auto industry is very mature. Almost all its parts have been refined and optimized over and over for a long time. The prices of components, crankshafts, body panels, differential gears, do not change significantly between the conception, design and production. They conditioned to think like this. "Today battery price is 200 $/kWh. The gasoline power train cost X$. Replacing it with electric would give me Y kWh battery, so... " They are not used to, "battery price to day is 190 $/kWh, four years from now it will 140$/kWh, ...". This is the mistake they made in underestimating Tesla.

Also the temperament of Elon helped. He kept making impossible to believe claims. So they discounted everything he said. Had he been a staid stiff upper lip CEO, they might have taken him more seriously and started competing with him earlier. 11 years after the Roadster, still there is no electric roadster from any competition with comparable spec. 50 kWh battery, 240 mile range, peppy two seater.

While the media circus he created kept focusing on his "failures". What he delivered in his "failures" were still stunning ground breaking trail blazing machines.

The battery era is dawning. It is getting cheaper to store 1 GWh of electricity than to build an gas burning powerplant, in the usa! In deep mines, not having to suck out the diesel exhaust pays for the conversion to battery powered earth movers!

At the price of 90 $/kWh BEV and ICEV will cost the same off the dealership, for a 300 mile range car. At that price indeterminacy of solar and wind would not be an issue. We are in for a great battery powered future.

Tesla's competing offering, the Model X, is almost 50% more expensive

1) No, it's not. And it doesn't bundle basic tech features into a separate options package.

2) This is after Tesla eliminated the much (nearly $20k) cheaper 75D, leaving only the high margin 100D and the very high margin P100D (the difference in cell costs between a 75D and a $100D is only ~$5k or so).

3) E-Tron isn't even close to the size of Model X. The rear-seats-down internal space is literally 50% larger in the X than the E-Tron. E-Tron has less boot space than even a Model S. Its internal space is roughly a "slightly taller Model 3".

Sure, it may accelerate to 100 km/h a bit quicker

"A bit"? A 66k EUR M3P will do 0-100 in literally half the time. The slowest vehicle Tesla sells in Europe does it in 73% the time.

6,6 seconds and 200kph top speed is totally unacceptable at that price point. Particularly in Germany.

On the other hand, the Audi will probably be much more reliable, be more enjoyable to drive, have a much nicer interior

Yes, that's totally why Tesla scores several ranks 14% higher than Audi (90% vs. 76%) in consumer satisfaction, huh?

while subjective, I think most people will agree it looks a lot better too

Lol.

I am willing to bet it will go round corners faster too

Heavier & higher = Nope. Heck, it's even heavier (although not higher) than a far-larger Model X.

and I am fairly certain it doesn't share Tesla's arbitrary, remotely enforceable limit on the number of times maximum acceleration is attempted.

You're confusing Ludicrious Mode launches (P100D models only) with regular acceleration. Do you really want to compare performance to a P100D? And secondly, that limit hasn't been in place for a year and a half.

I doubt many people will be cross-shopping a premium-brand SUV with a cheaply built saloon that isn't actually on sale in Europe yet

1. Your "cheaply built saloon" has the highest resale value retention of any car in the US in the US, from a company with the highest owner satisfaction. But don't let facts interfere with a good attack line.

2. Model 3 is on sale in Europe. First customer cars arrive in Europe on a week from now.

Additionally, the e-tron is ready for high-current chargers that will soon be everywhere

1. There are two primary factors that determine how long you're waiting at charging stations on a road trip: A) the charging power, and B) your vehicle's consumption. As described above, E-Tron is such a guzzler that even if it can charge on 175kW stations it still would only charge at 3/5ths the number of miles/kilometers per minute. Of course, most CCS stations are far from 175kW.

2. "Soon be everywhere" is a funny statement. You know that Ionity network that's supposed to be making them in Europe? You may be surprised to know that the vast majority of what they're actually building is only CCS v1 (capped out at 200A, not 500A as in CCS v2). It's not even clear that they support 800-1000V yet either, rather than just 400-500V. The "350kW" moniker is designed to be a "later upgrade"; they're 350kW "design intent".

3. Even if this weren't the case, they're years behind the Supercharger network.

while Tesla has not yet announced what the maximum charging power will be for the Model 3.

They've pointed out that all of their current production can take powers well faster than current superchargers can deliver, which is ~117kW. The onboard computer, when put into factory mode, shows a current limit of 525A, which would be ~180kW, give or take.

People with brand new Teslas are having to send them back to the factory to get fixed for incredibly obvious shit. This is a trend that spiked in December.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://forums.tesla.com/forum...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Sales went up because they absolutely gutted quality control in order to roll out more vehicles before the end of the year. I'd bet my life on it being a deliberate move to placate moronic investors who still swallow the the tripe and believe the hype. Oh, you wanted us to manufacture X number of ACCEPTABLE cars? Give us another year to get those numbers up.

There are still places where people don't lock their doors and leave their keys in their cars in case a neighbor needs to borrow it in an emergency.

Unrelated, but don't do this with the newer car keys which unlock the doors by proximity ('keyless entry"). They can sense when they're inside the car rather than outside, and will not unlock the doors when you touch the handle from the outside (otherwise a mugger chasing you would be able to open the doors you just locked). Many of these cars will also auto-lock the doors after a certain period of time (it assumes you're inside getting ready to go somewhere). Resulting in the key being locked inside with no way to get in unless you have a spare key. And calling a locksmith to break in to these newer car locks is either futile or a lot more expensive.

https://www.civicx.com/threads/locked-my-keys-in-my-keyless-entry-vehicle-smh.19760/"
https://www.reddit.com/r/mazda3/comments/3cd8ax/locked_keys_in_car_keyless_fob_sitting_in_the/
https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/car-locked-fob-inside-what-do-you-do

In the real world, you can drive coast to coast on Tesla's supercharger network. And if a Tesla is too rich for you, the Chevy Volt can be had for under $30k. Yes, that's a list price more than a Civic or an Accord, but you'll more than make that up in TCO. There are still a metric fuckton of charging stations. Sure, if you are planning to drive out in the badlands, you're not going to find a lot of charging stations. But if you're not, you're going to be fine.

If a Honda Civic is too expensive for you, than I guess an EV will be too expensive for you. Doesn't have anything to do with the power source, however. And it definitely doesn't have anything to do with a lack of charge stations.

You keep shouting at those clouds!

As far as I can tell no. The owners manual mentions nothing of conditions https://www.tesla.com/sites/de... (page 91 of the PDF) It doesn't mention the timing and I'm getting conflicting information as to the exact details precisely because it's changed so frequently, but it looks like a lot of the anecdotes coming towards something resembling a consensus that from about 3 minutes of no hands on the wheel the autopilot will start disengaging.

Now one thing I don't know is if all cars are currently equal. Tesla has played with this feature a few times already so it could very well be that not all the cars are running the same autopilot, but then they also set the bar for remote updating on cars so your guess is as good as any,

But if you have anything concrete on this I'm all ears, certainly if it is any article published before May this year take it with a grain of salt. Even the owners manual has gone through 44!!!! revisions in 2018.

Solar roofs are looking better and better. All While blending into your neighborhood.

It doesn't take much research to find far better options to the bulky solar panel design.

Since owning an EV, this has to be the most common misconception, and the most common thing people ask about. Check out the https://www.plugshare.com/ map, and start zooming out for an assortment of options. I am fortunate that my closest charging station is in my garage. When I go on long trips, the supercharger map https://www.tesla.com/supercha... is built into my navigation, so I can see exactly where my next stop needs to be. It even tells me how much energy is needed for round-trip. In addition, my father-in-law runs a ranch in rural ND, and even he has a 50A NEMA 6-50 circuit for his welder I can plug my car into for 37 mile-per-hour charging.

Uhm, I just went there, and it most certainly does not. A simple visit to their Autopilot page shows that you are flat out lying.

Here is what it actually says:
Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars

You "conveniently" left out the bolded part, which means the car has hardware to be self driving. Tesla makes it clear to every buyer that the car is not yet self driving. Once again, from that page, the words you seem intent on ignoring, because it does not fit your agenda:

Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.

Even further, Tesla takes technical steps to enforce this by requiring hands-on-wheel for the system to function.

If they build a $22,000 car that has 300 miles of range, does 0-60 in 5 seconds, and carries 4 adults comfortably, they'll sell millions of them.

And Tesla will have won.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/sec...

While Tesla has issues, they continually address them, and make things better. The Customer Service that we have had at Littleton (and denver's) service center has blown away what my wife got from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Honda, and Toyota.

Which "denver" service center are you talking about?
Tesla lists that it currently has only one Colorado service center at Littleton.

You might have to increase your post count at teslamotorsclub.com from a grand total of three posts over your whole year of membership WindBourne.

Compressed air seems to be more economical than batteries today. Utilities would prefer this because, we would still need the grid.

Molten salt idea is to melt common salt using solar energy and keep it in underground tanks, and boil water off the stored energy to run steam turbines when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. It involves basic thermodynamics and heat to mechanical energy conversion. So its efficiency is not great. It might come back to bite. Again utilities like this because we would still need the grid.

The Li-Ion battery prices are following a 7 year half life curve. We are at the cusp 100 $/kWh at pack level magic number right now. Tesla claims it is at 120$/kWh at pack level and below 100$/kWh in cell level. Others are close or ahead. Even at this price, batteries can stabilize the grid and take care of sudden changes in wind or solar generation. It has already saved Southern Australian grid several million dollars in the spot market for electricity. And with some financial engineering and capitalization of revenue streams, solar panel companies are viable in many places where the utility prices are high. At around 80$/kWh at pack level most middle class homes will be able to choose the grid or panel+batteries for their home. As prices drop below that level, affluent people will start dropping off the grid, (like affluent commuters dropped off public transportation in the 1960s and bus/tram lines collapsed in 1970s). This is the scary situation for the electric utility companies. Cost for remaining customers go up, and more people drop off the grid. When will the batteries be at 65$/kWh at pack level? If Elon Musk's secret master plan is right, it is just 7 Elon years from now. Like N Dog years = 7*N human years, N Elon years = N+6 human years. So we are looking at 2031 for this price for batteries.

It's not a "plan", it's the EPA numbers. Model 3 city range (usable pack size divided by measured city energy consumption) is longer than M3 city range (tank size divided by city mpg). Given typical fill levels - 90% daily for EVs, and an average of 60% for the M3 (with a great deal of variation) - the Model 3 goes further (well further) in combined cycle as well.

.
ICE has effectively unlimited range due to comprehensive fuel network and rapidity of refuel operation.
Tesla Model 3 LR (75 kWh) has a demonstrated real world range of ~200 miles.
End of debate.

But in case your - I quote, "silly scenario" - matters to you: it's 383 miles between LA and SF. If you were driving there in the morning and back in the evening, you'd need a nominal 73 miles range added during the drive (plus whatever "buffer" you want - say, 30 miles). That's a 13 minute stop on each of your 5 1/2 hour drives. That's 13 minutes with the current V2 superchargers - should be under 10 minutes on V3.

Tesla superchargers is at best 1.0 hour charge time for every 3.5 hours driving.
So every ~200miles, you stop at least one hour to recharge.
SF to LA, requires at least 1 hour recharge midway (there's a grand total of one supercharger on California State Route 1 if that's what you're taking at San Luis Obispo)(10 stalls 120 kW max, you better hope no more than 9 other idiots are charging their shitbox Tesla when you limp in).
You also have the pleasure of arriving at you destination looking for another "fix" for your range anxiety.

You have no bloody clue what's in a NMC battery.

Some people might say you have no bloody clue what's in a NMC battery.

I get it now. You talk like a commuter who wants a cheap reliable daily driver.

Wrong.

First off, the model 3 is $70k to get the top end model 3 not 59k.

Wrong. You can order one today (deliveries in a few weeks) for $64k and that includes the $5k Premium Upgrades Package, so be sure to add any premium upgrades to your competing gasoline car. PUP will be made optional early next year.

Yes taxes count on top of that.

I don't know about your environment, but where I am, there's no taxes on EVs, while a BMW M3 would have about 40% taxes. So that's probably not the argument you wanted to make. I deliberately omitted incentives, but hey, if you want to introduce them!

Second, your city driving only plan is ridiculous

It's not a "plan", it's the EPA numbers. Model 3 city range (usable pack size divided by measured city energy consumption) is longer than M3 city range (tank size divided by city mpg). Given typical fill levels - 90% daily for EVs, and an average of 60% for the M3 (with a great deal of variation) - the Model 3 goes further (well further) in combined cycle as well.

I am going to make up an equally silly scenario where we drive from San Francisco to LA and back every other day

You're right. That is a silly scenario. Which serves to illuminate how pointless these range discussions are in people's everyday lives. In your everyday life, the gasoline car has to regularly detour to gas stations, and the EV doesn't. Which makes the comparison obviously "winner: EV".

But in case your - I quote, "silly scenario" - matters to you: it's 383 miles between LA and SF. If you were driving there in the morning and back in the evening, you'd need a nominal 73 miles range added during the drive (plus whatever "buffer" you want - say, 30 miles). That's a 13 minute stop on each of your 5 1/2 hour drives. That's 13 minutes with the current V2 superchargers - should be under 10 minutes on V3.

Thirdly, my ICE car (msrp 65k, pre-tax, a bit less than your model 3), can be repaired anywhere over night. Parts are available RIGHT NOW.

Apparently you're unaware that anyone can order Tesla parts now. No wait times. By the way, I have two vehicles, one of which is a pickup truck which has been in the shop for much of a month - first waiting on a replacement bearing, and then when they tore it down, they discovered that they needed a second bearing replaced as well, and now I'm waiting on that. But I guess wait times only ever count when the vehicle under discussion is a Tesla?

Fourth, the build quality on the model 3 is random

Consumer Reports rates it as "average" - which for a car in its first model year, is quite good.

Fifth, the batteries in model 3 are toxic as fuck

You have no bloody clue what's in a NMC battery.

The cathodes are metal oxides. Inert. Non-soluble. The anodes are graphite. Lithium is intercalated, not bound, into both. The electrolytes decompose rapidly on exposure to water, with the most meaningful decomposition products being lithium ions (same as can leach from the electrodes) and fluoride ions. Excepting in abnormally high quantities, both lithium and fluorine in groundwater are good for peoples' health - to the point that we fluorinate our drinking water and lithium spring waters have long been used as health baths and drinks (7-up was initially a lithiated soda). Places where the groundwater is naturally richer in lithium have lower rates of violent crime and suicide than places where the groundwater is poor in lithium. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as high doses of lithium are used to treat mood

It states: "Aside from the settlement with the SEC relating to Mr. Musk’s statement that he was considering taking Tesla private, there have not been any developments in these matters that we deem to be material, and to our knowledge no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred."

Let's focus on the fact that the Tesla Model 3 best selling car by revenue in the US!

It's difficult to find

I can see that from the dead link you provided.
36 hours later and posting AC tops it all off.
Seriously Rei, where on the NHTSA website does the Tesla Model 3 achieved these words: "Lowest Probability of Injury"?
Plus this Microsoft Paint bar graph with what appears to be 5.7%(M3), 6.4%(MS), 6.5%(MX) probabilities?
Did the NHTSA crashed 1000 Model 3 and found that 57 passengers had injuries?

No, but they are long term issues that affect customer loyalty. There are rumblings amongst Tesla owners about service issues. In-warranty service is slow. Out-of-warranty is slow AND super expensive. Like $900 to fix a door handle. Dealerships are known for stiff markups, but $900 to fix a door latch is usury.

https://forums.tesla.com/forum...

Not so. They report bot produced and delivered cars. Just take a look at the report to understand the company financials. It's much more intelligent than just talking out of your ass:

The Latest 10-q
The Update Letter

Both of those documents are SEC filed.

Not so. They report bot produced and delivered cars. Just take a look at the report to understand the company financials. It's much more intelligent than just talking out of your ass:

The Latest 10-q
The Update Letter

Both of those documents are SEC filed.

Ordering a Tesla is done online, and thus is subject to mail-order and online-order laws. Deliveries of items ordered delayed past the original stated date must be refunded, or at least you must seek the approval of every customer who pre-ordered to allow the order to stand. Failure to do so opens you up to $10,000 fines for each and every violation and up to 3 years in prison.

Well hang on... this other discussion says you can do high/low beams with a "stalk" on the 3-series at least. This sounds pretty decent to me:

https://forums.tesla.com/forum...

If you need to flash your lights a few times to warn oncoming cars of an emergency or hazard that you just passed by, you can do it... at least on the 3-series. It turns off the auto-beam option, but you can enable it again by pushing the stalk forward. That is unless another update has changed this feature, I gather.

Oh man, high-beams is not a manual option? How the hell is that a thing? It sounds like they have auto-highbeam options that are not close to perfect either. Yeah, I very much need my manual controls for things like that.

Some discussion here on a Tesla forum:
https://forums.tesla.com/forum...

Still, Tesla is doing so many things right. They are close!!!

You know you can look at quarterly reports, right? Tesla does have one of the highest gross margins in the industry, far higher than most automakers. Tesla's normally runs around 25%, although it was dragged down by Model 3 in Q4 '07 to (GAAP/non-GAAP) 18,9%/13,8%, rose in Q1 to 19,7%/18,8%, then again in Q2 to 20,6%/21%, and will be even higher in Q3 when we get the report. Ford, by contrast, has a gross margin of 8.64%.

Now, a fair criticism is that since Tesla bears the cost of running its stores (rather than passing the costs off to dealerships), it needs higher gross margins. But bears often vastly overestimate this aspect, pretending that running Tesla stores makes up 100% of SG&A, and as if stores scale linearly with volume (as if they were dealerships) - ignoring that they demonstrably don't, and haven't.

Link

Do you not even read the quarterly reports? Seriously, what's wrong with you? Literally the second line in the update letter... boldface in the original... "Model 3 gross margin turned slightly positive in Q2, expecting roughly 15% in Q3"

First you mistakenly thought that quarterly statements come out on the last day of the quarter, and now you show that you don't even know what's in them. Geez... I hope for your sake that it's not your own money that you're investing.

Tesla are making about 30% on their cars: https://electrek.co/2018/07/16..

Only if you don't count the Model 3. Tesla's own numbers tells a different story:

Gross margin for total automotive decreased from 28% to 21% in the three months ended June 30, 2018 as compared to the three months ended June 30, 2017.

Thanks for the description on Musk smoking the marijuana. You're right - it was very brief. But he shouldn't have smoked it in the interview; it increases doubts about his judgement. In case anyone wants to see it, it starts at 2:09:30 of this video (the video that was referenced in an earlier post).

Musk's companies have a lot of potential to help people. Tesla, with its solar roofs (which are attractive) and powerwalls, might help reduce energy consumption. And Neuralink might develop 'devices to treat serious brain diseases'. (But not the flame thrower - the Boring Company should stop selling it.)

My big concern about Musk is that he isn't getting much rest these days. But I generally have confidence in him and his companies.

Exactly. It was a monumentally stupid decision to partake in a podcast. Proof that it was monumentally stupid is the resulting stock plunge and bad press. REI seems to think its OK for a CEO to do things that bring bad press and hurt the stock price.

Thanks for the description on Musk smoking the marijuana. You're right - it was very brief. But he shouldn't have smoked it in the interview; it increases doubts about his judgement. In case anyone wants to see it, it starts at 2:09:30 of this video (the video that was referenced in an earlier post).

Musk's companies have a lot of potential to help people. Tesla, with its solar roofs (which are attractive) and powerwalls, might help reduce energy consumption. And Neuralink might develop 'devices to treat serious brain diseases'. (But not the flame thrower - the Boring Company should stop selling it.)

My big concern about Musk is that he isn't getting much rest these days. But I generally have confidence in him and his companies.

Tesla does sell an SUV, the Model X. It has a range of 237 to 295 miles (P100D), and accelerates 0-60 in 2.9 to 4.9 seconds...

And it has gull wing doors...

That is a feature that Autopilot already has.

1) Tesla is on a roll. Their production rates make everyone else look like they're missing a zero. They're well en route to being sustainably profitable starting this quarter.

2) I have no clue what you mean by "lack of investors". Obviously, all of Tesla's stock is owned. Actually in a way well more than "all of Tesla's stock", as people who've shorted the stock have put other people's borrowed stock back on the market, and people have bought *that* as well. If you mean "lack of interest in a capital round", Tesla has no interest whatsoever in another capital round; they plan to fund their expansion internally. If you mean for going private, however, they would like more to water down Saudi interests - although that means paying a premium over market prices.

3) SEC investigations are rarely fast, and can take years. By far the most likely result, if they find against Musk, would be a fine ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions. Against him personally, not against Tesla (the SEC has generally taken on the view that it's not right to punish shareholders for an individual's actions that may have worked against them).

Here.

Key points:
* This had been discussed with the board before the announcement
* The board agreed that the next step was to discuss with large shareholders.
* It would be unfair for the big shareholders to know of this proposal but not the small shareholders, hence a public announcement. (It isn't clear to me whether the board specifically agreed to this announcement, or whether Musk felt it was a logical consequence of the previous point.)
* "Funding secured" means the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund has been eager to do this for quite some time, although Musk would like there to be other investors too.

I feel somewhat but not completely reassured by this explanation.

No, they make $10,000 on each Model 3 they sell, and they will make around $6,000 on each $35,000 Model 3 they sell, according to analysis by Munro and Associates

Ahh, so an "analysis" is better than actual published, SEC/GAAP/company approved financials which show a loss of over $17,000 per vehicle? Really? They LOSE OVER SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS on every car they sell. That's the hard FACT. Provable numbers. Not some unknown-bought-by-whom analysis by someone else. Actual proven, traceable, hard numbers.

$717,000,000 lost in Q2 2018. They shipped 40,740 vehicles, meaning ($17,000,000 / 40740) $17,600 loss per vehicle. That's the fact.