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Tesla CEO Says Gov't Loan Is 99% Sure and Deserved
N!NJA writes "Two major themes of our time — the desire to achieve energy independence and the furor over public bailouts — have collided in the drama surrounding swanky electric carmaker Tesla. Late last year, a New York Times column whipped Silicon Valley innovators and bailout-weary taxpayers into a frenzy. Valley professor and writer Randall Stross wrote that Tesla was hoping for government money to produce its cars, which only the very wealthy could afford. It wasn't exactly true, since the loan was intended to produce the $50,000 Model S sedan, not the $109,000 Roadster. Still, Stross called it a risky, waste of taxpayer money that would only benefit the wealthy and bailout VCs who'd sunk money into the money-losing company. Never mind, Tesla has developed two cars on less than $200 million — compared to the $1 billion General Motors spent developing the now-deceased EV1."
It's a LOAN, not a bailout. You have to pay back loans. College students get them all the time, but you don't see people complaining about them.
I'm sorry, but a $50,000 car is STILL just for the wealthy.
While I agree that only the wealthy can afford a Model S, Tesla is the only company that has demonstrated a viable business plan for producing electric cars. As they continue to produce them, they expect the price to come down.
they would still need a different vehicle for taking the kids to soccer games, camping, etc. where more passenger and cargo space are needed.
Actually, they wouldn't. The Model S seats 7, believe it or not. The electric drive train provides more space for storage. There is room for cargo under the hood (bonnet) because that space isn't needed for an engine.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
You do realize that Top Gear admits to having faked the episode, right? It's an entertainment show; quit taking it so seriously.
As for your particular example: No, it doesn't take 14 hours to charge. The *standard* Tesla charger takes about 3 hours to charge a fully dead battery, and that's only *if* you drove it about 240 miles that day on a drivecycle akin to the EPA combined numbers / 120-200 if you raced everywhere / 50-100 if you were sprinting on a track. How often do you drive 240 miles a day, or race 120-200 miles? Even if you only charge it on a standard garage NEMA 5-15 (they're usually on a 20A breaker, so 18A is a safe draw, and let's assume 117V): Wall to wheels on the Roadster is about 250Wh/mi, combined. The average person drives about 35 miles a day. 35mi*25kW/mi=8750Wh=8750VAh. 8750VAh / 117V / 18A = 4.15h. So even if you, for some reason, *don't* have the standard charger installed, you can easily handle your daily drive and then some just on an ordinary wall socket. And a dryer socket has 3 times the power as a garage socket, and a range or RV socket 5 times the power.
That's why we need something that can be refueled quickly, which the Tesla certainly is not
Tesla is working on 45 minute charging stations for the Roadster and Model S. Of course, that limitation is due to their particular, unusual choice of batteries. Most other li-ion variants being considered for automotive applications can charge far faster. The titanates, for example, can charge in 5 to 10 minutes. Oh, and Tesla is planning to offer pack swapping for the Model S.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
They're not asking to be bailed out. If you didn't count the money they're spending on developing the Model S, Telsa would be profitable today -- and they're still scaling up Roadster production. They're asking for loans to speed up the creation of *new models* that are more affordable to a mass market. They don't need any sort of subsidy to keep on doing what they're already doing in making Roadsters.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
I think the only bad impression I did get from it was the mileage on the battery. Sure, they were driving the car hard, but the life span didn't seem up to par.
Top Gear admitted that it didn't actually run out of charge. The entire "pushing it back" scene was staged.
They "estimated" that it would only last 55 miles sprinting at top speed... but you know what? A Bugatti Veyron will only go about 60 miles or so if you sprint *it* at top speed. Track driving ranges have nothing to do with normal city/highway driving ranges.
which subsequently overheated and then had some major subsystem failure....
The vehicle never heated; that was faked, too. The "system failure" was real, but way overplayed. In the process of thrashing it on the track, they blew one brake fuse (of several). It took a matter of minutes to swap out the fuse. At no point during the filming was Top Gear without a fully working Roadster.
Don't be surprised; they fake tons of things, and Clarkson is a huge hydrogen fanatic (he's admitted that he would have trashed the Roadster even if everything had been flawless because he sees hydrogen as being the future)
Don't trust everything you see on TV.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
he's admitted that he would have trashed the Roadster even if everything had been flawless because he sees hydrogen as being the future
That is so fucking ignorant it's not even funny. Unless he's talking about hydrogen combustion which everyone agrees is a just a stepping stone to fuel cells and not the end goal, then hydrogen cars ARE electric cars. The fuel cell generates power, which gets stored in batteries and large capacitors, which get used in the same way as an all-electric car would use the power.
Do you know what the difference is? The difference is that everyone already has electricity available in their homes, but hydrogen requires a whole new infrastructure to be built. That and the added inefficiency of using electricity to produce the hydrogen that will be transported to the fueling stations only to be converted back into electricity in the car. I never understood why anyone would even consider hydrogen for fueling cars, much less prefer it.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Someone needs to write a bot to post a response every time someone blames the financial crisis on the CRA or in some other way largely on the GSE's.
"Federal Reserve Board data shows that:
* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."
- http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
Here's a few other links:
http://www.ptmortgage.com/blog/2008/10/01/pointing-fingers-was-it-cra-and-minority-lending-that-caused-the-mortgage-mess/
http://debatebothsides.com/showthread.php?t=73500
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis
http://www.frbsf.org/news/speeches/2008/0331.html
There is also a summary at Wikipedia.
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