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Elon Musk Promises 100,000 Electric Cars Per Year
Dave Knott sends this news from the CBC:
Tesla stock was up five per cent on Friday morning after CEO Elon Musk said the electric-car company would deliver 100,000 vehicles next year. Its earnings report released Thursday shows Tesla continues to operate at a loss as it spends on engineering and setting up an assembly line for its Model X SUV, which is scheduled to go into production early next year. But investors were cheered by the news that the company would deliver 100,000 vehicles next year, up from 22,000 in 2013 and a projected 35,000 this year. Tesla reported a loss of $61.9 million in its second quarter, compared with a loss of $30.5 million in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue nearly doubled to $769.3 million, missing Wall Street's forecast of $801.9 million, but expenses were also up as Tesla prepares some ambitious projects, spending $93 million in the quarter on research and development alone. While the Model X is in development, the longer-term plan is for a cheaper, mass-market car, the Model 3, to be launched in 2017. The biggest investment Tesla will make is in its large lithium-ion production plant, to be built at an as-yet-unnamed U.S. location in a $5-billion partnership with Panasonic.
You honestly think the auto industry is a free market?
There are tons of morons around here who like to throw around that term but don't seem to have any idea what it means.
I fail to think of a single industry with any real pull in the American market place that isn't run through at least a few government regulatory entities.
The headline is fine, the summary is wrong. If you want to be precise.
He is stating there will be a rate of 100,000 cars per year. That is what the headline said and what he said. Neither the headline, nor Musk said it would be 100,000 cars for 2015.
The summary, however, did put the line in that says: CEO Elon Musk said the electric-car company would deliver 100,000 vehicles next year.
That is what is incorrect.
Although a production rate of 100,000 cars per year will eventually create an actual 100,000 cars in a year, it will only do so once the rate reaches that level and sustains or exceeds that rate for an entire year. In this case, the last of the 100,000 cars actually produced in a single year at that rate would be finished sometime in 2016.
While I agree that Tesla stock is *cough* optimistically valued, they are a growth company that cannot be fairly compared to a mature value company like Ford or GM. I wouldn't be surprised at volatility but I think bubble is way too strong a term.
If they slashed their R&D budget as documented in TFA they could be profitable. I'd argue that their aggressive R&D spend predicts steep revenue growth over the next several years.
Greed is the root of all evil.
I get that you think you're being funny, but lest somebody actually think that's going on here:
It doesn't say they lose money per sale. I strongly suspect they make a profit on each sale, though the summary doesn't say (and I haven't read TFA yet). What the summary says is that they're losing money overall, due to things like R&D costs and expanding production. In other words, investment costs are greater than profit.
In case it isn't yet obvious to you, this is the *EXACT* scenario where it's possible to "make it up in volume". Even leaving aside economies of scale, if they sell more cars (at a small profit on each) their overall income will exceed their expenses and they will be, overall, profitable.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I fail to think of a single industry with any real pull in the American market place that isn't run through at least a few government regulatory entities.
Good, I can't think of a single industry that wouldn't fsck things all up if they weren't being watched.
Same reasoning exists in the people complaining about the F-35 and F-22 cost-- it's approximately the same price as a new F-16/18 in actual current cost of production; but people lump the cost of the development into the cost of the sale to make it look like it's $350m not $110m / per or whatever the actual number is.
That's pretty much a worst case scenario. If your electricity happens to be generated from nuclear or hydroelectric, your electric car will be a lot cleaner.
Upgrading our car fleet to electric and upgrading our power generation to renewable sources are multi-decade efforts that have to be done in parallel.
So... not to stir up a hornets nest... but everyones aware that electric cars produce more pollution than gas right?
Let's look at some facts here. First off, the efficiency of a thermal power plant is somewhere around 33% to 48%, at least according to wikipedia. Let's split the difference and say 41% for a thermal plant. The typical thermal efficiency of a a gasoline engine is about 18% to 20%. Let's split the difference and say 19%. Thus, a thermal power plant is more than twice as efficient as a gasoline engine in terms of changing chemical potential energy to useful output.
But there are some caveats. Firstly, the electricity needs to be transmitted. High voltage power lines are extremely efficient, about 94% according to this article. That means that the chemical energy (lets assume from coal) reaching the charging station is 41% x 94% = 38.5%. And then there is the charging process. According to this article, the charge efficiency of a Li-Ion battery is about 97%, which makes sense to me, as batteries usually don't run too hot. The charging devices however probably are responsible for some loss. Let's assume they are 80% efficient. That gives us 38.5% x 80.0% x 97% = 30%. Thus, according to this, 30% of the coal chemical potential energy makes it to the engine.
But what about engine efficiency? Well electric motors run very cool, and have very high efficiencies, typically around 90%. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla's motor is better. This means that if a coal power plant powered a Tesla, 30% x 90% = 27% of the energy would reach the wheels of the car, compared with a gasoline powered car, where 19% of the gasoline's potential energy comes out of the engine, never mind the losses in the transmission lines. Thus, a coal powered Tesla is 40% more energy efficient than a gasoline powered car.
However, there is one problem. Generating energy by coal produces more CO2 than generating it by gasoline. According to this article, coal generates about 215 pounds CO2 per btu of energy, while gasoline generates 157 pounds CO2 per btu. However, even with this, by my calculations, an equivalent gas powered car still emits 3.8% more CO2 than our coal powered Tesla.
Elon Musk made this claim in an interview, that even if a coal power plant generates the electricity, a Tesla still emits less CO2. My referenced back of a napkin calculations above support this assertion.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
That is basically breaking even especially given the backers and what they're investing in. I'm surprised the losses weren't larger.
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Or somebody *cough* is making is making big bucks with Tesla, while they can.
but the vast majority of electricity is produced from coal.
You think that 39% is a "vast majority"? The US is rapidly moving from coal to natural gas because the price of natural gas is falling as domestic production increases. All in all, an electric car creates slightly less pollution than a Prius.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
Coal 39%
Natural Gas 27%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
In comparison with anything else? I do. An 11% spread would be a landslide in an election. I suppose I could have used better phrasing on that line, fine: "Coal is the biggest source of electricity in this country by a wide margin" Is that better?
But lets assume the whole country was on natural gas. That makes a difference how? It's still a fossil fuel, and after transmission and charging losses it's still probably less efficient than Gasoline. You put less CO2 into the atmosphere just burning gasoline than using an electric car. The only way electric cars make sense is if the power plant isn't producing CO2... either because it's nuclear or if they're sequestering it. You could go with hydroelectric but that has it's own environmental problems.
The entire country could switch to electric cars tomorrow and nothing would change in regards to our CO2 problem. In fact, it would likely get worse. If you want to get the newest fanciest car just because it's cool... fine... but realize what you're doing is no different then the assholes with the Hummers. Your cool is at the expense of my climate.