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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.
He said that by the end of 2015 they would be producing cars at a rate > 100,000 cars/yr (2000 cars/wk). They will enter 2015 producing cars at slightly more than 50,000 cars/yr (1000 cars/wk). The actual number of cars (Model S & Model X) made in 2015 will be between 50,000 and 100,000. Elon went on to say it would be greater than 60,000. Elon speaks very precisely. It is not confusing.
Speculation is that the Reno groundbreaking might simply be a ploy to cause some other states to provide a greater incentive for them to relocate -- and that lacking that, Reno is their fallback.
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...
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
So what you're saying is that the backwards states pollute a lot. Gee, whodathunkit. Sadly, your crude assessment clearly designed to make electric cars look bad is rather... laughable. You include transmission losses for electricity, but not distribution pollution/losses for gas? Nor refining? You assume that ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of your electricity comes from coal? You assume that efficiency between electricity and gas is in any way comparable? I could go on, but I doubt you care about that.
Go ahead and enjoy your Hummer.
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.
You think building an automobile manufacturing plant, engineering a new line of cars, and building a distribution network should be cheap and easy? Musk seems to be pulling it off, so yea, it's a free market. Albeit a more expensive one to get into than opening a hot dog stand.
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)