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Tesla Factory Racing To Retool For New Models
An anonymous reader notes this story about what Tesla will have to do in order to double production every year for the next several years as Elon Musk intends. "Having just reported a $107.6-million fourth-quarter loss that sent its stock tumbling, Tesla Motors Inc. intends to double vehicle production in the next year as it finally introduces its Model X sport utility vehicle — after about two years of delays. Meanwhile, Tesla is racing to finish the design of its Model 3, the "affordable" Tesla, expected to sell in the $30,000 range after government subsidies. Musk's company is chasing General Motors Co., which plans a 2017 release of its all-electric Bolt, with a similar price and 200-mile driving range between charges."
No, Elon says it's $35,000 before subsidies.
And peddling too... ;-)
Seriously, we've heard this gripe before, and gotten over it just fine. They used to complain that it couldn't be done. Then the Roadster proved them wrong. Then they said it couldn't be repackaged for the "mainstream" luxury market, until Tesla started shipping the Model S. Then they said Tesla would never be able to ramp up Model S production to meet demand, until... well, they're still trying to catch up with the backlog of orders, but they are making progress.
And simultaneously they are also (finally) bringing the Model X to market and investing heavily in the Giga Factory to enable high-volume production of ALL electric vehicles, especially their own Model 3.
FTFA: "Tesla has lost its luster, he said, and could soon lose credibility."
Any investor who is so short-sighted as to sell off Tesla shares based on the incidental losses last quarter had no business buying those shares in the first place. Elon has been crystal clear about his plans for Tesla's development right from the beginning. If you're freaked out about strict GAAP losses at such an early stage of growth, then you don't have a realistic understanding of how such large (huge) capital-intensive enterprises bootstrap themselves. Such investors were just looking for a short-term capital gain, and wet their pants at the first sign of slow-down in Tesla's meteoric rise. Good riddance to them.
Bottom line: Tesla has a multi-thousand-customer waiting list for the Model S, and 20K reservations for the Model X... If you do the math, that's a couple BILLION in pent-up demand for a product that only Tesla currently provides. And lucky for them, they haven't even built those factories yet. So unlike the "major players" in the market, they don't have to "re-tool"... they're building from scratch, which gives them an advantage at least as big as the disadvantage you claim.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Average sales price of a new car in 2013 was $31,762. Apparently a lot of people have that kind of money to buy a car.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I am currently working as a skilled tradesman in the fremont tesla plant. installing a massive body line that will be able to manufacture 3 body styles. Tesla is paying upwards of 12 million to get this line finished by fall. So they can ramp up production. Anyone that says it won't happen should take a tour of the plant on Wednesdays. The new line is massive and we are doing our best to finish it.
This has been debunked numerous times. EVs have less CO2 emission than gasoline cars even when the electricity comes from dirty coal.
Here's one good article with references:
http://www.greencarreports.com...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You can get a better performing car for less than a tesla if you forgo electric.
Obviously you have never actually looked at the Model S specifications. The performance edition of the all wheel drive version has 691 horsepower. The rear motor alone has 443 ft lb of torque at zero RPMs. Can you get a more powerful internal combustion engine? Sure. But where? The 2015 Corvette tops out at 650 horsepower. The 2015 Mustang tops out at 435. The 2015 Camero tops out at 580. And none of those seat 7. The 2015 Cadillac XTS tops out at 410 horsepower. The 2015 Cadillac CTS tops out at 420. The 2015 Audi S8 tops out at 520 horsepower and it is NOT cheaper than a Model S.
And then in the same paragraph, you start talking about efficiency. You do realize that high performance and high efficiency simultaneously is ONLY possible in electric vehicles? Internal combustion can't do it. When you punch an electric motor, it stay 98% efficient. When you punch an internal combustion engine, its already miserable efficiency drops into the single digits. When an electric vehicle recharges, it's power source is NOT being pushed to the performance limit. It continues to operate at its best efficiency.
Most importantly, the energy source to recharge an electric vehicle is 100% fungible. If you live near a nuclear power plant, recharging your car is already producing 0 CO2. Zero. None. That is never possible for your fossil fuel car no matter how efficient your car gets. It will ALWAYS produce more than zero CO2. Build more nuclear power plants, or solar plants, or windmills, or all of the above, and the more electric cars there are, the less CO2 is produced by transportation. That's physically impossible with a fossil fuel fleet.
You must try really hard to be wrong about literally everything you said.
1) You missed out the "transmission" losses for the fuel (it takes roughly 1.2 gallons of fuel on average to transport 5 gallons of fuel to the petrol station)
2) You missed out the transmission losses for a mechanical car (around 30% of your energy is lost in the gearbox/diff/...)
3) EVs are actually about 90% efficient, not 40%.
4) Power plants are roughly 50-60% efficient even if you assume you use fossil fuels to generate the power.
What this adds up to:
Fuel powered car = 80% (fuel tanker efficiency) * 26% (engine efficiency) * 70% (transmission efficiency) = roughly 15% efficient total system (ignoring the amount of energy it takes to dig up the fuel and carry it to shore)
Electrically powered car = 60% (power plant efficiency) * 94% (power grid efficiency) * 85% (charging efficiency) * 90% (engine efficiency) = roughly 43% efficient total system.
Add to that that you hypothetically in the future can then replace the fossil fuel burning power plant with a {nuclear | wind | solar | ... } one, and you get a rather huge win. You're literally using one third the power to drive your vehicle.
The cost of the car is the combination of the purchase price, and the price of fuel, maintenance over the life of the car.
The "average American" spends $3,000 per year on gas. That is $30,000 over ten years. Tesla supercharger stations are free. And, electricity is cheaper than gas.
That Tesla will never need an oil change.
Interestingly, ignoring the recommended maintenance does NOT void your Tesla warrantee.
Just something to think about.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Tesla was not first to market with an EV.
No, but they were the first to sell an EV that made non-geeks' pulses quicken. The vehicles sold before that were more of the "eat your vegetables" variety, and thus doomed to be money-losing niche vehicles, useful only as arguments against the viability of the electric vehicle market.
They did move first into the high end market, but what will matter is the lower end mass market where existing EVs are trying to sell.
Sure, but you can't get to the mass market without starting somewhere viable. Previous attempts to start at the low end failed (see: EV-1, RAV4 EV), and failures don't help the EV market grow.
The EV market would evolve, with or without subsidies, and with or without Tesla.
That's an assertion only -- I don't see any evidence to back it up. Before Tesla's successes, no other companies were marketing a desirable electric car, and there was little evidence that any of them had much interest in doing so in the future.
Sure, the EV market would have caught on anyway, decades from now, after gas prices rose high enough that almost nobody could to afford to drive a traditional car anymore; but that's a rather grim scenario that I think we are well-served to avoid.
That some wealthy folks that don't need the money are getting it isn't really helping anybody expect them and Tesla.
Them, and Tesla, and everyone else who will buy an electric car that wouldn't have existed without Tesla's demonstration of how to profitably sell EVs, and all the other car companies that can now take advantage of the technology Tesla developed.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.