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Ford Spent $200,000 To Dissect a Limited-Edition Tesla Model X (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ford Motor paid a sum of $199,950 ($55,000 more than the retail price) to buy one of the first sport utility vehicles made by Tesla Motors, reports Bloomberg, citing vehicle registration documents. The white Model X is a Founders Series with a vehicle identification number indicating it was the 64th one made at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California. The vehicle, with Michigan plates, has been spotted recently in the Detroit area. Automakers often buy cars made by competitors for road testing and for 'tear-downs' to reveal components and materials and how they're put together. But it's unusual to pay such a high price -- almost $212,000 after Michigan sales tax and title -- for such an early model.Well, this $200,000 could shave off hundreds of thousands of dollars in research and development.
yes there is.
"Yes I will sell tesla to you ford... for 51% of the current ford stock.... yes Controlling interest in Ford motor Co."
That will make them go away as it will scare the shit out of the board and executives.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He didn't mean "Why would Tesla sell a car to Ford?" he meant "Why would Musk sell Tesla to Ford?"
Thanks for posting that link...
Umm... My respect for Musk just went up a few degrees... yes, he is still self-interested, but I tend to believe him when he says:
Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the worldâ(TM)s factories every day.
It is rare that a wealthy person takes that long view...
There are a number of reasons why ford would be very interested in the model X.
The model X is Tesla's 3rd time around in developing a pure EV car platform. There will be a lot of lessons learnt the hard way embedded in the design of the model X.
The model X is a SUV, playing right in Fords bread and butter market. The previous models where in the small sports car and then the luxury saloon car market. First one is almost absent from the ford lineup, and the second a fairly small part of what they do. The model X is a benchmark for any EV SUV's fords have in development. Ride quality, handling, real range, real performance etc. are all important things to compare against and difficult to get purely from specs. Also simply understanding how it compares to fords conventional and hybrid offerings is important to drive marketing and sales information in the short term.
So they buy 1 or 2 of these. Look at all aspects of it, and use this to drive marketing in the short term and product development long term.
They probably spent more money doing the tear-down itself. $200k is the cost of one average employee for one year.
As they say, knowledge is power, and time is money. The faster they get hold of the vehicle, the more quickly they can utilize the information. Possibly getting the technology or their response to the technology into their product line a year sooner, for example.
I don't read AC A human right
Tesla has issued a press release stating they have open sourced their patents. But open source isn't (so far as I am aware) a legal term of art, especially with regards to patent law. Nor is a press release a legal release. (Though it may establish intent.)
So, it's not clear to me at all that the patents are in fact open and free to the point where Ford etc... can spend billions of dollars free from the possibility of a lawsuit.