Tesla Model 3 Becomes Best Selling Electric Car In World (cleantechnica.com)

I'll wait on the Chinese by bogaboga · 2019-02-10 07:23 · Score: 0

the Tesla Model 3 is now the best selling plug-in vehicle in the world. "In fact, the Model 3 was approximately 55,000 sales above the #2 BAIC EC-Series, an extremely popular Chinese model,"

I believe the Chinese will come from behind and "win" this thing, if the trends in manufacturing are to be believed.

Needless to say, their product will definitely be cheaper. So I'll wait.

Re:I'll wait on the Chinese by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 07:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Very sensible attitude. You will not be disappointed when you get an electric car at the price you are comfortable with, be it Tesla or not.
Among the early adopters a vast majority are also the same sensible people, knowingly and willingly paying way over their normal price range for the model 3. The most common models traded in for the model 3 were Camrys, priuses and accords. My own comfort price range is 25K, and I paid 55K way beyond my comfort zone. I had heard numerous owners say the same thing.
As the prices fall, you might be tempted to stretch your price range too, it has that kind of effect, once you test drive one.

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Re:I'll wait on the Chinese by Rei · 2019-02-10 07:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Interestingly enough, this story was posted right as the first delivery of Model 3s to China is arriving in Tianjin. :) Also the second shipment to Europe will also arrive at Zeebrugge shortly.

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Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:59 · Score: 0

Enjoy your knockoff and its stolen technology while you're happily supporting America's adversary. Get fucked, traitor
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 08:02 · Score: 0, Informative

Sales have tanked in the US.
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese by Rei · 2019-02-10 08:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Sales are always low in January, Tesla made a huge pre-tax credit phasedown push (although they've almost completely compensated for the credit reduction via cost savings since then), and they're focusing production on European and Chinese models - not simply for the ability to sell with a much higher ASP (very high take rates on M3P, for example), but because it's quite time critical due to the trade wars (March deadline for the renewal of tariffs against China, and next week a new ruling about whether to start a 90 day countdown to impose tariffs against Europe, which would also meet with retaliatory tariffs on the auto industry). There's now 7 RORO ships out there full of Model 3s, not counting the Glovis Captain which recently unloaded at Zeebrugge.
Tesla always focuses on what's time critical. Before the US credit phasedown, that was the US. Now that it's 6 months until the next, smaller phasedown, the focus is on China and Europe.

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Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by beanpoppa · 2019-02-10 08:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Agreed. My typical new car is about $40k, but I went well above to $55k for my 3. After about $11k in tax savings, and free charging at work, it comes out cheaper than $40k.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 08:43 · Score: 0

LOL. This.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 09:05 · Score: 0

Oh sure they could. All that is necessary for Chinese to win is for good men to do nothing (I think itâ(TM)s the right quote)
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2019-02-10 09:08 · Score: 1

Also the second shipment to Europe will also arrive at Zeebrugge shortly.
And Musk is in Europe, supervising the Model 3 roll-out in Europe:
https://electrek.co/2019/02/09...

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Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by DNS-and-BIND · 2019-02-10 09:23 · Score: 1

Weird, eh? Only a year or so ago anyone who bought American cars was a moron, and a jingoistic one at that. Remember "GET A BRAIN MORANS"? Buying foreign cars was a sign of sophistication and taste. But ever since Trump declared his trade war, Sinophobia has made a comeback not seen since the "Yellow Peril" age of Fu Manchu.
America's adversary? The Americans were front and center getting China admitted to the WTO. You know, the thing without which, China would not be the powerhouse it is today.

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Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by rednip · 2019-02-10 10:42 · Score: 1

Every morning I park what might be my last gasoline engine car near the 'plug in' area at work. However, even though I'm one of the first 10% of the people in the office, both chargers are usually occupied. Unfortunately, I suspect that I'd never really be able to take advantage of the free charging.
I'd guess that it's more like 10 years from the start of a tipping point. By then about 20% of the cars will be electric, at that point gas will start to get cheap (with the removal of 20% of the demand), but banks and investors will stop financing oil projects (which require lots of money just to keep going). In about 20 years gasoline would be very expensive and pull the rest of the car market into full electric.
I've been thinking about getting a used Tesla next year, once my Honda CRV is paid off. One of the nice things is that beside brakes and tires there is very little maintenance needed for them and the batteries look to be holding up very well. They are expecting 90% capacity at 185,000 miles on average and people with high milage are seeing better results. $35,000 for a 2012 Model S is looking like a good deal, but I'll likely pick up a midrange Model 3

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Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 11:32 · Score: 3, Informative

I can afford to pay even 100K for a car. But I wont pay more than 25K for a car. I made an exception for Tesla. There is a huge numbers of camry, accord owners who voluntarily stop at that price point. Give them a compelling reason, they will pay 60K.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 11:37 · Score: 1

Only tires, the torque wears out the tire more than ICEV. But you are good on brakes. There are S and X cars with 150K miles on the odo, with just 1/8 inch loss on the brake pads. The regenerative braking does 90 to 99% of the slowing down (when you measure by energy) and the brakes dont wear out at all!
The tipping point is closer than you think. At present the industry battery price is 140 $/kWh. Tesla is at 120 or 110$ /kWh. The magic number is 90$/kWh at pack level. At that price point, ICEV and BEV will cost the same.
Investment in oil exploration has already dried up. Especially in the super expensive deep sea directional drilling platforms.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 12:57 · Score: 0

I paid 55K way beyond my comfort zone.
Hey 140mandak262Jamuna, why are you completely absent on the de facto Tesla Model 3 forum M3OC?
Seems like you're faking ownership of your Model 3 my friend.
Also didn't you say you paid "50k" 4 months ago? Now it's "55k"?
You're not very good with numbers are you?
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by mlyle · 2019-02-10 19:49 · Score: 1

I'd guess that it's more like 10 years from the start of a tipping point. By then about 20% of the cars will be electric, at that point gas will start to get cheap (with the removal of 20% of the demand), but banks and investors will stop financing oil projects (which require lots of money just to keep going). In about 20 years gasoline would be very expensive and pull the rest of the car market into full electric.
It's more complicated than this. Only about half of oil goes to gasoline. So even if gasoline demand falls significantly, oil itself still won't be a specialty product.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-11 00:04 · Score: 0

It gets even more complicated. The different oil products are made from different fractions of the oil. If you remove the demand for an entire fraction of the refined oil, you'll impact the cost of the others. The hydrocarbons can of course be converted to others through cracking, but that's not going to be as efficient as just using the fractions directly.
I haven't confirmed this, but I've gotten the impression that plastics are cheap because they basically fall out of the fractional distillation process "for free".. we distill the oil we do to get at the gasoline, and then we get a huge amount of hydrocarbons that are suitable for plastics as well.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-11 01:43 · Score: 2, Informative

You'll be surprised. Many of the newer Tesla owners in the Model 3 didn't buy to "save the world." Electric vehicles are fun to drive and might save money in TCO depending on your situation. Your situation really matters and why there are so many vehicles in the market to fit so many needs and wants. That said, Tesla is still more luxury brand than Chevy or Kia is even with the Model 3 being less than a Model S. I am surprised how people stretch to buy a car and hope they ran their numbers right.
Things like free charging at work and for fairly long commutes without needing oil changes every month and the ability to "fill up" your car every night before work are nice. Autopilot for the miles of commuting traffic also helps immensely.
We're fortunate as a family and own more than one car. Our cars that use gas are great too mainly because you can relatively economically operate a larger one at this point in time and they make good road trip cars but that's actually proving less so after using the Model 3 for long trips. Also, I find it nice to have an older, easy to maintain car that's essentially fully depreciated to use. Autopilot really does reduce fatigue on longer trips though adaptive cruise control helps immensely.
The tax credit/break is contentious for the pro/against EV camps. Tax policy as a method of motivating people and industries in one way or another is inherently linked to politics. Promoting EV cars though a tax credit was probably the right direction but has terrible delivery and optics. I agree that China might "win" in the end since their EV policies are quite aggressive also. The growth of EV as total percentage of new cars sold in China is astoundingly as ICE car market is actually shrinking and why the legacy car makers are paying attention and have plans to electrify their drive trains if they want to stay relevant.
My take is it's complicated. Nobody has all the answers or really knows where the market will be hence why there's so much money being invested.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese by petermgreen · 2019-02-11 05:08 · Score: 1

Afaict plastics, are typically made from hydrocarbons that are not saturated with hydrogen. These hydrocarbons result when heavier alkanes are cracked to produce lighter alkanes.
So the availability of feedstocks for plastic production is likely to depend on the relative demand for heavy and light oil products. Gasoline is somewhere in the middle so it seems like reduced demand for gasoline could do either way in terms of availability of feedstocks for plastic products.

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China number 1 by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:25 · Score: 0

And the first chinese test driver proceeds to crash the first unit. Where do stereotypes come from?

Not surprised by Geoffrey.landis · 2019-02-10 07:27 · Score: 2

I'm not surprised that the Tesla model 3 is the best selling electric car; I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

Like many things, it does seem likely that a lower-cost mass produced competitor is likely, in the long run, to take the lead, though.

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Re:Not surprised by Rei · 2019-02-10 07:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

The issue is that you don't just need a lower sale price; you also need a lower production cost. One intuitively expects these two to correlate, but at low volumes, they don't; so long as EVs are a small percentage of a manufacturer's sales, pricing is more dictated by factors such as legal compliance, trying to establish a place in the market, and maturing one's designs.
As it stands, EV profitability varies greatly between manufacturers.
The primary problem is that your base costs - batteries - are high, but your incremental costs - such as motor power - are low. A Model 3 drive unit, for example, was estimated by Munro & Associates to cost $754 - yet just the catalytic converter alone on a Prius costs more than double that. So, whether you're making some slow, plodding, econobox EV, or some lightning-speed entry-level luxury EV, the differences in production cost aren't that great. The exact same situation applies to China - battery cells are traded globally, and Chinese EV makers face the exact same challenges in making their battery packs affordable. Sure, they can cut costs on the rest of the vehicle - but you're still stuck with needing an expensive battery pack (or selling cars with poor range and charge speeds).
Thankfully, battery prices have been falling like a stone. So this situation keeps improving every year.

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Re:Not surprised by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-10 10:08 · Score: 1, Informative

This doesn't make a lot of sense. You say Tesla is making huge margins, but for some reason they are shedding staff to try to get costs down so they can release the $35k Model 3. Why can't they fulfill people's pre-orders in the mean time by cutting the margin slightly?
You are also comparing an established EV manufacturer with mature battery factory to the guys still in the fast ramp to phase. If this is where Tesla is after so many years and with so much volume, compared to say Hyundai-Kia who are already profitable well below $35k and at lower volume... Well, Tesla picked the wrong battery tech and aren't really seeing the kind of volume benefits that they should be, probably due to on-going quality problems.

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Re:Not surprised by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:35 · Score: 1

Hyundai & Kia Were already making cars. Tesla had to make cars from scratch, Hyundai only needed to learn EV stuff. Bodies, suspension, steering, brakes - they already knew that stuff well. Huyndai also makes EVs and gasoline cars using the same body - lots of shared components for the mass production.
As for the lower price - a Hyundai is a much smaller car. Shorter range, less room inside, less power. Less power also means lower top speed, cheaper brakes, cheaper tires, cheaper suspension. A nice car for some uses, but it is obvious why it is cheaper than any Tesla.
Re:Not surprised by Socguy · 2019-02-10 10:40 · Score: 1

They are the cutbacks are mostly in the S and X program. They are established cars and have room to become more efficient.
Re: Not surprised by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 13:03 · Score: 0

Right now they canâ(TM)t make a $35K 3 for $35K. Theyâ(TM)re banking money now on the luxury models and improving production costs so that they can break even or profit from the base 3.
Re:Not surprised by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 13:43 · Score: 2

Kia Kona will have limited production, to be available only in CA.
Tesla is making gross margin on the car 20% or so on the higher end cars with average sale price above 50K. It does not have costs down to 30K to sell 35K model 3 with profits. Estimates are, the short range model will cost 28K to make at the volume of half a million a year. Tesla is still struggling to make 350 K a year consistently in Fremont.
Shorts have succeeded in cutting Tesla access to capital. So it is trying to fully fund the ramp up to 10K cars a week using existing sales and revenue, it is going to be slow. But it will get there.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Not surprised by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 13:58 · Score: 0

Hey 140Mandak262Jamuna, it's hard to take your numbers diarrhea seriously when you can't get what you paid for your Tesla Model 3 correct.
Did you pay $50k or $55k for your Model 3?
Re:Not surprised by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 14:34 · Score: 1

What a load of rubbish. No supporting links, I notice; no surprise, it's hard to support rubbish.
Rei is female and I have not seen her seriously mistaken on any point of fact. You may not like her opinions but you can't point to anything she's said that's actually wrong. If you want to claim she said lots of crazy stuff, then search her back posts and give us some crazy quotes. Go ahead, if she's such a big idiot it will be easy.
Now the zealots are convinced that Tesla has some sort of magic battery chemistry and an AI chip.
A semi-truck maker claimed that Tesla was lying about the performance of the Tesla semi: that the claimed numbers break the laws of physics. Nope, Tesla just has more efficient batteries. The new Roadster is promised to have a 1000 km range... no other maker could make a sexy roadster with that kind of range.
Tesla did in fact have a custom chip made, with special instructions to accelerate neural net computations. Their new "autopilot" computer board can process ten times as many frames of video as the old one.
So that's two claims fact checked; status: TRUE
we are likely within 30% of what we can get out of battery storage density. That will be plenty for many uses, but will never supplant all ICE.
I drive a Tesla Model S, a used one as I'm not made of money. It really is better in almost every way than any petrol car I've ever driven.
If you have some kind of crazy job where you have to drive 1000 km a day then a petrol car is still the way to go. Otherwise a Tesla would be better if you can afford one.
The experts have claimed that once the cost of a battery pack gets to under $100/kWh that BEV cars will have a cheaper up-front cost than ICE cars. Operating costs are much less so if purchase cost is less then obviously TCO is much less. At that point people will start choosing BEV cars over ICE just because they like saving money. After that tipping point, in a short time nearly all new cars will be BEVs.
Long-haul airplanes will never go to batteries but short-hop airplanes could. Trains will never go to batteries. Cars and trucks? It will happen. I'm betting on it... I bought Tesla stock.
Re:Not surprised by thegarbz · 2019-02-10 22:16 · Score: 2

You don't do yourself any favours by calling cars like the iPace a "compliance car".
You don't do yourself any favours by claiming other people said something which they didn't.
Wait let me check, .. switch to browsing at -1.... yep AmiMoJo is the only person who used "iPace" and "compliance car" in the discussion. Why would you do that? The iPace is not a compliance car. Shame on you AmiMoJo for saying it is, and double shame on you for pretending your opinion is that of someone else's.
Re:Not surprised by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-11 00:36 · Score: 0

The link in her post goes to an image that makes the claim.

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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re: Not surprised by khmseu · 2019-02-11 00:53 · Score: 1

Actually, several manufacturers are currently offering battery trains. Of course, those are regional trains. Also, hybrid switchers.
Re:Not surprised by thegarbz · 2019-02-12 03:17 · Score: 1

The link in her post goes to an image that makes the claim.
Oh so Rei is a pseudonym for a newspaper article now?
Re:Not surprised by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-12 05:23 · Score: 1

Pretty sure she made it herself. She makes images like that to spam forums with.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Not surprised by Rei · 2019-02-12 08:19 · Score: 1

The link in the post literally quotes Jaguar's CFO calling it a compliance car.

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Re:Not surprised by Rei · 2019-02-12 08:22 · Score: 1

This doesn't make a lot of sense. You say Tesla is making huge margins, but for some reason they are shedding staff to try to get costs down so they can release the $35k Model 3.

Duh. How exactly do you think you bring the cost of a car down - magic? You reduce parts and labour cost. The latter is known as layoffs.
And it's not a "Rei says" they're making huge margins; it's their official filed quarterly statements, for the past half decade.

Why can't they fulfill people's pre-orders in the mean time by cutting the margin slightly?
Yes, let's zero out R&D, new gigafactory construction, gigafactory expansion, paying off past debts, building up cash reserves, building new Superchargers, tooling for new vehicles....

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Re:Not surprised by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-12 08:24 · Score: 1

It literally quotes him, just not literally saying what you claim he said.

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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Not surprised by bgarcia · 2019-02-13 00:07 · Score: 1

Here's the source article: Why Jaguar Land Rover is losing money and how it plans to return to profit

And here's the quote from the article, including a quote from CFO Ken Gregor:

The problem is that it won’t help profitability, not initially. JLR CFO Gregor admitted that the I-Pace’s margins are lower despite being priced 15 percent above an equivalently equipped F-Pace. In fact, he said the I-Pace was more useful to help JLR reach tougher forthcoming CO2 targets in markets such as Europe and China. “Those electric vehicles are really important for balancing out the vehicles that have higher CO2 footprints,” he said. They also mean Jaguar eventually will not need smaller cars to achieve that compliance

Selling an EV that hurts profits, for the purpose of "balancing out vehicles that have higher CO2 footprints", is the definition of a compliance car.

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Re:Not surprised by bgarcia · 2019-02-13 00:21 · Score: 1

Why can't they fulfill people's pre-orders in the mean time by cutting the margin slightly?

They've already done that to an extent. They've dropped the price on all of their vehicles within the past month. But they also need to bring down costs.

...compared to say Hyundai-Kia who are already profitable well below $35k and at lower volume...

Where did you get the impression that Hyundai sells a profitable EV?

Low margin, huge potential for Ioniq: Hyundai

“We have minimal margin, just slightly above breakeven, as it’s a highly competitive market from a pricing standpoint,” Mr Grant said.

Hyundai has no margin on the Ioniq. And they are unable to create it in higher volumes. They can't source enough batteries at their current cost. The Ioniq EV is nothing but a compliance car. I stopped by my local Hyundai dealer and asked if I could test drive an Ioniq EV. Guess what? I can't. And I can't buy one either. Because I don't live in California.

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I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Re:Not surprised by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-13 01:51 · Score: 1

A compliance car is one built for the primary purpose of reducing fleet emissions and complying with the rules. The iPace is helping do that, but it's not it's main reason for existing. Jaguar bet heavily on diesel and are now seeing sales suffer badly because of the scandals and a general move away from that fuel, so need to pivot fast to electric. It's a genuine effort by them to build a solid EV that their customers will want to buy.
A compliance car is something like the Fiat 500e, where minimal effort was made and they aren't very interested in selling too many of them. Try finding it on Fiat's web site. The iPace is on the front page of Jaguar's, second only to the XF.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Hits from the bong by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:27 · Score: 0

Funding secured, broseph

Wasn't Tesla supposed to be bankrupt by now? by Brannon · 2019-02-10 07:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

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gotta watch the conditionals, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
by argStyopa ( 232550 ) Alter Relationship on Thursday April 07, 2016 @06:35PM (#51864323) Journal
"...If it sells every car that's been reserved..."

I'm going to call it here, that less than 100,000 - maybe even less than 50k - actually turn into real orders.

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-Styopa

Re:Wasn't Tesla supposed to be bankrupt by now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:36 · Score: 0

He talked to Trump. So yeah it was supposed to be done.
Re:Wasn't Tesla supposed to be bankrupt by now? by mspohr · 2019-02-10 10:40 · Score: 1

More than 100,000 of the pre-orders have already been delivered. The rest are probably waiting on the $35,000 version.
There might be a few people who put down $1000 and have no intention of buying but I don't know why they would do that.

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Make fire come down from heaven in sight of men by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:32 · Score: 0

For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.

Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse
It has blood on it!
ABCNews: Eclipse makes pendulum wander
Losing my religion

Need a cheap no fills model by bagofbeans · 2019-02-10 07:33 · Score: 1

Make a 50 mile range EV for cheap, and I'd buy two.

One charges directly through solar (etc) during the day, without the grid tie nonsense.

The other is for commute etc.

Re:Need a cheap no fills model by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:43 · Score: 1

Why haven't you bought a Leaf then? You can pick up a used 2016 for under $10k.
Re:Need a cheap no fills model by Rei · 2019-02-10 07:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

I agree with the AC above - what you want is a used Leaf.

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Re:Need a cheap no fills model by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 08:15 · Score: 2

You represent a very tiny market. Further you are unlikely to pay much for what you desire. The market might not serve you.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re: Need a cheap no fills model by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 09:37 · Score: 0

Unable to comprehend math? He said he wanted to spend 25k but went up to 55k.
Not that he went 55k over his budget.
How old are you? Are you even a real person or just a AWS Turk powered bot?
Re:Need a cheap no fills model by runningduck · 2019-02-10 10:03 · Score: 2

You can pick up some original Leafs in great condition in the $7k to $9k range. Even with degraded batteries they are still good for about 50 miles. And they are great cars as well.

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-rd
Re:Need a cheap no fills model by bagofbeans · 2019-02-10 10:47 · Score: 1

It it a realistic proposition to repair the pack?
Re:Need a cheap no fills model by jrumney · 2019-02-10 11:03 · Score: 1

It it a realistic proposition to repair the pack?
Yes, and if you DIY it can be quite worthwhile.
Here is a guy giving instructions for a Prius, which he picked up cheap because of the dead battery pack, then sold on for a 3K profit after replacing them. The Leaf probably has more batteries, so will cost a bit more, but should still be a similarly easy job.
Re:Need a cheap no fills model by runningduck · 2019-02-10 11:04 · Score: 2

Nissan offers both new and refurbished replacement battery packs. I don't have the exact costs, but the new packs cost in the ballpark of $7k and bring the range up to the 75 ~ 85 mile range. The refurbished packs cost in the ballpark of $3k and bring the range up to about 50 ~ 60 miles--really more of an option if the pack completely fails out of warranty.
If I were to buy a used Leaf, I would either buy one that looks like it will meet my needs for the next few years, or find one with a battery pack that has lost most of its range and replace the pack with a new one immediately.

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-rd
Re:Need a cheap no fills model by jrumney · 2019-02-10 11:28 · Score: 1

which he picked up cheap because of the dead battery pack, then sold on for a 3K profit after replacing them
Wrong video for the description...but the process is the same.
Re: Need a cheap no fills model by inking · 2019-02-10 22:32 · Score: 1

Spending more than twice your budget on a car is pretty dumb though. It’s like Bitcoiners with their lambo dreams.

That's because the Porsche Taycan... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:37 · Score: 0

...isn't available yet. Once that is released, it's game over for Tesla.

Re: That's because the Porsche Taycan... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 08:22 · Score: 0

Iâ(TM)m pretty sure most folks in the market for a low end luxury sedan are not in the market for a high end luxury sports car
Re: That's because the Porsche Taycan... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 08:38 · Score: 0

Agree. Different market.. Compete with the S but not the 3
Re:That's because the Porsche Taycan... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-12 06:25 · Score: 0

Tesla's goal isn't to corner the premium segment, it's to gradually press prices and deliver larger volumes. The Taycan looks cool but is likely to be VERY expensive and not even compete in the same market as Tesla

What you want... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:41 · Score: 2, Informative

...is a golf cart.

Re:What you want... by fluffernutter · 2019-02-10 08:14 · Score: 0

That's really what they are... golf carts with larger batteries.

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Re:What you want... by Hodr · 2019-02-11 03:14 · Score: 2

Golf carts with NHTSA safety standards compliance.

Nope by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:45 · Score: 0

China is making more EVs than Tesla.

Re:Nope by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:45 · Score: 1

Cinese EVs are not a single brand. Many cars, but split among several brands. Hence Tesla is biggest at the moment. Also, some of the cheaper Chinese things cannot be called 'cars', quality too low to be sold outside China. (Fails crash tests so badly they won't be legal, and so on.)

China by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 07:58 · Score: 0

Is dominating this market.

Tesla is not even a blip in China and India, the worlds biggest economies.

Re:China by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 16:13 · Score: 0

Or not. Most of the EVs I see in China are Tesla. Chinese people really do not like Chinese cars. Spend a day in Shenzhen and you will see Teslas everywhere. (I live there)

style wins by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 08:00 · Score: 0

Most of the EVs out there make you look like someone who would never own a TV and sniff farts out of a wine glass. This isn't really news just a very predictable result assuming Tesla's reliability is reasonable.

Re: style wins by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 09:38 · Score: 0

The only weird one is the leaf, right? And I wouldnâ(TM)t call it pretentious...just kind of weird.
Re: style wins by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:31 · Score: 0

The gee-wiz or whatever it is called makes you poop kale. The i3, volt and bolt are just as bad as the leaf in looks. i3 is worse. The prius and hindsight hybrids are just as bad

Screw that, get... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 08:09 · Score: 0

...a Cadillac ELR.

The secret master plan seems to be working by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 08:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

The Secret Master Plan was published in 2006, 13 years ago.

The entire Tesla enterprise is a bet on a curve. The battery price will halve and the energy density will double every seven years. Sort of a Moore's Law for the batteries. The play book of Tesla is to find which segment of the car/suv market can be attacked at what price batteries. Roadster in 2008. S in 2012. X in 2015. 3 in 2018.

The auto industry is very mature. Almost all its parts have been refined and optimized over and over for a long time. The prices of components, crankshafts, body panels, differential gears, do not change significantly between the conception, design and production. They conditioned to think like this. "Today battery price is 200 $/kWh. The gasoline power train cost X$. Replacing it with electric would give me Y kWh battery, so... " They are not used to, "battery price to day is 190 $/kWh, four years from now it will 140$/kWh, ...". This is the mistake they made in underestimating Tesla.

Also the temperament of Elon helped. He kept making impossible to believe claims. So they discounted everything he said. Had he been a staid stiff upper lip CEO, they might have taken him more seriously and started competing with him earlier. 11 years after the Roadster, still there is no electric roadster from any competition with comparable spec. 50 kWh battery, 240 mile range, peppy two seater.

While the media circus he created kept focusing on his "failures". What he delivered in his "failures" were still stunning ground breaking trail blazing machines.

The battery era is dawning. It is getting cheaper to store 1 GWh of electricity than to build an gas burning powerplant, in the usa! In deep mines, not having to suck out the diesel exhaust pays for the conversion to battery powered earth movers!

At the price of 90 $/kWh BEV and ICEV will cost the same off the dealership, for a 300 mile range car. At that price indeterminacy of solar and wind would not be an issue. We are in for a great battery powered future.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact

Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-10 09:54 · Score: 2, Informative

Tesla are the Apple for the car world. Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively, and a somewhat dubious guy in charge.
Of course Tesla deserve a lot of credit, but Nissan pioneered affordable EVs that were actually reliable and make economic sense. Even today you would be crazy to buy a used Tesla without a warranty. Nissan also build a much bigger, more comprehensive charging network in many European countries where Tesla are sparse or non-existent. It's not going to be fun when CCS enabled Model 3s start hogging them and Tesla don't invest in extra generic chargers at those sites.
LG deserve a lot of credit for pioneering lower cost pouch cells too. It looks like the old cylindrical form factor that Panasonic/Tesla use is not going to complete on price and density in the long run, except for certain performance applications.
None of which is to say that Tesla is bad (although an Elon claim/promise is utterly worthless - where are those solar powered chargers, or full self driving, or sentry mode, or all the other things promised (and sold!) years ago?) but credit where credit is due, e.g. acknowledgement of much cheaper, better spec long range EVs that have already made the $35k Model 3 pretty unattractive.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by 110010001000 · 2019-02-10 10:06 · Score: 1, Insightful

The flaw is that battery density isn't going to double every seven years. Not going to happen. You guys were spoiled by transistor technology.
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:06 · Score: 0

acknowledgement of much cheaper, better spec long range EVs that have already made the $35k Model 3 pretty unattractive.

Feel free. All you've done is try to align Tesla with a known underdog of the local crowd and the rest of your rant is a dumpster fire. We'd love to hear you lay it out there if you're holding back on something that makes real sense instead of just hinting at it.
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by steveha · 2019-02-10 11:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Nissan Leaf is very affordable if you buy one used... because the resale value plummets. A new Leaf is $30K and I can buy a low-mileage 2017 Leaf for $15K. A 2012 Leaf is $8K. For a second car, to be used in local driving, a used Leaf is a great value.
A Tesla holds its value much better, perhaps partially because Tesla engineered active cooling in the battery pack so charging doesn't cook the cells. Teslas only lose about 1% battery capacity per year and they start with much higher capacities. Plus Tesla has the Supercharger network. A Tesla really can be your only car, even if you need or want to make long road trips.
Note that the Model 3 costs more than the Leaf and is harder to get. Yet it's still outselling the Leaf. That's customers voting with their money. You may think that Nissan is doing a better job, but the market does not agree with you.

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lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 11:42 · Score: 1

It was a big mistake by Nissan to scrimp on active thermal management of the battery. All other car makers benefit from that lesson learned.

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Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 11:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

It has already happened. The battery price has fallen by a factor of 16 in the last 28 years. It is expected to continue to fall to 60$/kWh in 2025. All hell will break loose when the price breaks through 90$/kWh automobiles total disruption, and then at 75$/kWh when solar/wind storage makes spot market for electricity vanish. Juicy margins of natural gas burning power plants come from that market. When it crashes through 60 $/kWh, domestic distributed storage will disrupt the utilities. Richer people will disconnect from the grid, and rest of the people still on the grid will face higher charges. More will defect. Utilities will follow the life cycle of bus lines and tram lines. All within the next 12 years.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 14:16 · Score: 1

The battery... energy density will double every seven years.
This clearly bullshit 140ManDickhead262Jamuna.
Otherwise a 2019 Tesla Model S would have double the range of the 2012 Model S.
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by blindseer · 2019-02-10 15:00 · Score: 2

Tesla are the Apple for the car world. Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively, and a somewhat dubious guy in charge.
As someone that has a lot of Apple products in his possession I'll say that's probably not too far from the truth.
Here's a question for you, how does a company "buy" loyalty like that? It comes from something, what is it?
If you figure out what that "magic ingredient" is then I'm guessing that you will become very wealthy yourself.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by Uberbah · 2019-02-10 16:20 · Score: 1

Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively
Can say the same thing about those operating under the Hatorade Distortion Field, who rag on Tesla/Apple all day while having no intentions in buying either product. Musk/Zombie Steve aren't holding guns to anyone's heads to force a purchase.
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by thegarbz · 2019-02-10 22:20 · Score: 1

Tesla are the Apple for the car world. Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively, and a somewhat dubious guy in charge.
Except they are well priced within their class, highly rated well beyond fans and received well by all review companies and governments, and ... I agree about the guy in charge but that's not a bad thing. Quite often you *want* someone slightly unhinged to help change the world.
Drill baby drill.
Re: The secret master plan seems to be working by c6gunner · 2019-02-10 23:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

When fuel and maintenance costs are $2,000 less per year than a comparable ICE, the $55k BEV ends up having the same TCO as a $25k ICE after 10 years, and likely has a higher resale value at the end of that term. Only a dumb idiot consumer such as yourself would fail to realize that.
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by AmiMoJo · 2019-02-11 00:30 · Score: 1

Teslas hold their value because Tesla guaranteed the buy-back price, so obviously there is no point selling them for less than that.
Also Tesla don't do discounts so the purchase price is actually deceptively low. A $100k Tesla costs $100k, where as other manufacturers do big discounts through dealers. A $100k that in reality goes for nearer $75k at the dealer "loses" a lot more value instantly than a Tesla.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-11 02:17 · Score: 0

Teslas hold their value because Tesla guaranteed the buy-back price
That program was canceled in 2016.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1105062_tesla-cancels-guaranteed-price-buyback-program-for-electric-cars

Let's get this out of the way shall we by AlanObject · 2019-02-10 08:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

The record.

Elon Musk is delusional and an egomaniac.
Tesla is out of cash. Will close the doors in six months tops.
Telsa's employees are in open revolt.
Elon Musk promises but never delivers.
Tesla's top executives are bailing.
EVs are more polluting than ICE cars anyway.
All the big automakers are going to eat Tesla's lunch. Tesla will never scale. And don't get me started on China.
Telsa quality control is complete crap worst ever.
Tesla cars catch fire all the time why would anyone buy one.
All Tesla's investors are suing the company and the SEC is going to put the company in receiverhip.

Did I miss anything? For the past 4 years I have been reading all the above here on /. over and over and over again posted with absolute conviction any time the topic comes up. Anyone care to update or respond to the list?

Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 09:13 · Score: 0

Yup, you pretty much covered it.
The idiots who wrote those things will pretend it never happened and move on to another line of bullshit.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by alvinrod · 2019-02-10 09:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Anyone care to update or respond to the list?
If they actually bet on those beliefs, they've probably lost their shoes in the stock market and can't afford to comment. But talk is always cheap and there's no end of people who'd like to convince you that they know what they're talking about. Anyone who was all talk is surely talking about something else right now.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 110010001000 · 2019-02-10 09:58 · Score: 0

You missed "Tesla makes cars for the 0.001%". You didn't mention it on your list because it is true. A Tesla is a toy for the 0.001% that is used to virtue signal that you "care about the environment". Meanwhile, cars are the very antithesis of being green no matter how they are fueled.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:06 · Score: 0

So, what, are you one of those fringies who go around curling your lip in disgust about "cagers", spout shit like "steel is real", and have a garage full of bikes and you ride everywhere no matter if it makes any sense or not? Insist people either ride or take public transit everywhere? People always have and always will want and have personal transportation that isn't powered by their own muscles and that's never going to change so I don't know why some of you bother. Meanwhile in the moment you shit on electric vehicles and spout bullshit implying that petrol burning vehicles pollute less. How's that MAGA hat fitting your pointy head these days, mate?
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 110010001000 · 2019-02-10 10:39 · Score: 1

I am not insisting anything, but cars are not "green". I never said petrol cars pollute less. Your delusion that you are saving the planet by buying a $60,000+ car is narcissistic. Just admit you bought it because you like toys.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by Socguy · 2019-02-10 10:48 · Score: 1

It wasn't more than 6 months ago Tesla was the most shorted stock in history. You wouldn't know it by listening to the talking heads at places like CNBC but the shorts have been quietly tiptoeing to the exits. At this point, short interest in Tesla has basically halved... This means that even the folks who have campaigned against Tesla in the past are no longer willing to put their money were their mouths are...
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:59 · Score: 0

Tesla a toy? For the rich - anything is a toy. For the rest of us? Fuel powered cars are toys. Too slow, no acceleration. Left behind when the lights turn green. Boring. Can't afford a Tesla myself, but consumer cars have no chance against a Leaf either.
Fuel is the oldfashioned, like using tubes instead of transistors. Cannot compete.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by ledow · 2019-02-10 11:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

Everything above is an opinion, or unfounded.
Look at facts.
Tesla sold 250,000 cars worldwide in 2018 (of all different kinds).
2018 saw 78,700,000 cars sold in 2018.
Tesla represent 0.3% of the car market last year. And that's *just* last year. Overall, in terms of all the cars in the world, you can add a couple of zeroes after the dot.
Electric cars, and Teslas in particular, are a teensy, tiny minority of all the cars out there, and a teensy proportion of new sales. You wouldn't know it from all the press they get, but they are less popular than Linux on desktop PC's (so, not counting Chromebooks, Android tablets, smartphones, etc.).
To build on just ONE point that I happen to agree with (eating Tesla's lunch)
Musk is a salesman. He sells a good pitch. But the giants can stamp on him any time they like. The fact is that they don't need to - he's not a threat. He can take the hit for all the problems of self-driving cars and electric cars, they can push out a token model to make it look like they're doing something, and thus put back that point where they have to convince petrolheads that a battery-powered EV with hardly any charging points (worldwide) is somehow a good choice for them. They're just waiting for the switch.
To hear Musk (and others) speak, you'd think BMW are scrambling to catch up. They're not. They just don't care. Their EV models make them no more than Tesla, which is a drop in the ocean to them. It's chicken-feed to them, in a niche market. And one they can own any time they like.
But while petroleum is still the primary fuel, they need to sell as much of that technology, patents, models and parts as possible until they can come up with a comparable car that would operate just as well in the real world in terms of charging, distance, etc.
He's the guinea pig. He's taking the hit. For less than one tenth what they spend on R&D each year, they could put the entire company out of business.
Not only do they know this, they want that. Because it can only go one of two ways: Either his name become synonymous with electric cars, and then they bring out one that's better than his, cheaper and with a big brand name on it. Or he crashes and burns and they point at him and go "There, you see?".
He's just not a threat. And it's not four years down the line, it's 16. And he's still not a threat, despite being WAY ahead of where people expected him to actually get (shorting stock etc.). He funds the company from his own coffers, throwing it on stuff that Ford et al probably just have sitting in a lab somewhere. They don't sell it yet... that would be stupid, it would be copied in seconds and either flop or everyone would demand it and then it would become commodity. It's better to release your new product AFTER your competitor just spent all their time designing and releasing theirs. It helps your sales and as a benefit HURTS theirs right at the time they need to make their money back.
Instead, they wait, and save it to one-up whoever does blink first. Maybe Ford or one of them won't make it another decade, like Kodak couldn't survive the transition to digital imaging. But for sure most of the others will. If anything they are much more worried about ditching diesels at the moment, or re-engineering them. Notice that the dieselgate was because they didn't want to admit that - to be within pollution guidelines - they had to dial back performance. They didn't want that to happen to their customers. And you think their customers would accept a Tesla in its place? Not yet.
Tesla is a noisy sales company. "Disruptive", some call it. But it's just ripples in a pond to the major vehicle manufacturers who can out-manufacture, out-patent, out-engineer and out-sell Tesla whenever they want. That's why people were shorting Tesla - even if everything "goes right", they'll get bought up or shut down.
I have seen orders of magnitude more cars on the road that I've never heard of, than Teslas. Tesla
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by AvitarX · 2019-02-10 11:51 · Score: 1

Tesla represent 0.3% of the car market last year. And that's *just* last year. Overall, in terms of all the cars in the world, you can add a couple of zeroes after the dot.
Is your premise that cars last year represent less than 1/100th of cars built?
That seems incredibly unlikely, and if we say cars on the road, even less likely. How is it possible? Cars are only about 120 years old, and manufacturing has been doing up every year. I'm really confused where you're coming from.

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Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 11:53 · Score: 1

Why do you hate success? Or is it envy? I can afford a 100K car, but would not pay more than 25K for a gas car. Along comes Tesla, and I happily give them 55K. Instead of being green with jealousy you should try to learn a few things from us the one percenters.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 11:56 · Score: 1

Who said anything about saving the world? The car does 0-60 in 5 seconds, handles so wonderfully, very pleasant to drive, and saves me so much of time not having to visit gas stations. Every day I leave home with 300 miles on the battery. Never have to look at the battery gauge on daily city driving. It is a wonderful car.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 12:00 · Score: 1

Ihor Dusaniwsky has been posting the estimated short positions of TSLA (and other stocks) for a long time. Go through his twitter posts of last year. By 2018 Jun 42 million shares of TSLA were shorted. Now the number is 24 million.

We've only been calcing mark-to-market P\L since 2016 .... 2016-2019 mark-to-market P\L for $TSLA is a $4.66 billion loss which includes $822 million in stock borrow financing costs (an average fee of 3.62% fee for the 3+ years.)

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 12:08 · Score: 1

And the institutional investors, bean counters, not starry eyed fanbois, own 60% of TSLA, they value it at 50 billion dollars. More than ford or gm. Nearly as much as VW, daimler etc.
They speak with actual cold hard cash. You write stuff in an obscure corner of the net.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by Cmdln+Daco · 2019-02-10 12:50 · Score: 1

Where are you going 0-60 in 5 seconds, and why? At one of those 'metered entry' freeway ramps? That's the only place I can think of that would be legal and also practical.
Otherwise, you're endangering the public.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by AlanObject · 2019-02-10 14:32 · Score: 1

Your arguments, although well stated, seem to be resting on one fundamental assumption that is wrong. Tesla is not sitting still. This isn't just a race between the Series 3 and whatever BMW puts up to compete with it.
Yes the big-3 "could" suddenly decide to take it seriously and start massively investing. That would mean that the Model 3 competitor they come up with won't appear for several years at least. By that time the Series 3 won't be edge-of-the-art.
Will Ford have something that competes with Tesla's new pickup? Will Peterbilt be able to counter the Tesla big truck (500 mile range) for which orders are already being taken? Will GM have something as good as the new Tesla roadster?
That's the thing about the big automakers. Yes they are massive but that means they also do not innovate quickly. It takes them up to 5 years to put a new powertrain into production and yes, they can pump them out once they do but that is no threat to Tesla. And by the time that Tesla becomes a perceived threat it will most likely be too late to drive Tesla out of business.
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 15:03 · Score: 1

According to S3 partners, they estimate Tesla shorts have lost 4.4 billion dollars since 2016, including 800 million in stock borrowal fees.
But they have successfully denied Tesla access to fresh capital, forcing it to fund its expansion using existing operations and cash flow. In some sense it is good for Tesla to get some financial discipline thrust up on it.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 15:08 · Score: 1

Yeah, eat my dust gas car driving luddite.
It feels so responsive and such a pleasure to drive. Till you actually drive and feel the response of a no compromise electric car, you would think gas cars are good, or good enough.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 15:21 · Score: 0

But talk is always cheap and there's no end of people who'd like to convince you that they know what they're talking about.
As Brannon pointed out above, there truly is.

Anyone who was all talk is surely talking about something else right now.
Right again!Bitching about the treatment of Kavanaugh, bitching about "Obama's solar panels", to lobbying for the wall...
I'm sure this time though he really does know what he is talking about. /s
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by steveha · 2019-02-10 15:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

Electric cars, and Teslas in particular, are a teensy, tiny minority of all the cars out there, and a teensy proportion of new sales.
Teslas look quite a bit better if you only consider their share of markets Tesla actually is in. The number of cars sold worldwide would include the number of cars sold in India and China where Tesla has no serious business yet.
I was surprised to read that in the state of California, about 1 in 22 of all cars sold in the third quarter of 2018 were Teslas (actual number: 4.6% of "light vehicle sales"). That's not their share of BEVs, that's their share of all cars sold.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/02/tesla-4-6-of-california-vehicle-sales-in-q3/
It's true that BEVs are still a tiny slice of the worldwide car market. There was a time when car sales were tiny compared to horse-drawn buggy sales. The past doesn't guarantee the future.
Musk is a salesman. [...] But the giants can stamp on him any time they like.
I used to think there was some truth to this idea. Now I scorn it.
For "the giants" to "stamp on him" they would have to produce so many electric cars that they steal away his customers. One question for you... where will they get the batteries? Have they invested staggering sums of money into their own battery factory, as Tesla did?
Also, will their cars be just as good as a Tesla? I don't take seriously any car design that doesn't have a front trunk. The new electric cars that just have an electric motor under the hood instead of an ICE engine seem like slap-dash last-minute catch-up designs by companies that aren't ready to compete with Tesla yet.
It's not that I think the front trunk by itself is that big a deal; the front trunk is the by-product of a clean-sheet new BEV design. Why would you want a complex drive train when you can have a motor right between the two wheels? For all-wheel drive, why would you want anything other than two redundant motors? If a car company hasn't even gotten that far, how competitive can its cars really be to Tesla?
To hear Musk (and others) speak, you'd think BMW are scrambling to catch up. They're not. They just don't care.
That's an interesting idea. I doubt you can support it.
In the "large luxury car" segment of the market, Tesla ate everyone else's lunch. Not that many people will pay $80K or $100K or more for a car, so a Tesla sale is a sale some other company didn't get. Tesla got more sales than BMW or Mercedes or any other luxury maker.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/01/1-tesla-model-s-dominating-large-luxury-car-sales-in-usa/
If you add up Mercedes S-class sales, and BMW 6-series and 7-series sales, that's roughly the number of cars sold as the Tesla Model S alone.
The picture looks actually worse when you compare the Tesla Model 3 to its competitors. It's crushing them.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/08/tesla-model-3-completely-crushing-us-luxury-car-competition-10-cleantechnica-charts/
Are these companies blithely unconcerned about Tesla? Really?
To hear Musk (and others) speak, you'd think BMW are scrambling to catch up. They're not. They just don't care. Their EV models make them no more than Tesla, which is a drop in the ocean to them. It's chicken-feed to them, in a niche market.
As I understand Elon Musk's claims: car companies currently make a lot of money off of car repairs; BEVs need less repairs and don't cost very much to repair; car companies have been reluctant to switch to BEVs because they stand to make much less money off of BEVs.

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lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by whoever57 · 2019-02-10 18:21 · Score: 1

You don't have to be part of the .001% to buy a Tesla. .001% of the US population is approximately 3000 people. Tesla has sold more than 200,000 cars in the USA.
The average new car costs $25k. A model 3 costs (after rebates) about $35k, so it is not out of reach of ordinary people. Then factor in the lower cost of ownership and it looks like the cost of an average car.
Just because you are a failure in life and can't afford a Tesla doesn't mean that many ordinary people can't afford one.

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The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Re: Let's get this out of the way shall we by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 22:04 · Score: 0

Still preferable to gas whatever the environmental cost- at least you are not funding terrorist dictatorships in the Middle East
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by shilly · 2019-02-10 22:21 · Score: 1

This is just bizarre. We don't live in a world where auto manufacturers are toying with electrification while waiting to see what happens with Tesla. We live in a world where VW has committed $50bn. What, you think its institutional investors are going to sit idly by if VW says "actually we were lying and haven't spent the money as we said we would, it's all some kind of Potemkin village"?
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by shilly · 2019-02-10 22:26 · Score: 1

Average car is on the road 8 to 12 years max, so you are clearly right that the OP is talking cack.
For the UK, there were 31.2m cars in 2017, of which 0.1455% or 45,397 were BEVs (33k in 2016, 25k in 2015, 16k in 2014, 6k in 2013, so the growth is pretty fast and no Model 3 available here yet).
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we by inking · 2019-02-10 22:45 · Score: 1

The shorts have also lost a lot of money in 2005 and 2006. It is a long minor downside followed by a major upside business.
Re: Let's get this out of the way shall we by c6gunner · 2019-02-10 23:54 · Score: 1

Where are you going 0-60 in 5 seconds, and why?

Anywhere I damn well please, and because I want to.
Re: Let's get this out of the way shall we by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-11 10:01 · Score: 1

Tesla Model 3 ... 55K
Performance upgrade ... 15 K
Watching people who called electric cars golf carts groping for their jaws on the floor... priceless.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact

2 MORE TIMES by NEDHead · 2019-02-10 08:30 · Score: 2

Double it 6 times and it will be 120% of the world market!!

Re:2 MORE TIMES by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 09:15 · Score: 0

You are an economist, aren't you?
I'm a physicist, physical limits do affect me.
Re:2 MORE TIMES by NEDHead · 2019-02-11 02:37 · Score: 1

Interestingly enough I have degrees in Math, Physics, Economics, and an MBA
I also have a sense of humor

That $35K Model 3 ain't gonna be here... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 09:13 · Score: 0

...any time soon. By the time it is, it will be old tech. And most people who pre-ordered were banking on that price with the full tax credit lowering it to $28K. With the credit gone and now having to wait years, the $35K Model 3 hoopla has dropped like a lead zeppelin.

Tesla is a dead car driving.

Re:That $35K Model 3 ain't gonna be here... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:04 · Score: 0

keep believing that. make some shorts please.
Re:That $35K Model 3 ain't gonna be here... by Cmdln+Daco · 2019-02-10 12:29 · Score: 1

We can watch Tesla fizzle without investing in the stock market at all.

Or, 93% of purchasers chose other brands by SlaveToTheGrind · 2019-02-10 09:46 · Score: 1

In as highly fragmented a market as this one, "best seller" seems not to convey much meaningful information.

Re:Or, 93% of purchasers chose other brands by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 13:33 · Score: 0

In as highly fragmented a market as this one, "best seller" seems not to convey much meaningful information.
The Model 3 is the largest seller of the smallest part of the automotive market; sedans.

Luxury sedan? Nigga please. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 10:16 · Score: 0

Have you seen the Model 3 in person? The figment and treatment is shoddy, to be nice. The Yugo Corporation would be ashamed to put out something like this.

The Tesla broken record by Latent+Heat · 2019-02-10 10:57 · Score: 1

Companies do indeed go bankrupt. There are different modes of bankruptcy, and in what they call Chapter 11, the company stays in business, only holders of stock and perhaps some bonds lose all or part of their investment. When a company runs out of money -- they lack the cash on hand to pay their employees, their suppliers demand immediate payment and/or loans come due -- is often hard to tell from the outside looking in when that is going to happen. A company can get by on the credit terms extended to them and than bam!, one day they cannot.

The Shorts and Haters have been chanting Bankruptcy! Bankruptcy! for the dozen or so years Tesla has been a "public" company, and Mr. Musk joked about it, was it around May 2018? Since then Mr. Musk admitted that the company came close to that happening.

As to the mental health of Mr. Musk, there was the matter of the putative offer to take the company private at $420/share, at a time when it was trading in the mid to upper 300's. As far as anyone can tell, that offer was, in the software parlance, complete vaporware. This kind of stunt is something responsible people in the shareholder-owned-company world don't do, and the SEC did look upon the entire affair with askance. Though I suppose along the lines of ancient Greek philosophical thought experiments about persons who never tell the truth, can we even believe Mr. Musk's admission of how close Tesla came to shutting down when Financing Assured at $420 was all made up?

There has been indeed turnover of top Tesla executives and especially on the finance and accounting side. It is hard to tell if this rate is higher or lower than in situations where the company isn't being scrutinized as much. But again, given the lack of "transparency" of this company, to put it charitably, making inferences based on such things is all we have.

I think the jury is still out on whether Tesla can "scale." One of the supposed failed prophesies of the naysayers, shorts and haters was the claim around early 2018 that Tesla would never get past 1000 cars/week whereas they easily made it to 5000 cars/week with claims they tested their line at 7000. Well, the promises of Tesla "scaling" or "breaking out" or "disrupting" the entire auto industry were based on part on what Elon Musk described as an Alien Dreadnought -- a very highly automated factory capable of achieving high profit margins on a Model 3 selling for $35,000.

From what I hear, the Alien Dreadnought didn't break out, it broke down. Tesla switched to hiring enough shifts to operate Fremont Assembly 24/7, which is a very unusual practice in the cost-conscious auto industry in all segments from basic transportation to premium vehicles. They also gave up (at least for now) on a 35K Model 3 and found a ready market for a 50K+ optioned-up Model 3, although recently they are making price reductions on that.

For Tesla to scale up from their 2018 Q3 and Q4 production that allowed them to squeak by with a slim profit, it appears that hopes of higher production to serve a global market hang on the Shanghai factory. Mr. Musk said as much in a "conference call" to investors, when questioned by a financial analyst about where more cars will be made, he made one of his trademark remarks, "In a place called Shanghai." Well, the Shanghai factory is this expanse of mud right now, and Mr. Musk or other Tesla executives have "guided" that they will have this factory making a substantial number of cars by the end of 2019. Yes, workers in China have been known to work such miracles and the Chinese government has a way of making these happen that they choose to make happen, but where the capital to do this is coming from is really unclear at this point. It isn't coming from the slim profits from the last two quarters.

Do I need to continue? Yeah, Tesla cars catching fire may be overblown, but I have an N=1 of a computer science professor buying himself a Model 3 and passing on the Autopilot feature as something not ready for prime time.

Re:The Tesla broken record by shilly · 2019-02-10 19:02 · Score: 1

As to whether an EV with its need for cobalt and use of electricity from our still-dirty-grid is an improvement on an ICE car of comparable size and drag coefficient is a long discussion
Why would this need to be a long discussion? It's clear that EVs are an improvement on ICE cars. As you mentioned cobalt and the grid, you clearly are thinking about both CO2e and other factors:
- CO2e -- grid mix improves over time; the mix is better where EVs are more common eg Norway or CA vs W Va; large power stations are more efficient than small car engines; and numerous full lifecycle analyses have concluded lower CO2e for EV vs ICE
- Non-CO2e -- particulates much lower; no tailpipes in town; lower noise levels; Li is obviously v abundant and mining it is a lot nicer than drilling for oil; Co extraction can be foul, but efforts to improve supply chain are intensive; and batteries can be reused and eventually the metals can be recovered and recycled indefinitely.
You have to squint *really* hard to make believe EVs are no better for the environment than ICE cars
Re:The Tesla broken record by Latent+Heat · 2019-02-11 04:23 · Score: 1

"numerous full lifecycle analyses have concluded lower CO2e for EV vs ICE"
My point exactly. There are those numerous analyses weighing in on the EV being greener than the ICE, and there are other analyses, perhaps less numerous, weighing the other way. To consider the different assumptions in these different analyses == long discussion.
Furthermore, the full life cycle analyses I have seen that favor the EV do not, at this time, favor it overwhelmingly over the ICE. The ICE is also a "moving target" in terms of engine improvements boosting efficiency.
Re:The Tesla broken record by shilly · 2019-02-11 13:47 · Score: 1

You started by trying to argue a broad point -- that overall, the environmental case for EVs vs ICE was equivocal, taking into account CO2e and cobalt as examples. Now you are discussing CO2e only, and arguing that this isn't clear when in fact it is. This is a disingenuous thing to do.
You can find studies arguing the case is equivocal but you can't find *credible* studies arguing this position. That's why there *isn't* a long discussion to be had. The case is, overall, unambiguous, and you're either kidding yourself that it's not, or worse, trying to kid others. It's not a sensible position to take. Fewer particulates. Lower NOx emissions. Lower sulphates. Lower noise levels. Lower CO levels. Lower benzene levels. Lower formaldehyde levels. All of it the emissions moved out of city centres where people are found in the greatest numbers and moved to power plants that are more efficient and better scrubbed where they are still fossil fuel, and with grid mix improving all the time, moving more and more to non-emitting sources. And this is all about the non-CO2e benefits. Etc etc.

History is being made by Socguy · 2019-02-10 11:29 · Score: 1

Tesla is selling everything it can shove out the factory door without spending a dime on marketing, unless you count the costs of Elon's tweets. By the end of this year/beginning of next Tesla will have completed another giant factory in Shanghai along with several lines at the Gigafactory in Nevada and will begin pumping out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of model Ys annually. This car will occupy the most popular automotive segment currently, the small SUV/CUV category. This car will be significantly cheaper and easier to manufacture than the model 3 turned out to be. (Don't take my word for it, this is what the experts like Sandy Munro believe. Go ahead a google it.) This timeframe is when most other manufacturers are actually just going to be dipping their toes into the EV waters with some initial tepid offerings. Unfortunately this means they are about to get blown out. Tesla has cannibalized the luxury to downmarket pathway for EV development. Other manufacturers are going to have to try and compete against a company who is able to profitably make high quality long range EV's while their own EV programs are still in their infancy. Tesla learned some expensive lessons with the M3 program and they still managed to turn it into the best selling EV worldwide. This room for error is no longer available to other manufacturers.

The US market will hold on to gas burners longer, but the Chinese market (the largest in the world) will aggressively phase out ICE vehicles as soon as the supply of EV's enables them to realistically do so. This if for a number of reasons but primarily to try and get a grip on rampant air pollution in cities as well as trying to locate the center of the new auto industry in China. European cities are also farther along than North America in cleaning up their air. A few have already started banning IC engines in the cores of cities for that very reason and this trend will accelerate, again, as supply of quality EV's make it feasible to do so.

Cost of batteries is also falling, though not as fast as some would like. OTOH, really significant R&D investments in batteries has really only started a handful of years ago and won't bare much fruit in the real world for 5-10 years. There are several promising pathways to double or triple energy densities while increasing longevity and lowering recharge rates.

People should sit back and enjoy the ride. There will be bumps along the way but it's not often we get to see a major industry forced to reshape itself. The game now is to see who actually makes it...

Except... by kenh · 2019-02-10 12:29 · Score: 1

The battery era is dawning. It is getting cheaper to store 1 GWh of electricity than to build an gas burning powerplant in the usa!

Except a gas burning powerplant actually creates power, the tesla battery pack just stores it... Perhaps if you want to make this example relevant you could factor in the cost of power generation?

In deep mines, not having to suck out the diesel exhaust pays for the conversion to battery powered earth movers!

The vast majority of "earth movers" operate above ground, and do not have to "suck out the diesel exhaust".

Your fringe use case is unconvincing, I don't see an industry migration to battery-powered "earth movers" anytime soon.

--
Ken

Re:Except... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 14:42 · Score: 2

Kenh, I was like you, very skeptical of batteries till about last year. Once I did the research and studied it, I was convinced. You have a four digit id. You will be convinced too, if you read about it.
My classmate is the chief engineer in a nuclear waste storage facility deep underground. He just ordered a HVAC system upgrade costing 130 million dollars, to deal with the diesel fumes. For that money you could buy 1 GWh of batteries. Enough to keep 40 Earth movers operating 24/7 with batteries on 8 hour use, 16 hour recharge cycle. The smaller HVAC, motors being four times cheaper than diesel makes the break even point is about one year! The price point has been reached. It is not happening right now because there is simply not enough battery making capacity, not because the cost is too high. Total world battery capacity is just 40 GWh. This one waste storage can absorb 2.5% of it! All earth moving companies have announced batter powered earth movers. Range is not an issue, hot swap battery packs will keep them going 24/7. Diesel earthmovers will die a sudden and quick death.
Yes batteries store energy. Solar and wind have free fuel. Their only cost is interest payment on their investment and payroll. Both very stable and predictable. Gas plants create energy but natural gas prices fluctuate a lot. And the maintenance is expensive. These batteries remove the indeterminacy of solar/wind. Utility scale batteries are coming. Already three gas peaker plants are being retired by PG&E to be replaced with batteries. Batteries are coming.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Except... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-10 17:18 · Score: 0

Enough to keep 40 Earth movers operating 24/7 with batteries on 8 hour use, 16 hour recharge cycle.
Too bad that's bullshit, 140ManDickhead262Jamuna.
Nobody manufactures BEV construction equipment.
Re:Except... by shilly · 2019-02-10 18:32 · Score: 2

Um
https://www.hitachicm.com/glob...
https://www.heavyequipmentguid...
https://www.theconstructionind...
https://www.theconstructionind...
https://cleantechnica.com/2018...
https://electrek.co/2017/09/17...
Re:Except... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-11 08:09 · Score: 0

Um

https://www.hitachicm.com/glob...

How cute, not quite the size of a Tesla Model 3.

https://www.heavyequipmentguid...

More pocket rocket!

https://www.theconstructionind...

Even more pocket rocket!

https://www.theconstructionind...

Diesel-electric huh...won't solve your fumes problem I don't think.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018...

A commentary piece with encouraging words such as "development...coming...hydrogen fuel cell..."

https://electrek.co/2017/09/17...

So a single prototype demonstrator can work along all the diesel workhorse equipment.
tldr: fuck off ShortWilly, 140ManDickhead262Jamuna
Re:Except... by shilly · 2019-02-11 13:51 · Score: 1

Ohhhh, construction equipment only counts if it's REALLY REALLY BIG!!!!!
Because proper construction is for manly men like you, who don't have to resort to mocking a nickname because of your own ridiculous inadequacies. Except when you do.
Sweetheart, if it makes you feel better to think what you just did then constitutes winning an argument, who am I to take away a little bit of psychological comfort in what is clearly going to be a rough ride through life for you? Don't worry, we're all laughing with you, not at you. Honest.
Re:Except... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-11 17:53 · Score: 0

Ohhhh, construction equipment only counts if it's REALLY REALLY BIG!!!!!
Hey ShortWilly, you just come across more and more stupid...and inadequate I might add.
140ManDickhead262Jamuna was talking "nuclear waste storage...deep underground...130 million dollars..."
The topic is "REALLY BIG" construction equipment...why are you bringing in your riding lawn mower into a Formula 1 racing discussion?
Don't worry, we're all laughing at you, not with you. Honest.
Re:Except... by shilly · 2019-02-11 19:58 · Score: 1

Your insults sounds much better the second time, genuinely. I hadn't appreciated just how biting they were till you unleashed them a second time. And now I tremble in fear of your mighty wit. You must have studied long and hard at wit school to come up with "ShortWilly". It's a devastating blow.
On the substantive topic, let me remind you that you wrote: "Nobody manufactures BEV construction equipment". If you had wanted to say "Nobody manufactures REALLY REALLY BIG BEV construction equipment for nuclear waste storage facilities deep underground", then ... and I know this is a tricky concept here, so bear with me while I spell it out for you .... probably best for you to have actually written what you meant, ie "Nobody manufactures REALLY REALLY BIG BEV construction equipment for nuclear waste storage facilities deep underground". Unless, of course, this was by some wild chance just some kind of post hoc rationalisation of your position to make yourself feel better in your own eyes. But that would be absurd. No-one could have self-esteem that low. So I'll go with "unable to communicate effectively" instead. Either way, it's not a great look, but hey, that's something you're used too, right?
Re:Except... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-12 02:41 · Score: 1

Nuclear waste storage earth movers are small machines handling drums and rearranging them.
The excavation is salt, not very tough rocky material. The machines are typically 100 Hp to 250 HP machines. But venting diesel fumes from even small machines from 1 km deep cavern costs 130 million dollars.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Re:Except... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-12 06:10 · Score: 0

The excavation is salt, not very tough rocky material. The machines are typically 100 Hp to 250 HP machines.
Hey 140ManDickhead262Jamuna, what does "tough" have to do with size?
There are huge machines moving "tough" sand.
If you want small equipment, maybe you should stop running your cocksucking mouth about 40 earth movers needing 1GWh.(1 GWh among 40 earth movers operating 24/7 is about 1,500HP each...you're off by a factor of 10x)
Re:Except... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-12 06:12 · Score: 0

LOL he's mad.
You're not making it very tough ShortWilly.
I can just repost this all day:
Don't worry, we're all laughing at you, not with you. Honest.
Re:Except... by shilly · 2019-02-12 07:46 · Score: 1

Did those sentences really make sense in your head? What an exciting place it must be.

The clickbait battle seems to be turning... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-02-10 13:32 · Score: 1

Last year any negative story about Tesla immediately got several dozen postings. Then Dec18-Jan19 time frame many Tesla threads appeared and died without even breaking the 50 post mark. Then suddenly today a positive story about Tesla and hundred postings within six hours.

The click trackers will very quickly spot the trend. I think the click-bait stories in the coming months are going to be positive on Tesla.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact

Next month by thegarbz · 2019-02-10 22:18 · Score: 1

Give it time man. Tesla will go bankrupt any day now. This is just a brief uptick. I mean their CFO just left 11 days ago. Clearly they'll be bankrupt this month for sure!

I'll say. It's an amazing vehicle. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-11 04:14 · Score: 0

The first (brand) new car I've ever purchased, a Tesla Model 3 with Full Self Driving capability.
It's 100% freaking awesome!

Chevy Volt? by foxalopex · 2019-02-11 06:45 · Score: 1

I wonder what happened to the Chevy Volt or is it off the list because GM is discontinuing it this year. As a plugin hybrid like the Prius Prime, it's a popular car among owner and very reliable too compared to a Tesla.

Slashdot Mirror

Tesla Model 3 Becomes Best Selling Electric Car In World (cleantechnica.com)

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