And no Jar-Jar Binks although the conspiracy theory that he's secretly a Sith master is plausible and appealing. I think this Episode had some of the best acting so far. Driver & Boyega were pretty good and Ridley was terrific.
So you mean the Tesla drivers aren't paying attention because the car is too quiet or that YOU are not paying attention because you can't hear the car?
"That means the battery needs to start charging as soon as I'm home" - depends on how big the battery is and your typical daily driving distance. I'm sure most Tesla owners can skip charging for a couple days even if they're not Supercharging. With the more affordable 200+ mile EVs that will be in production within 1-3 yrs, daily charging won't be required for most people.
Exactly. Base load is one of the problems of generation / transmission that we've adapted to, mostly because cheap rechargeable energy storage has yet to be achieved. But guess what EV batteries are - not-yet-so-cheap rechargeable energy storage.
"Nobody seems to commit mass murders at police stations......." Well some have tried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... I'm betting if this was an everyday occurrence, the cops would quickly demand that every civilian who sought access would be sequestered and strip-searched, disarming the innocent civilians.
It's in its 10th? 20th? year and it seems that the battle to push the True Spirit of Xmas (tm) sales back to before Thanksgiving is being won by the Pro Santa Jesus forces.
You can raise the panels up higher and if there's axis tracking, quite a bit of light will get through to whatever's underneath. And there are plants & crops that do better with some shade.
I think you may be misinterpreting Musk's comment that such a battery could be made but would be very expensive. With current densities, it would be large & heavy and the cooling system would have to be redesigned to cope with the greater thermal mass.
I hope that Tesla is working on a truck but I can't see a battery-only one being successful in the USA until the per-kWh cost drops even more - and gas goes up. If Via Motors is struggling to sell their hybrid trucks, I don't think Tesla is ready to enter that space just yet.
"The are spending too much and the price of the vehicles sold don't provide a profit, hence they are losing money on each vehicle"
Wrong. If they stuck to simply developing the Model S and X and making incremental improvements, they'd do just fine. But they're essentially trying to replicate the entire ICE infrastructure for their pure EVs and do it quickly while driving down the cost of the most expensive component - the battery pack. When the Roadster was launched, it was $400-500 per kWh. It's now 1/2 that for the biggest players and may be cut in 1/2 again in
3 yrs. The Gigafactory is a bold expensive play but with so many automakers jumping into the EV space, it'll probably pay off quickly as Tesla will have control over the most crucial piece in the supply chain.
"and at their burn rate the pot will be empty by next summer." Wrong again. Part of their problem was being very late on delivering the Model X for which they already have over $1 billion in orders with deposits. If they get the deliveries flowing, they'll have a big chunk of that to add to cash on hand. Also, they'll be able to cut back somewhat on the Supercharger station build out as they already have installed so many. They should be able more than halve the install rate until after the Model 3 is in full production.
Some of the money they're "burning" goes towards the PowerWall / PowerPack products which should start shipping in Q1 2016 and ramp up as Phase 1 of the Gigafactory comes online. If they're able to deliver on the Model 3 reveal in March, they'll get a bit more cash on hand from reservations (but probably not more than $50 million which isn't much compared to Model S / X sales). But it is quite a race to Summer 2016 and the Q1 earnings call promises to be very tense.
That's been the plan all along, as stated in a Musk blog post in 2006. But it takes time to get a handle on mass producing a new car platform from scratch. The Model 3 reveal is scheduled for March 2016 and production for Q3 2017. Let's see if they can meet those timelines.
Yeah, we had a Beetle from the late 60s to the mid 70s. The engine looked like it should have been in a lawnmower or go-kart compared to the V8s our friends drove.
"600+ miles on a 20 minute charge" - won't be easy to accomplish. The average EV gets ~3 miles per kWh so 600 miles is roughly 180kWh. Charging that from near-empty in 20 min means delivering an average power of 540 kW, not accounting for charging losses or heat buildup.
"At 115 in a 35" - holy *bleep* Was that on a public road? Whereabouts? Where I live you'd go directly to jail with your hands up & your pants down if caught doing that.
Tesla has only to maintain current sales of the Model S and deliver the Model X reservations up to the launch date to achieve 75000 cars for 2016 and then their annual revenue would be $7 billion. They're NOT "losing 4k per vehicle"; they're making costly investments to grow. In the car biz, that's what it takes. Porsche is making a billion euro play for their "Mission E", and they already have most of the necessary facilities. This is for a low-volume car that won't be on sale for 3-5 years.
Slashdot Mirror
And no Jar-Jar Binks although the conspiracy theory that he's secretly a Sith master is plausible and appealing.
I think this Episode had some of the best acting so far. Driver & Boyega were pretty good and Ridley was terrific.
So you mean the Tesla drivers aren't paying attention because the car is too quiet or that YOU are not paying attention because you can't hear the car?
They're doing both. See forthcoming Model 3.
GM Bolt will be 1st to market since it's supposed to be on sale Q4 2016
Model 3 reveal is promised for Mar 2016 with immediate reservations. How much money you'll have to put down hasn't been stated but it's probably ~$2k
"That means the battery needs to start charging as soon as I'm home" - depends on how big the battery is and your typical daily driving distance.
I'm sure most Tesla owners can skip charging for a couple days even if they're not Supercharging. With the more affordable 200+ mile EVs that will be in production within 1-3 yrs, daily charging won't be required for most people.
Exactly. Base load is one of the problems of generation / transmission that we've adapted to, mostly because cheap rechargeable energy storage has yet to be achieved.
But guess what EV batteries are - not-yet-so-cheap rechargeable energy storage.
This is not a new development. Military bases have been "gun-free zones" for a very long time.
Americans can locate the places they've invaded or that have lots of oil just fine.
And Canada. And Mexico. But I repeat myself.
"Nobody seems to commit mass murders at police stations......."
Well some have tried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm betting if this was an everyday occurrence, the cops would quickly demand that every civilian who sought access would be sequestered and strip-searched, disarming the innocent civilians.
+1 Insightful
This is Texas. George W Bush said "I don't do nuance".
Guess where he learned it.
It's in its 10th? 20th? year and it seems that the battle to push the True Spirit of Xmas (tm) sales back to before Thanksgiving is being won by the Pro Santa Jesus forces.
You can raise the panels up higher and if there's axis tracking, quite a bit of light will get through to whatever's underneath.
And there are plants & crops that do better with some shade.
That past is the RECENT past and is only one CEO change away from becoming the future present.
I think you may be misinterpreting Musk's comment that such a battery could be made but would be very expensive.
With current densities, it would be large & heavy and the cooling system would have to be redesigned to cope with the greater thermal mass.
I hope that Tesla is working on a truck but I can't see a battery-only one being successful in the USA until the per-kWh cost drops even more - and gas goes up.
If Via Motors is struggling to sell their hybrid trucks, I don't think Tesla is ready to enter that space just yet.
"The are spending too much and the price of the vehicles sold don't provide a profit, hence they are losing money on each vehicle"
Wrong. If they stuck to simply developing the Model S and X and making incremental improvements, they'd do just fine.
But they're essentially trying to replicate the entire ICE infrastructure for their pure EVs and do it quickly while driving down the cost of the most expensive component - the battery pack. When the Roadster was launched, it was $400-500 per kWh. It's now 1/2 that for the biggest players and may be cut in 1/2 again in
3 yrs.
The Gigafactory is a bold expensive play but with so many automakers jumping into the EV space, it'll probably pay off quickly as Tesla will have control over the most crucial piece in the supply chain.
"and at their burn rate the pot will be empty by next summer."
Wrong again. Part of their problem was being very late on delivering the Model X for which they already have over $1 billion in orders with deposits.
If they get the deliveries flowing, they'll have a big chunk of that to add to cash on hand. Also, they'll be able to cut back somewhat on the Supercharger station build out as they already have installed so many. They should be able more than halve the install rate until after the Model 3 is in full production.
Some of the money they're "burning" goes towards the PowerWall / PowerPack products which should start shipping in Q1 2016 and ramp up as Phase 1 of the Gigafactory comes online. If they're able to deliver on the Model 3 reveal in March, they'll get a bit more cash on hand from reservations (but probably not more than $50 million which isn't much compared to Model S / X sales).
But it is quite a race to Summer 2016 and the Q1 earnings call promises to be very tense.
That's been the plan all along, as stated in a Musk blog post in 2006. But it takes time to get a handle on mass producing a new car platform from scratch.
The Model 3 reveal is scheduled for March 2016 and production for Q3 2017. Let's see if they can meet those timelines.
Yeah, we had a Beetle from the late 60s to the mid 70s. The engine looked like it should have been in a lawnmower or go-kart compared to the V8s our friends drove.
Oops, that should have been 200 kWh, not 180, which make the rapid-charging case somewhat more difficult.
"600+ miles on a 20 minute charge" - won't be easy to accomplish. The average EV gets ~3 miles per kWh so 600 miles is roughly 180kWh. Charging that from near-empty in 20 min means delivering an average power of 540 kW, not accounting for charging losses or heat buildup.
There are some settings you can alter to improve the Tesla's track performance but they do seem to be too conservative with the battery power.
"At 115 in a 35" - holy *bleep*
Was that on a public road? Whereabouts? Where I live you'd go directly to jail with your hands up & your pants down if caught doing that.
Tesla has only to maintain current sales of the Model S and deliver the Model X reservations up to the launch date to achieve 75000 cars for 2016 and then their annual revenue would be $7 billion. They're NOT "losing 4k per vehicle"; they're making costly investments to grow. In the car biz, that's what it takes.
Porsche is making a billion euro play for their "Mission E", and they already have most of the necessary facilities. This is for a low-volume car that won't be on sale for 3-5 years.