Joe_Dragon, are you seriously suggesting that folks on/. don't know how to use the internet to watch their favorite shows? I don't think anyone is going to be missing anything... Though HBO and Dish are just going to encourage more cord cutting...
One day I turned on the TV and discovered the cable was out. It took a few days for the service team to arrive and they soon discovered that a grader had accidentally cut the cable when it was resurfacing the back alley. At that point I realized that no one had turned on the TV for over 2 months since that was when they were doing the work...
I cancelled my cable immediately, bought a digital OTA antenna from best buy for $20 in order to get the local channels (Shockingly good picture quality BTW). I invested in a VPN subscription along with upgrading to an unlimited DSL internet package from a internet wholesaler and a Netflx account. I now watch anything I want, whenever I want including sports for about 70% less than the cost of cable. As an added bonus, by making the laptop the media center, it's far quicker and more responsive than the clunky cable interface ever was.
How is this modded 'insightful'? It's exactly backwards... thus far only 20% of pre-orders have been cancelled... 80% of people have waited years then they still bought the car...
Don't use Chrome on principal, don't use IE on principal and I've switched to duckduckgo for searches. Still stuck with gmail and occasionally a forced to use google maps. Google is now evil.
In Europe there is one standard mandated so it's entirely reasonable to have a 240v supplied charge point in each garage especially considering that internal combustion engines are being phased out. Should the standard ever change, it's not difficult to change out a box on the wall or a end on a cord. The wiring is already there. In NA, we didn't bother to plan ahead and missed our easy opportunity to mandate a standard so it's far more reasonable here to simply mandate a 240v dryer/stove outlet in the garage or near where vehicles are commonly parked which EV's can plug into.
I'm just going to come out and say it. Your post is nonsense. Even if super-capacitors do take the place of batteries in the EV (highly speculative), they can also charge at a slower rate so no infrastructure is actually obsolete. Then you can always add more infrastructure. Your entire post rests on the dubious argument that: "At some far point in the future some new technology is going to come along so we shouldn't do anything right now just in case."
Since Europe mandates ONE charging standard for cars, unlikely, but even if they did, swapping ends on a cord is not hard... or expensive. Wiring for home charging and street charging is as simple and making sure a 240v outlet available.
When the bulk of the assembly is done by robot it doesn't matter how fast they work, you get an identical product each time. The trick is going to be ensuring that each robot has enough feedstock to work at full speed at all times and to choreograph their production in the line so that their product is not overloading or underloading the next step. The slowest part of the line dictates the speed of the entire line. Having multiple lines is better in some ways as well. That means that sometimes you can upgrade the lines independent of one and other and not have to totally shut down production.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for legacy automakers to compete in the EV space against Tesla. Tesla years ago invested in massive battery manufacturing capacity and is hugely focused on cutting edge research into all areas of electric propulsion. Talk to any independent battery expert and they will tell you that not only are Tesla battery packs are the best in the industry, they are the lowest cost per KW as well AND DROPPING. Tesla also is hellbent on advancing electric motor technology. Their IP is second to none, even though they don't talk much about it and what's more, they're not sitting still. Tesla is already on their 6th generation of cell chemistry. Musk is not afraid to scrap everything they've built already if/when the next iteration comes along. Legacy automakers like to make a car and build it for a few years with only minor changes. For better or worse, the Model 3 you buy today is better than the one that you bought last month and the one you can buy next month is better than the one you could buy today.
Legacy automakers are now stuck playing catch-up buy trying to source components from 3rd party suppliers that are both inferior and more expensive than what's Tesla is offering. Hence why Chevy loses around $10,000 per Bolt. They're also stuck with dealership networks that don't want their customers to buy EV's since they're not nearly as good for their bottom lines as a gas car, nor do they want to invest the time to educate the public on the benefits of EV's. They are starting to panic now since sales of BMW and Mercedes are being absolutely savaged by the Model S/X and now the Model 3 promises to do the same as it moves downmarket into the 'average' car sales.
As for natural gas hybrids. Maybe. But I doubt it. Battery technology is advancing so rapidly these days, both capacity and charge times, that even the minimal benefit afforded by the natural gas 'range extender' will be greatly diminished, if not eliminated by mid 2020's. Then you've got to deal with new city bylaws and other regulations. Burning any type of fuel in a vehicle will become increasingly forbidden in cities since even the cleanest burning fuels still create CO2 and noise pollution. It's got a lot of the same problems as hydrogen fuel cells, it boils down to added expense and complexity for rapidly diminishing real world gain. It would have made a lot more sense back in the '90s but the times and technology are changing.
Who cares what the 'average' person thinks. What matters is if Tesla OWNERS are aware that autopilot is not fully autonomous and guess what, they do. Some just choose to ignore that little fact.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that the cells need to be replaced every 3-5 years. The cells Tesla uses in the power packs are rated for 5000 full cycles before degrading to 80% of their original capacity. If they cycled from 100% to 0% every single day of the year they would last 13.7 years. If you had to replace them every 5 years then it would mean that the system was completely filling and draining more than 2X per day. The reality of the system and the way it is being used is more likely to see the level of charge in the system fluctuating somewhere in the middle as it charges when most profitable and then briefly kicks out some power when the price spikes before waiting to charge again. Operating like this, the system could easily go decades before the cells needed replacing.
Once the cells do need replacing, Tesla has designed their cells with recycling in mind. They are designed to allow almost complete recovery of materials used so that the elements can be reprocessed and used in new cells again. Of course, I believe that Tesla actually contracted Samsung cells for this particular project since they are currently using everything that Panasonic is producing for their other projects when they took on this project.
Nikola has produced tons of hype but have they actually produced a production prototype yet that can be validated? They claim that they are going to build a factory but have they started construction yet? One really has to wonder if they have anything to sell. Also, you're wrong that a company cannot be a patent troll if they have any kind of product. SCO comes to mind....
How much charge can you get in 5 minutes? Depends on the charge rate your vehicle can accept and in what state of discharge you pack is in. At peak, 5 minutes at a Tesla supercharger can add about 40 miles of range to your vehicle. If this stretch of road is located on the up incline of a hill, then you also get to nearly double that through regeneration on the way down the other side. I don't know what kind of rate the trucks will be able to pull through this system but even half that would be fantastic.
I think people are missing the point that automation technology is continually advancing. Sure flippy today requires someone to place the burgers etc. but tomorrow the robot has now taken over salting and next year it's placing the burgers... then assembling the burgers... time goes by... now it's handling the payments as well...
A decade from now it's not unreasonable to assume there will be joints where the human employees visit only sporadically when there is a problem. 2 decades from now it's anyone's guess.
They're not that bad. I agree that they are impersonal, however, it's kind of nice to place your order then go sit down at a table, read the paper and McDonalds staff brings your food when it's ready.
Tesla has taken it upon itself to build continent wide charging infrastructure. Everybody else decided to let someone else build a network, (really just hoping the government will do it for them.) Of course there are good reasons why no other automakers are bothering, with the possible exception of Nissan, automakers do not want electric cars. They treat them as compliance vehicles to enable them to meet regulations and therefore sell lots and lots of high margin SUV's and Pickups. End result is that the Tesla supercharger network is by far the best way to charge an electric car. It's the fastest, cheapest and most reliable as well as widest reaching EV fast charging network out there and is growing at a phenomenal pace. Tesla has integrated the charging experience into their vehicles in a way no one else can hope to match since they've outsourcing the charging of their vehicles.
Non-Tesla EV drivers would love to access the Tesla network, it would dramatically improve their EV experience. Too bad their manufacturer doesn't want them too. Drivers of other brands of EV vehicles are still stuck with slow, broken, inconvenient, expensive and complicated (not to mention sparse) options. Even though we are finally starting to get some reasonable non-Tesla EV's (Leaf and Bolt) Anyone buying an electric vehicle needs to seriously consider how much value it provides to have access the supercharger network.
The supercharger network is currently a huge competitive advantage for Tesla and the other automakers simply don't care. On the surface it doesn't make sense until you remember that those automakers do not want to sell any electric vehicles beyond what regulations require. They simply have too much invested in current internal combustion technology. As a result, they pay lip service to electrification while drag their feet and try to slow the adoption of EV's through lobbying. They drag there feet on standards and anywhere else they can while the consumer loses. For the time being they will continue to be top dogs in the automotive world, and quarterly statements will remain strong but a tipping point is coming and when it arrives a good number of traditional automotive companies will be out. It's happened before when Toyota and Honda first entered the market. They were a joke... for a while. We're now watching history repeat.
Why would they bother? With demand so high, might as well take care of the top end of the market first. Doubt that you'll see a true $35,000 model 3 till at least 2019. Maybe not even before they launch the model Y
Bolt has a lot of potential but GM seems to be content to only produce ~25,000 per year. Kinda looks like Musk was right, that they can't sell it for the price without CARB credits or they'd lose money. Over in Europe GM may have been losing as much as $12 000 per bolt. https://insideevs.com/gm-repor...
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If enough people cut the cord, broadcasters will make more use of 'broadcast' again, as well as the internet. Cut the cord people!
Joe_Dragon, are you seriously suggesting that folks on /. don't know how to use the internet to watch their favorite shows? I don't think anyone is going to be missing anything... Though HBO and Dish are just going to encourage more cord cutting...
I was a zombie cable customer for years.
One day I turned on the TV and discovered the cable was out. It took a few days for the service team to arrive and they soon discovered that a grader had accidentally cut the cable when it was resurfacing the back alley. At that point I realized that no one had turned on the TV for over 2 months since that was when they were doing the work...
I cancelled my cable immediately, bought a digital OTA antenna from best buy for $20 in order to get the local channels (Shockingly good picture quality BTW). I invested in a VPN subscription along with upgrading to an unlimited DSL internet package from a internet wholesaler and a Netflx account. I now watch anything I want, whenever I want including sports for about 70% less than the cost of cable. As an added bonus, by making the laptop the media center, it's far quicker and more responsive than the clunky cable interface ever was.
Usury is charging money for the USE of money... charging interest. What you're taking about is gouging.
How is this modded 'insightful'? It's exactly backwards... thus far only 20% of pre-orders have been cancelled... 80% of people have waited years then they still bought the car...
Don't use Chrome on principal, don't use IE on principal and I've switched to duckduckgo for searches. Still stuck with gmail and occasionally a forced to use google maps. Google is now evil.
2nd hand anecdotal 'evidence' is worthless.
In Europe there is one standard mandated so it's entirely reasonable to have a 240v supplied charge point in each garage especially considering that internal combustion engines are being phased out. Should the standard ever change, it's not difficult to change out a box on the wall or a end on a cord. The wiring is already there. In NA, we didn't bother to plan ahead and missed our easy opportunity to mandate a standard so it's far more reasonable here to simply mandate a 240v dryer/stove outlet in the garage or near where vehicles are commonly parked which EV's can plug into.
I'm just going to come out and say it. Your post is nonsense. Even if super-capacitors do take the place of batteries in the EV (highly speculative), they can also charge at a slower rate so no infrastructure is actually obsolete. Then you can always add more infrastructure. Your entire post rests on the dubious argument that: "At some far point in the future some new technology is going to come along so we shouldn't do anything right now just in case."
When subcontractors are wiring a house during construction (which is what this law applies) running another circuit takes only minutes.
Since Europe mandates ONE charging standard for cars, unlikely, but even if they did, swapping ends on a cord is not hard... or expensive. Wiring for home charging and street charging is as simple and making sure a 240v outlet available.
When the bulk of the assembly is done by robot it doesn't matter how fast they work, you get an identical product each time. The trick is going to be ensuring that each robot has enough feedstock to work at full speed at all times and to choreograph their production in the line so that their product is not overloading or underloading the next step. The slowest part of the line dictates the speed of the entire line. Having multiple lines is better in some ways as well. That means that sometimes you can upgrade the lines independent of one and other and not have to totally shut down production.
Musk released the pack technology to the world, not the chemistry, which is rapidly advancing daily.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for legacy automakers to compete in the EV space against Tesla. Tesla years ago invested in massive battery manufacturing capacity and is hugely focused on cutting edge research into all areas of electric propulsion. Talk to any independent battery expert and they will tell you that not only are Tesla battery packs are the best in the industry, they are the lowest cost per KW as well AND DROPPING. Tesla also is hellbent on advancing electric motor technology. Their IP is second to none, even though they don't talk much about it and what's more, they're not sitting still. Tesla is already on their 6th generation of cell chemistry. Musk is not afraid to scrap everything they've built already if/when the next iteration comes along. Legacy automakers like to make a car and build it for a few years with only minor changes. For better or worse, the Model 3 you buy today is better than the one that you bought last month and the one you can buy next month is better than the one you could buy today.
Legacy automakers are now stuck playing catch-up buy trying to source components from 3rd party suppliers that are both inferior and more expensive than what's Tesla is offering. Hence why Chevy loses around $10,000 per Bolt. They're also stuck with dealership networks that don't want their customers to buy EV's since they're not nearly as good for their bottom lines as a gas car, nor do they want to invest the time to educate the public on the benefits of EV's. They are starting to panic now since sales of BMW and Mercedes are being absolutely savaged by the Model S/X and now the Model 3 promises to do the same as it moves downmarket into the 'average' car sales.
As for natural gas hybrids. Maybe. But I doubt it. Battery technology is advancing so rapidly these days, both capacity and charge times, that even the minimal benefit afforded by the natural gas 'range extender' will be greatly diminished, if not eliminated by mid 2020's. Then you've got to deal with new city bylaws and other regulations. Burning any type of fuel in a vehicle will become increasingly forbidden in cities since even the cleanest burning fuels still create CO2 and noise pollution. It's got a lot of the same problems as hydrogen fuel cells, it boils down to added expense and complexity for rapidly diminishing real world gain. It would have made a lot more sense back in the '90s but the times and technology are changing.
Who cares what the 'average' person thinks. What matters is if Tesla OWNERS are aware that autopilot is not fully autonomous and guess what, they do. Some just choose to ignore that little fact.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that the cells need to be replaced every 3-5 years. The cells Tesla uses in the power packs are rated for 5000 full cycles before degrading to 80% of their original capacity. If they cycled from 100% to 0% every single day of the year they would last 13.7 years. If you had to replace them every 5 years then it would mean that the system was completely filling and draining more than 2X per day. The reality of the system and the way it is being used is more likely to see the level of charge in the system fluctuating somewhere in the middle as it charges when most profitable and then briefly kicks out some power when the price spikes before waiting to charge again. Operating like this, the system could easily go decades before the cells needed replacing.
Once the cells do need replacing, Tesla has designed their cells with recycling in mind. They are designed to allow almost complete recovery of materials used so that the elements can be reprocessed and used in new cells again. Of course, I believe that Tesla actually contracted Samsung cells for this particular project since they are currently using everything that Panasonic is producing for their other projects when they took on this project.
Nikola has produced tons of hype but have they actually produced a production prototype yet that can be validated? They claim that they are going to build a factory but have they started construction yet? One really has to wonder if they have anything to sell. Also, you're wrong that a company cannot be a patent troll if they have any kind of product. SCO comes to mind....
Might as well import a 16K from Japan then if you're going to go to all that trouble just to show images. Otherwise just save your $14,000.
How much charge can you get in 5 minutes? Depends on the charge rate your vehicle can accept and in what state of discharge you pack is in. At peak, 5 minutes at a Tesla supercharger can add about 40 miles of range to your vehicle. If this stretch of road is located on the up incline of a hill, then you also get to nearly double that through regeneration on the way down the other side. I don't know what kind of rate the trucks will be able to pull through this system but even half that would be fantastic.
Yes, there is a marketing aspect to this.
But don't forget, a robot that 1/10th the speed is still profitable if it's 1/100th the cost.
I think people are missing the point that automation technology is continually advancing. Sure flippy today requires someone to place the burgers etc. but tomorrow the robot has now taken over salting and next year it's placing the burgers... then assembling the burgers... time goes by... now it's handling the payments as well...
A decade from now it's not unreasonable to assume there will be joints where the human employees visit only sporadically when there is a problem. 2 decades from now it's anyone's guess.
They're not that bad. I agree that they are impersonal, however, it's kind of nice to place your order then go sit down at a table, read the paper and McDonalds staff brings your food when it's ready.
Tesla has taken it upon itself to build continent wide charging infrastructure. Everybody else decided to let someone else build a network, (really just hoping the government will do it for them.) Of course there are good reasons why no other automakers are bothering, with the possible exception of Nissan, automakers do not want electric cars. They treat them as compliance vehicles to enable them to meet regulations and therefore sell lots and lots of high margin SUV's and Pickups. End result is that the Tesla supercharger network is by far the best way to charge an electric car. It's the fastest, cheapest and most reliable as well as widest reaching EV fast charging network out there and is growing at a phenomenal pace. Tesla has integrated the charging experience into their vehicles in a way no one else can hope to match since they've outsourcing the charging of their vehicles.
Non-Tesla EV drivers would love to access the Tesla network, it would dramatically improve their EV experience. Too bad their manufacturer doesn't want them too. Drivers of other brands of EV vehicles are still stuck with slow, broken, inconvenient, expensive and complicated (not to mention sparse) options. Even though we are finally starting to get some reasonable non-Tesla EV's (Leaf and Bolt) Anyone buying an electric vehicle needs to seriously consider how much value it provides to have access the supercharger network.
The supercharger network is currently a huge competitive advantage for Tesla and the other automakers simply don't care. On the surface it doesn't make sense until you remember that those automakers do not want to sell any electric vehicles beyond what regulations require. They simply have too much invested in current internal combustion technology. As a result, they pay lip service to electrification while drag their feet and try to slow the adoption of EV's through lobbying. They drag there feet on standards and anywhere else they can while the consumer loses. For the time being they will continue to be top dogs in the automotive world, and quarterly statements will remain strong but a tipping point is coming and when it arrives a good number of traditional automotive companies will be out. It's happened before when Toyota and Honda first entered the market. They were a joke... for a while. We're now watching history repeat.
Why would they bother? With demand so high, might as well take care of the top end of the market first. Doubt that you'll see a true $35,000 model 3 till at least 2019. Maybe not even before they launch the model Y
Bolt has a lot of potential but GM seems to be content to only produce ~25,000 per year. Kinda looks like Musk was right, that they can't sell it for the price without CARB credits or they'd lose money. Over in Europe GM may have been losing as much as $12 000 per bolt. https://insideevs.com/gm-repor...