Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
tooth
Trad climber
B.C.
|
|
I don’t think batteries in their current form will ever be as energy dense as petroleum. Gas cars burn 16x the energy to go one mile than an electric car, and BEVs are not going to get 16x more efficient. However the gas cars waste most of it in heat and sound.
You can go from Teslas 400v systems to Porches 800v and get faster charging but then you get more battery degradation. Even supercharging at 100kW is harder on our batteries than at 17kw like GMs. But now there are 200-350kW chargers available... the actual charging isn’t that hard on the grid. We have bigger draws from gas stations (to run all the gas pumps and convenience stores) in every tiny litttle podunk town already than what a destination charger takes.
|
|
tooth
Trad climber
B.C.
|
|
I’ve read a million of those articles and not a single one saying how they would accomplish the same goal the ‘correct ‘ way. It’s easy to criticize (talk) and hard to act or even put together a coherent plan and even harder to act successfully.
|
|
formerclimber
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
Wow, they're moving their car sales online... shocking....Can't imagine buying a car online. I bet the next move will be to move customer service on these purchases and warranties to online message boards only and no phone...just where all these "disruptive" industries are moving: elimination of human contact.
|
|
formerclimber
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
Article implies they're abandoning 20% of sales volume to obtain profitability. Sounds desperate.
Not only abandoning current 20% percent sales, but bigger percent of future sales/hurting expansion, I'm sure, as their current Model 3 buyers crowd, 82% of whom buy these cars online - let's just say it's not the regular customer who'd do that.
|
|
tooth
Trad climber
B.C.
|
|
Like I said... critical speculation comes easiest. Thanks for making my point for me. It almost takes zero effort.
Nobody else has made such a good vehicle - my charging times just dropped in half with tonight's announcement for V2 (12,888 of them deployed) and V3 supercharger updates. 1000 miles added per hour with V3 now. ( Compare to GM's 4-27miles added per hour- and has never made an improvement to the Bolt since my friend bought one. please explain to me how Tesla got the tech from them and how they lost their competitive advantage again?) BTW, my X is charging for free right now at a hotel - while I sleep. Drove 5 hours through a snowstorm and I don't have to get out to charge. Just plug in while I sleep. The cost of gas for that drive would have been more than the $92 I just spent on the hotel room.
It would be possible by next year to uproot and become an entirely Chinese company if they wanted to do so. The Chinese have no problems copying tech, Tesla has all open patents, and they can build faster than they do in Dubai. There is a reason GM moves production of most things but trucks offshore, but Elon and his character flaws keeps saying that he is stubbornly American and wants it all kept in-house.
|
|
fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
|
|
I wonder who gets stuck with that last Chevy Cruze.... that's gotta be one hot mess...
|
|
FRUMY
Trad climber
Bishop,CA
|
|
No way that you can compare Delorean with Tesla.
Tooth is right, I have read dozens of articles that don't get what's going on at Tesla.
I have also read some that do & it's sad he is relearning many of the things the industry already knew.
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
Tooth- Thanks for your reply. Technological improvements or not, if I spent 150k for a car and it dropped 40k overnight, I would be pissed as would most people. It not only devalues the brand but is a big FU to customers.
As for squandering their first mover advantage, they most definitely have. They should have been pumping out cars and printing money, instead they wasted huge amounts of time and money on poor ideas and now have to resort to playing musical chairs to stay afloat. Excessive automation which brought the assembly line to a screeching halt, bad idea. Design flaws such as designing a nine piece wheel well that has to be welded and riveted instead of a single stamped piece, bad idea. Hiring people as heads of vehicle engineering who have never developed cars, bad idea. Solar City bailout, bad idea. Audi is coming in a big way. So are other companies. They should be in a much stronger position than they are currently in.
So how does one fix things?
1)Stop trying to reinvent the wheel from a production standpoint and just build on top of the foundations of the industry.
2)Stop making ridiculous timetable and production number predictions.
3)Listen to your top people. You hired them for a reason.
4)Stop lying to investors.
5)Stop antagonizing the SEC. It won't end well.
|
|
tooth
Trad climber
B.C.
|
|
What if it cost 150 and dropped to 140 overnight while dropping features like free supercharging? That is more like what happened. Not the 40k USD drop. (Overseas tax issues made differences larger, like the 25% luxury tax we have in Canada for the previous base price on the x. )I could speculate that it would annoy me to drop 60% in price but when it didn’t actually do that ....
There were other design flaws that were pointed out by the guys who tore down the model3. They said it could be built way cheaper and lighter like the Chevy Cruze. But then the crash test results came out and they blew everyone else out of the water because of those complex wheel wells.
Sometimes the goals to be as safe as possible and to have as clean of air as possible mean that things are done and built differently making it hard to stand on the shoulders of previous automotive giants. I’ll agree with you though that there have been a lot of missed opportunities where they wanted to learn the hard way and didn’t know where to draw the line between the two choices.
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
Price drops of 40k and more actually did happen. Just look at prices in Europe and Asia. So no, it's not a trivial drop with a bonus upgrade.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
Tesla's Elon Musk could be suspended as CEO in latest SEC scuffle, securities lawyers say
Pretty sure I hear the fat lady warming up.
|
|
August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
|
|
Realistically though it's going to be extremely hard to approach the calorie density and distribution network of gasoline/diesel. Filling up with 20 gallons of gasoline for 500+ miles of range in 5 minutes is hard to beat. Even if such a battery existed that could be charged in such a time, the draw and network supporting the charger would have to be massive.
It is hard to know where the technology is going to go but you are probably right. You could probably get to a 5 minute time if the business model was that you drove into the station and there was an automated system that swapped out your batteries for already charged ones. Obviously someone else would have to own the batteries. I remember reading that somebody was trying this approach in Israel but haven't heard anything about it for a while.
If the country had spent as much money building charging networks as filling stations, I don't think there would be any issues. But building the system up from scratch isn't trivial. To really make a difference, you would probably need carbon taxes (or mandates) or else gasoline powered cars will probably be the majority of the market for some time to come.
|
|
fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
|
|
Musk is likely on the spectrum of mania somewhere... bi or unipolar sort.
A lot of our most creative minds were/are. So what?
At least he's attempting to be productive in a positive manner no matter how unlikely it may be. Reality will constrain his endeavors.
I've wondered if Leonardo Davinci was also somehow afflicted. The sheer volume of output is breathtaking and largely nonfunctional, but inspiring nonetheless. Wonder what a guy like that could have done with CAD/CAM.....
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
VP of Engineering just resigned. 3.5 years at Tesla. No new job lined up. He either had enough or was forced out.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
formerclimber: Can't imagine buying a car online.
Perhaps things have changed since I first found out about this, but most states (all?) have laws that automobiles must be purchased through automobile franchise dealers. Guess who got those laws through? It's a kind of territorial brand-exclusive monopoly. Were it not for that, I'd think we'd have seen automobilie buying online long ago.
The players in the American Automobile Industry have been in trouble for a long time. We taught many case studies on the stubborness of the Big 3 to see and adjust to changing industry structures. Poor performance almost predates our personal experiences of automobiles. But, hell, we don't care. Owning and driving your own vehicle is as American as apple pie.
It's worthwhile to look at all of the lobbying and deal-arranging that political representative made with the automobile industry. Eisenhower, rather than spending the money on mass transit, was lobbied by the automobile companies to spend the $25B on an interstate highway system. BITD, $25B was a great deal of money.
|
|
tooth
Trad climber
B.C.
|
|
My X now has more range than when I bought it over a year ago. Opposite of what I expected with battery degradation.
It has more power, faster 0-60 by .5s.
It has faster charging , cutting charging time 25-50% at superchargers.
It has so many new features as well.
I have never ever purchased a tech product like this that is bertter a year later in substantial ways.
|
|
formerclimber
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
I just said that I, personally, wouldn't ever buy a car online (and most of the average consumers wouldn't): it's not wise. But people should be allowed to buy cars, houses, etc online if they want to (I bought a house online once because of special situation, wouldn't do it again - most realtors won't get involved in remote house sale, btw). Heck, people even buy spouses online now.
Regarding these restrictive laws... aside from lobbies, I can imagine a lot more claims of misrepresentation, missing info, non-working things, lemon law returns (and attempts to reject these returns), for a new vehicle bought online vs in a dealership, after test driving it and doing smoke test on key features. In another thread here, it's been adamantly argued that the buyer must check all car features to be fully operational before leaving the dealership or not be entitled to any returns or amends.
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
Tooth- One more question regarding not being worried if Tesla folds. Talking to several friends who own Teslas, they have experienced loooong wait times for relatively minor repairs/issues. Seems that parts and technicians are often in short supply. I imagine it would be substantially worse if Tesla went belly up. Also, who would handle all the software issues and upgrades. I'm not saying these issues can't be overcome, just that its a lot more complicated than someone will buy up Tesla and everything will be fine.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
Thanks in large part to Elon Musk, Sapiens this week is one step closer to "colonizing" Mars.
Baby steps.
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
Yes, the SpaceX Crew Dragon successfully splashed down in the Atlantic today. Kudos to the team at SpaceX.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!