Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Elon Musk’s Tesla shares have plunged in value this week. Analysts cite competition and production concerns.
Tesla’s Stock Selloff Messes Up Musk’s Big Week
By Dana Hull
8 July 2017, 02:47 GMT+10
- Execution and competitive risks cloud cheaper car’s arrival
- Stock is on course for its worst week since February 2016
This was supposed to be Elon Musk’s big week, capped by Tesla Inc.’s first Model 3 sedan rolling off the assembly line. Instead, shares that had been riding high in anticipation of his most consequential car yet are poised for their worst week in almost a year and a half.
A troublesome quarterly sales report, the emergence of competing electric vehicles from the likes of Volvo Car Group and lingering concern about Tesla’s ability to mass produce have sent its stock down 13 percent this week. Modest gains in Friday trading still have left the shares on course for their steepest weekly drop since February 2016, and Tesla’s market value has dropped back below General Motors Co.
This week’s worries put a damper on the arrival of the linchpin to Musk’s growth ambitions. For Tesla, bringing out Model 3 and becoming more of a mass-market carmaker will require overcoming the routine manufacturing issues that have handicapped output of batteries or Model X sport utility vehicles. And so-called legacy automakers have sent a clear signal they won’t go down without a fight — Volvo underscored this by announcing all of its new models will have hybrid or fully electric powertrains from 2019.
…
Tesla will soon have more competition coming from major carmakers, Barclays Plc analyst Brian Johnson said.
“We’ve long argued that Tesla as an EV company is not truly disruptive, in that legacy carmakers will eventually wake up and offer fully electric vehicles by the early 2020s,” Johnson wrote in a report Wednesday.
…
This plunge in share value could be a short term blip. But given the interest expressed by established carmakers in embracing the electric or hybrid car markets, the pressure appears to be on for Elon Musk to explain what he does which is so different – why people should continue to invest with him, rather than investing with other, more established carmakers.
Tesla will have major competition from established car makers, who will compete directly model by model.. Jaguar I pace is due next year, as is Audi Qtron. They look better than Tesla’s offering and will have the credibility of major established manufacturers quality behind them. And a dealer network. And they are not at risk of going bust. Tesla is going to have it’s share price shorted to it’s death by the markets
Tesla has been spectacularly over-valued for months. Everyone knew this was coming. The market is getting soft for his $100,000.00 gee-whiz virtue machines, and will get a lot softer if Trump pulls the plug (ha ha) on virtue-signalling subsidies. Meanwhile, the new cheaper model will have to compete with well-established brands in the same price point, and aiming at the same (small) customer base, like the Toyota Prius. Volvo is going to sell most of its cars in China, and will go the way of Saab within a very few years.
Did you just say that the Toyota Prius customer base Is small?
Quick everyone – invest in extension cords without delay. 😉
Why do we need electric cars that are more expensive than gasoline powered vehicles I shall never know.
Somewhere at a thermal power station somewhere each electric car will using CO2 producing energy.
Wait til the subsidies run out.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Tesla has 600,000 orders for the model 3, with down payments from those folks totaling over USD 600M. Roughly half of those orders are from outside the US. They are doing just fine. The overvaluing does not mean the underlying company has a grim future, it just means investors got ahead of themselves.
Another fear of the market is what will happen when the subsidies dry up.
Musk can go to Mars – all he needs is your tax money.
Musk can make a great electric car – all he needs is your tax money for subsidies.
He can do anything – as long as we pay for it. He is a parasite.
Yes, what will happen to this massively over-valued company when the general public learns that Musk runs on public money, an effective PR machine, and as not much industrial capacity as reflected in its inflated value.
Also what is going to happen when all the cars he already sold start needing their batteries replaced? That huge unsubsidized expense will drive away many customers, especially with gas prices staying at low levels.
Parasite indeed!! All the greenies hold him to be some kinda messiah. I reckon hes more the devil in disguise. At best hes a con artist…at worst a crook. His product is a mirage and hes laughing all the way to space in his freakin space rockets!!@
And when the US economy collapses.
Jaguar and Audi are established names. Jaguar itself is essentially defunct. It is owned by India’s Tata Motors, just like Land Rover and Daewoo are. Quality, lol. Yawn. Audi is still Audi, and it has had a resurgence, but it had its share of woes.
By Audi Qtron, you must be referring to the Audi Q7 e-Tron (which really just looks like a plain wagon to me). The Audi A3 e-Tron is not selling in the US. “Major established manufacturer quality” BMW’s i3 and i8 aren’t selling in the US. Tesla is dominating them.
And the Ford F-series, all by itself, outsells all EV in the US by 7 to 1.
“And the Ford F-series, all by itself, outsells all EV in the US by 7 to 1.”
So what? First, there are far more passenger car models than there are heavy duty passenger truck models. So the F series will dominate most gas powered most passenger car models as well. Second, it’s only in the last 2 years that EVs have solved the range problem, and with the Model 3 (as well as other cars), sales will ramp up. They increased by 40% in the US in 2016.
EVs have solved the range problem?
At the cost of destroying their batteries even quicker.
MarkW said: “EVs have solved the range problem? At the cost of destroying their batteries even quicker.”
What’s your evidence of that?
.Here is data from Tesla’s older batteries, crowdsourced directly from their owners. At 700 charge cycles, batteries are still at 90% of day 1 capacity. The new 2170 battery, being produced at the Gigafactory, is better yet. At 200 mile range, that’s 700 x 200 = 140,000 miles – and the battery is still at 90% of day 1 capacity. Another data point from the article: “Though the battery degradation data along with the accompanying analysis by Teslanomics is based only on a small overall sample set of Tesla owners, the results do align with real world data from a high mileage Model S that registered over 200k mi (322k km). Electric mobility company Tesloop reported a 6% loss in range after 200k miles of driving.”
So after 200k miles, the range will be 188 miles instead of 200 (actually, they are saying 215, so 200 after a 6% dropoff). And that’s with the older generation batteries, not the new ones which are substantially improved.
http://www.teslarati.com/how-long-will-tesla-battery-last-degradation/
The other side of that coin is Volvo, Audi and Volkswagen don’t need subsidies to exist… Tesla does.
I am afraid you are right.
Tesla has run out of USPs.
Typo? UPS I think it is.
(USP = ‘Unique Selling Point’ or ‘Unique Selling Proposition’)
Uther People’s Script? Sorry!
Or the other UPS – uninterruptible power supply?
That’s the one …
U. S. Pharmacopeia.
Uther Pendragon’s Sword?
Tesla is a hobby, not a business.
If there is money to be made in electric cars, the car businesses will take over.
Tesla is a fraud, existing only by virtue of money stolen from the American taxpayers.
The US is bankrupt. Blame the notFederal Reserve. Without that blood supply the climate scam would not have been possible
Actually the US is not bankrupt. It is the private banks who are bankrupt except that they stole the right to print money from the government.
The US could do exactly what Lincoln did — print money in the form of circulating tax credits — the other kind of fiat money. That kind of fiat money is called Bills of Credit in the US Constitution. If the US had the will and honest politicians not bought by the banks, the US government could issue 20 trillion in Bills of Credit tomorrow and be ought of debt. And Bills of Credit do not require taxation or borrowing to issue them.
Private banks did not steal the right to print money. The federal government can print “money” anytime it wants. The US Treasury department can call up MS-Word, and print IOU $10,000.00 on a 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of white paper, then sell this “T-bill” to investors. If you had a bunch of these IOU’s you could use them as collateral for a loan, or you could even buy a house with them.
PS, if you have a $20 bill, take it out and look at it. It doesn’t say Bank of America, CitiBank, or Wells Fargo on it does it?
Banks do not print money any more than you do when you loan your brother in law 5 dollars.
Correct. Or when you use your credit card to buy that new toy now that you won’t be able to afford until next month’s paycheck and your credit card bill coincide.
And when you are using your credit card to buy that new toy, you are placing a deposit in the account of the company you’re buying from. That’s no different than what a bank does when it gives you a loan. Loans create deposits—not the other way around. And yes, out of ‘thin air’, just like you with your credit card. But you have to pay it back at a later date.
Both are credit money creation. Credit creation money is like dough going around in a dryer changing ownership. Each liability is someone else’s income.
The federal government, on the other hand, creates interest-free real dollars–whether that’s physical currency or cash-equivalent treasury securities–the only entity with the legal right to produce USD worldwide, and that is how the net financial assets of Americans increase over time. “High-powered” federal government money does not come with an offsetting liability. It’s yours to keep when the federal government buys (contracts to buy, or “spends on”) goods and services from the private sector. No one has to pay it back.
The UK has almost no spare electrical capacity, West Australia has insufficient electrical capacity and other states are on the edge relying on interconnectors. Yet people seem to think that electric cars are a good idea. Where is the electrical energy going to come from? Where are the new heavy duty distribution grids to supply the extra power to housing. The current energy requirements to power vehicles are met by diesel and gasoline, the energy requirement will remain the same and may even increase as electric cars tend to be heavier. So take the amount of diesel and gasoline sales and calculate how much energy that amount of petro-chemicals provides and that gives an indication of the additional electrical supply required from the power grid to support electric cars.
I would hypothesize that no country on earth has sufficient electrical supply overcapacity to support all road vehicles being powered by electricity. This the same lack of scalability as wind power.
For the needed wattage, see
https://www.masterresource.org/electric-vehicles/energy-usage-cost-gasoline-vs-electric/
If 100% of US passenger vehicles were PEV’s, it would require a 27% increase in generation capacity.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/27/in-search-of-the-3-renewable-energy-tipping-point/
Worse yet, most of these PEV’s would be plugged in after people returned home from work. This is already peak demand time and it occurs as solar power is fading and dispatchable power is ramping up (the “duck”). A significant penetration of PEV’s would break the duck’s neck.
That’s why they want the Smart Grid, Smart Meters and Smart Appliances. When everyone plugs in their Tesla Model 3 at 6 PM, the only way they can prevent a grid implosion is to reach into people’s homes and switch off the AC, pool pumps, washing machines, dryers and other energy hogs using the Smart Grid off switch…
http://breakingenergy.com/2011/07/25/utility-nightmares-of-electric-cars/
I really don’t think I want a plugin ambulance, police car, or fire truck coming to save me…..
ha…..just realized…..these toys will not work for hurricane evacuation at all
Or instead of Smart Grid they assign everyone a charging period by address. Similar to the 1970’s gas days where you could only buy gas on certain days according to license plate number. Perhaps they will have charging credits, available to those whose charging time is less which can be sold to those who need more charging time. And of course they will require black boxes in electric cars to be able to charge taxes by the miles driven for road upkeep.
In any event, no matter which way it goes, the entire populace will become totally dependent upon government. .
Every once in awhile, we get a wind storm that blows down trees and branches, disrupting our electricity over night. Imagine all the disruptions caused by the number of commuters unable to get to their places of employment.
So many questions! I want to know where all the copper will come from and at what price.
The major problem that we have not seen yet as most electric vehicles are rich people’s toys or golf carts, is what happens when there is a major traffic jam – the 20+ mile jam of stationary/slow moving traffic in snow at night. There will be electric cars running out of power, and you can’t loan them a gallon – they are bricked and will block the road (making problems worse) until they can be towed to a power supply.
Long cross country drives 1,800 miles Florida to upstate New York or Charlotte to San Francisco will become a lottery dependent on where/whether recharging is available and could take a day or more longer due to the recharging times.
“Smart” means stupid.
Just like “progressive” means retarded.
All leftist “Newspeak”
Smart meters is all you need, along with Uber-style “surge pricing”. People will move their car charging to off-hours, to save money. Here in Canada, some broadband providers who have monthly data caps, do not count traffic between 2:00 AM and 8:00 AM. While I don’t expect free electricity overnight, it’ll probably be lower cost.
0200-0800 will no longer be “off-hours” with 50,000,000 PEV’s.
This is just friggin ‘ noisensense. I plug my EV in when I get home but it has a timer built in so it starts charging at 1:00 a.m. when electricity is cheaper. you don’t need smart anything – just cheap electricity at night ans a time switch.
Let’s see how that works out when a significant percentage of your neighbors are doing the same thing.
Besides unpredictable wind generation, there is the additional distribution problem with solar generation:
A lot of houses here nowadays have rooftop solar. Problem is that at peak solar, the car is at the people’s work place at a distance where that moment the highest demand is. As long as not more than 1:4 houses in average is self-sufficient for power, that is not a problem as the peak load is about the same during the day as at night, be it in opposite direction.
If more houses are installing rooftop panels, one need to increase the capacity between homes and work to a multiple of today. That is one of the problems that the German “Energiewende” faces already…
Alternative is that every household installs batteries, enough to load the car and all utilities for a full day, but that indeed is a huge cost, repeating itself every x years…
david
Solar power starts to fade from noon UTC. By evening its less than 20% even on a summers day
Hence the “duck” curve.
John Hardy, you are talking present-day when EVs and plug-in hybrids make-up a puny portion of the automotive sector.
BIG BROTHER
What you really need is a big battery that charges from solar during the day, then you plug that into the EV when you get home.
Make the system separate from the grid, and part of the car purchase 😉
Live by the sword.. or not !!
Okay, so we have installed these smart meters. The benefit to the electric company is they can cut off your electricity without having to send out an employee. This is a big reason to put them in.
Having put them in, who is supposed to rewire entire houses so the smart meter can cut off circuits as needed. I doubt that the home owner wants to pay for that so they can have their airconditioner shut off when they need it, or their washing machine shut off for a few hours so they then have to put the washing on the line in the dark!
That’s where smart appliances come in. The smart grid can communicate with smart appliances through dumb wiring.
That’s why cutting off the AC is so popular. Not only is it one of the biggest energy users in the average household, but the compressor is already located outside, which makes installing the switch much easier.
This is the neutron star in the room which no one seems to be addressing. Has everyone gone insane? If the majors start mass producing those things and there is large scale consumer uptake then the grid is permanently crashed. Of that there can be no doubt so surely you would expect rapid legislation to ensure that any escalation in electric vehicle manufacture is preceded at all times by the required power generation upgrades.
This is so basic and fundamental that it is literally unbelievable that the problem is not being addressed – although the “leaders” of the previously Western democracies now make the Mad Hatter look like a sober and rational engineer as they weave and lurch from one self-induced non climate-related catastrophe to the next.
In Northern Ireland last year, the government collapsed as a result of the cash for ash scandal. The renewal energy project which brought it about, was economic nonsense. But, because it was saving the planet, any dissent was oppressed.
Right now EV’s are approx. 1% of cars on the road in North America. They are a non-starter for anyone outside of a short-trip urban center, due to the range and lack of charging station issues. I wouldn’t keep myself up nights about them “crashing the grid.” 🙂
It is a simple and brilliant idea. First, the grid crashes. The, the government starts a major extension and upgrading of the grid, getting the money from increased taxes on fossil fuels and fossil fuel cars. Then everybody buys EVs. And finally, the government makes a total about-face and introduces the same heavy taxes on EVs. The plan can’t fail.
“This is the neutron star in the room which no one seems to be addressing. Has everyone gone insane?”
Great post, cephus0!
Many people *have* gone insane, unfortunately. Of course, they have had a lot of help from a cadre of liars in the political arena and from the MSM.
Most of our politicians seem clueless about the future. If not for Trump, the free world would have no rudder at all.
Agree cephus0, widespread adoption of electric cars would crash the grid. Only fair and reasonable solution is an excise tax on producers of electric vehicles and on users of electric cars for the funds to expand the US grid up to 30-40% increase in output and greatly increased peak load power generation and stabilization of the grid. Then once the rubber on these electric cars meets the road taxes per mile equivalent to the state and federal gas taxes of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles would also be added to the tax on electric vehicles.
Now how do electric vehicles look as a viable alternative?
cepbus0: go and do some back of the envelope maths based on a daily average of 24 miles a day and 4 miles per kW hour. with the assumption that the utilities can incentivise charging overnight.
One advantage to having smart meters for charging your EV is that the government will know how many electrons you are putting into your EV and can tax you based on that.
Smart meters cannot tell the difference between a window fan, a refrigerator or a charging EV, so taxing would be problematic.
Finally, the germane question is posed. Electricity suppliers have adapted to the load increases seen when all those commuters get home and turn on all those appliances. Now, commuter transport is going to be added to the grid load.
“I would hypothesize that no country on earth has sufficient electrical supply overcapacity to support all road vehicles being powered by electricity”
Norway has lots of hydro (and commonly uses electricity for space heating) and Iceland has lots of geothermal. But I can’t think of any other possible examples.
I believe that a lot of aluminium (and lithium?) ore is shipped to Norway and Iceland for refining as the process is electricity intensive.
James
Aluminum, Electricity, try New Zealand
Indeed , Norway is no. 7 of the world’s aluminium producers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_aluminium_production
Some electric transportation makes sense and does work. Think the Paris Metro, Seoul or NYC subway.
Enjoy a ride on Norway’s electric train system, from Oslo – Bergen, along the Bergen Line.
Music by Moby, video by “neo from D”
Alan,
Nice video. What strikes me it that, to energize this facility from renewables, there would need to be a wind turbine surrounded by solar panels adjacent to every tenth steel lattice support. The countryside would look vastly different in that case
Indeed, Norway has 98% power from hydro.
They have enough capacity to warm most houses with electricity too, including water boilers, but converting all their transportation into electric will need more capacity than they have now.
Solar is of little interest there (zero output in winter), but wind they have (more than) enough and hydro is the ideal backup for wind. I only hope that they don’t built it themselves and ruin their landscape, so let the Germans and Danish supply all what they need when there is too much wind in these countries (the Danish already do that at night when prices are near zero and they need to get rid of it…) and use that for their own profit…
Meanwhile they can sell all their Nord Sea oil and gas to the rest of the world. Smart people in Norway…
Ian W
You don’t seem to understand how EFFICIENT the electric cars will be! And going downhill they generate POWER that is fed into the batteries. This CHARGES the vehicle!
Once you add up the efficiency gain and all the recuperation of energy you will find, after suitable Karlization, that it hardly takes any wind turbines at all to power an entire country’s vehicle fleet.
You only have to understand how efficient it is to turn wind into mechanical power to turn a dynamo. That in turn, with suitable control hardware and electronics and a frequency and phase sensing line from outside the State, controls the electrical output from the wind turbine. This energy is transferred over high voltage wires hundreds of kilometers very efficiently to step down transformers in stages so as to make it available at a safe voltage for domestic customers. After passing through the house wiring it charges the chemical storage batteries on the Tesla. Hardly any power is lost in the process. Not enough to mention. Then the battery powers motors which power the gear train which turns the tires against the rolling resistance which moves the vehicle and accessories wherever the driver wishes to go, on auto-pilot if they like.
The energy required to power this system is FAR less that the energy in a supply of gasoline. Just add it up and divide by three.
There are thousands of enthusiasts around the world working on getting a return above 1.0 from motor-generator systems. Pretty soon one of them will make the ‘big announcement’ that will allow cars to drive themselves while charging the battery at the same time. It is all about the efficiency. Soon it will exceed 100%, don’t you worry. A breakthrough is just around the corner.
It’s a wonderful time to be alive. Once they discovered how to pull the element hopium out of the mineral thinairite literally nothing is impossible anymore. Apparently Uranus is full of it, and it’s just a simple matter of Elon Musk probing Uranus to save us.
Clarification (since some people may think he just makes cars). It’s just a simple matter of Elon Musk sending his spaceships to pull hopium out of Uranus.
………….LOL
I hope you English experts spied that I was writing in the ‘Future Hopeful’ tense. It is one of the new ones. Another is popular with climate scientists: ‘Past Regretful’.
I look forward to this announcement of the suspension of the laws of physics.
And the claims that a current Tesla model as it leaves the showroom has already established a carbon footprint equivalent to running a gasoline vehicle for 8 years just to build the battery, or that most (85%) of the electrical power to run it will come from fossil fuel generated electricity for decades to come are just oil and gas industry funded conspiracy theories not backed up by “consensus science”. Damn capitalists with their petty little facts!
Thank you, Crispin Maximus!
Don’t worry Crispin. You’re covered. I was impressed that you didn’t use the /sarc tag.
Doesn’t Exxon/Mobil have a patent on “an apparatus that generates more power than it uses” ?
I shouldn’t laugh at that, I Came I Saw I Left. But I did. 🙂
Don’t forget Musk’s latest computer aerodynamic simulations for designing ev’s to be more efficient at breaking wind.
We can pull the cars with horses to generate electricity!
I C I S I L,
Perhaps Musk is investing to much time in Hopium Abuse
Crispin in Ulaanbaatar
I am surprised that they haven’t fitted wind turbines in specially shaped ducts in the EVs the turbines themselves will provide power to recharge the batteries when the car is on the move and if the cars are parked facing into wind will charge the car even when not connected to a power supply!
Sadly – I really think some people are gullible enough to believe in that :-/
Poe’s Law in action. I really couldn’t be sure until I got to the exceeding 100% bit. And, of course, it would have required that the real Crispin had been abducted by the body snatchers.
Is Hopium a better material then Unobtainium?
Too late.
A Chinese farmer has already invented a car that uses a fan to generate electricity to drive the car.
http://www.odditycentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wind-powered-car.jpg
http://www.odditycentral.com/news/chinese-farmer-builds-wind-powered-car.html
Believe it or not, there are ‘Greens’ who actually believe it.
…works only downhill…
Fossil fuels supply a significant portion of the elcric grid. However, that delivery of energy is more efficient than engines in current productions cars. So on balance, an EV will reduce fossil fuel consumption.
Peak energy demands can be managed better with charging during off-peak periods. California is already doing that in pilot programs.
And the EV you buy today become less polluting as more renewable sources come on-line.
You haven’t allowed for transmission line losses or additional infrastructure requirements or road maintenance costs so sorry, you’re 100% wrong. But only in an overall or complete sense.
Vinnue,
Depends of a lot of things, especially he real production mix:
Norway: 98% hydro
France: 70% nuclear, 25% hydro, 5% mixed
There you have little or no fossil use by driving electric.
The Netherlands: 80% gas, 15% coal, 5% wind
The CO2 emissions for an electric car and a diesel car are about the same, thus fossil fuel use is about the same, but emissions are local for the diesel car and mostly centralised at the power plant for the electric car.
Interesting and quite complete figures for the Netherlands are here:
http://www.energiefeiten.nl/
It is in Dutch, but Google Translate does (mostly) a good job to translate the essence of the story.
Germany: 60% coal, 40% renewable
More renewables than in the Netherlands, but coal about doubles the CO2 emissions compared to natural gas and needs far more gas scrubbing to remove other pollutants. Will not differ much from the Dutch situation, despite much more renewables.
Ian,
Good points, I become annoyed when ignorant politicians and MSM fail to mention and reveal all the enormous cost of providing the infrastructure to implement a bad mandate. Same for wind and solar, another bad idea, requiring batteries or other means for backup due to the intermittent operation.
Another issue ignored is who will pay for the massive array of recharging stations to duplicate the privately funded gas and diesel stations throughout the USA and other countries especially considering the expanse of rural area on back roads. One can drive almost anywhere knowing they can fill up their vehicle normally at competitive prices. Has anyone put a cost on this including increased local electrical supply to all those rural recharging stations.
I suspect the governments will plan on subsidizing the grid and generating capacity as well as the placement of charging stations to further push a horrible agenda.
Finally moving forward without a viable battery that provides reasonable range and can be recharged quickly while hoping for innovation to solve the severe limitations (which may never happen in our lifetime) is clearly irresponsible.
No mention of how they plan to replace the fuel taxes either, around 40c/litre in Oz at the moment.
The only hope would be if almost all the charging was done off-peak hours. This would mean having a default setting where the vehicles did not start drawing full power as soon as they are plugged in when people return home from work, and relying on most customers to not disable it. I’m in my mid 40’s and don’t bother customizing my phone much, but my kids explore all the settings and wouldn’t be likely to not mess with it so the car could be ready faster.
“The UK has almost no spare electrical capacity, West Australia has insufficient electrical capacity and other states are on the edge relying on interconnectors.”
Most folks will charge their cars overnight, while at home. Where is your evidence that these grids have no spare nighttime electrical capacity?
Here in Aus, the power costs the same at night as it does during the day.
“Here in Aus, the power costs the same at night as it does during the day.”
That’s only on the standard plan. Under TOU (time of use) plans, the nighttime rate is 1/3 to 1/4 of the peak daytime rate: https://www.originenergy.com.au/content/dam/origin/residential/docs/energy-price-fact-sheets/nsw/20160616/NSW_Electricity_Residential_AusGrid_OriginSaver13.PDF
No solus manufacturer of EVs has survived. In the first place demand for EVs is miniscule. Despite the propaganda over increased alternative vehicle sales, look closer and it is hybrids that are selling the vast majority. Note that Volvo – while possibly committing commercial suicide except that they will continue to MAKE proper cars, just not DESIGN new ones – mention they will make hybrids. The investment required to go from niche market to main stream is huge. The rise of Tesla is like a green version of the dotcom boom, with bust coming shortly once the global warming scam dies out.
On the back of Volvo’s announcement – which is not a traded company so has no shareholders – and the French saying no more real cars come 2040, even the UK MPs, some of the most ignorant and stupid people on the planet, noticed that there might be a shortage of electricity to charge all these future electric cars up. Too big a jump for them to also consider that there might not be enough lithium to make all the batteries either if all the crazy green ideas were to happen. Joined up thinking is not what they do.
Indeed – in order for there to be serious growth in the EV or hybrid market there has to be a proper value proposition. What exactly is the benefit to the car owner of buying one of these vehicles. What will they get that they currently don’t get now ? The paying public are not going to incovenience themselves for some nebulous aspiration of saving the planet.
Apparently, in the search for something to make Afghanistan a bit more economically stable, a study of the available resources revealed that the country is just teaming with lithium.
Unfortunately, the locals are a bit on the “flaky” side, but I’ve heard they love to deal.
The more revenue Tesla generates, the more money it loses. Their only profitable quarter was entirely due to its sale of zero emission vehicle (ZEV) credits.
Without massive injections of OPM, Tesla would have ceased to be a going concern years ago.
http://fortune.com/2017/05/04/tesla-motors-stock-earnings/
You mean like Fisker?
Fisker lacked Musk’s access to OPM.
Funny. Fiskar was renamed Karma Automotive. Gives new meaning to the bumper sticker that says “My karma ran over your dogma”.
Delightful.
Can’t wait for this star to fall from the heavens.
It is a very cool car and the tech is awesome. “Cool” will always sell until the fad fades or the OPM runs dry.
Pretty much par for the course in the “green” business sector: Selling dollar bills for 97 cents gets market share but only works while subsidies make up the difference. That honeymoon is clearly coming to an end.
Electric cars will not get mass acceptance until a 400 mile recharge will take only 5 minutes. Right now, with an ICE, I can pull into a gas station and, assuming there is no line, put enough gasoline/diesel in my car to travel about 400 miles in about 5 minutes, including paying for the fuel. It may take off in European countries faster because in Europe, 100 miles is a holiday; in the US, 100 miles is a daily commute.
Until we solve both the battery capacity and battery recharge problem, we will be stuck with engines and not motors for our vehicles.
Not to mention the battery disposal problem when all those batteries eventually die.
Lithium is quite valuable. It will be recycled.
I wonder what the cost of a lithium battery recycle is. Lead-acid batteries do not have near the polymers that Li-Ion have.
And the lithium loss in recycling is….?
There was a story last week about how the Chinese are ready to eat Elon’s lunch when it comes to battery manufacturing. It’s just amazing how much cheaper you can make things when yu don’t have an EPA breathing down your neck.
Regarding China and our EPA, neither China, nor the USA are following the right path, at this time.
China will pay a price for ignoring what needs attention and the USA has been paying a price for elevating agendas above truth. Universal conditions, in the end.
You could quickly charge up a gigantic 400-mile capacitor that every once in a while discharges unexpectedly and zaps the EV’s occupants.
Fast battery recharge is just not tenable. The problem with any process that can rapidly and efficiently store energy is that it can rapidly and efficiently release it. Boom!
But, modular battery packs that can be swapped out might be tenable.
https://www.greenoptimistic.com/eos-energy-storage-zinc-air-battery-20120228/
How do you price the swap, given the fact that the value of the pack depends on how old it is.
Furthermore, how do you reliably, and quickly determine the age and condition of the packs being swapped?
“Electric cars will not get mass acceptance until a 400 mile recharge will take only 5 minutes.”
Both have already been done. The 5 min charge is not commercially available yet but has been demonstrated. Also, the US has roughly 75M single family detached homes. That’s a very large number of potential EV sales to folks that can (and do) charge their cars overnight. 80% of US families have 2 or more cars. They can easily have one purely commuter vehicle, and one that is used for commuting plus longer trips.
http://www.thedrive.com/news/10227/israeli-company-demonstrates-300-mile-electric-car-battery-that-charges-in-5-minutes
How much battery life is lost each time you super charge it?
As electric cars become more common, they will at some point, be taxed to help pay for the roads they use. This will make them even less competitive with cars powered by internal combustion engines.
It won’t make any difference. I would have made similar arguments about the ghastly environment-destroying wind turbines but if the zeitgeist goes in that direction then nothing will stop it no matter how absurd it is. The affluence of the West appears to have completely destabilised it and has imposed a post-rational suicidal culture which is eating itself from within.
I think that is accurate, well stated and consequentially profound. It could be read as the epitaph of Western Civilization! Take a few moments to read what cephus0 wrote!
As has been linked to here earlier, Denmark dropped their EVs subsidies, and the sale of EVs plummeted.
http://gas2.org/2016/09/12/electric-car-denmark-plummet-change-tax-policy/
Your link also says this: “Our position is that ending subsidies on fossil fuels is more effective at promoting market decisions that benefit all of society than regulations that mandate people to buy certain products or incentives that benefit only a few. Making the price of fossil fuels accurately reflect their true cost to society — including the health care costs associated with their use — is the most intelligent way forward toward a sustainable world.”
There are no subsidies on fossil fuels.
“There are no subsidies on fossil fuels.”
Standard MarkW post – zero supporting links,
And all those dead batteries will go where? Todays cars are so clean compared to those of 20 years ago. If not for the bs of agw electric cars would disappear
The dead batteries will go into the same landfills as worn out solar panels.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/29/toxic-waste-from-solar-panels-300-times-that-of-nuclear-power/
Batteries are recycled even today.
Lead-acid batteries are recycled. Li-ion batteries are a different story. Recycled lithium currently costs about 5x freshly mined lithium and only about 3-5% of li-ion battery components can be economically recycled…
http://kunr.org/post/what-do-we-do-all-teslas-lithium-ion-batteries#stream/0
“If and when all 400,000 pre-ordered Tesla Model 3s make it onto the road, the company’s recycling plans may actually be viable.”
If, when and may…
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/9/94/Threestrikesyourout.jpg
Lead acid batteries are recycled – after 150 years in existence. Lithium ion batteries are not yet recycled. I believe in a technological progress.
I don’t base capital allocation on beliefs
Of course, they could just burn the batteries. They seem prone to doing it any way.
Perhaps, a batteries to steam plant
Just in time for the South Australian gov’nt to invest.
Do I need a /sarc tag?
Indeed , that is his ‘bale-out’ what that means for the people of South Australian is a good question, but the chances are it is not going to end well , or cheaply , for them.
Volvo is owned by Geely, a Chinese company.
Geely buys their batteries from A123 batteries to power Chinese battery vehicles
http://www.a123systems.com/f85499a4-a0ca-4f36-b476-4214079b573b/media-room-2012-press-releases-detail.htm
(A123 was the supplier to Fisker vehicle manufacturer)
A123, and Fisker, are now Chinese owned companies.
It is just like the housing market. Bump up the poplulation with immigration and houses become like hen’s teeth. Bump up EVs and charging facilities become goose teeth.
Like Baldrick I have a cunning plan. Buy a thumping great diesel and charge an arm and a leg for reliable charging. (complete with parking fines in the small print!)
Black Adder must work for Tesla… http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/28/tesla-supercharger-station-powered-by-diesel-generators-video/
Here we have South Australia in trouble with forward electricity supply and rumours that Tesla will supply the World’s largest battery.
In normal times, there would be public recognition of this looming crash and perhaps public discussion about risk.
It is not normal times. It is predictable that Australian Governments, Federal and State, will be tight-lipped and evasive. The battery sale will proceed to make taxpayers even poorer, Tesla might crash SA will continue to have electricity supply problems, perhaps serious and long-lasting.
How do we, the public head off this emerging mess?
Send vu strikes again?
Geoff
For send vu read deja vu, then try to work out this tablet’s like gic.
Geoff
Logic
First pilot: i’m at 20,000 feet.
Second pilot: i’m at twenty, too.
Air traffic, well that’s OK then!
Stock is on course for its worst week since February 2016
Weather is not climate. Weekly stock price is weather.
Very true. However 13% down in a week is something of a hurricane.
Not where’s the roof but where’s the floor?
Not really, given how high the market cap was. A correction makes sense.
And Tesla’s market cap is like a climate model: totally unsupported by real data.
“past performance does not necessarily predict future results”
Usually that caveat is used in the context of good past performance.
Tesla is in the same position as RIM/Blackberry was a few years ago. I always thought Microsoft would wake up and eat Blackberry’s lunch but eventually it was Google and Apple. Blackberry really didn’t have anything that a bigger company couldn’t replicate. In fact I would have thought Blackberry had more going for it than Tesla.
While I follow Tesla stock in a very hit-or-miss fashion, I do know that there have been multiple analyst articles that question where in the world Tesla will find the manufacturing capacity to produce their three vehicles (Model S, Model X, Model 3 – catchy names, right?) . The inability to realize promised production figures by the company has led many to be at least skeptical. And I can’t understand why anyone can forget Musk’s own statements in the past that he can’t understand the high price of his company’s stock? Apparently no one believed him, until now.
Middleton has apparently made a boo-boo about the electrical power that would be required if the entire fleet were electrified. Let me first off say that rational people don’t suddenly throw 250 million vehicles, (many worth over $40,000) down the drain just because automakers have switched to most (or all) electric vehicle production. It takes a while to turn over the fleet and it never completely turns over at that. As for Middleton’s claim that the grid would require 27% more “capacity” in order to produce 27% more power, nothing could be further from the truth. And the ilusion that when an EV owner returns home, he will imediately plug in his car makes two big errors – a very large portion of the driving public will not have any ability to recharge their car’s batteries at home – here Middleton is harking back to the days when EV owners could only recharge their cars at home.
In addition, utilities facing large EV demand will do what many have already done – have variable rates that are very low at night to entice EV owners to recharge then. It certainly will make no difference in convenience to EV owners,since their cars are generally not driven after midnight.
With the Tesla supercharger stations, an EV can be almost competely rechrged (to 80%) in under 20 minutes. With a driving range of over 250 miles and an average commute requiring a round trip of less than 50 miles, it seems likely that all those folks living in apartments, condos, etc. will do their recharging at public charging stations . And Tesla Supercharger stations derive their power primarilly from their solar panels, NOT the grid, so those vehicles that use them, or other stations like them, will have near ZERO impact on the grid.
And Middleton’s mistake confusing power capacity with power generated leads him to make ridiculously wrong conclusions. The grid has a large amount of unused capacity, primarily at night when people sleep, which is precisely when EV owners prefer to recharge their batteries. The estimates from grid operators as to the likely demand with an all electric fleet was that in some places, some additional capacity might be required. But even that estimate is in error, as it was made assuming all EVs recharge off the grid, which, as we saw, was not the case in Supercharger stations and ALSO not the case where EV owners have bought Tesla wall battery modules to
receive power from solar panels, and then used to recharge the owner’s EV.
As can be seen, there are plenty of reasons to doubt that much, if any, additional generation capacity would be required to service an electric fleet, and that any required capacity does not have to be online for a number of years
“…an EV can be almost competely rechrged (to 80%) in under 20 minutes. With a driving range of over 250 miles…”
I can refill my car to 100% in 5 minutes and have a 500 mile driving range…
That’s why it’s just pure deceit when they make the claim that EVs are close to being, or are, cost comparable to petro cars. A car that can go 500 miles per (quick-fill) tankful is not comparable to one that can only go 200 miles per (slow) charge (under perfect no load conditions) even if they do cost the same.
Pouring that much energy into the battery that quickly is going to cause lots of thermal stress.
These so called super charge cycles are going to seriously decrease over all battery life.
David – File this one under the “It’s worse than we thought!” (Reference the “Green” toxic waste problem.)
Apparently, every “Green” household will not just be dumping their solar panels into the waste stream – they’ll also be dumping a minimum of two lithium batteries, one larger than the other, from the Tesla in the garage. (This assumes they only “Greenify” their transport, and don’t add to the waste stream from “Greenifying” their house, too.)
A difference of opinion about what might happen in the future is not a “boo boo.” Given a choice of futurist platitudes vs extrapolations of current trends and processes, there is only one logical choice upon which to make investment decisions.
The math is very trivial. The average U.S. vehicle is driven 15,000 miles per year. The average PEV consumes 30 kWh per 100 miles. This works out to 4,500 kWh/yr per PEV. 600 million PEV’s would consume 2.7 million GWh/yr of electricity. This is equivalent to 62% of the average total U.S. electricity generation from 2010-2016. There are about 263.6 passenger vehicles in the U.S. If the entire U.S. fleet was converted to PEV’s, it would consume the equivalent of 27% of our current annual electricity generation.
At just a 6% US market penetration, PEV’s would consume as much electricity as all of the oil refineries in the US.
A 30% penetration would require a 9% increase in generation capacity.
The IEA says the world needs 600 million PEV’s. This would require an increased generation equivalent to 62% of the current US ourput. This would have to be accomplished while dispatchable sources (coal, gas and nukes) are being replaced with nondispatchable sources.
Regarding the utility nightmare…
http://breakingenergy.com/2011/07/25/utility-nightmares-of-electric-cars/
Very few office parking garages offer charging stations. And those that do, have very few outlets. The vast majority of PEV owners will be plugging their cars in when they get home from work, hoping that they will be recharged by morning.
It’s “fine” if you live in a house and plug-in when you get home. If you live in an apartment, how many people have a place to plug-in their cars? And when you look at crowded cities where it makes the most sense to have EVs…how much on-street parking has chargers? How will they be protected from pranksters who will be tempted to disconnect them? Most of my friends in NY who have a parking spot in their apartment or condo building have valet people who cram the cars in…no charging there.
In the south, the AC runs most of the night.
“…an EV can be almost competely rechrged (to 80%) in under 20 minutes. With a driving range of over 250 miles…”
From Tesla website, 30 minutes = 170 miles with EV charge (vs 40 miles in 1 hour std charging), the value 80% is meaningless…plus, that is OPTIMAL driving, meaning no a/c, no heat, crank up either and the “mileage” drops by a noticeable amount
I saw an article the other day about someone taking a normally 5.5hr trip from Sacramento to LA and having it take over 11 hrs because of recharging stops.
It feels like a conspiracy to push a California high speed train. However, the first leg to be built, Fresno to Bakersfield, just happens to be distance which a Tesla would cover without recharging.
“utilities facing large EV demand will do what many have already done – have variable rates that are very low at night to entice EV owners to recharge then.” Ah, catering to EV’s at the expense of all others. Sounds fair.
If EV’s get into the millions, where in Hell are all these solar panels going to go? And you can’t charge after dark? Actually before about 10 AM or after 4 PM the way solar performs at angles of incidence. Oh yeah, no driving on cloudy days!! Probably the stupidest set of ideas I have ever come across in my 60 years!
Stupidest engineering idea. There are stupider ideas.
“If we jail enough people we can drive alcohol consumption to near zero.”
An area in Arizona of 80 miles by 80 miles would generate 100% of US energy needs. So panel space is not an issue. Storage still is, that is being worked on. And of course EVs themselves can be storage units, in addition to their primary role in powering the vehicle.
So we are going to charge up EVs during the day so that we can store enough energy to charge up the EVs at night.
You may want to rethink that plan skippy.
Chris, speaking of Arizona (or that area of the country,) “storage” isn’t that far off as being commercially in operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project
“Chris July 9, 2017 at 2:16 am”
And getting it from there to where it is needed?
“So we are going to charge up EVs during the day so that we can store enough energy to charge up the EVs at night.
You may want to rethink that plan skippy.”
I guess I need to explain it to you in more detail. I was mistaken in thinking you could extrapolate. Most places have a combination of fossil fuel and renewable. For those locations, if nighttime energy demand and prices are low, then charge electric cars at night. During the daytime, IF there are times when there is high energy demand, utilities could offer to buy back electricity from EV owners at a premium to what they paid for it during the night. In essence, paying EV owners to store electricity for them. It can also happen in reverse – in locations with very high RE %, charge the cars during the day and sell back the power at night. It all depends on the grid environment, and of course what the EV owner chooses to do.
1) Most folks would rather plug in their vehicles once they get home rather that wait 20 minutes at a charging station or waiting until later (which makes the car unavailable for an emergency or just going out to eat), just like with their phones.
2) Tesla supercharger stations rely almost completely on the grid.
“Tesla has been talking about adding solar arrays and batteries to its Supercharger stations ever since announcing the fast-charging network in 2012.
But only half a dozen stations or so out of the over 800 stations ended up getting a solar array.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/electrek.co/2017/06/09/tesla-superchargers-solar-battery-grid-elon-musk/amp/
Arthur4563 wrote, “And Tesla Supercharger stations derive their power primarily [sic] from their solar panels, NOT the grid ,,, ”
Elon Musk said in June, “All Superchargers are being converted to solar/battery power. Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/elon-musk-says-tesla-superchargers-will-run-solar-battery-power-2550354
I point this out because a lot is being said and written about what Elon Musk and his cars do and what they will do and the two are often conflated. That was the case here. Musk and his company have done something terrific and extremely difficult. They have built a new car brand and are building cars that people are buying. They have lots of happy customers but their cars are not for everyone just like SUVs are not for everyone.
It’s important that we stick with the facts, with what is and what may be sometime in the future and recognize the difference.
Very good points, and there are others that demonstrate the fallacy of Middleton’s main points. There are roughly 75M single family detached houses in the US – roughly 80% of the market. The vast majority of those folks can charge at night at home, when rates are lower. If car owners are at home, or have access to the network at work, utilities could offer to buy energy during peak demand periods. So the owner charges at night, and sells part of his/her capacity during the day, giving them additional revenue.
Unless you are in Australia where power is not cheaper at night. One rate to rule them all!
“have variable rates that are very low at night to entice EV owners to recharge then.”
You forgot the switch from oversupply to huge demand. Low rates in this situation?
Guess the ev enthusiasts are sleeping in. They’ll doubtless stop by to explain that it’s all good, part of the plan, Tesla can be sacrificed (not Elon, he gets to keep the money) to get the big car companies to take over, they’re too big to fail (bonus point if one of ’em calls this “capitalism”). And they’ll toss in the 0-60 rating for the rich man’s toy (the poor will benefit from watching the rich folk have so much fun). Saw one of the tr0lls comment a few days ago that an Electrical Engineer was not a Climate Scientist. True enough, and virtue signalers are not Electric Engineers, but they are willfully blind to math.
Meanwhile, the internal combustion engine continues to be improved upon. Decades ago, it was’t unusual to see a car stalled on the side of the highway with the hood up and the driver under it trying to resuscitate a balky motor. We spent one weekend in four changing fouled plugs, burnt points and failing condensers. The smell of unburned gasoline was common.
How often do you see a disabled car these days? The ICE is just about perfect. I drive a 2005 Ford Freestar that never misses a beat. I’m sure it would run for another ten years. Amazing! If you’r not over 60 years of age, you just can’t appreciate the improvement.
I would note, just to be contrary – you could fix your own car back in the “bad old days.” Very little you can do these days other than the fluids. Assuming you can get to them – ’02 Windstar, and they jammed the power steering reservoir just about under the dashboard and didn’t provide a “stick” – you have to put your head down into the engine to see the level on the line. After cleaning the gunk off the sides. Fortunately, I have short hair, so I don’t have to shampoo with mechanic’s soap…
an alternative thought.. cars are so much better. you very rarely need to fix them.. cars going,100,000 mile plus, with just routine servicing is now common.
“I would note, just to be contrary – you could fix your own car back in the “bad old days.”
Good point.
Tesla isn’t really much of a car manufacturer, it is a cult based Ponzi scheme, that sells laptop batteries in a variety of delivery vehicles. He may be bright, but Musk is clearly insane.
Insane or a clever manipulator of governments and people. We laugh today about tonics and snake oil salesmen. At least the government didn’t subsidize these things as it does today with global warming and all of its spinoffs such as Tesla. Snake oil has been replaced by sheeple and crony capitalism.
CraigAustin wrote, “Tesla isn’t really much of a car manufacturer … ”
[ Tesla ] said it sold about 22,000 Model S and Model X sport-utility vehicles during the period ended in June, up about 53% from a year earlier.
With 47,100 vehicles delivered in the first half, Tesla just met its goal of delivering 47,000 to 50,000 vehicles.
That’s a lot of “not much.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-details-model-3-production-ramp-1499097398
Yeah, 600,000 orders for the Model 3 with down payments already in is “not much.”
So you really do believe that all 600K will take delivery?
Of course that also means that Musk will solve his manufacturing problems so that he will have have cars on hand to deliver.
I really have never understood how Tesla could be such a wildly profitable company when they can’t make a profit. It seems to me that this is a bet on future success, I am betting a lot of people will eventually be disappointed.
To be fair, that was said of Amazon, and Amazon wasn’t subsidized by the US gov’t.
Amazon was subsidized by state governments, by refusing to pay state sales tax for 15 years in most of the places where they sold their products.
It wasn’t Amazon’s job to be tax collector for the states. As the Supreme Court ruled over and over again.
Except that Amazon has now agreed to collect state sales tax. Why did they agree to do it?
Tesla stock was down one point, this Thursday, almost 20% from its high of June 23. There is now a prediction from a major brokerage that Tesla stock price could fall to $180 per share, as compared to the June high of $384 per share.
Tesla’s stock price was based on hype, rather than sales and an analysis of Tesla’s strengths and weakness compared.
A key issue, is it is a fact, that the automobile industry is very, very competitive.
All of massive established automobile manufacturing companies could and would manufacture an all-electric vehicle (if they do not already manufacture an all-electric vehicle), if there was a market.
Tesla predicted sales of their model 3 electric vehicle of 100,000 to 200,000 units per month in the second half of 2017.
The Tesla estimated model 3 sales for late 2017 have been revised down to 20,000 units per month, a reduction of a factor of 5 to 10.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/teslas-bad-week-gets-worse-as-elon-musks-credibility-takes-another-hit-2017-07-06?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
I have mixed feelings about Elon Musk and his various activities. While I am glad that he has
produced electric cars that people don’t laugh at, I dislike his tendency to eliminate the best feature of an electric vehicle, namely its simplicity and (excluding battery costs) low cost to produce.
His Model 3 was always an attempt to correct these things, only to go into production after battery prices had declined way down from their previously enormous costs of $40,00 for a battery pack. I saw where someone claimed $200 per kWhr battery costs, which is in error – GM recently claimed costs of $150 per kWhr for the batteries being installed in its new all electric Chevy Bolt, and Tesla claims $190 for their batteries, including everything require to install them into a vehicle. That reduces the cost of a Tesla Model S 80kWhr pack from $40,000 five year ago, to around $15,000, or in the case of GM, $12,000, producing a fully competitive (actually a superior) electric vehicle in the $40,00 and up price range. One has to realize that many systems required by a gas powered vehicle, do not even exist in an electric car (cooling system (not always), fuel system, which includes many pricey injectors, computer driven electronic monitors, etc, exhaust system,.starter motors, a transmission, etc).
Musk also claimed his automatic mass produced batteries coming out of his gigafactories would reduce costs by a third. I am quite certain that Asian countries will all be able match or exceed that. There are also encouraging reports of a new cathode produced by nanotechnological methods which claim the ability to not only produce superior batteries, but batteries that cost half of what they do today.
Bateries were ALWAYS the obstacle to the electric car, as Henry Ford discovered when he spent a fortune trying to build a practical electric vehicle, his friend Thomas Edison tasked to create a practical battery. Analysts have always cited $100 per kWhr as the battery costs that will propel a revolution in the auto business. There may still be gas powered vehicles that cannot be electrified
(large pickup trucks, ets) very soon, if at all. Generally speaking, todays’s gas powered cars have a large number of electrically powered accessories and , except for the gas engine and its accessories, an electric vesion would differ not that much from their current gas powered versions, which means that it is unlikely that any major automaker who’s vehicles shine because of styling, handling,etc would fear an electrification of their vehicles. The vast reduction in the number of parts that would result from electrification would not be an unwelcomed event. And for those lower income, struggling automakers, electrification would be viewed as a potential salvation, since the costly to design and produce engines, transmissions, combustion components, etc would disappear, and they would be on an equal footing with even the richest automakers for their car’s drive trains, which they can buy off the shelf just as easily as the richest automakers can.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. There is NO small car ICE drivetrain (to compare it to the Bolt or LEAF) that costs $12,000. That would be anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of the entire vehicle! And I’m sorry, but comparing just the batteries to an ICE is simply apples and oranges. You need to add in any motor, transmission, and regen equipment.
Look at the costs for replacement engines online. For small compacts and even midsize cars and SUVs, they’re $2k-$4k.
Battery costs have a ridiculously huge cost gap to cover before they even come close to matching the ICE.
“gigafactories” lol, they’re just factories, lots of people have built large facilities producing lots of parts/assemblies before.
It’s a factory.
Do people buy used Teslas?
What is the range of a used electric?
How much are replacement batteries?
“What is the range of a used electric?”
Less than half of a comparable petro car.
“How much are replacement batteries?”
The same or more than the cost of a new petro engine after about 7 years. Petro engines last, what… 15-20 years?
A new battery for my 10 year old Honda Civic Hybrid is about $3,000. You can buy a decent used ICE car for that kind of money. If I tried to sell my car, with 300k+ miles, I would never recoup the cost of the battery. EV’s or even Hybrids won’t become viable for most people or applications until that cost comes down, significantly.
Battery capacity declines with use.
I’m not against electric cars, just overblown environment/co2 claims.. as soon as manufacturers make viable cars – ie completive with petrol/diesel I’d happily buy one..
https://www.jaguar.com/jaguar-range/i-pace-concept-car/index.html
This Jaguar, looks pretty good, (next years) might get one as a second car.
cars like this Tesla, will destroy Tesla (ie the share price bubble will burst,)
Jaguars are best left to being second cars considering how often they are in the shop.
BMW and Audi are not destroying Tesla with their electric cars. They’re getting dominated.
That Jaguar will compete with high-end Tesla models for limited sales. Volume sales will be the Tesla Model 3, Chevy Bolt, and others. And the Model 3 performance might be comparable to the Jaguar I-Pace Concept with 215 mile range (Jaguar projects 220 miles) and 0-60 in under 6 seconds. So why spend $100k for the Jag as a 2nd car instead of the Model 3 at $35k?
Since acceleration (and the associated braking) significantly increase fuel consumption I like the petrol/electric hybrid, particularly where the motor & generator system can be used to eliminate the cost/weight/complexity of the transmission while also providing much of the braking requirements. The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV goes a long way towards this having motors at both ends for 4 wheel drive, a generator on the engine and only mechanically connecting the engine to the (front) wheels through a clutch at cruising speed eliminating a lot of mechanical complexity. Personally I’d reduce the battery size (sacrificing the plug-in capability) to what’s needed for storing the energy recovered from braking.
Not new of course, diesel-electric locomotives have been doing a similar thing for a long time.
Question: What are the rent-a-car companies doing? Are they going electric?
No. They have a few hybrid cars but, no they aren’t going electric.
Do any of these electrics or hybrids have a plug-in feature where one could hook them up to their house in an emergency during a power outage?
There might be quite a demand for such a thing. Especially in areas where windmills are a high percentage of the electric generation facilities, such as South Australia. 🙂
I guess I should restrict that question to hybrids, since pure electrics wouldn’t last long in a power outage.
Just wait until the neighbor hoods figure out that they can run around the neighborhood at night unplugging cars charging in the driveways (oh dear God please forgive me for I did back then).
Mercedes solved the EV vehicle issues some time ago. Here’s the commercial:
Tesla sells battery storage for houses…
The “feature” would be in your power box. You would have the equivalent of a bloody big powerwall battery. A diesel generator would be cheaper.
He who lives by subsidies, eventually dies by them…
Trump dumped the Paris Accord in the Siene River and thinks CAGW is a ho@x. Trump’s appointments of Pruitt and Perry at EPA//DOE, will also likely to lead to greatly reduced subsidies for wind/solar/electric car industries.
Wall Street can read the signs, and are dubious of Musk’s companies viability should $billions of solar/wind/electric car subsidies be scrapped or significantly curtailed—as they obviously should…
As the CAGW hypothesis inexorably continiues its slide to disconfirmation, the decline of subsidies will accelerate.
Government subsidies and interventions in markets eventually leads to misallocations of limited land, labor and capital, which eventually all gets unwound….
It won’t be pretty when many of Musk’s enterprises collapse after the subsidies are pulled.
Writing on the wall since his chief fund raiser came to the end of his second term.
Just a few thoughts for redesign of urban vehicles for when oil is running out.
.
1) Cassette style batteries for suitably designed, as light as possible, electric only vehicles
2) Automated battery drop off/ pickup Service Stations enabling round the clock charging and enhanced range from home.
3) Vehicles that last for 50 years with minimal maintenance.
So unit costs down, no peak charging period and maximised range. Getting from A to B and economically is more important than vehicle styling when needs must.
Flux capacitors!
No way. That whole time travel thing gets to be a pesky nuisance.
plutonium stirling engines.. only require filling every 80 years or do
This assumes car mfgs. will use a common battery mechanical/electrical interface. We are a ways from that.
Battery exchange could only work under car leasing, or buying cars without batteries and then leasing battery service. The cost of such a service would be ridiculous. If I owned a new battery there’s no way I’d exchange it for an older one. That’s just throwing money down the drain.
Interesting that Tesla’s market CAP is nearly that of GM and they only produce a tiny fraction of vehicles comparatively. That simply can’t maintain itself since. Have they ever shown a profit or paid taxes? I wonder what they look like less the large government subsidies? Just sayin……
http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=TSLA
Making transport all electric requires about 25% more generating capacity. And where will that come from?
And this does not include avaition, which accounts for another 15% of total energy usage. Replacing jet fuel with electricity is a non-starter, as avtur has 20x the energy density of batteries. The only renewable for aviation, would be some kind of bio-fuel.
See the charts in Fig 18.1 in “Renewable energy Without Hot Air”
http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf
This analysis is by the UK science advisor to government. He was a bit of a greenie, but nevertheless concluded that renewables cannot work without a nuclear baseload.
R
“legacy carmakers will eventually wake up and offer fully electric vehicles by the early 2020s,” Johnson wrote in a report Wednesday.”
Yes, because if you offer something, people might decide that that’s what they want, even if it costs more, and has half the range, and you need to worry about when and where to charge it, and you still need a “regular” car for long distance driving, and a huge garage to store all your vehicles in.
Or not.
Why is Musk so desperate to sell 129MWh of batteries to the South Australian grid? Aren’t his cars selling well enough?
I’ve got an easy solution to the problem. When you buy an EV, buy a fossil fuel generator big enough to recharge your car. Every home on the block will be running generators for their super clean cars.
Good. The Muskrat is just a “gift of the gob” subsidy-sucker.
T. E. Lawrence liked Rolls Royce.
@ M Simon
July 8, 2017 at 10:36 am: He had Rolls armoured cars in a unit that carried its own mobile workshop. They worked very well in the desert, and sure impressed the locals as well. Mobile artillery, with little air opposition.
e musk is a con man stealing from the taxpayers……..
A lot of interesting comments here, but let us not forget once the Government gets involved they will turn it into an almighty f*** up. They always do regardless of what Country we are talking about.
Another problem for Tesla is that they’re now undercutting and competing with themselves. They’ve admitted that Model 3 orders (their $35k car) are taking away from the demand for their models that cost 2-3 times as much. Their margins are declining.
While their margins would almost certainly decline if the Model 3 robs sales from their high-priced models, their subsidies could increase substantially if the subsidy is on a per car basis. Tesla will sell far more cars at $35,000 and therefore their collection of subsidies will increase accordingly.
But I understand the federal subsidy cuts off after they sell their 200,000th car. Whether state subsidies will take up the slack is an issue.
It all comes down to subsidies. End those altogether and Tesla would probably not be financially viable.
There’s nothing amazing or profitable about electric cars. The free market knows what to do the most efficient way with no government intervention. If I was able to trade my 5 year old Camry for a new Model 3 at no cost it would still make no sense at all. My mobility and standard of living would go down immediately. I would have to installing charging equipment which would not come on during peak hours. I’d have to rent a car for a month of the year when I am on vacation. The real market for electric cars is very small and the model 3 isn’t going to change that.
“I would have to installing charging equipment which would not come on during peak hours.”
No, you just need a 240V or 120V outlet. The cost is a few hundred to $1000.
‘I’d have to rent a car for a month of the year when I am on vacation.”
First, many families have 2 cars. So have one electric and one hybrid or gas/diesel. Problem solved.
Many think Elon Musk is a magician. South Australia just ordered grid battery storage from Tesla despite an Australian company’s bid to supply the same storage for two thirds of the price.
“South Australia just ordered grid battery storage from Tesla despite an Australian company’s bid to supply the same storage for two thirds of the price.”
Proof of that claim?
Unless or until they make an electric car with a 400 mile range that can charge in five minutes or less, there won’t be a huge market for them. And what happens if there’s some kind of natural disaster or terrorist attack where the power goes out? Once the battery in the car dies, you’re screwed. Yes, gas stations require electricity to run, but fuel can still be transported to people to be able to move their vehicles. I don’t think that will be possible with electric cars.
I do applaud Musk nonetheless for changing the dynamics of the industry though. Even if Tesla ultimately, fails, Musk will have enacted major change in the automotive industry.
Tesla Model 3 is crap. Zero to 60 mph in 5.6 sec. LOL
That’s slower than my grandma’s sports car, the 1962 Shelby Cobra, 0 to 60 in 4.9 sec.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/great-big-battery-impresses-rubes/news-story/a180622548da51f9cac2e194823faca1
That starry eyed mug alongside Musk is, incredibly, the Premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill. As bottom-feeder-in-chief, his insane coal killing renewables shambles has delivered to hapless households the highest electricity prices in the world, even outdoing Denmark. The equally nutty Premier of Victoria is intent on pushing prices even higher.
If one is thinking of buying an EV as a daily commute and charging it from a power point in the garage, don’t even think of buying anything bigger than a Leaf. It has a 30 KVA battery which, in Australia with 240V, 10 amp outlets will take 15 hours to charge. It would be pointless owning a Tesla 3 without 415V 3 ph power especially connected. Your provider may nix that idea.
I read that’s denmark abolished subsidies – Teslas now pay the same road tax as everyone else (Telsa was suitably horrified that they’re not allowed to use roads for free any more.)
Sales down 94% in response. Will be the same in HK – they avoid the congestion tax. When you buy a $60k Model S against a $120k BMW every 2nd car is an S. At $120k, they will buy a proper car.
I think Elon Musk updated this ancient s c a m below to power his enterprises along the lines of perpetual motion, except he uses taxpayer money to keep things going:
Glorious Opportunity To Get Rich!!! — We are starting a cat ranch in Lacon with 100,000 cats. Each cat will average 12 kittens a year. The cat skins will sell for 30 cents each. One hundred men can skin 5,000 cats a day. We figure a daily net profit of over $10,000. Now what shall we feed the cats? We will start a rat farm next door with 1,000,000 rats. The rats breed 12 times faster than the cats. So we will have four rats to feed each day to each cat. Now what shall we feed the rats? We will feed the rats the carcasses of the cats after they have been skinned. Now Get This! We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats and get the cat skins for nothing!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/07/05/matt-gallery-05072017-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.png
SW Australia is being the crash test dummy for Musk’s battery play and Bloomberg has his number.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/tesla-s-australian-battery-fix-comes-at-big-price-woodmac
Musk is a pioneer whether you like him or not. You all seem scared of change. We need to work on new things until we get them right. Or… we can hide our heads in the sand and hope steam power makes its big comeback!