By Ronald Stein
Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure of PTS Advance, headquartered in Irvine, California
We’re constantly being bombarded with the EV movement, but Americans must have a multitude of subconscious reasons for not buying into one of the major movements to save the world from itself as they are showing their lack of enthusiasm by avoiding the dealerships.
In a recent Los Angeles Times article, citing Edmunds data, The number of battery-electric models available more than doubled from 2018 to 2019, but EV sales budged in the wrong direction. In response to the major efforts by manufacturers, the horrific EV sales data shows that only 325,000 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2019, down from 349,000 in 2018.
Those dismal numbers represent an embarrassing dismal 2% of the 17 million vehicles of all types sold in the United States in 2019. Are EV carmakers driving off a cliff?”
California remains the primary buyer of EV’s while the rest of America has shown little interest in the incentives and the increasing choices of models.
Let’s look at several of the factors that may be contributing to this lack of enthusiasm, that may be in the subconscious of the prospective EV buyers:
Agreed, there would be no fuel costs and no gas taxes to be paid with an EV owner, BUT, and that’s a big BUT. Beware of the “free” gift! Once fossil fuel cars are off the road, the only ones on the roads will be EV’s. You can easily surmise that it’s going to be the EV owners picking up the costs to maintain the highway infrastructures, probably through some form of vehicle mileage tax (VMT), to let the “users” pay for the roads.
EV’s are hyped as being pollution free. Well, not necessarily so. Its true EV’s have no tailpipes, but the tailpipes are located at the power plants generating the electricity to charge the cars batteries, and at the refineries that provide all the derivatives from petroleum that make all the parts of the EV’s.
Range and charging anxieties remain a constant sub thought for that next trip. To fully charge an EV, even at fast-charging stations, it takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours depending on how much of a charge (empty to full or topping off) your vehicle needs.
Hybrid and electric car owners are a scholarly bunch; over 70 percent of respondents have a four-year college or post-graduate degree, which may explain that the average household income of electric vehicle (EV) purchasers is upwards of $200,000. If you’re not in that higher educated echelon and the high-income range of society, there may not be an appetite for an EV.
The lack of mining standards and environmental regulations to extract the exotic metals used in EV batteries exposes local ecosystems to destruction when the wastewater and other unusable ores are let loose onto the environments. The workers have no choice but to live in horrific conditions because their wages are so infinitesimally small, it causes me the take a step back and examine my moral obligations to humanity. Green technology cannot thrive off human rights abuses.
There are numerous documentaries about the atrocities the workers are put through in the cobalt mines, i.e. actually digging the mines by hand along with the horrendous living conditions. Amnesty International has documented children and adults mining cobalt in narrow man-made tunnels along with the exposure to the dangerous gases emitted during the procurement of these rare minerals.
Governments and manufacturers are “blowing off” the transparency of the child labor atrocities and mining irregularities of where and how those exotic metals are being mined in Africa, China, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile to support the EV battery supply chain. The first transparency law was in California, the largest buyer of EV’s in the country, starting with The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act SB657 and followed by the U.S. with H.R.4842 – Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2014.
The richest most powerful companies in the world, and now the Governor of California are still making excuses for not investigating the supply chains and continue to power manufactured EV’s with “dirty batteries”. Can this be a blatant example of hypocrisy?
With Tesla batteries weighing about 1,000 pounds, slightly more than the C-batteries in your flashlights, proper disposal of the EV batteries will be needed to be addressed in infinite detail by somebody. Another area of concern that keeps coming up in consumer surveys regards an electric car’s battery life. To be sure, replacing an electric vehicle’s battery will be an expensive proposition along with the environmental challenges to dispose of them safely.
Despite the fears, concerns, and environmental questions being evaluated by the public and the potential EV buyers, governments are wishing to counteract the slower than expected transition to EV’s. Governments are starting to make giant steps to accelerate the move away from petroleum vehicles.
Britain announced that they will ban new petrol and hybrid cars from 2035. France is preparing to ban the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars by 2040. The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens have said they plan to ban diesel vehicles from city centers by 2025. The ban on fossil fueled vehicles is gaining momentum internationally!
Government involvement in our daily lives recalls the most terrifying nine words in the English language:” I’M FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND I’M HERE TO HELP.”
|
|||||||||
|
The “Battery Problem” with EV’s gets really ugly in the resource consumption department when considering the many hundreds of millions of tons of them, replaced every few decades, that would be required to run an EV economy.
Electric motor driven vehicles do have very significant benefits in efficiency and longevity. The drive train has few moving parts and about the only wearing parts are bearings. A well built EV could last a century and have low maintenance costs.
If we are ever going to wean off ICE’s (unlikely any time soon), the battery will have to be replaced by Fuel Cells in most of the fleet’s vehicles (probably with small battery packs for accelerations and braking regeneration)…and they will have to be fueled with synthetic liquid fuels generated by about a thousand small modular Gen 4 Nuclear Power Plants (short power transmission distances needed). That kind of radical transformation could result in significant cost and efficiency gains over an ICE-backed economy (Engineering/Cost analysis outline is 20 pages long…and hinges on the near zero fuel costs of thorium and uranium and vehicle longevity and the potentially short amortization times of modular nuclear power plant costs).
A Renewable Energy powered battery-driven EV Economy would be an environmental disaster and a resource consumption nightmare that will raise costs at least four-fold.
Market forces alone would never make the correct transformations happen in the face of low fossil fuel costs. And a centralized government trying to orchestrate ICE-to-EV will never take the correct engineering paths to get there.
If the Climate doesn’t cooperate and begin a cooling trend soon, I cannot see this turning out well especially if the Anti-Nuclear factions win.
Thanks DocSiders.
You are on the right track, so nuclear -> grid capacity tripling -> hydrogen production -> electric hydrogen cars.
Thereafter developing methods to decommission industrial wind turbines as economically and environmentally friendly as possible.
Could be a bright perspective to look forward to, and if there is business opportunities in this concept, the political will should follow.
“replaced every few decades”
Decades?
Yeah, my friend’s late model Honda hybrid needed battery replacement at 150,000 mi. At a cost of $4,500. Not very friendly at all.
Most cars have to replace wheel bearings at around 80K miles. I can’t imagine the load on those bearings is that much greater than the load on the motor bearings.
I live in, and mostly visit, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Montana. An EV is a summer car, period, other than in the city. A hybrid is possible, but too expensive in AWD styles (for the unplowed rural roads.)
I have thought about the replacement of the ICE for a long time. The piece of the jigsaw puzzle I just can’t fathom is that big oil is just going to roll over and die happily with an “oh well, it was good while it lasted” sort of attitude. I just can’t believe they haven’t been working for many decades on the solution. I don’t think the world is about to run out of oil just yet and nor do I believe there is a need to stop using it but the day will come eventually and there will be a replacement for oil and gas. I firmly believe there will be a fuel cell that can easily be retrofitted to any vehicle including trucks and heavy machinery, even aircraft that will have an energy density similar to hydrocarbons and which can be replenished simply through the existing distribution networks. I think all this EV technology is just a distraction. It may eventually develop further but it is a long, long way from being a feasible replacement for an ICE vehicle for the masses. Vehicle companies that are jumping the gun and going full steam ahead into EV development will lose billions eventually and many will disappear. Not altogether a bad thing. I see a future that all the big oil companies are very much a part of. Who else has the money to do that sort of research in any meaningful way? I may be wrong. To me there is just something very wrong with the picture when all we see is electric power. Truth is, no matter which way to peel it, to do electric energy you have to be doing carbon or nuclear energy to make it work. We can do better than that. I’m sure a bunch of very smart people have been quietly working away somewhere and have the solution ready to roll when it’s needed. I’m tipping that hydrogen features as the main component. Right now, I couldn’t afford to buy an EV even if I thought they were the answer. Perhaps they are the answer but to which question? Actual replacement for all ICE vehicles? Not even close.
Paragraphs are your friend.
The future is oil. First, 30% of oil is used for products other than fuel, like plastics. Good luck finding a suitable replacement for insulating all the wiring you need. Secondly, there are no alternatives even being considered for air travel and oceanic shipping. Finally, the military is not going to be powered by solar cells, wind turbines, and batteries, EVER. Nor is hydrogen fuel in their future.
Other tha lip service to the Greens, oil companies aren’t doing much because they know it’s not a threat to their business.
Clearly when there is still a choice, consumers will choose not to put their pocket money through the paper shredder. It will obviously require more than just subsidies but rather government mandates to bring compliance.
Its hilarious to me to read our local FB group: a strongly “progressive” even Green area of Toronto, where every environmental virtue signalling is “for the children”, etc….except that now our electrical bills are going up, up, UP!…and the complaints are starting.
Can’t imagine what will happen if one had to plug in an EV as well as a the typical household of a dozen or so rechargeable. I mean, does anyone EVER factor that in?
I’d ask “what did they think would happen”, but thinking takes more work than emoting and beyond not using plastic straws or bags and turning their lights off for an hour a year is about as “green” as most of these hypocrites get.
“only 325,000 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2019, down from 349,000 in 2018.”
And that is before the subsidies start expiring.
Indeed. Tesla & Chevy began losing the federal tax credit last year with it having completely expired for Tesla at the beginning of the year. it completely expires for Chevy in the spring/summer. Nissan looks to be closest to being next. There’s still state subsidies (I believe NJ recently announced a “rebate” based on the electric range rating, up to a total of $5k)
“Green technology cannot thrive off human rights abuses.”
Of course it can, if those abuses are happening somewhere you can ignore.
99.985% of the ‘Green Movement’ is quite happy to ignore conditions elsewhere, because all they’re doing is virtue-signalling to other Greens.
The EU made their drivers switch from gas to diesel. Then they noticed increased air pollution. Now, they are forcing their drivers to switch from diesel to electric, while closing down fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.
What am I missing?
BTW, I drive a hybrid Pacifica. Love it. It really reduces how much gasoline you burn (and reduces your gasoline taxes.) Don’t criticize me for not paying my share. I pay as much $$ for tolls as I do for gasoline when I visit the grandkids. It gets excellent mileage. Interestingly, in the winter, when the electrical stuff gets less efficient, I think it is cheaper to burn gasoline than use house current to charge it up. Heating up the car in the winter reduces the electric mileage by about 30% or more. 25 Kw to cruise down the highway. 7 Kw to heat the car. That latter number adds up fast in slow stop and go driving.
BTW, the govt is an important actor in all of this, giving out money. Thanks to Trump’s tax reform, and to the Federal and State tax credits for this car, in the last two years the US govt has pretty much paid this car off for me. Seriously.
The great industry cliff dive is just getting started. It will be fun and fascinating to watch until the industry bailouts come along to cost you watchers from the sidelines with no say in the matter. They also won’t listen to you when others get suckered into the used car market for heavily depreciated EVs and hybrids that tend to break with $6,000 repair bills.
From the article: “Despite the fears, concerns, and environmental questions being evaluated by the public and the potential EV buyers, governments are wishing to counteract the slower than expected transition to EV’s. Governments are starting to make giant steps to accelerate the move away from petroleum vehicles.”
When will the Democrats in the U.S. call for outlawing gasoline-powered cars? If they ever do, I’m betting they get a *lot* of resistance.
I guess the European car companies can move all their ICE vehicle manufacturing to the United States. We won’t be giving up our ICE vehicles anytime soon.
A hybrid ICE/Electric vehicle would seem to be a good compromise. It lowers fuel consumption and eliminates the charging and range problems of all-electric vehicles.
I own one. Love it. But, without the govt subsidy (10,000 State and Federal), it would be hard to justify on a purely economic basis given that fact that gasoline is so darn cheap these days.
We bought our Ford C-Max (look it up, its a real car) three years ago.
Wasn’t in the market for a hybrid, but a complete ^#@ur momisugly%# made the decision easier by rear-ending me a month after paying off the previous car’s loan…so test drove one and liked it (well, Mrs. Jones drives it so I liked it too) and haven’t looked back.
This was when our previous Liberal government announced the first of many tax hikes on gas, so it made the decision a little easier.
Where I live such hikes on gas have real consequences in elections on par with grabbing the third rail.
Well, the Liberal government was replaced by a Progressive Conservative one. Seriously, that’s the name of the party, but its led by the Doug Ford, the brother of the former “crack Mayor” of Toronto, Rob.
So its actually pretty conservative, and has cancelled tons of “green” crap the Liberals started, including the subsidy for EV.
I also have a 2008 Prius, which we bought used. It’s has a small internal-combustion engine, and energy from braking is used to charge the battery, which can help drive the car slowly in heavy traffic. It cannot be plugged in, and won’t go very far on an empty gas tank, but at 45 miles per gallon (mixed highway/city) it has a fairly long range on an 8-gallon tank, and it has enough power to drive at highway speeds (70 mph here). The engine turns off when stopped at a traffic light, which probably saves a lot of gasoline from idling, and the battery is used to re-start the engine when the light turns green.
If the car is driven a typical 15,000 miles per year, at 45 mpg it would consume 333 gallons per year. Comparing that to an ICE-only car at 25 mpg, which would consume 600 gallons per year, the hybrid saves 267 gallons of gasoline, or about $667 per year at $2.50 per gallon. One would have to drive the Prius for 15 years to save $10,000 in gasoline, so it may not be worth the price to buy a new Prius, from a strictly financial point of view.
But for those interested in reducing their carbon (dioxide) footprint, a hybrid ICE/electric car does much better than a pure-electric vehicle. A typical ICE engine is about 35% efficient, meaning that 35% of the heating value of the fuel is converted to work performed by the engine. An electric motor is about 80% efficient, but if the power is generated by a coal-fired plant at 35% efficiency, the net energy output is only 0.80 * 0.35 = 28%, so that using an electric vehicle actually INCREASES CO2 emissions.
If the power is generated by a combined-cycle gas-fired power plant at 60% efficiency, the overall efficiency is 0.80 * 0.60 = 48%, which reduces CO2 emissions by 1 – 0.35 / 0.48 = 27% .
But switching from an ICE car at 25 mpg to a hybrid ICE/battery car at 45 mpg (with no electric charging requirement) reduces CO2 emissions by 1 – 25 / 45 = 44%.
If the goal is to reduce CO2 emissions from cars, a hybrid ICE/battery car does much better than an all-electric plug-in, which might end up INCREASING emissions if the electricity is from a coal-fired power plant.
Thanks for that analysis, Steve.
A battery has both a charge-cycle/auto-mileage lifetime and a calendar lifetime from battery “shelf life.” I heard that 10 years is a rough estimate. Your used 2008 Prius is already at the end of its calendar lifetime.
At least if a battery degrades in a Prius, it may be first manifest as a slight reduction in gas mileage — the battery may need to be far gone for the car to quit.
I also heard that there are two options for battery replacement — a new one from the factory for multi-thousands of dollars and a much cheaper reconditioned one. If you are brave (you are working with high voltage DC with the many cells in series — Scotty Kilmer explains the stout rubber gloves that you need to inflate to check for tears a personal protective equipment for this work), you can save money by reconditioning the pack yourself. The reconditioned battery, according to Scotty Kilmer, will not last anywhere as long as the original — you are only replacing cells that have failed, you are not replacing cells with a lot of time/cycles on them that may fail soon.
Scotty Kilmer only recommends a hybrid as a new vehicle purchase for someone who expects their car to serve them for about 10 years because of the battery replacement situation.
Can anyone weigh in with real-world experience if you can run a Prius on an original battery pack for longer than 10 years? Anyone with experience with a reconditioned hybrid battery pack?
Good but you forgot the CO2 emissions already “incorporated” into the batteries of both the EV and the hybrid.
Mr Stein and others here have bought into the “dirty” mining and child labor deception that socialists have sucessfully pounded into our heads over 4 or 5 decades. The large bulk of cobalt (coproduced with copper) is extracted by modern underground and open pit mechanical operations and processed in modern high tech metallurgical plants. Glencore (glencore.com) and Katanga Mining are large and intermediate sized producers listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Small independent local/family/village production takes place in most mineral rich countries. They are their own bosses. It is a way for otherwise very poor people to obtain an income (gold sluicing is even active in Yukon and Alaska by private individuals and small seasonal groups).
I assisted indigenous tin-tantalum miners in Nigeria with mine design and simple mineral processing in the 1960s as part of my duties as an officer of the Geological Survey of Nigeria. I’ve surveyed and evaluated alluvial gold fields in northern Benin, where I bought a days production from each of a number of scattered individual operators to assist with the valuation calculations. I’ve visited ‘garimpeiros’ small miners in Minas Gerais Brazil where Lithium is mined on a small scale. Local people are going to continue to do this come hell or high water. The implication that big bad whitemen are cracking the whip and paying starvation wages is totally fabricated by the ugly Agendist set.
Hand-picking/ cobbing (using hammers) was practiced right up through the 1930s with copper, lead, zinc, etc. ores in the US and Canada and around the world. My early jobs paid 25 to 50c an hour for labor and as a graduate geological engineer, mapped geology for the government for $100/m.
Ronald Stein, don’t be lazy in your researches! The entire spectrum of human activity has been compromised and nothing should be taken for granted
Folks should take a look at what the chargers cost and factor that in as well. Simply “plugging” it in at home isn’t a fast charge, it’s a slow as can be. Overnight might be enough, but also might not be.
The infrastructure costs associated with this shift won’t be negligible either. Once companies start to figure out that the chargers that are provided for free at charging stations are not providing any sort of actual return you’ll start to see fewer and fewer of them. It’s possible that economies of scale should bring the cost down, but it will still be an issue if you’re buying an $8000+ fast charger to draw people to visit your coffee shop and they sit there for an hour plus and have a $6 coffee.
For cities/communities/municipalities the costs of installing charging in parking areas is going to be astronomical. With decreased fuel taxes available with this shift where will that money come from, never mind, as others have pointed out, the money for maintaining roadway infrastructure.
This is far from well thought out. The tech may eventually get there but it’s not going to save anyone any money at all if done hastily.
“Once companies start to figure out that the chargers that are provided for free at charging stations are not providing any sort of actual return you’ll start to see fewer and fewer of them.”
Yep. Can’t wait for the shareholders’ revolts, especially in areas like Ontario, Canada where electricity prices are going UP.
Unfortunately, as a “shareholder” in Toronto, Ontario and Canada, I don’t hold out hope, just gonna keep my powder dry, so to speak…
VLJ – Very Light Jets. 25 years ago VLJ were going to revolutionize general aviation, GA. It was the buzz, the vibe, the investment. It was not going to happen. It was not to be.
For the same reason, EVs will NEVER amount to a sizable portion of the motor vehicle market. EVs are terribly inefficient and complex. They will never compete in the vehicle marketplace – only governments will buy them, i.e. Electric/Hybrid buses, etc. and not for economic reasons. It’s called the law of entropy, 2nd law of thermodynamics. No legislature can repeal THAT law. Entropy makes EVs uncompetitive. Nobody will willingly pay the real costs, in taxes or otherwise.
William A. EVs may not be needed at present, but eventually they will be. I guess we’ll have to repeal the the second law.
Spoken like a true liberal! I’m kidding only if you were being sarcastic. 🙂
The low hanging EV fruit has been mostly picked. Those that are interested in virtue signaling. Those that can afford it. Those that it meets their range and charging requirements. If range, cost, and refueling ease matched ICE cars EVs would win hands down due to their superior driving characteristics. But we knew that 100 years ago.
“we knew that 100 years ago.”
Exactly.
Like all bad generals, Big Green is fighting this using plans for the last war. “Start with the rich, like they did with ICE”…
Yeah, but the costs of owning a car 100 years ago were only part of why people bought them. Compared to horse and buggy, ICE couldn’t be beat. And that was before they invented stuff like heating…headlights…shocks…etc.
And EV and an current ICE are more or less exactly the same, DNA-wise.
What about the people living apartments ? Is the landlord going to install a charger in every parking space without doubling the rent ? Not very likely……
When Honda released the Clarity plugin nationwide, there was an initial burst of excitement and sales, particularly in the NE. That didn’t last long. People would come in here and there to inquire about them, but, sales became so dismal that there are no longer available for sale in most states, because people do not want them. And it was a good vehicle.
Just read the MotorTrend review. That car cost almost as much as my hybrid Pacifica, to which it cannot compare.
Automaker GM is investing $2.2 billion in Detroit and Volkswagen $800 million in Chattanooga, TN, for electric car production. Don’t know how much the other automakers are investing in EV’s, but I have a feeling they may live to regret their decision. That’s what happens when you don’t do your homework and don’t realize you may be listening or pandering to the wrong people…
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/2/2/21117360/gm-to-invest-2-2b-in-detroit-to-build-electric-vehicles
https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2019/01/14/volkswagen-electric-car-chattanooga-plant/2565780002/
I think they all expect Uncle Sam to be there when needed. For right now, they are doing the “right thing.”
I think it comes down to meeting fleet mileage goals set by the US Government. Offering an EV boosts the average MPG of your automotive fleet. Doesn’t matter if you sell only One or One million of them or take a loss on every unit produced if it allows you to continue to sell the ICV that the public wants.
They are pandering to CARB, not you.
While CARB stay safely out of the line of fire on losses and bailouts.
A 12 stall (station) fast charging station was recently installed a couple of miles away from me. I forgot to ask the Telsa owner I meet near the station if the charger has been upgraded to the new standards- (which will enable taxing EV owners based on kWh to fill up their battery)-
1) https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061847853?utm_term=Utility+Dive
“Revenge of the regulated
….”When DMS first proposed its rules in 2018, it said it wanted a strict new standard in place by the start of 2020. The pushback from industry was immediate. What the regulators proposed, companies said, was impossible.
They feared the cost of upgrades would be far more than the $7.9 million that DMS estimated for all companies statewide.
EVgo, which has the state’s largest network of fast chargers, said retrofits would cost $13 million, or one and a half times what Californians paid for charging on its network in the entire year of 2018. Electrify America estimated at least $12 million, and Tesla Inc. $24 million.”
My city gets sales tax revenue from FF sales in the city. They would like to keep their coffers full so in the future so they will want a surcharge on the kWh sales too.
People will show this article to their grandkids in 30 years and everyone will fall around the floor laughing….. If you don’t think EV’s have a future, then take a look at Teslas share price of late. Here I’ll help you…..
https://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=TSLA
Yeah. Stock price is a good indicator. Not.
I bought Telray Aug. of 2018, for $20-something a share. Sold out at $80-something in September of 2018. In Oct. of that same year, it hit $150. Today it’s at $16.33.
Want an example closer to Tesla? Check out the share-price history of Nio, the Chinese EV company. From fall of 2018 to fall of 2019, it fell from $10 to $1. It has since recovered all the way back to 4.
If you can’t recognize a speculative play or are greedy, it’s best to stick to buying shares in big, dividend paying companies, like XOM.
What Simon doesn’t know about finances and economics is, …, well, …, just about everything.
MarksW.
I know a lot more than someone who makes stuff up then runs away. But I also know a lot about cars and the Tesla 3 is one hot mobile. Not just because it is soooo much fun and cheap to drive, but because it has been heralded across the planet as a game changer. Keep dragging your knuckles MW.
I can smell the smug from here.
Though I did see a Tesla once. Driving 10km/h under the speed limit, presumably because they were scared the battery would run out before they got to a charger if they drove any faster.
True story.
“Though I did see a Tesla once. Driving 10km/h under the speed limit, presumably because they were scared the battery would run out before they got to a charger if they drove any faster.
True story.”
I once saw a guy walking in the dessert holding a petrol can. True story
Once again Simon declares that his fantasies are actually reality.
Whether or not Tesla 3 is a “hot mobile” in your pathetic mind is of no importance. The question is, how many are being sold, and the answer for that is not many.
Beyond that, is your belief that Telsa having a high stock price is proof that the company and electrics in general are succeeding.
BTW, just because something doesn’t agree with your religion, is not proof that it is made up. I’ve provided evidence for my claims. Too bad the best you can do is plug your fingers deep into your ears and scream that you won’t believe it.
Make it up run away MarkW
“BTW, just because something doesn’t agree with your religion, is not proof that it is made up. I’ve provided evidence for my claims. Too bad the best you can do is plug your fingers deep into your ears and scream that you won’t believe it.”
Really? Provide evidence for ““Since we are still colder than the average temperature for the last 10,000 years ….””
“Whether or not Tesla 3 is a “hot mobile” in your pathetic mind is of no importance”
Ahh…. ya…. it is. You just can’t stomach that Musk is actually winning. Read the reviews, go for a ride, then you can speak like you are making sense, till then you are blowing hot…. air again.
You just can’t stomach that Musk is actually winning.
2015 -888.66M
2016 -674.91M
2017 -1.96B
2018 -976.09M
2019 -862M
That’s a mighty odd definition of winning. All those minus signs look like losing (as in losing hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year for all 17 years they’ve been business).
I’ve provided the evidence that Simon is asking for at least 3 times. However he refuses to look because none of them are team approved sites.
Forget share prices, look at profits: Tesla hasn’t made an annual profit, ever! Not once in all the years of it’s existence!! (they’ve managed the occasional profitable quarter, mainly due to accounting gimmicks, but never a profitable year).
2015 -888.66M
2016 -674.91M
2017 -1.96B
2018 -976.09M
2019 -862M
note the minus signs. And with the federal tax credit having ended for Tesla at the beginning of the year, I don’t expect to see those negative numbers disappear when 2020’s annual numbers are available.
But they’ve got a “hot mobile”, how can they be failing??????
LMAO. Nothing like losing $billions while the deluded continue to bid up your stock.
I guess P.T. Barnum was right!
“LMAO. Nothing like losing $billions while the deluded continue to bid up your stock.”
Another “know it all” who has never driven one.
Simon, driving one or not doesn’t change the fundamentals of a business. Many an excellent product has gone the way of the dodo because the company behind the product couldn’t turn a profit. Superior products have often lost out to inferior ones because the later was profitable and the former was not. Tesla could have invented the most perfect automobile by every measure imaginable, but if they can’t make an annual profit off of it, and instead continues to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year, eventually they’re going to run out of OPM and go bust. accounting gimmicks can only get them so far.
Once again Simon demonstrates that he puts loyalty to the cause way, way above personal integrity.
The question here is about how fast Tesla is losing money.
The fact that you like one of the models that they make says nothing regarding that question.
As I said above, Simon goes out of his way to demonstrate his ignorance on any subject other then how best to propagate the lies he’s paid to push.
John Endicott
Last two quarters a profit. Get used to it.
Simon, last year, like *all* the years before it, a big fat loss. You should be use to it by now, it happens every year. As I pointed out, Tesla occasionally manages to get a quarter with a profit (usually on the back of accounting gimmicks), even 2 in a row (IIRC it’s the second time they had 2 in a row) but still have a massive loss for the year. Get back to us when they have 4 quarters that add up to a net profit (something they’ve never accomplished to date). Just don’t hold your breathe for it.
John Endicott
“Get back to us when they have 4 quarters that add up to a net profit (something they’ve never accomplished to date). Just don’t hold your breathe for it.”
You bet I will. And I will enjoy every minute of it.
We won’t be holding our breathe, and in the meantime we’ll keep point out the annual losses to you each and every year that passes.
Please do and if you are right, I will be man enough to admit I was wrong and I hope you do the same
If Tesla ever manages an annual profit, I’ll be first in line to admit I was wrong. But as the company stands right now, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. accounting gimmicks can only take a company so far, after all.
“I will be man enough to admit I was wrong”
I guess there will be a first time for everything.
He’s never managed to “man up before”.
Better odds he’ll move the goal posts. Again. Loss will become profit, gross will become net. Etc. Repeat as needed.
Wow, for 2 quarters, using various gimicks, Tesla has managed to just barely squeak out a profit.
And from this Simon concludes that going forward, Tesla will always be profitable, even though they have just lost all of their subsidies.
“Although the Yankees lost 14-4, they scored 1 in the 7th, 2 in the 8th and were gaining momentum to score 3 in the ninth when Judge was doubled off to end the game after scoring 1 in the 9th…”
Well not *all* of their subsidies, just all of the federal credit. There are still many states (California, NJ, etc) as well as other countries (In Europe, mostly) with subsidy/credits that Tesla’s qualify for. Though your point remains, the lost of subsidies/credits invariably cause a loss in sales if history is any guide.
Everywhere where EV subsidies have been lowered/removed, EV sales (in general) have dropped. And it’s not hard to see why, Econ 101 shows that when the effective price goes up, potential sales go down (all else being equal). A 45K car that can effectively be bought for 35K (due to tax credits, rebates, etc.) will sell in greater volume than a 45K car that goes for 45K (due to lack of credits, rebates, etc.).
I have known two liberal friends who had their expensive little green cars. Both used their cars for virtue signaling and very short trips. However for their serious longer drives, they used big gas guzzlers. I bet the number of miles driven by EVs, is a much lower percentage of total miles driven, than the percentage of EV cars compared to the total number of vehicles.
“We’re constantly being bombarded with the EV movement, but Americans must have a multitude of subconscious reasons for not buying into one of the major movements to save the world from itself as they are showing their lack of enthusiasm by avoiding the dealerships.”
Or a conscious reason.
BS is still BS,whether packaged by add company or government.
The Electric car is a 200 year loser,that “technology” even lost to Steam powered cars and then disappeared as Internal Combustion engines improved.
Now politicians steal from us to bribe wealthy posers to purchase these toys.
And the public lack of buy in is “Subconscious”?
Barring the magic battery break through,electric will remain inferior to IC.
As for Lithion Ion batteries..it is 30 C below zero outside my house right now.
Go you know what a Li-ion battery is at -30C?
A paper weight.
Not one of my Li Ion toys will work when cold.
And if you puncture a Li Ion battery,you have an arsonists dream.
“Most people don’t understand electricity. “, electricity is a medium for energy transport. In ignorance we have labelled “Electric Vehicles” EV’s,they are not actual powered by electricity (electricity is only the energy transport mechanism).
• If you plug your “EV” into the wall where the source is a Coal power plant “YOUR CAR IS COAL POWERED” !!
• If you plug your “EV” into the wall where the source is a Nuclear power plant “YOUR CAR IS NUCLEAR POWERED” !!
• If you plug your “EV” into the wall where the source is a Natural-Gas power plant “YOUR CAR IS NATURAL-GAS POWERED” !!
• Manufacturing those huge Batteries emits huge amounts of CO2 & pollutants
o Lugging around a 1200 lb gas tank (aka battery) makes no sense
• Etc. etc. etc.
People need neither any brains nor their “subconscious” to see the price tag.
People stupid enough to think the source of all life–CO2–is a pollutant may be forced into these.
A few are so smart that they can understand the simplest science, Physics, which is mostly math. Chemistry is a lot of math as well, and you have to be well above average to grasp it. And energy is covered under those subjects and engineering.
Whenever energy is transformed from one form to another, there is waste, often as much as half. So going from fossil to electric to battery to car will use a lot more fossil fuel than fossil to car. Some of us do understand that.
The whole issue of the acceptability and practicality of EVs has little to do with range,cost or features. Imagine an EV with 600 mile range, seating for 5, useful payload of 1200 lbs or more…ie a decent current ICE SUV sold by the millions today.
Now, the one problem that is really not solvable without some magic (read technology not currently imagined or practical). Charging. Charging. Repeat that. This is the problem:
An EV vehicle as described would need about a 400 kw-hr battery. No way to get around that without some Stark Trek magic technology.
To charge such a battery in about an hour (ignoring efficiency) requires about 400, 000 watts of power for said hour. That’s 400 hundred thousand watts. To charge that battery in 10 minutes requires 6 times that, or 2, 400, 000 watts. About 2.4 megawatts. Now, take say, 10 cars at the “filling” station either going or coming back on a weekend trip to Tahoe or Yellowstone, or Gramma’s house in the “country”. You would need approximately 24 mega watts of power to do what ICE filling stations do every day, 24/7 by the hundreds of thousands (in about 5 minutes…).
I don’t care how you carve this problem up. Wait an hour, wait two, limit the charge rate, limit the charging ports. It all adds up to one thing. You can’t really do it.
EVs are great for short duration trips, long charging time availability and when limited overall vehicle utility is acceptable . Picture an electric forklift. Almost indispensable for certain applications, but rarely used when you don’t need to.
Now, as a fan of nuclear power, I have a nice solution….each filling station is equipped with one of several modular reactors under development. Say 50 megawatts. Plenty of quick charge for lots of EVs. Just need a couple hundred of these in each major city. Truly, I am all for it!
EVs, like Corvettes and Model A’s, have their place. They have their fans. They have their uses.
Just not as a replacement for current ICE vehicles.
Now, the truly delusional EV dreams involves aircraft. It boggles my engineering mind that anyone could conceive of such craft beyond toys, curiosities and extremely short range craft (with extremely low speeds and payload). The technology to even imagine a battery electric equivalent commercial jet is beyond even Star Trek. The most trivial analysis of energy requirements, payload and battery technology…not to mention the charging. A 737 burns approximately 750 gallons of fuel per hour. 1 gallon of fuel delivers approximately 33 kw-hrs. With reserves, you need about 4 hours for a practical flight (say Seattle to San Francisco). Totally ignoring efficiency, etc, that requires a huge battery. Start with a magic 100 mega watt hour battery. Now imagine the weight of said battery. Oh, by the way, it stays the same weight over the flight (you burn fuel, hence you don’t need to fly burnt fuel, you still have to fly your dead battery). This is so far beyond even completely delusional fantasy as to be utterly embarrassing. I absolutely have no doubt that there are millions of people that think the only reason we don’t have such craft is due to the dark web of evil oil company executives conspiring to end all life on Earth.
Aspects of the current EV hype make the Salem Witch trails look very sane.
EVs have their place. They have their limitations. That’s the world we live in. All else is Star Trek.
One final word. I really want a warp drive, a replicator and especially a transporter. I just recognize that it’s not terribly likely in my remaining lifetime….:)
In reality, your ‘nice solution’ of hundreds of small nukes would become dirty bombs in most major cities very quickly. That’s especially true, today, with the angry Left.
The market for those that can afford a second car and want to show how cool they are is rather limited. There also is a lot of competition by Italian supercars and Porsches. Also, cool is not sustainable as the cool think of today is the sales junk of tomorrow. It’s an unforgivable market and EV’s might be close to the saturation point.
I once paid $1,400 for a used Toyota with a “suspect” transmission. I was right about the transmission (although I suckered myself, I thought a transmission overhaul, based on my most recent transmission overhaul, was $300-$600, except this was an electronic controlled transmission and overhaul price was $1,600), it did fail on me, after 3-1/2 years. How long do you think I would get out of a used BEV with a “suspect” battery? But I bet the purchase price would be <$1,400.
If you take the case in Australia last year, an owner of a 10 year old Nissan LEAF worth AU$10,000 if in perfect condition was quoted AU$35,000+ for a replacement battery.