That wasn't much of a tour. That is a large box in the middle of nowhere with some people walking about, cheesy backing track added. Why do people bother with such piffle!
The Model 3 is to be unveiled at the end of the month, so Tesla is ramping up the buzz. It's their way of saying, 'See? Everything is on track!" I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 unveiling is just an image.
It's funny that people think the company spends no money on marketing. They're just good at modern marketing.
Yes? And then they built a swap station and it's in operation right now. They haven't rolled out any more because demand isn't there. Superchargers are good enough for most. But if you're implying that they hacked together a demo but don't have it actually working, that's not so
Demand? They haven't even rolled out a sensible businessmodel for the swapping stations that includes what happens if you receive a faulty or just old battery with less capacity.
Why would they be stocking old or faulty batteries?
It's not something where you share with other people. You stop in and get a charged battery from Tesla. On your way back home, you stop again and get your original battery back, now charged.
If batteries gradually lose their capacity over time, it would be in the interest of customers to look for an opportunity to swap an old battery for a new one, and never swap back. Even if Tesla operates the battery swap system fairly, there's a cost associated with this because they end up holding the bad/old batteries.
Typically, though, the argument is that both customers and dealers will hang on to valuable good "money" (batteries) and thus the batteries likely to be exchanged will be of low quality.
So the model you describe is one in which each customer just alternates between a few batteries that essentially belong to them. It should address the quality problem, but at the expense of complicating the business of the battery depot. Treating batteries as a non-fungible commodity is a big step.
I see why this would happen in a hypothetical scenario where batteries are shared freely and people just pick new ones up at will, but that's not what we're discussing.
The only potential for trouble I see with Tesla's actual setup is people abusing the loaner batteries during their trip. And the batteries are so difficult to abuse I don't think it's a real problem.
"What we're discussing" is a system which is not in the end being rolled out, but Tesla, at an early stage, did mention precisely the issues I brought up.
There was to be the option to keep a newer battery received in a swap (for a fee) but also, somehow, always the possibility of getting your original battery back. How that would actually work if the original battery is in someone else's car half way across the country is left as an exercise!
They mentioned them in the context of how they're solved, though.
Gresham's Law is about things which are fungible in some contexts but not others. If Tesla charges you a fee to keep your borrowed battery then they're never fungible so it doesn't apply.
How it works to always get your original battery back seems obvious to me: they don't put it in other people's cars, they hold on to it for you. If you decide to keep the newer battery, then your original is no longer yours, and you can't get it back anymore.
This whole thing seems like a lot of fuss about problems which are pretty easily solved, and are solved.
It is a newspaper, those things which so fear being killed by the web have become some of the worst actors on the web. Sad really. Definitely gives the privacy badger something to play with while visiting the site.
I think it was very smart of them to switch to a more modular plan. The original idea of just building it all at once seemed really crazy to me, not only would it lock down a bunch of capital, it takes time to develop the organizational skill to build stuff like this. Looking at Google's first data center and their later ones, so much learning in there.
The other question is how much was this "strategic threat" and how much actual plan. Something I still wonder about but if they actually start making batteries there it will answer that question too.
There are two reasons for home batteries that I can think of. One is battery backup for power outages. How much market is there for that? It can't be large enough to justify Musk's humongous investment.
So that leaves the purpose of buffering solar energy collection. This dovetails with his cousin's Solar City outfit, which is growing like crazy.
I have a Solar City installation. I have no need for a battery because California makes my power company take excess juice I produce and give it back to me when I need it. The power company is effectively a big battery.
So batteries are only needed in states that don't make power companies do this. There has been a trend of states, like Nevada itself, taking back these laws. This is because it is considered a tax on homeowners who don't have solar.
Is Musk betting on the long-term demise of these laws?
I'd agree that utilities ought to handle most of the energy storage problem, if only to realize economies of scale. But, two points:
1. Battery backup for homes could actually be a huge market. If you're looking at two homes, one is $500,000 and the other is $503,500 and outage-proof, which one would you buy? It's a nice feature at a relatively small price.
2. At the launch event Musk stressed the benefits of grid independence for the 3rd world. He drew an analogy with cell phones, where cell phone proliferation basically leapfrogged and obsoleted landline deployment. So in places where there is poor or no electrical grid they might jump straight to solar and batteries. (I don't know if he actually expects the 3rd world to be a significant customer base, but that's what he said.)
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 52.2 ms ] threadThe Model 3 is to be unveiled at the end of the month, so Tesla is ramping up the buzz. It's their way of saying, 'See? Everything is on track!" I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 unveiling is just an image.
It's funny that people think the company spends no money on marketing. They're just good at modern marketing.
Forget your "/s"? They're going to have a running Model 3 at the announcement.
I guess we will see. The battery swap was also a "running" demonstration.
It's not something where you share with other people. You stop in and get a charged battery from Tesla. On your way back home, you stop again and get your original battery back, now charged.
Typically, though, the argument is that both customers and dealers will hang on to valuable good "money" (batteries) and thus the batteries likely to be exchanged will be of low quality.
So the model you describe is one in which each customer just alternates between a few batteries that essentially belong to them. It should address the quality problem, but at the expense of complicating the business of the battery depot. Treating batteries as a non-fungible commodity is a big step.
The only potential for trouble I see with Tesla's actual setup is people abusing the loaner batteries during their trip. And the batteries are so difficult to abuse I don't think it's a real problem.
There was to be the option to keep a newer battery received in a swap (for a fee) but also, somehow, always the possibility of getting your original battery back. How that would actually work if the original battery is in someone else's car half way across the country is left as an exercise!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/06/21/tesla-90...
Gresham's Law is about things which are fungible in some contexts but not others. If Tesla charges you a fee to keep your borrowed battery then they're never fungible so it doesn't apply.
How it works to always get your original battery back seems obvious to me: they don't put it in other people's cars, they hold on to it for you. If you decide to keep the newer battery, then your original is no longer yours, and you can't get it back anymore.
This whole thing seems like a lot of fuss about problems which are pretty easily solved, and are solved.
Contrast this with the battery swap strategy of Better Place, in which car owners don't own batteries.
The other question is how much was this "strategic threat" and how much actual plan. Something I still wonder about but if they actually start making batteries there it will answer that question too.
[1] http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/10/29/misdemeanor-charges...
So that leaves the purpose of buffering solar energy collection. This dovetails with his cousin's Solar City outfit, which is growing like crazy.
I have a Solar City installation. I have no need for a battery because California makes my power company take excess juice I produce and give it back to me when I need it. The power company is effectively a big battery.
So batteries are only needed in states that don't make power companies do this. There has been a trend of states, like Nevada itself, taking back these laws. This is because it is considered a tax on homeowners who don't have solar.
Is Musk betting on the long-term demise of these laws?
1. Battery backup for homes could actually be a huge market. If you're looking at two homes, one is $500,000 and the other is $503,500 and outage-proof, which one would you buy? It's a nice feature at a relatively small price.
2. At the launch event Musk stressed the benefits of grid independence for the 3rd world. He drew an analogy with cell phones, where cell phone proliferation basically leapfrogged and obsoleted landline deployment. So in places where there is poor or no electrical grid they might jump straight to solar and batteries. (I don't know if he actually expects the 3rd world to be a significant customer base, but that's what he said.)