My parents used to joke that it took three owners to create a new ski resort, the first to do all the permitting paperwork and go bankrupt, the second to acquire that completed paperwork for free and then to go bankrupt removing trees and rocks and installing lifts, then the third to get the paperwork and the equipment for free and to start marketing it.
I really really really want Tesla to succeed. But I cannot convince myself to buy a Model-S, it is just past my pain threshold. And for that I am sad.
> I really really really want Tesla to succeed. But I cannot convince myself to buy a Model-S, it is just past my pain threshold. And for that I am sad.
I'm largely in the same boat. I'm planning on buying a car in the next year and while I think the Model S is downright beautiful, I can't do it. The base model is right in the price range I'd be willing to pay, but the problem is the range; even under optimal driving circumstances, it's quite a bit short of what I'd need to make the trips I'd like to make. One of the higher end models has the range I'd need, but I can't justify the extra $20k or whatever it is.
Hopefully in a couple years there'll be a car from them priced at the perfect level with the things I need, but it's just not there yet.
Depending on how compelled you are and how often you make those trips you'd like to make, you could potentially shore up your garage with a cheap beater from the 90's.
I just purchased a new ~$20k Toyota in Thailand, and its my first vehicle purchase. I'm seriously hoping electric is in my price range here in, say, a decade when I plan to want a new car...
Excellent analogy. Tesla has major challenges to lasting as a company.
It spends about $100M per quarter and it has $200M of cash [1]. So in the next 6 months, Tesla will need to bring margins way up (unlikely), dramatically cut expenses (opposite of the current plan), or raise lots more money.
The company already has $400M in debt. I hope it can raise more. Or that the public will pony up more investment. I also really really want Tesla to succeed.
If they can build the 5000 cars they claimed for this year (honestly, its doubtful) then they have ~$75k (rough guess on avg car price) * 5000 = ~$375m coming their way this year. And they have a huge backlog of orders (~13.8k), so it's really just a question of if they can scale up their production fast enough to close the gap. It'll happen, possibly without any bridge financing.
Revenues are not cash flows. That $375M of revenues from car orders has real costs associated (i.e. materials, labor).
Ford and GM, established car makers, have gross margins of about 12-15%. Tesla's margins are much lower, at least today. But let's ignore working capital needs and pretend Tesla had the "great" margins of its competitors, then that's still only $50M of cash contribution. Tesla will need lots of cash this year.
Is there another way of looking at this? Do you need to own the car? I hire a car when I need one, and use feet, push-bike and public transport the rest of the time. I _know_ I save money this way, compared with owning: I used to own a car, kept all the paper work and did the arithmetic.
If you didn't need to own the car, then things like a vehicular equivalent of the old livery stables and post horses might be viable.
50K is too much. That's in the luxury brand segments where car companies spent decades to build up brand awareness to justify the price. Put it in the 20K to 30K range and they will make a killing.
May be their production capacity can't handle the high volume so they price it to throttle demand.
The problem is that batteries are expensive. High-end cars have high margins (it doesn't cost 2x as much to build a $50k car as it does to build a $25k car). When Toyota introduced the Prius, they added all sorts of (what were then) $30k car features. Why? Not because they wanted to make a luxury car, (a friend of mine remarked that if they just added leather seats he would buy one instead of an expensive Lexus) but because it costs next to nothing to add those convenience features. That way people compare the Prius to a $30k car and see only a $1000 hybrid premium instead of a $5000 premium. That's also why you don't see $15k hybrids: Taking all the "premium" features out don't make it cost any less.
The reason this is possible is that hybrids and EVs have the margins of much less expensive cars.
The problem with material cost based approach is that it ignores the value of the brand. Yes, it doesn't cost 2x as much to build a $50K car as a $25K car but the branding of the $50K cars took a lots of money and a long time to build up. People are willing to buy a $50K BMW instead of a $20K car not because of the material cost but because of the intangible brand. A Prius arguably does not have the branding of a $30K car. Toyota still sold tons of them, kudos to them. Similarly Tesla simply doesn't have the branding power of a $50K car now.
Yeah, I don't remember where I saw it but Elon Musk had mentioned that the main goal was to go from the Roadster to something affordable at a price range of $20k to $30k. Increase production and decrease price with each production run.
I hope someone from Tesla is reading this. I really, really wanted to buy a Tesla. But the Roadster was too small, and the Model S is too big. At 196 inches long, it's almost as big as a BMW 7 series. The Right Size for an electric car is ~170-180 inches, about the size of a Prius (or a Lexus IS or an Infiniti G). I was a little dismayed to see that the next car in the pipeline, the Model X, bills itself as a blend of SUV and minivan. That is totally the wrong direction IMHO. You already have one very big car and one very small one. You need a compact-to-midsize to fill out the lineup, not a second huge car.
I think their rationale is: Their cars are very expensive. People would buy a 196 inches-long expensive car, they also would buy an expensive sports cars. They wouldn't buy an expensive Prius easily. Maybe they are using their high margins on those cars to have some chance against Asian makers in the future. But, sad truth is, they will develop the very tech that nissan, toyota, hyundai, et al, will use to kill them.
Tesla is licensing some of their tech to Toyota iirc. I think they are of the attitude that in the current market more electric cars from everyone is good for business.
By licensing, or being forced to license, their tech to extremely competitive companies. I believe that Tesla will end up making only high-end cars and making money mostly from licensing. But that's just an opinion, really. No one really knows where things are headed to. One thing is for sure: youngsters don't like cars as people my age.
I think their rationale is that they need to fit a lot of battery somewhere. The Model S is not just long, it's wide for a sedan. That's all about fitting the massive battery pack under the passenger compartment.
Tesla is in 'sniper' mode right now; few bullets, and they have to hit with them or the company goes down.
Selling a 50-100k sedan almost requires it to aim at the BMW 7 market, IMO. But don't despair, over time they'll expand the lineup and I'm sure they'll make one that fits your needs.
The next model should be 30-50k and I would expect it to be about the size that you describe.
I understand they're in sniper mode, and I understand why the Model S is the size it is. What I don't understand is why the Model X (http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx) is the size it is. They're going to have two seven-passenger vehicles and zero four-passenger vehicles. That doesn't seem like the right way to diversify.
The Model X is built on top of the Model S platform. That's probably why.
Making it smaller would probably require a lot more complex engineering and tradeoffs when it comes to the powertrain/batteries/etc.
It's actually very smart because they are leveraging all the work they have done for the Model S and getting another model out of it. Elon Musk has said in interviews that the Model S was actually over 90% new parts, which made it very complex to design and get the supply chain going. If the Model X has a significantly lower number of new parts, that'll make a big difference to the bottom line and time to market.
Ah. Well, I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense. But it does leave me wondering how hard it can be to shorten the wheel base. The battery pack already comes in different sizes so they must have that figured out. There's no drive shaft or transmission. It's hard for me to imagine that making the platform shorter is that much harder than designing a whole new body.
Elon has five children. Getting Elon + 5 children into a Tesla is a key goal, and presumably his smallest child is going to outgrow the optional rear facing seats in the Model S at some point...
For a 7 passenger vehicle, the Model S is tiny. I hate SUV's and my wife hates minivans, but a 7 passenger vehicle would be really quite convenient. Nobody makes 7 passenger wagons any more, so we're quite likely to end up with a Model S simply because of the form factor. Not this year, though. Our youngest daughter is still too young for the rear-facing seats on this car. Maybe next year, though.
Does it matter? Producing electricity is almost trivial to scale up when compared to oil, especially if the political weather forecast for your region is nuclear-friendly.
Not included in these calculations is the wear and tear of a standard gasoline engine, which are still running on pretty much the design of the original 1885 Daimler Reitwagen.
From today: "The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society's needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge," said, Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota's development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.
The problem with all of the plug-in hybrids is that they can only run about 12 miles on full electric power. I don't know about you, but I need an electric car that can run at least 50 miles to get to work and back.
I'm very excited for mine to arrive in the next 90 days. I know I will be an early adopter in the EV world but I look at it as less of a splurge and more of an investment that could move the industry forward. This will be my fifth car owned and I am tired of two faced dealers, incremental improvements, design without vision and an industry that can but won't improve because of the lucrative parts & service aftermarket. Radio and television is littered with people giving away cars with 0% financing (baking in the profit elsewhere I suspect). It's only a matter of time before we have to bail the auto makers out again.
I'm putting my money into Tesla because I believe that if they can make it to the Model E (Bluestar - $30-40k sedan) then we'll have a whole new ballgame on our hands in the automotive space. The Model S is the testing ground for volume manufacturing, the Model X will test platform re-use, then we reach the Model E which will drive down costs.
In the mean time I encourage you all to test drive one - even if you are not going to purchase - it's quite the experience. The Tesla stores around North America are now getting their in-store models for test drives. With leasing opening up next summer (rumour has it) it should also make it a tad more accessible to the general public.
If your focus in pure money ROI then I supposed you would be right. At some point, however, we need to vote with our wallets to influence larger investment decisions. At the early stages of adoption per-unit costs will be higher than volume manufacturing. This is where Tesla is at this point (and the EV segment as a whole). If I continued to buy internal combustion vehicles because they were cheaper then I would continue to prop up a segment that needs to either be deprecated or pivot.
At this price point I am willing to vote with my wallet in hopes that it will spur on further investment to broaden the market in turn driving down prices through better technology and higher volume sales. This is no different than the PC market in the 1980s - very expensive to buy a PC, but if none of us did then we would have had a different outcome.
What is different about this investment than, say, buying a Ferrari is that this feels like something that is moving us forward rather than burning cash on a cool car that the ladies will dig (although you do hope for that as well - it's cool being green after all, right? :)).
Stopwatch going 400Mhz. I pressed it and it read 55157:
18:16 A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great
men.
18:17 He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his
neighbour cometh and searcheth him.
18:18 The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the
mighty.
18:19 A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and
their contentions are like the bars of a castle.
18:20 A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth;
and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.
18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that
love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
----
Cain and Abel is the most important story in the Bible. Genesis 4. If I please God, He talks, otherwise I'm supposed to try again. What do you think God wants. Put a lot of thought into that question because it's the most important.
God likes bears and elephants. Honey is funny.
God says...
8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing
me witness in the Holy Ghost, 9:2 That I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart.
9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my
brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 9:4 Who are Israelites;
to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and
the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 9:5
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ
came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are
not all Israel, which are of Israel: 9:7 Neither, because they are the
seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed
be called.
One of the big downsides I see in owning a Tesla is the need to also own a house with a garage. The Model S has the range to handle my daily commuting needs, but I have no place to charge it.
Electric propulsion just is better for any type of friction based transport within our atmosphere (trains/buses/planes/cars/bikes). The only problem was battery density per dollar. However, thanks to the incredible - and I mean incredible - success of laptops, phones and tablets over the last decade that problem is just about solved (due to astonishing volume/economies of scale/incremental li-on research/massive factory investment).
High battery density at low cost (key) + 92% efficient electric motors (already done) = cheap, efficient transport for all - everywhere (think the electrification of trains - but throughout suburbia). Hook up this electrified network and make it fully autonomous (cars/trains/buses/planes) - and we've just turned the physical world into the Internet. No more oil shocks, no more traffic jams, no more pollution (in city centres), no more time wasted, fully networked, no more car ownership, no more driver deaths - for more see Google car discussions elsewhere.
We will utilise fully electric transportation systems within the decade for the same reason that gasoline/diesel based transport dominated electric back in 1900 - it's just better, faster and cheaper.
It also has the benefit of allowing us stop giving a shit about the hell hole that is the Middle East (I went there).
With the introduction of electric cars, the astonishing growth and dramatic lowering in cost of solar PV (thanks to China) and the development of nuclear fusion with the ITER plant - you'll soon wonder why you cared about the price of oil at all.
The electric car will send everyone in the Middle East back to Africa level care and development levels - a.k.a. We will no longer give a shit and brutal poverty.
Gasoline is only ~15% efficient. Gasoline is assumed to be past peak oil - hence prices must rise with time (look at your local petrol station). Battery tech on the other hand falls in cost by 5% per year. Electric engines are 92% efficient - batteries fall in cost 4x over next decade - EV cost/range parity will occur by 2018.
Give it 5 years and they'll be electric Toyota Corolla's rolling around with middle class drivers behind the wheel.
It's less the cost that I'm thinking of, but the weight and the recharge times. Of course these can be accepted as trade-offs, but they fly in the face of your apparent idea that electric power is equal or better in all ways aside from cost and thus complicate matters.
Don't forget, by the way, we have to power electric vehicles with something. I expect as gasoline rises in cost, electricity is going to as well, offsetting some of this differential.
It doesn't have to be that way, but what with our fear of nuclear power...
Anyway, I am completely in favor of electric vehicles for many reasons, but to call them inevitable within the near future, I think is unrealistic. Unless we come up with capacitors of wildly improved energy density (on the order of 1,000x) at which point I hope and expect the gasoline automobile market will fold overnight.
We'll power it with rooftop/plant-scale solar PV and nuclear fusion.
Recharge times are about as much an issue as they are for smart phones. Humans need to rest ~12 hours a day. During that time they charge their tablets, phones and wait for it - also their cars. Charging is not an issue if you need to sleep.
Long car trips are not relevant for the vast majority of people for the most time. iPod succeeded because it's what people needed - not what they thought they wanted.
Good luck with that. Solar equipment still isn't cheap, and while I wish it was otherwise, the voting public is incredibly averse to anything with the word "nuclear".
Smart phones have 1000mAh batteries. A Nissan Leaf can mostly charge in a 12 hour period, and get 80 miles on that charge. What about if you want 200 miles, or if you've got an SUV? The grid is not prepared for that kind of power draw.
Agreed, but there is no clean solution yet for that remaining 5%, which will keep many people from buying one.
Tesla's supercharger stations are designed specifically to address this 5%. He quotes studies about driving that show that most people stop for approximately 30-60 minutes every 200 miles or so. The Supercharger stations are supposed to be able to charge to 160 miles of usage in 30 minutes, enough time to get a bite to eat.
The specs for the Model S (options section of the site, actually) state the single plug charger replenished 31 miles of ranger per hour of charge, and the optional dual plug charger replenishes 62 miles of ranger per hour of charge.
That doesn't address power grid problems if there is a large influx of demand because of electric vehicles, but at least it's at night, when there's less demand on the system from other sources. Ideally, that would spur more power grid development, but I'm not going to make predictions on such sparse and tenuous assumptions (even if they come from myself).
> Tesla's supercharger stations are designed specifically to address this 5%. He quotes studies about driving that show that most people stop for approximately 30-60 minutes every 200 miles or so. The Supercharger stations are supposed to be able to charge to 160 miles of usage in 30 minutes, enough time to get a bite to eat.
I've driven cross-country many times and we never stopped for 30 minutes every 200 miles. We might be off the freeway for 15 minutes every 300 miles, but less than 10 minutes of that time is available for charging. (Pulling off the road and getting somewhere to do something takes time.)
And no, eating within walking distance of the only charging station in Elko, Winnemucca, or Battle Mountain isn't enough.
"During our drive, we used 78.2 kW-hrs of electricity (93 percent of the battery's rated capacity). What does that mean? It's the energy equivalent of 2.32 gasoline gallons, or 100.7 mpg-e before charging losses. That BMW 528i following us (powered by a very fuel-efficient, turbocharged, direct-injected 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine) consumed 7.9 gallons of gas for a rate of 30.1 mpg. The Tesla's electrical energy cost for the trip was $10.17 (at California's average electrical rate); the BMW's drive cost $34.55. The 528i emitted 152 lbs of CO2; the Model S, 52 -- from the state's power plants."
No, not completely offset- partially. I don't mean I expect it will cost an electric car just as much to drive as a gas car; I mean that the falling costs of electricity storage cannot be taken in isolation against the rising cost of gasoline. Let's not forget as well that if everyone is suddenly driving electric cars, electricity demand will explode and prices will rise. I expect the result is simply that it will draw out the "crossing point".
Really, that's all I'm arguing, is that we are not twenty-four months away from the electric car takeover. It's probably more than a decade out.
Just an interesting aside on the safety issue. Suicide overtook traffic fatalities in the US as a cause of death. Makes all the hub bub about seat belts, texting, etc seem less about safety and more about enforcing the police state.
- $30k base (I buy around $20k, but can justify the delta because of the fuel savings), could care less what the top end is, but probably no more than $45k.
- Accord or Sonata size. I'd even settle for a BMW 3-series or C class size.
- For the base price I want 300 mile range.
- Seats 4-5 adults
- don't need leather seats or other fancy stuff, just a/c am/fm/hd/xm radio with an Aux in. Don't care about touch screen nonsense, GPS nav, maybe just give me a place to put my phone and it'll fill in for all that stuff. I don't even care about a CD player, the phone will handle it all through aux.
- Cruise control is cool, but I won't pay a dollar more for it
- 0-60 in under 6 seconds.
- 5 star crash ratings all around
- sell it with civic/accord like reliability for 5 years
- then I'll buy it
everything else is cool, hell I'd love to plunk down on a top of the line model-S, I drool when I watch Veyron top speed runs, I love this stuff, but honestly when I get down to it, I think of cars like rapidly depreciating transport appliances. They have to be cheap and reliable, utilitarian and just reasonably comfortable (not luxurious). I don't care if the car is 50/50 weight balanced, or the car can park itself, or the cup holders retract into the dash. I don't give a shit about this. It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that I'd rather do other things with my money. This is not a value judgement on those that do spend on cars, but it's not what I spend my money on.
I'm the type of car buyer that buys 1 car every 10-12 years and drives them for over 250k miles or till the wheels fall off. I buy in the segment of cars that sells something like a quarter million cars a month in the U.S. alone. There are a lot of us.
(and yes, the model-S and X are probably among the most beautiful production cars in the world today)
I think that was about as useful a list of demands as mine:
- $30k base price
- Be a Ferrari
You're basically asking for the performance and size of an M3, the reliability of a Civic, the range of a Japanese gasoline car, all for the price of... well, a Civic. Presumably all while maintaining electric's 200mpgE+. Of course it would sell; it would be the biggest bargain in automotive history.
I won't pretend to be an expert on internal combustion engines, but I don't think the demands are that bad. Electric engines have 100% torque all the time, which isn't true of gas engines. I believe that essentially implies a fast take off speed isn't that difficult for an electric car, and would have very little affect on it's overall distance per charge.
I don't think so. I'm basically asking for them to sell me an all electric replacement for a V-6 accord with the absolute minimum trim level (which runs around $25-27k) But with the inconvenience of having to spend several hours charging it instead of a few minutes refueling it.
Any light weight electric vehicle could be a Ferrari.
And I believe Shai Agassi said his goal is to get a car down below $10,000 (without the battery). If safety wasn't a concern, it'd be easy to build such a car.
The reason Tesla aimed upmarket first is to sell a somewhat mass-market, high-quality product (Roadster and Model S), when the underlying tech is still somewhat expensive - meaning the early products will be relatively expensive (think of early laptops, iPods, solid state drives, anything really). So you're getting a great product, just not cheap. Other electric car manufacturers try to make cheap, small, slow electric cars that are a joke and no one takes seriously:
Elon Musk is using rich dentists to finance the R&D of the mass-market, affordable electric car that regular middle class people could buy.
It's a very smart plan, in my opinion. Ensures high-quality products throughout the adoption curve, meaning that investors, future customers and even competitors will take Tesla seriously. Having rival car companies sit up and take notice is great, meaning competition. Look at the rash of MP3 players on the market after the iPod launched - this forces prices down, for both the raw materials and the finished products. We're at a tipping point.
I think in order to make the electric car go mainstream, we need to move past the idea of car ownership.
For a lot of people, car sharing provides people with the benefits they need from a car without the hassle of owning it.
In the case of electric cars, where a huge barrier to using one is the charging time, car sharing nearly completely solves the problem. Because cars are returned to the same locations in between reservations, they will be constantly charging during the time they're not being driven. Plus all the infrastructure cost is shared over the members (if, for example, you live in a city, you might not be able to install a charging station because you have on street parking)
I believe for cities and dense populated area's were charge points easily viable that electric cars have there real niche if the price and incentives to migrate are there. Offset against cleaner air in dense populated area's/cities and its a win win. But until some extra leaps in power storage are made then we still have a little way to go until things truely pick up.
Though a car that could act as a pod that could attach onto a transport train line would truely open up interesting options in personal transport and charging alternatives.
68 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadI really really really want Tesla to succeed. But I cannot convince myself to buy a Model-S, it is just past my pain threshold. And for that I am sad.
I'm largely in the same boat. I'm planning on buying a car in the next year and while I think the Model S is downright beautiful, I can't do it. The base model is right in the price range I'd be willing to pay, but the problem is the range; even under optimal driving circumstances, it's quite a bit short of what I'd need to make the trips I'd like to make. One of the higher end models has the range I'd need, but I can't justify the extra $20k or whatever it is.
Hopefully in a couple years there'll be a car from them priced at the perfect level with the things I need, but it's just not there yet.
It spends about $100M per quarter and it has $200M of cash [1]. So in the next 6 months, Tesla will need to bring margins way up (unlikely), dramatically cut expenses (opposite of the current plan), or raise lots more money.
The company already has $400M in debt. I hope it can raise more. Or that the public will pony up more investment. I also really really want Tesla to succeed.
[1] See "Cash Flows" tab: http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA&fstype=ii&...
Ford and GM, established car makers, have gross margins of about 12-15%. Tesla's margins are much lower, at least today. But let's ignore working capital needs and pretend Tesla had the "great" margins of its competitors, then that's still only $50M of cash contribution. Tesla will need lots of cash this year.
If you didn't need to own the car, then things like a vehicular equivalent of the old livery stables and post horses might be viable.
But perhaps I am just poor.
May be their production capacity can't handle the high volume so they price it to throttle demand.
The reason this is possible is that hybrids and EVs have the margins of much less expensive cars.
Edit: added a sentence
Could you expand on this? How exactly will Tesla bring about its own demise?
Selling a 50-100k sedan almost requires it to aim at the BMW 7 market, IMO. But don't despair, over time they'll expand the lineup and I'm sure they'll make one that fits your needs.
The next model should be 30-50k and I would expect it to be about the size that you describe.
Making it smaller would probably require a lot more complex engineering and tradeoffs when it comes to the powertrain/batteries/etc.
It's actually very smart because they are leveraging all the work they have done for the Model S and getting another model out of it. Elon Musk has said in interviews that the Model S was actually over 90% new parts, which made it very complex to design and get the supply chain going. If the Model X has a significantly lower number of new parts, that'll make a big difference to the bottom line and time to market.
Wolfram has the estimate for you: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2885*kW*h%29%2F%28300*...
Thats half of what you pay per mile with a Prius: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28gas+price%29+*+%281%...
Not included in these calculations is the wear and tear of a standard gasoline engine, which are still running on pretty much the design of the original 1885 Daimler Reitwagen.
On that front, Better Place says they can make money leasing batteries to you at 10 cents a mile.
It's interesting it that it likely means they cannot make the margins they want.
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/08/11/living/automotive/...
From today: "The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society's needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge," said, Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota's development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.
I'm putting my money into Tesla because I believe that if they can make it to the Model E (Bluestar - $30-40k sedan) then we'll have a whole new ballgame on our hands in the automotive space. The Model S is the testing ground for volume manufacturing, the Model X will test platform re-use, then we reach the Model E which will drive down costs.
In the mean time I encourage you all to test drive one - even if you are not going to purchase - it's quite the experience. The Tesla stores around North America are now getting their in-store models for test drives. With leasing opening up next summer (rumour has it) it should also make it a tad more accessible to the general public.
At this price point I am willing to vote with my wallet in hopes that it will spur on further investment to broaden the market in turn driving down prices through better technology and higher volume sales. This is no different than the PC market in the 1980s - very expensive to buy a PC, but if none of us did then we would have had a different outcome.
What is different about this investment than, say, buying a Ferrari is that this feels like something that is moving us forward rather than burning cash on a cool car that the ladies will dig (although you do hope for that as well - it's cool being green after all, right? :)).
18:16 A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.
18:17 He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.
18:18 The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty.
18:19 A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.
18:20 A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.
18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
----
Cain and Abel is the most important story in the Bible. Genesis 4. If I please God, He talks, otherwise I'm supposed to try again. What do you think God wants. Put a lot of thought into that question because it's the most important.
God likes bears and elephants. Honey is funny.
God says...
8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 9:4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 9:5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Electric propulsion just is better for any type of friction based transport within our atmosphere (trains/buses/planes/cars/bikes). The only problem was battery density per dollar. However, thanks to the incredible - and I mean incredible - success of laptops, phones and tablets over the last decade that problem is just about solved (due to astonishing volume/economies of scale/incremental li-on research/massive factory investment).
High battery density at low cost (key) + 92% efficient electric motors (already done) = cheap, efficient transport for all - everywhere (think the electrification of trains - but throughout suburbia). Hook up this electrified network and make it fully autonomous (cars/trains/buses/planes) - and we've just turned the physical world into the Internet. No more oil shocks, no more traffic jams, no more pollution (in city centres), no more time wasted, fully networked, no more car ownership, no more driver deaths - for more see Google car discussions elsewhere.
We will utilise fully electric transportation systems within the decade for the same reason that gasoline/diesel based transport dominated electric back in 1900 - it's just better, faster and cheaper.
It also has the benefit of allowing us stop giving a shit about the hell hole that is the Middle East (I went there).
With the introduction of electric cars, the astonishing growth and dramatic lowering in cost of solar PV (thanks to China) and the development of nuclear fusion with the ITER plant - you'll soon wonder why you cared about the price of oil at all.
The electric car will send everyone in the Middle East back to Africa level care and development levels - a.k.a. We will no longer give a shit and brutal poverty.
However the facts of the matter are such:
Gasoline is only ~15% efficient. Gasoline is assumed to be past peak oil - hence prices must rise with time (look at your local petrol station). Battery tech on the other hand falls in cost by 5% per year. Electric engines are 92% efficient - batteries fall in cost 4x over next decade - EV cost/range parity will occur by 2018.
Give it 5 years and they'll be electric Toyota Corolla's rolling around with middle class drivers behind the wheel.
Don't forget, by the way, we have to power electric vehicles with something. I expect as gasoline rises in cost, electricity is going to as well, offsetting some of this differential.
It doesn't have to be that way, but what with our fear of nuclear power...
Anyway, I am completely in favor of electric vehicles for many reasons, but to call them inevitable within the near future, I think is unrealistic. Unless we come up with capacitors of wildly improved energy density (on the order of 1,000x) at which point I hope and expect the gasoline automobile market will fold overnight.
Recharge times are about as much an issue as they are for smart phones. Humans need to rest ~12 hours a day. During that time they charge their tablets, phones and wait for it - also their cars. Charging is not an issue if you need to sleep.
Long car trips are not relevant for the vast majority of people for the most time. iPod succeeded because it's what people needed - not what they thought they wanted.
Smart phones have 1000mAh batteries. A Nissan Leaf can mostly charge in a 12 hour period, and get 80 miles on that charge. What about if you want 200 miles, or if you've got an SUV? The grid is not prepared for that kind of power draw.
Agreed, but there is no clean solution yet for that remaining 5%, which will keep many people from buying one.
The specs for the Model S (options section of the site, actually) state the single plug charger replenished 31 miles of ranger per hour of charge, and the optional dual plug charger replenishes 62 miles of ranger per hour of charge.
That doesn't address power grid problems if there is a large influx of demand because of electric vehicles, but at least it's at night, when there's less demand on the system from other sources. Ideally, that would spur more power grid development, but I'm not going to make predictions on such sparse and tenuous assumptions (even if they come from myself).
I've driven cross-country many times and we never stopped for 30 minutes every 200 miles. We might be off the freeway for 15 minutes every 300 miles, but less than 10 minutes of that time is available for charging. (Pulling off the road and getting somewhere to do something takes time.)
And no, eating within walking distance of the only charging station in Elko, Winnemucca, or Battle Mountain isn't enough.
Solves your problem of charging for cross-country drives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Azrt_wUkc
And we even have some running in Israel already:
http://www.just-auto.com/the-just-auto-blog/israels-quick-dr...
"During our drive, we used 78.2 kW-hrs of electricity (93 percent of the battery's rated capacity). What does that mean? It's the energy equivalent of 2.32 gasoline gallons, or 100.7 mpg-e before charging losses. That BMW 528i following us (powered by a very fuel-efficient, turbocharged, direct-injected 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine) consumed 7.9 gallons of gas for a rate of 30.1 mpg. The Tesla's electrical energy cost for the trip was $10.17 (at California's average electrical rate); the BMW's drive cost $34.55. The 528i emitted 152 lbs of CO2; the Model S, 52 -- from the state's power plants."
Really, that's all I'm arguing, is that we are not twenty-four months away from the electric car takeover. It's probably more than a decade out.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2012.3...
- $30k base (I buy around $20k, but can justify the delta because of the fuel savings), could care less what the top end is, but probably no more than $45k.
- Accord or Sonata size. I'd even settle for a BMW 3-series or C class size.
- For the base price I want 300 mile range.
- Seats 4-5 adults
- don't need leather seats or other fancy stuff, just a/c am/fm/hd/xm radio with an Aux in. Don't care about touch screen nonsense, GPS nav, maybe just give me a place to put my phone and it'll fill in for all that stuff. I don't even care about a CD player, the phone will handle it all through aux.
- Cruise control is cool, but I won't pay a dollar more for it
- 0-60 in under 6 seconds.
- 5 star crash ratings all around
- sell it with civic/accord like reliability for 5 years
- then I'll buy it
everything else is cool, hell I'd love to plunk down on a top of the line model-S, I drool when I watch Veyron top speed runs, I love this stuff, but honestly when I get down to it, I think of cars like rapidly depreciating transport appliances. They have to be cheap and reliable, utilitarian and just reasonably comfortable (not luxurious). I don't care if the car is 50/50 weight balanced, or the car can park itself, or the cup holders retract into the dash. I don't give a shit about this. It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that I'd rather do other things with my money. This is not a value judgement on those that do spend on cars, but it's not what I spend my money on.
I'm the type of car buyer that buys 1 car every 10-12 years and drives them for over 250k miles or till the wheels fall off. I buy in the segment of cars that sells something like a quarter million cars a month in the U.S. alone. There are a lot of us.
(and yes, the model-S and X are probably among the most beautiful production cars in the world today)
- $30k base price
- Be a Ferrari
You're basically asking for the performance and size of an M3, the reliability of a Civic, the range of a Japanese gasoline car, all for the price of... well, a Civic. Presumably all while maintaining electric's 200mpgE+. Of course it would sell; it would be the biggest bargain in automotive history.
*mpgE = miles per gallon equivalent
And I believe Shai Agassi said his goal is to get a car down below $10,000 (without the battery). If safety wasn't a concern, it'd be easy to build such a car.
The reason Tesla aimed upmarket first is to sell a somewhat mass-market, high-quality product (Roadster and Model S), when the underlying tech is still somewhat expensive - meaning the early products will be relatively expensive (think of early laptops, iPods, solid state drives, anything really). So you're getting a great product, just not cheap. Other electric car manufacturers try to make cheap, small, slow electric cars that are a joke and no one takes seriously:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REVA
Elon Musk is using rich dentists to finance the R&D of the mass-market, affordable electric car that regular middle class people could buy.
It's a very smart plan, in my opinion. Ensures high-quality products throughout the adoption curve, meaning that investors, future customers and even competitors will take Tesla seriously. Having rival car companies sit up and take notice is great, meaning competition. Look at the rash of MP3 players on the market after the iPod launched - this forces prices down, for both the raw materials and the finished products. We're at a tipping point.
> "It's really been my goal from the beginning for Tesla to produce a mass-market car," Musk says.
It blows my mind that the article and comments here have yet to mention the Nissan Leaf.
http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index
Isn't that more mainstream already? By miles? I see them in New Hampshire for chrissake. You can get them for 27K after rebate.
Does nobody care because it doesn't look fast?
We need ~250-300 mile range cars going at 30K for mainstream adoption.
For a lot of people, car sharing provides people with the benefits they need from a car without the hassle of owning it.
In the case of electric cars, where a huge barrier to using one is the charging time, car sharing nearly completely solves the problem. Because cars are returned to the same locations in between reservations, they will be constantly charging during the time they're not being driven. Plus all the infrastructure cost is shared over the members (if, for example, you live in a city, you might not be able to install a charging station because you have on street parking)
Though a car that could act as a pod that could attach onto a transport train line would truely open up interesting options in personal transport and charging alternatives.