Tesla Plans To Produce 500,000 Electric Cars In 2018, 1 Million In 2020 (reuters.com) 88
"Tesla Motors Inc said it was stepping up production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market sedan and would build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule, but warned that spending will ramp up in tandem," reports Reuters. Tesla said capital spending would rise about 50% more than originally planned this year, to around $2.25 billion. Producing 500,000 vehicles in 2018 will be no easy task, especially considering the company is only on track to deliver between 80,000 and 90,000 electric vehicles this year. In addition to producing 500,000 electric vehicles in 2018, Elon Musk also said the company expects to produce nearly 1 million vehicles in 2020. These are certainly ambitious goals, even for a company that had the 'biggest one-week launch of any product ever.'
Never (Score:1)
Never gonna happen. One thing is for certain. SpaceX and Tesla both never make their ridiculous overly ambitious timeline goals.
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Tesla sells internationally - notably Canada, China and across Europe, but as of Model 3 also Mexico, India and Brazil.
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Yes, but have you seen most of the cars in the countries you mentioned. Most cars are far from new.
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Okay, smart guy.
Tesla currently has Supercharger facilities (which I'm using as a convenient proxy for "countries it sells its vehicles to") in Australia, Western Europe, China, Japan, the USA, and Canada. Japan, in particular, has very strict regulations on cars that mean that its car fleet is generally very new; it's rare to see a car older than eight to ten years old on Japanese roads, and there would be a huge appeal in that country to buying an electrical vehicle, thanks to their stringent emissions co
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I can buy low cost house for not much more than a new car and turn it into source of income. Given this choice, I'll keep driving my 30 year old POS (that works perfectly well BtW) and buy more houses.
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Not to detract, but it sounds like you made a good investment in that car 30 years ago. And it sounds like you invest your money well in proper maintenance.
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Re: Never (Score:1)
Re: Never (Score:2)
Also what part of the country do you live where there is a house the cost of an average car?
Somewhere with a wage-structure so suppressed that $45k will buy you a liveable house... and those of us with any sense would still rather take a bullet than live there. Places like Oklahoma comes to mind.
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and those of us with any sense would still rather take a bullet than live there.
The Internet has really flattened out the world, and made it tolerable, even pleasant, to live in many places that would be unlivable a few decades ago.
Twenty years ago the town I live outside of was small-town Midwest, with a few stores and everything shut down at six on weekdays. Even shorter hours on the weekends. The cultural 'connection' was a Sam Goodies outlet at the strip mall on the outskirts of town.
Today, even a ner
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Re: Never (Score:2)
...but it sounds like you made a good investment
More like a worthwhile expenditure. "Investment" has different meaning entirely.
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That's what I'm jealous of. Houses that cost not much more than a new car. Here in Europe a house that has been declared uninhabitable still costs 190,000 euro. You have to pay for the costs to break down the house and pay for the cost to build a new house. That is the cheapest house in my environment at the moment and it is even a terraced house without garden nor place to park your car.
If I had half a million spare, I would think about buying houses. It is still worth the investment, but the upfront costs
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There are a lot of immigrant dense neighborhoods around and people without a lot of money need place
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It's false here on Brazil: most cars here are new or have few years from manufacturing - I think it's wrong in other countries in the list too: may be a common misconception ("Cuba-related"?)...
Re: Never (Score:2)
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Great! If you're skeptical that means someone else is being ambitious. Something we could use much more of in fields other than new chat apps.
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They don't have the capital. (Score:1)
Do some basic research. They've never made more than about 11,000 cars a month. They don't have enough capital to build the manufacturing capacity to make that many cars.
They seem to have tricked a few of you.
Tesla is a religion that makes electric cars.
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Because in California you show up at your smug friends house in a Tesla and your awesome friends house in a Ferrari. Don't let those two intermingle. That's just all bad. You'll be cleaning smugness off for weeks and you can't just drop your smug friend because he knows a guy who knows a guy who can get things done.
Dear Elon (Score:2)
Ramping up production - any plans to manufacture in Australia? You'd have your choice of factory and a monopoly on production once Ford, General Motors and Toyota all exit the market in a year or two, meaning lots of skilled, unemployed workers.
Add a possible change of government come July, keen to transition to a "low carbon" future where electric vehicles haven't made much of a dent yet.
Right hand drive vehicles for the UK market...
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Sadly not :(
http://reneweconomy.com.au/201... [reneweconomy.com.au]
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Well at least Weatherill and Turnbull have asked the question, I guess.
I'd suggest with our sunny climate Tesla would make a killing on locally made Powerwall batteries if the government weren't so blinded by coal.
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The only reason the power wall could make sense for individuals is if the electric company overcharges the customer or doesn't pay them enough for the solar power the customer sells back to the grid.
They do. Australian electricity is fairly expensive and we get pennies for generated solar, so charging your battery during the day when you're not home and using that power at peak time in the evening makes sense, and it will make more sense as the price of solar and batteries comes down.
The power companies raise rates and cut feed-in tariffs to maintain their profits, which makes more people buy solar and batteries, which means more rate rises and tariff cuts, which means more solar and batteries.
We could
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The electric company is a business, not a charity. Of course they are going to sell electricity for substantially more then they buy it for. That's what businesses do. So unless a country's government mandates them buying electricity from consumers at a similar price to supplying it, Powerwall makes sense.
At the grid level, unless you have a very flat country, it makes more sense to use pumped hydro than batteries anyway.
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"At the grid level, unless you have a very flat country, it makes more sense to use pumped hydro than batteries anyway."
There aren't that many locations suitable for pumped hydro, even in hilly/mountainous terrain.
At this point I am ready for everything (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll drive a car running on the blood of freshly killed babies if I won't drive it.
Re:Cars, cars, cars (Score:5, Informative)
Those issues are rapidly diminishing in many areas. Charging stations are popping up all over. I've been driving my Model S since 2013, and the number of places I can't take it is rapidly shrinking. I go on an annual camping trip in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and this will be the first year I won't need to borrow a gasoline car for the trip since the main highway is now covered (highway 395). As for service centers, those also are popping up in many places, though some states are actively trying to prevent them.
My experience with Tesla service is night and day compared to my experience with Toyota. Toyota always tried to push a bunch of crap on me. They'd try and push blinker fluid if they thought they could get away with it. I'd have to fight with them when my car had common well-known problems. With Tesla there's never any question and they address the problem. My car has had more issues than the newer ones since it is a low VIN number but most of those issues were squeaks and rattles, which is difficult for any manufacturer to get right, especially with a brand new model from a new company out of a new factory. Hell, with Tesla I don't need AAA for towing since Tesla's service is better since there is no limit on distance or the number of times you can use it. I have had to use it once, and it was due to a tire that I bought through Tirerack and had installed by a third party developing a bubble in the sidewall. There were no questions nor was I billed for a tow home where I could go to my local dealer for a replacement tire since they discount the tires.
For those who don't live near a service center, they will come to you for an extra $100 fee.
All one has to do is look at Tesla's upcoming 2016 map [teslamotors.com] of chargers to see how quickly they're planning on expanding it. Tesla has already said that they plan to double the number of charging spots by the end of the year and I expect similar growth in 2017. The superchargers are the big game changer for Tesla. Nobody else can boast having an EV which can be driven across the country without spending huge amounts of time charging. Last September I had no problems or significant delays driving from the Bay Area to Seattle. It took me 2 days and charging only added 3-4 hours to the entire trip. The time often wasn't wasted either. I used it to stretch my legs and grab a bite to eat. If I were driving a gas car I'd also take 2 days for this drive since I'm not about to drive 14-16 hours straight.
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Now if only I was better at saving cash...
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One look at the posted map leaves no doubt that Tesla remains heavily rich-centered company. Even metropolitan centers have very few centers, located in the highest cost of living areas.
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One look at the posted map leaves no doubt that Tesla remains heavily rich-centered company.
The fact that the "affordable" Model 3 still costs BMW-3-series-money shouldn't leave any doubt of that to start with.
That said, the point of EVs is that most of the time you charge them at home and only need a charging station when making long trips, so the need for charging stations in cities & residential areas is reduced - they're needed along long-distance routes and at hotels, 'destination' shopping malls etc. The "high cost of living areas" are also the places that people are likely to take ro
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There's only 1.8 million people in all of Nebraska. It doesn't really mattter that the Tesla concept doesn't work for every single person in the country. As long as they can get it to work for the large population centers like California, New York, etc, they can probably cover 60% of the US population.
Also, for People doing that one trip a year where to visit family, they would probably be better off renting a gasoline car and saving money year round by paying less to operate the electric car for the year.
Re: Cars, cars, cars (Score:2)
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The cars are highly profitable with margins of over 25%. One needs to look at where all that money is going. Tesla could be profitable any time they want to, but if they did so they would remain a niche market and could never produce a car like the model 3. All of that money is being spent on capital needed to grow their business like the gigafactory. It also takes a lot of capital to put together a factory to build a high volume of cars. Tesla's problem is that they are supply constrained and it takes a lo
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"Tesla could be profitable any time they want to, but if they did so they would remain a niche market and could never produce a car like the model 3"
The thing to bear in mind is that carmakers traditionally make far more money selling car parts (or in Ford's case, finance deals) than cars.
Tesla's focus isn't cars or car parts. It's batteries - and not just in Teslas, or even in cars.
The objective is to produce a large enough market for large batteries for economies of scale to kick in enough to lower prices
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Most owners install a 240V 50A outlet in their garages. The outlet is around $14 at Home Depot. Of course that doesn't count the wiring and breaker, but generally it isn't all that expensive.
Elon will lead us out of the ICE desert! (Score:1)
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wish in one hand, shit in the other...
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Yeah Good Luck with that (Score:1)
Musk talks a big game in Tesla, but the problem with car production is people may get excited about the concept of an electric car but they won't buy if the door handles don't work, if the power train needs to be completely replaced and overhauled every 60,000 miles, if the roof doesn't fit, if the emergency brake kicks in every 6 seconds, and if the doors won't close, all of which have been common problems with the Model S and the Model X.
A car is a complex piece of machinery with many points of failure an
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car but they won't buy if the door handles don't work, if the power train needs to be completely replaced and overhauled every 60,000 miles, if the roof doesn't fit, if the emergency brake kicks in every 6 seconds, and if the doors won't close, all of which have been common problems with the Model S and the Model X.
Always amazing how these kinds of problems don't seem to count when they appear on BMWs, Fords, Audis, Toyotas, or anything else, but in the case of Tesla they are always the defining deal bre