Tesla Model 3 Becomes Best Selling Electric Car In World (cleantechnica.com) 164
Jose Pontes of EV Volumes and CleanTechnica has crunched some numbers and found that the Tesla Model 3 is now the best selling plug-in vehicle in the world. "In fact, the Model 3 was approximately 55,000 sales above the #2 BAIC EC-Series, an extremely popular Chinese model," CleanTechnica reports. "The Model 3 gobbled 7% of the plug-in vehicle market, while the #2 EC-Series and #3 Nissan LEAF each had 4%." From the report: After those top three, as the chart shows, the Tesla Model S and Model X were #4 and #5, respectively. They were followed by three Chinese models and then the Toyota Prius Prime and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The Model 3 (and others) helped push the world plug-in vehicle share up to 2.1% in 2018. (Double that 4 times and we're at about 30% market share.) [...] Remember, 93% of plug-in vehicle sales in 2018 were not Model 3 sales. Nearly 2 million non -- Model 3 electric cars, SUVs, and crossovers made it into consumers' parking spots. Still, there's clearly a new king of the hill, and its young Tesla's 4th model.
I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:1)
the Tesla Model 3 is now the best selling plug-in vehicle in the world. "In fact, the Model 3 was approximately 55,000 sales above the #2 BAIC EC-Series, an extremely popular Chinese model,"
I believe the Chinese will come from behind and "win" this thing, if the trends in manufacturing are to be believed.
Needless to say, their product will definitely be cheaper. So I'll wait.
Not surprised (Score:3)
I'm not surprised that the Tesla model 3 is the best selling electric car; I'd be surprised if it wasn't.
Like many things, it does seem likely that a lower-cost mass produced competitor is likely, in the long run, to take the lead, though.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is that you don't just need a lower sale price; you also need a lower production cost. One intuitively expects these two to correlate, but at low volumes, they don't; so long as EVs are a small percentage of a manufacturer's sales, pricing is more dictated by factors such as legal compliance, trying to establish a place in the market, and maturing one's designs.
As it stands, EV profitability varies greatly [twimg.com] between manufacturers.
The primary problem is that your base costs - batteries - are high, but your incremental costs - such as motor power - are low. A Model 3 drive unit, for example, was estimated by Munro & Associates to cost $754 - yet just the catalytic converter alone on a Prius costs more than double that. So, whether you're making some slow, plodding, econobox EV, or some lightning-speed entry-level luxury EV, the differences in production cost aren't that great. The exact same situation applies to China - battery cells are traded globally, and Chinese EV makers face the exact same challenges in making their battery packs affordable. Sure, they can cut costs on the rest of the vehicle - but you're still stuck with needing an expensive battery pack (or selling cars with poor range and charge speeds).
Thankfully, battery prices have been falling like a stone. So this situation keeps improving every year.
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This doesn't make a lot of sense. You say Tesla is making huge margins, but for some reason they are shedding staff to try to get costs down so they can release the $35k Model 3. Why can't they fulfill people's pre-orders in the mean time by cutting the margin slightly?
You are also comparing an established EV manufacturer with mature battery factory to the guys still in the fast ramp to phase. If this is where Tesla is after so many years and with so much volume, compared to say Hyundai-Kia who are already
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Hyundai & Kia Were already making cars. Tesla had to make cars from scratch, Hyundai only needed to learn EV stuff. Bodies, suspension, steering, brakes - they already knew that stuff well. Huyndai also makes EVs and gasoline cars using the same body - lots of shared components for the mass production.
As for the lower price - a Hyundai is a much smaller car. Shorter range, less room inside, less power. Less power also means lower top speed, cheaper brakes, cheaper tires, cheaper suspension. A nice car f
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Tesla is making gross margin on the car 20% or so on the higher end cars with average sale price above 50K. It does not have costs down to 30K to sell 35K model 3 with profits. Estimates are, the short range model will cost 28K to make at the volume of half a million a year. Tesla is still struggling to make 350 K a year consistently in Fremont.
Shorts have succeeded in cutting Tesla access to capital. So it is trying to fully fund the ram
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Duh. How exactly do you think you bring the cost of a car down - magic? You reduce parts and labour cost. The latter is known as layoffs.
And it's not a "Rei says" they're making huge margins; it's their official filed quarterly statements, for the past half decade.
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They've already done that to an extent. They've dropped the price on all of their vehicles within the past month. But they also need to bring down costs.
Where did you get the impression that Hyundai sells a profitable EV?
Low margin, huge potential for Ioniq: Hyundai [goauto.com.au]
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What a load of rubbish. No supporting links, I notice; no surprise, it's hard to support rubbish.
Rei is female and I have not seen her seriously mistaken on any point of fact. You may not like her opinions but you can't point to anything she's said that's actually wrong. If you want to claim she said lots of crazy stuff, then search her back posts and give us some crazy quotes. Go ahead, if she's such a big idiot it will be easy.
Now the zealots are convinced that Tesla has some sort of magic battery che
Re: Not surprised (Score:1)
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You don't do yourself any favours by calling cars like the iPace a "compliance car".
You don't do yourself any favours by claiming other people said something which they didn't.
Wait let me check, .. switch to browsing at -1.... yep AmiMoJo is the only person who used "iPace" and "compliance car" in the discussion. Why would you do that? The iPace is not a compliance car. Shame on you AmiMoJo for saying it is, and double shame on you for pretending your opinion is that of someone else's.
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The link in her post goes to an image that makes the claim.
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The link in her post goes to an image that makes the claim.
Oh so Rei is a pseudonym for a newspaper article now?
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Pretty sure she made it herself. She makes images like that to spam forums with.
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The link in the post literally quotes Jaguar's CFO calling it a compliance car.
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It literally quotes him, just not literally saying what you claim he said.
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And here's the quote from the article, including a quote from CFO Ken Gregor:
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A compliance car is one built for the primary purpose of reducing fleet emissions and complying with the rules. The iPace is helping do that, but it's not it's main reason for existing. Jaguar bet heavily on diesel and are now seeing sales suffer badly because of the scandals and a general move away from that fuel, so need to pivot fast to electric. It's a genuine effort by them to build a solid EV that their customers will want to buy.
A compliance car is something like the Fiat 500e, where minimal effort w
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We can watch Tesla fizzle without investing in the stock market at all.
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:5, Interesting)
Among the early adopters a vast majority are also the same sensible people, knowingly and willingly paying way over their normal price range for the model 3. The most common models traded in for the model 3 were Camrys, priuses and accords. My own comfort price range is 25K, and I paid 55K way beyond my comfort zone. I had heard numerous owners say the same thing.
As the prices fall, you might be tempted to stretch your price range too, it has that kind of effect, once you test drive one.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:5, Interesting)
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Every morning I park what might be my last gasoline engine car near the 'plug in' area at work. However, even though I'm one of the first 10% of the people in the office, both chargers are usually occupied. Unfortunately, I suspect that I'd never really be able to take advantage of the free charging.
I'd guess that it's more like 10 years from the start of a tipping point. By then about 20% of the cars will be electric, at that point gas will start to get cheap (with the removal of 20% of the demand), but
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The tipping point is closer than you think. At present the industry battery price is 140 $/kWh. Tesla is at 120 or 110$ /kWh. The magic number is 90$/kWh at pack level. At that price point, ICEV and BEV wi
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I'd guess that it's more like 10 years from the start of a tipping point. By then about 20% of the cars will be electric, at that point gas will start to get cheap (with the removal of 20% of the demand), but banks and investors will stop financing oil projects (which require lots of money just to keep going). In about 20 years gasoline would be very expensive and pull the rest of the car market into full electric.
It's more complicated than this. Only about half of oil goes to gasoline. So even if gasoline demand falls significantly, oil itself still won't be a specialty product.
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Afaict plastics, are typically made from hydrocarbons that are not saturated with hydrogen. These hydrocarbons result when heavier alkanes are cracked to produce lighter alkanes.
So the availability of feedstocks for plastic production is likely to depend on the relative demand for heavy and light oil products. Gasoline is somewhere in the middle so it seems like reduced demand for gasoline could do either way in terms of availability of feedstocks for plastic products.
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:4, Informative)
Re: I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:2, Informative)
You'll be surprised. Many of the newer Tesla owners in the Model 3 didn't buy to "save the world." Electric vehicles are fun to drive and might save money in TCO depending on your situation. Your situation really matters and why there are so many vehicles in the market to fit so many needs and wants. That said, Tesla is still more luxury brand than Chevy or Kia is even with the Model 3 being less than a Model S. I am surprised how people stretch to buy a car and hope they ran their numbers right.
Things like
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, this story was posted right as the first delivery of Model 3s to China is arriving in Tianjin [vesselfinder.com]. :) Also the second shipment to Europe will also arrive at Zeebrugge shortly [vesselfinder.com].
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Also the second shipment to Europe will also arrive at Zeebrugge shortly [vesselfinder.com].
And Musk is in Europe, supervising the Model 3 roll-out in Europe:
https://electrek.co/2019/02/09... [electrek.co]
Re:I'll wait on the Chinese (Score:5, Insightful)
Sales are always low in January [insideevs.com], Tesla made a huge pre-tax credit phasedown push (although they've almost completely compensated for the credit reduction via cost savings since then), and they're focusing production on European and Chinese models - not simply for the ability to sell with a much higher ASP (very high take rates on M3P, for example), but because it's quite time critical due to the trade wars (March deadline for the renewal of tariffs against China, and next week a new ruling about whether to start a 90 day countdown to impose tariffs against Europe, which would also meet with retaliatory tariffs on the auto industry). There's now 7 RORO ships out there full of Model 3s, not counting the Glovis Captain which recently unloaded at Zeebrugge.
Tesla always focuses on what's time critical. Before the US credit phasedown, that was the US. Now that it's 6 months until the next, smaller phasedown, the focus is on China and Europe.
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Weird, eh? Only a year or so ago anyone who bought American cars was a moron, and a jingoistic one at that. Remember "GET A BRAIN MORANS"? Buying foreign cars was a sign of sophistication and taste. But ever since Trump declared his trade war, Sinophobia has made a comeback not seen since the "Yellow Peril" age of Fu Manchu.
America's adversary? The Americans were front and center getting China admitted to the WTO. You know, the thing without which, China would not be the powerhouse it is today.
Wasn't Tesla supposed to be bankrupt by now? (Score:4, Interesting)
gotta watch the conditionals, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
by argStyopa ( 232550 ) Alter Relationship on Thursday April 07, 2016 @06:35PM (#51864323) Journal
"...If it sells every car that's been reserved..."
I'm going to call it here, that less than 100,000 - maybe even less than 50k - actually turn into real orders.
--
-Styopa
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More than 100,000 of the pre-orders have already been delivered. The rest are probably waiting on the $35,000 version.
There might be a few people who put down $1000 and have no intention of buying but I don't know why they would do that.
Next month (Score:2)
Give it time man. Tesla will go bankrupt any day now. This is just a brief uptick. I mean their CFO just left 11 days ago. Clearly they'll be bankrupt this month for sure!
Need a cheap no fills model (Score:2)
Make a 50 mile range EV for cheap, and I'd buy two.
One charges directly through solar (etc) during the day, without the grid tie nonsense.
The other is for commute etc.
What you want... (Score:2, Informative)
...is a golf cart.
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Golf carts with NHTSA safety standards compliance.
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Why haven't you bought a Leaf then? You can pick up a used 2016 for under $10k.
Re:Need a cheap no fills model (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the AC above - what you want is a used Leaf.
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You can pick up some original Leafs in great condition in the $7k to $9k range. Even with degraded batteries they are still good for about 50 miles. And they are great cars as well.
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It it a realistic proposition to repair the pack?
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It it a realistic proposition to repair the pack?
Yes, and if you DIY it can be quite worthwhile.
Here is a guy giving instructions for a Prius [youtube.com], which he picked up cheap because of the dead battery pack, then sold on for a 3K profit after replacing them. The Leaf probably has more batteries, so will cost a bit more, but should still be a similarly easy job.
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which he picked up cheap because of the dead battery pack, then sold on for a 3K profit after replacing them
Wrong video for the description...but the process is the same.
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Nissan offers both new and refurbished replacement battery packs. I don't have the exact costs, but the new packs cost in the ballpark of $7k and bring the range up to the 75 ~ 85 mile range. The refurbished packs cost in the ballpark of $3k and bring the range up to about 50 ~ 60 miles--really more of an option if the pack completely fails out of warranty.
If I were to buy a used Leaf, I would either buy one that looks like it will meet my needs for the next few years, or find one with a battery pack that
The secret master plan seems to be working (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire Tesla enterprise is a bet on a curve. The battery price will halve and the energy density will double every seven years. Sort of a Moore's Law for the batteries. The play book of Tesla is to find which segment of the car/suv market can be attacked at what price batteries. Roadster in 2008. S in 2012. X in 2015. 3 in 2018.
The auto industry is very mature. Almost all its parts have been refined and optimized over and over for a long time. The prices of components, crankshafts, body panels, differential gears, do not change significantly between the conception, design and production. They conditioned to think like this. "Today battery price is 200 $/kWh. The gasoline power train cost X$. Replacing it with electric would give me Y kWh battery, so... " They are not used to, "battery price to day is 190 $/kWh, four years from now it will 140$/kWh, ...". This is the mistake they made in underestimating Tesla.
Also the temperament of Elon helped. He kept making impossible to believe claims. So they discounted everything he said. Had he been a staid stiff upper lip CEO, they might have taken him more seriously and started competing with him earlier. 11 years after the Roadster, still there is no electric roadster from any competition with comparable spec. 50 kWh battery, 240 mile range, peppy two seater.
While the media circus he created kept focusing on his "failures". What he delivered in his "failures" were still stunning ground breaking trail blazing machines.
The battery era is dawning. It is getting cheaper to store 1 GWh of electricity than to build an gas burning powerplant, in the usa! In deep mines, not having to suck out the diesel exhaust pays for the conversion to battery powered earth movers!
At the price of 90 $/kWh BEV and ICEV will cost the same off the dealership, for a 300 mile range car. At that price indeterminacy of solar and wind would not be an issue. We are in for a great battery powered future.
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Tesla are the Apple for the car world. Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively, and a somewhat dubious guy in charge.
Of course Tesla deserve a lot of credit, but Nissan pioneered affordable EVs that were actually reliable and make economic sense. Even today you would be crazy to buy a used Tesla without a warranty. Nissan also build a much bigger, more comprehensive charging network in many European countries where Tesla are sparse or non-existent. It's not going to be fun when
Re:The secret master plan seems to be working (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nissan Leaf is very affordable if you buy one used... because the resale value plummets. A new Leaf is $30K and I can buy a low-mileage 2017 Leaf for $15K. A 2012 Leaf is $8K. For a second car, to be used in local driving, a used Leaf is a great value.
A Tesla holds its value much better, perhaps partially because Tesla engineered active cooling in the battery pack so charging doesn't cook the cells. Teslas only lose about 1% battery capacity per year and they start with much higher capacities. Plus Tesla has the Supercharger network. A Tesla really can be your only car, even if you need or want to make long road trips.
Note that the Model 3 costs more than the Leaf and is harder to get. Yet it's still outselling the Leaf. That's customers voting with their money. You may think that Nissan is doing a better job, but the market does not agree with you.
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Teslas hold their value because Tesla guaranteed the buy-back price, so obviously there is no point selling them for less than that.
Also Tesla don't do discounts so the purchase price is actually deceptively low. A $100k Tesla costs $100k, where as other manufacturers do big discounts through dealers. A $100k that in reality goes for nearer $75k at the dealer "loses" a lot more value instantly than a Tesla.
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Tesla are the Apple for the car world. Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively, and a somewhat dubious guy in charge.
As someone that has a lot of Apple products in his possession I'll say that's probably not too far from the truth.
Here's a question for you, how does a company "buy" loyalty like that? It comes from something, what is it?
If you figure out what that "magic ingredient" is then I'm guessing that you will become very wealthy yourself.
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Can say the same thing about those operating under the Hatorade Distortion Field, who rag on Tesla/Apple all day while having no intentions in buying either product. Musk/Zombie Steve aren't holding guns to anyone's heads to force a purchase.
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Tesla are the Apple for the car world. Expensive, extremely "loyal" fans who can't look at them objectively, and a somewhat dubious guy in charge.
Except they are well priced within their class, highly rated well beyond fans and received well by all review companies and governments, and ... I agree about the guy in charge but that's not a bad thing. Quite often you *want* someone slightly unhinged to help change the world.
Drill baby drill.
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Re:The secret master plan seems to be working (Score:4, Insightful)
Except... (Score:2)
The battery era is dawning. It is getting cheaper to store 1 GWh of electricity than to build an gas burning powerplant in the usa!
Except a gas burning powerplant actually creates power, the tesla battery pack just stores it... Perhaps if you want to make this example relevant you could factor in the cost of power generation?
In deep mines, not having to suck out the diesel exhaust pays for the conversion to battery powered earth movers!
The vast majority of "earth movers" operate above ground, and do not have to "suck out the diesel exhaust".
Your fringe use case is unconvincing, I don't see an industry migration to battery-powered "earth movers" anytime soon.
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My classmate is the chief engineer in a nuclear waste storage facility deep underground. He just ordered a HVAC system upgrade costing 130 million dollars, to deal with the diesel fumes. For that money you could buy 1 GWh of batteries. Enough to keep 40 Earth movers operating 24/7 with batteries on 8 hour
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Um
https://www.hitachicm.com/glob... [hitachicm.com]
https://www.heavyequipmentguid... [heavyequipmentguide.ca]
https://www.theconstructionind... [theconstru...ndex.co.uk]
https://www.theconstructionind... [theconstru...ndex.co.uk]
https://cleantechnica.com/2018... [cleantechnica.com]
https://electrek.co/2017/09/17... [electrek.co]
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Ohhhh, construction equipment only counts if it's REALLY REALLY BIG!!!!!
Because proper construction is for manly men like you, who don't have to resort to mocking a nickname because of your own ridiculous inadequacies. Except when you do.
Sweetheart, if it makes you feel better to think what you just did then constitutes winning an argument, who am I to take away a little bit of psychological comfort in what is clearly going to be a rough ride through life for you? Don't worry, we're all laughing with you, n
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Your insults sounds much better the second time, genuinely. I hadn't appreciated just how biting they were till you unleashed them a second time. And now I tremble in fear of your mighty wit. You must have studied long and hard at wit school to come up with "ShortWilly". It's a devastating blow.
On the substantive topic, let me remind you that you wrote: "Nobody manufactures BEV construction equipment". If you had wanted to say "Nobody manufactures REALLY REALLY BIG BEV construction equipment for nuclear was
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Did those sentences really make sense in your head? What an exciting place it must be.
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The excavation is salt, not very tough rocky material. The machines are typically 100 Hp to 250 HP machines. But venting diesel fumes from even small machines from 1 km deep cavern costs 130 million dollars.
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The battery... energy density will double every seven years.
This clearly bullshit 140ManDickhead262Jamuna.
Otherwise a 2019 Tesla Model S would have double the range of the 2012 Model S.
Re: The secret master plan seems to be working (Score:4, Insightful)
When fuel and maintenance costs are $2,000 less per year than a comparable ICE, the $55k BEV ends up having the same TCO as a $25k ICE after 10 years, and likely has a higher resale value at the end of that term. Only a dumb idiot consumer such as yourself would fail to realize that.
Let's get this out of the way shall we (Score:5, Insightful)
The record.
Did I miss anything? For the past 4 years I have been reading all the above here on /. over and over and over again posted with absolute conviction any time the topic comes up. Anyone care to update or respond to the list?
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone care to update or respond to the list?
If they actually bet on those beliefs, they've probably lost their shoes in the stock market and can't afford to comment. But talk is always cheap and there's no end of people who'd like to convince you that they know what they're talking about. Anyone who was all talk is surely talking about something else right now.
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But they have successfully denied Tesla access to fresh capital, forcing it to fund its expansion using existing operations and cash flow. In some sense it is good for Tesla to get some financial discipline thrust up on it.
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You don't have to be part of the .001% to buy a Tesla. .001% of the US population is approximately 3000 people. Tesla has sold more than 200,000 cars in the USA.
The average new car costs $25k. A model 3 costs (after rebates) about $35k, so it is not out of reach of ordinary people. Then factor in the lower cost of ownership and it looks like the cost of an average car.
Just because you are a failure in life and can't afford a Tesla doesn't mean that many ordinary people can't afford one.
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Where are you going 0-60 in 5 seconds, and why? At one of those 'metered entry' freeway ramps? That's the only place I can think of that would be legal and also practical.
Otherwise, you're endangering the public.
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It feels so responsive and such a pleasure to drive. Till you actually drive and feel the response of a no compromise electric car, you would think gas cars are good, or good enough.
Re: Let's get this out of the way shall we (Score:2)
Where are you going 0-60 in 5 seconds, and why?
Anywhere I damn well please, and because I want to.
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Performance upgrade ... 15 K
Watching people who called electric cars golf carts groping for their jaws on the floor... priceless.
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We've only been calcing mark-to-market P\L since 2016 .... 2016-2019 mark-to-market P\L for $TSLA is a $4.66 billion loss which includes $822 million in stock borrow financing costs (an average fee of 3.62% fee for the 3+ years.)
The Tesla broken record (Score:2)
Companies do indeed go bankrupt. There are different modes of bankruptcy, and in what they call Chapter 11, the company stays in business, only holders of stock and perhaps some bonds lose all or part of their investment. When a company runs out of money -- they lack the cash on hand to pay their employees, their suppliers demand immediate payment and/or loans come due -- is often hard to tell from the outside looking in when that is going to happen. A company can get by on the credit terms extended to t
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As to whether an EV with its need for cobalt and use of electricity from our still-dirty-grid is an improvement on an ICE car of comparable size and drag coefficient is a long discussion
Why would this need to be a long discussion? It's clear that EVs are an improvement on ICE cars. As you mentioned cobalt and the grid, you clearly are thinking about both CO2e and other factors:
- CO2e -- grid mix improves over time; the mix is better where EVs are more common eg Norway or CA vs W Va; large power stations are more efficient than small car engines; and numerous full lifecycle analyses have concluded lower CO2e for EV vs ICE
- Non-CO2e -- particulates much lower; no tailpipes in town; lower noi
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"numerous full lifecycle analyses have concluded lower CO2e for EV vs ICE"
My point exactly. There are those numerous analyses weighing in on the EV being greener than the ICE, and there are other analyses, perhaps less numerous, weighing the other way. To consider the different assumptions in these different analyses == long discussion.
Furthermore, the full life cycle analyses I have seen that favor the EV do not, at this time, favor it overwhelmingly over the ICE. The ICE is also a "moving target"
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You started by trying to argue a broad point -- that overall, the environmental case for EVs vs ICE was equivocal, taking into account CO2e and cobalt as examples. Now you are discussing CO2e only, and arguing that this isn't clear when in fact it is. This is a disingenuous thing to do.
You can find studies arguing the case is equivocal but you can't find *credible* studies arguing this position. That's why there *isn't* a long discussion to be had. The case is, overall, unambiguous, and you're either kiddin
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Everything above is an opinion, or unfounded.
Look at facts.
Tesla sold 250,000 cars worldwide in 2018 (of all different kinds).
2018 saw 78,700,000 cars sold in 2018.
Tesla represent 0.3% of the car market last year. And that's *just* last year. Overall, in terms of all the cars in the world, you can add a couple of zeroes after the dot.
Electric cars, and Teslas in particular, are a teensy, tiny minority of all the cars out there, and a teensy proportion of new sales. You wouldn't know it from all the press
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Tesla represent 0.3% of the car market last year. And that's *just* last year. Overall, in terms of all the cars in the world, you can add a couple of zeroes after the dot.
Is your premise that cars last year represent less than 1/100th of cars built?
That seems incredibly unlikely, and if we say cars on the road, even less likely. How is it possible? Cars are only about 120 years old, and manufacturing has been doing up every year. I'm really confused where you're coming from.
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Average car is on the road 8 to 12 years max, so you are clearly right that the OP is talking cack.
For the UK, there were 31.2m cars in 2017, of which 0.1455% or 45,397 were BEVs (33k in 2016, 25k in 2015, 16k in 2014, 6k in 2013, so the growth is pretty fast and no Model 3 available here yet).
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They speak with actual cold hard cash. You write stuff in an obscure corner of the net.
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Your arguments, although well stated, seem to be resting on one fundamental assumption that is wrong. Tesla is not sitting still. This isn't just a race between the Series 3 and whatever BMW puts up to compete with it.
Yes the big-3 "could" suddenly decide to take it seriously and start massively investing. That would mean that the Model 3 competitor they come up with won't appear for several years at least. By that time the Series 3 won't be edge-of-the-art.
Will Ford have something that competes
Re:Let's get this out of the way shall we (Score:4, Interesting)
Electric cars, and Teslas in particular, are a teensy, tiny minority of all the cars out there, and a teensy proportion of new sales.
Teslas look quite a bit better if you only consider their share of markets Tesla actually is in. The number of cars sold worldwide would include the number of cars sold in India and China where Tesla has no serious business yet.
I was surprised to read that in the state of California, about 1 in 22 of all cars sold in the third quarter of 2018 were Teslas (actual number: 4.6% of "light vehicle sales"). That's not their share of BEVs, that's their share of all cars sold.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/02/tesla-4-6-of-california-vehicle-sales-in-q3/ [cleantechnica.com]
It's true that BEVs are still a tiny slice of the worldwide car market. There was a time when car sales were tiny compared to horse-drawn buggy sales. The past doesn't guarantee the future.
Musk is a salesman. [...] But the giants can stamp on him any time they like.
I used to think there was some truth to this idea. Now I scorn it.
For "the giants" to "stamp on him" they would have to produce so many electric cars that they steal away his customers. One question for you... where will they get the batteries? Have they invested staggering sums of money into their own battery factory, as Tesla did?
Also, will their cars be just as good as a Tesla? I don't take seriously any car design that doesn't have a front trunk. The new electric cars that just have an electric motor under the hood instead of an ICE engine seem like slap-dash last-minute catch-up designs by companies that aren't ready to compete with Tesla yet.
It's not that I think the front trunk by itself is that big a deal; the front trunk is the by-product of a clean-sheet new BEV design. Why would you want a complex drive train when you can have a motor right between the two wheels? For all-wheel drive, why would you want anything other than two redundant motors? If a car company hasn't even gotten that far, how competitive can its cars really be to Tesla?
To hear Musk (and others) speak, you'd think BMW are scrambling to catch up. They're not. They just don't care.
That's an interesting idea. I doubt you can support it.
In the "large luxury car" segment of the market, Tesla ate everyone else's lunch. Not that many people will pay $80K or $100K or more for a car, so a Tesla sale is a sale some other company didn't get. Tesla got more sales than BMW or Mercedes or any other luxury maker.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/01/1-tesla-model-s-dominating-large-luxury-car-sales-in-usa/ [cleantechnica.com]
If you add up Mercedes S-class sales, and BMW 6-series and 7-series sales, that's roughly the number of cars sold as the Tesla Model S alone.
The picture looks actually worse when you compare the Tesla Model 3 to its competitors. It's crushing them.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/08/tesla-model-3-completely-crushing-us-luxury-car-competition-10-cleantechnica-charts/ [cleantechnica.com]
Are these companies blithely unconcerned about Tesla? Really?
To hear Musk (and others) speak, you'd think BMW are scrambling to catch up. They're not. They just don't care. Their EV models make them no more than Tesla, which is a drop in the ocean to them. It's chicken-feed to them, in a niche market.
As I understand Elon Musk's claims: car companies currently make a lot of money off of car repairs; BEVs need less repairs and don't cost very much to repair; car companies have been reluctant to switch to BEVs because they stand to make much less money off of BEVs.
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This is just bizarre. We don't live in a world where auto manufacturers are toying with electrification while waiting to see what happens with Tesla. We live in a world where VW has committed $50bn. What, you think its institutional investors are going to sit idly by if VW says "actually we were lying and haven't spent the money as we said we would, it's all some kind of Potemkin village"?
2 MORE TIMES (Score:3)
Double it 6 times and it will be 120% of the world market!!
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Interestingly enough I have degrees in Math, Physics, Economics, and an MBA
I also have a sense of humor
Or, 93% of purchasers chose other brands (Score:2)
In as highly fragmented a market as this one, "best seller" seems not to convey much meaningful information.
History is being made (Score:2)
The clickbait battle seems to be turning... (Score:2)
The click trackers will very quickly spot the trend. I think the click-bait stories in the coming months are going to be positive on Tesla.
Chevy Volt? (Score:2)
I wonder what happened to the Chevy Volt or is it off the list because GM is discontinuing it this year. As a plugin hybrid like the Prius Prime, it's a popular car among owner and very reliable too compared to a Tesla.
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Cinese EVs are not a single brand. Many cars, but split among several brands. Hence Tesla is biggest at the moment. Also, some of the cheaper Chinese things cannot be called 'cars', quality too low to be sold outside China. (Fails crash tests so badly they won't be legal, and so on.)