Tesla Drastically Increases Price of Solar Roof (electrek.co) 180
Tesla appears to have drastically increased the price of its Solar Roof tiles in an update to its configurator and quote estimates. Electrek reports: After years of delays, the Tesla Solar Roof is finally gaining momentum with a sharp rise in installations over the last few quarters. The increased deployment came after Tesla launched version 3 of its Solar Roof tiles, which brought a significant price decrease through optimization and faster installation process. Tesla kept refining the product and changed its online cost estimates a few times, decreasing the price again last summer.
But now Tesla appears to have changed course and significantly increased the price of its solar roof in its online configurator. Several Electrek readers and prospective solar roof buyers reached out this weekend to let us know that they are seeing higher prices for the same quotes. Last summer, a quote for a 3,947-square-foot roof with a 12,3 kW solar roof tile system was $54,966 before incentives. Now the Tesla Solar Roof configurator shows prices between $79,938 and $100,621 for the same size roof. While this is a sharp increase in price, Tesla also appears to try to make its online quotes more accurate with a new "roof complexity" factor. [...] However, in this case, the least to the most complex options all result in higher prices than previously quoted for the same address with the same square footage.
But now Tesla appears to have changed course and significantly increased the price of its solar roof in its online configurator. Several Electrek readers and prospective solar roof buyers reached out this weekend to let us know that they are seeing higher prices for the same quotes. Last summer, a quote for a 3,947-square-foot roof with a 12,3 kW solar roof tile system was $54,966 before incentives. Now the Tesla Solar Roof configurator shows prices between $79,938 and $100,621 for the same size roof. While this is a sharp increase in price, Tesla also appears to try to make its online quotes more accurate with a new "roof complexity" factor. [...] However, in this case, the least to the most complex options all result in higher prices than previously quoted for the same address with the same square footage.
It's worth it (Score:2)
The more off-grid the better. Who needs to depend on a central rip-off power plant? Better to be ripped off one time and that constantly F'd.
Re:It's worth it (Score:5, Informative)
Well there's upkeep on the solar cells, inverters and batteries. Solar panels degrade over time, and at 20 years most are down to about 80% of new capacity, and fall off after that. The inverters last for maybe 10-15 years before they fail catastrophically due to capacitors failing or such. Batteries last 7-10 years.
What this means if you're going to spend 10k on panels, 5k on inverters/switching and 5k on batteries, you have an upfront cost of $20k and need to have payback in under 10 years. I've run the numbers for this at my home and have never been able to make it work. I used 24,466.1 kWh last year and it's way cheaper to buy the power, even with the rate increases, than is it to buy and install solar. Net-metering here is ok, but you have to pay to upgrade the transformer, and any excess is paid at a .0025 USD per kWh rate, not the .014 USD per kWh rate they charge you at. Also if your system is >10kw you have to have a $1 million insurance policy.
Simply put it's just not worth it to do solar.
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OTOH I've made profit on my installation and in fact have now paid for it 3 times over. That with older generation panels and inverters too.
My payback time was originally calculated at 5.5 years but due to steady increases in the retail price, my time worked out at 2.8 years. Since then, I have also gradually reduced my usage through installation of LED lights etc and now routinely export to the grid at a rate that exceeds the connection costs.
The excess coin generated is easily calculated and can in futu
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That's a rapidly dwindling resource though. During sunny times, the spot rate that places will pay for solar is actually dropping to almost zero (negative in some cases). As more and more people using solar rise, the value quickly falls to zero.
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At what places is that the case? Never heard about solar power being sold for a negative price. Why would anyone fo that?
And I do not really know a place where solar energy is sold on a spot market, makes not really sense.
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It started internationally in Australia (2014) [cleantechnica.com] and in the US in https://insideclimatenews.org/... [slashdot.org]">California(2017). That's at the wholesale level, because the generators need to either push power to the grid or shut down. Recently these costs are getting directly passed to the consumer, heck as slashdot covered this last month [slashdot.org]
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Every example is different.
I put solar panels on my house 5 years ago, and I think they have paid for themselves (allowing for the tax credit). I don't claim that my example is typical, and there are many houses where panels will only pay off at about 15-20 years. One of the reasons it works is that I live in a state with:
1. Lots of sun
2. Expensive electricity rates (over $.55/kWh during summer afternoons).
3. Good net metering policies.
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Yes, every example is different. But still worthwhile, at least under my circumstances.
While my situation is not as favorable as yours, my 6-year-old solar installation has also paid for itself:
1. Lots of sun in the summer and overcast most of the winter (western Oregon).
2. Low cost electricity rates (due to hydro in the Pacific NW -- $0.11 per kWh).
3. Excellent net metering policies (15-year contract to buy my generation for $0.35/kWh) but only up to the amount I consume.
The Federal tax credit of 30% (
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Fine, Santa Claus .. it won't work in the North Pole during winter.
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And how many people do live at the North Pole?
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It would be a very poorly designed battery that only lasts 10 years. Most cars come with an 8 year warranty for a start.
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Who actually gets 8 years out of batteries that get any real use, especially shitty start batteries? Maybe if you live in an area with a very neutral climate (never freezing, never hot), you drive longer distances *and* the alternator has a less than totally shitty regulator on it.
My boat has 4 Group 31 AGM batteries, and the house pair are dying after 4 years, despite being high quality and being regularly on a high quality modern charger.
Most generic start batteries in my cars seldom last more than 3-4 y
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8 years isn't particularly difficult to get from batteries if you are very careful with them. For a home battery you would probably keep them in the range 20-80% SoC for longevity.
Remember that these are lithium polymer batteries, not lead acid.
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Very careful == not using much power and losing most of the utility of a battery.
I seriously doubt you can get 8 years out of LiPo, either. 500 charge cycles in 8 years is only 62 charge cycles a year. Maybe this works for some people, but it does not fit my idea of off-grid power sourced from solar and batteries.
For a fixed site install, I would much rather deal with a big nickel-iron setup or rebuildable lead acid. You have the space to scale up both and the weight is irrelevant.
For mobile, LiFePO make
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NiFE seems to be running at least 4x the price of Lifepo4 cells. $12765 + shipping for 300 Ah 48V pack from Iron Edison. $2000-3000 delivered for 280 Ah Lifepo4 (Lishen or Eve) 16x (48v) rated for 4k cycles @ 80% DoD. NiFE is 80% efficient in charge storage, Lifepo4 runs 95-99%.
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The commercial ones are not 500 cycles, they use a different chemistry. Also a cycle is 100% to 0%, so if you are only doing 20-80% that's only 60% of a cycle right away. Also lithium cells degrade faster when heavily discharged or kept at a high state of charge, which is why they avoid the top and bottom 20%, so actually a 20-80% cycle is much less than 60% of a full cycle.
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This is a complete fabrication. The 20 years at 80% number you provided isn't an average, it's the required federal warranty. Most of the manufacturers beat the number significantly. There is NO known life for solar panels. The earliest and roughest produced panels first produced in the 70's are still working in most cases. These earliest panels tended to degrade quicker than current productio
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Why so high? (Score:3, Informative)
What does a tesla solar roof give for the extra $70k? For that matter, what did it give for the extra $40k when it was cheaper? It looks slightly different?
If you cared enough about the environment to get solar panels, why would you plough $40k into looks when you could spend it on storage?
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Aesthetics is important to many people and they are willing to pay for what they perceive, correctly or incorrectly, as improved aesthetics. If someone has a lot of disposable income, I could easily see them paying the extra $70K for a modest improvement in aesthetics. $70K nothing to them and doing so won't affect their day-to-day life in any way at all - they are not going to skip one of their vacations this year or pull the kids out of private school to pay for it.
I do think the Tesla solar roofs are muc
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$70k would pay off my mortgage.
Re:Why so high? (Score:5, Interesting)
13.2 kW solar panels installed on a medium complexity roof are under $5.5k here, with a 6.5kWh battery, just under $11k.
Where exactly is "here"? I paid a bit over $20k (before rebates/tax/etc) for 8.3kW about 2 years ago. I received multiple quotes from multiple companies.
$5.5k for 13.2kW is ~41 cents per kW. That seems an order of magnitude too low.
$2.81 after tax credits
https://news.energysage.com/how-much-does-the-average-solar-panel-installation-cost-in-the-u-s/ [energysage.com]
Average California PPW: $3-$4
https://www.solar.com/learn/solar-panel-cost/ [solar.com]
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What does a tesla solar roof give for the extra $70k? For that matter, what did it give for the extra $40k when it was cheaper? It looks slightly different?
Well, for one thing, a Tesla solar roof includes not only solar panels, but also... a roof. I don't think your $5.5k quote includes that part.
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And not just any roof, a fairly attractive ceramic tile roof with invisible integrated solar panels and a 25 year warranty.
You're paying for the pretty, and paying a lot for it. A new roof with standard solar panels for me would be in the $25k-$30k range. I'd love a Tesla Solar Roof, but until I win the lottery, that's not going to happen.
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You're paying for the pretty
And the bragging rights. What you're not paying for is cost effectiveness. Solar tiles will hit the sweet spot then years from now when the price comes down, efficiency goes up, and structural integrity is proven. Until then it's mainly a stunt.
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What does a tesla solar roof give for the extra $70k? For that matter, what did it give for the extra $40k when it was cheaper? It looks slightly different?
The appeal of the Tesla Solar Roof is that it's both the roof and the solar panels combined. If your roof is fine and you just want to put solar panels on top, it's a waste for you.
The sales pitch was that if you need a new roof, and you want solar panels, replacing your roof with a Tesla Solar Roof is cheaper than replacing your roof then putting traditional solar panels on top of it, and the Tesla Solar Roof looks better too. I don't know if they ever managed to get it as cheap as they claimed, but it cer
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The appeal of the Tesla Solar Roof is that it's both the roof and the solar panels combined. If your roof is fine and you just want to put solar panels on top, it's a waste for you.
The sales pitch was that if you need a new roof, and you want solar panels, replacing your roof with a Tesla Solar Roof is cheaper than replacing your roof then putting traditional solar panels on top of it
My house is about 80 years old and still has the original roof tiles. I looked at getting them replaced and prices came in around $30k AUD. Regular SolarPV is about $3-6k depending on size of the system (6-10kW), so round up to approx $40k AUD ($30k USD).
The Tesla option is still $50k over that, more than double the price.
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The key is that you get a roof. And not just a normal roof -- one which is really, REALLY robust -- bullet-proof, practically -- though whether that really translates into a much longer lifespan for the roof remains to be seen.
Tesla begins to make financial sense when you're planning on getting a solar install AND a new roof, not when you're getting just one or the other.
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The key is that you get a roof. And not just a normal roof -- one which is really, REALLY robust -- bullet-proof, practically -- though whether that really translates into a much longer lifespan for the roof remains to be seen.
Tesla begins to make financial sense when you're planning on getting a solar install AND a new roof, not when you're getting just one or the other.
I had a quote last year for a new roof. $30k USD including solar panels. The Tesla option is now over twice that price.
Also worth noting, roof materials are already engineered to be fit for purpose, so 'bullet-proof' is a gimmick. My current roof is over 80 years old. I doubt Tesla tiles will be useful for that long.
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What does a tesla solar roof give for the extra $70k? For that matter, what did it give for the extra $40k when it was cheaper? It looks slightly different?
It gives you a complete shingled good looking roof, that as a side effect produces electricity.
No idea where you live, but my father has to replace the roof of a house he inherited. So the price difference between simple new shingles versus a Tesla solar roof is not much bigger than a new roof + conventional solar plant.
Not A Bargain (Score:5, Informative)
Last summer, a quote for a 3,947-square-foot roof with a 12,3 kW solar roof tile system was $54,966 before incentives. Now the Tesla Solar Roof configurator shows prices between $79,938 and $100,621 for the same size roof.
So it's no longer the bargain [teslarati.com] it once was.
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Re:Not A Bargain (Score:4, Insightful)
A 4000 square foot roof with conventional shingles would cost upwards of $40K for a complete re-roofing. And a 12.3KW system installed on that new roof would run $37-40K.
That's 80k for a composite roof. You switch that to concrete or ceramic tile and you'd add another $20-30k. The Tesla roof being constructed of glass is more like the ceramic tile in that it has similar durability and 100+ year life.
Although the price increase sucks, it's still a reasonable price, I would expect the price to continue to fluctuate until there are several hundred thousand installed and they've worked out all the kinks. . And since when is a 4000sqft roof reasonable? That's a fricken McMansion roof.
All construction materials are up.. (Score:3)
All construction materials have their prices up since the pandemic... it is just getting worse.. I am guessing it may be related.
Not just quoting contracts, existing... (Score:2)
From what I read even people who had already pushed contracts and had some prep work done, were having prices raised.
The reason is, maybe few have noticed but all kinds of basic material costs have skyrocketed. This is all a sign of higher material cost for production.
If you don't think it's worthwhile still, well just try and estimate replacing a traditional roof now... that too is increasing.
Tiles and not panels (Score:2)
Just to clarify this is about roofing tiles that generate power from the sun like solar panels, and not big flat solar panels.
Big flat solar panels are at an all time low, but due to dwindling production & supply this may be going up too.
It's very similar to GPUs (Score:2)
It only depends on how long it takes to make its cost back. If it takes too long, the product does not exists, too fast, a reason to raise the price.
And? (Score:2)
Company is bankrolled by billionaire business leader.
Gets foot in market with a loss-leader.
Raises prices to reflect reality / profit.
Not at all surprising. Most of these things just aren't that profitable, they rely on subsidies, very low profit-margins (or in some cases no profit margins at all, like many of Musk's businesses) and the name to encourage people to get in on them.
When reality hits and the company has progressed to the point that they don't scale any further, their shareholders are questioni
Savings (Score:2)
But when you *do* make money on cars (Score:2)
You have to find a way to make money elsewhere. Especially when all those taxpayer-funded subsidies are going away.
But when you *do* make money on cars, your stock price and P/E ratio goes through the roof.
(For some definitions of car, assuming it's the safest car ever made [usatoday.com], with cheaper total cost [insideevs.com], and with very high customer satisfaction.)
Re:When you don't make money on cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, you are completely mistaken. Tesla makes excellent money on cars, more than most car companies. According to Fortune [fortune.com] magazine, Tesla makes a 27.7% margin on each car sold. And they are selling every car they can make.
According to this report [lga-consultants.com] the other major car companies make 13% to 21% per car.
It's understandable that you believed Tesla was losing money... because dishonest or incompetent people have been taking Tesla's net profit including all expenses, dividing by the number of cars Tesla sold, and reporting that Tesla hardly makes anything or loses money.
In fact Tesla has always made good money per car, but at the same time has been spending crazy amounts of money to build out their company. So even in the years where Tesla posted a net loss, they were making money on every car sold. But it costs money to build your own battery factories, build your own charging network, do R&D on new products like Cybertruck and the Tesla Semi and the solar roof (they are on version 3 of the solar roof, so that has taken a lot of R&D) and etc. etc.
Tesla is a growth company, and their spending is very different from mature, stable car companies. Although the mature car companies are now staring at a forced transition to electric cars and they had better start spending on that if they don't want to be in big trouble when that transition gets under way.
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Any large car manufacturer you've ever heard of spends just as much on R&D. Some of them spend more on R&D than Tesla makes in income.
They're just not all stupid enough to try to own the entire worldwide fuelling network for their vehicles at the same time, build oil refineries themselves, own the entire spares and service network, etc. etc. which is what Tesla are doing.
The problem there is that there's nothing to keep people on Tesla batteries, Tesla chargers or Tesla service plans. As the big b
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I did a Google search and found this comparison of Tesla R&D spending as a percentage of revenues vs. GM.
https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/gm-vs-tesla-in-research-and-development-costs/ [stockdivid...reener.com]
Summary: Tesla has spent much more than GM every year from 2013 (the first year on the chart) to 2018. In 2019 they spent more than GM but not "much" more, and in 2020 they actually spent less than GM on R&D as a percentage of revenue.
GM consistently spends about 5% on R&D. Tesla spent 18% on
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Tesla got bailed out regularly
In what regard got Tesla "bailed out" when and why?
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How much of that margin is promised future features that will never be delivered, i.e. liabilities?
For example if someone pays $10,000 for "full self driving", and then in 5 years time decides to sue Tesla because their car isn't fully self driving yet, all that profit is wiped out with interest and legal fees on top.
Re: When you don't make money on cars (Score:2)
Is that all you have to offer?
Parent made an explicit, well laid out argument. It is logical and easy for me (as uninitiated) to follow.
From where I stand, you just chose to piss in the pool with "that's nit how you do it", without bothering to explain why, or how you do do it. There's no way I can judge the merit of your argument because there is no argument you're making.
You lose.
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Parent cherry picked the choices. Like i said previously most of those companies whilst not bankrupt are performing terribly.
> There's no way I can judge the merit of your argument because there is no argument you're making.
Really you cant see the choices in the comparison are terrible ? Its like saying you are the best tennis player and then pick a bunch of 5 yos.
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GP "cherry-picked:" VW, Fiat-Chrysler, Toyota, GM, Ford, Daimler, and BMW.
These are the 2020's 10 Biggest Automakers in the World and their 2020 sales.
Volkswagen Group - 10.8 million.
Toyota - 10.5 million.
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance - 10.3 million.
General Motors - 8.7 million.
Hyundai Motor Group - 7.5 million.
Ford – 5.7 million.
Honda Motor Group - 5.2 million.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles - 4.8 million.
Groupe PSA - 4.1 million
Suzuki - 3.2 million
Doesn't look to me like "a bunch of 5yos" in the car
Re:When you don't make money on cars (Score:5, Informative)
Tesla makes over a 20% margin on their cars:
https://cleantechnica.com/2020... [cleantechnica.com]
Quit the FUD.
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Whereas Ford actually loses money on every car.
The decades-old model for car companies is to lose money on the car and make money on financing and service.
Making money on 0%? (Score:2)
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As other manufacturers start building electric cars, Tesla will have more competition and less carbon credit revenue. That puts more emphasis on the software as Musk has stated. Also interesting is their manufacturing process. If they can retool faster than the competition, that is a big advantage. But then I wonder why the Model S hasn't been restyled for so long. The competition is coming out with better looking cars now. Again, the difference comes down to software.
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https://cleantechnica.com/2020... [cleantechnica.com]
> Tesla’s automotive gross margin improved from 18.7% to 23.7% in the third quarter (Q3). That’s a wild, astounding improvement in automotive gross margin — nothing to be shy about. Even 18.7% is a great gross margin in the automotive industry. This improvement is a testament to Tesla’s continual focus on getting more efficient, vertically integrating what can be done better in-house, driving down costs, and increasing the speed of production. It
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Tesla profits by selling carbon credits, which is why it made it first profit last year. That is a fact.
True!
It's also a fact that Tesla continues to spend crazy amounts on things like R&D and building out the Supercharger network.
So, if you think Tesla is wasting all the money it's spending on R&D and etc. then bet against Tesla. I predict that most of Tesla's investments will pay off and they will be in even a strong position against their competition in future.
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How do they sell carbon credits?
Where do they buy them to sell them later with a profit?
Why is no one else doing it?
Perhaps you can tell me, sounds like a sound investment, or?
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TSLA shorts (Score:2, Troll)
The fact that $TSLA is around $700/share and make under 0.5M cars/year indicates that investors are really detached from reality. After all those tax subsidies all everyone got was failed promises at an affordable EV and some spat between him and some governor that hurt his ego so bad that he decided to move Texas. I mean, it's his company he can move it wherever he pleases. But I'm pretty sure he's going to be tired of the constant wetting beak that one has to do in Texas politics because of the massive amounts of corruption involved there. That's not to say California's politics aren't corrupt, but they mostly require paying homage or doing your little bit of paying face for whatever cause dejure. Texas politics just requires you paying money.
I wish all the Tesla shorts would just STFU and admit they misread the market for EV cars.
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I wish all the Tesla shorts would just STFU and admit they misread the market for EV cars.
Just checked and pretty sure I didn't misread that the current market for electric cars is about 2% of total sales.
Re: TSLA shorts (Score:2)
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50%? Most predictions put EV sales in the 50-60% range for 2040, though the percentage of cars on the road that are electric will be quite a bit lower, closer to 30-35%.
The growth curve of EV sales has been exponential to date. The 2% figure (2.5% actually) was for 2019, for 2020 the figure was 4.2%. I don't think the curve will stay exponential for long before flatting out to a slower growth, but it will still be a constant growth.
I don't think this shift comes from Tesla. I think they were a catalyst to t
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With or without government subsidies?
Anything that needs massive government subsidies is not a viable prediction. Government is becoming increasingly volatile / insane, depending on who you ask.
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The oil industry gets massive subsidies. The EV industry gets subsidies. The traditional automakers get bailouts. Nothing about the car industry is free of government assistance.
In the US, direct federal EV subsidies (the tax credit to consumers) expire after you sell more than 200,000 cars, a mark that Tesla and GM have already passed. It's an incentive for an automaker to get started, but it isn't going to drive adoption long-term.
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As most countries already have or will soon forbid sales of ICE cars after 2030 ... I leave it to the crowd to figure when EV car sales will be 100%.
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Tesla, as a car brand, is a proof of concept of the technology. The POC worked amazingly well.
I expect Tesla to either license everything they have to existing car giants, or to be sold wholesale to an existing car giant.
Re: TSLA shorts (Score:2)
The market for ICE vehicles is already way more subsidized than EVs. At least it is here in the U.S. And most of Europe benefits.
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California's 2035 thing is a bit of a joke: a non-binding executive order that set a "goal". They don't have any actual law passed or plan made.
ICE subsidies are, as I said, indirect. The big three automakers got ~$81 billion from the US government, at a final loss of ~$10 billion to the US taxpayer. Thoes same companies got ~$11 billion from the Canadian government, at a loss of $4-5 billion to the Canadian taxpayer. Then there are all the tax breaks that auto makers get for building factories in certain p
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Time will tell. But for now, the percentage of people who buy an EV is 2%. How long will it take to get to 50%? Personally, I like the internal combustion engine. It's a known commodity.
In Norway, the EV marketshare is already more than 50%... and the majority of the rest are hybrids. Most of them plug in hybrids, some just the old fashioned hybrids (Toyota).
Expect a gradual rise, then a sharp one. The early adopters have to struggle with the infrastructure, but when it's getting good - and the model selection continues to increase to also cover cars that's more popular in the US than elsewhere (pickups) - adoption will increase fast.
The environmental aspects, the improved driving exper
Re: TSLA shorts (Score:3)
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You forgot to say that they are paying their population a lot to buy EVs. And it's still only 50%.
They are not paying the population to buy EVs, but taxes are based on emissions. Which means no taxes on EVs, and then a sliding scale where hybrids pay a bit more, low emission high-tech cars pay more than this and low-tech muscle cars with high emissions are insane.
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You forgot to remember not all countries use US subsidy models.
Re: TSLA shorts (Score:2)
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Why do people keep quoting Norway, as if all Norway had to do was show the right spirit and roll up their sleeves to further the EV cause?
The country is not representative in any way, shape or form. They have a population smaller than that of NYC and are rolling in hydropower, in addition to having huge oil reserves. What they do is great, but it's not like anyone can just emulate them.
While a bit of emulation would be good - I have no qualms saying that Nordic countries are better run than the US (both the one with and and the ones without oil) - my point wasn't to take pot shots at the US being behind. The point was that when the marketshare is increasing, the snowball will get rolling - because the infrastructure expands, more people get familiar with EVs by knowing people who have them, etc. It's a good circle.
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in addition to having huge oil reserves.
Oil reserves, you say? Sounds like someone needs some good old American "liberation"
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It's a known commodity.
Some Guy in the 1500s: "Personally, I like knives and swords. They're a known commodity"
Some Guy in 1880: "Peronally, I like candles. They're a known commodity"
Some Guy in 1908: "Personally, I like the horse and cart. It's a known commodity"
Some Guy in 1927: "Personally, I like radios. They're a known commodity"
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Your experience hasn't taught you much.
People haven't yet bought more than 2% because of several reasons. Lack of infrastructure...there still aren't enough charging stations. Price...EVs are still expensive, even with the tax breaks. Styling...most EVs still look like shit. Range...a lot of EVs don't have the range people desire, and they don't want to take 30 min breaks to refuel.
All of these issues are improving, and every single manufacturer is making EV commitments. So, if you want to bet on ICE e
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I was in 11th when you were in 8th. The gas crisis of that era put a scare into a lot of people. We've all had teachers who were idiots, not that the majority are. The simple fact of the matter is that we're producing more and more EVs every year, not just in raw numbers but as a percentage. GM has committed to being purely EV. And once we're able to recharge as easily as we can fuel at gas stations, you'll see IMO a tipping point where the masses start. I love my nine year old ICE 470hp gas guzzler,
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known commodity (Score:2)
-Some moron in 1900, probably.
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You'd have to be an imbecile not to be a Tesla short, lol. The problem is getting the timing right, but Tesla is going to get crushed by the real automaker behemoths that are finally lumbering their way towards EVs. But who knows if Tesla will be dead in 2 years, or if they'll eke out another 7.
This assumes, of course, no sort of break-through so I guess I'll give you that. If Tesla announces they discovered a battery that weighs 1/2 as much, provides 90% more power by weight, and can fully charge in 10 min
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Car companies have an extremely long history of cooperation. We have Subaru engines in Toyotas, Fiat engines in Mazdas, all kinds of models rebranded as different manufacturers, and standard parts all over the place.
I expect Tesla to license its technology to the car giants who desperately need it. I expect Tesla to turn into the ARM of the car world.
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Tesla won't die. They are unlikely to claim market dominance, but they are there to stay as a fashion car - possibly sold off as a subdivision to one of the giants. The position of Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Lotus etc. Or they may gain a major position exactly through that fashion path - the same way Apple did.
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The only fashion Apple ever sold AFAIK is the Apple Watch, but you could count the iPod nano, too.
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Yes, obviously, iPhone offers so much better value for its price. iMac is so much more powerful than PC. iPad offers so much more than similarly priced Android tablets. It's all cold calculation and choice of objectively superior products at better prices, and fashion has absolutely nothing in common with that.
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Of course. Status symbol, fitting in with the group, sense of elitism, prestige, aesthetics, generally being fashionable, these are all actual value. A teenager with a Samsung is likely to get ostracized by the "cool kids". You don't show up at Starbucks with a Lenovo laptop. A girl in class with a Thinkpad will get shoehorned as a nerd. You want to seem "cool", you need to buy Apple.
There may be some fields where Apple products are genuinely a better choice basing on their technical merits. These would giv
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Tesla isn't moving to Texas, they're expanding there. They are building an enormous factory, and CA real estate near a city is too expensive. Plus they're making trucks which Texans and people near Texas buy more than Californians. Plus their CEO is in Texas frequently because of his other job, big rockets being built in TX.
It doesn't have to do with the governor of any state.
The tax subsidies got the only US automaker who will have the ability to take on the enormous Chinese manufacturing empire which wil
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China is very likely to take over the EV market. But it's going to be a looong time before people are willing to trust China-made self-driving cars, while Tesla is definitely approaching the "ready for mass adoption" on these. (and I don't see its competitors - even including Google - getting there anytime soon.)
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Are you aware of *current* China's electric car production and their *current* sales?
As for your national security risk predictions, better check the global adoption of Xiaomi products.
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You realize the solar roof isn't composed of solar panels, right?
The roof tiles themselves are photovoltaic, instead of installing panels on a roof.
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Ask anyone around you who knows someone who makes solar panels. If you can find one, you are probably Chinese.
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My average electricity bill is already over $300/mo, and my house is under 1400 sq ft: n. california. And, I don't do anything wasteful with electricity; two people only inhabit this house; we only run the AC if it's over 83F inside. PG&E raises prices several percent each year; 20 years from now, I can expect to be paying $1000 for the same electricity, if not more.
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Is sound economic analysis allowed here?