Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

teslamotors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 199 posts

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#41

Post by dionidium »

prawn wrote: post #32
dionidium wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median household income is around $50k/yr in the U.S. That's household income. To the extent people are spending this much, they're insane for doing so. I'm having trouble finding a median car sale price -- there are a bunch of articles about the average cost of new cars -- but I doubt most families actually are spending that much on transportation. Once you cut out used cars, those without cars, and those spendi…

To the extent people are spending this much, they're insane for doing so. You have probably already realised this if you've lived on the planet for more than 20ish years, but the majority of people certainly seem to be quite insane.

Well sure :) It likely doesn't help that I'm a cheapskate. As a programmer, I'm probably pretty close to the demo that should want a Model 3, but I drive a 2007 Hyundai hatchback with a manual transmission. So I think everybody's crazy.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#42

Post by _pmf_ »

JayHost wrote: post #5

I remember their plan is basically how Ford operated. It's just crazy to see them beat the competition so badly. I remember seeing the concept car for the Chevy Volt a few years ago and thinking how cool it was. Then they released it and made it aerodynamic and thus BORING. It's pretty nuts this car is 35k and the list of advantages to disadvantages can be summed as. There's no reason to buy any other car.

> It's just crazy to see them beat the competition so badly.

They have not made a single dollar of profit. Yes, it's an incredibly successful and impressive technology demonstration, but production at the scale that is now required is completely different from the development stage.

One example: regular manufacturers are only able to keep their high production numbers because they are able to compensate for hiccups in the supply chain for one model by having evolved to be able to switch a factory to another model in a very short timeframe. A monoculture like Tesla (only model 3 in significant numbers) prevents this.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#43

Post by agumonkey »

prawn wrote: post #34
agumonkey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying not to be too much of a fan boy I smiled at the fact that, on its way to develop EV market recognition and infrastructure they made cars that topped anything else in safety and speed. 'if you want to have EV, all you have to do is buy the best cars we just made' kind of.

Agree - it's incredible. How Time have not managed to throw him Person of the Year yet, I cannot understand. The cars, the solar network and SpaceX. They're huge undertakings.

read the article here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11419772

may be a reason why Musk isn't there yet.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#44

Post by huuu »

Yaggo wrote: post #18
huuu wrote: post #10

Related is Tesla's recycling program of batteries: https://www.teslamotors.com/nl_NL/blog/teslas-closed-loop-ba... Some people are skeptical about electric cars because the estimate life span of a battery is around eight years. But reading the article above (and others) you can see the batteries are not an issue anymore. I was also a little skeptical about electric cars but I think the absolute pros are: * Electricit…

> Because why would you use a lot of energy for sensors, insane mode, automatic doors, displays, computers, and so on? Signals electronics (displays, sensors, etc) use so little energy compared to power electronics (the drivetrain system) that it doesn't really matter.

It does matter.

1 W * 1,000,000 cars is still 1 MW.

It's like saying a javascript file of 1MB is ok because there are images of 10MB on the same page.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#45

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dionidium wrote: post #19
doctorcroc wrote: post #7

I am a fan of Tesla and am excited for the Model 3, but some of the hype around the car is a bit much. I think this is a good counter-perspective: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/31/tesla-s-mod... Creating an affordable EV at mass consumer scale is a much harder problem than creating a luxury EV at modest volume. However, if there was anyone I would bet on making this work and building an amazing car, i…

One minor counter to this is that you shouldn't get too caught up in the hype about this being a mass-produced car. HN and tech journalism is a bit of a bubble. Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car. We're still talking about a high-end vehicle. Nobody driving a Model 3 is going to be devastated when it needs to go in the shop.

Beijing has a plate lottery of 150k vehicles this year, 60k of them are dedicated to EVs. Suffice it to say, I've been seeing a lot of new Teslas (the higher end ones) on the road this year in a place that still barely supports the charging infrastructure.

I think the Tesla 3 is going to do very nicely in that market given its artificial constraints.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#46

Post by agf »

dionidium wrote: post #27
agf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average new car price in March 2016 was $33,666. There are plenty of "mass-produced" cars in this price range. http://mediaroom.kbb.com/new-car-transaction-prices-up-2-per...

That may be the average cost of a new car, which does not in any way contradict my claim that the median family spends nowhere near that on a car.

I'm aware of that. My point was it's in a range in which a very large number of cars are sold; claiming this price range means it's not going to be "mass-produced" is stretching it.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#47

Post by agf »

cperciva wrote: post #38
agf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average new car price in March 2016 was $33,666. There are plenty of "mass-produced" cars in this price range. http://mediaroom.kbb.com/new-car-transaction-prices-up-2-per...

The average new car price in March 2016 was $33,666. That's the mean price though, and the price curve has a very long tail. The median is significantly lower.

Of course. The point was just that this doesn't put it out of the range where a car would be "mass-produced".

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#48

Post by martin_bech »

Hermel wrote: post #12
JayHost wrote: post #5

I remember their plan is basically how Ford operated. It's just crazy to see them beat the competition so badly. I remember seeing the concept car for the Chevy Volt a few years ago and thinking how cool it was. Then they released it and made it aerodynamic and thus BORING. It's pretty nuts this car is 35k and the list of advantages to disadvantages can be summed as. There's no reason to buy any other car.

>It's just crazy to see them beat the competition so badly. The BMW electric cars (i3 and i8) are quite successful, beating Tesla sales-wise in Germany and selling half as many world-wide. The great weakness of the Tesla S in the German market ist the German autobahn, where it runs out of energy very quickly (after an hour or so for aggressive drivers). The Tesla S is not designed for sustained high speeds.

The i3 is a nice small car, but warranty of the battery is horrible, and the range is only so so, specially in cold weater. The i8 is really a plug in hybrid, looks really amazing, but is slower, holds fewer people, and has less space than my Tesla Model S85D. The autobahn is very valid point, driving at 200km/h+ for sustained amounts of time will drain the battery(the amount if sheer wind resistance, makes power used pr km. skyrocket), but driving at 130-150km/h, and stopping and charging when you are low (10% chargeish) is quite effective, as you charge quite fast, when the battery is warm, and low. Thankfully the autobahn always has sections of roadwork, and here the Model S powertrain is very effective at cruising :) .

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#49

Post by dionidium »

agf wrote: post #46
dionidium wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be the average cost of a new car, which does not in any way contradict my claim that the median family spends nowhere near that on a car.

I'm aware of that. My point was it's in a range in which a very large number of cars are sold; claiming this price range means it's not going to be "mass-produced" is stretching it.

Since you've left this comment a couple times I'll just point out that that wasn't at all my point.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#50

Post by gambiting »

_ph_ wrote: post #29
jedmeyers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The is no practical way to service a Tesla yourself or in a 3rd party repair shop, like you can a 15 year old Civic. Therefore used Teslas would quickly become financially disadvantageous to service and their price would approach zero on a secondary market.

Which current production car is easily serviceable at third party repair shops? They are pretty much all closed down computers. Also, most services required on the engine and support for older cars are just not required on a Tesla. So it is not obvious that it would be more expensive to maintain than any other car, most likely the opposite.

Things are really not as bad as you think. Even in brand new cars you can replace the brakes, suspension, wishbones, dampers, steering column, oil pans, all filters, oil&fuel pumps, service the air conditioning unit and I am reasonably certain you could do full engine maintenance as well. Most importantly, parts for any new vehicle are publicly available, be it a Fiat 500 or a Mercedes S-Class.

On the other hand, Tesla will not sell you the parts. Tesla can at any time deactivate your vehicle if they think it's not fit for driving(as they already do in case of accidents), even remotely, and you have to bring it to their dealership to have it reactivated after it passes their tests. I can't think of any conventional car that you have to do that for, I've seen Range Rovers after horrible crashes that have been fixed and put on the road again, and no one had to ask Land Rover for permission to do that.

But even if we forget about that - the biggest cost of owning a second hand Tesla is always going to be the battery. As the value of a Tesla falls down with time, the cost of a new battery for it will remain constant, making a purchase of a second hand Tesla prohibitive. Think about it this way - a cost of 2009 MacBook might have fallen down to around ~$100, but a new battery for it will cost you ~$150. The computer got cheap with time but the parts remained the same price, making a purchase of a 7-year old laptop a bad idea, unless you can do without a battery(and obviously you can't do that in a car).

In conventional cars, if you have a 20-year old Mercedes with a dead engine, you go online and find the same engine, with fewer miles on it and in running condition, you buy it for a few hundred dollars, get it installed and you are back on the road. In a Tesla, no one is going to fit you a second-hand electric motor if your old one dies, because Tesla won't allow it.

Post reply on HN