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The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

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Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#71

Post by Shivetya »

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.

I would think the median price for vehicles tends to list high as trucks which account for a large number of sales regularly have stickers in that range. Throw in the atypical family CUV/Van can place in the low thirties as well.

Cars the size of the 3 place in the teens to mid twenties though there are examples outside those ranges. The issues EVs have always faced is that many families if not individuals cannot afford a car with any limitations. By that I mean, both cars have to be able to wholly do the duty of each which usually involves going anywhere at any time.

Two hundred mile EVs might change that but only to a point. It will take a proliferation of charging stations and change in public use of them.

Between the Tesla 3 and Chevrolet Bolt the real change here is that the consumer EV market, the "median price market" has finally matured. All previous generation EVs which include the Leaf, i3, Focus, and eGolf, are as near to being obsolete as they can be. Sure they use still but their range limitation is even more exaggerated, especially at the price points being set by GM and Tesla

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#72

Post by usrusr »

lucaspiller wrote: post #59
Hermel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> where it runs out of energy very quickly (after an hour or so for aggressive drivers) Won't this be the case for any car though, especially sports cars which usually have a lower range? If you are driving at an average speed of 160km/h+ then you are going to need to stop fairly often. With the current EV technology any car will feel limited compared to an oil powered car which you can 'recharge' in under 5 minutes.

Sure, that holds for any EV. Aerodynamic drag is such a drag, to put it in a really terrible pun.

That's why in a market with a high speed road network, the whole gambit of marketing EV as sexy fast car fails. It's trivial to make an EV max out traction for acceleration (aka "american fast") but battery density makes it impossible to give them any semblance of high speed endurance ("german fast").

It's therefore absolutely no surprise that the german car industry is doomed to focus on boring "reasonable city car" for their EV efforts and does not build their own entries for the Tesla class of cars. They have to skip the training wheels phase of building expensive luxury acceleration monsters and jump right into the much more difficult task of selling boring, reasonable cars that won't take a deadly hit when the manual says that you can't go fast if you want to see anything close to the advertised range. The autobahn has been a successful marketing stunt for many decades ("might be designed by engineers who push 200 km/h every day on their way to work" was an implicit ingredient of brand identities), but for electric, it is suddenly backfiring.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#73

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fab13n wrote: post #69
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> given its artificial constraints. Given the lethality of air pollution in Beijing, I'm not sure it's fair to call "artificial" those emission-limiting constraints. Otherwise, you'll also have to call "artificial" the constraint that one can't shoot/knife/strangle people who go out of their ways to be pains in asses, however genuine and natural the urge might seem :-) Other than that, yes, China is likely to be a ve…

It is an artificial market constraint, Chinese aren't buying Teslas because they want clean air even if they should (debatable: perhaps the electricity for charging comes from coal that is dirtier than gasoline engines, at least the cars are checked for air quality, the coal plants aren't!). But I also agree it's a valid way of making the air cleaner if it would have an effect.

BYD already produces electric cars that are even subsidized in many cities. However, the people in Beijing buying Teslas would rather buy a BMW or Audi anyways if they could get the license plates for them, and they wouldn't be caught dead in a Chinese-brand car (and the way the BYD electric taxis have been rumored to just explode, they think being caught dead in them is a possibility).

If Chinese demand is sufficient, I'm sure tesla would just open up a factory or two in China to supply it. They might even take on a Chinese partner in a JV given that they are so willing to share patents with competitors anyways (with the bonus that the partner would provide much of the RMB capital to startup, it's the one thing China has a lot of).

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#74

Post by _ea1k »

jedmeyers wrote: post #23
bronson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warranty is 8 years. Cars don't just die the moment the warranty runs out, including Teslas. https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty

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.

There is a small industry of third party companies servicing hybrid vehicles at the moment, including refurbishing of battery packs.

If the product is successful, similar services will emerge for Tesla products.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#75

Post by _ea1k »

gambiting wrote: post #50
_ph_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Tes…

The Mac example for batteries is an unrealistic one. For most computers, replacement batteries are actually relatively cheap.

You do make a good point about the motors, though. I haven't seen much hope for an outside replacement for that, though.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#76

Post by warfangle »

agumonkey wrote: post #43
prawn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rather not give the daily beast ad revenue, thanks

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#77

Post by agumonkey »

warfangle wrote: post #76
agumonkey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

read the article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11419772 may be a reason why Musk isn't there yet.

Rather not give the daily beast ad revenue, thanks

They're not to be trusted ?

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#78

Post by Reason077 »

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 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).

OK, if you're averaging 200 km/h on the Autobahn then you will run out of energy pretty quickly. But this is just as true with ICE vehicles. If you're getting twice the energy consumption in an EV then you'll also be getting twice the fuel consumption in an ICE, and you'll have to stop and refuel pretty quickly.

So, with an EV, as long as there is a fast enough charger at the other end, who cares? You travelled 200km in that hour, you probably got where you wanted to go. Even if you spend 25 minutes recharging at a supercharger, you still got there quicker than if you drove at 100km/h!

Audi are already talking about 800V, ~300kW fast chargers that can recharge that 200km of range in 10 minutes. At these kind of speeds, the difference between recharging an EV and refuelling an ICE car becomes pretty negligable.

The Tesla S is not designed for sustained high speeds.

Simply not true. There's plenty of Tesla videos on YouTube showing sustained, comfortable driving at 200km/h+ autobahn speeds.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#79

Post by Reason077 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #73
fab13n wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given its artificial constraints. Given the lethality of air pollution in Beijing, I'm not sure it's fair to call "artificial" those emission-limiting constraints. Otherwise, you'll also have to call "artificial" the constraint that one can't shoot/knife/strangle people who go out of their ways to be pains in asses, however genuine and natural the urge might seem :-) Other than that, yes, China is likely to be a ve…

It is an artificial market constraint, Chinese aren't buying Teslas because they want clean air even if they should (debatable: perhaps the electricity for charging comes from coal that is dirtier than gasoline engines, at least the cars are checked for air quality, the coal plants aren't!). But I also agree it's a valid way of making the air cleaner if it would have an effect. BYD already produces electric cars that…

the people in Beijing buying Teslas would rather buy a BMW or Audi anyways if they could get the license plates for them

Really? I can't imagine anyone who's actually driven a Tesla wanting to go back to an ICE vehicle.

People aren't buying Teslas because they're greener or cheaper to operate or even because of government incentives (although those are additional, feel-good benefits).

They're buying them because they're better cars. Faster, quieter, more fun to drive, filled with the latest technology.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#80

Post by andersen1488 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #73
fab13n wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given its artificial constraints. Given the lethality of air pollution in Beijing, I'm not sure it's fair to call "artificial" those emission-limiting constraints. Otherwise, you'll also have to call "artificial" the constraint that one can't shoot/knife/strangle people who go out of their ways to be pains in asses, however genuine and natural the urge might seem :-) Other than that, yes, China is likely to be a ve…

It is an artificial market constraint, Chinese aren't buying Teslas because they want clean air even if they should (debatable: perhaps the electricity for charging comes from coal that is dirtier than gasoline engines, at least the cars are checked for air quality, the coal plants aren't!). But I also agree it's a valid way of making the air cleaner if it would have an effect. BYD already produces electric cars that…

> Chinese aren't buying Teslas because they want clean air even if they should

Neither is anyone else. People buy Teslas because they are the best car money can buy.

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