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The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

bloomberg.com

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Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#141

Post by gizmo »

NickM wrote: post #136
gizmo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is neither at scale nor profitable. They're selling barely 15,000 cars per quarter, compared to Toyota's 2.5 million. They're growing by taking on debt, diluting shareholders, subsidies, and other creative tricks (Model 3 preorders). They've been "profitable" for a single quarter by selling Teslas at a steep discount. Last quarter's report has been widely derided for the financial engineering therein. We'll hav…

> Tesla is neither at scale nor profitable. They're selling barely 15,000 cars per quarter, compared to Toyota's 2.5 million. Tesla's sales last quarter were 24.5k cars, hardly "barely 15,000". Q4 is expected to meet or exceed that, despite being a shorter quarter. If you pick the biggest car manufacturer in the world to compare them to, then of course they're going to look small. There are plenty of well-established…

It's funny how you call me disingenuous when you selectively engage with my arguments and repeatedly assert that Tesla is profitable when it hasn't been profitable for a single year in the entire company's existence.

Tesla has 1/6th the market cap of Toyota but produces a tiny fraction of the cars. Tesla is exactly like other silicon valley startups in that they could have been profitable if they had chosen a different business model, but now they need to grow massively or they'll become insolvent. That's what I mean when I say they haven't hit scale yet.

Will Tesla actually deliver 100,000 Model 3 cars in 2017 as promised? I'm skeptical to say the least, but if anybody can do it it's Musk.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#142

Post by jwatte »

NickM wrote: post #133
torpfactory wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't electric car manufacturers build in some time-dependent margin into their range estimates? E.g. Only display a range of 350 miles at the start of a battery pack's life even if the real range is 400 miles. To the user, the batter pack performance would appear static (to some limited lifetime, anyway). At the end of life the margin would be zero, and the actual life would be equal to the true battery capacity…

Some do that. The Mercedes B-Class Electric is one example. Tesla is more "honest", so you actually get to see the full capacity. This does mean that you can see the capacity very slowly decrease over months and years, but I would personally prefer to know what's actually happening and be able to get the maximum range out of my car that I can.

The trade off is that the mere option to have higher range up front actually increases the rate of degradation! So, would you rather have high range first and low range after six years, or a motte even range that degrades more slowly and is better after the first few years? I prefer the latter.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#143

Post by brandmeyer »

zippergz wrote: post #81
RKoutnik wrote: post #19

This article (like many) misses why people buy Teslas. Teslas are amazing cars that just happen to be electric - not the other way around. The large car companies think that "electric" is enough to sell a car, whereas Tesla knows they need luxury options, autopilot & the supercharger network. I've got a Model 3 reservation myself and wouldn't even think of switching to the Bolt. I want a nice car, not just an electri…

If you don't care about the electric drive, there are MUCH nicer cars available at the same price as a Tesla. It doesn't even compare. This is why I don't have a Tesla. I could afford one, but I have spent a lot of time in them, and they do not feel like a car in the price range that they are. The interior is fine, but not premium. The touch screen makes it feel like you're driving a computer, not a vehicle (not in a…

And yet, in the full-size luxury (US) car market the Tesla Model S is dominating.

http://gas2.org/2016/02/15/tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-b...

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#144

Post by jwatte »

coredog64 wrote: post #85
vvanders wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are bitter because GM has a history of screwing the customer WRT electric vehicles. Many people wanted to buy their EV-1 but instead they sent them to the crushers. Like other people have said, GM is doing this to offset their truck/suvs and not out of a real interest in EVs.

Had they sold them they would have had to produce spare parts for 10 years. Maybe it was cheaper to crush them? Offsets are nothing new. Ford used to sell Escorts near or below cost in order to sell Crown Vics.

Yes, and that's a problem if you believe Crown Victorias are less sustainable for the Earth we all have to share and that our market does not price in sustainability externalities.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#145

Post by brandmeyer »

drewg123 wrote: post #15

One of the Bolt’s best features is a regenerative braking paddle behind the wheel, which simultaneously slows the car and recharges the battery when pulled. So their tech is so crude that there is no regenerative braking built into the standard floor mounted brake pedal? Even my 2006 Prius does regenerative braking based of the brake pedal, with no need for such hacks. Is there any fast recharge system for these? Eg,…

I'm a fairly happy Prius owner, and this would actually solve one of my biggest gripes with the Prius. It is devilishly difficult to pick the brake pedal position that maximizes regen without engaging the friction brakes. Some of the display options will show it graphically. But (by design) the change in pedal feel from regen to regen+friction is so small it may be imaginary.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#146

Post by notatoad »

krschultz wrote: post #14

Boiling it down to the core point, "the Bolt will let GM sell more swanky Silverado pickups at much fatter margins without paying penalties or buying credits from competitors". It's important to know that fuel mileage regulations are calculated on a fleet basis, not per model. So manufacturers are actually trading off optimizations across their entire product line. The Bolt is just an iteration on the existing strate…

Is that a bad thing? Afaik, the CAFE standards are applied over the total cars sold, not just having the car in your lineup - GM can sell lots of big Silverados if they sell lots of Bolts, but they can't just make a little electric car to make the regulators happy and not care if they sell any of them, because they'll get no benefit out of it.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#147

Post by ericb »

gizmo wrote: post #71
pseudometa wrote: post #5

"Tesla loses money on every car too." This is false, Tesla averages $18,000 margin on every model S & model X it sells. "So how did GM pull off a $30,000 car with 200 miles of range?" It didn't. It is $30k only after $8000 of federal tax credits.

Tesla uses very unconventional accounting to arrive at that gross margin. Specifically they don't subtract R&D costs from their margins. When you correct for this Tesla's gross margin is within a few percent of the median for the automotive industry. > In 2015, Tesla spent over $700 million on research and development while selling about 50,000 vehicles. If Tesla reported gross margins like other automakers, gross ma…

> Specifically they don't subtract R&D costs from their margins.

R&D costs should not be subtracted in order to calculate gross margin. They are a part of net margin only. Payroll is not part of gross margin either.

Here's a source: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122314/what-differen...

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#148

Post by brandmeyer »

twblalock wrote: post #97
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More info: https://electrek.co/2016/09/06/gm-bolt-ev-one-pedal-driving-... tl;dr - no, the paddle is for an additional regen braking mode that regen brakes harder than letting off the gas without using the physical brakes.

It's similar to the "B" position on a Prius shifter, as far as I can tell.

"B" doesn't perform maximum regen, although it does increase the regen at shut throttle. The bigger difference is that once the battery is fully topped off, it will increase the engine RPM to allow for some engine braking.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#149

Post by jwatte »

Spooky23 wrote: post #99
gozur88 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to believe when there are millions of Teslas on the road you'll be able to find Tesla mechanics locally. The danger is the Model 3 flops and you're forever stuck going to the closest Tesla service station.

Doubt it. You can only get a service manual if you live in a right to repair state.

Yes, and those totally do not get resold on eBay... ;-)

Electric AC induction motors have very few breaking parts. The things that can break are more along the inverter/controller (capacitors, FET avalanche wear, etc) and auxiliary systems (A/C, etc.)

One great thing about electric cars is that you don't need oil changes, belt replacements, or spark plug tune ups!

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#150

Post by mikeyouse »

ericb wrote: post #147
gizmo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla uses very unconventional accounting to arrive at that gross margin. Specifically they don't subtract R&D costs from their margins. When you correct for this Tesla's gross margin is within a few percent of the median for the automotive industry. > In 2015, Tesla spent over $700 million on research and development while selling about 50,000 vehicles. If Tesla reported gross margins like other automakers, gross ma…

> Specifically they don't subtract R&D costs from their margins. R&D costs should not be subtracted in order to calculate gross margin. They are a part of net margin only. Payroll is not part of gross margin either. Here's a source: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122314/what-differen...

In most industries you're right but the autos have always included R&D in COGS instead of OpEx. Tesla is the only auto manufacturer who does it the other way.
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