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Tesla raises $1.8B

reuters.com

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Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#91

If tesla can get 500,000 cars out there, ICE cars are toast. Enough of legacy cars and makers.

The Camry alone sells 400,000 a year in the US, where the market for new cars was 17.55 million units last year. If Tesla can pump out 500K globally, that's respectable, but hardly a death knell to the 80 million unit industry. http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-auto-sales-20... https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car...

Watch the trends, not the current year.

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crytocurrencies serve one purpose very well: they're presently not being prosecuted as Ponzi schemes. Which they argueably are .

I don't agree. I believe currencies not backed by countries have a real use in the world, and labeling any and all as a Ponzi scheme is a misnomer. Anything has value if we assign it, and even if 5% of the world considers crypto valuable I'd call that a successful currency, to those who value it.

Value is not the criteria for currency - otherwise Magic cards and Beanie Babies would count.

Currencies must be widely accepted in exchange for goods or services. Crypto is promising, but it's not there yet.

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#93
post #78

The tension is building! They've got all this money, they've shown a few of the cars, they've got half a million deposits, but the cars are just dribbling out of the factory right now like pre-ejaculate.

They're coming soon.

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#94

Let's talk about Solar City. Their product is intended to be a solar roof, indistinguishable from a typical roof from street level. Costs look to be in the $50,000+ range. The marketing is that homeowners will not only drive electric vehicles, but go completely off grid by storing the energy collected into Tesla batteries. In order for this to make financial sense, there needs to be an ROI for the homeowner. So... ho…

I don't have a link at hand, but there is a company offering a metal-roof-based solar roof product at about half Tesla's price. My limited understanding is that it looks like a metal roof -- said roofs having been growing in popularity.

I guess I should add that, as best I recall, they have not yet actually launched consumer sales, although I believe they did/do have a working product.

(Good, and properly installed) Metal roofs (non-solar) are... I seem to recall from 5 or 6 years ago, about twice the price of an asphalt shingle roof. But, good quality and properly installed, they can last 50 years. If this Tesla substitute were to have a similar lifespan and electrical output comparable to Tesla's or at least enough for self-sufficiency, I could see paying for it.

Perhaps a principal problem/consideration being how far technology will advance during that time and will it be desperately obsolete long before then. The other being, will the company be around to provide needed support for anything like that timeframe?

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#96
post #73
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you see how much Snap was/is paying on infrastructure? It is _insane_. $2 billion over 5 years. The amount of waste that is obviously happening there is maddening.

$2 per user year?

From Twitter:

Chris Moore‏ @ctmoore91 Aug 10 More Quick math on $SNAP marketing numbers: - $3.60 per existing user - $89 per acquired user to make revenue of $1.05 per user in... 3 months

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#97

Let's talk about Solar City. Their product is intended to be a solar roof, indistinguishable from a typical roof from street level. Costs look to be in the $50,000+ range. The marketing is that homeowners will not only drive electric vehicles, but go completely off grid by storing the energy collected into Tesla batteries. In order for this to make financial sense, there needs to be an ROI for the homeowner. So... ho…

ITT: people who don't live in areas that routinely get hail and periodic roof replacements.

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#98

Let's talk about Solar City. Their product is intended to be a solar roof, indistinguishable from a typical roof from street level. Costs look to be in the $50,000+ range. The marketing is that homeowners will not only drive electric vehicles, but go completely off grid by storing the energy collected into Tesla batteries. In order for this to make financial sense, there needs to be an ROI for the homeowner. So... ho…

On your comment about homeowners leaving the grid, electrically --

I personally haven't heard this promoted by Tesla/SolarCity, though I have heard them promote reducing loads on traditional energy sources.

I have however heard it promoted that people with installations like these roofs will be able to earn dividends on a microgrid. I haven't worked out the numbers yet myself (as it's kind of a mercurial interest, but something I keep my eye on), but I have heard a few good talks on the subject and noted a few experiments ongoing relating to just that model.

In the microgrid model, electricity contributors and low-energy users stand to earn for their habits and are paid by other users and excess users on the same microgrid -- I hope I'm summarizing this correctly.

In this last deck there is particular mention of excluding the utility service from the energy trade by utilizing blockchain tech to aid in the trade operations, so that the homeowner directly sees the benefit (at least, directly in some sense.) I recommend looking him and that centre up, there's a lot of interesting work being done -- it's just unfortunate it's not happening faster. It's hard to maintain the public's belief.

I guess I digress from the issue of the cost of the "invisible" roof vs. mounted panels. I wanted contribute to questions of the cost rebates, though.

--

(0) Brooklyn Microgrid - http://brooklynmicrogrid.com/, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/business/energy-environme...

(1) Ryerson University Toronto - http://www.ryerson.ca/cue/research/sponsored-projects/contro... (more info: http://www.ryerson.ca/ryersontoday/data/news/2015/03/2015030..., http://www.ryerson.ca/cue/ )

(2) I know of number (1) because I recently heard a talk by Dr McGillivray on microgrids -- he's the former executive director of the CUE at Ryerson and current "Distinguished Visiting Professor, Faculty of Engineering & Architectural Science" there. I didn't know this, but he has been promoting the idea since around 2010[0] and is still active in research and promotion of the system[1a,b]. Ontario (Canada) is running programs open to funding these systems for research and social benefit[2]

--

[0] I couldn't get the file to link properly, sorry. Here's a download link: https://send.firefox.com/download/245d16f808/#tFZ6GdEh1l2B1v...

[1a] https://eda-connect.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Trends-in-...

[1b] http://www.thinkingpower.ca/PDFs/Roundtable2016/Microgrid%20...

[2] http://www.forms.ssb.gov.on.ca/mbs/ssb/forms/ssbforms.nsf/Ge...

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#99

Let's talk about Solar City. Their product is intended to be a solar roof, indistinguishable from a typical roof from street level. Costs look to be in the $50,000+ range. The marketing is that homeowners will not only drive electric vehicles, but go completely off grid by storing the energy collected into Tesla batteries. In order for this to make financial sense, there needs to be an ROI for the homeowner. So... ho…

You can actually "hire" a company to put solar panels on your roofs. They not only install it for you and maintain it, but they take responsibility for the upfront costs. "Hire" is in quotes because in many place you don't pay them anything so much as pay a portion of the savings you got by using solar.

To me, that isn't really a technology thing. It's a financing thing. Banks and insurance deal with smoothing out costs all the time, and I think that's all you really need to make it work. All you really need to do is mortgage the solar panels and the panels will pay for their own premium.

Re: Tesla raises $1.8B

#100

Let's talk about Solar City. Their product is intended to be a solar roof, indistinguishable from a typical roof from street level. Costs look to be in the $50,000+ range. The marketing is that homeowners will not only drive electric vehicles, but go completely off grid by storing the energy collected into Tesla batteries. In order for this to make financial sense, there needs to be an ROI for the homeowner. So... ho…

ITT: people who don't live in areas that routinely get hail and periodic roof replacements.

Well, yeah, an area that routinely gets hail and requires roof replacement more often would not have as long of a window for a solar roof to recoup the investment.

And the parts of the US that one would expect to dominate HN are overwhelmingly those that don't get hail.

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