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Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

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Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#201

Post by toomuchtodo »

stcredzero wrote: post #181
dmode wrote: post #66

Tesla only sold 104 Roadstars in 2011. Now they are on track to sell 250,000 Model S, X, and 3 combined in 2018. The scale of Tesla's accomplishment is truly under appreciated. It becomes even more impressive when you realize that this is an electric car, sold by Tesla owned stores, supported by over a thousand Superchargers. Amazing !!

Tesla only sold 104 Roadstars in 2011. I'd love to see a Tesla version of the Road Star! http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery%20%20A/Yamaha%20XV%...

Musk was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident, and has said they will never build an electric motorcycle because of how much more dangerous a motorcycle is vs a car.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#202

Post by zjaffee »

giobox wrote: post #53
zjaffee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because battery technology isn't where it needs to be yet, where Tesla is absolutely winning when it comes to this. Honda released their plug in Honda Clarity, but it only has a range of 89 miles.

This simply isn't true - the Chevrolet Bolt has an EPA-estimate 238 mile range, with many reviewers getting close to 300. Pretty much what you get in a base Model 3. What's more you can actually walk into a dealership and buy a Bolt today, good luck trying that with a Model 3. It also costs almost 15 grand less than the cheapest Model 3 Tesla is currently shipping, given they still don't have a release date for the m…

The point I wanted to get at was that there isn't the same level of competition in electric cars than gas powered cars yet.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#203

Post by dreamcompiler »

gamblor956 wrote: post #112
dmode wrote: post #66

Tesla only sold 104 Roadstars in 2011. Now they are on track to sell 250,000 Model S, X, and 3 combined in 2018. The scale of Tesla's accomplishment is truly under appreciated. It becomes even more impressive when you realize that this is an electric car, sold by Tesla owned stores, supported by over a thousand Superchargers. Amazing !!

Toyota went from selling 19,000 Prius' in 2000 to 281,000 Prius in the same timescale. It becomes even more impressive when you realize that before the Prius, there was no market for green cars, hybrid, electric, or otherwise. Amazing!!! [1] Even more impressive is that these are sales of a single model...

That's impressive, but fundamentally hybrids are a dead-end. They're more (not less) complex than pure internal-combustion cars, and they still need fossil fuel. Ten years from now there won't be any hybrids for sale; all cars will either be purely electric or special-purpose IC. Not that Toyota doesn't already realize this, but it puts Tesla's vision ahead for now in my opinion.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#204

Post by dreamcompiler »

dmode wrote: post #66

Tesla only sold 104 Roadstars in 2011. Now they are on track to sell 250,000 Model S, X, and 3 combined in 2018. The scale of Tesla's accomplishment is truly under appreciated. It becomes even more impressive when you realize that this is an electric car, sold by Tesla owned stores, supported by over a thousand Superchargers. Amazing !!

The other thing that Tesla's naysayers still don't get is that

A Tesla (any model) is the most fun street-legal car ever built

Full stop, no caveats. American muscle cars from the 60s weren't this responsive. No German car is this responsive. You just have to drive one to understand.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#205

Post by anyfoo »

archarios wrote: post #152
anyfoo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you to dictate what I should do with my hard-earned money? As long as you can comfortably afford it without any debt, spend the money on what you are enthusiastic on. Next time you are buying groceries, laptops, or go to a restaurant, I am going to point out all your laughably poor decisions of not spending your money on the absolutely cheapest options.

That's a pretty ridiculous comparison because of the difference in scale. There are significant opportunity costs to putting 10s of thousands of dollars into something that will depreciate in value over time rather than increase. Especially when you're in your 20's. That amount of money invested could be worth a lot more in 30 years. Compound growth is your friend.

I said "comfortably", which implies that it should not threaten your retirement in any way. That is entirely dependent of one's individual situation, whereas the parent poster was making a blanket statement about such a choice being a "laughably poor decision".

I agree that keeping in mind and taking care of your retirement is necessary, but I personally would not want to go through my entire life without the very occasional splurging on things that are a pleasure now, if the numbers work out well. Having only ever the end in sight is a pretty sorry way to live, in my view.

The car (not a Tesla) is paid off, I treat its value as "lost" (even though in this particular case it has not actually gone down in value), and I'm sure that I will look at it and especially the project ideas it spawned in fondness, rather in regret of the loss of some additional compound interest. Granted, I'm not in my 20s, though.

My comparisons were over the top, but vacations for example can add up to a lot over time, and they usually don't leave anything behind in terms of assets.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#206

Post by gok »

> Gigafactory 1 battery production reached an annualized run rate of roughly 20 GWh

Kind of interesting...the typical laptop has a 50 Wh battery, and there are about 160 million laptop sales per year. A typical smartphone has a 5 Wh battery and there are about 1.5 billion smartphones sales per year. So that one factory makes just about enough batteries for all the laptops and smartphones.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#207

Post by nodesocket »

Reading the comments, feels like HN is schizophrenic which is actually not surprising (online mob mentality). The shorts and haters were out in full force before on HN, calling Tesla the next Enron, absolutely slamming Elon. Today, praise and congratulations.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#208

Post by twblalock »

PopsiclePete wrote: post #161
MBCook wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if you do have a garage, would your apartment complex allow you to install a real charger? Or would you get stuck charging with 110v? Unfortunately that little piece of infrastructure could easily be a deal killer for a ton of people. Not everyone is a homeowner with a garage. And parking in a charging space at some random retail establishment every couple days for a few hours to charge just seems insane.

That sounds like a temporary problem to me - not anything fundamentally wrong that can't be fixed. Apartment complexes where I live (Denver metro) are already competing with each other on features like "bike/snowboard fix-up stations", "Amazon lockers", "heated pool", and other absurdities - you bet they're going to install 220v chargers if it helps lure people in. Eventually, it will be expected - just like the bike…

I expect there is going to be a bit of a chicken and egg problem during the evolution of car charging infrastructure.

For example, if electric cars become popular we will need tons of public charging stations, but nobody will be willing to build charging stations unless there are already a lot of electric car owners to use them.

The early adopters of electric cars are going to have to deal with a lot of overcrowding at charging stations, unless they are homeowners and can charge in their garages.

All that aside, there is still the issue of price. I paid $21k for a new Prius C that gets 45-50 mpg. A new Chevy Bolt costs about $29k in California after tax credits as far as I can tell, and that does not include the cost of an in-home charger. That $8k difference would cover years of gas purchases for the Prius -- I've had it for 5 years and I've been spending about $35 for a tank every 3 weeks.

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#209

Post by sangnoir »

freehunter wrote: post #169
rconti wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely is impressive, and they deserve great credit for their advancements-- I never liked the Prius but it was beyond obvious that every car in the future HAD to have a way of capturing deceleration energy rather than just bleeding it off as crude waste heat -- how silly and archaic that seems now. But I'm not quite clear on your comment-- At first I thought it was to be read that the Toyota accomplishment wa…

I was pretty impressed that my entirely gasoline-powered BMW 3-series apparently will use the braking energy to recharge the battery and disconnect the alternator, saving some small amount of MPG. So the technology is trickling into gasoline-powered cars as well, to save small amounts of fuel. I've driven a stick-shift for a while in the past and always wondered if there was a way to capture the engine power when you…

> I've driven a stick-shift for a while in the past and always wondered if there was a way to capture the engine power when you downshift for engine braking coming up to a red light. Not sure how it would work though.

Flywheels could work, but they are heavy, and have a potentially unsafe failure mode (dense material disintegrating at high RPM).

Re: Tesla Second Quarter 2018 Update

#210

Post by stcredzero »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #201
stcredzero wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla only sold 104 Roadstars in 2011. I'd love to see a Tesla version of the Road Star! http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery%20%20A/Yamaha%20XV%...

Musk was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident, and has said they will never build an electric motorcycle because of how much more dangerous a motorcycle is vs a car.

I'm really just calling out the spelling in the gp comment.
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