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Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

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Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#361

Post by flexie »

sokoloff wrote: post #359
flexie wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supercharger network is indeed a massive advantage for Tesla. For now, it's obviously necessary, since the range of the cars on the road is generally limited to 200-300 miles. But even in 3-4 years, when new Teslas likely have a range of 400 miles, or in 7-8 years when the standard range is maybe 600 miles, it will grant drivers the certainty that even if they forget to charge at home or at work for several days,…

> Given that the amount of Teslas on the roads is growing exponentially these months There's nothing exponential about the rate of growth of Teslas. Fast != exponential.

You seem to confuse mathematical exponentiation with the common use of the word: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/exponential

On a side note, I doubt that you would ever find a growth rate in business or economy that truly followed a mathematical function.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#362

Post by sokoloff »

romwell wrote: post #285
taneq wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best is the enemy of good, and perfect is the mortal enemy of best. Just because a vehicle isn't 100% perfect for 100% of people doesn't mean it isn't the best vehicle for most people.

True, true. But in the end, a car is a car is a car. It gets me places. I'd say the ability to get to places is pretty critical for a car. It's what distinguishes it from something that's not a car, for example, a boat anchor. A long road-trip is not an edge case. It's the most affordable - and one of the most popular - ways to have a vacation[1]. National parks alone get over 300 million visits, but they're by far n…

It seems to me that a long road trip is an edge case. It's not extremely rare, but it's quite far from the most common use of a car, IMO.

If you plot "number of long road trips per car per year", the mode is probably zero and I'd wager that fewer than 10% of cars are taken on a long road trip more than one time per year and fewer than 5% more than two times per year.

Taking your one-year figure of 39% of vacations as road trips, that's still fewer than one road trip per car per year. There's little over 1 car registered per adult in the US. Assuming an average 1 week vacation 1 time per year, with 39% being road trips, and 2 adults per road trip, that's one road trip per year for every 5 cars. If the average car is driven 8000 miles per year (lots of cars driven under 1000 miles to offset the more typical 12-15K/yr figure) and a road trip is 500 miles, it's about 100 miles of road trip usage against an average of 8000 miles, or about 1.25% use for road trips. Considering most of the road trip car use would be on cars used a more typically 12-15K, it's under 1% of usage.

It would take some significant errors in the Fermi estimates above to suggest that road trip usage is a typical use. If you have a battery electric and don't want to or can't road trip in it, rent a gas car one week a year. If you do more frequent road trips, a gas car or hybrid is a better bet probably.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#363

Post by Flenser »

dang wrote: post #322
jacques_chester wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think Tesla is fine. But I think Musk is a bit of a wanker and I have an allergic reaction to the hero-worship that's grown around him.

Can you please not take HN threads into tedious flamewars? Of all the stupid loops we get into, Musk Mania—hate him, love him, boo, yay—is about the stupidest. It's worse than bickering about Spiderman.

Spider-man is hyphenated.

(sorry)

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#364

Post by pwagland »

Latteland wrote: post #329
Brakenshire wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla currently has 400 supercharger sites in Europe, 2400 bays in total, by 2020 Ionity, which is a consortium of Daimler, BMW, Porsche, Ford, Audi and VW, is planning to build 400 sites, 2400 bays total, most with a 350kW charging capacity, which is double the power of Tesla’s chargers. There are also about 5000 CCS chargers already existing in Europe, lower power but ‘destination chargers’ will probably be valuabl…

Don't forget tesla's can charge on ccs in europe too.

Only on the low power "AC" version of CCS, this is limited to 17KW, and so is quite slow in comparison to the high power DC CCS-2 adapter, which can (at least in theory) pump out 350kW. There are quite a few 150kW stations already available, but the Tesla can't use them either.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#365

Post by lotsofpulp »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #334
lotsofpulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% extra for giving up your time with kids, excercise, sleep, family, and general fun in life sounds like a terrible deal.

Then you should consider yourself very privileged. Not everyone is in your position.

The person I was responding to was expressing gratitude at having the opportunity to earn 150% ones normal wage per hour. My point is that it’s not enough to offset the opportunity cost. If anything, employers should be discourage from asking for overtime pay at all, and make it 10x regular pay or something instead of 1.5x so that people can enjoy a better work life balance.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#366

Post by lazyjones »

nickik wrote: post #266
paulpauper wrote: post #172

Amazing how quickly things can change with Tesla. Just a month ago the sky seemed to be falling, with constant negative press news about the SEC, concerns over Elon Musk's mental health, Tesla losing money, and so on. Had someone shorted Tesla just a week ago based on the media's pessimism, they would be down 20%. of course, Tesla could face problems, but this was a really solid earning report that dispels a lot of t…

The press, helped by Elon, started to ignore production when it really started to do well. Funny how that happens. Would have been interesting what would have happened if Elon hadn't fucked up.

It‘s not surprising that the reputation of the press is worsening when it values drama around eccentric personalities higher than simple facts and research.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#367

Post by Retric »

consp wrote: post #327
dreamcompiler wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

350kW is about 1800 m^2 of PV panels; you need twice that plus a battery bank to operate at night. You might want a grid tie only so you can do net metering. At current prices for Chinese panels (not counting the Trump tariff) that's on the order of a million dollars. Now double that to pay for the electronic chargers themselves. So $2 million in capital costs and no recurring costs except maintenance. That's almost…

> 350kW is about 1800 m^2 of PV panels; Or about 1/7th of a windmill.

Windmills require good locations to be cost effective, solar works almost anywhere.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#368

Post by madengr »

propman wrote: post #24

Tesla could realistically hit 500,000 cars next year, almost 10% of total cars sold in America. The electric revolution is here and it’s finally profitable! Budget EVs with solid range are coming next year too with the 2019 leaf! Convince congress to extend the federal tax rebate (no real increase in spending just keeping what’s already there) by like 2 years which is just maybe $1-2B more and electric will be the wa…

They’d have to extend it for Tesla and Nissan, as they are almost at the cap. That puts other manufacturers at a disadvantage who have not met the cap. Would be good in general, but shitty as well for those who are playing catch-up.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#369

Post by AshleyGrant »

dpkonofa wrote: post #253
ensignavenger wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they can make charging as quick as filling a tank with gas, there is a lot of opportunity in location and surrounding services, provided while the batteries are being charged.

It's almost there. A Supercharger can charge in about 20 minutes and the navigation in the car shows you food stops and amenities near the Supercharger and then sends you a push notification when the car is nearly completely charged. Considering that this experience is more rare than me being able to charge the car every night at home instead of having to stop at a gas station ever, I think the trade off is in Tesla'…

>A Supercharger can charge in about 20 minutes

Let's be real here. I just did a 2500 mile road trip in my brand new Model 3. While it is true that 20-25 minutes will give me enough range to drive for 120-160 miles, 20 minutes does not give me a full charge. Charging my Model 3 from ~10% SOC to 80% SOC takes 40 minutes at a Supercharger. The car charges quite quickly from 0% to 50%, but slows down dramatically after that. If you pull in to a Supercharger with 10-20% SOC, 20 minutes will get you up to 50-60% SOC at best.

That being said, I generally didn't mind this. I came to like the slower pace of stops. I know my wife is looking forward to the first road trip we take together in the car, as she always wants to stop and stretch her legs more often than I do.

I just wish more Superchargers had convenient access to 24 hour bathrooms.

Re: Tesla Third Quarter 2018 Update [pdf]

#370

Post by AshleyGrant »

greglindahl wrote: post #211
Theodores wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any U.S. hotel chains that are in on this? Hotels have facilities that aren't used after breakfast until the evening, however they still have to have a lot of staff on-site during these hours. You could have nice food and coffee instead of motorway service station junk, with booking facilities so you can have that coffee ready as you walk through the door and your parking spot for the charging reserved. Thi…

A large number of high-end hotels have Tesla "destination chargers", which you can generally use if you eat in their restaurant. I've been out wine tasting and have run into Tesla destination chargers.

Not just "high-end" hotels. On my recent trip round-trip Florida-Texas drive in my Model 3, I stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn and two Hampton Inns that had Tesla Destination Chargers. It was nice to pull in with 10-20% charge and pull out in the AM fully charged and not paid anything extra for it.
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