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Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

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Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#51
post #8

This figure makes me wonder how other car manufacturers are able to generate demand. Honda alone sells 1m+ cars per year in the US. For all the news, Tesla will likely make 400k deliveries during entire year around the world.

I don't know what your Honda experience has been, but for a very competitive price you can buy an insanely reliable car that you will probably become bored with before you need to replace (so long as you change the oil regularly) Nobody is mentioning the tax credit either..

Meh. To me cars are an unpleasant necessity. I dislike driving, I'm constantly either bored or stressed, or both. Driving in Bay Area is even more unpleasant than less dense places. To park it, I either pay what would be rent on a studio elsewhere or drive around a half an hour a night looking for a spot at which I may come back to a busted window.

So when buying a car, I look for cheap and reliable, less likely to be victimized, definitely used (why pay for a smell?), with enough space to move the crap that requires the vehicle in the first place.

Point being, this is one reason those Hondas sell. I could buy a Tesla, but the idea of dumping a bunch of money on something I don't enjoy is about as attractive to me as buying a designer platinum drain snake.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#52
post #41
post #19

Has anyone ever calculated the total environmental impact of a Tesla? It seems that Power Stations + Millions of Tons of mining for rare earth minerals must make this a mega-polluter?

Admittedly a biased source, but their reasoning seems sensible: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-greener-think-getting-greene... As the cost of solar + wind + static storage drop, the more renewable energy sources are used to power factories. The more renewable source used to power factories, the greater the impact on the vehicle. In this, Tesla leads the way.

It is helpful that the author quantified some of the issues, however there are many factors involved:

* Does the authors CO2 estimates for battery production actually include "mining" or just "assembly"? From reading it, it seems to just include assembly of final components into a battery.

* Moving tons of rare-earth minerals from Point A to Point B for battery production requires yet more CO2 output.

* Wind + Solar still requires massive batteries somewhere, which still requires massive mining operations.

Further, with $40 shale oil now a reality, its getting harder to make the economic case.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#53
post #19

Has anyone ever calculated the total environmental impact of a Tesla? It seems that Power Stations + Millions of Tons of mining for rare earth minerals must make this a mega-polluter?

Where does this rare earth trope comes from? Tesla batteries uses lithium, nickel and cobalt which aren't rare earth, and Tesla Motors don't use rare earth magnets either...

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#54
These kind of posts are good publicity right? I don't see any other car company we follow so closely on the market. Tesla is the only name I can see come up again and again here, and guess what, most people on HN are the actual population that is buying teslas.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#56
post #46
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They started delivery of the Model 3 in Europe in February. But Tesla's cars are quite a bit too bulky for many European countries, where Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe dominate sales.

LOL... do you live in Europe? The model 3 is (to within a couple of cm) the same size and class as the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series. And I can assure you that they are very very common cars here. Likewise, the X is similar to (say) the Audi Q7, the BMW X5, and the Porsche Cayenne, and again, those are pretty common.

The most common size in France (where I'm originally from) is the B-segment: Renault Clio, Citroën C3, etc. So 4.1~4.2 meters in length and 1.7~1.8 meters in width. Model 3 is much longer: 4.7 meter in length and quite a bit larger at 1.9~2 meter in width. Don't get me wrong, BMW 3-series or Audi A4 are not rare in France, but it's not the mass market.

So I don't have the beginning of a clue as to why you are laughing. If you are French then you probably live in an affluent neighborhood. I suspect you live in a different country with different car habits.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#58
post #54

These kind of posts are good publicity right? I don't see any other car company we follow so closely on the market. Tesla is the only name I can see come up again and again here, and guess what, most people on HN are the actual population that is buying teslas.

I read HN, drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and short Tesla.
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