Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

cleantechnica.com

61–70 of 348 posts

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#61
post #51
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't running an internal combustion engine in a car still substantially less efficient than the power plant necessary to charge it, regardless of the fuel?

That may well be so, but my conviction is that we need to substantially reduce carbon emissions across the board, and if that's true I don't think replacing gasoline cars with coal powered electricity plants makes a lot of sense, unless maybe the CO2 is captured and stored, but at that point you might as well go nuclear (which I am a proponent of, as the only realistic alternative at this point).

Internal combustion engines pollute the air where I'm living. Moving pollution away from residential areas is a worthwhile task in itself. That makes a lot of sense to me.

I live in a densely populated country. Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Also my country does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Nuclear does not look like the sane option here.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#62

Tesla also has a final assembly plant in the Netherlands[1], nominally making the brand "native" (like Volvo before them). That usually results in better brand recognition and higher sales as well. I recently saw a post on social media where someone couldn't go to the dentist because the car was updating software. From the discussion I understand there is a "grace period" of 2 weeks before automatic updates, and that…

The car notifies you if an update is available, when you can postpone it, and IIRC you also receive a notification on your phone before it starts at which point you can also postpone it. Also, it tells you the estimated duration of the update in minutes and specifically notes that you will likely not be able to use the car during this time. Also, braking and steering should be dependent on software. This is the case…

A decent balance would be facilitating an interrupt/rollback of the update at any time.

If you need the car now, and it's updating, it should be trivial to halt the update and operate the car on its previous software version.

Storage is cheap nowadays, there's no reason to not have versioned copies of every operational software version across the vehicle.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#63
post #52
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also…

I wouldn't trust Germany's management to make any rational decisions about energy. They've been shutting down nuclear power plants for the past few years... What are they going to do in 2038, spends the nights in cold and darkness when the sun isn't shining, or be Putin's puppets dependent on Russian gas?

Germany is a very densely populated country (go take a look at map). Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Germany also does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Currently, nuclear does not look like the sane option for Germany.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#64
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an African I really want an electric car that just has a speedometer, airbags, range meter and nothing else. I can do without air condition, outside temperature sensor ... We already struggling to fix the modern petrol and diesel cars full of electronics.

You may be interested in following Sono motors. https://sonomotors.com/en/sion/ They are making a much simpler electric car with the ethos that anyone can fix it, with readily available parts and manuals/blueprints for every part of the car. I am excited by it having solar panels as my average daily drive is probably in the region of 10 miles.

This looks like a perfect car for Africa. We have plenty of sun for solar charging component of the car. We really do not have the money to build out our power grid and if we can use solar panels for charging stations it make rolling out charging stations easier. The price though is still out of reach for most of us.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#65
post #45
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also…

Isn't running an internal combustion engine in a car still substantially less efficient than the power plant necessary to charge it, regardless of the fuel?

I believe in terms of mass by mass yes, it might even be true for hybrids.

But (I suspect) it's still better to burn gasoline than coal.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#66
post #6

Not surprising given the heavy taxes on gas cars and the Model 3's accuracy on the luxury/price/features sweet spot.

Not surprising due to electric cars being fundamentally better, in several important ways, than the alternative and so beginning to climb the S curve to inevitable total domination of the market.

That's the underlying reality that drives both the sales, the incentives and Tesla's pricing and product decisions.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#67
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't trust Germany's management to make any rational decisions about energy. They've been shutting down nuclear power plants for the past few years... What are they going to do in 2038, spends the nights in cold and darkness when the sun isn't shining, or be Putin's puppets dependent on Russian gas?

Germany is a very densely populated country (go take a look at map). Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Germany also does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Currently, nuclear does not look like the sane option for Germany.

They suddenly in few years closed all nuclear which imcreased all need for coal. Its dirty decision 2038 is not enough. If they closed all coal and wait with nuclear to 2038 that would make sense. Coal barons need to sell that stuff quicky before it looses value. I am sure they will somehow artificilially increase cost of coal energy in upcoming years.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#68
post #57

>The Dutch numbers are inflated by lavish incentives. In the next fiscal year, the incentives in the UK will be even more lavish. Norway was an early adopter of large subsidies/driving perks for EVs. It looks like other countries are following suit. This obviously bodes well for Tesla—-I wonder if anybody has insight about what this could mean for Chinese EVs if they make it to Europe.

> It looks like other countries are following suit. Actually, a major reason for the spike is that the incentives are about to be dialed back in the new year.

Which would be bad news if electric cars were fundamentally more expensive than the alternatives, but since they only started out more expensive due to low production numbers and now can compete on their own, it's a staggering success for short term government intervention in markets, similar to Germany and China's early support for PV, with a massive ROI for the specific countries and the world in general.

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#69
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an African I really want an electric car that just has a speedometer, airbags, range meter and nothing else. I can do without air condition, outside temperature sensor ... We already struggling to fix the modern petrol and diesel cars full of electronics.

get the honda e: https://www.honda.co.uk/cars/new/honda-e/overview.html tested it and it's truly a marvel.

Nice, RWD too!

Re: Tesla Model 3 represented over 15% of September new car sales in The Netherlands

#70
I worked for a large telco ten years back. When they wanted to look into the future they always looked at the Netherlands, because they were usually 3-5 yrs ahead. Back then they realized that WhatsApp would kill all their SMS revenues. However, they never acted on this insight...
Post reply on HN