Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 407 posts

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#351

Post by LastZactionHero »

leetcrew wrote: post #339
LastZactionHero wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If commercials tell me anything about what car buyers value, there are so many other apsects John Q Public would appreciate! John likes fast cars. And oh boy my Nissan Leaf is fun to drive! Mountain driving feels like floating silently into the air. Instant torque, no gear shifting. John may also appreciate the extra leg room, as even a compact car gains a lot of room without a gas engine. John also likes saving mone…

> And oh boy my Nissan Leaf is fun to drive! just curious, what else have you driven to compare it against? I rarely hear even hardcore EV enthusiasts describe that car as "fun".

Fun is pretty subjective. I'm not a car guy and don't have much experience with nice cars.

But, this isn't a nice car- I paid $6,500. I'm just comparing it to every ICE car I've driven (aside from that one time I got 20 minutes in a Lamborghini), and definitely every ICE car you can purchase used for $6,500.

But given the acceleration and smoothness, I'm just betting it's more fun to drive than nearly every car described in commercials fun to drive.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#352

Post by bdamm »

sokoloff wrote: post #318
bdamm wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, it doesn't work out in your case because you've already made the transition to electric. We went from two gas guzzlers (one of them was a 40mpg diesel, the other a fairly typical 25mpg) to one model 3 and the financing equation easily works in our case. Obviously not everyone is going to give up a car, and the math doesn't work for everyone. But more people should be doing the math rather than just looking at the…

Going from $0.11/mi to $0.05/mi ($0.20/kWh in MA) even at 20K miles per year saves $100/mo. That’s not economically compelling. Driving 1/4 of that (per driver) is even less compelling. I bought an electric because I wanted one (and there was $10K in government cheese in the trunk).

$100/mo is pretty compelling to lots of people. Why throw money away? My locale is even better because I pay $0.08/kwH (Portland, Oregon). We like to ski; every time we drive up the mountain was $50 in gas for our Ford Escape. Now it's roughly $5. That alone represents $180 a month. In the summer we have different hobbies that are equally travel intensive so it's a year-round win.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#353

Post by [deleted] »

chasd00 wrote: post #90
latortuga wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never consider purchasing a competing luxury car (BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc) but I bought a Tesla. Tesla has a far lower TCO due to the greatly reduced maintenance. Electric is way more fun to drive than ICE. I feel like the quality is great but again this is coming from someone who has never owned a luxury car, and only ever owned/driven Hondas, Toyotas, and Subarus.

TCO is something I haven't thought about. My 4runner needs an oil change, and maybe an air filter, every so often but that's about it. What other maintenance is required for ICE that isn't required for electric?

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#354

Post by leetcrew »

LastZactionHero wrote: post #351
leetcrew wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And oh boy my Nissan Leaf is fun to drive! just curious, what else have you driven to compare it against? I rarely hear even hardcore EV enthusiasts describe that car as "fun".

Fun is pretty subjective. I'm not a car guy and don't have much experience with nice cars . But, this isn't a nice car - I paid $6,500. I'm just comparing it to every ICE car I've driven (aside from that one time I got 20 minutes in a Lamborghini), and definitely every ICE car you can purchase used for $6,500. But given the acceleration and smoothness, I'm just betting it's more fun to drive than nearly every car des…

for $6500 you're probably right, unless you're willing to purchase a "project" vehicle. I bet it's a lot more peppy than a 1.5L honda civic. I mainly ask because I see the MSRP for a new leaf is almost $30k, which is where you can start getting into some new entry-level performance cars or a lightly used bmw coupe.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#355

Post by bdamm »

OrangeMango wrote: post #315
205guy wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the charger networks have solved this. Just choose a network (Chargepoint, Semaconnect, etc.), put in a 2- or 4-connection charger, and each EV owner pays for each charge with an RFID card or their phone. There are also online services for scheduling and paying for use of private (not-smart) chargers (evmatch.com), and others that specialize in your exact problem (multiple chargers in shared dwellings): evercharg…

In a condo building, each parking space is deeded to the owner as a limited common element for the exclusive use of the owner. The charger in the parking space is owned by the owner of the parking space and the electrical connection runs to a utility closet that the electrical utility controls. In a new building, you just design the electrical system so this is a non-issue. In an existing building, it's not so simple…

Condo associations that want to solve this can. It isn't a technical problem and it won't slow down EV adoption very much. It is kind of like adding satellite TV and plenty of HOAs have figured that one out despite not having it wired into the building. Yes, specific organizations will be slower than others, but as the demand ramps up more and more people will want this solved in their own HOA and they'll start getting it done like dominoes.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#356

Post by londons_explore »

freepor wrote: post #83
londons_explore wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company with real time telemetry from all cars all the time ought to blow a traditional automaker out of the water with reliability. They can do things like measure vibration of a particular circuit board across the fleet, compare that to the design specs, and be able to predict failure probability a long time ahead of real failures. In turn, they can then revise designs to avoid a failure mode that hasn't even occ…

Are boards actually this instrumented? Does each MOSFET have a temperature sensor onboard?

MOSFET on-resistance is highly dependant on temperature. They will certainly be able to measure that, even if they don't have sensors on the MOSFETs themselves. They will probably have both current and voltage measurement, so even have two ways to measure it! Even $2 China motor controllers have the hardware for it (although not the software)

I'd expect them to have sensors on the individual MOSFETs though - there is per-component variation, and software changes can benefit per-component efficiency. I could totally believe a gain of +1% efficiency from such tuning, and probably more like +30% peak performance, since components can be pushed far closer to their limits when you know the exact temperatures.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#357

Post by sokoloff »

bdamm wrote: post #352
sokoloff wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from $0.11/mi to $0.05/mi ($0.20/kWh in MA) even at 20K miles per year saves $100/mo. That’s not economically compelling. Driving 1/4 of that (per driver) is even less compelling. I bought an electric because I wanted one (and there was $10K in government cheese in the trunk).

$100/mo is pretty compelling to lots of people. Why throw money away? My locale is even better because I pay $0.08/kwH (Portland, Oregon). We like to ski; every time we drive up the mountain was $50 in gas for our Ford Escape. Now it's roughly $5. That alone represents $180 a month. In the summer we have different hobbies that are equally travel intensive so it's a year-round win.

Why spend $50K or more to save $100 or even $180 a month for maybe 8 years and get $10-20K back at the end? That’s just not compelling on an RoI basis.

There are many reasons to like a Tesla. It’s almost surely not the cheapest way to motor though. A $5K Honda and investing the difference will be wildly cheaper during the ownership period (including no need to carry collision/comprehensive insurance!) and have a much higher residual value (in the investment account). To me, that should be more compelling to many people.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#358

Post by Fjolsvith »

d1zzy wrote: post #340
aviraldg wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't most people just charge at home, overnight?

That may work in suburban America but I'm not so sure about the rest of the world. Most of my life I've lived in apartment complexes (US) / blocks of flats (Europe) where there was no car charging possibility when parking. It would require huge infrastructure changes to allow most people to be able to charge at home and work, this is different from gas powered vehicles where you need a relatively small number of (cen…

I can see charging trucks going around all night and topping vehicles up mobile resupply like.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#359

Post by cjhopman »

ReverseCold wrote: post #341
notJim wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems really optimistic about the adoption of electric cars. I suspect adoption will be drastically slower than you're imagining, and hybrids as well as gas vehicles will remain relevant for a long time still. Toyota of course has the top-selling hybrid, and introduced a plug-in hybrid version recently. Ford was in the #2 spot and Toyota was again in the #3. Honda takes #5. I think the thesis of these automakers…

> Additionally, Nissan has the #4-selling electric car, and Chevy has the #2. From here: https://insideevs.com/news/343998/monthly-plug-in-ev-sales-s... - by # of units sold, no one is even close to the Model 3. People with money to buy electric cars with can probably afford a $50k car (Model 3) that does everything well over $less cars that do everything kinda poorly.

You linked to something that only looked at a small fraction of the global market.

Re: Tesla Surges Above $500, Leaving Analyst Targets in the Dust

#360

Post by Fjolsvith »

njarboe wrote: post #349
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Less brake wear (I think?) from regeneration. On the Model 3, if you enable Hold mode, then it's possible to drive without EVER using the brakes outside of emergency situations. The rotors and pads will theoretically last forever outside of environmental damage.

While I like the idea of Hold mode, not regularly using the brake will cause the breaking reflex action to fade with time. You really want to have a good "slam the breaks" reflex if you drive a car On the other hand, maybe Tesla feels their automatic systems will break better than humans and this is not really a problem to worry about.

I'm not a Tesla driver, but I would guess the Hold mode doesn't turn off "slam the brakes" when the driver needs to stop fast.
Post reply on HN