61–70 of 241 posts
The real headline seems to be that this is the first profitable quarter for Tesla.
I would love to know how many Model S have been sold within 25 miles of Palo Alto, CA. Driving around Menlo Park/Palo Alto/Atherton/Woodside, one can easily see 10 Model S within an hour - it is truly unreal. It's almost at the point where buying a Model S is no longer trend setting, but instead following a trend.
I'd say a lot of them. The reason is that we are early adopters not trend setters or followers for that matter. When we see the future we buy it and use it. Were the people waiting in line for the first iPhone setting a trend? No, they just wanted the best phone ever and the model for all future phones.
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"If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime ..." Is this guy serious? The average car is driven 13.5k miles/year. So 50k is 3.7 years. Why would anyone use a ridiculously low number unless they were just trying to prove a point they already made up their mind on?
Typical miles driven by a car... Two car household here -- 46mo/old Prius - about 52k miles 37mo/old Jetta TDI - about 54k miles Since we are both solo-commuters, this is fairly typical for the bay area. Probably in the realm measured, but ... a 50k lifetime is a bit of a joke.
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I don't think that's an obvious conclusion at all. Many rechargeable battery chemistries experience terrible failures if they are not fully charged or fully discharged on a regular basis. Even still, as a consumer I find it offensive when the same resources are consumed to produce something and then crippled just to sell at a lower price. It's a sign of market inefficiency. For pure software, it's different because t…
By default, the Tesla Model S will never fully charge the battery, no matter what the capacity. You can tell it do this by doing a "range charge", but Tesla warns that doing this regularly will negatively impact the longevity of the pack. Full charge also has other problem, e.g. regen doesn't work anymore since the battery is too full. If I'm to believe reports from 60kWh and 85kWh owners, the cars weigh essentially…
For example, a pet shop: "Sorry, someone else already adopted that three-legged dog we advertised on discount to a good home. But we can give you one of our regular puppies at the same price. Of course, we'll have to 'adjust' it first ..."
Yes, it's a perfectly rational decision of the kind which gives MBAs a bad name.
"but range will be software limited to 40 kWh" DRM in my car that will leave me stranded by the side of the road. Wow, this is a new low even for DRM. No thank you. Tesla, you were kinda cool.
Is this so much worse than disabling cores in CPUs and selling them as cheaper models? That practice seems to be nearly universally accepted.
CPU cores are basically software, whereas battery weight is generally proportional to its capacity and would seem to have a big effect on the efficiency of an electric vehicle.
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So we're entering a phase of micropayments on material objects now? In-app payments, but for your car. I'm not sure how I feel about it, to be honest.
It's not too different from adding an exhaust or new stereo. Not really the same as in-app payments.
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>It's an...opinion piece by a global climate change denier. Where by "denier" you presumably mean "person who thinks there might exist other important issues of concern in the world besides CO2 levels". Or perhaps you mean "person who believes public policy proposals ought to be able to pass a cost-benefit analysis "? Or do you mean, the sort of person who says stuff like: "Global warming is real and man-made, and it…
No, I mean the dictionary definition of the word. He called the greenhouse effect a "myth", and has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community and respectable publications.
That claim appears to itself be a "myth" promulgated by people who don't like the guy's political conclusions.
The wikipedia page that made this inflammatory claim gave as its only reference a print-only newspaper article, from 1998, in Norwegian. (the ref was: Bjørn Lomborg, 'Det går bedre', newspaper article, Weekendavisen 13 March 1998)
So IF that article actually exists AND the claims made about it were valid, the best you'd be able to say is presumably that he said something once, 15 years ago, which when translated to English was taken to mean he suggested the "greenhouse effect" was a "myth". But given how much he's written on the subject in English in articles and reference sources that can actually be checked, the more likely assumption is that there was some amount of exaggeration/mistranslation going on. For instance, he might have been arguing that some claim about the greenhouse effect was "a myth", if that word was even used. Near as I can tell, all the google-able articles point back to that wikipedia page as a source, which - since it's been marked "citation needed" for more than 6 months - I've just fixed.
> The customers who ordered this option will instead receive the 60 kWh pack, but range will be software limited to 40 kWh. can't see anybody hacking that.
4,750 units of the 60kWh car at $62.4k yields $296.4m in revenue. If 4% of the orders are for the 40kWh car (190 units at $52.4k), there'd be at most $1.9m in lost revenue by "giving away" the slightly beefier battery.
It's plausible they'd still come out ahead given the cost savings of not setting up that production line even if they gave away all 190 software upgrades for free.
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Do you lose sleep over cable/satellite channels that could be available if only you paid for them? Do you yell at your network hub because it's capable of 150M down but you've only paid for 30? Do you freak out when you see people in VIP areas at events that you've paid general admission to enter? Tesla is being smart by constraining the number of products that they have to produce. Removing complexity directly trans…
> Do you lose sleep over cable/satellite channels that could be available if only you paid for them? No. I decided cable TV wasn't a good value and canceled it years ago. > Do you yell at your network hub because it's capable of 150M down but you've only paid for 30? No. My switch is 1 Gb. > Do you freak out when you see people in VIP areas at events that you've paid general admission to enter? No. Would you buy a ca…
Other commenters have already pointed out that there's no weight difference between the 40 and 60KWh models, and that you get the benefit of a greater top speed.