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Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

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191–200 of 376 posts

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To sell that many $35,000 sedans in the U.S. “would be absolutely unprecedented based on what we know about car markets today and how people spend their dollars,” said Salim Morsy, electric car analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “It could happen. I’m pretty sure it won’t.” Model 3's will sell literally as fast as Tesla can push them off the production line. The pent up demand for this thing is insane. Over 40…

Or withdrawals from people. The deposits are non-committal so people can cancel without losing anything.

I can't think of any product I'd rather have than a Tesla.

I think Tesla will sell millions of Model 3. Which other car is 400,000 people waiting patiently to buy for two years, even putting down a $1,000 deposit?

Tesla is doing to traditional car manufacturers what Apple did to Nokia.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or withdrawals from people. The deposits are non-committal so people can cancel without losing anything.

Well, they lost access to $1,000 until they cancel (plus 3-6 weeks, since it can allegedly take Tesla this long to refund the money). I don't think 400,000 have just $1,000 to spare for a really anything they will just cancel. The $1,000 mean that the person who reserved it really wanted the car and is unlikely to just refund it unless they have a very good reason to do so.

The sort of people who would consider buying an expensive sedan can probably afford to loan Tesla $1000 for a year or so.

I reserved a Model 3 because I figured that if I didn't, I would be at the end of a very long waiting list and would probably lose out on the federal rebate. The most likely outcome is that I'll decide that's too much to spend on a car and cancel, but it still made sense to me to keep my options open.

I expect a lot of those reservations to be converted to actual sales, but a lot of them won't. In any case, I think Tesla will have plenty of demand if the product meets expectations.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#193
post #120

Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-mod... > For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the electric cars sold planet-wide last year. > Even if half of the Model 3 in…

> environment as well It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

What would you propose instead?

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a Volt. Best car I've ever driven. GM doesn't care much for it. The only advertising they really do for it basically is trying to steal EV customers from Nissan's Leaf. Really dumb. And the dealers don't like it because 1) they don't know how to service them and especially 2) they almost never need servicing. If you run almost exclusively on electric, you only need like 4-5 oil changes in the entire life of the…

I'm on a work visa here in the US, and I couldn't get financing on a Volt because GM Financial insisted on doing > 30 months lease on their hybrid cars (and my work visa expires before then, though it's likely to be renewed anyway). Go figure. It's not like I can't afford the monthly payments.

Sheesh. When I bought a Prius (admittedly, 2007), I was here on a fiancee visa. Toyota Financial had no problem okaying a three year lease even though my visa was (technically) three months (but available for extension).

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#195
post #120

Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-mod... > For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the electric cars sold planet-wide last year. > Even if half of the Model 3 in…

> environment as well It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

Unclean power plants are still vastly more efficient than the most efficient internal combustion engines. That's why trains are electric wherever possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#196
post #120

Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-mod... > For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the electric cars sold planet-wide last year. > Even if half of the Model 3 in…

> environment as well It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

The important distinction is that this abstracts the "cleanliness" away from the individual. Replacing one coal plant with a wind plant, for instance, is far more easily done than waiting for all affected consumers to replace their cars.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#197
post #120

Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-mod... > For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the electric cars sold planet-wide last year. > Even if half of the Model 3 in…

> environment as well It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

as you indicated - this depends on where you live - and if you're ready to just fix the problem yourself with solar power. Stating that it won't help is IMO misleading - Tesla is basically offering you all the missing tools to carry a high energy American lifestyle towards being carbon neutral. The footprint you missed in terms of consumed goods or at home, could be compensated by buying CO2 certificates.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16K4gNhy_AN8Eg4Ov3z7p...

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#198
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much better than the hollow cynicism of your post, though...

"In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. " - you have to admit that is pretty funny...

Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really useful for mining or offworld/low-g manufacturing, and it's close enough for quick trips back to Earth.

Venus is far too hot to be useful for anything besides dirigible cities, and what are you going to do there except sightsee the yellow clouds? Maybe it could be terraformed to something livable, but that would take a long time. If that could be done though, it'd be a great place, since it's close to Earth's size and gravity.

Mercury is too close to the Sun and too hot. You could put a city on the dark side, but the city would have to move constantly to stay on the dark side.

The asteroid belt might be useful for mining, as would other places farther beyond, but anything that far out is going to be very cold, because it's so far from the Sun. Also, the Moons of Jupiter are bombarded with massive amounts of radiation from their planet. And all those places have horribly low gravity too, which probably won't work well with human biology, unless perhaps we genetically engineer ourselves to fix that.

Space exploration is great for science and maybe resource extraction, but I just don't see the point of colonization except for a couple of somewhat-convenient places, at least not in this star system. I really can't imagine an "empire" across this solar system. Now it would be really cool if we could explore the TRAPPIST system and maybe find livable worlds there.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or withdrawals from people. The deposits are non-committal so people can cancel without losing anything.

> Or withdrawals from people. The deposits are non-committal so people can cancel without losing anything. I feel this is going to be the killer for them.

Sure, there will be tons of people who cancel... but then there will also be tons of people who wanted to wait until the car was fully finished before signing up to get one. They'll be fine.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#200
post #120

Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-mod... > For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the electric cars sold planet-wide last year. > Even if half of the Model 3 in…

This reminds me when the iPhone came out. Tesla is making a revolutionary new product. Millennials are also coming of age now through the next decade. Many of these buyers, either purchasing first-time, or upgrading their "college/hand-me-down" car, will buy Tesla, just because it's fashionable (ala iPhone). I'm bullish on Tesla and Musk. Edit: I should add that the product extends past the car itself. The whole dire…

If they can deliver the cars, and at a reasonable price, you are probably spot on.
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