So THAT'S how Tesla has survived...
I knew there had to be more than investor stupidity keeping Tesla alive for this long. Now we know: they've been selling so-called "green energy" credits on the global exchange - artificially providing investment capital to them while jacking up prices on the traditional automobile.
Thanks, Obama.
GM sells 3 million units per year in the US.
FIAT-Chrysler sells about 2 million units per year in the US.
2016 $302 mill in credits sold by Tesla
2017 $360 mill in credits sold by Tesla
2018 $420 mill in credits sold by Tesla
Excellent posting blarman!
C'mon Gulchers, give blarman some thumbs ups.
Cortex said we need electric cars b/c you just plug them in and they don't need polluting gasoline to run on...
In her case, she had no idea how an electric car operates, let alone how the energy used for running it is made.
Only one of the examples of the reality of ideas coming from the left.
I think it is because they concluded that the sheeple is ignorant and would never understand let alone back anything rational.
That's why the left hates thinking people and relegate them to the corner of "Nazis", "racists", "Islamophobes", etc.
Gore has made many millions trading RINβs.
The Evil ones of course steal and loot from a supposed good cause. Create problem loot from the solution.
See the YouTube video from the Autonomous Day announcements by Tesla about a month ago. It's about three years of development of an application-specific super chip and neural network system with tons of machine learning data from the fleet of about 1/2 million vehicles out there.
The chip is named TSD, for Totally Self-Driving -- whatever "totally" means here - an aspiration?
As someone who has been in the systems business for over 50 years, I found it super exciting. He has hired and supported innovation by some of the best young technical talent on Earth.
However, the other side of the coin aside from his fear mongering on CO2, fossil fuel and AI, is is brilliant product inspirationa, invention, and manufacturing innovation. That's what's driving the public interest and mine. He's the Thomas Edison of our age. He's delivering fully functional systems incrementally, driven by relentless innovation and experimentation. He's delivering. That's the bottom line emotionally and functionally for the culture.
The electric car is a great idea from a physics perspective. The only risk is not having access to electricity. The positives include a much simpler and therefore more maintainable machine with amazing acceleration. Just consider his assertion of a million mile warranty on a vehicle. What's the value of getting even partially to that goal?. What's that worth to bettering your life as a car owner or renter?
Body, suspension, breaks... the breaks are used much less in an EV with regenerative braking. Moving parts are sources of wear - the more there are the more vulnerable the product is. Thus all the benefits of solid state electronics and memory over its predecessors.
Regarding electronics, yeah, they can be great at managing fuel efficiency. Or they can be like my co-worker's Leaf where the car doesn't run without all 20 main circuit boards - each of which costs $1000 to replace! Nothing like a basic carburetor-based hunk of steel you can fix with some bubble gum and bailing wire in a pinch...
Yes, the mandated pollution control systems are an efficiency drain on a combustion engine which aren't needed on an electric vehicle. But how many times have you had to change out a muffler or catalytic converter? I never have even after putting more than 200,000 miles on three vehicles...
Question: does anyone know the comparative weight of an engine vs the battery system replacement? I'm curious...
The biggest losers will be the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle manufacturers' loss of the billions invested in manufacturing facilities for ICE power trains all over the world.
2) What if you want to drive from vegas to los angeles- about 300 miles through the desert. Run out of charge and you are stuck if you cant find a charging station and then wait for awhile for a charge to be delivered.
3) Use of A/C and heat will much more rapidly deplete charge from stated levels.
5) Chevy Volt has a small engine to give you remote charging if you need it. Straight electric cars are ONLY electric.
6) When the batteries GO, its like $8k to replace them.
9) Not that Gasoline is not flammable, but Lithium batteries can spontaneously explode if damaged or overheated.
Still want a current production electric car?
- Good point about the Heat and A/C battery needs.
- In any major technology innovation the supporting infrastructure takes time to roll out. Guess what it was like transitioning from the horse to the ICE vehicles. Trading horseshit for ... ;-)
- I can envision a service of swappable batteries much as we do with gas grill small tanks. But that's another step of innovation and infrastructure buildout. Or a variant on that could be what we do with portable chargers for mobile devices. Swappable boost batteries to support the primary, built-in battery.
- The flammability of Lithium batteries has been a area of well funded research and I've seen some Musk videos discussing how they mitigate that with their battery designs.
- Re batteries needing replacement, the latest prediction by Musk is a 50% to 100% increase in lifespan for next-gen. Note tht for Musk, Nex-gen means being worked on now and for some prior years.
I am interested in how they deal with the battery issues, however. Batteries of that size aren't cheap - even if they are replaceable. And they have a proscribed lifetime - currently only 3-5 years with degrading performance just like your cell phone. There have been huge strides - I completely agree. There may still be improvements to come but I'm evaluating based on what is in play right now.
Range. On a full charge, most electric cars go about 1/2 the distance as a comparable gas-powered engine on the same vehicle. (This is particularly applicable to the trucking industry where range is business viability.)
Recharge speed. Most electric cars can take up to six hours to fully recharge. A gas-powered engine can be refueled in five minutes.
Recharging stations. These are few and hard to find. Gasoline pumps are ubiquitous.
Battery replacement. These run about $10,000 and must take place about every four to five years. (The equivalent is about 100,000 miles on the same vehicle averaging $3 per gallon for gas and 30 mpg).
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Advantages of Electric Cars include:
Noise. Electric cars are comparatively silent. Most electric cars actually have to add noise so drivers feel comfortable in them.
Acceleration. Electric cars accelerate faster than comparable gasoline engines.
The regular car manufacturers (which make gas-using cars) need credits (from whom? the government?) to be allowed to sell their cars? So they buy the credits from Tesla (the electric car company) ? Why would they buy the credits from Tesla? If it's protection from government prosecution they want, why wouldn't (or couldn't) they buy these credits directly from the government? I can't drive anyway, having epilepsy, but this does seem to be a sort of political issue, which affects bus and cab fares, and I guess I would be better off if I understood it. But at present, I don't.
It's a typical statist, neo-liberal government scam to screw the people and enrich the elitists' friends.
As to why government doesn't sell them? My guess is that government doesn't qualify to "earn" any of them.
I never trusted Musk but Wall Street backed him no matter how imbecilic he came across, especially recently.
He is of the same caliber as Al Gore. Selling fiction.
There always will be buyers.
Musk is a physicist, software engineer, entrepreneur, leader of innovation and manufacturing teams.
He never came across as imbecilic to me. His style is unique and quirky and quite transparent in his communication - including admitting his sometimes delusional timelines. That can be more smart than anything to drive to objective goals.
Musk is a physicist, software engineer, entrepreneur, leader of innovation and manufacturing teams.
He never came across as imbecilic to me. His style is unique and quirky and quite transparent in his communication - including admitting his sometimes delusional timelines. That can be more smart than anything β to drive to objective goals.
How could he not be and accomplish all he has?
I love watching his promo videos. It always raises my spirits, even if I'm judging his content as foolish or manipulative - thanks to his transparency.
Edit - I think you may be confusing his informal but thoughtful style while sometimes making smart ass remarks. He always comes across to me as meaning what he says. His ideas on AI (a misnomer that should be Augmented Intelligence - as there's no artificial intelligence)... are bizarre, especially his call for a government regulatory body for it. That's a sure way to stifle innovation and get all the benefits of a government monopoly.
I agree that Gore never produced anything.
Reason I mentioned them in the same breath is that Gore was with Kleiner Perkins in SF, the VC firm that was one of the investors in Tesla.
Gore made millions. Being associated with Tesla was good politics for him: no-emission cars! Right in line with his "global warming" agenda.
Musk is quirky, as you said, but he never struck me as a serious man. This is my opinion. I am not an investor in Tesla and have no intention to be one.