RE: Tesla to post first-ever profits

[Amirhussain]

Good looking car, shame about the electric crap.

[EDLT]

I saw a Vauxhall Ampera a few weeks ago, I thought it looked good. Its the only 'electric' car I'd have.

[BBS-LM]

If I am honest this is the first time I have seen the Model S, from the outside it looks great, good for them.

[427James]

Am I the only one that thinks this is a Jaguar and they've changed the badges? Lotus, Jaguar, what next - an electric 4x4 that looks frighteningly like a Range Rover Evoque?

[snorky]

Prof Prolapse said:

Give that man a cigar.

Sorry that will need to be smoked centrally to keep emissions down...

I saw one of these in their Miami showroom in Jan - it looks fabulous in the flesh and the showroom was packed with people every time we went past. I would have one if they weren't so expensive.

[Mezzanine]

McSam said:

So when that New York Times journo published an article explaining exactly how far short of Tesla's claims the Model S falls, and Musk went absolutely apest trying to sue them for millions of dollars' damages, he was talking total bks when he claimed the article had cost them thousands of sales?

Imagine that.

I quite like what the company is doing, but that guy is a clown.

How dare he get so worked up by a massively influencial national 'voice' so publically damning his products and company which he has spent ten years trying gradually to build and gain a tiny foothold in the market.

It is not like the potential customers of his company are often sitting on the fence or dubious of a 'new' technology and are therefore easier to scare away from buying is it?

I mean he should just sit back and relax.

What a clown indeed...

[boardtweet]

427James said:

Am I the only one that thinks this is a Jaguar and they've changed the badges? Lotus, Jaguar, what next - an electric 4x4 that looks frighteningly like a Range Rover Evoque?

I was thinking the same looks just like a Jag!

[boardtweet]

427James said:

Am I the only one that thinks this is a Jaguar and they've changed the badges? Lotus, Jaguar, what next - an electric 4x4 that looks frighteningly like a Range Rover Evoque?

I was thinking the same looks just like a Jag!

[kambites]

Which Jag?

[McSam]

Mezzanine said:

McSam said:

So when that New York Times journo published an article explaining exactly how far short of Tesla's claims the Model S falls, and Musk went absolutely apest trying to sue them for millions of dollars' damages, he was talking total bks when he claimed the article had cost them thousands of sales?

Imagine that.

I quite like what the company is doing, but that guy is a clown.

How dare he get so worked up by a massively influencial national 'voice' so publically damning his products and company which he has spent ten years trying gradually to build and gain a tiny foothold in the market.

It is not like the potential customers of his company are often sitting on the fence or dubious of a 'new' technology and are therefore easier to scare away from buying is it?

I mean he should just sit back and relax.

What a clown indeed...

Did you follow that particular episode? NYT's account seemed quite unbiased and factual, and also reasonably close to what I would expect for an electric car in real use versus what might be claimed by its designers. They never said it was crap, they just tested it and presented their findings. Musk went nuts, claiming he had hard proof that the journo had been lying (from recorded data in the car, which by the way never surfaced). He also said that the independent accounts from other people - such as a recovery truck driver and, IIRC, one of his own call centre staff were lies. The overall impression was "you said we were wrong so you must be lying", appearing extremely childish.

He then proceeded to make outlandish claims of huge losses, and a rather sharp interviewer did the sum and asked him if he actually had lost however many thousand orders would be needed to cause such losses. He backpedalled rapidly saying "oh at least a couple of hundred might be cancelling partly due to this", again with no figures ever surfacing. He spat the dummy out big time just because someone dared publish something that didn't agree with his claims - can you imagine a "mature" manufacturer trying to sue a news outlet for reviewing a car?

He has form for this too, see Top Gear. He just seems very, very immature and that doesn't impress me in the slightest.

[wab172uk]

Alfa159Ti said:

Volkswagon called - they want their Scirocco wheels back.

[Carnnoisseur]

BBS-LM said:

If I am honest this is the first time I have seen the Model S, from the outside it looks great, good for them.

Looks good from the inside also - have they planned a UK release?

[Carnnoisseur]

[A Scotsman]

In 2009 there were 254.4 million cars in the USA. 4750 Tesla registrations doesn't seem like a major market penetration.

[KarlMac]

Will be interesting to see how Tesla get on with some competition in the market. Fisker has some clout behind them now.

If they want to truly live up to the Tesla name they should have a great idea and get it nicked

[RichB]

dlockhart said:

RichB said:

Still puzzled about where all the 'greenhouse gas' produced by the power stations that generate the electricity for these cars goes? I guess it's just a case of moving away from one area to another? Unless of course they are nuclear power stations but 'greenies' don't like them. Anyway it's a nice looking car but there are plenty of nice looking cars, I just don't get the green aspect.

There are a couple of issues here:
1.) No petrol tankers were used to deliver the electricity to you local plug.
2.) Generation of electricity on mass and using it locally is more efficient than burning petrol/ diesel locally. No one (who counts) claims these are 100% environmentally neutral, just that this is a better way to go and the beginning of a new phase of motoring.

As I said it's a good looking car and an exciting prospect, I believe it has impressive performance and I would certainly be interested in trying one. Not knocking the electric car per-se and accepting points 1 and 2 at face value I still view cost saving advantages with a pinch of salt. As the oil runs out and petrol and diesel become increasingly more expensive the price of charging an electric car will just increase accordingly. Any tax breaks will disappear as electric cars become mainstream because the government will have to redress the loss of income from petrol and diesel duty. Anyway I'm not knocking it, and perhaps if we built more nuclear power stations they could be the universal panacea some people consider them to be.

[McWigglebum4th]

RichB said:

Still puzzled about where all the 'grenhouse gas' produced by the powerstations that generate the electricity for thse cars goes? I guess it's just a case of moving away from one area to another? Unless of course they are nuclear power stations but greenies don't like them. Anyway it's a nice looking car but there are plenty of nice looking cars, I just don't get the green aspect.

Ah

A child of labour education

There is more to being green then CO2

They don't puke out nasty stuff out of the back of the car and are nice and quiet which makes them far nicer to have in a city

[Apache]

Prof Prolapse said:

dlockhart said:

RichB said:

Still puzzled about where all the 'grenhouse gas' produced by the powerstations that generate the electricity for thse cars goes? I guess it's just a case of moving away from one area to another? Unless of course they are nuclear power stations but greenies don't like them. Anyway it's a nice looking car but there are plenty of nice looking cars, I just don't get the green aspect.

There are a couple of issues here:
1.) No Petrol tankers were used to deliver the electricity to you local plug.
2.) Generation of electricity on mass and using it locally is more efficent than burning petrol/ desiel locally.

No one (who counts) claims these are 100% environmentally neutral, just that this is a better way to go and the begining of a new phase of motoring.

Give that man a cigar.

Interesting to see just what was involved re primary fuels and their delivery, if it's coal there will be the costs and emissions for importing and rail freighting that lot and the local bit? electricity is generated all over the place and boosted accordingly. what we need is more nuclear generated electricity though and then this car makes more sense of a an order of magnitude
No disputing the sentiment though

[Fizpop]

McSam said:

id you follow that particular episode? NYT's account seemed quite unbiased and factual, and also reasonably close to what I would expect for an electric car in real use versus what might be claimed by its designers. They never said it was crap, they just tested it and presented their findings. Musk went nuts, claiming he had hard proof that the journo had been lying (from recorded data in the car, which by the way never surfaced). He also said that the independent accounts from other people - such as a recovery truck driver and, IIRC, one of his own call centre staff were lies. The overall impression was "you said we were wrong so you must be lying", appearing extremely childish.

He then proceeded to make outlandish claims of huge losses, and a rather sharp interviewer did the sum and asked him if he actually had lost however many thousand orders would be needed to cause such losses. He backpedalled rapidly saying "oh at least a couple of hundred might be cancelling partly due to this", again with no figures ever surfacing. He spat the dummy out big time just because someone dared publish something that didn't agree with his claims - can you imagine a "mature" manufacturer trying to sue a news outlet for reviewing a car?

He has form for this too, see Top Gear. He just seems very, very immature and that doesn't impress me in the slightest.

The in car data which 'never surfaced' can be found here, surfaced on Tesla's blog: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test...

HTH

[Southie01]

green-blood said:

As part of the announcement, Tesla also confirmed that it will drop the slow-selling 40kWh version of the Model S, focussing instead on the faster and longer-range 60kWh and 85kWh versions.


Its just a money making exercise, the environment stuff is pure bluster. How many millions of US tax dollars have been invested in this company??

They made a profit on a qtr, the company is MASSIVELY in debt

$465 million, Which they have arranged to repay 5 years early...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-08/tesla-pla...