Tesla Model 3 revealed

[RobDickinson]

Thats how large manufacturers turn into dinosaurs.

Nokia, Kodak etc.

[TransverseTight]

Tuna said:

And here's where optimism and reality clash. I can tell you with certainty that Nissan has been working on such vehicles for a long time. They demonstrated the Infiniti Emerg-E Hybrid at the 2012 Geneva show, which itself was based on the Evora Hybrid demonstrator shown by Lotus two years earlier. The point with a lot of these technologies is not whether it can be done, but whether the large car manufacturers want to commit to it. Tesla has no backup plan - it's all electric or nothing and they want to sell you the dream that EVs are the only solution to the problem. They have to sell you that dream, or they're dead in the water. For the large manufacturers (who are actually making money), gambling on what could turn out to be a dead end is simply not attractive.

The reality is I've now done 30,000 miles in an i3 REX and now know what car would suit me more. It doesn't include a combustion engine . Never need to charge away from home apart from 6 times a year when I'll be able to use a reliable 130kW supercharger instead of a usually working but not always 50kW CCS that gets me another 70-80 miles after 30 minutes charging.

It's the infrastructure where other manufacturers are leaving things to chance and why they will fail (in the EV market). They can make EVs, but can they make EVs that will sell at least 400,000 units? Its finding location partners, getting the chargers to be reliable with numerous brands of car, getting the power to sites etc. It's not something you can just throw money at. Renault Zoes were taking down rapid chargers for a while as they were tripping the main circuit breaker when the doors were locked due to a brief pause in the charging current. Not much help to Mitsubishi, Nissan, BMW etc owners!

Unless there's 100kW CCS units start rolling out Europe wide in 2016/17 with chip and pin or contactless no one will buy a car with 50kW CCS that needs 5 different RFID cards just in the UK for the same money as a 130kW capable Tesla. Its taken Ecotricity from June 2014 till now to get 1/3 of the sites they had Chademo units on to have a 2nd unit with CCS. That's sites that already had a willing partner and the supporting infrastructure.

How long the market will take to grow overall will depend on 2 things. 1 how fast other manufacturers get on board and 2 how fast Tesla can obtain additional investment to scale up production by adding more factories overseas. Gigafactory 1... may not be the only one in the pipeline as they had 4 shortlisted locations just for the USA.

There's enough accessible lithium in the ground for the forseeable future. Cobalt may be more of a problem but that's not the only chemistry available.

There's another question I've been pondering. What happens after Model 3... although it enters the compact exec priced market... there's C B and A segment cars left to come down to ! Could Tesla knock up a sub £20k Focus sized car by skipping all the tech and having just a steering wheel, pedals, and a 13" screen to feature controls, sat nav and comms and an amp in the mininalist dash.

Obviously you can stick the cost back up with options but who knows.

[otolith]

I expect they will continue to add smaller, cheaper cars as their economies of scale grow.

[RobDickinson]

Yeah that.

Top down with increasing scaling is working so far.

[Slow]

Love the door handles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIh2PjqfXkQ

[Blaster72]

TransverseTight said:

The reality is I've now done 30,000 miles in an i3 REX and now know what car would suit me more. It doesn't include a combustion engine . Never need to charge away from home apart from 6 times a year when I'll be able to use a reliable 130kW supercharger instead of a usually working but not always 50kW CCS that gets me another 70-80 miles after 30 minutes charging.

Are you saying the i3 without the range extender would be your preferred choice next time? Are you also saying you only ever drive more than battery range distance 6 times a year? Seems quite low but I guess that depends where you live and your lifestyle.

30k is 40 miles a day, every day average over two years. Is that amount of usage something you anticipated when you bought it? Must have save a fair whack in fuel over that time.

The new batteries BMW are putting in should put the range on battery only to 195 miles, the more I read this thread, the more that seems like it would be plenty enough for me to live with an i3 as my only car.

I'd still like to see 300 miles but it's certainly heading the right way.

Edited by Blaster72 on Wednesday 11th May 05:45

[Burwood]

I applaud the car but Tesla has issues. Huge losses, cash burn. Limited capacity. They will be swallowed up IMO. The model 3 waiting list will be 5 years long.

[Tuna]

TransverseTight said:

If you're wondering about how to get the power onsite....

If you have some pylons near by...
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/11-KV-1000-...

If not think a slightly bigger version of this... which is only a 20ft container.

http://www.gdgenerator.com/container-generator/208...

When you've been looking anything is possible. It's then down to commerical viability and market entrance timing

Um... The generator you list (in a 20ft container) is enough for one car to charge at that rate and costs $100,000 (ish, funnily I don't have the exact price). So for a 12 car station, you'd need something costing 1.2 million dollars and looking like this:



So yeah, ignoring installation, ongoing maintenance and fuel, that's about the same cost as an entire equipped service station and land. Doesn't sound commercially viable to me, however you time the market entrance. Tesla is already massively overstretched financially, who do you think is going to come up with the cash?

[TransverseTight]

Blaster72 said:

TransverseTight said:

The reality is I've now done 30,000 miles in an i3 REX and now know what car would suit me more. It doesn't include a combustion engine . Never need to charge away from home apart from 6 times a year when I'll be able to use a reliable 130kW supercharger instead of a usually working but not always 50kW CCS that gets me another 70-80 miles after 30 minutes charging.

Are you saying the i3 without the range extender would be your preferred choice next time? Are you also saying you only ever drive more than battery range distance 6 times a year? Seems quite low but I guess that depends where you live and your lifestyle.

30k is 40 miles a day, every day average over two years. Is that amount of usage something you anticipated when you bought it? Must have save a fair whack in fuel over that time.

The new batteries BMW are putting in should put the range on battery only to 195 miles, the more I read this thread, the more that seems like it would be plenty enough for me to live with an i3 as my only car.

I'd still like to see 300 miles but it's certainly heading the right way.

Edited by Blaster72 on Wednesday 11th May 05:45

That 30k has been done over only 15 months. First job was 120 miles a day round trip so about 1/3 on REX. Currently doing 86 with workplace charging

I'd prefer a Tesla 3 than another 50% battery increase in the i3 rex... mainly as I'll be able to fit a roof rack & towbar for those few long trips a year I do... mum and dad down in Poole ... which passes Winchester supercharger on the way and Le Mans. Other than that its back and forth to Nottingham where I'd prefer not to have to charge at work as we have 3 x 13A sockets and 6 to 8 cars a day wanting to use them. It gets a bit hectic on emails around 11am when we are working who to swap over with.

If you don't need a lot of luggage space or towing or roof boxes and only need 4 seats or less the new i3 is a very good option. I'm driving my old battery tech down to Le Mans this year. .. i trust it will get there even if 40% ish of the miles are on petrol.

Edited by TransverseTight on Wednesday 11th May 18:51

[TransverseTight]

Tuna said:

TransverseTight said:

If you're wondering about how to get the power onsite....

If you have some pylons near by...
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/11-KV-1000-...

If not think a slightly bigger version of this... which is only a 20ft container.

http://www.gdgenerator.com/container-generator/208...

When you've been looking anything is possible. It's then down to commerical viability and market entrance timing

Um... The generator you list (in a 20ft container) is enough for one car to charge at that rate and costs $100,000 (ish, funnily I don't have the exact price). So for a 12 car station, you'd need something costing 1.2 million dollars and looking like this:



So yeah, ignoring installation, ongoing maintenance and fuel, that's about the same cost as an entire equipped service station and land. Doesn't sound commercially viable to me, however you time the market entrance. Tesla is already massively overstretched financially, who do you think is going to come up with the cash?

But no cars can charge at 700kW currently. So that's enough for between 6 to 20 cars. Why do electric stations have to be smaller than petrol stations? Seems to me the best approach would be to use the same format for charging instead of making them look like parking spaces which people then park in.

If you wanted 2MW...you wouldnt actually need 4x500kW units. You just buy a bigger genset that fits in a 40ft container. With a CHP system you then also have a means of making hot water for the services which can also be used to run a triphasic air con system.

I don't actually think you need 700kW charging but wanted to show is not impossible. 200kW loads electricity into the battery at 800 miles per hour... ie 1 hour charging gets you 800 miles range. So wvery 10 minutes gets you 133 miles. I know from stopping on the way down South in my i3 30 its hard to get back to the car in 30 minutes if you stop to eat, and a shorter stop for loo, coffee and a doughnut is 15. Obviously if you want to drive 200 mile chuncks. Stop refill abd go again this is a bit of a compromise, but if its a few dozen times a year or less its fine. At what point does it get tedious to sit snd wait 15 minutes while you catch up with some emails and forum posts? Depends on the individual. I know of some people who do that already.

[walm]

Tuna said:

Tesla is already massively overstretched financially, who do you think is going to come up with the cash?

Yet another non-problem.
Sure, if you insist AGAIN that 100% of car needs HAVE to be met by an EV then you need a vastly improved and expensive supercharger network.

However, if you open just one eye to the real world you might notice that there is absolutely HUGE demand (and a HUGE addressable market) from people who are only EVER going to charge at home or destination.

And how on earth could we possibly know this? I mean - is there some way of measuring such demand?
Is it all conjecture???

Uh.... nope.
There are 500k orders to prove it.

Feel free to check my posts in the Finance forum but the "Tesla is massively overstretched financially" meme is fairly comprehensively debunked.
They would have been cashflow positive by the end of this year.
Then they brought forward the 500k capacity factory by TWO YEARS.
Which will require a HUGE amount of extra capex - pushing them negative again.
That isn't the sort of behaviour of a "financially stretched" company.
Oh and where might they get that cash? Issuing shares that will be snapped up by the market in a heartbeat. Or issuing more debt in a market where you can get it essentially for free.

[RobDickinson]

Tesla's last financial results said they had increased there cash reserves from $1.2bn to $1.44bn and paid back some debt.

Also the $21bn on the order books isnt bad either.

Tuna sorry but typing things on your keyboard doesnt make them correct.

[Tuna]

walm said:

Tuna said:

Tesla is already massively overstretched financially, who do you think is going to come up with the cash?

Yet another non-problem.
Sure, if you insist AGAIN that 100% of car needs HAVE to be met by an EV then you need a vastly improved and expensive supercharger network.

No, I'm not insisting that. I'm trying to work out if it's such a no-brainer, why so few companies appear to be investing in the space? Why is Tesla having to build the entire ecosystem, from battery production through to car manufacture, servicing and charger infrastructure? Why aren't other people dashing to stake their claim? If destination charging is so obvious, why haven't Target, Walmart and Tesco launched into the market big time? Why are charging points being built by previously unheard of startups rather than known players like Powergen, Shell or EDF?

walm said:

And how on earth could we possibly know this? I mean - is there some way of measuring such demand?
Is it all conjecture???

Uh.... nope.
There are 500k orders to prove it.

Feel free to check my posts in the Finance forum but the "Tesla is massively overstretched financially" meme is fairly comprehensively debunked.

You'll have to help me out on that one, I've looked through the Finance forum and your post history and can't find anything there about Tesla.

Going by this article: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/03/tesla-stock-is-not-...

cnbc said:

Tesla's market cap is more than $30 billion, compared to Fiat Chrysler at around $10 billion and Ferrari at around $8 billion. Being valued at 3x more than FCAU — an established and profitable company — looks especially absurd when considering FCAU produces annual sales of over $130 billion, while Tesla produces revenue of only $4 billion.

Furthermore, Tesla's market cap is nearly two-thirds of General Motors' market cap. This is despite the fact that General Motors has a history of selling 10 million cars at a profit each year and Tesla sold less than 100,000 cars last year at a loss. They would have to sell 6.6 million cars this year to justify its current valuation. With less than 400,000 cars on pre-order that doesn't appear likely anytime soon.

In a February interview with CNBC's Squawk Box, Former GM executive Bob Lutz noted that, "[TSLA] costs have always been higher than their revenue…They always have to get more capital. Then they burn through it."

..the suggestion is that Tesla's ability to maintain their current levels of investment are hugely dependent on good will rather than any firm financial results. Musk's other firm, Solar City is being hammered and there are still people popping up questioning Tesla's ability to deliver on time - which is certainly going to stretch the good will of those investors they need.

It's a good job those 500k pre-orders (though some sites are saying less than 400K) are not actually firm orders but fully refundable deposits. I genuinely believe that Tesla right now is a gamble. It's a cool gamble, one I have to applaud (and fantastic if they pull it off), but it's a gamble none the less.

[RobDickinson]

Tuna said:

No, I'm not insisting that. I'm trying to work out if it's such a no-brainer, why so few companies appear to be investing in the space?

Because the old established companies are happy doing the old established things.

Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesnt. The time is about right for a big change in this area.

[Atmospheric]

RobDickinson said:

Tuna said:

No, I'm not insisting that. I'm trying to work out if it's such a no-brainer, why so few companies appear to be investing in the space?

Because the old established companies are happy doing the old established things.

Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesnt. The time is about right for a big change in this area.

The established are watching. In the meantime they're selling cars, judging sales of their hybrid and EV range and waiting.

I think it's the Japanese you'd need to watch here.

[walm]

Tuna said:

I'm trying to work out if it's such a no-brainer, why so few companies appear to be investing in the space? Why is Tesla having to build the entire ecosystem, from battery production through to car manufacture, servicing and charger infrastructure? Why aren't other people dashing to stake their claim? If destination charging is so obvious, why haven't Target, Walmart and Tesco launched into the market big time? Why are charging points being built by previously unheard of startups rather than known players like Powergen, Shell or EDF?

Destination charging is also a red herring. I shouldn't have mentioned it.
Let's just remind everyone - the vast vast majority of drivers, drive FAR LESS than 200 miles a day and they return HOME.
Personally I would guess that the vast majority of destination charging will be people using their mate's power socket when they visit.

You also answered your own question earlier:

Tuna said:

For the large manufacturers (who are actually making money), gambling on what could turn out to be a dead end is simply not attractive.

And I don't know how to make it clearer but Tesla would have been cash flow positive this year. (FYI that means "actually making money".)
The only reason they aren't is because they brought forward GROWTH capex.
The reason you do that is because you firmly believe that the investment will make money in future.
And since they have been proven right on the Model S and X making money - they might well be right about this investment.
Now it has hit the stock price although that is not overly surprising given the HUGE valuation and 80% rise in Feb-March.

Tuna said:

You'll have to help me out on that one, I've looked through the Finance forum and your post history and can't find anything there about Tesla.

It's in the stock tips thread.

Tuna said:

Going by this article...

..the suggestion is that Tesla's ability to maintain their current levels of investment are hugely dependent on good will rather than any firm financial results.

I genuinely believe that Tesla right now is a gamble. It's a cool gamble, one I have to applaud (and fantastic if they pull it off), but it's a gamble none the less.

All of that rubbish (CNBC is a joke by the way) is talking about the VALUATION of Tesla. Which is (like EVERY OTHER equity investment) a gamble.

You say that their level of investment is dependent on good will.
That is true - again just like every other cash flow negative business.

This isn't some sort of enigma or rarity. It's perfectly common for growth stocks.

Please point to ANY financial results that haven't been "firm" from Tesla.
Because simply saying that they have a big capex plan for this year is evidence of the exact OPPOSITE of what you accuse them of.
Usually financially weak companies have to DELAY growth owing to lack of funding - NOT THE OPPOSITE!!

[Leithen]

Inertia is holding back established manufacturers.

Tesla is disrupting an established industry by keeping everything in-house and engineering vehicles without ties to ICE production.

There are big risks, but potentially big rewards.

And as for market cap and valuations, these matter to speculators, not to the fundamentals of the business.

It's early days for Tesla. They could fail. But equally, their boss has shown the ability to adapt quickly and is arguably the best positioned to take advantage of any EV opportunity in the future.

[walm]

Leithen said:

And as for market cap and valuations, these matter to speculators, not to the fundamentals of the business.

That's not fair.
Fundamentals matter a lot.
However, for pure growth stocks (of which Tesla is very clearly one), more traditional valuation metrics are harder to use.
(e.g. PE with no E!)
That's doesn't mean that investors/speculators don't care if they are about to run out of money!!
The point is very simply that they have very easy access to raise extra funds both from equity and debt markets.
A $27bn mkt cap company raising c.$2bn of debt or equity would take them one or possibly two phone calls.

[98elise]

walm said:

Tuna said:

I'm trying to work out if it's such a no-brainer, why so few companies appear to be investing in the space? Why is Tesla having to build the entire ecosystem, from battery production through to car manufacture, servicing and charger infrastructure? Why aren't other people dashing to stake their claim? If destination charging is so obvious, why haven't Target, Walmart and Tesco launched into the market big time? Why are charging points being built by previously unheard of startups rather than known players like Powergen, Shell or EDF?

Destination charging is also a red herring. I shouldn't have mentioned it.
Let's just remind everyone - the vast vast majority of drivers, drive FAR LESS than 200 miles a day and they return HOME.
Personally I would guess that the vast majority of destination charging will be people using their mate's power socket when they visit.

You also answered your own question earlier:

Tuna said:

For the large manufacturers (who are actually making money), gambling on what could turn out to be a dead end is simply not attractive.

And I don't know how to make it clearer but Tesla would have been cash flow positive this year. (FYI that means "actually making money".)
The only reason they aren't is because they brought forward GROWTH capex.
The reason you do that is because you firmly believe that the investment will make money in future.
And since they have been proven right on the Model S and X making money - they might well be right about this investment.
Now it has hit the stock price although that is not overly surprising given the HUGE valuation and 80% rise in Feb-March.

Tuna said:

You'll have to help me out on that one, I've looked through the Finance forum and your post history and can't find anything there about Tesla.

It's in the stock tips thread.

Tuna said:

Going by this article...

..the suggestion is that Tesla's ability to maintain their current levels of investment are hugely dependent on good will rather than any firm financial results.

I genuinely believe that Tesla right now is a gamble. It's a cool gamble, one I have to applaud (and fantastic if they pull it off), but it's a gamble none the less.

All of that rubbish (CNBC is a joke by the way) is talking about the VALUATION of Tesla. Which is (like EVERY OTHER equity investment) a gamble.

You say that their level of investment is dependent on good will.
That is true - again just like every other cash flow negative business.

This isn't some sort of enigma or rarity. It's perfectly common for growth stocks.

Please point to ANY financial results that haven't been "firm" from Tesla.
Because simply saying that they have a big capex plan for this year is evidence of the exact OPPOSITE of what you accuse them of.
Usually financially weak companies have to DELAY growth owing to lack of funding - NOT THE OPPOSITE!!

If you're going to post on Tesla threads then you need to stop posting facts. Its just not the done thing!

[TransverseTight]

Tuna said:

No, I'm not insisting that. I'm trying to work out if it's such a no-brainer, why so few companies appear to be investing in the space? Why is Tesla having to build the entire ecosystem, from battery production through to car manufacture, servicing and charger infrastructure? Why aren't other people dashing to stake their claim? If destination charging is so obvious, why haven't Target, Walmart and Tesco launched into the market big time? Why are charging points being built by previously unheard of startups rather than known players like Powergen, Shell or EDF?

Tradational car makers buy most of their components except their in house designed engines. They are reluctant to give up years and years of R&D and start buying in batteries and EV motors and lose their most profitable part of the business. When you get that part you can see why they aren't in a rush to invest in making it easier for EVs to charge. BMW look like they've had a go by subcontracting it to existing charge networks with their "Drive Now" card, but it's a rebrand of a national charging suppliers and they don't have EU cross network usage. The UK one run by Charge Master (known in affectionately in the EV community as Chargee Disaster) costs £7.47+VAT per month and that's a bit steep when you only use it occasionally.

There some numbers I wanted to share that might makes things easier to understand. Current rapid charger sessions are getting around 6 charge sessions per day of around 12kWh on average. I can’t answer for Telsa but lets assume they have similar usage stats, but because of the bigger batteries charge 50kWh per session. This is a bit high as there’s only 2000 Teslas in the country and 50,000 other shorter range EVs, but we’ll ignore that.

A 100kW grid connection is about £10,000. So you can pull a constant load 100kW from that and get 2400kWh per day out of it. The charging infrastructure is about £100k for a pair of rapids, call it £150k all in with grid connection, ground works, paint markings. From that 240kWh per day you can charge 24 Nissan Leafs, i3s and Renault Zoes, or 7 Telsas. The 100kW can be used to top up a battery buffer while no one is charging and indeed Telsa now have SCs that work like this. The advantage then is you can dump into the car as much as the batteries can supply. We know the 90kW pack in the Model S (which uses the same batteries) can peak at 500kW. So can theoretically charge 5 cars at 100kW for a short period. But maybe it’s better to think it can charge 2 cars at 100kW continuously – from a 100kW supply. The amount of battery storage needed at a site will be a function of peak usage and frequency.

I was trying to think how to extract “end game” rapid charging needs. I know from the RAC figures posted above – which some are from the National Travel Surveys, average mileage is 7,900 miles a year, and 99% of all trips are under 50 miles. So 1% of trips are over 50 miles. For arguments sake let say those 1% of trips are responsible for 10% of your average person’s annual mileage. So 790 miles a year. That’s 4 stops a year for the average Tesla user, starting with a full 200 mile battery, and recharging to continue. Some people will need more – but then based on averages some people will never use it.
so we need 120 million charge sessions per year. If each point can deliver 7 per day that's a touch under 50,000 1000kW charge points needed. (My maths is very rough here... becuase not all of those sessions will be for another 200 miles. When you are used to rapid charging you'll quickly realise - even if it's free you only stay as long as you need to get enough juice to get to your next destination charger. Whether that's home, work, a shopping centre or a mates 13A socket.

It’s why all the nonsense on rapid charging is really just a lot of noise. We’re going from the norm of people charging at petrol stations every week, to a super charge session 4 times per year. Maybe those will be on bank holidays leading to queues. But the answer is to travel at a different time, or plan an overnight stop at a hotel mid journey and enjoy a night out having dinner in a new scenic town. That’s the way I’ve always travelleed in Europe anyway… takes me 2 overnight stops to get to the south of France, as the traveling becomes part of the holiday instead of something that has to be endured to get there!

Lastly if you do need 5MW on site… you don’t need a stack of containers (that’s just a diesel gen set for 700kW) you need one of these as they are much cheaper to run on natural gas than diesel…

http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/fossil-power-g... All the way up to 400MW if you need it, though that would be quite large. Still only an office block sized building though which would fit easy on a motorway services.
That’s assuming you need the backup for a nearby wind farm and a field full of PV and an existing grid connection.

Edited by TransverseTight on Wednesday 11th May 14:10