RE: Tesla Roadster: 'Quickest car in the world'

RE: Tesla Roadster: 'Quickest car in the world'

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Discussion

RemarkLima

2,366 posts

211 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
8V085 said:
RobDickinson said:
8V085 said:
The IP that they made free for anyone to use? How does that work?
They still own it and they didnt open source/give it away. I think they are happy to share on a free commercial basis, afik no one is taking them up on it anyhow.
Musk said at the time that they were free to use by whoever wants them, no conditions and/or restrictions were defined.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150217/0618293...

Why nobody uses them? How would we know is the first question. And if they don't that would imply that Tesla's tech either isn't that revolutionary. Or they know that this isn't a viable model and wait to see what's going to happen with Tesla in the long run.
Mercedes B class electric uses tesla batteries and motors.

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
Tony427 said:
Exactly.

Listening to some people on here you would think that the self driving, EV shared "pod" car scenario is just around the corner.

Just a heads up. There are according to the SMMT approximately 32m cars in the UK car parc.

That total is being added to at around 2.7 million new cars per annum. 1.8 % of those used to be EV. . The govt plug in car grant has doubled uptake, since January 2017, but we all see what happens in other countries when govt subsidies are withdrawn. So comparing like with like , setting subsidies apart, we see that EV take up is extremely small whilst the UK car parc is huge and growing.

There are roughly 1.2 million cars scrapped per annum,DVLA figures, ( although some disputed sources claim 1.7 are actually scrapped) so theres a nett gain per annum of some 1.5 million cars.

How long would it take for all those ICE vehicles to be replaced by EV, especially considering that the expected life time of cars are in fact increasing. Scrappage rates have fallen in recent years.

Think about Mr and Mrs Joe Public.

They never buy a brand new new car because they cannot afford to. Their "new" car is always secondhand. They only buy a replacement car because their old car is generally buggared. They will never buy a newish EV because they cannot afford to. If you cannot afford a newish ICE car you cannot afford a newish EV car. When EV's get to sub £2,000 they may consider getting one, but guess what, by that time its batteries will be fried and it will be as useful as their old clapped out ICE banger.

In any event, in the future electricity for transport will be charged appropriately and will be expensive. Some days, poor EV people who bought the old knacker out the back of Carcraft EV, but who cannot afford peak rate charging, cannot go to work in their EV's because the smart charger programme has used the scant power in their half knackered battery, to charge some other EV in a better part of town whose owner can afford peak rates .

All Hail the National EV peak demand smoothing programme. Its being written in law right now gentlemen.

So, whats going to happen to those 32 million ICE cars . All of which represent a financial investment, however paltry, from some one or some organisation ? How can EV's displace 32 million cars when even with subsidies they are only selling 200k pa.

Its going to take years, and years and years, and then some more years. I'm not even 60 and I doubt I will ever see the day that ICE died.

Cheers,

Tony
Some very good points. Most of the time I drive a 10 year old written off Grand Vitara that cost a grand and change. What's the cheapest EV ever going to cost with a working battery? At least it will price lots of crap cars and congestion off the roads.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
RemarkLima said:
Mercedes B class electric uses tesla batteries and motors.
Hardly IP sharing though that is more about being a parts supplier. If Mercedes developed their own systems using tesla IP that would be different.



RemarkLima

2,366 posts

211 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
RobDickinson said:
RemarkLima said:
Mercedes B class electric uses tesla batteries and motors.
Hardly IP sharing though that is more about being a parts supplier. If Mercedes developed their own systems using tesla IP that would be different.
I have no Idea of the commercials involved, but given the caveats in the free patents from tesla, MB would be be insane to give away their vast IP portfolio!

But companies are using tesla technology, meaning that the technology is good, and that the IP has value.

The Vambo

6,643 posts

140 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
humblesabot said:
To be fair, those two would generate undriveable amounts of lift if driven in reverse.
clap

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
fblm said:
Some very good points. Most of the time I drive a 10 year old written off Grand Vitara that cost a grand and change. What's the cheapest EV ever going to cost with a working battery? At least it will price lots of crap cars and congestion off the roads.
Somewhat irrelevant to a thread on a $200k hypercar but leafs are down to about £5k now , guess what new cars are expensive and it takes time for old ones to get to bangernomics levels.

we cant replace all ICE cars overnight, we dont and wont have battery production for anywhere near that for a decade, it'll be a soft switch over taking 10-20 years+

London424

12,826 posts

174 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Of course Tesla has disrupted the entire industry...I’m not sure how you can dispute that. Every single one of the big boys haven’t spent 10s or hundreds of billions on their own R&D for fun and games have they?

As for volume, that’s also a pretty strange argument. How many cars have Ferrari ever sold in their history.

Vantagefan

643 posts

169 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
This website will have to change its name soon.

VoltHeads

Vantagefan

643 posts

169 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
humblesabot said:
otolith said:
I must admit, I am not convinced either by the idea that autonomy will necessarily remove the desire to own. Apart perhaps from some reduction in cost, I don’t see what an autonomous taxi offers over a human driven taxi such that the desire to own (or lease, or long term hire) a personal vehicle will suddenly be negated.

Maybe I am missing the city dweller’s view of it, though to be honest I already think you need to be nuts to own a car for use in London.
I think you just answered your own question. Think of the model under discussion as a sort of computer optimized bus/taxi hybrid. When you don't have to deal with packed crowds, or unpleasant cabbies you remove the remainder of many people's aversions to public transportation. Unlike real estate cars don't have very good residuals, or even stand as an investment unless you're already starting well up the scale. So as an ownership prospect there's not a lot going for them except personalization. Most cars on the market are white goods anyway.
London has the highest density of 'supercars' of any European city. Is London a practical place for a performance sports car? No. Is London a place where most people need to show off, yes. Is this Tesla a statement piece about being the latest and greatest? Yes. They will be everywhere doing 30mph.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
Ferrari has made about 130-140,000 cars total.
Tesla will make about 100,000 this year.

yet one is deemed smoke and mirrors and a scam...

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
Vantagefan said:
This website will have to change its name soon.

VoltHeads
"Speed matters"

8V085

670 posts

76 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
RemarkLima said:
RobDickinson said:
RemarkLima said:
Mercedes B class electric uses tesla batteries and motors.
Hardly IP sharing though that is more about being a parts supplier. If Mercedes developed their own systems using tesla IP that would be different.
I have no Idea of the commercials involved, but given the caveats in the free patents from tesla, MB would be be insane to give away their vast IP portfolio!

But companies are using tesla technology, meaning that the technology is good, and that the IP has value.
MB used to be Tesla's big shareholder hence part sharing. The situation is completely irrelevant to Tesla releasing their IP for everyone to use. I can't see Merc using Tesla's tech and by doing that giving up their own patents.

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
London424 said:
Every single one of the big boys haven’t spent 10s or hundreds of billions on their own R&D for fun and games have they?
hehe hundred of billions of what?

Talksteer

4,843 posts

232 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
Tony427 said:
So, whats going to happen to those 32 million ICE cars . All of which represent a financial investment, however paltry, from some one or some organisation ? How can EV's displace 32 million cars when even with subsidies they are only selling 200k pa.

Its going to take years, and years and years, and then some more years. I'm not even 60 and I doubt I will ever see the day that ICE died.

Cheers,

Tony
Did you see smart phones coming?

I'll keep banging the same drum, firstly we won't need 32 million cars to replace the current fleet more like 4-5 million.

I expect that the phase in will be like contactless cards, it will happen in city centres first with people selling off or not replacing cars, plenty of cars will be maintained as they have sentimental value. Cars will migrate to areas where car sharing is more difficult.

Also don't forget other countries, the cars from rich countries will go into shipping containers and live their days out in countries with poor grids roads.

Electric cars have gone from useless, to a curiousity, to actually being better in many ways than IC cars in a ten year period.

In the next few years they will be available from multiple manufacturers and by the early 2020's they will have a lower cost of ownership than an IC car. Once they become self driving shared cars they aren't really cars anymore.

Electric cars are currently in the pre model Ford T stage, cars were better in many ways than horses at that point in time but still more expensive and unfamiliar. Once they do have a lower cost of ownership than an average IC car they will take off rapidly. See my previous example, the Model T killed off horses in ten years.

We can see the direction of travel and if history tells us one thing it's that technology shifts happen in S curves.



anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
RobDickinson said:
Ferrari has made about 130-140,000 cars total.
Tesla will make about 100,000 this year.

yet one is deemed smoke and mirrors and a scam...
Tell me you are kidding. laugh

Talksteer

4,843 posts

232 months

Monday 20th November 2017
quotequote all
8V085 said:
Talksteer said:
It doesn't matter, Tesla's IP and assets still have a value in the 10's of billions.
The IP that they made free for anyone to use? How does that work?
IP is a lot more than patents, you have a whole organisation capable of producing said innovative cars and improving them at a very rapid rate. That is all IP.

The Tesla engineering infrastructure is utterly world class, they wrote their own ERP system for example!

Their manufacturing methods are not open sourced either. Nor are the methods by which Tesla get acceptable reliability out of batteries and motors which work much harder than those in competitor products.

Tesla is not about small patentable improvements they are about data driven execution. You can't read their patents and learn how to do that.

Tesla's value is massive, whatever it's cash flow problems and debts.



Tony427

2,873 posts

232 months

Tuesday 21st November 2017
quotequote all
Talksteer said:
Tony427 said:
So, whats going to happen to those 32 million ICE cars . All of which represent a financial investment, however paltry, from some one or some organisation ? How can EV's displace 32 million cars when even with subsidies they are only selling 200k pa.

Its going to take years, and years and years, and then some more years. I'm not even 60 and I doubt I will ever see the day that ICE died.

Cheers,

Tony
Did you see smart phones coming?

I'll keep banging the same drum, firstly we won't need 32 million cars to replace the current fleet more like 4-5 million.

I expect that the phase in will be like contactless cards, it will happen in city centres first with people selling off or not replacing cars, plenty of cars will be maintained as they have sentimental value. Cars will migrate to areas where car sharing is more difficult.

Also don't forget other countries, the cars from rich countries will go into shipping containers and live their days out in countries with poor grids roads.

Electric cars have gone from useless, to a curiousity, to actually being better in many ways than IC cars in a ten year period.

In the next few years they will be available from multiple manufacturers and by the early 2020's they will have a lower cost of ownership than an IC car. Once they become self driving shared cars they aren't really cars anymore.

Electric cars are currently in the pre model Ford T stage, cars were better in many ways than horses at that point in time but still more expensive and unfamiliar. Once they do have a lower cost of ownership than an average IC car they will take off rapidly. See my previous example, the Model T killed off horses in ten years.

We can see the direction of travel and if history tells us one thing it's that technology shifts happen in S curves.
Timescale ?

How many of your cars will fly autonomously through lanes in the sky?

Plus if we only need 4 to 5 million cars why do you assume that we will be getting loads of choices of EV cars from " Multiple manufacturers" . Do you not think that there will a bit of a contraction in the vehicle manufacturinbg industry leading to less choice, poorer economies of scaleand therefore more expensive vehicles that most people cannot afford.

Re people sharing cars instead of owning them. There are a number of these car share/ rent by the minute schemes. If people really thought, as you presume that they prefer not to own their own personal travel space, these schemes would be growing like topsy. They are not. Please explain the public's current resistance to your idea of shared car ownership and how that is going to change.

And where are all the cars going to go. And not just our paltry 32 million cars, how about the USA with their 253 million cars. Sending them over to Africa and developing nations will be a bit bad for the planet don't you think? I mean the idea is to cut down on pollution not enable the poor in developing countries to drive an Esplanade. Anyway it appears that they will be put into containers and sent to poorer parts of the world like Africa who do not have roads or electricity grid systems.

No, but they do have unlimited potential for dirt cheap solar , so why would africans take our polluting, expensive fuelled, ICE vehicles when they can get free power for EV's.

Taking your smart phone analogy. Did Africa follow our lead in telecomunications, borrow our copper cable technology, circular dialed phones, trim phones, the red phone box.

No, they have leapfrogged over the old systems and have gone straight to mobile phone technology. Why wont they do that with vehicles.

So in your brave new world we all share cars, which people don't like, we will have decimated the car industry leading to less choice and more expensive vehicles, we will be sending all our nasty polluting ICE cars to Africa who wont want or need them and we will all welcome self driving non-cars that just this week we have seen are far from a commercial solution.

Good luck with that.

At least Tesla gives a decent stab at syling. When they reach £500 I will have one. Perhaps I'll put a search on ebay.

Cheers,

Tony










RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Tuesday 21st November 2017
quotequote all
fblm said:
hehe hundred of billions of what?
Eventually.. For now the gigafactory cost is around $5bn.

The whole EV battery market likely worth ~$240bn. ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2017/08... )

VW needs ~40 gigafactories by 2025
https://electrek.co/2017/07/10/vw-gigafacrory-size...

Dyson is investing $2.5bn apparently

Ford investing $4.5bn in 2015..
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en...

plenty of money going into ev and self driving cars..

Talksteer

4,843 posts

232 months

Tuesday 21st November 2017
quotequote all
witko999 said:
Agreed. Let's say a 4 seater car is summoned to take me to work. I'm first on the list so get into an empty car, which then drives around picking up 3 other people who are heading somewhere close to me. After 45 minutes of driving around doing pickups, we then actually set off towards our destination. Hopefully I get dropped off first, but if not, I then get driven around 3 other peoples places of work for another 30 minutes before finally arriving at my own.

Alternatively the car could only pick up people who live directly on my route to work, but it still adds significant inconvenience to everyone's journey.

On top of this, all these empty cars driving around doing pickups are adding a lot to traffic levels, making things take even longer.

It may be doable eventually, but probably not for at least the next 40 or 50 years, yet seems to be popping up in every 5th thread on here as if it's coming imminently.
You seem to be thinking about this like a bus, it isn't.

It isn't Uber or a taxi either because the numbers of available cars are an order of magnitude higher.

Dynamic road pricing and real time scheduling will be the key. You will literally get precisely what you pay for.

The cost will drive behaviour.

First thing to remember is in most towns and cities traffic would be entirely tolerable if only a portion of rides were shared at peak times.

It is only where there is already bus routes with high occupancy and congestion where anything like a minibus or a bus would be needed.

You will pay less if are flexible on time, walk to a main road and book your trip in advance as this will facilitate sharing.

If there is 15 minutes of driving between pick ups then I doubt any system would set that as a sensible route. The whole thing with traffic congestion, is it happens because the same people want to go to the same places.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Tuesday 21st November 2017
quotequote all
Theres already a system in Paris doing car sharing and it works well.