RE: Tesla Model 3 gets new Track Mode

[RobDickinson]

It's petrol....

And it's not like my current car will vanish in a puff of smoke the minute I buy another.

It's also why I'm not in a huge rush to buy an ev, I'm prepared to wait a few years for the right car.

Hybrids are a short term compromise.

Edited by RobDickinson on Monday 12th November 00:47

Edited by RobDickinson on Monday 12th November 00:51

[DonkeyApple]

RobDickinson said:

It's petrol....

And it's not like my current car will vanish in a puff of smoke the minute I buy another.

It's also why I'm not in a huge rush to buy an ev, I'm prepared to wait a few years for the right car.

Edited by RobDickinson on Monday 12th November 00:47

But why not do something actually environmentally positive with the money instead of just buying something you don’t need at continuing to be part of the consumer problem. You can’t consume you way to being environmental, rather the exact opposite.

[RobDickinson]

I am. My used outlander will go to someone else and displace another ice car somewhere.

I'll also be building a passive house with solar /batter sometime in the next few years too.

Edited by RobDickinson on Monday 12th November 00:55

[rodericb]

camel_landy said:

Yep... Can't argue with what you say there, though whilst the i3 might be more innovative, I personally would prefer an all electric Tesla. Now, if the i3 was all electric, with the range of the Tesla, then that's a different matter...

As for bland EV's for the masses... Nowt wrong with that.

M

It's how BMW wanted to immerse themselves into the EV market I guess. Get the early adopters who want something which stands out to non-car people. Like what Toyota did with the Prius. Plus their market was Europe, where smaller cars make more (practical) sense and the use-cases don't require 300 mile range and supercar quarter-mile performance. The i3 also had that expensive chassis which doesn't help things. Tesla went the other way and built an electric car for America - reasonably conservative looking, big car, big range, big power. Teslas approach paid off but still, BMW have built over 100,000 i3's which isn't too bad for what it is.

[RobDickinson]

The i3 was a good project and decent entry into the ev market, just odd BMW then basically went to sleep for a bunch of years.

No where near as bad as Toyota though. If anyone should be leading the change it's them.

[rodericb]

RobDickinson said:

The i3 was a good project and decent entry into the ev market, just odd BMW then basically went to sleep for a bunch of years.

No where near as bad as Toyota though. If anyone should be leading the change it's them.

This is what BMW (or someone influential there) says about EV's: https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/bmw-electric...

The Japanese don't seem to be that into EV's. One would think that they'd be leading the charge on uptake.

[RobDickinson]

Klaus is head of R&D, they are either trying disinformation or they are far behind. Even vw see price parity on making ev's sometime before 2025.

As for Japan I think most of them have poured so much cash into hydrogen they can't let it go.

[Baldchap]

Regardless of whether you love, hate or ignore EVs/Tesla/ICEs etc, Tesla have done one thing excellently, and that is disrupted the mainstream manufacturers and pushed the EV debate into the mainstream.

Per my previous post, I read over the weekend that Ford and VW are teaming up to do R&D on EV and self drive technology - would this have EVER happened with any of the incumbents if someone hadn't come along and not only suggested they were going to build a genuinely useable EV, but actually done it and done a decent job?

The big boys are currently playing catch up and I suspect for now are a little worried. When they do finally get there then I suspect Tesla will be absorbed by another company, if not dissolved.

Edited by Baldchap on Monday 12th November 08:46

[DonkeyApple]

RobDickinson said:

I am. My used outlander will go to someone else and displace another ice car somewhere.

I'll also be building a passive house with solar /batter sometime in the next few years too.

Edited by RobDickinson on Monday 12th November 00:55

Again, what’s remotely environmental about building and spending hundreds of thousands on any kind of house?

Frankly, this is the absolute heart of the environmental issue, the total insanity that people have brain washed themselves that they must buy more, build more in order to be environmental. It’s just a mechanism to excuse, indulge and facilitate the continuation of selfish, mememe consumerism.

This is the total madness of much of the so called modern environmentalism. It’s just a marketing tool to justify ever more consumption.

I have a very good friend who is quite a well known environmentalist over here. He owns a Tesla and a Leaf, has a solar farm, wind generators, has triple glazing and a passive, half buried home in which every single room is full of brand new eco furniture and eco gadgets. And when he isn’t writing articles and presenting is typically flying to far flung places.

Conversely, someone like me lives in a 200 year old house with 100-300 year old furniture and old cars, having not bought a new car for over 20 years. My home has almost no modern tech. There is one TV and the kitchen has a kettle and a toaster. I do not spend my leisure time consuming goods.

How has the environmental movement lost its way so badly? Within a decade it has gone from being a movement that promoted reduced human consumption to one of huge marketing budgets, corporate enterprise and the indoctrination that to be environmental you must buy more goods. And by being taken over by global business it has gained millions of consumers around the world who justify their excess and destructive consumption because it has a green badge.

Many of my work contemporaries now have EVs. And they have homes jammed packed with imported and new tech. This isn’t environmentalism. It is rampant, out of control consumerism and the root cause of our issues.

It is absolutely insane to think that you can consume your way through to a solution to the problem of excess consumption. Consumption is the problem. It doesn’t matter whether the goods have a green sticker on them or a picture of the devil.

I would never have the audacity to claim I was an environmentalist but I find it farcical to continually meet people who do make that claim but spend all their time and money consuming goods and justifying the rampant destruction caused by their consumer addiction as somehow being environmental.

I am not some loony hippy but I seem to be one of the few people who has stood back and noticed that this so called ‘environmental movement’ is just a rebranding of big business and marketing and PR machine to sell more goods to a legion of consumption addicts.

Being environmental would be not buying a 400 mile, 100k new EV when you have a hybrid which seemingly already has reduced your fossil fuel consumption by over 90%. It is just an act of self indulgent rampant and destructive consumerism. Building a house is not environmental, regardless of how passive it is. It is another act of self indulgent, look at me, consumerism.

If someone wants to buy all these things then that is their right to consume but there is nothing remotely environmental about it and it’s very dangerous to go about trying to say that it is. But the people out there who are environmental are not those running about buying and consuming environmentally branded goods, they are the people who are simply consuming what they need.

Look at they Paulo Alto Model 3 delivery video from the other month. These aren’t environmental individuals who care about society, they are consumption addicts who have to have the latest gadget to display to others and somehow make themselves appear superior to others. These are the embodiment of the excess consumer, the people doing the bulk of the human damage to our environment. But what makes them even more dangerous than other consumer addicts is their seeming belief that their excess consumption is fixing the problem not exacerbating it. Or maybe they do recognise this deep down which is why they have a tendency to be so aggressive in their self defence?

[camel_landy]

DonkeyApple said:

Again, what’s remotely environmental about building and spending hundreds of thousands on any kind of house?

Frankly, this is the absolute heart of the environmental issue, the total insanity that people have brain washed themselves that they must buy more, build more in order to be environmental. It’s just a mechanism to excuse, indulge and facilitate the continuation of selfish, mememe consumerism.

<SNIP>

Look at they Paulo Alto Model 3 delivery video from the other month. These aren’t environmental individuals who care about society, they are consumption addicts who have to have the latest gadget to display to others and somehow make themselves appear superior to others. These are the embodiment of the excess consumer, the people doing the bulk of the human damage to our environment. But what makes them even more dangerous than other consumer addicts is their seeming belief that their excess consumption is fixing the problem not exacerbating it. Or maybe they do recognise this deep down which is why they have a tendency to be so aggressive in their self defence?

...and breathe!!!

Although I jest, I agree 100%.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"

People often forget the size of the environmental impact, the manufacturing process has. By all means by something new but wear the old one out first.

M

[otolith]

Clearly one solution is for us to stop manufacturing stuff.

If that's not going to happen, and I suspect it's not, perhaps switching what we manufacture to stuff that is less damaging is worthwhile?

[otolith]

yonex said:

The cars I really enjoy are lightweights, currently there are no lightweight EV’s. Going fast is only half the equation.

That's true, though there is no real reason why they won't come along. It's just that it's a tiny niche. There are hardly any ICE vehicles in that niche either. They are so few, though, that they are irrelevant to the bigger picture.

[DonkeyApple]

otolith said:

Clearly one solution is for us to stop manufacturing stuff.

If that's not going to happen, and I suspect it's not, perhaps switching what we manufacture to stuff that is less damaging is worthwhile?

Or just a bit of both, blended with common sense that appreciates that regardless of global enterprise tells you, buying st that you don’t need isn’t going to solve the problem that is being caused by people buying too much st that they don’t need.

Along with being honest enough to recognise that buying all these things has nothing to do with saving the planet but is just our desire to have more st, facilitated by some marketing jumbo jumbo that tells us we are great people for buying it.

The irony is that prior to Tesla the EV market place was all about yogurt weaving and consuming less but along came Tesla, a massive corporate machine that has amazingly changed the whole perception of EVs and brought them leaps and bounds into the public eye and public acceptance but it has done so by making the EV an excessive consumer product that excess consumers are demanding to consume. There really isn’t an awful lot thatbis environmental about a few hundred thousand globally wealthy excess consumers wanting to buy yet another hugely wasteful gadget. It’s not like they are sticking it to the corporate man but rather polishing his ballbag. The Tesla car really is a poster boy to selfish over indulgence and excess consumption.

[otolith]

Yeah. But the problem with dull but worthy is that nobody wants it.

[DonkeyApple]

camel_landy said:

...and breathe!!!

Although I jest, I agree 100%.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"

People often forget the size of the environmental impact, the manufacturing process has. By all means by something new but wear the old one out first.

M

I just think that you can achieve more by simply eating a little bit less red meat, not buying so many things that you just don’t need, lightly questioning whether you really need to make a particular journey and whether it really needs to be by car and by shooting your neighbours dog than you can ever achieve by borrowing tens of thousands from the global banking industry to give to global manufacturers to buy yourself a novel new gadget.

But then I guess the reason the West is addicted to excess consumption and has morphed into a legion of waddling drones armed with money they don’t have to buy goods they don’t need is because we humans are especially good at self regulation and absolutely love a bullst story that makes us feel better about our excess consumption.

I just suspect that just by being a right stingy bd I am infinitely more environmental that those who are rushing to buy anything and everything in the name of saving the planet.

[jjwilde]

yonex said:

Explain how Tesla inc are worth more exactly? Note the deficit that Tesla operate in. They're soon to be gone as a manufacturer.

So then Professor, why don't you make a fortune by shorting their shares? Let us know when you do this and post evidence.

Fortunately most people understand how a business is valued and know why Tesla is worth as much as it is.

[anonymous-user]

jjwilde said:

So then Professor, why don't you make a fortune by shorting their shares? Let us know when you do this and post evidence.

Fortunately most people understand how a business is valued and know why Tesla is worth as much as it is.

So you agree that Tesla Inc makes more more money from producing cars than BMW?

[TheDrBrian]

Baldchap said:

Now discuss this:

https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-tesla-model-s-...

I own a Tesla, but am under no illusions that the Ford/VW tie-up to create electric cars and self driving technologies will absolutely spank Tesla if done properly. But for now Tesla have an excellent proposition. As previously stated, I bought one because it was the best CAR for my needs at the time. I'm not bothered what powers my car as long as it works and meets my needs.

That's as good as an M1.... no Mazda3

RobDickinson said:

They'll make minimum 250k this year, 400k next year and probably 800k the year after (2020), when VW plan to possibly make 100k ev's.

Mercedes and BMW are getting their arse kicked by Tesla in the USA

Be interesting to see how they've got past the paintshop VOC limitations to make more than 5000 a week.
Be interesting to see how many cars actually get built each week without "factory gating" and all that bks.

[RobDickinson]

DonkeyApple said:

I just suspect that just by being a right stingy bd I am infinitely more environmental that those who are rushing to buy anything and everything in the name of saving the planet.

Probably. I'm a stingy bd myself dont usually spend on anything much.

WRT to housing, as you've pointed out houses tend to stick around a long time.

NZ housing stock is pretty damned poor overall though, double glazing has only been a requirement for a few years.. And where I live recently lost 20,000 homes to a natural disaster so I have no problems making a new home that is more eco friendly than average.

If I can find the right place I might renovate an old house but tbh that would mean stripping it back down to just a wood frame and wood is something NZ has plenty off.

[RemarkLima]

RobDickinson said:

DonkeyApple said:

I just suspect that just by being a right stingy bd I am infinitely more environmental that those who are rushing to buy anything and everything in the name of saving the planet.

Probably. I'm a stingy bd myself dont usually spend on anything much.

WRT to housing, as you've pointed out houses tend to stick around a long time.

NZ housing stock is pretty damned poor overall though, double glazing has only been a requirement for a few years.. And where I live recently lost 20,000 homes to a natural disaster so I have no problems making a new home that is more eco friendly than average.

If I can find the right place I might renovate an old house but tbh that would mean stripping it back down to just a wood frame and wood is something NZ has plenty off.

That said, New Zealand is a odd one in that it runs an energy surplus most of the time, and if the aluminium plant closes then you'll have an absolutely massive surplus!

On that basis, you can run more heating without a great cost... There was a chap I knew in Taupo who was selling central heating plumbed into a submersible pump in most people's garden, and you'd get basically unlimited heating for peanuts on the geothermal energy.

As a use case, New Zealand would be a perfect country to run entirely as an EV cars, as there's enough power to support it, and no journey is really that far ;-)

The UK needs more houses (apparently) so they may as well be as efficient as possible... But I fully agree with the sentiment to stop buying crap you don't need!