Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...

[Burwood]

Heres Johnny said:

Witchfinder said:

To put the number of satellites into context, each one is tiny, and they can be launched sixty at a time. It's not the same as launching one big satellite.

Yep - India put over 100 into orbit in one go 2 years ago.

But its still better than not being able to do it.

Musk Satellite of choice is not 100 per launch. Max 40 and it's still 10B in launch costs.

[Burwood]

Tuna said:

gangzoom said:

So essentially if Tesla went pop this year the EV market might as well be dead .

That seems to be the issue. I think Tesla need to see an uptick in their competitors, which would indicate a growing interest in the whole sector rather than people who just want 'a Tesla'.

Isn't the issue more that the mass market is in the smaller car for sub $30k and as everyone knows, he batteries cost too much to achieve this (VW ID loses money too) right now and only by mass adoption and scale will the batteries be cheaper. In a nut shell, someone must take it on the chin now to achieve a mass market in 5 years. Cars don't get cheaper to buy but under EV they will get cheaper (in theory) to produce. There is the clawback. Only problem for Tesla is one needs $20B spare or a profitable side line to pay for it (VAG ICE).

As as has been said. As a 1M car per year luxury player there is a market but the cars must also be very good indeed and will they hang around long enough. It will be interesting to see and it's all too easy to write them off. I think they are screwed (hope i'm wrong). Either they go private via an angel investor with balls and deep pockets or they get bought out by a very large tech company. And I don't think Apple is really the one. If you look at the balance sheet now they are committed to almost $1B in interest on their debt annually which restricts their ability to invest in their business. They though the debt would be converted but it hasn't.

[Tuna]

Burwood said:

Isn't the issue more that the mass market is in the smaller car for sub $30k and as everyone knows, he batteries cost too much to achieve this (VW ID loses money too) right now and only by mass adoption and scale will the batteries be cheaper. In a nut shell, someone must take it on the chin now to achieve a mass market in 5 years. Cars don't get cheaper to buy but under EV they will get cheaper (in theory) to produce. There is the clawback. Only problem for Tesla is one needs $20B spare or a profitable side line to pay for it (VAG ICE).

Well yes, that's probably the root cause. I'm unconvinced by the 'economies of scale' argument - there is a point where making more of a loss-making product just means you loose more money. Something has to change in battery manufacture, rather than just making more. Remember Panasonic have said they're halting any expansion. Reading between the lines, it seems they can improve the process, but not enough to make a step change in cost. Their current aim appears to be just making any margin at all on battery production.

[gangzoom]

Burwood said:

Isn't the issue more that the mass market is in the smaller car for sub $30k

The Chevy Bolt has been on sale for 2 years+. More range than SR Model 3, decent space for a family and after tax credits $30k. But Chevy cannot shift them.

The sad truth is the majority of the car buying public still have little interest in EVs. Judging by the number of less than 2 years old RR/Caynees I see every day plenty of people have the means to get a decent EV, its just they are choosing not to.

[Witchfinder]

Tesla dying will not kill the EV market. It might set it back a bit, but there's too much investment to pull back now, especially from the likes of VW in the ID platform. Additionally, fleet emissions regulations will mean that it's cheaper to sell EVs at a loss than it will be to pay the fines. The time is approaching where sale of combustion engines will be banned entirely.

Tesla have pushed everything that bit faster. Without their momentum, things will slow, but the change is inevitable now.

[stuckmojo]

gangzoom said:

The Chevy Bolt has been on sale for 2 years+. More range than SR Model 3, decent space for a family and after tax credits $30k. But Chevy cannot shift them.

The sad truth is the majority of the car buying public still have little interest in EVs. Judging by the number of less than 2 years old RR/Caynees I see every day plenty of people have the means to get a decent EV, its just they are choosing not to.

That's possibly because it's a horrible looking FWD shopping trolley and not perceived to be different enough to sway people away from a much cheaper FWD shopping trolley which will be equally adequate at ferrying a family around.

A model 3 is a whole different story. See the drift videos and track videos versus the M3.

Not sure about Tesla as a company at the moment. I got to within a whisker of buying an S but my bi-weekly 180 mile journey means I am more comfortable with an old diesel (for now)

[Tuna]

stuckmojo said:

That's possibly because it's a horrible looking FWD shopping trolley and not perceived to be different enough to sway people away from a much cheaper FWD shopping trolley which will be equally adequate at ferrying a family around.

A model 3 is a whole different story. See the drift videos and track videos versus the M3.

I'm not sure that many people check out drift videos when buying a saloon (outside of the sensible folks on PH). Most will just compare the lease costs with a Mondeo. Cool drift videos are a bonus, not a purchasing differentiator..

[T-195]

I saw someone driving a Renault Twizy for the first time ever just yesterday.

[T-195]

Tuna said:

stuckmojo said:

That's possibly because it's a horrible looking FWD shopping trolley and not perceived to be different enough to sway people away from a much cheaper FWD shopping trolley which will be equally adequate at ferrying a family around.

A model 3 is a whole different story. See the drift videos and track videos versus the M3.

I'm not sure that many people check out drift videos when buying a saloon (outside of the sensible folks on PH). Most will just compare the lease costs with a Mondeo. Cool drift videos are a bonus, not a purchasing differentiator..

The Model 3 is now old news anyway. 4 years? and still no RHD.

[Burwood]

gangzoom said:

Burwood said:

Isn't the issue more that the mass market is in the smaller car for sub $30k

The Chevy Bolt has been on sale for 2 years+. More range than SR Model 3, decent space for a family and after tax credits $30k. But Chevy cannot shift them.

The sad truth is the majority of the car buying public still have little interest in EVs. Judging by the number of less than 2 years old RR/Caynees I see every day plenty of people have the means to get a decent EV, its just they are choosing not to.

Chevy isn’t exactly premium though. I don’t disagree with you.

[gangzoom]

Tuna said:

I'm not sure that many people check out drift videos when buying a saloon (outside of the sensible folks on PH). Most will just compare the lease costs with a Mondeo. Cool drift videos are a bonus, not a purchasing differentiator..

Best selling cars in the US last year was the Toyota Camry, Honda Civic and the Corolla.

[monkfish1]

DJP31 said:

The fart one is part of the "easter eggs" that are mildly amusing if you are a child inside a grown up - so they are popular! Allegedly the devs do these in their spare time and it's common in the tech world apparently.

Apart from the Autopilot improvements a few that spring to mind are the "chill mode" - think "comfort" v "sport" in an ICE. Another was the "easy entry" where you can set the steering wheel to lift and the drivers seat to move back when the transmission is placed in Park, then resumes the drivers saved position for the next drive. Also "dashcam & sentry mode" where the cars cameras are used both whilst driving and when parked.

PIN to Drive is arguably one of the more "valuable" and offers protection against the boosting of the fey fob signal enabling thieves to enter the car and drive away. It was always possible to disable the "passive" entry (which many cars that have keyless entry/start can't do) but PIN to Drive means this functionality can remain enabled, but the car won't "start" until the user chosen PIN is keyed into the pad that appears on the centre touchscreen. This in itself has been improved, on first release the PIN pad appeared in the same place on the screen with possible fingerprints giving clues to the code, now it appears in a different part of the touchscreen each time.

Edited by DJP31 on Thursday 23 May 14:34

These are all solid reasons why i wouldnt consider a Tesla.. What a load of nonsense. Just build a car that works like other manufactuers do. This all smacks of software types who consistently "change" stuff rather than improve it. Like microsoft who just insist on moving functions around, and hiding them in sub menus so the screen looks "clean". Cany bloody use it, and have to relean it every time, but hey it looks nice! Whatever happened to ergonomics?

The last thing in the world i need is the endless stream of updates that my computer and my phone have being applied to my car as well so i have to "relearn" that too! My car(s) are sanctuary away from all that.

And as for enternig a PIN to drive your car. No, just no!

Add to that:

A renegade running the show,
A supply chain that potentially the chinese can turn off,
Inability to productionise or finish a design,
Moving into mass manufacture from a high margin niche product, (which history shows rarely ends well in the automotive world)
A product that appeals to geeks and gadget types, but probably not your average man in the street thus ultimately limiting its market.
And id guess a resonable probability of owning a car which cant be repaired becuase they have gone bust?

You would have to be mad to buy one.

I'll bide my time and wait for one of the mainstream established players.

[DJP31]

monkfish1 said:

DJP31 said:

The fart one is part of the "easter eggs" that are mildly amusing if you are a child inside a grown up - so they are popular! Allegedly the devs do these in their spare time and it's common in the tech world apparently.

Apart from the Autopilot improvements a few that spring to mind are the "chill mode" - think "comfort" v "sport" in an ICE. Another was the "easy entry" where you can set the steering wheel to lift and the drivers seat to move back when the transmission is placed in Park, then resumes the drivers saved position for the next drive. Also "dashcam & sentry mode" where the cars cameras are used both whilst driving and when parked.

PIN to Drive is arguably one of the more "valuable" and offers protection against the boosting of the fey fob signal enabling thieves to enter the car and drive away. It was always possible to disable the "passive" entry (which many cars that have keyless entry/start can't do) but PIN to Drive means this functionality can remain enabled, but the car won't "start" until the user chosen PIN is keyed into the pad that appears on the centre touchscreen. This in itself has been improved, on first release the PIN pad appeared in the same place on the screen with possible fingerprints giving clues to the code, now it appears in a different part of the touchscreen each time.

Edited by DJP31 on Thursday 23 May 14:34

And as for enternig a PIN to drive your car. No, just no!

Fine, don’t enable that function then. Tesla responded to the request made principally by U.K. owners to offer this protection against relay boosting theft. How you can see that as a negative I don’t know.

[anonymous-user]

I personally would be less keen to buy a tesla if it ran Android / mobileye. The software ambition and 'alpha early access' style updates, is half the point for me. I think many Tesla fans would agree, it's pretty key to making expensive EVs compelling. It's mostly early adopters at this stage after all. Perhaps for longer than anticipated.

Key to demand is publisicing low cost of ownership. Most people have no idea that a new Tesla costs about the same to own as a new Ford Focus over 7+ years. And probably will last longer too.

[monkfish1]

DJP31 said:

Fine, don’t enable that function then. Tesla responded to the request made principally by U.K. owners to offer this protection against relay boosting theft. How you can see that as a negative I don’t know.

If you can dusable it, fine.

[monkfish1]

sambucket said:

I personally would be less keen to buy a tesla if it ran Android / mobileye. The software ambition and 'alpha early access' style updates, is half the point for me. I think many Tesla fans would agree, it's pretty key to making expensive EVs compelling. It's mostly early adopters at this stage after all. Perhaps for longer than anticipated.

Whilst that may well be important to you and other early adopters, its of no relevance to the mass market.

Had they stayed (as i think they should have) as a niche product, high value & high margin, and aimed at people like yourself, sure by all means.

The mass market is, by its very meaning, the majority, to whom driving is just a tedium to be endured.

As i said, im sure i will eventually, like most people, have an electric car, but the very thing that made you buy it will be the things that stop me.

Love to see how it can be no more expensive than a focus? I cant make any electric car stack up price wise.

[Kolbenkopp]

sambucket said:

IKey to demand is publisicing low cost of ownership. Most people have no idea that a new Tesla costs about the same to own as a new Ford Focus over 7+ years. And probably will last longer too.

Problem is that they don't offer financing options where they take over the resale risk. I compared costs with my 2018 Golf and even with pretty optimistic resale value estimations for the Tesla, keeping the Golf is hundreds per month cheaper. Could and would afford that difference, but not keen on the depreciation of a € 50k car.

YMMV of course, there's no huge savings in fuel here in Germany due to the high electricity costs. If you drive _a lot_, can charge from home for little and are confident the m3 can be kept on the road for 7 years +, then it gets very compelling. If I lived in a place with PV on the roof and did a normal commute... I'd still think about parts supply should they go boom, but would have bought one.

[Wills2]

Kolbenkopp said:

Problem is that they don't offer financing options where they take over the resale risk. I compared costs with my 2018 Golf and even with pretty optimistic resale value estimations for the Tesla, keeping the Golf is hundreds per month cheaper. Could and would afford that difference, but not keen on the depreciation of a € 50k car.

YMMV of course, there's no huge savings in fuel here in Germany due to the high electricity costs. If you drive _a lot_, can charge from home for little and are confident the m3 can be kept on the road for 7 years +, then it gets very compelling. If I lived in a place with PV on the roof and did a normal commute... I'd still think about parts supply should they go boom, but would have bought one.

Germany is one of the worlds biggest users of coal for energy production I believe as well which makes a mockery of an electric car for green purposes.

[skwdenyer]

JPJPJP said:

Appreciating that it isn't perfect data, but I am not seeing signs on model3vins.com of any evidence of improving sales in the US, Norway or Netherlands

I know there is the 10k surge to hit the data at some point soon - when the boat comes in

But even so, there needs to be a storming week next week to make May look good as far as I can see

Leaks of an email from Elon to the contrary though

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-will-beat-q4-...

"From: Elon Musk

Date: Wed 5/22/2019 10:45 PM

To: Everybody

As of yesterday, we had over 50,000 net new orders for this quarter. Based on current trends, we have a good chance of exceeding the record 90,700 deliveries of Q4 last year and making this the highest deliveries/sales quarter in Tesla history!

In order to achieve this, we need sustained output of 1,000 Model 3’s per day. Almost all parts of the Model 3 production system have exceeded 1000 units on multiple days (congratulations!!) and we’ve averaged about 900/day this week, so we’re only about 10% away from 7000/week.

If we rally hard, we can do it!

Thanks for your great work,

Elon?"

Edited by JPJPJP on Friday 24th May 15:46

We don't know the size of the backorder book. 50,000 new net orders sounds good, but if linear (which it won't be) then that's only 65k new net orders for the quarter. The question only Tesla know is whether the rate of order-taking is increasing - the ideal is that the backorder level drops as new order rates rise until the latter carries the load in the steady state.

Now that the Canadian tax credits are in-play, and with the X/S refresh (as 12% range bump is a significant achievement, and starkly contrasts with the best efforts so far of Audi and Mercedes, say) on sale, I think there's still pretty good cause for optimism.

[Kolbenkopp]

Wills2 said:

Germany is one of the worlds biggest users of coal for energy production I believe as well which makes a mockery of an electric car for green purposes.

You are right, but as always -- things depend . Political level problem -- Berlin is trying to do 3 things at the same time:

• Fully getting out of nuclear power
• Maximizing renewable energy use
• Saving jobs in heavy industry

Depending on who's in charge in the respective ministerial offices, the weighting is fluid. They can only really do 2 out of 3 right. I feel pretty comfortable as long as the people in charge stick to Realpolitk. We've tried 'visionary leaders' before... We all know how that went...

Personally, the decision about what car to get is not influenced by any environmental concerns. Yes, our household electricity contract is with a 100% "green" hydro power outfit. But irrespective of what we do, I have no doubt what so ever that the planet will be fine. Our species might face extinction at some point, but "nature" will strive and evolve.

What I like about EVs is the lack of local emissions, the instant torque, the potentially lower TCO, the engineering freedom it can bring to new niche 'drivers cars'. Tesla is the only EV manufacturer worthy of PH interest so far. Porsche will be next. Hopefully much more to come...