New Tesla Roadster

[bill25]

I agree that a regular company might not be able to market the same as Tesla, and also that journalists reporting rumors may not be GM's fault (unless GM is actually feeding it, which is plausible...)

What I don't understand is where act like they are just talking about some unicorn car. The car exists and was demoed at the semi truck unveiling, so they aren't just blowing smoke about some potential future car, they have already designed/engineered/built it. It is done. So what is the problem with them giving the specs of a completed (aside from maybe some programming dialing in) car that will be available? I think Elon is smart to throw a party for this car. It sounds awesome, and based on the hiccups of the Model 3 production, the marketing is probably a good idea.

I personally think it is easy to talk about how they are having trouble building 10s of thousands of cars in production, but honestly, that is not an easy task. It is still quite remarkable that this company, which was not originally a car company has brought this kind of competition to the planted car makers in such short of time with a drive train none of them could do successfully. It is easy to say that this company could fail, but look at what they have managed to accomplish.

[kevm14]

The thing about Tesla is they have seemingly made a bigger dent in, say, solar or grid-augmenting batteries than actual cars (not in a profitable way of course). I do not see a car company here. In the car realm, what have they produced that has changed anything? The Model S showed that....expensive cars can be fast. Oh wait, we already had that.

It seems so easy to get caught up in the hype machine and think "man, Tesla has changed everything" when they haven't changed anything.

And they haven't done anything that seems profitable (sustainable) like a real company would. Here is Tesla quarterly profit mapped over 5 years:
https://ycharts.com/companies/TSLA/profit_margin

And net income: https://ycharts.com/companies/TSLA/net_income

Just goes to show how useless market cap can be as a metric.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/10/tesla-p ... maker.html

Tesla market cap is $54.43B. Why is that meaningless? Enron had a market cap of over $60B in 2000.

[bill25]

The Model S showed that....expensive cars can be fast. Oh wait, we already had that.

It showed that a car powered by battery alone could be legitimate transportation that didn't have to look stupid, and has caused mainstream car companies to take a real look at that as a powertrain option. It has also helped battery technology in the process. I am not saying they are the best or that batteries are the best, but if another car company unleashed this car, it would be respected for it's stats. It will be really interesting to see how this does on a track and in regular driving. I am not a fan boy, but I am also not a hater. I am genuinely interested in how this does, and if they succeed in mass producing the Model 3. I wouldn't mind one of those used.

[bill25]

On the net income page you linked, there is also this stat:

General Motors -5.151B

I am not really sure what this is trying to point out.

[kevm14]

http://europe.autonews.com/article/2018 ... tax-charge
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-to ... 2018-01-16

GM is healthy and the future looks bright. That loss was after factoring in a one-time tax write down due to:

GM said it would take a $7 billion write-down to reflect the loss in value of tax-deferred assets held on its balance sheet. GM said the value of those credits against future taxes declined because the reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21%, from 35%.

They also sell like 10 million cars per year.

[kevm14]

It showed that a car powered by battery alone could be legitimate transportation that didn't have to look stupid, and has caused mainstream car companies to take a real look at that as a powertrain option. It has also helped battery technology in the process.

No engineer thought a car like the Model S was impossible. What they MIGHT have thought is a car like the Model S wouldn't be a good market offering for an established automaker to build. Put another way, if GM made the Model S, it would have sold a small fraction due to the brand value of Tesla. That's really what they accomplished. But I can't drive brand value.

My frustration can be summed up this way:
- Car journalists: "Wow this is so fast that is awesome! Everything else doesn't even matter!"
- Tech journalists: "Wow, I assume, with no follow-ups required, that Tesla invented every piece of technology in their cars!"

Tesla doesn't make batteries. Panasonic and Samsung do. Then again, Apple doesn't make phones. Foxconn does. How much Tesla secret sauce is in a Panasonic-manufactured cell? How much Apple secret sauce is in a Foxconn phone?

In the case of Apple, they design their own ARM processors though honestly I don't think ANY of their market advantage has anything at all to do with that. No, with Apple, the key piece is they own the industrial design of the phone and the software. But they move massive amounts of product for industry leading margins.

I do not think Tesla can EVER be to cars what Apple is to phones, but they are valued that way. I have a huge problem with this.

[kevm14]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns_0UTOc6X4

Of course I disagree that global warming is undisputed. It is ridiculous that CO2 is now the only gas that matters when I believe it is the gas that matters the least. But for the people that do, EV cars are not the answer.

I think this is the Australian guy Adam was talking about at lunch a few weeks back.

Why electric cars don’t matter, and can’t help.

There is no doubt about global warming. There is no doubt that it is humanity causing this problem. It’s a serious problem, and it’s not a matter of belief. You don’t get to choose sides on this.

We need to address this literally burning issue urgently - for our own sakes. (The planet’s gunna be OK.) Humanity is on the line.

Here in ‘Straya the Department of the Environment and Energy produces an annual greenhouse gas inventory to an internationally agreed set of reporting standards.

The latest report says that we, as a nation, emitted 533 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2015 - that’s up 27 per cent in 25 years, despite having 41 per cent population growth in the same time.

Passenger cars are responsible for 44 million tonnes - out of 533 - or about eight per cent of total emissions. So even if electric cars were a breathtaking panacea for those problematic passenger car emissions, we really would not be ameliorating the greenhouse emission problem in a significant way by deploying them widely.

The big emitter here: Electricity. Number one with a bullet - 192 million tonnes. That’s 36 per cent of the problem overall and materially almost four-and-a-half times bigger than emissions from passenger cars.

I’m certain the car is demonised disproportionately, compared with running the air conditioning, having four refrigerators, or living in a house four times bigger than you need.

Unfortunately, if you want to make a dent in a problem, you must first acquire good data. And, inconveniently, the facts are so annoyingly, routinely, out of alignment with our beliefs.

I’ll break down transport in Australia for you. Total transport emissions: 92 million tonnes. Passenger cars: 44. Trucks: 23. Every other mode of transport: 25.

We drive a helluva long way in ‘Straya. According to Ausstats, passenger vehicles drove 176 billion kilometres in 2016. That’s almost 12 return trips to Pluto.

So, instead of driving to Pluto again, let’s do what Einstein would call a thought experiment. Let’s have Elon Musk channel his inner Oprah Winfrey and give us all a free Model S - the shitbox poverty one - the 75D. You get a 75D. You get a 75D. Etc - 13.7 million times. Because that’s how many passenger vehicles there are on Australian roads.

The poverty Model S promises (quote) “up to 490km” from its 75 kilowatt-hour Panasonic battery pack. That’s awesome.
Best-case scenario: About 15 kilowatt-hours for 100km. If you scale that up for our usual annual 12 return trips to Pluto, that’s about 27 billion kilowatt-hours of additional electricity we’d need.

According to the World Nuclear Association, ‘Straya produced 258 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2016. So we’d need slightly more than an extra 10 per cent total electricity to run our 13.7 million Oprah-style gifted poverty pack Model S 75D shitboxes.

Shifting to a fleet of Teslas would add another 20 million tonnes.

So, we magically erase 44 million tonnes of emissions … but we add back 20 million tonnes of additional CO2 from the additional electrical energy required. So, we’re 24 million tonnes in front.

That’s a 4.5 per cent improvement.

If we were instead to pay for those cars - they are $112,000 each, full retail, but I’d suggest if we ordered almost 14 million of them we’d get maybe a third off. That's one trillion dollars. For a hypothetical 4.5 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions.

It’s ridiculous.

There would have to be dozens of ways you could spend one trillion dollars to reduce CO2 emissions - such as building photovoltaic arrays and manufacturing hydrogen.

This tells me - of course - that the only thing green about Tesla is the marketing. This is about cashing in on rich but dumb people’s good intentions - the desire to do the right thing for the future. It’s bullshit marketing par excellence…

It’s obvious how we could cut global CO2 emissions by almost 600 million tonnes - and that’s more than our national total. It’s dead simple. We export three times as much thermal black coal - every year - as we burn onshore. (Data source: World Nuclear Association.)

We could hypothetically cut 600 million tonnes of CO2 at a cost of $22 billion, versus spending one trillion dollars to save about 20 million tonnes of CO2 by all driving Teslas.

That’s a statement about return on investment, national priorities and how we do business globally. And what it would take actually to get serious and tackle this problem. So-called clean coal. World’s most outrageous oxymoron.

[kevm14]

When they mass produce a car that is objectively better than the competition (with no string of caveats), but just happens to be electric, THAT would constitute a real accomplishment.

[bill25]

Ferrari doesn't mass produce cars, and people respect them. Why wouldn't you respect a car that performs at that level just because it isn't mass produced. I am not pushing this for green or political reasons, but engineering and performance. This thing seems like a pretty legitimate car. Look at the hype the Ford GT gets. Isn't this better? Nobody complains that McLaren, Bugatti, Pagani, Lamborghini, etc. don't make econo-boxes. I just think you are letting politics get in the way of being a car enthusiast. At this point, even if they fail at mass production, this could still be a very legitimate car.

[kevm14]

Ferrari isn't making a claim that they are going to save the environment or otherwise alter the course of automotive history. Tesla is not a performance car company or a mass produced car company and I wish they would just admit this.

And speaking of Ferrari, I don't like some of the things they do as a company when it comes to ownership or reviewing their vehicles. They aren't faultless, either.