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On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that utility-grade solar panels have hit cost targets set for 2020, three years ahead of schedule. Those targets reflect around $1 per watt and 6¢ per kilowatt-hour in Kansas City, the department's mid-range yardstick for solar panel cost per unit of energy produced (New York is considered the high-cost end, and Phoenix, Arizona, which has much more sunlight than most other major cities in the country, reflects the low-cost end).
Those prices don't include an Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which makes solar panels even cheaper. The Energy Department said that the cost per watt was assessed in terms of total installed system costs for developers. That means the number is based on "the sales price paid to the installer; therefore, it includes profit in the cost of the hardware," according to a department presentation (PDF).
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a DOE-funded lab that assesses solar panel cost, wrote that, compared to the first quarter in 2016, the first quarter in 2017 saw a 29-percent decline in installed cost for utility-scale solar, which was attributed to lower photovoltaic module and inverter prices, better panel efficiency, and reduced labor costs. Despite the plummeting costs for utility-scale solar, costs for commercial and residential solar panels have not fallen quite as quickly—just 15 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
It seems there are still big gains to be made in the installed costs of residential panels.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:12PM (3 children)
>I don't understand this comment. I provided a link [wordpress.com], and you pasted a copy of the same link into your reply, so you must have seen it. So what did you mean here?
My apologies, I meant "to give credit, you DID post a link". I don't know why, my mind sometimes randomly replaces words with other real words and I don't notice, no matter how many times I proof read. The words are usually the opposite of what I meant, but sometimes can be completely different. No idea why it happens, but seems to happen more as I get older.
> Good grief, no. Tesla makes a good profit on every car they sell: 30% for the Model S, expected to be almost 25% on the Model 3, please see the link I provided [electrek.co]. They are losing money because they are spending hard on more factory capacity (Model 3 and battery "Gigafactory") and on building out their Supercharger network.
I remember reading it a couple of years ago, and found the following, but there used to be more:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-insight-tesla-burns-cash-loses-more-than-4000-on-every-car-sold-2015-8?r=US&IR=T [businessinsider.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2013/05/27/if-tesla-would-stop-selling-cars-wed-all-save-some-money/ [forbes.com]
http://blog.independent.org/2016/01/28/the-truth-about-tesla-motors/ [independent.org]
http://www.insidercarnews.com/tesla-loses-money-each-time-it-sells-a-car/ [insidercarnews.com]
(I would post more links, but apparently i hit the lameness filter if I do, wtf...)
Seems a combination of taxpayer subsidies and lucrative government loans + carbon/emissions credits is what brings most of Tesla's profit. The cars are just a vehicle (ha, pun) to extract government money.
However it seems most of the above is at least a year old, so maybe things have changed. The problem is Tesla has become a political issue in the US, where people tend to be very pro/anti Tesla, so for every article saying they lose money, you get others saying they make money, and both show evidence and argue their cases each way it seems.
> And while it's true they used to have a higher injury rate than the industry average, they say they have fixed the problems and their injury rate is now below the average [bizjournals.com]; and there is no evidence that the injury rates were due to an evil plan to save money by hurting people.
I seem to remember there complaints about more than just injury rates. Also things about working conditions, workload for pay, etc... hence talks of "Unions" which scare the bejeesus out of companies in the USA.
> You criticized me for not providing a link. Please provide links to support your assertions above, or retract them.
See above :-)
> That's funny, the Tesla feels solid and quality to me. I won't argue this point as it's opinion. We'll just see how long they actually last. Tesla is saying their design goal is now one million miles [electrek.co] for the drivetrain.
I guess. I found it plasticky and cheap, and ergonomically awful. Touchscreens are a bad idea generally, touch screens on a car are dangerously stupid. No tactile feedback, so you have to look away from the road to operate functions. They are universally accepted as a bad idea in cars, and hence most use it only for the ICE (if that), but not Tesla, who made everything one big touchscreen, that looks like it was pinched from my desktop (looks like a portrait 19" monitor). No finesse, they just nailed it to the centre console. And don't get me on fingerprints. I have it on my phone screen and it drives me nuts, last thing I want is it on my car as well.
Well, the drive train has virtually no wear on it, and mechanical engineering has been around since the industrial revolution. It is pretty much a solved problem at this point. Cars are known to pass 1,000,000miles as well. This one did quite a bit more:
http://www.autospies.com/news/Mercedes-Benz-does-4-6-million-Km-now-that-s-a-reliable-car-17670/ [autospies.com]
Like I said, the main wear will be on the batteries, which I suspect will not last anywhere near as long, and will cost a lot more than the car's value will be second hand.
> I will point out that a Tesla Model S has more weight/mass than my VW Passat wagon, even when the Passat had a full fuel tank.
Yes, which is because of all the batteries, hence they really had to scrimp and save on the rest of the car in order to not make it even heavier than that.
> One fair criticism of the Model S: most auto body shops in the US are set up to work on steel cars, not aluminum, so a crash is more expensive to fix with a Model S than with an ordinary car. (The Model 3 will have a steel body.)
Aluminium is a PITA to weld. You can't use any of the normal welding methods, but pretty much only TIG welding, which is this most expensive to purchase equipment for, and hardest to master (so highest labour/capital costs of all welding shops).
Quite frankly would have been easier to have made it out of fibreglass, but that is flammable, and Tesla's had a period where they would spontaneously combust as it is, so better not add any kindling (so to speak).
Odd that they would go to steel though, as most other car companies are going the other way, and getting aluminium bodies. With time repair shops will get used to alu welding (or go out of business, unless they want to just restore classics).
> Maybe I should have bought a Saab. I hear they were very well engineered. I bought a VW Passat wagon, and it had all tha trouble around the time it passed the 100000 miles mark. (Before you ask, yes, we faithfully took care of all the scheduled maintenance. I didn't abuse the car in any way and I'm a mild driver.)
They were well engineered. So well engineered the company couldn't make enough profit and went bust. The engineers there put safety and reliability a the top of the list, and cost/profitability at the bottom. I guess they banked on people being willing to pay extra for the above, but turns out people value "cheap and crap", so they went bust, and cars have been going downhill ever since.
Depends on what year the VW passat is. Sometime around 2005 cars started getting really unreliable, primarily because there seems to be a goal to get people to replace cars as often as they do phones. As more an more people lease cars for 3 years rather than buy and keep for years (like I tend to), quite a lot of modern cars seem to only be built to last 3-5 years, and majority of people don't care. They just "trade up" and carry on with monthly payments. So wasteful, but I can't do anything about that.
Chalk it up to rank consumerism and short sightedness, but that seems to be the way people are headed. Modern VAG cars are really quite poorly built. My Ex'es Audi TT started having an engine oil leak 2 years in. I mean, that is pretty much new. In my book not even "run in", yet there it was. And it is a known issue with their cars.
I have been in possession of around 30 cars, 29 of which have passed 100k actually. My most modern one has 64k on the clock, and it needed new catalytic converters (because I hit a speed bump too hard and damaged them), but that was user error. I've even got an 1982 Porsche which has clocked 162,000 miles, and the only thing to go was an electric part (alternator regulator). When I took the head off recently, there was no wear what so ever. That engine can probably go another 162,000 miles without breaking a sweat. And we are not talking about some standard car. I suspect most of the previous owners drove it hard, not unlike how I do, yet still in great shape
> A few years ago we had a Subaru Outback wagon, and I chose it specifically because people told me they were reliable. I won't tell the whole long story but we had engine problems.
Sorry to hear that. I've heard about the first gen (non Turbos) being reliable, but that the later ones are just "branding", no longer anything actually decent under the hood. Depends on which one you had (first gen was in the 90s era).
I have known the first gen ones to be referred to "farm machinery". They may not be as reliable as others, but their simple construction means a farmer could fix pretty much any problem with it with the tools in his barn. No need for fancy specialist tools etc... making repairs cheap and quick.
> So time will tell if I was wise or foolish to buy a used Model S, but I have personally seen lots of expensive failures in new ICE cars.
Oh wow. How does that work with the battery? I've heard that if it goes, it is around $20k USD to replace, meaning that the resale value must have been very low. I deal a lot with second hand cars. pretty much the first thing that goes on them is the electrics and computers. The mechanics are usually the least concerning bit.
[contd...]
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:20PM (1 child)
> A car transmission is an amazingly complex thing with very many moving parts. A Tesla Model S has a single-speed gearbox, a much simpler thing. Also, everything I have seen says there is one gearbox on a rear-drive Model S. For example: about 1:36 in this video [vimeo.com]. Could you please provide a link showing the four gearboxes you describe?
Car transmissions are not that complex. You have maybe 5 gears, some shafts, and a lever to re arrange the cogs. I mean, it is technology that is more than a century old now. You can pick up books from the 30s and the gearbox will be instantly recognisable.
Sorry I can't find the link. Again, this was many years ago now (and dealt with the roadster, not the model S). The reason being to do it that way is that they would not have all the added weight of drive shafts, half shafts, etc... (not to mention the transmission losses thereof) vs just having gearbox in each hub.
The roadster also had a motor on each wheel, so to have 4 motors, driving shafts to one gearbox, then out to 4 wheels is just stupid. I cannot believe they did it that way. Plus you would lose the per motor traction control, and efficiency. In lieu of a single gearbox, how about just assuming that Tesla used some common sense when they designed the cars.
Looking at the video, it looks like Tesla went for a more conventional setup for the S. Front is a standard car setup. Rear is a single AC motor with gearbox, driving transmission via half shafts. So it will have transmission losses, and gearbox will need maintenance, like a normal car.
> EVs are simpler. I don't see why they need "more" infrastructure, I'd say they need less, but after over a century the infrastructure for ICEs is pretty thoroughly built-out and that is not the case for EVs. (It's fair to say that EVs tie up a charging station longer than ICEs tie up a gas station, but on the other hand most of the time the EV can charge at home and not go to a charging station, and ICEs don't have that option.)
- They need more infrastructure than EVs because of their worse range. If an EV has half the range of an ICE, then you need twice as many charging stations as petrol stations for a given distance. Instant doubling of infrastructure
- Charging stations need pretty potent copper going to them for charging. Compared to just "shipping energy in" like you do with liquid fuels, where you can get a truck to deliver to gas stations out in the middle of nowhere. If you needed twice as many charging stations along that stretch of road, you are going to need to invest in some serious grid expansion.
- Electric cars take ages to charge. Even the superchargers are nowhere near the 1-5min refuel time of a liquid fueled vehicle (and those damage the battery, so should not be used normally). Whereas a normal gas station can have maybe 4 bays, with a 5min turnaround time per car, a charging station will be looking at a turnaround time of 30min to a few hours per car, so you will need far more charging bays. and probably facilities and amenities to keep the people occupied while their cars charge. That will require a hell of a lot more space.
- if there is a mass switch to BEV's, a lot more power generation capacity will be needed. That will require a huge investment in power generation and distribution.
- They are more complicated. An ICE car has more moving parts (engine specifically), but the tech is well known, and easy to replicate. Give me a modest machine shop and some metal and I can build a car, engine and all, and I could make the fuel to run it to boot. I can't make a Li-ion battery, and the sheer amount of firmware programming going into each and every one of those computers, inverters, VFD drives, etc... makes it a far harder job to build an EV from scratch. A Tesla is a lot more complex than a normal car. It is simpler mechanically, but more complex in electrics and software, and that is the two places where you have the most problems in cars (especially second hand ones).
- Worse range: yes. Worse convenience: how is it inconvenient to leave home every day with a "full tank of gas"?
What makes you think that would happen? Perhaps if you are rich enough to have a garage or a forecourt where you can plug in for the night. Round where I live only the filthy rich have that luxury. My cars are not even parked within my visible range (always fun when you hear an alarm go off in the middle of the night). I can't run a very long extension cable to my car every night, and neither can anyone else. Not to mention you would have no way of preventing people stealing your electricity, or the cables themselves, or just unplugging them and you wake up in the morning to find a dead battery (in the few places we have overnight stations, this happened so often people now have to lock the charging plug to their car).
It is just another headache and hassle to remember to do before I go to bed at night, every night. With an ICE I just drive until the fuel light turns on, then I pull over when convenient, and fill up in 5 min. It is so much less hassle.
And for the density of cars round here. Having charging stations would be very expensive (land here costs a lot). If you wanted to put a charging spot on every single parking on the public roads, you will have rip out all the pavements, all the roads, and lay loads of copper. This is yet another massive infrastructure cost.
Basically, the infra costs will be huge for a mass switch to battery EVs, for a less convenient, slower and more complex/error prone alternative.
And if I really had the desire, I could make fuel at home. It has been done since the first IC Engines (they were created before gasoline/diesel was refined, after all). If I had a garden, or some space, I would have a go at it. Just for fun if nothing else :)
> For use in town, EVs are more convenient than ICE. For trips of up to 6 or 8 hours, a Tesla is almost as convenient as an ICE (you have to stop at a Supercharger station, but you can eat a meal during the stop so it's barely worse). For trips much longer than that, ICE wins, hands down, but I don't think that optimizing for 10+ hour trips is the best way to plan infrastructure.
So, as I noted above. EVs are pretty much useless in town (unless you are rich enough to charge it overnight at your house), in which case they make a lot of sense for the urban "stop and go at 3mph" environment). ICE sucks at idling efficiently and just wastes fuel.
It would require rewiring the entire city and zoning requirements for a mass switch to BEV's in urban environments. The infrastructure cost would be huge.
That makes urban EVs pretty much a rich mans toy, which is what I see them used as around here if I am honest. The other big use case is 10+ hour trips, and BEVs are useless there too.
So the only place they are not better, but "almost as good as ICE" is the 6-8 hour bracket, which seems like a pretty poor showing by the BEV as a mode of transportation. Especially if you don't really want to stop for a meal on the way to wherever you are going. Essentially you got the choice of making a 8 hour trip into a 2 day one if you charge the car slowly, or a 9-10 hour trip if you charge quick and damage the battery (so not something you want to do often). And this is assuming you start off with a full charge, don't end up draining power faster than expected, or something else coming along to prevent you from reaching your destination.
Note my argument isn't against Electric vehicles, but against battery powered ones specifically. I find batteries pretty crap as an energy storage device. They have gotten better, but they still suck compared to liquid fuel energy density.
I tolerate my phone and laptop batteries because I don't have an alternative, and I have the ability to have them being plugged overnight, but I am not going to have anything else powered by batteries if I can help it, let alone something as big, expensive and important as a car.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:25PM
And sorry for the long posts. I try to trim them down, but I do tend to write a lot, and soylent really isn't the best place for mini treatse's like this (this i the only thread where I get "comment too long" errors) :-)
(Score: 2) by steveha on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:46AM
I'm not impressed by the four links. None of them made the case that Telsa loses money on each car sold. Instead, they took Telsa's losses and divided by the number of cars sold and then reported that number. A company spending huge money on factories and Supercharger expansion is spending more than it takes in, and when it's selling premium cars the volume isn't high, so you get a big number divided by a small number and you get the impressive "loses $4000 per car". Hogwash. When they were first working on developing the Roadster and hadn't sold any yet, all they had were losses and 0 cars, so why not say "loses $(ZeroDivisionError) per car"?
If you can find a teardown that prices out all the parts and shows that a Telsa Model S actually costs more to make than the selling cost, that would be more interesting, but the analyses I have seen say that Tesla is making about a 30% margin on the Model S. In other words Tesla makes tens of thousands of dollars on each car.
If they can fill all the half-million preorders for the Model 3 in a reasonable amount of time, Tesla will be very solidly profitable. If they screw that up and lose the preorders and good will, they are hosed.
By the way, the government tax incentives have helped Tesla, but Tesla is doing a huge amount of work to bootstrap not just their own factory operations but a whole infrastructure to support them (dealers, chargers, staff, etc.) The tax incentives were put into place to help companies get off the ground. One of the reasons that gasoline cars don't need tax breaks is that they can go even to small towns and find gasoline for sale, while Tesla has to do everything itself. US tax breaks and loans don't always work out -- Google "Solyndra" -- but in this case they did work out as intended.
Perhaps if you are rich enough to have a garage or a forecourt where you can plug in for the night.
Very common in the USA, not only for the rich. And, Tesla is putting Superchargers in cities [tesla.com] to solve the problem for people who don't have a garage.
It is just another headache and hassle to remember to do before I go to bed at night, every night.
Okay, electric cars aren't for you then. I plug in my phone every night; I don't think it's such a big deal to plug in my car as well.