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from the Detroit-on-another-deathwatch-and-still-doesn't-know-it dept.
The BBC and many other sources report:
The US car industry will be wrecked if President Trump relaxes emissions standards, California's governor says.
Jerry Brown said China would dominate car manufacture because it was heavily promoting the electric vehicles that would dominate the future.
He said huge investment was needed on electric vehicles, along with federal rules to encourage their purchase.
He said President Trump and US car-makers were "half asleep" and hadn't understood the scale of the challenge.
He told BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth: "There will be a serious threat to the US auto industry.
Unlike many in Silicon Valley, Gov. Brown seems to want the USA car industry to survive this Chinese nationally supported onslaught.
While not specifically mentioned in the article, China is working on cars at all price points, not just early adopters that can afford a Tesla or other luxury car. The Chinese stuff may be junk now (think about the batteries in Chinese "hoverboards") but it won't be for long, they learn fast. Here's a little minivan that's headed to production, https://carnewschina.com/2017/09/28/new-photos-sinogold-gm3-electric-mpv-china/
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @12:52AM (3 children)
There is a Tesla factory in California. The motive here is obvious. Tesla stock takes a dive at the mere suggestion that we wouldn't subsidize the cars.
Each rich person who can buy a Tesla gets something like $6000 to $9000. That is more than many poor people pay for a car, and don't forget the people too poor to even get a car at all.
Elon Musk didn't choose wisely. His factory is not in a swing state. He quit the group that was advising Trump as soon as Trump did something not to Musk's liking.
Oh well. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio all want to be made great again.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:14AM (1 child)
Apparently they have a problem getting their robots to weld body parts.
Tesla told one particular parts vendor to produce parts only on-order, rather than ahead of time.
Solar City is just a village.
I expect TSLA is going to go way down. If it ultimately survives that stock would be real good to buy. Do you think it will survive?
The analysis I read reported that Tesla keeps promising a bright future yet always end up in Hades. The analysts have grown weary of this.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:43AM
> Apparently they have a problem getting their robots to weld body parts.
The story I saw said the change from aluminum bodies (S & X) to some fancy new high strength steels for the Model 3 might be part of the problem. New ultra high strength steel alloys have great properties (strength, elongation, etc) and can almost be tailored to the application...but welding them without destroying the good properties is tricky.
Also, one article suggested that the stamped panels weren't fitting together too well. If there are gaps, spot welding doesn't work (or might work, but not well). Guessing further, stamping/forming the ultra high strength steels is also tricky, the amount of spring-back (because of the high strength) means stamping dies have to be specially shaped to generate the desired parts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday November 14 2017, @03:40PM
As I recall, he quit, along with a few others, followed by complete disbanding of the entire group, once they all recognized that Trump was immune to good advice. In fact, if given good advice he might use it to do just the opposite. They must have recognized that it was a profound waste of time in order to all collectively give up rather than keep trying.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.