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Last week Monday VW opened up its pre-orders list for the ID.3, its first all-electric car built on its MEB platform. A week later, and 37,000 customers have put €1000 [~1,176 USD] in advance already.
There are a couple of reasons for the apparent enthusiasm. First the range, going from an official 330 km [~200 mi] (45kWh battery) standard range over 420 km [~250 mi] (58kWh) medium to 550 km [~330 mi] (77kWh) for the long range battery. Practical range is estimated at 260, 330 and 430 km. [~156, ~200, and ~260 mi],
Second the price. The standard version comes in at €21,000 [~24,700 USD] in Germany (€30,000 [~35,300 USD] list price, €9,000 [~10,600 USD] subsidy). Medium range has a list price of €36,000 [~42,300 USD], for the maximum range the price is not yet known, but below €50,000 [~58,800 USD].
The car is rear-wheel driven by an 150kW motor, with top speed limited at 160 km/h [~100 mph]. Torque is 310Nm, delivering 0-60 kph [~37 mph] in 3.7 seconds (1st version; the standard version 9 seconds).
No talk about autonomous driving though: only lane assist and adaptive cruise control are provided.
Delivery of the car starts in September. There are no plans to bring the ID.3 to the US. Volkswagen said it is on track to deliver 70,000 ID.3's by year's end, and an additional 30,000 upcoming ID.4 SUVs along with that. Tesla, in contrast, sold more than 90,000 of its cars last quarter alone.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:54AM (4 children)
Don't buy a car from anyone who sends his workers out in the middle of a global pandemic.
Plus he's endorsed Citizen Kanye as president.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @07:07AM (3 children)
Shut down the entire economy for the next two years to own the Orange Man.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @01:18PM (2 children)
Already being done.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:22PM (1 child)
Yep, Trump's been hoisted by his own Foxtards.
Had we followed the advice of scientists we would be reopening now like the rest of the civilized world.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:49PM
> Had we followed the advice of scientists we would be reopening now like the rest of the civilized world.
I like your optimism but something isn't making sense. By reopening- you mean with masks, hand-washing, etc? Because COVID-19 is still a thing world-wide and could spread fast again anywhere it's not being mitigated.
As I've posted before, I've had some conversations with some significant medical researchers, a med school epidemiology professor, a couple of other doctors, and they all say that testing and contact tracing is what's needed and largely being done... in addition to masks and other precautions of course. I don't even know how reliable the tests are now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:57AM (3 children)
someone please explain.
is the range given for downhill?
under which conditions will the engine be forced to the maximum power output, and why is it not an issue that the car can only do maximum power output for 20mins?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 28 2020, @09:03AM (1 child)
"What goes up must come down" + regenerative braking.
Let's hope you get to the top of the hill with max power in 20 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @10:24AM
youtube says that Pike's peak records are around 8-9 minutes, so maybe I'm just not aware of all the facts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbtJkbXaPd4 [youtube.com]
I'm not sure why I didn't notice the apparent inconistency of the numbers until now though.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:19AM
The only time the motor would be close to maximum output would be when the accelerator pedal is floored, and even then only until you reach the artificially limited top speed of 100mph. The only way to run it out in 20 minutes would be on a dynamometer (assuming there are no thermal overload issues... on either the car or the dyno).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:03PM (26 children)
VW pushed out 6,278,300 cars in 2019, and you make it sound like they're playing catchup with a startup which hasn't sold that many cars in its entire existence.
ICE manufacturers still have plant, patents and tooling in ICE manufacture and there's no real reason to stop as electrics accounts for about 1% of global sales.
They are just toying with electric, because it's still just so niche that it's not really profitable.
You'll know when the ICE manufacturers actually switch. They'll bother to advertise them, for a start. And then Tesla is a dot on their period accounts.
It's like saying that some Chinese startup sold a thousand laptops with a new chip in them, and then comparing them to Intel or AMD or ARM.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:48PM (8 children)
I think once the cost of electric cars gets within spitting range of combustion engines, a lot more than 1% of buyers will get them. They're rare today because they are a luxury product. But the Nissan Leaf Plus, Chevy Bolt, Kia Niro EV, and Tesla Model 3 are starting to approach mainstream prices, especially when you consider the lower fuel costs and lower maintenance costs.
My suspicion is that the transition to electric will start to accelerate, and some of the existing automakers won't be able to move quickly enough and they'll collapse or get acquired. Tesla has two strategic advantages. First, Tesla has no existing manufacturing infrastructure and engineering expertise around combustion engines that they need to transition to electric. Second, Tesla is working on manufacturing its own batteries.
To be clear, I hate Elon Musk and I hate living in a world where a billionaire had to kickstart the electric car revolution when the core technology has been around for a long time but nobody with enough money cared to use it. But I suspect Tesla is poised for meteoric sales growth and the existing automakers with their millions of sales will have a hard time and crippling costs pivoting to do the same.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @01:22PM (7 children)
Why do you hate Musk?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:38PM (2 children)
Why don't you? He's a psychopathic monster and that's even by the normally low standards of behavior for the ultra-wealthy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RS3 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @04:08PM
I have much better things to do than go around hating people. It's not worth the emotional wear and tear. Especially when I'm not sure he affects my life much. But if I'm wrong, I'd love to know how and why.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:27PM
Nice explanation, you dumb fucking slave. You're probably triggered in your panties because he didn't suck enough ass when the Bolsheviks told him to shut down because of the tax payer-funded Covid19. You're the stupid piece of shit. not Elon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @07:59PM (3 children)
I think people should be paid based on the work they do personally instead of based on the capital they own. Elon Musk might be the hardest and smartest worker at Tesla and SpaceX - I actually doubt that, but I'll allow for the possibility. So I grant at least the possibility that Elon Musk deserves to be paid better than any of the other 60,000 or so people between Tesla Motors and SpaceX.
But Elon gets more than the other 60,000 combined, several multiples more and that's so absurd it defies imagination. Someone with a company that employs 100 getting more money than the other 99 defies imagination.
I admit, the man's history is impressive and I'm confident he's incredibly bright. But he has more money than I can make in many thousands of lifetimes, and I'm paid pretty well for a software engineer. How does that make sense?
And crucially, hundreds of today's billionaires and hundred-millionaires have as their sole important life achievement, "Being born to ultra wealthy parents". So even if you think Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, etc... deserve their fortune and make the world a better place, what about the Walton family (inherited Walmart), Liliane Betterncourt (inherited L'Oreal), Mars family (inherited Mars candy), Wertheimer family (inherited Chanel), David Thompson (inherited Reuters), etc... ?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:08PM (2 children)
You have a problem with his pay or how much he earn? That's 2 different things. Even if his pay is $1, he'll still earn more than those 60,000 people. Why is it his fault he has invested his money differently than the other 60,000 again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:32PM (1 child)
I have a problem with the whole concept of earning based on shares, instead of based on work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @02:23PM
Sure. Ain't Elon's fault though, not like he created the system.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:44PM (14 children)
> They are just toying with electric, because it's still just so niche that it's not really profitable.
I think the main reason is that BEV demand is still seen as artificial. Here in Europe there is a huge amount of discounts, subsidies, tax breaks, free charging, etc... being offered to those who purchase BEVs. Pretty much everyone I know who bought a BEV told me that the reason they bought it was because of the tax exemptions, free charging and other freebies.
Nobody bought it because it was the better tech, or because they felt it would save the environment. They all bought it because it was cheaper to buy/run with the discounts than an ICE, and in many cases is was bought as a secondary "commuter" car for short distances, or visit urban centers where they now charge ICE vehicles to enter (but free for EVs).
Things like "charge time", "range" or "battery wear" is not a big deal, because they still have an ICE for those things the BEV is not good enough for, and most peoples commutes are within the range of current BEV tech.
I don't remember which North European country it was, but I remember reading that after having very good demand for BEVs, they rolled back the subsidies, only to find demand collapsed, and people went back to ICE vehicles.
The problem with subsidies/freebies is they only work when a minority of people get them. At the moment the ICE vehicle owners subsidise BEV owners by higher taxes and charges on using their vehicles, but if most of them switch (or just forgo having a car at all), the subsidies will get to expensive to sustain, resulting in their cancellation, at which point demand may drop off a cliff.
There is also the risk that the new "remote working" revolution may well see demand drop for BEVs too. If their main reason for purchase is to sit in the daily stop-and-go traffic to commute to work, and that reason goes away, then so does the reason for owning a BEV for a lot of people.
If I was running VW, I would also approach with caution and hedge my bets. Not to mention that VW is a global company, and most of the world outside of the EU/USA has little to no interest in subsidising EV purchasing/running, at least for the moment (especially in countries with ample national hydrocarbon resources). So I suspect ICE will be with us for a long while yet. Chances are that car ownership in general will go down. Rather than a mass switch over to BEV, most people may not bother owning a car at all.
Around my area cycling is becoming the main form of transport, and cars are only used for long distances, heavy loads or for weekend fun. Perhaps for mass transport, the replacement for the car may well be the bicycle (whether battery-electric assisted or normal). Outside of car enthusiasts, many people may just rent a car/van when needed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @08:39PM (4 children)
A lot of households have two vehicles, so in those cases it would make sense to swap one vehicle for electric if it wasn't too expensive. Right now the electric options are just too costly, even with the US government incentives. But maybe in five years, prices will be close to their combustion engine counterparts - at that point, why not switch?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:11PM
It's starting to dip into "affordable" for the middle class, toward the upper end, in some countries. So if the trend continues, yea it'll get there.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday July 29 2020, @04:39AM (2 children)
I've got two vehicles, a four-wheel drive that doesn't see a lot of use (some weekends), and a daily commuter. The daily commuter is a 4 litre V6. It's 25 years old, has air-con, heater and stereo, runs well, drives nice, costs about $400 a year in servicing and 8 years ago when I bought it, it cost me AUD $1500. It gets about 10km/l, and in normal times costs me about $30 a week in fuel.
Work out how long it would take to pay for a more "ecofriendly" car, saving (most of) that $30 and then tell me why I should spend upwards of $100,000 on a Tesla or $50,000 on a leaf? Don't forget to include interest.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:03PM (1 child)
I'm speaking strictly of buying new vehicles. It's always smarter to buy used, provided you know how to maintain the vehicle or have a skilled and trustworthy mechanic. I doubt we'll ever reach a point where buying a new electric vehicle is more cost effective than getting a used combustion engine vehicle in the same class. Maybe in ten years, if the batteries in the Nissan Leaf Plus prove reliable, a used Leaf would be cost competitive. But that's not guaranteed, because you might be able to get a ten year old Leaf for AUD $1500 and then discover a month later that you need an AUD $8000 battery pack replacement.
But before COVID-19 Americans were buying 17 million new vehicles a year. That's financially foolish, but it's commonplace. Actually, I'll come back to the foolish part later. But anyway, for someone already planning to buy new, at least in the US a new Chevy Bolt electric hatchback is within $10,000 of an equivalent options new small hatchback - or at least it is right now, GM is currently offering a $8,000 discount on the Bolt official list price. Once you factor in those fuel and maintenance differences over the life of the vehicle, the cost gap drops to below $5,000. But yes, if you really want to save money or flat out can't afford a new car, a used hatchback is the smart buy.
The excuse my wife and I used for buying new for our past vehicles, despite the financial foolishness, is crash safety and crash avoidance technology. The US government crash tests had the level of difficulty increased in 2011. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety added new safety tests in 2009, 2012, and 2017 and is increasing the difficulty of its side impact test for 2020 (but no vehicles have been tested with the more difficult side impact test yet). If my wife and I were childless, I wouldn't care if we rode in tiny cars or on motorcycles all of the time. But once we had kids, I was terrified that we would lose a family member to a crash in a minivan from, say, 2000 when they would have survived if we bought a highly safety-rated minivan from 2008. I knew a few people that were killed in crashes in the 1980s and 1990s that might have survived if their vehicle had been built like an equivalent from 2010 or 2015. Conversely I had a friend in a high speed collision with a 2014 economy car that destroyed the car and left her without a scratch.
However, the statistics on vehicle occupant injury rates are pretty clear - there is no replacement for mass. An older, larger vehicle with inferior crash engineering will still be safer than a newer, smaller one with superior crash engineering in almost any form of crash except for a rollover. I have a 2017 minivan for our brood and it has top crash ratings and all of the safety doodads available on the market at that time - but in terms of finances and safety I might have been better off getting a 2010 monster SUV like a Chevy Suburban or Ford Expedition, just for the extra 1500 pounds.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:18AM
I looked at getting a small second-hand car at the time. To get a similar condition / accessories / expected lifetime I was looking at close to $10,000 with higher service costs and less utility.
I did the math and said $8500 buys a hell of a lot of petrol.
Also, regarding safety, it has driver and passenger airbags, and ABS.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:58AM
I bought a BEV, a used one with very limited range. I've heard too many horror stories about the slimy used car salesperson selling lemons disguised as cherries, I needed something in a hurry, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time and effort checking out used ICE cars to make sure they didn't have some major problem that was being hidden, or maybe was simply unknown because no one checked. I felt that the much simpler design of a BEV meant a lot less potential trouble. The car would not start burning oil or leaking transmission fluid after 1000 miles because the temporary treatment to conceal the problem wore off. The BEV wasn't going to break down on me 500 miles later and leave me stranded.
Oh, and the car I replaced? A gas burner-- a mid 1990s Chevy Lumina that was notorious for a particular problem. The car was running great, and then one day it just started leaking antifreeze. It wasn't a simple problem of a hose going bad, no. What happened is that the engine had warped enough that the head gasket couldn't hold. The engine was not repairable. Would have had to get another engine, and there was no telling whether a replacement might develop the same problem. I hear that happened a lot. Was a design issue.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:05AM (7 children)
It won't be Norway, as with hydro, leccy's almost free there, and the cars are massively popular.
It might be here in Estonia, 5-10 years ago were bigging up EVs all the time, I think even /Top Gear/ magazine did a think on how keen we were. I've not seen much about them recently, whe idea has appeared to die. I've never been in the market for one, so haven't followed it that closely.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday July 29 2020, @08:58AM (6 children)
> If you could find out which northe European country it was I'd be interested to know.
I think it was Denmark, back in 2017:
Source: https://www.thedrive.com/news/11089/denmark-ev-sales-plummet-with-tax-break-elimination [thedrive.com]
> It won't be Norway, as with hydro, leccy's almost free there, and the cars are massively popular.
They are also heavily subsidised, so that buying and running an EV is apparently 75% cheaper than an ICE vehicle.
The cost is apparently to the tune of $13500 per tonne of CO2.
When someone is paying you to buy and run something, don't be surprised if demand increases, but again, artificial. If the subsidies are reduced/removed, and costs reach parity or overtake ICE vehicles, demand will most likely drop again.
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-02/busting-myth-worlds-hottest-electric-car-market [zerohedge.com] (the source may be biased, but it is the only one I could find right now)
> It might be here in Estonia, 5-10 years ago were bigging up EVs all the time, I think even /Top Gear/ magazine did a think on how keen we were. I've not seen much about them recently, whe idea has appeared to die. I've never been in the market for one, so haven't followed it that closely.
I remember reading something similar to Denmark about Estonia as well, however I can't find any article.
A side note: While trying to dig up these old links, I was amazed at how useless search engines have become. Google, Bing, duckduck go, no matter which you use, they all return the exact opposite I search for. I explicity search for "EV demand drops due to reduced subsidies", and all they give me are glowing articles about how demand for EVs are doubling/exploding due to subsidies/demand. No combination of search terms netted me a single article about demand dropping when subsidies were removed.
I only managed to tease out the above two articles due to remembering the original site I read the articles on (zerohedge), and searching directly there, then following links. If it wasn't for that, I would have not found any evidence for the existence of articles I knew had existed before.
It is quite scary how much they control/suppress the flow of information, I feel a bit like I'm in 1984, trying to discover bits of history scrubbed from the public view, and quite frankly, this information is not even particularly sensitive or important in the grand scheme of things. I'd hate to think what they do with actual important information.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @10:56AM (3 children)
> ... amazed at how useless search engines have become.
Amen! Preach it brother! It's utterly shocking that as AI has advanced 10-fold in tech, and 10^5-fold in availability, that the results are orders of magnitude less useful. Worst of all, they present the results as if they're trying to be more helpful than ever.
Can someone please resurrect HotBot or AltaVista?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 29 2020, @11:35AM (2 children)
HotBot is now a VPN peddler, and AltaVista redirects to Yahoo! which is powered by Microsoft Bing.
Baidu and Yandex are your only hope now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @11:55PM (1 child)
However, AltaVista used to be Digital. As I am an ex-DEC Alpha owner (personal, bought it myself, not just used at place of work or study), I'm always going to have a soft spot for anything Digital.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @11:56PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:14PM (1 child)
I think you might be going off in the deep end there a bit, with your control of information thing.
It is expected that with more data, it becomes harder to search those data, for starters. Then, there is the question: why invest in improving your search engine capabilities when there's really nobody on the horizon with either fresh ideas, or the ability to execute them? An effective search engine requires a heavy investment in hardware and network infrastructure after all.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday July 29 2020, @07:51PM
> I think you might be going off in the deep end there a bit, with your control of information thing.
Perhaps, however I have my doubts. There is bad signal to noise ratio, then there is irrelevant information, but to not match a single list of words accurately to this level I swear takes conscious effort
> It is expected that with more data, it becomes harder to search those data, for starters.
Why would it? Does grep become less effective the more data you have? I sure did not find that. It still matches what I ask it to, if I grep one file or 100,000 files.
It is one thing to give me a lot of noise amongst data I want, it is something else to provide me search results that are utterly irrelevant. If I search for "reduced" I don't expect to see "doubled". Not a single search result in any of the first 3 pages I looked at had the word "reduced" anywhere. Even when I added "-doubled" it still returned exactly the same results, with the word "doubled" right there in the title.
I search for something in quotes, I expect it to return me exact matches. If I don't, I expect it to return all results containing all the words specified. If I provide a negation, it is to be applied.
I don't need a search engine to think for me, to interpret my search request, nor to assume things. I need it to just search and return matches.
It has been a solved algorithmic problem for decades, now it is just a matter of efficiency and scalability that needs to be handled.
> Then, there is the question: why invest in improving your search engine capabilities when there's really nobody on the horizon with either fresh ideas, or the ability to execute them? An effective search engine requires a heavy investment in hardware and network infrastructure after all.
Most of the investment is in the web crawling, storage and web frontend. You need to do that whether you got a plain rule based search engine, or some fancy AI that tries to second guess what the user wanted to search for. It would be cheaper to not have bothered with the fancy additions and kept it as a rule based engine.
I know it can be done. Google used to be that way. Hell that (along with the simple search page) was the main reason we actually switched to it way back when. Yet it seems they have forgotten what they were all about originally. Bing seems to just slavishly copy google, but not as well, and the others seem to be wrappers around those two engines,so you get the same results no matter what you use.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:07PM (1 child)
At one point, Nokia dominated the mobile phone market; yet, somehow, they managed to miss the whole smartphone thing.
As another commentator pointed out, Tesla does not carry the load of all this existing infrastructure and jobs. It can experiment and react more nimbly, especially [and as long] as it looks like the darling of retail investors.
On the other hand, VW (and others) are investing heavily into electrification (€30bn for VW's all-electric MEB production platform alone); and if you read the last para of the sub carefully: VW plans to produce more electric vehicles in its first quarter of ID.3/ID.4 production than Tesla did in the last quarter.
That points to two things: (a) VW has production of BEVs under control, and (b) there might not be so much to the technological headstart of Tesla (which might be why all the talk about autonomous capability).
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:16PM
Unfortunately, the problem of Tesla is infrastructure. Nobody has enough charging ports or capacity. My (Greater London) shows 12 available charging slots in a town of 100,000 people. 12. Only 2 of those are "fast charge", the rest are just ordinary wall-plugs.
The number of places in my town/city/country where you can't even install a charging ports are huge too. You're reliant on communal ones and certain homeowners installing their own. You've gone from "a handful of small petrol stations in town with 6 pumps is enough to serve the entire town and commuters and outsiders" to "we need tens of thousands of communal charging ports, tied up for hours, where they can't leave their car safely, or for homeowners to install them." Renters have no choice. I simply cannot rely on owning an electric car until my landlord or their management agent (who basically owns the whole street) puts in a charger for each household. That's not gonna happen. They won't install an outside light so people don't trip over the dark pathway, let alone a 30KW+ fast charger. The alternative is having to drive into town, leave the car there charging for hours and walk home, and then pick it back up in the morning.
To use your analogy, it's like Nokia bringing out a smartphone that only runs on 5G and isn't backward compatible, and they're pretty much the only people pushing out 5G network equipment too. But it's like doing that 2-3 years ago. In time it may work but all that's going to happen is those devices that can take advantage of both new and old will be around for decades, the transition products will take priority, and all Tesla's investments will be lost the second it becomes commodity and they'll never claw it back. All to sell a car that Ford could make tomorrow.
Let's be honest: At any point, a big manufacturer can step up and wipe out Tesla's market in seconds with a superior (and more established-branded) alternative. Maybe a year of R&D at best. They haven't because it's just not profitable on their scales.
And come 2030/2040, the ICE manufacturers won't be able to sell their current product anyway - there are bans coming in on sales of ICE engines. They're not just twiddling their thumbs and cawing about the end of their entire business. They're just using up their tooling, expertise, patents, products, stock, factories, etc. and getting the most of out the thing that 99% of people actually want to buy still. When the tide-turns, Tesla's investments, innovations and side-ventures don't really mean anything. And places like VW can literally just suck up the loss of an entire year's profit without much ado - aren't they still paying billions for the emissions scandal? If they made Tesla's money for a year, they'd be having their worst year on record. They can squish them like an ant any time they like. But the others will then come out and the competition hets up very quickly. Tesla will be nothing more than a stain on the battlefield. They're holding off, not quite colluding, but just waiting for one of them to make the move so they can all pile on. Until then, Tesla is just stuck in the middle and completely disregarded.
Tesla has no patents of value, no tech of value, no manufacturing of value, no market-share of value, no infrastructure of value, no customer base of value. Not on these scales. Hell, it wouldn't be surprising to see the name or the whole company bought out just to ride on it. Picking Nokia out of the myriad phone manufacturers over the years who didn't "see" smartphones (they did... they just went with Microsoft, which is the wrong crowd in all respects) is a poor analogy. Maybe one of the traditional manufacturers will die off. But there are 20+ behemoths in that industry, all of which consider Tesla's entire historical budgets just a smudge on their financial reports.
They'll be a Kodak. But they'll also be an entire market of Canon and everyone else. And it's not a radically different product. If anything, it's far simpler. It's not like cars vs personal teleportation devices. It's not even as big a gap as petrol vs diesel engines, really. It's just another engine type, with a change of the drivetrain.
If anything, I reckon they're holding off for a battery tech. And whoever owns that takes the market and will profit from all their competitors licensing it, Tesla along with them. And if Tesla are the ones to find it (incredibly unlikely)? The best they'll be able to do is patent it out to the others, because on their own it wouldn't be enough to overturn the giants. If a new tech does come, all Tesla's investment in their batteries is worthless. If it doesn't, hell, maybe Ford will ask Tesla to make batteries for them. No skin off their nose, any more than a Japanese company making an airbag for them. But you're not going to see a world of Tesla's and everyone else in the industry going "Oh, what happened?"
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday July 28 2020, @01:57PM (11 children)
The range is not there for my household; we're basically out in the ass end of nowhere.
It's 285m (458.7km) from here to the nearest city in my state with no opportunity to charge between here and there; and rear wheel drive is an absolute can't-go-there, as it means the vehicle is a driveway queen in winter. I'm dubious about the range numbers anyway... I need 280 always-reliable miles with AC/summer or heater/winter running the whole time.
The Tesla S and X both have all wheel drive; that's a huge point in their favor for me. Tesla's model X "long range" has a claimed 325m (523.0km) range; the model S "long range" has a claimed 370m (595.5km) range, which sounds closer to what we're after — although again, with heater or AC on, the range is reduced severely... hand wavy numbers say a 40% range reduction. Ouch. Then there's battery degradation over time to consider. And the prices! The X/LR is $85k, and the S/LR is $80k.
More patience is required. Probably about ten years worth...
--
Unfortunately there is no lifeguard in the gene pool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:42PM (1 child)
Even if you do live in the city, if you haven't got a charging station on either end of your commute, you're going to be massively inconvenienced from time to time when you need to charge.
For those that live in multi-family housing, you may not even have the option of installing a charging station. Which is a shame because the city is really where electrics are playing to their strengths. I have no doubt that the range and charging times will improve enough that they can be used in more rural areas. But, let's be honest, the bulk of the people live in cities, so if the relatively few people living in more rural areas need gas or diesel, it's still a massive improvement over the status quo.
But, even in the rural areas, I could definitely see charging stations popping up at local businesses as they try to get money from the folks in electric vehicles that are passing through.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:32AM
Until charging times and stations improve, charging stations are pretty much a non-starter. What I've learned from owning a BEV is that what you really, really want is to be able to make a round trip without charging. Do all your charging at home, where's there's no bullcrap to deal with, like all available charging stations being occupied-- for hours because that's the kind of time it takes.
I've found charging stations that are turned off for the night (and it was of course night when I needed it), ones that have been permanently closed, and plenty of issues. You can't just plug in and get a charge, even at the so-called free stations. You can't simply swipe a credit card to pay for a charge, like you can at a gas pump. No, you have to set up accounts with half a dozen different networks. You need a special card, which takes a week to come in the mail. Or you need to install their app on your smart phone, and if you don't have or use a smart phone, or their card, you simply cannot get a charge, even if it is supposedly free. Even when you do have the account and the app, the charging station may be malfunctioning, and will blame the problem on your car.
One other thing is that charging stations along the route are nigh useless, only good if you've messed up and don't have enough juice left to reach your destination, in which case you will be stuck for only an hour or 2, instead of, say, a whole day. Only those very near or at the endpoints, or at long stops of at least an hour, are at all useful. There just plain aren't enough. Even in a major metropolis, there are many places that are over 2 miles from the nearest charging station. Forget about parking at the closest charging station and walking the last mile or two. Simply takes too damned long to walk that kind of distance, and American cities are quite hostile to walking.
You can double your effective range if there is a charging station at the other end and you're willing to take you chances with it. But if there's any problem, you will be stranded. Even if the other end is a friend or relative's home and they are willing to let you recharge, you need to watch for certain things, can't count on that going smoothly. Last time I tried that, I forgot to check that there was nothing else drawing power from the circuit my friend let me use. And so what happened, is that 15 minutes after I had plugged in, some appliance like a fridge turned on, and drew enough additional power to trip the circuit breaker. Was 3 hours before anyone noticed. So I had impose on my friend for an extra 3 hours to get enough charge to get back home.
Still another problem is incompatible charging stations. Tesla does their own thing. You can't charge a non-Tesla BEV at a Tesla charging station. Tesla thoughtfully provides their customers with adapters so that their Teslas can use any charging station. But they don't provide adapters for the opposite situation, to allow the owner of a Tesla charging station to charge non-Tesla BEVs. So much for getting a quick charge while I visited my relative who owns a Tesla.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:03PM (4 children)
That leaves you what, in the middle of nowhere New Mexico/Arizona/Nevada/Utah/Montana somewhere? Definitely not anywhere in the east as you don't even have to travel that far to get out of many of the states.
Yeah, without a lot of infrastructure that people take for granted with gas cars, electric cars have very limited use. A switch to all electric would take a serious effort to change that in a relatively small time period or it will eventually change over a long time period. That's assuming that electric cars actually will take over. As opposed to just being a nice fancy toy for the rich and virtue signalers.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:38PM (2 children)
Yes, Montana. Near Canada. And not much else.
As a friend of mine once said:
--
Calories? I think you mean delicious points.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @08:16PM
Ah, the Hi-line! Hwy 2! Hinsdale? Nashua? Chinook?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @10:48PM
I used to think that, but last summer we crossed Canada on the trans-Canada highway. Between Medicine Hat and Kenora is the ass end of nowhere. Crossing the border immediately south of that it instantly feels vibrant, populous, and cosmopolitan.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:41PM
i'm hoping for vastly improved batteries and solar. maybe hydrogen/electric hybrids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @04:25PM (1 child)
> rear wheel drive is an absolute can't-go-there, as it means the vehicle is a driveway queen in winter
You already ruled the VW out on other grounds. Why add this jab, unless you already know the weight distribution of the ID.3?
After all, the original Beetle with rear engine and RWD was great in the snow. We had one through the 1960s with many snowy winters in Buffalo and it got through when many others couldn't (minimal heater was the major problem). Also it is great fun to have rear wheel drive in the snow, sliding around at low speeds is a blast.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:35PM
Lol, no, they were not. I've owned a couple of them, both in Montana winters and in Pennsylvania winters. They're awful compared to something with 4WD/AWD. They're just better than a RWD vehicle with a poorer weight distribution.
It's not a "jab", it's a legit factor that rules it out. If they increase the range, it'll still stand in the way. They would have to address both issues to address my concerns.
Carnival ride:
Drunk Midget: Can I get on the ride?
Ticket Minion: You're short and you're drunk, so... no.
Drunk Midget: What if I sober up?
Ticket Minion: No. Still too short.
--
Schrödinger's smiley: :):
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:28PM
Gee, thanks for that image of fyngyrz in the ass end of nowhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @08:05PM
I'm all "rah rah rah" for the electric car revolution, but I'm not going to waste your time or mine trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. The electric cars today fit best in a suburban or urban environment, for people who only drive more than 150 miles a day a few times a year. On those days, you just rent something that can travel further. I do know Tesla owners that take longer trips, but they're in areas with an impressive amount of charging stations and a lot of the country still isn't covered.
I live in the suburbs and I already have a combustion engine minivan in the driveway. A second electric vehicle would suit us just fine. When I had a commute, I was driving 24k miles per year but almost never more than 150 miles on any single day.
If you desperately want an electric car, move. (That was a joke.)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:43PM (8 children)
Tesla just reported 4 straight profitable quarters, which means they'll be included in the S&P 500. Mutual fund managers and pension funds will then need to buy Tesla stock to add them to their portfolios; some estimates say they'll need to buy up to $100 billion of Tesla shares to accomplish that. In other words, Tesla is about to get a large cash infusion they can use to dramatically ramp up their production.
Tesla erected its factory in Shanghai in record time. They announced a week ago they're moving production from California to outside Austin, Texas, and drone footage shows they've already cleared and leveled the site. It's plausible they will be able to use any new cash to ramp up production quickly.
That, and several other dimensions like the race for full self-driving, make them a real disruptive threat for the automotive industry. VW, Ford (which debuted its EV Mustang this week), and other ICE manufacturers seem to be taking that threat seriously now. Time will tell if they are responding in time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @04:16PM (3 children)
> In other words, Tesla is about to get a large cash infusion they can use to dramatically ramp up their production.
Do you know that Tesla is issuing new stock? Normally stock is bought from existing shareholders and traded around, that doesn't generate any new cash for the company.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 28 2020, @05:46PM (2 children)
That has not been announced yet. Sometimes the fund managers will buy stock that's already out there, which obviously means good things for current shareholders. Sometimes a company will do a secondary offering in the situation when the available pool of shares is not large enough; in that case, it dilutes the ownership that current shareholders have but funnels a large amount of cash directly to the company that they can then use to ramp up production, boost quality, and many other things that increase the overall value of the company (and, accordingly, the value of previously issued shares).
In the same earnings call a few days ago they also teased new battery tech, self-driving upgrades, car insurance whose premiums move with your driving habits in real time, and the profitability of their energy storage (Powerwall) unit. Those are parallel disruptions compared to the straight up transition from ICE-to-EV that VW and Ford (and others) are working on now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:10PM (1 child)
"car insurance whose premiums move with your driving habits in real time"
You really think that's a good idea? Cause i think it's really fucked up. I can imagine the sheep with a $ gauge in the dashboard fucking up actual traffic for everyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:18PM
Good for some bad for others. For the latter, feel free to go with traditional insurers. There are already insurers out there that periodically adjust based on your macro driving habits, i.e. they look at your mileage to attest that yea you don't as much as normal and reduce your premiums. This just takes it to whole new level - not for the big-brother-allergic crowd.
Its interesting they're venturing into a new revenue sector. I'd think that would be a big piece of data point for investors more than the usual we got better battery, boot space, mileage incremental announcements
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:47PM (3 children)
Need to [buy Tesla stock] or can? I can imagine the large boys like Calpers and others would be kind of hesitating to dive, nose-forward, into TSLA stock.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday July 28 2020, @09:35PM (2 children)
If they are running an ETF or other fund that specifically tracks S&P500, they will need to buy it. If they're less explicitly following that, then they have some discretion.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday July 29 2020, @11:54AM (1 child)
That's my point: big investors will not simply use an index fund -- they're the ones paying for analysis, picking and choosing specific investments.
In January, Tesla (then at $641 per share) traded at about 43 times its estimated earnings next year, while GM traded at 5.3 times; at the same time, Tesla's global sales were only 3 percent of those of GM and Ford combined. (source: Financial Times, Tesla’s stock price streak leaves analysts struggling to keep up, Jan 31)
On July 17, Tesla shares traded at $1790 per share. Shares in General Motors, which has its own electric vehicles, traded at less than 10 times earnings. Based on first quarter earnings per share of $1.24, Tesla traded at more than 1,200 times earnings. (source: Financial Times, Lessons from Tesla’s remarkable market run, July 17)
That should give some pause for thought, if you're a common sense investor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2020, @04:16PM
Remember that a.) the market is not rational and b.) stock value is, in theory, based on future profit growth potential. General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota are consistently profitable but their profits are largely stable. Tesla is set to work like Amazon, reinvesting profits into growth for a long stretch and then growing profits.
Now the silly bit is that even with impressive profit growth, I don't expect Tesla profitability to match Toyota or GM for ten years or longer. But maybe I'm wrong, and between their hot-selling electric cars and their home battery and home solar systems they are poised for meteoric growth.