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Reuters reports that Elon Musk, speaking at an industry conference in Detroit, said Tesla may not be profitable until 2020 but that Tesla plans to boost production of electric cars to "at least a few million a year" by 2025. Musk told attendees at the Automotive News World Congress that "we could make money now if we weren't investing" in new technology and vehicles such as the Model 3 and expanded retail networks.
Musk does not see the Chevrolet Bolt as a potential competitor to the Model 3. "It's not going to affect us if someone builds a few hundred thousand vehicles," said Musk. "I'd be pleased to see other manufacturers make electric cars." On another topic, Musk said he was open to partnerships with retailers to sell Tesla vehicles, but not until after the company no longer has production bottlenecks. "Before considering taking on franchised dealers, we also have to establish (more of) our own stores," said Musk adding that "we will consider" franchising "if we find the right partner." Musk did not elaborate, but said Tesla "is not actively seeking any partnerships" with other manufacturers "because our focus is so heavily on improving our production" in Fremont. Last year, Tesla delivered about 33,000 Model S sedans and said the current wait for delivery is one to four months. Tesla has already presold every Model S X that it plans to build in 2015. “If you ordered a car today, you wouldn’t get it until 2016."
[Update] The above links presented conflicting reports as to whether it was the Model S or the Model X whose 2015 orders were sold out. According to Tesla Motor's own web page, it was the Model X :
The delivery estimate for new reservations is early 2016.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday January 15 2015, @03:01PM
Not sure what to say but good luck. I'm not sure it will happen, but I hope it does. I'm a firm believer in electric cars, and once affordable miles with over 140 mi actual range are available, I will purchase one.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday January 15 2015, @09:47PM
Personally, where I live, a 140 mile range would leave me dead by the side of the road way too frequently.
The idea is to remove range anxiety by having a vehicle with sufficient range that a spur of the moment side trip to a hardware store doesn't put you at risk. If you live 10 miles from work, maybe you will be ok. But if someone else in the household has to make a trip somewhere, and you've used half the range getting to work and back, they are going to have range anxiety, and will probably take the gas-car instead.
250 would perhaps be enough for a daily commuter in my region, that would still leave enough for grocery shopping and a night out.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Thursday January 15 2015, @11:55PM
Has anyone, anywhere, seen a range calculator for EVs that takes the terrain into account? Silicon Valley is surrounded by hills and mountains, and those Teslas are heavy. What will it take to visit the summit of Mt. Diablo, for example, from San Jose? What will it take to drive from Sacramento to Reno? How about the Grapevine? There is no point in taking range estimates that are made on flat land and applying them to a hilly terrain.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday January 16 2015, @12:34AM
Save for the B-pillars, the car body is all 5000 and 6000 series aluminum. I'd say they are quite a bit lighter than a steel sedan of the same dimensions.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2, Informative) by tftp on Friday January 16 2015, @12:55AM
Per Wikipedia: Tesla Model S has curb weight of 2,108 kg (4,647.3 lb). My Prius (Gen. 2) has curb weight of 1,317 kg (2,903 lb). Feel the difference.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday January 16 2015, @02:36AM
But compare it to a car more closely aligned in its class, a luxury sedan and the Tesla is not
that much heavier.
Mercedes-Benz S-Class Sedan 4,630 lbs
Mercedes-Benz E-Class 3825 lbs.
Infiniti Q70 L 5.6 AWD 4,345 lbs
Cadillac CTS-V Luxury Sedan 4253 lbs
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday January 16 2015, @02:57AM
It means that you have discovered (for me) yet another flaw of Model S. I have no use of a land yacht. See Toyota Camry: 990–1,130 kg (2,180–2,490 lb.) Be environmentally conscious, for FSM's sake :-)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 16 2015, @05:20AM
Either is just about 100% recyclable wouldn't you say?
But one, still uses gas.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday January 16 2015, @08:12AM
The problem is that you have to waste energy to accelerate and slow down an extra thousand pounds of stuff every single day. This is energy that you waste to accelerate and partly burn, partly reuse during braking. As energy for an EV still has to come from somewhere, from a place that burns coal, natural gas or fissile materials, it is not free. You want a light car. Gasoline just happens to be a light fuel with high internal energy, whereas an EV needs a heavy battery.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Friday January 16 2015, @09:23AM
If you bothered to do the actual efficiency calculations you'd soon realize that it is a very bogus conclusion that the gas vehicle is either more efficient or somehow better for the environment just because the Tesla is much heavier. Turns out in the real world the Tesla uses energy so much more efficiently that you will produce significantly less CO2 even if you always charge with electricity produced 100% from the dirtiest coal plants you can find. Yes, gasoline is energy-dense, with several times the energy density of any battery per pound, but the internal combustion engine wastes at least 70% of that energy simply creating heat and overcoming the inertia of the various heavy metal engine parts and drive shafts. At best, only 30% of the energy in each gallon of gas actually does anything to move the vehicle. So the effective difference in energy density between gas and batteries isn't nearly as large as many imagine.
Don't forget to include in your calculations the fact that it takes approximately 4.5kWh of electricity from the "dirty" grid to refine every gallon of gasoline. So when one looks at the big picture every car on the road is actually an electric car, at least partially. The difference is that a real electric car uses the same electric energy massively more efficiently. Meanwhile electric vehicles also have the ability to be powered by clean, renewable energy if such is available in your area. Fossil fuel vehicles will never have a way to be clean.
Opposition to electric vehicles as being somehow just as bad or even worse than fossil fuel vehicles is very ill-informed. If you are worried about the environment at all you really have no rational choice but going electric.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Sunday February 01 2015, @02:41AM
Electric cars compete at a significant disadvantage to hydrocarbon cars. This is because electric cars carry the deadweight of discharged batteries whereas spent hydrocarbons (mostly) become vapor. This disadvantage doesn't apply to electric trains because they don't carry the deadweight.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by McGruber on Saturday January 17 2015, @11:05PM
That's an interesting question, but my guess is that it won't be as big of an issue as you think. When I've driven I-80 over Donner Pass (the Sacramento to Reno trip tftp mentioned above) in a gas car, I have to downshift and/or constantly brake from Donner Summit all the way down the mountain. If I were in a Tesla, I presume that its regenerative braking would be recharging the battery on its descent.
My guess --and I'm pulling numbers out of my ass-- is that a Tesla might use 50% of its charge to go from Sacramento up to the top of Donner Pass, but then it might only need to use another 5 to 10% of the charge to get the rest of the way to Reno.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday January 18 2015, @12:02AM
Perhaps that is so, but prospective buyers don't know until they try - and Tesla wants them to buy the car first, and only then try different routes. This is exactly the problem with Tesla that I wanted to point out. Tesla should hire a few drivers to drive a few common routes and publish all the records. It can't be that difficult. Once the energy loss is measured, it becomes trivial to add so many MJ here and so many MJ there and a charge here and a charge there... They don't even need to actually drive all the routes - it would be enough to measure performance on different inclines and different road surfaces. It would be also easy to add temperature and weather compensation once enough data is gathered. Make it as an Android/Google Maps application and let everyone try the virtual Tesla on their own trips. This is so obvious that I cannot imagine why Elon Musk hasn't figured it out. Unless, of course, it's not in his interest to figure it out...
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Friday January 16 2015, @03:27PM
I have a ~70mi round trip commute. So I doubled that for small side trips.. :)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams