Is that why all the big guns are investing billions upon billions in the development of electric tech?
Beginning of the end for Tesla & Musk ?
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Is that why all the big guns are investing billions upon billions in the development of electric tech?
Caporegime
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Early guestimates seem to have it at about 2 tonnes heavier, but that's just it, guessing. However lets pretend it's true and point out some things from there. How much can be hauled is one thing but that's weighed against how much fuel costs. If a massive trucking company with thousands upon thousands of trucks in the US builds up recharging stations across their routes next to massive renewable plants.... then the cost of recharging can be dropped significantly. As can the massive cost of maintenance and repairs because frankly electric motors are simple as hell with fewer parts to fail.
Currently filling up a truck is important because fuel efficiency wise they give the best price per KG of cargo hauled with a full truck. So hauling less is only bad when you have the same fuel costs and hauling less would reduce your overall costs. If the charging costs end up lower than fuel then hauling less isn't automatically worse. It's all about fuel cost vs haul capacity. If you can haul 15% less but the fuel costs drop 40%, it's cheaper.
But that is now, the future holds more potential for weight reduction in batteries than in extremely well developed petrol/diesel engines so 10 years from now the batteries would likely have dropped in weight far more than normal engines.
That's before again you factor in things like noise, pollution and the savings companies can make or the ease with which their companies can hit emissions targets, the way they can deliver stuff out of busy hours in the middle of the night without getting noise complaints from big noisy engines. How much fuel is wasted idling in traffic jams on motorways and in cities for a truck while an electric engine will waste next to nothing in the same situation.
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Oh I don't doubt that the batteries will likely end up cheaper than fuel in a like for like scenario, my point (that I didn't really make) was more that less load capacity = more trucks on the road and more trucks = more production, more tyres, parts etc and more batteries that will eventually need to disposing of in a way that doesn't harm the environment if we're to keep everything "green"
Caporegime
Also how long are the trucks going to be off the road on each battery recharge? Wasting hours of productivity .
Caporegime
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Drivers legally have to take breaks, and according to Tesla they will be able to go 500 miles on a single charge, and 30 minutes will get them another 400 miles using a 'Megacharger'....
When the Model 3 launched last year, Tesla outlined an ambitious plan that would have seen them capitalise on their head start. There was a huge lack of battery supply, rendering other manufacturers unable to compete. By the end of this year, Tesla would have had a huge lead; 500,000 units manufactured, the car launched in Europe, and the mass market "Standard" version launched.
But Tesla suffered their own manufacturing problems. And now the European launch is delayed by a year. The launch of the "Standard" spec is on the back burner. And production is looking like it'll only hit 150k. The battery supply issues ailing other manufacturers are easing off. The next 18 months will see a huge increase in competition.
Regardless of Tesla's financial situation, their position in the market is looking a lot worse than it did twelve months ago. The first <£30k EV with more than 250 mile of range won't be the Model 3. It'll be the Hyundai Kona EV, launching in a couple of weeks. It'll be followed by new EVs from most of the big manufacturers over the next year, at a range of price points. Whether they have the money to keep going or not, the head start they had is no more. They'll be competing directly with the established players going forward.
But Tesla suffered their own manufacturing problems. And now the European launch is delayed by a year. The launch of the "Standard" spec is on the back burner. And production is looking like it'll only hit 150k. The battery supply issues ailing other manufacturers are easing off. The next 18 months will see a huge increase in competition.
Regardless of Tesla's financial situation, their position in the market is looking a lot worse than it did twelve months ago. The first <£30k EV with more than 250 mile of range won't be the Model 3. It'll be the Hyundai Kona EV, launching in a couple of weeks. It'll be followed by new EVs from most of the big manufacturers over the next year, at a range of price points. Whether they have the money to keep going or not, the head start they had is no more. They'll be competing directly with the established players going forward.
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Soldato
Except for the fact that pretty much every single car company is investing heavily in hybrid, electric or hydrogen tech? They know that big changes are coming whether they like it or not.
Soldato
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I knew a guy like Musk (admittedly not on his scale). He got very lucky in business and made a lot of money in a short time. Instead of acknowledging his good fortune, he attributed it all to his business acumen, and assumed he had the Midas touch. Several terrible investments later and he’s gone from a net worth of ~£7m back to a 9-5. It’s a very good 9-5, but still a huge step down.
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Yeah and it's not like they have a choice
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...nd-diesel-car-ban-forward-2030-green-alliance
30/20 years isn't that far off so if they want to keep selling cars to the UK they need to start developing tech which allows them to do so or else they lose an entire market
Soldato
Their hand has been forced. They'd love to see electric cars fail and to keep the status quo, it suits them. Maybe the tide has turned too far now but I honestly believe that if they could kill off Tesla (and other pure electric car companies) then they would.
There's a certain irony to a company called Tesla being owned by the modern day Edison xD
Caporegime
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There is currently a shortage of drivers. The limitation isn't time on the road, it's legal hours drivers can drive. In the EU it's 9 hours most days 10 hours twice a week, 56 hours max in one week, 90hours max in consecutive weeks.
It takes half an hour to get almost max capacity on the battery, drivers have to spent ~2/3rds of most days not driving, 30 mins or 6 hours charging wouldn't make any real difference.
I'd say that view is a few years out of date. Tesla could go pop tomorrow and it would make little difference to the long-term success or failure of electric vehicles. Tesla has its rivals, within the established motor industry, in tech start-ups, and in giant Chinese businesses that will surely turn to the global market eventually. Electrification will continue because nobody wants to hand an advantage to the competition.
If Tesla went bust a few years back, when the industry was openly skeptical about EVs, then maybe. It may have signalled the end of the electric experiment, or it may have opened the door wide to Chinese companies in the early 2020s. But it won't make much difference now. Unless Tesla's fortunes turn around, they won't even be a hugely significant player five years from now. They've already lost the top spot.
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What domestic us road freight company makes the hundreds of billions a year needed to break into the infrastructure market?
Not to mention how long wpuld that actually take to pay for itself.
Vs using lighter trucks hauling more using good old fuel?
Amazon.
Soldato
UPS, Fedex, DHL, all of the oil companies (deliveries of fuel to petrol stations), etc.
Here in the UK, Royal Mail for example probably have the biggest fleet of LGVs.
Here in the UK, Royal Mail for example probably have the biggest fleet of LGVs.
The costs of buying fuel however pale in comparison to the costs of building power plants and your own private net work of charging stations.
They would much rather have billions in profit within thier investors life time
What a load of rubbish, the first known electric car was built in 1837. That's approaching two hundred years ago. General Motors have been tinkering with them for decades, and not one off concepts either, they even released a proper production car which was in production for three years. What about BMW's electric car which they made in 1972? It's only due to battery tech and reduced production costs in recent years that they've become somewhat affordable to produce on a mass scale, Tesla just happened to get there first and kick start a new round of leccy cars development.
I haven't even mentioned the hybrid cars that many of the mainstream manufacturers have been producing for at least a decade.
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Citing electric cars from the 1830s is like saying Intel merely carried on from the the abacus. Musk has dragged the industry kicking and screaming- they were majorly stuck in the past. Maybe we could have had more viable electric options by now if the big players had got their act together earlier.
Like this
That's not what we were discussing though, he said that the big corps would like to see leccy cars fail, that's nonsense.