Beginning of the end for Tesla & Musk ?

[adolf hamster]

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.

or to re-write that, the electric car has existed for longer than the internal combustion car and yet in all that time it still hasn't caught up in functionality and convenience, musk simply beleived that 200 years of tech it's now viable to start trying to compete and placed a multi million dollar gamble on making it work. the big players have been tinkering on and off for years with the answer always being the same- it's not ready yet.

the big corporations don't care if electric cars fail, because they want to make cars, and they'll make whatever cars will make them money and so far that's been internal combustion.

you can make anything sound how you want with the right amount of spin....

 

[Werewolf]

or to re-write that, the electric car has existed for longer than the internal combustion car and yet in all that time it still hasn't caught up in functionality and convenience, musk simply beleived that 200 years of tech it's now viable to start trying to compete and placed a multi million dollar gamble on making it work. the big players have been tinkering on and off for years with the answer always being the same- it's not ready yet.

the big corporations don't care if electric cars fail, because they want to make cars, and they'll make whatever cars will make them money and so far that's been internal combustion.

you can make anything sound how you want with the right amount of spin....

Yup

To the Car companies the idea of an electric car is nothing they're worried about, they've always changed their vehicles to go with the time and technologies, the propulsion method to them is no different to what the car is made of, or the look of the car.
If there is a way for them to make the car with a technology and sell it they'll go for it, the car industry is quite adaptable over time, but also tends to take it's time to try and make sure any major changes are going to work and be relatively safe/reliable there is no point in Ford saying "Starting in 2019 we'll only made electric cars" as even if the batteries were available a vast number of it's customers wouldn't be able to use the car normally (nowhere to charge it*/the electrical infrastructure couldn't cope with that fast a change).

Electric motors are just another propulsion system to the car industry, along with at least three different IC based ones they've used (two of which stuck around) and the old steam powered engines that some of the really early models tried.

I love the idea of an electric car, it would meet something like 99% of my needs, and I've even got space to charge it with ease already so as soon as the price drops enough we'll be looking at one, but not until they're the same sort of price as a normal car (we paid £14k for our last new car, at the moment the cheapest electric is 50-100% more).


*Just look at how few people can/do park their cars off street at the moment which instantly gives an idea of some of the issues involved in providing electric cars that are as easy to use as the IC versions, at least if you try the "you can charge it overnight" route.

 

[VincentHanna]

Electric cars will really take off from April 2020.

Why? Company car benefit in kind.

It's high for the next few years but as of the 20/21 tax year it'll be a mere 2%!

So I could contract hire a Tesla Model S through work and pay just £150 a month in tax against a car worth 70k!

Look how fast diesel engine cars took off thanks to low BIK tax for company drivers....until the government decided diesel engines and nox was actually far worse than Co2 emissions.

 

[Scania]

Here in the UK, Royal Mail for example probably have the biggest fleet of LGVs.

From memory Royal Mail is the largest operator of commercial vehicles in the U.K. (somewhat skewed by many little delivery vans) followed by Wincanton Logistics as the largest PLC, then Travis Perkins as the largest privately owned operator then Eddie Stobart.

 

[Werewolf]

From memory Royal Mail is the largest operator of commercial vehicles in the U.K. (somewhat skewed by many little delivery vans) followed by Wincanton Logistics as the largest PLC, then Travis Perkins as the largest privately owned operator then Eddie Stobart.

IIRC RM looked at converting all of their vehicles at Mt Pleasant to electric not long ago, but ran into an issue with the fact it would have used more power than the local network could supply.
I think they have got a substation now for part of their fleet to be electrified but not enough.


I suspect RM would love to move to electric (they even have the space to charge them), at least for the local delivery vehicles as it would be cheaper to run, more reliable and probably save them a packet in fuel over the life of the vehicles, but I suspect most of their depot's don't have the electrical supply or are in areas where it can be easily upgraded.

I know that some of UPS's innter city vans are electric, as I've seen a few in ML with markings saying they're electric (and IIRC a slightly different body)

 

[adolf hamster]

Yup

To the Car companies the idea of an electric car is nothing they're worried about, they've always changed their vehicles to go with the time and technologies, the propulsion method to them is no different to what the car is made of, or the look of the car.
If there is a way for them to make the car with a technology and sell it they'll go for it, the car industry is quite adaptable over time, but also tends to take it's time to try and make sure any major changes are going to work and be relatively safe/reliable there is no point in Ford saying "Starting in 2019 we'll only made electric cars" as even if the batteries were available a vast number of it's customers wouldn't be able to use the car normally (nowhere to charge it*/the electrical infrastructure couldn't cope with that fast a change).

Electric motors are just another propulsion system to the car industry, along with at least three different IC based ones they've used (two of which stuck around) and the old steam powered engines that some of the really early models tried.

I love the idea of an electric car, it would meet something like 99% of my needs, and I've even got space to charge it with ease already so as soon as the price drops enough we'll be looking at one, but not until they're the same sort of price as a normal car (we paid £14k for our last new car, at the moment the cheapest electric is 50-100% more).


*Just look at how few people can/do park their cars off street at the moment which instantly gives an idea of some of the issues involved in providing electric cars that are as easy to use as the IC versions, at least if you try the "you can charge it overnight" route.

indeed, the automotive industry might be conservative about what they put out into mass market, but they arent afraid to try new things.

i mean ford looked at the idea for nuclear powered cars, which didn't work for reasons that shouldn't be hard to figure out
gm tried to make a jet powered car, decided it wasnt viable
the steam car and electric car were big competitors in the early days, before ic wiped the floor with them with its superiority
various companies tried the wankel, although mazda were the only ones crazy enough to mass produce it
they tried hydrogen, hybrid, range extenders and pure electric

hell they even tried to make an IC engine out of plastic

and yet they still produce IC.

the other factor is also a big one- cost, i have the perfect arrangement to charge at home, the car is literally reachable from the back door without stepping outside, but i can't afford an electric car, and until they invent the battery that will still be strong and fresh after 15 years i'm gonna have to stick to IC.

there's no argument that an electric motor is a much better option for powering a vehicle than an engine, and that mechanically an electric car will be a much more reliable affair than an IC car (less brake wear, very few moving components, no gearbox etc etc) but that's not the problem, the problem is whilst a new electric car might have a 500 mile range and be charged in 30 mins, how long is that battery going to last before it dies? because i guarantee it won't be the 20+ years an IC engine can last.

 

[VincentHanna]

Ages. Because it's not like a mobile phone battery

Model S from 2012 are still going strong and has only lost about 6% capacity.

https://electrek.co/2017/09/04/how-tesla-model-s-holds-up-time/

 

[StriderX]

Ages. Because it's not like a mobile phone battery

Model S from 2012 are still going strong and has only lost about 6% capacity.

https://electrek.co/2017/09/04/how-tesla-model-s-holds-up-time/

1% a year is neat, just wait for once the batteries become dirt cheap enough that a service economy will be making investors salivate for a higher degradation.

 

[adolf hamster]

Ages. Because it's not like a mobile phone battery

Model S from 2012 are still going strong and has only lost about 6% capacity.

https://electrek.co/2017/09/04/how-tesla-model-s-holds-up-time/

a single car review? i'll hold fire until i see masses of them on the second hand market at 15+years old still plugging away.

and it's exactly like a mobile phone battery- the faster you charge it the worse it'll last, and fast charging is exactly what it's going to have to do regularly to meet the consumer demand. as others have mentioned home charging isn't going to be convenient or even possible for a lot of people in this country.

 

[Nasher]

Yep, they have not even come close to proving themselves for long term reliability yet.

Look at past examples of new takes on engines... "Oh wow Mazda has made this new fancy rotary engine and not a single one has gone wrong yet"...................

 

[Diddums]

Exactly, this is something I've been wondering about for a while.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/battery-degradation.18820818/

 

[b0rn2sk8]

This old chestnut again, there is a lot of simply wrong information in this thread.

Musk only created Tesla because of the actions of GM after they crushed all the EV1's they made in the 90's. I would suggest people go and watch the 'who killed the electric car?' documentary and look a bit deeper into the history of Tesla.

Anyway back on topic, Tesla are not going bust. Asking supplies to reduce their prices is part and parcel of doing business, its only news because well.... it's Tesla....

GM do this, Ford do this, BMW do this, the media hype around this company is unreal, from both 'the cult of Elon' and 'the shorts'. You really need to look beyond the media reports before jumping to conclusions.

Most people just don't understand how difficult it is to mas produce something as complex as a car, its easy to make a few but its really hard to make 5k a week. It takes an insane amount of money and Tesla have only really been 'mass' producing cars for 6 years. Within those 6 years most of that was just the S & X which are pretty low volume in reality, especially in the early days.

Lets also be realistic, Model S and X have a big gross margin, Model 3 should be in the region of 30% at the current production rate, its just Tesla energy that has a negative gross margin but that is now spooling up and is going to change. The money is getting spend building out the infrastructure needed to be a proper car company, they own their own dealer network, they own their own fast chargers, they have a very deep relationship with their battery supplier and have the most vertically integrated supply chain of any car company. They will be the only western auto maker to wholly own their own venture in China, the biggest and fastest growing market in the world, everyone else is 50% owned by the Chinese government and is forced to share their IP. They are in a fairly comfortable position currently.

If you look at the announcements that the traditional companies are making regarding investment these days you will see the amount of money it takes to bring a new car to market, let alone make thousands of them a week. This is from companies that have been doing it for a 100 years and have established manufacturing facilities and supply chains but you are still talking £10+ billion over a few years for a couple of models. VW have announced £70 billion of investment in EV's over the last few months...

We should be asking when Faraday Future is going bust, their total 'new investment' of just £2 billion is less than Tesla burns in a year still.

 

[Fusion]

We should be asking when Faraday Future is going bust, their total 'new investment' of just £2 billion is less than Tesla burns in a year still.

Despite what you read in the press, they don't seem to be moving anywhere (company I work for was looking at supplying them with certain items).

 

[Orionaut]

IIRC RM looked at converting all of their vehicles at Mt Pleasant to electric not long ago, but ran into an issue with the fact it would have used more power than the local network could supply.
I think they have got a substation now for part of their fleet to be electrified but not enough.


I suspect RM would love to move to electric (they even have the space to charge them), at least for the local delivery vehicles as it would be cheaper to run, more reliable and probably save them a packet in fuel over the life of the vehicles, but I suspect most of their depot's don't have the electrical supply or are in areas where it can be easily upgraded.

I know that some of UPS's innter city vans are electric, as I've seen a few in ML with markings saying they're electric (and IIRC a slightly different body)

I always wondered what happened to "Pedestrian controlled vehicles"

One of the limitations for RM dealing with internet shopping is that there is a limit to how much an on-foot postie can physically carry.

But back in the 60/70's Posties used these electrically propelled vehicles that were a bit like terry pratchets Luggage

You walked ahead of it, held on to its lead, and it followed you.

I would have thought that something like that would be ideal for the crossover between delivering letters on foot and actually also being able to deliver small to medium sized parcels at the same time.

 

[dowie]

I sometimes think we've regressed a bit in some areas.

I remember when I was a kid we'd get up in the morning and collect some milk bottles that had been left at the door buy a guy driving an electric vehicle. We'd also put out some empty bottles to be taken away, washed and reused.

So we already had a delivery vehicle with zero emissions + re-use of the bottles (no plastic waste).

There was the matter of the foil bottle caps, though they could be recycled at the recycling bins behind the village church.

These days milk comes from the supermarket in plastic bottles and either goes into a land fill or gets recycled in a rather less efficient manner with additional pollution added.

The whole milk float thing was ahead of its time, it would be cool to see that sort of system being brought back again but perhaps delivering all sorts of groceries and with more options for containers that can be returned, washed and reused for packing more food products.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Despite what you read in the press, they don't seem to be moving anywhere (company I work for was looking at supplying them with certain items).

Indeed that was my point, the likes of Ford and VW get a lot of criticism from the EV press for a lot of talk and not much action but Faraday Future are just vapour ware. The car was meant to launch this year.

I am also very sceptical on Byton, the car they 'launched' with the specs they touted combined with the price tag announced just do not agree.

 

[FortuitousFluke]

Electric cars will really take off from April 2020.

Why? Company car benefit in kind.

It's high for the next few years but as of the 20/21 tax year it'll be a mere 2%!

So I could contract hire a Tesla Model S through work and pay just £150 a month in tax against a car worth 70k!

Look how fast diesel engine cars took off thanks to low BIK tax for company drivers....until the government decided diesel engines and nox was actually far worse than Co2 emissions.

And suddenly i have a compelling reason to move into the private sector.

 

[VincentHanna]

Unfortunately it's about £1000 a month to contract hire one

Jaguar i-pace is more like £600 a month despite costing a similar amount and being more luxurious inside.

 

[Em3bbs]

The whole milk float thing was ahead of its time, it would be cool to see that sort of system being brought back again but perhaps delivering all sorts of groceries and with more options for containers that can be returned, washed and reused for packing more food products.

It still exists, still use EVs and they do sell other groceries, https://www.milkandmore.co.uk/.

When I tried it, it was expensive and the milkman would only deliver a few days a week and not at a specific time so sometimes the milk was left out in the sun all day, just like in the old days. I can't see why I'd swap supermarket online shopping for it again.

 

[dowie]

It still exists, still use EVs and they do sell other groceries, https://www.milkandmore.co.uk/.

When I tried it, it was expensive and the milkman would only deliver a few days a week and not at a specific time so sometimes the milk was left out in the sun all day, just like in the old days. I can't see why I'd swap supermarket online shopping for it again.

Well I'm not suggesting that you do, what I'm suggesting is improvements to online shopping.