Care to elaborate?
Tesla has a market cap larger than Ford. Tesla also has been on the edge of bankruptcy every couple years and recently raised $1 billion in capital.
fully refundable deposits, whose quantity hasn't been disclosed since very early on
Broadly, no way do I believe that many people, not even fleets, especially not individuals, will put up with the charging time of a battery powered car. It's just so darned much more convenient to fill up a 20 gallon tank with gasoline.
My guess is that the promise of electric cars was boosted by both the anti-fossil fuel push and the self-driving push. IMHO, with Trump, the anti-fossil fuel people just lost, big time, for a long time. E.g., we won't have carbon taxes, the theme will be "drill, baby, drill", and US gasoline prices are on the way down. For self-driving, my view is that the lawyers will make the insurance rates too high and more lawyers will pass some very restrictive laws. Then self-driving will be for some special cases and/or will need a lot of highway engineering that will take a lot of time and money and won't happen for years. For more, no way can Tesla do something significant that GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, BMW, MB, Kia, etc. can't do just as well or better. E.g., there were electric cars ~100 years ago, and the story has been the same since then or as a Ford exec once said "You build me a good battery, and I will build you a good electric car." For a while there was some hope for a capacitor, which can be charged as fast as the electric power connection permits, but that approach seems to have flopped. Finally, I'm guessing that Musk has had a lot of subsidies, and I have to guess that Trump will turn off that faucet. Net, I see no real hope for Tesla. IMHO, Tesla is going down, soon. So, some smart and/or lucky short sellers stand to make a bundle.
This may not hold true in the near future. With charging stations capable of putting out 350kW, we will have drastically reduced charging times. [0]
> Finally, I'm guessing that Musk has had a lot of subsidies, and I have to guess that Trump will turn off that faucet.
Actually, Tesla doesn't lose much if ZEV credits go away... In fact, the way things stand, other auto manufacturers are able to fully monetize their ZEV credits, while Tesla only makes 50 cents on the dollar. [1]
[0] - https://electrek.co/2016/12/26/tesla-supercharger-v3-zev-cre...
[1] - http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-trump-decision-on-e...
For self-driving, there's no way that's going to be held back once it's better than a human driver. The demand is going to be incredibly high, and insurance companies will probably charge human drivers more - they tend to be very good about accurately assessing risk and charging accordingly.
Those other car companies tend to be very lacking on the software side of things.
Have you ever driven a Tesla?
Feel free to short it, but I think it's a very bad idea.
> Have you ever driven a Tesla?
No, but I fully accept that a powerful electric car would be a total hoot to drive. So, it would be quiet, smooth as silk, and be the fastest accelerating wheel driven vehicle so far. The key, of course, has been known for 100+ years: A series wound electric motor has, from the view of the math, infinitely large torque at stall, that is, before the armature has started to rotate. Then, before the armature is rotating very fast, the torque is still very high.
Also, get to put a separate motor at each wheel and do without a transmission, drive shaft, differentials, etc. So, get rid of a lot of mechanical parts. Also get rid of the often corroded exhaust system.
The torque and power can get from a carefully designed electric motor now is astounding.
Moreover, there may be some good opportunities to adjust dynamically, many times a second, the motor torque separately at each wheel to eliminate wheel spin, which actually hurts acceleration.
Again, my main concern is charging time: E.g., for summer driving, will want A/C, and that can take a lot of power; in the winter, want heat, and that also takes power.
Do a lot of high performance driving, and a Tesla is to be regarded as a high performance car, accelerating onto Interstate highways, passing cars, trucks, farm equipment on two lane roads, driving at 90 MPH, etc., can use a lot of battery energy. Once when I drove from my home in Maryland to my office at FedEx in Memphis, I drove my Camaro nearly the whole way at about 90 MPH -- didn't get stopped. Once when I was driving at night from Maryland to Indiana to see my fiance, I drove my Firebird nearly the whole way at 90 MPH -- didn't get stopped. I was lusting for pencil beam high speed driving lights, an air horn that could be heard for miles, and a more powerful fuel pump for pulling long hills at 100 MPH at full throttle at about 5000 RPM (Camaro 396, Turbo 400 transmission, second gear, 2.56 rear axle ratio) -- did that daily driving home from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab!
When Dad and I went fishing in Arkansas, I did the driving, before dawn, while he slept, and I put our Buick on 100 MPH and kept it there. For people driving near the Rocky Mountains, they can want a lot of battery energy to climb hills.
Mostly just for commuting to work, I've put 200,000+ miles on each of three cars, a high end Camaro, a Buick Turbo T-Type, and a slow one, an SUV.
So, to me, a car means a lot of driving, maybe fast driving. So, that would make me concerned about Tesla charging time. That a Tesla can be considered a high performance car gives me more concern about charging time if that performance were used very much, e.g., as I have used high performance cars in the past.
My other concern about a Tesla would be the lifetime of the battery after a few thousand full rechargings as might be needed for 200,000+ miles of high performance driving.
For high performance driving, I'm lusting for a supercharged Corvette, and I'm happy that all it needs for energy is premium gasoline! :-)!
But yeah, charging up mountains at 100 mph will probably give you less than 3 hours :-D
Re driving fun, the torque is great, but I think the biggest thing is 0 throttle lag. Less of a problem with a supercharger than my old twin turbo, but still not instant like this. It's worth taking on a test drive, that's what really convinced me that this was the future. That and the 0-60 times of a 7 seater on par with an M5 (at the time), and the relative mechanical simplicity, and the better marginal economics, etc.
But, the 100 KWh is 123 HP for an hour or 61 HP for 2 hours or 30 HP for 4 hours. That's not a lota juice.
Apparently gasoline, burned, releases
33.4 KWH
So, the Tesla battery has the energy of burning 3 gallons of gasoline.
If a gasoline powered car is 33% efficient, then the 100 KWH of a Tesla is about like a 10 gallon tank of gasoline.
Hmm -- my old Chevy S-10 Blazer has a 20 gallon tank for gasoline, and I can fill it in a few minutes.
But if only want to zip, the fantastic acceleration, around Manhattan a little during the week and take a 2 hour round trip to the Hamptons on weekends, then it appears that a Tesla will work!
IIRC, the time I used my Firebird to blast overnight from my place in Maryland to my fiance in Indiana, the whole trip was about 9 hours. At the speeds I was driving, I might have been using 100 HP. So, the Tesla battery might have lasted a little over an hour. On that trip, even with gasoline, I had to stop a few times. A Tesla would have been a bummer, make me late to get to my fiance, in particular, truncate my manhood -- OUCH!
Car was a Firebird 400 4 speed with, sadly, a 3.23 rear axle ratio. The first gear was 2.52, and fourth was 1.0. Bummer. Now, wisely, much wider ratios are common and more gears, e.g., in the Corvette automatic 8 gears. So, can try to compete with a Tesla for standing start acceleration but on a highway in one of the higher gears cruise along at maybe 1200 RPM and get maybe 28 MPG. Gasoline powered cars have been improving, too!
It just hit me: Maybe a Tesla is using the electric motors also for braking and, then, also charging the battery! Nice.
Trains and big boats commonly have a Diesel engine driving a generator and the generator driving electric motors -- "Look, Ma, no or a perfect transmission!". Could also have a battery in there! Use the battery around town, and charge the battery with the engine.