Tesla Q4 2019 Vehicle Production and Deliveries
ir.tesla.com
ir.tesla.com
Yes, its "luxury" is not up to the price. Sure, the customer service sucks. Yeah, repairs take a long time.
But for me, when I ride in a Tesla, I get a giddy feeling, like the first time I held an iPhone. You just know it's the future. There are so many radical, bold, and correct ideas. Every time I get a software update I'm a kid on Christmas morning. It is just such a fun experience, and for those of you who love to be on the bleeding edge, you'd probably love it too.
It's not a car for everyone but I get the same feeling about Tesla as I did about Apple when they came out with the iPhone. 8 years later and no company has managed to come up with a car that seriously competes with the 2012 Model S. Tesla was the first to market and remains the market leader. They've solidified their position in the minds of Americans. They have a grand vision and they're executing on it. This company is headed to the moon.
I'm happy that a new car company is challenging the rest of the auto industry on what a car should be and forcing them to drastically improve their products rather than incremental changes every year. Now we are seeing new car companies pop up ( Rivian ) that are following Tesla's footsteps. It is all very exciting to me.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I have a hard time not extrapolating the OTA update experience from other software (desktop, phone OS’s) to cars too: updates breaking features inadvertently but with no prompt fix, injecting new spyware against your will but with no real alternate, updated terms of service that you have no choice but to agree to if you want to be able to drive home, etc.
Given the track record with OTA software updates everywhere else, we need positive assurance that the there won’t be these same profitable compromises of user experience, privacy, freedom, etc. eventually for these cars. Because the status quo is quite the opposite. Have you read the terms of service and related documents you signed when buying your Tesla, in full?
I fully agree about self driving / driver assistance though, and for example am thrilled that Toyota now includes in all their new cars (for free, as a base feature) their entire autonomous drivers assistance sensor suite and features: adaptive cruise control (works in stop and go traffic), lane steering assistance, automatic braking, automatic high/low beams, etc. (and it all works very reliably in my experience). I know it’s nothing like the autonomous features Tesla offers in their upgrade package, but this is a very welcome change in the industry.
I think in the end we need some type of regulation or oversight on this because a company being either carelessly aggressive or anti-consumer with OTA updates is a serious risk, but that doesn't mean the potential of OTA updates should be thrown out with the bath water.
[1] - https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/tesla-model-3-get...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
Maybe I'm just paranoid though.
I just drove from Seattle to Portland on 3hr without any manual intervention. Was a blast.
Toyotas are great, I’ve always loved their simplicity and how long they last. I hope they have a good line up of electric cars soon.
well as to the one fear, being tracked all the time. do you have a smart phone? okay, you are tracked.
as to whether or not you need to fear being remotely disabled by the manufacturer that remains to be seen. what is more worrisome would be government mandating a manufacturer do it to one or more cars or the idea if a company folds a keep alive feature or such fails and all the cars go dark.
as to bugs, well that is a real issue and what perfect timing you have. recently Tesla made this big push to deliver version 2019.40.50.x in order to give people this preview on full self driving. Namely showing that it indeed recognizes lights, signs on the road and alongside, and more. However two issues.
1. I have had four .x updates since the first for bugs. Even .7 which just got to me Thursday crashes the display if you do sort your contact list you can crash the display and it has to reboot. The car still drives, just no display until it reboots
2. To see the FSD demo features you need HW3 which means all TM3s prior to recent do not have that but instead have HW2.5 Those who bought FSD either with the car or after were promised it included a HW3 upgrade that was heavily hinted as being performed before EOY19. It was not and Telsa has gone dark, meaning they won't give you a date or anything when asked. Telsa is going to piss off a lot of owners if they make this right
Now OTA is finally resolving issues many have had with lack of features other brands have had for a long time. You can finally select the track of music playing from your BT phone in the current playlist... clumsy but it works. You however cannot select which playlist to play. Voice commands finally showed up but Tesla does not provide a list of them, for that you have to rely on 3rd party sites for a quick list. [0]
As for FSD itself, all the safety side features are pretty much growing to be common place in other brands. Not consistent though and you do need to buy a new car each time you want improved or new features of it; unlike Tesla. Meaning a 2019 Corolla cannot do what a 2020 can in regards of programmable safety. This does not mean Telsa has the implementation, just that unlike other brands if they add a feature you don't need a whole new car to get it. The key FSD feature is that a Tesla will drive on nearly any road for you and do it very competently. Some brands geofence where you can use it.
[0] https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/voice-command...
I own a Chevy Volt, and I know I'll never own a non-electric car again. Yes, I know my car has a gas engine, but I almost never use it (it is still very handy to keep me from having "range anxiety"), and honestly when it does switch on it just reminds me how I never want to own a pure-ICE car again.
In terms of performance, they're 90-95% as good as the gas models they replaced. But they bring so many other benefits to the table that I'm simply not ever going to go back -- mostly the lack of exhaust fumes, the much lower (and less messy) maintenance, and much much quieter.
There's still some use-cases where the gas variants are better, just like in vehicles, but they are few and far between and it's often worth it to just figure out how to get around using the gas models.
I really don't think there's a turning back at this point. It's really now a matter of filling out all the market ecosystems with electric vehicles.
i've got a strong hatred for the loud, smelly 2 stroke engines that wake me when trying to rest, and then the fumes... ugh.
im sure the anti-gov regulations people will disagree but, i cant wait for 2 stroke lawn equipment to be banned. there’s no way commercial gardeners will willingly switch to something more expensive with a shorter runtime unless forced to.
It's best not to think of them as straight up replacements in all cases because there is overlap. Think about drivers and wrenches, do you own battery powered versions? Have they completely replaced your traditional drivers or wrenches? Have they completely replaced your corded power tools? Do you have multiple 12/18/20/24v variants of the same tool?
If someone asked me to mow the lawn at my last home with a battery powered lawn mower, I would have laughed in their face. The roots and rocks in the lawn would have destroyed an electric mower's blade on the first mow. At my current home I would consider it, but yard size might be a limiting factor. For the home I'm in the process of purchasing it will be preferred as the yard is so small..
For really hard woods I get about 30-45 min out of the chain saw per battery. I use it for chopping up fallen trees (I live in a heavily-wooded area) so haven't done firewood exactly. I have 2 batteries and I get tired before I run down the second one.
Its kinda fun how it goes from dead silent to ripping through a tree. Although the bar length is probably too short for your needs. Plus a cord is a lot of wood (to me).
I figured anything that needs a more powerful chainsaw is best left to a professional anyway, so the battery-powered saw acts like a built-in buffer on hurting myself.
One of the things that might not be clear to users of the gas equipment, when you say "30-45 min" that means active cutting. Unlike a 2-stroke, it doesn't have to be burning gas to be ready to cut.
OTOH, there's no fussing, it's quieter, and I also got a brush cutter attachment which can handle some places I pretty much had to do manually before.
The thought of owning an ICE vehicle after owning a Tesla Model 3 for a year (Nov 2018 is when we took delivery) just does not sound appetizing whatsoever. My wife, who was originally a skeptic, is the one that suggested we sell our 2011 Ford Fiesta after purchasing the Tesla.
So you could have easily afforded a more expensive care but thought, "na, I'll go with the Fiesta. I don't like spending money on cars" but then said, "oh hell ya, I'm buying the Tesla" because you've got 40K burning a hole in your pocket?
Part of it is the age, but part of it is that gas cars are designed to be driven. Letting them sit for any period of time will cause headaches. Electric cars should, in theory, be better in that regard as long as you leave them plugged in.
I'm actually buying a new (used) car right now. Around the $15k mark, I can get e.g. a 4 year old 7 seater that's done 60k miles. Based on my previous car ownership, I expect to spend around $700/year on average on maintenance, and around $1000/year on fuel. In total, I can expect a first year total cost of 700+1000+1500 = $3200 of which the biggest cost is a 10% depreciation. If I were to buy a $40k Model 3 (with less seats, less cargo capacity) that had 0 maintenance and 0 fuel cost, I'd still spend $4000 the first year to depreciation alone. 4000 > 3200. How are you saving anything?
FWIW, we got every feature on a Model 3 AWD LR sans the 19" wheels, performance, and the white interior. After tax and whatnot it worked out to around $68,000. It had nothing to do with price, but with features / functionality. We bought one of the "higher end" Fiestas (the SEL) in 2011 and I think it worked out to around $20k after all of the options, dealer mess, and taxes.
It's a Ford Fiesta, you're not saying much here.
Per https://supercharge.info/changes, Tesla opened, on average, 16 new superchargers in America per month. With the new supercharger v3 rollout it just means even more options. Our Model 3 has a range of 310 miles and there aren't a ton of places we'd actually want to go that we can't go thanks to the supercharger network. Other companies who are trying to make decent EVs still haven't solved the charging problem. EVgo is probably the best fast charging EV network outside of Tesla's, but they're only currently in California I believe.
My wife and I have a model S and a model X and we are seriously considering buying an extremely old 4x4 truck for hauling firewood, trash etc. That's about it however - I'd never go back to an ICE car for regular transport and if it were five years from now I'd get a used Cyber Truck instead of the ICE pickup.
My only real concern is some kind of disaster with a long-term power outage. I live near Seattle and Solar simply isn't cost-efficient compared to the very cheap (and green) hydro power that we have and the PowerWall batteries just don't seem good enough yet to bother getting them. I may go for a natural gas generator to help with any serious outages but that's about it.
My parents in the UK don't have garage space (which is very common there - street parking is the norm in many places) and so they are stuck with ICE for the foreseeable future until infrastructure improves enough that they can charge nightly without needing garage space.
I live in an apartment in a not so big city in the US and don't have access to chargers. I still find it very convenient to find places to charge my Tesla and never worry about it!
But, man, no more stinky, rattling gas-burners, please. I hop in that Scion, it feels primitive. Even our lawn tools are electric. The Honda generator is the only reason to keep a gas can around.
I plan to run my Model S into the ground, at which point I imagine the traditional manufacturers will have pulled their fingers out and I can start cycling through second hand electric Honda Civic equivalents like I did with ICE cars.
But yeah, I can't fathom spending big bucks on an ICE vehicle anymore. It just feels so dated and archaic.
If you're waiting for either of the brands that start with T and end with A (which, let's be honest here are the only brands most people here will buy a truck from, because reasons) to make a traditional style pickup that happens to be electric you'll be waiting a long time because one has gone all in on being unconventional with their trucks and the other is allergic to new technology.
It seats 7 comfortably and while not fully electric, it scratches our electric-car itch fairly well. Even in hybrid-only mode, we can get 28-30 mpg .. and in "electric" mode, it registers as about 65-75 mpg.
Model Y could be interesting. The new Pacifica is stepping in the right direction.
Several states require an apartment complex to allow you to install a charger (at your own cost). I think you'll see renters starting to make rental choices based on EV charger availability, too early to tell though. As a landlord, I've installed EV charging stations at no cost for my tenants, gotta be the change you want to see.
It's like plugging your laptop in when you get to the office.
Most ICE adherents still don't grasp: every morning, your EV is "topped off" and ready to go full range. Rare long trips aside, you never have to "go to the station to fill up" - which you must every few days with gas.
In a city it all makes sense - the grid has been there for ages, and how many trips are really longer than 200km RT in your average larger city?
I’m never going ICE again, if I can help it.
Companies must milk those R&D costs though... not to mention the oil industry. Money really is a double-edged sword.
I even implemented one of the UI elements in my sass application. I can't imagine saying that about any other car "infotainment" system.
It is really nice to have maps/nav/spotify NOT dependent on my phone or even my phone's cellular connection. There is zero latency from the time I sit down in the driver's seat until I am ready to go. Nothing to connect. Nothing to boot. No apps to open up.
I walk up to my car. Open the door. Sit down. Push a button on the steering wheel. Say "Drive home". Push down on the "stalk" (turn signal, but on the right). And press the accelerator. No key or fob. No ignition. No gear shift.
Steering wheel buttons / stalk controls I can use without looking, but Tesla has those as well.
The risk of using the touchscreen in my Tesla vs using a tactile control in a traditional car is night and day in favor of the Tesla. Even if you have to look at the screen and not tactile controls.
I don't miss physical dash buttons either, because figuring out the touch screen is pretty natural. Just like any other software. Plus it is nice to have new buttons added from time to time.
It can't just be "no CarPlay is a dealbreaker".
Of all the infotainment systems I've used, including Android Auto, Tesla's is the best by orders of magnitude.
Deals are context dependent. This should read "a deal breaker for <someone>". Clearly it's not a deal breaker for you, which is fine. Could very well be a deal breaker for someone else.
Would you ever seriously consider an Apple iPhone? Given comments you've made regarding iOS and Apple in the past, I suspect not, which makes the whole point moot in your context.
Different people value things differently. That's okay, and you don't need to agree with their value judgements. Refusing to see that other's value judgements are okay for them—while not necessarily the same as yours—is important.
The difference I see with Tesla is that many owners will say that the Tesla UX makes carplay redundant, outside of the iPhone's lockdown on sending/receiving texts and whatnot (although maybe they have an entitlement to use it, certain uses like Google Glass/Focals by North/Cars seem like something Apple would give text message permission to).
Other than typing in an address to navigate, or setting a particularly weird preference, the tactile controls on the steering wheel do just about everything and it's all I ever use.
One of the biggest problems for most people about EV adoption is range. No one really beats Tesla on this datapoint just yet. Not Jaguar, not VW, not Mercedes, and not Porsche. VW's ID.3 should beat that, but it won't even be released in the US and isn't out until the middle to end of this year.
I own a Bolt in Maine and absolutely love it.
I assume you're talking about EPA range, which in and of itself is problematic. The 2019 I-PACE is not comparable to the 2012 Model S. It's comparable to the 2019 Model X.
That said, recent software tweaks that Jaguar has made put its range at over 250 miles. This is even with Jaguar holding back a portion of the battery pack to prevent premature degradation. Comparing Jaguar's 2019 EV to its equivalent (class and price) 2019 EV from Tesla, it has more range.
"Fill up time" is one, EVs don't regularly "fill up".
Tactile controls is another. Between auto settings (lights, wipers, etc), voice (you can now turn the vents with your voice) and the streering wheel knobs (volume, etc), asking for "tactile controls" is like asking the wrong question.
The wipers are automatic and initially (like 18 months ago) they weren't good. But instead of asking "why couldn't they put simple tactile wiper controls" a much better question was "Why can't they train a neural net and make the car smarter so the wipers work better than manual controls?"
And the answer was, yeah they could. And they did and today the wipers are quite good.
I get that I am an outlier compared to most Tesla owners who weigh things differently. I'll just be glad when there are alternatives at the level of battery, drivetrain, and mechanical & aerodynamic efficiency of a Tesla that take a different tack on controls, interfaces, and remote access.
But I agree with @null_turkey - after the Model 3, it's clear any vehicle I would buy next for daily or near-daily use would not have a pure ICE drivetrain; at a minimum, it would need to be a plug-in hybrid.
My S and X both have "normal" wiper controls on a stick attached to the steering wheel, although I almost never use it since they are set to automatically turn on and change intensity depending on rainfall.
That said, I miss CarPlay for Messages (recently added to Tesla but not as good) and better Spotify controls (how exactly is Tesla sorting albums?). I guess Waze, too.
I think if you wanted to own a Tesla and never use the touchscreen while driving, it would be entirely possible although you wouldn't get access to some infotainment features that many other cars don't have anyway. With voice commands, though, a lot of those would work anyway.
Tesla allows you to do all three of the things you stated while keeping your eyes on the road. I can do these things in my Model 3 today.
Tesla already has some tactile controls - they're on the steering wheel. I think people are just asking for more of them. If Tesla continued along in the same vein, a few more software defined controls wouldn't hurt UX updates at all - they would just give users more options for the UX functions they use most often.
> It doesn't appear either complaint is inhibiting sales.
People buy cars as entire units, they don't buy features piecemeal. I could just as easily claim Tesla is selling cars in spite of its dearth of tactile controls.
The cockpit in my current car, a Mustang GT, is pretty stellar. It’s got the performance pack so it comes with an oil pressure and vacuum gauge on the dash. Between that and the center display showing me tire pressures (can see the PSI of each corner) or oil temperature and I’m golden. https://rallyways.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/new_2015_mu...
It’s very driver focused. You’re low in the car and the central tunnel is very high so you feel like you’re in a tank.
Anyway... the same giddy feelings you have when you drive your Model 3 are similar to the feelings I have when I drive this thing. The V8 revving to 7k is sublime, especially when the moisture is high in the air and the exhaust really starts to crackle and pop.
I’m not against EV vehicles by any means. I think they are awesome and will certainly own one at some point. But for a while I’m gonna keep playing with my physical switches and gauges. Beating the hell out of a high revving motor with a six speed will never get old.
The rear deck and door sills on our model 3 are ridiculously high but the view out the front is amazing, like a Porsche or better. Super low dash, low fenders, you're looking on the road RIGHT in front of you. Not 20 feet down the road past a long high hood.
OTOH, in my track car (BMW M Coupe) I can actually see out the rear and sides.
You really lost me there.
What's a noise got to do with anything - to see how silly it is, just put on speakers and turn on a revving sound. Or get an electric vehicle the generates a revving sound (inside your vehicle preferably to others) - so now tell me what's the revving sound do?
It's easily fixed, and I predict before too long the premium makes like Porsche, Aston etc will get there, simply by including sound profiles in their EVs. Car makers already tune cabin and door sound, so it sounds "right", and have varying baffles to send more engine note to the cabin when you hit sport mode. They can figure out downloadable sound packs to go with their EVs -- choose your favourite from straight six, v8, v12 etc, maybe some completely off the wall ones.
Probably sensible to pipe some limited amount of that outside the car too, considering many EVs are dangerously silent at low speed, and some jurisdictions are bringing in a minimum EV sound level below 25mph (IIRC) to compensate.
The Audi e-Tron does the same. I walked by one the other day that was reversing out of a parking spot and it sounded extremely strange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUcbXplAvSc
https://youtu.be/ECpM31zrdMY (skip to :30 seconds -- this might be the most badass thing I have ever seen)
https://youtu.be/XOl9O9FSB9E (skip a few minutes in ... but this is a horrible driver and not the best sound quality)
So to answer your question noise matters a lot - to a lot of people.
You can't explain it because it is all in your head, it is an illusion, a subjective sense of empowerment that does not actually exist. It is a yearning by people that cannot make any other mark in the world, just a big noise. Look how much noise I can make! It is an atavistic feeling of the lizard brain.
You are neither better, nor more successful, nor looked up - it is just noise and that noise satisfies you, because it makes you (mistakenly) believe that people are paying attention to you.
I'd love to agree with you, but the thing is, with a car the "bleeding edge" can literally be a bleeding edge.
A phone can do comparatively much less harm. Even ones with high radiation levels and batteries exploding didn't do much harm, all things considered. An out of control car... that's another thing entirely.
And that's precisely why I used the term "bleeding edge" :) But more with regards to the support/repair experience, and less with regards to safety.
I think Teslas on the road today are relatively safe. You have idiots using Autopilot incorrectly, but you have to go through a fair amount of effort to abuse Autopilot. The car handles phenomenally and performs well in crash tests. I haven't really seen cases of "out of control Teslas" - at least, nothing suggesting an anomaly compared to other manufacturers.
I could engage the cruise control in my 2011 VW Scirocco and drive straight into a concrete barrier, I don't see any material difference.
In fact I'd imagine that this is happening all over the world on a pretty much daily basis but we don't hear about it because it's not Tesla.
Naming makes a very big difference in how people perceive and use things.
Not in every case. The past two software updates I've gotten for my I-PACE have been over-the-air. In fact they installed while I was driving the car without interrupting anything.
Elon tweeted something to this effect earlier in 2019, and people have sort of lapped that up as an irrefutable statement. It's not.
The statement only makes sense if your only dimension for evaluating competitiveness is raw range, perhaps indexed by price. This is only because no reputable long-range EV manufacturer is exposing the full battery capacity to the consumer. Tesla throws power tools out to the general public and says, "If you use it wrong, it's on you. Don't suck." Other manufacturers take a more conservative approach.
The result? Sometimes habitually overcharged Tesla battery packs take a nose dive. Sometimes people Smart Summon their cars into posts. Sometimes people on AP smash into fire trucks. "Well, you're holding it wrong" is Tesla's answer when that happens, absolving themselves of responsibility for inducing or encouraging those behaviors in perniciously subtle ways. This is not something to celebrate.
Raw range aside (achieved by said battery capacity exposure), the Taycan's drivetrain puts out more power, both one-time and on a repeated basis, than any Tesla drivetrain. The 2019 I-PACE offers a luxury interior and more range than an equivalently-priced 2019 Model X, along with CarPlay and Android Auto. The 2019 e-tron (given its ~20% battery buffer held back) is only about 10% less efficient than a 2019 Model X, but it also has a superior interior as well as excellent road noise isolation.
In 2019 Electrify America has averaged a new site a day. Non-Tesla EVs can now use that charging network to get pretty much anywhere a Tesla EV can get using their proprietary supercharging network.
The rest of the market is not as far behind Tesla as a lot of pundits would have you believe, and in many ways competitors are actually ahead. Continuing with the iPhone analogy, in ten years we could very well find the EV industry looking like the smartphone industry today, where Apple still makes very good smartphones with a respectable user base while a variety of Android phones command the bulk of the market share.
Most other electric cars are made as a kind of electrified conventional vehicle still. Tesla is the only one that isn't. Rivian is coming, which will change that. They GET electric vehicles the way Tesla does, and I think that will change things.
Porsche DOES seem to "get" electric (I like they're going for 800 Volts), but Taycan is still incredibly limited in availability, and their efficiency is so low that the effective charge rate is actually lower (plus network isn't built out).
Tesla is still years ahead of everyone. Model S still doesn't have effective competition (Taycan isn't it due to price, availability, efficiency).
I hope this changes. Rivian has a chance of making a mark. Taycan is a Porsche, so is going to be limited to Porsche's. GM has squandered their good entrance of the Chevy Volt (and to a lesser degree the Bolt) by not supporting electrification. I think if we had a much better incentive system and if we had updated and enforced the Gas Guzzler Tax on SUVs and trucks, we'd have more than just Tesla.
What's really amazing to me is how much Toyota has squandered the enormous advantage in electrification they had when the Prius first came out. Literally 15 years ahead of Model S, they had a half-electrified, modern, mass-produced electric car... they could've easily upgraded it a bit and swapped in a full lithium battery, but they didn't and haven't since it came out in 1997. 23 years ago!!! Toyota is to electric cars what Nokia was to smartphones.
Interesting times for sure.
In fact, a high end long range Model 3 has more range (322miles) than the Toyota Mirai (312mi) but costs less ($49k vs $59k). Is dramatically faster (4.4 seconds 0-60mph vs 9 seconds). Also has vastly greater number of charging stations (and can slow charge from any 120V outlet).
Fuel cells themselves are expensive. Estimates are about $11,000 or so for the Mirai fuel cell stack (not counting the secondary systems like the lithium battery or even the hydrogen tank), or about the same as what the 75kWh Tesla Model 3 Long Range's pack which has greater range. So fuel cell cars will be fundamentally more expensive up front, more expensive to run, more maintenance, with less convenient charging.
To me, a plug-in hybrid (even if using synthesized carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuel) is much more compelling if you wanted a technological alternative to pure electric. You're not going to be stranded due to lack of charging infrastructure, can charge at home, don't require super high pressure tanks, can fuel fast, etc. At least they have that going with the plug-in version of the Prius.
But hydrogen just doesn't make sense for cars. Maybe on very large vehicles (ships, maybe airplanes) that can use liquid hydrogen (much denser than compressed hydrogen and doesn't require ultra-heavy high pressure tanks).
Given we've got quite a few other hurdles before the utopia of free energy... well, batteries are for sure the better option now.
Similarly BEVs other than Tesla make the drive between Sf and LA impractical at best, because refueling is difficult.
The real genius of Tesla is the vertical integration of the super charger.
Porsche is owned by Volkswagen, who seem committed to catch up to Tesla. At least some of the expertise and lessons learned are likely to be used across Volkswagen
The iPace on the other hand, would have made a wonderful gas car, it’s poor electric drivetrain is a setback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYMRXlRoHyQ
But, at the end of the day, the Taycan is still just breathtakingly inefficient compared to the Tesla.
It's all fine and good that other manufacturers are "holding back" capacity, but all that means is you're hauling around battery weight you can't use, and won't use until you've burned through a certain % of battery longevity. If you do at all.
It's not "helping" anyone, it's just giving them bragging rights about effectively, fake degredation numbers.
Here's some great data on how Tesla batteries degrade:
https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...
I guess the question is, would you rather see that a smaller number that never goes down? Or be able to use more of the capacity?
So yeah, there starts to be competition. VAG is bringing ID.3, Polestar will start selling their 2, Ford is bringing the so-called Mustang and even BMW will have EVs that look more or less normal cars. Still all of those are not as interesting as Tesla. I now drive a SEAT Leon which I bought as new 3 years ago. It has been in normal service twice and zero updates to software. Nothing to infotainment, nothing to engine, nothing to electronics. And when buying the car I didn't even think things like that. But now when following what Tesla does, it's a completely different way of owning a car. Like xvector wrote here already getting a new software upgrade is super nice for the car owner. The same is visible in fore mentioned Tesla Joni's videos. Now when thinking about the "real" car manufacturers like VAG, BMW, Mercedes and Polestar, I'm pretty sure they will sell you the car and that's it. I'm especially concerned with Polestar as the software is coming from Google - 5 years and it will be listed in killedbygoogle.com.
And that's why the Apple analogy is so fitting. No matter what you think about iPhone, iPad or Macs, they are being supported much longer than any other manufacturer does. My 2013 iPad Air is still getting regular OTA updates, even though it will not get the new iPadOS.
Model 3 really is a masterpiece, IMHO. Affordable, more efficient than any other car, fantastic electric range and the fastest charging speed you can get, and as cutting edge autopilot/assist tech (not to mention infotainment) as you can get in any production car.
I wish someone would try to one-up the Model 3.
I know this starts to sound like I'm obsessing about the software but the thing is that I'm very much intrigued by the idea that a car manufacturer would actually continue developing features to a car you already own. There's even rumors about an SDK being released by Tesla at some point of application developers. I'm using Android Auto daily and I quite like it, but I live as I live in Finland it's not even officially released here so I need to side-load the app to get it installed and upgraded. Android 10 changes that as it's built-in, though. Still there are not that many applications that support Android Auto. I'm using Spotify, Google Music, Google Podcasts, TuneIn and Waze. All of those are usable, but for example starting a navigation with Waze means I need to stop to do so remember to start navigation before leaving. Yes, it supports voice commands, but pronouncing Finnish street names in English is quite challenging. And yes, it supports Finnish for voice commands too and navigation would be easier, but then I lose the possibility use Spotify with voice commands as artist/band names are not understood if I have Finnish as the language (#FirstWorldProblems).
Anyway based on Tesla's record so far, if they would release an SDK and build up an ecosystem for it, I'm pretty sure they would succeed with it too.
This morning I was driving my car at 65 miles per hour in a straight line. I could have killed anyone around me with nothing more than a turn of the steering wheel. For better or worse, society has accepted that when you're in control of a vehicle, you better hold it right.
> In 2019 Electrify America has averaged a new site a day. Non-Tesla EVs can now use that charging network to get pretty much anywhere a Tesla EV can get using their proprietary supercharging network.
This is laughably wrong and misleading. In fact, most of the implications in your comment are. (eg, that Tesla only has more range because they're playing russian roulette with battery packs).
Taycan is slower in a 0-60 than the Model S, and at a $50k+ price premium... sure it corners better and likely has more repeatability, but I'd hope you'd get something for the huge loss of range. It's a specialty product though, since noone drives their cars like that on the street (for long, anyways).
Jaguar I-PACE, although comparably priced to the older Model X base model (which by the way they discontinued), is exactly the same range as the old Model X 75D (238 vs 234). And it's WAY less efficient (80MPGe for the Jag vs 93MPGe for the Tesla).
Comparing the e-tron as if the battery buffer doesn't exist is disingenuous. Unless Audi decides to unlock that for free (ha, good luck), you need to compare apples to apples. You can't just add the buffer back in to up your efficiency since you still need to charge the buffer. The rated efficiency would be just as bad if they unlocked the whole battery. Also, a reminder, the e-tron is a tiny car compared to the Model X. The efficiency on that thing is just laughable.
I'll agree that the European competitors are definitely offering a better interior quality, fit-finish, etc, but you're paying a pretty heavy cost for that. Tesla's fit and finish isn't that bad these days, and it's only been getting better.
All of these issues I noted above though lead to one problem: the cost to charge the car is awful. This is exacerbated by the outrageously expensive fast chargers by Electrify America et al. It's significantly more expensive to use one of those fast chargers than it is to charge at home. The Tesla network is more expensive than home, but not that much.
For comparison (using 50kWh as a baseline, and my power cost in Texas): * Charging at home: 50kWh @ $0.12/kWh = $6 * Charging at a Tesla Supercharger: A recent fast charge I did that was ~45kWh (not exactly comparable, but close) = $8.57 * Charging at an Electrify America station: $1 session fee... plus $0.58/min @ 125kW (assuming I get that full 125kW, which is unlikely) = $14.92
And I'm being generous to the EA station. My understanding of how they work is you get locked in at the max pricing the station offers. If it was a 350kW station (which most cars can't use, and DEFINITELY can't use for the full charging period), the price per minute is $0.89. So that real fee would be closer to $20 (assuming you can take some advantage of the faster charging).
I can say with confidence that although there are more fast charging stations coming, they are horrible to use. It's a mishmash of different apps, poor reliability, and overpriced fees. I've used some of them with my other EV car and the experience is horrible.
Please, get your facts straight. Most of them are outright wrong.
As for your speculation on EA's pricing, have you ever visited let alone used a station? You seem unaware of their membership program which offers $0 session fees and reduced prices per kWh. Given how new their network is, pricing seems completely fair.
Per the 85 and 90 pack issues, sure there seems to be some problem with them... especially when supercharged repeatedly. Unclear what the actual issue is though. Doesn't seem to impact every other line they offer though (70, 100, and all other variants). Might just be the actual degradation though.
It's funny, because I haven't seen huge news about the Nissan Leaf problems. They have garbage degradation curves and haven't fixed it after many battery iterations... besides the lawsuit for 2011-2012 model years, it seems everything else is considered 'OK'.
I bought a used Nissan Leaf 3 years ago and haven’t had a single thing go wrong with it. I’m afraid to give up the reliability of a more conventional car to drive “the future.”
It is telling, however, that pretty much everyone I know with a Tesla (including the ones who have had problems) love it and don’t regret their decision to buy it.
I had to take mine in for service twice - once for a flat tire near a service center and the other time for a cracked windshield - and it was a mixed bag. The tire replacement experience was horrendous. The windshield replacement was easy.
Their customer service isn’t great. The people I’ve interacted with are very friendly, but they never seem very knowledgeable and they all seem new. If you ever have to call, you end up being sent in circles.
But then there are all the other things that make the whole experience unlike any other car. I could go on all day.
I’ve driven an EV before my Tesla and I went back to a gas car after less than 2 years. There is no other car in the world at any price point that I would rather drive than a Tesla. It’s hard to understand until you’ve had some experience driving one. There are so many little details than add up to a driving experience that is significantly less effort than in any other car.
The always on/always connected/always ready to go thing is just amazing.
Every time I see something else I lust after (RS5, RS6 avant, the XC90 in that pretty blue with the silver mirrors..) ... I just wonder how I could ever spend such an insane amount of money on such an outdated technology.
It did a cell phone absolutely right.
- Visual Voicemail; Full internet browser; Music player; Fluid, Threaded SMS conversations; Contacts that looked like contacts ...
For every phone use case, the iPhone delivered a sense of “Finally!”
The Tesla experience had that aura to me when they pitched the battery swap technology — that’s when you said, “holy hell, they nailed it”
However that was dropped, and all other releases have felt lumpy and pumpy. The only thing I believe we all truly love is the acceleration... and really, that wasn’t a “product first” choice, just an attribute of the electric technology.
I really want Tesla to be successful — they just don’t know who they are.
I would consider them in competition with Uber/Waymo/etc moreso than in competition with Ford. There auto summons is something I've not seen in any other car. The ability to detect street signs, cones, people, bikes, etc via visualizations is impressive considering they are using just cameras.
They are a technology compnany, and there platform is a car not your phone.
I actually worry about this. Tesla is the scrappy underdog for now and thus they are really innovating - but what happens when traditional automakers start going bankrupt because they aren't keeping up with the change over to EV? I wouldn't want a Tesla monopoly either.
More generally though I think comparisons between charging stations and gas stations are almost always invalid for a few reasons. First is that charging stations have the potential to be ubiquitous in a way that would be impossible for gas stations. I.e. you don't need to bury giant tanks in the ground and have a complex fire suppression system in order to charge an EV, rather you can get started with just an electric outlet. Second is that for many people, charging overnight at home is sufficient to get you through the day. I.e. a charging station is only necessary for trips that are more than a couple hundred miles, which is only a small fraction.
I'm saying imagine the others were tied to manufacturers and made them mutually incompatible like Tesla.
We were planning and ready to buy two Tesla’s this year. The first one in April, when my wife’s car lease expires and the second around September. We even installed a 13 kW solar array and n preparation. Now we have exactly zero interest in the segment.
What changed our minds?
The last fire season here in CA.
It became obvious to us that owning any electric vehicle, given the state of the technology and infrastructure, could be dangerous. The technology is not well aligned with real-life events that require a significant degree of reliance on self transport.
We absolutely want to own electrics but feel we could not rely on these vehicles when it really matters. That’s a moment when driving the future could cost you and your loved ones the future.
> I wonder how you might feel about your car if you are caught in the middle of an emergency (earthquake, fire, take your pick) and your car has 60 miles of gas left, you are at work and have to drive home and evacuate your family.
60 miles of gas or 60 miles of electrical range in an emergency is all the same, you are SOL. At least with an electrical car I can plug in every night and be assured that I will have a fully or mostly fully charged car in the morning. With a gas car, I will fill up my car once a week and run down the miles until I need to fill up again. Gas stations need electricity to work and if I can't fully charge my car with electricity, then I sure as hell can't fill it with gas.
First of all, unless you are in the middle of nowhere --which is even worse for electric vehicles-- the gasoline distribution infrastructure in every city in the world is such that you are likely to have up to dozens of gasoline stations available to you within a 60 mile radius.
Second. Obtaining 300 miles of range takes 5 minutes at the pump.
Third. If you are paranoid, you can store 100 to 150 miles of range in a sealed container in the trunk of your car and even thousands of miles in sealed drums at home (a friend of mine did that).
Fourth. Obtaining 300 miles or range, even without gasoline station takes a few minutes and short water hose to siphon fuel from other vehicles. One could even pool resources with other drivers to extend the range of one vehicle and help each other out.
Fifth. We own three vehicles. We make it a point to keep them fueled at or above half a tank precisely because we live in earthquake and fire country. We can use a water hose to collect fuel from two of our vehicles, pump it into the third and have more enough range to get out.
We are not preppers or survivalists at all. No, we don't have a couple of 50 gallon drums of fuel buried in the backyard like our friend. However, our perspective is based on having experienced and lived through at least one major earthquake (Northridge, 1994, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Northridge_earthquake, lived 1 mile from the epicenter) and several bad fires, two of which encircled our neighborhood.
This isn't theory, this is reality.
I would have a lot more respect for down-votes if they were accompanied by cogent arguments. As much as we really, truly want to get away from our IC engine cars today, the last fires here in CA drove the point home like nothing else. My wife was stuck away from home for eight hours. I was lucky enough to have been able to get to my kids at school after a 200 mile round-about detour that took six hours. Nothing sharpens an argument more than when you are facing real conditions with real consequences.
The flaws of the charging infrastructure are such that you'll find yourself competing with hundreds of other Tesla (or EV) owners. This isn't theoretical, this is real and it has already happened:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7755753/Chaos-Calif...
https://keyt.com/traffic-2/2019/12/27/tesla-drivers-stuck-wa...
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/07/black-friday-tesla-fa...
Our local Tesla supercharger station is always packed and people are waiting for a turn.
And these were not even emergencies!!!
When emergencies strike things are worse, because now we are dealing with potential life-threatening circumstances:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a29428694/electric-car-own...
https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/californias-power-outage-demo...
It's one thing to be an electric car enthusiast/fanatic and want to defend them at all cost. I it a VERY different thing to be driving home while you see everything on fire at a distance around your neighborhood and you know that your kids, your loved ones and your pets need you to be there for them. Calling this FUD is absolute bullshit. Unless you've had that experience, with all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about. We wanted to buy electrics this year and the experience surrounding the last fires drove the point home like nothing else.
I love electric cars, but the technology and the infrastructure simply isn't ready to deliver the same level of reliance that IC vehicles offer with ease. Which stands to reason, the technology and the infrastructure has been built over more than a century. I applaud early adopters. We were going to be among them. Great plans, to paraphrase, don't always survive contact with reality.
If someone actually thinks they can defend the case of electrics being equivalent --I won't even go for better-- to IC vehicles and the infrastructure in place to support them, please speak up, I am more than willing to listen. But please, pretty please, with sugar on top: Don't insult anyone's intelligence or call things FUD when the reality of the differential in technology and infrastructure requires almost walking on water to even remotely approach equivalence.
There are about 10,000 gas stations in CA and approximately 1,200 Tesla Supercharger stations in the State.
How long does it take to load-up with a 300 mile range with each technology?
Gasoline, about 5 minutes plus another 5 for the transaction (in and out of the car, paying, etc.)
Tesla (can't do 300 miles but let's just call it topping off), about 80 minutes.
Round numbers:
One gas pump can service approximately 144 vehicles per day.
A Supercharger station charger can do about 18 vehicles per day.
That's basically a factor of 10 difference in throughput. Which, during an emergency or holiday/high-travel-volume event is an absolutely MASSIVE difference.
If we assume 10 gas pumps per station and 10 chargers per Tesla location, the total number of vehicles that can be serviced per day in CA is:
Gas stations: 14 million cars per day
Tesla Superchargers: 216,000 vehicles per day
That, right there, is the difference. The infrastructure isn't anywhere near the ubiquity, availability and performance of the IC engine fuel delivery infrastructure.
We can deny this all we want, but reality hits you hard when things deviate from the ideal.
I mean, the army could go down neighborhoods distributing gasoline to people in worse case scenarios. What are they going to do, park massive diesel generators to charge electric cars? Not going to happen.
My educated guess is that we need a better energy delivery mechanism for electric cars. It has to be something you can pump into a tank in 5 or 10 minutes. Pushing electrons into a battery, without fundamental advances in technology, seems like a bad long term plan.
I mean, Tesla doesn't have that many cars in the Southern California region in comparison to conventional vehicles and their Supercharger network flops with holiday travel and becomes a liability during emergencies. That's not a good long-term plan. The cost of adding a million EV's will require an absolutely massive investment in the charging network. Ten million and the numbers become almost unthinkable. A hundred million feels like a joke to even consider.
But yes, Teslas are not optimal from a prepping point of view.
I do want to clarify that my comment has nothing whatsoever to do with the cultural phenomenon of prepping. We are not preppers at all. We have some supplies at home for earthquake preparedness because, after having lived thorough a couple of large quakes, it would be silly not to have learned from the experience and be a reasonably ready.
The perspective we gained by observing what happened during this last fire and power-outage season drove home a point we really had considered much prior to that event.
Perhaps this was because we were within a couple of months of ordering our first of two Teslas that we became a bit more critical and analytic about the decision. I don't know. A friend of ours reached exactly the same decision without any input from us. In their case they had placed a deposit on a Rivian SUV. They live in Northern California. When I told him of our decision to not order our Tesla's he revealed they had made the same decision with respect to their Rivian order. They turned around and bought a Suburban instead, replacing their old one.
I think this is a real issue. It's disconcerting that this can't be discussed with honesty in a place like HN. I want electric cars, with Tesla and Rivian being the top contenders for our eventual purchase. But, I have to tell you, it's really disconcerting to see, feel and be at the receiving end of something that has become a religion. Try to have any reasonable conversation about Tesla on HN where you might disagree with the cult and you'll be treated to a bunch of down-votes (read: silly, childish passive-aggressive behavior) and even personal attacks. The good news is that facts don't require belief, which means that the truth is what it is, downvotes or otherwise.
[1] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/sudden-loss-of-range...
[2] https://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/17892/tesla-driver-slams...
[3] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/back-to-the-old-ping...
> Every time I get a software update I'm a kid on Christmas morning. It is just such a fun experience, and for those of you who love to be on the bleeding edge, you'd probably love it too.
Same! I too get giddily excited when my $100,000 car gets software updates from an $80B company that can't design batteries properly and has to remotely reduce their capacities by 30% and charge rates by 40% (without my permission!) to prevent the car from catching on fire in my garage! [1] /s
It's so encouraging to see my self-driving car get frequent half-baked updates making it drive into highway barriers and firetrucks [2] and ping-pong between lane lines like a drunk driver! [3] /s
I just wish Apple could do the same downgrade to my phone's CPU and battery performance whenever they feel like it! It'd bring tears to my eyes, in awe of their power over me. /s
I have enjoyed my time with it and I’ve enjoyed my updates. It’s been great fun.
That’s all.
In one of the (many) depositions, it was revealed that Tesla has some serious PR firms on retainer to control narrative. You can see on Twitter bot networks of accounts tweeting the exact same message. Tesla understands modern marketing.
Tesla China can now produce 3k cars a week, let’s extrapolate that to the year at a really conservative 2k, which results in about 100k extra cars annually. The same can be expected from the model Y ramp which according to Tesla rumors is already well under way, given that it’s effectively the same process as the model 3.
All while not being legally allowed to sell in half of the USA due to outdated car dealership rules, I’d expect this trend to continue given their product roadmap. If they can keep this trend going for 10 years, they’ll be the largest car manufacture in the world. Hah kidding, that would just be impossible to keep up for so long.
If that doesn’t come to pass, Tesla has a tougher road. They will face competition. But from where? Companies still selling a large % of ICE vehicles can’t market their EVs effectively. So realistically Tesla won’t start getting competition until the petroleum tipping point in the auto industry. I don’t know when that will be. Not next year!
And that’s the starting gun for Tesla’s competitors. Tesla has already been building factories, flat out, for a decade.
So, I would say “impossible” is too strong a word.
This is nonsense. Every major manufacturer is marketing an EV. The problem is that nobody, including Tesla, has figured out how to make these cars profitably.
Because I can see in their financial statements that their R&D spending is decreasing over time, and that their investment is actually below what is required to maintain plant and equipment depreciation.
Here's the two company's R&D spend:
https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/r_and_d_expense
https://ycharts.com/companies/TSLA/r_and_d_expense
Amazon: billions and billions. 9 Billion this quarter alone, which is more than Tesla has spent on R&D in their entire existence. Tesla? 300 million this quarter and trending down.
Amazon was generating REAMS of cash flow, for 10 years before they earned a profit. Billions and billions of dollars for investment. Tesla is regularly cash flow negative, almost half a billion per quarter on average:
https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/free_cash_flow
https://ycharts.com/companies/TSLA/free_cash_flow
So can you explain how these "models" are at all similar? Do you think all unprofitable companies are like Amazon?
If SpaceX wants to deploy in China, it will be on China's terms. I think that Tesla's chinese factory doesn't greatly change that. SpaceX will get permission to sell to users in China only if the Chinese leadership thinks it's in China's and their interests.
If China wants access to the US market for Hongyan, SpaceX and the FCC might be able to negotiate some form of access for Starlink to the Chinese market. Likely this would involve access from China relayed through Chinese ground gateways.
China especially heavily leverages their infrastructure for geopolitical purposes. Censoring and monitoring inside the country, launching attacks outside of the country, etc. I really doubt they want the US to get any leverage in the form of controlling some of the nodes, even if they are supposed to by agreement only route traffic from inside China to inside China.
Starlink doesn't mean that magically Russia, Cuba, and North Korea are all going to have unfettered internet access.
Tesla's revenues as a percentage of total auto sales decreased last quarter. Simple math.
> Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k.
For deliveries 400k isn't too far from 367,500. But it's not clear (to me) what their annual production rate is.
One would hope/imagine that if they get their production rate competitive with the biggest producers of automobiles (anything with 4 wheels), like Toyota, Ford and GM, then the average selling price could come down a bit, too.
I just want a decent-looking electric car (preferably hatchback) I can charge at any available charging station with no frills but 250-300 mile range for $25-30k USD. I know batteries aren't there yet!
[1] https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesl...
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-q4-2019-production-and-...
A tweet issued after hours and corrected the same day does not change the range explicitly stated in every earnings call and quarterly statement Tesla issued throughout 2019.
It doesn’t matter what you or I think. The market speaks for itself. After announcing the number the stock is up ~3.5%. That indicates that reaching the lower range number was not fully priced in as of yesterday, and that the market deems this to be good news.
Also, the annualized run rate with GF3 producing 3k/week would exceed 10k/wk based on 100,000 cars produced in Fremont in 13 weeks in Q4. Getting GF3 to 3k/week less than one year after breaking ground was also something the pundits said was “impossible”.
PS> I am a Tesla owner who then bought the stock as well since the experience was so revolutionary. I agree with the other poster who compared it to the 2007 iPhone.
How do you really value a company like Tesla?
According to skeptics the company should've been dead 10 times over already. But if you actually do some research, you find that the technology is sound, the execution is there, and not at least the vision of an electric future is there. Further more its CEO has stated that 'We're going to do these other things also.' - Referring to Full Self Driving and production rates. It has a track record of delivering; 'maybe not on time - but we get it done.' There's no real reason to doubt that they are serious, go watch autonomy day and you'd get the idea.
The vision isn't just automotive, it's solar for homes and grid batteries as well. a decentralized power grid for the future.
Meanwhile all the promised competition and Tesla killers have proven to be vaporware. And that's before you start looking at the logistics of making an electric car. With electric cars you need batteries and lot's of them. No other car manufacturer has access to enough volume to even begin to compete with Tesla, these battery factories haven't even been built. And the electric motors of competitor are less efficient by a large margin, meaning they need larger batteries for the same range, and higher charging speed to be able to charge the same distance in time as a Tesla.
Buying tsla is right now like buying a part of the future, and no other company is close.
Is the share price ridiculously high? Yes, but which other company in the world right now is stumping the competition as badly as Tesla. The only real comparison is Apple after the release of the iPhone. But while apple got real competition after 4-5 years. Tesla still rules all the important metrics regarding electric cars wh/km, accel, charging speed.
And apple still keeps most of the profits in the mobile market, even tough they have a small market share.
So maybe it is rational pricing that you are seeing, the markets are trying to value more than just cars produced. After all the CEO is landing rockets on barges as well so who knows :)
Official statement: "We reaffirm our prior guidance of 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries in 2019." That was met.
> Barring unexpected challenges with Gigafactory Shanghai, we are targeting annualized Model 3 output in excess of 500,000 units sometime between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020
Source: https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/0b913415-467d-4c0d-be4c-92...
Of course it's not yet Q2 2020.
In fact this exact type of tweet is listed by expressly in the updated agreement[0].
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/business/elon-musk-tesla-...
Musk hasn't made similar tweets since then, so it seems plausible that SEC did indeed give some sort of warning, or that the parties have had some sort of clarifying exchange regarding their agreement.
This is all a matter of public record, it was not handled behind closed doors.
Ultimately Tesla and Musk agreed with the SEC that his previous conduct was wrong, and that's how we got to this settlement agreement. So to argue now that the SEC is wrong and that Musk's behavior is fine because that's his "style" seems to fly in the face of Tesla's own viewpoint on historical events vis-a-vis misleading tweets.
Would you be shocked to learn that when a company realizes they are going to to materially miss a forecast they are obligated to notify shareholders? This is how it works.
You know, the exact opposite of Elon saying "profits from here on out" then losing $700MM the very next quarter.
As a long term investor, is the exact number all that important compared to the general shape of the curve?
(N.b. I have no position in $TSLA)
A follow up tweet doesn't allow him to bypass the pre-approval process he agreed to in the settlement.
Where you are wrong is your claim that it needed pre-approval under the first agreement. Only statements that Musk, in his own opinion, believed contained material facts need pre approval. Gloss on publicly known figures is not material, that is what Musk thought he was posting, therefore it did not need per-approval.
The SEC tried and failed to push the argument you are trying to push in court. You can view the complete docket here. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7946295/united-states-s...
You can find musk making the admission I claim he made above in this court filing. You can also find a better version of the argument I made about the tweet not needing pre-approval. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.501755...
But it wasn't run by the lawyers because it contains a factual reporting error the lawyers would have flagged. Thus he violated the SEC agreement.
Nobody said the tweet was banned. The tweet violated the agreement because it likely wasn't pre-approved (or his lawyers are really really bad).
But, you are still messing up your dates. He did not violate the agreement because the original agreement was in effect at the time and it did not require running this past his lawyers.
This has run out through court already, the SEC did not win.
What do you mean? Tesla and Elon settled fraud charges:
https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226
Stop the gaslighting.
I'm also wondering if sometime in 2020 Tesla reduces the price of the vehicle to offset the previous tax incentive.
We've been hearing this "what about when the tax handouts go away" story for awhile, and it hasn't really panned out. Of course, Tesla has taken the edge off of that by strategically lowering prices, but now that it's down to $1850 (well, okay, $0 today) the benefit is marginal at best.
I actually had 3 friends ask me, unsolicited, for my referral code, in Q4 alone. 2 of those have been delivered, one hasn't ordered yet.
My only other referral was a year ago.
If anything, the increasing interest over time surprises me. I really did think they'd have a hard time sustaining sales once the initial backlog cleared out.
How on-track are they with deliveries for Model 3, especially outside of the US? Do you still have to wait 2 years to get a car?
Are they delivering the base model? Not the super expensive 60k EUR model, but something closer to the 35k USD.
Their website claims "$6,300 potential incentives and gas savings" to argue it's really more like a $35k car. Whether you find that convincing is up to you.
Plus you don't need 240v, you can charge slowly on 110 which could make sense depending on how much you drive.
Plus you can charge elsewhere.
But yes the incentive number is silly on their pricing page.
It would be more accurate to represent the fuel savings in net present value, but that isn't too much different when you're talking about something that occurs throughout the next few years rather than decades from now, especially with interest rates as low as they are.
This was end of a quarter where Tesla decided to deliver some volume in France. Q4 2019 they targeted mostly Netherlands in Europe. Don't know what will be Tesla priority in Q1 2020, a friend of mine ordered in december and has "probable" delivery in february.
https://www.tesla.com/de_de/findus?bounds=56.37015568987588%...
https://ww.electrek.co/2020/01/03/teslasmade-in-china-model-...
In the Oct/Nov timeframe, truckloads of cars were going north on 101 to be shipped overseas. Then those stopped, and US deliveries were being pushed through.
So, you have to wait from 0 up to 2-3 months depending on whether you try to buy when they're doing deliveries in your region or not.
Im guessing it will be an odd market, since parts and service might be difficult for secondary owners. And a fair amount of the Model 3 parts have had a less than stellar history for durability.
If anything, I'd wonder about warranty vs off-warranty. But don't they have even MORE of an incentive to service off-warranty vehicles which represent a revenue stream vs a cost?
Does Tesla sell the used lease trade ins? What are people even trading in a 3 year old Model 3 for? Another Model 3?
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/98986/the-global-car-...
Not too long ago Tesla was a risk, let's see how they operate with confidence.
I hope their semi will deliver.
ps: also battery technology and chemistry. Very important.
It could be a really big step change in operating costs for long-haul transport. Even without the "road train" autopilot stuff (which to me is a lot more feasible than what they're trying to do with self driving). If they can deliver at anywhere near their reported costs, it will be a game-changer. (And is more economically compelling than electric commuter cars.)
If they really deliver on it, it'd be nice to see them try a compelling, long-distance, high speed inter-city-capable electric bus (as Musk once hinted at but then changed his mind) using the Semi powertrain. Highway speed range could be in excess of 1000miles, or possibly around 300-500 miles if going at a high-speed-rail-like 125mph along a dedicated high speed express busway.
No one else is even close to what is needed for a long-haul electric Semi. Tesla's v3 250kW-capable charging infrastructure if ganged together 4 at a time (like they've done with the prototype) would enable plenty fast charging, and they already have much of this deployed. Tesla also has industry-leading battery energy to weight ratio AND drivetrain efficiency, which combine to make long-haul electric trucking feasible (i.e. full-shift driving range with full typical payload without exceeding weight limits). That efficiency reduces the cost of battery and charging as well which makes their upfront manufacture and running cost also lower.
(And with a lower range battery, your battery will also typically be lower total mileage life... so although making a short range electric semi is pretty easy, you kind of need to hit ALL these metrics together for long-haul electric trucking to be compelling...)
my point is that his empire is largely ssupported by government grants etc, even though I do greatly admire his innovative approach and successes.
Although if you are in Australia right now, you might still want to do just that.
It's all rather ironic right now.