Tesla on track to smash targets after producing almost a million EVs in 6 months

The gist is that he originally thought his concerns about the plaid couldn't be addressed easily, but it turns out that they were all addressed through Tesla's (off-the-shelf) track package. Part of what surprised him is that his suspension concerns were alleviated solely through a software update.

Your citation is six months old.

> Last year, the Model Y was the best-selling vehicle in Europe and California, the fourth best-selling in China despite China’s different tastes and model availability compared to the rest of the world, and was on the US top ten list but significantly behind several trucks and SUVs. These performances made it the third-best selling car worldwide.

> But now, it looks like Tesla’s #1 sales prediction has come true. The Model Y has dethroned the Toyota Corolla as the world’s best-selling car in Q1 and looks like it may well maintain this position for the full year.

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/2023-tesla-model-3-cheap-toyota...

In contrast, most plug in hybrids in the US assume you’ll regularly turn the engine on in normal operation.

Yeah, it's a very bad analogy, nobody on budget buys a OnePlus 11. A One Plus 11 is 1- just slightly cheaper than an iPhone 14 and 2- is technically on par https://www.makeuseof.com/oneplus-11-vs-iphone-14-plus/ - almost a counter example ironically

If you take a Tesla in for repair, they'll most of the time do a goodwill repair which doesn't come out of the warranty pool, and therefore doesn't affect profit per car.

They work out to the same number in the end, but per car profitability looks better for Tesla when trying to attract suck... outside investment.

What definition of 'matters' are you using?

They're producing more cars, still making a profit.

I work for a company that isn't the absolute most profitable per unit. My investments are full of companies that aren't absolutely the most profitable per unit.

Electricity transfer, battery charging, and electric motors are all over 90% efficient, with overall "well to wheel" efficiency around 80%.

This can be achieved by systematically ban cars from cities. By investing far more into trains then into highways. By having good public transit even to remote places. And by encouraging small vehicles when necessary.

Relatively simple == simpler, but I would point out it's brittle because just-in-time hyperoptimisations sucked it dry of spare capacity. Stocks of EMS microchips held up production.

Most of a car outside of ICE/EV differences are the same inputs, same supply chain. Tesla's stamped bodyparts require metal billets the same way normal auto car body panel stampers do.

Inside of ICE/EV differences Tesla runs flow processes to make batteries close to site. The input supply chain for batteries is pretty simple. I am not sure I would say the supply chain behind a fuel injection system is as simple, it has mechanical and electromechanical and electronic parts in profusion. Lots of points of brittleness.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/tesla-virtual-power-pla...

Cheaper electricity is coming that is the bigger change than most people realise not electric cars. So far majority of electricity has been produced using fossil fuels a finite resource where as solar is practically an infinite resource price for harvesting it as well as storing it keeps dropping.

There are lots of reasons for that enjoyment, but I'm not sure they matter

Longer term I expect charging to become a low margin commodity business, but other networks have had serious reliability issues so people may be willing to pay a premium simply to know everything will work when they get there.

PS: Even longer term I expect in road charging to become a thing on major highways, but that’s easily 20+ years away.

GM is a more difficult case. Their current efforts around Ultium haven't gone so well so far, and their ICE product line isn't even that much better. I think they will do well, but they have a lot of work to do.

A problem when you try to span those markets is you lose access to support from other major companies because you open up too many competitive fronts.

A further problem is when you try to reproduce a model (oil companies) that is dependent on finding and securing resources when almost everyone has a sufficient and unending oil-well-equivalent permanently incident on their roof.

Here is a grid storage project: https://electrek.co/2022/03/22/tesla-megapack-selected-big-n...

Superior technology -- assuming it is; I have no idea -- often doesn't win.

It's superior in some cases where you have an existing pipeline network.

See the "Hydrogen ladder" for further, more eloquent, information.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/clean-hydrogen-ladder-v40-mic...

• EV charging stations are already common, unlike hydrogen fuel stations that barely exist anywhere. Charging stations are easier and cheaper to install and maintain (no need to deliver fuel or deal with moving parts for high pressure or cryogenic storage), so this is likely to stay in BEV's favor.

• You can't refill the high-pressure hydrogen just by plugging into your home outlet. For people who can charge BEV at home it is a huge convenience.

• The range of the Toyota Mirai is barely higher than long-range BEVs'. It doesn't even solve BEVs' main shortcoming, despite compromising a lot of space for hydrogen tanks!

• High-end BEVs can already recharge to 80% under 20 minutes, and don't require you to be near the car while charging (so you can get a coffee/toilet break at the same time). All of this trouble and cost to shave it down to a 5 minute refill, which you have to spend attending to the pump, is just not worth all of the fuel costs, wasted car space, and rollout of a new fuel pipeline.

Hydrogen may find uses in aviation, or long-distance trucks, maybe heavy machinery, but it's a poor fit for passenger cars and has already lost.

The trick is to distribute chargers everywhere, because your car is going to be parked somewhere long enough to charge unless you’re a taxi or some other high utilization use case. Most will charge at home and or work, but some cannot.

China this year reached $10k car with BYD introducing its $10k cars with sodium ion batteries, these are not like previous cheap cars which were practically golf carts. With the prices of batteries and solar electricity falling 10%-12% a year on avg I think electric cars are going to take over a lot faster than people are expecting. Main reason being cost ice cars are almost 3 times as expensive to run today as an electric car already. It will be 5-8 times in 5-8 years.

Seems like there may be 500evs coming back next year, so may look into that.

    One reason it's shame we'll never see the Bolt on Australian roads is because it actually stemmed from an electric vehicle concept designed here by GM’s Australian design centre and went into production in 2017.

    Now, of course, with GM all-but out of Australia – apart from its ties to the shrunken GMSV outfit here – it's less likely than ever we'll ever see the Bolt models here.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1139848_sub-40-000-evs-...

Regardless, we don't have battery swap, and I don't think any (serious) manufacturers have plans to go that route, so it's a moot point.

Long range fuel consumption at 5.3L/100kms, as usual at summer conditions.

Of course, ymmv : - )

The roof rack and Thule box cost maybe $1200 AUD. But the rack was also useful for attaching bicycle carriers.

The larger car is likely more expensive to purchase in the first place than the smaller car plus the roof box.

I was driving to my office job in an F150, burning enough gas to finance and fuel a new Civic, all while being terrible to drive.

So I did the logical thing, and added a vehicle that was efficient and enjoyable to drive, a motorcycle.

But it's agility made me only further resent the truck during the winter months, so I also added a compact luxury sports sedan.

Worst part was the F150 was both "too much" truck to daily drive, but never enough when I needed to do truck stuff.

Tried to landscape my home with some crushed rock, had to do 9 trips bottomed out because of it's paltry payload. Couldn't tow enough to borrow a friend's skid-steer. Had to buy my bricks a half-pallet at a time, a full pallet bottomed it out before the forklift had even finished putting the full weight on.

Downsized the F150 to a Tacoma, anything over 1200lbs and it's more practical to pay for delivery using a proper commercial truck anyways.

In the end I ended up with 3 vehicles, and if I had the means I'd have 4, I'd split the compact luxury sports sedan into a small sports car and a full sized luxury sedan for long highway travels. And this is all before even adding an EV.

tldr: In the motorcycle community they say the correct number of bikes is always 1 more than what you have. I strongly feel that applies to cars/trucks too.

That's on the EV, not their relationship.

I find the idea of the portable power fascinating and have watched some YouTube videos on them, but it seems like a very expensive and niche thing so far. I've seen one company on YouTube that showed it off.

I wanted an EV since back when I lived in an apartment, wished there was some sort of big capacitor on wheels I could charge all day from a normal outlet that would then fast charge my car for a few minutes.

Most actual products seem to use batteries and cost thousands, and are for some unique scenario where you somehow can't just public charge. Still find them neat though.

I think they typically just tow you to a charging station, seems a lot easier/faster/cheaper given they already own tow trucks.

In my opinion the only cost effective battery to travel around with would be the one inside an existing EV, I just hope we get beyond household outlet speeds for V2L. Would be neat if a passing EV could rescue at 50kw or something fast.

Sure, you've effectively halved your normal-case range, but a refill of an ICE car is much less of a hit to your trip time than a recharge of an EV, and your best-case range (if you really need it) still remains the same.

> It turns out the charging situation is great from LA to Vegas (Barstow, Baker, and Primm) but almost non-existent past Vegas (essentially nothing past Vegas until you reach St George...

Both Tesla and EA have chargers 80 miles from Vegas in Mesquite? And something like 14 locations combined between Vegas and SLC?

> ...relying on the EA station a few miles down having working charging. Unfortunately, EA stations along this route generally don't have supercharging speeds...

Every EA station between Vegas and SLC has >= 1 charger at 350 kW, I don't understand what you are saying. Regardless, the charging curve for a Model 3 spends a lot of time <= 150 kW so it doesn't make a ton of difference.

> Long story short: just because you're a techie and can optimize your EV driving doesn't mean everyone else will. Your experience is the exception, not the norm.

This makes sense in parts of the country where fast charging is scarce. The route between LA and SLC is full of chargers, both Tesla and CCS. Tesla handles the routing for you, there is nothing to optimize on this route.

Tesla has very aggressive capacity being built in Texas , Mexico, Berlin and Shanghai not to mention other component plants in Nevada, Canada Netherlands etc.

It is quite probable next year they cannot keep growing sales aggressively as before and some capacity will idle despite breaking records and hitting targets and having more unsold inventory .

If it's truly an incentive, incentivize everyone. I know people who make $1 million/year who will argue over $10. $7500 would absolutely affect their behavior even though they can afford an EV without it.