Tesla Motors Launches Revolutionary Supercharger for Long Distance Driving | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Motors Launches Revolutionary Supercharger for Long Distance Driving

finance.yahoo.com

62 pointsjoeyespo23 comments

This is epic. It surprises me that the markets care more about the short-term profit adjustment announcement than this long-term epic plan. I picked up a bunch of TSLA this morning to take advantage of it being down 7-12%, but I'm confused why the stock is down on such incredible news.

This company is going to take the auto industry by storm. And I bet they partner with Google circa 2017 to build self-driving electric cars that can navigate across a continent without supervision.

And at the same time, all the other auto makers are aware but somehow unable to move. They cancel their projects [1] even as Tesla expands and prepares to go further. Incredible that they're going to be taken "by surprise" as Tesla ramps up production in the next few years.

[1] http://inhabitat.com/toyota-cancels-productions-plans-for-th...

I am a Tesla shareholder, so I definitely believe in what they are doing, and think they are a revolutionary company. However, it is more than just the short-term revenue adjustment affecting the stock price - in addition to revenue drop, Tesla also announced an additional stock offering[1], essentially diluting existing shareholders.

With 105M shares currently outstanding, and Tesla planning to offer 4.34M shares, 4% of today's drop is likely just the market adjusting for upcoming dilution.

As a (very very minor) shareholder, I am glad they are doing this - relying on the current cash position and cash flow to get to profitability would have been cutting it too close for comfort, IMO. From an investor's perspective, I view Tesla as not much different than investing in a biotech - it is likely either going to be a huge hit, or a huge miss. The difference (for me) from a biotech is I feel I can understand and follow the tech in Tesla, and I believe in the company.

[1] http://ir.teslamotors.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=709221

Ah - I had missed that. Thanks, that makes a lot more sense.

You're surprised that the market cares more about short-term profit than long term gain? No offense but have you been living under a rock for the last 20 years?

I'm new at this. Who put money into TLSA expecting a short-term positive return, though? That's what I don't get. Google, or Apple, I could understand. Tesla? Seems silly.

Buying stock into Tesla should definitely be a 5-10 year move. I think Tesla will become the next Ford/GM of US (Ford as in the initial market innovator, GM as in the eventual market leader), simply because they are the ones moving the market forward, and the others don't really have the ambition or even the know-how to catch-up or surpass Tesla in making great electric cars.

Well, I can see people assuming Tesla's plan was to get bought by some major car company within a few years. Those people are probably realizing that isn't the plan about now, and getting out.

Awesome. I can't wait til they license Google's DriveSense (or whatever 2 word name they'll come up with for their automatic driving technology).

It'll feel weird having my car drop me off at work while it goes and gets charged up, picks up my groceries, takes itself to get washed and shows up again when I'm ready to go home, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

But at that point, do you need to own the car? Basically you just described a taxi service without human drivers.

Perhaps a taxi service based around self driving cars could drive costs below the cost of ownership. My guess is that the limiting factor is rush-hour.

This looks like a news article, but is actually a press release. The giveaway line:

> By next year, we plan to install Superchargers in high traffic corridors across the continental United States

(It does say that it is a press release in light gray text, but that is effectively hidden.)

No giveaway needed. It's got the MarketWire logo fairly large at the top, and look at the byline:

  Press Release: Tesla Motors, Inc.

Drive the Model S Electric Car Anywhere in the Country on Pure Sunlight for Free

-- Not sure about that [1]

________________

[1] Tesla Unveils Supercharger Stations; <Six> Now in California.

http://www.teslamotors.com/tesla_theme/images/supercharger/s...

PCH: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Gil...

Charging was definitely the biggest problem with the Roadster. If you want to drive from Berkeley to Mountain View and then back, the car has to charge for a good 3 hours on the fast connection while you're in Mountain View or you risk going dead. The Roadster nominally drives 200 miles on one charge but it was more like 140 unless you're going downhill the whole time.

I'd heard rumors of Stanford letting you charge without plugging in while driving past the campus- that would be awesome.

As a Roadster owner of two years, who uses the car as his daily driver, I can tell you this is completely untrue (the Berkeley-MV thing).

You can drive from SF to Santa Cruz and back on one charge.

You can drive from SF to Mountain View and back, and then there and back again, on one charge.

I only need to think about recharging if I am going on long road trips -- say, SF to Lake Tahoe. This is exactly where the Supercharger comes in and Tesla's announcement is way huger than I expected. It makes me want a Model S even though I have been thoroughly delighted with the Roadster for two years.

My experiences were from the Roadster I had for a month while in the Bay area. I had been considering buying one until this experience with the battery. Your battery must be way better than mine and/or you're much better at driving- neither of which is that unlikely. Based on the mileage stats the car would display, there is NO WAY we could've gone from MV to SF 2x on one charge. Even once was seriously pushing it despite speeding down the 101 or the 280 in the carpool zone.

Well, it is the speeding part that is probably the issue.

It is true that if you want to drive to Mountain View at 85mph you probably can't do two round trips, You could certainly still do one round-trip without thinking about it, especially if you charged in range mode before heading down there. Actually from your figure of 200mi range, maybe you didn't know about charging in range mode? That gives you about 240mi range (maybe a little less with an older battery).

The issue about driving speed is just that, as with any car, wind resistance applies dramatically more force to your car as speed increases. If you are driving 60 (which is at or above the speed limit on 101 and 280), it is not bad since you are about at the efficiency the car's published numbers are based on, but if you are driving 70-75 range is very much decreased.

Here is a range vs. speed graph for the Roadster:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1019610_2009-tesla-roads...

(There are more-detailed charts on the internet if you search for them). Notice that if you are driving 55, you get about 70 more miles of range than if driving 75!

On the other hand if you want to drive 45 and feel like a total ass then the car will go really far!

So this is definitely one thing that will improve as electric cars and infrastructure get better: less dependency on speed or weather conditions (driving through heavy rain will also decrease range by quite a bit). In a Model S with the supercharger network already in place, you could probably drive from SF to LA like a bat out of hell and not worry about it, which is cool.

But, I am just saying, I drive round-trip to the south bay all the time and do not think twice about it. That is the kind of range that is trivial for the Roadster. Unless you commute at 90mph and aren't using range mode and/or didn't charge the car all the way up.

P.S. My car has about 18k miles on it, so I don't think I have a particularly youthful battery at this time!

Interesting, I don't know anything about either of the things you mentioned: range mode (When giving me the car, they told me it could go about 200 hours on 1 charge but to keep it under 150 because if it got completely drained I'd have to pay $10K for a new battery. Most of the time I would hook the car up to those free chargers in downtown PA), or not speeding (I always assumed speeding was good for mileage. It's also easier for me to speed in a tesla bc there aren't engine sounds, just road sounds, and everyone speeds on the 280).

For sure driving the car fast is one of the most fun things!

Wow, they need a new name. I came in here thinking they'd invented some sort of new electric forced induction mechanism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercharger]

So how much wear and tear does a supercharge put on the battery pack?

Did anyone else think of opening their own charging station(s)?

I think the big news here is that someone is creating a distributed electric plant with social benefits to attract customers to buy their cars, pretty brilliant and world changing ideas. Why not join the fun?

Even if there's not enough Tesla or other electric vehicles coming to your station you'll at least be making your money back on solar energy generation and selling coffee, internet, etc. to customers that come in.

Tesla doesn't have to be the sole provider for the free charges.

and the average Tesla customer is likely to consume much coffee and internet...

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