Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

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>They were a battery company using luxury automobiles to fund battery R&D.

This seems questionable to me. I just don't see lithium-ion powering electric cars in an affordable or usable fashion. The density isn't great and after 4-5 years the battery pack wears out, making your $30-50k battery investment disappear. There's no resale value on a battery that can't even hold 30% of its original charge. Musk's solar city shenanigans are cute, but not a lot of people are moving to solar when electricity is so cheap.

Tesla just never got the battery breakthrough it needed and it will probably never become a hybrid engine company. All this talk of "just wait until Musk does this or does that" has been the same excuse we've been hearing for years. It hasn't materialized, at least for Tesla.

$300m losses in 12 months is scary. $100m loss in the past quarter is just bad. Musk can build this factory, but he can't improve lithium-ion tech nor can he raise the price of gas. If gas is under $6 or so, there's very little incentive to buy a pure electric. Fanboyism aside, Tesla just looks like a mess and making excuses about how its really not a car company stinks of desperation. Tesla is pretty much a failed company. Unless they pivot to hybrid engines and start selling a lower cost car, they'll just continue to be the toy of the idle rich.

Wow, you're pulling out some numbers that seem very unfounded here. You also seem to be VERY anti-tesla as seen in your other posts in this thread.

Can you show me where you have seen hard evidence of battery packs "wearing out" after 4-5 years? Also, please define wearing out as there are different meanings to that.

Contrary to what you have said in this thread the battery life has actually been significantly better than expected (http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0219/How-much...)

Also, saying the only incentive of buying an electric car to save money is ignoring a lot of other factors in the word.

In practice we're seeing ~25% loss of capacity at 40k miles in LEAF real world testing. 30% loss at 50k miles is the accepted norm. Capacity goes down annually after that. It seems that some cars are doing better, but play cars owned by the rich that get very few miles like the early Tesla sportscars. Real world daily-drivers like the LEAF experience the exact decay that was predicted. Lithium-ion isnt some new hot tech we don't understand. We understand it very well.

http://www.torquenews.com/2250/how-long-will-electric-vehicl...

Americans replace their car every 6 years now. You may have 30-50% capacity at year 6, depending on a lot of factors. This is unacceptable considering the anemic range of a new battery. EV means losing almost all your car's value after 3-5 years. High trade-in values we enjoy now will be lost as the majority of the cost of the vehicle will be its battery. These batteries will fill landfills and be an environmental disaster.

The current "fix" is just to build the battery replacement cost into the warranty. So now your car is more expensive. Warranty claims now become a legal struggle over what is faulty or not. Nissan claims 70% battery power is non-faulty. That means your 75m LEAF range is now ~50m. My gas car gets that in a gallon and a half.

>You also seem to be VERY anti-tesla as seen in your other posts in this thread.

Its a 12 year old company that has done nothing but burn money. They have no mature product on the horizon and their promises of making a middle-class cheap EV with great range and durability are just not in the realm of technology. The stock has been on a decline since mid last year and they have a celebrity CEO who is good at PR and gimmicks but not delivering affordable vehicles.

>Also, saying the only incentive of buying an electric car to save money

This is the only motivator for mass market acceptance. The idle rich love the acceleration of that $100k car, but that doesn't matter to someone who makes half or a third that in a year.

> nor can he raise the price of gas.

I think this is one of two fundamental flaws in your reasoning. First, yes, R&D is incredibly, incredibly expensive. I don't think anyone doubts that, and I find it just hysterical that x or y "social startup" can burn through far more money than that and never have to answer questions about the value of their R&D.

We know what Tesla is doing, and we know that it's difficult. It should be no surprise that it's expensive as hell. This isn't to say I'm betting on their success, it's to say that "R&D is expensive" isn't an argument against Tesla or its potential for success.

Quite the opposite, it seems their model has done a decent job of offloading a lot of R&D costs by, as I said, selling automobiles on the side.

Now, the second flaw ("nor can he raise the price of gas") isn't that the statement is false. He can't. But the laws of thermodynamics paired with the laws of economics can, and will, forever. Further, when it does happen, the success of his cars (or "toys of the idle rich") is irrelevant: he owns the infrastructure and he owns the IP necessary for everyone else to leverage the inevitable growth in fuel prices.

Also, to address the battery capacity loss argument:

http://www.pluginamerica.org/surveys/batteries/tesla-roadste...

Independent study on the Roadsters.

126 vehicles (of 2500 produced) reported a total 3,198,749 miles traveled. Tesla's projections said the battery would have 100,000 miles driving range, so at 50,000 miles the projection was to have 70% capacity. In reality, an average Roadster has 80-85% original capacity after 100,000 miles. That said, there was considerable variation between batteries' health, so take that as you will.

I already addressed this:

n practice we're seeing ~25% loss of capacity at 40k miles in LEAF real world testing. 30% loss at 50k miles is the accepted norm. Capacity goes down annually after that. It seems that some cars are doing better, but play cars owned by the rich that get very few miles like the early Tesla sportscars. Real world daily-drivers like the LEAF experience the exact decay that was predicted. Lithium-ion isnt some new hot tech we don't understand. We understand it very well.

Two completely different cars show different rates of deterioration: "Must be because rich people drive one of them."

I just told you the actual numbers, 100,000 miles at 80-85% capacity. You can't just say "get very few miles." I just told you how many miles.

Its the same battery tech. The only difference is that daily driving, which is the typical use case, wears them out faster. Probably due to getting the batteries hotter as they run longer, in traffic, etc.

Its still lithium-ion. It will behave the same way regardless of brand or celebrity CEO worship.

>I just told you the actual numbers

From a non-daily driver two seat sports car. Other sources follow the LEAF's numbers. My buddy's Porsche runs fairly well and its 30 years old. That doesn't mean you can have a 30 year old daily driver.

Here's the actual data for the Tesla Model S. Far superior to the Leaf and inline with the roadster. No need to compre apples to oranges.

http://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/battery-degradation-f...

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