Electric cars

AdrianC

The Innolith announcement is interesting in another respect, too - it's addressing the flammability of LiIon batteries, changing the organic electrolyte for an inorganic one, but staying with a wet electrolyte, instead of going dry as other high-density projects are doing.

Three-to-four-fold increase in energy density is a MAJOR leap. Three-to-five years for production. Let's wait and see.


The CleanTechnica article points to TheVerge as their source.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/4/18293989/innolith-ev-battery-breakthrough-lithium-ion

gzoom

AdrianC wrote: »

Yes, that lonely red blob shows Tesla's Q1 2019 drop as being quite marked, doesn't it? Not just way below Q4 last year, but about half-way between Q2 and Q3 last year... And in such a strongly rising market, too.

Have you actually looked at how car industry sales work? Q1 is always the lowest by far. Add to that Q4 for Tesla in the US was crazy due to the phase of federal tax credits and the 10Ks car Tesla have in transit between Q1 and Q2.

Why not look up how many cars Tesla shifted in Q1 2018 versus Q1 2019. For comparison this how everyone else did.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-02/bmw-pulls-ahead-of-mercedes-in-u-s-luxury-race-as-lexus-gains

The biggest challenge for Tesla hasn't changed for the last 12-18 months, just how much profit (if any) can they make on the $35K base Model 3.

As yet Tesla still haven't built a single $35K Model 3*, let alone deliver one. Eye grabbing headline figures show little of what's really challenging for Tesla (and all other EV brands). Getting a truly 'affordable' EV with 200 miles+ range into mass production.

* The first SR+ ($40K) Model 3s are now been delivered as off last week, so pending how quickly Tesla can ramp up, Q2 figures will be pretty high.

AdrianC

gzoom wrote: »

The biggest challenge for Tesla hasn't changed for the last 12-18 months, just how much profit (if any) can they make on the $35K base Model 3.

As yet Tesla still haven't built a single $35K Model 3*, let alone deliver one. Eye grabbing headline figures show little of what's really challenging for Tesla (and all other EV brands). Getting a truly 'affordable' EV with 200 miles+ range into mass production.

* The first SR+ ($40K) Model 3s are now been delivered as off last week, so pending how quickly Tesla can ramp up, Q2 figures will be pretty high.

Let's wait and see.

The bottleneck on the line hasn't been the motor units or batteries, though, by all accounts - so will that change increase total production, or just decrease the maximum possible weekly revenue? That's why the number of cars going down the line is so important.

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

Yes, there's been a global growth in EV sales. 2.1m vehicles last year, globally - up 64% on 2017, and now reaching 2.2% of all vehicle sales, or about 40% of the global total fleet in just one year. That's all plug-ins, yes - 69% of them pure BEV, so just under 1.45m BEVs globally.
http://www.ev-volumes.com/country/total-world-plug-in-vehicle-volumes/



But to zoom in from the market as a whole to a manufacturer who delivered about 1 in 6 of those BEVs, then...

Yes, that lonely red blob shows Tesla's Q1 2019 drop as being quite marked, doesn't it? Not just way below Q4 last year, but about half-way between Q2 and Q3 last year... And in such a strongly rising market, too.

Hi

Considering that you've supplied information detailing a 20% lag between deliveries & production and have effectively accepted that this would be caused by an initial loading of the global supply chain .... what's your considered prediction of the direction the line extended from that 'lonely red blob' will go for Q2? .. is significantly upwards not the strongest possibility? ...

:idea: .... maybe even a record deliveries quarter is on the books after the normal coiled spring recoil effect comes into play and releases that 20% analytical lag to the market? ... :whistle:

HTH
Z

AdrianC

Well, we could ignore temporary effects on the deliveries through lengthening the supply chain by looking at the production figures for the quarter instead.

How long does a freight ship take to cross the Atlantic, anyway? Two to three weeks?

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

Well, we could ignore temporary effects on the deliveries through lengthening the supply chain by looking at the production figures for the quarter instead.

How long does a freight ship take to cross the Atlantic, anyway? Two to three weeks?

Hi

Ignore deliveries? ... it's you that raised them as the data suits the narrative! .... however, even looking at production we have a quandary ... the introduction of EU spec vehicles & the initial effect that changes almost always have on the line's TACT ...

May I also respectfully conclude that your point on deep sea freight is more than a little naive when looking at initially loading the supply chain for international deliveries .... it's not only the number of vehicles & the time at sea that needs consideration as the distance between the west coast of the USA and the east coast (where the Atlantic actually is!) is quite considerable ... the shipping could actually be from the west (Pacific) coast to avoid trans-shipping transfer costs (actually they have been shipped from San Francisco to Zeebrugge Belgium so far!), in which case the deep sea transit time about 21 days (port to port transit), but loading the supply chain doesn't end there as it has to include the load consolidation between the plant & the docks for shipping, the port offload stock at the shipping destination & the inventory in transit between each of the stocking locations prior to final customer delivery ... it's quite a considerable number of vehicles in total and will initially cause some issues requiring changes to the organisation's logistics processes & procedures, a major one being how they slot export models into their production plan such as whether they slot them into the schedule on an extended JiT basis, or build for export on a batch/shift basis (which could cause nominal line TACT issues related to vehicle specification mix!).

As mentioned earlier, when starting up a new long distance delivery 'conveyor' system, goods are continually being loaded at source with nothing coming off at the destination ... it would be interesting to check out some VIN production dates for the recent EU deliveries, but it's unlikely that one delivered today was built much after mid-February, so the averaged equivalent of half-a-quarter's EU export production being in transit at any one time! ... initial pain if it's your in transit inventory (ie, not FOB or Ex-Works sales etc), but quite standard!

HTH
Z

AdrianC

zeupater wrote: »

Ignore deliveries? ... it's you that raised them

Perhaps we should just look back, eh?

The first mention of the Q1 figures was Martyn, post 3516, which started...
"Tesla Q1 figures look a bit poor (to me), possibly due to low Jan sales (US car sales in Jan are very low), and the amount of cars now in transit due to international sales (shipments)."

My reply to that, 3517, only mentioned the production numbers.

Your reply to Martyn, 3521, focussed on deliveries.

My reply to you, 3522, only showed the numbers for both production and deliveries.

Martyn, 3525, referred to the market as a whole, and pointed specifically to a graph referring to Tesla deliveries, which I replied directly to, 3526, pointing to one part of that graph.

GZoom, 3532, mentioned deliveries.

My reply to that, 3533, only mentioned production.

You looked back at that graph in 3534, referring again to deliveries.

I replied in 3535, suggesting that we focus on production, rather than deliveries, precisely because of the transient blip caused by starting non-NA Model 3 deliveries.

As for the shipping logistics, yes, the East Coast is a fair way from the plant. But the ports are no further than East Coast consumers are, so that's a well-established logistics route. The shipping may well be done from a West Coast port - but, again, the logistics there will be well established, since the Model S and X for Tilberg final assembly will already be using that route. Last time I looked "21 days" is not very far from the 2-3 weeks I suggested, and they still come to Europe across the Atlantic, rather heading the somewhat longer way round across the Pacific/Indian Ocean/Arabian Gulf/Med etc.

Getting back to the point, though, I doubt there's significant line impact through introducing RoW-spec cars, simply a few extra part SKUs feeding into what's already a fairly solidly automated line. Didn't they say there was 98% parts commonality? RHD isn't happening yet, which would bring the nearest to significant disruption, but even that would be minimal assuming both car and line were designed with it mind.

As mentioned earlier, when starting up a new long distance delivery 'conveyor' system, goods are continually being loaded at source with nothing coming off at the destination ... it would be interesting to check out some VIN production dates for the recent EU deliveries, but it's unlikely that one delivered today was built much after mid-February, so the averaged equivalent of half-a-quarter's EU export production being in transit at any one time! ... initial pain if it's your in transit inventory (ie, not FOB or Ex-Works sales etc), but quite standard!

Great, so we're all agreed that the starting-European-delivery thing is no more than a relatively minor, temporary blip. Group hug.

Martyn1981

NigeWick wrote: »

Will it be commercially viable though?

Absolutely, the $64k, million, billion, trillion question. As the article mentions, lots of great news battery articles in the past that come to nothing or little, so who knows?

But, and here's the fun bit, it doesn't matter how many technological or economic dead ends there are, there only needs to be one of these big jumps that works.

Till then lots of incremental improvements seem to be going well.

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Ignore deliveries? ... it's you that raised them as the data suits the narrative! .... however, even looking at production we have a quandary ... the introduction of EU spec vehicles & the initial effect that changes almost always have on the line's TACT ...

HTH
Z

At least I called the FUD (borderline trolling?) in advance. Getting way too predictable now:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya, bet you think you went way OTT, but wait till Tesla announce a loss for Q1 (and possibly Q2), as they switch to worldwide distribution of the TM3, restructure, and invest/expand in China.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

On that subject, perhaps also brace yourself for more FUD and BS in the next quarter report, as Tesla will see a large hike in their 'in transit' figures for the TM3 as they start to sell in China and Europe. Unless of course, they carefully stagger sales/deliveries off-continent to avoid the last few weeks of each quarter, just to keep the FUD'ers quiet.

And before that last quote, my post also said:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Absolutely. For the market they compete in they are crushing it. And more importantly, I believe this is an EV thing, not just a Tesla thing.

Which that 'lonely red dot' shows so beautifully. Quarter over quarter growth, and TM3 production was up a bit.

Shame about the S & X sales, but there was a bit of speculation and down right guessing beforehand, that Tesla may be starting to sacrifice some production for TM3's. Not sure that sounds right, but they are constrained and the price hike in the big models did seem deliberate to remove all of the (then) base models, smaller batts, and cheaper offerings.


So will we see a quarter on quarter increase for Q2 too? Well, most likely unless production drops around 50%. So really it's H2 that's more important. Speaking of which, Tesla is hinting that Chinese TM3 production may start in H2 as the factory build is ahead of schedule and initial production equipment is already rumoured to be in transit.

So hard to talk about good BEV news without many mentions of Tesla, the sector driving force, but of course that plays into the hands of the trolls who then use the 'Fanboi' claim to try to undermine said news. Oh well.

Martyn1981

Forgot to post this yesterday:

Breaking: EU Accuses VW, BMW, Daimler Of Diesel Collusion — Potential Fines Up To $56 Billion

It's not about EV's, but the US response to dieselgate was to get VW to spend $bn's on the 'electrify America' rollout, so perhaps the EU could do something similar.