The Alternative Green Energy Thread

ABrass

Teslas are made in America and had to shut their factory for quite a while. If you're not building cars you aren't selling them, no matter how much demand here may be. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised?

JKenH

ABrass said:

Teslas are made in America and had to shut their factory for quite a while. If you're not building cars you aren't selling them, no matter how much demand here may be. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised?

It doesn’t really matter as it should be business as usual again soon as in addition to cutting prices it has been suggested Tesla used the Fremont shutdown to make improvements to the production lines which has reduced waiting lists for the model Y in the US.

ABrass

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

Teslas are made in America and had to shut their factory for quite a while. If you're not building cars you aren't selling them, no matter how much demand here may be. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised?

It doesn’t really matter as it should be business as usual again soon as in addition to cutting prices it has been suggested Tesla used the Fremont shutdown to make improvements to the production lines which has reduced waiting lists for the model Y in the US.

Tesla have been planning a new casting machine to simply the Model Y's !!!!!! end, as well as their usual small changes each week. It might help them up the production rate.

But roll on the Berlin factory.

joefizz

JKenH said:

Much of what has been published recently about the comparative performance of Tesla and legacy automakers had led me to believe that Tesla was going from strength to strength while the legacy auto manufacturers were on their knees.

Bottom of the JD power survey as well. Thats really not that surprising given the feedback I got from the owners I know. Its almost a carbon copy of when I bought my 156 back in 2000.
I wasnt joking when I said the model 3s so far (they are improving but too late for some - more later) were built like Daewoos to BMW pricing but Daewoos have also come a long way ;-)
When I bought my 156 I came from a rover 214. It was an improvement and yes it was in and out of the dealers something like 9 times in the first year for stupid things (rear inside trim not fitted properly, thought if I pushed it back Id break it so got the dealer to do it and they broke it so needed a re-order and a month wait and so on...). Door button sticking which when left into the dealers they just applied WD40 and left it running down the door when I came to pick it up. Not washing the cars after service, you know stupid things that, if you love the car (although Im still writing about them 20 years on ;-)) you ignore and get on with it....
However. If you had come from Audi (at the time), Merc (at the time), BMW (at the time) then all of this would have peed you right off regardless of how good the car looked.

First winter I had the 156 the wipers stuck to the windscreen in heavy snow and the italians didnt think to put self cancelling in the motor controls so they just burnt out. I rang the dealers and I was the 17th person that morning to ring in with the same problem. 3 weeks off the road waiting for supplies from italy (they self cancel now!)

Fast forward to the model 3 and although all my mates love the car, they wont buy another one. They will go back to their high end audis, their jags and their lexuses when they all come out with electric models. Yes the tech is lovely to play with but when the bumper has cracked in heavy rain and you cant get a replacement, they dont have a service engineer in your country (yet) or you run out of charge (faulty public charger) and have to get a low loader to tow it home its a bit of a pita.
Thats the real issue, for everyone going from smaller cars they are excellent, for everyone coming from higher end cars they just arent worth the money, although they are more than happy with them but will get rid and move back to someone else.

I had a go in a neighbours e-niro the other day and have to say from those sort of perspectives its night and day with the tesla, and from a manufacturer at the top of the JD Power surveys! (Still wouldnt buy either myself though).
Now Im sure the fan boys will post x, y and z but all of the above is anecdotal from people I know personally who actually bought the cars and run them.

Spent 10 days in the Lake District last month. Did not see a single electric car parked anywhere. Went to a forest park near Liverpool a couple of days later and saw 3. Seemed a simple enough explanation, if going to the lakes, few charging spots, accommodation doesnt have charging and holiday range anxiety so drive the second FF car. Im sure a lot of the people staying in the lakes probably had an electric car in the family, just dont use it to go on holidays...

JKenH

Electric cars are still a challenge for most people. They are great for commuting but you have to be an enthusiast to use them for long trips outside the motorway network. It is a bit like setting out on a long car journey 100 years ago. You need to treat its as an adventure where things might not go to plan and accept it is a bonus when they do.

I had quite a long run yesterday which involved 2 top ups. The first went ok(ish). The first charger at Leicester Forest East didn’t work but the second one did. On the return trip near Warwick I was struggling for a rapid but ZapMap located one on a small industrial estate and navigated me to within 50 metres of it but there was absolutely nothing to suggest there might be a Rapid Charger in the vicinity. I asked around and the second responder pointed me to the back of the estate. There. lo and behold, was a small HEVRA garage, Ecofix, although I still couldn’t see the charger. 
The wife of the owner however confirmed there was one on the wall of the adjacent ICE garage (which they also owned) and organised the shuffling of vehicles to enable me to park next to the charger. It was an AlfaPower unit and I didn’t have the app and the AppStore couldn’t connect to let me download it. No problem; the owner’s wife started the charge for me and invited my wife and I to use their waiting room where she made us a cup of tea and provided biscuits. It was spotlessly clean with comfortable chairs and a very clean customer toilet. 

Once we had sufficient charge she used her app to stop the charge and took a contactless payment. £3.96 total spend (15.84kwh@25p). It would have cost us that for the tea and coffee anywhere else. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had in an EV but it was a good job I wasn't in a rush.

Pile_o_stone

Don't we have a dedicated thread for electric vehicles? I don't want to be a nagging nelly, but this thread is for the promotion of fossil fuels, nuclear, coal and other Alternatives to Green Energy.

JKenH

Pile_o_stone said:

Don't we have a dedicated thread for electric vehicles? I don't want to be a nagging nelly, but this thread is for the promotion of fossil fuels, nuclear, coal and other Alternatives to Green Energy.

This thread is for comment on green energy, good or bad. You can discuss fossils and nuclear if you like in the context of how they compare with green energy. The green and ethical and battery news threads are for “good news” on these technologies not for discussing the limitations of the tech. The author of those threads doesn’t want the news items posted turning into a debate on the pros and cons of the tech. 

I like RE tech and I like Teslas but as with any tech there are pros and cons. I don’t see any point pretending otherwise. I love my Leaf and am prepared to put up with its shortcomings rather than run a fossil car but I can see that for many people a BEV just won’t suit their budget or their lifestyle without compromises too significant to contemplate.

A year ago I thought Tesla were so far ahead that other cars just didn’t compare but there have been a lot of new cars roll out that do most of the things a Tesla can do and Some things better. There are now realistic alternatives. Tesla were the car of the first adopters but many people will be more comfortable with brands and a dealer network they know or is local to them. I am now bearish on Tesla.

Pile_o_stone

I'll inform the press that you're bearish on Tesla.

JKenH

Pile_o_stone said:

I'll inform the press that you're bearish on Tesla.

Elon Musk will be trembling, I’m sure.

JKenH

Tesla make a very efficient car and seem to be on top of the production costs such that they can get cars out of the factory without losing money on them, unlike other manufacturers it seems, but at what stage will Tesla actually make sufficient profit to justify the current share price valuation? What has changed in the last six months to justify the share price rising by 400%? 

They have taken a big share of the EV market as they have produced a car with a good range at an affordable level while pitching it against premium fossil competitors.

The question is where do they go from here? It was interesting to read the post about Tesla having a unique business model in making a car that stays up to date negating the need for their customers to update but is this not the same as inventing the everlasting light bulb? Is it a really sound business model? 

How frequently do we hear that Tesla should not be valued as a car company but instead as a Tech company?

I do not believe that Tesla’s current offering is significantly different from the likes of what legacy manufacturers such as VAG and Hyundai/ Kia are offering and at the same time new EVs from China are snapping at their heels and is it a great idea if you have a technological advantage to set up manufacturing in China where there is little respect or protection for intellectual property rights?

Much of Tesla’s valuation appears to be based on Fully Autonomous Driving and robotaxis arriving before the competition catches up. Does Tesla actually have a significant advantage on FSD? Yes, they have covered the miles and have a lot of data but is that data as valuable as the more limited but perhaps more relevant data collected by the likes of Waymo and others? Tesla do seem to have ducked out of filing autonomous driving reports to California DMV so it is hard to judge. An awful lot of people seem to be betting the farm on something happening in the future in a future that make look very different to the world we know now. Just look at how the world has changed in the last 6 months. Things change so fast now that any predictions about the future can be no more than speculation. Where was Tesla 10 years ago or even 5 years ago? Everything has changed since then and it may again. 

Elon Musk is the master of marketing and spin but numerous reports keep appearing that suggest Tesla’s market share might be slipping in Europe and the U.S. These are always dismissed by the Teslarati as being of no consequence as there is always a good explanation for any underperformance but as soon as Tesla reports a month of very high sales in a particular market the press is full of it and all else is forgiven.

Tesla’s reporting and accounting practices are also somewhat opaque; for instance how they account for the FSD sales they have made and not delivered and also the sale of regulatory credits. Why have Tesla sales figures always been the most difficult to access?

This is just my personal view. I was wrong 3 months ago about Tesla and I might well be wrong now. 

Please all feel free to put your own views forward but please don’t expect me to respond when you tell me I am wrong. I am sure your view will be as valid as mine but the reality is none of us actually know how this will turn out.