Tesla Developments

ecraig

Hoenir said:

JKenH said:

Inside EVs has been accused recently of being anti - Tesla because of a number of negative stories. Here’s another one. Make of it what you will. Tesla reportedly had 2m advance orders for the Cybertruck so maybe the ones in this story are awaiting the accelerator fix or maybe not. 

Clever marketing. Just $250 for a non refundable deposit for a concept car in 2019 draws in 1 million orders. In 2023 the vehicle when it's launched retails at a price over double what was said at the outset.  Orders evaporate overnight. 

“Join the waitlist… by paying some money” is a great concept for determining if the initial scoping and feasibility exercise is worthwhile in the commercial world. Glastonbury festival is a great example of how it’s an amazing way to obtain an initial order book.
The global economies and global political events is the likely reason for the sad increase in the revised purchase price.
Expect more companies to offer waitlists going forward.

JKenH

More negative news on Tesla from InsideEVs

Tesla China-Made EV Sales Decreased 18% In April 2024

In April, Tesla Giga Shanghai's wholesale vehicle shipments (local retail sales and exports) noticeably decreased, deepening the year-to-date decline.

According to the China Passenger Car Association's (CPCA) initial data, the wholesale shipments of Tesla's Made-in-China (MIC) Model 3/Model Y cars last month amounted to 62,167, 18% less than a year ago.

https://insideevs.com/news/718737/tesla-china-ev-sales-april2024/

JKenH

Electrek have reported a 4 day factory shutdown at Tesla’s Berlin plant but some of the comments below the article suggest that Electrek is being disingenuous and the shut down is one day only with the remaining 3 days being the weekend and public holiday.

Tesla announces 4-day shutdown of Gigafactory Berlin due to protests

Electrek’s Take

This is a bit dubious to me. Tesla does say that it is complying with the local authorities, but it doesn’t go as far as saying that the authorities requested Tesla close the factory to manage the protest.

You could say that Tesla is being very cautious or that it is using this as a reason to reduce production because it doesn’t think it can match its capacity with orders.

I lean toward the latter.

https://electrek.co/2024/05/07/tesla-4-day-shutdown-gigafactory-berlin-protests/

Hoenir

ecraig said:

Hoenir said:

JKenH said:

Inside EVs has been accused recently of being anti - Tesla because of a number of negative stories. Here’s another one. Make of it what you will. Tesla reportedly had 2m advance orders for the Cybertruck so maybe the ones in this story are awaiting the accelerator fix or maybe not. 

Clever marketing. Just $250 for a non refundable deposit for a concept car in 2019 draws in 1 million orders. In 2023 the vehicle when it's launched retails at a price over double what was said at the outset.  Orders evaporate overnight. 

“Join the waitlist… by paying some money” is a great concept for determining if the initial scoping and feasibility exercise is worthwhile in the commercial world. Glastonbury festival is a great example of how it’s an amazing way to obtain an initial order book.
The global economies and global political events is the likely reason for the sad increase in the revised purchase price.
Expect more companies to offer waitlists going forward.

I always wanted a Morgan Plus 8. Back in the day waiing list was 5 years with a hefty deposit. Nothing new. 

As for the Cybertruck price.  Finger in the air. Same as the promised cheap EV model. Words over substance I'm afraid to say. 

JKenH

Tesla is being probed by DOJ ‘securities or wire fraud’ over self-driving claims

Reuters is reporting based on three sources:

U.S. prosecutors are examining whether Tesla committed securities or wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers about its electric vehicles’ self-driving capabilities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The government is reported specifically looking at statements by Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk.

https://electrek.co/2024/05/08/tesla-probed-doj-securities-wire-fraud-self-driving-claims/

michaels

JKenH said:

Tesla is being probed by DOJ ‘securities or wire fraud’ over self-driving claims

Reuters is reporting based on three sources:

U.S. prosecutors are examining whether Tesla committed securities or wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers about its electric vehicles’ self-driving capabilities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The government is reported specifically looking at statements by Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk.

https://electrek.co/2024/05/08/tesla-probed-doj-securities-wire-fraud-self-driving-claims/

I bet this sort of legal problem under the Democrats would go away if Tesla were to recognise the auto workers unions....they have certainly positioned themselves for a Trump victory - the problem being that EVs will still be the whipping boys of any Republican government regardless of how much Musk cosies to the right.

gefnew

Grünheide: Tesla factory protesters clash with police in Germany - BBC News

Magnitio

gefnew said:

Grünheide: Tesla factory protesters clash with police in Germany - BBC News

More information about their protests are here: https://disrupt-now.org/en/disrupt-tesla/

They may have some valid points, but the effect of their protests may be more cars produced in China with less control over where the raw materials are sourced and then shipped halfway across the world.

JKenH

Magnitio said:

gefnew said:

Grünheide: Tesla factory protesters clash with police in Germany - BBC News

More information about their protests are here: https://disrupt-now.org/en/disrupt-tesla/

They may have some valid points, but the effect of their protests may be more cars produced in China with less control over where the raw materials are sourced and then shipped halfway across the world.

Indeed: “ One thing is certain: depending on the model, electric cars are less harmful to the climate than internal combustion engines only after 60,000 to 110,000 kilometres.”

The average car in the UK is driven around 10,000km per year, so that’s between 6 and 11 years to break even. What is always ignored is that EV CO2 consumption is always front end loaded,I.e. the carbon footprint of manufacturing an EV is much higher than an ICE vehicle because of the battery. Once that CO2 is up in the atmosphere it takes up to 100 years to disappear. It isn’t simply a matter of a one off hit that is quickly paid back.  

Let me try and explain with some figures I worked out a while back. You may regard the following figures and assumptions as arbitrary but they will give the idea. (Please recalculate if you wish with your own figures).

Let’s compare a Vauxhall Corsa petrol and electric. CO2 emissions from the petrol start at 114g/km but let’s assume 120g/km for ease of calculation. Quite a few people, like my wife, drive low mileages -say 3000m or around 5000km per year. So that’s emissions of 0.6 tons per year. Yes CO2 is emitted getting the fuel to the pump but to keep it simple for now let’s ignore that and in return I will assume that all the electricity used to drive the EV comes from sunbeams, i.e. no annual emissions from the EV.

Next assumption I will make is the manufacture of the 50 kWh battery in the Corsa electric will produce 5 tons of CO2. There is some work from MIT which gives a broad range of CO2 figures depending where the battery is manufactured but the likelihood is that if we all suddenly did the right thing and switched to EVs the batteries that would be needed would come from China so I don’t think the 5 tons is unreasonably high. 

Let’s assume the CO2 manufacturing emissions of the both cars excluding battery are the same. 

So in year 1 the EV emits 5 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and the ICE version 0.6 tons from burning fuel. That’s a warming effect of 5tons of CO2 for the EV and 0.6 tons for the ICE car. 

At the end of year 2 the warming effect of the CO2 from the EV is 4.95 tons (reducing 1 percentage) and the ICEV is now 1.2 tons (actually it would be 1.1954tons but I’m rounding to keep it simple). After year 3 it is 4.9 for the EV, 1.8 for the ICEV, etc. After 8 years it is around 4.6 for the EV and 4.8 for the ICEV. So on the face of it, it would seem that in this case break even is 8 years. 

However, what we are forgetting is that most of the 5 tons that went into the atmosphere is still there. Maybe an analogy will help. Let’s say the 5 tons produces a blanket 5 cm thick but that’s it and after that it takes 100 years to disappear (say 1% per year). The ICEV adds a thinner blanket of 0.6 cm/ year but keeps on repeating that year after year. After 8 years the EV blanket has reduced to 4.6cm but the ICE car blanket is now around the same thickness. (While 0.6cm is added every year, it also loses 1% per year of the cumulative total as well. Unfortunately it is more than 50 years since I last did integration so apologies for not producing an exact mathematical calculation but hopefully you get the idea.) 

For the first eight years of each cars’ life the average thickness of the EV blanket would have been 4.8 cm and the ICEV 2.4cm. Over the first eight years therefore the EV has retained twice as much CO2 as the ICEV and that will have contributed to a much faster temperature rise which could have been avoided but is now baked in.  After that the ICEV blanket keeps increasing while the EV’s decreases and eventually the EV becomes the better option but it takes a lot longer than one might have expected - it isn’t 8 years!

Edit: To be clear I am not suggesting any specific break even age - just making the point that it isn’t as simple as when the quantity of CO2 avoided in use equals the extra CO2 consumed in manufacture. 

EricMears

JKenH said:

Let’s assume the CO2 manufacturing emissions of the both cars excluding battery are the same. 

Why are we assuming that ?  Has somebody invented a method of manufacturing IC engines that doesn't generate any CO2 ?  The battery may well generate more but to include that whilst not excluding the bits an EV doesn't have seems rather silly.