Analyst being interviewed knows the score. Woman interviewing him just mimes typical WS analysts who can't or won't take a deeper dive. Which of course they could catch up on in a few days reading on TMC (ignoring troll postings). If I'd been in his shoes, I'd have been sorely tempted to replied with a question. Asking how hard is it to understand that cash expenditures are highest when you are building out the production line(s) for an all new vehicle? Even if it turned out the M3 production ramp up is delayed 6 more months, Tesla has the option to conserve cash on hand by taking a break from going all out on all the next products. That's not going to happen while Musk is leading the company. Especially since more working capital can be raised, if needed, to bridge some months until major M3 revenue comes in. The other annoying, zero fact based misconception by the host, is imagining there is any question about whether Tesla can produce M3 in the planned volume, rather than how soon they will do so. When listening to the lazy analysts, you wonder how anyone believes they are doing their jobs when they pay no attention to history of what the company has done over the past 5 + years.
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Analyst being interviewed knows the score. Woman interviewing him just mimes typical WS analysts who can't or won't take a deeper dive. Which of course they could catch up on in a few days reading on TMC (ignoring troll postings). If I'd been in his shoes, I'd have been sorely tempted to replied with a question. Asking how hard is it to understand that cash expenditures are highest when you are building out the production line(s) for an all new vehicle? Even if it turned out the M3 production ramp up is delayed 6 more months, Tesla has the option to conserve cash on hand by taking a break from going all out on all the next products. That's not going to happen while Musk is leading the company. Especially since more working capital can be raised, if needed, to bridge some months until major M3 revenue comes in. The other annoying, zero fact based misconception by the host, is imagining there is any question about whether Tesla can produce M3 in the planned volume, rather than how soon they will do so. When listening to the lazy analysts, you wonder how anyone believes they are doing their jobs when they pay no attention to history of what the company has done over the past 5 + years.
The gas & diesel tax doesn't come anywhere close to covering road costs -- it's under 25% of the costs last I checked. On top of that, trucks do nearly all the road damage (the fourth power of axle load rule) but cars pay a large portion of the fuel costs. Diesel truckers already have a large government thumb on the scale benefiting them versus rail.
This country subsidizes roads and not rail, for some reason. :shrug: Bias, I guess.
Some countries actually treat their rail networks like the road networks and subsidize both to similar levels. Here in the US, we subsidize inefficiency, for whatever reason.
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OK, fair point. Perhaps there will be a one-driver sleeper cab variant. On the other hand, perhaps Tesla will provide their own motels at the Megachargers?
That is a good point. My understanding of the reason the Model S can't be a track car is that it runs into cooling limits. If they didn't care about trashing the battery, they could run it past normal engineering limits for the prototype. Still, people were pretty sure the Roadster looked like it had a double stack of batteries.
Europe's an interesting case. In some countries (not all!), the expressways are mostly tolled, which evens the scale a lot. (Though there are still a lot of free highways in Europe.)
But cost is not the reason rail is underused for freight in Europe. (And it is badly underused compared to, say, Russia.) Rather, it's some specific-to-Europe stupidities.
One reason it's underused is that the suitable distances for freight rail are usually international in Europe, unlike Russia, China, India, or the US. Freight rail really isn't a short-haul solution, it's a long-haul high-capacity solution. And there are major, stupid barriers to running freight trains betwen countries in Europe, which I will not go into because they are off-topic. One example is incompatible signalling systems, which they've been working to standardize for over a decade now with very slow progress.
Another reason is that most of Europe still uses a grossly obsolete coupling method for trains ("buffer and chain") which the rest of the world stopped using 100 years ago, and which massively reduces efficiency. Attempts to replace this with normal knuckle-type couplers have gone very slowly, showing a bad case of the "path dependence" problem where once a technology gets into use people keep using it even though it sucks. (Other examples include Microsoft Windows, and arguably gasoline engines.)
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Because it was mentioned, by the driver, that they can do those acceleration runs all night long, this gives me hope that it will be suitable for track duty.
They wouldnt be off the grid, powerpacks just help get the peak charge rate and solar would just be there to supplement charging the powerpacks back up from the grid and then feed into the grid after.
Europe als has a fairly dense waterway infrastructure (I don’t know if that’s a thing in the USA). It is currently heavily promoted in order to get heavy traffic off the road to improve the congestion on our roads. AFAIK it is mainly used for transport of bulk goods, but now also for container transport. Apparently it’s cheaper (including the the transfer from and to a container truck) than truck transport even for short distances (like 50 km).
Toyota the ostrich burying its head in the sand: Toyota still doesn't think electric cars are ready for mass consumption
This is why there has to be solar to get to seven cents.
Musk can't be serious about highway megacharger stations in the next five years. He's talking about customer sites. A Walmart distribution hub buys solar, powerpack and Tesla Semi and can charge at seven cents. All contained within Walmart. As the truck batteries age they can be used for stationary storage in the system. This can be an all DC system for efficiency.
Massive public Semi EV charging will probably need to be done at existing truck stops. That won't happen until the regional demand for EV semis is filled. Hopefully this is done with a common standard shared with all EV semis.
Wonder when Toyota is going to take off like a Hindenburg ... all that hydrogen stuff has an inborn yearning of its own
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Seems as if that would give an elevated seating position. Did it, and is that what made people think it had a double stack? Even with a double stack that still probably wouldn't get to 200kWh yet since only 80 currently fits in the Model 3 wheelbase, though they could have had extra in the trunk and frunk area I suppose.
Runarbt
Active Member
Of course megachargers with solar-power can be done within 5 years.. Just put them a bit remote with cheap land for some solar farms.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
2 seconds of hard acceleration followed by a leisurely return to the starting area is nothing like track duty.
Yar, if the Roadster weighs 5,000 lbs, a 0-60 run only uses 0.227 kWh (assuming no aero effects and 100% efficiency) average power is 430kW/ 577HP. We need an SOC/ run data source
Krugerrand
Meow
Old news. He’s changed his mind. He’s going to do whatever can be done *better* and *faster*. Just watch.
Except for that little issue of cash flow and ROI.
Do you have a truck building forecast for Tesla? How many trucks will they build in 2020? Walmart has 6000 regional trucks that don't need public charging. A big truck factory builds 200 a week.
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