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Australia - electric cars and Lithium Ion batteries

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Where is the Elon Musk of Australia?
- lots of sun for solar
- plenty of wind in some places, right?
- All the basic raw materials for Lithium Ion Mining in Australia - Wikipedia
[ Lithium battery - Wikipedia ]
- more than one shuddered auto plant, right?

About 1 million new cars per year. How about 50% be electric Aussie built? and battery plant
contact Tesla.com - uniti.earth - BYD.com and many others - make the best deal

Is it being done? Did government startup battery research or some such thing?
 
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Takes a lot of balls to risk everything you have and build a company, It also takes an incredible amount of money from yourself, investors. Something that Australians don'y have a "*sugar*-ton" of.
There would be little to no incentives from the "Coal-Rolling" Government for a start-up of EV's.
There are no local car manufactures any more, It costs too much, we don't have the population to support it.
 
The cost of our labour prevents mass car manufacture here. Thats why all manufacturers have departed our shores.
Tindo make fantastic solar panels in Adelaide, and Sonnan have just setup a new battery plant, as have two other brands. Tesla have just setup their asia pacific battery repair and research centre in Adelaide as well.
 
The cost of our labour prevents mass car manufacture here. Thats why all manufacturers have departed our shores.
Oh, yeah, that is why they can't build Tesla cars in California - labor/land/electricity/gasoline too expensive.

side note: never blame management - it is ALWAYS the employee fault - too high paid, too lazy - exactly why GM plant was being sold to Toyota (ended up being a partnership) and then later after GM went bankrupt Toyota took over the plant and sold it to Tesla.

I'm sure you must have had the best best management that those auto companies could find.

I really enjoy this Aussie car critic

PS - Elon will tell you, it needs to be a passion - cause starting a company of any kind is NOT easy.
 
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Takes a lot of balls to risk everything you have and build a company, It also takes an incredible amount of money from yourself, investors. Something that Australians don'y have a "*sugar*-ton" of.
There would be little to no incentives from the "Coal-Rolling" Government for a start-up of EV's.
There are no local car manufactures any more, It costs too much, we don't have the population to support it.
Get all those ex-auto workers together (even some of the managers?) Elon and his brother started with nothing. No apartment, they slept in the office (cheaper than an apartment) showered at YMCA one computer on the internet for business and at night they shut down the internet web-server side and Elon used it for computing. I didn't say it would be easy. You have about 1 million new cars sold per year, seems enough.
 
A new car cost around $1billion USD. Also margins in the car business are not great <10 %?
-Plus you have a lot of regulations
-Also need suppliers nearby at reasonable cost, since you likely wont make everything yourself.
-Then you have to sell them
 
Oh, yeah, that is why they can't build Tesla cars in California - labor/land/electricity/gasoline too expensive.

side note: never blame management - it is ALWAYS the employee fault - too high paid, too lazy - exactly why GM plant was being sold to Toyota (ended up being a partnership) and then later after GM went bankrupt Toyota took over the plant and sold it to Tesla.

I'm sure you must have had the best best management that those auto companies could find.

I really enjoy this Aussie car critic

PS - Elon will tell you, it needs to be a passion - cause starting a company of any kind is NOT easy.

Well if employment costs are no issue, you should go for it.....but before you do maybe speak with a stack of small manufacturers in your area and ask what there highest cost centre is.
 
Where is the Elon Musk of Australia?
- lots of sun for solar
- plenty of wind in some places, right?
- All the basic raw materials for Lithium Ion Mining in Australia - Wikipedia
[ Lithium battery - Wikipedia ]
- more than one shuddered auto plant, right?

About 1 million new cars per year. How about 50% be electric Aussie built? and battery plant
contact Tesla.com - uniti.earth - BYD.com and many others - make the best deal

Is it being done? Did government startup battery research or some such thing?
Closest we have is Tony Fairweather, founder of SEA Electric.
 
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Perhaps Tesla will go to Australia - meet the new Chairman of Tesla - not sure when her "promotion" to chairman happens.

Robyn M. Denholm
Robyn M. Denholm has served as a director [Tesla] since August 2014. Since January 2017, Ms. Denholm has been Chief Operations Officer of Telstra Corporation Limited, a telecommunications company. Prior to Telstra, from August 2007 to February 2016, Ms. Denholm was with Juniper Networks, Inc., a manufacturer of networking equipment (“Juniper”), serving first as its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and then as its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Operations Officer. Prior to joining Juniper, Ms. Denholm served in various executive roles at Sun Microsystems, Inc. from January 1996 to August 2007. Ms. Denholm also served at Toyota Motor Corporation Australia for seven years and at Arthur Andersen & Company for five years in various finance assignments. From April 2016 until April 2017, Ms. Denholm was also a director of ABB Ltd. Ms. Denholm is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Sydney and a Master’s degree in Commerce from the University of New South Wales.
Robyn Denholm | Board of Directors | Tesla, Inc.
 
I really enjoy this Aussie car critic

.

I don’t give that clown any airtime at all. You really don’t want to see/hear the complete BS that he spouts about Tesla.

As for cars being too expensive to build here because of labour costs - bear in mind that Germany pays it’s workers even more than we do here, with better conditions, and can still build cars at a profit.
 
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Reactions: Brando
I don’t give that clown any airtime at all. You really don’t want to see/hear the complete BS that he spouts about Tesla.

As for cars being too expensive to build here because of labour costs - bear in mind that Germany pays it’s workers even more than we do here, with better conditions, and can still build cars at a profit.
I think we can all agree that tesla is a very progressive software company that builds cars. They have an australian chairman, and another australian Murdoch on the board of Directors, who from all reports is a very good performer. Tesla have opted not to build cars in Australia. There are plenty of empty car factories available for them, plenty of expertise and all the materials needed to build cars are readily available here. Every state governement would be keen to recieve them. I wonder why they have elected not to build here?
 
I don’t give that clown any airtime at all. You really don’t want to see/hear the complete BS that he spouts about Tesla.

As for cars being too expensive to build here because of labour costs - bear in mind that Germany pays it’s workers even more than we do here, with better conditions, and can still build cars at a profit.
I find his critics of ICE companies very good. Sadly, you are completely correct - he doesn't understand anything about Tesla.
Of course Tesla is a rich person's car for now. Model 3 getting more affordable and hopefully the Model Y will be slightly cheaper. Used Teslas are becoming a better option year by year. It will be interesting to see when this "clown" has to admit electrification. I don't expect him to change UNTIL electric cars are reasonable to HIS customer base.

Can you tell us, or give us examples of auto costs in Australia? Is Model 3 anywhere near the mean or median of MSRP of new cars?
 
I find his critics of ICE companies very good. Sadly, you are completely correct - he doesn't understand anything about Tesla.
Of course Tesla is a rich person's car for now. Model 3 getting more affordable and hopefully the Model Y will be slightly cheaper. Used Teslas are becoming a better option year by year. It will be interesting to see when this "clown" has to admit electrification. I don't expect him to change UNTIL electric cars are reasonable to HIS customer base.

Can you tell us, or give us examples of auto costs in Australia? Is Model 3 anywhere near the mean or median of MSRP of new cars?
We can't get the Model 3 and probably won't for another year.
 
And when we do get the model 3 it will be not quite but near on double the average cost of a sedan sold in Australia....take in to account running costs (fuel and servicing) and I dare say the total ownership cost will close up however still more expensive (unless one is high km's).....
 
I think we can all agree that tesla is a very progressive software company that builds cars. They have an australian chairman, and another australian Murdoch on the board of Directors, who from all reports is a very good performer. Tesla have opted not to build cars in Australia. There are plenty of empty car factories available for them, plenty of expertise and all the materials needed to build cars are readily available here. Every state governement would be keen to recieve them. I wonder why they have elected not to build here?
Probably because we are in the middle of nowhere, have a patchy supply chain, have expensive labour, drive on the wrong side of the road, have a coal-loving government, and have a tiny domestic market?
Other than that, what's not to love eh??!
 
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Reactions: ICUDoc
I don’t give that clown any airtime at all. You really don’t want to see/hear the complete BS that he spouts about Tesla.

As for cars being too expensive to build here because of labour costs - bear in mind that Germany pays it’s workers even more than we do here, with better conditions, and can still build cars at a profit.

The Autoexpert is far from dumb, much smarter than the typical member of his YouTube audience (he claims to have some sort of auto-engineering degree, I assume he does) which is almost to a man (yes they are always men) Clarkson supporters, anti Tesla. When he misrepresents electric vehicles as being dirtier than ICE using outrageous arguments he must know he is grossly misstating his case. Of course his income comes in part (maybe the dominant part, don't know) from acting as a middle man for those buying new vehicles. Can you imagine how Tesla would respond to being asked to sell a car through him and give him a cut of the deal. I'm sure they would be polite when they told him no.
 
The Autoexpert is far from dumb, much smarter than the typical member of his YouTube audience (he claims to have some sort of auto-engineering degree, I assume he does) which is almost to a man (yes they are always men) Clarkson supporters, anti Tesla. When he misrepresents electric vehicles as being dirtier than ICE using outrageous arguments he must know he is grossly misstating his case. Of course his income comes in part (maybe the dominant part, don't know) from acting as a middle man for those buying new vehicles. Can you imagine how Tesla would respond to being asked to sell a car through him and give him a cut of the deal. I'm sure they would be polite when they told him no.
I think he's making a genuine mistake.
People look at the life cycle of single cars. Depending on your energy source and other factors, you can make a case that an EV is not much greener than an ICE.

BUT! You need to look at the whole ecosystem. Is a world with 100% EV greener than a world with 100% ICE? Yes!
All the economies of scale, the grid being forced to modernise, the recycling being more efficient at scale, the longer life of EVs, etc etc.

There my be an inefficient bump at the start of the transition, but you need to look wider and further.