Elon's demand "secret weapon" ...what is it?

[ChadS]

As it's not firmware-enabled, I'm less convinced of an announcement with a site-host partner like McDonald's. But something along those lines could be good for Tesla and could be included in the announcement, so I'm happy to consider.

On the pro side, McDonald's in addition to being ubiquitous also owns (rather than leases, or has its franchisees rent) a significant number of its properties. So it could indeed be a good partner. On the con side, however, does anybody remember when one employee got a Roadster EVSE installed at a McDonald's in Barstow? Corporate about had a fit because of the image mismatch and almost made them take it down. (Incidentally, it is down now; though supposedly due to the site host rather than Tesla).

 

[RobStark]

My guess is McDonald's average customer makes a below average income. But there are still massive amounts of customers than can afford a Tesla and more so a Model 3. McDonald's are not only in poor neighborhoods but the richest. And lots of high school and college students. People that will make more money in the future.

In our extended family it is a tradition to eat Filet O Fish on Fridays during Lent. Although I admit I have not eaten a beef hamburger there in over a decade. Do like the fries too.

I heard Starbucks name get kicked around. But so many are in malls and strip malls. Whereas more McDonald's are stand alone stores with large parking lots. Getting stores with Playgrounds to sign onto Superchargers would be nice.

 

[Rheazombi]

I've had terrible experiences with McDonald's refusing to let me use their bathroom unless I buy something. This has happened at dozens of different locations over the years. Meanwhile I have never had a negative experience with Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks.

McDonald's also barely sells what I would even qualify as "food". I really hope McDonald's has nothing to do with Tesla's announcement.

 

[RobStark]

Dunkin Donuts is a North Eastern, Florida, and Nevada company.

They virtually have no stores in the North West.

- - - Updated - - -

Starbucks locations. Again not many stand alone stores with large parking lots.

- - - Updated - - -

- - - Updated - - -

 

[Liz G]

With the reliability of electric cars, what if his secret weapon is unlimited warranty?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

With the reliability of electric cars, what if his secret weapon is unlimited warranty?

Potential future reliability. I'd love to see the data they're collecting on parts failures to see whether they're resolving the problems they've had.

 

[AustinPowers]

What about having a Tesla booth at every Walmart/Tesco/otherbigsupermarketsaroundtheworld? Maybe through selling the car in the supermarket would allow for selling it in every state?

Who would buy an 80-130K Dollar/Euro car at a supermarket?

 

[jhm]

Charging at the speed of fueling is near a rate of 1MW.
85 kWh / 5 min × 60 min/hour = 1020 kW.

Even to do this is 15 minutes would imply a charge rate of 340 kW, but I don't see this really as fast as fueling. I think Tesla needs to get much closer to 1MW to make that claim, at least 500 kW.

 

[AB4EJ]

As it's not firmware-enabled, I'm less convinced of an announcement with a site-host partner like McDonald's. But something along those lines could be good for Tesla and could be included in the announcement, so I'm happy to consider.

On the pro side, McDonald's in addition to being ubiquitous also owns (rather than leases, or has its franchisees rent) a significant number of its properties. So it could indeed be a good partner. On the con side, however, does anybody remember when one employee got a Roadster EVSE installed at a McDonald's in Barstow? Corporate about had a fit because of the image mismatch and almost made them take it down. (Incidentally, it is down now; though supposedly due to the site host rather than Tesla).

Tesla is an upscale marque (at least for now). It's hard for me to imagine they would partner with McDonald's. Starbucks, maybe; but many Starbucks locations have minimal (if any) parking, so it would be a challenge to find charging spots and other Tesla amenities. Not to say it couldn't be done - it has to make sense financially.

- - - Updated - - -

Charging at the speed of fueling is near a rate of 1MW.
85 kWh / 5 min × 60 min/hour = 1020 kW.

Even to do this is 15 minutes would imply a charge rate of 340 kW, but I don't see this really as fast as fueling. I think Tesla needs to get much closer to 1MW to make that claim, at least 500 kW.

That kind of power density is in the range of the Linear Hadron Collider, isn't it? To move that kind of current through wiring would require superconductors to be used for all the cabling; then, battery thermal management would have to be a whole different system (liquid helium cooled?) - you're up against a whole lot of physics with this idea.

 

[Johan]

That kind of power density is in the range of the Linear Hadron Collider, isn't it? To move that kind of current through wiring would require superconductors to be used for all the cabling; then, battery thermal management would have to be a whole different system (liquid helium cooled?) - you're up against a whole lot of physics with this idea.

Cough, cough... ahem... Battery swap.

 

[austinEV]

The McDonald's crowd doesn't necessarily have $80k to blow on an EV, though (speaking of the idea of increasing demand).

I concede that the 80k crowd probably doesn't go to McDonalds quite as often, but everyone goes sometimes. And young people students go. Regardless of what you think of it's poor prospects for demand generation, it would be an excellent partern for SC since they tend to own their properties and are located at highway exits.

 

[jhm]

That kind of power density is in the range of the Linear Hadron Collider, isn't it? To move that kind of current through wiring would require superconductors to be used for all the cabling; then, battery thermal management would have to be a whole different system (liquid helium cooled?) - you're up against a whole lot of physics with this idea.

I have no idea what it would take to achieve a 1 MW charge rate, just pointing out what a fueling parity goal would be. If Tesla could double the charge rate of Superchargers, 240 kW, that would be a tremendous step forward, and could actually save Tesla money on the number of chargers they need to install to serve the fleet, but it would still be much slower than fueling. On the other hand, I don't believe consumers will every require parity. As battery density goes up and cost per kWh goes down, larger capacity batteries will overcome the extra few minutes it may take to charge. For example, would a customer prefer spend an extra $5000 for 50 extra kWh or for supercapacitors that shave a could of minutes off your supercharge time? At a low enough price point for added battery capacity, it's cheaper just to minimize the number of times you need to stop to charge than to save a few minutes per charge. The specific price point will vary for each consumer, but I think in the longrun cheap light weight batteries will tip the scale for virtually all use cases.

 

[Newb]

Who would buy an 80-130K Dollar/Euro car at a supermarket?

That was thought to be an idea for a workaround for those states in which dealers block direct sales. And right, normal supermarkets are probably not the best place to have a Tesla booth but think malls.

 

[sundaymorning]

Buy a Model S, get a free charger heheh and no, this is not a mobile super charger.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

I think in the states that don't allow manufacturers to operate dealerships, they need to set up a coop structure where the dealership is owned by the customers, along with a service center, that is set up so that it is economically neutral to tesla, yet meets the letter of the law. Think REI. How that profit gets transferred could be based on several factors.

They need to get creative here.

This is smart.

- - - Updated - - -

@bayrower, welcome to TMC, and thanks for the great idea. I've looked at most of the states' laws that prohibit Tesla from selling direct, and I'm nearly certain that your approach would work. In MA Tesla was able to meet the letter of the law merely by setting up a wholly-owned sub, Tesla Motors Massachusetts, but other states' statutes are a constructed so as not to allow such an easy workaround. I suspect the chief issue would be one of control, whether the co-op was just a shell for Tesla or whether it was actually independent.

Of course, I wouldn't be the only person who thinks this is smart, especially two months after the initial comment, lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, the point is exactly for it to be a dealer in those states.

I am not sure why every state would then require dealerships unless you are suggesting it will be political and laws would be passed, but even if true then set up a national coop structure then.

The key is that it is economically neutral.

And the principles of how it operates are set in the governance.

Though I would need to understand more

- - - Updated - - -



It is amusing when wholly owned subs aren't covered under legal definitions of control. Of course, Ireland benefits most of the major tech and pharma companies on this with the double Irish tax structure, but they do it willfully.

What needs to be understood is what controls are necessary for the coop to have to be independent. Frankly, Tesla is concerned about receiving their profit, and making sure their sales principles are followed, that great service is provided, etc. I think that can easily be handled. The governance of the coop can be set in advance as well. If there was a change of control (as suggested in the earlier post of demutualization) then the relationship can get severed at Tesla's determination.

The tricky part is that Tesla will receive less for each car, and the coop will mark up the price of that car to handle the distribution piece. The sum of those two should be the same as current MSRP. Service can just be handled as an economic relationship too, and again all profits get rebated back to the customers, perhaps as REI does as a percentage of the revenue each customer had there.

One could go even further and make this whole thing a non profit!

Like REI, it should create great loyalty knowing that your service is being performed for cost (though service tends to be a large profit center for dealers, and perhaps manufacturers like Tesla, so losing control of this revenue stream needs to be carefully considered. Perhaps there is a licensing fee for equipmentt etc that gets sent back to Tesla, or Tesla performs certain activities)

By doing a coop where profits gets sent back to customers, you avoid setting up a system where customers never feel good about different prices, as there is no incentive to do the aggressive destructive price negotiations. Saturn tried that too, so the legalities of that need to be understood.

All good stuff.

- - - Updated - - -

"So yes, I think we - I do have a secret weapon on the demand side that will probably start to deploy later this year for demand generation. We’ll see how that goes. It isn’t totally necessary but I think and it could be pretty interesting"

I interpret this as a weapon to get more people to buy the car. So it is either a weapon to get people who can't afford a Tesla to buy one or a weapon to get those not currently interested in EVs to buy one.

I agree, 100%.

And your avatar is hilarious.

- - - Updated - - -

Tesla has been nudging the price of the Model S up since 2012. Replacing my car with its exact configuration would cost me $12,000 more. Of course, the replacement model would include all the cool AutoPilot, but the Tech Package is only $500 higher.

Elon said "no discounts" and he's counting on high gross margins from the S/X to fund the Model 3 development and tooling, so I think his secret weapon is something that actually shifts the demand curve upward, rather than merely moving along the curve by lowering prices.

Very much agree.

 

[GardenEye]

Aha - just got to think out of the box for this. My hunch is that water desalination is the secret weapon. I believe the process gobbles extraordinary amounts of energy to produce water and is therefore environmentally negative and expensive and not particularly commonplace (considering the water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink irony). Anyone getting this...solar, energy storage relative to water demand/production etc. Solve one of the our most urgent global problems too - and our Elon loves a bit of that!

 

[Cosmacelf]

Um, but solar energy isn't a particularly cheap energy source. It is only cheap relative to consumer rates that the utilities charge.

 

[AudubonB]

Well - thinking about desalination certainly meets the definition of Out Of The Box - and, while I absolutely believe you're wrong, I'll not only give you an A+ for a good try, BUT....I'll also note that one of the key pieces of battery manufacturing - today - is the millipore material that also might be perfect for osmotic water purification. Hmm. Verry interesting.

 

[32no]

I wrote a really long post over here explaining why the Tesla Pop-Up store seems to be the demand/anti-dealer secret weapon. Even if its not THE secret weapon, it is at the very least, A secret weapon.

 

[bonaire]

Um, but solar energy isn't a particularly cheap energy source. It is only cheap relative to consumer rates that the utilities charge.

It is cheap today due to very generous incentives (30% tax credit and state rebates and other items) and also cheap Chinese modules dumped into the market. If someone had to install their Solar PV without those items, how cheap is it really? I doubt we see any continuance larger than the 10% tax credit after 2016. Some in the solar industry say that the module prices are bottoming now. Personally, I paid more for US-made Solar PV products for my own system.

Utilities charge because they have large buildings, fleets of trucks and people to service. All that needs constant annual income. I doubt a utility such as PG&E could exist out of cheap huts, they need large buildings in the financial district in San Francisco. Same for other utilities having large buildings in city centers where pricey office workers take a sizable salary. It was the only way to give "everyone" electricity at scale. Solar PV can supplement today but only can take someone off the grid with batteries, good batteries and enough of them so that a period of cloudy days does not deplete the batteries fully.

Now, when someone has their own solar PV at home, they remove the need for all that infrastructure. Except for the ongoing maintenance through service companies who may need to replace an inverter at year 15 or a module that goes bad in year 7 after a squirrel chews a wire. It does show signs of disruption but not on a big enough scale yet. It's coming, however. Both batteries and solar PV have limited lifespans when installed locally. All systems installed today will not be there in their current form in 30 years. All inverters will most likely have been replaced which is a minor repair. First-world society is 99% connected to the grid and I doubt that the intention is to take everyone off the grid. That would be somewhat impossible for large energy-users such as universities and factories or even large, tightly-spaced homes. Isn't getting off the grid a bit of an anti-collective position? Whereby we are saying "I don't trust the other humans who run the power company to be working in my best interest" - even after they provide things like TOU rates to recharge EVs cheaply late at night and allowing net-metering laws to affect their incomes, etc.

I am interested in seeing how the battery industry finds non-degradation solutions for batteries. Meaning - battery cells that do not lose their capacity over time and become effectively "forever batteries" with tens of thousands of recharge cycle potential. I don't know if forever inverters will ever occur.

I visited a hotel recently near a wind farm. The owner of the hotel was discussing that the guys who stayed there mentioned just how much ongoing maintenance that the turbines needed to keep running. Of the 12 turbines that I could see, two were flagged for service last weekend. I usually see 1 or 2 flagged whenever I pass the area and they tend to be different units. Wind seems to be more troublesome than Solar in terms of energy output reliability. A turbine down for days is a lot of power not generated.