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The problem with that, at least from what I have read in articles about the subject, is that both the solar roof as well as the Powerwall as products appear to be worse than what the competition has to offer while also being more expensive, thus severely limiting market appeal.
Quite the opposite of Tesla cars, which are (at least for now) better than what the competition offers and at more attractive prices too.

Solar roof is debatable - it's a very different product than anything else I've seen on the market. You can certainly install traditional panels for less money, but the result is aesthetically and structurally different; for some folks it might be worth the money.

Powerwall is a different story. I'd be very interested to hear what cheaper alternatives you see. In looking through the market, I can't find anything that's even close to competitive.

You can buy either the lithium batteries or the inverter from other people for about what you pay for both of them from Tesla.
 
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Growth is only part of the equation. Having someone good at logistics high up in the organization with influence keeps the chaos at bay in all areas. During Amazon's big growth spurt they were not known for chaos because they had someone good at managing it. Their warehouses are known as sweat shops where workers are pushed to their limits, but they also are laid out end to end for efficiency. Amazon has always been efficient because they have always been good at logistics, even when they were growing at massive rates.

Again, analogies aren't helpful. You and I want them to be, but they are not. The last time Amazon grew its topline by 80% was in 1999, it's fifth year of operations, when it was one and a half orders of magnitude smaller than Tesla. Ford had one main model, one color, no (?) options. The Army had the resources of a wealthy nation at its disposal.
 
Again, analogies aren't helpful. You and I want them to be, but they are not. The last time Amazon grew its topline by 80% was in 1999, it's fifth year of operations, when it was one and a half orders of magnitude smaller than Tesla. Ford had one main model, one color, no (?) options. The Army had the resources of a wealthy nation at its disposal.

Having a lot of financial resources definitely helps, but it takes having the right people in the right places when needed. The same wealthy nation fell on its face dealing with hurricanes Katrina and Maria because the wrong people were in charge.

Militarily the US and South Koreans almost lost the Korean War in the first weeks of the war because the logistics supplying the troops in the peninsula completely broke down the first weeks of the invasions.

People don't put up statues to great logisticians, but the logistics experts are the forgotten figures who allowed the higher profile people to get their job done. Good logistics allow the innovators to be even more successful.
 
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Solar roof is debatable - it's a very different product than anything else I've seen on the market. You can certainly install traditional panels for less money, but the result is aesthetically and structurally different; for some folks it might be worth the money.

Powerwall is a different story. I'd be very interested to hear what cheaper alternatives you see. In looking through the market, I can't find anything that's even close to competitive.

You can buy either the lithium batteries or the inverter from other people for about what you pay for both of them from Tesla.

I didn't look into the articles too deeply, because for the time being I am neither interested in solar nor in battery storage solutions, but at least in terms of solar roof it is nothing new. Perhaps in the US, but over here there have been similar solutions for quite a few years.

Among others:
Hanergy Hantile
SolteQ - Das Energiedach für das Haus der Zukunft
Autarq Solardachziegel | Start
Sortiment / Photovoltaik | gasserceramic.ch

As for the Powerwall, I have to take part of my comments back, as some apparently concerned the Powerwall 1, whereas the Powerwall 2 indeed does seem to have improved quite a bit. One test I found of the Powerwall 2 mentioned overall good value for money, even though they stated that the price Tesla calculated for installation was too low, as due to the extreme weight of the device more manpower was needed during installation, increasing the cost by several thousand Euro. They also critizised that integration into existing systems as well as monitoring was impossible due to the protocol that Tesla uses which doesn't conform to industry standards all other devices adhere to.
Overall though they recommended the Powerwall 2 for those users who were not interested in advanced integration or monitoring but instead only in storing and later using (solar) energy. For further reading visit Der große Tesla Powerwall 2 Testbericht von ZOLAR (sorry, only in German).
 
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Long road ahead for SE Asian drivers revving up to go electric
1 Oct 2018 at 13:46
WRITER: THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION


"KUALA LUMPUR: When Benjamin Jacob stops his new scooter at traffic lights in Malaysia's capital, fellow drivers sometimes flash their lights or honk their horns at him, though he has done nothing wrong.

With his silent electric motorcycle, other users of Kuala Lumpur's congested roads wrongfully assume the 29-year-old has turned off his engine or fallen asleep at the wheel.

But the delivery driver is always alert - especially since he was picked to take part in a new electric-vehicle pilot project run by logistics giant DHL eCommerce."


Long road ahead for SE Asian drivers revving up to go electric
 
The US army went from a force smaller than Finland's to one of the largest in history in a few years from the late 1930s to 1944.
And if you want to know about the chaos, read _Catch 22_.

George Marshall quite deliberately cultivated the policy of "improvise an army from scratch for this specific war"; he said it was the US way of doing things, because we could never manage to do the European method of having professional standing armies. (And he pointed to Washington, and Lincoln, and other historical examples of the US doing this and winning.)

Unfortunately, it never demobilized after WWII. So we're now stuck with the WWII military organization, with all its corruption and chaos, and it isn't much good for any other war, so we lose all other wars. :p If you're gonna use that approach, you have to be willing and able to tear down what you've built before the next war (which Marshall did; he retired almost everyone who was left from WWI).

Not sure how this applies to Tesla...
 
Fast expansion does have some degree of chaos. When I was at Boeing my group went from 150 to 1500 in 2 years. There were definitely some growing pains. We were crammed cheek to jowl for a while until they built a new building.

There were many places where the entire organization could have become dysfunctional, but there were many people brought in to keep the expansion on track. The planning for the move into the new building was something akin to a minor invasion. I had a part in it, the logistics were very involved. A large part of the move involved moving a number of labs and simulators, some built almost 30 years before.

I hear about the troubles Tesla are having with expansion and other major expansions, and IMO, Tesla is not doing so great at it. They aren't crashing and burning, but they need to get some logistics people in to organize things better.

Oh and Marshall didn't get rid of all the WW I officers. Most of the senior officers in the Army in WW II were officers in WW I. MacArthur had retired before the war and was brought back, but he reached brigadier general by the end of WW I. Patton was promoted to colonel right before the Armistice. The bulk of WW II senior officers were much less senior at the end of WW I.

Marshall did cull or sidetrack the dead weight officers who were not fit for combat commands. Many were given training commands or desk duty stateside.

I do agree that the US military is a mess today. Being the dominant world power the last 70 years has required a standing military, but that issue has nothing do with this discussion.

The downside of logistics is it standardizes things which cuts both ways. An organization can begin to get too rigid with logistics, but it also tames the chaos. Ultimately chaos costs both time and money as well as frays nerves for everyone involved.
 
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Startup Rivian built around lean-manufacturing mindset

Rivian, a 10-year-old venture operating in suburban Detroit, plans to reveal its first products, an all-electric SUV and a pickup, at next month's AutoMobility LA. But Scaringe hasn't arrived at this moment by throwing out all of the rules. He has built Rivian around his fascination with leading automotive production processes gleaned from academia and an executive dream team.
 

(In German, use subtitles with automatic translation.)

Comprehensive video by a journalist about the Porsche Mission E Cross Turismo, a concept car that I'm guessing shares a lot with the Taycan. He demoes charging with 778 V and 245 kW.
 
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(In German, use subtitles with automatic translation.)

Comprehensive video by a journalist about the Porsche Mission E Cross Turismo, a concept car that I'm guessing shares a lot with the Taycan. He demoes charging with 778 V and 245 kW.
The charging happens around 18 minutes into the video. I wrote about this earlier today.

FD3EC565-B374-4236-90FE-3DE78CFC6D25.jpeg


https://electricrevs.com/2018/11/07...e-cross-turismo-prototype-charging-at-245-kw/
 
The VW press conference just concluded. Things I can remember:
  • They're planning to have chargers every 120km (~75 miles) in Europe
  • They assume that from the year 2020/21 on, their electric cars will be so good that demand is no issue, since they are not demand constrained even now and the new models will be far better.
  • They want to manufacture cells in Germany (Lower Saxony)
  • The plants Hannover and Emden will be converted to electric, cars that are currently produced there will be produced in eastern Europe
  • They'll be working together with Ford on light-duty commercial vehicles. Maybe on autonomy. They do not plan to take a stake in Ford (or even buy Ford).
Please refer to the transcript (does it even exist?) to make sure I made no mistakes.
 
The VW press conference just concluded. Things I can remember:
  • They're planning to have chargers every 120km (~75 miles) in Europe
  • They assume that from the year 2020/21 on, their electric cars will be so good that demand is no issue, since they are not demand constrained even now and the new models will be far better.
  • They want to manufacture cells in Germany (Lower Saxony)
  • The plants Hannover and Emden will be converted to electric, cars that are currently produced there will be produced in eastern Europe
  • They'll be working together with Ford on light-duty commercial vehicles. Maybe on autonomy. They do not plan to take a stake in Ford (or even buy Ford).
Please refer to the transcript (does it even exist?) to make sure I made no mistakes.

I thought they had to suspend sales of eGolfs because demand was stripping supply?
 
Unfortunately I couldn't find a proper transcript, but one auto generated and auto translated by YouTube. Here it says:

"we have small market shares for electric vehicles today but we could sell more gulfs and the new vehicle generation will just be a lot better in every respect and we may assume you know that by 2020 we'll also have a much improved charge infrastructure in Europe we're investing in a fast charging Network ourselves agreed together with Daimler BMW and Ford by 2019 in Europe that's going to be ubiquitous every 120 kilometers you'll have fast charging stations or points up to 320 kilowatts charging power so that you can reach pretty much every point in Europe with electric cars"

(Golf=gulf in German)

DIY Captions.com - Display AutoCaps as Text
 
I think VW is assuming demand will increase linearly. I think it's going to be an S curve like Tesla production. We're nearing the end of the slow ramp and it's going to turn into a flood soon. The shortages of the eGolf and Ioniq are the beginnings of it. When demand outstrips supply, sales of ICE will plummet. People will keep driving their old ICE longer until they can get an EV or they will lease until they can get an EV.

In the US there are some states encouraging alternative fuel/EVs like California, but Tesla is probably the biggest influence on demand. A poll last year found 60% of Americans had little to no awareness about EVs.
Survey: 60% Of Americans Aren't Aware Of Plug-in Electric Vehicles ... At All | CleanTechnica

Another poll found awareness and interest in California wasn't as high as people might think:
Automakers and Policymakers May Be on a Path to Electric Vehicles; Consumers Aren’t - ITS

In Europe national governments are behind initiatives to ban ICE in cities if not the entire country within the next 10 years. That is driving awareness towards EVs in a way that's not happening in the US.

In the US, I think the Model 3 is going to be the demand tipping point. The Model S and X were common among the wealthier strata of society, but few middle class neighborhoods had any. The Model 3 is getting a practical EV you can take on a road trip into middle class neighborhoods. As people get to see their neighbor's car and see the benefits of an EV over ICE, they will start thinking about it and demand will climb.

In Europe the Model 3 will be coming next year and will have a similar impact combined with the education efforts by governments and the coming laws banning or restricting ICE, the shift may be more dramatic in Europe than it is here.

When the shift happens, the companies that have EVs consumers want available will be the ones who reap the benefit. The companies with heavy ICE lineups will suffer. I don't think Fiat-Chrysler is going to make it.
 
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