Tesla challenges in Europe?

[spacexfan]

I have some concerns regarding Tesla's activities in Europe. I will list them below and we should duscuss them.

1. SC in Europe:
- People will abuse the SC free charge by only using them and no home chraging, because of electricity prices (more below).
- Copper theft is booming in Europe. You good people may think that's no concern, but here in Europe it's a big issue. Some Examples: Thefts stole the whole copper wireing of my neighbours house when it was being build. They were dressed as construction workers. Recently a copper roof of a church has been stolen in germany. a news article: Bahnlinie wegen Kupferdiebstahl gesperrt - burgenland.ORF.at . I estimate that the SC cables will be gone in less than a year.
- electricity prices are high in europe.
2. EV in europe:
- EVs costs the same as diesel cars: 0,35c/kwh --> ~30EUR --> 30EUR/1,35EUR/L --> ~22L --> for 5L/100KM --> 444km range ~ Model S range. --> Diesel car gas costs = Model S "gas" costs :scared:
- electricity prices rise every year, making EVs more expensive to run every year.
- most people live in cities with public transport, not many communers.
- not many government benefits for ev drivers (tax, parking, etc)
- not many public chrging stations.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

While the copper theft used to be a problem it's gone down here in Estonia when the government cracked down on unvalidated copper purchasing.

and electricity price varies. For me it's ca 11-12c / kWh and if people install more and more solar power, then charging from that is "free" if you don't consider the depreciation costs...

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Oh and 5L / 100km is hard to get on most cars. My car does 15L / 100km for real and the fuel price at 1.35 eur / L is relatively lower end. Most places are 1.5+ eur / L. So three times cheaper electricity and 30% more expensive gasoline with ~2x more usage per 100km and you get to far bigger difference in usage cost.

 

[Electroman]

I think it might be more appropriate to rename the title of this thread to something like, 'Challenges for Tesla's success in Europe'.

 

[spacexfan]

While the copper theft used to be a problem it's gone down here in Estonia when the government cracked down on unvalidated copper purchasing.

and electricity price varies. For me it's ca 11-12c / kWh and if people install more and more solar power, then charging from that is "free" if you don't consider the depreciation costs...

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and 5L / 100km is hard to get on most cars. My car does 15L / 100km for real and the fuel price at 1.35 eur / L is relatively lower end. Most places are 1.5+ eur / L. So three times cheaper electricity and 30% more expensive gasoline with ~2x more usage per 100km and you get to far bigger difference in usage cost.

Elon said that he sees germany among the most important countries in europe. you are right with estonia and most scandinavian countries. Btw a friend of mine easily gets 5,5l/100km with a ~240hp (?) BMW 3 series...

 

[stevezzzz]

Unless they can shut off the power to the SC cabinet, do you think a thief would risk cutting into a live Supercharger cable? You and I know there's no HV DC in the cable unless it's actively charging, but would the average thief know that?

 

[gelden]

Unless they can shut off the power to the SC cabinet, do you think a thief would risk cutting into a live Supercharger cable? You and I know there's no HV DC in the cable unless it's actively charging, but would the average thief know that?

Probably not, but that doesn't stop them. Some time ago someone died when cutting the main power feed to a company (Dutch):
http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/1...overleden+door+steekvlam+na+kortsluiting.aspx

 

[Chickenlittle]

Probably not, but that doesn't stop them. Some time ago someone died when cutting the main power feed to a company (Dutch):
http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/1...overleden+door+steekvlam+na+kortsluiting.aspx

1. that should take care of the issue should it occur
2. i dont believe they will abuse the superchargers. no body will drive 30 miles out of way to charge versus plugging in at home especially when you can afford the car. they dont put superchargers in urban areas in us to avoid this
3. most people in us do not buy the car because its ev. they buy the car because they love the car. its not just as good as ice cars (yes i have owned mercedes bmw and audi) and love the tesla. its a nice advantage its electric but not the reason for the purchase

 

[Doug_G]

I think it might be more appropriate to rename the title of this thread to something like, 'Challenges for Tesla's success in Europe'.

Agreed - I have changed the title to a shortened version of your suggestion. The original title did not adequately describe the thread contents.

 

[jkirkebo]

Elon said that he sees germany among the most important countries in europe. you are right with estonia and most scandinavian countries. Btw a friend of mine easily gets 5,5l/100km with a ~240hp (?) BMW 3 series...

Heh, I can't get that in a VW TDI. Well, I can for a single trip if I really try. But who's interested in that? The interesting metric is year average fuel economy, including winter. My old VW Touran 2.0TDI then got about 6,5l/100km. My old BMW 328i got closer to 10l/100km.

Spritmonitor.de is an excellent resource for year average fuel economy. The Prius for example seems to use around 5,2l/100km.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Firstly, one thing that should be remembered is that Europe is a diverse region. The average marginal electricity cost here in Norway is for instance in the area of 8-10 eurocents/kWh. This is projected to fall over the next few years, due to political decisions to introduce more wind and solar into the grid - which will lead to overproduction. There are also oodles of tax incentives and public charging stations are popping up everywhere. In my town of 25k people we have one CHAdeMo station and around 15 L2 charging stations, and this can be increased quickly if necessary.

For a couple of the other points:

- The SC cables haven't got very much copper in them. $10 maybe? They are also quite high-profile targets, usually near surveillance cameras and frequently visited by the public at any time of the day/night, and owned by a corporation that will do their best to recoup their tens of thousands of dollars in repairs. Cost/gain-wise SC seem like a very silly target. Here, copper thiefs have usually targeted decommisioned railways, recycling stations and the like, where they can pick up thousands of dollars in copper in a relatively short amount of time without being disturbed.
- Most people in Europe might not be commuters, but if they own cars, they most probably need cars, and those cars might as well be Teslas. There is more than 250 million road vehicles in Europe.

 

[Haxe]

Green energy in germany comes just under 0.28€ per kw/h. (-> http://www.greenpeace-energy.de/) Gasoline runs betwen 1.5 - 1.7€ these days. It is slowly but constantly rising. Wheras in electricity we might see a drop since there was a ruling against power companies driving up the prices.

 

[spacexfan]

Firstly, one thing that should be remembered is that Europe is a diverse region. The average marginal electricity cost here in Norway is for instance in the area of 8-10 eurocents/kWh. This is projected to fall over the next few years, due to political decisions to introduce more wind and solar into the grid - which will lead to overproduction. There are also oodles of tax incentives and public charging stations are popping up everywhere. In my town of 25k people we have one CHAdeMo station and around 15 L2 charging stations, and this can be increased quickly if necessary.

For a couple of the other points:

- The SC cables haven't got very much copper in them. $10 maybe? They are also quite high-profile targets, usually near surveillance cameras and frequently visited by the public at any time of the day/night, and owned by a corporation that will do their best to recoup their tens of thousands of dollars in repairs. Cost/gain-wise SC seem like a very silly target. Here, copper thiefs have usually targeted decommisioned railways, recycling stations and the like, where they can pick up thousands of dollars in copper in a relatively short amount of time without being disturbed.
- Most people in Europe might not be commuters, but if they own cars, they most probably need cars, and those cars might as well be Teslas. There is more than 250 million road vehicles in Europe.

Youre right with the copper. and there is an insurance of course. And youre right Europe is a diverse region. There are different electricity prices and government initiatives. I was refering mainly to germany, because it is likely the biggest market for tesla. e-prices increase 3.5 percent per year here in germany.:wink:

 

[Yggdrasill]

Youre right with the copper. and there is an insurance of course. And youre right Europe is a diverse region. There are different electricity prices and government initiatives. I was refering mainly to germany, because it is likely the biggest market for tesla. e-prices increase 3.5 percent per year here in germany.:wink:

Germany might be the biggest market for Tesla in Europe, as it is the biggest car market in Europe, but it's still only about a quarter of the European car market. When you add up all the smaller markets they also matter quite a bit.

 

[felixtb]

Youre right with the copper. and there is an insurance of course. And youre right Europe is a diverse region. There are different electricity prices and government initiatives. I was refering mainly to germany, because it is likely the biggest market for tesla. e-prices increase 3.5 percent per year here in germany.:wink:

spacex, you talk about Germany the whole time but your Handel says Austria???

 

[spacexfan]

spacex, you talk about Germany the whole time but your Handel says Austria???

Now I live on Ceres

But I'm still skeptical about cetrain parts of europe (germany, austria, hungary...), there is just still a lack of charging infrastructure here. I know that most model s owner gonna charge at home, but still it would be nice to be able to fill up on a public charging station. the other day i heard in the radio that 80% of charging station in austria are located in "fee zones", such as parking garages. Paying 5 euro a hour for a parking lot, just to charge a car, is not "good".

Btw I only started this threat because I'm afraid that telsa might only find great losses in europe.

lets make a simple calculation. Tesla wants to sell 100K cars in germany while it builds 50 SC stations. margin 20%. --> 2B$ profit if they earn 20K per car. thats pertty good if you consider 100K*50 $ for SC installation.But is 100K cars sold realistic?