Posted on 02/26/2014 8:56:24 PM PST by ckilmer
No automaker has quite the momentum that Tesla Motors enjoys today. It sells every car it builds easily, with customers queuing around the globe. It's considered the best car for sale in America by several critics, and Wall Street has bought into Elon Musk's vision with a fervor rarely seen outside riverside baptisms. And yet everything Tesla stands for today and wants to accomplish in the future rides on a single stubborn, expensive piece of technology — the battery.
Today, Tesla revealed its grand plan for tackling that weak spot, a $5 billion plan to build the world's largest battery plant, dubbed the Gigafactory — one that would power the company from start-up to an auto industry player with 500,000 vehicle sales a year.
Even with all the attention it's received to date, Elon Musk's firm remains a small timer as far asglobal automaking goes. Tesla plans to build 35,000 Model S sedans from its California factory this year; Ford typically builds that many F-Series pickups in about 20 days. All of those cars will rely on lithium-ion battery cells shipped from Asia, where Panasonic and other suppliers control most of the world's supply. While researchers have spent decades hunting for better ways of storing electrical energy, none has emerged as an alternative — and at the moment, there's no technology on the horizon that's better or cheaper.
The price of those cells has been the major reason the Tesla Model S and all other electric cars cost far more than gasoline-powered ones. A few automakers have built their own battery plants in the hopes of driving down costs and ensuring supplies, with Nissan's $300 million Tennessee plant the largest in the United States to date. But none have been built to the scale Tesla would need to supply hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year; the company already uses a third of all electric vehicle battery production.
In its outline, Tesla says by the time the plant goes online in 2017, the plant to lower its battery costs by 30 percent — which coincides with its plan to launch a third "affordable" all-electric model for roughly $45,000. Three years later, Tesla expects the Gigafactory would produce enough batteries for Tesla to bolt into 500,000 vehicles a year, more lithium-ion battery power than the rest of the world built last year.
The cost for doing so: roughly $5 billion, with Tesla providing up to $2 billion and current battery supplier Panasonic and other partners providing the rest. Tesla says it has narrowed the potential sites for the plant and its 6,500 jobs to four states: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The company also said today it would raise $1.6 billion to help pay for the plant and developing new models.
When Tesla launched, many executives and critics questioned whether it could ever survive building expensive vehicles limited by battery range and recharging times. If Tesla can open its Gigafactory as planned, and meet the goals it's set, those critics will finally have their answer.
I would say their expansion plans are about to change that.
The electrified acceleration and smooth ride of these vehicle puts most to shame...
It's enough to make one recoil.
It’s still an overpriced toy.
I don’t know if you guys have any sense of history. But Musk’s work is the closest thing the USA now has to a strategic policy to destroy al qaeda.
How so. Well Pakistan in 1980 had 10 madrasses. Now Pakistan has 10000 madrasses. these and thousands more like them around the world serve as the large end of a funnel that eventually leads to al qaeda recruits.
Destroy that funnel and al qaeda vaporizes.
How do you destroy the funnel.
You defund it.
How do you defund it. You defund the funnel by defunding the deep pockets in the gulf states who provide the funding for the madrasses from large oil revenues.
So how do you defund the gulf states. You kill the price oil.
How do you kill the price of oil? You collapse the demand for oil.
How do you collapse the demand for oil. Take a look at Tesla. That’s an electric car. they don’t need gasoline. Now, not many will be produced in the next couple years. and even the 500k goal for 2020 that tesla has made for itself by 2020 is still a drop in the bucket. But if the expansion of tesla sales expansion continues for another 10 years at the same pace —that will cap and collapse the demand for oil. If Tesla is producing 500k cars in 2020— you can bet the majors world wide will be jumping head first and pell mell into the game. So the total number of electric cars will be much higher.
Now combine that with a 30% annual expansion of the number of natural gas power trucks and buses...
What you have is a 15 year strategic plan to destroy al qaeda courtesy of the USA culture itself.
This would do George Kennan proud. (He was the formulator of the Containment policy in 1948 which strategic policy— 40 years later lead to the collapse of the old soviet union.)
amen to that, as long as the range was equal or better and it was a nice sized suv.
you won’t be seeing hundreds of thousands of them being sold every year.
Considering the new lower cost models planned, I would not bet on it.
....................
the lower cost is from the economies of scale they’ll get from making a big battery factory...not from the feds.
There are many ways a business can fail. Over-expansion is one of them.
.............
right now tesla can’t keep up with demand.
I aint seen one on the street.
In 1900 all you saw was electric cars on the street.
“Gigafactory have big carbon footprint.”
True, but if TSLA can see their way clear to join the exclusive club of crony capitlists, the EPA will turn a blind eye.
70K? LOL I am buying something else.
I’m nominating your post as post of the month with a suggestion it also be in the running for post of the year.
I guess that is a cute way of saying you are spot on with your comment.
That’s hilarious. You ain’t seen one on the street?
I drive through the heart of Silicon Valley every day.
Tesla model S’s are EVERYWHERE.
One butt wipe tried to cut me off this AM in one. I pushed back and he backed off.
Too proud of all that expensive metal....
Musk will make it. He’s serious about this. He will build what’s needed, he wont buy it. He’s not a management dweeb who depends on supply chains.
He’s an Engineer and an entrepreneur, a pure capitalist. He’s going the direction he planned.
>>I aint seen one on the street.
In 1900 all you saw was electric cars on the street.<<
Because 5 hours ‘fast’ re-charge is a joke. It makes sense for a delivery truck in urban environment, but try drive it to Florida.
That’s what Musk has in mind.
Get the U.S. Off of oil, let the Arabs drink their black juice.
Others talk, he does.
Al Qaeda will end up walking.
Yeah - those customers who can afford to plink down a minimum of $85K for a car ...
Read the article...45k is the target price of their new model.
It sells every car it builds easily, with customers queuing around the globe.
Yeah - those customers who can afford to plink down a minimum of $85K for a car ...
................
true. much of the cost is the car battery. In three years with mass production, they want to reduce the cost of car batteries so much they can get the same performance for 35k.
That’s still more than what I want to pay but there are many more buyers who can afford a 35k car.
This losing tax-subsidized venture joins other past losers like the Obama-subsidized Volt that gets 40 miles per battery charge, or like the Obama-subsidized Tesla that turns into a ‘brick’ when the battery completely discharges and then costs $40,000 to repair. This is really just the latest manifestation of the administration’s crony capitalism as their green energy buddies benefit from this atrocious waste of taxpayer money. Americans really need to get outraged by these wasteful ventures. As we’ve seen time and time again, We the People are always stuck subsidizing the left’s ‘losers.’
Although not a long telegram, Governor Palin's full remarks about Tesla are here. And that genuine American patriot has a real strategic plan to destroy the muzzies.
Albuquerque is one of the finalists in their location hunt. I read up on this when I first heard the rumor and the story I read was that the factory is supposed to be very green.
From article: CEO Elon Musk told reporters, “This is going to be a very green factory. There is going to be a lot of solar power. It’s going to have essentially zero emissions and there are no toxic elements that are going to come out of this factory and we will build in recycling capability right into the factory. It is going to be a really giant facility, like say we are doing something that’s comparable to all lithium-ion production in the world in one factory.”
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/23/will-telsa-build-gigafactory/#yvU0dUmMl5PAjrrM.99
Read the article...45k is the target price of their new model.
............
that’s the interem step. they want a model out in 2016-7 that can go for about 35k.
At one time, Amazon had a nice niche selling books.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.