Posted on 06/26/2014 2:25:31 PM PDT by ckilmer
Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas is out with an awesome and slightly hilarious note in which he argues Tesla is now, maybe, the most important car company in the world.
"Not even two years after the delivery of the first Model S, Tesla Motors has transformed from fledgling start-up to arguably the most important car company in the world. We are not joking."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I guess my point was that anything Tesla can do, BMW will probably do BETTER some day, thus cutting into the Tesla market. Thanks!
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Actually, this is part of the point of the article. No matter what happens to Tesla—the introduction of this car has set off a firestorm in the world wide auto industry.
This is an unbelievably good thing. Why? Because it sets the world’s automakers task before them to create these kinds of vehicles which will compete head to head with internal combustion engine cars.
The result will be to inexorably grind the price of oil down.
There can be no better cause in the world right now than the one that has the effect of grinding down the price oil.
So, how many cars that have a $100,000 price range AREN’T elegant with wonderful fit and finish?
The Tesla “battery swap” hoax
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Yeah this is true. but they have made up for that by giving free charges at their Tesla stations. That’s something.
Actually calling them cars is a misnomer they are golf carts with windshields. For warm weather stuff like running to the neighborhood store and bank and such they work. BUT they will never allow you to travel far without spending lots of time laid over while you wait for the batteries to recharge.
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This is all true. Tesla has made up for the recharge problem by making the recharge free.
However there is no getting around the cold problem. You don’t want to drive a Tesla in the winter time anywhere above interstate 80 in the USA.
Likely this is why the production and most of the customers in the USA are in sunny California.
You are forgetting one thing — the fed’s goal is and always be to make oil expensive. Either by taxing it to death or subsidizing its competition. It is all part of the plan to force to use less of it.
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I agree that the feds could screw the pooch.
Especially on the day that they see that electric cars are cutting into revenues from their gas taxes. (Rooftop Solar power is doing something similar to the power companies.)
In any case it will be 5-10 years at least before electric/hybrid/fuel cell/natural gas vehicles make even a dink in the demand for oil.
Even then the feds are a slow beast.
Right now the electric/hybrid/fuel cell industry operates with the feds on their side.
They scammed the taxpayers out of a boatload of money. Giving free battery charges to their customers doesn't make up for that. Anybody can have a successful business if they have the government making everyone pay for you to hand out free stuff to your paying customers.
Ya. And where will you charge it? In your garage?
That kind of energy stored in batteries could power a small city for a couple of days. You’d bring down the power grid! :)
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I agree that if you shifted over the entire nation suddenly to electric cars — it would bring down the grid.
The more likely scenario will be that things happen more slowly. Certainly, it will be 5-10 years before electric cars make even a dink in demand for oil.
Like one of the other posters above, I’m in favor of dropping portable thorium reactors all over the country.
“you can charge for free “
Your time isn’t free. An hour and a half every time you want to go 200 miles? I can gas up in 5 minutes and go 400+ miles.
They scammed the taxpayers out of a boatload of money.
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Nuts. I like your passion but your facts are off. Tesla took out a loan from the federal government and paid it back in full with interest. That’s it.
Right now a half dozen different states are falling all over each other to get the Tesla giga factory built in their state.
Is this a bad thing? I think not.
“. Were talking about good ‘ol American car manufacturing”
Really? Americans never intended illegal corporate subsidies that electric cars must have to even be the remotely viable product that they barely are.
That isn’t American...it is communism.
“you can charge for free “
Your time isn’t free. An hour and a half every time you want to go 200 miles? I can gas up in 5 minutes and go 400+ miles.
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All true. There are trade offs.
“Tesla took out a loan from the federal government “
BS. We taxpayers were robbed at gunpoint and forced to give them that loan.
According to the article, this wasn't a loan. These were subsidies in the form of carbon credits that they can sell, and the battery swap fraud enabled them to collect much more than they were entitled to.
“Tesla took out a loan from the federal government “
BS. We taxpayers were robbed at gunpoint and forced to give them that loan.
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Well, if your point is that the loan program was set up by George Bush—then I’d agree.
According to the article, this wasn’t a loan. These were subsidies in the form of carbon credits that they can sell, and the battery swap fraud enabled them to collect much more than they were entitled to.
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Will you please click on the link and read the freaking article.
The article says zip about loans and carbon credits.
What the article talks about is how the whole freaking automobile industry is totally obsessed with the Tesla.
That’s it. That’s the topic of conversation.
Now is it a good thing or is it a bad thing that the whole freaking automobile industry is caca about the Tesla.
I say yes. This is a good thing.
There can be no better way to beat al Qaeda than to get the whole outhouse auto industry pooping about the Tesla.
Read my posts up the thread to see how al Qaeda and Tesla connect.
I meant the article about the battery swap fraud I posted the link to a 13.
That’s it. That’s the topic of conversation.
We'll see who else is willing to let the information they're allowed to consider get filtered for them. I'm not.
“...and you can charge for free...”
Few things in this world are truly free.
Lets look at the Tesla:
The 4.2 sec zero to sixty time would be the Model S P85. Cost $93,400. Now the taxpayer gets to pony up $7,500...so its $85,900.
A Corvette has the same acceleration, and costs $53,000.
The difference in price is $32,900...or $9,400 gallons of gas @ $3.50/gal....or 272,600 highway miles before you’ve caught up.
This assumes that all Tesla charging is free, and neglects the additional personal property taxes and insurance costs on a higher valued car.
IOW, its a great toy for the wealthy....and that’s about it. The notion of ‘free charging’ is meaningless.
And lets examine these free charging stations. They still take 30 minutes....assuming when you find one, it isn’t being used already.
All automobiles, go carts, rubber band air planes, whatever have one thing in common - they store energy on board, and that stored energy is released and transformed into kinetic energy. That’s it. There is nothing special or magical about using a chemical battery to do this. In fact, think of your gas tank as a big battery...because that’s really all it is. And look at its features:
1. Relatively light for energy stored
2. Rapidly rechargeable
3. Long range
4. Not affected by extreme cold or heat
5. Wide availability of recharging stations
6. Lasts for decades without need to be replaced
And quite frankly, Tesla will be an unviable joke (reserved as a toy for the rich) until it can surpass a gasoline battery in even one of those categories.
This is why, even though electric cars were conceived of a hundred years ago, gasoline won out. It is a superior battery.
I meant the article about the battery swap fraud I posted the link to a 13.
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Yeah that didn’t work. So they replaced it with free battery charge to make up for the inconvenience of hanging around.
There are certainly trade offs. It ain’t perfect. But I like the promise.
You say it’s a good thing all the other car companies are going ga-ga over Tesla. If they try to emulate them, and that’s their business model how much of that can we afford?
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