Posted on 04/05/2015 5:36:33 PM PDT by LogicDesigner
While Tesla Motors continues to fight it out on a state level with dealership groups—most recently gaining ground in Georgia but getting shut out in West Virginia—one thing is for sure about the automaker's product: The Tesla Model S is, again and by far, the most-loved vehicle in the U.S.
The Tesla Model S, according to the market-research firm Strategic Vision, boasts figures of ‘love’ from their overall vehicle experience that handily top those for much-loved sports-car models like the Porsche Boxster and 911.
A whopping 92 percent of owners of the Model S summed their experience in the top “I Love It” box. It’s a pretty good indication of what a disruptive product the 2015 Tesla Model S continues to be.
...
The Model S wasn’t the only ‘green’ vehicle near the top of the list. The Chevrolet Volt placed second among mass-market cars—second only to the Dodge Charger—in that ‘love’ metric.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Why don’t you look up how much oil the US itself exports?
You might want to do that before continuing that claim.
Some terms for that feeling are "buyer's remorse", "post-purchase dissonance", and "cognitive dissonance". If you want to get globab, you can go with "Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome".
IOW, chatting up how great some expensive toy is reassures one's self that you didn't get taken, and trying to put a shine on crap by giving glowing reports is a way to attempt to massage that niggling sense of doubt.
I have no doubt you're right on the money.
However, there is that highly valued segment called "Early Adopters", and Tesla's survey might just have a self-selecting customer base custom-made for them.
Perhaps if there are any rental companies using the vehicle, people using the car for days or a couple of weeks with no ego at stake might have a more realistic view of it.
Way back, a room mate was picked by Avis to drive the brand new Ford Taurus for a week for his comments. He had a VW Golf and a Lotus at the time.
If you charge the car overnight especial midnight to 5 am, you are not really using anymore coal than if you did not plug in the car at all. Electric power stations create electricity all night long. And very little is used. Coal, Nuclear, and Hydro can’t be turned down at night so you the electricity is pumped back into the ground.
In the U.S. we make far more electricity than we use. Our electric capacity is for the hottest time on the hottest day of the year. The rest of the year and the rest of the hours of the day we are generally over producing.
Electricity costs about half as much as oil, as I discussed in #83 and #85. So until gasoline came down to a dollar a gallon, we would be eating everyone else’s lunch. Also, as with any new technology, it is expensive at first and falls relatively quickly. For example, the Chevy Volt cost $41,000 when it began sales four years ago, but now the price has been lowered to around $30,000. The average cost of a new car in this country is $32,000.
“The rare earth minerals on which your toy cars depends are not in unlimited supply, and China controls the vast majority of their production, Russia has a large part of it as well.”
Lithium actually only makes up a tiny part of the cost of lithium ion batteries. Also, one of Tesla's reasons for locating their GigaFactory in Nevada is the lithium mine there. There are lithium mines all around the world, although China is the top refiner of lithium. So it is not a raw material issue. Here is a good article on the subject, and an excerpt:
Nevada’s lithium likely played in Tesla’s factory decision
Nevada is home to the only operating lithium mine in the U.S., which likely played a part, however small, in Tesla Motors Inc.’s decision to locate its much-talked-about battery factory in the state.
The U.S. still imports most of its lithium, with Australia, Bolivia, and Chile among the top exporters of the mineral. But one Nevada mine has been churning out the stuff since the 1960s, and other lithium deposits in the state could come in line depending on demand.
You might educate yourself on how Hawaii generates electricity before making this statement yet again. Hawaii is part of the country, as much as some FReepers wish otherwise.
He’s kind of like those Apple guys.
My apologies, you are right about Hawaii. In all fairness though, their diesel electricity generation still falls into the 1% of the nation’s overall use.
It isn’t the lithium that is needed so much as the specialized materials (rar earth metals from China) that are used in the high efficiency electric motors.
Projecting future generating costs on a vastly higher KWH load using today’s costs is as valid as me using gasoline costs from the late 60’s (28 cents a gallon) in calculating fuel costs today. Ga is losing 1/6th of it’s generating capacity due to EPA regs in the next 18 months. Other states are facing similar losses.
Nothing to replace these coal fired plants. Elect rates will skyrocket, and adding tens of millions of industrial battery chargers to the grid will cause higher costs still, and likely collapse the grid as we now know it.
Alright, there is some elementary understanding about how commodity markets work that is missing from your responses. I've done my best to explain it, but if you are intent on willfully failing to understand such a simple concept, then there is nothing more I can do. Good day.
That US lithium mine you mention is nothing but vaporware right now. It can not meet 1% of the needed lithium today that Tesla is using. What they can do in the future and at what cost is only a guess at this point.
Funny, you aren’t at all taking into account or he fact we import more oil from everywhere else than we do from Russia, and none from Iran.
Further, we EXPORT ten times the amount that we import from Russia.
Do the math.
100,000 x 10 =?
Has nothing to do with markets, you are drifting from your premise.
Your premise was that somehow Russia would be hurt by us not importing oil from anywhere.
We don’t import that much from them.
And none from iran.
“ Want to defund Iran’s nuclear program? Buy an electric car.”- your post 1
“ Are you kidding me? If the U.S. and Europe drove plug-ins (including plug-in hybrids like the Volt), it would reduce our gasoline consumption by 80% to 90%.
That would have a devastating impact on oil exporting nations like Iran and Russia.”-your post 85.
Neither statement supported by import export data.
Well, I don’t think I have to do that. You do plenty on your own.
Too late.... I am already sold on a 2015 Porsche Boxster GTS.
...and the commie noboma crew screwed the bond holders.
True. =)
That they did.
With extreme prejudice.
Why everyone knows it will come from California. Since their population has doubled since 1970 I'm sure that, having a much more progressive and farsighted government than the remainder of the states, without a doubt they have built sufficient generating capacity to more than supply their population's needs.
It is only logical that California would lead the country in supplying electricity to charge all the greenie cars across the nation.
To set an example, don't you know.
Do I need the < /sarc > tag?
BS. My company has a number of employees with electric cars, and ALL of them await the time in the middle of the day - PEAK GRID TIME - when they can charge up their eCar so they can actually drive home without running out of juice.
Yes, the super efficient grid inspired by Grey Davis.
Those rolling blackouts improved efficiency and saved money!
(Sarc tag wasn’t needed, no.)
Surely Greyout Davis presided over the doubling of supply to accomodate the population increase by overseeing the construction of new generating capacity of commensurate size.
He DID build new generating infrastructure, yes?
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