Tesla Stock

The Supercharger network helps sell cars but most people will never use it. Again, it's a long game for the semi truck. Those need the super chargers. Not to charge in 30 minutes but to charge off shift while they sleep. They need to fix the legislation where "fueling" is counted against hours but again they're working on it.

I've paid for public charging I believe once. That incudes long out of range drives in the Leaf. Pay for charge just isn't going to happen. People will charge at home. If you need to get somewhere there's an airport. For those rare cross country trips, rent a car.

 

. . . or buy a plug-in hybrid.

Bob Wilson

 

Why own something like an engine for the 14/365ths of the time you need one assuming you do.a trip every year? We always have to defend the "hybrid premium". But that could easily be flipped to "ICE Premium". Those are the expensive and mechanically complex bits with major regular maintenance.

 

It is a question of response time. At age 68, I have elderly relatives in Stillwater OK and Mom lives in Coffeyville KS. In the event of a medical crisis, I can be on the road in an hour with my 'house bound' wife under my care and her dogs. The 700 miles takes about 12-14 hours.

I also have brothers and dear relatives in:

• Arizona
• California
• Washington State
• Connecticut

My wife has adult children in:

• New York
• Delaware
• Washington DC area

Bob Wilson

 

That's pretty easy actually.
That's because for right now an ICE premium...isn't, not even for the garden variety wireless hybrids.
Although I'm a fully converted hybrid fan, I'm not a fanatic.
Dollars for dollars hybrids CAN make sense, (see below) but math is still math.

FOR RIGHT NOW, BEVs face three major problems (besides leadership and political sideshows)
1. Price
2. Range Anxiety
3. Fueling/Refueling time.

If you want to add other considerations like towing and the fact that BEVs are in that awkward teenage phase and there's still a lot of development that still needs to take place, there's that too.

I would submit that the "annual long distance trip" is really an expression of range and refueling time rather than the price point.
I make 600+ mile trips about 5-6 times a year, so for me personally renting a car, or worse, flying and THEN renting a car just doesn't make walking around sense.

You want to know when Solar "arrived?"
That's right.
When utility companies started planting solar panels on their properties instead of paying people to mow grass there.
We'll know that solar has REALLY "arrived" the same way that we knew that hybrids did a few years back.....

Dot.gov will stop paying tax kickbacks and start CHARGING a new tax for them.

For now?
Patience.

 

Number one is an artifact of local regulations. In many places, the only entity that can directly charge for a kilowatt is the power company. This leaves the charger companies having to charge for something else in order to cover the electricity they use. Then depending on location, the parking space for the charger maybe valuable enough to charge for.

 

Still don't buy it.

1) My Leaf was $16k new. That's what incentives are for. Once it evens out, the simplicity of a BEV will be cheaper to make. They are always going to be cheaper to operate lifetime. Average price of a car is $34k in the US, so don't bring in that BS about them being too expensive. A Leaf with zero incentives is less than that. A $34k car with only an engine also has zero incentives.

2) Anxiety is for fools. It is there, but that's not a problem to design around. People have been and are afraid of basically everything. Afraid of horses, afraid of riding around on exploding motorized carriages, afraid of trains, afraid of boats, afraid of planes whatever. It is not backed by math, it's irrational. Current limited range BEVs actually do work for most people even if they don't realize it. I freely admit I was hesitant when I bought the Leaf, figured it wouldn't be driven much. After a few months, there was no range anxiety. I drive whereever I want, I don't micromanage the charge levels or obsess about range. I drive it like I stole it, and I just drive it.

3) Also not an issue. You charge at home, and it is full in the morning.

All of these are the standard talking points, which are stupid. People that own BEVs don't have problems with any of it.

Still, doesn't make sense to me. I fly between Colorado and Toronto almost every week just overnight. Go to NYC once a month usually. Kentucky every month or two. Out to various other spots all the time. It is cheap and fast to fly. Limiting yourself to driving there will take longer.

12 hours to drive 700 miles... Ok. Or 4 hours via plane from Huntsville to Tulsa which is less than 1.5hours drive. If you're really worried about response time, 6 hours versus 12 hours seems like a no brainer?

We just flew out to NYC a couple weekends ago Saturday morning from Colorado to Chicago to NYC. Took 4 hours. Drove back, took over 30 hours. Fly to Toronto, takes 3.5 hours. Driving the same trip takes 29 hours.

I did the medical crisis thing 2 years ago when my Dad was sick. For 6 months, I was back and forth from Toronto to Colorado twice a week, staying weekends and usually a weeknight+ weekday then coming back. Not even possible via car. Without a plane, not possible. Direct flights and even connecting flights make things easy.

The future is BEV. Inter-city travel is going to be BEV only, probably by mandate. Inter-state travel may be by rented ICE vehicles on the perimeter. Cross country will be by flight. Freight travel will stay with trucks and trains but maybe hybrid. Trains already are. Trucks will most likely convert to diesel electric hybrids. The Tesla semi will be niche for a long long time. Electrified freight rail would be first if I had to guess.

 

for the country to adopt a high percentage of bev's, charging stations will need to be as ubiquitous as gas stations.

 

If argue more until charging takes as long as it does to fill up.

And we definitely aren’t there yet on many accounts.

 

For all gassers out there, imagine that every house had a gasoline pump. That might be smelly and dangerous, but it would be handy. Every vehicle could leave home fully fueled.

But that would not obviate the need for keeping a significant part of the gasoline refueling infrastructure as it currently exists. The need for the current number of pumps at gas stations would certainly be drastically reduced, and many redundant neighboring gasoline stations could be eliminated.

But there would still be a requirement for a dense network of stations for convenience to extend ICE range and the rapid speed of refueling would remain important.

So it is that electric charging needs to ultimately get to that infrastructure point if we are to get to near full plug-in adoption.

 

i could see some stations going out of business, if i could fuel up at home. especially the ones who don't do service.
but people from out of town will still need them. how may? the market always decides.

 

We have far more gas stations than are ‘needed’ right now.
I would suggest half the number of urban and suburban gas stations and the same number of rural stations.
In addition, only if the charging station in garages, workplaces and multi housing units and included.

 

if a gas station is not needed, it will go oob.

agree on counting existing charging stations, but i'm not looking for a number, i'm looking for enough.

 

If by "makes a ton of money", you mean profits. Nope.

Their cumulative net losses, including their profitable quarters (2, IIRC) is past $5.9 billion (I keep track in a spreadsheet). They've also racked up over $10.9 billion in debt (see page 59 of SEC Filing | Tesla, Inc.). From page 5 of that file, you can see last quarter, they lost over $700 million.

There are plenty of other li-ion battery manufacturers, just many aren't commonly mentioned in US media. See the graph at China’s biggest battery producer could become world’s biggest after raising $2 billion in an IPO | Electrek which I pointed to from li-ion battery manufacturers for automotive applications - My Nissan Leaf Forum.

As for Mercedes, Production: Worldwide electric initiative: Mercedes-Benz is putting the first EQ model into series production - Daimler Global Media Site says

 

1. Full price, $521 adult ticket - Me
2. Full price, $521 adult ticket - Wife
3. Special critter shipping, ~$521 - Three dogs
4. Remote car rental, $338 (10 days)
5. Car parking, $80 (10 days)

It is now 8:45 PM . . . no flights until Sunday morning:

• 6:00 AM - 11:51 AM
• ~2 hours luggage, rental, drive to Stillwater or Coffeyville
• Arrive Sunday at ~2:00 PM

So flying to family home areas:

• ~17 hours block-to-block
• $1,981 (pre-taxes)

In contrast, driving:

• 18 gals, 40 MPG, $54.00 x2 = $108 - using BMW i3-REx
• 13 gals, 55 MPG, $32.50 x2 = $65 - using Prius Prime
• 10 PM - 10-12 AM - ~14 hours block-to-block

I've done the Huntsville to family home trip both ways, driving and flying. For a medical crisis, the costs are more than 10 times higher and 3 hours longer. My Dad had a stroke in February in a Kansas blizzard and passed in May. I drove both times.

Flying works if you can schedule the trip three weeks in advance but my wife's comfort dogs complicate things.

Bob Wilson

 

That's why I didn't say profits... Most businesses aren't profitable at the beginning and when you look long term it just gets worse. That's why investors are worried about short term profits, and business owners looking for a legacy are looking at the long game. Been on both sides.

There are lots of companies, but really just a few that sell the internals. Again, been here done this. But if people want to use the lithium batteries in cars, we are not going to give up the batteries in laptops, cell phones, and even almost every appliance and consumer toy now to prevent "12:00" flashing on things when you unplug them and other convenience features. We globally make a ton of batteries and use all of them. There is no surplus. If Mercedes sells 50k of those a year (HIGHLY unlikely), sourcing those 50k batteries is very doable. But there are 70million+ passenger cars sold a year. If there were 70million BEVs a year, it is just not possible right now. China is looking at just over 1 million BEVs (NEV in China) this year. Most of that is domestic sourced batteries in domestic sold vehicles.

 

• Reliably with 'traffic information charger status'
• Concurrent with food, beverage, and potty break
• Multi-tiered pricing:
  • highest >50 kW DC, 1-2
  • middle <50 kW DC, 3-8
  • low <8 kW AC, 9-16

Bob Wilson

 

I expected less cherry picking of data from you Bob.

It takes me less than 17 hours to get to Dubai house to house. OK, not really. It's 18 hours. But in 11 hours I can be in Europe. 1 hour to the airport, half hour check-in, 9.5hr flight to Frankfurt. 17 hours is ridiculous most of the time. But possible some of the time. And nobody looks at cost when it's a medical trip. If you have to ask is this worth $1800, then it's not an emergency. I bought quite a few $2k last minute (as in get to the airport TV style and book a flight while walking from car to gate) when the same flight if I bought 2 hours ago would have been $500 and if I bought last week $130. Same seat, same flight. But sometimes, you just gotta go. I get it.

I just checked Delta at the one way is $238 from Huntsville tomorrow at 6am arriving in Oklahoma City at 11am. (1) and (2) become $238. Why are you taking dogs to an emergency? Get a neighbour to feed them or whatever. But if you do, a kennel is $145 on Delta. So $435 for (3) if you're taking it. A huge pickup truck from Hertz is $209.60 for tomorrow and then 10 days of rental goes to (4). I figured a truck or large vehicle because you have 3 maybe large dogs with you. A Chevy Spark won't cut it... Parking at Huntsville actually seems to be $10/day so (5) becomes $100 vs. $80.

Adding that up, it's $1220.60. 39% less. And I suppose like you I didn't "shop around". In the South I just fly Delta or WN and I book all my cars globally with Hertz. Hertz is usually on the high end of rental costs. 6am flight, get there at 5am maybe say 4am with driving from your house? 9 hours of travel time for $1220.60 getting there at 1pm. Versus 14 hours of driving time (which is exhausting in one go for most people) and getting there at 10am-12pm.

I don't argue that BEVs work for 100% of the people nor would I push that. But it is safe to say it would work for 50% of the people with zero adjustments to their lifestyle. And it could work for 80% (throwing out numbers with no data) if they took their annual vacation a different way. What I dislike is false or disingenuous arguments (for anything) and it really shows when talking about BEVs. My friend even said they couldn't get a BEV because when they drive to Yellowstone, they couldn't get there... How many times have they been to Yellowstone? 0. She's only left the state when I flew her to the other side of the country for an event. Otherwise she lives and works in a 20 miles radius. Her most exotic vacation by herself was 60 miles away. But the dream is to go to Yellowstone. It's not going to happen, but that is why she can't have an electric car... Uh huh...

 

We live in different realities and I prefer the one I pay for.

Bob Wilson