Featured Forbes pits EV's against .... Everything?

There is a reality shock on the way. Most people are clueless how different the market is for mainstream consumers versus early adopters.

The plentiful low-hanging fruit has given a false impression of how quickly progress can be made.

This next stage is much more complicated.

 

There is still that little inconvenient truth of EVs today with today's infrastructure do not work for many people, the $35K T3 is still a pipe dream and Prime's numbers were up 42%.

 

I just thought of something. Probably lots of people have had this thought before, but it's taken a while to solidify into something expressible by me. It used to be that people would spend as little as possible on something they just drove back and forth to work or for errands. Now, lots of us are spending ... hmmm ... how much is a Tesla?

 

Not really Forbes right? It's an EV advocate who has a blog on Forbes

 

This hasn't changed. There have always been people spending lots of money on their cars, and other people spending frugally.
The lowest priced Tesla you can order today runs about $50k. The lowest priced Tesla you can order at the beginning of next year will be $35k. Which happens to be very close to the average price of a new vehicle..

 

There was always "car as a status symbol" category. People bought expensive cars because they could afford them (back in the day when people bought stuff they could afford). Today's generation is really addicted to debt. They buy things based on what monthly payment they can afford in their current situation. If that situation changes for the worse systemically (remember 2008), banks burn and government bails them (banks) out. This has been the story for decades.

There are always people who spend as little as possible on a reliable conveyance to do errands and drive to work. Those people, however are glossed over by the Tesla Motors and its fans. Those people are not on Tesla's radar screen. They do not exist. What we are seeing in Tesla is infancy of a new tech car company. They are pretty unique in having no previous experience with cars. They are truly in uncharted territory. So we are seeing early adopters for now. This is how it is with anything new. Remember the first iPhone? It was expensive and people who bought it were spending way more than for anything else on the market at the time. This gave rise to competition from Android and other manufacturers. And now smart phone IS the phone. No more flip phones or feature phones (except in niche markets). This is what is going to happen with cars, I think. They will go electric. And Tesla, whether it survives or not will be the company that served as fulcrum for the shift.

Once the shift is complete there will be the equivalent of a junker (but electric) to be had cheap on a used market and driven by people who need that kind of thing. We are not there yet. Not by a long shot. We still have a very thriving oil economy (US dollar = Petrodollar, remember? If oil goes down so does our currency and that's no fun for anyone living here). There needs to be a way for that economy to shift away from oil towards renewable energy sources. This is not happening yet on the foreign policy level (and that is really the important indicator). So we are far from electrifying our transportation. But Tesla is helping to change direction and that is very admirable and I applaud it for that, reality check and all.

 

There are lots of competing data here, but here's how it looks from my end of the telescope:

1. Depending on how people bend the numbers, most folks spend between 30,000 and 35,000 bucks for a new car, and Tesla's target price for their base model in the US will be about the same....if/when a $35,000 unit is ever produced....in 202x?

2. Prius sales are tanking, IMHO because of a confluence of (a) polarizing styling (b) gas prices (c) they're not a 'crossover'....but mostly (d) they're yesterday's fish.
So......their zenith in US sales were less than 250,000 units a year - for the family and this was in those dark days back in 2012 when the US economy was still in the recovery room.
I don't have exact numbers, and nobody is bragging about 2017/2018 figures so we'll "presume" that 2018 sales will be in the neighborhood of about 200,000 - because I have 10 fingers and like easy math.
That's....crap!....the Earth doesn't have 10 fingers........about 16,667 (ish) cars a month.
Curse all those round clocks and 12-month calendars.

Anyway......
That's for Priuses.
All of them.
They're cheaper....sometimes by half.
They're available.....even on sale!
They're not dependent on an as-yet undeveloped fueling infrastructure.
Their stocks do not rise and fall because their CEO wakes up in a bad mood.
They're compliancy enough to get "me-too" stickers.
Range anxiety = 0.

So...this means that conventional economics says that about the time that the '3' hits and sustains 5,000 units a week - real world - they are going to saturate their market in a few years....and even a 30-percent return on those kinda sales doesn't work against their operating costs.
.
This is (IMHO) because the '3' will be a sedan that scratches the same itches that Toyota's eco-hatch clawed it's way up to satisfy over a course of 12 long and bloody years in the US from 2000 - 2012.
Toyota has already survived FUD campaigns, negative PR, design-flaw scandals, recalls, negative press about the surly Norte Americano Customer Satisfaction department and a 1.2 gigabuck fine for not playing nice with their customers over safety defects.
They also survived supply chain disruptions stemming from everything from earthquakes to fires, and the George Noory crowd even took a swipe at them for radiation concerns and EMI from their drive-train - something that curiously does not seem to (yet) concern people about Tesla's products.
In other words.....Tesla has yet to face a 'big boy' problem that a company the size of GM, Toyota, or Das Volksvagen can survive.
In case anybody out there has forgotten how daffy things can get in the arena of public opinions.......Volkswagen is still punching out cars AFTER fines and fees of something like 25 Billion bucks following a scandal that killed exactly ZERO people.
Fun Fact: That's 5 billion more bucks than BP was fined after trashing a body of water larger than all of California, and about double what some people think that the GM/UAW bailout might or might not have cost the taxpayer - depending on statistics, and how one defines "pay back."
Tesla's debt loading suggests that either they think that there's a ginormous, pent-up demand for BEV's that is going unsatisfied - or - this is Solyndra 2019 and they're going to offshore manufacturing to satisfy demands THERE after a fire-sale HERE....or they're so busy dog-paddling that they really don't have time to think.

Remember.....it's never the bus that you SEE coming down the road that hits you.

Will Tesla Survive?
Thrive?

Turn the page.......
As we saw above.
Clocks and calendars make for ugly math.
They usually trash predictions too....

 

Nothing earth-shattering here.

The Prius used to be the best self-propelled gadget on the block. Now the Tesla is. For a certain group of customers it was always about gadgetry.

Toyota has done well to transplant the hybrid drivetrain into some of their 'ordinary' cars. There are at least a few of us that want high tech under the hood for maximum fuel savings, but packaged as 'ordinary cars.'

 

I always thought hybrids were a stepping stone for an all electric car.

 

i still wonder where prius sales would be if gas inched up every year.

around here, it is well applauded when the legislature kills a gas tax increase proposal, and that's a blue state mindset.

 

They are. Skipping steps is the challenge now faced by Tesla. Success is measured different from legacy automakers too.

Basic things... like having a 40-amp dedicated line for overnight recharging of each vehicle is shared though.

 

Do tell....
California Repeal Gas Tax and Fees Increase Bill Initiative (2018) - Ballotpedia

 

it's interesting how both sides have found common ground on this issue.

 

Around here, there was a more acceptance of gas tax increases after one of our interstates fell into a river during rush hour

 

I'll add another: improvements in fuel economy of regular cars are "good enough" for most folks at todays gas prices.

 

My personal belief is that states who have relatively low gas prices (who have not already done so) ought to increase their gas taxes before dot.gov increases federal gas taxes.....but this is a few chess moves away for the '3'


Anybody watching what's going on in Venezuela?
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ..... oh wait.....that's the OTHER president that faked a coup....President Maduro is on the back of a pretty mad and hungry tiger right about now.

How does this relate to the '3'?????
Well, it just so happens that Venezuela is sitting on proven petrol reserves that are (some say) bigger than Saudi Arabia.
In other words.....once they un-tuck a little bit, and their economy starts functioning again I suspect that wellhead petrol prices will slip a little.
And...there's Iran. Russia. Saudi. etc.....
Oil is $2.25 in some parts of fly-over country and for the next 2 more years gas tax is going to be a four-letter word and CAFE is going to be a large sign over a restaurant.

Not zactly EV-friendly times.

Also, and while we're speaking about ill-winds, the Leaf wasn't exactly a splash-hit with the eco-crowd, and their battery short-cut will give FUD marketers a lot of ammo to use against the '3''s as-yet unproven battery tech.

I personally think that the '3' is on solid engineering underpinnings, but....then....so was the 2010 Prius.
How many incidents will it take to make Tesla = Chipotle???

 

No, not necessarily long range, but a vehicle that fits the needs of a buyer. I believe in the future of EVs there will be a way to top off a charge in 5 minutes enough to not worry about range. That's part of the evolution. Energy storage tech is on the move, I hope. Part of the landslide towards the EVs for everyone has to be the ability to refuel the vehicle in similar way as today's gassers. Today even the long range EVs do not work for everyone. Not because 200 mile range is not enough, but because it takes 3 hours to refuel (even 40 minutes hanging around a starbucks you do not like is too much) and the refueling stations are not as conveniently located as gas stations.