Tesla booster

i think it is promoting competition. without tesla success, government intervention, and the diesel scandal, we'd be stuck with the same old polluting technology

 

Interesting piece. His question is focused on the product though.
A very large component to EVs is the threat Tesla poses to other manufacturers.
BMW's annual stockholder's meeting had a lot of stockholders demanding to know what BMW was doing to stop loosing market share to Tesla.

Other companies aren't going to just give up their markets and go home. They will either compete, or be made non-consequential.
If Tesla had not done what they have so far, there would be far fewer EVs on the road today, and far fewer planned to be for sale in the future.

 

i don't see where he even tries to make the case that tesla is slowing ev adoption. it seems to me that all he is saying is what the rest of us have been saying for years.
legacy manufacturers are simply not interested, and have been dragged into the fray by tesla's success.

 

He is stating he is just considering the idea.
But at it's core, the position is Tesla has set such a high bar that other manufacturers are disinclined from entering the BEV market.
I disagree with it, but it is an interesting question.

 

Wide adoption of BEVs depends mainly on two things.

1. Price parity with today's ICE cars.
2. Convenience parity of "re-fueling".

#1 is obvious and is being addressed by giga-factories, but #2 will have a lot of rebuttals about the Tesla super-charger network, etc. All of that is well and true, but it still takes 30 minutes of sitting somewhere you don't necessarily want to be sitting. I think lurking under #2 requirement is the question of a). Energy density of the battery pack and b). power density of same. The Energy density is a big BIG problem BEVs are facing right now. This is why batteries are heavy. That weight is an albatross on BEVs. Speed of charging (and discharging) safely has to do more with power density, and is better matched to ICE, but is still in need of improvement. So IMO, the big hold back of wide BEV adoption is battery tech. It is not there yet for the tide of ICE vehicles to turn. A good measure is commercial air travel. If and when commercial air travel is possible on electric power, then we are there in terms of fossil fuel being dead in the water. I am not sure if this will ever be possible, but if we even come close to this sort of physics of the yet undiscovered battery tech, then we will end the age of ICE. Electric motors are much more efficient and electric locomotion is superior to fossil powered. We have known this and have been using electric locomotion commercially for over a century (electric trolleys, trains, etc.), so it's not even a debate, it's a fact. The problem we are facing is the battery powered locomotion. Battery tech has to make a quantum leap in order to properly compete with fossil fuels. That is what the BIG problem is, not Tesla vs. Ford. I do agree with the video, of course, that Tesla is doing the best it possibly can under the constraints of nearly unusable battery tech of today. The big win will be when someone (maybe Tesla?) develops a new kind of battery that approaches energy density of petrol fuel.

 

sales are usually demand driven. give people a reason to switch. that is still a ways off.

manufacturing follows sales demand. you can try driving demand through marketing and incentives, but it is not nearly as effective.

without tesla and sales losses caused to other companies, i see no incentive at all.

china is trying to drive sales through regulation, we'll see how that goes. vw is in it because they ran out of alternatives.
still, the buyers have to want it for meaningful growth.

 

Nice video and thread!

I enjoyed this video also, which further illustrates the point of this thread, and is one of the reasons I believe I'm getting closer to "drinking the kool-aid" myself.

 

try that in the winter with your wife in the car

 

I completely agree on #1.
But not on #2. EV fuel is already cheaper. If the cars are at parity most people won't care (too much) about the wait.
For most it would only be a few times per year, not every week.

The gas lines at Costco prove this...all to save 5-10 cents per gallon.

Mike

 

This is the point most people have so much trouble with.
I've been living with an EV for over 9 years. For me, they are the most convenient vehicle I have ever owned. It isn't even close.
I live in a suburb and can charge at home.
I do take trips that require use of the charging network away from home, but only a few times a year.

Every single two car family that doesn't require both cars to be on trips at the same time can easily enjoy one BEV.

That alone is 30% of the market? Even if only 25% that still gives a lot of growth potential for BEVs to take off. Frankly I am guessing it is closer to 50% but I have had trouble nailing down the info.

I absolutely believe that the technology is not slowing down the growth of the market.
The biggest thing is simply the adoption curve.
When a product is purchased often, it's adoption curve can be rapid. When it is bought rarely, and is very expensive, its adoption curve takes more time.

 

taking more time might be a good thing, if you look at the bigger picture

 

The (sometimes very vocal) EVs-won't-succeed-until-they-can-do-everything-an-ICE-can-do crowd just can't see this.
EV sales could be 10x what they are now just selling as the second car in a family with two or more cars and a garage.

Mike

 

it's not that they couldn't, it's that they aren't.

someone needs to work on that

 

I agree with the idea of taking more time when looking at the big picture. But which big picture are we looking at? Which big picture is the biggest picture? economy, oil, grid, weather, other?

 

i'm thinking about battery technology, charging infrastructure and grid

reasonable growth, such as we have been seeing should allow for grid improvement, (including less fossil fuels and more renewables)
longer range and quicker charging batteries, and increasing charging stations

 

This. I stopped at Costco earlier in the week for my semi-annual fill up in the Prime. I had to go there anyway to pick up some photos. At least a 15 minute wait in the gas line for that awful petrol stuff. The only good part was the music I was playing off my USB drive that was keeping me sane while waiting, and thankful that Toyota had thoughtfully designed a heated steering wheel I could hold on to in the dead of winter (Tesla - read that - do that). I felt guilty spending $20 something, and also that I would someday have to burn all of it up eventually.

Gas. I am really getting sick and tired of that not so often routine. Sooo much easier to reach 3 feet from my car at home and fill up there.

 

how much do you save at costco? i use so little gas, i just pay the 3 bucks up the street, no lines.