Featured Tesla is Going Out of Business, says former GM Vice Chairman.

uncle walt had a lot of good ones though.

 

From Tesla website:

The bottom line is that all batteries age, and they lose capacity as they do. This, in turn, shortens driving range. Batteries age with use, and they age with time, even if not used. We tend to look at two kinds of aging: aging from use, called "cycle life," and aging with time, known as "calendar life." These two different aging mechanisms can be thought of as separate, overlapping forces.

As batteries in any EV age, they lose capacity and the vehicle will lose range. This is unavoidable and true in any EV with any type of battery. You can think of this as a very slow reduction in the volume of your vehicle’s “gas tank” over its lifetime. We limit how fast this aging and loss of range happens by working very hard to select the best cells, design the best cooling systems, and carefully manage charge states. By doing all of this we expect more than 100,000 miles of driving range and more than five years of useful life. However, at the end of this period the pack will have less capacity than when new (just like an internal combustion engine has less power and much worse emissions than when new). If, for example, you drive 10,000 miles per year at the end of five years you will have around 70 percent of the energy storage capacity of when new.

 

And the plug-in hybrid owners are working on their second 100,000 miles. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

Is this the same bob lutz who was head of gm when they scrapped the EV1 project?

GM could have been up there with the likes of Tesla if some forethought had been applied.

Anything EV he comments on I cannot take seriously


2010 Gen 3

 

What is your point?
Tesla estimated 70% after 5 years and real world experience is 95% as stated by @hill
Do you think they should be sued for their conservative estimate?

 

Link? . . . . . . . .

and as far as batteries age?
i'd be delighted to see what there is in this physical universe that doesn't age. And WHY is it - every morning I look in the mirror, only to see my dad staring back at me !@!!@

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Lutz is mostly right that a regular car company can replicate what Tesla is doing, when cost is almost no object. Back yard mechanics have been building very quick electric drag cars for years.

As far as Tesla going out of business, they need to start building those Model 3's, and soon, or they will be in deep trouble, cult following or not.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I guess my reaction is when has Lutz ever NOT attacked a competitor with an alternative product?
How many times was Prius a joke? Hybrids a passing phase?
He's been wrong in this arena....a lot.

Is Tesla in trouble? Going out of business? I don't know.
I would say I hope not.

IMO the "secret sauce" that Elon Musk and Tesla have been able to create?
Excitement about an automotive product.

When was the last time there was any real excitement about a GM product coming to market?
Here's our big SUV, here's our latest Truck, here's our cookie cutter Sedan....

In business, out of business, up or down...Tesla has been interesting, exciting, and even if it fails, a noble creative attempt.

I'd like to see more of that creativity in the entire industry. Secret Sauce indeed.

 

Actually, part of their secret sauce is under promising & over delivering rather that over promising and under delivering as far as vehicle capabilities are concerned.
Timing deadlines are another matter, though.

 

They need to start delivering those Model 3's, or they will go out of business. Building a few cool one-offs, like the roadster, and having a cult following is nice but, at some point, you need to have more money coming in than deposits from wannabe buyers.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

They also have to keep the model 3 moderately dependable and affordable.....or they will go out of business.
It's underappreciated but this is a lot more than twice as hard to do with a $50,000 car than it is to do with a $120,000 car.
Even a $30,000 car will not sell very well if the door handles don't work right, the mirrors fall off, and we're not even getting to the realm of safety related recalls, and the three-foot high stack of DOT regs that have to be followed, and there are still a few people out there that think that $30,000 car isn't an "entry-level" vehicle!

LOTS of sizzle and hustle-bustle in the kitchen, but if they don't start shoving steaks out the order window pretty soon then they're going to have money problems.......AND the steaks still have to taste AT LEAST as good as the ones that you can get at the chain joint up the street!

 

seems everyone knows what THEY need to do ...... & quick to tell them how THEY should do it. Yey, how many of the everyone here - quickly doling out the free auto manufacturing advice has ever made cars. Well, let's see, we have Bob kLutz, & everyone knows how that worked out.
As for cool roadsters, ok. Maybe it comes as a shock, but worldwide, Tesla has manufactured ~ a ¼million SUVs & sedans to date. Lutz, being the auto genius he thinks he is - is most likely able to rationalize away some of those minor details. Good for him.
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...but they said they would be producing 5000 Model 3's a week by now, and they are producing essentially none. That is a problem.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Quality control issues are rampant everywhere. The slogan over my work area says, "you want it bad - you'll get it bad. The worse you want it, the worst you'll get it." How soon we forget. 1 word. (Space shuttle) Challenger. Good bet, after the fact, most people wished we would have opted for taking a little more time and done it right.
OR - we can keep the hand-wringing going while we dreadfully mumble, "oh no! it's not on time ... it's not fast enough! ... but you SAID it would be here NOW ... oh nooooo! sheesh, the fud spreading fearmongers need to take a deep breath already.
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Producing 1/4M expensive vehicles over 10 years is a lot different from producing that number of "affordable" cars in one year. I hope Tesla survives, but they need to hire some people away from mainstream car companies to help them ramp up Model 3 production.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Take a look back before Lutz's brain was totalled addled by age when he was a young 72 year old insulting the prius in 2004. GM: Hybrid compacts don't make economic, environmental sense - Jan. 6, 2004 How did the hybrid pick ups and SUVs do for gm, that lutz thought would be so much better than the prius strategy? Well they lost money, but worse they showed gm didn't understand the hybrid buyer. Lutz was clueless. Now he thinks the bolt is better for a plug-in buyer than a model 3. He had already retired from chyrsler when he made the asinine prius comments, why put stock in him now? Because he's a "car guy"? To me he is a cultural troll, trying to grab attention. He probably shorted tesla stock, has lost a ton of money, and is trying to talk it down.

So can other car companies copy the model 3? Could they in 2004 copy the prius and outsell toyota? Remember back then toyota was much smaller than gm. The answer is that yes they could have, but didn't. The odds are big auto which is prone to group think won't compete well with the model 3, and tesla is building moats making them further behind.

Barrier 1 Batteries - Tesla - use inexpensive cells with great electronics to make them work now, versus big auto needing a different technology for auto. Tesla now has low cost and gigafactory should push the cost down. It will take a few years for other auto companies to catch up. In that time tesla will be in the process of building another factory in china with better tech.

Barrier 2 Design - The model 3 doesn't look great, its like a cross between the model S and a mazda 3, but it looks good. It is much better than other car makers efficient designs. Tesla thought of the little things. Many people won't like the hidden vents or center display, but it is well done and easy to manufacture (once tesla figures out things Lexus and audi already know about making cars). The car gets better the longer you own it with electronic updates. Design of the model 3 is much better than the bolt, leaf, etron, etc. I expect the model Y will be better designed than the future promised gm crossover bev.

Barrier 3 - Dealership model - Dealerships make a lot of their money from maintenance, and so far have been bad at selling plug-ins in the US. Part of it is profit motive, part lack of training. Its hard to get someone used to pushing silverados or camrys to sell a plug-in. This would slow even a car designed as well as the model 3 and sold at a loss because of more expensive batteries.

Barrier 4 - charging infrastructure. This is a biggie no one else has the fast charging infrastructure in the US, China, or Europe. That can change and people can buy in, but they haven't.

Tesla has a lot of challenges, but people have said since the beginning hobbiests could build the cars or other car companies. They haven't and now they are further behind. Before it was they could but there is no market. Now that tesla has proven there is a market others are struggling, but big corporate structures make designing a car take longer than it does at tesla.

They are trying as hard as they can to "accelerate" production from goals at the beginning of 2016. Amazon and netflix didn't run out of money either. There will be investors. The key is not to put out a bad product. Manufacturing is one area where tesla is behind big auto, but they also don't have legacy costs (pensions and stranded assets in old technology). IMHO they should have opened a manufacturing design center by toyota when headquarters move was anounced to take tallent. I think things will be worked out by mid 2018, but it will be a bumpy ride. Most of the time when lutz says something will do great, it fails. At this valuation tesla is still priced to near perfection, but there is almost no risk of bankrupcy. If the stock falls far enough they would be bought, but I don't think that will happen.

 

really? why. Consider production 'volume' versus safety. Example:
Ford Settles Explorer Rollover Suit - CBS News
100's & 100's injured. 100's killed, for about a decade, even though Ford knew about its SUV's dangers.
versus model X;
Tesla's Model X is the safest SUV ever tested - Jun. 13, 2017
They had to build a special contraption just to test its rollover potential, because running it sideways off a steep embankment wasn't enough. they had to use straps and a crane and turn it upside down, to test the roof strength.
But yeah, they could have gotten it to Market a lot faster.
Ergo, my motto in post #54 above.
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They are delivering Model 3s, and they've done it sooner and faster than previous models.

 

Christmas is coming soon, anyone know where can I order a Bob Lutz piñata?

Oh, this thread?

Bob Wilson