Tesla sells 5K cars....in one quarter

[Crono0001]

I put a ton of cash into TSLA early February. Hands down best investment I've ever made.

[Kenny Boxster]

Originally Posted by Crono0001

I put a ton of cash into TSLA early February. Hands down best investment I've ever made.

Lucky you.

I wouldn't mind an electric car for commuting at all, but until prices drop.

[southernstar]

Tesla has certainly had a couple of very solid quarters, but the future is not entirely clear as:

1. They are facing problems with rulings in a couple of states (with others pending) that their direct to consumer sales breach state laws.

2. BMW is releasing its own electric vehicle, which will likely cut into their sales.

3. Other vehicles such as Porsche's new hybrid may also cut into sales of their upscale electric sedans.

Still, it is nice to see that with a combination of government assistance and good design they have managed to not only stay afloat, but to thrive to a relative degree.

Brad

[stephen wilson]

The Tesla is cool, but electric only vehicles are still only practical for short commutes. The range is only 200 miles at a constant Hwy. speed, spirited driving will kill the battery very quickly. Besides, they still consume fossil fuels, just via powerplants instead of directly. Powerplants have fewer environmental controls than autos, so I don't even buy the Eco-friendly angle.

[Crono0001]

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

The Tesla is cool, but electric only vehicles are still only practical for short commutes. The range is only 200 miles at a constant Hwy. speed, spirited driving will kill the battery very quickly. Besides, they still consume fossil fuels, just via powerplants instead of directly. Powerplants have fewer environmental controls than autos, so I don't even buy the Eco-friendly angle.

The emission from a combustion vehicle as opposed to energy made in plants are completely different.
Unless you're using coal.

[stephen wilson]

Yes, there are some differences, but also many similarities. (assuming non-Nuclear energy) Both rely on combustion of fossil fuels, and after Bush's de-regulation, plants can do a ton of environmental damage.

[jrblackman]

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

The Tesla is cool, but electric only vehicles are still only practical for short commutes. The range is only 200 miles at a constant Hwy. speed, spirited driving will kill the battery very quickly. Besides, they still consume fossil fuels, just via powerplants instead of directly. Powerplants have fewer environmental controls than autos, so I don't even buy the Eco-friendly angle.

Also the batteries used in electric vehicles are anything but eco-friendly. Marketing sells electric vehicles as green but it isn't true.

[southernstar]

Electricity is not only 'green' if produced by nuclear plants, but also by wind turbines (popping up in huge numbers in various parts of the world), hydro (think of the Sir Adam Beck plant at Niagara Falls, but also various other smaller hydro-electric plants) and solar (which is becoming more and more prevalent). Furthermore, even when plants use oil to generate electricity, less polution will typically result at peak periods (aka rush-hour) as vehicles are using their stored electricity and recharging at night when there is typically less demand. Over time, as more and more electricity is converted to 'greeen' sources, the difference will become even greater.

At present there are many reasons to prefer gasoline or diesel engines, but contributing to the environment is not one of them.

Brad

[fatmike]

There are at least 3 Model S Tesla's in my town (I've seen three different colors).

Just the other day, a guy in a Tesla pulled up to me and said "nice car" to which I replied "want to trade..."?

He said the car has been a rock solid daily driver for him.




/

[thstone]

Originally Posted by jrblackman

Also the batteries used in electric vehicles are anything but eco-friendly. Marketing sells electric vehicles as green but it isn't true.

Bingo! Here is some more insight into Li-ion battery recycling:

First, many e-cars use propylene glycol as a coolant for the battery pack. We all already know that this stuff isn't good for the environment and must be carefully recycled or it will contaminate the ground.

Second, the electronics components used to charge and monitor the status of the battery packs must be removed and disposed as e-waste. E-waste is also harmful to the environment.

Third, the batteries are mechanically shredded and then screened into three components: fluff, copper cobalt, and slurry.

The fluff consists of most of the physical parts of the battery (ground plastic, ground metal, and other materials). The battery and car companies say its mostly plastic and say that it is disposed in landfills. But they fail to mention that its been contaminated with a lot of different chemicals so it gets a quick wash (creating contaminated rinse water) and then goes into landfills where whatever chemicals are leftover leach into the soil.

The copper cobalt is sold for later processing to recover the metals such as cobalt, aluminum, nickel, and copper. This requires significantly more chemical processing using ammonia, hydrogen, and sulfuric acid in processes similar to smelting, which in turn, create additional toxic byproducts. Definitely not good for the environment.

The slurry is processed into cobalt filter cake. Soda ash is added and precipitates out as lithium carbonate. Lithium carbonate is well known for its affects on the central nervous system: lithium carbonate is used in the treatment for bipolar disorder and manic depressive illness. 300mg per day is the standard dosage and will significantly affect brain behavior. That is the good side; the bad side is that lithium carbonate toxicity can occur at levels only slightly higher than therapeutic levels (>500 mg per day). Remember 500mg is the amount in one Tylenol capsule - this is not massive dosing. Lithium carbonate has also been proven to be harmful to pregnant women and harm kidney function. There are no formal regulations for the handling, storage, or transportation of lithium carbonate.

Lastly, ask this: Is the battery recycling facility located in the US? Probably not (and in fact, Tesla's battery recycling facility is outside the US). Why? Because EPA regulations make battery recycling almost impossible to perform safely and without impacting the environment. Thus, almost all battery recycling facilities are located outside the US where environmental laws are weak and/or poorly enforced.

The battery recycling facilities that are located within the US are generally only Level 1 facilities where the batteries have the coolant and electronics removed and the batteries are shredded. Then the waste is sent outside the US for the remainder of the processing. This allows companies to "claim" that the batteries are recycled "locally" - true in some sense but ultimately misleading.

Green? You decide.

[Porsche Chick]

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

The Tesla is cool, but electric only vehicles are still only practical for short commutes. The range is only 200 miles at a constant Hwy. speed, spirited driving will kill the battery very quickly. Besides, they still consume fossil fuels, just via powerplants instead of directly. Powerplants have fewer environmental controls than autos, so I don't even buy the Eco-friendly angle.

I agree, 100%.

The only truly green car is the Prius, because it harnesses Unused, FREE energy that is created by the car's inertia. It's genius engineering.

As a side note, I saw a report on an energy system that was embedded into road surfaces (it used flexing panels) to harness the energy of cars driving on the road. The flexing panels recharged batteries that were used to power buildings adjacent to the road. That is, again, harnessing energy that is free and wasted.

Simply plugging into a powerplant does not impress me.

[stephen wilson]

Originally Posted by Porsche Chick

because it harnesses Unused, FREE energy that is created by the car's inertia

I agree that regenerative braking is the real "something for nothing" solution. Of course it still requires the batteries for energy storage.


Perfect, I agree, most people don't care much how a car drives. Even my wife, who does care, bought a A5 with what I consider a completely inadequate test drive "around the block".

Chris, "normal folks" with a large disposable income. No one I know can afford a car starting at $60k to "save" money on gas. People aren't buying them because they can't afford gas!

[Daniel R]

Mazda makes a car available in Australia that has regenerative braking but uses capacitors for storage rather than expensive batteries. The car is not a hybrid, just has regenerative braking, the best feature of hybrid cars IMHO.

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

I agree that regenerative braking is the real "something for nothing" solution. Of course it still requires the batteries for energy storage.


Perfect, I agree, most people don't care much how a car drives. Even my wife, who does care, bought a A5 with what I consider a completely inadequate test drive "around the block".

Chris, "normal folks" with a large disposable income. No one I know can afford a car starting at $60k to "save" money on gas. People aren't buying them because they can't afford gas!

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by southernstar

2. BMW is releasing its own electric vehicle, which will likely cut into their sales.

I would sooner invite a daily kick to the groin than to even contemplate buying an experimental car from BMW. Ditto for Merc.

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

The Tesla is cool, but electric only vehicles are still only practical for short commutes. The range is only 200 miles at a constant Hwy..

Which is precisely where the meat of the market is. Long range battery technology is an unecessarily expensive cost for the market that Tesla is apparently wiping the floor clean with. Elon Musk is a genius. I could care less about the 'green issue'. I'm more concerned with the 'greenback' issue. Consumers like the idea of paying $6 a gallon as much as they'd like to switch to energizer batteries for their rechargeable phones, tablets and laptops. A huge waste of money! And precisely what we do every time we fill up our tanks and make the oil lobby happy. These are billions, trillions of dollars that could be spent to come up with new ways of making electricity (ie Bloom). Dirty coal and insanely expensive nuclear plants can not continue to be the only way. It's economic Liliputianism. There is a fortune to be made in cars and new forms of energy production. We have to stop doing the same old same old even if it takes 40 years to flip the whole U.S. fleet.

[stephen wilson]

Well yeah, the genius part was doing it on the taxpayer's Dollar ! (mostly) Large subsidies continue to make it viable. Granted, big oil receives huge subsidies, adding to an already very profitable business.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

Well yeah, the genius part was doing it on the taxpayer's Dollar ! (mostly) Large subsidies continue to make it viable..

If you ever need to compete with China, then you're going to have to deal with concept of public funding to break new industrial ground that carry huge capital expenses and burn rates from hell. The new Asian economies have no issue with throwing trillions into new industries thereby articificially lowering prices that our private industries must compete with. Few investors are going to jump into that shark tank solo. So communist economies like China's stuff their pockets deep, employ tens of thousands, open up factory after factory and grow their economies with our missed oppourtunities because U.S. private equity only wants 'sure bet' investments that pay off in 12 to 18 months so that they can sell prospective investors on how good they are at beating the S&P. It's all short term while our competitors overseas focus on the big picture.
China has plans to FORCE hundreds of millions of their citizens to relocate from the countryside into their urban sectors just to fill up the assembly lines and to get at raw material.

Dismissing public funding could be understandable when the global economy consisted of only the U.S. This is a whole new game now.
Sovereign wealth funds and direct monetary injection by Asian central banks into their manufacturing sectors need to be factored in.