OT: New Tesla Roadster

[RoadWhale]

Originally Posted by Ti Designs

Ignoring the problems of production (and irate customers), how many people can handle a car that does 0-60 in 2 seconds? I'm pretty sure I can't, and I'm no stranger to driving fast cars.

This^^^^^

Unless Tesla will rely on "computer assisted" driving to guide that missile, many people who have the financial resources but not the driving skill will learn just how fast 60-0 is possible.

[Anarchist]

Some commentary on the numbers put forward by Musk,

http://driving.ca/tesla/auto-news/ne...=1510948505333

Musk, to be me, is just a 21st century snake oil salesman.

This is not going to end well.

[ultraman6970]

The only thing i did not like about the truck was the "solo driving mode", you cant rely in a computer to drive that thing, the radar fails and you kill like 100 people with that darn truck.

[josephr]

Originally Posted by Anarchist

Standard diesel powered rig will do 1000 miles on full tanks.

500 miles means more stops (if the stops have chargers), longer stops, longer trip times for cargo and less earnings for drivers who get paid by the mile - no matter how long those miles take.

It also appears that the unit doesn't work with industry standard trailers which is a death knell.

This is typical Musk vapourware

wrong market...Europe will purchase these in droves long before any headway will be made in the U.S. Still, the bigger shops with multiple transfer/distribution centers will adopt first. Think about UPS trucks running loops routes from Louisville to Pittsburgh to Detroit back to Louisville with drivers just swapping out truck units. Also think about Wal-Mart/Target making delivery routes. Owner/Operators and long-haul OTR drivers will be last to make the move and likely pushed out of business as mileage rates decrease. A $.05/mi difference adds up really fast.

A second option will be for the trucks to run mobile diesel generators for back-up. Not a far-fetched idea as train locomotives have been doing this half a century now. Its just scaled down technology.


Edit: Wal-Mart/J.B. Hunt have placed orders.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-...unt-1510950438

[Vientomas]

Holy ugly ass windshield wiper Batman! What a blot on the aesthetic

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by ravdg316

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...ers/ar-BBF5MuO

I understand that Tesla gets some heat for not delivering when they promise, but I don't understand the criticism for using other people's money to fund ventures. That's just fundamental.

I think they're burning like $15 million per day at their current burn rate. How many cars, even if you figure a healthy profit per car do they need to sell to start breaking even?

And, they have plenty of US Government backed loans that has funded this venture. My friend did the math, every man, woman and child in this fine nation has about $2 of exposure to this boondoggle last time he looked. Might be more today, or less, not sure.

Burning through investor money makes it an interesting situation. Burning through tax payer money makes it an outrage. Especially when he's trying to run 3+ other companies, while this one appears to be imploding.

[jlwdm]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

I think they're burning like $15 million per day at their current burn rate. How many cars, even if you figure a healthy profit per car do they need to sell to start breaking even?

And, they have plenty of US Government backed loans that has funded this venture. My friend did the math, every man, woman and child in this fine nation has about $2 of exposure to this boondoggle last time he looked. Might be more today, or less, not sure.

Burning through investor money makes it an interesting situation. Burning through tax payer money makes it an outrage. Especially when he's trying to run 3+ other companies, while this one appears to be imploding.

Really? He is a creative dreamer making things happen in many areas. Some will be more successful than others. But he is trying.

I don't think he is too worried about criticism from people on internet forums. He is too busy moving forward.

It is a lot easier to criticize than to create.

Jeff

[ravdg316]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

I think they're burning like $15 million per day at their current burn rate. How many cars, even if you figure a healthy profit per car do they need to sell to start breaking even?

And, they have plenty of US Government backed loans that has funded this venture. My friend did the math, every man, woman and child in this fine nation has about $2 of exposure to this boondoggle last time he looked. Might be more today, or less, not sure.

Burning through investor money makes it an interesting situation. Burning through tax payer money makes it an outrage. Especially when he's trying to run 3+ other companies, while this one appears to be imploding.

He's taking money from wherever he can at the cheapest rate possible. That's just like any company in any industry trying to fund new ventures.

Lots of industries have subsidies that maybe shouldn't. Oil and corn come to mind. There are far worse purposes for tax dollars than spending them on Tesla.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by jlwdm

Really? He is a creative dreamer making things happen in many areas. Some will be more successful than others. But he is trying.

I don't think he is too worried about criticism from people on internet forums. He is too busy moving forward.

It is a lot easier to criticize than to create.

Jeff

The problem with that Randian ideal is if Tesla goes belly up, taxpayers will be one of the many constituencies holding the bag.

It's the classic privatizing of gains, socializing of losses. Forget the people who don't have cars or don't have support for those cars, the fallout would go a lot further than Musk's personal bank account and those aggreived customers.

At some point, the company will need to produce at scale. They're showing little evidence they can do what other car companies mastered a long time ago in production.

[Spaghetti Legs]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

I think they're burning like $15 million per day at their current burn rate. How many cars, even if you figure a healthy profit per car do they need to sell to start breaking even?

And, they have plenty of US Government backed loans that has funded this venture. My friend did the math, every man, woman and child in this fine nation has about $2 of exposure to this boondoggle last time he looked. Might be more today, or less, not sure.

Burning through investor money makes it an interesting situation. Burning through tax payer money makes it an outrage. Especially when he's trying to run 3+ other companies, while this one appears to be imploding.

Tesla paid back the $465 mil Federal loan in 2013. To my knowledge, that was the only Federal backed loan specific to Tesla. The tax credits, etc are not Tesla specific and are analogous, though dwarfed by, the variety of tax credits provided to Big Oil. Tesla is not a car company, but an energy storage and distribution as well as EV company. One day they will license their Supercharger network for other EVs to use (and/or start making all the Tesla owners pay to use them), they will still have a massive chunk of a much larger EV market, and they will have cornered the large capacity battery market with the Gigafactory. The business is sound.

[fogrider]

how many hours are you allowed to drive before you are required to take a break?

Originally Posted by Anarchist

Standard diesel powered rig will do 1000 miles on full tanks.

500 miles means more stops (if the stops have chargers), longer stops, longer trip times for cargo and less earnings for drivers who get paid by the mile - no matter how long those miles take.

It also appears that the unit doesn't work with industry standard trailers which is a death knell.

This is typical Musk vapourware

[SoCalSteve]

Originally Posted by fogrider

how many hours are you allowed to drive before you are required to take a break?

Cuz it’s the Federal government, it’s a bit complicated:

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulation...ce-regulations

[dustyrider]

I’m no expert, but it seems to me the electric semi is way more better than the electric car in a lot of ways.

Guidelines for commercial drivers make the 500 mile range pretty realistic at this point. Yes, cross country/teams are going to burn fuel and maybe keep a second book, but I get the feeling that a substantial amount of commercial shipping is done within a 500 mile radius, or turn around, and the books are more or less accurate. Keeping drivers and insurance awake and happy respectively seems like a no-brainer at the 500 mile range. Commercial vehicles have to have higher yearly mileage averages than cars, so their emission contributions must be pretty high even if there isn’t as many of them as cars. Commercial vehicles also seem to be handling more and more of the goods we all purchase which is really all America seems to do anymore. Don’t forget maintenance! Big companies don’t like red. All this says nothing about the environmental toll of batteries or that generating power isn’t exactly clean, and of course someone actually needs to make them first, but e-cars have always seemed like a band-aid for a select few who can afford them when full on semi-truck sized stitches is what everyone could really benefit from.

Now the self driving thing is interesting. Will self driving vehicles get their own lane, then their own road? Will they all line up behind one another like one long train?

[SoCalSteve]

Originally Posted by Anarchist

Standard diesel powered rig will do 1000 miles on full tanks.

500 miles means more stops (if the stops have chargers), longer stops, longer trip times for cargo and less earnings for drivers who get paid by the mile - no matter how long those miles take.

It also appears that the unit doesn't work with industry standard trailers which is a death knell.

This is typical Musk vapourware

This doesn’t really apply to “solo” over the road truckers as they are regulated by the Federal government. Driving double team is a different story. A driver can only drive so many miles per day-per week, etc.

The trucks can be charged while they are taking their federally mandated breaks. These rules are enforced by truck stops and drivers log books.

[cachagua]

Just curious, has Musk stated a position on where he thinks electricity ought to come from?