countrytravler Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 just landed a contract with Tesla. 50k cars are being sent to the ports for overseas. Hauling a load Tuesday from Freemont CA to Tacoma WA. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrytravler Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 18 minutes ago, mike6024 said: Hauling to Washington to ship overseas instead of just out the port of Oakland? No, this is a local load. The overseas will be going to MD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted January 31, 2019 Author Share Posted January 31, 2019 3. Tesla slumps: Tesla (TSLA) shares were set to open as much as 5% lower after the company reported profit that fell short of expectations after the markets closed Wednesday. Tesla also revealed that its chief financial officer was leaving — the latest senior executive to exit the electric car company. The company was shaken last year by a series of departures by top managers, including a chief accounting officer who left after less than a month. Earlier this month, Tesla announced layoffs impacting about 7% of its full-time workforce. Musk said the layoffs were necessary to allow Tesla to sell variants of the Model 3 at lower prices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John348 Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 5 hours ago, Dave Fields said: Read the book E L Cord. Tesla is a stock scam. Way too much hype and very meager profits. The FBI is investigating Tesla. If it is stock related wouldn't it be the FTC? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Roller Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 11 hours ago, John348 said: If it is stock related wouldn't it be the FTC? 6 hours ago, Dave Fields said: They are on him too. The buying public will determine success or failure as it did will others that finally bit the dust like Nash,Packard, Hudson.Studebaker and Willys and Crosley to name a few.Right now it seems as though Chevrolet is doing a good job of making cars few,if any,want.Never owned a Chevy and too old to consider them now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesR Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 I love ICE (internal combustion engines) but I'd hate to see Tesla fail. (Or anyone else, other than communists.) I found this article that says they've just had two back to back profitable quarters for the first time ever. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/01/30/tesla-posts-first-back-to-back-profits/ Sorry if that's been posted before. I haven't read all the comments. I don't know if the article is legit or not, but it looks promising. Jay Leno had an all electric Mercedes prototype on his show a couple weeks ago. The young engineer involved with the project seemed to indicate that in twenty years or less ICE will be a rarity in Germany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 1, 2019 Author Share Posted February 1, 2019 The young engineer involved with the project seemed to indicate that in twenty years or less ICE will be a rarity in Germany. funny, because Germany is also getting rid of all of their nuclear reactors................... so they will burn coal to run their electric cars? could end up looking like china...........smog everywhere. The Black Forrest has been dying at an alarming rate for yrs now, from all of the sulfur spewed into the atmosphere. Wonder how Germans lung cancer rate is going? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinneyhill Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 2 hours ago, mercer09 said: could end up looking like china...........smog everywhere. Probably not. Here is a paragraph from Wikipedia "Energy in Germany". " On 26 January 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038. The move is projected to cost €40 billion in compensation alone to closed businesses. Coal was used to generate almost 40% of the country's electricity in 2018 and is expected to be replaced by renewable energy. 24 coal plants are planned to be closed by 2022 with all but 8 closed by 2030. The final date is expected to be assessed every 3 years.[" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 2, 2019 Author Share Posted February 2, 2019 thank you Spinney- very interesting on the renewable energy part............would like to further understand that? Germany has 25% of our population in a land mass the size of OK so not sure how they will pull that off............ unless they buy from other countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank DuVal Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 Windmills and natural gas, windmills being renewable source of electricity. I’m sure solar is in there, just no personal knowledge. But those windmills, they are everywhere along the northern coast of Europe. 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 2, 2019 Author Share Posted February 2, 2019 windmills? there is NO land................. that is my point. takes a lot of windmills and solar to generate just a little energy. if it were so easy, our country would run on such. it doesnt. only reason renewable s succeed in America is because of cheap gas subsidies............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank DuVal Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 Who needs land? Can you even count all the windmills in this picture I took at dusk? And this is just one spot of many I saw then. Here is a good picture of windmills in the sea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Union Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarNucopia Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 The grass isn’t always greener, especially when the powersource is: German household power prices at record high -Verivox Germany’s Economic Backbone Suffers From Soaring Power Prices 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 3, 2019 Author Share Posted February 3, 2019 who needs land? I could guess Germany for one! LOL 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Licespray Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Lol’d at the above post Tesla did something that no other company I saw did with electric cars..make them actually look good! Saw someone ask about sales in other countries. I live in a town of 12000 and saw 1. A town of 150000 I’ve seen several. Dunno where the charge stations are. There’s one between our 2 towns. Would love a Zero motorcycle.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plymouthcranbrook Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 (edited) Since the probability of me ever owning one is so small as to be practically infinitesimal I find I really don't care if they stay in business or not. Edited February 4, 2019 by plymouthcranbrook (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 4, 2019 Author Share Posted February 4, 2019 Would love a Zero motorcycle.. amen to that. would probably need to be a trike to hold the batts................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrytravler Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 They still can not make them fast enough. And they still adding on to the factory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1935Packard Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 (edited) I though this was interesting. If Tesla is a stock scam, it's a stock scam that sure is selling a lot of cars. This chart is interesting, too. Granted, I assume these figures are somewhat impacted by the declining tax credit, which I believe was cut $3,750 if delivery was made before 1/1/19. Still, pretty interesting numbers. ETA: I'm not surprised by these numbers based on the cars I see. I live in an expensive area of Southern California (is there any other kind? rim shot), and Tesla Model 3s are everywhere. Go for a ten minute drive around town and you'll expect to see at least five of them. Edited February 5, 2019 by 1935Packard (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 (edited) I have no chips in this game...........electric vs gas. I will comment on Tesla from one aspect, which is I was able to put my hands on one while taking it apart and repairing it after an accident. I have owned and run a modern repair shop of a fair size, as my background is not just antique cars. The cars are well made, engineering is absolutely fantastic, component parts are above anything I have seen in the marketplace on cars costing less than 300k new. Fit, finish, assembly were all first rate. They are complicated in different ways than most other cars, and technologies and techniques to service and repair them are different. Overall opinion- Tesla is not a car, it’s a piece of equipment. It’s half car, half dishwasher, and half electronic device......yup it has three “half’s”. I don’t know where the electric car or gasoline cars industry is headed..........and to be honest I don’t think anybody knows. My best guess........think of the computer revolution as a parallel to the current automotive market. Some people like and need full size work stations, some like lap tops, others prefer a tablet, and some just a smart phone. The technology sector has been transforming, keyboards, voice to type/text, other unusual inputs from other types of sensors.........how we use and interact with electronic devices has changed rapidly and in difficult ways to predict over the last five years. And it’s just getting started. I use a smart phone for not only the traditional uses, email, navigation, google, weather, phone, music,etc........In the last twelve months my phone has become my key, remote control, garage door opener, alarm system controller, heating & A/C with thermostatic control, my lights, radio and MP3 player...........all just in the recent past. I don’t want an electric car, and and I don’t want a car to drive me. But I think I am in the minority and it’s the general direction we are headed in. My expectation is that in twenty five years that 80 percent of all transportation will be electric and automated. Good or bad idea? I’m not sure, but my guess is people will learn to interact better and understand the effects of technology on their every day life, and make a lifestyle choice like vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.............we will develop terms and definitions of how much we choose to interact with technology in our every day life.........hopefully people will use reason to understand the advantages and dis advantages of it all. Right now we are just building things without thought to the consequences to the long term results. More and more people are helpless interacting on and in the world we live in. Depending on the supply chain for food, drink, clothes, etc...........lunch needs to be cultivated, plants, picked prepared.......you get the idea. Many people today don’t realize the burger they had for lunch was a animal that was raised, processed, and transported to the local grocery store. We just assume it will happen and be there when we walk in and pay with our electrons in our devices. While I’m not a doom and gloom type of guy.......are you willing to bet you life and your family’s life that the system will always be there and functioning correctly in order to sustain you? All very deep questions that won’t effect me.....I’m too old for it to make a difference now..........the young people are going to need to take a hard and long look at how they chose to live. Outside looking in........it’s gonna be entertaining. Back to the threads question......Is Tesla going to make it? Who knows, but if it doesn’t survive, the concept and technology will, and obviously people are willing to pay for it......so it is here to stay in one form or another. Edited February 5, 2019 by edinmass (see edit history) 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trimacar Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Great thoughts, Ed. I haven't read every post on this thread, so if my comments are duplicates I apologize. The one thing that sticks in my mind about electric cars is that a lot of people don't get that the power still has to come from some form of generation. It's like the person who works against cruelty to animals, so they tell people to buy meat at the supermarket, where no animals are hurt. It would be great if all that power came from the wind or sun or sea, but right now that's a long way off, if ever. We're still a fossil fuel based economy, and you can't get completely away from that. One firm example is air traffic, there'll never be a solar powered or electric airplane that can carry more than a handful of passengers, if that. I don't think Tesla is a scam at this point, not with all the charging stations across the country and the number of cars being sold. It's solid technology, but in the end still reliant on having a place to plug into a (mostly) fossil fuel powered electrical grid. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I think we should worry about all those wind mills slowing the rotation of the Earth and changing the winds. 😀 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 7 minutes ago, Restorer32 said: I think we should worry about all those wind mills slowing the rotation of the Earth and changing the winds. 😀 Actually it's to our advantage, in another billion years or two, we won't need leap year anymore.................. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 PS- To be fair to the original poster.....Tesla was a few weeks from going belly up on paper just in the last 9 months. I don't think that will happen now..........Tesla will survive for certain, what and how it looks like in the next three to five years is another thing........ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 5, 2019 Author Share Posted February 5, 2019 going to Davids corner- the solving of the battery issue still hasnt come about and far more important then the car itself. Kind of like kick the can down the alley, but hey, the can is beautiful and handmade and even coated with platinum............ as long as gas is cheap, there is no need for electric, which is expensive. Also as an aside Ed, remember Europe plays soccer and we still play football. Some changes dont come about easily. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdancy Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/2019-02-04/tesla-buys-battery-technology-company I don't think Tesla is going away -- interesting battery tech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-vons7xbdo Battery Technology advancing rapidly https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/07/09/seven-ways-advancements-in-technology-will-change-the-near-future/#31a52b2c268d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I'm still concerned about the infrastructure, we still have occasional brownouts around 6pm when everybody cranks their AC up. And many can tell when the AC starts up by a momentary dimming of the lights. What will happen when there is a significant number of electric cars plug in the same way. Just how many can the grid support ? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trimacar Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I've wondered, too, if windmills affect the weather in some way. That energy is removed from the wind, so a cloud gets moved less, and so forth. All the "greenies" love windmills, yet there's a downside, tens of thousands of birds are killed by windmills each year. Any green solution has other impacts to the environment. Ethanol usage has caused deforestation for more corn planting, resulting in erosion. More fertilizer was needed to support more corn being grown, so pollution from those fertilizer factories increased. Truck traffic to carry ethanol is increased, causing more pollution. End user mileage per gallon decreases, negating some of the "saved" gas usage. The piper gets paid no matter the tune..... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 That is the stupid part, "Ethanol usage has caused deforestation for more corn planting" since corn is about the least efficient way to create alcohol other plants can create 4X as much. Brazil relies almost entirely on alcohol for cars but not from corn. We just have A Lot of corn and no incentive to change. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercer09 Posted February 5, 2019 Author Share Posted February 5, 2019 We just have A Lot of corn and no incentive to change. or a lobbyist who got paid lots of money..............! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ply33 Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 9 hours ago, edinmass said: . . . Right now we are just building things without thought to the consequences to the long term results. . . My only quibble with your excellent post is this: I don't think it is just right now that we are building things without thought to the consequences to the long term results. I think it has pretty much always been that way. 5 hours ago, padgett said: I'm still concerned about the infrastructure, we still have occasional brownouts around 6pm when everybody cranks their AC up. And many can tell when the AC starts up by a momentary dimming of the lights. What will happen when there is a significant number of electric cars plug in the same way. Just how many can the grid support ? Maybe it is just my state: The state require utilities to offer time of use (TOU) metering and my utility makes it really attractive to switch to TOU if you have an EV or plug-in hybrid. In winter the rates are not radically different, but in summer the difference between peak (4 to 9 PM) at $0.52/kWh and super off peak (midnight to 6 AM) at $0.09/kWh means that few plug-in or EV owners will be competing with people trying to cool their homes when they get home from work. Just set your car to charge after midnight. Helps balance the utility grid load which might actually make it easier for the utility to manage the spin up and spin down of their generating stations. If/when solar becomes a big enough source to create what the utilities call "negative demand" in the middle of the day, they can change the super off peak rates to match peak solar generation to induce people to charge cars at that time of day. There is talk about creating systems that would allow the utilities to send pricing information to devices/customers on a dynamic basis which would allow loads that can be moved around to pick the time with cheapest power (i.e. when supply minus uncontrolled loads) exist. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Will be interesting to see how the gov'mnt replaces the lost tax revenue due to electrics not paying gas taxes. I am a Councilman in a small PA town. Every year we get a check for our share of the road taxes collected by the state. Each year that check is around $40K which usually pays to plow our snow and cinder our streets thru the Winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryB Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Some of the gas retailers are looking at electricity pumps, you insert your charge card and pay for as much charge as you desire. A usage tax like the tax on gasoline could be and probably will be applied to the purchase. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ply33 Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 2 hours ago, Restorer32 said: Will be interesting to see how the gov'mnt replaces the lost tax revenue due to electrics not paying gas taxes. I am a Councilman in a small PA town. Every year we get a check for our share of the road taxes collected by the state. Each year that check is around $40K which usually pays to plow our snow and cinder our streets thru the Winter. Some states are starting annual fees for EV vehicles to cover the lack of gasoline tax a "regular" car would have generated. Not exactly equivalent as gas tax is somewhat related to miles driven. Only somewhat as there are vast differences in vehicle fuel economy: I can drive three to four times as many miles on a gallon of gas in my Prius as I can in my old car so the state gets more $/mi to fix the roads when I drive my old car. Not sure how my state will be distributing the EV tax money to counties, cities and towns for road maintenance. I am sure there are politics involved there. I've heard of some proposals to create a mileage based fee but the ones I've heard of have been rejected either because they'd fail (honor based ones like reporting your odometer reading) or create privacy issues (GPS or ODB2 monitoring). Figuring out how to fairly charge for common infrastructure is messy. In the places I have lived in there is a sewer charge based on water usage. It means that someone who has a large yard they irrigate could be paying more for sewer services than a neighbor who puts the same amount of waste down the drain but has a smaller or zero-scaped yard. Not what most people would consider fair but what are the options? We have had that with roads forever too: A typical long distance truck does about 10,000 times the damage to the road per year as a private car but pays far less than 10,000 times what a car pays in road taxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlier Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 4 hours ago, TerryB said: Some of the gas retailers are looking at electricity pumps, you insert your charge card and pay for as much charge as you desire. A usage tax like the tax on gasoline could be and probably will be applied to the purchase. Applying an EV Road Usage Tax during the charging process from charging locations around the country and an EV Owner's home would be costly and cumbersome. It would not be that difficult to come up with a mathematical equation using mileage and/or the total amount of electricity used to charge an EV over a period of time to figure out a Road Usage tax mount to levy against an EV and its owner. Getting this information directly from the EV simplifies the collection process and increases accuracy. I do not see how this data would be a privacy issue because this and a LOT MORE DATA is already being collected by at least some EV manufacturers. For some manufacturers, the data they are collecting NOW is projected to be worth HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars a YEAR at some point. The Amazing Ways Tesla is Using Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordrodsteven Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 (edited) On 9/13/2018 at 9:00 PM, TerryB said: The missing point is Tesla is a long distance car, not a 25 or 50 mile range unit. To charge that large of a battery pack quickly requires a plug design that meets the safety requirements for that level of charging voltage and current and to do that Tesla specified its own plug in the US market. To copy someone else like Nissan or Toyota would not be worth the effort for what they have to achieve. In countries that have established a requirement for charging plug design, Teslas are delivered with that configuration as standard. I just saw an article that stated the electric cars suffer from a huge drop in distance in the cold weather we have had as of late. Many of the cars, according to the article, lose almost half of their distance. The article mentioned that one way to help was to precondition the car (warm the interior) while still plugged in to the grid. That way you are not using power for heat as much and the car can use the power to travel further. Edited February 7, 2019 by fordrodsteven (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryB Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 If we studied gas autos we would most likely see a drop in fuel mileage for the gasoline automobile in extreme cold weather too. May not be as much as the EV as the heat energy generated by the gasoline engine finally serves a purpose. Rest of the time we are faced with keeping the engine cool for it to operate properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 The drop in distance from cold is because the battery uses its own energy to warm itself up before it will work properly. I have been told that until the battery reaches a minimum temperature that the car will only go about 40 mph, have no idea if it is true, but it sounds reasonable that the battery is thermally protected. If you keep the car in a slightly heated garage, then the only warm up is after settling outside all day before you go home from work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlier Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 (edited) I saw a video made recently by a Tesla Model 3 owner living in the upper midwest during the very cold weather (-21 degrees). His vehicle is parked outside all the time. He started charging the batteries an hour or two before he left the house which "preheated" the batteries and set the climate control to 78 degrees while it was connected to the charger. His speed was not limited. He ran the heat at 70 degrees and 3 bars on the seat heat. He said he normally does not run the heater (just uses the seat heaters) but it was so cold out he had to run the heat because the windows were freezing up. He drove 27 actual miles . He lost 45 percent of his range due to the cold. Other reports from Tesla Model 3 owners show a loss of 33 to 50% loss of range in cold weather. Interesting to note the steering in his car was stiff and did not improve during his drive due to the fact that the steering rack never warmed up because there was no engine heat. Another key thing to remember is that in cold weather EVs like the Tesla charge MUCH SLOWER in order to protect the life of the batteries. Given the range decrease due to cold temperatures and the MUCH longer charging time one has to wonder about the impact of these factors on a Tesla Semi. Truckstops and carrier yards do not have garages for their Semis so a Tesla Semi is going to have to deal with the cold. Unless, all the companies paying BIG bucks to Tesla to reserve a Semi are only going to use them in warm climates. Edited February 7, 2019 by charlier (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinneyhill Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 Road user charges should be based on vehicle weight-miles. Road damage is proportional to axle weight to the power of 4 although the truck lobby would disagree with that! In this country, only petrol is taxed at the pump. Diesel is not. Historically a lot of it was used off road for agricultural and machinery running. So to gather some revenue from diesel vehicles, there are Road User Charges of so much per km based on a number of GVM bands. You buy the charges in advance. All HGVs have (or at least, had in the past) hubodometers to keep track of it and car speedos are deemed good enough. There is a sticker on the windscreen for vehicle license and another for the RUCs. An officer of any law can easily check if you are paying your way. When you go for a Certificate of Fitness (mandated safety check) it will be checked too. I would imagine the Transport Agency will be giving some thought to how to tax electric car running. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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