Jurgis Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Autopilot is pretty much the only reason I may buy Tesla. 8) Edit: BTW, this might not work for you, since you're in UK, but if you're in US and want Tesla without (latest) Autopilot, you can get a used Model S at close to Model 3 prices. Which gives you all advantages of Model S, immediate availability and mostly just Autopilot loss. Of course YMMV (pun intended 8) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffmori7 Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-25/can-tesla-make-up-for-autopilot-s-lost-year Watching the Autopilot situation to decide on whether get Model 3 or not. I think those are fair criticism to Tesla. Personally, if I decide to go on with my Model 3 purchase, I am gonna wait and pay a little bit later for Autopilot. The upfront cost is too high for me and the benefit not enough, yet. But is nice to be able to upgrade your car later on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyten1 Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 i am electrical/software engineer in training. I just can't for the life of me believe tsla when they say their current vehicle has everything they need for full autonomous vehicle (all it needs is software update?!). everything that i know/experience from software/coding/design/hardware tells me that is bullshit (pipe dream). even for the sake of argument they have all the necessary hardware. technology changes/improve so quickly what is currently available on the vehicle will be obsolete in a few years. you can buy a vehicle few years from now that will have technology has is leaps and bounds better("safer") at fraction of the cost. considering you have to wait until 2019?!?!?!?! for a model 3? you gotta be kidding me. i just don't get it :) take iphone for example, at some point the hardware is shit, you can't just upgrade software and make it do magical things when the processor is not up to speed or its missing the front camera or it doesn't have fingerprint detection hardware. i just don't get it people are willing to risk not only $8000 for a promise, but their and families "life" as well, for this so call "cool" car?!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adesigar Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Would love to have full autopilot but I think Tesla prices are too high for what it offers. Waiting for Honda/Toyota to build the tech into their cars. We bought a Honda Civic with Sensing this year and it worked great on our road trips. It accelerates, decelerates, brakes, maintains safe/set distance with the car in front, keeps car in lane, makes gradual turns on highway. Costs 20k and refuels in 2 minutes. Don't know if this has been linked before https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603637/how-a-college-kid-made-his-honda-civic-self-driving-for-700/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffmori7 Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Would love to have full autopilot but I think Tesla prices are too high for what it offers. Waiting for Honda/Toyota to build the tech into their cars. We bought a Honda Civic with Sensing this year and it worked great on our road trips. It accelerates, decelerates, brakes, maintains safe/set distance with the car in front, keeps car in lane, makes gradual turns on highway. Costs 20k and refuels in 2 minutes. Don't know if this has been linked before https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603637/how-a-college-kid-made-his-honda-civic-self-driving-for-700/ Yup, but it emits green house gas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomep Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 i am electrical/software engineer in training. I just can't for the life of me believe tsla when they say their current vehicle has everything they need for full autonomous vehicle (all it needs is software update?!). everything that i know/experience from software/coding/design/hardware tells me that is bullshit (pipe dream). even for the sake of argument they have all the necessary hardware. technology changes/improve so quickly what is currently available on the vehicle will be obsolete in a few years. you can buy a vehicle few years from now that will have technology has is leaps and bounds better("safer") at fraction of the cost. considering you have to wait until 2019?!?!?!?! for a model 3? you gotta be kidding me. i just don't get it :) take iphone for example, at some point the hardware is shit, you can't just upgrade software and make it do magical things when the processor is not up to speed or its missing the front camera or it doesn't have fingerprint detection hardware. i just don't get it people are willing to risk not only $8000 for a promise, but their and families "life" as well, for this so call "cool" car?!? My friend, from an engineer with 20yrs experience. Silicon Valley, and much of life, is about marketing yourself, it isn't about facts, look at Donald Trump...... I don't follow Tesla much but my objections are many. One objection is similar to yours. Tesla 3 uses some battery design, and it will struggle to ramp up production. So they'll finish the backlog years late, meanwhile, a competitor would be adopting better technology and deliver at the same time in the future....... crap like this happens all the time in tech..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomep Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Would love to have full autopilot but I think Tesla prices are too high for what it offers. Waiting for Honda/Toyota to build the tech into their cars. We bought a Honda Civic with Sensing this year and it worked great on our road trips. It accelerates, decelerates, brakes, maintains safe/set distance with the car in front, keeps car in lane, makes gradual turns on highway. Costs 20k and refuels in 2 minutes. Don't know if this has been linked before https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603637/how-a-college-kid-made-his-honda-civic-self-driving-for-700/ Yup, but it emits green house gas. But so does a coal burning power generator that fuels our power grid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adesigar Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Yup, but it emits green house gas. I'm not sure that all the electricity used for Teslas is from Solar Panels. If it comes from Burning Fossil Fuels then how would that be any different. I'm also sure that NF3 released for making the Solar Panels is much worse than CO2. Edit : randomep beat me to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Would love to have full autopilot but I think Tesla prices are too high for what it offers. Waiting for Honda/Toyota to build the tech into their cars. We bought a Honda Civic with Sensing this year and it worked great on our road trips. It accelerates, decelerates, brakes, maintains safe/set distance with the car in front, keeps car in lane, makes gradual turns on highway. Costs 20k and refuels in 2 minutes. Don't know if this has been linked before https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603637/how-a-college-kid-made-his-honda-civic-self-driving-for-700/ Yup, but it emits green house gas. But so does a coal burning power generator that fuels our power grid. That's going away over time, and even with the US coal mix, an EV is still much much cleaner than an ICE car. The thermal efficiency of an internal combustion engine in the real world is in the 20-30% range, meaning that 70-80% of the energy in a gallon of gas is wasted as heat. Not that hard to be more efficient than that.. Even coal plants are more efficient than that, and their pollution isn't released right where people breathe in city centers (though burning gasoline is cleaner than burning gas... But anyway, EVs will get progressively cleaner a the grid changes, gas cars get progressively dirtier as they age). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 We bought a Honda Civic with Sensing this year and it worked great on our road trips. It accelerates, decelerates, brakes, maintains safe/set distance with the car in front, keeps car in lane, makes gradual turns on highway. Costs 20k and refuels in 2 minutes. I took a look at Honda Sensing and Toyota equivalent. Wow, this is spreading fast. Here is my prediction from 2015: 2015 predictions: ... 2020 - 5 years: >50% new cars with forward collision avoidance (FCA) (this is aggressive). >2% of new cars with driverless-but-human-in-loop-for-unexpected tech. It looks like we gonna have >50% new cars with forward collision avoidance (FCA) before 2020. I'd have to dig harder if this is going to happen in 2018 (let's talk US, since worldwide is likely gonna lag). Assuming I meant level 4 self driving for the second part of prediction, this is still gonna be seen. Currently looks a bit less likely. 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTEJD1997 Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 Hey all: I am surprised I am the first one to post about TSLA's sales & earnings today! The loss was the largest in the company's history. Production #'s have been lowered for both the X & S models. Seems like they are having production problems at their factory. I wonder where we heard about that previously? There appear to be balance sheet concerns now. Will TSLA have enough $$$ to bring the model 3 to full production? Company says "YES"! Color me skeptical though. If the company can't hit it production numbers, have they calculated how much $$$ they will need to get there? Shockingly, the stock is only down about 20 points (regular trading session & after hours). There have been rumblings that TSLA will have to issue more shares to get Model 3 production up & running fully. What happens if they have to dilute when the stock is 100 points lower than it is now? I think TSLA is getting in a VERY precarious situation. They need to get production up & running, they've got to work on profitability. Going to be interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rb Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 Yeah, quick a back of the envelope calc showed they made on average 2.5 model 3s per day. I know this is when they were just ramping up. But did anyone already go through and know what was their production in the last month? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Investmentacct Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 i am electrical/software engineer in training. I just can't for the life of me believe tsla when they say their current vehicle has everything they need for full autonomous vehicle (all it needs is software update?!). everything that i know/experience from software/coding/design/hardware tells me that is bullshit (pipe dream). even for the sake of argument they have all the necessary hardware. technology changes/improve so quickly what is currently available on the vehicle will be obsolete in a few years. you can buy a vehicle few years from now that will have technology has is leaps and bounds better("safer") at fraction of the cost. considering you have to wait until 2019?!?!?!?! for a model 3? you gotta be kidding me. i just don't get it :) take iphone for example, at some point the hardware is shit, you can't just upgrade software and make it do magical things when the processor is not up to speed or its missing the front camera or it doesn't have fingerprint detection hardware. i just don't get it people are willing to risk not only $8000 for a promise, but their and families "life" as well, for this so call "cool" car?!? Checking few videos on YouTube for people who have driven the car or taking test drive in model S or X may help for to see what is difference, if any. Currently, comparing any Japanese, German or US made cars , do not carry any of similar features with similar price range cars. Once you drive it’s day/night. But mostly it’s perception, so good to to check. Agree with your hardware comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballinvarosig Investors Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 Hey all: I am surprised I am the first one to post about TSLA's sales & earnings today! The loss was the largest in the company's history. Production #'s have been lowered for both the X & S models. Seems like they are having production problems at their factory. I wonder where we heard about that previously? There appear to be balance sheet concerns now. Will TSLA have enough $$$ to bring the model 3 to full production? Company says "YES"! Color me skeptical though. If the company can't hit it production numbers, have they calculated how much $$$ they will need to get there? Shockingly, the stock is only down about 20 points (regular trading session & after hours). There have been rumblings that TSLA will have to issue more shares to get Model 3 production up & running fully. What happens if they have to dilute when the stock is 100 points lower than it is now? I think TSLA is getting in a VERY precarious situation. They need to get production up & running, they've got to work on profitability. Going to be interesting! I am not a shorter, but if ever there was a company, and most importantly a time as well to short; then Tesla today is a screaming sell. Model 3 production has been an unmitigated disaster, and certainly won't be improving any in the next quarter either. Model S/X sales have flat-lined, and worse still the company has resorted to price cuts to shift inventory, gross margins are down, cash burn of $1.4bn with a dire and disintegrating liquidity position that calls for a capital raise like yesterday. Debt markets won't touch this one with a 50ft pole this time around, so the only option is an equity raise which could potentially be dillutive as the share price falls. To me, the situation here is so bad that I don't think Tesla are going to make it as an independent entity. There is just too much cash burn here which will send institutions to the hills while private investors won't have the pockets to sustain it. My best guess is that Tesla will either sell itself whole, or else be carved up piecemeal. Thinking of playing this maybe with some cheap, deep out of the money puts. Any options experts have any thoughts here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 That's going away over time, and even with the US coal mix, an EV is still much much cleaner than an ICE car. The thermal efficiency of an internal combustion engine in the real world is in the 20-30% range, meaning that 70-80% of the energy in a gallon of gas is wasted as heat. Not that hard to be more efficient than that.. Even coal plants are more efficient than that, and their pollution isn't released right where people breathe in city centers (though burning gasoline is cleaner than burning gas... But anyway, EVs will get progressively cleaner a the grid changes, gas cars get progressively dirtier as they age). 1. These cars are largely being charged at night, so the annual "coal mix" of the grid actually understates what the true percentage of coal-powered generation for the vehicles is. Not much energy is coming from solar, hydro, or natgas peakers at 2AM. 2. The case against greenhouse gas is global, so the location of the emissions is not really relevant for that analysis. In any case, forwarding a defense that the pollution has been shifted a few hundred miles away so as to make some other idiots miserable is a peculiar sort of environmental analysis. 3. Coal is terrible in special amazing ways, such as making a great deal of wild fish toxic; I'm not sure how I would weigh these unique coal-cons in this analysis, I just know that it shouldn't be ignored, since I eat fish. 4. I don't see battery-based power-shifting penciling out any time soon, so I'd say for the entire reasonable life of most EVs being purchased now, the responsible assumption is that they're going to continue to be largely coal-powered when they're being charged at nighttime. 5. More of a second warrant to 4, the political power of "coal" has been pretty conclusively demonstrated this past year, so I suspect there is not going to be much political will to take any of these plants offline any time soon. In other words, even linear extrapolation of the (relatively modest) reduction in coal% over the past decade is probably overly optimistic. Point: It's not at all obvious to me that, holistically, an EV beats an ICE car in a big-picture environmental face-off. Possible, but not at all a slam dunk; I've had a hard time finding an in-depth exploration of this question that didn't seem obviously designed to grind a specific policy axe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 1. These cars are largely being charged at night, so the annual "coal mix" of the grid actually understates what the true percentage of coal-powered generation for the vehicles is. Not much energy is coming from solar, hydro, or natgas peakers at 2AM. That's correct. Coal is still on the way out and EVs are still massively more efficient and cleaner compared to gasoline well-to-wheels. 2. The case against greenhouse gas is global, so the location of the emissions is not really relevant for that analysis. In any case, forwarding a defense that the pollution has been shifted a few hundred miles away so as to make some other idiots miserable is a peculiar sort of environmental analysis. I wasn't talking about CO2, I was talking about air pollution as in smog. Having millions of gasoline and diesel vehicles in a city doesn't help. Obviously coal is terrible for smog too, but it's going away and tends not to be next to cities at least. 3. Coal is terrible in special amazing ways, such as making a great deal of wild fish toxic; I'm not sure how I would weigh these unique coal-cons in this analysis, I just know that it shouldn't be ignored, since I eat fish. Oh yeah, coal is the worst. No argument from me. We need to transition away from coal regardless of EVs or not, and since we have to do that, EVs are better than gasoline car in any scenario. 4. I don't see battery-based power-shifting penciling out any time soon, so I'd say for the entire reasonable life of most EVs being purchased now, the responsible assumption is that they're going to continue to be largely coal-powered when they're being charged at nighttime. Doesn't matter, over the lifetime of a vehicle as the grid gets cleaner, the vehicle will get cleaner, and the number of EVs will take a while to ramp up. So they might be a bit worse at first, but by the time there's a ton of EV, we'll likely have a much cleaner grid and much saner environmental policies. Waiting is not an option, we've waited way too long to address this problem already. I once saw some math about how the shift to big screen LCD TVs in the past decades had a bigger impact on the grid than transitioning to millions and millions of EVs would (suddenly everybody has a freaking 50-inch turned on for hours each day during peak time...). 5. More of a second warrant to 4, the political power of "coal" has been pretty conclusively demonstrated this past year, so I suspect there is not going to be much political will to take any of these plants offline any time soon. In other words, even linear extrapolation of the (relatively modest) reduction in coal% over the past decade is probably overly optimistic. Trump's all hot air. The economics of coal don't make sense and will make less sense with each passing year, and the pendulum will swing the other way after Trump, there might be a price on carbon. Fracking will keep natural gas inexpensive, and wind and solar and storage keep getting cheaper year after year after year. There are also all kind of interesting nuclear techs being developed that might lead to a renaissance someday (my fave would be liquid-fluoride thorium, but there are all kinds of smaller breeders and such) Point: It's not at all obvious to me that, holistically, an EV beats an ICE car in a big-picture environmental face-off. Possible, but not at all a slam dunk; I've had a hard time finding an in-depth exploration of this question that didn't seem obviously designed to grind a specific policy axe. I saw some LCA studies a few years ago that showed well-to-wheel for gas ICE vs EV on various sources, and they pretty much all came ahead up to 100% coal depending on the coal source and coal plant technology. I wish I had kept all those sources. People don't realize how inefficient ICEs are, and they don't take into account the whole life cycle of producing, refining, and distributing gasoline (it doesn't just fall from the sky). You also have to look at the longer-term rather than just a moment in time. Every year new cleaner generation capacity is going up on the grid. Over the 15+ years of use a EV gets, it'll get progressively cleaner, while an ICE vehicle will get progressively dirtier as it wears out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DooDiligence Posted November 4, 2017 Share Posted November 4, 2017 Cool Twitter thread points out how Musk is obviously not a Munger follower (trying too hard to be smart...) https://twitter.com/Valuetrap13/status/926546622267449345 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awindenberger Posted November 5, 2017 Share Posted November 5, 2017 4. I don't see battery-based power-shifting penciling out any time soon, so I'd say for the entire reasonable life of most EVs being purchased now, the responsible assumption is that they're going to continue to be largely coal-powered when they're being charged at nighttime. Doesn't matter, over the lifetime of a vehicle as the grid gets cleaner, the vehicle will get cleaner, and the number of EVs will take a while to ramp up. So they might be a bit worse at first, but by the time there's a ton of EV, we'll likely have a much cleaner grid and much saner environmental policies. Waiting is not an option, we've waited way too long to address this problem already. I project that within 5 years EVs won't be charging at night but rather during the middle of the day to capture the cheap electricity being produced by solar, particularly in placed like California. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted November 5, 2017 Share Posted November 5, 2017 A friend of mine works at Google and he only charges during the day, since they get free charging in Google parking lots. They have to fight for charger spaces though... 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hjorth Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Mr. Musk doing the Tesla Semi Truck & New Roadster Presentation [November 16 2017]. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Mr. Musk doing the Tesla Semi Truck & New Roadster Presentation [November 16 2017]. The new Roadster: 0-60 in 1.9s 0-100 in 4.2s 1/4mile in 8.9s 200kWh battery with 630 miles of range $200K for base model. https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/16/tesla-unveils-the-new-roadster/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Direct links: https://www.tesla.com/roadster/ https://www.tesla.com/semi/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 Just shut up and give da man da money! 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 The one million mile drivetrain guarantee on the Semi is a little risky. To say the least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary17 Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 i like the business model of getting potential client to fund development LoL no need for new shares Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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