11589 replies to this topic

[spanky123]

Interesting article on Elon Musk and electric vehicles in the FP

 

http://business.fina...e4-03105e49a514

 

A fake story on fake subsidies. I agree with a lot of what he states but when you throw in misinformation that Ontario Hydro went bankrupt to further your point then you lose all credibility.

[LeoVictoria]

Lawrence Solomon is a moron and a paid oil industry shill.
He counts spacex contracts that save the US government hundreds of millions of dollars as “subsidies”.
The story on the UK grid is complete nonsense and totally false.
I could go on but it’s pointless.

The only thing of note is sensitivity of the EV market to subsidies right now. US subsidies for Tesla run out next year so we’ll see the actually effect of this on them.

[spanky123]

BC stopped subsidizing Tesla sales 18 months ago and it doesn't seem to have had an impact. 

 

Tesla stock goes up in price and articles slamming the company seem to appear. Funny how that works.

[rjag]

BC stopped subsidizing Tesla sales 18 months ago and it doesn't seem to have had an impact. 

 

Tesla stock goes up in price and articles slamming the company seem to appear. Funny how that works.

 

Kind of like Nortel or Enron.... ;-)

 

I still think he will get out of auto sales and sell that technology to a manufacturer and focus solely on the battery/solar technology. Why compete with so many when you can sell to all of them?

 

They still dont break into the top 100 auto manufacturing by volume. Even if they did ratchet up to 500,000 model 3's it would still place them behind such stellar manufacturers as Great Wall, Dongfeng, Geely, Wuling, Maruti, Changan, Baojun, Jac, Chery, BYD etc, but it would put them ahead of Tata, Foton, Gac Gonow, Zotye, Mahindra and BYD. Out of all of those, I bet most of you will never have even heard of these except for perhaps Tata and that was only because they bought Jaguar

 

http://focus2move.co...d-ranking-2016/

 

Have to keep them in perspective, Tesla has major brand recognition due to the CEO, Location and their modus operandi of massive subsidies which gains attention simply by being an upstart. He is a battery and power generation /software designer that bolts their tech onto a platform.

 

Dont forget it was only a dozen or so years ago that we had BC and California raving about a hydrogen highway....how'd that work out? 

Edited by rjag, 18 August 2017 - 08:37 AM.

[VicHockeyFan]

I might have heard of BYD

[LeoVictoria]

They still dont break into the top 100 auto manufacturing by volume. Even if they did ratchet up to 500,000 model 3's it would still place them behind such stellar manufacturers as Great Wall, Dongfeng, Geely, Wuling, Maruti, Changan, Baojun, Jac, Chery, BYD etc, but it would put them ahead of Tata, Foton, Gac Gonow, Zotye, Mahindra and BYD. Out of all of those, I bet most of you will never have even heard of these except for perhaps Tata and that was only because they bought Jaguar

 

http://focus2move.co...d-ranking-2016/

 

Have to keep them in perspective, Tesla has major brand recognition due to the CEO, Location and their modus operandi of massive subsidies which gains attention simply by being an upstart. He is a battery and power generation /software designer that bolts their tech onto a platform.

 

Dont forget it was only a dozen or so years ago that we had BC and California raving about a hydrogen highway....how'd that work out? 

 

China is the largest vehicle market in the world.  No surprise Chinese companies are doing well.

Hydrogen is stupid from a first principles perspective.   Bad idea then, bad idea now.   

[spanky123]

I don't know how much Tesla actually has to sell to competitors. Battery tech, ok, but the other manufacturers seem to be doing fine without anything Tesla has developed. The rest of Tesla's prestige seems to be how it has packaged and marketed the vehicle.

 

As I have said before, anyone who thinks Tesla is leading the world in self-driving technology needs to read their user forums. Users almost universally pan the cars from that standpoint, many claiming that their 5 year old BMWs or Audis do a far better job than their model S or X. 

 

I think that the real test for Tesla will be the model 3. If the cars start being delivered and they don't meet the hype then how many of the 500K pre-orders will be cancelled and what impact will that have on the company?

[LJ]

 

 

Dont forget it was only a dozen or so years ago that we had BC and California raving about a hydrogen highway....how'd that work out? 

Well California actually has one. There are presently 30 fueling stations and they expect to have 100 by 2020.

Did you know Honda and Toyota both make hydrogen powered vehicles?

The current push is to get transport trucks converted.

[LJ]

A fake story on fake subsidies. I agree with a lot of what he states but when you throw in misinformation that Ontario Hydro went bankrupt to further your point then you lose all credibility.

Unless it's true of course...

 

http://www.cleanaira...opg-once-again/

[MarkoJ]

I don't know how much Tesla actually has to sell to competitors. Battery tech, ok, but the other manufacturers seem to be doing fine without anything Tesla has developed. The rest of Tesla's prestige seems to be how it has packaged and marketed the vehicle.

 

As I have said before, anyone who thinks Tesla is leading the world in self-driving technology needs to read their user forums. Users almost universally pan the cars from that standpoint, many claiming that their 5 year old BMWs or Audis do a far better job than their model S or X. 

 

I think that the real test for Tesla will be the model 3. If the cars start being delivered and they don't meet the hype then how many of the 500K pre-orders will be cancelled and what impact will that have on the company?

 

Driving a newer BMW is like driving a pick-up truck compared to a Tesla.  I had both for about 12 months and hands down Tesla is a much better car as a package; not even close. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dhPX6TOaBU

[spanky123]

^ I was only comparing users comments regarding the 'auto-pilot' functionality. No question that when considering the total package there is no comparison.

 

A fairly common comment about the Tesla follows

 

 

↑

I'd say 85% of the time it has been incredible, but I have about 15% of my experiences with AP2 that have filled me with grief, sadness, and absolute white knuckle terror.

Click to expand...

Yeah, and that 15% is the problem. "15%" (no matter how unscientific a number, just an illustration here) is simply too often.

I've driven adaptive cruise control since 2006 (premium Germans), I've been through three, four hardware generations (some a couple of times) of them. They were not perfect, but the lack of perfect meant maybe one ghost braking during the ownership of a car (perhaps when the car in front turned 90 degrees away) as well as the obvious misses within limitations of the system before cameras came along (watch out for stopped cars etc.). The adaptive cruises quickly become second nature and one could anticipate very well what the car would do. I would use them in all kinds of traffic and roads with great success. As I said, second nature.

Enter my AP2 Model X. It ghost brakes pretty much every single time I use the TACC and already in the space of months it has done this a couple of times seriously (as in brakes down in the middle of the motorway). Most braking events are luckily milder than that, but even they are a constant reminder of how risky it seems going under an overpass. The only second nature that it has been including in me is tensing up every time an overpass comes to sight.

I don't know if it makes any sense, but to me the Tesla TACC seems somehow thin, strained, less robust than those e.g. Audi has. I don't get the same sense that the AP2 one knows what it is doing than I got from the Audi. Sure, AP2 is trying to do more and eventually is expected to do a lot more, than my old cars, but in the process - as it currently stands - it is missing that singular purpose, that precision tuning for a specific mission.

AP2's TACC currently seems like a scatterminded teenager on a Friday night compared to a singleminded professional on a mission from the competition. AP2 seems nervous, where as the German's I've had were confident.

Some say perfect is the enemy of good. I say bad is the enemy of good as well.

[LJ]

Are these newer automatic systems selectable on-off?

[Rob Randall]

Seems to me it would be responsible for companies to share this technology with each other. When lives are at stake it makes no sense for road hazard sensing technology to be trade secrets.

[VicHockeyFan]

Seems to me it would be responsible for companies to share this technology with each other. When lives are at stake it makes no sense for road hazard sensing technology to be trade secrets.

 

Not at all.  That would kill innovation and investment.  Drugs, medical equipment etc., that takes a lot of R&D money to develop.  If they give away, or are forced to give away their expertise and technology, they would never develop it in the first place.  Strong patent protection is why the US develops and designs 80% of the world's newest and best stuff.  And why Belarus does not.

[Rob Randall]

^"Ha, one of your Teslas ran over a kid because her sweater looked like a YIELD sign! That could never happen with our patented BMW algorithm technology!"
"Well, one of your BMWs just drove over a cliff because it thought an overpass was a brick wall."
"Hmmm. Tragic, perhaps...but it helps motivate our companies to work harder to find out each other's secrets".

Edited by Rob Randall, 20 August 2017 - 06:02 PM.

[VicHockeyFan]

More than one of your Toyotas ran over kids this weekend, not because they looked like a yield signs, but because the operators were worse drivers than macines. Obviously.

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 20 August 2017 - 06:47 PM.

[MarkoJ]

https://www.theverge...odel-s-x-60-60d

[VicHockeyFan]

Next Sunday you can go to Central School and test drive or test ride a keeners electric.

[LeoVictoria]

Some EV news lately.

 

1. Tesla supercharger is coming to Victoria next year.    There are quite a few now and next year you'll be able to drive across canada on SCs.

2.  VW has announced they are going to invest $84 billion dollars into their EV strategy, with the majority going to battery production 

https://electrek.co/...-and-batteries/

3.  China is considering a complete ban on gas/diesel cars.. They already have the most agressive EV mandates in the world https://electrek.co/...ustion-engines/    

4.  40% of new vehicles in Norway are electric https://electrek.co/...ric-car-e-golf/

5.  New Leaf announced, availability in January.   240km range, new styling, some autonomous features, same price as current model.  Longer range version next year.  http://insideevs.com...ap-range-specs/

 

[lanforod]

The new look Leaf is a massive improvement on the old one. I'd be tempted if we didn't do our long road trips.