EV to ICE Transition

Yeah, there's a theory of business that you have to not lose money on every sale before you can make it up in volume.

Planning a product that will undoubtedly have lower margins when you're already having some trouble with the higher-priced line in a market segment getting flooded with me-toos doesn't seem like a sure-fire recipe for success.

Loss-leaders to "extend market dominance" is a risky gamble at the best of times, sometimes it work out like Microsoft, most of the time it work out like the PC jr.

On Friday, 30 April 2021 at 12:17:31 UTC-7, John Larkin wrote: ...

Depends on what you mean.

Tesla is not losing money on car sales but it is investing a great deal for the future.

...

That's ok - Tesla manufactures many of its cars in their Shanghai factory. China is the world's largest market for EVs.

The Tesla Model S and Ric's Model X did not use any rare earths in their induction motors until the recent motor change. Even there Tesla has some innovations that reduce the amount used.

China produces more solar power than anybody else.

kw

Digging the tunnel itself is relatively cheap, but planning all the escape routes and/or entrance/exit right of way will be expensive, especially at the strip. I read that they currently only have two points between the convention center and the south (near the airport?). Well, perhaps some people would go straight to the convention center after their flight, but most want to go to hotels first.

In case of accident, you can't expect people to walk a mile out of the tunnel.

A company like Tesla understands the market better than you do. They also know the technology better than you. Then there is the fact that the company continues to make profits and grow exponentially. That would be very hard to do if they were loosing money on every car they sell.

Check out their financials. The cash on hand continues to grow as they build more and more factories.

I only wish I could be so poor.

I don't know why you mentions rare earth metals. They are not rare and they are not expensive. China has priced themselves into world dominance of supply, but as soon as they make them painful to buy the US will reopen the mines that were closed when China was undercutting everyone. Then we can sell to Tesla to build cars in China.

rare because there is not very much of it per volume of dirt you dig up, so the process of digging and separating is cumbersome and messy, so it might not be easy to get the environmental permits to reopen a mine

If these trends continue...EYYYYY!

I'm sure someone at Tesla understands the market better than I do. I dunno if mr. "We will coup anyone we want, deal with it" understands it.

He doesn't seem to understand how to resemble a normally-functioning human very well at least, so how he would understand what they would want is an open question for me

That's not a problem. The places where they get the dirt is not an issue. The concerns are about the thorium that comes with the rare earths. That's also not a big deal, but people get wigged out about anything radioactive. Still that's just a matter of not spreading it around.

I think there are a few billion reasons why he probably understands a lot of things better than you.

How quick Rick C turns into John L when the critique is pointed at one of his personal heroes instead of Donald J Trump.

Maybe you didn't get the memo:

If anything the Model 3 is not too revolutionary. It's too stodgy. The sedan body style is dead...

If they want to be successful selling a $25,000 EV a stripped-stripped down Model 3 won't cut it. Keep the Autopilot and what portion of the powertrain they can. Gut the rest. Yeah, even the steering wheel if regulations let them get away with it. Only old people want a wheel like their granpa had.

If any practical problems with an economy of scale seems insurmountable, Tesla will overcome it. Due to their economy of scale.

I think transport will go predominantly electric...eventually....but dreams of "exponential growth" of Tesla Inc selling millions of $35,000 or $25,000 EV sedans and $45,000 Cybertrucks a year domestically are fever dreams.

The average age of a car on the road in the US is 12 years, 50% of the cars I see on the road are F-150s and 2008 Toyota Priuses and Siennas and 2013 Rav-4s and various beaters worth about $4000...the market's not there...

And you think you can do the math better than the engineers who designs these systems?

They have more knowledge, information and awareness of the compromises than you can get by Googling.

They also have objectives that go beyond what they publicize; They may decide to implement something that on the face of it is not practical or cost-effective just to gain experience.

kw

I can do it better than the politicians.

If a car battery is to be charged from a stationary battery, the batteries will weigh about the same.

If a car battery weighs 1000 lbs, and a station has to store enough energy to charge 50 cars per day, and it's cold and dark for three weeks, how heavy is the station battery? What does it cost?

Do that in your head.

There's no sunlight for three weeks?! North pole charger?

Ed Lee doesn't seem to have read anything about the Cross Channel Tunnel.

It's two parallel tunnels, cross-connected from time to time. Escape routes up through the English Channel don't seem to be on offer.

But you can expect them to walk across to a parallel tunnel, and step onto a train there.

John Larkin's head doesn't seem to have room for windmills.

And he seems to think that anything smaller than a megawatt power line would be useless. As soon as the charging station has enough storage capacity let cars charge quickly, it has enough to let it charge up that storage capacity overnight - which isn't going to take megawatts.