Are we not talking about the way cool new Tesla lorry and Roadster?

[Nevergrowup]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Being the "Saudi Arabia" of Scandinavia (with 1/6 the population) certainly doesn't hurt.

True. An average Norwegian income is about 500k NOK. Average income tax is at just below 30%.

A new VW Golf Diesel with some equipment comes at just under 400k NOK.

So, the 'average' annual salary is just about an 'average' new car. Don't know how that compares with the US though...

[Macroni]

Tesla............. Predicted possible crash......


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla%E2%80%99s-breakneck-expansion-speed-could-be-a-car-crash/ar-BBFpLLt?li=AA4Zjn&ocid=spartandhp



GM's view of EV....... Profitable.

https://blog.caranddriver.com/gm-ceo-barra-profitable-affordable-300-mile-electric-vehicles-by-2021/?src=nl&mag=cdb&list=nl_dvr_news&date=111717

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by cairns

Please.

That POS can't even finish ONE LAP of VIR without going into death mode. A 1995 Chevrolet Impala would wax it's sorry ass. And it costs almost as much as a new 991.

For this you would fork over a hundred grand and demand a share of the US taxpayer? Some people do indeed love to be fooled.

And yes I have driven one. A one trick pony doing a one time 0-60 number that idiots wrap their heads around. It wasn't very "tight" either.

I grow weary of the Elon is a genius disciples. When he makes cars in volume that cost a fair price; quits sucking off the teat of the taxpayer who's struggling to afford his or her Corolla and can actually turn a profit the bashing will stop. Until then he and every moron who wants to have sex with him or his cars is fair game. And FWIW that POS DeLorean would lap Nurburgring faster than any car Musk produces. I suspect a Tucker would too.

I like the Tucker reference too. I have often thought of Preston Tucker's government trial for selling accessories and dealerships for a car that wasn't yet in existence being similar to Tesla. Same story, but what a different time we live in.

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

The whole deal.

1. It it cheaper to build a gas car or all electric?
2. Which car would last longer without any major repairs or component replacement?
3. Does the lower maintenances costs of an Electric offset any financial advantage to owning a gas car?
4. Were is the lithium mined and how far is it shipped and then made into batteries and then shipped again to install in the car?
5. Which car uses more Joules of energy to do its job?

Electric cars seem great but I want some facts and figures on what it really "costs" to drive one.

1. The battery is the wild card, but an electric car, designed bare bones can be cheaper than a gas car. In the end you are trading off batteries, inverter and a one speed drive train versus an engine, transmission, etc etc. Don't forget, engine accessories (power steering, water pumps, AC etc are all going electric now).

2. Electric. No oil changes, no transmission, and regen braking.

3. The savings work the other way, the gas car costs more to maintain and drive.

4. Someone from PARF might answer this.

5. I believe in the end, considering only the cost of energy to move the vehicle, electric is more efficient. A power plant is far more efficient then a gas engine and an electric car is reasonably efficient as well. So you have a moderately efficient plant transmitting power (with losses) to a reasonably efficient vehicle, versus an inefficient gas engine. The efficiencies are sort of captured in the cost per mile. I do not think it is night and day difference, maybe 20%.

YMMV. Literally.

Disclaimer - I work with a number of electric vehicle manufactures and I regularly see new concepts and production plans. If my customers are able to deliver what they are planning there will be an enormous change in this market segment. If I am biased it's because I have seen some of what is coming.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I have no knock on the electric car. They can actually be fun as hell, and very well may be the future if a battery can be developed with higher energy density and the ability to withstand rapid charging. Along with the massive infrastructure changes required to sustain thousands of electric cars. There are an abundance of major carmakers that are pursuing fully electric or hybrid designs on their own dime, which I think is great. Tesla’s extensive use of my money to build what amounts to a toy for the rich is what I object to the most. I think otherwise they are cool cars and pretty entertaining to drive. But they don’t represent a contribution to society worthy of government funding.

[Macroni]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

There are an abundance of major carmakers that are pursuing fully electric or hybrid designs on their own dime, which I think is great..

I believe they take advantage of the same tax structure and grants as Tesla....

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Tesla’s extensive use of my money........ don’t represent a contribution to society worthy of government funding.

Isn't history riddled with Gov financed projects that translate to consumer products.....

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by Macroni

I believe they take advantage of the same tax structure and grants as Tesla....


Isn't history riddled with Gov financed projects that translate to consumer products.....

Yes, all the time.

At $50 a barrel, billions in tax breaks keep many oil projects profitable

[Racerbvd]

Just saying....

HISTORY STORIES
Ferdinand Porsche’s First Car Was Electric
BY SARAH PRUITT // JANUARY 29, 2014

In 1898, more than three decades before founding his namesake company, 22-year-old Ferdinand Porsche designed his first-ever automobile: an electric-powered car officially known as the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton model. Unofficially, it was dubbed P1, after the code the young automobile designer engraved on all the vehicle’s key components. Recently discovered in an Austrian garage, where it remained virtually untouched since 1902, the historic electric car was unveiled with great ceremony this week at the Porsche museum in Stuttgart.

Born in Maffersdorf, Austria in 1875, Ferdinand Porsche was expected to become a craftsman like his father, a master tinsmith. Instead, he developed a passion for the field of electricity, and went to Vienna in 1893 to apprentice at an electrical engineering firm. He quickly rose in the ranks, becoming head of the company’s testing department. While serving in this position, he met Ludwig Lohner, head of the carriage-manufacturing company Jacob Lohner. During his travels in the United States, Lohner had become convinced that the age of the horse-and-buggy was ending, and he wanted to start producing electric- and gas-powered vehicles. He thought electric cars would be particularly marketable, as people sought to avoid excessive noise and exhaust fumes.

Lohner commissioned Porsche to come up with an electric drivetrain, as the system that connects a vehicle’s transmission to the drive axels is known. The result, which debuted on the streets of Vienna on June 26, 1898, was the P1. Constructed by Porsche himself, it had a rear-mounted “octagonal electric motor” (so named for the eight-sided design of the motor housing) that was powered by electric “Tudor” batteries. While the motor itself weighed a relatively modest 287 pounds, the batteries alone weighed some 1,100 pounds; the total weight of the vehicle was 2,997 pounds.

Controlled by a 12-speed system (six forward gears, two reverse gears and four gears used for braking), the P1 could reach a top speed of 21 miles (34 km) per hour; a single charge would carry it up to 49 miles. In another innovative touch, the vehicle was also an early convertible of sorts: It could be configured in an open-chassis (phaeton) or coupe style, depending on the season.

In September 1899, Ferdinand Porsche took the P1 to an international motor vehicle exhibition in Berlin, where it represented one of 19 electric vehicle manufacturers among some 120 exhibitors (most of the entrants were gas-powered cars). He drove it himself in a 24-mile road race of electric cars, during which it had to carry four passengers, including the driver. The challenging course included gradients, an 8.6-km high-speed section and a 7.8-km efficiency test.

Porsche and the P1 won the race easily, beating the next-best finisher by 18 minutes. Meanwhile, technical difficulties kept more than half of the participants from reaching the finish line, while others were not assessed due to their failure to meet the minimum speed requirement. In addition to the speed race, the P1 also won the award for efficiency, recording the lowest energy consumption in urban traffic.

Shortly after the Berlin exhibition, Porsche became the chief designer for Jacob Lohner. In 1900, at the Paris Exposition Universelle, he dazzled international automobile enthusiasts with the Lohner-Porsche, a sportscar fitted with four electric wheel-hub motors that was showcased as the first all-wheel drive passenger vehicle in the world. Porsche went on to design cars for Austro-Daimler, Daimler-Benz and Steyr before forming his own namesake automobile company in 1931. The Type 356, the first sportscar to bear the Porsche name, was released in 1948.

As for the P1, it was parked in a Vienna warehouse in 1902 and forgotten until recently, when it was discovered virtually untouched. Earlier this week, the restored vehicle was unveiled as the centerpiece of the permanent collection at the Porsche museum in Stuttgart, Germany, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year.
Ferdinand Porsche’s First Car Was Electric - History in the Headlines

[cairns]

Nothing wrong with electric cars. But a lot is wrong with Tesla.

[flipper35]

For a truckers perspective. He doesn't care about the drivetrain, but does care about the ergodynamics, or lack thereof.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/21/tesla-semi-trucker-questions/

[Macroni]

The General (GM) is coming. Alternatively, you can put a deposit on a Tesla you won't see for a while.

https://blog.caranddriver.com/gm-ceo...ws&date=111717

In a presentation at the Barclays 2017 Global Automotive Conference, General Motors CEO Mary Barra assured investors that the company’s next generation of electric vehicles will offer more than added driving range and model variety—they also will generate profits for GM.

“Our mission for electrification is simple,” Barra declared. “We are working to provide desirable, obtainable, and profitable vehicles that deliver a range of over 300 miles.”
General Motors has already pushed electric-vehicle boundaries—in terms of driving range for the dollar—with its 238-mile Chevrolet Bolt EV. But the company reportedly loses thousands on each Bolt EV sold even at its full $37,495 list price (before the potentially threatened $7500 federal EV tax credit).
GM previously announced plans for 20 new zero-emission vehicles by 2023 (globally), including two within the next 18 months. In its Barclays presentation, GM included an illustration of its “future electrification bandwidth,” pointing to variants that would include a low-roof car, a lineup of SUVs and crossovers ranging up to seven-passenger models, and a couple of different vans. The new platform allows a larger footprint and lower height, with improved DC fast charging (likely 150 kW or higher) planned.
The two small crossovers arriving in the near term will share some components with the Bolt EV. One of those (above) was shown in the presentation and anticipated to be specifically for China. Another one, for the North American market, could be a strong contender against the upcoming Tesla Model Y as well as anticipated EVs from Ford, Volvo, Hyundai, and Volkswagen, among others.

Modularity and Economies of Scale

Improvements, Barra said, stem from GM’s all-new battery platform, which would provide more packaging flexibility (via flexible modular battery-pack configurations) at a lower cost, providing a “building-block approach” to future EV development. Battery energy density will rise, while per-cell cost is expected to drop from a current $145 to less than $100 per kilowatt-hour in the Bolt. GM plans to assemble these battery packs at scale in both China and the United States.
GM sees these strategies adding up to a total cost reduction of more than 30 percent—enough to achieve profitability even while attaining price parity between electric and gasoline vehicles. “That profitability has to be at the cost of that segment, that vehicle in today’s market,” said Barra.
GM plans to fund the new EV and autonomous-vehicle development as part of an $8 billion investment. It foresees its own global EV volume hitting a million vehicles in 2026, with manufacturing capacity reconfigured for growth in China.
Economies of scale come in convergence and shared development among electrification, autonomous-technology, and shared-mobility programs. Barra stressed that GM’s electric-vehicle platform will provide the foundation for self-driving technologies, car sharing, and ride sharing—and that the company believes all fully autonomous vehicles should be electric. In its work with Cruise Automation, a Silicon Valley company it acquired last year, GM is already into the third iteration of its autonomous test vehicles after just 14 months.


“We plan to participate in the biggest business opportunity since the creation of the internet,” said Barra, pointing to ways that the company could harness its data for other vehicle-based services.
About-Face on Fast-Charger Support

Barra’s presentation also marked an abrupt change in direction for the company’s approach to DC fast charging, which can restore most of a battery charge in well under an hour. While in the past GM has seen this technology as ancillary and shrugged off any plan to build charging stations—a position nearly the polar opposite of what other automakers (such as Tesla with its Supercharger network) have pursued—Barra delivered quite a different position while laying out the company’s EV push.
“We are going to commit and play a role in accelerating the rollout of additional DC fast chargers, and we will work to look at what is the right EV charging infrastructure across the country and in other countries. We will either partner, incentivize, or invest to make sure that this customer pain point is removed,” she said. “Because it’s a customer issue, it’s an issue that General Motors will address.”
There are currently more than 1100 DC fast chargers in the United States in the CCS format that GM vehicles can use, according to the automaker, and that’s already a 42 percent gain over last year.

“As we’re removing range anxiety, the charging infrastructure becomes the issue,” Barra said, noting that the company plans to work with various charging companies and organizations, including Volkswagen’s Electrify America, and incorporating charging data gathered through its Maven car-sharing operations.

Alternatively

Musk Dusts Off the Fundraising Playbook With Semi, Roadster Orders

-Buyers put down $5,000 for Semi, up to $250,000 for Roadster
-Customer deposits function as financing boost amid cash burn

"Musk is deploying a clever financing trick, taking in hefty deposits to help fund Tesla’s way through its immense production challenges."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...c501-147886161

[sammyg2]

But the company reportedly loses thousands on each Bolt EV sold even at its full $37,495 list price (before the potentially threatened $7500 federal EV tax credit).

That's over $37k for a $20k vehicle, and they still lose money on it.


Maybe if we all hold hands and close our eyes and pretend REALLY HARD, we can wish it to come true ...

[wdfifteen]

I was talking about electric vehicles with Mrs WD this afternoon. (She is brilliant, BTW.) "School buses! They sit all night and half the day. There is plenty of time to charge them. They roar through the neighborhood before dawn. Why not electrify them instead of OTR trucks?" I have to agree. School buses would be a great application and a great lab for improving the technology.

[Macroni]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

we can wish it to come true ...

Again..... Tesla objectionable..... Amazon / Uber revolutionary.....

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

School buses would be a great application

Agree.....

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I was talking about electric vehicles with Mrs WD this afternoon. (She is brilliant, BTW.) "School buses! They sit all night and half the day. There is plenty of time to charge them. They roar through the neighborhood before dawn. Why not electrify them instead of OTR trucks?" I have to agree. School buses would be a great application and a great lab for improving the technology.

The concern I would have there would be the risk factors of such tech on a larger scale such as a school bus, especially considering the precious cargo. I've seen the results/aftermath of Li-Ion thermal runaway, and it ain't pretty (and that was with a single 18650 cell). Also, with a 2-4 seat EV, rapid egress wouldn't be much of an issue if things go wrong. That isn't the case with a mass-transit vehicle (EV or not), especially if/when panic sets in. Just my $.02...

[Por_sha911]

More reasons to shut the Musk scam down:

Worst Predicted Reliability: Cadillac Escalade/Tesla Model X (tie)

There is a two-way tie for least-reliable vehicle.

Tesla Model X
Trouble spots: Body hardware, paint and trim, climate system.
The electric-powered Model X is more showy than practical. It features rear doors that open up and out of the way, giving easy access to the rear seats. But these massive doors take their time to open and close. The huge windshield extends up and over the front-seat occupants, making the cabin feel airy and futuristic. The Model X is very quick and handles well. The 90-kWh version we tested had a realistic 230-mile range.

Automotive Turkeys of 2017 | Fox News

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by Nevergrowup

True. An average Norwegian income is about 500k NOK. Average income tax is at just below 30%.

A new VW Golf Diesel with some equipment comes at just under 400k NOK.

So, the 'average' annual salary is just about an 'average' new car. Don't know how that compares with the US though...

A four door compact car is perhaps about $15K-$20K here. Median income for the states is roughly about $50K. A Jaguar XE starts at $36K. The golf is on the upper end of a four door compact that isn't with a luxury brand at close to $20K.

[sc_rufctr]

This is kind of weird... A charging station in Keith South Australia. (Population 1,320. 225 km from Adelaide)

I wonder who paid for it.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I wonder who paid for it.

Clearly the Thomas Edison trust fun for wayward boys.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I wonder who paid for it.

I suspect the correct statement would be "I wonder who IS PAYING for it"
More than likely, you will be paying for a long time to come.