Elon Musk
Posted on 09/13/2014 9:21:07 AM PDT by ckilmer
Last summer I got careless and ran myself out of gas about a quarter mile from home.
I walked him and grabbed 2 gallons of gas an walked back to the car. I put the gas in the car and ran up to town and 10 minutes later I was back home with a full tank of gas ready to go.
If this technology can be made to work competitively with fossil fuels then there will be plenty of room for many manufacturers.
“Doesn’t really matter. Nobody wants electric cars anyway.”
Plug-in electric, with their range extended by gasoline internal combustion engines works pretty well.
The BMW i3 is an example, of advanced technology employed in a manner to appeal to greater numbers of owners, than just short distance travelers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3
Companies like BMW don’t invest billions for products “nobody wants.”
Did anybody notice that firms like BMW and Toyota are ADDING brands, whereas GM and Ford are cutting brands?
BMW+Mini
Toyota+Infiniti+Scion
GM-Olds-Pontiac-Saturn
Toyota made a long term investment in hybrid, and leads in that market. These firms are not just looking at the US either. The biggest potential market is now fast-growing middle classes in China, India, etc.
Western Lithium Advances Nevada Lithium Supply With Demonstration Plant Startup
RENO, NEVADA, Sep 08, 2014 (Marketwired via COMTEX) — Western Lithium USA Corporation (”Western Lithium”, the “Company”) (WLC)(otcqx:WLCDF) is pleased to announce that it has commenced calcination of its lithium clays in the first of three planned campaigns to demonstrate the viability of extracting lithium on a large scale from its lithium-rich clay deposit in Nevada. The calcination is the first step to turn the lithium bearing clay into water soluble lithium sulphates, so that a brine can be produced through leaching. The 12 tons per day calcination plant is now operational, while the downstream leaching, crystallization and precipitation process is still under construction and expected to be operational in November 2014.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/western-lithium-advances-nevada-lithium-supply-with-demonstration-plant-startup-2014-09-08-81733220
My opinion- Tesla/Panasonic will have most Japanese automobile manufacturers locked in as battery customers due to Panasonic being involved
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The biggest thing here is that this sets up a decades long competition between internal combustion based cars, (with natural gas as a subset) and electric cars —which will steadily grind down the price of oil specifically and energy in general.
Steadily lower energy costs are the mothers milk of wealth creation. It was no coincidence that the vast worldwide explosion of wealth in the 90’s coincided with record low oil prices.
Low oil prices of course will also kill off the economies of gas station countries in the persian gulf and russia.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
My opinion- Tesla/Panasonic will have most Japanese automobile manufacturers locked in as battery customers due to Panasonic being involved
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The biggest thing here is that this sets up a decades long competition between internal combustion based cars, (with natural gas as a subset) and electric cars —which will steadily grind down the price of oil specifically and energy in general.
Steadily lower energy costs are the mothers milk of wealth creation. It was no coincidence that the vast worldwide explosion of wealth in the 90’s coincided with record low oil prices.
Low oil prices of course will also kill off the economies of gas station countries in the persian gulf and russia.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
>>The green fetish will lose it’s fashionable luster as the gods of the copybook headings assert themselves.
It can’t happen soon enough. You’d think we’d have learned our lesson on energy boondoggles during the Carter Administration.
China has a government dominated economy. They may do well in the short run, they may do well stealing ideas, and they may do well selling slave labor, but when it comes to innovating and competing for the long term, they stink. Comparing them to Henry Ford is apples and oranges.
“The latest rumor out of China is that the country will levy a hefty gas tax and pour the revenue generated into expanding electric vehicle usage in the country.”
There is one difference: The leaders of China DO NOT HATE their country, as our present leadership does. They WILL NOT intentionally punish their people because of some fabricated “injustice”.
So...not going to happen, but I can see why we’d make up this story...so as to push the President’s agenda even harder.
The fact that it is demonstrated does not mean that the process to the end product is economically feasible when compared to other technologies. The whole farce of electric battery cars is buitl on a house of cards, from the need for fossil fuels to make the electricity to the expensive batteries, etc, etc.
Elon Musk
This new collaboration between Russia and China was prophesied in 1985. I have it on tape.
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If the chinese start making electric cars and electric car batteries in a big way ... it will be a huge stab in the back for the Russians.
Comparing them to Henry Ford is apples and oranges.
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The chinese would be copying musk. they won’t be doing original work. they don’t need to,
Hmmmm ..?? I don’t think so .. Putin will be busy making bombs and missiles.
It always amazes me how the financial press always ignores the unlevel playing field on which the US and China operate. We are chumps who let them dump whatever they want at any price, with full IP and legal protections from copyright and patent violations for their companies. And China operates a fixed, closed market with a state-funded kleptocracy that steals Western innovations to leap frog their technological roadblocks and put out the business the companies that worked so hard to ‘penetrate’ the China mafia ‘market’. Now we have no factory base and have funded their meteroic rise on the backs of our workers. This is the ‘free trade’ fantasy in cold hard reality.
agree.
Hmmmm ..?? I don’t think so .. Putin will be busy making bombs and missiles.
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so he would use them on the chinese? I don’t think so.
The consequence of changing the world over to electric cars is that demand for oil collapses and the price collapses. Oil is the main revenue source for the Russians.
Russian government would be unable to pay their civil servants as happened in the late 80s & 90’s after the price of oil collapsed.
Really .. where did you find in my msg that I “presumed” Putin would use any weaponry on China ..????????
And .. America now produces more OIL than any others.
If the price of oil plummets, you are correct it will stifle Russia’s plans to take over other countries.
If the price of oil plummets, you are correct it will stifle Russia’s plans to take over other countries.
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Yes. This is the only point I was trying to make.
Oil prices will crash. Its just a matter of time. I figured crush depth prices for the oil industry in the $35@ barrel range wouldn’t happen for another 15 years or so. If the Chinese jump into the electric car business in a big way like they did computers in the 90’s and solar in the 00’s —then crush depth oil prices are only 10 years off. That said oil prices have in the past have always moved way up and down because oil supply and demand is very dynamic. If you lower energy prices—demand just zooms upward. If you raise energy prices high enough they will choke off demand.
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