Posted on 08/18/2013 10:38:44 AM PDT by ckilmer
Last quarter, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) delivered 5,150 cars, which was well above its expectations of 4,500 deliveries. The company did so by boosting its production rate by 25% to 500 per week. If everything goes according to plan, the company's deliveries for its award-winning Model S could reach an annualized rate of 40,000 by the end next year, which is nearly double this year's expected rate. That's simply stunning growth. However, it's only the tip of the iceberg for where this company plans to be in the future.
The company has a very long road ahead of it to reach its goal to produce 500,000 vehicles annually, which is the rate CEO Elon Musk believes it can eventually reach. To get there, the company needs to capture lightning in a bottle again and produce a car that can be a mass-market success. That will happen only if consumers can drive a car off the lot in the $35,000 range -- something Tesla believes will be possible in as little as four years. While that's a bold dream, if Tesla has taught us anything, it's that it's OK to dream. So let's dream together of a world were Tesla can sell half a million cars each year.
No more pain at the pump? Americans as a whole are driving less, but we still drive a lot. Last year alone, the average American drove 9,363 miles, which is 7.5% down from the peak in 2004. While there's no telling how much we'll be driving by the time Tesla takes 500,000 gas-guzzlers off the road, we could conservatively assume that each one of those cars would have driven 10,000 miles per year. Even with using 2025 CAFE standards of 54.5 MPG as the average gas mileage of the cars being taken off the road, that's 183.5 gallons of gas being saved per car.
Overall, that's a savings of nearly 92 million gallons of gas each year. For perspective, that's just about a quarter of the 367.08 million gallons of gas Americans use per day. Thought of another way, if gas was $4 per gallon, it would save Tesla owners a collective $367 million, or about $733.94 per year. Swapping in a more gas-guzzling car would certainly boost the savings, so just think of these numbers as ballpark figures.
In fact, let's just say that Tesla was able to replace 500,000 true gas-guzzlers and knock off one day's worth of America's annual fuel consumption, or roughly shave the demand for a million gallons of fuel per day. Let's take a look at those numbers. anImage
*Based on an average of 10,000 miles driven and $4 gasoline
How much of a pinch would that be for refiners such as Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX ) or Valero (NYSE: VLO ) ? In 2012, Phillips 66's refining and marketing segment produced $4.5 billion in earnings on $173.3 billion in revenue. Similarly, Valero's total revenue last year was $139.3 billion and its operating income was $4 billion. Clearly, the $1.47 billion in gasoline that Tesla could save each year won't put either out of business.
Oh, by the way Further, while taking a million gallons of gasoline per day out of the equation would still have some impact, odds are it would find somewhere else to disappear. In fact, just last quarter, Phillips 66 highlighted that it had increased its refined product exports to 181,000 barrels per day, or more than 760,000 gallons. By the end of this year it should have the capacity to export 370,000 barrels of refined product per day, or more than 1.5 million gallons. That additional capacity means Phillips 66 alone could easily export the amount of gasoline per day that 500,000 Teslas would save.
In fact, the U.S. has now become a net exporter of refined petroleum products because of lower U.S. demand and our competitive advantage in the marketplace. This situation is putting U.S. refiners with a strong Gulf Coast presence like Valero in a key competitive position to take advantage of future demand outside the United States. Tesla might actually be doing these companies a favor, as refined petroleum product exports are more valuable than those sold in the domestic marketplace.
Final Foolish thoughts Tesla's bold goal to sell 500,000 cars per year is a great dream, but it won't put gasoline refiners out of business anytime soon. Instead, these companies will simply have more gasoline available for the export market, which is a real positive for our economy. That's not to say half a million Teslas won't affect the energy markets, so tune in next week for a look at how that many Teslas could affect the electricity marketplace.
The only problem as far as investors are concerned is that Tesla is currently priced almost as richly as its Model S. That means investors looking to profit from the revolution in the energy markets need to look elsewhere
Kick my butt? By being a genius on a fag car?
Seriously, who between us does not have a LIFE in L.A. I’ll give you a hint, kid. My movie is in the TOP 10 box office currently and not one of those involved in the movie drives a Tesla.
Otherwise, I’ll take my chances with internal combustion (gasoline) engined vehicles.
........
Fair enough.
Time will tell whether the big promise of this stuff is just so much whoie.
Anger can’t mask mistakes, try as you wish.
You claimed that you’d never seen a Tesla in LA.
Well, Teslas are all over LA. Everyone is seeing them all over, daily.
If you told the truth above about never seeing one, then it means that you have locked yourself away from the world for far too long.
If you didn’t tell the truth above then it would better explain your anger now.
Either you’ve seen a bunch of Teslas or else you don’t get outside.
No reason to make grand claims about “your movie” or any other internet posturing.
Do you get out?
Do you tell the truth?
“Well, Teslas are all over LA”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA stop you are killing me.
Methinks thou doth protest too much...
The Tesla Model S Just Got The Best Safety Rating Of Any Car In History
Deutsche Bank client report this morning:
We learned today that NHTSA, the US safety regulator, has finished its crash testing of the Model S and initiated ratings. The Model S received a 5-star
rating in all 3 tests (Frontal Crash, Side Crash, and Rollover), the highest rating possible. While many vehicles receive an “overall rating” of 5-stars, we could
only find 7 other vehicles that achieved 5-star ratings across-the-board under the tightened criteria that are used for vehicles 2011 model year and newer. These are Audi A4/S4, Cadillac ATS, Chevy Camaro, Honda Accord, Kia Optima, Subaru Legacy, and Volvo S60. In addition to range anxiety and cost premium, Tesla has always mentioned negative safety perception as a major hurdle to overcome in order to drive widespread consumer adoption of Electric Vehicles. In order to eliminate this concern, Tesla believed they needed to engineer a vehicle that was safer than a typical internal combustion vehicle. This appears to have been accomplished. This achievement is another testament to Tesla’s engineering capability as well as the inherent advantages of EV’s (the battery pack can be used as an enhancement to the vehicle’s structural integrity). And similar to Tesla’s lease product and the supercharger network, we believe that it is another data point that supports continued expansion of the customer base that will consider purchasing a Model S.
Perfect safety score for Model S
- The Model S from Tesla Motors (TSLA) achieved a perfect score on a safety test conducted by the NHTSA.
- Only 1% of all cars tested by the agency achieved top ratings across the board as the Model S did.
- Of note, no issues with engines fires during crashes were found by the NHTSA.
http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1231662?source=email_rt_mc_readmore
Tesla’s Model S Breaks Roof-Testing Machine, Car-Safety Record
http://allthingsd.com/20130820/teslas-model-s-breaks-roof-testing-machine-car-safety-record/
goodwithgun, I understand where you are coming from. Now we have a new kid (Tesla) in the block and he is changing the automobile world. Embrace the change.
Change of heart on TESLA or still riding the horse/buggy?
Nope. And I’m not riding a horse and buggy, either. I drive a Hybrid, or as I call it, “ticking time bomb.” The battery will be $10K when it goes, and that hasn’t been addressed since August when I made my original post.
Here is some discussion on that topic:
http://www.teslamotors.com/it_IT/forum/forums/battery-replacement-cost-0
Interesting thread that’s going to get more reading by me. $5K is the price of a Tesla replacement battery, they say. Tesla makes nice looking cars, but I don’t know if one will ever be in my price range.
I have a year or two to decide, and finances will be tightening up so it’s possible the car I have now may have been my high-water mark. :^(
If it’s such a great car, why don’t they put that magical $5,000 battery in a $17,000 car and and charge $22,000 for it? Are we saving the planet or not?
Someone who can afford a $100,000 car has a lot of nice, fast choices, like a $60,000 Mercedes E350, 150,000 thousand miles worth of gas, and an expensive bicycle besides.
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