Posted on 04/12/2019 11:15:27 AM PDT by catnipman
The Gigafactory in Nevada is a joint operation between Panasonic and Tesla.
But now, according to the Nikkei, the partners have frozen the planned 50% expansion of the Gigafactory in Nevada, and Panasonic has suspended its investment in Tesla’s Shanghai plant that is currently under construction.
And now there is this awful question about demand for Tesla vehicles hanging over the battery plants, as deliveries plunged 31% globally in Q1 from Q4, to 63,000 vehicles:
Model S and X in Q1 deliveries plunged 56% from Q4 to just 12,100 vehicles. And it’s not just a seasonal blip: this was down a catastrophic 44% from Q1 2018. Model 3 deliveries in Q1 dropped 19% from Q4 and 8% from Q3, to 50,900 cars.
After having saturated its Model 3 pent-up demand, created during years of hype, the company is now facing the issue that every automaker is facing in the US: Total car sales have plunged over 30% since 2014, while truck and SUV sales have boomed.
(Excerpt) Read more at wolfstreet.com ...
All manufactures will be producing an electric car by 2021 or something like that. Once competition comes in and sells at a 1% margin or lower, tesla is toast.
Not all gas stations sell diesel. I've seen stats suggesting that about one third of the country's gas stations do.
Elon can probably inject money into Tesla from Spacex, which is comfortably profitable. If not the Chinese would be eager buyers. I think in the long term Tesla can still succeed, and this isn’t the first time one of his companies was on the ropes.
It TALKS the Tesla to shame. What they actually will do remains to be seen. And the LOOKS of their vehicles? Reminds me of the “poem” about the man from Boston, who drove a little Austin. He had room for his @$$ and a gallon of gas..... From what I saw in the clip, I wouldn’t drive one to a dog fight. The Teslas at least LOOK LIKE a car.
So if you ever need to travel greater distances you either fly, own an additional vehicle, or take a longer time getting to where you need to go. You are the Tesla defender not me. I am irritated the tax payers had to pay for launching electric vehicles. I would rather see the market at work, and not having the government playing favorites.
That’s not the half of it. The idiot former governor of Nevada, a Republican, helped Elon Musk get taxpayer backed billions of dollars for that now underused (shortly to be abandoned) battery factory.
I sent this to an Elon Musk fanboi who owns a Tesla.
I know people who own traditional cars who rent when they drive longer distances. Sometimes they have an older car, a smaller car, or they just don’t want the wear and tear on their regular car.
“Only about 10% of Tesla charges are done at a supercharger.”
i don’t suppose that’s because of the minuscule number of superchargers available and because overnight charging at home is really the only practical way to charge one right now?
and of course if the whole fleet should ever become electric, then what I calculated stands ...
i don’t suppose that’s because of the minuscule number of superchargers available and because overnight charging at home is really the only practical way to charge one right now?
...
I’d say it’s because most people use their cars primarily for commuting and other short trips.
“I’d say it’s because most people use their cars primarily for commuting and other short trips.”
perhaps in the liberal la-la land of the high-density leftist coastal cities, but in the mountain states with their vast distances and their vast metro areas along with their extreme winter and summer climates, they make little sense except perhaps for limited functions such as grocery shopping in decent weather ... but how many people have $35,000-$45,000 laying around for just a decent-weather grocery store car?
I’d say it’s because most people use their cars primarily for commuting and other short trips.
***********
They restrict their Tesla usage to commuting BECAUSE of the range limits and because nobody NOBODY wants to sit in a McDonalds for 2+ hours while the car charges up, people can not justify burning that much of their day on nonsense... and just try finding a hotel/motel that will let you run an extension cord out your window to your car overnight.
Electric, gas or diesel all cars run on hydrocarbons ,, gas and diesel cars are just more efficient in that they utilize them directly instead of putting them first through a conversion to electricity and the enormous transmission losses that entails. The only way electric cars can be seen as operating efficiently is if you have “off peak” electric rates when otherwise wasted electric generation would be lost with no benefit.
BTW ... Whats up with the model3 ?? 4th price change since January... and Tesla is pressuring people that ordered the mythical $35k car into buying already built higher priced models by slow walking production...
Recent Musk Tweets about this issue:
Incorrect. Pana cell lines at Giga are only at ~24GWh/yr & have been a constraint on Model 3 output since July. No choice but to use other suppliers for Powerwall/Powerpack cells. Tesla won’t spend money on more capacity until existing lines get closer to 35GWh theoretical.
There is 35 GWh/yr “theoretical capacity”, but actual max output is ~2/3. It was physically impossible to make more Model 3’s in Q1 due to cell constraints.
Wow, a lot of people don’t know much about how manufacturing works! If you have peak capacity of X, actual average weekly output will necessarily be less than X. First 6-12 months, it will be much less than X. Impossible to predict exact production ramp S-curve.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1117347290585243648
Just a guess. Tesla likely took deposits for the basic $35K car, so they need to offer a $35K car at some point. The $35K car being offered is the next model up with those options disabled by software. Either their manufacturing process doesn't allow for a wide variety of options or there isn't really much demand for the $35K car. Another posibbility is now that Tesla will be leasing Model 3's, Musk doesn't want to be stuck with the basic Model 3 features when the lease ends.
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