We go away most weekends, typically driving 200-300 miles. In summer we take the Prius, in winter the Outback. Renting isn’t a practical option.
The search engine works with more than just California. I checked several big cities and all had lots of charging stations. You’ll have less luck in less urban areas or the Midwest.
Well, the real answer is that I don’t care who Chris Paine is, and have no interest in defending him. I see that he’s behind the EV1 documentary. I’m not impressed by conspiracy theories in the first place, and so don’t care about the movie.
Then your buying strategy is a bad one, unless your usage pattern is so evenly split that you don’t have any rare situations, and a vehicle exists that actually covers those patterns. Personally, I haven’t bought a bus just because I need to transport 20 people on rare occasions.
Well, obviously I can’t guarantee anything. But I don’t understand how it’s an economically sound decision to put the full burden of proof on the EV crowd. You are already making all kinds of tradeoffs and decisions based on imperfect information, even if you don’t know it. It’s rather silly to demand a much higher standard of evidence for EVs. Did you guarantee to yourself that some feature of your current car would pay for itself over time?
Fair enough. Obviously, your pattern is atypical. You’re spending the typical ~12k miles per year just for your weekend jaunts. Adding average commute distances to that put you well in excess of most Americans’ mileage.
Of course, an EV may still be ok, depending on how the trips work out. 200 miles would be fine. 300 is on the edge, but also fine if you can charge a bit at your destination.
and you know this how?
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is a publicly traded company which means anyone should be able to provide their own citation for claims about corporate profitability. Publicly traded companies typically file a 10-Q that outlines quarterly results and a 10-K that outlines annual results. The most recent Tesla 10-Q was filed 5/10/2013 with the following results for the quarter (all numbers in thousands):
Total Revenues: $561,792
Total Cost of Revenues: $465,472
Gross Profit: $96,320
Total Operating Expenses: $101,904
Loss from operations: $5,584
Alright, so what that so far tells us is Tesla’s total sales for the quarter were $561m, and the cost of sales was $465m. That is gross profit of $96.32m. But when you add in operating expenses (which include R&D of $54.8m, Administrative and Selling of $47m) Tesla is operating at a loss. While it may seem promising they can generate more in revenue than their cost of goods sold, it is irrelevant if the margin isn’t high enough to make them an operating profit. R&D and Administrative expenses don’t go away, all auto companies pay those every quarter, so Tesla needs more gross profit as a percentage of revenue to become profitable.
Tesla reported total net income because of the following additions to income:
Other income (expense), net: $11,399
Provision for income taxes: $151
Net income: $11,248
Almost all of that “other” income comes from expiring warrant liabilities related to an early pay down of a DOE Loan Facility. The Loan Facility entitled the DOE to warrants that would allow DOE to convert those warrants into shares of Tesla after a certain date. But since Tesla retired the Loan Facility early the DOE is no longer entitled to hold those warrants and convert them to stock. The fair value of the warrants was around $10.7m, so retiring them removed $10.7m in liabilities and was counted as “other” income.
Further concerns are to be found within the actual revenue picture. Included or “baked in” to the revenue numbers for Tesla are all the various incentives and tax credits related to electric cars. Without those their total revenue would be lower as would their gross profit (which is, at it stands now–not sufficient to cover total operating expenses.) In the meat of the 10-Q you’ll find mention that $67.9m of their reported revenue was from ZEV (zero emission vehicle) credit sales. Their gross margin with those is 17%, but they’re claiming to be long term successful they require a 25% margin without ZEV sales–something they claim to be able to meet “soon” but call me skeptical.
Admittedly I’ve not heard or read everything that Chris Paine has written/filmed, but I’ve never heard anything out of him or anyone to claim that EVs as they are are the vehicles for everyone. So cite please for these relentless advocates who claim that EVs are for everyone.
Let’s focus on agreement.
Yes, if you have regular predictable usage pattern a pure battery EV can work for you. So long as the EV’s range on its worst day (cold with heat and defrost going) is enough to cover it comfortably. Sure a Tesla S can do that for almost everyone and then some but at a cost that most cannot afford or do not wish to allocate for a car. The Leaf would be ample for me most days but maybe once a month I have a lot of schlepping to do, here there and round town and cover 70 plus in one day. A cold day with heat and defrost and I’d sweating even as I kept the heat down at 65. For the several times I’ve traveled to other cities these past 6 months I could have used the other family car than my plug-in HEV (a C-Max Energi in my case) or rented a vehicle and it would not have bothered me much. That said I do like that I have a car that also performs well and efficiently on a distance trip.
Yes, you lose some utility (convenient longer distance traveling) with a pure BEV. To some that loss is no big deal; to some it is.
And you gain some simplicity of no ICE.
For now, at current price points, most will not perceive the benefits of a pure BEV to be worth the extra cost coupled with the loss of utility. Those with lots of money to spend on a vehicle can probably be very happy with a Tesla: ample for almost anyone’s daily commuting, fun, sexy, so on, and mostly these are people who fly rather than drive cross country. Pure predictable commuters can be happy with a Leaf but that is not a huge number either.
There is, at this point, a bigger place for plug-in HEVs with batteries sized right for the typical daily commute of the buyer. A good HEVs like the standard Prius for some (albeit some dislike the driving experience in those and feel they come off as poorly appointed). And diesels for the super commuters who take frequent long highway trips daily.
As batteries get cheaper lighter and have greater capacity, as gas gets much more expensive, the calculus may change. I think it will happen. But those lines have not yet crossed.
Read past the first sentence and you’ll find out.
Martin Hyde, thanks for the explanation. I was dreading the prospect of trying to look up a decent news story that explained the situation.
Anyway, the point about R&D being a fixed cost is a good one. Any auto company that doesn’t spend a boatload of money on product development will be irrelevant within a few years. See, for example, Suzuki (which is currently pulling out of the North American market) or Mitsubishi (which is making what is likely their last chance at a comeback before they’re forced to abandon North America too).
Another consideration for Tesla is, BMW is rumored to be developing an electric car that is specifically intended to outperform a Tesla. I doubt they’ll be any more successful than any other automaker has been, but Tesla needs to keep looking in their rearview mirror.
I’m not sure it’s fair to count *all *of those R&D expenses against revenue. Tesla is in growth mode and I’m sure they want to reinvest every dime they can into R&D. By your numbers, they’re spending about 10% of gross revenue on R&D. That’s very high by automaker standards; most are in the 4-5% range.
At any rate, the comment I was responding to was “Tesla has never managed to make a dime selling electric cars”. That’s a fairly vague statement and could be taken multiple ways, but implies to me that Tesla is taking a loss on each car. That’s untrue; they make a profit on each car. And by standard accounting practices they make an overall profit as well. Sure, you can say that some of the income was artificial and not sustainable, but I could say the same about the R&D expenses.
We’re going to the mountains, there’s no place to charge. Trust me, the limited range of electric vehicles and the risk of being stuck in an inhospitable locale makes current offerings unacceptable. We may be atypical, but we’re not far out of the norm. Reduced range due to mountains, the weight of all our gear, and cold temps make the situation even worse.
There are a large section of the population for whom EVs aren’t practical. They may not be for many years. A hybrid is much more practical for us.
Yup, understood. EVs don’t have to be practical for everyone, any more than trucks or motorcycles. I would guess that at some point, hybrids that are farther along the electric spectrum will become more practical for your purposes (like the Volt, but better). For now, the Prius is a good choice.
I don’t see something like that being a huge problem in the long run.
At the gas station, instead of connecting a cable you just park over a special rectangle, and all the megashitloads of induced power transfer goes through several pickup…things…under the car.
Or, if your town is lacking manly men, just get a few guys to grow a mustache.
He he, I want to see the type of connector that induces hundreds of amps across an air gap. Remind me to remove all metal objects before going near, hope my fillings dont melt down.
the problem is this - nothing beats the convenience of gasoline… yet. There are promises that the battery systems of the future - always 5 years down the road - will be better. Today, they are not.
The volume of electricity needed to charge an electric car to even a fraction of the energy content of a typical gasoline tank - is HUGE.
The average family may drive beyond a typical electric car rance once every week or two. Still, they are not prepared to buy a second (or third) vehicle to accomodate that, and gas vs. electric price differences are not at the point where people want to yet. (Maybe it’ a green vs. regulatory thing - if I could take ny license plates and insurance, move them to my electric Smart-Car-sized toy for daily commutes, then back to the big car for weekend trips - that might encourage me to buy something electric - but for now a vehicle has to do 98% of the jobs thrown at it, not 80%. That’s why most pople don’t also own a 2-seater for commuting - they need to put the kids, or friends as passengers in. I had a friend with a del SOl once - the odd time we crammed 3 people in it, it was painful and probably illegal.
Exactly. Flexibility is a key factor with cars, and it’s something that most electric car enthusiasts (and small car enthusiasts) don’t seem to understand. Yes, I could use a tiny little car barely bigger than my own body for my daily commute, with our other car being the dedicated family vehicle, but that would mean that I’ll never even have the option to carry passengers, or any cargo bigger than a backpack, in my own car. That’s a loss of flexibility that I’m not willing to accept.
The situation with electrics is similar. Yes, most of the time range won’t be an issue, but people don’t want to feel like they’re “confined” by the range limitations or potential charging station availability issues.
As an aside, this is why Segways were always doomed to be a novelty item. Limited range, zero cargo space, and no protection from inclement weather make for an extreme lack of flexibility.
This is the reason a bought a Volt. I only get 30 to 40 miles per charge, which is sufficient most of the time. Occasionally I’ll dip into the gas for 5 to 10 miles, which is no big deal. On rare occasions I’ll use gas for 50 or 60 miles, so I can go when I need to. Overall, im getting 190 mpg.
With a second car I’m sure the 250 mile range of a Tesla would never be a problem. In fact, as I rarely do long car trips anymore, I could probably get by without an ICE vehicle completely.
I Certainly agree, the car has to match your needs. I would not be surprised if an electric or hybrid electic car didn’t work well for 50% or more of Americans. That still leaves a market for millions and millions of these things.
I think that’s the crux right there. I *could *rent a car or use a ZipCar if I needed one, they are available close to my house. But I like the flexibility to travel without the need to plan my logistics in advance, and to change plans when I want to. Right now EVs don’t meet that need. With new technology and infrastructure they certainly could do so, but we’re not there yet today.
I have a Camry hybrid and a BMW 3 series.
It’s bad enough that we bug the inlaws about once a month or two to use their Escape for large loads. I don’t imagine it would go over well if I bothered them every week or so. If I had to rent - well, rental rates would have to come down (zipcar SUVs?) Plus, in the suburbs I don’t imagine it’s as easy to find such facilities nearby. Do they have Zip-car park-and-rides? 
A while back gas hit over $1.50 a litre; I can imagine a situation where gas exceeds $2.00 or $3.00 a litre ($8 to $12 a gallon) and people are that much more flexible in their travel arrangements, but for now… not quite there. Stay tuned.
I suspect you’re running into an unstable distribution problem. It doesn’t ultimately matter whether or not people could in theory arrange their lives so they could use an electric car; they will not do so. This seems to always amaze techheads (and in this context, most of the pro-electric people here are techheads), but people buy gadgets and tools to make their lives easier. They do not buy them out of some theoretical advantage.*
Electric cars must fit within the chosen lifestyle of potential customers and do so without undue disruption, or must offer some advantage so significant it’s worth overlooking the former. Neither is the case at the moment. As Techheads usually do, the general counter-argument is to effect of, “All you need to do is X, Y, and Z and it’s great!” But most people will say - in fact, are saying right now in the actual market - that X, Y, and Z are too high a price to pay.
Now, given a decade or two of development and maybe it will work out. Or we may all drive hydrogen cars powered by Mr. Fusion. I’m personally in favor of hydrogen fuel cell technology, which I consider a more robust and practical technology.
*ETA: Sorry, to explain what I meant by “unstable distribution”, imagine that even 95% of the time you can use an electric car without trouble, but 5% of the time it requires you to go out of your way or causes additional problems. Those 10% additional problems are likely greater than the gain you make in the 95% case in time and heartache. And since you can’t predict these issues in advance, or it leaves you with a lot of trouble arranging things to convenience, the overall value proposition is negative.
There doesn’t have to be an air gap. You park over a box, something attaches.
As it’s under the car it can be as big a connector as required to get the job done quickly.
Or, instead of charging your battery, electric vehicles might all have a standard battery form factor, that pulls in and out easy. You don’t charge up your battery; you swap your flat one for a charged one.
The issue is not that these things are difficult or costly in themselves. They’re just very different from how gas stations work right now, so there would be huge conversion costs.
I really like that idea about simply swapping standardized battery packs. Slide discharged one out, slide fully charged one in. Could do it in less time than fueling up an ICE.
Sort of the way propane tanks are exchanged today.