Can you just admit that the Bolt is a significantly smaller car than a 3-series.
I have no idea nor do I particularly care. What does that have to do with the thread?
I already explained the point in post 677.
Ah, you think they’re going to be the same price. That would require Tesla to have the financial capacity to undercut much larger companies who have more resources.
Since they have yet to achieve anything on time and are diverting funds away from their gigafactory I don’t see that happening.
I see them competing with the BMW series 3 which is what I cited was their stated goal.
So we’re back to cars like the Leaf and Bolt which will hit the market sooner and more likely to expose the greatest number of people to EV’s.
For practical purposes there’s not a lot of difference between Kuka, ABB, Kawasaki, Fanuc, etc. These are all available in China. My company mostly uses Kawasaki in this region, but I’ve seen Kuka robots being integrated on supplier lines at Kuka’s integration facility (this is a separate business) in Shanghai.
I’ve seen most of the Tesla videos, and quite frankly there’s nothing all that innovative about their body shop. I’d like a tour, so I may see about getting one next time I’m in that part of California (should be simple to arrange).
Updates:
From the technical side, Musk is demanding the Tesla 3 have the lowest drag coefficient of any production car … <0.2
Now Chevy is putting forth a sub $40K + 200 mile per charge Bolt. Going back to the OP, would Chevy be building that if it were not due to the Tesla 3 promises?
Yes. Chevy is already testing their production model which should come out this year. From what I can see it looks like it’s designed to compete with the Leaf which will also likely produce a longer duration model.
There has been an awful lot of press about the Bolt beating Tesla… but there have been a few interesting articles taking a contrarian view. Here is one… you can only read the first page for free, but one can get the gist of it. The argument is that the Bolt has range, but it is in a package that isn’t terribly appealing, since it is a pretty small car. On the other hand, the vaporware of the Model 3 is supposedly a competitor to the BMW 3 series, which are entry-level luxury cars.
Now, everyone needs to hold on to their hats for a second – I think Magiver is right when he says that the Bolt is competing with the Leaf. The Leaf is now going to be in a strange position: limited range, low-to-moderate price. I just looked, and I have seen outgoing 2015 Leafs being listed in the DC area for $16,000! (It’s not clear from the listings whether the tax credit is counted in that figure.)
So, sounds like we are about two months away from seeing what the Model 3 is really all about. I’m curious, but I also have to give credit - the Bolt is an exciting new offering. I have no clue what the market for it will be.
Here is an interesting article detailing some of the history of the Bolt. What isn’t clear is what connection there is between Tesla and the Bolt project. On one hand, the project seems to have started in earnest around the time the Model S first went on sale, on the other hand it seems to have its roots in the Volt, indicating a longer history. But I have little doubt that the excitement in the press about the Bolt is directly because of the success of the Model S.
FYI, It seems I am not alone in this view of how the market works. I clicked on a video of the Tesla parking itself in the thread about “I
m about to buy a Tesla”, and what ad does You Tube serve me? An ad for the BMW i3. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think the BMW marketing department thinks “people are excited about Teslas, but Teslas are very expensive. Maybe we can benefit from that excitement and sell some of our electric vehicles.”
Still the Model S, and I think the Model S is the important care (and the sports car before it), and I don’t have a strong opinion as to whether the Model 3 will have much impact. But Tesla as a company is playing an important part in selling electric cars to the US and the rest of the world.
I agree with this but probably for different reasons than you have :).
Chevy only plans on producing 30k Bolts a year. Already this is much less than the Model S, which sold 50k units last year. By the end of last year, Tesla was shipping about 3k units a month to US markets (about half of worldwide), which was more than the BMW i3 and Nissan Leaf combined.
Of course this is only to be expected since Chevy hasn’t made plans for high-volume battery production. Nothing at the scale of Tesla’s Gigafactory, at least.
So yes, it’s a Leaf competitor–a model which will sell in the low tens of thousands and no more. The Model 3 will be the first EV that sells hundreds of thousands of units per year. Still, I respect them for producing what looks like a reasonable product (though not as exciting as the concepts they showed earlier).
not sure what you’re point is here. Chevy isn’t in the battery business. If they need to be they’ll just buy up or into more production as needed.
If there is a market for that many cars then Tesla will be a year late entering it. It is suppose to use batteries from their gigafactory which won’t be completed until 2016 or later. They already have a strong market with their Powerwall which is behind production.
Their talking about building another gigafactory in South Africa but that’s down the road. In the mean time their existing market is going to be challenged by Faraday, Porsche and anybody else with a wallet.
It says a lot about your views of Tesla that you continually criticize them for being late - a fair knock - and then gloss over he fact that Faraday and Porsche are also vaporware.
The production doesn’t exist. You know one reason why Apple makes gobs of money? Because for every component of their products, they work out in advance what the necessary production rate is, and if that component proves to be a limiting factor, they pump money into their suppliers so that they can build the necessary factories. Not only does this ensure their supply, but they make money from their investment as well.
Lithium ion cells aren’t yet at the point where an auto supplier can expect effectively unlimited production. Maybe some day they’ll be like tires or alternators, but they aren’t there yet and won’t be for some time. Any maker has to make special arrangements if they want volumes beyond a few tens of thousands.
GM knows this of course, which is why they have such a deep partnership with LG. The battery is such a fundamental component of EVs that anyone making a competitive one will have to have either a similar partnership or to do the manufacturing themselves. It’s just that the partnership has not yet extended to pumping in the billions needed to manufacture that many batteries. I expect that’ll happen once GM gets serious about volume, but as best I can tell they’re still hedging their bets.
Tesla will be perhaps a year late in the offering of a ~$35k EV. But they won’t be late in one that sells 100k+ units annually. It’s physically impossible for GM to do that without LG increasing their production rates, and LG needs to be expanding now if GM wants to ship more in a couple of years.
Well having just test driven the Model 3 I have to agree with you.
The difference between Apple and Tesla is a pretty big one. Apple makes money.
The Gigafactory has a partnership with Panasonic and Tesla has advanced orders for their Powerwall. It seems to me that they will have to fulfill known contractual obligations first before soundbite news story orders.
So I guess we’ll see.
aaaaaand there you go again. It’s so predictable. I say you criticize Tesla but not anyone else for vaporware, and you confirm it in the very next post.
And how was that Porsche you drove? Or did you prefer the Faraday? And you think the FFzero1 is really in competition with the Model 3?
Or the new Bolt that was recently announced. Don’t see any of those on the streets.
I haven’t criticized Tesla’s Model 3. There isn’t a car to criticize. Which was my point. Now you’re all butt hurt over it. I haven’t said one nice word about the Bolt. I’ve just pointed out Chevy is actually building a car capable of 200 miles. They’re not talking about it. It’s not a secret under wraps. Got pictures and reviews and everything. It could very well be “son of Chevette” and will star in horror movies for years to come with the Model 3 valiantly sending it back to the depths of hell. I only know it will hit the street first. GM gets credit for that.
But lets move on.
Enter Faraday, a company based on a billionaire who is buying up engineers for an upstart company. You should be building another alter right about now. I’m genuinely confused. Where’s the love? You act like Tesla is some kind of sports team that’s going to do better next year but damn they were GREAT in the playoffs.
We went through this fanboy nonsense with the Volt. Jesus’s personal car that would sell well “just because”. Pages and pages of discussion as to why it was so great. That quietly faded into a dark corner somewhere to be replaced by [del] the New England Patriots [/del] Tesla’s sports cars. Aside from always being late and a reasonable amount of mechanical issues that they’ve dealt with nicely I give Tesla full credit for identifying a niche market and blowing it out of the water.
However, I am truly puzzled why Tesla is getting all this love for a yet to be filled promise while the same company that made the Volt is now chop liver for beating them to market.
Musk is a true visionary in the same ranks as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. But he’s never had to compete in the real world. He has now opened up another front with the Powerwall and commercial variants. I think there’s better than a 50% chance he will be forced to focus on 2 of the 3 fronts he’s started: the luxury EV, storage systems, or moderately priced cars. He already has obligations for 2 of the 3 business models in production.
Go back and reread my first post in this thread and explain to me specifically how that makes me a fanboy.
Seriously, you have some hardon for Tesla - not the Model 3, as you incorrectly quote me - and all I can figure is that you’re ticked off that Elon isn’t a Tea Party Republican. I’m pretty sure that’s the same reason you use every third post to talk about the Volt - you’re the only person doing so - like it is the Obamacare of the auto world.
I seriously have very little idea what your agenda is here, but it’s pretty clear you have your typical political axe to grind. Maybe you’d be happier if there were a new generation of cars that are powered by nothing more than Benghazi investigations and tax cuts instead of electricity.