Porscheforever

Perfect for a ride with my mother-in-law.


Just kidding of coursew

Archimedes

"Pay no attention to the crappy financial report and the manufacturing debacle slowly unfolding in Fremont, California!!! The Great and Powerful Oz has something shiny and new to show you!!" Cue the light show, shooting fire, annnnnnnd...stage camera 1 to Mr. Haney, er, I mean Elon...

Noah Fect

I stopped saying stuff like that after he landed his first rocket on a barge.

.2PDK

Of course but I believe they call it a memory stick...

porsche42

Like others have said it's seems like just a money grab by Tesla. Ohh I have something else shiny to sell you as well.
Company is burning lots of cash and not delivering. Yeah ok this is the future sadly. It will soon just as hard to find a gas pump as
it is to find a charging station now. Also I'm sure Elon is worrying about the tax credits going away and the govt stop subsidizing his company.

usccharles

I'll believe it when they can figure this out for the weekend track enthusiast.

dflowerz

Not a workable solution with current battery tech. One of these days that tech will exist and electric cars will dominate, but for now I am sticking with my 911! I agree that Musk is having issues with making cars at a profit (or lack of profit!), but he sure makes life interesting, and his SpaceX stuff is very impressive.

gary.lee

I think it's more interesting if they can have a "base" coupe model that does 0-60 under 3 sec and 500 mile range for about 120k. That would sway some buyers.

I like ICE engines but the idea of putting extracted dinosaur bone fuel to make your car run is dumb.

I am overly simplifying things but that's what fossil fuel is.

it's funny that we still depend on energy from extinct animals.

AFX1

As the recent hurricane season has shown, our power grid also does and will continue to have problems; fossil fuel is the default fuel for all types of generation.
Electric cars are probably a stepping stone to yet another power source; fuel cells. That is where a lot of research and development is also progressing.

Archimedes

You mean that other company of his that hasn’t turned a profit yet?

randr

And where does the US get most of its electricity from?

Noah Fect

Meh, profits are last century stuff. How's your AMZN doing these days?

Archimedes

Great but it’s not even remotely comparable.

randr

Incorrect, one of the key metrics used to determine how a public company is performing is the "Total Shareholder Return" which comprises growth and dividend. The remuneration packages of Boards are often linked to TSR.

Tesla quarterly results from March 09 to November 17.


At the end of the day the vast majority of people that purchase a car do so for need and at a budget constrained price point.

Unfortunately the politics behind EVs is poisonous and certainly not an area that I'm going to wander into. However there are some simple questions that need to be considered:
(1) What are the main sources of fuel for electricity generation in the US
(2) How do you maintain a national scale frequency and load balanced network
(3) How do renewables fit in to this picture
(4) What is the cost of network infrastructure renewal to allow for embedded generation
(5) What is the realistic network stability threshold limit for renewables
(6) What is the impact on wholesale and retail electricity prices
(7) How many new EVs will there be
(8) How much energy will each car consume (remember these are heavy vehicles)
(9) What does peak electricity demand look like
(10) Where are the step changes in battery technology going to come from

There are many, many more questions - now, apply the same to Brazil or Kenya............

All of this will impact on the rate of uptake of EVs. Governments around the world are waking up to the complexity of the issues at hand and starting to blink.

The bottom line is any move to EVs will be generational and far slower than those with a narrow view of the world understand. The most likely outcome is the coexistence of a range of solutions - the balance of which will be determined by availability of natural resources, geography, weather/climate, wealth and need.

So back to the Roadster, personally I don't think Tesla will survive (I don't like watching businesses fail, unfortunately Tesla has the typical hallmarks of a nasty failure e.g. the "charismatic" CEO and repeated inability to meet guidance) and thus the Roadster will not come to fruition.

spdracerut

So change the power grid. The issue is centralized power generation. The power plant goes down, the grid goes down. Solution? De-centralize power generation. Every home could produce its own power with solar. Need power at night? Develop power storage solutions. Batteries, hydrogen, potential energy by pumping water up into a tower, thermal, etc.

Fuel cells are another option and they've been in development a loooong time for transportation. I did my grad school research in them in the early 2000s. I don't like them for transportation though I think they're okay for stationary power gen. I'd have to write a book to go through it all, but plenty of resources online to read if you so desire.