Tesla Steps Up Production

[Thailandnotes]

Re: weather vs batteries

I would like one, but they are a little too costly for me. I'll have to stick with putting an electric motor on a bicycle!

I was in Laos a couple of months ago. I was stunned by how many people were riding these...

http://www.sunlabob.com/news-2009/su...e-to-laos.html

[flintlock]

Re: Somebody gets it right!

Another electric car maker in trouble

http://news.yahoo.com/electric-car-m...071841171.html

Electric car maker Coda files for bankruptcy

I can "get" Hybrids. Pure electrics, not so much.

[GRG55]

Re: Somebody gets it right!

Another electric car maker in trouble

http://news.yahoo.com/electric-car-m...071841171.html



I can "get" Hybrids. Pure electrics, not so much.

Remember all the criticism that General Motors came under from the conspiracy theorists when they took back all their EV-1 vehicles. Supposed expose docudramas, the whole media circus. What a farce all that was.

Once again reality rears its ugly head. Research and development is one thing...making a vehicle that meets safety regulations combined with consumer expectations and can cover its costs of development, manufacturing and marketing is quite another.

The mainline car manufacturers are the only ones that can tolerate the costs and risks of advancing new technologies like this into the vehicle marketplace. Nobody else has the balance sheet (hell, GM barely has the balance sheet to survive this sort of effort). And they know it. That is why this announcement came out a few hours ago from GM. If they don't get the costs down the Volt will never be a market success.

GM Targets Up to $10,000 in Chevy Volt Cost Savings

Apr 30, 2013 10:01 PM MT

[Reuters]-- General Motors Co. (GM), which loses money on every Chevrolet Volt it sells, wants to cut as much as $10,000 per car from the model’s production cost to make the next generation of the plug-in hybrid affordable and profitable, Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson said.

“That’s our goal,” Akerson said yesterday in an interview after a presentation at the Fortune Brainstorm Green forum in Dana Point, California. “Every new technology takes a while to get traction, you’ve got to work out all of the associated issues.”

The Volt, which starts at $39,145 before a $7,500 U.S. tax credit, was introduced in 2010 and has struggled to meet some sales targets. Volt is Detroit-based GM’s flagship car for its efforts to have about 500,000 vehicles on the road by 2017 with some form of electrification. The Volt can travel 38 miles (61 kilometers) on battery power before a gasoline engine engages.

The CEO said during his presentation yesterday GM wants to reduce Volt’s production cost by $7,000 to $10,000 each without removing features.

Volt sales in the U.S. rose 8.4 percent to 4,244 through March after more than tripling for all of last year to 23,461, about half of Akerson’s original target of 45,000.

“We know we have to reduce costs,” Akerson said during the interview. “We’ve got to look at smart ways at getting it better positioned from a price perspective and that means we’ve got to take cost out of it.”..

[c1ue]

Re: Somebody gets it right!

Pure electrics will win on two wheels before four for many advantages over ICE bikes: no oil to leak or change, no valves to adjust, no spark plugs to replace, no gears to fuss with, no warmup, no exhaust to fill the garage at idle, no idle to waste fuel, no hot engine to bake you in summer at intersections, no noise to wake the neighbors. Get on and ride. Range 147 miles on a charge, top speed 95 MPH. Recharge 95% in 1 hr at a station.

Hopefully this motorcycle doesn't have the problems I've experienced with my GoPed.

I've had to change the motor out twice already - and in neither case was either the manufacturer or the service place able to explain what exactly broke.

[don]

Another One Bites the Dust

By Nichola Groom

Wed May 1, 2013 3:18am EDT

May 1 - Green car startup Coda Holdings Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after selling just 100 of its all-electric sedans, another example of battery-powered vehicles' failure to break into the mass market.

The filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware will allow the Los Angeles company to exit the auto sector and refocus on energy storage, a far less capital-intensive business. The company uses the same technology it used in cars to build systems for utilities and building operators to store power.

A group of lenders led by Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG.N) plan to extend debtor-in-possession financing and will seek to acquire the company for $25 million through the bankruptcy process, Coda said in a statement.

Coda launched its five-passenger electric car in California a year ago, delivering a range of 125 miles on a single charge. The $37,250 vehicle was criticized for its no-frills styling, and its short history also included a recall due to faulty airbags.

Consumers have been slow to gravitate toward electric vehicles (EVs) as a result of their high cost, and fears about their driving range.

Just three years ago Coda was one of an emerging crop of California startups including Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O) seeking to build emission-free electric cars to appeal to mass-market consumers.

Investors poured money into the sector, and Coda raised $300 million in equity from backers including Aeris Capital, Limited Brands Chief Executive Les Wexner, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The company, however, in 2012 withdrew its request for $334 million in federal loans like the ones Fisker and Tesla received.

As the allure of EVs faded, Coda struggled to secure new private funding. Last year, Coda sought to raise $150 million but clinched just $22 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tesla has put thousands of cars on the road, but Fisker is considering a bankruptcy filing. Fisker's lithium-ion battery maker, A123 Systems Inc, filed for bankruptcy late last year.

General Motors (GM.N) and Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) also invested heavily in electric vehicles, but sales have lagged hopes.

Coda has about 40 active employees and expects to recall 50 furloughed workers. Emerald Capital Advisors is advising Coda on its restructuring, and Houlihan Lokey is its investment banker.

(Reporting By Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...94007L20130501

[GRG55]

Re: Somebody gets it right!

Remember all the criticism that General Motors came under from the conspiracy theorists when they took back all their EV-1 vehicles. Supposed expose docudramas, the whole media circus. What a farce all that was.

Once again reality rears its ugly head. Research and development is one thing...making a vehicle that meets safety regulations combined with consumer expectations and can cover its costs of development, manufacturing and marketing is quite another.

The mainline car manufacturers are the only ones that can tolerate the costs and risks of advancing new technologies like this into the vehicle marketplace. Nobody else has the balance sheet (hell, GM barely has the balance sheet to survive this sort of effort). And they know it. That is why this announcement came out a few hours ago from GM. If they don't get the costs down the Volt will never be a market success.

GM Targets Up to $10,000 in Chevy Volt Cost Savings

Apr 30, 2013 10:01 PM MT

[Reuters]-- General Motors Co. (GM), which loses money on every Chevrolet Volt it sells, wants to cut as much as $10,000 per car from the model’s production cost to make the next generation of the plug-in hybrid affordable and profitable, Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson said.

“That’s our goal,” Akerson said yesterday in an interview after a presentation at the Fortune Brainstorm Green forum in Dana Point, California. “Every new technology takes a while to get traction, you’ve got to work out all of the associated issues.”

The Volt, which starts at $39,145 before a $7,500 U.S. tax credit, was introduced in 2010 and has struggled to meet some sales targets. Volt is Detroit-based GM’s flagship car for its efforts to have about 500,000 vehicles on the road by 2017 with some form of electrification. The Volt can travel 38 miles (61 kilometers) on battery power before a gasoline engine engages.

The CEO said during his presentation yesterday GM wants to reduce Volt’s production cost by $7,000 to $10,000 each without removing features.

Volt sales in the U.S. rose 8.4 percent to 4,244 through March after more than tripling for all of last year to 23,461, about half of Akerson’s original target of 45,000.

“We know we have to reduce costs,” Akerson said during the interview. “We’ve got to look at smart ways at getting it better positioned from a price perspective and that means we’ve got to take cost out of it.”..

And while they chip away at the production costs, it appears they are going to lead with price reductions to move the inventory.

(Is this what "deflation" looks like? )

GM slashes Chevy Volt prices to spur flagging sales
Paul A. Eisenstein The Detroit Bureau

With signs that sales of its Chevrolet Volt battery car could be coming unplugged, General Motors is offering potential buyers as much as $5,000 in incentives – making it the latest maker to try to cut prices in a bid to boost lagging demand for electric vehicles.

Whether the move will work remains to be seen, as GM has already trimmed the price on the Volt plug-in hybrid. But rival Nissan has had some clear success after cutting the price on its own Leaf battery-electric vehicle, or BEV, earlier this year...

...A California buyer can now purchase a Chevrolet Volt for as little as $28,495. The base price for the plug-in is $39,995 but all buyers qualify for $4,000 off on a 2013 model and $5,000 off for a 2012 Volt. They also can get an extra $1,000 if they are currently leasing a non-GM vehicle. Meanwhile, the federal government provides a $7,500 tax credit while the state kicks in another $1,500.

A number of other states now offer incentives to buyers of qualifying battery vehicles, as well.

Chevrolet also is now reducing lease pricing for the Volt to $269 a month for 36 months, with a $2,399 down payment.

Initially, demand for the Chevrolet Volt outpaced all its rivals but still fell short of its 10,000-unit U.S. sales goal in 2011 and an even more ambitious target of around 45,000 last year.

For the first five months of this year, GM has sold only 7,157 of what it prefers to call an extended-range electric vehicle, or E-REV. May sales, in particular, fell 4.3 percent, to 1,607. By comparison, the overall U.S. automotive market was up 8.2 percent for the month...

[Polish_Silver]

EV1 confusion warranted

Remember all the criticism that General Motors came under from the conspiracy theorists when they took back all their EV-1 vehicles. Supposed expose docudramas, the whole media circus. What a farce all that was. . .

Wikipedia:

The EV1 program was subsequently discontinued in 2002, and all cars on the road were repossessed. Lessees were not given the option to purchase their cars from GM, which cited parts, service, and liability regulations.^[1] The majority of the repossessed EV1s were crushed, and the rest delivered to museums and educational institutes with their electric powertrains deactivated, under the agreement that the cars were not to be reactivated and driven on the road.

If I lease a gasoline car, I expect that I will be able to renew the lease or purchase the vehicle. So the public reaction was understandable.

People are used to gasoline cars, which are not leased within a complex web of political constraints and subsidies, the way electrics were.

Most people did not know the complexities of the situation--that the lease rates were probably not profitable, because the EV-1 program was just for "road testing" , and that California had mandated zero emissions vehicles be marketed in order to sell any cars within the state.

If the government really wanted to promote low pollution vehicles, they should just tax the gasoline or the tail pipe emissions! (however, the voters would probably not support that)

[santafe2]

Re: EV1 confusion warranted

If the government really wanted to promote low pollution vehicles, they should just tax the gasoline or the tail pipe emissions! (however, the voters would probably not support that)

As long as the US government does not promote a carbon tax we should understand that traditional energy forces and FIRE are still the primary forcing entities in the US. I don't think the voters matter much. Fifty one percent will do whatever the money tells them to do. When a new guy shows up with change you can believe in, that change will be more traditional energy, more FIRE and more wars until it's not profitable to follow that path. We await a time when a carbon tax makes sense to the folks that make real profits from this planet. Apparently, that time is not coming any time soon.

[c1ue]

Re: EV1 confusion warranted

As long as the US government does not promote a carbon tax we should understand that traditional energy forces and FIRE are still the primary forcing entities in the US

That's convenient, but unfortunately untrue.

Energy is something everyone cares about - FIRE or otherwise.

I'll further note that a carbon tax is not the only way to increase efficiency.

As you must surely know, Europe has had a very high gasoline tax for decades. This tax, coupled with buildup of public transportation with revenues from said tax, is why Europe has seen little to no growth in per capita oil consumption.

A carbon tax is nothing more than an energy tax. And an indiscriminate energy tax is nothing more than an attack on poor people.

Some ways by which energy conservation can be encouraged without penalizing poor people:

Progressive utility energy pricing. As electricity from utilities is almost uniformly fossil fuel driven, having a truly progressive energy pricing would directly serve to encourage conservation - rather than the much more consumerist oriented 'rebates' on fancy new appliances or a 'one size fits all' carbon tax. For example, right now the rate increases as you scale the electricity/natural gas ladder are relatively small:

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/E...EDS_EM-TOU.pdf

Total Energy Rates $ per kWh)
	PEAK	PART-PEAK	OFF-PEAK
Summer
Baseline Usage	0.2872	0.1753	0.1007
101% - 130% of Baseline	0.3053	0.1934	0.1188
131% - 200% of Baseline	0.4662	0.3543	(I) $0.27978
201% - 300% of Baseline	0.5062	0.3943	(I) $0.31978
Over 300% of Baseline	0.5062	0.3943	(I) $0.31978
Winter
Baseline Usage		0.1213	0.1050
101% - 130% of Baseline		0.1394	0.1231
131% - 200% of Baseline		0.3003	(I) $0.28399
201% - 300% of Baseline		0.3403	(I) $0.32399
Over 300% of Baseline		0.3403	(I) $0.32399

In summer, people who use twice or more baseline pay less than twice as much per unit of electricity. How about making the cost a geometric progression rather than an arithmetic one? i.e. twice as much use = 4 times the cost, 3 times as much use = 9 times the cost, etc.

We all know why that isn't going to happen though. The people who benefit from this slow progression: the wealthy - don't want to further 'subsidize the poor'. Instead, they much prefer that the poor to subsidize the rich through alternative energy promotion.

[TBBNF]

Re: Somebody gets it right!

[santafe2]

Re: EV1 confusion warranted

That's convenient, but unfortunately untrue....And an indiscriminate energy tax is nothing more than an attack on poor people....

We all know why that isn't going to happen though. The people who benefit from this slow progression: the wealthy - don't want to further 'subsidize the poor'. Instead, they much prefer that the poor to subsidize the rich through alternative energy promotion.

I'm sure you spend your time in food lines feeding the poor, thanks for that. If not, you just use them to support your arguments. Is that what you do? I hope not.

[GRG55]

Re: Tesla Steps Up Production

The one thing about being on the grid..."they" can always find you.

Ouch!!!

Electric-Car Owners Get Taxed for Not Paying Gas Taxes

Hugh Joyce, a contractor in Richmond, Va., owns three plug-in cars, and like many green-car evangelists, he’s unabashed about his love for them—especially his new $80,000 Tesla (TSLA) Model S. It’s “the most important vehicle since the Model T,” he says. “It’s the first electric car with a significant range, which is 300 miles, the sex appeal of a Ferrari (F), the purchase price of an average luxury vehicle that’s a joy to drive.”

Joyce is about to pay more for his joy. Virginia will soon charge him and other green-car owners $64 a year to make up for lost gas tax revenue...

...Virginia and Washington State are levying green-car taxes and New Jersey, North Carolina, Indiana, and at least four other states are considering doing the same. “The intent is that people who use the roads pay for them,” says Arizona State Senator Steve Farley, a Democrat who wrote a bill to tax electric-car drivers 1¢ for every mile they log on state highways under a yet-to-be-devised tracking system...

...Green cars made up only 3.3 percent of all vehicles sold last year, according to WardsAuto, which tracks industry performance. Any money states collect in the near term will probably only cover some potholes; Washington State anticipates bringing in just $127,900 next year from its new annual $100 tax on drivers who don’t fuel up at the pump. “There are not enough electric vehicles on the road to make a material difference to significantly reduce the revenue to the transportation funds,” says Lloyd Levine, a consultant for the Sacramento Electric Vehicle Association, who drives a Chevy Volt...

...Oregon might have the answer. Lawmakers are considering charging the owners of green cars—and of any car that gets more than 55 miles per gallon—a flat annual fee of $542.50, or a usage fee of 1.55¢ per mile. How the state would track drivers’ mileage would still have to be worked out. But nobody would get a free ride...

[flintlock]

Re: EV1 confusion warranted

Progressive energy pricing and higher fuel taxes are the answer, I agree with c1ue.

Still a little surprised how in my area at least, large pickups and SUVs are still amazingly popular, even with $3.50 gas. Shame we cant come up with a system that taxes business fuel use at a lower rate and raise it for individuals using 3 ton vehicles as solo commuter cars, kid taxis, and for shopping expeditions. Why shouldn't fuel cost reflect the true cost of the military and foreign wars required to sustain the flow?

[GRG55]

Re: EV1 confusion warranted

Progressive energy pricing and higher fuel taxes are the answer, I agree with c1ue.

Still a little surprised how in my area at least, large pickups and SUVs are still amazingly popular, even with $3.50 gas. Shame we cant come up with a system that taxes business fuel use at a lower rate and raise it for individuals using 3 ton vehicles as solo commuter cars, kid taxis, and for shopping expeditions. Why shouldn't fuel cost reflect the true cost of the military and foreign wars required to sustain the flow?

In Canada where I live the gasoline price is about US$5.00 per US gallon and half the vehicles are pickups and SUVs...we love 'em. So you guys have lots of headroom yet on your gas prices.

Military and foreign wars over oil!!! What happened? All the shale oil gushing out of the Eagle Ford, Texas gets uppity and decides to re-declare itself an independent Republic so Obama sent in the troops?? Or did he send the Cavalry back to North Dakota to secure the Bakken (travel to North Dakota should definitely qualify as "foreign" on the frequent flyer account)? That latter would make a great Hollywood epic...let's see, maybe we'll call it "Dances with Wildcatters"... ;-)

[Southernguy]

Re: EV1 confusion warranted

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Tesla Motors unveiled a system that will let drivers swap out the battery in a Model S in about 90 seconds, which is less time than it takes to fill up a traditional car at the pump.

Tesla hopes the new system will help overcome the fears that many drivers have about the convenience of electric cars.

At a demonstration in California Thursday night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the battery swap stations will be installed throughout the network of "supercharging" stations that Tesla is alreadybuilding out around the nation. The supercharging stations currently provide free recharging in about an hour. Musk said the battery swap, which will cost between $50 and $80, will allow drivers to get back on the road faster if they'd like.
"The only decision you need to make when you come to one of our Tesla stations is, do you prefer faster or free," he said. "Our goal here was to eliminate the objections that people have. We want to show that Tesla] can actually be more convenient than a gasoline car. Hopefully this is what convinces people that electric cars are the future."
While Tesla showed the Model S battery swaps, there were TV's above the swapping station showing a 4-minute video of a driver filling up at the pump. The cost of the 23 gallons of gas purchased at the Los Angeles gas station in the video was $99.83.
Related: 9 questions for Tesla's Elon Musk
According to analyst Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research, the quick-charge stations will be a money maker for Tesla, which plans to spend about $100 million installing the stations.
"We estimate Tesla margins on battery swap stations could be north of 60%," he said.


Our Tesla S made it from D.C. to Boston


The battery swapping technology also gives Tesla additional environmental credits from states such as California, which are pushing automakers to sell more zero-emission cars. Tesla has been able to sell those credits to the major automakers, and that has been a significant source of profits for the company.
One start-up that also planned to offer battery swapping for electric vehicles, Better Place, recently filed for bankruptcy and halted its operations. Chowdhry said that company's plans were based on the flawed assumption that all the different electric vehicles would use interchangable batteries.
Related: Tesla tripling supercharger network
In May, Tesla announced plans to greatly expand its existing supercharging network, tripling the number of stations by the end of this month. By the end of this year, Tesla drivers should be able to drive from Los Angeles to New York.
The battery swapping stations are expected to be in service by the end of the year.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA), which have nearly tripled in value so far this year, were up 2.6% in early trading.