Tesla unveil Semi, new Roadster, & also teased a "pickup truck"

[aturnis]

Anyone watch the unveil last night?



The numbers on the semi destroyed what anyone thought possible.

- 0-60 in 5 sec
- 0-60 in 20 sec under max gross payload of 80k lbs
- 65mph up 5% grade under max lied, compared to 45mph for ICE semi
- 500 mile range
- 400 miles of additional range after 30 min charge
- Guaranteed 7¢/kWh fuel cost(solar) compared to volatile oil
- Nuclear explosion proof glass(apparently cracked windshield takes semi off road)
- 1 million mile guarantee it won't breakdown
- Will never need a brake change
- "Impossible" to jacknife
- Beats semis on economics day 1
- In convoy mode, beats rail on economics

300 miles of range: $150,000
500 miles of range: $180,000
Founders series: $200,000




https://youtu.be/CBTQnmUolas
The Roadster was a complete surprise, and the numbers given destroy any production car you can think of, even a Koenisegg.

- 0-60 in 1.9 sec (this is faster than most Formula 1 cars)
- 0-100 in 4.2
- 1/4 mile in 8.9 sec
- 250+ mph top speed
- 621 mile range (That's Kansas City to Denver without fueling)
- 10,000 nm torque

and that's the base model. Starting at $200k and Founders series at $250k. Destroys million dollar cars.



Also teased a rendering image of a consumer pickup truck with a normal truck in the bed.

https://youtu.be/5n9xafjynJA

[Bewbies]

My buddy got a P85D S a few months ago and if I'd never seen or heard of a Tesla and rode in it he could have told me it came from a time machine and I'd have believed him.

The gap between what that thing is, and what I think of when I think of a car, is huge.

[Bewbies]

Also, FWIW the electric car I'm most excited about coming soon is that VW ID Buzz. That thing is cool as hell.

But, if price is similar to Tesla, with the way their supercharger network is built out, and their car will take me from station to station so as to let me drive across the country, it'd be a tough sell.

Unless VW builds a similar network here I guess. I'd be fairly doubtful on that happening though...

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by aturnis

I think you're ignoring the fact that traditional OEMs spend over $50 billion per year in advertising and Tesla spends $0. Their growth has been organic to this point. I'm still shocked at how many people I come across who've never heard of them, or have, but don't know s thing about them. Tesla has a supply problem, not a demand problem. 7,000 orders last week. That's 100% of current known production capacity.

Also, Teslas products have great margins. MUCH better than industry average. They just invest >100% back into the company. The Silicon Valley model may not be for other OEMs, then again, they have fully deployed manufacturing capacity and haven't really done much innovating since electronic fuel injection.

I'll never understand the "Tesla will die" argument.

First, the tax incentives are icing, obviously not necessary given their customer bases willingness to shell out huge sums of cash for the cars. Other OEMs might have that problem as they don't offer much else beyond transportation, but Teslas will become a value proposition. 20 years ago nobody thought they'd ever spend $600-800 on a phone, or $2,000 on a TV, but here we are.

Mostly though, it's that the private investors who have already committed billions aren't going to let Tesla sink with nearly $25 billion in reservations sitting on the table. Not to mention that Tesla hasn't even begun to leverage all of its assets at this point.

Tesla also has a lower debt to equity ratio than the industry average. Ford on the other hand is nearly double average.

I am 100% rooting for Tesla to become the dominant auto manufacturer and seller in the world. Being blind to their challenges won't help them get their any faster. MOney talks and bullshit walks. If they can't produce a product in sufficient quantity and quality at a price point that allows them to consistently sell enough units to become profitable they will go to the huge graveyard of great theories that couldn't become practical.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by aturnis

...
I'll never understand the "Tesla will die" argument.
...

Mostly though, it's that the private investors who have already committed billions aren't going to let Tesla sink with nearly $25 billion in reservations sitting on the table. Not to mention that Tesla hasn't even begun to leverage all of its assets at this point.

Tesla also has a lower debt to equity ratio than the industry average. Ford on the other hand is nearly double average.

Any company can die.

I'm not motivated to research and post but Tesla is burning through cash. It remains to be seen how patient those investors are.

Tesla's competition isn't likely to be Ford. It is more likely to be the German makers who are going to start cranking out upscale electric sedans that compete head on with Tesla's products. They started out behind, but they can spend tens of billions on development without having to take out loans and they have gotten very good at cranking out reliable vehicles on relatively low margins.

I hope Tesla survives and stays independent, but I got real doubts about that. I could see it getting to the point of having to be either entirely sold or partially sold through a strategic investment by another car company in order to stay afloat.

And I could see Musk refusing to see the writing on the wall and driving it into the ground before letting it be sold while it still could be.

[DaFace]

Kinda sorta off topic, but this article is one of the best analyses of perceptions of Elon Musk I've read so far (aside from the Quora article it links toward the bottom):

https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/20/...-diver-rescue/

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Chief Pagan

Any company can die.

I'm not motivated to research and post but Tesla is burning through cash. It remains to be seen how patient those investors are.

Tesla's competition isn't likely to be Ford. It is more likely to be the German makers who are going to start cranking out upscale electric sedans that compete head on with Tesla's products. They started out behind, but they can spend tens of billions on development without having to take out loans and they have gotten very good at cranking out reliable vehicles on relatively low margins.

I hope Tesla survives and stays independent, but I got real doubts about that. I could see it getting to the point of having to be either entirely sold or partially sold through a strategic investment by another car company in order to stay afloat.

And I could see Musk refusing to see the writing on the wall and driving it into the ground before letting it be sold while it still could be.

Competition for Tesla is a good thing, not a bad thing. Elon Musk has chosen to open source battery patents even if that means someone builds a better mousetrap. Restricted competition, on the other hand, is a big reason Tesla hasn't scaled as much as they'd like. Battery patents were hidden. Big Auto purposefully tanked innovation on EV and that's a huge barrier. If European manufacturers invest in EV, then more and more users will adopt EV, which means more charging stations will pop up. And investors will be more willing to take risk on transformational technology - the biggest one being... a better battery probably exists, but it'll take big risk takers to find it.

It's like VHS vs. Beta. Beta failed because they couldn't scale enough to make it the media standard. Tesla knows their growth is dependent on competitors jumping in. I imagine European competitors will innovate a better core technology, while Tesla continues to innovate on features. More entrants means rapid improvements to core technology, cheaper material prices, and biggest of all... more charging stations.

[aturnis]

Gonna leave this here

https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/101...349741056?s=19

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by aturnis

Gonna leave this here

https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/101...349741056?s=19

What’s the significance?

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by vailpass

What’s the significance?

Just that you can drive it like a street racer I guess.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Just that you can drive it like a street racer I guess.

Oh. Thanks.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by aturnis

If you're going to build an electric car "right", it cannot be a normal car merely converted to run on electricity. Your main powertrain components need to be in/on the skate as compact as possible, like an iphone. Sure, it's less parts, but if done right, it's loads of complexity. For example, after you've produced the 7,104 battery cells for 100kWh pack, you need to make 14,208 welds just to connect the batteries, and the pack STILL isn't finished.

I get it. Believe me. I do. But that's not limited to electric. Everytime Chevy does an engine redesign or a new platform or whatever they go through the same shit. Deere does the same shit. Simple truth is there are far fewer moving parts in electric and it should be a far simpler design than Internal Combustion.

At no point did I say they should just put an electric motor in a gasoline car.

Originally Posted by aturnis

Of course you could do like all the other OEMs who are feverishly trying to play catchup, and use lightweight prismatic cells. Problem with that is, while they make production/range/cooling/etc easier, they result in a shit product.(that expensive battery pack that'll need replaced after 10 years you always heard about). This will result in lemons that will kill consumer confidence in existing OEMs.

I really don't care how they get there. I'm just saying it won't be easy.

Originally Posted by aturnis

Electrification will happen quickly. Every OEM has committed to electrifying save Toyota. Fiat was holding out like a bratty child refusing to eat broccoli, but have now started they have their eyes set on Tesla. They had better too, b/c Tesla is eating everyone's lunch in the auto categories they compete in.

On top of that, multiple countries have set drop dead dates for internal combustion engine sales. China is full throttle in on electric and India's not far behind. If you're out of those markets, you may as well consider yourself a boutique auto manufacturer.

As for adaptation, that's for the existing OEMs to worry about. Tesla is fine, China has 487 electric car manufactures and the field is racing to the finish to play catchup.

Sounds good in theory, but getting tires on the pavement is a different deal alltogether.

Same shit happened in Ag. GPS got de-militarized or whatever - signal became available commercially. Then we as an industry got all this blue sky bullshit about revolutionizing farming and data and management and VRA of every input, and blah blah blah.

Well, Autosteer took hold like wildfire. The money is easy there. OEMs took hold made it easy and the money was flat and the value was real. That changed the look of Ag significantly. Cool. Things are progressing just like they said.

That's when shit hit the skids. VRA is easily available on most everything, but determining the factors that drive variation in yield, to determine what function should be VRA and the algorithm in which the rate should be varied is still up in the air, largely. I don't know the percentage of ag operations that utilize VRA, but anecdotally, I'd say maybe 5% of operations utilize VRA in a manner that I would say the science is sound.

So on most operations, the management hasn't really changed outside of the 5% that utilize the technology on sound science.

This giant life changing technology really only gave us straight rows and changed work that is done in the cab.

Originally Posted by aturnis

Not sure the point about "trucks can't break down". Electric should pretty much always be more reliable than combustion. Cars and trucks today have become Rube Goldberg machines. Very few run at engineered efficiency. All that complexity creates too many points of failure.

Dude. You just got done telling me how complicated these vehicles are going to be. Complexity introduces risk for failure. I agree that electric should be more reliable. Anecdotally, I've seen the same result with irrigation power units. We have both natural gas power units and electric power units. Electric is far more reliable than natural gas internal combustion.

However, the point still stands, you can't have it both ways. If it's complicated, it's more likely to be unreliable.

But my point was that QA has to be on point, because commercial guys can't break down. They just can't take it.

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I don't think adoption will happen even close to overnight. My point is that even big auto and big oil, who've blocked the tech for years, have resigned themselves to the fact that this is inevitable.

Fastest adoption will be public sector. They want EVs and driverless on the roads yesterday. EVs will save a shitload on public transit gas costs and driverless may take a while for actual public transit, but will be huge for "last mile" type transit. Commercially, I agree... transport will take a while especially considering unions, but there are a ton of commercial operations where a driverless off-road vehicle would have huge value with minimal risk. But Uber/Lyft are really what tipped the scales. Big Auto is working with them, not against them. They're extremely motivated to get EVs and eventually driverless on the roads for practical business reasons.

The reason Uber/Lyft and public transit is important isn't mass adoption. It's that it motivates scalability. EVs' biggest obstacle by a mile today is scale. Scale means more charging stations, an innovation arms race, and investors taking bigger and bolder risks. More importantly, scale will ultimately create more charging stations and cheaper prices, which will be huge for adoption.

That's all fair excepting the driverless business. I posted it before, but it's just not going to happen without change in the legal system.

I'm no lawyer. Let's get that out of the way, but I've been hearing about this nonsense in Ag for a long time too. AUTOMATED TRACTORS BE COMING MOTHER****ER. Right. The oldest tractor I have is a 2004 tractor with all the technology necessary to operate without my ass in the seat. And tractors have changed A LOT in 15 years.

So the issue in automated tractors lies, not in the technology, or the market, or whatever else you could think of. It's the law.

I get in a tractor with GPS and the first thing that that pops up on the screen is a message that says that the operator is responsible for collision avoidance. This is the key cog legally. If shit gets sideways, and something ****s up, it's on the driver. So take the driver out of the equation. Shit goes sideways, something ****s up, who's liable? It isn't the operator. Any decent lawyer points that squarely on the OEM. And Mother Deere doesn't play that way.

Well same thing goes for driverless cars. Someone's kid gets run over and there is going to be a lawsuit. Sure, there can be collision avoidance measures like airplanes have and some of the cars now are trying to get on the road, but that doesn't account for everything. There will be accidents because they can't be completely avoided. Without some guidance from the legal system that will pull overarching liability off the OEM's, it doesn't appear to be in the cards.

[Buehler445]

I don't intend to be the anti-electric guy, but there is far too much blue sky being sold here.

I REALLY want electric cars. If copper weren't so expensive, I'd have every well I have on electric too.

I'd have to see how it worked in Ag, because diesel (and unfortunately now, DEF) is still portable. Electricity is going to be harder to get across the countryside to fields.

Nobody wants this to happen more than I do, but it is intergalacticly stupid to think that it will just happen because the technology is there. Many many good ideas with good intentions have been derailed by bullshit. Tesla isn't exempt because it is a good story.

[DaFace]

As an example of how silly media scrutiny of Tesla has been, here's an article from 2010 about the 300k EVs per year Volkswagen was planning to sell in 2018. They may have come up a LITTLE short of that.

https://www.treehugger.com/cars/volk...r-by-2018.html

(Spoiler alert: they're barely selling any at all.)

[cooper barrett]

Originally Posted by DaFace

As an example of how silly media scrutiny of Tesla has been, here's an article from 2010 about the 300k EVs per year Volkswagen was planning to sell in 2018. They may have come up a LITTLE short of that.

https://www.treehugger.com/cars/volk...r-by-2018.html

(Spoiler alert: they're barely selling any at all.)

By 2025, VW says it plans to sell as many as 3 million all-electric cars per year, Diess told investors Thursday at the annual shareholder meeting in Berlin. The biggest concentration of those vehicles will be in China

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by cooper barrett

By 2025, VW says it plans to sell as many as 3 million all-electric cars per year, Diess told investors Thursday at the annual shareholder meeting in Berlin. The biggest concentration of those vehicles will be in China

I expect to see dozens of news reports about it if they don't hit that mark. That's how this works, right?