Tesla Model 3

[Arlo1]

Yeah apparently they are going to shut down all bricks and mortar shopfronts and go completely online.

Where did you hear this?

I don't think they would shut down all sales stores that doesn't make sense. Some people need to see a real car in person first.

[jonescg]

Where did you hear this?

I don't think they would shut down all sales stores that doesn't make sense. Some people need to see a real car in person first.

https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/35000- ... edirect=no

"To achieve these prices while remaining financially sustainable, Tesla is shifting sales worldwide to online only. You can now buy a Tesla in North America via your phone in about 1 minute, and that capability will soon be extended worldwide. We are also making it much easier to try out and return a Tesla, so that a test drive prior to purchase isn’t needed. You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free. With the highest consumer satisfaction score of any car on the road, we are confident you will want to keep your Tesla.

Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers. The important thing for customers in the United States to understand is that, with online sales, anyone in any state can quickly and easily buy a Tesla."

[TheBeastie]

A lot of people are saying that it will be impossible for Tesla to make a profit on the 35k M3.
Most of Tesla's profits in its most profitable quarter were from US government carbon credits that it receives on EV sales.
Those have pretty much gone now as the end of 2018 was the deadline to be able to receive most of the money from them.

This is also on top of the low demand/price cuts on Tesla cars that has now emerged from a build-up of 2 years worth of ordering that's now pretty much been fulfilled (aside from the 35k orders)

New York Times auto-car reporter said this about the new "Storeless Tesla" plan.
https://twitter.com/nealboudette/status ... 6201425920
This is not an adjustment to strategy. This is a total reversal. They had a retail plan 2 months ago and concluded they had to tear the whole thing up and come up with a radical new plan. What does that say about the company?

This seems to be the system Elon has, always with new exciting sounding announcements of new plans that either take years to come through or are some kind of vaporware. Tesla was just celebrating new Tesla store openings last December.
https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1072297925957554176
11 new Tesla stores opening this week
Stop by for a test drive, no appointment needed: https://ts.la/visit
Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga CA
Del Amo, Torrance CA
Fashion Square, Sherman Oaks CA
Roseville Galleria, Roseville CA
Dallas Galleria, Dallas TX
Cont'd...

Musk announces a $35,000 Model 3, closure of most retail stores, and a no-profit quarter
https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/ ... story.html

Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzi ... story.html
One wonders if something similar is driving Elon Musk’s deliberate taunting of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has the authority to seek his removal from the management of Tesla.

In the latest development in this long-running saga, the SEC on Monday asked a federal judge in New York to declare Musk in contempt of court. The SEC hasn’t said what penalty it would like to see imposed on Musk, but its motion isn’t good news for Tesla, which as we write is off by about 1.5% in early Nasdaq trading, to about $294.

It’s possible that the market is getting fed up with Musk and his shenanigans. “If anyone else antagonized the SEC twice they would call for his removal,” CNBC trading guru Jim Cramer tweeted Tuesday morning.

^I really like this article because it's basically what my Elon Musk/Tesla conspiracy theory is, that is, Musk wants to get kicked from his own Tesla company just so that he can have the moral/legal? right to sell his shares at a good price/while they are still high.
This was my conspiracy theory on Musks odd behaviour so he could sell his shares in Tesla by getting kicked back my in October post rant https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewt ... 0#p1419997

The Scary Side of Tesla’s Big Reveal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-scary- ... 1551400304
Tesla’s Model 3 sedan for $35,000 raises unsettling issues about its finances and customer demand
By Charley Grant
Feb. 28, 2019 7:31 p.m. ET
Tesla finally has achieved a longstanding corporate goal. Its investors, however, should hold their applause.
Tesla said on Thursday it is, at long last, unveiling its standard range Model 3 sedan for $35,000 before incentives—a price the company first promised in 2016. The company said it is “incredibly excited” by the achievement. It mentioned a few things that should make investors feel a little less enthusiastic.

Seems like almost everyone has pretty negative news on Tesla, only Bloomberg will hold out I would say, their pro-clean energy/renewables tech coverage is just ridiculous for a financial news reporting company as far as I am concerned. I guess it was a deliberate business decision.

To me my main interest in seeing if Tesla fails or not isn't because I have a strong opinion on the EVs as I kind of like them, but I don't actually feel any safer out there on my bicycle with Tesla's out there, but as people say its statistically better than human drivers.
I can't help but feel though if someone could program a Tesla to individually identify me while on autopilot and auto-run-me-over they would
All that said, I pretty much HATE combustion cars.. But the fact is what I personally think about Tesla can't affect its existence at all.

My main interest in Tesla failing is the whole grid/Powerwall battery business.
ABC news has been a pretty big supporter/brainwasher on Tesla Powerwalls to save the world in local broadcast media.
So despite the already existing subsidies from state Labor governments on Tesla Powerwalls, I will be expecting the coming federal election in 2 months that Labor party will do some kind of promise of along the lines of "power walls for everyone subsidy".

But it wouldn't look like such a smart plan if there are headlines in the news that Tesla is in bankruptcy etc
https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/tesla- ... ry-scheme/

While all governments do dumb things at times, there has been some truly remarkable dumb things the last government did on mining commodities/gas energy exports.

That is, they ditched traditional royalty taxes on gas/mining exports (which means the exporting company has to pay the government money per cubic foot of gas even if the company doesn't make money), to instead a "super profits tax", where the government would technically get more money than the traditional royalties tax system if the gas-mining-commodities exporter made a large profit, which the government expected.
But this was incredibly dumb, because this was at the time when global companies like Apple etc were all being discovered for deliberately setting up overseas shell companies and then lending money to themselves at deliberately set very high-interest rates from the overseas country/shell-company and thus never "register a profit" for tax locally.
The mining companies achieved this by getting loans at over 14% interest (from their own overseas shell companies) to fund mining (most notably huge natural gas/energy operations) activities in Australia that of course based on 14% interest loans will never make a profit, ever.

https://youtu.be/6IuJb2jr2jk


The mining companies just couldn't believe how dumb Labor was to deliberately decide to change the tax system from traditional royalties based system to a new "profits based" tax system that could only, in theory, deliver more money to the government if there was a big profit from the mining company, but of course the mining/gas export companies copied Apple and deliberately engineered the setup so there was never a profit to pay tax on. The government gave up guaranteed commodity export royalties revenue/income in the hope for more money and wound up getting absolutely nothing instead on a lot of huge mining operations.
To me it was so dumb I almost think there was a conspiracy theory behind it. But at the end of the day, it just seems to be the people who were government had no real-life experience for their government job.

So now I am just wondering if somehow the next government could be dumb enough to hand over a few billion dollars upfront to Tesla for massive new Australia-wide Tesla Powerwall rollout or something of that nature, because of their remarkably insane trusting nature in the past.

More on how large companies avoid paying tax with shell companies. Normally this is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid with traditional royalty style tax systems on exporting mining companies but the previous Labor government found a way to be that dumb.
https://qz.com/769794/apple-is-shocked- ... aw-coming/



This is a pretty good doomy article on Tesla from some from some kind of investment blogger/adviser.
From what I see here, this seems to be the general mood/believe of fund managers that are in some kind of "short bet" on Tesla.
End Of The Road…
http://adventuresincapitalism.com/2019/ ... e-27447701

One of the most interesting things in the article...
-yet another Tesla has lost a wheel due to “Whompy Wheel” (google it). “Whompy Wheel” is a well-documented fatal Tesla flaw with dozens of occurrences, caused by poorly engineered suspensions (they’ve paid hush money to victims so they’re complicit) where wheels fall off Teslas during normal driving, leading to multiple fatal crashes.
-after the car crashed, the driver was burned alive due to faulty door handles that wouldn’t open once power was down
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsma ... 89be642c05
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/tesl ... dles-fail/


Pretty good CNBC chit-chat/news video about Tesla's issues that just came out.
Tesla shifts to online sales, lowers price of Model 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW5FbBFzVLE

[cricketo]

This is not an adjustment to strategy. This is a total reversal. They had a retail plan 2 months ago and concluded they had to tear the whole thing up and come up with a radical new plan. What does that say about the company?

It says it's being run like a modern software company. Innovate, take risks, fail fast, iterate.

[Punx0r]

Interesting to reflect on the many comments saying Tesla would "never" offer the $35k model, that it was all a scam.

Closing of dealerships is a bold move, though. Currently Tesla has enough of an Apple-style fan following that they're not competing for, or need to attract, customers, so it will probably work. But with other large car makers starting to take EVs seriously, things will likely get more competitive and Tesla lacking the facility for potential customers to browse their product might turn out to be a real disadvantage. You can imagine the criticism: "I did think about a Tesla, but they expect you to just order one online unseen!". We'll see how it pans out - as cricketo says, they are innovating.

Presumably there will still be physical service & repair centres dotted around, although they might be more sparsely located than your traditional car dealership.

[raylo32]

I actually like the idea of buying online instead of at a dealer... but if they close their dealerships how and where do you get one of these repaired? Where do you buy parts? Do they plan to just contract this all out? This seems like another part of the auto business that Tesla may not fully understand.

Interesting to reflect on the many comments saying Tesla would "never" offer the $35k model, that it was all a scam.

Closing of dealerships is a bold move, though. Currently Tesla has enough of an Apple-style fan following that they're not competing for, or need to attract, customers, so it will probably work. But with other large car makers starting to take EVs seriously, things will likely get more competitive and Tesla lacking the facility for potential customers to browse their product might turn out to be a real disadvantage. You can imagine the criticism: "I did think about a Tesla, but they expect you to just order one online unseen!". We'll see how it pans out - as cricketo says, they are innovating.

Presumably there will still be physical service & repair centres dotted around, although they might be more sparsely located than your traditional car dealership.

[Arlo1]

Where did you hear this?

I don't think they would shut down all sales stores that doesn't make sense. Some people need to see a real car in person first.

https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/35000- ... edirect=no

"To achieve these prices while remaining financially sustainable, Tesla is shifting sales worldwide to online only. You can now buy a Tesla in North America via your phone in about 1 minute, and that capability will soon be extended worldwide. We are also making it much easier to try out and return a Tesla, so that a test drive prior to purchase isn’t needed. You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free. With the highest consumer satisfaction score of any car on the road, we are confident you will want to keep your Tesla.

Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers. The important thing for customers in the United States to understand is that, with online sales, anyone in any state can quickly and easily buy a Tesla."

Yeah ok. So they will still have show rooms etc. Just no sales people pe-say.

[Arlo1]

This is also on top of the low demand/price cuts on Tesla cars that has now emerged from a build-up of 2 years worth of ordering that's now pretty much been fulfilled (aside from the 35k orders)

Uhm nope. Not even close its still up well above 300k!

[Ianhill]

It's a brave bold move for sure, they are the only manufacturer to take this path.

I can understand it though from tesla point of view if your customer relations are poor just terminate the lot of it and go Amazonian on people, apple followers will hurd to any gate even if it was the north pole people would cue for days teslas followers are simular so having a delivery date won't bother them they will bum the product until they see it as a product not a fashion statement.

To me touching and feeling the car is how you know if you like it or not a spec sheet can sound great but i wouldn't marry a woman based on her paper stats without meeting her first we have all seen internet dating tv shows.

[billvon]

I actually like the idea of buying online instead of at a dealer... but if they close their dealerships how and where do you get one of these repaired? Where do you buy parts? Do they plan to just contract this all out?

They are closing their sales offices, not their repair locations. Sales offices are typically in fancy malls or posh neighborhoods, and the repair locations are on cheaper real estate. Here in San Diego there's a showroom in the UTC mall (very fancy area) and the repair place is about five miles away outside the Miramar military base (a little seedy.) The only thing the sales offices do are talk about cars and do test drives; everything else, from picking up the car to buying accessories to getting it fixed, takes place at the repair location.

[raylo32]

That makes sense. I just googled it and there are indeed a few here in the MD/VA/DC Metro area, generally in industrial park areas. Only a few, but I suppose that must be sufficient for the current client base.

They are closing their sales offices, not their repair locations. Sales offices are typically in fancy malls or posh neighborhoods, and the repair locations are on cheaper real estate. Here in San Diego there's a showroom in the UTC mall (very fancy area) and the repair place is about five miles away outside the Miramar military base (a little seedy.) The only thing the sales offices do are talk about cars and do test drives; everything else, from picking up the car to buying accessories to getting it fixed, takes place at the repair location.

[Punx0r]

There are a lot of people though who go into a dealership with no intention of buying a new car but end walking out with one

It's disappointing to hear Miramar is a dump. The Top Gun film clearly promised too much

[billvon]

It's disappointing to hear Miramar is a dump. The Top Gun film clearly promised too much

On the plus side, the cheap real estate has made that area a mecca for new breweries. Breweries there include:

Ballast Point
Alesmith
Rough Draft
Two Kids
Duckfoot
Hess
Mikkeller
32 North
St Archer
Pure Project
Amplified
Little Miss
Align
White Labs

[raylo32]

Even if Miarmar is a "dump" it has the weather... and apparently good beer... Looking pretty good from my perch in this crappy east coast winter. 20 degrees below normal, another snow storm coming Sunday night, then getting even colder. My e-bike and pedal bikes are collecting dust.

[cricketo]

So quiet... Here is one question I had, and of course there was an answer... https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/15/te ... ow-so-far/

[cricketo]

Interesting comment in this article : https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3 ... olkswagen/

Zach Albrecht diego13 • 19 minutes ago
This is actually incorrect. Panasonic has provided the original manufacturing equipment, the license to the original chemistry, and processes to build the cells today. The chemistry used by Tesla today is not sold in any Panasonic batteries sold today since it is exclusive to Tesla and hence is why all other manufacturers are trying to come up with their own composition. They may end up having to license it through Tesla.

Tesla has a chemistry RD department that parents over the multiple subsidiaries and contracts with other international entities. This is headed by CTO Straubel. Think of it more as a hybrid between traditional chemistry R&D and contractual outsourcing. About 2/3 of the department budgetary goes to a fluctuating, currently, 19 different partnerships and contracted engineering organizations that focuses explicitly on battery chemistry and process.

The chemistry composition they use in batteries produced today is an accumulation of the partnership through Dalhousie University in Canada which started back in 2015. Dalhousie is the primary sponsor of the patent in use today. Tesla, as co-sponsor, has free licensing rights due to them heavily investing in the funds needed by the group. The Dalhousie partnership is also where the accumulation of effort to achieve 1/4 the cobalt has been ascertained. The goal of the partnership is to find a suitable replacement of cobalt. Further Tesla has several pending chemistry patents they are co-sponsor on. Just because it's not declarative in their name as primary sponsor, doesn't mean they don't have it.

[liveforphysics]

Something that's either wrong of mis-worded in that paragraph related to the Cobalt in the Tesla cell.

NMC/NCA began with ratios like 1:1:1, and this along was a nice reduction in Cobalt over a Cobalt-oxide cathode which uses 3x more Cobalt. Model 3 cell today is 8:1:1 (if I remember right), meaning it's 9 parts Nickel and Manganese for 1 part Cobalt. This results in using ~1/3rd of the cobalt in an early NMC cell (the article said something like a 25% reduction). Cathode blends are in evaluation that use even less cobalt than this by a factor of 4! This is trend in materials is making cathodes that are effectively Nickel Oxides doped with a tiny amount of Cobalt, yet when done well it has excellent performance and energy density.

This is so awesome for EV's globally, because Cobalt is not only a dominate cell material cost driver, but also a challenging raw material to extract.

[Chalo]

This is so awesome for EV's globally, because Cobalt is not only a dominate cell material cost driver, but also a challenging raw material to extract.

Estimated global reserves of cobalt amount to just under one kilogram per person now living. So we really need to figure out a workaround.

[cricketo]

Model 3 cell today is 8:1:1 (if I remember right), meaning it's 9 parts Nickel and Manganese for 1 part Cobalt.

No, Tesla is not using 8:1:1 for Model 3.

[Hillhater]

What ever the magic sauce is in Tesla’s cells, independent tests have shown their performance to be identical to some other Panasonic cells.
Also, Tesla have at times used cell supplies from other producers for both cars and Power packs, presumeably retaining the same performance guarantees as Tesla made cells !

[cricketo]

What ever the magic sauce is in Tesla’s cells, independent tests have shown their performance to be identical to some other Panasonic cells.

Which is the magic - how do you achieve the same performance while making a cheaper cell with less Cobalt.

[Hillhater]

What ever the magic sauce is in Tesla’s cells, independent tests have shown their performance to be identical to some other Panasonic cells.

Which is the magic - how do you achieve the same performance while making a cheaper cell with less Cobalt.

Very few people know the actual manufactuted cost of Tesla's cells......or any one else's .
..So you are only assuming they are cheaper .

[cricketo]

Very few people know the actual manufactuted cost of Tesla's cells......or any one else's .
..So you are only assuming they are cheaper .

It's really hilarious when you try to invent negativity even when it's hopeless. Cobalt is the most expensive component of the Lithium Ion cells. Use less cobalt, make cheaper cell.

[Hillhater]

Very few people know the actual manufactuted cost of Tesla's cells......or any one else's .
..So you are only assuming they are cheaper .

It's really hilarious when you try to invent negativity even when it's hopeless. Cobalt is the most expensive component of the Lithium Ion cells. Use less cobalt, make cheaper cell.

Cobalt is the most expensive component only in terms of its cost per tonne.. but it is a small proportion of the cell by weight, and consequently it is still only a small fraction , (+_ 5%).. of the overall cell cost.
So, yes, reducing the cobalt will reduce the material cost in the cell, but only by a small % ..( less than 5%)...
. And you dont know what other costs you may introduce by reducing the cobalt content ?

[Punx0r]

5% of what cell cost? Because I recall that 5% figure being used when cells cost more like $1000/kWh, so $50 worth. So now cells are $100/kWh if the cobolt content wasn't reduced (assuming constant commodity price) that $50 worth is now 50% of the cell cost.

Cobalt content, like rare-earth in magnets, reduction is being pursued aggresively. In a commercial environment this isn't done for the fun of it - it's because there's a strong finanical incentive.