Tesla Will Discontinue the Roadster 523
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the end-of-the-power-line dept.
from the end-of-the-power-line dept.
Attila Dimedici writes "Tesla has announced that their business model has failed. Their basic idea was to sell a boutique electric car to fund the development of a regular consumer electric car. With this announcement they are saying that they did not sell enough of the Roadster to make producing it profitable. If that is the case, it is only a matter of time until Tesla closes its doors. I thought their approach was the most likely to create a successful fully electric car. Although it is possible that the technology they have developed will allow the existing car companies to develop successful fully electric cars, it is a shame that Tesla has failed to become a successful car manufacturer." CT: As a huge number of you pointed out, the linked article is not nearly as doom and gloom as the submitter: Tesla isn't locking the doors and throwing away the keys, they plan on selling a $80k sedan in 2012 with a 300 mile range.
RTFA has never been more true (Score:2, Insightful)
This summary seems to have nothing at all to do with the article.
Editorialize much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Summary is just some guy's half-assed opinion, and has nothing to do with the article.
Re:RTFA, PEOPLE. (Score:5, Insightful)
And I think it's time to take away Samzenpus's keys, for letting that summary out.
Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:4, Insightful)
make cars people can afford. .... make a RegularCar, that I can buy for 75k
"People" cannot afford a 75K car. I make a good living and even I cannot afford a 75K car. (Actually, I do not want to afford one because it would literally drain my wallet.)
You must have read a different FA (Score:4, Insightful)
The news bit linked only says they've stopped producing a car, intended to be low volume, to focus on a sedan designed of higher volume. While they may or not be successful, nothing ITFA says "there business model has failed."
It'd be nice if some actually read the submission before... oh wait, this is /.
Re:Sad, but not unexpected (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's the source of the 66% number for the "I don't believe your number" types. http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html [eia.gov]
Regular cars are not 75K (Score:5, Insightful)
First the article title sucks and the summary is worse.
They are not going out of business, not yet at least. They are going to stop producing the roadster which had a very limited market and work on getting their sedan out.
As to the person I am replying too, it is not the big American three that are at fault, as far as I can tell each continent it quite adept at producing and buying gas guzzlers. In fact while the average person in Europe might be keen on efficient small cars Europe is the land of gas guzzling exotics. I guess the little people should be happy with their itty bitty cars while the rich and powerful blissfully ignore any such concerns.
Don't pile accolades on Tesla, they have yet to prove they can deliver this sedan and have a sustainable business models. All the dreams in the world amount to nothing if they don't come to fruition. Just because someone claims they can solve the problems of the world does not excuse them from actually delivering. Seems to me that vaporware is very common in most industries and far too many investor's lose their shirts over well executed glossy presentations.
Re:How did you come to that conclusion? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the few times where I wish there was a bury option for stories, if not outright delete. The summary is the exact opposite of what is said in the story,is reported by everyone else, and even of what can be inferred through looking at Tesla's financials.
Maybe instead of filtering stories on editors, we need the ability to filter stories on submitters. I have yet to see a story by Attila Dimedici where the summary wasn't the exact opposite of what was actually going on.
Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that they are discontinuing the roadster seems peripheral, although one may ask why they would discontinue them if they were profitable. Perhaps they don't have enough capital to tool more than one production line at a time? Perhaps the sedan is expected to be more lucrative and they don't want to pay the opportunity cost of continuing to make roadsters.
Re:RTFA, PEOPLE. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong summary, good news (Score:2, Insightful)
Tesla has in fact succeeded with most of their goals for the Roadster:
Created a good looking, high performance, pure electric vehicle that both proved the advances in electric car tech and that electric cars can be a viable alternative for some people NOW.
Admittedly the Roadster is not viable for everyone- lack of cargo space and lack of real range being the biggest problems.
But they PROVED that a pure electric can also be a GOOD, enjoyable car.
Something that no other manufacturer has done.
Since their business model was to use the Roadster to test and prove tech in small numbers and create buzz about the product and company and then stop production in favor of more mass-market friendly models.... well, so far they are doing exactly what they intended, and doing so successfully so far.
Strange situation here- I am not a fan of pure electrics as they don't meet my needs and I don't care for the increased pollution they cause in most of the US (electric generation plants are not exactly the "greenest" things around, not to mention battery disposal!) but Tesla has improved automotive tech for both pure electric and Hybrid (which I DO see as truly viable in the real world) and has so far been a very successful company.
Cowboy Neal needs to slap Attila Dimedici down for being an idiot, methinks.
More energy needed to make gas than for electric? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm [evnut.com]
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"
Re:Sad, but not unexpected (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that approximately 66% of electricity in the US is generated by fossil fuels, electric cars are not really much of an alternative. Just because you don't burn fossil fuels directly in the car doesn't mean they are not dependent on fossil fuels.
Maybe, but two things:
1). Power plants are much more efficient at converting fossil fuels to power than a bunch of individual engines.
2). The thing with electricity is that the sources can be changed out for cleaner ones without most of the consumers noticing. So while now that number is 66%, in the years to come it is expected to drop.
Re:Sad, but not unexpected (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that calling it a "sedan" may give the wrong impression that it's going to be like a Toyota Corolla.
It's going to be more like a BMW "luxury sports-sedan", which only makes sense to try to go for that market given that it's priced as though in that market. Quite a few people find those pretty sexy, and will probably find the high acceleration rate of the Tesla offering to be a nice sexy icing on the sexy cake too.