Tesla Will Discontinue the Roadster 523
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.
How did you come to that conclusion? (Score:5, Informative)
it is a shame that Tesla has failed
Doesn't make any sense if you read the linked article.
From TFA:
Tesla Motors (TSLA) will stop taking orders for the car in the U.S. in about two months as the carmaker focuses on its Model S electric sedan
Further:
the two seat Tesla Roadster sports car was never intended to be a huge seller. Tesla reported sales of 1,650 Roadsters worldwide by the end of April, 2011.
And
Tesla's next big thing: Tesla's roadster production is coming to halt as the maker of battery-powered cars switches its focus to the upcoming Model S electric sedan.
There is absolutely no indication in the provided article that Tesla is going away. They are just stopping the roadster so they can focus on a new car, which was part of their long-term plan some time ago.
In other words, things are going as planned for Tesla. People claiming this is the end of the company are just spouting FUD for whatever reason.
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.
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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.
The editors do have the ability to go back and adjust the text of the summary. I've seen corrections before, though this one needs a correction of a rather enormous magnitude since barely anything in the summary is correct in any meaningful way.
Re:How did you come to that conclusion? (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, who wrote it, Jeremy Clarkson? It just stinks of negative PR by somebody with an axe to grind. Slashdot should really be ashamed of itself for giving such a tirade of obviously biased bullshit such a wide audience.
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If Clarkson had written it, it would have stated "Tezzzlah roadsters have ceased production. Why? Because they are the worst sports cars..................... in the world."
RTFA has never been more true (Score:2, Insightful)
This summary seems to have nothing at all to do with the article.
Dimdeici is jumping to conclusions (Score:4, Informative)
The article says they they are focusing on the Model S, their new luxury sedan. He obviously didn't read the article that he linked.
Oh, he read it (Score:2)
He just wanted to spin the results in a certain way. Even on Slashdot, though, there's only so much spin you can get away with without people noticing.
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Even on Slashdot, though, there's only so much spin you can get away with without people noticing.
Correct. If he would have blamed the "failure" on President Obama, it would have gotten through with even less scrutiny.
Summary bears no resemblance to article (Score:3)
The linked article implies that their business model for the roadster has succeeded, and they now have the cash reserves to switch production over to making a more affordable car, exactly the opposite of the conclusion drawn in the summary.
RTFA, PEOPLE. (Score:3)
The summary is -- as is so often the case, but I really would expect better here -- not only wrong, but *exactly wrong*.
It is Pessimal.
Re:RTFA, PEOPLE. (Score:5, Insightful)
And I think it's time to take away Samzenpus's keys, for letting that summary out.
Re:RTFA, PEOPLE. (Score:4, Insightful)
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one can only hope the lawyers come knocking on slashdot's door and make the editors answers to libel. You're 100% correct, this is really really bad all around.
Summary is just plain wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The article says they're stopping production of the roadster to focus on the S. It says nothing about anything failing.
Editorialize much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Summary is just some guy's half-assed opinion, and has nothing to do with the article.
Was the Roadster ever supposed to be profitable? (Score:3)
Didn't Tesla say at one point that the cars they built were more about testing and demonstrating the technology behind electric vehicles, and that the real money was to be made in licensing the technology to other car makers?
Also, doesn't TFA state that the Model S is still going ahead as planned, even if the Roadster is not?
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Correct. The Tesla was sold to help offset R&D costs. What better way to get real world data than have people pay you $100k to be test drivers. If they really sold 1650 cars at 100k that is $165 million towards R&D.
All of the lessons learned are going into the sedan which will be priced to be profitable. We shall see what happens.
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 /.
Call me cynical, but... (Score:2)
I have always suspected that Tesla's REAL business model involved being bought out by one of the major automobile manufacturers.
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That's pretty close to the truth - not necessarily for the entire company to be bought outright, but for other companies to buy their tech.
There's no way in hell that Toyota, one of the pioneers in hybrid electric vehicle technology, would have gone to another company for full-blown EV technology if that company didn't have a rock solid technology demonstrator.
The Tesla Roadster was just that - and now Toyota is buying EV technology from Tesla.
Battery packs are thier future (Score:2)
Uh what? (Score:5, Funny)
>Subby writes bad summary totally at odds with the meat of an article - probably didn't read the article and submits it anyway.
>gets "voted up" in the firehose by idiots that didn't read the article.
>gets posted on the front page by an "editor" that didn't read the article.
There are 3 layers of fail here, all of them inexcusable.
>Slashdot readers actually read the article and call Subby and the editor stupid
The Apocalypse is here.
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BMO
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This kind of thing build resentment against Slashdot.
I submit articles which get rejected without any reason given. This guy submits a BS post and gets it published. Why should I volunteer to spend my time moderating Slashdot when asked if this is how they treat people who bother to submit articles?
Stock market disagrees with summary (Score:5, Informative)
Well: there's a surprise. Summary says: Tesla announces business model has failed and bankrupcy imminent.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Tesla's stock is up in an down market. The company is trading comfortably above its six month average price. The company, IIRC, always said that there would only be 2,500 Roadsters made...
Next year, the Model S will launch. The company has thousands of preorders, with people having put real money down.
The Model S may, of course, fail miserably. But the absurd FUD in the summary is ridiculous.
No.. No.. No.. (Score:5, Informative)
This was Tesla's plan for a while now, and the article says nothing about their business model failing. The cannot use the government funds they were given to develop a sports car, it must be used for the Model S. Also they based the Roadster on the Elise Chassis, and Lotus has quit making them. This isn't reddit or I'd down vote for the horrific summary. There is lots of info in their IPO filing, and elsewhere..
Also the basis of the business model for the Roadster was to smash the image of the electric car being a hippie-green eco-shitbox, which most electric car's to date have been. That was a resounding success.
http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-gets-loan-approval-us-department-energy [teslamotors.com]
http://www.allcarselectric.com/news/1042150_tesla-roadster-production-to-end-in-2011-new-version-expected-in-2013 [allcarselectric.com]
#740..
Editor (Score:2)
Fix this shit. Submitter didn't read the article and is making things up.
I'll miss them (Score:2)
I see Tesla roadsters on the road almost every day. I live in Silicon Valley on a hilly, winding road which leads to a lightly used road along a lake. It's about the only place in Silicon Valley where driving a sports car is a fun experience. The Silicon Valley Tesla dealership is nearby . So I see the little roadsters go quietly swooshing by as the dealership demos them.
There are enough Teslas in Silicon Valley that I see them around, being driven, parked in parking lots, and just routinely being used.
Another failure brough to us by samzenpus (Score:2)
But apparently on the front page, FUD sells, eh?
Doesn't sound like a failure to me (Score:2)
They sold over $1.5B worth of Roadsters (1650 @ $109,000) and have used Roadster technology to help produce a more affordable car that will let them sell more cars. The $100K car market is only so big, I don't think they planned on selling millions of the Roadsters. The new "affordable" Model S won't hit the market until next mid next year.
Tell me again where the failure is?
Gov't Loan to Tesla (Score:2)
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Even so, Tesla is too late (Score:2)
Toyota have already delivered something like 3 million of their hybrid drivechains. The latest Prius is the biggest, heaviest, fastest and most economical to date, and now they will produce a small hybrid (Yaris). They have nearly 20 years of hybrid development. GM has what is in reality a plug in hybrid. Mercedes planned the original A-class to be electric; they have lots of development, as yet unused, probably over 20
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Except that Toyota already decided that if you shrink the gas engine to 0 and go all-electric, Tesla's tech was better than their own. Much of that was likely thanks to the Roadster.
Slashdot editors... (Score:2)
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Are the Slashdot editors pissed off because Tesla doesn't accept bitcoins for their cars?
Why would that matter? It's not like townhall.com pays slashdot in bitcoins anyways...
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 busi
Can you read? (Score:2)
In other news, the new 2012 Edsel has arrived! (Score:2)
N/T
Author motives? (Score:3)
Wonder if someone is an Oil industry shill?
http://www.pctechs.org/tag/attila-dimedici/ [pctechs.org]
Someone seems a bit too much pro-fossil fuel.
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The article says they're working on a sedan that costs less. I don't see any indication that Tesla is going out of business.
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.
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Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:5, Informative)
Yes - I don't see how this article indicates that the business model has failed at all. I think, if anything, it has succeeded wildly - my guess is that the Roadster was likely less of a "fundraiser" than as a "halo car" for marketing. If you want to sell your tech to potential partners (Their partners list includes Daimler and Toyota) it helps a LOT to have a widely recognized vehicle.
A lot of times "halo cars" fail - but for Tesla it seems to have succeeded. They now have partnerships with major automotive manufacturers to license their tech. (Toyota RAV4 EV, SMART EV, Mercedes A-Class E-Cell).
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I heard that the Roadster was always going to be a limited production run. Tesla got the frame and body from Lotus; paying them to run an production line that otherwise would have been temporarily surplus. But Lotus now has their own uses for that line so Tesla can't buy the chassis / body from them anymore.
Continuing roadster production now would drain their cash
Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:5, Informative)
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This is about the ONLY electric (or even for hybrid class) type cars I'd ever be remotely interested in...
Everything else out so far, is fugly...and boringly utilitarian.
Oh well, guess I'll stick with gas powered cars, with performance that I can shift...till they outlaw gasoline, which I don't envision in my lifetime.
If something isn't fun to drive...might as well take a fucking bus with the winos.
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They are still going to make the Model S. Which honestly if I could afford I would buy.
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They bad ass roadster, but it was also expensive as fuck. Had it been 30 grand, even though that's well above what I'd have wanted to spend on a car, I'd probably have bought 2 by now. 109 grand is kinda ridiculous, even if it might be reasonable as far as cost.
Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:4, Informative)
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If they could have gotten it into the range of a corvette, I'd likely own one.
Too bad I wasn't in CO a few years back, when they had a tax rebate snafu that I'd heard of on electric vehicles. I think they had a huge percentage tax credit...with no cap for awhile. I heard you could have gotten a tesla
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The Roadster is much closer to the Elise SC (performance wise, at least), which retails for around 70K$
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Lotus is phasing out the current-gen Elise entirely for a butt-ugly, heavy thing :-(
Their whole lineup from 2013 onward will be heavy, and many of their new cars will be ugly.
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That's the problem with bleeding edge technology. It's priced to recoup the R&D that went in to it. Also 400lbs of lithium ion batteries isn't cheap. The average laptop battery is about half a pound and costs $50 at e-retail, and there isn't much margin in that.
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It's a fucking Ferrari-class car. Of course it's going to be expensive as fuck. But it got people talking about it, and it got investors excited.
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And, yes, before the trolls come out, I know that TFA says they were trying to fund dev on a regular car. But seriously, how much dev funding does it take to REMOVE features from a badass-mobile until it's affordable?
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Yeah. Makes you wonder why Ferrari doesn't just sell a stripped-down version for $20k too.
The platform that the Tesla Roadster was built on is going away. That's why Tesla isn't building on it any more. They'll do another sports car at some point - probably all in-house - that won't have this problem.
!story.
Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
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You could probably afford a $75k car. However you will need to adjust your lifes tradeoffs to get the car. I wouldn't do it, but some people do it all the time. Why do you see some hot shot kid in a Porsche, while they live in a low rent apartment.
But the 75k is probably towards the 1's millionaires out there (the Poor Rich). Baby Boomers who wants to relive their childhood.
Answer (Score:3)
Why do you see some hot shot kid in a Porsche, while they live in a low rent apartment.
Drug dealer. He has to live there because any place better neighbors would notice and report the traffic coming and going.
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.
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+1.
Building a really good, innovative car that costs $100,000 is easy. Lots of car companies do it.
Building a really good, innovative car that costs $25,000 is incredibly difficult to near impossible.
It's rumored that Toyota and Honda have been selling their hybrids at a loss, mainly to keep their CAFE average in conformance as they were selling more SUVs. A small start-up can't afford to do cost-shifting like that.
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It's rumored that Toyota and Honda have been selling their hybrids at a loss, mainly to keep their CAFE average in conformance as they were selling more SUVs. A small start-up can't afford to do cost-shifting like that.
The major car companies have been selling their sub-compacts at a loss for years due to CAFE averages.
Just goes to show you what regulation really does. It prevents new entries into a established market due to the costs being so high.
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Just goes to show you what bad regulation really does. It prevents new entries into a established market due to the costs being so high.
FTFY
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Except we're commenting in a story ABOUT a new startup entering the market.
Re:Regular cars are not 75K (Score:5, Informative)
I will see your a rumor and raise you a cite [autoblog.com]:
In fact Toyota has been meeting this persistent rumor with the same answer - they are turning a profit on the Prius - since 2002 [autotrader.co.uk].
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Yes, but what about $28,000 [engadget.com]? Apparently possible, but not possible to sell.
your chance is coming (Score:4, Informative)
Now make a RegularCar, that I can buy for 75k, and I'll have one in the driveway tomorrow
The actual article - which sadly the slashdot editor apparently made no attempt whatsoever to read in any way, shape, or form - says that is exactly what they are working on next.
Actually, they'll do you one better. The Tesla model S (for sedan) will start at $58k. Some details are in the article; you can get a 300 mile range version for around $80k. If you look up information on it, you can find prototype pictures, it looks like a Jaguar XJ or XF sedan of the current generation.
However, there is a wait list. You won't have it tomorrow, but if you go put some money down, you can have one when one is ready for you.
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If you're spending 75K on a car, you can probably afford the Roadster anyway, even though it's 25K more.
--
BMO
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r. Now make a RegularCar, that I can buy for 75k,
WTF? 75k? That's a luxury car. GIve me something under $20k. I assume you mean USD.
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I think he meant monopoly money. :-D
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I think he meant monopoly money. :-D
But Canadian dollars are worth even more that US ones!
Re:These guys are actually innovating (Score:5, Interesting)
You can tell the Roadster served it's purpose because "Besides building its own cars, Tesla has a business partnership with Toyota Motor Co (TM) to produce a plug-in electric version of the RAV4 SUV and a deal with Daimler (DDAIF) to provide batteries for an electric version of the Smart ForTwo minicar."
That's Toyota, developer of the Prius, admitting that Tesla have technology and know-how that they need. That's what the Roadster bought Tesla.
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Now make a RegularCar, that I can buy for 75k...
Can I live in your world where "regular car" equals 75k? Jebus...
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Bill Gates to the rescue....
This is one of those situations where Bill Gates could get involved and invest some money that he cant take with him when he dies, to actually make the world a better place....ecologically speaking of course....and when the new roadster comes out fresh and mint, and really top of its class in electric cars on the market, he will make another few billion dollars...
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No, If Tesla can not make it on their own, without governmental support they do no deserve to exist. A great goal does not justify governmental intervention. Before you get to warped, I disagreed with and will always disagree with the government intervening in any business, there is no such thing as too big to fail.
GM and Chrysler could not make it on their own with out government support and yet they still exist. Had they been allowed to fail (nothing is to big to fail), maybe they would have left a void waiting to be filled by Tesla. But alas we get the government subsidized Leaf instead.
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Had they failed, unemployment would have skyrocketed, and we'd be in the depths of depression instead of just recession. I know it's trendy and hip to be on the "Free Markets or Bust" bandwagon these days, but maybe you should actually look at what the domino effect of your desires would actually do.
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No, fuck that. Profit should NOT be the only measure of something's worth.
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I think it was on the CBS evening news in the last week or so...they said the avg US car price had hit an all time high...I'm trying to say it was like $24K-$28K.
And that prices were increasing...largely due to lack of cars being produced due to shortages of parts caused by the Japanese problems.
No need to worry yet (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, anyone who knows anything about Tesla knows that this has been part of their plan for some time. Build a roadster to get the technology working - and to show to the public that it really is as good as claimed - and then discontinue it to focus on a family sedan. Their first car achieved brand recognition and proof of concept, while bringing in investors. Now they are retooling and setting up a new shop to show that they can make it work on a larger scale.
Unfortunately, they have already sold out in part to a traditional auto maker, so how far they will be able to go unhindered is anyone's guess.
Re:No need to worry yet (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, anyone who knows anything about Tesla knows that this has been part of their plan for some time.
You are 100% correct about this. A friend of mine went to work for Tesla about a year ago. He was telling about all of the planning that they were doing to shift their production from the roadster to the sedan.
Above and beyond that, Tesla has a lot of patents. They have the best batteries in the industry. Tesla is a long way from going out of business. If anything their biggest concern is probably trying to figure out how to not get gobbled up by another company who just wants their intellectual property.
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Tesla is a long way from going out of business
I dunno about that. They received quite a bit of government bailout money - otherwise they'd have probably been out of business already. I hope they do well, and I think they have a decent chance, but they're certainly not "a long way" from going out of business.
Re:No need to worry yet (Score:5, Informative)
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Tesla recently moved into their new manufacturing facility -- it cost $50M -- the former NUMMI factory in Fremont, CA (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc --which was a joint GM/Toyota venture). Coincidentally, Toyota invested $50M in Tesla. Since the NUMMI factory operated for over 30 years, I wonder what environmental issues there might be if the factory was ever completely decommissioned. But I guess that Toyota no longer has to worry about that (GM does
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That NUMMI factory built the best "GM" small cars there were at the time. The best GM could provide the American small car buyer was a rebadged Toyota, I think that explains how they ended up too big to fail.
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It's all about pricing. If you sell, as they called it, a "boutique" item, it will have limited acceptance. Only those with money to throw around will be able to afford them, and they will never become a high volume item.
I know a lot of Slashdot readers and car enthusiasts wanted them. We also don't have over $100k to drop on a 2 seat car that is still essentially a prototype.
If they had an entry level model priced for the average consumer, and possibly a mid-
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Their business model was always to produce their "boutique" Roadster, follow it up with a sedan (at about half the price- still expensive, but more reasonable), and finally follow that up with an affordable car. They're now gearing up for step 2, so step 3 must be approaching one day (if they survive long enough).
I hope they reincarnate the Roadster one day, once they've got the facilities to justify tooling up for such a low volume item. The basics behind the design should still be "cutting edge" for years
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.
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So in theory that is a 34% drop in emissions then. Then you add Hybrid like energy savings to the car (Charging battery for deceleration or going down hill) Still it is better. Also for the electric grid, A lot of the cars charging time is on off peak hours. Where the plants still need to run and burn fuel but less are reaping the power. So the question is with the extra power on the grid durring non-peak hours how much more fossil fuels will be in delta from the extra load.
Going from 100% fossil fueled to 66% (Score:2)
Is still a pretty big deal. If everyone cut the transportation portion of their fossil fuel use by a third, we could put a big dent oil imports and cut pollution by quite a bit (probably even more than a third cut in this, as it's easier to capture pollution from one big smokestack than from millions of tiny ones). Additionally, you'd probably actually cut energy usage by more than a third, because electric vehicles are a lot more energy efficient than internal combustion ones (most of your energy is lost a
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Not the same difference, the power plant is far more efficient than your car.
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!"
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Keep in mind, in addition to the "that's still 34% better" comments - Fossil fuel power plants don't have to worry about power-to-weight ratios and hence can be MUCH more efficient and cleaner than vehicle engines.
Admittedly not all of them are - we have a LOT of shitty legacy coal plants, but in general, it's a lot easier to make a highly efficient coal or gas power plant economically than to make a highly efficient vehicle engine economically.
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.
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Actually did the math on this one for a paper a few months back. Here's how it breaks down:
-The average efficiency of internal-combustion engines is about 18-20%, with a mathematical limit of 37%. ICEs in cars almost never operate at their peak efficiency.
-The oldest, dirtiest, crappiest coal plant is 33% efficient, and 6.5% of that is lost in transmission - still more efficient than an efficient ICE running in real-world conditions
-The large motors in electric cars are up to 99.99% (!) efficient. So even a
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Every other car company makes more than one model of car. Now, it is entirely possible that without the halo effect of the roadster people will still be interested in Tesla, and that the interest on the money people have already put down to buy the Sedan will allow Tesla to continue to operate, but whe
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The halo effect of the roadster has already done its job for Tesla.
SMART EV, RAV4 EV, Mercedes A-Class E-Cell - all using technology bought from Tesla.
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It takes a special kind of ignorance to go around implying a link between a persons economic situation and their environmental beliefs.