VW Plans A $ 22K Electric Car To Compete With Tesla, Transition From Combustion Engines (reuters.com) 317
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Volkswagen intends to sell electric cars for less than 20,000 euros ($22,836) and protect German jobs by converting three factories to make Tesla rivals, a source familiar with the plans said... Plans for VW's electric car, known as "MEB entry" and with a production volume of 200,000 vehicles, are due to be discussed at a supervisory board meeting on Nov. 16, the source said... The November 16 strategy meeting will discuss Volkswagen's transformation plan to shift from being Europe's largest maker of combustion engine vehicles into a mass producer of electric cars, another source familiar with the deliberations said.
VW's strategy shift comes as cities start to ban diesel engine vehicles, forcing carmakers to think of new ways to safeguard 600,000 German industrial jobs, of which 436,000 are at car companies and their suppliers.... The shift from combustion engines to electric cars would also cost 14,000 jobs at VW by 2020 as it takes less time to build an electric car than a conventional one and because jobs will shift overseas to battery manufacturers.
VW's strategy shift comes as cities start to ban diesel engine vehicles, forcing carmakers to think of new ways to safeguard 600,000 German industrial jobs, of which 436,000 are at car companies and their suppliers.... The shift from combustion engines to electric cars would also cost 14,000 jobs at VW by 2020 as it takes less time to build an electric car than a conventional one and because jobs will shift overseas to battery manufacturers.
Kudos to VW (Score:2)
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Only on a dynamometer.
Lol. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Lol. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nissan is already beating Tesla.
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Re: Lol. (Score:3)
Ya, I totally agree with you. The word vaporware needs to be used on the endless stream of press releases from mainstream auto manufacturers about their real-soon-now EVs. âoeWeâ(TM)re going to do this too, real soon nowâ was a Microsoft tactic back in the day when they needed time to build a competing product with their slow moving monopolistic behemoth of a company.
Big changes are coming to the auomotive market over the next few years. Not going to be pretty.
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Is it vaporware when BMW has been shipping EVs since 2013? They're pretty niche so far but I see more of them in Europe than Teslas. At this point the EV drivetrain should be pretty straightforward (thanks to Tesla for pushing some development there too) so yeah once mainstream manufacturers get in pop switch over, it wouldn't be very pretty for Tesla since they'd have significant manufacturing, supply chain and quality expertise advantages.
Re: Lol. (Score:2)
Did you check out Audiâ(TM)s big e-tron release? Did you find the actual vehicle as underwhelming as I did? How much money have they poured into that? Formula-e and everything?
The e-golf. The i3. Whatâ(TM)s the range on these? These are not serious competitors to Tesla. Weâ(TM)ll have to see if the Porsche Taycan is a real contender. Iâ(TM)m hopeful, but I am beginning that think that these massive automotive corporate dinosaurs canâ(TM)t do it.
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https://techcrunch.com/2018/09... [techcrunch.com]
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And some of them actually have.
Hyundai has the Kona out, which has better-than-Tesla range and much higher spec at a fraction of the cost. Includes reliable autopilot and better driving aids. Kia is releasing their Niro soon too, which is similar but a bit larger.
Outside of the US Nissan and Renault really pioneered EVs. The widespread charging networks in Europe and Japan are mostly down to demand that they created with the Leaf and Zoe. Tesla is a small player in those markets and the M3 isn't anywhere in
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Don't get me wrong, Tesla make some nice if unreliable cars, but they are not at all affordable or even that big of a deal outside of the United States.
Someone nearish to where I live (on a road I often walk along) has a model 3. Since I live in London and it's basically an American car it's too big to fit in his driveway. So he does th only reasonably thing and parks it on the road.
Nah! Just kidding, he parks it in the drive and leaves it sticking out across the pavement. Very tempted to carefully key it a
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Unfortunately due to the price it attracts the kind of arseholes who normally buy a BMW or Audi.
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Unfortunately due to the price it attracts the kind of arseholes who normally buy a BMW or Audi.
I love this one about BMW drivers:
http://www.bbspot.com/News/200... [bbspot.com]
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In China you have BYD. As well as some very good long range cars, they have a massive business supplying commercial vehicles like busses and trucks. Again, they really pioneered it
No, no they did not pioneer it. Blue Bird sold both the first hybrid bus, and the first modern electric bus — both back in the nineties.
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Kona [caranddriver.com]
ESTIMATED BASE PRICE: $37,000 Wheelbase: 102.4 in Length: 164.6 in Width: 70.9 in Height: 61.2 in Passenger volume: 93 cu ft Cargo volume: 19 cu ft Curb weight (C/D est): 3715 lb PERFORMANCE (C/D EST) Zero to 60 mph: 7.6 sec Standing ¼-mile: 16.0 sec Top speed: 104 mph EPA FUEL ECONOMY Combined/city/highway: 120/132/108 MPGe EV range: 258 miles
THis speaks more about the MSRP on the Kona based on what they are charging in norway. [electrek.co]
Luckily, local media is reporting that in Norway, the 64kWh is going to be 325.900 kr. At today’s exchange rate, that translates to $39,852. But it isn’t that simple.
How does this compare to Model 3? Wheelbase 113.2 in (2,880 mm) Length 184.8 in (4,690 mm) Width 76.1 in (1,930 mm) Height 56.8 in (1,440 mm) Curb weight Standard RWD: 3,552 lb (1,611 kg)[5] Standard Dual-Motor AWD: 3,757 lb (1,704 kg)[5] Mid-Range RWD: 3,686 lb (1,672 kg)[5] Long-Range RWD: 3,814 lb (1,730 kg)[5][6] Long-Range Dual-Motor AWD (including Performance): 4,072 lb (1,847 kg)[5] Electric range 220 [wikipedia.org]
Re: Lol. (Score:2)
You are confused, the big automakers have been doing the proper R&D to make an electric car that will be affordable and profitable. Tesla has failed to do that, has no idea how to do that. So it circles the drain and Musk losing his mind. Tesla pisses away money and has no long term plan to get profitable
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You are confused, the big automakers have been doing the proper R&D to make an electric car that will be affordable and profitable. Tesla has failed to do that, has no idea how to do that.
Except we now know that, just like Munro and Assoc. said, Tesla is bringing in around $10,000 for each nicely-specced Model 3 they sell. Their only problem is volume, and they are addressing it. You have no clue what you're running your suck about.
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Since when is a "nicely-specced Model 3" affordable? What percentage of Teslas are leased rather than purchased? There's a reason no one wants to buy a Tesla, they don't want to get stuck owning a used one. Buyers currently lack confidence in the long term value of electric vehicles and Teslas are expensive.
Tesla has far more problems that just volume, starting with their general incompetence as a car company. Literally any other car company on earth could put them under. The fact that hasn't happened on
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Yes, VW, Daimler, BMW, GM, Ford, fiat-chrysler, Nissan, etc have spent the last 5-7 years telling us how they would beat Tesla. Now, like cold fusion, it will happen real soon.
To be fair, no they haven't. Hell Daimler's CEO flat out said he sees no future in EVs and is banking on his business existing for many years. In the meantime the Renault-Nissan alliance's efforts for all electric vehicles absolutely dwarfs Tesla in the rest of the world, but Americans don't like small cars and are obsessed with the idea of having to have unlimited miles on a charge so the cars haven't taken off at all in the USA.
All of Tesla's vehicles combined sold less in Europe y-t-d that BMW's i3 shipm
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The Model S sales are also lagging behind the VW e-golf, and the Leaf / Zoe absolutely dominate the industry.
The model S is a car in a size and price range that doesn't sell nearly as well in Europe as the segment that the Golf, Leaf and Zoe are in. It would be interesting to see what happens when the model 3 gets to be widely available in Europe.
In fact if I compare number of model S cars on the road to the larger BMW's and Mercedes's where I live in Europe they do remarkably well, especially for an American built car.
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What Americans don't grasp (and that is aimed at true Americans nitpicking about e-vehicles and Elon who is actually from South Africa): in Europe the commute distance is rather short. While there are people that actually need to go to work about 100 miles, and back another 100 miles, they can recharge their vehicle at the workplace. And most people hardly drive more than 10miles to work and 10miles back, if they spent another 5miles on the way home shopping that would already be exaggerating.
With nitpickin
Re: Lol. (Score:4, Funny)
True, their days are numbered starting at 1 on January 1st and reaching 365 or 366 by December 31st. Similarly, their weeks, months and years are also numbered.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
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Re: Lol. (Score:2)
Sorry to hear about your financial problems :(
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This is silly.
These manufacturers are all in different places and there's no point being broad-brush.
Tesla's first-mover advantage is considerable -- their profitability per vehicle is significantly ahead of their competitors.
However, the Leaf and the Zoe mean Nissan-Renault are in a strong position in the mass-market in Europe, and Renault has a new low-cost product for China. If it can gain a toe-hold there, that will make a big difference.
VW and BMW have the ambition, and the e-Golf and i3 are good in th
Wake me when they actually do (Score:2)
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Also, in addition to the racing car, they sell the reasonably successfull e-UP and e-Golf.
More power to them! (Score:4, Funny)
If they build a $22,000 car that has 300 miles of range, does 0-60 in 5 seconds, and carries 4 adults comfortably, they'll sell millions of them.
And Tesla will have won.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/sec... [tesla.com]
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So sure, bring it on VW. If the car turns out to be a lemon, well at least it will still bring down the price of other cars.
Re:More power to them! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More power to them! (Score:5, Informative)
More Lithium can be mined. The global supply can be increased.
Cobalt is the element that battery manufacturers worry about.
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Do you know how much money has been spent in prospecting for Lithium ?
Do you think the known lithium reserves are all the lithium there is in the world?
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I see what you did there.
If there's a limit then it'll be hit soon enough no matter who's making the vehicles.
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But there is no limit.
The planet literally is made out of Lithium.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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When you realize that the vast majority of EV charging will happen at home, at night, then there is no problem with electricity shortages or infrastructure limitations. Night time electricity usage is sufficiently lower than daytime usage that there is plenty of excess capacity available to handle EV charging, even if 100% of all vehicles sold from today forward were pure electric vehicles. In fact, the amount of electricity saved by switching from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs, actually offsets around half of the entire increase that would result from a switch to 100% electric ground transportation. Because of that transittion, and the scaling up of solar power, there has actually been a glut of electricity which has been keeping electricity prices artificially low. This artificially low cost was part of the stimulus that drove the sharp increase in the cryptocurrency mining which has absorbed most of the excess electricity capacity.
The first problem I see here is that the cars will be charged at night... from solar power? I think you missed a step or something.
Let's assume this is true, and perhaps take it a bit further, and assuming future growth in power demands will be gentle, or even flat. That we would not have to build power plants at any greater pace than we do now. The generating capacity might not need to increase but the energy demand still grows. Again, energy vs. power. We might not need more power plants but they wil
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A problem with that is a steam thermal plant needs to stay hot, and therefore burn fuel, if you expect to get energy from it in short order. Using gas turbines allows for a speedy spin up but they are only half as efficient as a steam plant, it burns twice the fuel for the same electrical energy. That's not saving any fuel.
Charging at night would help a lot to make the demand curve flatter, allowing more efficient plants that can run at constant power. You could even improve it by adopting a smart grid where price of electricity is adjusted dynamically and allow consumers to pick the best times to charge.
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I like how your arguments over the years get more and more detached from reality because at the end you will always try to come to the desired conclusion that we need nuclear despite the world moving in an entirely different direction. It will be great fun to watch this become even more absurd in the next years ;-)
The fact that EVs are charged in the night is mostly due to the fact that electricity is cheap and not otherwise needed in the night and that this is still the most convenient way as long as there
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The first problem I see here is that the cars will be charged at night... from solar power? I think you missed a step or something.
He did not say that vehicles are charged at night from solar power. Why do you try to frame other people as idiots?
He said: due to solar power, old power plants have excess capacity ... obviously during daytime.
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Using gas turbines allows for a speedy spin up but they are only half as efficient as a steam plant, it burns twice the fuel for the same electrical energy.
How do you come to that absurd idea?
A gas turbine is more efficient than a steam turbine in a steam powered power plant. The difference however is so minimal it is pointless. Gas turbines are out of fashion: because they are rather small, and super expensive, not because they are inefficient.
Again: why don't you simply stop talking about stuff you have n
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Ok, I have heard this stupid rhetoric more than enough. Its time that people stop spouting about shit they do not understand.
While I agree the grid itself won't melt down into a puddle to brush it off is equally ignorant. You just said it yourself:
"and are charged at night"
"7-10kwh per day during heavy use"
There are many assumptions made about the use of a grid at the design stage including the relative fluctuation throughout the day and night. What EVs do is add a lot to the peak demand period. We effectively charge the car right as we fire up our kitchen hotplates while running our A/Cs all at the same time. This is something t
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The more interesting question is where exactly are all the people who don't live in houses are going to charge up their EV's. Nobody's suggested building millions of curbside EV chargers so far, not to mention the issues of sheer vandalism to all those chargers electric cables.
Pretty much, unless you have a house, you're not going to get an EV.
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If you want to charge fast, then yes you will need a lot of power
While true, this isn't the whole picture, which is actually rosier than that. The faster you charge, the less time you're charging, obviously... so even if people charged using three phase 32A (ie 22kW) at home, it's not necessarily an issue, because each person's car will be charging for a relatively shorter amount of time than would be the case for a standard socket. My new Zoe will have a 40kWh battery and thus will charge from 0 to 100% in about 2 hours off a 22kW charger. And of course, most cars won't
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No, everybody on the planet will have won.
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I don't see how another company having a successful model means Tesla won since Tesla hasn't done anything to enable it for anyone else. Furthermore, VW selling "millions of them" may very well mean Tesla's demise. Hardly a win.
Also, you assume no competition. It's possible to meet those targets and fail anyway if someone else does it better. Only Tesla takes for granted no competition, the real car companies understand that they need to get it right before they risk their future. Meanwhile, Tesla ind
It'll have a hidden diesel engine (Score:2)
hides....
EVs are so cheap to make. (Score:2)
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You dont need a big car with the knew batteries.
How would you no that?
Good! Hurry up! (Score:2)
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Sounds like you need a firmware update that disables the low oil warning.
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Its everything really.. my first new car was a VW.. in 5 months I had 5 problems. Including all the oil pouring out of the engine one day.. Very poor quality cars in my opinion.
In addition their support is shit. VAG is dropping parts for their vehicles left and right. I literally cannot buy the differential bushings for my '98 A8 Quattro. Apparently they didn't use them on any other models in spite of having about ten brands' worth of parts to choose from and now they aren't making any more. Fuck VW sideways. I'm going back to Subaru or Nissan with my next car.
It's happening, whether you like it or not (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone will now inevitably come along and point out how much it'll cost (at current prices) to replace all the battery packs in an EV. To that I say "So what?" As EVs become more and more ubiquitos, and battery technology and manufacturing techniques improve, as well as volume manufactured (and re-manufactured) increase, the price will go down, not up. At-home high-capacity charging stations will be more and more common in public places, and I'd imagine become a standard amenity when new homes are built (if not mandated in some states; California, I'm looking at you when I say that).
You can't even complain that they're slow. There'll be a new age of high-performance in the form of souped-up EVs.
The more big companies that get on board with this, the better.
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With over night charging, you need to use fast charge only on long distance travel.
Think about the number of days you have driven more than 300 miles in one day. Then ignore the first fill up of that trip, and count only the remaining fill ups. How many times did you do second or third fillup? You will need on the road charging only for those fill ups.
People who have never owned EV do
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It does indeed.
How typical do you think your driving patterns are? 1% of the US population? 90%? 0.1%?
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It has been at least one day for every vehicle I have owned, ever; which means it's a good thing I never bought an EV.
At least one day ever in the entire service life of the vehicle?
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I have Model3 since May. I have saved 10 minutes every week by not going to the gas stations for the daily city driving.
First 1200 mile round trip: Supercharged on the road for about 50 minutes more than gas station breaks. Second supercharge, a 300 mile round trip, 15 minutes just for peace of mind. Third trip recently, outbound no additional time, just 15 minutes supercharge. Return trip, no destination charger where I stayed
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Also, I'm assuming your Tesla holds enough luggage for a family of four? Can you attach a luggage carrier?
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Yes that is what he means. A few times in the entire service life of his car.
Well, that's some mighty fine logic! I mean it would also justify buying a semi. Well, I used it once in the last 15 years to move house. Glad I bought it!
I have Model3 since May. I have saved 10 minutes every week by not going to the gas stations for the daily city driving.
Only 10 minutes? I mean there's the bit filling gas, paying etc. What about actually going to the station in the first place? I guess if it's already on the w
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A car is the second most expensive thing you buy. You owe it to yourself to make sure the car you buy will not have unexpectedly large depreciation over 5 years.
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Oh and how many Supercharging stations are there around Wawa, Ontario?
This is what I mean by "people who are very unfamiliar with EV problems issues and solutions".
You dont need need lots of superchargers where you live. ALL your city driving miles will come out of an outlet in your garage. You need superchargers only on longer road trips. You need one supercharger 250 miles from your home in the direction you are traveling. Then super chargers placed about 60 miles apart. Anyway you will be breaking for restroom breaks and food breaks. There are always restrooms near super
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It has been at least one day for every vehicle I have owned, ever; which means it's a good thing I never bought an EV.
Because planning to stop somewhere to recharge would have been an absolute disaster for you?
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Um. Battery packs are showing 80% state of health at 100k+ miles. So battery pack replacement might be regular, but is not going to be frequent. McKinsey did a study estimating that an EV might routinely be expected to travel 1m miles(!) before being scrapped, which changes the economics of the market dramatically.
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Diesel -electric locomotives took over the rail roads in USA in 1950. All of them are electric drive trains. There are pure electric trains/trams/street cars with overhead wires. Traction motor reliability is astounding.
It it interesting with the diesel electric locomotive. All the maintenance stops service the diesel engine. 16 cylinder 4800 HP to 6000 HP behemoths. The traction motors hardly get touched. These engines are not your t
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I too have been working on ICE vehicles most of my life, starting with a string of 60's musclecars in the 70's. I enjoyed the simple brute power of nicely tuned big block V8s blocks then, and I appreciate the technical elegance (and drivability) of the computer controlled ICE engines of today. I have pulled the engine in my front wheel drive car to replace the transmission input shaft seal so I can do that. But as I am pondering whether it is worth it to do a computer upgrade tune, including new MAP sen
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Let's ask a simple question, that nobody seems to have pointed out really. Where do all the people who don't have a house go to charge their cars overnight? Also who's going to pay for all these charging stations?
If you live in a city where you have to park on the street, well you better hope someone wants to invest in curbside charging stations and wants to deal with the hassle of vandals screwing with the cables.
If you live in an apartment building I guess you'll have to enjoy higher rent to subsidize yo
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If you live in a city where you have to park on the street, well you better hope someone wants to invest in curbside charging stations and wants to deal with the hassle of vandals screwing with the cables.
It'll happen. Cities like clean air, and the investments are modest. Vandals screwing with the cables is not a bigger problem than vandals breaking your windows is right now.
At the bottom line, there will be an up-front charge for the investments, but over time, the higher efficiency and simpler design of the EV will save all of us money. And of course, supply of oil is limited, so we don't have a choice, really.
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There are still challenges around home charging, but with close to 40% of new cars being EVs (plus waiting lists for most models), people seem to have found solutions.
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Automatic transmissions? Over-complicated and expensive, and you can't rebuild one at home.
Yes, you can. You may need some special tools. I've been able to get the book on rebuilding my slush box all two times that I've checked into it. (1992 F250 with E4OD, 1998 A8 Quattro with ZF5HP42A.)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's happening, whether you like it or not (Score:5, Insightful)
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I used to think it was just trolling until I actually met one of these guys.
Some (many) of them are simply that stupid, arrogant and angry. But there have definitely been trolls in the older, better sense of the word. You have a rather low UID. Perhaps if you were on usenet, you remember this chap, an elegant troll from a more civilised age:
https://groups.google.com/foru... [google.com]
Egg Troll was IMO a master of the art. Possibly one of the finest trolls on the internet. It's delightful, his posts are very very caref
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I dunno about you, but I remember when 'trolling' actually meant something. These days, the vast majority of them just sling baseless insults and utter nonsense around, am I right? Seriously, they're not even trying anymore, and they're unfunny to boot. Sad. There used to be an art to it. Now it's about as interesting as a dumpster fire.
We really should not have outsourced it
Ludicrous mode? (Score:2)
But will it have a lächerlich mode?
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They should out Elon Elon himself. (Score:4, Funny)
Announce a 15K car in 2025 that runs on Atmospheric Engine, that gets free energy using the magnetic monopole and tapping into the zero point energy and the critical ingredient for the project, the red mercury has been secured. Then you are talking.
Er, what? no one would take such an announcement seriously?
Well, what makes you think they think other announcements and promises from that diesel cheat device innovator seriously?
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They should absolutely take $1000 preorders for a $15K car that will ship in 2020 but then deliver a $40k car in 2025 instead. Like Tesla.
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not difficult (Score:2)
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You bring up a very good point. If it is as easy as they have told you, why haven't they done it?
plans (Score:3)
are due to be discussed at a supervisory board meeting
That is all you need to know.
They have plans. They don't have a prototype yet, nor a factory setup, nor a delivery schedule nor final pricing or performance numbers. Any or all of those can still change dramatically.
We will see what happens when you can actually buy this car. Until then there is nothing to see.
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Dear automakers: when we shop around for an EV, we are looking for a conveyance, not for a d*mn lifestyle statement that virtue-signals our greenness. We want a normal looking car, not someone's idea of "the future of urban transportation", and we certainly don't need all those hideous light blue accents on the exterior. Why do you think Tesla has done so well?
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For every Tesla-Killer they have on the drawing board, there are several Tesla-Killer-Killers on the supervisory board.
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Aging is a scientifically established fact with an overwhelming amount of evidence.
The same cannot be said for car manufacturers plans to come out with a competitive electic care real-soon-now(TM).
give me a battery (Score:2)
Re: 'Tesla rivals' (Score:4, Insightful)
Tesla is not competition for the big auto makers. Tesla is just an ego project for a man-child with too much money and time with nothing better to do. A pet project some chuckleheads take seriously for no logical reason. Pure emotion.
I tend to agree with you with regards to competition: Electric is going to be a big part of the future transportation and Tesla will find they are not alone in the performance electric market: Porsche is touting their coming E-Performance cars in a big bold announcement at the front of their web site; Jaguar's I-Pace SUV is on offer. And VW is the by far the biggest carmaking enterprise.
As for Tesla's leader, Elon Musk, I happen to think that promoting electric cars to help us kick the fossil fuel habit is one of the better things a person could offer humanity. So, yeah, there is literally not much that would be better to do.
If you read Slashdot, you should know that smart, technically savvy people oftan have their quirks. It's can be easy to make fun of such people, but they also deserve credit where credit is due.
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As for Tesla's leader, Elon Musk, I happen to think that promoting electric cars to help us kick the fossil fuel habit is one of the better things a person could offer humanity. So, yeah, there is literally not much that would be better to do.
Building an electric cargo ship.
The ocean giants that bring your tech toys from China have a pollution impact that dwarves that of small countries, including all their combustion engine cars. Getting rid of those black fumes would do a lot more than a couple thousand electric cars.
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Re: 'Tesla rivals' (Score:2)
Tesla is losing money on each and every car sold, Tesla operates at a loss. Businesses that do that die.
Re: Learn to READ (not same mechanics)... apk (Score:2)
You actually expect this lunatic to be consistent / rational?