Ford Plans To Produce 600,000 EVs a Year By the End of 2023 (engadget.com) 117
Ford CEO Jim Farley announced that the automaker is planning to produce 600,000 electric vehicles per year by the end of 2023, "which will double the number of EVs it originally intended to manufacture," notes Engadget. From the report: According to Automotive News, production will be spread across the Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning and E-Transit. Ford's current EV lineup is wildly popular, Farley said, and the demand is "so much higher" than the company expected. The Mustang Mach-E is selling on three continents, while the Ford F-150 Lightning has been popular from the time it was announced. Ford received 100,000 reservations within three weeks after it was unveiled, and that number's now up to 160,000 -- all placed with a $100 refundable deposit. Due to the high demand for the F-150, Ford previously decided to invest $250 million to boost its production, creating 450 new jobs to help it make 80,000 trucks a year. It's unclear how much that target would change now that the company is doubling its manufacturing goal.
Made in USA, Right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Right?
Batteries from China.
Electronics from the pacific rim somewhere.
Factory in Mexico.
And they will get a big hearty round of praise for "leading the way" on electrifying the fleet because they are "union."
At that time Tesla will be at a run rate of about 2M cars per year I think. AOC has a Model 3 but I think the rest of the Democrats are ignoring Tesla because of the union angle. It is dumb but no party is perfect.
At first I thought you were joking (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody made a good point which is that all the suits on Fox News telling you that you don't need unions all have agents. Meaning they all hire a professional negotiator to negotiate on their behalf while telling you you don't need somebody to negotiate on your behalf. It's kind of like how they all have vaccine mandates and they're all vaccinated while they spread anti-vax propaganda. Which is to say it's exactly like that.
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No matter what you think you as an individual cannot effectively bargain with a mega conglomerate. And I want professional negotiators.
Uah. No thanks. I'd rather have a government that supports workers and sets a suitable minimum bar rather than relying on the possibility that I may work in a unionised workplace or may get some secondary benefits from someone else's union. That way we don't leave non-union workplaces to fend for themselves. They should also pass laws with teeth and provide an ombudsman that can arbitrate workplace disagreements to level the playing field.
The goal should be to reduce variance and bring all of society up rat
False dichotomy is false (Score:2)
Also, there's something creepily slick about how you're anti Union post is designed to make anti Union leftists. It reads like very, very clever propaganda and you should examine where you got the idea very closely. Seriously, it feels like an idea that was p
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The Netherlands does well with an explicit minimum wage because the govt acts aa union for everyone and negotiates on their behalf, creating universal Union membership.
That's not a false dichotomy, that's precisely what I'm calling for. The government for the people to govern for the people.
Also, there's something creepily slick about how you're anti Union post is designed to make anti Union leftists.
It does nothing of the sort. My anti-union post isn't anti-union, it's anti micro-kingdoms of power. Those micro-kingdoms of power result in high level of corruption and bad practices and don't benefit the rest of the world any more than trickle down economics works in practice.
Seriously, it feels like an idea that was planned on your head by Amazon... Be careful out there.
No the idea was planned [sic] in my head by growing up in a country and living in many countries with very st
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I'd rather have a government that supports workers and sets a suitable minimum bar rather than relying on the possibility that I may work in a unionised workplace or may get some secondary benefits from someone else's union.
As you live in Europe: there are no "unionised workplace"-s
A union is simply a union, consider it like a guild.
That way we don't leave non-union workplaces to fend for themselves.
There are no "non union workplaces" or "union workplaces" in Europe.
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What makes you think I'm referring to Europe? Where I live is not where I have lived, or worked, or where I grew up. My comment is about an American system in America which should be better modelled after a country like Australia.
Not everything is about Europe.
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There are no "non union workplaces" or "union workplaces" in Europe.
This is a gross simplification. You can find the equivalent of "non union" and "union" workplaces in Denmark. The details are different than the US, but the overall effect is similar.
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In Denmark, as everywhere else in Europe, a worker can work where ever he wants without being forced to join a union.
In Denmark, as everywhere in Europe, one can hire a worker how ever one wants, without being forced to only hire workers that are in a union.
The USA seems very different in that fundamental right about: freedom to pick your workplace
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I used to be more in on Unions despite also never having been a part of one as well but nowadays I'm a bit more of a mixed on opinion. A lot of it stems from my experience in IT for the small chain of employee owned but non union grocery stores I work for. I like talking with all of my coworkers and it has absolutely blown my mind how many quality grocery workers we've picked up from Safeway which is union. Apparently its just fucking miserable there with corporate demanding ever more unrealistic productivi
The grocery stores broke the Union's years ago (Score:2)
Unions cannot function with the active hostility of the government and voters. Rampant voter suppression and gerrymandering made it possible to get a wide variety of what are euphemistically called right to work laws
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It is even more outrageous when you consider that the "union built" EVs are actually built by non-US workers, where as "non-union" Tesla make all their domestic cars in the U.S. and their workers are better compensated than any union shop.
However, that is not enough to make me vote Republican. Nor should it make any decent person vote Republican. Sorry. The current Republican party is little more than a death cult with a lot of hang-on grift operators that are trying to make themselves and the rich r
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"It is even more outrageous..."
It is not outrageous, much less "even more outrageous".
"...when you consider that the "union built" EVs are actually built by non-US workers..."
citation please.
"Tesla make all their domestic cars in the U.S. and their workers are better compensated than any union shop."
And forced to work without protection during the COVID pandemic.
"However, that is not enough to make me vote Republican. Nor should it make any decent person vote Republican. Sorry. The current Republican party
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Those are a mixture of rumors and lies:
> And forced to work
Tesla responded in a blog post, stating: "Recent reports that we have terminated employees due to their concerns over health practices are fundamentally untrue.
"The employees quoted in recent stories are still employed with Tesla and we have offered them work multiple times.
"All we have asked is that our employees talk to us and provide us the details of their own concern so we can do what we can to help find a solution."(https://news.sky.com/sto
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And forced to work without protection during the COVID pandemic.
So someone forced them not to wear a mask?
How is that even remotely plausible/possible?
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What makes you think I oppose Unions? I come from a strong pro-union family.
And I don't oppose companies doing global manufacturing either.
What I oppose is promoting government incentives by pretending that they will stimulate local manufacturing and support unions when they clearly will not.
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sounds like a republican talking point.
Trump wants to loot the country of all its wealth for his own personal gain. If you do not like that, vote Democrat.
Re: Made in USA, Right? (Score:1)
If you do not like that, vote Democrat.
I thought that's what the nation [supposedly] just did...
Re: Made in USA, Right? (Score:2)
Climate change (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing I don't understand is when someone says Climate change is the most important thing in the world. Gotta stop climate change, we only have one planet, important enough to make massive changes to socioeconomic models. And then those same people:
- Don't think climate change is important enough to acknowledge or support EV's from non-union plants. Even when the non-union plants are kicking tail and taking names in deploying electric cars to the unwashed masses.
- Don't think climate change is important
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Biden wants to only give EV tax credits for Union made EVs.
And why would he "want" that?
And how do "you come" to that silly idea?
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I'm "planning" on having ripped abs and dating a supermodel by 2023
lol, at least I'm not asking people to buy stock in me based in it
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Well, I'm not interested in your stock, but if you make it an NFT then tell me your price and we have a deal.
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I'm free [intoday.in]
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ok! now the super model.
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If Biden’s administration is the most corrupt in history then why are so many of Trump’s colleagues in jail or facing charges?
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
This isn’t even an updated list either. I’m sure any day we’ll hear news about Hunter’s laptop.
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Because... their "politics" are criminal acts?
Re:Made in USA, Right? (Score:4, Informative)
That list is almost entirely political prosecutions
Because... their "politics" are criminal acts?
Yes, learn something new every day, huh? Apparently lying under oath, tax fraud and bank fraud, paying off hookers, lying to the FBI, conspiracy against the United States, possessing child pornography and bringing a boy to the United States for sex, wire fraud and money laundering are all now political acts that the following poor Trump minions are being unjustly 'persecuted' for:
ROGER STONE: Convicted of lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
PAUL MANAFORT: Found guilty of tax fraud and bank fraud in a jury trial.
MICHAEL COHEN:He pleaded guilty in August 2018 to crimes including orchestrating ‘hush money’ payments before the 2016 election to women who had said they had sexual encounters with Trump.
MICHAEL FLYNN: He pleaded guilty that year to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks before Trump took office.
RICK GATES: The former deputy chairman of Trump’s campaign pleaded guilty in February 2018 to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators. Gates agreed to cooperate with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and testified as a prosecution witness against Manafort, his former business partner, and Stone.
GEORGE NADER: Sentenced in June to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Virginia. He pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and bringing a boy to the United States for sex.
GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: Pleaded guilty in October 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials and a Maltese professor who told him the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton.
Thent here is:
STEVE BANNON: Convicted of wire fraud and money laundering after defrauding Trump supporters through is We Build The Wall fundraising campaign.
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Re: Made in USA, Right? (Score:2)
At the end of the day you'll believe what you want to believe, but I encourage you to dig into those cases NOW.
The entire Steele Dossier was fraudulent. Every investigation that came from it was based on a lie to drum up baseless charges.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
You appear to be working with OLD information. That is a tactic of the corrupt to strike with lies before the truth can come out in court. The Justice Department has agreed that General Michael Flynn did not, in fact, commit any crime.
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You appear to be working with OLD information. [...] The Justice Department has agreed that General Michael Flynn did not, in fact, commit any crime.
Trump's DoJ appointees tried to drop the charges against Flynn, at Trump's request. After quite a bit of legal wrangling, including an en banc hearing from the appellate court, the request to drop the charges was denied, because Flynn had clearly committed perjury, and dropping the charges would be a miscarriage of justice. Trump then pardoned Flynn, after which the district court judge dropped the charges, but only because they were mooted by the pardon.
Note that per Burdick v. United States, accepting
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At the end of the day you'll believe what you want to believe, but I encourage you to dig into those cases NOW.
The entire Steele Dossier was fraudulent. Every investigation that came from it was based on a lie to drum up baseless charges.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
You appear to be working with OLD information. That is a tactic of the corrupt to strike with lies before the truth can come out in court. The Justice Department has agreed that General Michael Flynn did not, in fact, commit any crime. Look into the FBI agents forced to dig up dirt on Flynn. They admitted there was none.
I quite frankly don't give a shit about the Steele dossier because none of these people were convicted of anything on the basis of the Steele dossier. The original claim was that this was all political persecution of innocent Trump supporters. The charges these people were convicted of were: Lying under oath, tax fraud and bank fraud, paying off hookers, lying to the FBI, conspiracy against the United States, possessing child pornography and bringing a boy to the United States for sex, wire fraud and money
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Thanks for the input, comrade. Rubles on the way.
Has someone with a family (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Has someone with a family (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a kid we would drive through Los Angeles to visit my grand parents. I remember the drop into the valley and the impenetrable layer of brown smog that hid the city from you.
The problem was due to NOX and the photoeffect of the chemical reaction between NOX and hydrocarbons producing ozone, a major lung irritant. My dad would laugh and tell me about the mining town that he grew up in and the way the smoke would burn his lungs (actually SO2 reacting with the water in his lungs to form sulfuric acid), until they were forced to build tall smokestacks that would make the plume go over the hill to the next town.
The decisions to require catalytic converters, limit hydrocarbon emissions and build those tall smokestacks were not welcomed by industry... let's just recognize the positive work of the US environmental movement before they started shaving whales (fyi saving whales is a good thing, since their poop does a fantastic job maintaining bountiful oceans)
I had to go downtown for jury duty (Score:2)
My compliant isn't with the positive results the environmentalists have made, it's that they've stalled out because their tactics aren't working and instead of changing gears they keep fucking that chicken. But no matter how long and hard that chicken is fucked Officer Barbrady isn't gonna learn to read. At least not before he's too old to p
Re: Has someone with a family (Score:2)
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I agree that the Left talks too much about shaving the Wales when there is ample evidence that we cannot lower CO2 emissions, especially in high population density areas like Wales, without nuclear fission power plants. This is not a call to get energy only from nuclear fission, it is a call to have enough nuclear fission power plants in nation like Wales that there is enough land left for growing food and clothing fiber, land for parks and other recreation areas, and land for heavy industry, nature reser
Re: Has someone with a family (Score:2)
Re:Made in USA, Right? (Score:5, Informative)
It is somewhat infuriating that Tesla gets basically none of the credit that normally goes along with being an "American" car company. Heck, as far as the "Buy American" crowd is concerned, they might as well be a chic European brand.
Meanwhile, "Big Detroit" seems to want to move everything beyond their management structure overseas at every opportunity.
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"...Tesla gets basically none of the credit ..."
LOL, Tesla gets way too much credit and way too much press. They are wildly overvalued and everyone knows they are an American company. This is absurd bullshit.
Also, one of the most crucial aspects of Tesla's manufacturing technology is a partnership with foreign companies (battery manufacturing). Where it matters, Tesla is NOT what you claim.
Re:Made in USA, Right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stock price is merely a public indication of the aggregate of the stock owners' beliefs in the future value of the company. True that Tesla is inordinately identified with the person of Elon Musk, but the last year's rise in stock price mirrors the last year's rise in production, AND in likelihood of future profits and domination, for example:
-Tesla's batteries dominate the market, not even close. No other vehicle has 'the good stuff' that Tesla is putting in their cars already, and Tesla batteries are expected to only improve. Ford has made a good effort at against previous offerings though, nobody can say they're not trying.
-Tesla past agility in design and improvement of design has made big waves, watch youtube "munro" videos
-Tesla's current agility in production has saved their bacon where it comes to the supply chain shortages. Elon was confident enough in his production to not cancel his chip contracts, and guess what, he was right, he's able to sell all the cars that the chips are for, and more. Meanwhile Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum in Detroit were right, turns out they're not selling the cars they didn't think they couldn't sell, but it's because they couldn't strongarm to reinstate the supply contracts with all forgiven.
-Tesla future production, in particular the gigapress method, is likely to give them a further advantage in production costs and scaling. Would be funny if Elon turned into a union shop by automating so many things that unionizing the people that are left didn't affect the cost structure of production.
Ford has a good chance at competing with Tesla in comparable price ranges. Toyota finally sees the error of their ways, we'll see how fast the ship can turn around. I don't think anyone else has much of a chance at the low end. Past competitors like Volt->Bolt and Leaf are losing. Kona and probably a few others have already lost. At the high end, Porsche is hanging on, on name alone, nobody is going to think poorly of any Porsche, Lambo, McLaren, or whatever owner buying a high end S/X/Roadster for their next car. (after all, all the person has to say is ok lets race) There are a few more recent additions, Bentley I think might be an example, but they're all just going to be relying on past success, very little to do with it being an EV.
-Tesla Full Self Driving is really good on freeways, nowhere near ready for 'prime time' on city streets, but I don't doubt they're way ahead of everyone else and everyone else has yet to run into the buzzsaw that is 'reality'. (Thank heavens it only took a single fatality, that lady in Las Vegas on the bike, for the whole world to shut up about how close everything was to having Full Self Driving. NO, we're NOT! t's going to take a lot of learning before a FSD doesn't risk bankrupting the maker with wrongful-death and damaged property lawsuits from real-world city streets crashes, and reductions in statistical fatalities isn't going to cut it when the car runs someone over and there's video footage of the FSD being at fault.) So Tesla is well positioned to make it into the safety 'promised land".
-Tesla in China is switching to Iron-based batteries in China to eliminate most Nickel and/or Cobalt. (sorry, don't remember the details right now). Range is lower, but price will be lower, and also lowers demand for raw materials for the longer range batteries in the wealthy countries, but will still contribute to market dominance.
-Tesla Berlin is taking on german engineering on their home turf. This isn't a symbolic gesture, they're doing it because they fully expect to dominate and want to do it wholesale locally in EU. They fully intend to kick sand directly into the other automakers' faces.
-Other plants opening (e.g. Texas) because although they're scaling the existing Fremont plant, they don't expect it to be enough. Think about that. Elon thinks he needs 5x the number of plants, all producing multiples of what the original plants made during his Billion-Dollar-Profits which itself is scaling up, and he
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You do realize that the only reason Tesla exists is because of the massive subsidies and direct financial assistance provided to it by both the US and CA govts, right? Not to mention to massive incentive of getting on the HOV lanes in an electric car.
Without these incentives, Tesla would not have been anywhere and Elon would have been just another Techbro who got lucky. There are thousands in the valley.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Elon did not make valuable contributions to humanity and showed the w
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Well tesla is relatively small. They are growing fast though but they sell about half a million cars per year. GM sells about 7 million. You make a reasonable point although I think Tesla *does* get credit for creating american jobs.
Also Tesla is about to open a huge "giga factory" in Europe. Which hasn't created a lot of American jobs.
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Trying to label things as "American" (or of any country) is reductive.
Tesla started by buying parts it didn't make itself from European car manufacturers. The steering wheels they used were Mercedes, for example. The batteries were and still are made by Panasonic (Japanese), except for the cars built in China which use Chinese batteries. When the plant in Germany gets up and running it will use German built batteries.
There's nothing wrong with that, in fact it's a good thing.
The issues Tesla has are more to
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"It is dumb but no party is perfect."
And yet you single out one...while praising Tesla and shitting on Ford with veiled xenophobia. What a surprise.
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Batteries from China.
Ford and SK Innovation to spend $11 billion, create 11,000 jobs on new U.S. EV and battery plants [cnbc.com]
Electronics from the pacific rim somewhere.
Ford, GlobalFoundries say they will work together to boost chip supply [yahoo.com]
Factory in Mexico.
Eh, close enough, it's on the North America continent.
At that time Tesla...
Tesla is just following the path most American corporations became big, get started on the backs of taxpayers through government incentives and grants, then off-shore everything they can to maximize profits. Tesla just has not noticeably moved off-shore yet, but it will given enough time
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Fix the "union laws", so you can have "normal unions" like in Europe.
Can't be so hard. And then the "union problems" are gone.
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Ford is building a battery plant in Kentucky. They are probably building more elsewhere either directly or indirectly in the United States.
Plans to (Score:3, Informative)
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I look forward to telling you that I don't have any spare change on me.
When to short Tesla? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was tempted some years ago, and would have been wiped out.
The company will obviously be successful, but the current valuation is more than every other car company in the world put together, I think. And as battery prices fall and electric cars become more viable there will be stiff competition.
But is it time yet???
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Don't try to guess the absolute peak, that's too hard and no one can do it. Wait until the stock starts going down (you'll notice the hype around it change), then short it.
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Re:When to short Tesla? (Score:4, Interesting)
To paraphrase Warren Buffet, the time to sell a stock (and in your case, short it) is when everyone thinks it's the greatest thing ever. (That was a month or two ago.) The time to buy a stock is when everyone thinks it's terrible. (That was a while back, when all the naysayers were saying that Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy, right before its record setting, billion-dollar profits quarters.) *
You can't out-time the market, but those are probably as close to strategic guidelines as you're going to come by. For the current situation, the price has gone down a little because of Elon's little stock stunt. (Bravo! well played Elon, well played. That was really clever way to cover up that you're a 'paper billionaire' and need to write IOU's in order to keep the lights on at your house, without making people too too nervous that you're selling some stock because of bad future and not just because you're broke!) But there's a real good chance that tesla, once they open giga factory berlin and giga factory texas, as well as scaling the factories they already have open, they can start challenging the big makers on volume, and do it cheaper too. Tax Rebates on everyone but Tesla might muddy the waters a bit, but it's a risky time to be betting against Tesla.
*=The actual wording was a lot closer to something like Have the courage to sell when everyone else says buy, and the courage to buy when everyone else says sell.
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Every billionaire is a paper billionaire. No one is sitting on cash or gold bars, they all have all their value locked up in some assets. The only thing that separates them is if their assets are volatile or not.
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But there's a real good chance that tesla, once they open giga factory berlin and giga factory texas, as well as scaling the factories they already have open, they can start challenging the big makers on volume, and do it cheaper too. Tax Rebates on everyone but Tesla might muddy the waters a bit, but it's a risky time to be betting against Tesla.
*=The actual wording was a lot closer to something like Have the courage to sell when everyone else says buy, and the courage to buy when everyone else says sell.
It's an even riskier time to bet for Tesla.. They're already worth more than the rest of the auto industry combined, which raises the question of what their additional upside could possibly be. At the same time not only have all the big auto-makers have pledged to go electric and those cars are starting to come out but a couple new EV startups are ready to start shipping. So Tesla is suddenly going to have competition on both sides (traditional and tech).
Their current stock pricing is already irrational, ma
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I wouldn't dare short TSLA. Too many people emotionally invested to apply logic and reason to that ticker.
I don't know that the company will remain successful over the long haul. They seem to have scaling and quality issues. I have a feeling once the big automakers get their EV's in play, life's going to get much more difficult for Tesla.
They could be like Tucker, Nash, or Studebaker. Great products, but the companies still did not survive against the competition.
But I thought Lucid buried Ford with its 30k EVs/y (Score:2)
They are like so much more moneyable than puny Fnord [cnbc.com] even though they have "plans", to be producin, some day, in the undefined future, up to, 30000 electric vroom-vrooms per year. [electrek.co]
It's totally believable that they are worth more than (or as much as) established car companies like GM and Ford.
It is totally NOT a pump-and-dump scheme built on top of a johnny-come-lately's attempt to be a Tesla more than a decade too late and waaay too many dollars invested into production capacity too short.
Re:But I thought Lucid buried Ford with its 30k EV (Score:5, Informative)
Johnny come lately is where the smart money is. Tesla makes expensive toys for the well to do
2019 (year it came out) Standard range model 3 is lower 5-year-TCO than a Honda Civic (standard benchmark of economy cars). In other words, cheaper to buy+drive 5 years the Model 3 than the Honda Civic. Definitely not "expensive toy". So while technically you're correct they do make expensive toys (S and X performance, Roadster) their bread-and-butter is now is IN-expensive toys (3 and Y) with their expensive big brothers as more-luxurious upgrade.
and there have been many design flaws due to the lack of understanding of good manufacturing practice by its theory only/book educated rather than experienced engineers . The big car makers will make cheap affordable cars in volumes that will bury Tesla.
Design flaws affecting what? Batteries? Heh that was a long time ago, wasn't too bad a problem, and only because Tesla was the one pushing the envelope. Tesla batteries are top of the line for transportation, not even close.
Or do you mean non-battery design flaws? Says who? The car design expert Munro (a guy whose whole company's business model is taking apart cars and writing reports on their design) has given mostly-positive, with a few negatives, in the early days but is now all thumbs up on teslas. In fact he might have been the straw that made Musk decide in favor of the giga-press. The way I understand it, molding/pressing the entire support of the car in only 3 pieces, and maybe shortly in fewer, has the potential for Tesla to eat everyone ELSE's lunch. Well, maybe not Ford, they seem to have been smart enough to copy Tesla's best features so far, so there's hope yet.
Or maybe you don't mean design flaws, you mean production flaws? Well ok, sure, Tesla was working out production bugs while the big automakers weren't making much of anything at all. And yet, now they're churning out EV's like there's no tomorrow, and where is everyone else and how are they doing? I'd be real worried about my job for 2021-2023 if I was on an EV production line for anyone but Tesla and maybe Ford.
But sure, any day now Tesla is going to sputter to a halt all the 500k-1000k cars/year they're making, stop having record profits, the stock is going to tank for some reason other than Elon's paying taxes with them, and all the other car makers are going to burst out a phonebooth somewhere, faster than a speeding bullet. Right. Sorry man, I just call it like I see it.
Re: But I thought Lucid buried Ford with its 30k E (Score:1)
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The big car makers will make cheap affordable cars in volumes that will bury Tesla.
People have been saying this for at least the past 5 years. Even people who are obviously not trolling. Yet somehow, I'm still waiting for it to happen. Heck, I'm still waiting to see a serious effort with market acceptance.
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It's expensive to move away from your bread and butter. The big automakers have been understandably dragging their feet.
But, they've got to get going soon (which seems to be what's happening now), or they'll go the way of the dodo.
Ford is serious (Score:5, Interesting)
(Apologies for staying on topic, but I thought I should make at least one)
Ford is for real with EV's. They seem to be the first non-luxury (ie, excluding Porsche & friends) to seriously try to copy the Tesla philosophies in their Mach-E and F150 lines. And I mean that in the most complimentary way, from the contouring outside to the big screen inside. Tesla was the first one to make an EV that wasn't a goofy clown car (S&X), then do it relatively inexpensively (3&Y). Ford seems to be the first maker that is going to be competing on Value (price compared to performance), coolness, and service given (does job with low maint), not on name recog (Porsche) or virtue signalling (mainly Prius).
Another example, If I'm not mistaken, Ford (Mach E I think) is the first EV that matched the original Model S long range's battery distance. And the F150 EVis clearly for real a utility work truck. Tesla is mostly dominating the passenger car and crossover markets, and if anyone can overcome Tesla's lead on the car and the production and the charging network, it is probably Ford. Especially I predict the F150 is going to exceed the cybertruck, given cybertruck's delays to market.
Cybertruck will have to re-obtain lost momentum to compete with the F150, and probably will never dominate the market unless Ford has a serious stumble. (Could happen - battery fire problem or manufacturing stall or something big, after all they're the johnny-come-lately's and may yet stumble) Telsa will probably dominate EV Trucking (which I know would be single-day runs for the time being, but if they can use the regular supercharger network that would be a workable emergency plan), and for future markets has already put out feelers to move their drivetrain to other platforms like the Sprinter van or similar.
Rebates may be an issue too. If Fords have $8000 bigger discount than Teslas, that pushes in favor of Ford, especially on the low end.
ps, and someone had better wake up Nissan, I think they've been hibernating the last 5 years, I don't think they're even watercooling their batteries yet. la la la la can't hear anything, telsa who are they. Yeah, shoulda just thrown in the towel and built an alternate car to run on Telsa batteries, that would have been 2016/17 or so strategic thinking of the year prize, now all their former customers have wised up and are buying Teslas.
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Last comparison I saw (Everyday Driver) put the Mach-E well ahead of the Model 3. Take it for what it's worth.
Biggest difference that comes to mind is a car company adopting tech vs. tech company becoming a car manufacturer.
Have some misgivings about Ford's reliability, but they definitely know more about how to build cars.
Re:Ford is seriously wacked! (Score:2)
Range will be a problem for any EV, especially in the cold.
A work truck, especially on remote sites, are not a cowboy Cadillac/ city shitter wants to look cool/GREEN ride. The F150 Lightning range sucks, in good weather, "a standard-range battery targeting 230 miles of EPA-estimated range and an extended-range battery targeting 300 miles of EPA-estimated range". Tesla's range drops hugely in cold weather, because you have to heat the cabin, battery, so on. Do you want a work truck that gets 100 miles bec
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Ah yes but I'm not comparing the F150 EV to a gasoline vehicle, I'm comparing it to the only other realistic EV truck, the cybertruck.
However EV range (well Tesla range anyway, since that's what we're comparing) isn't really affected much by cabin heat or heating the battery, it's affected much more by aerodynamics, specifically travel speed and cargo/trailer profile, and by a heavy cargo. 55 mph versus 85 mph is going to be a huge difference in range. Towing profile can be a huge problem on a small battery
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What about Rivian? That also looks capable of being a real work truck. There will be others as well.
The Cybertruck is another kind of beast. It's not really a pickup truck in any conventional sense. It will appeal more to people who might have bought an SUV than to people who were looking at an F-150. I expect it to be a success but not with truck buyers.
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ICE Range anxiety (Score:2)
Since most people will be changing over to EVs soon, gas pumps will become as common as Hydrogen pumps today. At that point people with ICE work trucks will either have to change to EV trucks or give up most of their cargo capacity to carrying extra gas or spend hours every day driving to and from gas stations.
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Tesla's range drops hugely in cold weather, because you have to heat the cabin, battery, so on.
No, it doesn't. You lose a few percent, somewhere between 4% and 10%, depending on various details. I've been driving a model S for three years, and a Nissan Leaf for seven years before that, and live in northern Utah, which has plenty of cold & snow in the winter.
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You'll lose a lot more in Anchorage. An EV probably isn't a viable choice there at present. Then again, NO vehicle works really well when it's -40 outside!
It'd be fine in Anchorage, which on average is about 10F to 15F colder than where I live. Anchorage has never recorded a temperature of -40. The record low is -34F, which is pretty darned cold, but the record low where I live is -38F. Average low temps in the winter in Anchorage are in the low teens, vs the low 20s where I live.
You have a point, though, that there are very cold places where an EV would spend a bit more of its energy on heating. Anchorage isn't a terribly good example. Fairbanks, would ha
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I think for airplanes there will be a place for short-range battery-electric planes (<500 miles). For longer-range aircraft, my money is on synthetic fuel because for long distance air travel you need really high energy density in a form that doesn't require a heavy container, and it's very, very hard to beat liquid hydrocarbons for that.
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The most interesting thing about this ignorant post is that the author claims to be a "bookworm". Perhaps you may read, but that doesn't mean you learn anything from it.
Porsche "tries to copy Tesla's philosophies"? Please stop lowering the IQ of everyone around you, bookworm.
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Porsche "tries to copy Tesla's philosophies"? Please stop lowering the IQ of everyone around you, bookworm.
The sentence you refer to says "excluding Porsche", right after making it clear that I'm only comparing/discussing "non-luxury" cars. Perhaps you should quote people more faithfully, and read more carefully, else your own IQ be what's in question.
So lets talk about design philosophies. What car does the Ford Mach-E most remind you of, in general appearance and the implementation of the newest technologies shown to the driver:
A) Tesla, take your pick of S, 3, or X. Y even, since everything that matters was a
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Don't you have Kia and Hyundai in the US? They have been making affordable EVs with Tesla-beating range and lots of tech inside for years.
Nissan's new EV is the Aria, which looks decent. It does have a water cooled (and heated) battery.
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Have you seen the EV6? It charges faster too.
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We do, but availability of their EVs in the US has been very low. The Kona/Niro branch are stopgap cars that were never intended for high volume production. The new models based on the E-GMP platform will be the first from the company to actually be readily available once the company can make enough of them; at present those aren't yet available in the US in any meaningful quantity.
The Nissan Ariya has been announced as a 2023 model. It is not yet available. It looks like a decent car; we'll have to wait an
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The US seems to be lagging a bit then, as those cars are widely available in quantity in Europe. We also have a wide selection of affordable EVs, in the $25k range (before taxes). The MG ZS EV for example, or the heavily discounted Leaf 40, or Renault Zoe, or VW eUp.
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The US is indeed lagging in EV availability. A big obstacle here is that dealers don't want to sell them. The reason is that there has been a race to the bottom in selling new cars. The internet eliminated the asymmetry in information that made it possible for dealers to make a significant profit selling cars other than scarce limited production models; most of the time cars sell for well under their sticker price, and the dealer may only make a profit of a couple of hundred dollars for selling you a $30,00
it's early days (Score:2, Redundant)
I'm too poor to be playing the EV game, but if I were in the market, I wouldn't buy any EV yet. Teslas seem to have too many problems, and an unstable software platform, not to mention poor customer service. Ford has got some interesting ideas, but they're just making electric copies of ICE vehicles that I never would have bought anyway. Most of the others seem to be going for the luxury SUV market.
Lucid is the most interesting in terms of advanced tech, but they're still shooting for the luxury market, and
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Hopefully by then there'll be enough charging stations.
Somehow, I feel like it may take that long for that to happen.
Tesla is the only company being proactive about the charging problem for any sort of long-distance road travel. Everyone else thinks they can solve it with a handshake and a press release about some sort of "initiative."
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What's your budget? I just bought a new Bolt a few months ago. Love it. $25K including all fees except taxes. If your budget is $3K then I agree there isn't a huge used electric car market but it does exist (e.g. leaf's have been around for a while now). Note that you will save money on gas/electricity (amount depends how much electricity and gas cost in your area). Chevy is pretty good at making cars and electric cars are simpler to manufacture. Really it's all about the most expensive part - the bat
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I can tell you that the most inexpensive car I've owned since my $3000 ancient honda is a Nissan Leaf. Whether you slice it by operating cost or Total Cost of Ownership, it wins. $30k miles and the only thing I've ever done is sit at the Dealer to make sure my warranty is valid with their service requirement. And washer fluid.
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this AC needs mod up to at least 2
Bought new right? So hows your battery holding up?
I haven't seen TCO of leaf compared to 3 standard, but 3 standard is comparable to 5 year TCO of honda civic. (comparable meaning needed at least some incentive money to actually cost less)
Reviewer (incorrectly, I'm quite sure) actually somehow came up with hundreds in maint costs and primarily mentioned wipers and remote control batteries as being the items worthy of mention. I would have thought to include or mention exclu
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Don't they have financing deals in your country? Here in the UK, I've bought three EVs from 2016 to today, and deliberately bought all three on PCP deals because the tech was rapidly improving and I didn't want to be locked in. So I have a fixed monthly outlay and the TCO is low, and I get access to better tech as it comes along. Has worked well for me.
Granted, I bought all three cars new rather than second hand as you are suggesting, but then none of my cars cost anything like Tesla prices -- all were a su
Nah, fake news (Score:2)
Slashdotters have assured me over and over again that no one will buy an electric Mustang because the only thing important in a car is the sound of its engine, and no one would buy an F150 because uh something something farmer working in the mines, haulage, errr daily trips in excess of 10000miles ... well to be honest at least the noise thing made sense.
How About they Start Building Cars Again? (Score:2)
Bring back the Taurus, Fusion, and Focus first. Otherwise, hello Honda.
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I'm with you on this. I want my old man cars back, now that I'm an old man.
Mach-E Mustang (Score:2)