Tesla and selling its all electric sedan....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-29-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Tesla and selling its all electric sedan....
Tesla’s stock fell recently now that early investors and the like can sell the stock and some will do so.
Since it may have been over-valued, that may be a good thing.
But the analysts also said that they thought Tesla would be outdone by the wave of plug-in hybrids and cheaper electric cars.
That could happen. But I don’t expect it to happen.
Tesla does need to do some pretesting and quality control to help ensure the model S will have trouble free and bug free operation right away or within just a couple or three months of its initial release.
But if they do that, they have three markets that I think they can sell to or even dominate.
1. Because of the recession, people forget there are still people who can afford and want upscale cars and will pay for them. The Model S design is quite stylish and it has good acceleration for an upscale sedan. It appeals to buyers of BMW, Mercedes, Acura, etc. The cheaper electric cars are not really in the niche the Tesla Model S fits. Tesla already has some of these buyers and is known by them due to its Roadster which has upscale buyers around the world. The Tesla Model S can easily be competitive with BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes.
2. Many people who work in technology jobs are early adapters and like buying the latest technology. And, these people have incomes that are well above average. They will be a strong market for the Model S and all over the country or even the world, NOT just in the Silicon Valley.
3. Within 2 years or less after the Model is scheduled to be available, in 2014, the Kuwaiti’s have predicted peak oil. Plug in hybrids and cars still burning gasoline will have much higher fuel prices and maybe less availability of supply. With new renewable energy sources for electricity coming online and more efficient use of electricity, all electric cars may sell at a premium since they still will be able to get power and for less money. Plug in hybrids will be more competition than cars burning gasoline. But they too are not yet here. And, by the time they are, they may also have these fuel problems.
What if gas lines come back? What if gasoline goes to over $6 a gallon? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a car where you don’t have to worry about that? Tesla Model S owners will escape all that. And, it does look like these two things are on their way here!
So, my take is that working the bugs out of the Model S and selling it well to these three markets, will make it very competitive indeed.
In short, if Tesla does these things well, the analysts will be so wrong as to look a bit foolish.
We’ll see how Tesla does!
Showing posts with label Tesla Model S. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tesla Model S. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
An upcoming new way to use less oil....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-22-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: An upcoming new way to use less oil
Electric cars are coming soon. Soon there will be both all electric cars and plug-in hybrids available for sale.
That will be quite soon for the Nissan Leaf and GM’s Chevy Volt.
But if you can wait a couple of years or so, or if you only need a two-seater now and can afford to spend more on a car, Tesla Motors may be your best bet.
Their model S will be about as upscale a sedan as an Acura or a Lexus or car from Mercedes Benz.
And, it will get up to 300 miles on a charge. It looks great and will perform better than most upscale sedans that use tons of gas to perform well.
See www.teslamotors.com . Their two seat, tiny roadster will go up to about 200 miles on a charge and gets almost unbelievable performance. That only takes a bit over $100,000 a few months to get.
The model S will cost closer to $60,000 which is close to what comparable gasoline powered cars cost.
Driving these cars using electric power cuts oil use in many ways.
Electricity will increasingly be generated with solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, and even nuclear power. None of these sources use fossil fuels, let alone oil.
Electricity is already generated by natural gas. With Bloom Energy’s fuel cell technology, that will become even more efficient and create far less air pollution. And, the existing natural gas generation already uses no oil.
Coal is now used to generate electricity, particularly in the Eastern United States. Despite the air pollution and CO2 release problems with that, it uses no oil and thereby driving cars powered electricity from this source uses less oil than driving gasoline powered cars and increases the national security of the United States. Further, when coal is turned directly into natural gas and then fed to a Bloom Energy fuel cell to generate electricity and the CO2 resulting is fed to algae to make biofuels, this will be far cleaner and less polluting and generate less net CO2 than it does now.
So, in every case, driving on electricity, uses no oil and is more desirable than using gasoline.
But, that’s not all!
Electric cars use less energy per mile or per time you accelerate your car than is the case with gasoline or diesel powered cars.
That even means that driving an electric car powered by burning coal now, you cause less CO2 release than you would doing the same driving with a comparable car directly powered by gasoline or diesel.
Electric cars are far from perfect in any way and the technology is a bit new yet; but they will help us use far less oil and release far less CO2 by doing so.
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-22-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: An upcoming new way to use less oil
Electric cars are coming soon. Soon there will be both all electric cars and plug-in hybrids available for sale.
That will be quite soon for the Nissan Leaf and GM’s Chevy Volt.
But if you can wait a couple of years or so, or if you only need a two-seater now and can afford to spend more on a car, Tesla Motors may be your best bet.
Their model S will be about as upscale a sedan as an Acura or a Lexus or car from Mercedes Benz.
And, it will get up to 300 miles on a charge. It looks great and will perform better than most upscale sedans that use tons of gas to perform well.
See www.teslamotors.com . Their two seat, tiny roadster will go up to about 200 miles on a charge and gets almost unbelievable performance. That only takes a bit over $100,000 a few months to get.
The model S will cost closer to $60,000 which is close to what comparable gasoline powered cars cost.
Driving these cars using electric power cuts oil use in many ways.
Electricity will increasingly be generated with solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, and even nuclear power. None of these sources use fossil fuels, let alone oil.
Electricity is already generated by natural gas. With Bloom Energy’s fuel cell technology, that will become even more efficient and create far less air pollution. And, the existing natural gas generation already uses no oil.
Coal is now used to generate electricity, particularly in the Eastern United States. Despite the air pollution and CO2 release problems with that, it uses no oil and thereby driving cars powered electricity from this source uses less oil than driving gasoline powered cars and increases the national security of the United States. Further, when coal is turned directly into natural gas and then fed to a Bloom Energy fuel cell to generate electricity and the CO2 resulting is fed to algae to make biofuels, this will be far cleaner and less polluting and generate less net CO2 than it does now.
So, in every case, driving on electricity, uses no oil and is more desirable than using gasoline.
But, that’s not all!
Electric cars use less energy per mile or per time you accelerate your car than is the case with gasoline or diesel powered cars.
That even means that driving an electric car powered by burning coal now, you cause less CO2 release than you would doing the same driving with a comparable car directly powered by gasoline or diesel.
Electric cars are far from perfect in any way and the technology is a bit new yet; but they will help us use far less oil and release far less CO2 by doing so.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Energy entrepreneurs doing better than politicians....
Today's post: Wednesday, 11-11-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
While there ARE some pieces of good news in posts I did two, three, & four weeks ago that show that some political leaders are beginning to take some decent first steps towards building the energy policy we ideally should have had 40 years ago, it’s mostly too little too late.
However, given the tiny bit of help from those political leaders, there are multiple examples of energy entrepreneurs who have already begun to create our new energy economy.
Those efforts are beginning to look more and more promising.
For example, since electricity can be generated by virtually all the renewable energy sources and by nuclear reactors and by burning the more clean burning than coal natural gas, NONE of which use petroleum, it clearly would help to run our transport systems more and more on electricity rather than by burning petroleum products such as diesel fuel and gasoline.
Not only that, even if you generate electricity by burning natural gas or coal, apparently electric vehicles, that incorporate regenerative electricity generation instead of using brakes to slow down and are more efficient in other ways, actually cause less CO2 to be released than comparable vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel fuel for the same mileage driven.
So while the politicians both in the United States are mostly playing roadblock instead of making workable compromises that move in the right direction and saying we’ll only do the harder stuff if everyone else does it first and few do very much, the progress towards well done all electric cars is breathtaking and the progress on plug in hybrids that use far less petroleum is getting there.
For example, as of today, you can go to: http://www.teslamotors.com/blogs.php & see the story of a man who bought one of the Tesla Motors Roadsters.
Of course, they are priced for multi-millionaires & for the people almost that fortunate market now, a bit over $100,000.
But Tesla Motors will soon sell their model S sedan that will sell for about half that, comparable to what other more affordable and existing high end cars sell for.
And, the comments by Eric Brechner who tells about his experience with the Tesla Roadster he bought while he and his wife waited to get their model S are very promising.
In software, even from well thought of major companies, it’s not uncommon for the first version of a new release to need multiple fixes before it really becomes a decent product.
So, since the Tesla Roadster was Tesla Motors initial product, he had expected comparable glitches. Instead he found it more user-friendly and reliable and easy to maintain than the best gasoline powered car he could have found to buy.
Further, due to the simplicity of the design, that advantage in maintenance will last the life of the car when compared to the complexity of a gasoline powered car.
(He also notes that their Roadster is so much fun to drive, when the model S is available, his wife will get one and they’ll use it when they need the added passenger seats as a family car; but he will keep the Roadster to keep driving himself instead of his original plan to sell it to buy himself a second model S.)
As more and more communities have electricity provided by solar and wind and geothermal and nuclear sources and more and more people drive all electric cars and trucks and mostly electric plug-in hybrids, we will begin to use far less petroleum even without the policies to revoke the multiple incentives the oil companies now have or the added taxes and regulations on CO2 release that the politicians may not be able to pass.
So, while the progress on energy by the politicians is still too little too late, the energy entrepreneurs are beginning to solve the problem.
So, although I still hope to influence the politicians to do the right things, as in my post last week, I’m placing my hopes and expectations for success mostly with the energy entrepreneurs.
Today's post: Wednesday, 11-11-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
While there ARE some pieces of good news in posts I did two, three, & four weeks ago that show that some political leaders are beginning to take some decent first steps towards building the energy policy we ideally should have had 40 years ago, it’s mostly too little too late.
However, given the tiny bit of help from those political leaders, there are multiple examples of energy entrepreneurs who have already begun to create our new energy economy.
Those efforts are beginning to look more and more promising.
For example, since electricity can be generated by virtually all the renewable energy sources and by nuclear reactors and by burning the more clean burning than coal natural gas, NONE of which use petroleum, it clearly would help to run our transport systems more and more on electricity rather than by burning petroleum products such as diesel fuel and gasoline.
Not only that, even if you generate electricity by burning natural gas or coal, apparently electric vehicles, that incorporate regenerative electricity generation instead of using brakes to slow down and are more efficient in other ways, actually cause less CO2 to be released than comparable vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel fuel for the same mileage driven.
So while the politicians both in the United States are mostly playing roadblock instead of making workable compromises that move in the right direction and saying we’ll only do the harder stuff if everyone else does it first and few do very much, the progress towards well done all electric cars is breathtaking and the progress on plug in hybrids that use far less petroleum is getting there.
For example, as of today, you can go to: http://www.teslamotors.com/blogs.php & see the story of a man who bought one of the Tesla Motors Roadsters.
Of course, they are priced for multi-millionaires & for the people almost that fortunate market now, a bit over $100,000.
But Tesla Motors will soon sell their model S sedan that will sell for about half that, comparable to what other more affordable and existing high end cars sell for.
And, the comments by Eric Brechner who tells about his experience with the Tesla Roadster he bought while he and his wife waited to get their model S are very promising.
In software, even from well thought of major companies, it’s not uncommon for the first version of a new release to need multiple fixes before it really becomes a decent product.
So, since the Tesla Roadster was Tesla Motors initial product, he had expected comparable glitches. Instead he found it more user-friendly and reliable and easy to maintain than the best gasoline powered car he could have found to buy.
Further, due to the simplicity of the design, that advantage in maintenance will last the life of the car when compared to the complexity of a gasoline powered car.
(He also notes that their Roadster is so much fun to drive, when the model S is available, his wife will get one and they’ll use it when they need the added passenger seats as a family car; but he will keep the Roadster to keep driving himself instead of his original plan to sell it to buy himself a second model S.)
As more and more communities have electricity provided by solar and wind and geothermal and nuclear sources and more and more people drive all electric cars and trucks and mostly electric plug-in hybrids, we will begin to use far less petroleum even without the policies to revoke the multiple incentives the oil companies now have or the added taxes and regulations on CO2 release that the politicians may not be able to pass.
So, while the progress on energy by the politicians is still too little too late, the energy entrepreneurs are beginning to solve the problem.
So, although I still hope to influence the politicians to do the right things, as in my post last week, I’m placing my hopes and expectations for success mostly with the energy entrepreneurs.
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