My wife just got her used, model S and loves it. This is a very interesting video with investor Ron Baron. It also has commentary that for me, clarifies in English what Ron is saying.

Watching this video paints a very rosy picture for Tesla. I would like to learn what the anti Tesla folks (or anyone) see as false or over hyped.

Tesla just released their third quarter results and they smashed it out of the park. Not just profitable, but over 20% margin on the Model 3, and guidance that they will remain profitable for Q4 as well.

"Q3 2018 was a truly historic quarter for Tesla. Model 3 was the best-selling car in the US in terms of revenue and the 5th best-selling car in terms of volume. With average weekly Model 3 production through the quarter (excluding planned shutdowns) of roughly 4,300 units per week, we achieved GAAP net income of $312 million. We also delivered on our internal cost efficiency targets, leading to GAAP Model 3 gross margin of more than 20%, which exceeded our guidance. Finally, our total cash increased by $731 million and we had free cash flow (operating cash flow less capex) of $881 million despite less than 10% of that amount coming from key working capital items (payables, receivables, and inventory)."

- GAAP net income of $312M, non-GAAP net income of $516M
- Operating income of $417M and operating margin of 6.1%
- Free cash flow of $881M supported by operating cash flow of $1.4B
- $3.0B of cash and cash equivalents at Q3-end, increased by $731M in Q3
- Model 3 GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin > 20% in Q3
- Reaffirm expectation of continued GAAP net income and free cash flow in Q4

the letter is here: http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/725970e6-eda5-47ab-96e1-422d4045f799

Its up 13% in after hours, it could be mental tomorrow.

me 82 days ago:

Well played, well played.

Drove to Sarasota today and saw numerous Teslas on the road. Most weren't Tesla 3's and looked nice. Wasn't too impressed with the Tesla 3, looks like they forgot to finish the front end. No grill?

electric motors dont need an air intake. why have a grill? just adds drag.

For looks?

A grille on an electric car looks plain stupid in my mind, but everybody his own, comes down to taste.

Gotta let go of the past. But if you can’t, you can buy a far inferior electric jaguar or Audi. ;-p

Some have fake exhaust pipes too! Perhaps BMW will play fake engine vroom vroom noises through the sound system like they pioneered in their M3!

It's true that EVs need a small amount of airflow for cooling, but nothing requiring the massive brace-faces that 20th century cars are forced to wear.

The old school auto makers are simply making a bet that people will be less threatened by an EV with an old-fashioned look. Some people like them, just like some people are gonna buy that new Beatles pin.

I think the front end of the model 3 looks great.

However, it’s a mass grave for bugs in the summertime.

"Elon Musk says there's a 'good chance' Ford doesn't survive the next recession"

source:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-good-chance-ford-doesnt-survive-next-recession-2018-11

Response from Mark Truby of Ford, "No doubt the vibe is funky in that 'makeshift tent,' but it's not bad either across the street at the #FordRouge plant where a high quality, high-tech F-150 rolls off the line every 53 seconds like clockwork. Come check it out @elonmusk," he said.

industry heads like Bob Lutz constantly say Tesla won't survive the next quarter, and have been saying so for the last six years. what's the big deal?

I will be interesting to see what will happen if Tesla drops a pickup truck. I think the big issue for Tesla will be the consumers. Even if the truck is incredible people that buy pick ups are super brand loyal. It's the only thing keeping Ford alive. If Tesla manages to swing the pickup market Ford will be in serious trouble.

The only reason Ford can talk shit right now is because they don't have a luxury car. Not so much when the pickup comes out.

Gee, volkswagen is kind of a dick

Ugggh just bought Tesla #2.

We own a Model X P100D. And after a month with it, I felt done with my Macan. But I wasn't on board with the S.

Today I went to drive a Model 3 Performance, and just fell in love. It drives amazing. Powerful. And fun as hell. Dammit. My only gripe is the trunk. I like a hatchback. But I just want to own and drive this car. Sorry Porsche. Maybe I will be back for a Taycan some day.

So I ordered a Blue Performance with black/white interior. The demo car had this scheme. I didn't think I liked the blue. But with the performance setup, I really liked it.

model3_performance (resized).PNG

At least they'll be easier to wipe off.

I'm about 6 weeks and 3000+ miles into owning my M3 DM/LR and love it something serious. My ~100 year old home doesn't have a garage or driveway, but it does have a back alley with gate ... so I trenched 75 feet from the house out back and had a charger installed. Hardscaping/driveway and a sliding gate will be installed soon enough.

IMG_9727 (resized).jpegIMG_9792 (resized).jpegIMG_9793 (resized).jpg

You're going to love your 3. It's the most amazing thing I've ever owned. You'll quickly forget about the Porsche.
Congratulations!

Model S

P100D

Red

Coming Nov 26th

You’re gonna love it!

Ludicrous?

Yup!

Sweet! I have the same model, and it’s the most enjoyable thing I own. I routinely give test drives and I love doing it.

Excellent choice. I’ve got a MS P100D and I love it, but if I was buying today it would be a hard choice with the P3D. The 3 is ligher, more nimble, and just more fun if you really get into it. The S has more space, has the hatch, and dual displays which for some is important. The fact that it’s significantly less expensive doesn’t hurt, either.

I've been absolutely swamped by real life lately, but I saw the hater Model 3 thread and realized I should check in here...

Was scheduled to pick up our 3 at the end of the Q3 rush. Called a couple days early because I hadn't heard confirmation that it was good, and they said that it arrive that day and I could head down! We couldn't, but could the next day. When we arrived, the car was on a remote lot and they apologized up and down that they would have to get it and prep it. Total time from arrival to leaving was about two hours, which I realized was about the same as when I got my previous car, but the whole time they were apologizing to us that they had left it on the remote lot.

On my way down, I started to have really huge second guesses. I used money I had saved for a DeLorean for 20 years as part of my down payment, and I realized that I would nit pick everything on this car because it could never live up to the theory of my love for a DeLorean that I would now not be getting. On top of that, while it was just a Sentra (that my three year old today said to someone we got rid of because "pieces kept falling off", which was more or less correct) was a car that I had really enjoyed and used for 11 years without any big issues until the end. I realized that the 3 had to live up both to a Sentra that I had been more than happy with for 11 years and was paid off, as well as a DeLorean that had become sort of the ultimate car in my mind.

I can honestly say that as I signed the paperwork, I realized that I was making what had to be the biggest mistake of my life.

Oh how wrong I was.

I can not find ONE thing to nit pick on this car. It feels like everything in it was built exactly for me. The only thing that doesn't work perfectly is the Bluetooth key thing, but I HATE carrying things in my pockets, so using the keycard which I keep in my wallet is to me still vastly better than the giant fob my Sentra had. Autopilot, which I was really leery about and felt sort of stupid for getting, is absolutely a game changer. Yes, you still have to pay attention to the road and I do, but I can tell it makes me a better driver because it can pay attention to directions I can't see while I drive. With my programming background, the difference between V8 and V9 is incredible even though the cars float around now on V9. For a while, I was averaging 100 miles per day of driving in it, and it is incredible how much easier and less stressful it is to do. I'm excited to try Navigate on Autopilot, which my car glitched on updating and service is repushing tomorrow (easiest service visit ever, by the way... call them and they go oh yeah, we see the problem, you'll have an update in the next 48 hours and if not we'll come to you and fix it...)

Oh, and I know this is sort of a weird thing, but I absolutely adore that the car has essentially no badging. Less is more to me.

I'm obviously preaching to the choir here, but damn. I thought I got it before, but now that I've had it for a while, I cannot imagine a car that fits me more than this.

I missed this one, but there is a fascinating answer... I apologize if this got covered elsewhere, as I need to sleep so I haven't ready about 9 pages as I write this... anyway...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/19/target-leads-the-way-as-u-s-corporations-look-to-go-big-on-solar.html

Companies with flat top stores are going all in on solar, and fast. What is fascinating about it is the reason those companies are doing it isn't because it's "green" in the environmental sense, but "green" in the money sense. Target, who owns 200 MW of generating capacity, doesn't really ever say that they do because for them, it's all about the savings from it!

I have a solar array on our house from 1886, and I think it looks fine. Wish we would cut down a tree that limits it's output, but haven't convinced the wife of that yet. The solar array at current payback rates will have paid itself off in 15 years, and will generate for the rest of my life. And that's if the stupid tree keeps living there. Without it, payoff time would have been half that or less.

Since our house is a duplex, we looked into what we could do to expense it and since I also own a business with a friend, we looked into it. We don't have a way to do it as those at the moment, but the company that I got to install told me that they only did residential houses that called them directly (which I had done) because they have so much commercial business now that they are pretty much booked solid. Due to accounting and discounts and whatnot, commercial solar has a return on investment of somewhere between 3-4 years. In freaking Wisconsin where I haven't seen the sun in what feels like a month.

Solar will continue to grow in the market and I expect to see it absolutely dominate the grid in the future. Storage will be solved by a combination of EV battery capacity with grid connections, rampable hydropower and battery backups.

As for how the grid will deal with both this and the increase of electric cars, two things are going on behind the scenes... my father in law is an electrician, and when we were setting up the power for our Leaf I asked him if we needed to expand power for the house. He said no - because of the massive increases in energy efficiency, most houses have FAR more power running to them than they use. Our house, which uses mainly electric baseboard heat and charges two electric cars (although the 3 is just on the slow charger) has had no issues without increasing capacity. He said LED bulbs was the biggest thing, and pointed out that charging the Leaf at 6.6kw can be absorbed just by replacing 75 or so 100 watt bulbs with their LED equivalents. If we hit 100% market penetration of EVs, it won't be absorbed quite as easily, but the grid was built for much more power than it is running now.

The second is that power companies are chomping at the bit to have an excuse to build this infrastructure. It turns out that paying the electric company to charge a car means that you are paying the electric company, and that's how they make money, so they want that money. They are going to have to upgrade infrastructure at some point or another anyway, as a lot of it was built a long time ago and doesn't make as much sense today, and when they do they will upgrade it to infrastructure that supports solar and wind anyway since that is already the cheapest generation you can get.

A lot of this is confusing because of the whole "sun don't always shine" thing that people who don't understand how the change is happening just think that their lights will turn off when the sun goes down, but that is all being solved. Recently, an Indiana power company did a study and found that the cheapest option for them is retiring all coal and going almost entirely with solar plus storage, plus a bit of wind (10% of solar / storage capacity), plus some demand triggers with a tiny bit of outside stuff. In fact, while they plan to phase out coal by 2028 entirely, the plan that would have cost the least would be phasing it out entirely by 2023, but they are a bit concerned with how the grid will hold up with a phase out that quickly.

People that just look at the topline think that it's uneconomical and that it can't change. It's surprising how quickly it is changing, and how little of the change has anything to do with regulations.

What else is interesting to think about, and to bring this back to Tesla, is that coal is still used significantly in power generation, but it's power has faded and faded fast. It happened when peak demand for coal was hit. With the electrification of transport starting to kick in, along with mileage improvements, we are far closer to peak oil demand than most people realize. Demand in the developed world has already peaked, and demand in the developing world is coming to an end quicker than anticipated. Two reports from last month highlight that, and here is a good article talking about it from just a few days ago:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Rapid-Acceleration-Towards-Peak-Oil-Demand.html

When peak coal demand was hit, the value of coal deposits plummeted, and tons of companies declared bankruptcy... all for a resource that is still in extensive use today, and one which is tougher to get off of because changing from a coal power plant to solar plus storage has basically just become possible in the past two years, and the timelines on other things take a long time to set up. When peak oil demand hits, and suddenly everyone is talking about how the future of oil is bleak, who is going to want to keep throwing money into buying new gas cars at that time? It's going to hit the market hard, and suddenly oil companies which have so much power today because they are so highly valued (it's something crazy like $25 trillion dollars of petroleum assets in the world) will suddenly be seen as the past like coal is, and their power will rapidly decline.

I'm happy to be out of the gas game, excepting one snow blower...

I don't own a tesla, nor do I know when I'll afford one.. but I did go all electric landscaping last year. Greenworks electric mower, greenworks electric hedgeclipper, Echo electric Trimmer, AC Corded snowblower off amazon (I have a small driveway). I now have a 2 gallon gas tank sitting in my garage I need to get rid of because nothing uses it.

Just earlier this week, I walked into a Target to get some kid shampoo and walked out with a clearance Greenworks mover for $70. I feel sort of goofy since I bought a gas mower for here about three years ago now, but it seems to always start hard so...

And seriously, if you're interested in electric, look at a used Leaf. Their prices have gone up since I bought mine, probably since people are catching on they are an incredible deal (I could sell mine today for more than I bought it for!), but as I've said to some of my friends who have asked, I think the Leaf is half the car that the Model 3 is, but for a quarter the price making it probably the best deal in cars right now.

It does have to be used as a second vehicle and not a first, but it's still a great deal if you need a second car in the family. I know of three people now that have bought them after seeing ours, and a fourth that is currently planning on buying by the end of this year.

On my way back to work from lunch yesterday there was a huge backup. It's the city, it's not really uncommon, waited it out. It was nice being in the 3, we could see on the map exactly how backed up the street was.

As we near the flashing lights and pass the incident, it was just 1 car, a DeLorean, with both doors open broken down in the middle of the road.

No real point here, just found the timing funny.

Second that. You can get them insanely cheap used - there's one in my area for $5k on craigslist right now.

they seem to be cheaper in portland, maybe because there's more of them out there. But yea, used leafs are pretty cheap compared to what they are new. Still pounding on my gas car, might consider a used leaf when it's been beaten into the ground.

semi-trucks being road tested. Has an eerie motor whine, and nothing else.

My 3's name is "DMC3" No real point either, but hey.

Wow, you should ship them up here. I have another friend looking (sold three after mine that I know of so far, the local Nissan dealership literally texts me every so often with updates to their inventory) and prices are now significantly higher than when I bought. You do sort of need the SV / SL up here due to the air pump in winter saving battery life, but I could trade in our Leaf right now for $2,000 more than I paid for it. That's crazy. At $5k, it's a hell of a deal.

Unless it's a 2011/12. The batteries in those are garbage and Nissan refuses to work on some of them because of a weird lawsuit they had, so they should be avoided like the plague.

Yeah it's a 2011. Didn't know there were such issues with the 11/12 models. '13s seem to be around 9-10k

Oh, reread this and realized I should add, it's also worth checking out what the new ones have in the way of rebates. I think Nissan works with electric companies to help push them, but the local Nissan dealership texted me today that on top of the $7500 rebate from the government, there is now a $3,000 electric company rebate in the Milwaukee area. That would make the new baseline model cost only about $18,500, which is pretty incredible (and part of how the used ones show up so darn cheap!)

The chemistry in the 11/12 models degrades super quickly. A bunch of owners sued Nissan over it, and Nissan made a deal that if they were part of the lawsuit, they would replace the batteries for a longer period, which I think has all but run out but I'm not sure.

Regardless, the bigger problem is that a number of people opted out of that lawsuit for some reason. If they did, Nissan refuses to work on the car or replace the battery even if it is dead, or at least they used to. And, Nissan doesn't disclose that for some reason easily, so it's possible to pick up a 2011 with 30 miles of range and Nissan refuses to help you.

Nissan supposedly changed the chemistry in the batteries into a "Lizard" battery in the 2015 model year, although starting in 2013 the cars seemed to have a lot less issues with their batteries. Knock on wood, our 2013 battery with 63,000 some odd miles on it now has just lost it's first (of twelve) capacity bars.

The 2013 car can set the charge rate to 80%, while all the other models can't. Supposedly, this helps the 2013 model last longer, although we have set ours to 80% like four days in the 21 months we've owned it.

Here's hoping your battery holds up better @goatdan. It's disappointing that the battery life is so much different between at least some of the Nissan models and Tesla.

How much is a new battery pack for a Leaf, anyway?

Good to know, but you're just saying they won't warranty it right? If you found a cheap 2011 with a crappy battery, you could still pay $5,500 plus installation for a new battery right?

Without a going too far into the weeds on it, Nissan chose to charge the Leaf essentially like a phone, so it's not surprising the batteries degrade badly, although those originals were SO MUCH worse. Tesla really looked at their battery tech and added the thermal management stuff, and they also seem to build in a buffer so you're never actually charging to 100%. They've said the 3 has a 75 kwh battery, and according to an average of 240 or so watt hours per mile, that would bring me almost perfectly to 310 miles... and 240 watt hours is about what it gets.

But, the EPA reported that the actual battery on board a LR 3 is about 80.5 kwh. A vendor stated it was actually 78 kwh. If so, somewhere between 4-7% of the battery is never charged, meaning a much longer life.

Nissan had to let it charge fully because if that's like knocking another 6 or so miles off it, but it sucks for longevity, or at least did originally. Speaking of cost...

From what I understand, they won't warranty it OR work on it. They won't touch it. And since they are the only source for new batteries, you're SOL.

As for actual cost, it used to be $5500. They opened a reconditioning factory last year that has brought the cost down to about $2850. When I bought mine, I said that if the battery ever goes bad, by the time I would replace it they would probably have one that could go twice as far for the $5500, or it would be way cheaper. The refurbishing this is way cheaper.

The new Nissan Leaf in the exact same form factor as the original fits a 40kwh battery in the same space as my 24kwh battery. Unfortunately, you can't currently wire one into the other, but if Nissan doesn't start doing it, once enough of these start needing replacements, some third party will make it happen if Nissan doesn't.

We found our Leaf has saved us almost exactly 10 cents a mile to drive over the car that it replaced. If I was to buy a refurbished battery, we would need to put 28,500 miles on it to make that "break even." The car has gone 18,000 or so miles so far, and had almost no degradation.

And, with the complete lack of maintenance (one service appointment in the year for a blown sensor, like $150) and convenience of NEVER having to get gas, well... Well worth it.

it's amazing how some companies don't know how lithium-ion works. Even with AGM cells (I used to work for schumacher electric) you want to not only vary the voltage as you charge, but you want to constantly monitor the voltage to get a good estimate of when the battery is truly full.

I think that's why we're seeing a lot of really cheap 11/12 leafs. The owners know eventually the battery is going to die without a replacement option, or the range will be so terrible it's hardly worth owning. But like you said, eventually someone is bound to make an aftermarket battery, and I believe you can build a BMS system into the pack itself so even if your charging system is dumb it manages the power coming in to prolong the life.

Found this thread that confirms at least a 30kwh battery can be retrofitted into an older leaf, but it's a rare case that a dealer is willing to do it
https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/battery-upgrade-for-old-leafs.532/

"There is youtube channel where a 2012 Leaf battery went bad and just barely got replaced under warranty. The new range was over 120 miles so it looked like a 30 kWr had been put into the car. Comments suggested that the battery management system in the battery pack was changed some how to work with the older car. The car didn't know the difference. It's all in the battery case"

found this video interesting. While not recommended, this guy had someone tow him to see how much the regenerative braking would recharge his battery. It's very likely that Tesla's estimating software is off (14 miles of charge to 1 mile of towing sounds too good to be true considering regen braking is like 70% efficient).

If the 3 is being towed, it's not regenerating based on motion, and it's making whatever is towing it do more work to move it as the resistance is significantly higher. While I'm guessing 14 isn't right (it's essentially thinking it can go infinitely by being towed), unless you are using another Model 3 to tow and comparing the energy loss / gain, I'm not sure it's ultimately useful.

Tesla confirms CCS charging will be available on their cars:
https://electrek.co/2018/11/14/tesla-model-3-ccs-2-plug-europe-adapter-model-s-model-x/

Once again Tesla runs circles around the competition. Years ago Tesla offered to let other automakers use their charger standard /and/ their superchargers. Of course, the short-sighted automakers declined. They decided they would show Tesla up and build their own network (which doesn't exist yet).

However, sensing the time is right, Tesla introduces CCS compatibility. So now Tesla can say their cars will work on the new CCS networks /and/ their own Tesla-only network. The losers here, yet again, are the dinosaur automakers.

Got my Model S P100D on Saturday.

It's fantastic!!! Love it.

And... Oh....

It's STUPID Fast... Unreal.

Scary almost....

Wow!!

Congrats. I’ll never go back.

Congrats! Love my S P100D. Can't wait for a pick-up to be available.