Article: It's becoming increasingly clear Tesla is just another car company -- agree / disagree?

[jerhenderson]

The paranoid and the fan boys have awaken, blaming the MSM and everyone else but Musk when the market is now seeing Tesla unable to flex it's muscle in tech, battery and it's massive data base.















The fact is that Tesla is unable to monetize it's global driving data base. That Tesla was unable to give as much focus and it's strengthen it's proximate categories, solar, battery (mega) packs and offerings to market it for commercial and industrial applications. And then of course FSD, to the point that there are states that may soon sue them for mis-repres

entation or

The company with a higher profit margin than other auto manufacturers was less able to monetize?



-Crissa

no one said that he knew what he was regurgitating Crissa. I just feel pity for him

 

[Ogre]

In all, the poor quality of non-Tesla charging infra, does not affect me one bit.

It definitely doesn’t affect everyone. For a while GM and a lot of legacy auto companies tried pushing EVs as city cars and argued that range and fast charging weren’t really important for many people. There are definitely people where that works. But even if you don’t road trip all the time, if you just do one road trip a year and it’s a pain in the ass, that’s going to leave a really bad impression and make you gun shy about doing more road trips.

 

[Sirfun]

It’s clearly a huge weakness of any non-Tesla BEV platform, for certain (large?) swaths of drivers with material daily commutes, regular long distance driving habits, single car families, etc.

I’m curious though about the extent of that weakness for other types of drivers/use cases, and then again for the evolution over the next 5-10 years.

Take me for example: I only drive ~7,000 miles a year, make >300mi trips by road maybe once a year, and >90% of my driving is around town. I’ve owned the Lightning 6 months, and used “charge network” infrastructure twice: once on the way to the beach, and once on the return. What’s more: while we elected to not take my wife’s ICE vehicle on that longer trips (precisely because we weren’t anxious about range/infra), we could have. In all, the poor quality of non-Tesla charging infra, does not affect me one bit.

People in cities, people with two vehicles, people with immaterial commutes, etc., etc., seem all to be users for whom the grander interstate charging networks are not such a pinch point. Seems possible that’s a large set?

And what happens to the size of that set over the next 5-10 years if:

• possibly more people fall into adjusted driving habits (as transportation patterns evolve)
• people continue to be two-car families, with an ICE in mix for close cases
• battery tech continues providing greater and greater range
• non-Tesla charging infra improves (somewhat?)

It seems completely possible that in the next 5 years we see Tesla vehicles with 600mi range - in which case, doesn’t a lot of that Tesla charging infra become increasingly vestigial?

There was information at the Semi delivery event in Dec. that Tesla has some changes up their sleeve for charging. If you can charge 200+ miles of range in 10–15 minutes you don't need those heavy expensive batteries. The major difference with ICE vs. EV is you don't need to pay big bucks and haul that extra weight around for additional range unless you fill up the tank with ICE. With an EV you pay up front for the battery, and you're stuck with hauling all that weight the whole time you have the vehicle. Very few people will need more than 300 miles of range.

 

[cvalue13]

If you can charge 200+ miles of range in 10–15 minutes you don't need those heavy expensive batteries.

great point.

 

[SpaceYooper]

It is impressive and a nice improvement, but 15 minutes of charging time for 200+ miles of range is still significantly less convenient then gassing up. I can put 510 miles of range into my truck in about 3 minutes. I timed it a couple weeks ago.

I get it that most of the time EVs will be charged at home when possible. But 15 or more minutes of waiting is still going to suck when I have to charge on the road. Especially if it's not a road trip but if I just have to stop to charge up for whatever reason.

EVs should start advertising how much range can be added in <5 minutes so gas consumers can make some more direct comparisons and balance the pros and cons of those things that can be directly compared and those that can't.

I've heard quit a bit about how the charging slows down as the battery reaches a full charge. But I don't know much about the ramp up time when the EV is first plugged in. Can I expect to get 70 miles of range in <5 minutes? I think that would be an impressive claim. Or due to ramp up time is it more like 15 miles? I think that sucks. Since most people don't commute more then 30 miles a day, anything around 50 miles in <5 minutes might help people convert.

 

[cvalue13]

EVs should start advertising how much range can be added in <5 minutes so gas consumers can make some more direct comparisons and balance the pros and cons of those things that can be directly compared and those that can't.

the reason that isn’t happening, is because it would be based on a premise these companies rightfully don’t share: namely, that it matters whether “filling up” takes >5mins.

Let me preface by saying the Lightning is my first BEV, and I’m by no means either an unbridled BEV fan-boy, nor an uncompromising anti-ICE guy. Which is all to say, I like to think I come at this from a fairly even-biased point of view. And after 6 months of ownership, on the topic of charge times, I can assure you that your instincts are off.

I haven’t been to a gas station in 6 months. Set aside the “3 minutes” to fill up, there’s the making a trip to get to the station, there’s the going in for a drink, and there’s just the entire time-suck around thinking of fuel that is now gone. I get home, step out of my truck, insert plug into receptacle.

As for road trips/charging on infrastructure, two things:

First, all the data shows that people stopping at roadside fueling stations spend something like 10-20 minutes on average. Regardless of the time to fuel proper, there’s the going in for bathroom, snacks, etc.

Second, with an EV you simply think/plan differently. Here’s an example: on my long road trip to the beach, with our ICE vehicle we historically would have gone grocery shopping before we departed (1hr), and made ~one gas station stop for snacks/bathroom, etc. (20 minutes). With the Lightning, we instead did our grocery shopping at the location of charge, which doubled as bathroom/snack break. The charging we needed was done long before the grocery shopping time needed.

Net result: with just a different approach to sequence/planning, “charging for an hour” took us less time (at least 20min) than had we done normal ICE vehicle planning.

Moving to an EV simply requires a shifting of strategies that is no more or less cumbersome that was the shift from not having GPS to now having it.

Not suggesting their aren’t trade-offs, instead only pointing out that they can be over/under estimated, and also can result from incorrect assumptions about retaining old strategies.

 

[Ogre]

It is impressive and a nice improvement, but 15 minutes of charging time for 200+ miles of range is still significantly less convenient then gassing up. I can put 510 miles of range into my truck in about 3 minutes. I timed it a couple weeks ago.

I added 300 miles of range in 3 seconds when I got home last night.

When I road trip my stops usually take about the same amount of time. It takes 3 seconds to plug in the car, then I have to take a leak. Go find a bathroom, often grab some food, then return to the car. I might wait 5 minutes, often I just go.


By contrast, when you are pumping gas, you spend 3+ minutes waiting for the pump doing the transaction, park the car (unless you are that guy who leaves his car blocking a space while he goes and does something else), then you go pee, and find food.


Details vary, but the idea that you save massive amounts of time charging a Tesla on road trips is largely a myth at this point. CCS vehicles its a giant crap shoot, but with Superchargers, you rarely wait much at all once you are done with the biological things required every 3 hours on a road trip.

 

[SpaceYooper]

...I can assure you that your instincts are off.

I appreciate your take, but I missed where my instinct is off?

At some point, for some reason, I will have to stop for charging just while running errands or taking clients around town. That doesn't mean I need snacks, or a bathroom break. Other then road trips I could not tell you the last time I used a gas station for anything other then gas...period. So when I do need that quick charge up, I'm going to annoyed if I don't get some level of useful charge in the time it previously took me to fill my tank.

I'm not saying it's a big deal. But I'm pointing out the way EV makers talk about the range that can be added in 15 minutes or 30 minutes, and I don't care about that. I care, how much acn be added in <5 minutes because most all other times it will be charging at home when time is of little concern.

If you tell me I can get 2 trucks that are otherwise the same, but truck 1 can give me 70 miles of range in <5 minute of charge time, but it takes 4 hrs to give me 500 miles; and truck 2 can give me 15 miles of range in <5 minutes, but can fully charge to 500 miles in just 2 hrs. I'm taking truck #1.

I don't really care what kind of range I can get in times spans that are between 5 minutes and several hours, because those are not the time-frames I'll be charging in.

Again, not a huge deal, just making a point about what I think they should be telling us verses what they do tell us.

 

[NJturtlePower]

https://electrek.co/2023/01/17/tesla-tsla-unprecedented-demand-stores-hitting-new-records/

 

[SpaceYooper]

By contrast, when you are pumping gas, you spend 3+ minutes waiting for the pump doing the transaction, park the car (unless you are that guy who leaves his car blocking a space while he goes and does something else), then you go pee, and find food.

No I don't. I do none of those things. Gas and go. Got $#&! to do. Total time stopped was under 4 minutes. Time pumping was under 3. I operate this required/antiquated task like a pit stop. Moseying inside a gas station for snacks or a mid day bathroom break is a completely foreign concept to me.

I will be bothered if/when I have to get a charge in town if takes me more then 5 minutes to get useful range added. I suppose I can call my wife and let her know how bored I am during that time. She always appreciates hearing from me during the day.

 

[Ogre]

No I don't. I do none of those things. Gas and go. Got $#&! to do. Total time stopped was under 4 minutes. Time pumping was under 3. I operate this required/antiquated task like a pit stop. Moseying inside a gas station for snacks or a mid day bathroom break is a completely foreign concept to me.

I will be bothered if/when I have to get a charge in town if takes me more then 5 minutes to get useful range added. I suppose I can call my wife and let her know how bored I am during that time. She always appreciates hearing from me during the day.

I “got stuff to do”, also. It’s why I love that I never have to worry if my car has gas when I leave the house or when I’m coming home from a trip. 90%+ of gas stops are just gone.

I’m not sure how you are able to burn 500 miles of gas and add another 500 miles without a single bathroom break, but it’s impressive.

 

[Arctic_White]

I agree mostly.

But what happens if everyone goes bankrupt before they figure out how to scale up EV production profitably?

Imagine for a moment that getting EV production right actually takes 10+ years of planning an execution at scale (that’s what Tesla has invested to get to this point). Most of these companies didn’t even start seriously until 2020. Ford’s first serious EV was the Mach E released in 2021.

VW and Kia have been struggling to sell EVs profitably and they’ve both committed to an EV future a few years back.

You're not giving other manufacturers enough credit.

Now I agree that many big names legacy auto WILL fail. But there will be a few remaining, for leftover scraps.

Tesla cannot possibly build 80M+ cars per year. We need others to pick up the scraps. To that end, I hope enough automakers survive as the future is clearly EVs and the future is now here.

 

[Ogre]

You're not giving other manufacturers enough credit.

Now I agree that many big names legacy auto WILL fail. But there will be a few remaining, for leftover scraps.

Tesla cannot possibly build 80M+ cars per year. We need others to pick up the scraps. To that end, I hope enough automakers survive as the future is clearly EVs and the future is now here.

Consider for a moment, most of these companies are burdened with tens or hundreds of billions in debt for equipment and assets which are rapidly becoming worthless.

When you hear about Jeep shuttering an assembly line (just happened recently), that’s $50-100 million worth of resources which have been idled possibly permanently. There is debt associated with that property which is now worth pennies on the dollar because it needs another $100 million or more to make it productive again.

Now multiply this problem by a dozen or more factories for each of these companies. Billions in assets which will be written off in the next 5-10 years. Billions more they need to invest to bring those factories back online as EV factories. They need to do this while their sales are declining and their cost of debt is increasing as debt servicing becomes a larger and larger portion of their expenses.

I’m sure governments will be eager to help these guys out, but it’s not going to be a simple $10 billion bailout, these companies are turning into giant cash furnaces.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some survive. But I could also see a future where the auto market is dominated by a whole new set of names. Or the same names but new owners.

 

[Bill906]

At some point, for some reason, I will have to stop for charging just while running errands or taking clients around town.

Most people with EV's plug their cars in every night, so each day they start with a 80-100% SOC. Assuming an EV with 300 miles range at 80% charge is 240 miles, do you you expect to put on more than 240 miles in a day running errands? I'm seriously asking, I don't know. I asked a realtor friend of mine who's territory is pretty large, what's the most miles he puts on in a typical day. He said a really bad day might be in the low 300 miles. He also said other agents in his office have Teslas and they almost always go all day without charging.

 

[Ogre]

Other then road trips I could not tell you

If you aren’t on a road trip, the Tesla doesn’t need to be recharged.

So you are comparing 3 minutes to zero minutes here and coming to the conclusion that 3 minutes is better.