You will note 2/3 of EVs are sold where consumers have access to $10k EVs.
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Yes, rising oil prices make EVs look more attractive. How to play it? Will Tesla prosper vs BYD?
Stellantis plans to sell Chinese EVs in Europe could be a big deal. Some say luxury vehicles will be OK but manufacturing middle class cars in Europe will be a challenge.
Someone just bought a Lincoln and was surprised to find it was made in China.
US auto industry may survive but it likely to be dependent on tariffs. They need $80K vehicles. Many cannot afford them. Then what? 15 year auto loans?
Stellanis plans to develop under $30K vehicles looks like a winner. They must be small and light weight but if they are well done they may be the future.
We still have those who need 9 passenger vans to have room for the kids and the pets. Are those $80K people. Can someone do one of those for under $40?
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Perhaps better mass transit in cities and ICE junkers used in rural areas with high speed rail connecting cities. Sure a couple trillion dollars. But the government found it for foreign interventions.
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Urban spread remains a problem for US cities. We rarely redevelop declining residential areas in cities. We prefer to move to the green edges where costs are lower. But that makes mass transit difficult and costly. Must have car. How do we encourage redevelopment in the inner city?
We can’t.
Oh, I mean - we can “encourage” residential development in the inner city, and many urban areas have seen higher-income folks deciding to live in urban cores. But for the most part, living in the urban core comes with tradeoffs that many (most?) Americans find unpalatable: significantly smaller units and little to no private recreational space (ie. backyards).
The main reason Americans find those tradeoffs unpalatable is because unlike many other countries, we have ample housing stock with those features that is accessible to most of the jobs in a metro by car. There are a few exceptions, particularly in very densely populated cities that were built primarily before cars (New York City, obviously, and a handful of others). But most of our cities have plenty of single-family detached housing options, which make it very difficult to persuade large numbers of people to instead live in smaller apartments.
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Some how they manage to keep people in the city in Europe. How do they do that? And then you can have efficient public transportation. Buses, street cars, etc.
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By not having ample stocks of large single-family detached housing within commuting distance by car from employment centers. Assisted by very high gas prices, demographic concentration of most of the nation’s population in a single metro area, and short distances between metro areas creating a historic dependence on rail transportation that was able to persist despite the development of the automobile. Combined with very high national overall population density, which contributes again to all of the foregoing.
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Have any of you tesla drivers tabulated what the cost per mile is for your EV driving. For my gas guzzling truck the cost per mile for gas is currently $0.26 using cost per gallon divided by MPG. For electric it would be cost per KWH divided by miles per KWH based on what AI is telling me. I don’t think we see a lot of real world pricing. I know there is a cost for home charging and it is lower than using chargers or superchargers. Thanks…doc
Wrong question. See below.
One way to limit spread is to live in a smaller continent.
One way to limit car ownership is with better mass transit.
The one thing none have mentioned are robotaxis. A lot cheaper than ride hailing. Better service than busses. And no government money needed. About BYD vs. Tesla, as far as I know BYD is not targeting robotaxis.
Elon thinks outside the box because no box seems to be big enough to hold Elon.
Tesla’s 35,000 Sq Ft Mega-Hub Is HERE: The 7-City Cybercab Takeover Begins!
Think of it this way, personal transportation at mass transit prices.
The Captain
I hadn’t but I just did an approximation using data from the Tesla app.
Total spent on charging: $3,039. Total miles driven: 33,974. Which comes to about 9 cents ($0.09) per mile. That is 71% home charging, 24% Superchargers. The dollars spent on charging is accurate. The dollars for home is an estimate, but not too far off.
(Since my Tesla solar system produces a lot more than I use, what I “spend” on charging is actually how much less I exported, and didn’t get refunded. Real $ in the end.)
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We don’t yet know whether they will be cheaper than ride hailing, once they get past the initial roll-out stage where prices are more market testing than actual indicators of what the costs of the product are.
The hope is that they will be significantly cheaper than ride hailing. But even though they lose the cost of the driver, they pick up the cost of a lot of what the driver does: keep the car clean, retrieve lost items, close the doors or trunk when left ajar, and perhaps most importantly be a person present in the car to inhibit passenger misbehavior. Worse, they pick up the capital costs of the driving. Instead of the vehicle being the use of sunk capital that would otherwise sit idle (and thus have zero marginal capital cost), a robotaxi fleet has to be paid for by the operating company - and pay for places for these cars to spend the overnight and get charged and cleaned.
And, of course, there remains the $64,000 question - how many operators will be required in the support network to keep robotaxis going?
It’s still an open question whether robotaxis will be materially cheaper than ride hailing, if cheaper at all.
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1poorkid has a friend who used to work at a company downtown that had free chargers in the parking garage. That was a significant inducement to buy and use EVs.
The other factor is charging time. Often people complain about a $50K EV, and then buy a $70K SUV that gets 14mpg. It’s not a false problem, but I think it is something of an excuse in many instances. The other complaint is charging times. Based on postings here recently, it seems China is offering a battery that can charge in less than 10 minutes. As opposed to the ~35 minutes it takes to charge mine (on a high-speed charger). I think that complaint is a bit more legitimate. However, if you only use the vehicle for commuting, and your employer has free chargers, then it doesn’t matter anyway (i.e. charging time).
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Please exclude me from your “We.” Of course no one knows the future for certain but if everything required certainty we would still live in caves.
Highlighting the word “hope” is a clear indication that the author speaks not as a businessman.
Like I said above, no one knows the future for certain. Going by the known track record, I would say that no one has yet built a box big enough to stop Musk from thinking outside it. “Venture not, gain not.”
GoogleAI:
“Venture not, gain not” is a slight variation of the timeless proverb “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” It means you will never achieve anything or make progress if you refuse to take risks or step out of your comfort zone. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The principle appears throughout history and applies to many areas of life: [1, 2]
Origins: The exact phrase was popularized in John Heywood’s 1546 collection of English proverbs, but variations can be traced as far back as Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in the 14th century. [1, 2]
Career & Business: Pursuing a promotion, switching to a new career, or launching a business requires exposing yourself to the possibility of failure in exchange for the chance to succeed. [1, 2, 3]
Relationships & Growth: Putting yourself out there—whether by asking someone on a date or moving to a new country—is the only way to open doors to meaningful experiences. [1, 2]
Personal Philosophy: Remaining safely in your comfort zone guarantees stagnation; taking calculated, deliberate risks is the catalyst for personal and financial development.
The Captain
You left out “by not having the largest automobile companies buy up and dismantle urban mass transit”, aka “the great corporate streetcar conspiracy.”
Through a consortium called National City Lines—backed by General Motors (GM), Firestone, and Standard Oil—they bought up and dismantled over 40 electric streetcar systems across major U.S. cities, converting them into less convenient bus routes to force car dependency.
These busses were then less reliable, less frequent, did not operate on such strict schedules - particularly in poor weather - which pushed people to purchase their own, more reliable transportation: the personal automobile.
No such events or conspiracies were ever alleged or discovered in Europe, where different regulatory and cultural norms prevented such shenanigans.
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Hey, man - it’s a casual conversation on a message board. It’s easier to write “hope” than “optimistic anticipated earnings case in long-term business plan.”
The point still stands - in order for robotaxis to materially affect how the urban form is designed, it will need to be pretty cheap. There was a similar hope on the part of urban planners and transportation professionals back when the new technology of “rideshare” was taking off. Planners and transit folks once were optimistic that rideshare might increase urban density and have a positive effect on transit systems.
In those early days, rides were relatively cheap (they were still being ‘subsidized’ by venture capital in an effort to grab market share), and the main rideshare companies were heavily exploring “pool” concepts of actually sharing rides. Planners and transit folks thought that with the lower cost and higher passenger density of those systems, they could be a complement to transit - and indeed serve as part of a transit system. But once fares rose to match the cost structure of the service, and the pool programs didn’t pan out, that went by the wayside.
The same will be true of robotaxis, unless their costs are a lot less than rideshare. And since there are considerable costs that robotaxi fleets have to cover that rideshares don’t, that might not happen. Yes, they reduce one big cost of a rideshare - the driver’s compensation for driving. But it’s not eliminated, as some of the labor gets shifted to the support network). And a robotaxi fleet has to cover the capital costs that don’t exist for a rideshare service that relies on unutilized “sunk” capital costs and the surplus capacity of already-existing cars and driveways. Those costs may end up being more than the labor savings, especially if a large support network is required.
Well, yeah - because that’s an urban legend. You’re referring to the streetcar conspiracy, but automaker purchases weren’t what caused streetcars to go under:
General Motors streetcar conspiracy - Wikipedia
…most strongly shown by the fact that they only participated in about 10% of urban markets, but streetcars were phased out just as readily in the other 90%.
Streetcars just stopped being a competitive transit technology after automobiles were developed - and particularly the bus. Streetcars are low capacity and low-speed compared to heavy rail and subway systems, because they have roadway conflicts with other surface transportation modes (which conflicts increased exponentially once cars were heavily adopted). But they are more expensive and less flexible than busses - which have the same conflict issues, but are cheaper to operate and can be adjusted more easily to match demand patterns. That’s why bus and heavy rail/subway modes predominate in transit systems all over the world, and you don’t see very many systems where streetcars or trams are primary modes. Sure, there are a few outliers - but for the most part, it’s actual trains and subways that are used for fixed rail systems and busses for the rest.
Affordability for sure but also Convenience and Compliance sure help.
Tesla LAUNCHES 491 Wall Chargers in 4 Weeks: The $0.03 Secret
This Tesla product is aimed at top class multifamily residences where the property owners pay for the hardware. ChargePoint is aiming and the next level of multifamily residences. Range anxiety is fading!
The Captain
What I find curious is how unknown future expenses power the “hope” but known cost savings are ignored. It was quite a while before this thread started that Tesla finally achieved dry anodes and cathodes for the 4680 home made battery cell. The dry process not only saves money making EVs more affordable but also helps save the planet by using much less water and electric power and less toxic chemicals. I guess good news is not news.
Tesla’s $235M Dry Cathode Patent SHOCKS CATL: 8-Year Battery War Over!
The Captain
As an aside, I am sure those videos you post are informative, but my personal bias against the terrible AI used to create a horrendous image of Musk is keeping me away.
Seriously, why would anyone that supports Tesla/Musk use such a terrible fake image of him? Looks like he has bags under his bags.
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Beats me! I’m not even sure this uTuber supports Tesla/Musk. Maybe he is just making a living. Making uTube content seems to be quite a profitable way to make a living without getting a job and a boss. There are at least half a dozen TeslaBull uTubers who I avoid because they just repeat themselves again and again.
My main interest in Tesla is as an investment. I also happen to like cars, technology, and people who rise from rags to riches, not because these are nice people but because they are successful. And I dislike people trying to destroy businesses for political reasons. Nothing succeeds like success. The Tesla success story has been spectacular.
The Captain
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Well, we were talking about robotaxis - not Teslas. There’s lots of different cars that may end up being used for robotaxis, so looking at operational costs is a more manageable discussion.
But are those batteries going to significantly change Teslas cost structure? How much will they reduce the cost of a battery pack for their cars?