Tesla Motors

Will they thrive or sink in the next decade?

http://jalopnik.com/aaa-raises-insurance-rates-on-tesla-vehicles-1795814904

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iyRMgx7LNWNY/v1/-1x-1.png

Comes down to how long investors are willing to put up with the cash burn.

I think they are gonig to short circuit and everyone will be driving a chevy volt instead.

UNLESS they can be the APPLE of cars and people will pay a premium just to have the cool tech?

Buying a house, will need a new roof in a year or two. Should I fuck with this Tesla Solar Roof thingy?

main reasons to do so would be to potentially save money compared to a traditional roof+solar install or if you don't like the look of a trad setup. I'd be wary of buying any tesla product. Also wonder if you can't get a deal on trad solar by negotiating roof and solar through a single place. So I guess fuck with it only if you refuse to fuck with anything else?

Hmm. Tesla car owners I know (more recent models) seem pretty happy? But there is that whole Elon Musk chimeric buffoon factor that gives me pause about an early model of anything they make.

"I'd be wary of buying any tesla product" because of Musk or because of the erratic state of the company? despite their sometimes weird stock performance I kind of doubt they are ever going out of business. but what do I know.

speaking as someone who worked in residential solar for 8 years, afaict those shingles are essentially vaporware. go with real solar panels and a Solar Edge inverter, the tax break expires in 2022 I believe.

what's an inverter do?

the Tesla battery does exist, even if the roofing stuff doesn't; I think other people make those batteries too. i'm likely to get solar on my house in the next year or so and will probably try to add one of those in, which would enable my house to have power even in a blackout, which would be helpful, I guess.

Vaporware is an odd claim to make about a product that has already been on the market over a year.

Why would you want to give Elon Musk a dime unless it had cyanide all over it and you placed it in his mouth like a communion wafer?

Not sure why it’s any worse than giving virtually any other large corporation money tbh other than his terrible personality.

xxp

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/5-reasons-to-not-get-too-excited-about-teslas-new-solar-roof

inverters are the part of your solar that converts the DC from the panels into AC fed back to the grid. Solar Edge inverters allow for future expansion and can accommodate LG Chem lithium batteries that are a way better bet then the Teslas.

The company is a fraud and a scam in nearly every regard, as someone who works in an adjacent industry I cannot overstate my disdain.

For further details see the Elon Musk thread, he should be {redacted by poster}

speaking as someone who worked in residential solar for 8 years, afaict those shingles are essentially vaporware. go with real solar panels and a Solar Edge inverter, the tax break expires in 2022 I believe.

― sleeve, Monday, 17 August 2020 7:26 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Would agree 100% with this. All solar roofs like the Tesla one end up being crap roofs and crap solar panels.

SolarEdge is very good to their tech is only really necessary if your roof gets shading. Not shading get something reliable, cheap and Chinese for you inverter, Sungrow would be a good pick imo.

Tesla powereall battery is pretty good all around. However the economics of batteries aren’t great, do it for maximum self sufficiency rather than because it will pay back in any reasonable fashion.

A much better battery, however, for solar is a car. Not sure what the economics would be in your locale, the best you can do with a kWh is the delta between the feed in tariff a utility will give you and the peak cost of buying It back from them. This dropped to around 12c in Melbourne pre pandemic and the pre pandemic value of a kWh in petrol terms was 50-60c.

Actually, one great argument for a solaredge inverter is they make one with an integrated car charger that will put all your excess solar in the car.

Of course the car thing only works if your car is at home when the sun shines.

Ed otm, yeah that direct DC car charging from the inverter is an excellent add-on feature to Solar Edge

if you have no shade, SMA offers these cool inverters with a daytime AC bypass so you have limited (15 amp) power during the day if there is an outage. my parents are very happy with theirs.

NB, SolarEdge is what I have specced for my roof, but I have a lot of challenging shading and have to do an east west split so it seemed like the best option.

Nice bit of research from UniSA on why an east west split might be better from a self consumption point of view, swap south for north depending on your hemisphere.

https://www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/2020/maximising-solar-self-consumption-by-rethinking-pv-panel-orientation/?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news

helpful, thx.

I do have to replace the roof on the new house within a year or two, which is why the idea of the solar roof appealed to me.

I more want a battery as an alternative to one of those awful gas-powered generators -- they seem like they are becoming a necessity in the area as multi-day power outages are common in major storms or snowstorms.

you can actually roll part of the re-roofing cost into the tax credit, iirc it is literally whatever % of the roof is covered with solar and u get 22% that cost back:

https://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/detail/1235

you can actually roll part of the re-roofing cost into the tax credit, iirc it is literally whatever % of the roof is covered with solar and u get 22% that cost back:

https://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/detail/1235

damn Zing, sorry

Challenge with major storms or snowstorms is they may either wreck your roof (less likely), cover your panels in snow or it could be cloudy, with short days In winter which will reduce your output. Which means there will be less charge in the battery to run on and less opportunity to recharge.

Depends where you are and you can always emergency charge the battery and stop it from discharging if a storm is forecast.

One of the selling points if electric cars in japan is most of them come with a standard AC outlet. This is marketed as a disaster preparedness function. Last year when I was in japan during typhoon season all of the disaster preparation TV shows (and there are a lot) were spruiking this as a reason to buy an electric car. Just run a cable back into the house and plug in the fridge and rice cooker and your set for a couple of days. Only a couple of kW but it keeps things going.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/elon-musk-tells-twitter-staff-he-sold-tesla-stock-to-save-twitter.html

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-recalls-defects/tesla-model-s-model-x-recall-power-steering-problem-a4893117329/


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pic.twitter.com/TWpzHw8iRT

— David Moss (@RedEviction) November 28, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBBtt72aJLA

Tesla self-driving vs everyday roads in New Jersey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nF0K2nJ7N8

I've watched about three minutes so far, and it's so stressful.

It's like every 30 seconds or so it either does or threatens to do something unsafe, or does something unexpected, like put on the brakes or signal, "for some reason."

yeah that was my main takeaway - so much more stressful than just driving the car yourself

It's like driving with a 15-year old behind the wheel.

Saw my first broken-down Tesla on the side of the road yesterday. Not that I haven't seen tons of other vehicles on the roadside (and even been one earlier this month in my 2007 Ford R.I.P.). But it just felt like a sign of the times.

Tesla mobile Supercharger with Megapack caught on fire

https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/01/Tesla-Mobile-Supercharger-.jpg

A Tesla Megapack used on a mobile Supercharger caught on fire and completely burned down in Baker, California.

We previously reported on this contraption that Tesla sometimes brings to busy Supercharger stations.

It’s a trailer fitted with a Megapack, Tesla’s biggest stationary energy storage system, and a bunch of Superchargers.

The result is a mobile Supercharger station that Tesla can bring to Supercharger stations when more capacity is needed – especially during holidays.

That’s exactly what Tesla did at its Baker, California, Supercharger station for people traveling for the New Year, but the mobile Supercharger caught on fire on January first, according to Tesla drivers stopping by the station.

...

This is the second known Tesla Megapack to have caught on fire. In September 2022, we reported on a Megapack catching on fire at a giant energy storage project in Monterrey, California.

To the surprise of no-one: "Tesla staged 2016 self-driving demo, says senior Autopilot engineer"

Another "Tesla driver killed after plowing into firetruck on freeway" but what stood out was this stat:

At least 14 Teslas have crashed into emergency vehicles while using the system.

Tesla driver dies in fatal shooting at Supercharger station after ‘argument over charger’

Tesla, problems at the pump, guns ... it's the singularity.

I asked a good friend of mine for an update on his Tesla, and he gave me the rare unvarnished opinion. He said he loves it, especially the fact that he has not been to a gas station since 2018, and because he has not gotten into an accident or anything he hasn't had to deal with repairs or parts shortages or anything. On the other hand, he said he could not recommend it as your primary or only car, since the range isn't good enough to make longer tricks practical (he likes the way it leads you to charging stations as needed, but doesn't like how they're often out of the way when you're on the road), and he said in the winter/cold the mileage gets cut so much you'd be fucked.

While I'm not a professional auto interior designer, I feel like I've driven a sufficient variety of cars and trucks over the past four decades to have a measured opinion about the Cybertruck interior. To be brief: Are you fucking kidding me?

Legit lols at anyone defending this p.o.s. I'm on board with the conspiracy theory that the Cybertruck is some sort of long-game joke that Musk is playing out to make fun of any cult member duped enough to buy one.

I've said it before, the interiors of Teslas are terrible, its like made out of the same stuff they use to make the fake living room sets in furniture stores

I'm still a little skeptical that the Cybertruck will actually go into mass production, everything i've heard from car guys is that you can't just make a car out of one piece of molded steel like that, if you do many of them will slowly come apart and become undriveable within a few years. but hey I'm not Mr. Car Genius

That deep dash looks pretty dangerous, like “can’t see kids in front of the car” dangerous

the people 40 feet away still have their feet hidden by the hood lol

This joker is going to end up limiting production to just one truck, and then he's going to sell it for 44 billion, probably to some Saudi prince.

i see the speedometer has been removed to make more room for the deep dash

You could fit 10 deep dish pizzas on that deep dash

Why do Teslas never have front license plates even in states that require them? Did they not design for that?

There are continual arguments in every EV owners forum as to how much front license plates disrupt aero efficiency with little in the way of convincing results one way or the other. The dealer for my Mach-E asked me if I even wanted the front plate bracket installed. I chose to leave it off - I'd like to believe that the extra 0.01 in aero (or whatever it is) does matter.

"Stick around TeslaBros, we'll show you how to make deep-dish pizzas on the dash of a Cybertruck using only the power of a burning sun in a climate gone mad - but first, we have to have a serious talk about pedestrian deaths. You're not killing enough hahaha!"

deathrace2000.jpg

Beyond Thunderdome / Tron auxiliary vehicle

Honestly thought the revive was about this

https://jalopnik.com/whistleblower-drops-100-gigabytes-of-tesla-secrets-to-g-1850476542

well that's fabulous news

phantom braking it just happens nbd

It's just their way of making sure you're awake. Better pay for that blue check before your car goes HAL 9000 on you.

Better than Audi's "uncontrolled acceleration!"

There are continual arguments in every EV owners forum as to how much front license plates disrupt aero efficiency with little in the way of convincing results one way or the other. The dealer for my Mach-E asked me if I even wanted the front plate bracket installed. I chose to leave it off - I'd like to believe that the extra 0.01 in aero (or whatever it is) does matter.

Are front plates optional for everyone?

I live in Maryland, where front plates are required, and saw two Teslas with front plates this morning. I think you just have to have the holes drilled. I had never heard the aerodynamics argument previously - only "it makes my car look bad!"

Front plates are required here, don't know if you'll be pulled over but you may be ticketed when parked. (Often - always? - the same thing for backing into parking spots.)

There are plenty of gasoline-powered cars which have aerodynamic fronts.

I live in Arkansas, a one-plate state. When I moved to Minnesota, a two-plate state, I had to get a bracket installed on the front. And when I moved back to the one-plate state, I kept the license plate on the front as a souvenir, at least until the state trooper stopped me and said I couldn't have two different state license plates on my car.

(Which makes sense, I guess.)

When I lived in North Carolina, there was a cart in the mall where you could buy novelty plates to put in your front plate holder.

We've got an airbrushed pegasus on ours, bought as a joke 15 years ago, but now, I wouldn't be able to find the car without it.

_There are continual arguments in every EV owners forum as to how much front license plates disrupt aero efficiency with little in the way of convincing results one way or the other. The dealer for my Mach-E asked me if I even wanted the front plate bracket installed. I chose to leave it off - I'd like to believe that the extra 0.01 in aero (or whatever it is) does matter._


Yeah but I’m pretty sure states that have two license plates require that both be displayed, front and back. I see this phenomenon on other luxury vehicles too, Teslas just seem to be the worst offender. Not sure how these guys aren’t being stopped by cops.

plus they may be cops