Tesla update
According to Tech Viral: “Tesla has abruptly stopped Cybertruck and Model Y production, triggering a nearly 3% stock drop to $348.29, as shown in the finance card above.
“The pause, Tesla’s third Cybertruck halt this year at its Austin Gigafactory, compounds delays in Robotaxi plans and Elon Musk’s controversies.
“As EV competition intensifies, Tesla’s frequent disruptions fuel doubts about its ability to meet bold goals, raising concerns among investors and customers.”
Despite today’s drop, Tesla stock has been on an overall upward slope since January 2023. Its P/E is currently at 178. Tesla continues to defy gravity.
Sometimes the benefit of the doubt takes strange bedfellows. I’m not so big a critic of WalMart as most: having built and remodeled several I learned quite a bit about their efforts to reduce energy costs across both the largest retail and parking space in the world*. Notably Wally World is the worlds leader in LED lighting R & D, and like NASA before the oughts the trickle-down tech is all around us, wearing it
Notable too, speaking not just as an EV owner (I’ve never charged at a commercial outlet) is WalMart’s partnership with Tesla to install fast and now super-chargers in their parking lots. Everyone gets a dime and the infrastructure continues to inevitably build out
In conclusion, and on-topic😏 ~ though I oft find it difficult I do stop and remind myself that in its inception Tesla was a good thing: build electric cars in and put them on American roads. Musk is an unfortunate turn of events I sincerely hope they recover from, and Tesla owners choke on a well-deserved attitude check. The benefit of the doubt
*Bigger than many countries
@Ten,
My wife recently bought a hybrid to replace her 22 year-old Pontiac Vibe. We both rejected the idea of an EV. In Rhode Island, >90% of electricity is generated using natural gas, so EVs in RI are just virtue signaling. I trust that your electricity is carbon-free.
No place is “carbon free” (we’re about 50/50), that’s become an oil industry anti-talking point, astroturf, and Rhode Island is one of those places smaller than WalMart’s parking lot. Big attitude, give it that …
@Ten,
LOL! Well, before we landed here in RI, we lived in Missouri, where ca. 66% of electricity is currently (no pun intended) generated with coal. So EVs in MO, which is considerably larger than WalMart’s parking lot, run mostly on coal.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth1
“A significant advantage of EVs compared to conventional gasoline vehicles is their energy efficiency. EVs use approximately 87%–91% of the energy from the battery and regenerative braking to propel the vehicle. Gasoline vehicles only convert about 16–25% of the energy from gasoline into movement (averaging highway and city driving).”
In other words, EVs use less carbon even though the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels.
@Arne,
LOL!
Yes, I know. Running efficiently on coal or natural gas is still running on coal or natural gas. The inefficiency includes converting coal or methane to electricity, and the losses on transmission lines to charging centers. Physics, you know.
Look, you’ll use less carbon by buying local, walking more, combining trips, taking public transportation and driving a high-mileage ICE vehicle than by owning an EV in most states. You can also run efficiently on gasoline. In most US states, EVs are just virtue signaling. That will change when the US converts to nuclear and renewables.
Of course “buying local, walking more, combining trips, taking public transportation” are low carbon. That has nothing to do with whether an EV is more efficient at converting fossil fuels to transporting passengers than is an ICE.
@Arne,
Actually, it does. You see, if you buy local, walk more, combine trips and take public transportation, you can own an ICE vehicle and reduce your carbon footprint.
And of course, the efficiency of EVs in converting fossil fuels to transporting passengers is just misdirection for the reality that EVs are using fossil fuels and the inefficiency of (a) converting that fossil fuel to electricity and (b) the inefficiency of delivering that electricity to charging stations. Pretending it’s all about battery to motion is misdirection.
@Joel,
While I am aware that many EV fans do understand that it is not just “battery to motion”, I am also aware that taking in account converting fossil fuel to electricity and delivering that electricity to the charger still leaves EVs ahead of ICE vehicles.
I am not accusing you of misdirection, but not reading “converting fossil fuels to transporting passengers” as including the system end-to-end is just wrong.
@Arne,
And not acknowledging that converting fossil fuels to transporting passengers using EVs is somehow significantly different from converting fossil fuels to transporting passengers using efficient ECE vehicles is just wrong. Ignoring the ways in which transportation could be more efficient is just wrong too. At this point, EVs in many or most states is just virtue signaling.
@Joel
As an engineer trying to compare EVs to ICEs, I would consider trying to include other options than EV and ICE users would have equal propensity to use as bad analysis.