In 3 days the world will change.

I'm not feeling it

 

Tesla met the production goal with 5,031 model 3s and continues growing exponentially yet almost all the news stories covering them are super negative. To me this proves the oil monopoly is becoming vulnerable. Even Volkswagen is investing 48 billion dollars in battery production now.

 

Someone needs to do their homework

 

Its 3 days later, nothing has changed.


And Tesla is still headed for bankruptcy

 

Elon Musk is a tool of the system.

 

Tesla is just up propped up by capital from Musk nuthuggers swindled by Musk

 

I heard there are over 240 new electric car models planned by 2020 worldwide. China already has 3 times more electric cars than the U.S.

 

When you consider that tractors, trucks, trains, planes, construction equipment and container ships all depend on oil it becomes clear that it's the life blood of the system. Even the dollar is backed by it. Having a substitute in Lithium ion batteries changes the entire equation.

 

The fourth quarter last year Tesla was producing 150 cars per week. The first quarter this year it was 600 cars per week. This quarter it was 2500 cars per week. That's a 400% increase every quarter. The oil devotees are getting scared especially when you consider all the other car companies that are starting to copy Tesla and compete. Honda just got on board recently.

 

Car sales hit record in 2017; 25% sold in China - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

90 milion vs 2 million

Thats under 3% are electric vehicles, hardly anything to write home about

With 3/4 of those electric vehicles actually being manufactured in China.

By all means, go buy shares in Tesla

 

Still waiting for this mass shift to electric. I look around & it all just seems the same as yesterday

 

I'd totally buy a nuclear car! Good for the environment too as the waste is contained, meaning no emissions. Of course, reactor grade plutonium costs around $4,400 per gram but it wouldn't take much plus you'd only have to 'fill up' once every 10 years or so, if not longer.

 

You sir should've been born in the Fallout universe

 

What you say is not true for the UK and many other parts of Europe. Our grid is already running at peak capacity in most cities. I looked at the cars in our street a few weeks ago and the cable in the road would be running at more than double its maximum load even if the cars were charged for 8 hours overnight.

Our car achieves up to 76 mpg, whereas a similar car 30 years ago would have been lucky to achieve 30. Although power stations are more efficient, once you take into account grid losses and the losses of charging and discharging a battery their is no benefit. The current financial benefits of running on electricity are simply avoidance of the tax on fuel. The government will soon change that by charging road tax by the mile. It is already under test.

The UK will require 8 (by my calculations) 10 (by government calculations) additional power stations to meet the demand of 100% electric cars. The current plans involve these stations being powered by nuclear energy.

None of this includes commercial vehicles or public transport that accounts for about 40% of road fuel consumption.

Time to buy a pushbike.

 

The London mayor has just announced that we will soon have more than 1000 charging points in London.
Charging the 2.6 million cars in London on an average day will be a walk in the park.

Perhaps it is time for me to start walking in the park in order to get fit enough to walk home every night.

 

Loss in power through transmission is around 5% on average, lithium ion batteries lose about 10% in charging and discharging and electric motors lose about 5%. At the end of the day the whole scheme is still 80% efficient vs. 35% for an internal combustion engine. Also, solar is now cheaper than coal or nuclear. The only reason it hasn't really taken off is lack of storage for overnight. Once lithium ion batteries flood the market so will solar and other interminttent renewables. Currently the largest producer of solar energy in the world is Germany and it also has the largest plans for battery production. Volkswagen alone plans to invest 10 times what Tesla has over the next 7 years.

 

I thought of an idea some years ago , to beat the fact of there being no or very few charging stations nationwide. Some rich guy could make and station small trailers that contained enough batteries to go a certain amount of miles and then when a warning light came on, you'd pull in to any place that carried the trailers, unhook yours and get another one that is fully charged and go on your way. Small trailers like motorcycle trailers , but with enough batteries to take you 5-6 hundred miles. Alas--I'm not rich.

 

Have you ever watched people backup with trailers when they don't know how to deal with them... Your idea is great even if only for the entertainment value.

 

I hope that it works well in the future.
The current problems are that solar power only works during daylight, compounding the difficulties of using the grid to charge vehicles overnight to save massive upgrade costs. Their are also difficulties in inverting the DC output for distribution.

Wind power may resolve some of the problems, but inability to synchronize the alternators to the supply frequency means that at the moment power is mostly rectified and re-inverted.

We still have a long way to go.
Adding commercial vehicles and public transport to the electric fleet still seems little more than a dream.