Tesla Deal Boosts Chinese Presence in US Auto Tech (reuters.com) 80
From a Reuters report:China's Tencent has bought a 5 percent stake in U.S. electric car maker Tesla for $1.78 billion, the latest investment by a Chinese internet company in the potentially lucrative market for self-driving vehicles and related services. Tencent's investment, revealed in a U.S. regulatory filing, provides Tesla with an additional cash cushion as it prepares to launch its mass-market Model 3. Tesla's shares were up 2.9 percent at $277.03 in midday trading on Tuesday, enabling it to rival Ford as the second-most-valuable U.S. auto company behind General Motors. The deal expands Tencent's presence in an emerging investment sector that includes self-driving electric cars, which could enable such new modes of transportation as automated ride-sharing and delivery services, as well as ancillary services ranging from infotainment to e-commerce.
Tesla is gonna take over - believe me folks... (Score:1, Funny)
Once they release that model 3 for under 30,000 and can out pace the rest of the cars on the road - everyone else will be done... why would anyone over spend on a car when they can go all electric, faster and cheaper. Buy now baby! :)
Re:Tesla is gonna take over - believe me folks... (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you asked.... and speaking strictly for myself of course, because I am probably not in Tesla's (or any electric car manufacturer's) target demographic for an electric car. I live in an apartment, and I can't charge it at home because the parking stalls for the building residents don't have individual electrical outlets. Basically, anyone who lives in an apartment building that wasn't built in about the past 10 years or so is probably in the same boat. I know that newer buildings do have outlets in the parking stalls, but there's still one hell of a lot of older buildings around that aren't going anywhere.
I would totally get an electric car if I lived in a place where I could charge it over night, but that's just not going to happen anytime in the foreseeable future.
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It's actually not all that expensive to add electric to the parking area, when it's properly planned. A new circuit would be run from the electric utility mains to a new transformer, which would run to a central charge controller that would in-turn supply power to receptacles or whatever at each parking space. If they have to run individual conduits to each stall or each pair of stalls they will, or they may rely on larger cables and intelligent devices on individual breakers at each spot, with some kind
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Re:Tesla is gonna take over - believe me folks... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Once they release that model 3 for under 30,000"
That's going to take a while. They'll be fortunate to get it released at the promised $35k - although they were promising $30k some years ago and then quietly upped it.
There are more than a few Tesla-bashers who complain extensive auto experience that have been saying that selling the base model at even $45k would be barely profitable, if at all.
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There are more than a few Tesla-bashers who complain extensive auto experience that have been saying that selling the base model at even $45k would be barely profitable, if at all.
If there's one thing I learned from the dot com bust; it's if you're losing money on each unit sold, you just need to sell more of them and make it up on volume. ;-)
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I'd not be interested in it even at $30K...has too many seats in the car.
I'm waiting for a Tesla sports car aga
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I'd not be interested in it even at $30K...has too many seats in the car.
Get an electric smart. Correct number of seats, and cheaper, too!
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Well, aside from it looking fugly.......I think I read its 0-60mph times are like 11+ seconds???
Nope..I want a performance car, that looks good too. I'd like something like the original Tesla Roadster...or something in that ballpark for looks and performance but in the range of a Corvette price.
I don't really give a damn about pollution or mileage, but if I could get good looks and performance in an electric car for a reasonable price, I'd
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"but in the range of a Corvette price"
What's your range in $s?
A Stingray is $55k which I don't think Tesla can match for the nextgen Roadster but a Z06 is over $80k
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I wonder just how different the RoadsterNG will be.
I don't think too many will be impressed if it's AWD-only where you can't put it in RWD-only mode and it'll have to be considerably longer than the previous gen Roadster if the intent is to use the same flat-pack floor.
Or they can go with a split pack to keep the car short.
But the original Roadsters were tiny ; if I had a burger & a hardon, I doubt I could fit.
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It is going to be a while (a long while) before you start seeing electric sports cars with any decent range. The problem is the batteries. Batteries are still extremely heavy, which makes trying to make an electric version really difficult that handles at the same level as a gas electric car. Sure, you can make it look sporty, but it'll still have handing issues that gas cars don't have to deal with.
For example, a new corvette stingray is ~3200 pounds, while a tesla model S is ~4800 pounds. That extra 5
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An Audi RS7 is ~4500 lbs - why so heavy when it doesn't have a battery pack at all?
I'd imagine that such a heavy ICE would also have "handling issues"
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Quickly sidestepping the fact that the RS7 isn't a real sports car, it's a "sporty" car, it DOES have handling issues as evidenced by skid pad testing:
1990 camero/firebird - 0.87 (pony car)
2016 Tesla Model S - 0.89 (electric sedan)
2017 Audi RS7 - 0.95 (sports sedan)
2014 Corvette Stingray - 1.11 (sports car)
2016 Corvette Z06 - 1.20 (sports car)
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A 2016 CTS-V gets 1.01g at a weight of 4100 lbs. A 2012 911 Carrera pulled 1.03 at 3300 lbs.
The lines between sports car & sports sedan can't be measured by only the lateral grip, useful as that may be.
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I didn't say the line could be measured only by lateral grip. A sports car with sub-par grip isn't a sports car though. Common definitions of sports cars are "A sports car (or sportscar) is a small, usually two seater, two door automobile designed for spirited performance and nimble handling." and "especially an aerodynamically shaped one-passenger or two-passenger vehicle having a low center of gravity and steering and suspension designed for precise control at high speeds." Another definition would be a
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The number of seats seems to be irrelevant. Who cares how many can potentially be seated in the car if it meets all the other requirements.
The Cadillac appears to meet all the other criteria despite being quite heavy.
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Not sure what your definition of a sports car is, but it isn't what the rest of the world's is. Even Cadillac doesn't call the CTS-V a sports car. They call it what it is. A sedan designed for the track. So according to you, a sports car doesn't need to have only 2 seats, and it doesn't necessarily need to be able to handle well. It also doesn't need to go fast. I guess if you consider any car that can accelerate fast, then yes, there are a ton of "sports cars" out there.
Most of us will continue to ca
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My point is that it's a moving target. The sports car of yesteryear may still be fun but they lag behind the sedans of today or even of some considerable years back.
My gearhead friends were all about 70s muscle cars but the only thing on which they can top a 1/2 decent sedan post 1992 is the amount of noise they make and how much tire smoke they can produce.
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Of course it's a moving target. Same as anything technology based. Today's best is tomorrow's slow. Having driven muscle cars/pony cars for most of my life (and now a real sports car), it's easy to watch. They are ahead of the sport sedans by about 7-8 years. Although, with the muscle cars hitting 660+ HP (707 for the hellcat), I wonder if the sedan will catch up in 7-8 years, as there really isn't much of a need. Time will tell though.
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The original Tesla Roadster had a range of 245 miles. New battery upgrades that to 400+ miles.
Tesla's have the batteries low to the ground which gives them incredible handling.
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NextGen Roadster is supposed to be out in 2019-20
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You might be interested in this:
http://electrameccanica.com/ [electrameccanica.com]
Single seat, three wheels. US$15,000
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Sure there's a use for it, but far, far more waste heat is produced than can be used for other purposes. It's not a terribly efficient arrangement.
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Adding power points to a parking spot is not an insurmountable problem though. Maybe in a huge complex there are issues supplying enough power but even then it seems manageable by using pricing tariffs encouraging charging at off peak times, etc.
I mean I agree it's unlikely apartments will do that for you without a lot of begging. But I can easily imagine a future where not having power points in car parks is like not having phone lines or internet available for tenants.
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What? You were talking about whether people could afford to put in electrical outlets in their garage. Installation pays for itself very quickly. You evidence this yourself when you claim that landlords can charge more than an extra $1000/yr just by having those outlets. Once again, this is a lame excuse.
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Are you being intentionally dim? If you're already shopping or eating out it actually takes less of YOUR time to hook up your EV than to stand around while pumping gas.
If you just don't want an EV, fine, but your excuses are just ridiculous.
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Again, you're just reaching for excuses, changing the assumptions as you go and definitely not doing a fair evaluation. That's your prerogative, but stop claiming that you're a typical case.
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Actually, given that more than 75% of the people in my metro area (and many others, for that matter) live in apartments or condos, and of those, only a very tiny minority live in buildings that were constructed recently enough (past 10 years or so) to adopt the newer guidelines of having electrical outlets in each parking stall, I don't think that my use case is that atypical. It's not an insurmountable issue for people with private garages, but many people do not have those.
I'm reminded of an anecdot [wired.com]
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You are just ignoring all the comments that came before which have explained why many of your assumptions are wrong. It is not expensive to add electric to existing garages, it pays for itself quickly. New developments in upscale areas will almost certainly have some EV charging, older apartment buildings will add some capacity slowly or they will see their pool of possible tenants dwindle. When owners don't want to put up the money, a third party will install chargers and rent them out (like solar panels).
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Since you mentioned that most apartment dwellers wont even own cars in 20 years, I'd like to point out that *still* leaves no incentive for apartment owners of most currently existing buildings to *ever* install EV facilities, because they will always only potentially be of benefit to a tiny few. Even then, it will still often be more economical for people to own their own car than ride share, just as it is more economical to drive than to take a cab. Public transit may be cheaper than owning and drivi
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Since you mentioned that most apartment dwellers wont even own cars in 20 years, I'd like to point out that *still* leaves no incentive for apartment owners of most currently existing buildings to *ever* install EV facilities, because they will always only potentially be of benefit to a tiny few.
This is not a contradiction. Parking lot owners will of course not convert ALL of their spaces to electric. They may start with just a handful and increase the number as time goes on. In 20 years they may have half the parking spaces they used to need and maybe 1/3 of those will be electric. This can even be a new revenue stream for the owners and it will still be cheaper for their tenants than gasoline. Win/win as they say.
Even then, it will still often be more economical for people to own their own car than ride share, just as it is more economical to drive than to take a cab. Public transit ...
Of course it will be for SOME people. I don't know why you keep insisting that there
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Private above-ground garages, yes... underground shared concrete parkade parking not so much.... In a condo situation where each stall is individually owned (I prefer to restrict the issue at hand only to owned, rather than rented properties, because renters have very little choice or say in how their property might get developed), if you install only a couple of them in a visitor parking area, t
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Private above-ground garages, yes... underground shared concrete parkade parking not so much.... In a condo situation where each stall is individually owned I prefer to restrict the issue at hand only to owned, rather than rented properties, because renters have very little choice or say in how their property might get developed),
Renters have a lot of choice, actually. Sure, there will be some property owners who are intransigent or just lazy, those who never upgrade. They may just now be getting cable and will think about allowing high speed internet in 10 years. However, not only are new buildings often re
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The crux of the failure in your line of reasoning is that you appear to think that most owners are progressive thinkers.... in my experience they are not. Most condo owners I have encountered are cheap bastards who are perfectly happy with any inexpensive solution that does not create an inconvenience for them. This is not only my experience in every strata complex that I have ever lived, it is also the experience of absolutely anyone else that I know that has lived in a strata complex. Of course, this
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I don't make that progressive assumption about owners at all, or people in general. But I've pointed out that EV charging is in their best interests in many ways and as the demand ramps up it will be inevitable. Still there will be EV ghettos, condos or apartment buildings with no EV access, and the residents will be older and poorer. Like I said, progressive owners will adopt EVs and some complexes will have far more than average EVs and some far less (or zero). Evolution and economics will win out.
But mor
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Eventually, yes.. but not anytime soon. I believe that your supposed projection of it being as soon as you say is naively optimistic except in the communities that have already shown a lot of progress in this regard, which are the exception and not the rule. Remember, it took literally a century before automotive cars replaced the horse.... this kind of change will simply not happen swiftly... and I believe that people who expect otherwise are only setting themselves u
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It's going to be awhile before it's under $30,000. They're projecting $35,000 for the entry-level models, presumably with fairly short ranges and lower power output levels compared to what most electric car buyers will actually want.
If the Model 3 proves as successful as they're hoping then I expect other car manufacturers to look increasingly toward electrics, but I doubt that conventional internal combustion vehicles will be entirely out of production by the end of my lifetime. There are too many situat
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But there's a tipping point. As more cars become electric more petrol stations will close due to no longer being profitable (they run on razor thin margins as is). Once large numbers of petrol stations start to close (or convert to charging electric cars), it will become increasingly inconvenient to drive an ICE car, snowballing the popularity of electric vehicles.
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Perhaps, but that'll require the legacy vehicles to be largely off the road first, and will require the popularity of the plug-in hybrid vehicle along the lines of the Volt to wane too.
If anything happens in the next twenty years, perhaps drivers that use gasoline-powered cars will have to hunt just a little harder to find stations, along the lines of how diesel-powered cars and trucks can't be filled at probably half of stations, and propane-powered vehicles are limited to less than a quarter of stations.
delusional. (Score:2)
I don't really understand why in such a scenario the rest of the carmakers wouldnt just ramp up their electric efforts.
because tesla does nothing particularly cheaply or effectively.
also.. tencent got swindled. 1.78 billion for a 5 percent stake in an operation that is not turning steady profit is a PRETTY SHITTY DEAL, just ask microsoft. the salesman musk needed that money to keep the train rolling.
but thats besides the point that daimler could copy whatever model tesla has as succesful profitable model in
Ten Cent will rob them blind (Score:2, Insightful)
I expect ... technology transfer to China faster than you can swear.
Re:Ten Cent will rob them blind (Score:5, Informative)
It depends on what Tencent is allowed access to.
The company that my wife works for was bought by a foreign company and that foreign company is basically only allowed its share of the profits as an owner. For anything else it wants, it has to "buy" the information as part of a product transaction just like any other company, and even the executives of the foreign owners are not allowed uncontrolled access to the facility.
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Owning stock doesn't mean you can just walking into the company's HQ and take whatever you want.
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You mean my 5 shares of IBM *don't* give me access to their entire patent portfolio? Crap, back to the drawing board...
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But owning enough stock does give you a seat on the board and the right to appoint the CEO. And then your friendly CEO can order his subordinates to work with their offshore partners in an atmosphere of complete trust and transparency.
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5% in this case in not nearly enough.
Elon himself owns somewhere around 25%, and he has some sway over the remaining large holders.
Also, there are some super-majority rules that require over 66.6% vote for stuff like appointing a new CEO.
Fiddy! (Score:1)
China's Tencent has bought a 5 percent stake in U.S. electric car maker Tesla for $1.78 billion, with US rapper FiftyCent taking a TenCent stake
awaiting comment from our tweeter in chief (Score:2)
"We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us."
China has already seen through Mr. Trump. Trump is just a paper tiger, a small hand guy in an empty ill fitted suit.
My hope is in Mr. Musk taking measures to protect his company and us from China.
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Outlook isn't so good for tesla if bolt is selling around 1000 per month.
Dunno about the Bolt, but the first year's worth of Model 3's are already sold out [n4bb.com]. So Tesla's got that going for them.
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Tesla delivered 22,200 cars last quarter.
Take into account that those are much more expensive, and Tesla is production-constrained, and the Model 3 Had around 400K reservations last we heard (this might have decreased, but it'll still take years to fulfill the orders even if it's half that).
I don't really know the Bolt situation in depth, maybe they're not making an effort to produce and sell them because they're just meant to fill a regulatory quota, maybe the car itself is not that appealing, or maybe the
They bought the shares on the open market (Score:3)
Just like you or I could (except in much higher volume). Unless a special arrangement is made, they don't get anything other than minority voting rights, a share in stock price appreciation and (at least eventually?) dividends.
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Just like you or I could (except in much higher volume). Unless a special arrangement is made, they don't get anything other than minority voting rights, a share in stock price appreciation and (at least eventually?) dividends.
Which explains the weird price movements of TSLA.
FTFS:
Tesla's shares were up 2.9 percent at $277.03 in midday trading on Tuesday, enabling it to rival Ford as the second-most-valuable U.S. auto company behind General Motors.
No one is batting an eye at this.
It's 1999 again. It is impossible - yes impossible - for Tesla to become profitable enough to justify that valuation. It's the equivalent of paying a billion dollars for the corner Kwicky Mart.
Maybe 50 years from now, Tesla will be that profitable but in the meantime, the meter is running on that money.
...the latest investment by a Chinese internet company ...
That explains a lot.
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Tesla has a gross margin of about 25% on each car they sell. If they stopped investing in new models, factories, etc. they would be profitable today.