Model 3 is getting bad press......deadlines missed....... hey, bring out something that looks great! Tell people when it will be available (what is his history on delivery dates?).

WOW what a great guy. Look what he can do!!!!

My thought is that he is trying to make the company too big to fail. The investors will have so much money in it and the government will bail him out in one way or another.

Tesla stock has been murdered since the trump budget came out.
However I know some employees and vendors to Tesla. If they can keep going back to the capital markets for cash or sell to GM or toyota and become a subsidiary company to them and share in the technology and financial power they can obtain I think I they will be ok. The 620 mile battery is interesting the tech is getting better and and will get cheaper eventually. I think the company still co tells the cars a bit too much for my taste. Remember during the Florida hurricane evacuation they magically gave everyone in the region another bit of range from HQ in Fremont?

That prototype is sexy as hell and 250mph and sub 9 seconds 1/4 mile is pretty wild. I’ve driven my cousins model x p90 and it’s freaking amazing. The torque from when you drop he hammer is instant and the acceleration is amazing.

And I do think if they can get the battery to run at 250mph full tilt for 500 miles they could be competitive in racing.

But as the constable notes it’s all about the sound. Especially that unmuffled American v8 all cammed up sound.

I don’t quite understand all the hate in this thread. This is quite an engineering accomplishment!

All this hate about subsidies...so? NASA was a giant subsidy and look what it accomplished, and look at the benefits we as citizens got out of the engineering solutions they came up with.

Such a battery has huge implications imo and I’d happily help fund this type of technology rather than waste it in some pork program the Senate comes up with.

I get excited at where these electric vehicles are going personally. Very cool stuff.

NASA worked for the betterment of all mankind. I'll put my money into NASA any day.

Tesla works for the betterment of a liberal's pocketbook.

Hey, someday battery powered vehicles may become mainstream. But not in my lifetime. Can it tow 15,000 pounds through the Arizona desert? Can it get me to work reliably every day for two weeks before needing a recharge? Can I "recharge" it in 5 minutes and travel the maximum distance? Can it haul a bed full of parts and idle for 24 hours while running the AC or heat? While running a PTO to dig post holes? Nope.

Fringe vehicles. Things you show off to your rich friends. All they will ever be in my lifetime.

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He also said it would climb from 0 to 100 mph in 4.2 seconds...

Meh, a couple time a year I go 0-120 mph in 3.8 seconds and only costs me five tickets to Cedar Point.

How does it qualify as a "production car"?

How much?

All aboarrrrrrrd (the Hype Train).

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Originally posted by esdunbar:
All this hate about subsidies...so? NASA was a giant subsidy and look what it accomplished, and look at the benefits we as citizens got out of the engineering solutions they came up with.

Not really an apples to apples comparison given NASA (for all practical purposes) was a fully funded government agency working for the benefit of all mankind (or so the mission statement goes). Tesla is a privately owned and operated company working in many ways to satiate the grandiose ego of its founder.

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Such a battery has huge implications imo and I’d happily help fund this type of technology rather than waste it in some pork program the Senate comes up with.

And that's part of the beauty of this country. Tesla stock is publicly traded, so you can step right up and buy whatever amount you like and participate in the dream.

And as far as the "huge implications" of the battery in this new super car, maybe we should have independent testing done and published before we buy too much into Elon's claims. All Musk provided at the news event were 'claims'. Until proof is available to back up those claims, that event was nothing more than a distraction from the very real problems Tesla is facing with the Model 3 specifically, and its viability long term generally.

Musk is a douche for sure. I don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean Tesla isnt doing things no one else has been able to do to date.

When the electric car came out, range and recharge time were the main complaints. People said it would never work. Now you can go 600 miles and recharge in 20 minutes...and they aren’t done getting better.

The technology will only continue to improve and it will benefit our lives in many ways not related to automobiles. I find that exciting.

If you guys would like to fund government research, have at it, I don’t think the government does anything efficiently. I would much rather subsidize private companies that are getting results. Again, SpaceX and the douchey Musk are getting very close to landing a rocket vertically...something never done and something we need to do to get to Mars and back.

The dude is a clown, but his companies are pushing boundaries no one else was and I’m glad to see someone trying.

If you think Tesla isn’t showing results, you’re letting your politics blind you.

I believe that many new technologies have thrived but the pioneers of the technology have often not. Iridium is a great example. Also all the build-out of cell networks and fiberoptic cables were probably too optimistic, IIRC some of the companies pioneering them went bankrupt, leaving great infrastructure that sold for pennies on the dollar.

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Now you can go 600 miles and recharge in 20 minutes...

Links?

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Originally posted by newtoSig765:
...
What I really hate, though, is nuclear power. Specifically, disposal of used uranium fuel. We do a lot of that here in Illinois, and in fact I'm close enough to Byron that I can see the stacks on a clear day. I can imagine the increase in waste uranium if electric vehicles become common, and I don't look forward to it!

Nuclear technology has come a loooong way from all the early generation reactors that dot the landscape. Designs these days are safer and can produce a lot less waste if what I remember reading is correct. Nuclear is just the big boogieman because of propaganda and old plants that either through bad design or bad use caused massive problems. Perhaps we can pave the world with solar one day, but that's a long ways off as well, I'm thinking.

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Originally posted by dsmack:
Elon Musk:

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"The point of doing this is to give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars," he said.

“Driving a gasoline sports car is going to feel like a steam engine with a side of quiche.”

No Elon, no smackdown awarded here until you do this on the vehicle's own capabilities... without massive Government subsidies.

Do it on your own money, deliver what you have promised to the poor suckers who have put down deposits, then show me how the net/net manufacture, purchase, life cycle expense, repair costs, disposal fees for the expended battery packs, etc. pencil-out in Tesla's favor... and are such a wonderful improvement for our environment.

Then maybe we can talk about "SmackDowns"

In the meantime, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way to your next overstated press conference.

Well Stated SIR. One thing the greenies keep sweeping under the rug is the impact of disposing these Lithium batteries, it won't be too long before folks start getting presented with disposal fees ranging into the many thousands. They also seem to be keeping the fact that when one of these batteries catches fire in a crash that the response team has to treat it as a Hazmat Incident.

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Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
...Nuclear is just the big boogieman because of propaganda and old plants that either through bad design or bad use caused massive problems...

It's not the plants I'm worried about, but the waste, which remains radioactive for thousands of years. How it's disposed of, how long it's dangerous, those are my worries. Adding massive numbers of electric cars without expanding generating capacity can't be done in the long term, and it makes no sense to me that we don't have alternatives to nuclear energy at this point.

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Originally posted by newtoSig765:

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
...Nuclear is just the big boogieman because of propaganda and old plants that either through bad design or bad use caused massive problems...

It's not the plants I'm worried about, but the waste, which remains radioactive for thousands of years. How it's disposed of, how long it's dangerous, those are my worries. Adding massive numbers of electric cars without expanding generating capacity can't be done in the long term, and it makes no sense to me that we don't have alternatives to nuclear energy at this point.

We don't need alternatives to nuclear power, we need to actually use it more.

The enviro weenies have tainted it nearly out of existence in many places.

quote:

Originally posted by newtoSig765:

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
...Nuclear is just the big boogieman because of propaganda and old plants that either through bad design or bad use caused massive problems...

It's not the plants I'm worried about, but the waste, which remains radioactive for thousands of years. How it's disposed of, how long it's dangerous, those are my worries. Adding massive numbers of electric cars without expanding generating capacity can't be done in the long term, and it makes no sense to me that we don't have alternatives to nuclear energy at this point.

It’s not like those problems aren’t being tackled. I know supercritical fluids and nuclear waste were a thing last decade that showed a fair bit of promise. I’m sure other ideas are out there.

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Originally posted by SigJacket:
It’s not like those problems aren’t being tackled. I know supercritical fluids and nuclear waste were a thing last decade that showed a fair bit of promise. I’m sure other ideas are out there.

I would hope so, since nothing besides nuclear power is showing much potential yet.

Fla. Jim, I remember that Mork & Mindy clip very well. As soon as I saw your post, I thought "Nuke-Away". In fact, that may be what got me thinking about the hazards of nuclear waste disposal in the first place. And Pam Dawber was pretty cute, too.

quote:

Originally posted by esdunbar:
Musk is a douche for sure. I don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean Tesla isnt doing things no one else has been able to do to date.....

Agreed. Tesla is doing things that is very rare in business. They lose money on every car they sell. They have never turned a profit in their corporate history. I understand they just reported their largest quarterly loss. The only they are still in business is subsidies from your taxes and my taxes. Seems they are talking to China re manufacturing there. I wonder if that will be subsidized from our taxes.

All the time Musk is talking that we need to move to Mars, live underground there, as mankind will destroy planet Earth. And he says he is working on a hyper-rocket that go from NYC to Shanghai in 39 minutes (also probably funded by the US taxpayer).

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Originally posted by Scooter123:....One thing the greenies keep sweeping under the rug is the impact of disposing these Lithium batteries, it won't be too long before folks start getting presented with disposal fees ranging into the many thousands. They also seem to be keeping the fact that when one of these batteries catches fire in a crash that the response team has to treat it as a Hazmat Incident.

I might include the environmental harm in the lithium mining/refining process, plus the pollutants in generating the electricity needed to charge the batteries. It may well be Tesla's are a negative hit on both the environment and the economy.