Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Different (and heavily marketed) does not equal cutting edge.

Batteries have been around for a long time. What they announced last month (93Devil hit the google when he saw the new posts!) is a battery that is ridiculously expensive. People would LOVE to go off the grid -- and PT Barnum Musk is there to feed the baby boomer fantasies of being cutting edge and helping the environment. But he is tossing a lot of stuff at the wall that has no mass appeal -- yet, and probably won't ever because it is financially prohibitive compared to existing technology. He has sold a small number of $100,000 cars to baby boomers who have stupid money to waste, and want to feel as if they are doing something to help the environment. That business doesn't even exist without a half-billion dollar U.S. government loan that none of us could have gotten -- but kudos for hiring a former state department official to work the crony capitalist money train for you. I can't imagine would I could do with a half a billion dollars and all kinds of subsidies that favor my products. And it's not just the US with the subsidies. 10 percent of Teslas have been sold in Norway. Guess why?

Even with where it is today, Tesla is swimming in debt and sells very few cars relative to the entire car market. It loses money -- all of the hype, the tulipmania stock price -- and it loses money and is bleeding cash. But Musk is good at selling vision -- big pronouncements on twitter that bear no relationship to anything he is actually producing -- yet. But just you wait and see!

Since their car business won't be selling large numbers of cars anytime soon -- and likely ever -- they announced a home battery (before that a battery factory). It's like using lights and shiny toys to distract people.

Great on the home battery! Except that it costs $7,000+ to buy one of those batteries and get it installed. Most people don't have that kind of money to buy what is essentially a toy with little practical application. Who spends $7,000 for the 2 hours a year they might lose electricity? And if you are living a dream of getting off the grid, wonderful, again! But now you are talking about a massive rooftop solar system for the typical house, and at least two of those batteries. You are looking at close to $100,000 without any kind of subsidies. That is about 75 years of electric bills for the average person. And. ... as far as cutting edge? All of this technology has existed for a long time and has never been adopted -- because it makes no financial sense.

Innovation is wonderful. And ideas that make sense will always win out in the marketplace -- people buy stuff that is cheaper and makes their lives better. When the only way a company exists is through massive financial subsidization, you should know it makes no sense. When it gets subsidies to the tune of billions of dollars and it still isn't selling a ton of product, it's like a bizarro world to me that people don't want to accept it for what it is. These are not ideas that are anywhere close to making sense in a mass market -- without subsidization they would never get off the ground and even with it, they still have not penetrated a mass market.

 

Your history on this thread of telling us what is going to happen, and what people will do has been entertaining.

Tesla isn't crashing any price points because it isn't even close yet to having an ACTUAL product. It's at least a year away from producing a battery, and if its history of meeting its self-imposed deadlines on its cars is any gauge, it will be considerably longer than that. When it does produce actual batteries -- not just creating hype about how they are going to do it -- we'll see if it makes any financial sense to the average person. It's ridiculous to suggest it will, because at the price points that Tesla itself has thrown out there (who knows where they will end up on cost?), it is prohibitively expensive .

It's curious -- if this is viable, they will be meeting demand by making it cheaper for people to power their homes. ... why is it requiring hundreds of millions of dollars of subsidies from the state of California just to get the factory built? Why couldn't / wouldn't Musk -- a billionaire -- just reach into his pocket and invest in this technology that is going to make his company oodles of profits?

 

1) Well. ... I don't know enough about this, because I am not in the market for back-up power. But. ... I can't imagine relying on a battery if you are afraid of a storm or hurricane. The battery is good for several hours of power and then needs to be recharged. If a hurricane hits and you are without power for several days or a week or more, you can't recharge your battery. Your gas generator keeps going as long as you have gas.

2) I do have distaste for Musk. ... his companies are built on bullshit and crony capitalism. I have less distaste for Tesla as a company than how Tesla is being valued by markets. It's way, way, way overvalued on hype, and a massive monetary-induced financial bubble, in my estimation. I would back that up by pointing out its debt, all of the subsidies it requires to exist and its lack of earnings (it has sales, but is bleeding through cash).

3) It doesn't matter if *I* think the batteries are useless. *IF* there is a market for them, they will sell. That is all I am saying. They wouldn't require billlions of dollars of subsidies for their products. And the products would actually kill in a mass market. That hasn't happened, and isn't close to happening -- it is all bullshit. Musk made a splash last month with the battery announcement. The point I was making is that the hyperbole around it was NOT around a small market of people looking for backup power -- from hurricanes or winter storms. It was about this revolutionizing the world. People pulling off the grid. When $7K installed gets you a few hours of electricity in case of an outage. To power a home that way with solar power requires a huge up front investment -- decades and decades up front of outlaying what people currently spend. This isn't new -- it never took off -- with or without Elon Musk -- because it has never made any financial sense for most people. Musk hasn't changed that and isn't close to changing it. Good on him if he does -- as dubious as I am. But save me the hype. Show me the actual product and the actual people willing to buy it.

 

As intriguing as it is. ... Even with battery prices dropping from where they were. ... This is still an economically unsupportable technology. It's not even close yet.

There were a ton of people close to these technologies pointing this out in stories last month when Musk did his PT Barnum act. That isn't me exaggerating. It's reality. It's going to take something drastically different from where we are today for a mass market to buy batteries to power their homes -- and that is WITH the subsidies that make it seem cheaper than it really is.

That Gizmondo story you linked to, DrQ read like Tesla's press release. Filled with hype, nothing that spelled out the actual costs, except the $3,500 for the battery itself and a lot of "going to happen" speculation about what COULD happen.

Try this: Will Tesla's home battery really transform our energy infrastructure? | Environment | The Guardian