Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

Sochi said:
It’s funny reading this discussion - with all the hate towards Elon let’s say everybody completely stop buying Teslas, so with Tesla accounted for just under 50% of total electric car market will it spell a complete disaster for the “electrification revolution” what is being pushed on us so hard these days?
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I will never discount the good things Tesla has done for the EV world.

But Musk isn't doing anything meaningful there anymore aside from being a nutjob who has lost touch with reality and has spent the last 5-6+ years overpromising and underdelivering, and now sinking deeper and deeper into an unnecessary political hole that is costing the company market share. That's my issue with Tesla right now. If the Tesla board kicked Musk to the curb and refocused on actually innovating and being a normal car company again, that'd be a great step towards rebuilding trust amongst a future large potential customer base.

The rest of his companies?

SpaceX is being run by competent people, and Musk is kept firmly at arms length because, unlike Tesla, there would be real world repercussions for his batshittery spreading there. Anyone who thinks Musk has much in the way of any meaningful involvement in the day to day operations and decisions of SpaceX now is kidding themselves.

StarLink? Same.

X? Yeah, we all know what's happening there. Worth 75% less than it was when it was Twitter.

Neuralink? Not working out so great, more big promises. Killed lots of animals during testing though. And again, Musk is there in name only, he's not performing brain surgery.

Boring Company? Yeah that's a whole thing...more big promises with laughable results.
 
PrivatePilot said:
So, at one point Elon bragged that there was 1.5 million pre-orders for the Cybertruck.

Estimates are that about 15,000 have been delivered.

Tesla announced recently that you can now order a non-foundation model CT for delivery in the next few weeks without a reservation.

Something doesn't add up here.
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A lot of wanna be flippers with grandiose plans of making a killing that got a reality check.
 
PrivatePilot said:
I will never discount the good things Tesla has done for the EV world.

But Musk isn't doing anything meaningful there anymore aside from being a nutjob who has lost touch with reality and has spent the last 5-6+ years overpromising and underdelivering, and now sinking deeper and deeper into an unnecessary political hole that is costing the company market share. That's my issue with Tesla right now. If the Tesla board kicked Musk to the curb and refocused on actually innovating and being a normal car company again, that'd be a great step towards rebuilding trust amongst a future large potential customer base.

The rest of his companies?

SpaceX is being run by competent people, and Musk is kept firmly at arms length because, unlike Tesla, there would be real world repercussions for his batshittery spreading there. Anyone who thinks Musk has much in the way of any meaningful involvement in the day to day operations and decisions of SpaceX now is kidding themselves.

StarLink? Same.

X? Yeah, we all know what's happening there. Worth 75% less than it was when it was Twitter.

Neuralink? Not working out so great, more big promises. Killed lots of animals during testing though. And again, Musk is there in name only, he's not performing brain surgery.

Boring Company? Yeah that's a whole thing...more big promises with laughable results.
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Hey they made a cool flamethrower if that's your thing.
 
Wingboy said:
Yeeeehaaaa! Old canister vacuum cleaner, suck up some gasoline.(not in the living room)
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I wasn't counting that unintentional iteration. While repairing a vacuum, dust through brushes makes a hell of a projected fire.

The intentional design was propane powered with a battery and button to actuate some solenoids I had kicking around. It wasn't for me, someone wanted one and I had an hour to kill.
 
Sochi said:
It’s funny reading this discussion - with all the hate towards Elon let’s say everybody completely stop buying Teslas, so with Tesla accounted for just under 50% of total electric car market will it spell a complete disaster for the “electrification revolution” what is being pushed on us so hard these days?
And I am not hating on it, just watching from the sidelines for now…
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I disagree. People would buy e cars if they would make something people actually WANT

Apart from Tesla, There are few compelling choices on the market

Electric cars WILL, be the norm, we just need more exciting models.

Trust me, they are coming,...
 
Why just"more exciting" .....I'd say cheaper as well.
Hyundai is getting a lot of traction on the excitement end.
BYD is eating Tesla lunch and would really lower the entry level if allowed to.
 
MacDoc said:
Why just"more exciting" .....I'd say cheaper as well.
Hyundai is getting a lot of traction on the excitement end.
BYD is eating Tesla lunch and would really lower the entry level if allowed to.
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Reality is that they are operating with an unfair CCP government subsidy that allows them to effectively operate at a loss to gobble market share, which would happen at the expense of pretty much every domestic auto maker out there that’s are actually competing on a level playing field.

Hence the tariffs.
 
I don't think they have any unfair advantage ...all industrial countries are heavily subsidizing electrification, building battery factories, offering tax advantages etc.
China has lower wages and has invested heavily in state of the art manufacturing.
The US bailed out most of their ICE manufacturers ( Ford the exception ), have heavy tariffs in place and through Biden are spending billions of dollars on electrification...a quick google offers dozens of multi-billion dollar programs, grants, tax breaks...2 trillion...

15 July 2020 — In a Tuesday afternoon speech, presidential candidate Joe Biden outlined his plan for nearly $2 trillion in infrastructure spending,
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https://www.utilitydive.com › news › biden-outlines-2t-...
It's state backed capitalism and much needed to get the CO2 under control....something China leads on.
 
Infrastructure spending is not equal to what the CCP is giving to their electric car companies, you might wish to do more reading on the topic. What they are doing is the equivalent of taxpayers giving a trillion dollars to a single company like GM and telling them to use that money to flood the market with cheap electric vehicles to corner the market while destroying all their competition so it can become a monopoly. All while doing it as dirty as possible without a care for the environment whilst building “green” cars.
 
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We will have to agree to disagree. There is no difference in my mind between the US spending 2 trillion plus inflicting tariffs as far as state capitalism goes.
China has not given it to one corporation and it is a competitive industry within China. They've invested heavily in solar ( where they supply the world at low prices ), EV, nuclear and wind.
FWIW

Shareholders: BYD Company Limited​

BYD Company Limited Class H (CNE100000296) BYD Company Limited Unsponsored ADR Class H (US05606L1008) BYD Company Limited BYD Company Limited Class A (CNE100001526)
NameEquities%Valuation
BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.54,200,1424.936 %1 980 M ¥
BlackRock Fund Advisors29,635,0002.699 %1 083 M ¥
BlackRock Advisors (UK) Ltd.13,901,4311.266 %508 M ¥
BlackRock Asset Management North Asia Ltd.3,736,2470.3403 %137 M ¥
BlackRock Advisors LLC3,621,0000.3298 %132 M
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and lots more
www.marketscreener.com

BYD Company Limited: Shareholders Board Members Managers and Company Profile | CNE100001526 | MarketScreener

BYD Company Limited: Company profile, business summary, shareholders, managers, financial ratings, industry, sector and market information | Shenzhen S.E.: 002594 | Shenzhen S.E.
www.marketscreener.com
I'm quite happy that China is providing value for money in solar and EV products to Australia
 
China Inc is taking advantage of western-world social-media anti-environmentalist propaganda, to some extent, and reluctance of governments and private industries to take action by spending money to make things happen.

There are certain situations where authoritarian governments "You will do this" can be an advantage, and this is one of them.
 
MacDoc said:
China has not given it to one corporation and it is a competitive industry within China. They've invested heavily in solar ( where they supply the world at low prices ), EV, nuclear and wind.
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We’ll also have to agree to disagree on the bigger picture. Particularly it being a “competitive industry”. When you’re all working with government money with the aim of becoming a monopoly, with more government money knocking at the door, competition comes second to just spending that money on a product to push out the door, and in the case of the CCP, pushing it out the door as cheap as possible to help speed up the monopolization.

An interesting article attached below. Yes, the west has dilly-dallied and fallen behind as a result, but anyone who doesn’t believe that part of the CCP’s bigger plan has been using the internet and social media to sow anti-environmentalist feelings and anti-EV sentiment during the period of time these manufacturers were ramping up is kidding themselves. Now that they’re ready to play monopoly, suddenly it’s all “China is green, China has cheap EV’s, let China into your markets!”

 
China has been "green" for a long time - they have no choice and they are led by engineers ..not by whimsy driven pols rife with conspiracy theories about chem-trails et al..
Using tariffs to "protect" a vital uncompetitive industry does not sit well with me.
The planet needs inexpensive quality EVs and each country makes its rules as to safety.
If Chinese manufacturers meet those safety rules them I'm all for it. (y)
Norway will not impose sanctions on Chinese electric vehicles, and is eyeing further cooperation with China in areas of common interest such as shipping, seafood and green transition, said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on Wednesday in Shanghai.
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as usual, Norway gets it.
 
MacDoc said:
China has been "green" for a long time - they have no choice and they are led by engineers ..not by whimsy driven pols rife with conspiracy theories about chem-trails et al..
Using tariffs to "protect" a vital uncompetitive industry does not sit well with me.
The planet needs inexpensive quality EVs and each country makes its rules as to safety.
If Chinese manufacturers meet those safety rules them I'm all for it. (y)

as usual, Norway gets it.
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Opening two coals fired power plants a week is green? We can agree to disagree.
 
MacDoc said:
China has been "green" for a long time
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No, it hasn't. It's made a few steps forward, sure, but it's also made more than a few steps backwards, like recently opening more coal plants again after major blackouts from lack of energy, and still leading the world in coal consumption.

today.ucsd.edu

Despite Progress, China Remains Tethered to Coal as Climate Change Pressures Mount

A new paper from the University of California San Diego details how China faces numerous political, economic and technological obstacles as it tries to transition away from coal—the country’s primary energy source—while balancing the need to combat climate change with the need for energy security.
today.ucsd.edu

"China consumes over half of the world’s coal and contributes more than 20% of global CO2 emissions from coal combustion"

"Coal consumption is not only a major driver of global CO2 emissions but also a significant contributor to China’s air pollution crisis, which is responsible for an estimated 1.1 million deaths annually, he adds"

Don't let the whitewashed chinese propaganda and magical blue skies during the olympics fool you, China is still far from "Green".

This doesn't even touch on all the other forms of pollution coming out of China, like soil polution, ewaste, toxic chemicals being just released into the ocean, etc etc etc.

en.wikipedia.org

Pollution in China - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
MacDoc said:
Using tariffs to "protect" a vital uncompetitive industry does not sit well with me.


as usual, Norway gets it.
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Again, it's only "uncompetitive" when the other side isn't playing on a level playing field.

If you ran a company making widgets that cost you $75 to make and you sell for $100, making $25 profit....and all of a sudden a chinese company comes along awash in CCP government money and is pushing out those same widgets that "cost" them only $20 to make and sell for $50, yeah, you'd be screaming too.

And you and every other company selling widgets would go out of business since you'd be forced to sell each widget at a $25 loss.

And once you and every other widget maker has gone bankrupt (and perhaps that CCP money also slows down once they've reached "Mission accomplished) and they have the market all to themselves, they can not only jack up those prices to whatever they want since they don't have any competition anymore, but everyone in North American is driving around chinese electronics, which is a whole other ball of wax no matter how much people want to discount that whole thing.

As for the Norway thing, their willingness to just welcome chinese EV's in to flood the market is somewhat hypocritical from a "Lets be green, YAY!" standpoint since almost their entire economy is based on oil and gas, but oil and gas that is exported to Europe. The CCP cars becoming a monopoly there makes little difference to them from an anticompetitive standpoint as they have no meaningful auto manufacturing industry anyways, and then they can yell about being "green" when their population (which number less than half that of the population of Ontario alone, one must also remember, in an entire country also less than half the size of just Ontario as well) drive electric cars. Yay Norway?
 
PrivatePilot said:
Again, it's only "uncompetitive" when the other side isn't playing on a level playing field.

If you ran a company making widgets that cost you $75 to make and you sell for $100, making $25 profit....and all of a sudden a chinese company comes along awash in CCP government money and is pushing out those same widgets that "cost" them only $20 to make and sell for $50, yeah, you'd be screaming too.

And you and every other company selling widgets would go out of business since you'd be forced to sell each widget at a $25 loss.

And once you and every other widget maker has gone bankrupt (and perhaps that CCP money also slows down once they've reached "Mission accomplished) and they have the market all to themselves, they can not only jack up those prices to whatever they want since they don't have any competition anymore, but everyone in North American is driving around chinese electronics, which is a whole other ball of wax no matter how much people want to discount that whole thing.

As for the Norway thing, their willingness to just welcome chinese EV's in to flood the market is somewhat hypocritical from a "Lets be green, YAY!" standpoint since almost their entire economy is based on oil and gas, but oil and gas that is exported to Europe. The CCP cars becoming a monopoly there makes little difference to them from an anticompetitive standpoint as they have no meaningful auto manufacturing industry anyways, and then they can yell about being "green" when their population (which number less than half that of the population of Ontario alone, one must also remember, in an entire country also less than half the size of just Ontario as well) drive electric cars. Yay Norway?
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This has already happened to most of our industry already most things couldn't be made here. It really is a race to the bottom we want to make 50 dollars an hour but buy 15 dollar toasters. Most of the products out of china are less expensive on a wholesale level than the raw materials in them would cost makes ya think.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
 
Scuba Steve said:
This has already happened to most of our industry already most things couldn't be made here. It really is a race to the bottom we want to make 50 dollars an hour but buy 15 dollar toasters. Most of the products out of china are less expensive on a wholesale level than the raw materials in them would cost makes ya think.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
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Exactly. It’s not a good thing and shouldn’t be allowed to continue, but like many things China, we’re not playing on equal footing anymore. Chinas overcapacity with steel is another thing than allows them to be anticompetitive with lots of things. Like toasters, for one tiny example.

Let’s also remember that their manpower is not only dirt cheap, but in a lot of cases, treated as disposable.
 
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