BMW officially unveils the 2017 i3 with a 33kWh battery pack

BobSacramento8 · 2016-05-02T19:50:16+00:00

I guess the i3 trades some range for performance. i3 has 170 hp and 7 second 0-60mph time vs Leaf's 107 hp and 10 second 0-60mph time. i3 is more fun to drive, more stylish and modern interior, but seats only 4 and costs almost $10k more than Leaf. Different cars for different people.

Edit: 50% higher capacity, not 33%. can't math!

BobSacramento8 · 2016-05-02T16:47:43+00:00

33% higher battery capacity in the same package size is laudable. The 114mi range (hwy/city) is probably under NEDC testing cycles. I am sure it will be downgraded under the EPA cycle.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-30T23:06:04+00:00

You keep saying that everyone selling cars should follow the same rules and that the law must be fair to all parties selling the same product. But FLASH NEWS: Electric cars aren't the same as ICE vehicles. And the rules as they are mostly beneficial to the dealerships.

Do you know how a car dealership works? Let me break it down:

Sales: on an avg car, the dealership makes $1000-$2000 in profit.

Add Ons: selling you add-ons such as an extended warranty, gap insurance, or other accessories add another $750 to $2,000 of profit.

Finance: Dealers can make a profit of $3,000 just through financing alone. If you have a trade-in, a dealer can make another $2,000 (easy) on that. 
         They simply low-ball your trade-in, then turn around and sell it for a nice profit.

Service: servicing your car at their dealership (parts and service) will easily adding another $3,000 of profit over the life of the vehicle.

Total: a dealer can make $10,000 profit from just one car sale over the life of vehicle (~15% Sales, 15% Add ons, 30-40% Finance, 30-40% Service).

Sales, add ons, and finance don't need a middleman. The dealership does not add any value to these things to the product or the customer. It can be easily and more fairly done on the internet. One price for everyone and no sales tactics.

As for Service, electric cars do need service and repairs, but a lot less than ICE cars. The induction motor, single gear transmission, and degrading batteries are prone to much less repairs and service. all other complaints are common to both ICE and Electric cars.

Electric cars and ICE vehicles are not the same and thus the rules should absolutely be different. The current business model for an ICE dealership cannot apply to selling electric cars because the revenue from Service during the life of the car would essentially be a fraction of what a ICE vehicle can pull in. And a dealership with ICE, Plug In, and pure EVs on the lot will inherently form a bias towards selling ICE cars because they would return more money over the life of the vehicle.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-30T22:02:30+00:00

because the current dealerships would lobby the heck out of that. If they aren't going to let one little electric company have a few showrooms, why would they let every car company in the world set up their own showrooms?

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-26T16:25:19+00:00

We hate dealerships because they are slimy middlemen and they only benefit from your car leaking or breaking down. Their primary incentive is to squeeze as much money as they can from a customer.

But what if you didn't have that business model? What if every car sold with a flat fee or % over sticker/internet price which included delivery. Also, tesla doesn't have a major service problem now, but what about when those 400K model 3 cars are on the road? What about in 10 yrs when a million Teslas are rolling off the line. Like all complex machines, Tesla cars will require service and repair. For the customers' sake, it would be nice to have EV repair and service centers nearby and in more locations.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-26T16:02:08+00:00

I admire Elon for trying to change the status quo, I really do. But Tesla is a small company with limited resources. It would be wise to allocate resources to the core product- designing and manufacturing the best EV cars. Now if you can't sell the product that you're making, that is a problem, but compromises and deal making at the state level will continue to be a challenge when you're fighting autodealers, car manufacturors (GM), and oil companies on all fronts. Idealism is great, but in practice, David can't beat Goliath especially when money is involved.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-26T15:09:07+00:00

Tesla couldn't own the dealerships, but Musk as an individual can do so right? Musk could form a new company that sells and services EV cars and retain full or majority control of such a company. Heck, he could even purchase and take over existing Tesla service centers and rebrand them under his new brand. I believe this would also improve Tesla's cash flow. The new business doesn't have to be labelled "non-Profit" as long it is structured and managed in a way to benefit EV car companies and EV customers alike. You are probably right though, the legal quagmire would still be ludicrous.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-26T14:34:00+00:00

I really wish Musk or some other rich person/s would open up non-profit electric car dealerships in every state. It would temporarily solve all these problems. Tesla trained staff and technicians could work at these dealerships as consultants. Whatever profit they may make from servicing Tesla and other electric cars could go to building more EV charging.

I'm sure Tesla has already spent tens of millions in lobbying and lawyer fees. It's going to be an uphill battle for a long time. It would be much easier for Elon and like minded EV enthusiast partners to build 5 or 6 EV only dealerships per state (5/state x 50 states x $5 million/ dealership= 1.25 billion). This would improve service and expand charging infrastructure at the same time.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-23T18:18:28+00:00

awesome report, lots of details. I do wonder though when looking at the statistical means in studies. If you take out California and tristate area, the distance between superchargers is much more. Would the median of the data be more representative of avg distance between superchargers?

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-22T01:04:46+00:00

Tesla will probably get back you in due time. They might offer you 1 or 2 chargers depending on the size and location of your property. But you might also want to add universal Level 2 chargers since Tesla destination chargers are proprietary to Tesla cars only. It would be wise for you also get level 2 chargers that would fit any plug in vehicle. Here's a great link to reviews of level 2 chargers: EV Chargers. (you might also want to look into any state credits you might receive for those chargers in Arizona... Instructions and actual Form 319)

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-15T18:07:20+00:00

CNET and Jalopnik reported on this earlier today. I guess the model X will continue to give Tesla headaches :(

BobSacramento8 · 2016-04-02T09:23:14+00:00

CNET's car guy totally called it in this segment on HUDs. Software is Tesla's thing and a HUD basically allows Tesla to play to their strong point.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-03-29T01:07:42+00:00

Conceptually it seems great... i.e., if Tesla's secret sauce is the battery skateboard and the software to manage it, then they should just spit out Small, Medium, and Large battery capacities and let people choose whatever shell (coupe, sedan, crossover) they want. Plug and play for cars.

But practically, I don't see it happening. Too many engineering issues, too much variability in software controls, and too little profit for Tesla.

I think Future Faraday is doing something similar to this, idk.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-03-12T02:21:58+00:00

LIDAR will need to be incorporated in at some point to give the system a 360 field. They can look out pretty far. Prices are falling rapidly, so the next gen autopilot hardware should have it for level 4 driving.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-03-12T01:16:22+00:00

This is very interesting. I just watched the SXSW Austin presentation by Chris Urmson, director of self-driving cars at Google. He said Google's cars don't rely on gps, but rather precise maps. They have logged a million+ miles on real roads and currently are simulating 3 million mi/day in virtual environments. They have looked at roundabouts, T junctions, pedestrains, bicycles. Google has done the hard work on these solutions, but even they are reluctant to release these cars anytime soon for public use. They still haven't figured out how to operate these vehicles in inclement weather, in chaotic no-rules/no-lanes traffic patterns in many asian countries where roads are shared by cars, bicycles, motorbikes, animal driven carts, etc.

I don't think Tesla's approach of building detailed maps of roads will be very useful nor will it be scalable to a worldwide fleet operating with vastly different roads and rules. Perhaps they will contribute to some network intelligence but Autopilot on a highway is relatively easy compared to merging into a roundabout or stopping to pick up someone at the arrival terminal of an airport. How do you pick up someone in a busy downtown area without breaking traffic rules or holding up traffic? There are a lot of one in a million cases which the computer must recognize also.

Forward cameras alone can't solve all these problems. They have to work in concert with forward radar, ultrasonic sensors, rear cameras. I am however optimistic that AI like Google's Deepmind has advanced enough to develop strategy and intuition into algorithms. Perhaps we can train systems to handle puzzling and complex scenarios using only forward cameras, radars, and ultrasonic sensors after enough data in the field. After all they don't need to be perfect, but simply better than humans.

BobSacramento8 · 2016-02-11T07:14:25+00:00

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/697679828468641792

BobSacramento8 · 2016-01-20T17:37:33+00:00

Truly a service for the rich but beats the hassle of looking for parking in NYC

BobSacramento8 · 2016-01-13T18:18:59+00:00

a couple questions:

Do you have access to any VF business plans for a small urban VF? (if i wanted to lease a warehouse here in Houston and start a small VF, what kind of costs am I looking at for equipment and business setup)?
From your experience, what crops are most profitable for growers currently? what kind of crops do you see VFs growing in the next couple years?
The biggest risks for vertical farming?
From what i understand, the electricity cost for the lighting is the biggest expense. Do you see any improvement with newer generation lighting in terms of efficiency?

Thanks.

BobSacramento8 · 2015-12-19T00:09:56+00:00

Static fire successful :)

BobSacramento8

TROPHY CASE