Musk endeavours

[BobbyD]

Volkswagen Delivers 100,000th e-Golf

- https://insideevs.com/news/384712/volks ... 0th-egolf/

[BobbyD]

VW predicts TCO parity before subsidies for BEV's after the second wave of MEB based cars.




- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EK7u7C6W4AE06Y1.png:large



- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EK9JGufWwAAP6NF.jpg:large

Slides taken from a Diess presentation, all the slides from which can be seen here: https://www.volkswagenag.com/presence/i ... adshow.pdf

[BobbyD]

Vernon Unsworth v. Elon Musk (2:18-cv-08048) - https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/78 ... er_by=desc

[redsturgeon]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... ince-four/

Awkward.

Errol Musk 72 fathers daughter with step daughter he has known since age of 4.

Apparently Elon doesn't get on with his father perhaps this gives some background to the pedo insult.

John

[odysseus2000]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/25/elon-musks-father-has-baby-step-daughter-has-known-since-four/

Awkward.

Errol Musk 72 fathers daughter with step daughter he has known since age of 4.

Apparently Elon doesn't get on with his father perhaps this gives some background to the pedo insult.

John

I read that as Elon Musk has 72 fathers & was thinking that is a lot of clone input till I realised what was meant before getting confused over Errol, but figured it out eventually.

Many years ago I was told by informed sources that older males & particularly drug takers would become unfertile very early & yet Mick Jagger did a similar Fathering a few years back. So much for informed sources. This kind of late Fathering was common in Victorian times. Perhaps this new Musk gene child will amaze like his step brother.

Still the fact that this is making the news is yet more free publicity & imho the whole Musk/diver case is an irrelevance, simply making those who hate Musk hate him some more & doing nothing to those who don't. I expect the case to have zero impact on the price if Tesla equity.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

The VW stuff on cost parity seems strange given hiw much simpler BEV are compared to ICE.

Surely one expects BEV to be a lot cheaper?

All in all it just looks like a power point dog & pony show fantasy as a prelude to coming to the market for money.

Regards,

[dealtn]

The VW stuff on cost parity seems strange given hiw much simpler BEV are compared to ICE.

Surely one expects BEV to be a lot cheaper?

All in all it just looks like a power point dog & pony show fantasy as a prelude to coming to the market for money.

Regards,

They might get cheaper, whether that is a lot or not is debatable. Do you really expect the chart to go on ad infinitum to show the price probabilities beyond the parity point? It's surely just a visual to show the trend and not any conspiracy theory you are trying to label it as.

[redsturgeon]

The VW stuff on cost parity seems strange given hiw much simpler BEV are compared to ICE.

Surely one expects BEV to be a lot cheaper?

All in all it just looks like a power point dog & pony show fantasy as a prelude to coming to the market for money.

Regards,

A lump of gold is simpler than a car but is it cheaper?

Batteries are expensive and will remain so...although they may come down in price a little.

John

[BobbyD]

VW sales in the USA in November were 29,218 (up 9%) and their year to date sales are up 4.2% on the same time last year (335,445).
And BMW vehicle sales totalled 31,213 vehicles in November 2019, an increase of 10.2 percent over the 28,330 vehicles sold in November 2018. Year-to-date, BMW sales in the U.S. are up 4.5 percent.

(Figures are from VW and BMW corporate websites - nice PR quote: “We enter the final month of 2019 in the midst of our annual ‘Road Home’ sales event with optimism for a strong year-end and a prosperous year ahead,” said Bernhard Kuhnt, president and CEO, BMW of North America.)

Breeakdown for VW sales by model here: https://media.vw.com/releases/1235

Porsche had an even better month:

Atlanta, Georgia. Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA), importer and distributor of the Porsche 911, 718 Boxster and Cayman, Macan, Cayenne, Panamera and Taycan model lines, today announced November retail sales rose 11.5 percent from a year ago to 6,326 vehicles – the strongest month ever for PCNA, breaking the prior all-time record set last November. For the first 11 months of 2019, total retail deliveries were up 7 percent from a year ago to 56,835.

“Porsche is on track to close 2019 with our tenth year of consecutive growth in deliveries to U.S. customers and the eighth successive record year,” said Klaus Zellmer, President and CEO of PCNA.

- https://press.porsche.com/prod/presse_p ... id=1051837

Audi:



- https://media.audiusa.com/en-us/releases/371

[redsturgeon]

Bloomberg reports that ‘the average selling price for batteries at the end of last year was close to $180 per kilowatt hours.’ This suggests that the battery costs for the 41kwh ZOE amount to $7380 (€6615). Even if this was halved and the €3300 cost saving passed on to the consumer through lower list prices, the ZOE would still have a TCO that is over €5000 higher than for the petrol Clio and over €3500 higher than the diesel.

https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-ins ... nflate-tco

John

[BobbyD]

The VW stuff on cost parity seems strange given hiw much simpler BEV are compared to ICE.

Surely one expects BEV to be a lot cheaper?

They are only a lot simpler if you count the battery as one component, ICE is at the end of a century of development with long established supply lines whilst BEV is still wearing nappies, and scale, scale, scale.

Did I mention scale?

[Howard]

UK sales figures for November have been published.

Tesla sold 2,405 cars (assuming that they accounted for all “other” imports). That is up on October (587) but less than the 3,500 cars they sold in September. (Year to date sales now 11,762).

In November Audi sold 9,392, BMW sold 11,642, Mercedes 10,397 and VW 15,311. Generally speaking the German brands are selling reasonably well in a tough market their sales have generally only dipped a few percentage points year to date. Honda, Nissan and Fiat are seeing substantial drops in sales.

Porsche are having a good year in the UK. Their sales of 13,517 ytd are up 20% over last year.

Overall the market share of all BEV cars sold in the UK is 1.5% ytd. With around 33,000 sold. This is virtually the same share as PHEVs at 1.4%. The BEV market share is forecast to go up next year as more generous BIK subsidies come into force.

regards

Howard

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

[BobbyD]

Porsche are having a good year in the UK. Their sales of 13,517 ytd are up 20% over last year.

A very disappointing 619% increase from Nov'18 figures.

Just been looking at Porsche's worldwide sales history.

1994 21,124

1999 43,982

2004 76,827

2008 98,652
2009 75,238

2014 187,208

2018 256,255

Call me biased, but I reckon that's reasonably impressive...

[Howard]

Porsche are having a good year in the UK. Their sales of 13,517 ytd are up 20% over last year.

A very disappointing 619% increase from Nov'18 figures.

Just been looking at Porsche's worldwide sales history.

1994 21,124

1999 43,982

2004 76,827

2008 98,652
2009 75,238

2014 187,208

2018 256,255

Call me biased, but I reckon that's reasonably impressive...

I think they have made a bob or two along the way.

Howard

[odysseus2000]

Bloomberg reports that ‘the average selling price for batteries at the end of last year was close to $180 per kilowatt hours.’ This suggests that the battery costs for the 41kwh ZOE amount to $7380 (€6615). Even if this was halved and the €3300 cost saving passed on to the consumer through lower list prices, the ZOE would still have a TCO that is over €5000 higher than for the petrol Clio and over €3500 higher than the diesel.

https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-ins ... nflate-tco

John

Good cells are around 3000 mAhr at a nominal voltage of 3.7 volts, giving 3x3.7 =11.1 Whr

For 1000 Whr or 1kWh need 1000/11.1 = 90 cells.

Forbes say these cost $2 based on their $180 per kWh.

But retail prices, never mind wholesale, were available on Black Friday for $1.89:

https://kit.co/jehu/black-friday-deals-2019

So I imagine that wholesale prices in volume are around $1 per cell,around $90 per kWh.

I don't believe that the cost break down suggested for the ZOE is correct, looks to me to be trying to flog petrol versions before the price goes down.

If anyone disagrees with my numbers, please post why they are wrong.

Regards,

[dspp]

Bloomberg reports that ‘the average selling price for batteries at the end of last year was close to $180 per kilowatt hours.’ This suggests that the battery costs for the 41kwh ZOE amount to $7380 (€6615). Even if this was halved and the €3300 cost saving passed on to the consumer through lower list prices, the ZOE would still have a TCO that is over €5000 higher than for the petrol Clio and over €3500 higher than the diesel.

https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-ins ... nflate-tco

John

Good cells are around 3000 mAhr at a nominal voltage of 3.7 volts, giving 3x3.7 =11.1 Whr

For 1000 Whr or 1kWh need 1000/11.1 = 90 cells.

Forbes say these cost $2 based on their $180 per kWh.

But retail prices, never mind wholesale, were available on Black Friday for $1.89:

https://kit.co/jehu/black-friday-deals-2019

So I imagine that wholesale prices in volume are around $1 per cell,around $90 per kWh.

I don't believe that the cost break down suggested for the ZOE is correct, looks to me to be trying to flog petrol versions before the price goes down.

If anyone disagrees with my numbers, please post why they are wrong.

Regards,

o2000,
My understanding is that the cells that leak through to retail consumers are the lowest quality out of the main runs, or the start & end runs of the higher quality. I fully agree that $/kWh prices are falling fast, but one has to be careful when doing apples & lemons pricing analyses in this sector.
regards,
dspp

[BobbyD]

German numbers:

FRANKFURT -- Tesla, Porsche, Audi and VW were among brands that saw strong sales gains in Germany in November as overall market sales jumped 9.7 percent to 299,127 vehicles, according to data released by the KBA motor transport authority on Wednesday.

Porsche's registrations rose by 159 percent, Audi sales were up 41 percent and VW brand's volume gained 27 percent. The brands are bouncing back from a sales dip in autumn last year when new WLTP testing standards caused delivery disruptions.

Tesla's registrations increased 130 percent, helped by demand for the Model 3.

- https://europe.autonews.com/sales-marke ... 0-november

Actual number appear to be here - https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics ... rmany_2019

Those increases were:

Tesla up from 122 cars to 280

Porsche up from 1108 to 2866

VW up from 49253 to 62642

Audi up from 13170 to 18576.

[odysseus2000]

o2000,
My understanding is that the cells that leak through to retail consumers are the lowest quality out of the main runs, or the start & end runs of the higher quality. I fully agree that $/kWh prices are falling fast, but one has to be careful when doing apples & lemons pricing analyses in this sector.
regards,
dspp

Lithium-ion cells are often portrayed as batteries that operate between 3.3 Volts to 4.2 volts and that they must never be operated at lower or higher voltages.

In practice for every 18650 one needs to consult the data sheet to find the optimum conditions and these matter.

E.g. I have been experimenting with some Samsung 18650-28A, charging them from a USB power supply using a generic charge control chip which operates at 500 mA in the voltage range 3.3 volts to 4.2 volts and I get capacities that are around 1200 mAh, substantially below the 1800 mAh that was advertised when I bought them. So they are frauds? No, because if you look at the data sheet you find that Samsung specify:
Charge voltage of 4.3 volts at 1400 mA per hour for 3 hours and a lower cut off of 2.75 volts.

For anyone interested, here is the data sheet:

https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/8081 ... 8650-28A/1

When charged to these specs and discharged to 2.75 volts I get capacities approaching the advertised 1800 mAh.

As I understand things, each cell should be tested, but they may instead take samples and test them and from these tests the cells are characterised according to performance and then given a type, the 28A for these cells. Subsequent history including storage temperature can change these parameters such that it is necessary to be cautious when buying.

Tesla have said on several occasions that the performance range for car cells is much more demanding than for storage applications.

In general to be sure of what a vendor is flogging it is often good practice to try a sample and then get guarantees that a larger order would have quantifiable similar parameters.

For comparison purposes the capacity and the charge parameters needed to reach said capacity needs to declared and then comparisons become more meaningful. The cells I linked too have good capacity according to my current knowledge.

Regards,

[Howard]

Looking at the 2019 sales and profitability figures, the Tesla story may go down in history as one of the best examples of how not to market cars.

Surely they missed a big opportunity to become a huge success story. If, as we are told, sales were constrained by production capacity, why oh why did Tesla not charge a little more for each car?

Let’s say that they will produce 360,000 cars this year and they could have sold a lot more if they could have produced them. Why didn’t they charge the Tesla fans $2,000 dollars more per car? Tesla supporters on this forum would argue that the cars are so wonderful that they’d sell almost at any price.

If they had done this and sold 360k cars, their losses would have been reduced by a cash input of $720,000,000. Then we’d all be impressed by their performance.

They missed the obvious opportunity which their early battery advantage gave them. And they didn’t learn an obvious lesson from VW, owners of Porsche who know how to make a profit from selling cars.


Luxury car company Porsche, founded in 1948, made more than 4.22 billion euros in profit before taxes in 2017, according to its annual report. Based on the Nov. 8 exchange rate, that’s more than $4.82 billion.

Divide that yearly number into seconds and the company made an average of just under $153 every second.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/how-muc ... -2017.html

And VW are still showing how it’s done!

The Porsche 911 is the most profitable car of 2019 - https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/ ... e-car-2019

What a missed opportunity!

regards

Howard

[dspp]

o2000,
My understanding is that the cells that leak through to retail consumers are the lowest quality out of the main runs, or the start & end runs of the higher quality. I fully agree that $/kWh prices are falling fast, but one has to be careful when doing apples & lemons pricing analyses in this sector.
regards,
dspp

Lithium-ion cells ....

In general to be sure of what a vendor is flogging it is often good practice to try a sample and then get guarantees that a larger order would have quantifiable similar parameters....

Ody,
My understanding is that all the Panasonic cells destined for Tesla are individually tested and graded. Those passing go to automotive. Those that fail to meet grade go to Tesla-static, or if too poor for that outside Tesla. I understand that similar grading goes on elsewhere. That is a separate matter from the design-specific issues you are describing for each manufacturer. So you end up with a big matrix of grades and designs, for what on the face of it to an outsider would be the same thing. Similar practices go on in solar PV modules, RAM, and many other areas. That in turn makes price comparison not as straightforward as one might like. But yes, I think we all agree scale is growing and costs are falling, and performance is rising.
regards,
dspp