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Elon musk's reactions towards BMW and Toyota.

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There's a number of reactions from Tesla that make me wonder if Elon Musk is overplaying his cards.

Tall trees catch a lot of wind.

He laughed at BMW when they brought out their i3. The i3 is selling very well now.


He laughed at Audi and Toyota with their hydrogen cells, he called hydrogen a "******** technology", it would never work. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes now have hydrogen cars, either released or about to be.

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There's some very vocal language he used against car distributers, he doesn't like them, doesn't think they're needed and wrote some things about them.

There was his reaction against the NY times which was very vocal.


Should he keep doing this or be less outspoken?
 
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If you think the BMW i3 is selling "very well" please provide sale numbers to support that statement. BMW is a very well established brand with a strong reputation and I don't doubt that the i3 will achieve some degree of success. However, I think it very likely that the Model S/X will sell in much greater numbers which is remarkable because they are twice the price of the i3.

As the HFCV's, Musk is right on: they are far less energy efficient than EVs (when you analyze the complete path starting with extracting the resource to make the hydrogen and then how much of the energy in hydrogen makes it to the wheels of the car) and the cost of the fueling infrastructure is at least an order of magnitude greater than building EV charging station, even Twsla Superchargers. Just because a few manufacturers are about to start selling HFCVs or have so,d a handful in a few states as "compliance" cars does not mean they are a success or ever will be. In fact those manufacturers sales volume targets are pitifully low.

US consumers by and large hate the traditional car dealership model. No news there.

I do not think Musk should tone down his opinions at all.
 
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There's a number of reactions from Tesla that make me wonder if Elon Musk is overplaying his cards.

Tall trees catch a lot of wind.

He laughed at BMW when they brought out their i3. The i3 is selling very well now.

He laughed at Audi and Toyota with their hydrogen cells, he called hydrogen a "******** technology", it would never work. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes now have hydrogen cars, either released or about to be.

There's some very vocal language he used against car distributers, he doesn't like them, doesn't think they're needed and wrote some things about them.

There was his reaction against the NY times which was very vocal.


Should he keep doing this or be less outspoken?

Firstly, I don't think that any post on TMC will impact on what Elon Musk does. But talking about the i3 and Fuelcell: Let's not forget that we are dealing with very powerful/well funded industries here. If the i3 is selling well, that's great! I don't know how many of those are sold to private individuals but even is they mostly go into fleets - great, this advances the electric car market. On Fuelcells: from a purely physical point of view hydrogen is worse than pure EVs. There is a long discussion in the Investor's forum on that topic but my take is that any worry about fuelcells is a distraction and we should be disciplined enough to ignore this. Simple as that.
 
There's a number of reactions from Tesla that make me wonder if Elon Musk is overplaying his cards.

Tall trees catch a lot of wind.

He laughed at BMW when they brought out their i3. The i3 is selling very well now.

He laughed at the idea that the i3 is competition for Tesla.

He's been complimentary about their use of CFRP.

He laughed at Audi and Toyota with their hydrogen cells, he called hydrogen a "******** technology", it would never work. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes now have hydrogen cars, either released or about to be.

They're compliance cars.

There's some very vocal language he used against car distributers, he doesn't like them, doesn't think they're needed and wrote some things about them.

There was his reaction against the NY times which was very vocal.

Should he keep doing this or be less outspoken?

Yes. No.

He's working to push the technology and the competition are all compromising.
 
I think it is well within reason to call hydrogen BS. If anything the word is too weak.

As far as can be determined, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai plan on making a few hundred to a few thousand of their vehicles in the next few years, reaching "tens of thousands" in the early 2020s. In other words, they will in 10 years be where Tesla is *now*. This is from the largest car company in the world plus a few of it's friends, with vastly more resources and manpower than Tesla.

I would have vastly more respect for Toyota if they eliminated their Hydrogen program, then eliminated all of their non-hybrid vehicles, and offered a plug-in version of each model. If they want to be known as the hybrid company, they should do something about it!

Over here, Toyota Norway has recently been whining in the media about how the electric cars are getting all the incentives and how their hybrids should get a piece of the action. Their hydrogen cars get the exact same incentives as the electric cars, but I guess that doesn't matter much when the hydrogen cars are merely a green-washing effort.
 
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Nobody else with any standing is being clear about Hydrogen Fuel Cells. They really are a dead end technology with zero potential to solve real world problems but they SEEM serious when backed by those big serious companies. The real motives of the companies are to have compliance cars, collect ZEV credits, have a PR showpiece and to avoid doing anything serious that interferes with their core ICE vehicle business as long as possible. The technical confusion created by this can do real harm.

Musk being honest about it at least gets some people thinking and googling the topic. The biggest problem I've encountered in forums trying to get the point across is the difficulty people have in distinguishing "real" working technology from glowing lab press releases. No cost effective technology exists to make hydrogen from water using renewable electric (all commercial practical Hydrogen is steam reformed from natural gas). If it did exist it's not deployed anywhere in the world and would cost trillions of dollars to make available everywhere (unlike using electric power to charge batteries which is a real technology that already exists everywhere). Even if you spent the trillions of dollars to deploy hydrogen infrastructure it would still be less efficient in the best case than Tesla's battery tech is NOW ready to drive away.

"Look, just water vapor from the tail pipe!" Is a shiny distraction toward a technological option that is correctly described as BS.
 
Hydrogen cars require one particular type of fuel, and a whole lot of production/maintenance.

Pure EVs require electricity which can be generated easily from practically any energy source, and pure EVs are much more simple (less maintenance)

Large established automobile manufacturers need technology which must be maintained, to keep the dealerships busy, as well as the spare part industry going. That is why the EV-1 was killed, it quickly proved that it would have been the end of huge profits, while giving the power back to the people - to fuel their own cars.

Gas (petrol), diesel, LPG, hydrogen ... they are all specific fuels each, which require certain networks of limited suppliers - and where prices are highly volatile. Electricity can be generated by more or less anyone, and are much more democratic and "open source".

Power to the people.
 
I saw my first i3 in real life driving around the paddock (not the track!) at REFUEL Laguna Seca last weekend. I almost burst out laughing when I saw it. It is SO GOOFY-looking!!! While I certainly want lots of EVs in the world, I just cringe at another storied manufacturer choosing the goofy route, after Tesla clearly demonstrated that elegance works better in the market!

I am so grateful that Elon, like Steve Jobs before him, has taste!
 
I respect BMW for at least trying to push the EV tech in their own way. Despite what the media quotes, if you listen to the full conference call the analyst is the one who starts laughing first before it spreads to Elon. And it seems like Tesla/BMW get along, so it would seem to me Elon feels the same way with the BMW iSeries. As a note about sales, it's really not competing very well a market share in its price range (where as the Model S numbers are blowing away competition in its bracket). With regards to the absolute number of pent-up reservations, I would point out the Model X which costs twice as much currently has more pre-orders than that.

And he should absolutely call out the BS on fuel cells. It reaches a lot of people who will then dig deeper to reveal the truth that the HFC plans are really just limited compliance car programs. That Toyota doesn't publicly admit to this doesn't make it any less true.
 
Regardless of the technical accuracy of Elon's statements - I think you disagree with his boldness and his tone, and I couldn't disagree with you more. If you want less of what Elon is selling (i.e. Un-edited candor and a refreshing directness) then tune into CSPAN or listen to other CEOs on CNBC talk around issues. Watch the video of his testimony in front of Congress opposite the empty suit Michael Gass(bag) from ULA and let me know which you prefer. I hope he keeps making bold (and true/opinionated) statements.

The emperor is walking around buck naked burning fossil fuels and using a $400 million rocket to launch a space satellite designed to shoot a laser to light his cigar and we are paying for all of it. The antidote is more Elon being Elon. It may be fanboy, but I'm hoping for lawsuits and outrageous statement and goals like living on Mars. Bring it.
 
BMW is being successful in their marketing of the i3. The constant comparisons to Tesla are intentional, I assume. It keeps the attention away from the fact that the i3 is more of a competitor with the Leaf and Volt than Tesla. That's probably why Elon isn't taking it seriously as a competitor, because it isn't. BMW is a premium brand, and they want their brand associated with other premium, leading brands, not Nissan and Chevy.
 
haha, that's funny
Personally don't feel Reuters is a good source + that piece is from last November.

wonky cars. and that is the only time I have ever used that term. for an I3

I react the same as Elon and I have some Fuel cell background too

Not sure of the point here. Reuters is reporting what the BMW head of sales says about orders. Are you saying that the head of sales is fudging the number of actual orders?
 
Not sure of the point here. Reuters is reporting what the BMW head of sales says about orders. Are you saying that the head of sales is fudging the number of actual orders?
An order doesn't necessarily mean a sale. Some of the people that have ordered an i3(electronauts as BMW calls them), have an option to back out. Sales is what really matters.
 
If you think the BMW i3 is selling "very well" please provide sale numbers to support that statement. BMW is a very well established brand with a strong reputation and I don't doubt that the i3 will achieve some degree of success. However, I think it very likely that the Model S/X will sell in much greater numbers which is remarkable because they are twice the price of the i3.

As the HFCV's, Musk is right on: they are far less energy efficient than EVs (when you analyze the complete path starting with extracting the resource to make the hydrogen and then how much of the energy in hydrogen makes it to the wheels of the car) and the cost of the fueling infrastructure is at least an order of magnitude greater than building EV charging station, even Twsla Superchargers. Just because a few manufacturers are about to start selling HFCVs or have so,d a handful in a few states as "compliance" cars does not mean they are a success or ever will be. In fact those manufacturers sales volume targets are pitifully low.

US consumers by and large hate the traditional car dealership model. No news there.

I do not think Musk should tone down his opinions at all.

+1

BMW sold over 500k 3 Series vehicles in 2013.

BMW 3 Series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BMW has just over 10k orders and deliveries for the i3 through the first 6 months of 2014.

For a company that will manufacture and deliver 2 million vehicles worldwide 20k plus is not "doing very well." And it has not impacted Tesla sales.

Lil Tesla will deliver over 35k units this year at over twice the average striking price. With a limited distribution network. Limited leasing options. No advertising. Other than the CEO doing free media and tweets.