Articles re Tesla—Fact or Fiction?

[Curt Renz]

This WSJ article is beyond biased, it's stupid:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-reports-spends-its-juice-badly-1440803078?ru=yahoo

BTW the author should look in the mirror for an example of prostitution.

Rupert Murdoch owned publications in general and their WSJ columnist Jenkins in particular pander to their base audience by regularly bashing Tesla Motors as though it were an enterprise entirely run by a socialist government stealing from taxpayers. They are essentially preaching to their choir. It brings in advertising and subscription dollars. But it must be rather ineffective regarding influence on the current Tesla share price, since few among their faithful would be likely to invest in Tesla shares anyway, and many may already be short them. Just reading the comments to their Tesla articles makes this obvious. Once their groupies awaken from their stupor, a flood of additional money could head into Tesla shares and cars.

 

[Hogfighter]

Rupert Murdoch owned publications in general and their WSJ columnist Jenkins in particular pander to their base audience by regularly bashing Tesla Motors as though it were an enterprise entirely run by a socialist government stealing from taxpayers. They are essentially preaching to their choir. It brings in advertising and subscription dollars. But it must be rather ineffective regarding influence on the current Tesla share price, since few among their faithful would be likely to invest in Tesla shares anyway, and many may already be short them. Just reading the comments to their Tesla articles makes this obvious. Once their groupies awaken from their stupor, a flood of additional money could head into Tesla shares and cars.

No to mention that it's entirely probable that any dissenting comments in favor of Tesla Motors gets immediately deleted.

 

[winfield100]

a small comment. i occasionally read seeking alpha, merely becasue of i commenter Randy Carlson, whom has very nice articles and comments from an engineers perspective and fairly decent insightes. It's easy to only read his comments by doing a search. most of the reast is Dross and fluff at best

 

[JRP3]

Siddharth Dalal, (dalalsid here on the TMC forums), also writes some worthwhile articles on SA.

 

[winfield100]

Siddharth Dalal, (dalalsid here on the TMC forums), also writes some worthwhile articles on SA.

yes, I occasionally see him there, but very rarely, . Siddarth lives somewhere around the Charlottesville, Virginia, USA area about 140 mils from me and d rives a Nissan Leaf. i guess my point is that thre is a TINY bit of info you can glean IF you know the filters to use to search.
Also Julian Cox whom was thrown out is also knowlegable nice article(s) on fuel cells and efficiency and lack thereof. right now there is an author, Rogier, a proponent of utility scale solar, whom is refusing to answer a question of if rooftop costs less orthe same as T&D charges, how will it survive? (unless for example the roof top utility scale solar is on a gigafactory and the transmission is 1,000ft or so and all consumed on site.

 

[dalalsid]

Siddharth Dalal, (dalalsid here on the TMC forums), also writes some worthwhile articles on SA.

Thanks!!

yes, I occasionally see him there, but very rarely, . Siddarth lives somewhere around the Charlottesville, Virginia, USA area about 140 mils from me and d rives a Nissan Leaf. i guess my point is that thre is a TINY bit of info you can glean IF you know the filters to use to search.
Also Julian Cox whom was thrown out is also knowlegable nice article(s) on fuel cells and efficiency and lack thereof. right now there is an author, Rogier, a proponent of utility scale solar, whom is refusing to answer a question of if rooftop costs less orthe same as T&D charges, how will it survive? (unless for example the roof top utility scale solar is on a gigafactory and the transmission is 1,000ft or so and all consumed on site.

Yeah once in a while I get a kick to write and I'll write an article every other week for a few months when I get withdrawal symptoms from arguing with trolls. But I'm unlikely to be very active for the next few months because I just joined an awesome small startup and I'm likely to be crazy busy. Yep I drive a Leaf, though I might have to get back to driving my gas car if my wife and me wont be able to carpool once my new company finds offices (she claims she's "forgotten" how to drive a gas car ). I'm not looking fwd to that. Gen III crossover would be welcome right now.

 

[FluxCap]

A little bit of fact and fiction in this one on Ars today (who are huge Tesla fans, by the way):

Researchers dazzle self-driving cars with laser beams | Ars Technica

Though no mention of Tesla directly, I think there is a real opportunity for Tesla to educate the market on how having as much sensor redundancy as a nuclear submarine (OK maybe not quite that much) is a Tesla-specific feature that sets us apart. When you have camera, laser, GPS, and multiple sonar sensors working in tandem to assess the environment around the car, it is remarkably effective and safe.

As some commenters wisely noted, there is no mention that the same techniques (shining laser at sensors) could be used to defeat a human driver easily. If someone is willing to shine a laser or high-powered strobe light at your eyes (human optical sensors), you are going to crash. An AI-quipped Tesla on autopilot with redundant sonar and GPS might not crash, but a blinded human certainly will.

 

[ggr]

A little bit of fact and fiction in this one on Ars today (who are huge Tesla fans, by the way):

Researchers dazzle self-driving cars with laser beams | Ars Technica

Though no mention of Tesla directly, I think there is a real opportunity for Tesla to educate the market on how having as much sensor redundancy as a nuclear submarine (OK maybe not quite that much) is a Tesla-specific feature that sets us apart. When you have camera, laser, GPS, and multiple sonar sensors working in tandem to assess the environment around the car, it is remarkably effective and safe.

As some commenters wisely noted, there is no mention that the same techniques (shining laser at sensors) could be used to defeat a human driver easily. If someone is willing to shine a laser or high-powered strobe light at your eyes (human optical sensors), you are going to crash. An AI-quipped Tesla on autopilot with redundant sonar and GPS might not crash, but a blinded human certainly will.

CCD-based cameras also stop working when hit with lasers; basically all they see is a bright spot amid total darkness. At least this wouldn't be treated as fake traffic. And generally the cameras are sensitive to infra-red, which is filtered out for normal camera purposes but might not be in the car? You might not even be able to see the laser.

 

[Curt Renz]

Here's yesterday's immensely positive review of the Tesla Model S P90D by a Bloomberg reporter.

 

[MitchJi]

Thanks Curt!

Don't need to read this to know that it's FUD:
Tesla’s Stock Ignores the Competition - WSJ

Tesla’s Stock Ignores the Competition
Valuation assumes rivals won’t gain ground in electric car market
By CHARLEY GRANT
Sept. 11, 2015 12:54 p.m. ET
The gaudy valuation enjoyed by Tesla Motors is based on an increasingly common product....

 

[MitchJi]

Nice article:
http://learnbonds.com/123263/tesla-motors-inc-tsla-has-ludicrous-lead-on-rivals/

Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) Has Ludicrous Lead on Rivals

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has what looks to many like an impossible to overcome lead on its growing list of rivals. As the U.S. and much of the world works to move away from fossil fuels and toward more environmentally friendly transportation it’s easy to understand why so many would want to claim a piece of the EV market. It’s one thing to want a piece of the market and another to get a piece and that will prove to be difficult for most rivals. At this point, Tesla holds a ludicrous lead over every other EV maker. Tesla is the pace-setter and as of today it has no real competitor – but they are coming....

 

[Krugerrand]

- but they are coming...

Phew! I was starting to wonder how much longer I had to hold my breathe.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

Tesla P90D Review (bloomberg):

P90D gets its name from the “Dual” motor arrangement that enables its all-wheel drive and the 90 kilowatt-hour battery pack that boosts drive range by 6 percent. (The "P" is for "performance," natch.) It’s not the normal Model S. It’s not even the P85D Model S that broke Consumer Reports. This one is even better.

 

[MitchJi]

Tesla P90D Review (bloomberg):

Is this correct?

It goes without saying, too, that you should choose the ($10,000) Ludicrous mode, which is the function that gets you that 2.8 second sprint time. The scary thing is that it’s a simple software download—you can select it and spend 10 Gs at the touch of a button.

 

[dakh]

Is this correct?

Negative, requires fuse upgrade.

 

[EldestOyster]

Presumably, they will put the upgraded hardware in cars they're making now. So, a P85D or P90D that's capable of Insane acceleration can be upgraded to Ludicrous as long as it was bought after the changeover. And P90's all came after this change. The article was about the P90D, so from their point of view, the upgrade is available.

 

[EldestOyster]

Take a few breaths of nitrous oxide, and follow along with this one:

Tesla Gigafactory Battery Improvements Could Cut Battery Costs 70% | CleanTechnica

Tesla will drive down battery-pack-level costs by 70% (down to around $38/kilowatt-hour) once the Gigafactory hits peak production via economies of scale, improved chemistry, supply chain optimization, and other factors, according to Jefferies analyst Dan Dolev.

I think the Dan Dolev analysis has been looked at here before, but I sure don't remember this $38/kWh figure. It would be a great thing, but really, folks, you could just say "up to 100% cost reduction" and you'd never be wrong!

 

[trils0n]

That $38/kWh figure seems to be their estimation for gigafactory pack cost. That is in addition to the $88/kWh cell cost. So their prediction is $126/kWh for cells assembled in a pack.

 

[MitchJi]

The analyst in question is basing this prediction around an estimation that current Model S battery-pack costs hover somewhere around $250/kWh (kilowatt-hour) — and that the company “can bring the cost of the battery cells down to ~$88/kWh and the pack-level cost to ~$38/kWh.”

His current pack price estimate is definitely high. It's currently a maximum of $170-$180 per kWh.

 

[ggr]

Somewhat off topic, sorry. But I couldn't think of a better place to post this. http://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/25/range-rover-svr-defies-laws-physics/. If you read the article, it's as expected, something that's basically a gas guzzler that otherwise sounds a little bit inferior to the high end Model X. But what gets me is that the article has taken on the meme of "defying the laws of physics", and says it multiple times, without ever saying a single thing justifying that statement. Accelerating at more than 1G (which it doesn't) is a physically surprising result, but in this article there is literally NOTHING!

It bugs me.

I'm trying to remember if Elon or JB or anyone at Tesla has ever used those words. I bet they haven't. "Faster than falling" is a much better, and literally true, statement.