Didn't norway delivery start from mid-2013? I think it's unfair to compare a full year 2014 delivery to half year 2013 delivery.
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Or maybe the big investment in SC's and SuC's is necessary for future growth. That is why you should not let investors (who often have a short term vision) make decisions, but visionairies like Elon.
So far loyal Tesla-investors cannot complain about the ROI Elon gave them.
Adm
Active Member
Austria 24 for december, 136 for 2014
http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/verkehr/strasse/kraftfahrzeuge_-_neuzulassungen/index.html
http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/verkehr/strasse/kraftfahrzeuge_-_neuzulassungen/index.html
RobStark
Well-Known Member
jhm
Well-Known Member
I agree. The earliest of early adopters are willing to buy before any infrastructure is in place. But most of the opportunity comes later and holds back until sufficient infrastructure comes online. My guess is that each well placed supercharger station adds about 100 to 200 in annual demand for Tesla cars. This is why it is so critical to roll out one or two every day.
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Krugerrand
Meow
That would be assuming equal distribution to all markets for the quarter. Not the way it works at Tesla.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Isn't that the range we need for 2015? For building demand, installations are needed in advance of orders.
Adm
Active Member
You appear to have more results than I was able to find...
Netherlands: http://raivereniging.nl/artikel/marktinformatie/actuele-verkoopcijfers/verkoopstatistieken.html
Germany: http://www.kba.de/DE/Statistik/Fahrzeuge/Neuzulassungen/MonatlicheNeuzulassungen/monatl_neuzulassungen_node.html
UK: http://www.smmt.co.uk/category/news-registration-cars/
France: http://www.ccfa.fr/Immatriculations
Finland: http://www.aut.fi/tilastot/ensirekisteroinnit/kuukausittain/2014
Sweden: http://www.bilsweden.se/statistik/nyregistreringar_per_manad_1/nyregistreringar-2014
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Need for what? To reach 60 000+ vehicles like some are predicting then probably yes. The more realistic guidance of 50 000 cars is probably attainable with just 9k units in Europe, especially if the US market remains strong and China takes off after the recent management shake-up.. The two countries most obviously lacking in supercharger infrastructure are Spain and Italy. Both would need at least 10 additional stations each for complete cover, but I have a hard time seeing demand picking up there substantially to a rate of 1000-2000 cars on a yearly basis.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Do you think Europe could ever get to 20k annual deliveries without at least 200 Supercharger stations? And how long would that take? So eventually that many and more are needed and the sooner, the faster sales can ramp up. Adding ten to Spain and Italy would not only build demand in those countries, but everywhere else where potential buyers might imagine themselves taking trips into those countries. I've heard that many Europeans like to take holidays around the Mediterranean. So all those destinations need coverage to and around so that potential buyers can fantasize about completely worry free holidays.
A friend of mine in Georgia recently took a trip out to Arizona, about 4 or five days driving one way. And he recently visited a Tesla store for the first time. He was pretty impressed, but left feeling like the car was not quite adequate for long trips. He had looked at the map of Superchargers and evaluated it on the basis of his recent trip. For that trip it truly is not adequate. I was surprised that someone in Georgia would be concerned about whether there we SCs Oklahoma. It seems to me too far away to worry about, but for this friend the lack left a definite negative impression. So the demand in Georgia depends to some degree on far out places like Oklahoma. Even if the specific market in Oklahoma is not that great, it matters to all potential buyers who might envision themselves driving to or through that state.
Spain and Italy are very popular destinations, so even if there were no Tesla vehicles in those countries, Tesla still has strong incentives to build out the Supercharger network there. In the new Supercharger map Tesla's 2015 plan is showing 13 planned locations in Spain, plus 2 in Portugal, and 14 or so in Italy. All in all, it looks like Europe is getting a much denser Supercharger network than is current planned in North America.
Yes, easily. By far the most important variable that influences Tesla commercial success is fiscal policy. See Norway/the Netherlands versus France/Germany for example. If these latter countries start providing the same kind of heavy incentives Dutch buyers have (saving about 10% of new car value in tax every single year), we could see a 20k sales rate tomorrow. Should the Netherlands withdraw this tax benefit (it may very well do so for 2016 but much is still up in the air), then sales would plummet even if you blanket Europe with superchargers every 20km. Range is not nearly the issue here as it is in the US. We travel a lot closer by.
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Absolutely. The question is : would it generate additional demand of 100 to 200 cars per new station? I am highly skeptical about it.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Demand is the quantity purchased at a given price. Subsidies do not really increase demand; they just change the price that buyers pay. So of course if you lower the price more will be sold, but that is not an increase in demand.
Superchargers, however, do not change the price, they only make the cars more desirable to buy at a given price. So enhancing the SC network truly increases demand. Perhaps an increase of 100 annual cars per incremental station is high for the European market. Perhaps 50 or 20. What would you recommend?
One consideration, however, is that if the demand sensitivity to incremental stations is too low, like 10, then Tesla has no economic motivation for installing them. Suppose a station costs 100k EUR, but it only motivates 10 incremental sales per year. Over say 5 years that's 50 sales for a cost of 2000 EUR per sale. This is not a really good marketing return, not even considering the costs of power and maintenace. On the other hand, if the sensitivity is 100 cars per year, then in 5 years you get 500 sales for a cost of 200 EUR per sale. This is a much more attractive marketing spend and very much worth doing. So one way to approach estimating such a sensitivity is to operationalize it. How many marginal sales per year must Tesla assume to justify installing a marginal station? If the marginal sales for prospective location is deemed to low, then Tesla won't build it. My suspicion is that this operational threshold needs to be around 100. At this point in time however there is probably so much low hanging fruit, that Tesla is not too worried about justifying some ROI for each location. So I am not overly concreed about being precise about this, which is why I use a nominal range of 100 to 200. If it were much lower, Tesla would have to be much more careful and move more slowly.
In the context of discussing the performance of Tesla, the only demand I consider relevant here is the demand at the price Tesla is willing to sell for. In that effect, subsidies do change demand by changing the price a customer has to pay to meet the cost Tesla asks.
Honestly, I don't really know and that's why I asked you how you came to an estimate of 100-200 cars per station. Looking at the operational costs of a charger station as you suggest is a reasonable approach to determine how many cars Tesla expects to sell.
@jhm is making an important distinction. In the jargon of economics, a subsidy reduces the net price to the consumer and therefore increases the quantity demanded. Superchargers shift the demand curve for Model Ss. While the net effect is the same--more Model Ss sold--it's a worthwhile distinction to understand the underlying mechanisms.
For me to use a Tesla well in my overall driving needs, I need superchargers in about 4 more distinct locations within 200 miles of my house. I could handle CHAdeMO charging as well but there is very little of that here on the east coast. It's out there but iffy and the primary provider of stations would be Nissan dealerships and iffy companies like Car Charging (blink). The prevalence of superchargers will be really key to expanding growth efforts. If one SC location drives 100 local sales, that is only a composite $200K income if the contained fee is $2k per car. But if stations can be done with lower costs such as a 2-head supercharger without a lot of digging and trenching (like the one in Bethesda, MD in a parking garage) then they could be spread out further and faster.
Until then, buying new is out of the question and buying used is also not really a good idea which could be a purchase at 50-60% of original price. The infrastructure is the solution to selling the Model 3 when it finally comes out. Using a lot of funding now to build-out superchargers seems like it is critical. In fact, I think using some or even all of the money from the GF to build more superchargers seems practical.
Here's a thought. To lower costs for a Model 3, with enough DC fast charging out there - you don't need onboard inverters. With enough infrastructure of SuperChargers and CHAdeMO out there, then cost input for a "DC only" option could lower the input costs by what, $1K to 1.5K? Down the road, it may make sense for the EV industry to lean toward a DC heavy infrastructure. L2 J-1772 isn't going to drive BEV demand that much in the public charging segment unless it is 40A or higher (and higher means two on-board charger/inverters).
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jhm
Well-Known Member
Bonaire, you may be onto something with the DC only cars. When you're trying to make a $35k car, whacking off $1k or so for an onboard charger makes sense.
Another note about Supercharges is that I think they will be key to the urban charging problem. This is in distinction to the original intention of Tesla just to use Superchargers to fascilitate intercity travel. Within dense urban areas parking infrastructure is expensive and many people do not have garages for convenient at home charging. Solutions in this space must use parking resources efficiently so allocation dozens of stalls to trickle charging won't cut it. In midtown Atlanta, there is a new 12 stall Supercharger station at Atlantic Station, a very large, upscale shopping center. Many people within the vicinity live in high rise condos, and at home charging is often hard to come by. But at Atlantic Station people can charge their Model S for a week in the time it takes to buy some groceries, go to the gym or do a little routine shopping. People have to pay for parking, so it is not ideal for someone who is just cruising through Atlanta. But if this is where you do regular shopping and you don't have at home charging, it may well be your best option as a Tesla owner. It is key that Supercharging is so fast. 80A charging might not be fast enough for this lifestyle.
So this is the kind of urban charging solution I would expect to see more of. It's got to be fast, convenient to weekly activities, and close to urban population centers. The thought that such urban dwellers may use 2 - 4 MWh of "free" electricity per year does not bother me. Sure that could be more than $2000 over 10 years, but that is a tiny discount on a Model S. People will only use Suoercharging that heavily if they really have no better options, and so it becomes a basic requirement for some to be able to make the purchase at all. So while we might imagine that 300 Superchargers may be all the "coverage" Europe may ever need for distance traveling, it may well be tha Europe needs more 3000 urban Superchargers to be able some day to support say 350k new cars per year and a total Tesla fleet of 4 million cars. I know this scale might be hard to imagine at this point, but really we are talking about Tesla when it has about a 2% marketshare globally. 4 million cars sharing 3300 stations weekly is about 1200 cars per station, 175 charges per day per station.
Another point regarding government subsidization of charging infrastructure is that it may be more prudent to create per kWh distributed incentives than to just pay for equipment. It is vital that the infrastructure that is developed actually be well utilized. Paying for companies just to put up charging where no one wants to use it, using equipment that charges too slowly, or charging fees per kWh that no one wants to pay is just a waste of public funds. If incentives are based on kWh actually dispensed to EVs, then developers will take care that it is well utilized and public funds might actually translate into electric miles driven. This is very much like the subsidization problem with solar. Just paying someone to install solar equipment does very little to spur good investments in solar, but feed in tariffs do a better job of incentivizing productive investments in solar. If governments are willing to subsidize per kWh EV charging, then this would work quite nicely with Teslas Supercharging infrastructure. They do a good job of actually putting energy in cars. With all this talk about standards for charging, it should be pefectly clear that 1 kWh is already a standard unit of energy and the goal should be to get this into cars in the most convenient and cost effective way possible. So incentivize kWh dispensed, not charging hardware.
Another note about Supercharges is that I think they will be key to the urban charging problem. This is in distinction to the original intention of Tesla just to use Superchargers to fascilitate intercity travel. Within dense urban areas parking infrastructure is expensive and many people do not have garages for convenient at home charging. Solutions in this space must use parking resources efficiently so allocation dozens of stalls to trickle charging won't cut it. In midtown Atlanta, there is a new 12 stall Supercharger station at Atlantic Station, a very large, upscale shopping center. Many people within the vicinity live in high rise condos, and at home charging is often hard to come by. But at Atlantic Station people can charge their Model S for a week in the time it takes to buy some groceries, go to the gym or do a little routine shopping. People have to pay for parking, so it is not ideal for someone who is just cruising through Atlanta. But if this is where you do regular shopping and you don't have at home charging, it may well be your best option as a Tesla owner. It is key that Supercharging is so fast. 80A charging might not be fast enough for this lifestyle.
So this is the kind of urban charging solution I would expect to see more of. It's got to be fast, convenient to weekly activities, and close to urban population centers. The thought that such urban dwellers may use 2 - 4 MWh of "free" electricity per year does not bother me. Sure that could be more than $2000 over 10 years, but that is a tiny discount on a Model S. People will only use Suoercharging that heavily if they really have no better options, and so it becomes a basic requirement for some to be able to make the purchase at all. So while we might imagine that 300 Superchargers may be all the "coverage" Europe may ever need for distance traveling, it may well be tha Europe needs more 3000 urban Superchargers to be able some day to support say 350k new cars per year and a total Tesla fleet of 4 million cars. I know this scale might be hard to imagine at this point, but really we are talking about Tesla when it has about a 2% marketshare globally. 4 million cars sharing 3300 stations weekly is about 1200 cars per station, 175 charges per day per station.
Another point regarding government subsidization of charging infrastructure is that it may be more prudent to create per kWh distributed incentives than to just pay for equipment. It is vital that the infrastructure that is developed actually be well utilized. Paying for companies just to put up charging where no one wants to use it, using equipment that charges too slowly, or charging fees per kWh that no one wants to pay is just a waste of public funds. If incentives are based on kWh actually dispensed to EVs, then developers will take care that it is well utilized and public funds might actually translate into electric miles driven. This is very much like the subsidization problem with solar. Just paying someone to install solar equipment does very little to spur good investments in solar, but feed in tariffs do a better job of incentivizing productive investments in solar. If governments are willing to subsidize per kWh EV charging, then this would work quite nicely with Teslas Supercharging infrastructure. They do a good job of actually putting energy in cars. With all this talk about standards for charging, it should be pefectly clear that 1 kWh is already a standard unit of energy and the goal should be to get this into cars in the most convenient and cost effective way possible. So incentivize kWh dispensed, not charging hardware.
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