Go Tesla

[malaise]

What a great story!!!
Thanks Lawrence

http://allthingsd.com/20130529/elon-musk-shakes-off-the-electric-car-naysayers-video/

[onehandle]

1. I liked the Harley-Davidson story too.

Good old tax/tariff happy President Reagan.

[malaise]

2. LOL

Price them out of the market

[BlueStreak]

3. But let's understand,

While they are making a product that a bunch of early adopters really like -- and have a good chance at making it into the mainstream with this product -- their recent financial results have very little to do with their production. Their surprisingly good fortunes are almost entirely from the efficiency credits they have been able to deal in California.

It is all part of the game, and in that sense it is perfectly legitimate and respectable. But it does obscure the actual operating results and cause people to jump to some hyperbole.

I am not anti-Tesla. I am impressed with both their engineering and their capable strategic leadership. And they have been able to create enough of a cachet among the well-heeled to expand the pool of early adopters a few more quarters. Their real challenge, of course, is to have a product that can fit at least some mainstream buyers by the time the pool of early adopters runs dry. I'm guessing they have about a year for that. If they can make some significant progress on:

- Range
- Charging speed, convenience, and availability
- Sticker price

they can make it into the mainstream.

[intaglio]

4. I hold a suspicion that Musk is really interested in the battery tech

The cars are sexy and keep his name out there but high capacity storage batteries and/or supercapacitors are where the real money will be.

Essentially there is a lot of renewable energy generated at night that goes to waste or (for solar) that is excess to requirements in summer.