[SoCalGuy]

Congrats to Tesla - big news today!

http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-repays-department-energy-loan-nine-years-early

 

[Fabulist]

Congrats to Tesla - big news today!

http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-repays-department-energy-loan-nine-years-early

Definitely a good move and poke in the eye of the fermented-dinosaur-only lobby. They are still going to bitch about government picking winners and losers, etc., but this is definitely a good day for EVs.

 

[txam99]

Wow.....a really fantastic accomplishment, congratulations to the Tesla Team and Elon.

 

[LonePalmBJ]

Even Jalopnik, who never misses a chance to bash EVs, begrudingly admitted this was good news, ableit in the most backhanded way they could come up with:
http://jalopnik.com/loser-tesla-will-repay-government-loans-nine-years-ea-509262553

 

[8AVGMPG]

I was hoping this news would also cause their stock to rise, but no such luck

 

[Fabulist]

Even Jalopnik, who never misses a chance to bash EVs, begrudingly admitted this was good news, ableit in the most backhanded way they could come up with:
http://jalopnik.com/loser-tesla-will-repay-government-loans-nine-years-ea-509262553

Predicting Fox's headline on this: "Tesla cheats taxpayers out of millions of dollars of interest payments by paying off their government loans early; Investigation to follow."

 

[Sandy Eggo]

I was hoping this news would also cause their stock to rise, but no such luck

Nah, the market knew it was coming for too long and it was already priced in.

Besides, they really just swapped debt - from a Gov't loan to a $450M bond sale. Smart.

 

[Sandy Eggo]

Predicting Fox's headline on this: "Tesla cheats taxpayers out of millions of dollars of interest payments by paying off their government loans early; Investigation to follow."

This is hilarious.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05/16/video-foxs-tesla-re-coil/194101

Cognitive dissonance, defined.

 

[Falcon9]

I wonder if the Media will ask, what about the BILLIONS of dollars Ford borrowed? I am sure the government could use that money back.

 

[smoothoperator]

I thought Chrysler paid back their whole loan?

 

[NJFISKERGUY]

I don't think GM (AKA Government Motors) paid back yet..

 

[doug]

I don't think GM (AKA Government Motors) paid back yet..

GM didn't get a DOE ATVM loan. GM and Chrysler got government bailout loans as part of TARP, not to be confused with the ATVM program which was about promoting "alternative technology".

There have been only five recipients of the ATVM loan. These are Ford - $5.9B, Nissan - $1.4B, Tesla - $450M, Fisker - $192M out of $529M, and a small company called Vehicle Production Group (VPG) - $50M. Fisker and VPG are failing and looking to be acquired. Tesla repaid their loan. Nissan and Ford are still making payments on schedule.

As a separate issue, Chrysler as part of Italian automaker Fiat played off what was required of it's bailout loan, but there's another $1.3B that Chrysler will never pay.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/...1361/Tesla--Chrysler-spar-over-loan-repayment

 

[Ira]

Another EV company bites the dust. More kudos to Tesla.

http://www.greenprophet.com/2013/05/israel-better-place-bankrupt/

 

[P90XMC2]

Another EV company bites the dust. More kudos to Tesla.

http://www.greenprophet.com/2013/05/israel-better-place-bankrupt/

Tesla actually announced recently they will try to mimic the better place "technology" or idea of battery swap in the future..

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-tesla-wants-battery-swapping-160927037.html

Now that Better Place is Out of the game, they can take the good engineering folks that are there and throw away the crippled management for delivering something that should work, as the concept of battery swap makes since, it's just too early to be deployed for the masses.

 

[Ira]

Tesla actually announced recently they will try to mimic the better place "technology" or idea of battery swap in the future..

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-tesla-wants-battery-swapping-160927037.html

Now that Better Place is Out of the game, they can take the good engineering folks that are there and throw away the crippled management for delivering something that should work, as the concept of battery swap makes since, it's just too early to be deployed for the masses.

Apartment dwellers and many other individuals among the masses don't have access to their own charging stations and battery swapping would allow them access to EVs. But how does this model make financial sense? The inventory and infrastructure investment would be enormous. I don't know if Elon is serious about doing this or just blowing smoke.

 

[dennis]

Apartment dwellers and many other individuals among the masses don't have access to their own charging stations and battery swapping would allow them access to EVs. But how does this model make financial sense? The inventory and infrastructure investment would be enormous. I don't know if Elon is serious about doing this or just blowing smoke.

Here's one scenario that might make sense for Tesla. It involves co-locating battery swap stations with Superchargers. Assume Tesla stocks swappable batteries at Superchargers. As a Model S owner arriving at Harris Ranch, you can Supercharge for free (45 minutes minimum to get enough juice to advance to the next Supercharger at Tejon Ranch + possible waiting time), or you can hot-swap a fully charged battery (if available) for say $25-$35. During the night or other times when the Superchargers are not in use, the swapped batteries get recharged.

The land is already leased and the charging hardware is in place, so the only expense is seed battery packs and personnel to swap packs and recharge the depleted ones.

The one flaw in this scenario that I can think of has to do with battery degradation. Suppose I have a 7 year old battery that has degraded 20%. Can' I just go on a road trip and swap in a fresh battery that had no degradation? What happens to the poor sucker with a new MS that gets my degraded battery in a swap?

Any other flaws you can think of?

 

[AnOutsider]

Having to have personnel just seems like a huge negative in my mind. Tesla can barely keep its stores and service centers staffed, and they don't need the added expense.

It sounds like swapping, in some form, is inevitable. I just don't know how practical it is. Perhaps swapping can be done only at service centers during business hours. No additional bodies needed, and you have a secure place for stock,

 

[dennis]

Having to have personnel just seems like a huge negative in my mind. Tesla can barely keep its stores and service centers staffed, and they don't need the added expense.

It sounds like swapping, in some form, is inevitable. I just don't know how practical it is. Perhaps swapping can be done only at service centers during business hours. No additional bodies needed, and you have a secure place for stock,

The value of swapping at Service Centers is that they are in metropolitan areas where currently there are no Superchargers so it is hard to get a full charge overnight. For example, when I drove from Silicon Valley to LA I had to make an extra Supercharger stop on the return trip because I couldn't get a full charge in LA.

But I believe that issue is not well understood and the perception problem is the time it takes to Supercharge while road tripping vs. the time it takes for a gas fill up. So the investment in batteries and personnel at the Supercharger stations might be worthwhile. It could be similar to the impact Tesla had when they announced that supercharging would be free, which was not expected. In one instant they turned a perceived negative into a positive.

 

[Falcon9]

Battery swapping station never made much sense to me. Too much investment for one aspect of electric car.

For electric car to beat out gasoline car, it needs to be better in every way by a big margin. Just solving the long distant travel won't convince anyone. Beside, that's why we have airplane.

 

[AnOutsider]

The value of swapping at Service Centers is that they are in metropolitan areas where currently there are no Superchargers so it is hard to get a full charge overnight. For example, when I drove from Silicon Valley to LA I had to make an extra Supercharger stop on the return trip because I couldn't get a full charge in LA.

But I believe that issue is not well understood and the perception problem is the time it takes to Supercharge while road tripping vs. the time it takes for a gas fill up. So the investment in batteries and personnel at the Supercharger stations might be worthwhile. It could be similar to the impact Tesla had when they announced that supercharging would be free, which was not expected. In one instant they turned a perceived negative into a positive.

Oh trust me, I get the positives for the end user... Just seems like a massive undertaking for a small company. Plus, I baby my battery. Can't see just leaving it for someone else to grab.