TESLA:

No one but someone with a six-figure salary can afford a Tesla. That's not likely to change anytime soon. They drag you through the mud if you get into an accident with autopilot and it's your fault.

The idea they are on paper worth more than Ford or GM is frankly *hilarious*. I don't know their real worth but it isn't "more than Ford."

Converting your garage into a solar-powered charging station is not happening for people who 1) rent, or 2) live in an apartment. It's a distraction.

@Elizafox even homehowners cannot necessarily afford the cost, or have the space or time to do it.

@awilfox SOLAR PANELS COST A FORTUNE.

Like

People don't seem to get it, people who rent don't understand.

It's $20k to fucking install them.

You will recoup your investment in 30 years even with selling power back.

Some places tax you for selling power back to the grid. Yeah that's shitty. Complain to your local representative.

@Elizafox @awilfox the price and efficiency of solar has fallen like a rock of the past few years

this is a situation which can only improve

@quincunx @awilfox Cost needs to come down to like $5-10k to be in the realm of affordability for most people.

Like at that level, people will make the investment.

It becomes worth it.

@awilfox @quincunx THAT SAID,

Hopefully we source our solar cells from elsewhere besides China.

Because solar cells require a lot of not so nice dopants.

And China literally does not care about the environment. At all.

I'm worried about creating unprecedented environmental disasters.

@Elizafox @quincunx I read that as "solar cells require a lot of not so nice pants" and was REALLY confused.

@awilfox @Elizafox 🌞👖

@Elizafox @awilfox @quincunx too late!

they're workin on it though. it will spread from there to their poorer neighbours just like it spread from the west to them in the first place

@Elizafox @awilfox afaik there are still tax breaks for solar which can offset a lot of the cost, but of course it varies from locality to locality

even if your deployment doesn't entirely replace your use of the grid, every watt/hour helps

@quincunx @awilfox There's tax breaks but they don't come close to helping or recouping the costs atm.

$5-10k is the sweet spot where incentives make it cheap enough for the average person to do and save a shitload of money on their power.

@Elizafox @awilfox it'll get there

really, the biggest obstacle i see are the utilities, which are "regulated" monopolies

they generally really dislike customers that switch to solar, and (as you noted) in some places penalise them by charging money to receive excess power from them

@quincunx @Elizafox nnnno.

Depending on the manufacturer, a lot of last generation and early-current generation solar panels caused more environmental damage to produce than they will ever recover from replacing coal.

Unfortunately.

We need to work on that.

@awilfox @quincunx Hence I am saying we need to be careful who we source it from.

We can't rob Peter to pay Paul here.

@Elizafox @awilfox that's roughly where the price of panels is today, with tax breaks. But yes, without those, you won't break even over the course of panel lifetime which is about 20 yrs, unless you live in the desert

@awilfox @Elizafox sorry, I meant 5-10k is where it's at with tax breaks

HYPERLOOP:

Not happening soon. We don't have the technology to make vacuum chambers that large.

EVERYTHING ELSE:

Elon Musk's companies treat their workers like horse shit.

He is another corporate baron.

There are others more worthy of your admiration.

@Elizafox it bothers me that people have forgotten Elon Musk started his empire with Zip2 and X.com.

Nobody knows or remembers what X.com is.

It's fucking PayPal. http://fortune.com/2007/11/13/paypal-mafia/

Except he was so brandead he couldn't even hang on to PayPal. Peter Thiel kicked him out for saying they should bet the farm on migrating from Unix to Windows.

Everyone seems to conveniently forget that! 🤔

@Elizafox are you saying silicon valley...is a bubble?

@live I am saying people worship Elon Musk for no fucking reason.

AND HERE COME THE PEOPLE COMING TO DEFEND HIM.

I wish I had people who would defend everything I did.

@Elizafox but what about juicero

@Elizafox

1) production for Model 3 will start this summer. It will be available for $35,000 before incentives. Naturally, customers who order the car with pricey options will be prioritized in the production queue (eg autopilot), so the average purchase price will be much higher than $35K at first. However, it's been shown that Tesla customers have lower revenues than customers from competitors in the same car segment (no gas expenses and lower maintenance cost)

@Elizafox by the end of 2017, "No one but someone with a six-figure salary can afford a Tesla" will be proven wrong. If production reach 300K units by end of 2018, this will be quite obvious.

@Elizafox

> I don't know their real worth but it isn't "more than Ford."

The thing is, Tesla is entering multiple markets:
- auto: sedans, pickup trucks, SUV, semis, roadster
- consumer services: service station (announced yesterday)
- energy generation: solar panels, solar rooves
- home building: cf. solar roof
- energy storage: powerwalls, power packs
- utility services: end-to-end microgrids

@Elizafox
This can be considered market *potential* but the market estimates the value of an enterprise through its ability to generate future earnings. By capturing a few %s of these industries, it's easy to envision a company that weighs several times Ford Co.

@Elizafox

> Converting your garage into a solar-powered charging station is not happening for people who 1) rent, or 2) live in an apartment. It's a distraction.

Did you read yesterday announcement? https://www.tesla.com/blog/charging-our-priority They're doubling their supercharging network in 8 months, and will start building stations within city centers.

@j Yeah those'll totally come to Oklahoma where big oil OWNS MY STATE.

@j Also doubling of zero is... zero... I don't think the turnpike concessions are gonna add them. Great in cities. We might even get a few more in Tulsa.

Some Uber drivers use leafs here. I salute them! It's a massive pain in the ass to do so.

But you get outside the city and you are screwed until you get to the next major island of civilisation. Which can be far out here.

@j Furthermore for people living in apts and rent houses where they aren't allowed to add solar stations (which is just shy of most people now), or those who can't afford it, they gotta plug into mains.

I mean if your power comes from mostly clean sources that's fine.

We have a lot of wind out here but it only meets like 3% of our needs and the farms are everywhere (it's just too inefficient).

@j NOTE: I am no oil baron. I don't like big oil. I hate fossil fuels.

I also know the conditions out here. Things are different in "flyover country." The place half the nation exists in.

@Elizafox

What the issue with charging an EV with dirty sources? The electric motor is so efficient that even with coal as the main source, it's better for the environment to drive electric. And as a bonus, this pushes the pollution outside of the city center (where most people lives).

I recommend to separate the two issues because you can tackle them both simultaneously, without a chicken and egg dilemna.

@Elizafox Don't judge EV with the current line up. All the automanufacturers are investing big time in EV and this is just the beginning. If the Leaf can convince Uver drivers to go electric, wait til Nissan and Cos reach Tesla $/Kwh.

As for rural areas, 2 things matter: battery capacity (increasing fast) and charging time.

Check this out: https://electrek.co/2016/12/24/tesla-supercharger-v3-over-350-off-grid-solar-powerpack-elon-musk/

@Elizafox I quote:

> 6 minutes would give you 70kWh. That’s enough to drive for about 4 hours or 250 miles. Gas fuel pumps in the US pump 5-10 gallons per minute so add a 2 minute credit card transaction and you get about 20-40 gallons in the same time period. We’re now coming close to parity with gasoline.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

How long will it take for them to get there? Place your bet.

@j Oh, EV will get better and better.

I am fine with it as a technology. I've been following it for ages. I hope one day we find batteries as energy dense as gasoline (that's a major end goal believe it or not).

More charging stations are going to be needed and more state lobbying too. Lots of states esp Republican ones are very hostile to it atm and offer no incentives.

It's so bad we almost taxed wind energy extra. Yeah. This is what we're up against. It's bad.

@j (I didn't vote for the fucking idiots who thought the wind energy tax up, like who the hell thinks that, even if you don't "believe" in climate change you know coal isn't renewable, but hey)

@Elizafox big oil is losing more and more power and this will get even more obvious in the next few years. At some points in the near future, banks and politicians will switch and side with companies best positionned to lead the energy transition (for publicity at first, then for $$ and influence).

@Elizafox
I live in an appartment in one of the densest in the world. I'm a subscriber of a leading on-demand EV network (5000 EVs and as many charging points in one city), I can tell you it's become very easy to rely on EV in the regiob.

@Elizafox Here's what popping up in the streets of London https://framapiaf.org/media/YMV0k50-X4J95pg0IW0

This is the near future. I expect cities to subsidize the electricity to speed up the switch to clean transportation and fight air pollution.

@Elizafox I thought they only dragged you through the mud if you tried to hit them up for money after your accident.

@USBhumpDog Blamed them at all.

@USBhumpDog They release it to the press if you were at-fault.

They don't say shit if it was theirs.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/03/the-customer-is-always-wrong-tesla-lets-out-self-driving-car-data-when-it-suits

Some pundits have made rebuttals but mostly amount to "THEY HAD TO" no they did not.

@Elizafox I mean, it's like asking who was the first man in space? only the nerds will care but it's none the less important

@InspectorCaracal Wouldn't go QUITE that far.

But what if he's like Lex Luthor? 🤔

@Elizafox Yeah, I think the only reason he isn't like FULL ON supervillain is because he doesn't have a superhero to be a nemesis to, so let's hope no super-powered White Knight types come into existence. <.<

@InspectorCaracal Maybe I secretly fight him at night.

@j Aye.

I think Tesla has a potential to be first among equals. Detroit is waking up.

To me they're another car maker (I do own shares in GM and Ford, fears of overvaluation of TSLA scares me away, which could harm it in the long run).

Innovation isn't bad. Detroit wouldn't be doing electric at all I suspect without them.

But, yeah, worship of Elon Musk is also... cults of personality are fragile, and people build expectations that can't be met when the BFDL retires or dies.

@j Sorry if I'm snappy

It's like 4:45 am here and I really should be in bed.

Insomnia ruins my life yet again :(.

@j Tesla has a lot of challenges though. A lot are political. Perhaps most.

A lot has to change in America.

The technology will get better in the long run I suspect.

Battery energy density is getting good and there's some new promising technologies that approach gasoline densities. The future may not be lithium. Progress in that sector is not governed by Moore's law.

More incentives will help too. We should have more.

@Elizafox @j to me the most important thing is how electric cars help reduce gas emissions. At least some of the electricity produced is efficient, right? Does it balance out the cost of producing a battery? What about disposal of batteries? Is there data to back this up?

@crecca @j Thing about EV's is that the energy comes from somewhere and unless you have a solar hookup or a place with lots of solar power, it's gonna come from coal and natgas mostly.

Energy conversion is a zero-sum game and ultimately CO2 is more or less the same.

Need more clean energy imo, and better ways to store energy.

It's one piece of a large puzzle.

@Elizafox @j yes, but on the whole, maybe the potential in reducing emissions in power plants is greater than the potential in reducing emissions in gas production/burning.

@crecca @j it's a zero-sum game really, more or less.

Basically, hydrocarbon energy works by breaking carbon-hydrogen bonds using oxygen, creating CO/CO2 and water in the process. Lots of heat is released.

The thing is the amount of energy stored in those bonds is more or less fixed. To produce the same amount of energy you have to break the same amount of bonds. Each bond broken produces more CO/CO2.

@Elizafox so what you're saying is that EV are no better than gas vehicles in terms of pollution?