We Don't Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Yeah, these guys don't know what they're doing. I mean they sold 21,500 Model S cars in 2013 alone. 3 fires is clearly indicative of a larger problem and they will soon be out of business. Do you desperately resist change merely because you fear progress of any kind, or is it that you're just not very smart? Or maybe both?

If "progress" means that your car has a 1/7000 chance of exploding then call me a progressive.

ps. I think Tesla Motors is doing a fine job. The groupthink aisle is on your side of the store.

So in your view John you have no problem with middle class taxpayers subsidizing the cost of luxury cars for the wealthy?

Now, now....let's not be too hard oh John. After all, he is entitled to his entitlements.

What a shit article. The stock declined because it was wildly overvalued after increasing 500% this year alone.

BC

Nice juxtaposition. John's head is exploding, thanks to that VERY inconvenient truth.

Or, maybe John thniks that that IS being progressive.

If they want to help save the planet, and they're rich, should they have to be encouraged with subsidies?

Selling 21,500 cars in a given year is a sure recipe for bankruptcy. The Ford Edsel sold a total of 115,400 vehicles and it was considered a disaster. Ford lost, in 2013 dollars, over 2 Billion. Too bad they didn't enjoy a government subsidy. If so they would still be producing a vehicle no one wants.
Tesla is no more than an effete progressive's wet dream that failed.

A business will be successful by being appealing, AND BEING AFFORDABLE, to the masses, NOT just the elitist 'wealthy'.

That's the problem with your premise JJJohn. Governments give seed money to startups. Tesla is no longer a startup, but keeps getting graft from gubermint. That's NOT a successful business, that's one being being propped up.

If Tesla was selling these cars for $20k each, then its a success. As is, its just another "see, it works if you spend enough on it" toy.

Without gubermint funding, this is a failure, unaffordable, and not practical. Anybody see a miracle where these rollerskates will fall in price by two-thirds?

So how do the odds of your Tesla going up in smoke compare to the odds of your Gremlim or pickup with side-mounted tanks exploding?

Oh, and John, if it saves one child, it's worth it. Ban them for the children. Why do you hate the children?

John you do know that the electric car is not exactly cutting edge technology don't you. I'm not a technological troglodyte. I love innovation and invention with one caveat. The innovation or invention must be an improvement over the existing technology. So far what Tesla, Chev, Nissan, Toyota etc have to offer by way of electrics or hybrids is decidedly NOT an improvement. I have a whole range of cordless power tools that use lithium ion batteries and they work wonderfully but I still wouldn't want to make a January drive from Regina to Saskatoon in a lithium ion battery powered car.

It would be really revealing to do a survey of Tesla owners, and discover what fraction of them own no other car. I suspect it would be a tiny minority.

The Tesla is a cool toy for the very wealthy, and as pointed out by someone on a previous thread, in the Bay area at least, it buys you the use of the diamond lanes, even if you are driving alone, so it enables the wealthy to cruise past the plebes. That's a direct subsidy in its own right.

I think the comparison with the Edsel is specious, because the Edsel was intended to be a mass-market car, just a notch up from Mercury. Ford needed to sell a lot of units to break even on it. The exotic car builders, say Porsche, Ferrari, and Lamborghini, make good money selling a much smaller volume because the per-unit profit is much higher. Tesla is more comparable to them in both price point and target market.

The Edsel, by the way, was not a bad car for its day. Aside from its sort of weird styling, it was a typical Ford product of the era, and solidly built. It had the misfortune of being an up-market car being introduced in a recessionary period, plus the stigma of the "love it or hate it" styling. I'm willing to bet many potential Edsel buyers used the styling as an excuse to move down-market and buy a cheaper car.

Correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of electricity in North America is produced by burning coal. In theory, a Ford Fusion that requires, say, 15 horsepower to maintain a steady 65 MPH, pollutes the air less than the same power that is required to recharge the battery of a Tesla from a coal fired power plant. as I'm not taking acceleration ands other factors into consideration.

I`ll take the Ford any day.

Correct me if I'm wrong. If I drive a Ford Fusion 400 miles at a steady 60 MPH, I require about 12 HP (Theoretical) to maintain that speed. The same energy is required by the Tesla, except that it has to be replaced in the battery via charger at the end of the trip.
Most electricity in N. America is derived from coal. I believe the Fusion will pollute the air less than the Tesla, given the toxins that are released from coal fired plants.

And I like the blond behind the counter at the Shell station.

...buy pretty toys.

C_M

You're premise is correct.

The practicality though, fails.

Buying a cutting edge LCD TV might cost you an extra $50 a month. Buying a Tesla, if you are making $50k a year, is impractical and stupid. Why pay $2000/mo for the privilege of a snob car? Can't afford it anyways. And there is no indication that these cars are about to become affordable.

Its a niche elitist car, paid for by the middle class (thru subsidies) for the benefit of the wealthy greenie class (Obama drones, etc)

Pretty obvious tesla will be gone soon. Number one, the market for 100 K cars is tiny; bmw and Mercedes only sell a small number of luxury cars every year. Lets cap tesla at 20000 cars or less a year. That is as good as they will ever do, yet the market cap is similar to FoMoCo which sells hundreds of thousands of cars in the same year. Tesla is using strange accounting instead of GAAP, which is a big warning sign. Enron didn't either.

Clearly tesla is a bubble. But hey not my money involved.

Put a v-8 in a Tesla, and I'm in!!
Maybe even a diesel.

Otherwise take a long walk.......... on a short pier...

When Pintos started blowing up why didn't they scrap the whole idea of gasoline powered vehicles?

Pinto -- actual fires known to NHTSA = 38, at a time when nearly 1/50 cars on the road was a Pinto.
GM '73 - '97 Pickups -- just try to find an example of a fire other than in a collision that would have been likely fatal anyway, or that wasn't caused by TV news program makers remotely detonating incendiaries.
Even the Gremlin had a rate of fires -- as a result of collision, not as a result of just sitting there -- that was a tiny tiny fraction of this.

No problem because no one was hurt and if the stock prices fall to badly the black sugar daddy will just hand over hundreds of millions more of borrowed money to make Tesla's pain go away. I repeat, no problem, everything is good, just say the matntra to yourself, "clean electricity is better then dirty old gasoline no matter what it costs". Oooops, is that another plume of smoke and flame at the edge of the road, "clean electricity is............"

Good... some of you understand that technology advances and problems are overcome. The same will happen with electric cars. The technology is valid, there is an urban market niche for electric vehicles.

The problem is government meddling.

Try to understand the big picture beyond a silly myopic electric car hate-on

Tesla is subsidized and promoted like wind mills and solar panels by corrupt governments. OPEC/Saudi Arabia are the biggest guys behind the curtain. An electric car is not because we are running out of oil, it's because evil fossil fuel causes globull climb ape changies and you cannot frack, pump, pipeline anything, anywhere (Other than from OPEC sources of course) don't you know? Keeps abundant oil prices up which feeds more tax per gallon to govment.

Governments know they are pumping cash to a loser right now, it's one of the costs of their propaganda.

Follow the money pipeline ur, I mean the money trail. A trail sounds a lot cleaner than a pipeline but believe me that money is much dirtier than the "tar" sands.

Watch for Australia's new massive oil discovery soon to be declared "awful and unnaceptable" for some reason or another although they will have the Asians markets mostly and are better positioned than Canada in that respect. The USA is the most corrupt cesspool in the world right now.