I couldn't find the NY times article thread. But are they asking more than it retails for? http://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/632506431/overview/
Billionaire Elon Musk thinks he can pave the way to a better energy future by turning the mattress-shaped batteries in Tesla’s electric car into upright pillars so they can be used to power homes, businesses and even utilities. Musk will lift the veil Thursday on a new generation of batteries designed to store growing volumes of solar and wind energy. If he gets it right, Tesla Motors Inc. will have spun a significant second business off the technology originally designed for its electric vehicles -- and will gain a toehold in a business projected to generate tens of billions of dollars in a decade. Nobody in the power industry has yet been able to come up with a cost-effective way to store large volumes of energy for later distribution. Tesla is making a bet that its huge $5 billion “gigafactory” currently under construction near Reno, Nevada, will enable the mass production needed to drive down the cost of batteries and make them competitive for a broad range of customers, including traditional suppliers of electricity. Tesla has scheduled an event Thursday at its design studio in Hawthorne, California, to announce both a Tesla home battery and what it called last week in a note to investors “a very large utility scale battery.” “Whatever Tesla announces on Thursday is just the beginning,” said Peter Rosegg, spokesman for Hawaiian Electric Co., where 12 percent of the utility’s customers have rooftop solar panels. “Tesla doesn’t have to go after the market -- the market will come to them. We’re very eager to see what they have to say.”
I love that we live in a world where a billionaire has a goal to change the world (in a good way) and is also really good at shit.
Still awesome how hard it goes against the grain of the car norm. For shits and giggles I looked and if you order one today you get June delivery.
I met a guy who has a Tesla (dad from one of my son's teammates) and loves it. Told me it has fold out child safety seats that are rated the best car seats on the market (since they're built in to the vehicle). He has 2 kids so I asked what he uses for long family trips, said "the Tesla is our family car". Everything fits in the trunk and hood. A neighbor of mine just bought a white Tesla, a few weeks later he had a red Tesla. Asked my buddy and he told me that when maintenance is required Tesla will drop off a replacement and take your car in for repairs and return when completed. That's service.
This thread just encouraged me to buy Tesla stock. I will be suing if it loses value even for a day. Thanks in advance.
My lease ends in a year and a half and I've already started budgeting for my Tesla. Even though Georgia just got rid of our tax credit and now imposes a $200 road charge yearly fee for electric vehicles.
Some portion of gas taxes used to build and maintain roads. Buy less gas, you become a proverbial and literal free rider.
Makes sense. I wonder how that compares to how much the average motorist in GA would spend on the gas tax taken at the pump every year.
Is there something wrong with that? I feel like that's my next step. I'm a business owner that drives approximately 5 miles per day.
They may have pulled $200 out of thin air, but my guess is someone conducted a study suggesting that was the fair share
The excise tax on fuel in GA is currently 7.5 cents/gal so by that measure electric cars are being punished, but there are additional sales and local taxes included in the price of gas as well, plus they have proposed an increase to the gas tax, so probably fairly negligible overall in the long rung. Edit: gas tax increase already passed but they are offsetting it with reductions to other excise taxes. 46 cents per gallon total according to the American petroleum institute, so $200 = 435 gallons
I'm a big Elon Musk fan. I believe he is truly trying to make a better world and is willing to do so with his own cash. I really appreciate that although he is a billionaire, he is not being conservative with his money and is continually making aggressive investments in the future of technology.
how long until the grid is entirely replaced by this kind of tech? making a large and unrealistic assumption that special interests won't be able to slow it down.
I'm sure coal companies won't like it, but I'm not sure what the argument against it would be. They can't use the stupid dealership rule that some of the states used for blocking the sale of their cars.