That is not good, because what Tesla needs is a much larger range of models. Minivans. Delivery trucks. A real pickup. Work trucks. The Semi.
What really disturbs me about recent Tesla communication is that the Semi is just not being mentioned.
Tesla is basically a battery packager at its core business. The Tesla Semi represents a massive amount of demand for packaged batteries, and Tesla's model has the best prototype-demonstrated abilities. That is what the next ten years of the company is about at the core.
Elon needs to go. Give him the 56 billion, and then send him off his way to ruin Twitter which isn't important. Tesla is one of the most important companies in the world in terms of keeping the EV transition on the cutting edge and keeping the feet to the fire on the old ICE companies. Maybe the Chinese companies will take that up, but there is so much uncertainty in China now.
Tesla is taking too long to release models. It is NOT good at building. Their battery leadership is gone, CATL and other chinese companies raced past them.
The future of EVs is LFP and Sodium Ion, and then probably Li-S or Na-S. Tesla has no leadership in those, it's all China.
> What really disturbs me about recent Tesla communication is that the Semi is just not being mentioned.
There's a pretty compelling argument out there that an electric semi is currently not economically viable because the weight of the battery cuts into the weight the semi can haul without exceeding the gross vehicle weight limit on public roads. In this regard, it may be telling that Tesla's first customer was a company that sells potato chips - one of the lightest weight per volume products you can transport.
It may not completely offset the battery weight, but electric class 8 trucks have an additional 2000 pounds of GVWR allowed.
I would say the biggest headache for Tesla in the semi space is that they were not first to market and there are multiple competitors shipping trucks now. And while Tesla has decent battery production, CATL makes way more and is evolving the technology much faster. Everyone else will just use those batteries. Maybe Tesla will too, if they keep trying to make the Semi a viable product.
> It may not completely offset the battery weight, but electric class 8 trucks have an additional 2000 pounds of GVWR allowed.
I wonder if they did a calculation to determine if this course of action will actually save more carbon emissions than it will cause in the form of road destruction and the need for refinishing them from the increased weight.
> What really disturbs me about recent Tesla communication is that the Semi is just not being mentioned.
It's not being mentioned because it's a dumpster fire.
It has delivery rates that today are 30% of their contractual obligations for 2017, seven years ago now.
Pepsi, Sysco, UPS and Walmart have or are all given up and gone to competitors.
Musk even implies that the outlook won't improve there. Blames battery availability, actually.
EV trucks should have a shoe-in for lot tenders, it works well with the recharge cycle, would work with drop in batteries, etc., but Musk wants his on the Interstate, regardless of feasibility.
He's also managed to convince the faithful that no-one else is doing or capable of doing commercial sized EVs, despite BYD having 60,000 electric buses operating, and others.
What really disturbs me about recent Tesla communication is that the Semi is just not being mentioned.
Tesla is basically a battery packager at its core business. The Tesla Semi represents a massive amount of demand for packaged batteries, and Tesla's model has the best prototype-demonstrated abilities. That is what the next ten years of the company is about at the core.
Elon needs to go. Give him the 56 billion, and then send him off his way to ruin Twitter which isn't important. Tesla is one of the most important companies in the world in terms of keeping the EV transition on the cutting edge and keeping the feet to the fire on the old ICE companies. Maybe the Chinese companies will take that up, but there is so much uncertainty in China now.
Tesla is taking too long to release models. It is NOT good at building. Their battery leadership is gone, CATL and other chinese companies raced past them.
The future of EVs is LFP and Sodium Ion, and then probably Li-S or Na-S. Tesla has no leadership in those, it's all China.