[artdutra04]

Trust me, I am well aware of the issues that Tesla was having with their first generation Roadsters, like their transmission glitch. But just based on the fact that they are committed to actually doing this is what gets them my respect. They aren't complaining that it is hard or difficult, rather they set out to actually bring this to market.

The Detroit auto makers have been showing us the "car of the future", but they always seem to cancel it or only put in a half-hearted measure of support.

Besides, I like dealing with numbers, hard evidence, and rational decision. As such, it's not hard for me to see why Detroit doesn't want any electric cars on the roads, like when they killed off the EV-1. The electric cars have batteries, an electronics system, motors, a very simple gearbox and brakes. I know that this is quite a simplification, but part for part, an EV has less moving parts than a internal combustion car.

And as a fact, car companies make a lot of money off selling repair parts to keep all those moving parts working. If you want anything fixed on one's car, other than maybe changing the oil, it costs an arm and a leg. And often times buying these parts and installing them oneself still costs a lot.

So as a company executive looking to maximized profits for their shareholders, which makes more sense: a vehicle with less parts than can break or a vehicle with more moving parts (and hence the potential for more profits)? If I was that company executive, I'd sure pick the latter to score brownie points with the investors, as is that not the job of a company executive, to maximize profits?

As such, I don't expect Tesla to be anywhere near the level of any of the big car companies in five years. Heck, not even in ten years. But I can easily see how over the long run they will be successful. All the current car companies did not become instantly successful overnight; most of them stayed low production (mostly catering to the higher income audiences) for the first twenty years, until Ford was able to bring start producing them cheaper and cheaper. And even then, it took Ford an entire decade to bring the cost of a car well below the average annual income of people at the time.

I don't expect results overnight, but I do want a commitment to long term goals, which I see in companies like Tesla. I've only seen countless broken promises from the existing car companies, and it will take more than fancy commercials or full-page newspaper spreads to convince me otherwise.

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Are you claiming that all those thousands of experienced engineers at Ford and Toyota could build a $15,000 electric car tomorrow with the range and capacity of a Honda Accord, but that they choose not to do so for non-technical reasons? That a manufacturer that could easily double their sales if you are right has rejected that option for some hidden, sinister motive? I think you need to think these things through a little bit. They aren't that stupid. Honest.

I never called the engineers who work at any car companies stupid, and I have a high level of respect for them, as I do for all engineers. But engineers don't make the decisions on which cars or products to make. Those come from upper management. Actually, with the exception of maybe Google, who offers their "20% Time" to employees, I don't think there are many companies really let their employees design or do anything they want.

Rather, as I said above it made more sense for short term financial goals for the car companies to keep producing car gas cars than is does for them to seriously produce more hybrid or electric cars. I would never want to be the executive who has to tell shareholders than for the next two, three, five or ten years we are going to have less profits than might otherwise be profitable as we focus on long term stability goals. And as a shareholder*, I would want the company I invest in to be devoted to bringing as much money back as possible in my quarterly dividend check.

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Originally Posted by squirrel

Some of us noticed that the auto industry "cried wolf" a few times in the 1960s-80s, yet they did manage to make cars meet the safety, clean air, and mileage standards set by the government. Maybe that's what Art is talking about?

Yep, that's it. Whether they were seat belts or air bags, the car companies have complained that doing this will "destroy" the industry or result in huge price increases for the consumers. But yet, here they are today. And I don't attribute the woes of many in Detroit to meeting deadlines, rather I blame it on creating and marketing cars which were not good enough to outsell competing brands.

Honda and Toyota are certainly doing well, so it's not like the entire industry is in shambles and cannot possibly cope with meeting environmental standards.

Originally Posted by Bongle

And while you're doing it, you'll drive up food prices, use as much fossil fuels to grow your corn as you get out of it, cause the deforestation of enormous tracts of forest elsewhere (because of higher food prices, it becomes economically viable to clear sub-par agricultural land). Not that I'm a car-hating hippie (I'm actually entering the 24 hours of LeMons this summer), but us petrolheads are in a poor situation. At the very least, ethanol from corn doesn't seem to be the answer, no matter how much the farming lobby and first state in the primary process want it to be.

That's a bit of a harsh attack that seemed kind of personal the first time I read it.

I have no problems with people who drive SUVs or pickup trucks, if they have a need for it. My parents' primary cars are an Explorer and an F150, neither or them hardly count as "green". But my parents needed the storage space and offroad/4x4 capability offered by these vehicles, and actually use these features.

And if someone likes muscle cars, then I respect that. (Plus many of them were pretty sweet cars. )

Originally Posted by Protronie

-p "the last V-8 driver in America"

You won't be alone.

I would love to work on a side project (if I had the free time...) to take something like an old [domestic] pickup truck, and overhaul it to use a hybrid V8/electric system, like what diesel train locomotives have been doing for decades. I'm sure you could get an insane amount of low-end, stump-pulling torque out of such a system, and it would definitely be a cool project to work on.


But before this thread goes on forever, I would like to point out that I respect everyone's differing opinions and point of views. And as such, I think that after this post I may just agree to disagree with everyone, as it seems like the discussion at hand is getting down to which point of view is correct, and debating things like this over the Internet don't usually change anyone's mind either way. If my posts are factually wrong, and anyone can prove it and refute my points through hard, concrete evidence, then by all means keep the discussion going. But otherwise, I just don't want to see the discussion start going downhill if it starts getting too heated or go on and debate the same topics ad nausem.


* I actually have quite a bit invested in the stock market; I started officially on my 18th birthday. And I had a lot of previous experience with the stock market, as I used to love competing in the stock market games held at schools ever since they first offered it when I was in sixth grade. I usually did very well; the very first time I played my team was ranked the highest of the 100+ in the state; starting with $50k of "play money" to invest, eight weeks later our portfolio was worth over $106k.