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This is very good news. If they can do this for ten more quarters there will be less carbon in the atmosphere and an oil glut for 2-million-barrels of oil a day

This is very good news. If they can do this for ten more quarters there will be less carbon in the atmosphere and an oil glut for 2-million-barrels of oil a day will be removed from daily demand according to Bloomberg — Great graphs in the article too: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/

marcell 8y ago
> 2-million-barrels of oil a day In case anyone's looking for context on this, daily demand for oil is currently around 99-million-barrels a day, so this would be a 2% drop: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/daily-global-crude-oil-demand-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/daily-global-crud... Obviously just a start, but still this sounds great to me.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Is there a market for 50,000+ Tesla 3s for the next 10 quarters?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    They still have a ~400k net reservation backlog (based on investor call math). So close enough? Tesla has demand levers available to stoke additional demand when supply is not constrained. They'll have sold almost half a million Model 3s with no active marketing effort (besides a Youtube promo video here and there) by the time the backlog has been worked through. Crude (Brent and WTI) is trending higher [1], which is only going to help EV sales. EVs are already a slam dunk TCO-wise in most of the country except where fuel is still cheap in the Midwest/Appalachia [2]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/energy https://www.bloomberg.com/energy [2] https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap?z=4 https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap?z=4
    - kgwgk 8y ago
      Reservations are not necessarily for a $50k car. $35k plus a $7k tax credit is quite different from $50k and no tax credit.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        That wasn't in the comment I replied to. OP asked about # or cars, not options/trim and tax incentives available. I assume Tesla will maximize for tax credits (soak up those federal dollars), and then reduce the price if necessary for their vehicles if demand is decreased by the credit phaseout. International orders (which are still in queue) aren't impacted by the Tesla vehicle credit phaseout. There's a reason they're going to push every car they can in the US first before that credit is gone.
        kgwgk 8y ago
        That’s true, but it’s not yet clear when they will be able to sell lower-priced models without increasing the cash-bleed.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAS-yjWj9DY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAS-yjWj9DY Munro Teardown Shows Tesla Model 3 Solidly Profitable [video] (youtube.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17542864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17542864 (HN Thread) Animats mentions labor costs top of thread, which have been falling in Fremont now that they've hitting their stride (rumor I've heard, not material info, can't provide a citation). If you're interested, highly recommend being on the investor call next month for Q3 rundown.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        That video, and articles on the teardown, confirm that the luxury-level-priced Model 3s are solidly profitable...which they should be, since no major automaker sells luxury vehicles at a loss per unit. The question is whether Tesla can sell Model 3s at the originally claimed $35k, which is highly questionable. Indeed, Munro himself sells, "I think $36,000 Model 3s will be rare as hen's teeth. I don't see how they could make money at $36,000."
  - travisoneill1 8y ago
    I would bet that there is much more. I would by a $35K model 3 if I could get one, but I'm not going to go on a wait list for years. I think there are a lot more people who feel the same way and that is not accounted for in the already impressive backlog numbers.
  - Skunkleton 8y ago
    I don't know. But I do know that with our current charging infrastructure electric cars are out of reach for most of the population. The barrier of entry for an all electric is 1) $40-60k dollars for the car, 2) somewhere convenient to charge which today means owning a house , 3) the ability to sacrifice the flexibility of a gas engine. Any one of these issues would eliminate huge market segments. Once the used market for the ~35k model 3 starts to pick up, the first problem will be reduced of course, but maintenance costs remain to be seen.
  - rgbrenner 8y ago
    The article doesn't actually say 50k over 10 quarters. It projects a 60% annual increase each year until 2023 (or 17 quarters). So this is a much higher number that 500k. There are 1 billion cars on the road. 80m are sold annually. So 500k is literally a drop in the bucket.. you can't get a 2% decrease in oil by selling 500k in 17 quarters, 10 quarters.. or even 4 quarters. To get to 2% of cars, you would need to sell about 500k every quarter.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      "Cumulative passenger EV sales are set to hit 4 million this week. This includes battery electric passenger vehicles and plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles. If we include e-buses, the 4 million milestone was reached at the beginning of July. The time needed to reach each consecutive million EVs sold has shrunk from 17 months for the second million to 6 months for the fourth million. The next million EVs will take just over 6 months. We expect the five-millionth EV to be sold in March 2019." I won't quote the entire article here, but it's worth a few minutes of time. The EV sales rate is climbing rapidly; not exponentially, but much faster than linearly. https://about.bnef.com/blog/cumulative-global-ev-sales-hit-4-million/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/cumulative-global-ev-sales-hit-4...
      - rgbrenner 8y ago
        That's great... but the thread I'm replying to starts by claiming Tesla can make a 2% impact by selling 50k cars for 10 quarters (absolutely false). And the target is not 500k cars over 10 quarters.. it must be an order of magnitude higher than that to make the claimed impact. Even the article doesn't project the industry (not just Tesla) will reach these numbers in 10 quarters. Close to double that.
- xoa 8y ago
  >In case anyone's looking for context on this, daily demand for oil is currently around 99-million-barrels a day, so this would be a 2% drop Keep in mind too though that direct percentages can have non-linear effects. Oil is very fungible, but the inputs have a wide range of extraction costs and levels of pollution/technical risk/geopolitics involved. A 2 million barrel a day reduction isn't going to shave off every input source equally, and oil from sands or ultra deep sea or whatever all have different kinds of effects. If it kills the worst first that could have a bigger benefit then a straight 2% would suggest. Furthermore, there is a lot of oil infrastructure that is fantastically capitally expensive, most particularly refineries, that will not be equally effected. I think maximum plant capacity tends to be around 800k-900k barrels a day and many are smaller, and running subcapicity isn't ideal. Not all types of oil or products refineries produce are equal either, increasing electric cars would presumably primarily affect refined products, consider for example this piece[0] on refining capacity, and then consider what a significant bigger reduction could mean. Finally at some point we should start to see more tipping points for economies of scale, the spread of enhanced charging networks, continuing spread of solar, and just changing public consciousness and people become more familiar with it. Public interest is racing way, way ahead of what the energy industry wants. So even 2% worldwide in that short a time would be a real deal and could also just be the shallow end of an S-curve. Next 5 years will be very interesting! 0: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/an-oil-refining-capacity-wave-is-coming https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/an-oil-re...
- nabla9 8y ago
  62.7% of the US electricity is created using fossil fuels in 2017, half of that coal, other half natural gas. (1.3% solar, 6.3% wind) https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Natural gas, wind, and solar are rapidly pushing out coal and nuclear (except where nuclear is receiving a zero carbon subsidy). Oil is not used for electrical generation in mainland USA. 30% of electricity in California already comes from renewables. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php
    - cwal37 8y ago
      Oil is not typically a major resource, but in cold winters in gas pipeline-constrained areas, i.e., New York and New England, there is quite a bit of oil generation. Even in high load summer days when gas is available but the load is much higher than the winter you'll see a bunch of oil units turn on. Oil-fired and dual-fuel units in those RTOs (NYISO and ISO-NE) also make up a pretty large amount of the total installed capacity.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - nabla9 8y ago
      Natural gas is not that good. CO2 per energy produced per million Btu: Natural gas 117.0 Gasoline 157.2
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Natural gas is offsetting coal, not gasoline. Gasoline consumption is overwhelmingly through light vehicles (sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks). Coal (anthracite) 228.6 Coal (bituminous) 205.7 Coal (lignite) 215.4 Coal (subbituminous) 214.3 As you can see, natural gas has half the CO2 impact per million btus as coal. It's a great bridge until wind, solar, and utility scale batteries take over (natural gas ramps quickly, coal does not, and is much cleaner).
debt 8y ago
I think it's probably closer to 1 million barrels/day if you factor in all the emissions and pollutants associated with mining the nickel/lithium for the batteries. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/24/nickel-mining-hidden-environmental-cost-electric-cars-batteries https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/24...
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  I always love when people thing manufactured goods are made from thin air and otherwise renewable resources :)
  - murukesh_s 8y ago
    How about power generation from non renewable sources? Like coal or gas plants
    - kitsunesoba 8y ago
      Even if your EV is charged using a dirty power source, it’s still a net benefit to the environment. ICE vehicles are hideously inefficient compared to power plants, which have much better ratios of produced energy to consumed fuel. Those dirty power plants can also be replaced by clean power plants, instantly making all the EVs they’re charging dramatically cleaner. A dirty ICE vehicle is always going to be a dirty ICE vehicle, no matter what.
      - murukesh_s 8y ago
        Good points! >ICE vehicles are hideously inefficient compared to power plants. Any source for that? I was wondering about power transmission losses as well.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  If you love your environment, you drive the oldest available running rust bucket. Manufacturing a car produces 50% of the emissions it has during its lifetime. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rgbrenner 8y ago
That article extrapolates growth.. purely a projection based on Tesla not just producing 50k cars a quarter, but ramping up production even higher along with additional manufacturers. 2nd, where did you get 10 quarters from? The earliest, most optimistic projection in that article is 2023 -- That's 17 quarters. Or 2025 - 25 quarters. Or perhaps it won't reach it until much later.
femidav 8y ago
"If they can do this for ten more quarters there will be less carbon in the atmosphere" - yeah, let our plants starve.

marcell 8y ago

> 2-million-barrels of oil a day In case anyone's looking for context on this, daily demand for oil is currently around 99-million-barrels a day, so this would be a 2% drop: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/daily-global-crude-oil-demand-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/daily-global-crud... Obviously just a start, but still this sounds great to me.

ams6110 8y ago
Is there a market for 50,000+ Tesla 3s for the next 10 quarters?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  They still have a ~400k net reservation backlog (based on investor call math). So close enough? Tesla has demand levers available to stoke additional demand when supply is not constrained. They'll have sold almost half a million Model 3s with no active marketing effort (besides a Youtube promo video here and there) by the time the backlog has been worked through. Crude (Brent and WTI) is trending higher [1], which is only going to help EV sales. EVs are already a slam dunk TCO-wise in most of the country except where fuel is still cheap in the Midwest/Appalachia [2]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/energy https://www.bloomberg.com/energy [2] https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap?z=4 https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap?z=4
  - kgwgk 8y ago
    Reservations are not necessarily for a $50k car. $35k plus a $7k tax credit is quite different from $50k and no tax credit.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      That wasn't in the comment I replied to. OP asked about # or cars, not options/trim and tax incentives available. I assume Tesla will maximize for tax credits (soak up those federal dollars), and then reduce the price if necessary for their vehicles if demand is decreased by the credit phaseout. International orders (which are still in queue) aren't impacted by the Tesla vehicle credit phaseout. There's a reason they're going to push every car they can in the US first before that credit is gone.
      - kgwgk 8y ago
        That’s true, but it’s not yet clear when they will be able to sell lower-priced models without increasing the cash-bleed.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAS-yjWj9DY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAS-yjWj9DY Munro Teardown Shows Tesla Model 3 Solidly Profitable [video] (youtube.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17542864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17542864 (HN Thread) Animats mentions labor costs top of thread, which have been falling in Fremont now that they've hitting their stride (rumor I've heard, not material info, can't provide a citation). If you're interested, highly recommend being on the investor call next month for Q3 rundown.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        That video, and articles on the teardown, confirm that the luxury-level-priced Model 3s are solidly profitable...which they should be, since no major automaker sells luxury vehicles at a loss per unit. The question is whether Tesla can sell Model 3s at the originally claimed $35k, which is highly questionable. Indeed, Munro himself sells, "I think $36,000 Model 3s will be rare as hen's teeth. I don't see how they could make money at $36,000."
- travisoneill1 8y ago
  I would bet that there is much more. I would by a $35K model 3 if I could get one, but I'm not going to go on a wait list for years. I think there are a lot more people who feel the same way and that is not accounted for in the already impressive backlog numbers.
- Skunkleton 8y ago
  I don't know. But I do know that with our current charging infrastructure electric cars are out of reach for most of the population. The barrier of entry for an all electric is 1) $40-60k dollars for the car, 2) somewhere convenient to charge which today means owning a house , 3) the ability to sacrifice the flexibility of a gas engine. Any one of these issues would eliminate huge market segments. Once the used market for the ~35k model 3 starts to pick up, the first problem will be reduced of course, but maintenance costs remain to be seen.
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  The article doesn't actually say 50k over 10 quarters. It projects a 60% annual increase each year until 2023 (or 17 quarters). So this is a much higher number that 500k. There are 1 billion cars on the road. 80m are sold annually. So 500k is literally a drop in the bucket.. you can't get a 2% decrease in oil by selling 500k in 17 quarters, 10 quarters.. or even 4 quarters. To get to 2% of cars, you would need to sell about 500k every quarter.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    "Cumulative passenger EV sales are set to hit 4 million this week. This includes battery electric passenger vehicles and plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles. If we include e-buses, the 4 million milestone was reached at the beginning of July. The time needed to reach each consecutive million EVs sold has shrunk from 17 months for the second million to 6 months for the fourth million. The next million EVs will take just over 6 months. We expect the five-millionth EV to be sold in March 2019." I won't quote the entire article here, but it's worth a few minutes of time. The EV sales rate is climbing rapidly; not exponentially, but much faster than linearly. https://about.bnef.com/blog/cumulative-global-ev-sales-hit-4-million/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/cumulative-global-ev-sales-hit-4...
    - rgbrenner 8y ago
      That's great... but the thread I'm replying to starts by claiming Tesla can make a 2% impact by selling 50k cars for 10 quarters (absolutely false). And the target is not 500k cars over 10 quarters.. it must be an order of magnitude higher than that to make the claimed impact. Even the article doesn't project the industry (not just Tesla) will reach these numbers in 10 quarters. Close to double that.
xoa 8y ago
>In case anyone's looking for context on this, daily demand for oil is currently around 99-million-barrels a day, so this would be a 2% drop Keep in mind too though that direct percentages can have non-linear effects. Oil is very fungible, but the inputs have a wide range of extraction costs and levels of pollution/technical risk/geopolitics involved. A 2 million barrel a day reduction isn't going to shave off every input source equally, and oil from sands or ultra deep sea or whatever all have different kinds of effects. If it kills the worst first that could have a bigger benefit then a straight 2% would suggest. Furthermore, there is a lot of oil infrastructure that is fantastically capitally expensive, most particularly refineries, that will not be equally effected. I think maximum plant capacity tends to be around 800k-900k barrels a day and many are smaller, and running subcapicity isn't ideal. Not all types of oil or products refineries produce are equal either, increasing electric cars would presumably primarily affect refined products, consider for example this piece[0] on refining capacity, and then consider what a significant bigger reduction could mean. Finally at some point we should start to see more tipping points for economies of scale, the spread of enhanced charging networks, continuing spread of solar, and just changing public consciousness and people become more familiar with it. Public interest is racing way, way ahead of what the energy industry wants. So even 2% worldwide in that short a time would be a real deal and could also just be the shallow end of an S-curve. Next 5 years will be very interesting! 0: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/an-oil-refining-capacity-wave-is-coming https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/an-oil-re...
nabla9 8y ago
62.7% of the US electricity is created using fossil fuels in 2017, half of that coal, other half natural gas. (1.3% solar, 6.3% wind) https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Natural gas, wind, and solar are rapidly pushing out coal and nuclear (except where nuclear is receiving a zero carbon subsidy). Oil is not used for electrical generation in mainland USA. 30% of electricity in California already comes from renewables. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php
  - cwal37 8y ago
    Oil is not typically a major resource, but in cold winters in gas pipeline-constrained areas, i.e., New York and New England, there is quite a bit of oil generation. Even in high load summer days when gas is available but the load is much higher than the winter you'll see a bunch of oil units turn on. Oil-fired and dual-fuel units in those RTOs (NYISO and ISO-NE) also make up a pretty large amount of the total installed capacity.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - nabla9 8y ago
    Natural gas is not that good. CO2 per energy produced per million Btu: Natural gas 117.0 Gasoline 157.2
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Natural gas is offsetting coal, not gasoline. Gasoline consumption is overwhelmingly through light vehicles (sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks). Coal (anthracite) 228.6 Coal (bituminous) 205.7 Coal (lignite) 215.4 Coal (subbituminous) 214.3 As you can see, natural gas has half the CO2 impact per million btus as coal. It's a great bridge until wind, solar, and utility scale batteries take over (natural gas ramps quickly, coal does not, and is much cleaner).

debt 8y ago

I think it's probably closer to 1 million barrels/day if you factor in all the emissions and pollutants associated with mining the nickel/lithium for the batteries. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/24/nickel-mining-hidden-environmental-cost-electric-cars-batteries https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/24...

anoncoward111 8y ago
I always love when people thing manufactured goods are made from thin air and otherwise renewable resources :)
- murukesh_s 8y ago
  How about power generation from non renewable sources? Like coal or gas plants
  - kitsunesoba 8y ago
    Even if your EV is charged using a dirty power source, it’s still a net benefit to the environment. ICE vehicles are hideously inefficient compared to power plants, which have much better ratios of produced energy to consumed fuel. Those dirty power plants can also be replaced by clean power plants, instantly making all the EVs they’re charging dramatically cleaner. A dirty ICE vehicle is always going to be a dirty ICE vehicle, no matter what.
    - murukesh_s 8y ago
      Good points! >ICE vehicles are hideously inefficient compared to power plants. Any source for that? I was wondering about power transmission losses as well.
Pica_soO 8y ago
If you love your environment, you drive the oldest available running rust bucket. Manufacturing a car produces 50% of the emissions it has during its lifetime. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rgbrenner 8y ago

That article extrapolates growth.. purely a projection based on Tesla not just producing 50k cars a quarter, but ramping up production even higher along with additional manufacturers. 2nd, where did you get 10 quarters from? The earliest, most optimistic projection in that article is 2023 -- That's 17 quarters. Or 2025 - 25 quarters. Or perhaps it won't reach it until much later.

femidav 8y ago

"If they can do this for ten more quarters there will be less carbon in the atmosphere" - yeah, let our plants starve.