Electric cars.

Chippy_Tea said:

The unsold inventory of Elon Musk's Tesla is so large, it is now visible from space:

Using satellite imagery, sources like Sherwood News discovered Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory lots went from partially filled in late 2023 to overflowing by March 2024.

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In any case, this is an old story - Tesla had a specific problem with inventory at the beginning of this year that was resolved pretty quickly, which is all recorded in their quarterly report to investors :
https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2024-Update.pdf#page=6

Northern_Brewer said:

To be fair that's a pretty standard disclaimer to avoid falling under the tight rules on investment advice. They may be purveyors of tittle-tattle, but the disclaimer isn't proof of it.

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Then perhaps it shouldn't be presented as such when it's reproduced.

Brew_DD2 said:

It would be really helpful if you would quote your sources so we can see whether they are worth the paper they're written on, so to speak. It's also not really the done thing copying entire articles without crediting the creator.

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I remember asking several member to do that back in the covid days and was slated usually with the words "If you want to fact check do the research yourself" i haven't got time to fact check every post like that on Facebook that i think members would like to read feel free to do your own research if you dispute the facts posted in them.

Chippy_Tea said:

I remember asking member to do that and was slated usually with the words "If you want to fact check do the research yourself" i haven't got time to fact check every post like that on Facebook feel free to do your own research if you dispute the facts posted.

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I don't take issue with having to Google or do research. I take issue with whole articles being lifted and the source not being cited. It's disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst.

Brew_DD2 said:

I don't take issue with having to Google or do research. I take issue with whole articles being lifted and the source not being cited. It's disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst.

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There was no link in the original post i wont lose sleep over whether you think that makes copying it here disingenuous or dishonest!

Chippy_Tea said:

I remember asking several member to do that back in the covid days and was slated usually with the words "If you want to fact check do the research yourself" i haven't got time to fact check every post like that on Facebook that i think members would like to read feel free to do your own research if you dispute the facts posted in them.

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Just re-read this. Why on earth would you share things if you've not checked their veracity yourself? You've got time to copy, paste and format these posts, but not to do a quick check whether it's complete nonsense or not?

Brew_DD2 said:

Why on earth would you share things if you've not checked their veracity yourself?

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I thought i had already explained this and i am not going to change my mind however much you tell me you do not agree, if you don't believe facts in an article prove them wrong.

Can we now get back to discussing the topic and not go round again, thanks.

I remember asking several member to do that back in the covid days and was slated usually with the words "If you want to fact check do the research yourself" i haven't got time to fact check every post like that on Facebook that i think members would like to read feel free to do your own research if you dispute the facts posted in them.

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Chippy_Tea said:

I thought i had already explained this and i am not going to change my mind however much you tell me you do not agree, if you don't believe facts in an article prove them wrong.

Can we now get back to discussing the topic and not go round again, thanks.

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Burden of proof is very much on the person making the claims.

As the late, great Christopher Hitchens said, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

So with that in mind. The post that you copied and pasted is drivel.

Burden of proof is very much on the person making the claims.

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I didn't post the article i reposted it i made no claims i let member make up their own minds

Brew_DD2 said:

So with that in mind. The post that you copied and pasted is drivel.

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And that's how i view most of your posts here

Can we now get back to discussing the topic and not go round again, thanks.

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^ ^ ^ THIS ^ ^ ^

The biggest grid storage project using old batteries is online in Texas​

Element has been operating what appears to be the largest grid storage plant in the world composed of previously used electric vehicle batteries, co-founder and CEO Tony Stratakos told Canary Media last week. The 53 megawatt-hour project, which is located in West Texas at a wind farm owned by mega-developer Nextera Energy Resources, came online in May, but the startup is going public with the information now for the first time.

Read more here:
https://www.canarymedia.com/article...roject-using-old-batteries-is-online-in-texas


They’re using technology that makes use of old EV batteries and bypasses dodgy cells without needing to scrap the whole battery pack.

Very interesting and shows that EV batteries have a life long beyond the car they’re in.

Shell Is Closing 1,000 Gas Stations To Focus On EV Charging​

In its Energy Transition Strategy 2024 report, Shell announced that it was planning to divest 1,000 of its retail gas stations (including joint ventures) between 2024 and 2025. The company said this move was aimed at reallocating those resources towards EV charging stations “in response to customer needs.”

https://insideevs.com/news/713296/shell-closes-1000-gas-stations-to-focus-on-ev-charging/

This is only 4% of their petrol stations, but it’s showing the transition is going to happen.

JockyBrewer said:

In its Energy Transition Strategy 2024 report, Shell announced that it was planning to divest 1,000 of its retail gas stations (including joint ventures) between 2024 and 2025. The company said this move was aimed at reallocating those resources towards EV charging stations “in response to customer needs.”

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How is that going to work most stations round here only have room for 10 cars even if they all had fast charging these places would be tied up for many minutes they would have to charge a fortune to make a profit.

Chippy_Tea said:

How is that going to work most stations round here only have room for 10 cars even if they all had fast charging these places would be tied up for many minutes they would have to charge a fortune to make a profit.

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My guess is it’ll be a combination of things:
1. Put more outlets in than there were pumps.
2. Have super fast chargers that they can put a premium on.
3. Monetise the captive audience with shops, cafes and maybe other services (car washing, massages, manicures, dentistry).

I don’t know how profitable a petrol station is at the moment, although my gut feeling is that it’s not great given how few independent petrol stations there are. The value is in it for the oil companies as a direct to consumer outlet for their product. So maybe they can make money as their margins are much bigger on the product.

It’s notable that the few stations they’ve already converted are in city areas, where we know that home charging is problematic for many residents.

In any case, it shows which way the wind is blowing, and Shell knows it too.

JockyBrewer said:

1. Put more outlets in than there were pumps.
2. Have super fast chargers that they can put a premium on.
3. Monetise the captive audience with shops, cafes and maybe other services (car washing, massages, manicures, dentistry)

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That sounds great but they haven't got the room and charging takes too long, people charge at home for a reason the only way they will use these places is if the price is low or they have no option, there is only 30 percent of houses with no drive they still won't be able to make enough money to make a decent profit

Chippy_Tea said:

That sounds great but they haven't got the room

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Looking at my local Shell station they have plenty of room and could fit 3-4 times as many chargers as they have pumps right now.

Chippy_Tea said:

and charging takes too long, people charge at home for a reason the only way they will use these places is if the price is low or they have no option, there is only 30 percent of houses with no drive they still won't be able to make enough money to make a decent profit

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That 30% without driveways is highly concentrated in towns and cities. It means that if you open a charging location you're going to have a lot of potential customers close by.

For example Shell's first location for this was in Fulham, West London. It has about 12x 175kW chargers, so if you have a car that can charge at higher rates you're going to be done in 15-20 minutes max.

Well I stopped off a new Tesla charger the other day for a quick charge. By my previous experience it would have taken a good 20 minutes or so to put on the 15% or so battery charge I needed since in my experience despite all the marketing and nonsense some people talk about when it comes to charging which is absolutely a pain in the backside my experiences were nowhere near what some were talking about and the best charge rates I was able to achieve was 60 - 80 KW and occasionally the other side of 100 kw which means a good hours charge if I'm stopping for a substantial charge. But on this new charger as soon as I plugged in I was seeing 220kw charge rate. So literally by the time I'd gone for a quick loo stop and grabbed a sandwich I'd put in more than double the charge I wanted. And they charged me 37p/KWh so not an extortionate rate like the non-tesla chargers.

So on the face of it if chargers of this performance and price were widespread out on the network you could very easily get away with not having a home charger, but the rub is that regular fast charging like this is not good for battery health so they giveth with one hand, but taketh away with another.

Chippy_Tea said:

That sounds great but they haven't got the room and charging takes too long

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You keep saying that like it's something that is fixed in stone. And I reply as I always do - we already have cars on the [Chinese] market that can add 300 miles of charge in 10.5 minutes. So that's not so much longer than filling up with petrol.

And we already have more public chargers than petrol pumps, and the odds are that at least 2/3 of charging will not be happening from public chargers (either home/work), so as long as charging takes less than 3x the average petrol pump time, then you don't need "more room". In reality most of those public chargers are not yet capable of 10-minute charging, but we're getting there - over 70% of new chargers are ultra-rapid, and we'll end up with many more public chargers than petrol pumps.

It will take investment, but it doesn't feel like a deal-breaker.

hoppyscotty said:

the rub is that regular fast charging like this is not good for battery health so they giveth with one hand, but taketh away with another.

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The industry has been cautious on that front but they seem to have been somewhat pleasantly surprised by how tolerant modern batteries are to fast charging - that Model S taxi with 460k miles on the clock had been mostly supercharged to full as it was on the original free-supercharging-for-life deal, and was still at around 75% battery after 460k miles. It's always sensible not to stress the battery more than you have to, but they can stand more abuse than you think.

Well that is one car and despite that Tesla for sure warn against constant fast charging and people I know with non teslas are seeing massive battery degradation in cars that are only a year or two old. Some brands are worse than others, but in some cases they're seeing as much as 10% battery degradation in one year from new - now of course ICE cars see degradation in efficiency over use and wear and tear but not as much as 10% year on year..maybe 10% over 100k miles - I ran a 20 year old Porsche some time ago and after a good compression test and leak down test at just over 100k miles the results were that the engine had only just been broken in so as far as the engine was concerned just beginning its really useful service life. And keeping tabs on some of the YouTubers who buy old high mileage cars and seeing how much they cost to run, whenever they buy a high mileage Tesla in almost all cases the battery is knackered and often either requires changing at around £15k cost (which might still be worth it depending on how much you bought the car for in the first place) or just putting up with really crap battery performance.

The datum of a cars value and level of wear and tear with ICE cars was always mileage...higher mileage cars were worth less and assumed to be less reliable and more likely to cause additional running costs, but for BEV's maybe mileage is a metric that has zero relevance or utility in assessing how good a car is and we need to look at something like charge cycles, or some ratio of slow charge cycles to fast charge cycles or something else to really understand the overall condition of a BEV.