What good would they do you in the rain capital of the US? Can't see that cost/benefit analysis working in your favor.

That said, I don't understand why there are not more hydro and solar plants built here. I guess the enviromentalists don't like hydro because it might kill a few fish, bit not sure why there are not huge solar farms in the southwest.

As for Tesla, I do like their concept Powerwall. Charge it at night when demand is low and have the power during the day when demand is higher. Seems like a good idea until everyone is doing it then demand is higher at night. But I guess that is where solar comes in and it charges during the day and provide power at night.

There is a Tesla Showroom at Easton Town Center in Columbus, OH. The have a full car and a stipped-down chassis. The chassis is simplicity at its best. While the computers that control it all may be complex, the car itself is very simple. Almost like an R/C car, just bigger.

Where I live, the 200 mile range would just not work, but they are very nice cars and probably a glimpse into the future.

I'm waiting on the tesla cargo van, that also cones in under 30k

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to be late for your service call. I will be there as soon as my electric van charges up."

My wife is on her second MKZ Hybrid (traded in before warranty ran out), we both like it (alot). She only gets around 35 MPG whereas when I sneak up on 40, I think the difference is from "off the Line" driving style. She uses the extra power for acceleration while I try to stay with the electric only. We currently have 3 cars in the driveway, 2016 MX5, 2016 MKZ (Hybrid) and a 2015 Edge (all leases). I like (for different reasons) and use all of them, although the MX5 is my first choice.

BTW: The MX5 gets 33 MPG even with my "Digital" driving style (all on or all off), the Edge 19(ish).

I have a friend with a Prius and he says he gets better running around mileage when he runs it hard. His theory is that he uses the battery power to go off the line hard and get up to speed before the gas engine kicks in. He says his around town and highway mileage are very similar. Of course his highway speed is usually around 80.

Looks like the honeymoon may be over

[Link: thestreet.com]

Should have sold my stock in September :(

You may still want to dump it. I saw another article this week that was predicting a complete collapse in 3 to 6 months. Especially since stock holders voted to pay Musk potentially $5billion a year.

Tesla is going to be just fine.   The sad truth is that when you're a car manufacturer people die in your vehicles, it's not all unicorns and rainbows.  They learn from it and get better.


I'll also add that he's not only building vehicles, he's building a complete infrastructure to support those vehicles. Give him a minute.

Tesla's problems are bigger than a couple people dying in their cars. Based on stock prices, Tesla is valued at $49 billion while Ford is valued at $45 billion.

But look at this comparison

Ford Tesla
2016 Revenue $151.8 billion $7 billion
2016 Net income $4.6 billion -$675 million
Dividend Yield 5.3% None
Employees 201,000 30,000
2016 cars produced 6.7 million 84,700

Ford has $12 Billion dollars in cash on hand in their rainy day plan and Tesla has $5 billion in debt.


And Tesla has created a plan to potentially pay Musk $5 billion a year. Thats more than the combined compensation of all CEO's on the S&P 500

Not sure how the financials will play out but you have to remember, his Space X company and the contracts it has. How much money is it making?
Musk has no problem moving money back and forth to help different sectors of his companies when they need it.

And the demand for Tesla is off the chart. Back orders for models continue, no matter how many they make.
People LOVE their Tesla's.
They got the new Tesla Semi coming and already thousands of preorders.
The new Roadster, which they are taking $250K reservations on now.
A new truck (which is still in development).

LOL, Tesla is NOT going anywhere anytime soon. They have defied odds against them time & time again. And they are now looking stronger than ever with a better product lineup than ever.
I have to even admit: if I had the money, I would look at possibly buying one. And I don't care about the 'green' aspect of the circus at all.

Have you become a liberal? According to every conservative i know...this is the way America should work.

Yeah, musk has no problem moving money. He just moved $3billion of dept from his solar company to Tesla. Better financial experts than us here are starting to point out there is trouble. I didn’t realize it until the Forbes article I saw today, but Tesla has not made any profit at all so far. And they are valued more than Ford. Now they have issued a recall for approximately half of the cars they have built.

As for the semi’s I thought the orders were in the hundreds, not thousands.

You seem to continue to miss the point. I don’t care how much Musk makes. The point is it doesn’t look like wise financial planning on the board’s part to make such a deal. It has nothing to do with your desires for a communistic control of salaries.

Before I posted, I check to see about the preorder status on the Roadster and found the reserve price listed as well.
Then I saw an article from a few months ago (December I think), that said they were up to almost 2,000 on the preorders for the Semi. Got to believe it is over 2,000 now.

Only time will tell if Musk knows what he's doing as a business man. He certainly has created a hot brand (across several industries), time will tell if he knows what to do with it. And if he can turn it into profits. At some point the investments have to give way to profits or any business will sink... eventually. I just don't think we are there yet with him.

And you can't believe any 'press' or articles about the man. For some reason he really pisses some people off. And has had people after him from day 1. I can remember years ago, talk about how he is failing and is never going to get anywhere, and all kind of other things. Here we are years later and I realize now a lot of that attention had agendas behind it.