Banter and General Comments, page-2836

I am sorry, I am still trying to figure out how spending $13,000 on a Tesla Powerwall will make an EV more cost effective.

If money was no obstacle then great, everyone could have a Tesla, a solar PV system and a battery pack in the garage. Hell, you could take your EV 4WD to the beach and just pop out your portable PV system and trickle charge the car while you fish.

If you look at the data, the Tesla range is displacing luxury vehicles like the Porsche not the average commuter or utility vehicle. The economics of a Tesla when compared to a Porsche do not matter since in both cases you are actually paying for the icon status of the car. A $20,000 battery pack doesn't matter when the car costs $250,000. Porsche is not a mass market car, nor is the Tesla. The latest indication is that the $35,000 Tesla will actually cost close to $80,000, again many will buy it but it will not be a mass market car at that price point.

The "tipping point" for mass penetration is when EV's are close to price parity, there is a long way to go for PEV's but PHEV's are getting there. (PHEV's actually make a lot of sense to me when range extension is provided by a hydrogen fuel cell, I would love to buy a large PHEV that has a decent daily range on the battery and range extension is provided by hydrogen).

Anyway, enough pipe dreams. MS says 31% penetration by 2030 is needed to clear projected supply coming online, we are only at 2%. Norway got to 30% over thirty years with financial and non-financial incentives while being one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Lots of luxury car drivers, check.

Trump will tell Musk to get stuffed, Europe is dicey given the natives are bringing out the pitchforks, India can probably afford to electrify its scooter fleet, China will continue to boom but only because you can't breathe in the big cities and "new energy vehicles" are a strategic directive. Let's just say I am skeptical that we have enough Chinese, Tesla, Porsche, Mercedes and Audi drivers in this world to gain 31% penetration by 2030 unless the economics shift a lot or we loot the rich to pay for it all.