New Tesla Sedan
10-25-2008, 06:23 AM
#5
October 25, 2008
Struggling to raise money amid the financial crisis, electric carmaker Telsa Motors Inc. will eliminate nearly a quarter of its workforce in a bid for profitability.
Struggling to raise money amid the financial crisis, electric carmaker Telsa Motors Inc. will eliminate nearly a quarter of its workforce in a bid for profitability.
10-25-2008, 06:34 AM
#6
I thought they had plenty of orders to fill for a long time? Guess those must have been canceled?
I don't know what their fixed vs. variable cost structure is, but I suspect they could do better by lowering prices and driving volume...assuming, of course, that production could keep up.
I don't know what their fixed vs. variable cost structure is, but I suspect they could do better by lowering prices and driving volume...assuming, of course, that production could keep up.
10-25-2008, 07:09 AM
#7
Begin conspiracy theories that big oil is killing the electric car.
How else would you explain the 12 month fall from grace?
over a tranny problem? (mechanical not the human variety)
It will be interesting to see if this happens to Fisker.
How else would you explain the 12 month fall from grace?
over a tranny problem? (mechanical not the human variety)
It will be interesting to see if this happens to Fisker.
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10-25-2008, 09:32 AM
#9
Registered User
Originally Posted by HKStallion,Oct 25 2008, 07:09 AM
Begin conspiracy theories that big oil is killing the electric car.
How else would you explain the 12 month fall from grace?
over a tranny problem? (mechanical not the human variety)
It will be interesting to see if this happens to Fisker.
How else would you explain the 12 month fall from grace?
over a tranny problem? (mechanical not the human variety)
It will be interesting to see if this happens to Fisker.
I have spoken with the ex CFO of tesla after a convention where he gave a talk all about the challenges they had when creating the first gen Tesla roadster. The tranny was a HUGE issue. He said that he realized that creating a consumer car is one of the hardest technology challenges in the world. Elon(sp?) Musk is a huge investor in Tesla (I think he's the interm CEO right now) created a company to shoot objects into space for cheap and he said that creating a consumer automobile is much harder. Add to that the whole electric thing.
The other big thing he talked about is that it is very hard to make them safe. Storing massive amounts of energy in batteries right behind your head is a very dangerous and hard to do correctly. The gas tank is an engineered product (in his words). It has a 100 years of engineering applied to it to make it safe, cheap and reliable. Their energy containment unit had a few engineers working a couple of years on it.... You make your own assumptions about that...
The ex chief battery technologist (his title..no me making that up) had major concerns about the viability of a huge lithium array. That many laptop or cell phone batteries that close to you is extremely dangerous. Containing that energy if something goes wrong is very hard and has taken a lot of money and time. Is it right? I have no idea. I haven't heard of any teslas blowing up yet.The challenges are enormous. At best they were unlikely to make it. Throw in this financial climate and they are probably done.
