Early Retirement Extreme Forums

This may be of interest to those interested in the latest gas/etc stories. I read a few days ago that a Tesla electric car won the 'Car of the Year' award from Automobile magazine:
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/a ... a_model_s/
It's an interesting article, and although this car is definitely a luxury model, I'm optimistic that it presages advances to make electric car technology more generally affordable.
Also I gotta say I really like Elon Musk and hope SpaceX and Tesla succeed. I like this quote from the article:

Continuing the comparison with the famously involved Jobs, Blankenship notes, "Steve hired incredibly bright people to get done what he wanted to get done. I think Elon hires incredible people and expects them to do what they were hired to do."

From the Elon Musk fan club angle, always thought this was pretty cool:

Jon Favreau, director of the Iron Man movies, describes in his article how Musk was the inspiration for Favreau's film depiction of genius billionaire Tony Stark.[44]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

@m741--You don't live that far from me. If you ever want to timeshare a Tesla, I'm in

I'm a huge Musk fan. Guy takes big risks that will benefit society even if they fail.

I will need to see at least 25-50-100 unbiased reviews about the range and longevity of the car before I could consider.
I've been watching Tesla without hope for most of a decade... But my fingers remain crossed!;)

Not much to add, but I have driven next to a Tesla as someone on the military base next to my home has one. I have to say it is a small and fragile looking car, even next to my econo-box car. But who knows, it may be very safe.

Anyone buy the stock? Since this thread started it has really run.

Wow...wish I did. The tesla public media machine is productive. Bloomberg has turned into the tesla channel with a story every other day.

A year and a half ago I visited their engineering center. I spoke to a bunch of their team and wasn't impressed. To make a long story short I was repulsed. The people were over worked, the lab was a mess, nobody smiled. Turnover was high. The engineers seemed a little unrealistic with their expectations. The ones who wanted to be there just got there. Vets were long gone.

I walked out thinking I wouldn't touch the stock.

Wow did I have it wrong. I just keep watching this thing go up. I may have to modify my judgement process to catch a high flyer like this one. I rarely get the hockey stick stocks.

I'm looking at the wrong things.

Sclass wrote:Anyone buy the stock? Since this thread started it has really run.

Wow...wish I did. The tesla public media machine is productive. Bloomberg has turned into the tesla channel with a story every other day.

A year and a half ago I visited their engineering center. I spoke to a bunch of their team and wasn't impressed. To make a long story short I was repulsed. The people were over worked, the lab was a mess, nobody smiled. Turnover was high. The engineers seemed a little unrealistic with their expectations. The ones who wanted to be there just got there. Vets were long gone.

I walked out thinking I wouldn't touch the stock.

Wow did I have it wrong. I just keep watching this thing go up. I may have to modify my judgement process to catch a high flyer like this one. I rarely get the hockey stick stocks.

I'm looking at the wrong things.

I haven't and I'm not getting in here. If they stumble, even a little, this stock is probably pulling back. Of course, Musk seems very adept at running the company and playing Wall Street, so they may not stumble for a while.

BennKar wrote:Not much to add, but I have driven next to a Tesla as someone on the military base next to my home has one. I have to say it is a small and fragile looking car, even next to my econo-box car. But who knows, it may be very safe.

This is not the impression I get. I haven't driven one, but I see one or two around the area from time to time. It looks incredibly well made, which could be an illusion. Though, the safety testing seems to confirm this to some extent.

I don't think it looks small. It isn't a BMW 7 series, but it's a little larger than a 3 series.

also for you guys even considering one, the replacement battery is $30,000. so, its really a $100,000 car if you plan on keeping it for more than 7 years.

There are three at my old office. They look 7-series sized to me.

I spent about an hour in one of their dealers looking at it, combined with what I've read I think it's the best engineered passenger car in the world. We had a Leaf, and there are some great advantages to EVs as vehicles, ignoring any green or anti-fragile discussions.

I knew people that worked there. Tesla originally started by a tinkerer who wanted to build a fast, fun little EV. They went from that sort of start up environment to a business that is looking to scale into the mass market under Musk. Many of the start up crew of course hated the transition, not a situation unique to Tesla or Musk.

If we still were living in the SF Bay I think we'd have ended up buying one...which is exactly part of why we left.

leeholsen wrote:the replacement battery is $30,000. so, its really a $100,000 car if you plan on keeping it for more than 7 years.

I'll admit that battery lifetime is one of the factors that prevent me from getting an electric car, but saying that the Model S is "really a $100,000 car" is kind of a leap. Adding on battery replacement affects TCO, but I wouldn't consider something 7 years in the future to be part of the purchase price. You may as well go full-out and add all the service and energy costs for the first 7 years to get the full TCO. And then compare that with a typical car.

Additionally, the battery pack may be cheaper in the future. Some analysts are forecasting a 2/3 (!) drop in price through increasing scale and improvements in technology. I wouldn't use that report to influence a purchasing decision, since they're discussing battery prices generally. As we know from laptop manufacturers, the proprietary battery pack is marked up from the cost of just the cells. But I would still expect the price to be different from what it is today.

There are also some other expenses you will not incur with a EV that help some.

There are no oil changes, there are minimal, and inexpensive services. There are far fewer drivetrain parts to fail. No smog inspections, or emissions equipment repair costs. (the majority of failures I've had on my last few cars were emissions system related)

Been reading about the Model S, and it is impressive... I really would like to own an electric car. Guess most all my hard won mechanic skills will be obsolete soon

In my area (cheap power) the Model S gets a current gas cost equivelent of 174 mpg, or .021c/mile... My 38 mpg Toyota is an expensive .096c/mile!

... Too bad I would have to drive nearly 1 million miles (817k, pre taxes, tags, other costs) to recover the differences in purchase price!

I forgot to add that not only half of the cars are sold in CA, of those a lot are sold in my town (Los Altos). I cannot go a block and not see one. There are two on my street. I talked to a friend who is into the whole DIY car thing and he said all the charge paddles (75) at his company are taken up by 8am. There are a variety of EVs there...Tesla, Volt,Leaf, prius plugin.

So I can see the justification. The neighbor who bought is a manager at Cisco. His old car was a $100k car. He pays big bucks so he can drive in the carpool lane which is a nice perk if you have $...just trading money for time.

I spent a month last summer in Newport Beach the exotic car capital of CA. Lots of Lamborghini and Ferrari but only two Tesla sightings even though there is a dealer. Incidentally the salesman was a total nerd who really understood EV tech. Really, the dude needed a haircut and contacts.

Yeah, regrettably I don't want to dabble in the shares now. I was just mentioning it because I need to figure out how to adapt my stock picking skills to catch these things. I never can ID these.

speaking of safety, Bloomberg West gave a report that the 5.5star NHSTA rating was bogus...another TSLA hype engine. There apparently is no score higher than 5. According to the report several other cars got the same score...but somehow breaking the test apparatus made them justified in adding 10% to their own score.

See there's my negativity kicking in...I need to suspend disbelief long enough to buy a share.

I remember reading this thread after visiting TSLA HQ and thinking wow people really like the idea. A lot of silicon valley people told me how bad they wanted one while saying they were sick of their iPhones because Jobs was dead, the stock is down and it just isn't cool anymore. I need to tune into this vibe!

I don't think your picking model is necessarily wrong. There was some self-doubt during the .com bubble as well. If the valuations are inflated and incorrect, they eventually pop. Not that TSLA's valuations are off, but you shouldn't necessarily doubt yourself when the reason may simply be market irrationality.

Hype or not.

How This College Student Turned $30,000 Into $250,000 In 1 Step
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/2 ... 06361.html

from TFA so you don't have to click TFL

Last June, U.C. Berkeley senior Patrick Hop decided to take a chance and invest his life savings of $30,000 in Tesla Motors, an electric car company, according to CNBC.

It paid off. Tesla's stock has skyrocketed since he bought it at $32 per share -- it's increased by almost 300 percent in 2013 alone -- and Hop now estimates he's made more than $250,000.

Asked what he plans to do with the money, Hop told CNBC that he would like to build his own startup company upon graduation.

But Hop is not the only lucky "Teslanaire" out there, according to CNBC. Apparently there's a whole slew of stockholders profiting from Tesla's current bull market. One example is Jonathan Jivan, who bought $2,500 worth of stock in 2011, and now has more than $100,000 to show for it, according to San Jose Mercury News.

Wish I had bought the stock 2-3 years ago (& had the sense enough to know when to sell) ....



(edited to include core content of link)

If the cost isn't a big enough turnoff, the li-ion battery should be. Unlike nicads and nicklemetalhydrides , lithium battery life is just a measure of time, not charge cycles. It starts getting weaker the day it is manufactured, and just keeps getting weaker as the days pass.
You can get additional batteries for your Prius and a plugin kit, have the regenerating brakes, and nifty controls , with an onboard generator for range, and still be money ahead.
if you still just gotta have the cool sports car, the Tesla is a 30k lotus Elise, with a 70k drivetrain swap.

I can't wait until these become affordable. I have 16 years to go in the Honda before I retire it. Assuming I still need a car, I'll likely be buying an electric, self-driving car next.

These make the maintenance of an internal combustion car seem like owning a steam locomotive. (Liquid fuel, grease, oil, hydraulics, yuk!)

Eight-baggers are fun for getting rich quick. Other popular venues include small cap biotech (I know someone whose friend made 50k in a day on good news) and junior gold miners. Hindsight.

The ERE solution would be a Geo Metro.

jacob wrote:Eight-baggers are fun for getting rich quick. Other popular venues include small cap biotech (I know someone whose friend made 50k in a day on good news) and junior gold miners. Hindsight.

The ERE solution would be a Geo Metro.

I think some companies are obvious "eight baggers" as some people call it. Google, Apple, etc. That's why I made that thread about beating myself up the other day. I was damn sure they were going to go up. I just didn't really have the money to invest 10 years ago or whatever. I think that's a little different than hindsight is 20/20. It's more about timing and that you weren't ready (financially) to take advantage of opportunities yet.

I think I was ERE when I was a kid or something. I used to wonder why everyone didn't get Geo Metros, why people would spend all their money just getting a better car so they can drive right back to work again, etc. If you just apply simple logic to the way people spend it doesn't really make sense at all. People go in circles and the net result isn't really adding up to anything.