The number of new electric vehicles coming onto the market is getting hard to keep track of. Sometime in late 2017 I wanted to find some news resources for the EV market. I asked in my Tesla Facebook group, and a number of people recommended a YouTube channel called Fully Charged. This show is BRILLIANT! It not only dives into the EV industy, but also alternative power in general. This includes solar or course, but they also have done episodes on wind turbines, tidal wave power generation, as well as battery technologies in general. On top of the geeky info I get out of it, the guys running the show are also pretty entertaining/funny.
Through this show I have expanded my knowledge of all of these areas, and was hoping for a time when it made sense for me to invest in solar panels for my house (more on that later in this blog). The episodes where they covered various efforts to use tidal power for electricity generation reminded me of a tour I took in Eastport, Maine, that talked of a tidal power project that began back in 1920. This was called the Passamaquoddy Tidal Project. Plans were made, and work had begun. The stock market crash of 1929 almost killed the project, but FDR was then elected, and backed the project with the "New Deal". It was later determined to be too expensive for the area. It's a shame because the tidal forces in that particular area are supposedly the greatest on the planet. Work stopped on the project in 1936.
Interestingly enough, 70 years later, in 2006, new interest in a tidal project was started back up. The new project is called the Cobscook Bay Tidal Energy Project. The system came on line in 2012. The new design is really nothing like the system in the 1920s, but people knew that this was the perfect spot to start this off for the nation.
Eastport happens to be the home town of my mother. I still go there from time to time. I was not aware that the system was online, so now I have a reason to go back and take a look.
Wednesday 12 December 2018
The long wait... and the negative press
I have signed up for some of the Motley Fool reports over the past 12-15 years. I felt they had a pretty good take on how to determine if a company was going to be a good investment or not. Sometime around 2012 they listed Tesla as being one of their top picks. They were so certain that it was an excellent investment that I decided I should buy some stock. The price of the stock was pretty high, which made me a bit nervous, but I was not investing a lot of money. I think I paid around $106 a share.
Some people, including my sister that worked for GM at the time, thought I was crazy for diving head first into a company that is relatively new. Plus the Model 3, which would not even be available to even see up close, wouldn't not see the rubber hit any roads until July of 2017. Test drives? Who needs test drives? What I saw happening with this company was so different than how any other company operated. Some people fear this. I felt it made them a disruptive force in the industry.
Elon Musk made many promises about this car, and although they have yet to produce the $35,000 220 mile range version, it has exceeded most peoples expectations. I joined Tesla group on Facebook, and found the Electric Vehicle Club of Colorado Springs. I watched what these folks were saying, and noticed that most of them had the same thoughts I did about the company.
Why have they been so slow to produce that $35,000 car? Well, the answer is all in technology development and economics. This car simplifies so many things that existing car makers insist on making complex. But in developing the technology there are R&D costs that cause the car to cost a bit too much.
One of the things that surprised me is that the car starts off being a REAR wheel drive car. I am not sure what the thinking was there, but it made me hold off on my actual configuration order until the all-wheel drive version was available. I live in Colorado, so I know that driving a rear wheel drive vehicle can have troubles with the rolling hills along the front range of the Rockies. Unfortunately that meant I needed to pay more than I was originally planning.
Another thing that bothered me on this journey was all the negative articles about Tesla. It seems every time a Tesla got into an accident it made the news. One of the reasons for the magnified focus was that Tesla cars are supposed to be the most safest cars on the planet. The accidents that were occurring had more to do with bad drivers, than a bad car, but the finely focused eyes on the Tesla cars meant that people were going to hear more about them in the good areas, and the bad. It didn't seem to matter that people were just being stupid. The blame was partially being put on Tesla's lap. Then I found that some if not most of these articles were being written by people that were shorting the Tesla stock. This started to irritate me beyond belief.
Regardless, the stock price kept going up.
Some people, including my sister that worked for GM at the time, thought I was crazy for diving head first into a company that is relatively new. Plus the Model 3, which would not even be available to even see up close, wouldn't not see the rubber hit any roads until July of 2017. Test drives? Who needs test drives? What I saw happening with this company was so different than how any other company operated. Some people fear this. I felt it made them a disruptive force in the industry.
Elon Musk made many promises about this car, and although they have yet to produce the $35,000 220 mile range version, it has exceeded most peoples expectations. I joined Tesla group on Facebook, and found the Electric Vehicle Club of Colorado Springs. I watched what these folks were saying, and noticed that most of them had the same thoughts I did about the company.
Why have they been so slow to produce that $35,000 car? Well, the answer is all in technology development and economics. This car simplifies so many things that existing car makers insist on making complex. But in developing the technology there are R&D costs that cause the car to cost a bit too much.
One of the things that surprised me is that the car starts off being a REAR wheel drive car. I am not sure what the thinking was there, but it made me hold off on my actual configuration order until the all-wheel drive version was available. I live in Colorado, so I know that driving a rear wheel drive vehicle can have troubles with the rolling hills along the front range of the Rockies. Unfortunately that meant I needed to pay more than I was originally planning.
Another thing that bothered me on this journey was all the negative articles about Tesla. It seems every time a Tesla got into an accident it made the news. One of the reasons for the magnified focus was that Tesla cars are supposed to be the most safest cars on the planet. The accidents that were occurring had more to do with bad drivers, than a bad car, but the finely focused eyes on the Tesla cars meant that people were going to hear more about them in the good areas, and the bad. It didn't seem to matter that people were just being stupid. The blame was partially being put on Tesla's lap. Then I found that some if not most of these articles were being written by people that were shorting the Tesla stock. This started to irritate me beyond belief.
Regardless, the stock price kept going up.
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