The following is my inaugural “week in review” posting covering weekly events in the adoption of electrified vehicles. It occurred to me this morning that I’m tracking the news about electrified vehicles anyway, why not create a weekly posting summarizing events from the week just finished. The goal will be to produce this every Saturday.
Another prediction of Tesla Motors’ impending failure were made, this time by a business analyst at MarketWatch. But there are other ways to interpret the data, and perhaps rather than crashing Tesla Motors will fly high next year. It does all center around whether Tesla is successful at selling cars in 2013. The company, by all appearances, has successfully made an excellent car that is winning rave reviews. But, will the public buy the car at the quantities necessary for Tesla to become a freestanding company, rather than one propped up by stock sales and loans.
Two analysts issue opposing predictions of Tesla Motors’ fortunes during 2013, saying that either the company will bleed itself dry of money, or rising sales will stabilize the Tesla’s finances.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/tesla-motors-will-either-fly-
, MarketWatch, and GigaOM
Tesla announced European pricing for the Tesla Model S, as well as built a parts distribution and final assembly facility in Europe. Within a few months the Tesla Model S will start shipping to Europe. Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has announced European pricing for the Model S, set to go on sale there next year. Speaking on the Tesla Blog, Tesla vice president George Blankenship revealed that the company is using a transparent approach to European pricing, making no more profit per car than it does in the U.S. ..
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/european-tesla-model-s-prices
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/tesla-motors-preparing-distri
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081276_tesla-reveals-eu
Tesla has just announced European pricing for the Model S, and as noted by InsideEVs two weeks ago (after Tesla’s European website was updated), the entry level 40 kWh version is not available. “As we begin production of Model S for Europe, we will only be importing 60 and 85 kWh cars. We will not be [… …
http://insideevs.com/tesla-announces-european-pricing-on-mod
Nobody could ever accuse the Tesla Model S of being a cheap car. Even after factoring in the $7,500 federal tax rebate, the cheapest Model S still rings in at more than $49,000 (and after January 1st, it will cost an additional $2,500). But compared to what it will cost in Europe, the U.S. Tesla Model S is a downright bargain. Tesla has just released their European prices…and let’s just say I’m glad we live in the USA.Tesla recently established …
http://gas2.org/2012/12/21/tesla-model-s-priced-for-europe-a
Fresh off the announcement of Tesla Motors’ first positive cash flow earlier this month, the groundbreaking US-based electric car company has just put out word of its European prices for the Tesla Model S. As we’ve learned to expect the unexpected with …See all stories on this topic ¬ …
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http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/20/tesla-motors-announces-m
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/european-tesla-model-s-prices
Daimler invested in Tesla Motors in 2009, thereby winning a seat on Tesla’s board. A change in roles at Daimler meant changing their representative on Tesla’s board. This was going to be a boring story, until I found out that Daimler has reorganized the company to focus on developing more electric and hybrid vehicles.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/daimler-changes-tesla-board-m
By Alan Ohnsman – 2012-12-18T23:00:14Z. Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), the maker of electric vehicles led by billionaire Elon Musk, said Daimler AG (DAI)’s Herbert Kohler resigned from its board and was replaced by another executive at the German automaker.See all stories on this topic ¬ …
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/tesla-motors-appoin
Bob Lutz seems to have taken on the role of Defender in Chief for Electric Vehicles. This week he told us that the small sales figures for electric vehicles are as he has consistently predicted for years. And, that it’s going to remain this way until a better breed of battery is available. In the meantime the best choice for EV adoption is fleet vehicles in light and medium duty trucks. Coincidentally he’s involved heavily in Via Motors, a company making exactly that sort of vehicle.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/bob-lutz-says-wheels-arent-co
DETROIT, MI – JANUARY 9: In this handout imag… A Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle parked in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue. … The electric vehicle market is moving exactly as I have consistently predicted. I have always maintained that pure …See all stories on this topic ¬ …
http://www.forbes.com/sites/boblutz/2012/12/20/whats-gone-wr
The horse race between GM (Chevy Volt) and Nissan (Nissan Leaf) has been the main focus of judging electric vehicle adoption. Leaf sales in 2012 were much less than anticipated, as was the Chevy Volt sales, but Volt sales were much stronger than Leaf sales. There are many thoughts as to why this would be. Such as bad management at Nissan. Or, bad conditions and political pundits slandering electric vehicles with lies. And simply the fact that GM designed the Volt to hit a specific target that served a lot of people very well.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/was-2012-leaf-sales-decline-d
http://blog.longtailpipe.com/2012/12/is-chevy-volt-perfect-t
At Ford, they’re just now getting the plug-in hybrids into show-rooms and they are hitting it out of the park with the C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/c-max-hybrids-lead-ford-bigge
And, Nissan is getting ready to start Nissan Leaf production in the U.S. The factory in Smyrna TN should let Nissan make a significant price decrease for the 2013 Nissan Leaf.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/nissan-opens-battery-pack-pla
Once the darling of the electric vehicle industry, A123 Systems ran into hard times in 2012 and ended up in bankruptcy. The problems were over-dependance on selling stock & debt for financing, and some serious quality blunders that cost the company a heck of a lot of money to fix. That killed A123 Systems, and the company has now ended up in the hands of a Chinese autoparts maker.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/a123-systems-sells-itself-ame
This should mark the beginning of the end of the rancor over the automobile industry bailout.
DETROIT – General Motors today said it will purchase 200 million shares of GM common stock held by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for $5.5 billion, or $27.50 per share. The share buyback is part of the Treasury’s plan, also announced today, to fully exit its entire holdings of GM stock within 12 to 15 months, subject to market conditions …
http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/
The glass is either half full or half empty with electrified vehicle sales. Either the sales are anemic and weak, because the sales are a drop in the bucket compared to gasoline vehicle sales. Or it’s a massive increase over prior electrified vehicle sales. It’s disingenuous to expect electrified vehicle sales to immediately jump to parity with gasoline vehicle sales.
Eco-minded shoppers have seen environmental issues take up more space in the news, and they’ve known that it was simply a matter of time before those concerns began affecting the sorts of vehicles we drive. Now, mainstream consumers …Green Car Report …
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081229_sales-of-hybrids
- Highway design could decrease death and injury risk, if “we” chose smarter designs - March 28, 2015
- GM really did trademark “range anxiety”, only later to abandon that mark - March 25, 2015
- US Government releases new regulations on hydraulic fracturing, that some call “toothless” - March 20, 2015
- Tesla Motors magic pill to solve range anxiety doesn’t quite instill range confidence - March 19, 2015
- Update on Galena IL oil train – 21 cars involved, which were the supposedly safer CP1232 design - March 7, 2015
- Another oil bomb train – why are they shipping crude oil by train? – Symptoms of fossil fuel addiction - March 6, 2015
- Chevron relinquishes fracking in Romania, as part of broader pull-out from Eastern European fracking operations - February 22, 2015
- Answer anti- electric car articles with truth and pride – truth outshines all distortions - February 19, 2015
- Apple taking big risk on developing a car? Please, Apple, don’t go there! - February 16, 2015
- Toyota, Nissan, Honda working on Japanese fuel cell infrastructure for Japanese government - February 12, 2015
