Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/937377
F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 8 www.resourceworld.com 45 cars are threatening to displace ICE cars in a trend led by Tesla and its Model 3 elec- tric car. Tesla unveiled the Model 3 prototype in March 2016, and created a sensation by quickly receiving 325,000 reservations for the car from potential buyers. This was unheard of in the automobile industry because in the automobile sales business, no one lines up to buy a car. But potential buyers were lining up to buy the Model 3 in large, newsworthy numbers. In July 2017, Tesla announced the handover of the first Model 3's to some lucky related party recipients in what was meant to signify the commencement of commercial production. At the time, Elon Musk stated that Tesla was enter- ing "production hell" for six months as it attempted to ramp up production to 5,000 Model 3 cars a week by the end of 2017. By December 2017 Tesla was supposed to be producing 20,000 Model 3's a month. The reality has been a completely differ- ent story. Essentially no cars have been delivered to the public. The reservation list has swelled to 500,000 orders, and only 300 or so vehicles have been hand built at the Fremont, California factory. Most of those early reservation holders will be waiting more than two years for their cars. Rumours of major production delays at Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory have been circulating. Tesla's stock price topped out at $380 per share and had declined to a psycholog- ically important $300 per share as Model 3 delays became the dominant Tesla story in the market. MUSK MAGIC Based on the expectations for the Semi out- lined previously, the performance specs announced were game changing. No one talks about the acceleration characteristics of Semi trucks but Musk was talking about 0 to 60 miles per hour times of 5 seconds, similar to potent sports cars. He talked about a fully loaded Semi accelerating to 60 miles per hour in 20 seconds, and he talked about the Semi as being capable of climbing a 5% grade hill and maintaining a 65 miles per hour speed. Range was stated to be 500 miles (800 km) before recharging. As to recharging, Musk introduced the concept of a new supercharger facility called the Megacharger capable of recharg- ing the battery of a Tesla Semi truck to 80% in 30 minutes for 400 miles of range. On operating economics, Musk estimated a cost per mile for the Semi truck of $1.26 per mile compared to an estimated $1.51 per mile for diesel trucks. He expected electric Semi truck operators to save $200,000 in costs over 1,000,000 miles of operation for the Semi truck. Given that the Semi truck would cost $180,000, the vehicle could pay for itself in operating savings. Musk further announced some inter- esting details of the Tesla Semi, including a central driving position for the truck driver in the cabin. It also included a sophisticated electronic control sys- tem capable of autonomous driving, anti-jack knifing control, and a capability of coordinated convoys of trucks operating together. Also, there would be no shifting of gears so the truck would be a major step forward in ease of use.