Here we have some very interesting bit of news from Elon Musk in this video - the announcement that Model X SUV can be unveiled by the end of the next year. This means that in two years Tesla SUV EV could be in production. The mass-market Electric Car from Tesla is down the road in another 4-5 years.
Focus now is on Tesla Model S to make everything in its production cycle to work properly - approach is "one thing at a time".
Battery cost is going down 8% per year - it is already lower than 600-700 USD per kWh at Tesla, but no further comment here from Elon. Roadster has the standard lithium laptop battery, Model S will have the same architecture to have the mass market battery production cost advantage, but the lithium ion cell itself will be modified. Nissan Leaf and GM Volt are not competitors to Tesla Model S. It is the case of competition of conventional and electric cars in their own market segments.
Battery cost is going down 8% per year - it is already lower than 600-700 USD per kWh at Tesla, but no further comment here from Elon. Roadster has the standard lithium laptop battery, Model S will have the same architecture to have the mass market battery production cost advantage, but the lithium ion cell itself will be modified. Nissan Leaf and GM Volt are not competitors to Tesla Model S. It is the case of competition of conventional and electric cars in their own market segments.
News on battery pricing is very encouraging - Elon Musk stated couple of times before that Nissan Leaf's lithium ion battery is now ten years old technology - in the industry we hear more and more that lithium ion polymer prismatic design like in GM Volt and, particular, Nissan Leaf will be the future? It has more safe chemistry, safer during a potential car impact and it is less demanding to thermo management. Any competition between different lithium ion battery technologies and their producers on industrial level will benefit our EV mass market.
"What will it take to realise that we are running out of cheap oil? Another crisis? Here we are talking here about the powerful mega trend: the Inflation multiplied by Peak Oil situation - we have to move now and quickly readjust our society. Our Energy diet is not sustainable any more.
We are lucky in a sense that there is technology available to us to survive the Oil Shock if we will act fast - the Electric Car industry is our way out of this grim situation. It is our Next Big Thing and at the heart of this disruptive technology lie the strategic commodities: REE and Lithium."
"What will it take to realise that we are running out of cheap oil? Another crisis? Here we are talking here about the powerful mega trend: the Inflation multiplied by Peak Oil situation - we have to move now and quickly readjust our society. Our Energy diet is not sustainable any more.
We are lucky in a sense that there is technology available to us to survive the Oil Shock if we will act fast - the Electric Car industry is our way out of this grim situation. It is our Next Big Thing and at the heart of this disruptive technology lie the strategic commodities: REE and Lithium."
It's no secret that Tesla Motors is working on a new electric version of the Toyota RAV4 with the Japanese automaker, but what's this about a Tesla Model X? That's the name Tesla CEO Elon Musk used for an upcoming SUV model during the formal opening of the company's new factory. Musk told Green Tech Mediathat Tesla hopes to show a prototype of the SUV/CUV by the end of 2011. After that, of course, comes production the Model S, which is scheduled to start in mid-2012 with a volume of 7,000 in the first year and 20,000 a year after that. Musk said:
I'm hopeful we will unveil a prototype [of the SUV] toward the end of next year. When it will go into production is harder to predict because we want to make sure the Model S production line is really operating very well and smoothly before we introduce another variant. But certainly within two... in less than two years when we start Model S production, we will have the Model S