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Because Two Unicorns Are Better Than One- Tesla/Solar City to Merge


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2016 Jun 22, 7:15am   3,099 views  16 comments

by smaulgld   ➕follow (4)   💰tip   ignore  

Tesla Announces Plans to Buy Solar City – Tesla Stock Tanks

https://smaulgld.com/sign-stock-market-peaked/

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1   HEY YOU   2016 Jun 22, 7:27am  

What's the carbon footprint of their products?

2   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 7:38am  

HEY YOU says

What's the carbon footprint of their products?

The direct may be deminimus BUT since much of electrical power comes from coal- pretty high for those over prices battery powered cars

4   BayArea   2016 Jun 22, 11:27am  

TSLA a buy at $199.X?

5   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 11:36am  

BayArea says

TSLA a buy at $199.X?

I wouldnt touch any unicorn stock now

6   BayArea   2016 Jun 22, 11:37am  

smaulgld says

I wouldnt touch any unicorn stock now

A unicorn, in the world of business, is a company, usually a start-up that does not have an established performance record, with a stock market valuation or estimated valuation of more than $1 billion - had to look that up.

7   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 11:43am  

Tesla relies on subsidizes and hype and going back to the equity markets for cash- it doesnt make any money

8   FNWGMOBDVZXDNW   2016 Jun 22, 12:08pm  

CA power mix is 6% coal, 44% natural gas, 9% nuclear, 20% renewables excluding large hydro, 6% large hydro, 15% unspecified.
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html

Considering that an efficient power plant is about 55% efficient these days (cogen heat and power), distribution losses are 9%, battery storage is 95%, and electric motor efficiency is 95%, the net efficiency of an electric car is 0.55*0.91*.95*.95=45%. Toyota recently achieved 38% efficiency (http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1091436_toyota-gasoline-engine-achieves-thermal-efficiency-of-38-percent). The battery powered car has regenerative brakes, and you would need a hybrid for a gas engine to do that trick. So, it seems that from an energy efficiency perspective, the battery powered car comes out a little better than a hybrid when a modern power generation system is used. If you power the generator with natural gas, you have even lower co2 emissions, as natural gas has lower emissions per MJ than oil. If you power the generator with coal, the higher emissions per MJ of coal might offset the efficiency gains. But, if you look at a grid like the CA one, you will see that about 35% of the power is from hydro, renewables, or nuclear (low co2 emissions). 44% is from gas (lower co2 emissions for the e-car) and only 6% from coal, where the co2 emissions after accounting for efficiencies will still make the e-car on par with the hybrid.

I've ignored manufacturing energy for simplicity. But this should help prevent thinking conservatives from just writing the environmental benefits off due to the possibility that coal was used to generate the power.

Whether this is good or bad for TSLA is up in the air, but from a total package concept for the consumer, this is great. If they are worried about coal, just go to Tesla, and order up a car and some panels for the house.

9   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 12:34pm  

YesYNot says

Whether this is good or bad for TSLA is up in the air, but from a total package concept for the consumer, this is great. If they are worried about coal, just go to Tesla, and order up a car and some panels for the house.

Much of electricity still comes from coal

10   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 12:46pm  

anonymous says

. Look out 10-15 years as more and more of these utilities shutter there coal fired units.

yes that will probably happen, but will there be an equivalent amount to replace it via other sources? If not Tesla makes no sense

11   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 12:58pm  

anonymous says

There will be electricity

Yes there will be BUT if it is expensive why buy a tesla?

12   FNWGMOBDVZXDNW   2016 Jun 22, 1:08pm  

There are always challenges when incorporating things into a larger system. On the issue of how a solar rooftop installation fits in with an electric car you have the situation where the panel generated power during the day and the user wants to charge their car at night. Well, Tesla's primary tech is batteries, so they could technically add an extra battery to time shift. However, this would be perverse because the power companies have huge loads during the day and small loads at night. So, they regularly charge less to industrial customers for night time use of power. There are plenty of plans to help shift consumer demand from day time (cooling) to nighttime electric use. So, the power companies should be thrilled at the prospect of this situation. As far as sufficient overcapacity goes, that is needed with fossil fuels / nuclear too, b/c the load is not constant. I'm not an expert, and it's a complicated system, so I'm sure I'm leaving things out.

Solar will most likely never be 100% of power, though, for the reason that you mention. We will very doubtfully see the situation where 100% of cars are electric. That's not the question in my mind though. The question is are additional battery powered cars better for the environment now? The answer is yes.

As far as subsidies go, they will need to wind down. The Chevy spark is so dam cheap with all subsidies that the gas savings pays for more than the car payment in many cases. So there is room for a reduction. Meanwhile solar prices are dropping faster than idiotman can spew nonsensical insults. I know a sales person from Solar City, and have discussed the economics and their financing options. The economics of electricity production and sales are anything but a free market, so it is very local. But in looking at the economics in MD, the only reason not to go solar is to wait for solar to be cheaper. That's a conversation that he doesn't like. In VA, it's different and SC doesn't operate here.

But the oil industry is also the beneficiary of huge subsidies, especially if you count the military protection that they require or the environmental burden.

13   FNWGMOBDVZXDNW   2016 Jun 22, 2:48pm  

That must have been a weird set up in PA. In VA/MD, heat pumps are pretty expensive in cold winters. It would be even worse in PA, depending on where you were. Was the heat resistive or a heat pump? At night, the power's cheaper, but it's colder outside, so a heat pump will be less efficient, and there is no AC load during the day in the winter. What did they use for a thermal mass to store the heat?

Our dishwasher has a timer, and we use that to have it run at night, but most of our load is probably during the day. Even little things like allowing the fridge to get a few degrees warmer during peak electricity usage can make a difference for the power companies. The benefit of a smart fridge will not be to order milk, but to time shift power, I'm guessing. We looked a Leaf, and almost bought one. At the time, they were dropping in price so much each month, we delayed. Now, neither of us have a suitable commute.

14   smaulgld   2016 Jun 22, 4:00pm  

Solar City Closed up just 3% today
Tesla down over 10%

15   FNWGMOBDVZXDNW   2016 Jun 23, 7:45am  

anonymous says

electric thermal storage heaters. You can find information on them easily

The ones I saw were simple resistive heaters and used masonry bricks for thermal mass to store the heat.

16   FNWGMOBDVZXDNW   2016 Jun 23, 8:09am  

anonymous says

The obvious downside of course is if the power goes out during bad weather in the winter

The other obvious downside is converting heat to electricity and then back to heat is generally inefficient. The reason it is efficient for a car is that you are using electricity to provide motion, and the alternative is not efficient. Using electricity to provide heat is generally a bad idea. Heat pumps are an exception, because you are not converting electricity to heat, you are using electricity to move heat from a colder place (outside) to a warmer place(inside), which is essentially the same as running a refrigerator. It works well in mild environments.

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