Tesla’s mission ‘to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy’ appears to be surging forward after hitting a couple of road blocks this fall.
According to news reports, Tesla Model 3 distribution centers are now filling up with units of the highly desirable electrical vehicle. According to Elektrek, hundreds of Model 3s have been spotted at Freemont’s distribution Center. And a new distribution center in Los Angeles with a lot capable of holding 400 vehicles appears to also be full. Meanwhile, smaller centers and sales rooms around the country are reporting an influx of Model 3s.
(Sales lots for the Model 3 are starting to fill — indicating that higher production volumes have been reached)
This news comes after Tesla recently opened orders for a first batch of Tesla reservation holders. It also follows Panasonic’s announcement that battery production bottlenecks at Tesla’s Gigafactory had cleared.
According to reports from Inside EVs, a total of 712 Model 3s had sold through November. But with hundreds of Model 3s now flooding distribution centers and show-rooms, the rate of production appears to have started to take off. How much will be unclear until Tesla releases annual figures by early January of 2018. But it appears likely that Tesla is now producing north of 300 Model 3s per week — with this source pointing toward upward of 1,000 vehicles per week.
Exact numbers are all speculation and conjecture at this point. But clear evidence of swelling inventory is a sign that the steepening ramp of the S curve is upon us.
Tesla presently boasts approximately 500,000 reservation holders for its Model 3 electrical vehicle (EV). Many of these customers are willing to wait a year or more to receive a car. This is an unprecedented level of demand. But with the Model 3 featuring first in class acceleration, handling, EV range, recharging capability, and access to Tesla upgrades and widespread faster charging infrastructure, it’s little wonder that the car has so many admirers.
If Tesla is managing to ramp production as planned, the car-maker is likely to see record vehicle sales during December even as it climbs toward 250,000 to 300,000 approximate sales during 2018 (or up to triple projected 2017 sales). And due to the fact that the Model 3 eclipses the capabilities and features of tens of thousands of luxury and sport fossil fuel vehicles in the 30,000 to 50,000 dollar price range, it’s possible that Model 3 demand will continue to surge as the car becomes more widely available.
(Global EV sales are projected to hit above 1 million during 2017. With the Model 3 and other highly desirable, more affordable electrical vehicles hitting the market in 2018, total global sales are likely to challenge the 2 million mark. Image source: EVvolumes.)
Tesla’s leap forward coordinate with larger global EV adoption couldn’t come sooner. Harms from climate change are rapidly advancing. But the increased efficiency provided by electrical drive trains and their ability to be mated directly to renewable energy systems like wind and solar provide a major opportunity to cut harmful carbon emissions. So the faster global EV production ramps, the more competition that interest in Tesla’s leading-edge EVs spurs, the better it is for us all.
robertscribbler 
wili
/ December 12, 2017Wow, Robert, you’re really on a tear!
Meanwhile:
NOAA: Arctic Report Card 2017
Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably frozen region of recent past decades
Despite relatively cool summer temperatures, observations in 2017 continue to indicate that the Arctic environmental system has reached a ‘new normal’, characterized by long-term losses in the extent and thickness of the sea ice cover, the extent and duration of the winter snow cover and the mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet and Arctic glaciers, and warming sea surface and permafrost temperatures.
Highlights
– The average surface air temperature for the year ending September 2017 is the 2nd warmest since 1900; however, cooler spring and summer temperatures contributed to a rebound in snow cover in the Eurasian Arctic, slower summer sea ice loss, and below-average melt extent for the Greenland ice sheet.
– The sea ice cover continues to be relatively young and thin with older, thicker ice comprising only 21% of the ice cover in 2017 compared to 45% in 1985.
– In August 2017, sea surface temperatures in the Barents and Chukchi seas were up to 4° C warmer than average, contributing to a delay in the autumn freeze-up in these regions.
– Pronounced increases in ocean primary productivity, at the base of the marine food web, were observed in the Barents and Eurasian Arctic seas from 2003 to 2017.
– Arctic tundra is experiencing increased greenness and record permafrost warming.
– Pervasive changes in the environment are influencing resource management protocols, including those established for fisheries and wildfires.
– The unprecedented rate and global reach of Arctic change disproportionally affect the people of northern communities, further pressing the need to prepare for and adapt to the new Arctic.
More here: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2017
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Cheers, Wili. Yeah. Saw this earlier today.
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Anony Mole
/ December 12, 2017Here’s a thought about Musk and his battery Giga-factory: What will all the world’s elite robotic police forces need? Batteries. Little (or maybe fully) does Musk know that he’s helping to build the forces that will be humanity’s undoing — according to him.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Maybe write a sci-fi screenplay about how batteries spell the end of the world? In the meantime, the rest of us are going to use them to help solve a very real climate crisis.
Ciao.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017In other words a battery does not = Skynet. Got it?
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Anony Mole
/ December 12, 2017Got it? No. Sorry, I don’t take pedagogic directives from internet personalities. And yeah, Skynet WILL need batteries.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Ah, a denier then, I see.
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Anony Mole
/ December 12, 2017Christ you’re an asshole.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Hey, I wasn’t the one that compared a climate solution to doomsday. But YMMV.
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Anony Mole
/ December 12, 2017Touchy about any idea that someone might have regarding concepts that just don’t fit you Chinese checkerboard. The man makes batteries. Lots of them. And he probably will produce batteries for the robotic work force, won’t he? And that robotic work force WILL be comprised of enforcement and drone robots. Not hard to predict that.
I’m all for more EVs and PluginEVs. Been behind it for 20 years, in fact. Get off your high horse won’t you.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Because police don’t have cars now, right?
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Hold on there, partner, when I was a police officer a few years back all we had was these here horses. And now, dang it, it’s them damn battery cars. Takin over everywheres.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017How about unplugging from the computer if you believe in Skynet, buddy?
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Anony Mole
/ December 12, 2017Well, buddy, you’re the one who brought up Skynet. I merely pointed out an interesting development that few have considered. And given Musk’s penchant for maximizing battery production in opposition to his deep seated fear of AI, it’s just a curious position he’s place himself in, buddy.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Nah, you perpetrated a BS conspiracy theory about electric cars and police states.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Nope, no internet personalities here. Just a logical fallacy that equivocates a battery with a sci fi AI villian. That completely ignores the fact that cars run by renewable energy are a far, far better thing than cars run by fossil fuels.
But, yeah, I guess to a fossil fuel cheer leader version of ludditism I guess the liberation of the captive fossil fuel consumer could be flipped to = police state.
Hmm. Hold on. I forgot to renew my illuminati card. Going to have to get back with you on this conversation.
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Anony Mole
/ December 12, 2017You sure do jump to conclusions rather rapidly. Assumptions galore for you it seems. And every message that doesn’t meet your instant approval appears to be some conspiracy theory. Sheesh, I’m sorry I even found you. Do me a favor and delete all these comments won’t you? I’d do it myself but WP has rules against that.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Embarrassed now?
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umbrios27
/ December 12, 2017It´s a good thing that my work coleagues have already left… I was unable to contain the laughing at this unplug comment. Thanks, Robert.
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Cheers, Umbrios. Guess I got a little fed up with the typical renewable energy demonization nonsense.
Oh, no! It’s big bad TECHNOLOGY. Here I am writing about it on a COMPUTER!!
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Well, he also apparently missed the part where the numbskulls that are pushing for police state type laws are also the nuts who are fighting against renewable energy.
Am wondering when a certain someone in this thread will make the massive cognitive leap to determine that, yes indeed, a fossil fuel car can be driven by AI just as well as a battery car. Make the second ginormous leap that AI does not = police state. And make the third seemingly impossible leap that really it’s just a facet of a political system based on authoritarianism…
Wow. That was hard.
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utoutback
/ December 13, 2017Robert thanks for the humorous interlude. I was just commenting the other day about how you usually screen out the nutcases and Trolls and here you give us an opportunity to see an especially bonkers one in action.
Too many dystopian novels &/or movies I think.
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robertscribbler
/ December 13, 2017Hah! Thanks for that.
On a more serious note, I get a lot of this kind of thing behind the curtain. I think some of it comes from misplaced fear. Some from manipulation.
People have a healthy fear of dangerous things. And the wrong kind of tech can be very dangerous. We see that with firearms, for example. And AI is probably dangerous for a number of reasons and will also require serious regulation, restraint, limits, bans and oversight to be safe.
But I’ve seen a lot of comments that conflate harmful tech with helpful tech in an attempt to demonize any helpful action. Maybe this is unintentional and purely fear-driven. Maybe it’s intentional messaging being duplicated by bad information actors. But, generally, there is this attempt to demonize solutions to climate change. And that’s wrong on so many levels.
In other words, a bullet is not a vaccine. And we should not be taught to fear the cure for what ails us.
I think you can go too far either way with technology. And we tend to. In the one case we can demonize tech. In the other case, we can worship it. Either way we take individual human behavior and mass social responsibility out of the equation. And that’s a general disservice.
Just like anything else of its ilk, tech is a tool. An aspect and outgrowth of our humanity. And our use of it, or misuse, is a reflection of our values, our morals, our quality as a society or lack thereof. The human horse, in other words, pulls the technological cart. What do we put in the cart?
The debate should be about what we should do with our tech. How we should rightly use it. Which tech we should shelve and set aside. Which we should elevate. And how we can let go of power for ourselves as individuals and infuse it into society as a whole.
In popular metaphor — Aragorn’s power, as a king, to heal, inspire and unite, vs the power of Sauron’s ring to corrupt, divide and destroy.
Just societies use tech to save nature, to preserve life, to live gently. Just societies use tech gently and do not use it to enable the abuse of the helpless or the hoarding of individual wealth and power. Unjust societies use tech in a destructive manner. Becoming warlike, polluting, wealth hoarding, environment destroying and unequal. These are two opposite poles on a widely varying spectrum between justice and injustice. But the ideal we strive for should always be toward more justice. Less injustice and harm. Using the tools at hand to achieve that good end.
There are lessons in both stories. But the author is our behavior, our actions, our responsibility both individually and as a society or lack thereof. Tech is not at the center of the debate or the problem. We are. For it is how we use the tools at our disposal and, importantly, which tools we use that results either in harm or help, problems or solutions.
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Anony Mole
/ December 13, 2017No doubt attempting to engage in a curious, although tangential, conversation here was egregious mistake, I should have realized early on the extreme animosity Buddy holds for any idea not his own. Bonkers? Yeah, most futurists are indeed viewed as bonkers. Especially when disparate threads of society are woven in ways that most people are incapable of understanding. But, hey, I should have known better. Color me foolish.
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robertscribbler
/ December 13, 2017Bad think, bad assumptions, brazen anti-factual attack on renewable energy = ‘tangetial and curious’ to you apparently. Will see if this is outlier or pattern in your case.
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Anony Mole
/ December 13, 2017Brazen Attack? What, strange ideas like this? It’s too bad your apparent paper-thin skin regarding any idea outside your scope of acceptance throws you into a tantrum of aggression.
I maintain, wouldn’t it be ironic were Musk, who is terrified of AI, in the end, profit from a robotic workforce using his batteries. Yeah, the part about the elites controlling said robots is “out there”, but it’s just thought. Not some concerted attack on alt-energy.
We could have had an interesting conversation, but instead you apparently think every idea that sniffs strange to you must be a conspiracy theory hell-bent on unseating your honorable positions on changing the world for the better. Was not the case.
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robertscribbler
/ December 13, 2017You lead with an attack on alt energy by conflating it with AI. If you believed you were mistaken and misunderstood and this was not your intent, you had the opportunity to say it in line 2. Not in line 20.
We could have had an interesting conversation if you were intellectually capable of distinguishing between AI and renewable energy. Clearly this is still not the case. You are still doing it.
This, Anony is the very definition of fitting the pattern. Of doubling down.
You, sir, are an anti-renewable energy troll. Farewell.
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Anony Mole
/ December 13, 2017You affect to know me. You don’t. Yes, I hope you fare well also.
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robertscribbler
/ December 13, 2017Oh, but I do know you, Mole.
A bot spreading fear of bots to attack renewable energy. Now that’s the greatest irony of all.
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robertscribbler
/ December 13, 2017Since Anony is now gone, let’s deconstruct this a bit further…
1. Robotic factory is not oppressive AI, it’s automated manufacturing.
2. Elon’s concerns about AI are aimed at limiting it.
3. Elon has not conflated AI with renewable energy as Anony just did.
4. I’m being trolled behind the curtain by irresponsible communicators making very off-color jokes about humans deserving extinction.
5. Renewable energy = solution that presents very little in the way of harmful externalities.
6. AI has a much greater potential to produce harmful externalities if misused.
7. One of these things is not like the other.
Given past patterns, we’ll see this misinformation (and likely the harmful misanthropy) meme repeated. So, as Bob says, buckle your chinstraps.
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wili
/ December 12, 2017California wildfires scorch area bigger than New York City and Boston
Thomas fire, the largest of six blazes burning in southern California, has destroyed almost 800 buildings and remains only 15% contained
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/11/southern-california-wildfires-blaze
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Looking really rough. Contributing weather/climate conditions seem locked in til at least Friday.
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Jeremy in Wales
/ December 12, 2017Elon Musk has been pressing ahead with the Hyper-Loop but with the launch of his articulated (artic or semi) truck boasting a 500 mile range he seems to be missing a trick. The range, acceleration and load pulling seems to be perfect to be mated to urban trains and or trams. You can have an electric metro system without the infrastructure or costs of pylons wires transformers etc. Re-charge overnight at the depot and you are ready to roll.
Cleaner than diesel units, quieter and cheaper to run – whats not to like?
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robertscribbler
/ December 12, 2017Interesting thought here, Jeremy. I really like the local tram idea. Sorry to see that public transport keeps getting deep sixed by republicans and conservatives here in the U.S. Maybe the revolution in electrical transport can help to break that log jam. Would really like to see that.
Looks to me like the pre-orders for the Tesla semi are really piling up, though. Likely to produce huge energy cost savings for the shipping industry.
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Mblanc
/ December 13, 2017You mean a bit like this… they don’t seem to have very big batteries in it, but it is a similar kind of thing.
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/11/06/worlds-first-driverless-trackless-train-launches-china-zhuzhou-transport-design/
I think the low cost of setting these up has to be attractive.
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Mblanc
/ December 13, 2017Nice to see evidence of more Model 3’s. Every Tesla sold is a rolling advert for quality EV’s, but the Model 3 is the key to the mass market.
When ordinary punters actually see these cars about, questions will be asked, and some very attractive numbers will become apparent.
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Gingerbaker
/ December 13, 2017I enjoy seeing PHEV’s being charged in driveways. And Bolts of course as well – Here in Burlington, VT not so many people have a free garage, so charging is on public display.
Seeing your neighbor with a car that has an electric cable stuck in a funny door is a very eloquent argument to people who have ignored the issue.
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robertscribbler
/ December 13, 2017🙂
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Exposing the Big Game
/ December 13, 2017Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
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