Tesla to Texas: How Do You Like Us Now?

[Trip McNeely]

Lithium ion batteries have a finite number of charging cycles they can handle - but that is not the same as battery memory. After a certain number of cycles you will see some degraded charging (ie. it might only take 80% charge instead of 100%)

But I don't know if that cycle limit is a published number for Tesla.

I had a cell phone that had this issue. Lasted I believe 2 years and it couldn't keep a charge more than a few minutes after being unplugged. The battery also was bloated and warped. I thought it was the phone until I took it to Verizon.

[Lajntx]

Political bantering aside, I got this from a VERY reliable source:

The state ( Texas ) is wanting this to be located in East Texas with several sites being looked at from Longview and towards the direction of the LA state line which would give the facility easy access to I-20, Union Pacific & Kansas City Southern rail lines, as well as being able to draw on the labor pools to meet that 6500 projected hires from: Tyler, Longview/Marshall, and Shreveport LA ( To bring in Louisiana for additional political support that has done on several other industry re-locates to the region). Virtually no union presence here combine with lower wages/cost of living as compared to the rest of the state is going to be some of the main selling points.

Lots of golf & sports fishing there too -- something the big wigs at Tesla love. I may have to look closer at Tesla stock purchasing.

[BERNIE MOSFET]

How do that affect the lifespan though? Most batterys need to do a full discharge or they die sooner. Well maybe not die sooner but dont run as long anymore



I might be wrong about your post. If so please disregard this. But volts is the pipe, amps is the water. The bigger the pipe, the more the water CAN flow. Not will, unless you crank up the amps, IE the water. You can only flow so many amps unless you go with higher volts. Sombody can correct any gaps here

A better analogy, but still not quite right: think of voltage as head pressure, not the pipe (wires conduct, but don't make electrons go by themselves), a spigot as your load, and water flow as current. Opening the spigot is like closing a circuit. How much water flows is determined by how much the spigot impedes the flow. A partially opened spigot is a high resistance load so what you see is small flow of water, or a low current. Open it all the way and you've decreased impedance, increasing current.

[Baron Von Crowder]

When are they gonna start making electric airliners?

[BERNIE MOSFET]

When are they gonna start making electric airliners?

Soon as they can launch them from treadmills.

[Baron Von Crowder]

Soon as they can launch them from treadmills.

What if the treadmill was powered by and internal combustion engine?

[BERNIE MOSFET]

What if the treadmill was powered by and internal combustion engine?

I like the reversal. Shouldn't affect flight characteristics. Seems plausible.

[BP]

When are they gonna start making electric airliners?

How do you think all those UFOs fly?

Seriously though it wouldn't be that hard for someone to make a blimp to carry commercial passengers on long distance flights, powered 100% by electricity. Sure it'd take 5x as long as a 757 to get somewhere but it is possible. Get them into the jet streams though and you'd cut that time considerably, still not as fast as a jet though.

Or we constantly are making advancements in laser and microwave power transmission. You could use a linear induction method to launch a craft and keep it in the air with power beamed to it from the ground or space.

DARPA has funded research into all of these technologies.

Combine them with autonomous electric vehicles and you really wouldn't need commercial airliners. People could hop in their car at 9pm, go to sleep and wake up 1200 miles away in the morning. The car could constantly be charged by a grid under the expressway.

[Sgt Beavis]

I may have to look closer at Tesla stock purchasing.

Don't... that company is hugely over valued. A bubble that will definitely burst at some point. Even Musk himself says that..

[Lajntx]

Don't... that company is hugely over valued. A bubble that will definitely burst at some point. Even Musk himself says that..

Exactly... Thats why I am waiting for the price to correct itself before jumping in.

Either this "Cheap" Tesla Car for the masses is either going to be a big polished turd, or it`s going to be the best opportunity not seen since 1982 when you could walk up to a young skinny nerd named Bill Gates and offer him 50K cash for a half percent share in his small company located in the garage.

We shall see.

As for the East Texas location... Ive done some more thinking and the more I think about it... All the math adds up.

1. You would be pulling from the labor market from 3 seperate cities/areas and thus wouldnt cause wages there to rise by causing a shortage in unskilled entry labor workers in one area.

2. That area qualifies as being in the "I-69 Corridor" and thus would make it easier for infrastructure funding from Washington, and allow any bonds to have better rates.

3. Union Pacific has the area covered track wise, and any bulk materials from China would simply be put on a container train from Los Angeles to the terminus in Alliance ( Ft Worth ) where it could easily be re-routed to an east bound train or taken via truck ( 3 hours ). More on this in another point.

4. There is a good mix of demographics working age wise there that would allow being able to be selective in hiring vs "hiring to fill a slot", *IF* this low cost car idea works then Government Contracts for finished products will no doubt be a big money maker and the company would need to demonstrate compliance with Affirmative Action.

5. There is an adequate number of secondary schools in the area to help support it.

6. Wages there are lower. To open a plant like this in DFW, Austin, etc They would have to pay $16-$18 per hour in order to fill those entry level production positions by mainly "poaching" employees from other companies and start a wage war all the while struggling to keep positions filled. In East Texas, a $16/hr job in DFW starts around $10/hr an hour there, with plenty of people happy to work for that ( and also hate unions as well ).

7. The area the last 20 years has focused on being a place for retirees to locate too and thus the medical infrastructure is already in place to support a company provided PPO to keep costs down.

8. East Texas municipalities give away too many tax abatements to new ( larger ) incoming businesses. This has also been a sore contention point by many long time business owners here that I get to see everytime I get stuck with having to go to a local chamber of commerce meeting

Thats some of the reasons, but Ive also heard from another source that Tesla plans to use their current facilities for the "boutique manufacturing" of their current high end cars, while they are looking to open a plant somewhere in the South like all the other car manufacturers for the 35K car/Truck line. To pick back up on point 3, if you build the battery in east texas ( to help open up the texas market for high end vehicle sales ). That finished battery can then be on that auto production line anywhere in the south in less than 24 hours if Tesla chose to go with a Just in Time program that followed the Japanese way of thinking to keep production costs down vs the Standard "72 hour supply" Just in Time typically found here.

Needless to say, I`ll be watching this one closely with pen and check book nearby

[CJ]

quality post.

[speederdude]

screw the dealerships. nasty f'ers anyway.

[Broncojohnny]

There is as much chance of that factory going to east Texas as there is chance of me becoming the next Pope.

[Gasser64]

How do you think all those UFOs fly?

.

I always like the latest black ops project rumors

And supposedly there is a stealth blimp in existence now. A black floating triangle thing that many people have seen, and its flat not round like a normal blimp

Be very cool when theyre done with it and finally release it for some company to make and sell

[Sgt Beavis]

California is no longer under consideration for the factory.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/03/tesla-says-battery-gigafactory-will-not-be-built-in-california/

Announcements of businesses leaving regulation-happy and costly California or declining to do business in California are as common here in the Golden State as seeing a Prius blocking the left lane on the 405. This move is a bit of a surprise as California-based Tesla Motors said this morning that they have eliminated the state as a possible site for their $5-billion dollar battery factory, meaning only Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada remain in the running.

It was only two weeks ago that the electric automaker announced plans to build the 500 to 1,000-acre site designed to produce up to 500,000 batteries per year and employ up to 6,500 workers to support the launch of upcoming models. The Los Angeles Times says the California governor’s office is not commenting but you can be sure there are some embarrassed bureaucrats in Sacramento when they learned today that the sites they proposed to Tesla were the first to be rejected. Tesla is also mum as to why California was rejected as of this writing.
Besides California being Tesla’s number state for car sales, the company employees over 6,000 workers at their Fremont factory, their Palo Alto headquarters and their Southern California design studio.

This begs the question: will Tesla possibly bargain with Texas to change their franchise laws to allow them to open traditional dealerships in exchange for the battery factory?