Viewer Mail

Compliments on the podcast as it was very informative and objective. Gary still comes across as somewhat resistant to electric vehicles in general, but it’s good to hear his opinion. On the subject of BEV adoption here in the US, I have for some time now
thought a big mistake made by Elon was missing the opportunity to educate the buyers of new vehicles, beginning in 2018, so they understand the major advantages offered by BEVs. And I wish he would stay the hell out of politics! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
Cheers, and best to you, Irvin

Your discussion with J.D. Powers, Elizabeth Krear was spot on. Impressive to survey ~2,000 customers every month. But I wanted to share what this 5 year, Tesla owner has learned.

Fast DC chargers are now dense enough East of the Mississippi, I no longer charge to 100% for any trip of any distance at any time. Charging to just 80% extends the battery life yet still gives 1.5 to 3 hour segments with my 5 year old battery.

Having added the CCS-1 kit, my Tesla charges at any fast DC chargers. The Tesla navigation maps both Super and CCS-1 chargers. When in doubt, I can ask, “Show ChargePoint” or “Show Electrify America” and get a list of stations within ~100 miles.

At age 74 and a widower, biological ranges are within a 3 hour drive. Of course, youngsters can go longer . . . if not married.

I have no idea how to share this with non-EV owners. Another problem is the lack of EV signs on the Interstates and businesses with chargers. A non-EV owner will never know how many they drove by.

Regardless, excellent program and I hope you and your team had a great holiday weekend. I know I will.

Bob

Dear AAH,
I have a pressing question about GM’s affiliate SAIC.
These people build the exact vehicles that everyone is saying the US market is crying for; cheep well built ev’s.
Baojun and Wuling.
Why the heck does GM not build these or import them?
Thanks!
Thomas

If I was an owner or management of dealerships, I would think I would want to get feedback from my customers. In today’s market, good luck at finding owners of multiple dealerships to let them know what your experience.

John, I can’t get enough of you and your son’s content over the years. As such , I knew you would you would look in this phenomenon.

Thanks,
Detroit, Mike

Sean, John, Gary, you are better informed on some issues than your AAH guests.

An AAH700 guest said Tesla shareholders are paying Elon $56bn. He could not be more wrong.

As Elon said at the AGM, he is an innovation accelerant. Shareholders are rewarding him for creating and monetizing innovation. The reward when all metrics are met is that Elon can buy 330 million (??) share options at about $20/share – the price they were when the reward was announced. Tesla shareholders get $6.6bn, but the Tesla profits are split between more shares. When he converts options to shares, he must hold them for 5 years. ATM, Elon would have to sell shares to buy the options, then sell more shares to pay tax. Given his other cash outlays, he does not want to spend cash on options and tax ATM.

The other issue is Cobalt. Contrary to what John has said in Autoline interviews, cobalt is not a material of concern as Tesla cell and cathode makers buy it directly from DRC miner Glencore. The Tesla sourcing document tells us precisely the materials of concern from the DRC and elsewhere. The Cobalt supply chain is easy to chart. Autoline could do a series of stories on materials of concern from the document Tesla produced.

Regards

Peter

Regarding “Tesla desperately needing a redesign.”
1. The VW Beetle was in production with basically the same, apparently desirable, design from 1938 to 2003.
2. I value the fact that my Range Rover maintains it’s classic styling year after year as, unlike many vehicles, it doesn’t look old two years after I purchase it.

I believe there is value in continuing with a proven (10 years of improving sales) design.
Just sharing my opinion.

I enjoy Autoline TV. Keep up the good work.

JOHN; SO THOSE INCREDIBLY HUNKY-LOOKING SCOUTS START ARRIVING AT DEALERS THIS SUMMER, AND VOLKS HAS DELIBERATELY LEFT THE STORE OWNERS OUT OF THE LOOP. WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?

DANIEL

John,
Will an outside consultancy help the legacy OEMs transform themselves to be leaders in SDVs?
One reason the legacy OEMs don’t have as deep software skills is that they probably haven’t been attractive employers for these types of skills.

It seems like the German OEMs were particularly bad at being interesting for very creative sw types. I suspect they valued and promoted mechanical engineers and treated software as some commodity that could be outsourced.

To really unlock the greatest value of sdv the OEMs need to dive back into vertical intregration, have a small number of CPUs in the vehicle, hire more super talented sw gunslingers that can be non-conformists, build their abstraction layers/APIs where you can slide in new upward compatible boards without breaking old software, and promote these software engineers into positions of great authority

Regards,
Dave

Sean- I was thinking about a nice segment for your show and I think a lot of your viewers would be interested too. It would be nice to see a nice graph showing all the different types of EV batteries including the ones still in development like solid state. But with everything listed and then showing how they compare in terms of KWh vs weight and cost. It would also be cool to see what the best and worse EV is when it comes to range per KWh and what the average is.

Few people really know much about EVs and all the chemistries that are available. I like when you expand on subjects outside of just reporting the current automotive news.

Also: Are you ever changing the front page of the email that gets sent out to say “Autoline with Sean McElroy?

Lambo2015

Excellent “Tesla’s Extraordinary Design Evolution – Caresoft Teardown” and now I understand the difference and how they complement each other:

Caresoft – like undergraduate engineering, they compare and contrast different approaches to solving EV design for selected piece parts. So parts are compared across different vehicles which is useful. Especially for engineers who fell in a rut about how to design their car parts.
Munro – a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of a vehicle. This vehicle systems approach shows how the parts compliment each other as a team design effort. Small wonder I bought BMW i3s and a Tesla Model 3 after his reviews.

You deserve a lot of credit for teaching Sandy about publishing and it directly led to their YouTube channel. Sad to say, in a narrow focus, it competes and complements Autoline TV. But I hope to see future programs with Sandy and his team in ways that work for everyone.

BTW, Kudos for helping Caresoft be known. They are meticulous and disciplined in their work with some hesitancy on their part … until you draw them out. They could not ‘sell me on a car’ like Sandy has.

Bob