Tesla

SabreHorn said:
I never realized there were any permanent residences down there. It was just the beach the "poor people" went to.
Click to expand...
If you do the street view, there was not much in the way of 'residences...most look to be the standard mid-50's/60's brick or frame box that might be about 1200-1500 square feet, if THAT big.

Of the houses that are still there, many have the windows boarded up even though they otherwise appeared to be occupied.
 
SabreHorn said:
Joe,
He is privileged to information that some of us are not, but he understands the program
Click to expand...

I wonder if they make movies on Mars like this anticipating the arrival of Elon?

450
 
mb227 said:
Meh...personally I will wait until they can get it to land without exploding.
Click to expand...
That was not an explosion, it was an RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly).

Seriously though, SpaceX declared the test quite successful considering that all aspects of the flight went as planned but the landing came in too fast, and now they know why. Musk had said he gave it about a 30% chance of everything working and landing successfully, and the flight data gathered yesterday was very valuable for subsequent Starship tests. They will get it done.
 
Somewhat related re companies moving to Texas — Oracle is next.

Oracle Moves Corporate Headquarters to Austin, Texas

Oracle Moves Corporate Headquarters to Austin, Texas
Effort to have ‘more flexible employee work location policy’ leads to latest Silicon Valley exit

Oracle Corp. said it has changed its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas, the latest high-profile defection from Silicon Valley.

The company and its founder and chairman, Larry Ellison, are pillars of the Bay Area. Oracle’s name adorns the stadium home of pro baseball’s San Francisco Giants. Mr. Ellison is known for his lavish homes in the region.

Oracle, which was founded in Santa Clara, Calif., in 1977, most recently had its headquarters up the road in Redwood City. The software giant and Silicon Valley stalwart said the relocation was part of an effort to have a more flexible approach to its workforce.

It wasn’t immediately clear what Oracle’s decision means beyond having a new address for its headquarters. The company said it had no plans to move staff from its existing headquarters to Austin, and Oracle’s state tax bill makes up only a small portion of its overall expenses.

Oracle joins others in moving some operations away from the region that for decades has been synonymous with America’s tech industry. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. HPE -1.07% earlier this month said it was moving its headquarters to the Houston area. Palantir Technologies Inc., PLTR 0.59% founded in the Bay Area in 2003, moved its headquarters to Denver this year, and company co-founder Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist, moved to Austin.

Many of the executives that are turning their back on Silicon Valley share conservative political views and, at times, have taken issue with what they regard as the region’s liberal politics. Two prominent conservative venture capitalists, Peter Thiel and Keith Rabois, have cited what they see as Silicon Valley’s political leanings as reasons to relocate.

Mr. Ellison earlier this year threw a fundraiser at his house for President Trump, and Oracle Chief Executive Safra Catz worked on the executive committee for the Trump transition team in 2016.

Greg Abbott, Texas’ Republican governor, cheered the Oracle news, tweeting: “Texas is truly the land of business, jobs, and opportunity.” The state doesn’t collect state income or capital-gains tax for individuals.

California’s tax regime has its share of critics. Its personal-income tax tops out at 13.3% for amounts over $1 million a year, the highest in the nation. Capital gains are taxed at a similar rate.

Oracle reported tax expenses of $1.9 billion in the fiscal year that ended on May 31, according to its securities filings. Of that, about $172 million were state tax expenses.

The mailing address of a company’s headquarters doesn’t determine where it pays the bulk of its taxes. Companies generally divide their U.S. earnings among the various states where they do business according to formulas that can reflect sales, employment, physical facilities or other factors. A company moving its headquarters to Texas from California wouldn’t necessarily stop paying California’s corporate income tax.

California’s newly appointed senior adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom on economic development, Dee Dee Myers, said in a statement: “California has a unique combination of assets, including our spirit of innovation, inclusive culture, unparalleled workforce, and access to new technology and capital that make this state a great place for businesses to start and grow.”

This week Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk said he had moved himself from California to Texas. The electric-car maker is building a new plant in Austin and Mr. Musk’s rocket company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, has operations in South Texas. Mr. Ellison sits on Tesla’s board.

Oracle already has a presence in Austin. In 2015, the company announced plans to build a new corporate campus in the city. That year it also bought Austin-based software company StackEngine Inc. The Austin campus opened in 2018 and features apartments and restaurants on site.

The decision by Oracle to facilitate greater flexibility for employees is another signal that the trend toward more remote working brought on by the pandemic could outlast the health crisis.

The push for flexibility has meant the addition of corporate jobs and remote workers in Texas, with its lure of lower costs. Its capital Austin, in particular, has been able to attract businesses because of the supply of skilled workers in a town that is home to the University of Texas. The area also has actively courted outside companies, offering local tax incentives to companies such as Tesla.

Since its founding, Oracle grew into one of the biggest software providers. But the company was slow to adapt to the emerging field of cloud computing that has lifted the fortunes of rivals such as Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. Oracle has now pivoted to pursue cloud growth, but without the kind of top-line gains some competitors have seen. Oracle on Thursday posted a 2% quarterly sales increase from a year earlier. On a call with analysts, Mr. Ellison blamed constrained capacity within its cloud infrastructure for not growing more quickly.

The company declined to comment on its relocation beyond its statement or say whether Mr. Ellison himself was moving.

“Many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time,” the company said. “We will continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world, including those in the United States such as Redwood City, Austin, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington, among others, and we expect to add other locations over time.”

Mr. Ellison and Ms. Catz, said the company wouldn’t move employees to Austin.
 
Someday that video will probably be like those old, early flight videos of planes with triple-decker wings crashing and men with rockets strapped to their backs flipping over.
 
Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas in Rental-Market Shake-Up

~ Company exited bankruptcy four months ago under new ownership
~ Electrification plan to eventually include most of Hertz fleet

Hertz Global Holdings Inc., barely four months out of bankruptcy, placed an order for 100,000 Teslas in the first step of an ambitious plan to electrify its rental-car fleet.

The cars will be delivered over the next 14 months, and Tesla Inc.‘s Model 3 sedans will be available to rent at Hertz locations in major U.S. markets and parts of Europe starting in early November, the rental company said in a statement. Customers will have access to Tesla’s network of superchargers, and Hertz is also building its own charging infrastructure.

It’s the single-largest purchase ever for electric vehicles, or EVs, and represents about $4.2 billion of revenue for Tesla, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because the information is private. While car-rental companies typically demand big discounts from automakers, the size of the order implies that Hertz is paying close to list prices.

“How do we democratize access to electric vehicles? That’s a very important part of our strategy,” Mark Fields, who joined Hertz as interim chief executive officer on Oct. 6, said in an interview. “Tesla is the only manufacturer that can produce EVs at scale.”

The electrification plan, which eventually will encompass almost all of Hertz’s half-million cars and trucks worldwide, is the company’s first big initiative since emerging from bankruptcy in June. And it signals that Hertz’s new owners, Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management, are intent on shaking up an industry dominated by a handful of large players who are typically slow to change.

Tesla shares surged as much as 4.8% in premarket trading in New York, bringing the automaker closer to a $1 trillion valuation. There was no early movement in Hertz, which currently trades over the counter ahead of its re-listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

By locking up so much of Tesla’s production -- the order is equivalent to about 1/10th of what the automaker can currently produce in a year -- Hertz may box out rivals from copycatting the strategy. Hertz also is breaking with tradition by paying full price for well-appointed cars rather than the typical base-model, heavily discounted sedans that populate rental lots.

Palo Alto, California-based Tesla, which is moving its headquarters to Texas, didn’t reply to a request for comment.

In 2020, General Motors Co. was Hertz’s biggest car and truck supplier, followed by Nissan Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co.

Teslas, with zero tailpipe emissions, will appeal to rental customers who want a green option or those eager to try out an battery-powered vehicle. Hertz said it hired Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback, to star in ads showcasing the new Teslas. It also created a dedicated EV website offering free charging through the end of January.

Under Fields, who was CEO of Ford for almost three years until May 2017, the company is looking to EVs as part of a commitment to clean energy. Teslas also are less expensive to maintain and refuel as vehicles with internal combustion engines, and they typically don’t lose as much value in the resale market.

Along with the Tesla rollout, Hertz, the biggest U.S. car-rental company after Enterprise Holdings Inc., is embarking on a broader revamp of its business around mobility and digitization. One component of that will be expedited rental bookings on the Hertz app.

Wild Journey
Electrification is the latest turn in Hertz’s wild journey through the Covid-19 pandemic. When demand for rental cars collapsed in early 2020, the company, whose brands also include Dollar, Thrifty and Firefly, was forced to file for bankruptcy and began liquidating its fleet.

Now, 17 months later, Estero, Florida-based Hertz is thriving thanks to a sharp rebound in travel and the global shortage of new cars. Day traders have embraced it as a meme stock.

As of June 30, Hertz had $1.8 billion in cash and its debt-to-equity ratio, a key measure of financial health, had improved to 2.4 from almost 10 at the end of 2019, according to an Oct. 15 regulatory filing.

Knighthead, a distressed-debt hedge fund, and Certares, a private equity firm specializing in travel, won the bankruptcy auction for Hertz in May with a $6 billion bid. It already looks like a bargain: The company has a market value of $11.6 billion in over-the-counter trading.
 
How long before the stories appear in SEC filings of the losses due to customers having bricked those Teslas? You KNOW they are going to have customers that don't charge them and let them run completed dead...
 
mb227 said:
You KNOW they are going to have customers that don't charge them and let them run completed dead...
Click to expand...
It will happen but I expect it will be rare. The Tesla Supercharger network (currently 25,000+ worldwide) is extensive and expanding all the time. Unless Hertz leadership is incompetent they will have process/policy for minimizing this.

Low maintenance requirements and high resale value on Teslas could work out very well for Hertz.
 
Dionysus said:
It will happen but I expect it will be rare. The Tesla Supercharger network (currently 25,000+ worldwide) is extensive and expanding all the time. Unless Hertz leadership is incompetent they will have process/policy for minimizing this.

Low maintenance requirements and high resale value on Teslas could work out very well for Hertz.
Click to expand...

Have people priced out the replacement battery packs for the used ones hitting the market? Not to mention that they derive no benefit from the tax credits which might exist to subsidize the EV markets...

Tesla tried to charge $22,500 for new battery pack when a $5,000 repair did the trick

I still have to laugh at them claiming needing to recharge every 200 miles is somehow convenient. That is decidedly INCONVENIENT. And yes, some of us actually DO drive substantial distances. If I want to have to stop every few hundred miles, I would get a motorcycle. I much prefer all of my ICE options which mean I stop every 400 miles and am back on the road inside of 10 minutes...15 if I went in to use the bathroom.
 
Dionysus said:
All of the current models are showing 300+ miles range
Click to expand...

But if they only put the charging stations every two hundred miles, that means inconvenience and no long drives, with plenty of short-charging of the packs (which historically shortens the lives of many rechargeable batteries). And 300 miles is at their optimal operation, which likely is NOT 80+ MPH (legal speed in west Texas and on 130), and with lights and A/C running.

Then ICE it is for you!
Click to expand...
Yep, especially since I HATE transmissions that shift for themselves...
 
mb227 said:
But if they only put the charging stations every two hundred miles, that means inconvenience and no long drives, with plenty of short-charging of the packs (which historically shortens the lives of many rechargeable batteries). And 300 miles is at their optimal operation, which likely is NOT 80+ MPH (legal speed in west Texas and on 130), and with lights and A/C running.


Yep, especially since I HATE transmissions that shift for themselves...
Click to expand...

According to the Supercharger map, you'd be hard pressed to find a 200-mile straight line between any locations without one. The "farthest" I could find was between a major route was San Antonio to Laredo. You'd basically have to be driving around the middle of nowhere (like Kansas) far away from the Interstates, and in that case, I'm not sure why that person would get a Tesla anyhow.
 
Horns11 said:
According to the Supercharger map, you'd be hard pressed to find a 200-mile straight line between any locations without one. The "farthest" I could find was between a major route was San Antonio to Laredo. You'd basically have to be driving around the middle of nowhere (like Kansas) far away from the Interstates, and in that case, I'm not sure why that person would get a Tesla anyhow.
Click to expand...
Having to stop every two and a half to three hours, wasting at least 15 minutes and only be good for another two and a half or three hours is NOT my idea of a convenient network.

On my August trip to Las Vegas, I stopped in Sonora for gas and was back on the road in about five minutes for another 400 miles, with a stop for fuel at the border since prices were cheaper and then an exit a few miles later to overnight in Las Cruces. When I left the next morning, I was good for ~400 miles before stopping in the Phoenix area...that one took a few minutes longer because the car was not the only thing in need of a pit stop. From there, aside from a stop for the pedestrian bridge at the Hoover Dam, I was straight through to Vegas.

That drive was running ~85-87MPH most of the way, air conditioning running, in a vehicle pushing close to 400HP and still getting me better MPG than I see on my daily ~60 mile commute.

Coming home, I went through some very rural areas of Arizona where even gas stations were sparsely located. Then there was the section of the old Devils Highway which was lots of twisties and precisely ZERO services for ~150 miles. The trip home was about AVOIDING a lot of the major roads. Sadly, your post seems to intimate that a Tesla owner would have no desire to see the nation...

Some of us don't just drive local. Some of us don't want to have to hope that an exit has a functioning plug. Some of us like to gas and go and be good for another six to eight hours. And lastly, some of us ALSO don't want to have to install some special outlet at home. Beyond that, for someone like me that keeps vehicles long beyond when they are paid off, I have no desire to deal with a replacement barely five to seven years down the road.

The left needs to realize that EVs for everyone is a pipe dream that a lot of people have no desire to pay for...
 
Horn6721 said:
Who pays for these charging stations?
Click to expand...
...and, are all the methods for generating the electricity for those charging stations 100% green?

I've ridden in a friend's Tesla and thought:
  • the interior looked and felt "cheap"
  • the comfort was lacking
  • the hassle of having to plan everything around where and when to charge was tiring
Not buying anything electric, let alone Tesla, any time soon.
 
11,

I-10 from Ozona/Fort Stockton to El Paso comes to mind. Plenty of highway out there with no power lines in site much less "charging stations". Last "charging station" I remember is the Cafe Next Door in Ozona started accepting credit cards.
 
Horn6721 said:
Who pays for these charging stations?
Click to expand...
You remember how drug pushers gave the first taste for free to hook someone...same thing, except with electricity instead of heroin.

Some of the articles out there for businesses discuss costs of network connections for the credit card processing.
 
Horn6721 said:
Who pays for these charging stations?
Click to expand...
Tesla builds them. Tesla owners have a card on their account. When they plug in to charge their car, the system knows who it is and debits the card for the juice. Not sure but I don’t think the charging infrastructure provides a lot of margin to the company, but obviously it is a prerequisite for sales of EVs.

I don’t know anyone claiming that EVs are for everyone—clearly they are not. But many people will find that ~300 miles of range is plenty because the vast majority of their driving is local and they can charge up at home every night.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict TEXAS-KENTUCKY *
Sat, Nov 23 • 2:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top