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Tesla Motors Opens Michigan Tech Center; Focus on Upcoming Electric Sports Sedan
25 January 2007
Tesla Motors, manufacturers of high performance, zero emission electric vehicles (earlier post), has opened its Michigan Technical Center in Rochester Hills.
The 19,240 square-foot facility will focus on R&D for future Tesla products to follow the introduction later this year of the Roadster, starting with a four-door electric sports sedan to be built by the Silicon Valley-based company. That project, named “WhiteStar,” will be a four-door, five-passenger, lightweight, high-performance sedan planned for production around 2009.
This tech center will be home to the engineering, quality and supply chain staff working on WhiteStar and other Tesla cars coming down the line. With our state-of-the-art CAD and CAE design and simulation tools, this center will enable us to bring high-quality products to market quicker than traditional manufacturers.
—John Thomas, general manager of the Michigan Technical Center and senior director of the WhiteStar program
The region’s existing base of automotive companies, facilities and engineering talent, also figured into the decision to place the Technical Center in Michigan.
There are thousands of highly experienced automotive experts in this area. We felt it was smart to use the existing test tracks, validation equipment, wind tunnels and more, rather than duplicating these costly investments.
—John Thomas
Since opening in July 2003, Tesla Motors has grown to a company with more than 140 employees as they prepare to launch their first electric car, the Tesla Roadster, in the fourth quarter of 2007. More than 270 customers have already reserved a Tesla Roadster in advance. Over time, Tesla Motors plans to develop a wide range of electric vehicles, all sharing the common characteristics of great styling, high performance, zero emissions and zero oil usage.
The Michigan Technical Center will be the fourth Tesla Motors facility worldwide, and the second in the US, joining the company’s headquarters in San Carlos, Calif. Tesla Motors also has facilities in England (assembly of the Tesla Roadster) and Taiwan (motor production).
January 25, 2007 in Electric (Battery) | Permalink | Comments (47) | TrackBack (0)
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GO, Tesla, GO!!!!!!
Posted by: Schmeltz | Jan 25, 2007 9:50:16 AM
This company is currently the bright star in a heaven of dull glowing auto companies just talking about doing something. Tesla actually is producing plug-ins while the others slowly crank up, unwilling to take a chance on a reduction of their bottom line.
I just hope Tesla doesn't sell out to the big guys and can survive against the pressure they will most assuredly exert to drive them out of business.
Posted by: Ike | Jan 25, 2007 10:22:47 AM
Let's just hope they manage to keep the UAW out of their manufacturing plant. For all the good the union has done its members, it has forced auto industry managers to pursue product strategies that have proven not only detrimental to the environment (specifically, the climate) but also perilous to the balance sheets in times of high oil prices.
I hope Tesla can pull a rabbit out of its hat. The approach of adding a lot of value to high-quality but otherwise commodity Li-ion cells through innovative packaging makes a great deal of sense. It was also smart of them to focus on a roadster first, because the drivetrain differentiation matters a great deal there.
What's going to be much more difficult is dealing with all the other engineering effort that has to go into a full-featured performance sedan, especially if it is to be produced in any meaningful volume (at least tens of thousands a year). It will be much, much harder to deliver competitive differentiation in that vehicle segment.
Perhaps they are not-so-secretly hoping that one of the majors will bite the bullet and license their IP or, buy them outright. If the EU decides to enact per-manufacturer targets for fleet average CO2 emissions, several German carmakers may decide they need to invest in PHEV/BEV technology to stay in business.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Jan 25, 2007 10:35:22 AM
The UAW is not to blame for US auto industry mistakes and stupidity. Big Three management around 1950 decided against funding portable pensions and single-payer healthcare for their employees; not to mention their chronic lack of vision in product lines.
Drivetrain differentiation seemed to help the 2nd generation Prius (a four door, five passenger sedan) considerably; why not Tesla?
I would expect an alliance with Ford. Daimler is too proud and not hurting enough.
Posted by: richard schumacher | Jan 25, 2007 10:56:55 AM
I went on the Tesla website about a week ago, and found an interview with Elon Musk from the show "Wired Science". It was pretty interesting, the guy has his fingers in a lot of different projects. At any rate, Elon said that the Roadster is considered as a "Phase 1" for their company. Phase 2 is the 4 door all-electric sedan spoken of above. He estimates this vehicle will run in the 40-50 grand bracket. He then went on to say that they hope to bring out a Phase 3 vehicle similar to the Phase 2, except in the 30 grand bracket. I'm anxious to see these upcoming additions as I have been thinking a long time, someone should make a mass market, All-Electric, a model with universal appeal like a Camry or Accord. The EV-1 was ground breaking, but not quite where it needed to be in terms of mass market appeal. I hope their Roadster works without any serious glitches.
Posted by: Schmeltz | Jan 25, 2007 11:05:43 AM
By the way, about that UAW stuff. It might interest folks to know that Toyota makes lots of cars here in the US using UAW workers, here's an example:
"New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. is an automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. The factory was an old General Motors plant and is now a joint venture between GM and Toyota. When it reopened for production in 1984, it was the first automotive joint venture plant in the United States. GM saw this joint venture as an opportunity to learn about Lean Manufacturing from the Japanese company, while Toyota gained its first manufacturing base in North America and a chance to implement its production system in an American labour environment.
NUMMI is now an award-winning facility which ranks with other Toyota plants among the most productive manufacturing operations in North America. Unfortunately whilst the plant has been successful in adopting Lean, GM's success is far more limited. GM places around 12 managers each year at the plant to learn lean techniques and has improved quality enough across the rest of its operations for it to show through on J.D. Power quality rankings. However Kochan, Lansbury & MacDuffie in "After Lean Production" state that "the NUMMI story is well known, so it will suffice to say that GM did a terrible job of learning from that experience."
Currently, the NUMMI plant produces the Toyota Corolla compact car, Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and the Pontiac Vibe station wagon. In the past, it has also produced the Geo Prizm, the later Chevrolet Prizm, and the Chevrolet Nova from 1984-1988; as well as the Toyota Voltz, the Japanese right-hand drive version of the Pontiac Vibe - both are based on the Toyota Matrix, which is manufactured in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Employment is nearly 5,500 workers. NUMMI is a union organization represented by The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) Local 2244. NUMMI sells 60% of their parts to Toyota and 40% to General Motors. NUMMI has 160 robots to build the three cars they do today."
The problem is not the UAW, the problem is that the GM and Ford bean counters got caught flat-footed when high gas prices ended the SUV gravy train.
Tesla Motors has the energy and vision that GM and Ford lack.
Posted by: Sumyung Guy | Jan 25, 2007 11:23:18 AM
Richard -
it may be true that the Big Three made decisions in the 1950s that seemed like a good idea at the time but have since become boat anchors for the entire US auto industry. The UAW has contributed to the problem by insisting that this 1950s model be continued to the present day, almost regardless of the competitive environment.
And even if the UAW is not directly involved in product roadmap decisions (unlike in Germany, for example), it's insistence on generous benefits has forced US carmakers to concentrate their efforts on relatively simple, cheap-to-build trucks and SUVs in favor of competitive passenger cars, because the margins on those are lower. This lack of diversity in their product line-ups at a time of rapidly changing fuel prices and customer expectations, combined with those generous benefits, has ended up costing tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs and a lot of shareholder value.
This is not to say that management hasn't been arrogant or made mistakes in the past. Just don't discount the impact of union contracts that the US auto industry can really no longer afford the way it did in the last century.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Jan 25, 2007 11:30:38 AM
It is not like UAW is not a big drug (it is), but companies like Caterpillar, Cummings, Oshkosh, Mack, etc. somehow manage to be profitable and grow at considerable rate.
Posted by: Andrey | Jan 25, 2007 11:42:38 AM
In an earlier post someone asserted that Telsa was the wave of the future because they were so "un-detroit" by being based in California. By opening a tech center in Michigan, are they now still "un-detroit", and to be still considered the savior of our personal transport vehicles?
I do like what I see, but until they offer something in the $14,000-$22,000 price range, they are way out of my market. Of course that offering would also have to be acompanied with an offer of 60-84 month financing, and a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty. But being electric, it should easily last that long. Until then, it will be only a novely loved by the Jay Lenos and George Clooneys of the world, along with their other 268 "financially sound" potential buyers.
Dont get me wrong, I firmly believe BEV are our future. Its just that the required economical batteries and fuel cells have not been deliverered, yet. I applaud Tesla for being the trailblazer in these efforts. Perhaps they could go a long way creating an alliance with a company such as Ford, benefiting both. Would not be a terrible thing in my view.
Posted by: Mark A | Jan 25, 2007 11:49:07 AM
If capitalist progress requires that ordinary Americans like me must sacrifice our standard of living to keep the real citizens of the US, the corporations, Wall Street Bubble-worthy, then what exactly is the point of capitalism or progress?
The only reason starving Americans in the 1930s didn't launch a revolution to overthrow their cruel, oblivious Bush-like masters is that FDR cut a deal with the masters to assure citizens of a certain baseline of decency, and a share in the future benefits of "progress". We bought in. As soon as the Bush generation of masters came of age they decided to reverse everything and exploit media control, debt and the oil-based suburban lifestyle to keep us passive while they stole all the wealth created after WW2 thru privatization, Fed-rigged bubbles, and finally fraudulent wars. The fatcats now tell us we must sacrifice, little by little, all the freedoms our poor ancestors fought for, and all the economic benefits as well, or they'll collapse and take us all with them.
Or maybe you think if car workers' wages get driven down to 1920s levels that their bosses will somehow redistribute their bounty to the rest of us. That's not how labor markets work. If auto workers get pay cuts, either they will leave the industry, or there are no better jobs elsewhere because all wages are falling. Which they are (as opposed to salaries). Whenever anyone attacks wage earners, they imply that they aren't real Americans, or necessary Americans, and must be sacrificed to the "good", red-state Americans with salaried jobs manufacturing nothing but lies and addictions. And it's left vague when this sacrifice will end (like the war). This isn't progress, it's running the clock backward to the nightmare of Victorian social Darwinism.
Posted by: super390 | Jan 25, 2007 12:10:36 PM
super390:
That's quite the rant, there.
Posted by: Cervus | Jan 25, 2007 12:13:53 PM
Phase 2 $40-50k, phase 3 $30k will not priced way out of the market, especially when operating (fuel) costs for ICEs are climbing only slightly slower than CO2 concentrations.
Posted by: fyi CO2 | Jan 25, 2007 12:21:38 PM
Hello fellows BEV aficionados,
I also applaud Tesla for what they are doing and yet I agree with staying out of Michigan altogether, would look much better in my book. By the way, with a plant[?] of only less than 20K sq-fts I strongly doubt that they would be able to manufafacture anything there...perhaps it is going to be just a tech/R&D Center, but than again, why not stay in sunny California??? Oh well, they might be attracted to the cold weather or something else in Michigan.
By the way, as I previously posted on this site there's a new up-and-coming BEV company which for what I heard they are going to blow away both Tesla and Phoenix due to the fact that they own their proprietary battery technology as well as because the production plant is apparently somewhere south of the border in order to keeo the cost of production as low as possible. Also, my friend who's brother works there told me that they have already sold several hundred BEVs to governments sout of the border whcih helps them to finance at least a part of their ops as well as testing the vehicles before they land on US soil. Smart move...I think.
And, last but not least, they are coming out with 5 BEV models as well as a couple of small vans/busses all at once raning from a small [Scion xA/Mercedes A Type] car, to a cool sedan, a SUV/SUT and a couple of great looking coupe/spiders. I heard their price range will start from the low $15K and up...
I was promised to preview the updated design/models and I can't wait for that day which should be soon!
I'll keep you all informed as soon as I have news.
Fred "BEV" Sands PhD
Posted by: Fred | Jan 25, 2007 12:27:33 PM
By the way,
Sorry for all the typos...too much coffee in my blood today!
FS
Posted by: FS | Jan 25, 2007 12:31:06 PM
Come on Fred, you have to give us more than that. What is this company's name? Can a company with no name really blow away both Tesla and Phoenix, or are they "skunkwork" type secret? There are no surprises in todays automotive market.
Also, what does super390's rant have to do with Tesla or this post?
Posted by: Mark A | Jan 25, 2007 12:43:41 PM
super390:
You could always move to one of those workers paradises like Cuba or Venezuela, but your rants point to someone who's just looking for a whittle attention.
Posted by: JD | Jan 25, 2007 12:44:16 PM
1) Super390; Right on Brother!
2) Why can't the Grovenment push "pariotism" in reducing and eliminating fossil fuels?
3) Fred can dream and talk about what he knows, but in the end, the small startup BEV companies do not have a chance against the big car companies. The best case that ever will happen is to be a "brand" for a big company.
Posted by: tonychilling | Jan 25, 2007 12:53:41 PM
Rochester Hills, MI, is home to ECD/Ovonics, co-owner of Cobasys (located near-by), which is integrator of own Ni-Mh and A123 Li-ion batteries into electric vehicle packages, for example for GM.
Conspiracy theory junkies, any one to comment?
Posted by: Andrey | Jan 25, 2007 12:56:52 PM
super390's rant was in answer to a gratuitous swipe at the UAW. I suppose none of that really belongs in a discussion of the Tesla.
Posted by: richard schumacher | Jan 25, 2007 1:01:09 PM
JD,
super390's only mistake was to not respond by name to Rafael Seidl. The same goes for richard schumacher and Sumyung Guy. Rafael provides no evidence for his indictment of the UAW. I thought that super390's retort was refreshing.
I don't believe for a minute that the sucess of the Japanese auto industry is due to holding down wages and benefits. I'd say that their success is due to the efficiency of a country with nationalized health care, better education, cultural homogeneity and a cooperative government that emphasized product export, plus a lean corporate management that emphasizes efficiency and competition, plus a large engineering staff that emphasizes precision and flexibility.
The Japanese factories in the states still have the significant management and engineering advantages, plus they employ a relatively younger workforce. From these factories, there are far fewer retirees with heavy health care costs. The Japanese name plates now carry the cache (in the affordable car classes) that used to belong to GM, Ford, and Daimler/Chrysler. This fact alone will do them in if something radical doesn't happen soon.
Posted by: JC | Jan 25, 2007 1:35:13 PM
JC et al -
my point was simply that unions tend to hang on to their past "achievements" way past their sell-by date. Not every company with UAW employees was as foolish as the Big Three in offering overly generous benefits. That's precisely why they are now profitable. It is also a big reason why the Big Three are hurting. Ford just posted a $12 billion loss, and Chrysler will have to do bleed once again before the can get the kind of relief that GM and Ford have already received.
Btw, US unions are hardly alone in exploiting their negotiating position to the detriment of shareholders and ultimately, employees. Witness the bribery contortions VW has been going through to keep the IG Metall compliant, their former head of HR was convicted just today. Chairman of the board Ferdinand Piech, who is actually close to the union, admitted that VW has approx. 30% more hourly workers on its German payroll than it needs and has done so for decades. Small wonder the average age of the assembly line workforce is 46 and rising.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Jan 25, 2007 2:00:46 PM
In the 1960s, GM employed a substantial fraction of the total workforce in the United States. They were also a similar fraction of total GDP, and at one point the government threatened to break them up as a monopoly. The UAW demanded, and got, a very generous healthcare and pension package for their retirees.
The fact is that these benefits, especially in healthcare, cost GM well over a billion dollars per year by themselves. The company has something like a million retirees. Why do you think they've been so aggressive in renegotiating these contracts? Fact is that GM lost, and continues to lose, billions.
Hell, Ford lost $12.7 billion last year and they're not as big as GM is.
Both GM and Ford have lost more and more market share. Add to these problems some major increases in the price of raw materials (steel and copper in particular), not just oil prices, along with diminishing marketshare, and something has to give. Either the UAW accepts lower benefits or both companies simply go bankrupt, and then none of them have jobs.
I get my info from a close friend who is a GM line worker and has been for over twenty years. He's also been deeply involved with UAW politics. He's also fingered GM corporate culture as a major cause of their current troubles.
Posted by: Cervus | Jan 25, 2007 2:02:40 PM
Fred:
What you described seems to be very similar to what is happening in China ...... not exactly south of the USA border.
The Chinese market will be flooded with a multitude of low cost BEVs very shortly. Some of those Chinese BEVs (e-bikes) are selling very well (5 to 8 million/year) in Asia and North America. Three and four wheel models, from 2 to 10 passengers, will be out within a few months for those of us who can't afford American made Telsa, Phoenix, etc.
Walmart is currently selling the 2-wheel models and may be selling the 3 and 4-wheel models within a year or two unless Big Oil and Big Three lobbies manage to convince the Federal Administration to find various ways to curtail or even ban BEVs import.
Posted by: Harvey D. | Jan 25, 2007 2:20:13 PM
How about an electric heavy-duty truck? Most heavy duty diesels already run about 50k so Tesla could easily sell an electric for about 60k. That would make one of the Big Three notice them.
Posted by: John Ard | Jan 25, 2007 2:53:24 PM
Electric motors do have loads of torque.
Posted by: Neil | Jan 25, 2007 3:08:20 PM
At any rate, glad to see progress from Tesla. I'd love to buy an EV from them at some point in the future.
Posted by: Cervus | Jan 25, 2007 3:13:41 PM
It is easy to bash the UAW, and they deserve the bashing. However, there is plenty of blame to go around -- the UAW, top managment (making how much for losing $?), and the structure of our healthcare system that the "military/industrial/congressional complex has created and maintained. All of these entities was successful at one time, but have failed to keep up with the times. Mostly it is short-term thinking rather than responding to the current reallities, or God forbid, planning for the long-term.
The healthcare issue is structural and national. The Wall Street Journal has an item in today's paper pointing out that the US spends 16% of GDP on healthcare vs. 10.5% in France, which is next highest of developed countries. That and we have a shorter life expectancy and higher infant mortality rate than many other developed countries. So US auto makers are at a disadvantage for lots of reasons, but meanwhile other countries seem to be able to compete and still have unions. What gives?
Anyway, the market will change thing and there will be winners and losers. Let's just hope change comes quickly, and we are not on the loser list.
Posted by: JMartin | Jan 25, 2007 6:22:50 PM
Hi All,
The UAW and other muli-company unions are why the in the US Engineering is a second class profession. A multi-company union has power over the industry, without the big picture background ( ie PHD's in all the technical arts required). They force companies to live for today, and forget about tomorrow. Nothing can be more illustrative of this than the Prius episode in automotive history. Rather than have thousands of people who would go into engineering for the serious rewards for serious effort and talent, and serious positive change for society (otherwise known as the "American Way"), that money is bled out of the company for the union guys boat payments. And good engineering minds become the people who perpurtrate some of the evil that other professional but parasitical positions in society perpertrate.
Unions really should be limited to single company membership.
Yea, GM was stupid to go for the job banking idea. But, yea, UAW was stupid to push for it too. Those guys could learn automation, or somebody from the line could learn automation, and the displaced guy take that guys' job. The UAW just did not have the wherewithal in economics, engineering and technical education to have the smarts to make the right decision. And the result is catastrophic. Because GM could not come out with anything that can compete with the Prius in time. They were focused on the big home run, because the home run (SUV's and fuel cell cars) are cheap to assemble or high profit or both. When if they had the money, they could go out there and hit singles all day long, keeping a different group of engineers busy on each of those singles and occaisionally the double (Prius), like Toyota did.
Now the weakness of the Japanese system is the reliance and compensation of engineers too. You do not have these guys out there in research. They called the Prius Research, but its really developement. The technically smart guys are all in development, where the money is. So, things are more evolutionary, than revolutionary. The Prius is to a technically aware individual a sum of a bunch of evolutionary technological threads. And what is amazing is most of these threads are American in origin. Hell, there are people who have made their own Hybrid Cars in their garage out there in the U.S.! I saw my first one in 1979. TRW was the first company to patent an electric torque-converting transmisson. Computers were invented in Silicon Valley, and the NiMH battery in Rochester MI. The valving concept in the Prius engine was invented by an American named Miller in the 1940's.
If a technological revolutionary event happens, it will most likely be in an American or European lab. And whoever brings it to market will have the advantage. A company thinking about today will only do this, if tomorrow is bankruptcy. And that is where Ford and GM are now.
The problem is that technologically revolutionary events are crap-shoots. They happen hap-hazardly, and sometimes with initial mistakes. Which is why allot of the companies that originally came up with those things that got put into the Prius did not necassarily profit from them.
Posted by: donee | Jan 25, 2007 6:39:39 PM
Unions used their political power to gain above-market wages and benifits for themselves. They enriched themselves at the expense of the politically unconnected. That is the way democracy works, the politically powerful prey on the weak. The biggest offenders today are the government employee unions, the military industrial complex, the government licensed drug industry, and numerous other groups who benifit from subsidies, licensing, privileges, government-enforced monopolies, etc. The complex web of economic regulation has created armies of parasites feeding off a shrinking pool of producers. End of rant.
Posted by: Rick | Jan 25, 2007 11:33:32 PM
I want to know what type of production numbers Tesla is planning.
1000 sedans is nothing...100,000 sedans is impressive.
I don't believe anyway here commenting on Japanese companies has ever worked for a Japanese company (judging from the comments). An American subsidiary of a Japanese company tends to pay FAR more for American workers. The American VP for my company gets paid 2 times more than the Japanese President of the company. Engineers in Japan are making very little for the number of hours they put in while any of the Engineers who come over to the US and work for an American company see an immediate raise of 25 to 150 percent. They NEED a national healthcare system because they don't make enough money otherwise.
In Japanese companies there are no ownership rights over patents and research for the individual.
In Japanese companies you do not make more pay if you are an exceptional candidate/employee...starting pay is starting pay and raises are given for seniority more often than for any other reason.
As an example, I personally know of an Engineer who left Sony to work for Microsoft and increased his salary by 100%. We lost a guy to Microsoft and his salary increased by about 100% over what our Japanese company would pay.
Just because they hire UAW workers does not mean they are signed into the same contracts as the US big 3. They also won't have to worry about healthcare & pension benefits for a long time since their US based manufacturing facilities are rather young still.
Posted by: Patrick | Jan 26, 2007 12:15:13 AM
The American automotive companies see themselves in a business of making money (by selling cars). Initially Japanese (Toyota and Honda in particular) were in business of making great cars. By building and selling cars of best quality and uppermost technical sophistication (price prohibition as sensible limit). This was the right philosophy; financial success eventually follows. Currently I see BMW as leader in this marketplace philosophy. The only hope of US auto giants is to switch to this philosophy, and do not seek fast fixes and dumb excuses. So far their management is clearly schizophrenic in their attempts to do business as usual and to catch falling knife with paralyzed fingers.
Sad.
Posted by: Andrey | Jan 26, 2007 1:54:55 AM
Ok, lets take a wild guess. Fred, you are talking about Armor Electric ( ARME.OB ) arent you ?
They sold a bunch of BEVs to mexico recently according to their press releases, and have manufacturing partners in India ( Hero Majestic, famous in asia for millions of 2-stroke mopeds ) for bringing the prices down.
I dont think they own any IP in battery tech, though.
Posted by: kert | Jan 26, 2007 2:30:31 AM
Hm .. might have been wrong.. you meant ZAP and their Puerto Rico deal ? They have a extensive lineup and also battery deals
Posted by: kert | Jan 26, 2007 2:54:59 AM
Rumor around here in Silicon Valley is that Tesla is having thermal problems with their roadster that they still haven't licked yet. Expect first delivery to be delayed from current predictions.
Posted by: Nate | Jan 26, 2007 3:49:45 AM
Wow donee, you just read my mind.
I personally know a group of UAW line workers who faught tooth and nail against being trained to manage robots.
One of them actually said "My job pays for my boat just fine, why do I need to learn anything else"
Posted by: coal_burner | Jan 26, 2007 3:57:36 AM
its strange that even though the assembly of the tesla roadster is being carried out by Lotus in england , the car has been compleatly ingnored by the tv and media in england . Anybody got any suggestions?
Posted by: andrichrose | Jan 26, 2007 8:29:17 AM
Hello boys,
I thought this post was about BEVs and specifically about TESLA. However, I read a huge amount of rants about the UAW!!!
Anyway, the new BEV Co. is not connected to any of the other BEV companies mentioned above by fellow posters.
All I know is that the ¨name¨(or brand for that matter) is PEAR which I also do not think is related to the delicious fruit.
Their site is not up yet but you can always check once in a while to see any potential news. www.pearmotors.com
Enjoy,
FS PhD
Posted by: Fred | Jan 26, 2007 8:52:40 AM
The UAW's big mistake was allowing the auto companies to control the pension funds and therefore failed to put the pension and healthcare plans in a diversified portfolio. OTOH the Teamsters control their pension and health care funds not the trucking companies. If the UAW had followed the Teamster model then the auto companies would have no legacy costs. It was the auto companies that wanted exclusive access to pension fund capital and now want to blame the union for legacy costs.
Posted by: tom deplume | Jan 26, 2007 10:04:15 AM
I am working in greater Detroit area. Our company has been developing BEV over two years. Right now we are working on phase 2 vehicle, which is aiming for mass production. I cannot give more information. I believe that there are lots more activities happening now. There will be big show in next two years so for BEV.
Posted by: Olison | Jan 26, 2007 12:23:32 PM
Originally this second Tesla product was billed as a
small econobox whose price was about half that of the roadster, or around $50,000. I suppose it finally dawned
on the amateur automakers that a $50,000 econobox is an oxymoron for those not a part of Eberhard's circle of wealthy customer friends. Eberhard's brilliant solution: now it's called a "sports sedan."
Posted by: kent beuchert | Jan 26, 2007 7:55:04 PM
Hamedwannous@yahoo.com
Posted by: hamed | Jan 27, 2007 1:29:07 AM
The best solution for now to lower the battery cost issue is to offer the vehicle with a few range option and let the consumer decide on how much they are willing to spend and how much they truly drive every day.
This way, any potential BEV buyer could start at a lower price and if needed or wanted he-she could upgrade the range by ´adding´ more energy power by paying for the the needed labor costs and the added batteries. For example, it could start at 50 miles range (city drving), then 150 miles range and hopefully double that at 300 miles range as soon as the technology allows for ´smaller´ packs (nano) etc...
What do you guys-gals think about this idea?
Fred ´The-BEV-Man´ Sands
Posted by: Fred | Jan 27, 2007 9:37:38 AM
re: the negative comment about unions.
Are you nuts? The union workers build what they are told to build, design and marketing is 100% management. It's the primary reason we even have anything resembling a middle class in this nation, and it is under assault as it is.
With that said, I think they SHOULD sometimes negotiate marketing decisions, even to the point of striking if it doesn't happen.. Everyone and their cousin leroy knew that the market for hybrids and high mileage vehicles was there, yet ford and gm did nothing about it until the japanese came and stole the show from them. That's pure management and major stockholder fault there, because they all live in millionaire la-la land and the price of a tank of gas to them is less than chump change they wouldn't stoop to pick up if they dropped it on the ground. They have no frame of reference the same as normal working folks..
I think the UAW should be MORE proactive in helping bring about positive change. In fact, they should do what the workers in argentina are doing, take over the plants and run them with pure profit sharing and based on the ideals of not only being a profitable company, but being of public service as well, which was part of the original deal when companies got their PUBLIC GRANTED incorporation charters. They should have a big complete strike and DEMAND ford retool some of the plants they are closing and devote them entirely to pure electrics and hybrids RIGHT NOW and stop promising pie in the sky "hydrogen fuel cell" crap which is a decade away.
There is no "right" to organize a corporation,get it? It is the public's business to say yay or nay on that.
We've suffered way too many defeats, we being the middle class workers in this nation,the people who actually produce the wealth that all the middle man skimmers and traders and politicians leech off of, by allowing wall street and a handful of billionaires and grossly overpaid Cxx manager types to dictate economic policy. Without unions, you wouldn't have ever seen such things as benefits or safety on the job in the workplace or pensions.
Posted by: zogger | Jan 27, 2007 2:20:57 PM
Here's an article on CNN that explains the disparities between the foreign and domestic automakers.
A big reason is the cost of labor. As analyzed by Harbour-Felax, labor costs the Detroit Three substantially more per vehicle than it does the Japanese.Health care is the biggest chunk. GM (Charts), for instance spends $1,635 per vehicle on health care for active and retired workers in the U.S. Toyota (Charts) pays nothing for retired workers - it has very few - and only $215 for active ones.
Other labor costs add to the bill. Contract issues like work rules, line relief and holiday pay amount to $630 per vehicle - costs that the Japanese don't have. And paying UAW members for not working when plants are shut costs another $350 per vehicle.
Here's one example of how knotty Detroit's labor problem can be:
If an assembly plant with 3,000 workers has no dealer orders, it has two options. One is to close the plant for a week and not build any cars. Then the company still has to give the idled workers 95 percent of their take-home pay plus all benefits for not working. So a one-week shutdown costs $7.7 million or $1,545 for each vehicle it didn't make.
Unions aren't prefect. No human institution is. The idea that unions can't be as greedy as any CEO is fallacious. Don't get me wrong, they do serve a vital purpose. But don't put them on a pedestal.
Posted by: Cervus | Jan 27, 2007 3:06:10 PM
Please take the UAW discussions to a different forum. We all have raves and rants for both UAW and management, but this is not the place. This forum is supposed to focus on battery-electric vehicles, specifically Tesla Motors.
I am curious to see how Tesla leverages Detroit engineering talent to bring a refined EV to to market. I worry, though, that something like a rash of dramatic battery failures (remember Sony batteries exploding in Dell and other laptop computers?) could kill the whole industry for another decade or more. Battery and control refinements should be Tesla's primary focus, not the introduction of several new body styles. Let's hope battery energy density can be safely increased, while keeping simplicity, all-weather useability, and cost to acceptable levels.
Posted by: J Rouleau | Feb 2, 2007 2:49:01 PM
J.R.:
I have the same worries about Tesla and the durability and quality of their product. Any bad publicity due to mechanical failure could send the BEV community back to the stone age, so to speak. Lets hope they are doing their homework for their own sake, and the fate of the BEV world.
Posted by: Schmeltz | Feb 3, 2007 5:27:13 PM
Go see or rent Who Killed the Electric Car and you will see how the big 3 has sealed their own fate by killing their electric car programs. The trailer can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pChh-F8dtwI
Posted by: Bobolikesmilk | Apr 22, 2007 5:25:23 PM
