Tesla surpasses $1 trillion market cap

Tesla surpasses $1 trillion market cap
October 25, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/25/tesla-1-trillion-market-cap/

 

How many coal-fired power stations will need to be built to charge these extra hundreds of thousands of cars?
Serious question though, how does this load get offset? In the summer a lot of places already do rolling blackouts due to A/C. If they have a solution I have not seen yet then great. If not they need to get working on it.

 

Most people charge their cars while plugged in at home overnight. In fact, you can program your Tesla to only charge at night during off-peak hours. So charging EV's actually smooths out the residential electric demand curve because AC's peak during the day, and EV's peak at night. In the US, I believe that less than 2% of cars are electric, and so we are a long way from having nightly EV charging electric demand surge past normal daily demand.

 

I hope that hydrogen will also be an option to fuel electric cars in the future, and solid state batteries will also help because they will not only charge faster but will make electric cars have to charge less often.

 

BTW, I forgot to mention that in 2022 a Dutch company named Lightyear will launch their first solar powered electric car. I believe this could also be a gamechanger and I wouldn't be surprised that eventually this tech will end up in cars from other big names like Tesla, Volkswagen and Ford.

https://lightyear.one

 

That was talked about in the 70s. Nobody has been able to pull it off in a practical way. Solar panels are a great idea but don't output enough power for an application such as a car. That site looks interesting but "I'll believe it when I see it"... and I would love to see it. I believe some day someone will find a way to make something like a solar powered car that turns generators while it rolls to offset some of the power consumption and makes something that can truly run off it's own power. Maybe the physics of that are impossible. But I'm sure 200 years ago people though man would never fly.

 

Nuclear power plants

 

Probably. That said, that would actually be better if they were properly maintained. But all of this is a trade one problem for another situation.

 

Right, we don't want another Chernobyl or Three mile Island

 

No believe me, these guys and girls are the real deal, it comes from years of development, the Technical University Delft (near Rotterdam) have won numerous of solar car races in the last 10 years or so. They do need more investor money (billions) in order to scale up production and reduce the car price, it currently costs 150.000 euro, so they won't be able to challenge the big names yet.

 

BTW, here is an interesting article about hydrogen (fuell cells), Elon Musk doesn't believe it has a future powering consumer cars, but others like BMW and Toyota disagree:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/06/elon-musk-has-strong-views-on-hydrogen-and-not-everyone-agrees.html

 

Elon has too much invested into what he does to entertain the idea of a competing technology. I've heard good things about hydrogen powered vehicles but I'm not sure how you would refill one in a practical manner. I suppose I could research it, when I have time. Everyone probably thought the Hindenburg was awesome too, until it wasn't. A collision in a hydrogen or battery powered car probably isn't awesome. Not that it is in any car but they usually don't explode unless you are driving a 1970s Ford.

 

Yes exactly, he didn't bet on hydrogen so he wants nothing to do with it. And from what I understood, hydrogen will work just like oil, you simply go to a gas station to refill. I do believe that hydrogen, solid state batteries and solar cell technology will transform the EV market.

 

From what I can gather when hydrogen cells explode the explosion is upwards and evaporates so less destructive than a petrol fire as it blows away rather than collecting or pooling due to gravity. Or something. I saw it on the telly ages ago, so it has to be right.

 

Time will tell. I believe Tesla will be pushed as the example to follow whether it is the best option or not. I'd take a free one if they want to give me one.

 

See the Hindenburg or R101 for reference.... An ignited battery is not pleasant either. Maybe Elon can come up with a hybrid that if/when it explodes it turns into a SpaceX rocket and takes you to the moon.

 

What a wondrous thing that would be.

 

Yeah, I didn't say it wasn't R101 bad. I just recall all these test crash film sequences where the hydrogen burnt upwards in a big cloud away from the vehicle. The engineers were claiming it would be much safer than a petrol fire. I reckon they may have had shares in the company or something.

I'm all for firing Musk at the Moon. A lot.

 

That may be depending on where the fuel storage was located. I'm pretty sure in a Tesla the batteries are under the seats. If the hydrogen was in the trunk I would rather have that. I don't want the fuel source under me. Somewhat why I am a bit resistant to the idea of these "electric" cars. If those batteries ignite then it sucks to be you. I know the Chevy Bolts are under recall for exploding batteries. Not sure if a Tesla is safer.

 

I think the hydrogen was in the rear, probably the boot, IIRC. Sitting on exploding batteries is not good at all.

 

This post will probably be removed as it is 'off-topic', but in August 1967, the UK Electric Vehicle Association put out a press release stating that Britain had more battery-electric vehicles on its roads than the rest of the world combined. Of course, they were all predominantly Milk Floats, but they're still used. I saw one the other morning in my street.

 

BTW, for what it's worth, Mercedes Benz launched this concept car that also makes use of solar cell technology:

https://newatlas.com/automotive/mercedes-vision-eqxx/

 

I'm sure the folks that can afford such things will enjoy those greatly.

 

LOL, awesome idea. You must watch this movie, about Nazi's hiding on the dark side of the moon, cool action comedy:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/

BTW, there are now a couple of companies working on planes that fly on hydrogen, the future sure looks good:

https://heartaerospace.com
https://www.zeroavia.com

 

I don't know if I've said it out loud before, but what would be really awesome is if someone could figure out how to separate the hydrogen and oxygen from water and use both of them as fuel. They're both flammable and explosive but if someone gets that far they'll figure that out too.