Well, Ford quite literally had to invent the entire process. Then they and numerous other makers figured out over the course of a century how to do things well.

Then Tesla comes in, insists on not listening to people who know what they’re doing and insisting they can do it better, and when they fail, we’re supposed to…

“And that’s also with Tesla’s factory appearing to be covered in the sort of grime and grit you wouldn’t see in, say, a McLaren factory:”

Forget McLaren. That’s hideously dirty for a Chrysler plant. The local Ford transmission plant looks dreary inside, but it is damned near spotless by comparison. 

Exactly - as long as there is backwards compatibility, there’s really no harm.  Why wait to fix a problem with a brake caliper for a new model year if you can do it now and it simply drops into place with the same mounts and all as the existing part?

Changing part designs mid-year is only really a problem if the parts aren’t compatible. If you find a better design and can switch midyear and owners of the old design can swap to the new one in the case of a needed repair, there’s no harm. It’s when they’re incompatible that things turn into a headache.

Case in point,…

Well, Musk tends to deliver on product specs eventually, but not dates, price, or any of his promises to investors.

“Tesla is trying to break with standard auto-industry practices all along the Model 3 assembly lines. It is searching for ways to shorten the time that robots take to weld parts.”

If you don’t think that the major automakers have been looking for ways to speed up welding, you’re out of your mind. 

There are actually a lot of really nice RV designs, even down to the compact Class B ones.  The catch to me is that the things cost a bloody fortune and get poor gas mileage - the only way they make any sense is if you do a LOT of traveling in them, but only in relatively short hops with long stays between travels -…

Yeah, well NH politicians don’t hate the planet like Ohio ones do... :/

Yep. I’ve got a SolarEdge inverter that can adapt to add a battery easily enough, but like you, losing power is infrequent. I’m semi-tempted to add the backup subpanel and outlets that would provide power during the day, but even that is a hard sell - a gas generator is so cheap for backup.

But I’m jealous - our net…

I’m waiting for my bulletproof 13 year old 49k mile Fusion to break on me. :D

The power wall doesn’t use recycled batteries. They’re using new cells.

Reusing batteries rather than recycling them is simply a matter of extracting the most value out of the product - its more valuable to reuse them in another application than it is to recycle them. There are pretty well-developed processes for…

Not that I’m aware of - I believe they use brand new cells.

“It’s surprisingly not all doom and gloom”

Why would it be? GM announced plans for repurposing used Volt battery packs YEARS ago. 

And when they’re done with those uses, the materials are valuable - the idea they just get thrown away instead of being recycled is a little absurd.

of course, neither BMW or Audi are at risk of running out of cash and going bankrupt, and with either one you’re going to get a much more firm delivery date.

Why not get the panels installed without the powerwall? Adding a powerwall later is easy if you pick the right inverter equipment ahead of time.

And unless you have significant time-of-use rates, the powerwall is a bit of a gimmick anyway.  It’s a horribly cost-inefficient way of providing backup power.

They’ll all phase out sooner than you’d think.  Ford was actually on track at one point to phase out by late 2019.  Their sales were biased towards small EVs and plugins, which saw sales drop (and models dropped).  Their current sales rate has them hitting the 200k mark in 2023 or so, but their product plan has so…

But I can go to any one of my local Chevrolet dealers and buy a Bolt today for $35,000. They all have them in stock (here in Ohio, not exactly a hotbed for EV adoption). Inventory is low, but I can get one today at the price that Musk keeps promising but not delivering on.

And I don’t have to put down $3500 in…

Making Tesla look more and more like a Ponzi scheme every day...

Not for long with those power draws, though... :)

Here’s where I could argue the out-the-door price *might* change based on credit score:

If the buyer is financing through the dealer and is putting little down, the lender is going to want to be secure in placing the loan. The easy way to do this is simply a higher loan rate to represent the higher risk in paying off…