
Elon Musk Tells Tesla Willing to Buy Idle GM Plants - _hztt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/musk-to-the-rescue-as-tesla-may-consider-buying-idle-gm-plants
======
DKnoll
Not sure how good of a move that is financially, but damn is that a good
political move. If he took over the plant in Oshawa, ON he would gain goodwill
from all 3 levels of Canadian government.

~~~
clouddrover
I'm not sure Tesla can remain competitive with the major car manufacturers as
they begin their shift to electric vehicle production. For example, the Jaguar
I-Pace is cheaper than the Tesla Model X and also a slightly better car for
the money:

[https://www.jaguarusa.com/all-
models/i-pace/index.html](https://www.jaguarusa.com/all-
models/i-pace/index.html)

How will Tesla be competitive with the Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW, Porsche,
Lexus, etc. electric cars coming out in the next few years? It may not be a
good idea for Tesla to buy more plants. Maybe they should look for a buy out.

~~~
pwagland
Having recently been in the market, to choose between these two, I don't
believe that the Jaguar is clear-cut the better car. Disclosure, I chose the
Tesla Model S!

The Jaguar does have advantages. The Matrix headlamps are awesome, it has a
heads up display, the interior _is_ nicer, and IMO, it looks like the ant's
pants!

However, the Tesla is faster (at least the Model S), and the P100D of either
the X or S blows it out of the water. The Model S has a longer range, more
space in the back, both for passengers and luggage. The X has _even more_
space, and the Tesla has a nicer screen, with better software. The adaptive
cruise, and lane keeping features also work better IMO.

However the three big winning points for the Tesla: 1\. Charge time: The Tesla
can just charge faster, and it uses a lot less energy per km (or mile), so you
end up needing to charge it less often, and when you do charge it, it can
charge faster. 2\. OTA software and map updates. This is just an awesome
feature, particularly the map updates! They are just pushed to your car, no
need to get it serviced to get the new maps, which also means that your maps
tend to be more up to date. 3\. This one is probably temporary, but still
important for now: The Charging Network. The Tesla superchargers are in a lot
more places than CCS-2 100kW chargers, which makes the Tesla more convenient
for longer road trips.

If you _never_ do long trips, then 1 and 3 won't make any difference to you,
since they both have enough energy for most people for day to day running,
particularly if you have a charging pole at your work and/or home.

So, as I said, it's not clear cut which is better, since different needs could
tip the above scales different ways. Which is just great IMO, since real
competition is the only way forward.

~~~
StavrosK
Are all these chargers compatible? I hope we don't end up with a mobile phone
situation, where you needed 5 chargers for 5 phones.

I guess independent charging stations can have support for every car
interface, but that still feels like a waste compared to a universal
interface.

~~~
pwagland
Nope.

There are four standards, although only three per market. And, in essence,
there are two surviving standards per market.

1\. Tesla US connector 2\. Tesla Everywhere else connectors (CCS with a mod to
allow DC charging over it) 3\. CHAdeMO (used to be the thing, but lost the
war) 4\. CCS-2 (European standard, what most new cars, except Tesla, support)

The rumour is that the EU Model 3 _will_ have a CCS-2 port, which would be
great news, as that means essentially one standard in Europe. The S/X though
have an older port which will only work with Tesla SuperChargers, the hope is
that there will be a CCS-2 adapter made available, but that is only a hope,
not even a rumour.

In the US, all Teslas have the "Tesla socket", and all/most other cars have
CCS(-2).

A few manufactures still make CHAdeMO cars, but, IMO, they _will_ stop soon,
since the infrastructure just isn't there to support them, so people will also
soon stop buying them.

~~~
rohit2412
I think you missed that chademo isn't dying anything soon in Japan. And China
has a local standard of its own. Those two markets are sort of out of reach
for everyone else

------
ForHackernews
Prediction: This is purely a marketing stunt and absolutely nothing will come
of it.

I will get downvoted for this "cynical" comment, and in six months or a year,
everyone will have forgotten.

~~~
audunw
> I will get downvoted for this "cynical" comment, and in six months or a
> year, everyone will have forgotten.

No need for that. It's not an unreasonable thought. If you get downvoted now
it's probably because of this second part of the comment, or because the first
part doesn't contribute much.

Personally I think it's impossible to say. You could've made the same
prediction for the tweet Elon made about solving Australias power problems
with that battery plant. It'd be totally reasonable to be skeptical, but see
how it turned out.

------
opencl
An old GM plant near my city got bought up by a Chinese glass manufacturing
company. They make windshields and ironically sell them to GM.

------
Arzh
I have a feeling that he would like to buy the buildings but get rid of any of
the unions that might be working there now. It's not great that all of the
protections for employees are being thrown out and seen as too costly.

~~~
IshKebab
Pretty sure there aren't any unions in an unused plant.

------
GrumpyNl
Thats a good move to bring in more investors for some cash.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Why would they need cash now that they're highly cash flow positive?

Their revenues are increasing 50+% YoY and they became profitable while
ramping up. Competitors are now publishing profit warnings and are quickly
losing market shares in segments where EV are being produced in volume. The
latest figures should be pretty scary:
[https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/08/tesla-
model-3-completel...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/08/tesla-
model-3-completely-crushing-us-luxury-car-competition-10-cleantechnica-
charts/)

Some ICE manufacturers won't cross the EV chasm. They may even try to sell
themselves to Tesla (too late I guess).

------
Bucephalus355
Jesus what a hero

