The following article linked below explains why the hatred is manufactured by people with a financial interest in seeing Tesla fail. Go figure, their are people who would profit from Tesla’s failure.

The-War-on-Tesla-Musk-and-the-Fight-for-the-Future

This may be the last generation to own a car. When I came of age in the mid 1970’s getting your license was what every 15 year old looked forward to. My first job after I got my license was delivering pizza. A job that gave me plenty of spending money while going to high school. It paid enough so I could take flying lessons once every week or two. I got my private pilots license when I was 18.

I loved to drive. Almost as much as I liked to fly. Driving was  just something my friends and I liked to do. And like most teenagers we spent money on upgrading our car stereo and other engine modifications. My boss at the pizza place had a 1976 Pontiac TransAm that he spent big bucks so it could go really, really fast.

My second job was driving a taxi. Once I turned 18 I could get a Taxi license in the Chicago Suburbs. I took some of the money I saved while delivering pizza and used it to paint a car in with a pretty young company looking to expand, American Taxi. I spent the next 3 years driving that cab and getting my commercial pilots license while attending college.

During my 35 years of living in Chicago almost all of them were living in an apartment. And the most stressful part of owning a car in the city for most people is finding a place to park. Most new construction in most cities requires that the builder provide a certain amount of parking spaces for each resident. In the good old days they didn’t have those rules. The building we lived when I was in high school had 3 spaces for 12 apartments. Our family alone had 3 cars. I would spend 20-30 minutes every night driving in circles waiting for someone to leave so I could park.

When I was in my 20’s my apartment building that had 72 apartments in it had 1, yes one parking space and that one was the perk for the live in janitor. There were days I wouldn’t leave the house once I got home so I wouldn’t lose my space. Thank god for pizza and chinese delivery.

That was 20 years ago now. Today I live in Phoenix where parking is pretty plentiful and every house new house has a two or three car garage. But that’s Phoenix. A fairly new city where construction has mostly been done requiring parking.

In old cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia parking is so expensive many people can’t afford a car. Uber is just for avoiding DUI’s anymore.

And my job takes me many places. In the old days I would rent a car. Today Uber is usually a cheaper way to get around town. No worries about bringing the car back with a full tank. No paying for parking and most of all I don’t have to get the sales pitch on why I should buy the overpriced collision damage insurance.

One other thing. Try and find a mechanic if you need something as minor as a flat repaired. This last month while visiting Washington DC we did rent a car for one day. And we did get a nail in a tire. We had to drive almost 50 miles before we found a shop that could fix it. If you don’t buy the road service protection you’re not covered. That was an extra $20 for the repair. Tires aren’t covered by your rental contract.

Most millennials are realizing that owning a car is no longer something you have to do. As long as your mobile internet communication device there are many cars nearby willing to give you a cheap ride.

Even my wife is starting to use Amazon instead of driving to the mall just to find out the store doesn’t have what she’s looking for in stock. That saves me money as every mile she drives costs me at least 50 cents. And even if the car never leaves the garage it costs close to $500 a month for convenience.

And the death of shopping malls will only accelerate the demise of private car ownership.

Self driving cars will be the final nail as there will be an abundance of cars available 24/7. Our cars barely get used 2 hours a day. That’s a lot of capital sitting around depreciating.

If airliners only got 1/12 utilization there wouldn’t be airplanes.

I think the magic number for autonomous cars is going to need to come in at about 25 cents per mile for investors to fill the need and for individual car ownership to go away for many city dwellers.

Eliminating the driver can only help decrease the cost per mile.

And that’s why Silicon Valley has the upper hand in this new auto world. At least today. The hardware is pretty basic. Tesla has proven they can build a car that drives.

G.M. and Ford have barely gotten their radio to work with CarPlay let alone update their system remotely.

Tesla is dog years if not light years ahead in programming the automotive robot.

Walking, talking, human like robots that show emotion and will have sex with their owners are far from reality but the rolling, pod that gets you to show emotion is here, and Tesla is on the lead. They can even get it to come with the swipe of a finger on that other magical device, the smart phone.

My Dream Tesla Model S Click on the link and see my GoFundMe page.

So far other than Tesla and maybe Chevrolet I’m not really sure automakers are taking pure EV propulsion seriously. I say maybe Chevrolet because they have no intention of building a charger network like Tesla. We don’t even know if they will aggressively try to sell the Bolt when it comes out. Maybe just to Lyft Drivers, who knows?

I say this because Tesla is the only carmaker to not only build a fully electric car that has a range that is useful 99.999% of the time but is supporting an infrastructure to allow that car to travel more than 75 miles without stopping for hours.

While Nissan was a leader in EV’s with the Leaf they have sadly fallen behind is sales, support and infrastructure. At least in the U.S.A.

The Leaf was goofy looking when it came out and still is today. While they do have a battery that can get slightly over 100 miles on a single charge in temperate weather it is still only available in the higher price models and finding a fast charger if you need it is few and far between unless you are in a CARB state.  At least Nissan committed to sell their EV in all 50 states.

Unlike Ford whose only EV offering is the Focus Electric. Another car that is a CARB state afterthought. While it is my favorite of the current EV’s due to it’s great looks and great price after rebates and tax incentives it is still a car that is hard to find and was never meant to run on batteries.

And that seems to be where most car makers are headed. They are dipping their toes in the water with plug in hybrids. And I really don’t want a plug in hybrid. I don’t want a hybrid at all.

I want access to the HOV lane. To make an EV an only car it should have a useful range of about 150 miles and then use a fast charger to get another 150 miles. I don’t do much over 100 miles in a day often but that would get me from charger to charger if I wanted to drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles or Tucson that is what you would need.

I highly doubt I would ever drive a sedan cross country like many have done in a Tesla just to prove it can be done. Unless you are moving why would you want to take anything except an airplane or Uhaul?

And since that doesn’t exist right now I’m test driving plug in hybrids to pass the time.

I looked at two cars today and only drove one. Read reviews if you want to know why?

Please leave comments in the comment section.

Tesla is about to open the new gigafactory. The date right now for the grand opening is July 29, 2016. I put the year because who knows if it will really open on that date or if they will have two hobbits and elf producing a battery or two a week.

According to the Reno Gazette – Journal the number of actual jobs has so far been far lower than projected. http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2016/01/17/tesla-gigafactory-ahead-schedule-but-off-track-job-investment-projections/78689874/

If Tesla is going to produce the Model 3 they are going to need a lot of batteries. So far it looks like they have started building the PowerWall in Reno.

I hope the Tesla 3 starts production soon as most other car makers are falling far short with their current offerings.

Utility companies all over the Country are enacting new fees on homes and businesses that put up solar panels on their roofs.

They have lots of reason but the biggest is that solar homes still need power when the sun doesn’t shine. Solar houses should pay for the lines and infrastructure needed to stay connected to the grid.

This sounds fair. After all. You do still use the system. But the truth is far more simple. They don’t charge you for using LED light bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs. They actually subsidize those. They don’t charge you for buying an Energy Star refrigerator or more efficient A/C unit. They even give you subsidies and rebates for those.

They also don’t charge a new 1200 SQF home that’s got all those energy efficient certifications any more to hook up to the system than an old 5000 SQF home that has old insulation and single pane windows. So WTF.

What we really have here is utilities trying to protect their turf along with their profit margins. They go out of their way to encourage and even subsidize energy efficiency but god forbid you produce your own energy. Now you are in direct competition. You are challenging their business model.

They have always had competition. You might have a gas stove or gas heat. Your water heater may be gas. Why haven’t they ever told people if your home isn’t all electric that you have to pay extra?

The only reason I ever looked at solar panels is because I bought an Electric Vehicle. I though maybe instead of using dirty coal from my electric company I might do the responsible thing and make clean power for my car.

My car would still consume more than I make in any given day so the electric company isn’t losing any money. Just not making a lot more. I would be providing some or much of that peak demand so they don’t need more infrastructure while filling up the car at night with off peak demand. You would think they would like that.

Earlier this year they proposed running high capacity power lines across our neighborhood because of all the new demand expected in the next 10 years. Ugly above ground lines costing millions per mile going across our views. It would probably be cheaper to put solar on every roof than to build those lines. They said they need them for peak demand. Just when solar provides the most.

I live in AZ and SRP is my utility. They have killed solar here. They aren’t adding what it costs to maintain the grid to my electric bill if I were to put up solar panels. They want what it costs to maintain their profit margin if not more. They don’t want people to produce power when it’s expensive and in demand. They want people to buy their power when it’s more expensive. Only the power they produce. Not that produced by rooftop independents so to speak.

It’s not just the $42 a month connection fee for solar homes. One of  the highest in the Country. They have added a peak demand fee to solar houses. And man, is it outrageous. They measure it in 15 minute increments, so if both my AC units kick in at the same time it would add almost $100 bucks that month to my electric bill.

One of the local solar installers told me the only reason now to add solar was to get the low (less than .05 per kWh) solar rate. Something they did to make the power solar panels produce the lowest return possible.

Funny thing is they will allow you to switch to the solar rate without solar. It’s experimental and only available to 5000 homes. (They still haven’t got 5000 takers yet as it’s only a great rate if the only time you need power is when nobody else is awake.) So I had them calculate my bill using that rate. My only peak power uses are my AC, no pool pumps, no electric water heater.

That’s it, just the AC and I can’t really choose not to use during peak demand hours. That’s when we need it most.

I tried cool my house to 72 degrees  just before peak demand. It only took two hours till it got over 80 degrees, and there’s no way I’m freezing my butt off cooling the house to 65 before 1 PM and hoping it stays below 80 till 8PM.  It would probably take 7-8 hours to cool it down that far anyway. It gets really hot in Arizona during the summer.

So why spend $23k after taxes to save .04 per kWh produced. The return was break even at best and there is nothing preventing the power company from charging me more in the future by raising fees on solar houses again. I would love to see them add an additional fee if you have a gas meter hooked up to your house. A battle of the monopolies.

Where I will probably save some money is when I can fill up a battery late at night and use it to moderate the peak demand rate during the day. That would save a lot of money on their peak demand rate plan as every kWh used at peak is $60 a month added onto your bill. Stay below 3kWh peak and it’s another $30 bucks or so off the bill. Once again, they encourage you to save electricity, just don’t make it.

I’m sure once people learn how to save using a Tesla Battery or something like it they will come up with another rate plan to protect their profits. They want you to buy peak power. They produce it at 6 cents and sell it for 12 cents. Even more when you have to pay for peak demand charges.

Off peak costs them 4 cents a kWh and they sell it for 7 cents. Far less revenue there.

They do want you to own an EV. More money in their pocket and not the oil companies. They will give you $50 if you do.

Utility companies look on people with solar like distillers look at moonshiners. Anything to kill the competition. Even if you have to tell half truths to do it. Many utilities even go so far as to contribute to the campaigns of friendly politicians. They Join ALEC who  writes bills that favor utilities. Then they can hand to those over to the folks they got elected to be introduced in the state legislatures. ALEC is writing your laws. Not the people you elected. I don’t remember voting for ALEC, did you? They say they are bipartisan. More like Buy Partisan.

There is one Arizona utility that might embrace solar. The power company in Tucson is actually putting solar on 500 rooftops as an experiment. Way to go Tucson.

Moonshines coming back. Maybe sunshine will find it’s way thru all the pollution one day as well.