Is It Over For Tesla in California?

This is a pretty interesting link on Tesla reorganizing its sales force.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-reassigns-sales-chief-amid-040620879.html

Of particular interest is the following paragraph.

“The sales operations have faced challenges in key markets. Sales in California, historically Tesla’s strongest market, fell 27 percent last year to 6,110 cars, according to data from the California New Car Dealers Association. And Tesla recently cut staff in China, where research from JL Warren Capital LLC shows that just 2,500 Model S sedans were registered last year.”

Wow a 27% drop in sales volume in California between 2013 and 2014.   The plug in space is getting crowded and BMW will continue to take customers away from Tesla.

In China the big problem is folks don’t have garages in their homes to recharge the cars.  Tesla is basically a non-starter in most of China and has to do the battery swap idea will have more capital tied up in spare battery packs.   I think Elongate will focus on the grid storage business and will never deliver the People’s Tesla.  He should raise the price of the Model S and the Model X and remain a niche player in the auto industry.  Nice car but a crappy business. 

I do believe the laws of thermodynamics dictate a further drop in Tesla’s share price.  The only good think about Tesla stock soaring and the press thinking Elongate was the next Edison is that this kept Al Gore out of the press for a while.   Al Gore was talking his nonsense at SXSW in Austin, Texas this week.  South By South West is an interactive festival. 

http://tech.blog.austin360.com/2015/03/13/sxsw-talk-al-gore-on-the-climate-crisis-challenge-and-opportunity/

No doubt Big Al did not fly Southwest Airlines to get to Austin even though the airline has 9 flights a day from Reagan National in DC to Austin.  Yes Al Makes his money in DC through his connections and the last thing he wants are any connecting flights.  He just wants to go nonstop in his Lear jet bringing all the cash he creamed from the department of entropy and fools who still believe him.   Elongate had better start selling some Teslas or he too could end up back in coach on a $69 Southwest flight between Oakland and Reno to visit the remains of his giggle factory.  I wonder if Bono told Elonfate to give it up.

Selma and Sand Hill Road

It was 50 years ago today that Bloody Sunday happened in Selma Alabama.   My wife asked me the question on why have attitudes not really changed in fifty years whereas cars, computers, televisions, cameras, telephones have improved so much?  The simple answer to her question is that the greed and fear of people are as they were when we were all living in caves.   The complex answer to her question is as follows:

While we all think we live in a country of equal opportunity and where “they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character”, we simply do not live in that utopia.   The complex answer actually has to with the Complex.  Yes, the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.

The Complex is far more entrenched in owning and running America in 2015 than it was in 1965.   The disparity in wages between the CEO and the workers is far greater in 2015 than it was in 1965.   President Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the Complex.  Martin Luther King Jr. had dreams in 1963 and marched in 1965.  The Complex had more than dreams; they had the power and used it to get even more power.

The Complex actually is no longer lily white as it was in 1965; instead, it is now a global Complex of all shades.  And, its basic operation remains the same: the sinister control of elected officials, unelected officials, and civil servants to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of mankind.   The complex has gone beyond the color of the skin and as long as the content of your character is sinister you are welcomed into the Complex.   Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Vinod Khosla all have non-white skins.  Yet, they are members of the Complex, together with Halliburton, Walmart, Al Gore, John Doerr, Jamie Diamon, Dick Cheney, and the Clintons.  Eisenhower would never have thought Algeria and the Saudis would fund a former president’s foundation to the tune of millions.  But this is what has happened.  The global Complex at work.  The Clintons at work.

Martin Luther King Jr. is far above this all.  He is still a beacon of hope and Selma is the bridge to hope.  What is needed is that the people simply don’t take nonsense anymore.  The people in Ferguson were wrong to accuse just one officer for premeditated murder, but were 100% right to demand justice and an honest police force and municipal court system.   Attorney General Holder was eloquent and brilliant, and I applaud him and his department.   Unfortunately, his boss is beholden to the Complex and is part of the Complex.  

Both Doerr and Khosla have hosted to the president to dinners, to bend his ears and to raise money for him and his party.  Doerr and Khosla have extracted hundreds of millions of dollars of our money with fake green science, gangrene, technology and fake green promises.  Doerr and Khosla are no different than the cops in Selma Alabama 50 years ago or the police force and municipal court in Ferguson today.  They have this arrogant attitude that they are always correct, know better than all, have power, and are entitled to extract fortunes for fraudulent gangrene junk.  

I intend to ask the next US AG to investigate the DOJ of Delaware and the entire State Government in Delaware on the BLOOMDOGGLE.  The BLOOMDOGGLE is a daily bank robbery of over $100,000 each and every day in Delaware from the poor ratepayers of DELMARVA Power.  The BLOOMDOGGLE is orchestrated by Al Gore, Colin Powell, and John Doerr.   They promised clean, reliable, and affordable power.  Instead, they delivered dirty, unreliable, and exorbitantly expensive power.   They screwed the poor ratepayers of DELMARVA Power.  The police force and municipal court in Ferguson promised to obey the constitution.  The sad reality is that they delivered corrupt government.

If Martin Luther King Jr were alive today, he would be saddened to see the State of our Union.  Racist cops still use dogs on people of color, and the multicolored Complex have leashes and collars around the necks of our government officials, from the First State all the way to the Yellowhammer State.  Interesting that Alabama is the Yellowhammer state and Sulfur is yellow.  My hope is that people of all color really focus on the content of the character of those who lead us and whom we elect.  If Hillary Clinton is nominated for her party to be their candidate for president, I would say she does not deserve the job based on the content of her character.  I do believe that Martin Luther King Junior looked down on Eric Holder two days ago and was proud of  Holder’s eloquent and frank speech, that exonerated the one officer doing his job, and yet indicted the entire Ferguson police force and municipal court for systematically depriving  people of their civil rights.

There is no fundamental difference between the State Government of Delaware and its DOJ and the police force and municipal court in Ferguson.  They all methodically deprive common folks of their civil rights.  Stephen Hawking said “we are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star but, we can understand the Universe.  That makes us “something special.”   Folks, we are special; we want social, economic, and environmental justice for all the monkeys on this minor planet.   We understand the Universe and the Complex. 

The simple answer may be that it was far easier to understand how to make microelectronic chips or to make cars, computers, TVs, and phones better than it is to stop human greed and fear.  The complex answer is that Complex does not want a society based upon the contents of one’s character unless of course one shares the same sinister desire to subjugate people.   If we rid ourselves of the Complex, the answer again will be simple: that we are all special and we understand the Universe.   Stephen Hawking also said “entropy increases in time as we measure time in the direction entropy increases.”  I would rephrase this that “The Complex increases in time as we measure time in the direction that the Complex increases.”   Let’s call a total time out on who is running the show.  It is We The People!!!

Let’s pause for a moment and remember Selma.  Then, let’s end all BLOOMDOGGLES and crimes against humanity and nature, all the way from Selma to Sand Hill Road.  Sand Hill Road is the Selma of 2015.

No Growth In EV Sales In The US

Tons of hoopla in the press about how EVs are taking to roads, but sadly the facts do not bear this out.  For the first two months of 2015 sales of cars with and electrical plug to charge them are down very slightly from the first two months of 2014. 12,660 vehicles were sold in 2015 versus 12,740 in 2014.

http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

Only BMW and Ford had sales gains, while the others including Tesla are suffering death by a thousand cuts in current flow.   The CEO at Tesla had to put out a statement that his giggle factory near Reno is still progressing on schedule even though the electrician union that will help build the factory reported only 20% of the expected electrician jobs had materialized.  Perhaps Harry Reid but never Right who helped steer the project to Nevada can find out if Elon Musk is hiring non-union electricians and construction workers?

http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/03/06/tesla-gigafactory-construction-delayed-says-union-job-board/24467309/

Meanwhile Dr. Moniz is reporting that gasoline consumption in the ignited states has increase 5.2% in the first two months of 2015 over the same period a year ago.

http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/overview.pdf

Dr. Moniz will be three for three in increasing CO2 emissions in the USA.  He entered office in 2013 and CO2 emissions increased in his first year heading the department of entropy, there was an increase in 2014, and there will be an increase in 2015.  Dr. Moniz loves baseball and he should know three strikes you are out.   I wonder if he has his own mail server in his basement or he has a doe.gov email address?  

Dr. Moniz posted that he is working with John Kerry will to keep us safe and assure the world the Iranians will make electrons from their yellow cake.   Bloom Energy makes electrons together with yellow cake from natural gas.  Their yellow cake is the solid waste with sulfur that they finally admitted to generating from pipeline natural gas.   I am honing in on the quantity of solid waste with sulfur that Bloom produces but never permitted in Delaware and this quantity is estimated to 100,000 pounds a year at the Red Lion site in the protected coastal zone.

Talking of the BLOOMDOOGLE, I have challenged one Jaimie Levin who once headed the AC Transit fuel cell bus program to a public debate.  I found out this week that Mr. Levin has left AC Transit after wasting $87.6 million on the AC Transit BLOOMDOGGLE.  Like Collin O’Mara the cabinet secretary in Deal Away that issued Bloom the permit for the Red Lion site, Jaimie Levin now has a job in a greener pasture.   Levin now works at CTE - The Center for Transportation and the Environment.  I doubt Mr. Levin will take me on in a debate as he studied Urban Planning and I studied thermodynamics and know quite a bit more about the Hope or Hype of Hydrogen.

If EV sales are dismal the much hyped fuel cell car sales will be far worse.   I am hoping Apple does the iTransporter and sells us chauffeured miles.  Hudson sold a Commodore car.  Commodore sold the first personal computer.  Maybe the iTransporter will be the Apple Commodore?  I hope it is not the Mitsubishi i-MiEV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Commodore

A Tale Of Two Transportation Authorities

It is March 2013 and the politicians are handing out money for green nonsense like the money is candy.  There are two Transportation Agencies located in the San Franscisco Bay Area.  AC Transit the bunch of fools and crooks I have written about several times, and VTA the Valley Transportation Agency.

In March 2013 AC Transit commissioned the Bloom Coffins for their Hydrogen BLOOMDOGGLE with great fanfare.

http://www.actransit.org/environment/the-hyroad/program-updates/

On March 29, 2013 Michael T Burns the General manager of the Valley Transporation Authority (VTA) kills the Bloom project that  three members of Congress tried to force upon the VTA.  These three Congressional fools from the Military Industrial Congressional Complex who were doing the work for Al Gore, John Doerr, and Colin Powell were Lofgren, Eshoo, and Honda.  All three are Democrats who believe that the Bloom Coffins are green.

http://fuelcellsworks.com/news/2013/05/16/bloom-energy-loses-vta-fuel-cell-project/

CNN has reported on the Tale of Two Dresses.  Actually it is one dress that some see as Gold and White while others see as Black and Blue.   The three congresspersons and the entire staff of AC Transit see gangrene as green.  Not because they are color blind it is because they are owned by the Military Industrial Congressional Complex and Al Gore and his cronies pull their strings.

The color changing dress is actually quite brilliant while the Bloom Coffin is simply a gangrene greenwashed scam.  Here is the CNN piece on the color changing dress.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/27/health/science-of-gold-blue-dress/index.html

If you really want to cry about politicians and MICC operatives bending over backwards to help Bloom execute their greenwashed lies look at this video Bloom is proud to use when recruiting engineers.  Senator Feinstein and Mayor Bloomberg have great roles in the launching of the BLOOMDOGGLE.   The CEO of Bloom reminds me of a snake charmer.  He makes a gangrene sulfur filled poisonous cobra pretend to be a Smooth Green Snake that is harmless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyj1DTUeugA&feature=youtu.be

Hydrogen Hope or Hype?

In 2003 I wrote a text on energy, sustainability, and fuel cells titled Hydrogen Hope or Hype?  The book showed that Fuel Cell vehicles and hydrogen as a fuel (actually an energy carrier as it is not a primary fuel) for the vehicles was mainly hype.  Time has proven the book correct.  Now there is more news about fuel cell cars and the hydrogen highway.  I still think that this is misguided and will waste tons of money.

The poster child for the waste of money is the hydrogen bus program at AC Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area.  My two blogs on AC Transit called their entire $87.6 million program for 12 buses the biggest Rube Greenberg scheme of our times.

http://www.greenexplored.com/2014/09/ac-transit-needs-help-rube-greenberg.html

http://www.greenexplored.com/2014/12/delaware-was-smoking-gun-ac-transit-is.html

I have been given information under the Public Records Act that confirms the whole project at AC Transit is a gangrene scam and borders on the thermodynamic equivalency of idiotic.  This has been told to the Board of Directors of AC Transit and I am waiting on their action to end this massive BLOOMDOGGLE.

In essence the two Bloom Coffins at AC Transit are unreliable (80% capacity factor for the year versus 97% promised by Bloom) and Bloom fibbed to AC Transit about the dirtiness in CO2 emissions of the PG&E grid that previously served AC Transit’s Seminary site in West Oakland California.  I have given NBC News the real data on CO2 emissions savings for the electricity at the site and NBC will likely report on this in their next episode of Greenwashing by Bloom Energy.

Now the zinger of the Rube Greenberg project.  In October 2014 the Bloom Coffins at AC Transit were 42.6% efficient in converting biogas to electricity.  AC Transit has confirmed the electrons from the coffins are sent to a Proton C30 electrolyzer to produce hydrogen for the 12 buses.  The spec sheet for this device shows the efficiency of electrolysis to be 51.3%.  The hydrogen must then be compressed to very high pressure for storage aboard the buses and another 5% of the energy in the biogas is lost in the compression.  Then the hydrogen is used by the PEM Fuel Cells that power the buses and these cells are at most 50% efficient.   Multiplying all these efficiencies we have 10.4% of the BTUs in the biogas actually getting to the wheels of the bus for propulsion.  

The entire Rube Greenberg project cost taxpayers and ratepayers $87.6 million to propel a total of 12 buses that are hardly driven compared with standard diesel buses.  Had AC Transit bought 12 CNG buses for a total of $3 million approximately 19% of the BTUs in the biogas they buy from Shell Oil at a premium price to ordinary natural gas would have reached the wheels of the bus.  The buses could travel 80% further on the same biogas and they could have saved taxpayers and ratepayers $84.6 million.

Of course there is also the solid waste with sulfur that the Bloom Coffins produce at the Seminary site that AC Transit owns.  The Board of Directors of AC Transit has now been told that unless they end the unpermitted production and removal of this solid waste with sulfur that is in all probability hazardous material, the board is guilty of adversely affecting the health and wellbeing of AC Transit employees as well as the general public.  The General Counsel of AC Transit Ms. Denise Standridge refused to stop creating the unpermitted solid waste and she has been reported to their Board.

Sadly the President of AC Transit, one Mr. Chris Peeples is also a BLOOMDOGGLER and is an ardent promoter of the Hydrogen project that is 100% HYPE.  Here is his bio on the AC Transit site.

Biography:H. E. Christian Peeples was appointed by the AC Transit Board of Directors in November 1997 to fill one of the District’s two At Large positions and was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012.  Director Peeples, a long time advocate for public transit, and AC Transit bus service in particular, has been actively involved in the AC Bus Riders Union, Alliance for AC Transit, Regional Alliance for Transit, Alliance for Sensible Transit, Coalition for A One Stop Terminal, and many other transit groups. He is also active in local community affairs, having served on the Oakland Ethics Commission and community and political bodies.  In addition, he is active in the meetings of the Transportation Research Board (“TRB”), the branch of the National Academies involved in transportation research, and the American Public Transportation Association (“APTA”), transit’s national association. He is a strong supporter of AC Transit’s zero emission fuel cell bus program.  Director Peeples is a graduate of Crown College, University of California at Santa Cruz and Hastings College of the Law.

I take the HY from hydrogen and the PE from Peeples and voila we have HYPE.  The CPUC had Peevey as a president till he got booted.  AC Transit has Peeples as their president and he should get the boot as well.  I told Mr. Peeples and his board that we the people own those Bloom Coffins and we are going to find out what nasty chemicals with sulfur Al Gore, John Doerr, and Colin Powell create there at the Seminary site.   Note the site is called Seminary and all the BLOOMDOGGLING Rube Greenbergs better start praying hard for forgiveness and mercy for their crimes against humanity and nature.

Apple will never sell a car they will sell miles

I am beginning to convince myself that Apple has some mighty good battery technology and that they will enter the personal transportation business.  This does not mean they will sell cars but they will sell miles to drivers who will never need to own the car.  Apple has so much cash they could provide personal transportation on a pay as you drive basis and they could easily put two or three million personal transporters on the road with batteries they know will last a half million miles.

Apple just might do what I suggested the Veterans Administration do for the transportations of Vets.  The Apple personal transporter will be a snazzy pizazzy vehicle and will make most cars and trucks look like they belong in the last century.  Elon Musk will be left in the dust of Apple and will be remembered for solar power, grid storage, and space travel.  By 2025 Tesla Motors will long be forgotten as Plymouth and Oldsmobile.

By 2019 when Apple launches their personal transporter, Apple will have well over $200 billion of free cash to finance the pay as you drive personal transportation company.    I think they will not bother to sell cars at a low gross margin but can sell mile after mile of personal transport at a higher margin.  Bet you that Exxon Mobil is their real target. 

Apple will make the experience of being personally transported unique and fun.  Each Apple motorist will actually not be a motorist but a chauffeured passenger.  Yes all those in the iTransporter will feel like Richy Rich rather than slogging away at dealing with traffic.  I could be completely wrong but Apple has the cash and the technology to make all of the above possible.  I doubt Microsoft will even come close to competing with Apple in personal transportation.  The personal computer is now passé.  iPads are a passing fad.  iPhones are so widespread nobody even cares.  But iTransporters will be the hit of 2019. 

The Green Machine will be mighty happy if Apple has the battery that survives 5,000 charge discharge cycles and lets the iTransporter renter go mile after mile on PV power.  This is the OPEC killer and BP will be for once and for all a relic of the British Empire.  But just in case I am completely wrong I will change the oil in my old car and make sure it will carry on running another ten years.    Thermo is telling me Tesla will not be a $200 stock.  The second law is pointing to a share price of less than $165 by Christmas.  George Jetson will not drive he will be iTransported.

The iCar and Mosquitoes

Large questions swirl whether Apple will enter the automobile business?   There are many reports Apple has poached workers at Tesla and even the defunct A123 battery company.    I have no inside information or idea if Apple will produce a car by 2020 but if they do it will not be cheap.  Apple is an amazing company and has established a luxury brand around commonplace items.  They like Starbucks sell an experience and make people feel good that they own their product.  This might be the magic ingredient in car ownership and Apple sees the opportunity to expand their brand.

In 2000 just before the dot com bust Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco were the darlings of Wall Street.  They each had a market capitalization of over half a trillion dollars.  Intel now is worth $163 billion, Cisco is $152 billion, and Microsoft is $360 billion.  Their combined worth is now $675 billion.  Apple alone is worth $754 billion.   Fifteen years ago Apple was a bit player and was worth less than $10 billion.  In fifteen years’ time Apple could well be the leading Auto Company.  Right now Apple is the best run and most admired company.

The global oil markets are going sidewise and refinery workers in the USA are on strike.  What is concerning to me is that the EIA is showing data that gasoline and diesel consumption are on the rise in the USA and the country will again for the third year in a row increase carbon emissions.    Gasoline usage for the first six weeks of 2015 is up 5.7% compared to a year ago and diesel is up 8.9%.  These are not small numbers.  I do not think that motorists and truckers give a hoot about Carbon emissions they simply drive more when fuel is less expensive.   I worry about Carbon emissions as I am the Green Machine.

The poor folks in Boston have not driven much in the first six weeks on 2015 as they have had to deal with record amounts of snow.  Therefore it must be folks in the warmer states that are driving much more and firing up their heavy SUVs.  Much of the US will experience bitter cold this week but here in Sunny California the weather is great.   Weather like stock prices is hard to predict.  Spring will come to Boston and the ice in the Charles River will melt.  The marathon will be run and Kenyan or Ethiopian athlete will again win the race.   The summer will come to the Bay State and folks will be bitten by mosquitoes all in the cycle of life.

Mosquitoes are attracted to humans due the warm CO2 we emit from breathing.  I cannot fathom why mosquitoes don’t all swarm to the stack of a coal powered power station.  Perhaps someone will go on Shark Tank with an improved device for catching mosquitoes.  A few years back a company sold a device called Mosquito Magnet that catalytically oxidized a trickle of propane from a tank to warm CO2 to attract mosquitoes. 

http://www.mosquitomagnet.com/advice/how-it-works

Yeah even killing mosquitoes has a carbon footprint and now uses fossil fuels.  I simply stay indoors or carry a swatter if I have to deal with outdoor insects.  Perhaps Apple will come up with an App on their IPhone that makes the noise of female mosquitoes so the mosquitoes bite the phone and not the human holding the phone.  Apple hopefully will not make a Lemon of a car.  Maybe Apple is actually working on the iPlane the car that can fly????