About Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Maarten Vinkhuyzen Grumpy old man. The best thing I did with my life was raising two kids. Only finished primary education, but when you don’t go to school, you have lots of time to read. I switched from accounting to software development and ended my career as system integrator and architect. My 2007 boss got two electric Lotus Elise cars to show policymakers the future direction of energy and transportation. And I have been looking to replace my diesel cars with electric vehicles ever since.
And putting my money where my mouth is, I have bought Tesla shares. Intend to keep them until I can trade them for a Tesla car.
October 8th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
From the start of Tesla Model 3 production until about a year ago, the most important, nearly daily, Tesla news was about the weekly production numbers. We visited the Bloomberg tracker regularly to stay abreast of the news, and the FUD. And then Tesla started producing over 4,000 vehicles per week regularly and the interest disappeared. Tesla finished the marathon many doubted it could endure for more than a mile, two at the most. Those were fun times
October 8th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Our recent article about the consequences of depreciation and resale value on the financial health and calculations of leasing companies begs for a European leasing sequel. In Europe, leasing is a bit different from the thing with the same name in the
October 5th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Tesla end-of-quarter rush is unavoidable, inevitable, inescapable, necessary, unescapable, needed.
We all hate Tesla's end-of-quarter delivery hell. It is the price Tesla pays for its direct sales model. Other companies also try to score some extra sales at the end of a period, but no one gets into a frenzy like Tesla
October 3rd, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Normally Norway is the biggest Tesla market in Europe. When the Dutch market absorbs nearly three times the Norwegian number of Model 3s, that is crazy
September 21st, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
At the end of August, Tesla reached the #3 spot in terms of 2019 Dutch auto sales, as Zach wrote yesterday. That was a memorable achievement for a model that started deliveries only halfway through February in earnest. But we also have September sales data for the top 3 automobiles, and September is a last-month-of-quarter month. All Tesla watchers know what that entails — the end-of-quarter delivery rush that Tesla still hasn't gotten rid of
September 14th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Tesla is not allowed to sell its cars in some states of the USA. That is, it can't open "dealerships." Sometimes, even service centers are prohibited. That is unfortunate for Tesla and its (prospective) customers. But as many people are aware, all laws have loopholes
September 13th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
All my talk this week about fairy tales started with the Tesla [TSLA] bear assumption that the Tesla factory in Shanghai was a huge mistake. Lack of demand in China following all of that investment would bring inescapable bankwuptcy soon. Really soon now. Any day. Really
September 11th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
The other day, I wrote "Tesla China Fairy Tales For Bears & Bulls." What the "Tesla bull fairy tale" would mean in reality for Tesla customers deserves some extra attention, so here's a followup
September 8th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
What would a Tesla fairy tale in China look like? Well, that depends on whether you're a Tesla bear or Tesla bull. Let's have a look at two scenarios
September 2nd, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
The Dutch government states that a more stable electric grid, better use of renewable energy, and making money with your battery electric car (BEV) are the reasons it is promoting the use of smart chargers, which are able to invert the flow of the current to go from the car battery back into the grid
September 2nd, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Numbers for August passenger vehicle sales in the Netherlands were just published. The detailed numbers are not yet available, only the totals. Officially, sales are down by 16% year over year (YoY)
August 25th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
For people working in software development, like I used to do, the 80–20 rule is infamous. It states that about 80% of the job is done in the first 20% of the time. The last 20% of the development will take about 80% of the time
August 22nd, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Years ago I switched from a small (7 person) software development team to a larger (70 persion) software development team. The products both teams maintained were nearly identical, in function, size, number, and type of users.
The planning of the small team was: "It is ready when it is ready." The large team was ISO certified and their software development was always within budget and time
August 21st, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Recently, a commenter told me that I was far too optimistic, the transition to electric driving would not start before 2025. And we were both thinking in percentage market share
August 21st, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
There is a certain predictive quality in looking at the ships Tesla's has charted to ferry cars to Europe. In the past two quarters, the Europe/China ratio was 50/50, with the European vessels carrying some more cars than the ships bound for China
August 16th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
A picture says more than a thousand words
August 16th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Sometimes it is frustrating that nearly all of the EV news sites are situated in the USA. With the result that news from the rest of the world (RotW) is not always getting the attention it deserves
August 15th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
We have the Tesla registration numbers for the first month of Q3, and again the rumor mill that Tesla sales tanked in Europe is in full gear. The narrative is that the delivery numbers (wrongly called sales) in July are just a fraction of the numbers in June
June 17th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Two years ago I thought the long wait for the Renault-Nissan Alliance was over. There was a new Zoe40 launched just before the Chevy Bolt came to market, and a new Leaf coming that summer. Accompanied by a few other releases, I thought it was time to announce the Renault-Nissan Alliance was coming out of stealth mode. That was the meme of those days — EV makers coming out of stealth mode
June 7th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
After a long history of falling down, struggling, and getting up again, followed by a failed merger with Daimler AG, there was nobody willing to help rescue Chrysler after the 2008 crises. That is, until the nearly broke and also struggling Italian FIAT Group dressed in its best white knight suit and showed willingness to try it
