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.
January 17th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
History is sometimes ironic.
The French state saw Carlos Ghosn's refusal to merge Nissan into Renault as an obstacle to the growth of the former national car company. They attributed it to his megalomania, and not to sentiments within Nissan and Japan. He could only keep his job at Renault when he promised to make the alliance irreversible, nearly as good as a full merger. That job would be for his successor
January 13th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
In 2019, a dozen new fully electric cars and SUVs are coming to the USA market. Well, they are not coming to all states — many will be what are called "compliance cars." What makes carmakers only offer compliance cars in the States? Let's explore
January 13th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
For those who follow the fully electric car market, 2016 was exciting. GM introduced the Chevy Bolt a full year ahead of Tesla's Model 3. It was the first long-range affordable electric car in the United States. For many reasons, we did not really see it in most of Europe
January 9th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
After many delays and years of waiting that would flush Tesla's cheeks in embarrassment, the 60kWh Nissan LEAF ("LEAF 2," or "LEAF 3.ZERO" in the UK) is starting production. The planning is this month for Japan, sometime in the spring for North America, and during the summer for those waiting on the old continent and in the UK and Ireland
January 7th, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
After seven weeks in jail, Carlos Ghosn is getting a hearing in court. His lawyers can ask questions, and he can read a statement. How he should write a statement while he is denied pen and paper is beyond me. What is also beyond me is the Japanese justice system
January 2nd, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
In this new year, a lot of new fully electric vehicles are coming to market. Well, they are not coming to all markets and many will be compliance cars
January 1st, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
As the years transition, lists of EVs coming to market in 2019 are omnipresent. But there is a problem with those lists. First, they are mainly for the USA market, and second, the availability of those new models is not great — only in California or a handful of "zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) states," or some other very limited supply formula
January 1st, 2019 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Sometimes there is a reason to report on rumors. This is one of those times. There are many rumors swarming the interwebs about Tesla and its inventory. And I am going to guess what they mean
November 21st, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
As reported yesterday, Carlos Ghosn has been taken in for questioning by the Japanese authorities. He is accused of "serious misconduct" and "numerous other significant acts of misconduct," according to a Nissan press release. That sounds very serious. What has he done to deserve a prison cell
October 24th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
As a consequence of the current trade war, Tesla faces an extra 25% on top of the standard 15% general import duty when importing into China from the USA. That is 25% more than imported German cars and more than 50% over locally produced vehicles that are eligible for EV incentives
October 16th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
The Paris Motor Show, "Mondial de Paris," started a day early with a pre-show symposium for a select public: "Tomorrow in Motion." Even a few journalists were invited, yours truly not among them. But the whole 5 hour happening was live on YouTube. Arriving early in the hotel near Paris and with pencil and paper in hand, the CleanTechnica delegation was ready for it. As a French organized mondial event, half of the presentations were in French. That means that I have no notion what they were about
September 30th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Jaguar I-Pace
In the class of luxury midsize SUV/CUV, we have now or will relatively soon have 5 new fully electric vehicles that are serious all-around usable cars. Oops, in the USA, half the cars are not called cars but trucks. These vehicles are the Jaguar I-Pace, Audi e-Tron, Mercedes EQC, Tesla Model Y, and BMW iX3 — placed in order of expected start date of sales
September 30th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Tesla is looking for two new independent directors. There are many very capable candidates outside the normal business circles. We want candidates that will stay true to Tesla's mission, and can even protect Musk from market pressures by keeping an eye on the future
September 30th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
How often have you heard the complaint that all the electric cars on the market aside from Teslas are only compliance cars and that the carmakers have no intention to make enough of them to sell the cars in high numbers
September 29th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
I wonder whether the SEC picked the wrong cherries from Elon Musk's deposition
September 29th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
The Nissan LEAF is infamous for its battery problems. It started with the fast degrading 24kWh battery in the original 2010 Nissan LEAF. That battery was not up to the hot conditions of US Southwest states. It was replaced by a battery with a different chemistry, the 24kWh "lizard battery" in 2014. In 2015, the model year 2016 (MY2016) LEAF got a slightly larger 30kWh battery option. In the MY2018 Nissan LEAF, an even bigger 40kWh battery was offered
September 6th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Last weekend Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen Group (VAG) and Volkswagen, shocked his managers. At a leadership summit, he proposed to alter the company-car rules. The 20,000 employees who have a company car like the bigger, thirstier, and more expensive models, but shouldn't they all be driving electric
September 3rd, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
I did something quite irresponsible lately. I made a prediction 6½ years in the future about Tesla's finances. The normal financial analyst horizon is a single quarter, and that is often too difficult
September 2nd, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Tesla has a long history of in-sourcing production. It started with the idea of following the Apple model. That meant doing the design itself, finding factories which could make it, having no production itself — only design, marketing, and sales. That didn't work — nobody did know how to make an electric car
August 25th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
While this letter was being prepared for publication, Elon Musk released the news that he decided not to follow through on his idea of taking Tesla private. That news made the goal of this letter obsolete. But the arguments in it are as valid today as they were yesterday, making it still worthy of publication
August 22nd, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Before people start placing Linette Lopez on a pedestal, note that she is a "champion of Tesla FUD" only outside the realms of Seeking Alpha. It appears the Tesla writers on Seeking Alpha are in a competition about who can create the most outlandish theory about Tesla's finances, preferably completely devoid of reality, whereas Linette Lopez is more your run-of-the-mill yellow press reporter
August 15th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Since Tesla CEO & Chairman Elon Musk tweeted out a note that he was "considering" taking Tesla private, my mind has been racing through the pros and cons of such a change. Add me to the thousands or millions of others in this same boat. While we've hosted many an interesting discussion about the pros and cons, however, we haven't actually published an attempt at a comprehensive summary of these pros and cons
August 14th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
Today's blog post from Tesla CEO & Chairman Elon Musk confirmed my WAG about the cost of going private. It is somewhere between $0 and $24 billion. For both amounts, Elon can get the funding secured. But for the amount of $???, it is a bit harder. Investors want to know how much they are going to invest, and how much influence they are going to get for that amount
August 13th, 2018 | by Maarten Vinkhuyzen
For 15 years, Tesla has been prisoner of The Secret Tesla Master Plan. It called for the development of a number of products and the acceleration of the world's transition to renewable energy. To achieve those goals, Tesla was forced to travel from milestone to milestone, with a pause to recuperate and then get back to the maximum speed its financial resources would allow
