Tesla Model 3 Announcement tonight

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FastEddieB

FastEddieB

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Fast Eddie B
Streaming on the Tesla site at 11:30p EDT.

Leaked spy shot:

2014-bmw-isetta-3.jpg


Anyone getting in line or putting $1,000 deposit down online?
 
Yep. as long as it reminds me of a BMW 3-Series and not the Isetta ;)
 
Just saw the launch event online...sweet looking car although won't be shipping till late 2017.

110,000 preorders at $1k deposit each before car was even unveiled.

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Watched the reveal.

Watched it.

My impression was...meh.

Not distinctive, hard to tell from a dozen other similar cars.

Then again, I suppose aerodynamics is a harsh mistress, and to be equally efficient, they can't stray too far from one basic shape.

Still may own one someday, though.

To that end, we've squirreled away 100 shares of Tesla stock. Go baby go!
 
I was in line at 5:30am. Was #17 in line. My the time the store opened its doors there were 500 more people lined up behind me.

I test drove the P85D. If this car is half as good it will still be a smoking deal. I'm starting to hate combustion engine cars and it has nothing to do with "going green".
 
I'll take one of these over a freaking Prius any day!...Those I wanna just ram off the road with my gas guzzlin Chevy 2500 Silverado!
 
I decided to go for it and put in a deposit online at 7:30.

Love the design- I hope they can deliver. Judging by the S owners I've spoken with, I'd likely go for a range upgrade to at least 250mi (claimed).

The model s is an amazing machine - absurdly fast and super nice, but I think that my biggest hope is that it's low-maintenance.
 
Shawn said:
I'll take one of these over a freaking Prius any day!...Those I wanna just ram off the road with my gas guzzlin Chevy 2500 Silverado!
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I'm not complaining that it's not very distinctive. Priuses seem to attract hostility (at least outside of MA; we are equal opportunity road-ragers here... Get out of the left lane!)
 
I don't know why the Prius is hated so much. My wife is a home health nurse and drives 4-500 miles a week. Bought her a Prius and it gets a consistent 48 mpg and in 60,000 has required no maintenance other than oil changes. Not an exiting car to drive but competent, comfortable, works seamlessly and will probably go over 300,000 miles with no issues all for around $25,000. I on the other hand have a new Chevy Silverado crew cab 4x4 so I guess it evens out. Tesla's are really cool cars but also really expensive. Don
 
215 mile range (assuming without A/C running or anything else to make it a pleasant trip) is actually pretty decent, certainly usable. But the electric car will be nothing but a novelty until it can be recharged in 15 minutes or less. According to the Tesla website, charging for 215mi range (full charge on the Model 3) takes SEVEN HOURS.

Even using one of Tesla's "supercharger" stations (if you can find one while traveling - ha!), you are looking at a half hour twiddling your thumbs between trip legs. Over any long distance, a gas-powered car will get there quicker and can "charge" at any Texaco in under ten minutes.

The Tesla is nice if you never go more than a hundred miles from your house, and have hours to charge. But until they solve the charge time issue, it's going to stay a niche vehicle.
 
Neat, a car that does what a Honda Civic can do for $15K more. That buys a lot of fuel and oil changes.
 
bullwinkle said:
215 mile range (assuming without A/C running or anything else to make it a pleasant trip) is actually pretty decent, certainly usable...

Even using one of Tesla's "supercharger" stations (if you can find one while traveling - ha!), you are looking at a half hour twiddling your thumbs between trip legs.
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Our use case is probably not typical, but...

Most of our trips are to nearby towns, usually no more than about 40 miles away. But we also make regular trips to Knoxville to see family and for "big city" shopping. It's roughly 100 miles each way, and over mountains each way, so I imagine range suffers there. Plus we need to do some driving around while we're there. But...

30 minutes at the Supercharger nearby in Turkey Creek would be a trivial delay. Time to stretch, get coffee or a meal, get caught up online, walk the dog(s), that sort of thing.

So, it would just about fit 95% of the driving we do. We'd keep our Flex for towing our travel trailer and longer trips where the Supercharger grid is not handy.

That said, I resisted putting down a deposit. I don't like buying ver 1.0 of anything, and who knows what the options will be by the end of next year? I keep thinking our ideal everyday car would be a plug-in hybrid, where in a pinch a small gas engine could recharge our batteries as we drove. Such things exist, but right now the electric-only range is woefully low.

Right now the goal is to nurse our 2005 Honda Element with 180,000 miles as long as possible, which will only expand the options!
 
bullwinkle said:
215 mile range (assuming without A/C running or anything else to make it a pleasant trip) is actually pretty decent, certainly usable. But the electric car will be nothing but a novelty until it can be recharged in 15 minutes or less. According to the Tesla website, charging for 215mi range (full charge on the Model 3) takes SEVEN HOURS.

Even using one of Tesla's "supercharger" stations (if you can find one while traveling - ha!), you are looking at a half hour twiddling your thumbs between trip legs. Over any long distance, a gas-powered car will get there quicker and can "charge" at any Texaco in under ten minutes.

The Tesla is nice if you never go more than a hundred miles from your house, and have hours to charge. But until they solve the charge time issue, it's going to stay a niche vehicle.
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It is hard to beat the energy transfer of dumping chemicals into a tank. Unless you can swap batteries I don't think electrics will every get there.

John
 
yakdriver said:
I don't know why the Prius is hated so much. My wife is a home health nurse and drives 4-500 miles a week. Bought her a Prius and it gets a consistent 48 mpg and in 60,000 has required no maintenance other than oil changes. Not an exiting car to drive but competent, comfortable, works seamlessly and will probably go over 300,000 miles with no issues all for around $25,000. I on the other hand have a new Chevy Silverado crew cab 4x4 so I guess it evens out. Tesla's are really cool cars but also really expensive. Don
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In my experience prius's are hated because the owners are very self-righteous about "saving the planet" when in reality your Silverado is better for the environment than a prius. Even a Humvee is better for the environment. The Prius has absolutely un-paralleled production costs on the environment. In Canada where they mine the Nickel for the batteries, NASA uses as a test site for their rovers due to the massive amount of acid rain. Additionally components are produced from all over the globe and must be shipped to assembly points, and then that sub-assembly shipped to the next location etc. Not to mention the waste that is caused in that hybrids have to still have an engine, transmission, drive components built AND electric motors and batteries, its like building two cars in one. Hybrids are truly atrocious for the environment, yet the people that buy them for that reason have absolutely no clue. A small engine gas car (Mazda 3) or fully electric car (Tesla) are hundreds of times better environmentally than hybrids. Pick one form of energy, not two.
 
bullwinkle said:
215 mile range (assuming without A/C running or anything else to make it a pleasant trip) is actually pretty decent, certainly usable. But the electric car will be nothing but a novelty until it can be recharged in 15 minutes or less. According to the Tesla website, charging for 215mi range (full charge on the Model 3) takes SEVEN HOURS.

Even using one of Tesla's "supercharger" stations (if you can find one while traveling - ha!), you are looking at a half hour twiddling your thumbs between trip legs. Over any long distance, a gas-powered car will get there quicker and can "charge" at any Texaco in under ten minutes.

The Tesla is nice if you never go more than a hundred miles from your house, and have hours to charge. But until they solve the charge time issue, it's going to stay a niche vehicle.
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Exactly. Last November I flew in to Harris Ranch (cattle ranch/steak restaurant and hotel) in the middle of nowhere along the 5 between LA and the Bay Area) and noticed an electric vehicle charging station there. I thought it was odd, since the next closest charging stations are probably out of the range of most electric only vehicles. I didn't see any being charged there.

You might be able to pull off extended trips in California, as long as you don't go too far north of San Francisco, but cross country? Forget it.
 
Matthew said:
I saw a Tesla on the road this morning. Nice looking ride.
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Which one? Model S, 3, X or Roadster?

(trivia note: they wanted to name the 3 the "Model E". That would have made their product line "Models S-E-X". Unfortunately, Ford had some sort of trademark claim on it.)
 
Don't know which model. The white one? It was a 2-door, going in the opposite direction. I got a quick look as we passed each other.
 
asicer said:
Which one? Model S, 3, X or Roadster?

(trivia note: they wanted to name the 3 the "Model E". That would have made their product line "Models S-E-X". Unfortunately, Ford had some sort of trademark claim on it.)
Click to expand...

Which is why they changed it to the Model 3, since S3X still kinda works. And, the logo is just 3 horizontal lines... which would easily evoke and E in the viewers mind. (Though my wife pointed out that it's going to confuse a lot of mobile users, since the logo is pretty similar to the "hamburger" menu on a lot of mobile sites.)
 
bullwinkle said:
215 mile range (assuming without A/C running or anything else to make it a pleasant trip) is actually pretty decent, certainly usable. But the electric car will be nothing but a novelty until it can be recharged in 15 minutes or less. According to the Tesla website, charging for 215mi range (full charge on the Model 3) takes SEVEN HOURS.

Even using one of Tesla's "supercharger" stations (if you can find one while traveling - ha!), you are looking at a half hour twiddling your thumbs between trip legs. Over any long distance, a gas-powered car will get there quicker and can "charge" at any Texaco in under ten minutes.

The Tesla is nice if you never go more than a hundred miles from your house, and have hours to charge. But until they solve the charge time issue, it's going to stay a niche vehicle.
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I've always wondered why they don't standardize the batteries and then just drain and fill the electrolyte at refilling stations.

Rich
 
Unfortunately for Tesla it looks like Chevy will beat them to the punch with their Chevy "Bolt" due later this year. As well once Tesla reaches their 200,000th electric vehicle their buyers no longer qualify for the federal rebate incentives. So that will hurt them too.

Any car that can go 200 miles takes care of 100% of my driving needs. If its further than that I fly - what do you guys have airplanes for anyway ?
 
I forgot to mention. In Idaho they doubled the registration fees on hybrids. Their reasoning is since you don't buy as much fuel you aren't paying your fair share of the hiway taxes. So after years of harping on us to conserve fuel and drive clean vehicles now we get penalized. Go figure. I bought the Prius not only for the gas mileage but also for the reliability. I do wave at other drivers and I'm doing 3-5mph over the speed limit on the freeway so I don't hold anybody up. A friend has a Tesla sedan and the thing that is cool is he can charge it at the charge station for free. I understand that there will be a charge for the charge on the new lower price model. Don
 
I could drive one for the daily commute (40-50 miles round trip) and be just fine, but it'd have to have some performance to it like the Model S/Roadster. However, when we run down to OKC/Norman, it could get close to 275-300 miles round trip in a day, several times in a few month span. I'm not going to be enthused about missing out on Game Day activities because I had to stop for a few hours to charge up, or try to find some charging station/parking space on campus to let it recharge for the drive home. ICE will win that battle. Same goes for trips to the lake towing 5K lbs. The electric car makes more sense if you live in an urban environment, or never leave the 50-mile radius of home.
 
Drag a trailer behind you that carries a fuel tank and a generator. Recharge on the go! Somebody should invent something like that.
 
Art VanDelay said:
What do you need a pickup for ? Most of them I see on the road have one person in them and nothing in the bed but some fast food trash.
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Without the box in back where are we supposed to toss the empty beer cans while in motion? :confused:
 
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For those of us who live in a northern climate, with a real winter, anybody know how Tesla deals with the windshield defrost and cabin heater issues? What does it do to range?
 
Matthew said:
Drag a trailer behind you that carries a fuel tank and a generator. Recharge on the go! Somebody should invent something like that.
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They could just put a propeller driven generator on the vehicle and continuously charge the batteries while underway. A Tesla perpetual motion machine o_O
 
Oil happens to be low just now, but that is not going to last. It never does. Electric is the future. Elon Musk predicted that in 20 years time all personal vehicles will have electric prime movers. That was about 5 years ago. He's going to be right. Tesla might not be the car for everyone, but they started a revolution. Now Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes have all electric vehicles coming out in 2018-2020.

There's a business lesson for everyone to be had here:

By the time Tesla has had a 10 year head start and owns a full fledged recharging network. Something Shell, 76, Conoco and big oil could have gotten in on, but just ignored. Elon is standard Oil all over again - when the dust settles, oil companies will be out of the consumer business and have completely missed the boat on recharging stations etc.

And the lesson for car manufacturers is: you can fight it, or get left behind. When critical mass is achieved and you're still betting on ancient gas engines as prime movers as a manufacturer, you're finished. Expect to see some very big companies tumble and disappear in about 10 years time. Remember Nokia and Sony Ericsson? They were untouchable. Biggest cell phone makers in the world. But they bet on traditional phones, not smart phones and the game was lost to Apple and Samsung in literally 2-3 years. Gone. Kodak did the same. They were the biggest makers of CCD's and CMOS image chips in the world, but they didn't want to put it in consumer cameras because they were afraid of hurting sales from their film side. So when everything went digital about 15 years ago, they didn't have a business. This from a company that used to rule the stock market and was one of the biggest American cash cows.

You have to evolve, otherwise you die. Doesn't matter how big you are.
 
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Art VanDelay said:
What do you need a pickup for ? Most of them I see on the road have one person in them and nothing in the bed but some fast food trash.
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Does it matter if he "needs" one or not? Maybe he just wants one. Consumer choice and all.
 
Matthew said:
Drag a trailer behind you that carries a fuel tank and a generator. Recharge on the go! Somebody should invent something like that.
Click to expand...

I wonder what the return on range would be after you take all the additional weight and drag into account? It would be interesting to do some math on that.
 
stratobee said:
Oil happens to be low just now, but that is not going to last. It never does. Electric is the future. Elon Musk predicted that in 20 years time all personal vehicles will have electric prime movers. That was about 5 years ago. He's going to be right. Tesla might not be the car for everyone, but they started a revolution. Now Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes have all electric vehicles coming out in 2018-2020. By that time Tesla has had a 10 year head start. As a car manufacturer you can fight it, or get left behind. Evolve or die. Simple as that.
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I expect two of the main drivers toward electric propulsion are going to be the trend in urban areas to "shared vehicles" and "self driving vehicles".

Around my town the Daimler "Car-2-Go" service is becoming quite a popular option, especially for the youngsters. A number of my nieces and nephews, and the adult kids of my friends, don't have any interest in owning a car. They use these shared services and Uber. Quite a change from my generation - we couldn't wait to get our driver's license and buy our first beater car, if for no other reason than it represented a tangible expression of freedom from our parents.

Electric vehicles would mean the elimination of scheduling oil/filter changes and needing customers to refuel the ICE Smart Cars that Daimler now uses. In the self driving world an electric vehicle could drive itself to the nearest recharging station when needed, plug itself in and "refuel" without any human intervention. It's coming. Last year Uber hired 20 of the best people from the top self-driving vehicle technical program in the country.

As for Tesla, their business model makes no sense to me, and imo the jury is out as to whether their move downmarket has any chance of succeeding financially. History is littered with automotive startups that do not have the capital resources and cannot generate the free cashflow needed to fund adequate development. Given a choice I would buy an electric car from BMW, Mercedes or even GM first.
 
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