Tesla Model 3 Announcement tonight

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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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Or more likely it will replace at least one car in a multi-car household. This would easily meet all the needs of the "commuter car" that most households have.. Keep the minivan for the road trips. I'd gladly replace my focus with this and keep the quad cab for the road trips.
 
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.
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Fine and dandy, but 85% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, either hydrocarbons or coal. The rest is nuclear. Electricity doesn't just magically appear. You are fooling yourself if you think you are opting out of the carbon cycle and living in the future by driving a Tesla just because Elon Musk says so.
 
ifly4fun said:
Or more likely it will replace at least one car in a multi-car household. This would easily meet all the needs of the "commuter car" that most households have.. Keep the minivan for the road trips. I'd gladly replace my focus with this and keep the quad cab for the road trips.
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I think I indicated for short commuter type trips it's not bad. If I wasn't clear on that, sorry. It makes sense for some types of driving...but a Ford Focus gets it done too and you can buy a lot of gas for the $20k price difference. Tesla is an aspirational, luxury brand. If that's what you like, then go for it, but it's hard to justify it based on economics alone. At least for now.
 
bullwinkle said:
Fine and dandy, but 85% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, either hydrocarbons or coal. The rest is nuclear. Electricity doesn't just magically appear. You are fooling yourself if you think you are opting out of the carbon cycle and living in the future by driving a Tesla just because Elon Musk says so.
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It's not just the source of the power. Gasoline and diesel (and avgas and jet fuel) have an incredible energy density that, so far, chemical batteries can't really compete with. Add to that the need to completely parallel the existing fuel distribution system (gas stations) with Supercharger stations, or whatever else they will be called. That's a lot of capital investment, and one of the reasons Tesla's "go it alone" strategy makes no sense to me.

There's also competition from CNG and LPG fueled vehicles, the farm lobby that benefits from corn based ethanol fuel and on it goes. None of them are going to give up ground easily.
 
bullwinkle said:
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.
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Well, if you put it all inside the trunk and kept self-contained, you call call it a "hybrid" or something like that. Maybe somebody will invent a "hybrid" some day!

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I still see a market for electric vehicles for commuters. Drive your 10-20 miles, plug in (maybe), drive home and plug in. Run your errands around town, an plug in as you go (a local grocery store has a charging station in the parking lot.)

For long distance trips? There's going to be some different trip-planning than what people are used to. A 250 mile range between charges is pretty good actually, that's longer than I can usually take without a break to give my back a rest. But the difference is that I can get out of my gas-car, walk around a few minutes, get back in and be ready to go vs getting out of an e-car and waiting to recharge. Maybe those extra minutes add up to make an already long trip even longer, maybe the extra rest-time breaks the trip up enough that it doesn't seem so bad.
 
stratobee said:
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.

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There are no barriers to entry for the oil companies to set up recharging stations at any time. I see no particular reason that Tesla, or anyone else, can maintain a monopoly on that business.

Electric "refueling" will become a fungible commodity, just like gasoline is today. That means most people are going to be looking for the best combination of convenience and price, and not much else, in their selection of locations to refuel. Tesla will be forced to open their Supercharger stations to other electric vehicle brands to keep them viable, and won't be able to restrict Tesla owners from refueling anywhere they want.

The threat to the oil companies and Tesla's Superchargers is the ability to refuel the car at home overnight in your own garage. Gonna be difficult to compete with that unless they give away the fuel.

I think Tesla won't survive at the end of the day. It either goes under because of competiton, like so many other automotive start-ups, or Elon is successful in selling Tesla to one of the mainstream manufacturers that is willing to pay up to jump-start their own electric vehicle program (Fiat-Chrysler?).
 
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Not to sound like Henning but....

Hydrogen?
 
bullwinkle said:
Fine and dandy, but 85% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, either hydrocarbons or coal. The rest is nuclear. Electricity doesn't just magically appear. You are fooling yourself if you think you are opting out of the carbon cycle and living in the future by driving a Tesla just because Elon Musk says so.
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A guy my wife works with has an e-car (Volt, I think). He's not fooling himself - he knows it's a coal powered car (other than the small engine for when the batteries run dry). His justification is that even if it's coal power, it's American coal.
 
Matthew said:
For long distance trips? There's going to be some different trip-planning than what people are used to. A 250 mile range between charges is pretty good actually, that's longer than I can usually take without a break to give my back a rest. But the difference is that I can get out of my gas-car, walk around a few minutes, get back in and be ready to go vs getting out of an e-car and waiting to recharge. Maybe those extra minutes add up to make an already long trip even longer, maybe the extra rest-time breaks the trip up enough that it doesn't seem so bad.
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You are correct but that is like sayin that I am not gonna buy a Cessna 172 because it can not make it from TX to CA without a lot of fuel stops and planning. Most GA is built around flying local and we plan accordingly for longer trips. Same concept. A MAJORITY of driving is done local. If you drive from CA to Iowa on a regular basis...a Tesla will not be for you...yet.

I was a skeptic till I started researching the Tesla features and infrastructure that is being developed. It is a far cry from the old days of E-Cars. I would venture to say what excites most people is not the pure economics of the E-Cars (is it economical to fly GA?...rarely) or even the "going green" angle, but rather the development of the disruptive technology of no longer being slave to the oil industry and speculative gas markets.

Is the technology perfect? No. But it is finally becoming effective enough to be a viable reality for those that choose that route.
 
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bullwinkle said:
Fine and dandy, but 85% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, either hydrocarbons or coal. The rest is nuclear. Electricity doesn't just magically appear. You are fooling yourself if you think you are opting out of the carbon cycle and living in the future by driving a Tesla just because Elon Musk says so.
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Not if you have solar panels on your roof. I guess some of you are stuck believing that e-car range will never improve over what it is now - much like people of my great-grandfather's generation that proclaimed "They'll never make a car that can go up hill".
 
Matthew said:
...I still see a market for electric vehicles for commuters. Drive your 10-20 miles, plug in (maybe), drive home and plug in. Run your errands around town, an plug in as you go (a local grocery store has a charging station in the parking lot.)

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The other logical market is "return-to-base" businesses - light duty vehicles that run a route and come back to the same operations base at the end of the shift. Delivery services, perhaps some urban trash and recycle pickup services, that sort of thing.
 
I don't like electric prime movers because of environmental issues, I like it because it's a superior technology. A car should be propelled electrically - how you then feed that electric motor is less interesting to me.

Swedish supercar manufacturer Koenisgsegg just released his latest supercar, the Regera. It has an interesting technology. It's a gas engined car, but instead of a gearbox, it has an electric motor attached to the engine to help with torque at low speeds. Imagine yourself starting your car in 5th gear at all times. Wouldn't work very well. But if an electric motor was there to help with torque to get up to speed, then it would. The car is now a gearless, super fast hybrid. What's the point of all this - well, chances are that technology would not have been applied had it not been for Tesla and other electric cars. They paved the way.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Not to sound like Henning but....

Hydrogen?
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We did a Presidential event up in the Davis, CA area at a facility that was a conglomeration of all the major car companies that were developing Hydrogen technology. It was basically a shared research and development center...but it was purely a smoke a mirrors PR facility as most of the players in the market had already determined that hydrogen was not gonna be a viable solution for the auto industry and was a 100% a "look at us trying" endeavor. Being on the inside of that operation was an eye opener.

Distribution has been the killer to any new auto propulsion from CNG to Hydrogen to LPG now electric because why would an oil company wanna shoot itself in the foot making any other product available?

The charging network going into place is what is gonna make this be viable.
 
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There does seem to be a lot of Prius haters. I thought they were a waste too.

A few years back my wife & I were on our motorcycle & one wizzed past us like we were standing still so I paced it. 100 mph. My wife & I commented on how conservative they were driving. Oh the irony.

A year ago we went to the local Toyota dealer to buy a new car for my wife. I was thinking either a Highlander or a Venza. We drove away two hours later in a Prius V. The larger wagon version. It's been the perfect car for my wife. She is a winemaker & does a lot of local driving checking vineyards & moving cases of wine around. She averages way over 50 mpg & the car is actually fun to drive. We like it a lot. It was a good value for $32,000.

I too would consider a Tesla.
 
I remember when we bought our prius, I thought what the heck am i doing? But, it's decently equipped for a commuter car and when you are just sitting in traffic, my zero to 60 time doesn't really matter since I can't go more than 20. Back then gas was over $4 for regular. Throw in a 45 mile commute each way and the dollars made sense. In the end, i have driven nicer cars and I have driven worse cars.

As for the tesla, it's progress. the impact on environment is a longer equation than anyone on this board has gone so far. Unfortunately, marketing and journalism has trivialized so much that it takes real research to understand how your own activities have an impact. I agree that it currently could be a great second car for me and a primary car for those that don;t wander too far. It's progress and really just a stepping stone at this point, I am curious where this goes in 5 to 10 years, maybe we will all be on hovercraft powered by methane from our own excrement?
 
Tesla is freely sharing his technology and building the biggest battery plant in the world in Reno, Nevada. So when other companies start using his technology guess where they are going to buy the batteries. Don
 
I might be interesting in a brand new all-electric car IF it was around $25k AND had a 250 mile range. That with my airplane and/or the airlines would fill my travel needs
 
Mtns2Skies said:
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.
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I don't like the Prius feel or styling, my mom has had two brand new ones now including a (then) I think first generation Honda Civic hybrid. I'd much rather take dad's new Jetta TDI (pre emission fix) which gets similar mileage.
 
Shawn said:
You are correct but that is like sayin that I am not gonna buy a Cessna 172 because it can not make it from TX to CA without a lot of fuel stops and planning.
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Apple and oranges. It's not the need for fuel stops that's a problem...it's the need for seven hours for each one.
 
yakdriver said:
Tesla is freely sharing his technology and building the biggest battery plant in the world in Reno, Nevada. So when other companies start using his technology guess where they are going to buy the batteries. Don
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That is the plan, dominate and standardize the battery market giving the technology away so they are all 100% compatible across all brands and ultimately get to a battery "swap" availability for ALL electric cars for road trips rather than a recharge delay. Solves the distribution problem.

Tesla then becomes an energy distribution company, not just a car manufacture. The Tesla car is to just get ya addicted to their version of crack and off the petroleum based oil. Bigger picture than just cars.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Not if you have solar panels on your roof. I guess some of you are stuck believing that e-car range will never improve over what it is now - much like people of my great-grandfather's generation that proclaimed "They'll never make a car that can go up hill".
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Re-read what I said, which is that until they solve the charging speed issue, these will be niche vehicles. Of course they will improve -- when they improve to the point of being as practical as a gas-burner at a similar price point, I'll be interested.
 
bullwinkle said:
Apple and oranges. It's not the need for fuel stops that's a problem...it's the need for seven hours for each one.
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Tesla Superchargers do 60% charge in 20 minutes, 1 hour for 100% charge and there is ALREADY a network in place to get you from coast to coast. (I corrected the charge time from my original post)

2000 Supercharger are in place with 4600 by time the Model 3 rolls out.
 
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Shawn said:
Tesla Superchargers do full charge in 30 minutes and there is ALREADY a network in place to get you from coast to coast.
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IF you go exactly where they are. Convenient. Please plot me a drive from Atlanta to Coeur d'Alene Idaho, then back through Casper, Wyoming and Santa Fe, New Mexico and back to Atlanta, using the Tesla Superchargers as the only means of charging.
 
bullwinkle said:
IF you go exactly where they are. Convenient. Please plot me a drive from Atlanta to Coeur d'Alene Idaho, then back through Casper, Wyoming and Santa Fe, New Mexico and back to Atlanta, using the Tesla Superchargers as the only means of charging.
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There is an app for that...and yes, there is a Supercharger route that is a few hundred miles longer than direct on a 5800 mile trip (could not figure out how to export link).

And that is based on the infrastructure that EXIST today not taking into account the doubling of that infrastructure in the next 18 months.

Still not a perfect technology compared to the convince of a gas car but a lot further along and more advanced than most think.

....oh, and the car will pretty much drive itself for your trip.

If you are still rebelling against the technology of a Garmin 430 GPS, then I can guarantee that a Tesla is not for you quite yet.

Anything else?
 
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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.
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Well, if oil demand drops because everyone is driving electrics, why would price increase? On the flip side, if everyone is driving electrics, what is going to be used to generate that electricity? So, you likely have a bit of parity there, as the market for oil will shift from consumer-driven refineries, likely to natural gas power plants. We get better and better at extracting oil from the ground, so barring a bunch of legislative taxation, fuel prices may not change that much outside of inflation (no one really knows). Conoco and Shell aren't going anywhere, because the world will need oil and oil-based products for the foreseeable future, until nuclear power (fusion or otherwise) becomes more socially accepted. I think electrics have a great purpose for urban and local commute vehicles, but most 2-car families will likely have an electric and an ICE-powered car. It's all fun and games for electrics until they start seeing the environmental damage from the mining of rare earth minerals used to make all of those large batteries. Rare earth mining may become the new "coal mining" in terms of the ire it will draw from environmentalists.
 
Shawn said:
There is an app for that...and yes, there is a Supercharger route that is a few hundred miles longer than direct on a 5800 mile trip (could not figure out how to export link).

And that is based on the infrastructure that EXIST today not taking into account the doubling of that infrastructure in the next 18 months.

Still not a perfect technology compared to the convince of a gas car but a lot further along and more advanced than most think.

....oh, and the car will pretty much drive itself for your trip.

If you are still rebelling against the technology of a Garmin 430 GPS, then I can guarantee that a Tesla is not for you quite yet.

Anything else?
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Here's a routing app:

https://evtripplanner.com/planner

You get a route through the supercharger locations.

It's interesting. There is a page where it shows the time, distance, and power use for each leg. It looks like it will make you stop around every 1:45 to 2 hrs, then charge for anywhere from 25 min to 1 hour+. Legs with a lot of elevation gain require longer charges.
 
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Shawn said:
Tesla then becomes an energy distribution company, not just a car manufacture. The Tesla car is to just get ya addicted to their version of crack and off the petroleum based oil. Bigger picture than just cars.
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I've been saying this for a little over 2 years and when it finally hit me, I loaded up on TSLA stock. Bought at $60 and it's treated me quite well since then!
 
198,000 pre orders so far.

Anticipated average Model 3 final cost with added featured closer to $42K.
 
198,000 orders x $42,000 = $8,316,000,000. A lot of them will probably not end up translating to actual orders, but still...

I wonder when # 198,000 will actually get his car? I'm guessing 2020.
 
Matthew said:
Is there still a tax break?
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$7,500k for the first 200,000 vehicles manufactured by Tesla (across ALL models) then a sliding scale down to $0 credit based on qty manufactured which is why everyone is securing their position with a deposit.

redrum4me said:
A lot of them will probably not end up translating to actual orders, but still...
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Read an analyst that say they only expect that 50-60% will translate into actual purchase agreements but for as many that drop, there will be that many ready to buy that did not wanna put down a deposit till they are ready to ship.
 
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Shawn said:
198,000 pre orders so far.
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Going to be entertaining seeing lines at the chargers during tourist season. ;-)

And just so the numbers don't look too impressive: That's less than four *months* of F150 sales. One type of truck. Not including heavy duty Fords or any other brand, let alone automobiles of any brand.

I have no problem at all with EV tech. I just think it needs to a) not be tax subsidized at all, and b) be assessed road taxes in the equivalent value of what gas vehicles pay on average.

As long as it competes on level footing, it's a niche. Fine if someone wants one.
 
Karen and I were tempted, but...

Think of how the market may evolve in what might end up being 2+ years.

As cars become more like tech items, the lead time for new and improved models will necessarily shrink.

By 2008, what will the Chevy Bolt, Nissan Leaf and other offerings from Ford, Toyota and other manufacturers look like and how might they compare to the Tesla?

Rhetorical question, of course, but as I said, for us waiting seems the most logical option.
 
I've driven the BMW i3, the Leaf and the Ford plug-in hybrid, in addition to the Model S. The smaller vehicles are fine machines, but there's no comparison. Perfect city machines (or for those with short commutes). The friend who has the Ford uses it for commutes and everyday short trips, and a couple of times a year has to put fuel in it for longer drives. That said, I suspect that most people who buy the Model 3 will have another vehicle and will be comparing it to the BMW 3-series or the Audi A4 (as Tesla intended). This isn't a ford Focus competitor.
 
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.
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It's a tradeoff though. You trade off charging for half an hour during infrequent road trips, with not having to go to the gas stations the rest of the year.

I've been driving a Tesla Model S as my primary vehicle for just over 3 years now. I don't care about the environmental aspect - my other vehicle is a GMC Sierra Denali 2500HD diesel pickup truck and I love it as well.

But I won't go back to gasoline for my primary. Once you get used to the luxury of waking up to a full charge every morning, having to go to the gas station becomes a huge PITA. You don't think about it when you still drive gasoline, but it's a boiling frog effect. If Electric was first, there is no way Gas stations would be viable - it's like as if AT&T comes out with a phone tomorrow with a battery that charges in 5 minutes and lasts 2 weeks, BUT at the end of the 2 weeks you have to go to a special AT&T store to recharge it. Worst Kickstarter idea ever.

Oh yes, and I have a Tesla Model 3 on order. Two of them - His and Hers :).
 
SoonerAviator said:
Neat, a car that does what a Honda Civic can do for $15K more. That buys a lot of fuel and oil changes.
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And exactly which Civic model are you referring to? Remember, said Civic must go from 0-60 in under 6 seconds, get the same energy-economy and have all the technological features of the 3. Oh, and with the tax credit, the cost ain't $15K more with a loaded Civic. It ain't $15K more without the tax credit either.
 
yakdriver said:
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
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Same reasons I bought a prius V. Great car, plenty fast enough to get any ticket one would desire. 85 all day long on the expressway, decent pickup, Carries a lot, comfortable.
 
I would not bet against Elon musk. Plenty bright and although I have not seen the new one, I've sat in the more expensive one and its a beautiful car. The owner has put 50,000 on it and likes it. I'll bet the newer one takes off especially when the majors decide to charge well over a hundred dollars a barrel again which won't be long.
 
While on the topic of electric vehicles, an electric aircraft with the same efficiency if not more so than good ol' internal combustion engine aircraft would be awesome. Would be nice if the cockpit of general aviation aircraft could be as quiet as the inside of a car. Of course, that's a long way off.

And going back to Tesla, are they turning a profit now or still sucking on the government teat?

But in the future, it seems that Tesla wants to essentially replace oil and be the dominating market force. Why else are they investing in electric powered vehicles, batteries for home and vehicles, and solar power systems? Big oil will give way to big electron (Not catchy at all, I get it).

Personally speaking though, I'd get a Tesla car simply because it's cool technology that works well. I don't care if the electricity comes from fossil fuels or nuclear power. Being able to charge your car at home is convenient too.
Very cool stuff from them for sure.
 
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