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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

> True, I haven't seen too many i models on the streets, but I haven't seen too many of competitor's electric models either.

Anecdotes. I see Teslas all the time. Neither of us is seeing a representative sample.

> So the market is still not quite ready for them

Tesla has 325,000 preorders.

> wary of betting it all on the electric card

They don't have much choice about how much to bet. The US government has mandated a certain percentage of their sales be low-emission vehicles by 2017.

> Why is this even in the news

It tells us that the I Series is a failed/failing product line and that Future is giving better incentives to electric-vehicle executives.

> Or has it always been like this

It has always been like this. In fact, it used to be much worse (see: yellow journalism and William Randolph Hearst).

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Another anecdote: Drive Now (carsharing corp) has i3 in its fleet so you see a decent number of them in large German cities (like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne), definitely more often than Teslas:

https://de.drive-now.com/en/#!/yourcars/bmw-i3

Also in Copenhagen. They usually pile up around charger stations in the city.

Teslas are also very common on the streets. If you drive through the city you're bound to meet at least 3-6 Teslas.

In Amsterdam almost all airport cabs are Teslas.

Cabs are Teslas? That's interesting, I wonder what drives that? Lack of gas costs?

A lot of facilities have a need to reduce local air pollution. That's why you see construction sites and ports using biodiesel, and airports providing electric plugins for parked planes, instead of using diesel generators.

I have no idea if this airport is under such a mandate, but it wouldn't be surprising.

> > True, I haven't seen too many i models on the streets, but I haven't seen too many of competitor's electric models either.

> Anecdotes. I see Teslas all the time. Neither of us is seeing a representative sample.

I have seen only 3 Teslas on the road in my lifetime, besides some promo by the Tesla store. 2 of them just last weekend on the Autobahn and they where slow as a turtle with about 120 km/h. I was going by with about 180 km/h.

> > So the market is still not quite ready for them

> Tesla has 325,000 preorders.

Funfact: Nissan has already sold and delivered much more Leaf (>1 Million) than Tesla will produce by 2020. But everybody talks about Tesla as the game changer.

Anecdotes incoming!

> I have seen only 3 Teslas on the road in my lifetime, besides some promo by the Tesla store. 2 of them just last weekend on the Autobahn and they where slow as a turtle with about 120 km/h. I was going by with about 180 km/h.

I see a Tesla almost every day - it's parked outside of the office. There are at least two more that can be spotted on the grounds of University I went to. When I was in Norway last year, I played the game of "spot the Tesla". I counted 13+ over the course few days.

I travel all over the world and have seen literally thousands of them myself. In NYC/SF/LA area, a day doesn't go by where I don't see at least a few during the course of the day. I saw 2 in Nashville, TN area two weeks ago. I saw 4 in Dubai last week and 1 in Abu Dhabi. I've seen them in England, Amsterdam, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Czech Republic, Canada, and more in the past two years.

It's likely I see them more because I'm looking for them subconsciously (I think in part because I want one, just can't justify owning one as I rarely drive at home in NYC) and you just don't care. What your brain/eyes "see" is very heavily biased on a personal level.

Do you have a source for Leaf sales figures?

Minor googling says that they're wrong:

http://www.hybridcars.com/2016-nissan-leaf-sales-did-not-bre...

> I have seen only 3 Teslas on the road in my lifetime, besides some promo by the Tesla store.

Like he said, anecdote. I guarantee I'll see more than 3 teslas when I walk to the metro station later today when I leave work. I live in Copenhagen. See, anecdotes go both ways and prove nothing.

More anecdotes. I saw one of the full-electric i3s today. (Though, I probably also saw three Model Ss.)

I've seen exactly the same number of Teslas as BMW i series - three! But then again in the same time period I've seen way more Lamborghinis & Ferraris and see Bentleys, Astons and Maseratis daily.

Such different scenes. I see Teslas daily. I've heard I'm in the area with the second-highest concentration of Teslas (and it's not in the Bay Area).

And while there are plenty of other very nice cars around too, I don't see nearly as many exotics as you do.

Washington D.C. and the companies in the NOVA area in general have excellent policies regarding electric cars. You can take the HOV lane to work, and there are free electrical charging stations at the office parks and in public garages in many areas (Reston, for example.)

I see multiple Teslas daily, both the Model S and the older roadsters. I occasionally see a BMW i8, and there's an i3 on my block. But, I've also seen electric prototypes on the roads around here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car) of which there are only a few hundred in the world, so YMMV.

"second-highest concentration of Teslas"

Norway?

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