Tesla Model 3 Ramp Up Aims to Compete with BMW 3 and Mercedes C | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Model 3 Ramp Up Aims to Compete with BMW 3 and Mercedes C

bloomberg.com

45 pointsdevy84 comments

Then I think they should also ramp up build quality because that doesn't match BMW or Mercedes at all.

At least someone else said it first.

RTFA

> Tesla also gets to pick from the best, most reliable suppliers. When the carmaker first built the Model S, suppliers assumed it would never sell more than 3,000 units and the company would eventually go bankrupt, according to Musk. That’s changed. It “went from basically getting like the worst team on second-tier suppliers to getting the best team on first tier suppliers,” he said in February. “Really big difference.”

If that's the case they need to do a major overhaul of the Model S...

CEO of company in question claims that now they get the bet teams from best suppliers... That have already been working with their competitors for years.

RTFA won't help you consider sources and how much salt to ingest with their words.

Getting parts from the best suppliers does not by itself ensure quality. What kind of tolerances are you speccing from said suppliers? How tight are your build processes and quality assurance testing? How accurate and precise is your tooling?

That's a lot more excusable when your car is priced at 35k than 75k.

Both BMW and Mercedes have models comparable to the Model 3 financially. I'm sure a 2-series or 3-series BMW, or CLA or C Class Mercedes far surpasses Tesla's build quality.

they cost the same, but are they electric? otherwise, it is not apples to apples.

To be fair, in this case it is apples to apples. The average car consumer does not weigh in the electric component with so much weight to overlook poor interior quality. Tesla's cars must be on the same level if they are to win the public's heart.

Why does it matter? The customer of this segment doesn't really care about the engine.

Of course they are. I don't care if the car I drive is electric, gasoline, diesel, biofuel, or hydrogen fuel cells. The majority of vehicle purchasers are the same. If you're in the market for a high end electric vehicle, your choices are a Tesla, an i8, and I think that's about it.

The complaints are levied against the $65k Model S, not the $35k Model 3. No one has really seen the interior of a production Model 3.

Even then I wouldn't believe it. I'll accept a subpar interior on a $25k Toyota. I won't on a $40k when there is competition that knows what they're doing (Acura, BMW, Cadillac, etc).

I know, which is why I pointed out the price of the Model 3.

I agree with you thought. My Accord is very nice. I have a feeling it's nicer than the fit & finish on the Model 3 will be.

What "build quality"?

I don't mean to be flippant, but it seems to me that most new cars have uniformly good build quality. And if something does go wrong, it gets fixed under a ubiquitously generous warranty. This applies to almost every brand I can think of on the market, from Tesla to Toyota.

Not so much. I've been in a Tesla - the dashboard feels cheap, gives, creaks under any weight (resting your hand on it). "Plastic-y". Similar with door internals.

My 2015 Audi? Not even a little bit. The build of the Tesla feels like that of my old Altima on the inside.

The dash electronics? Certainly nice hardware, at least.

I'm all for Tesla to succeed, but I was very shocked when I drove in a Model S. It feels like a budget Volkswagen inside, it's several levels behind Mercedes/BMW/Audi cars of the same price. The dashboard tablet feels like a cheap 2010 android tablet. It can't even scroll a grid of images without severe lag. Very disappointing.

Most people complain the interior is cheap and is making noise after some time. That's what I was refering to.

Reading Consumer Reports' judgments based on their subscriber surveys, I would say that Tesla reliability is comparable with BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

The Tesla Model S rates 3/5 or "average" in expected reliability, while the Model X is 1/5 or "much worse than average".

Out of 12 reviewed BMW models, the 2 Series is 5/5, the X1 is 4/5, and all others are 3/5. (BMW also owns Mini; all 3 reviewed Minis score 2/5.)

Benz is worse, or at least less consistent: out of 12 models, 7 score 3/5, 2 each score 1/5 and 2/5, and one scores 5/5. (Benz owns Smart; the Smart ForTwo scores 2/5.)

I think that at worst, you can say that Tesla is slightly worse than BMW and Benz. And since the Model X is a new model, the low score for it could reflect early bugs not yet fixed.

Against the 3 series this could be an issue, but have you been in an i3? The interior is shockingly crappy, and easily bested by something like a hyundai sonata even.

The cheap CLA class doesn't feel that great inside either, and is really cramped. Plastic all over the place and weird design choices here and there.

They're on a much more level playing field here than they were in the model S price range, where it really did stick out like a sore thumb.

To turn on a Reed Hastings quote, 'Tesla needs to become BMW faster than BMW can become Tesla'.

For reference, BMW 3 and 4 series sales in the US has been in the range of 100,000-150,000 units/year

http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/bmw/bmw-3-series-4...

There are also tons of used 3 series on the market though.

I think it's great that Tesla is attacking the market top down, but I'm honestly more excited for the Toyota Camry of electric vehicles. The total cost of ownership of a $35k Model 3 is probably lower than the TCO for a $23k Camry, but until electric vehicles are positioned as alternatives to affordable gas vehicles, I don't see EVs getting that much market penetration.

I desperately want a Tesla, but we don't have a garage and I'm not having a charging station installed on a public sidewalk. Short of eating lunch exclusively next to gas stations with a charging station, or having something installed on the exterior of my home and running an extension cable into the street, I'm not sure I have any viable options.

For those blabbering about build quality. Well compromises. I cant stand the shitty infotainment systems in any car be it cheap kia or high end bmw. All of them suck and are ridiculous because they are made by conservative people that do not understand consumers. Software is the new king and this is where america has such an incredible advantage compared to traditional european manufacturers that it is almost unbelievable. Interior and the choice of materials can be changed and improved but building a good sw experience and ecosystem is so incredibly hard even for IT companies (Samsung for example) that people are afraid of any incestments.We are in an era where a lot of people simply can ignore some squeaky dashboards but buying a platform for convenient data consumption will be a deciding factor for many future customers.

Not hard. The iSeries is an unmitigated clusterfsck. I still feel like electric is just pushing the pollution somewhere else, but I am glad to see the tech advance. I continue to have doubts that the model 3 will be the electric peoples car however.

Where I live I have the option of 100% community solar, or 100% wind (wind via credit transfer). For me, moving to an all electric vehicle would be a pure carbon reduction.

And even in areas where this is not the case today, it could be in the future (coal plants are shutting down all the time). There is no chance an IC vehicle can become clean in the future.

While I agree with the sentiment, IC vehicles have been getting cleaner for some time, and likely will continue in the future. They will never be completely clean, though.

I meant there is no chance your existing IC vehicle will get cleaner. If you buy a EV and your local coal power plant gets replaced with a natural gas fired plant, your car suddenly got cleaner.

I don't think purchasing Renewable Energy Credits really means you'd see a pure carbon reduction. Some (most?) of that wind power was going to be produced anyway. Buying their credits is just a subsidy.

Though economics isn't my forte.

> I still feel like electric is just pushing the pollution somewhere else

In a way it is, but that's the point. Even with fossil fuels, centralized energy production is much more efficient than every car having its own combustion engine, and then electricity is also flexible enough to enable you to switch to green/renewable sources without change for the car and its supporting infrastructure. In a way, electricity is energy abstracted away from the means of its production.

That's a really good perspective that I hadn't really considered before.

I used to think that way, too. And then I remembered that the cheapest form of power generation is using coal, which is extremely abundant. I also remembered that power plants have an expected life span of 50+ years and people are against closing down things which are have already sunk their original cost and now are cheap, effective and provide lots of jobs.

It's really hard to say which is the lesser of two evils.

Getting rid of the coal plants is mostly a separate battle, though.

I admit I'm not sure how centralized coal burning compares in emission efficiency to internal combustion engines in cars.

   And then I remembered that the cheapest form of power generation is using coal, which is extremely abundant.

That's not so clear cut when you try and factor in externalized costs (which any proper analysis must)

> I also remembered that power plants have an expected life span of 50+ years

How much of that infrastructure was built in the post WW2 period so is nearing replacement anyway?

That's the scary part. Didn't your president just declare he wants to invest in new coal? 2067, here we come!

That makes the problem regional, but not unsolvable. Consider states like Washington and California, where electricity is highly renewable. Every electric car in those states is a big difference in 'power cleanliness'. True, in other states the gain isn't as big, but I still suspect a coal plant might be cleaner than N small gas engines (and the refineries that support making that gasoline.)

At the very least, it allows for the possibility of changing the power generation under the cars, which current engines don't allow.

Coal has now been overtaken by natural gas in total power production. As it stands now, 1/3rd of US power production is natural gas, 1/3rd is clean, emissions-free power (i.e. mostly nuclear, then hydro, wind, geothermal, and solar), and 1/3rd is coal.

Natural gas is incredibly cheap. And it's also fairly common to convert coal power plants to natural gas, so you don't need to shut down the plant. And a lot of coal plants are already plenty old enough to shut down.

To summarize here: Just 30.5% of US utility scale electricity for the last 12 months (rolling) have come from coal. This is down from over 50% in the early 2000s. 33.5% is natural gas. 34.9% is emissions-free (nuclear or renewables... but it increases to about 35.3% if you include non-utility-scale solar). So now the plurality of power is emissions free, with most of the rest being (relatively) clean-burning natural gas.

This is a HUGE difference in a short amount of time, and the story keeps changing. The old story that most electricity is coal (about 51% of electricity was coal in 2003) is now definitely obsolete. But people keep recycling the same talking points.

I like to occasionally check up on this table, which is where most of my data comes from: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...

I hear that coal is no longer cheaper than natural gas. And renewables are catching up fast. Coal is dying, and EVs are unlikely to add much additional coal use.

Coal isn't the cheapest [1]. Natural gas is cheaper because of fracking. Renewables have been reported to be cheaper than fossil fuels for the first time in 2016 [2]. Electric vehicles are cleaner than gasoline cars almost regardless of where the electricity comes from [3]. I think in Missouri EV are on-par with gas because Missouri has the dirtiest power plants.

[1] http://wolfstreet.com/2016/06/13/why-us-coal-production-coll...

[2] https://qz.com/871907/2016-was-the-year-solar-panels-finally...

[3] http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/04/20/minnesota-study-chal...

Ok, natural gas is cheaper. Great, we've just moved the goal posts from "hell" to "purgatory", since fracking is still very harmful for the environment.

My main point was that a centralized environment comes with its own downsides, the main one being inertia.

Renewable power generation may already be cost competitive with fossil fuels [1]. It's gaining popularity in developing nations for this reason [6].

Natural gas, which is leaked heavily during fracking [2], is an order of magnitude more harmful than CO2 in the short term [3]. But it breaks down far faster in the atmosphere [4] and is comparatively better than coal when it's burned [5]. Thankfully, fossil fuels are losing to cleaner technologies [6].

Cheap renewables, like solar, allow EV owners to opt-out of centralized power generation and charge their cars with clean power [7]. One could argue that this is the entire business model of Tesla [8].

[1] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/re...

[2] https://thinkprogress.org/methane-leaks-erase-climate-benefi...

[3] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warmin...

[4] https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-methane-once-it-is-rel...

[5] http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fue...

[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

[7] https://www.wired.com/2011/11/evs-go-off-grid/

[8] https://www.wired.com/2016/06/tesla-solar-city-elon-musk/

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php#w...

Electric cars are a little bit cleaner, even in Kentucky which runs on 84% coal power. Everywhere else, they are significantly cleaner.

Oddly, hybrids turn out to be cleaner than BEVs in Kentucky that may point to light trucks skewing the gasoline vehicle numbers.

There's a lot of "thinking with your feelings" going on about this for a topic with so much hard data easily available.

In addition just pushing the pollution somewhere else isn't necessarily a bad thing, there are a lot of cities that would be a lot healthier if emissions were all about 80 miles that-a-way

And there are a lot of people getting SolarCity roofs...I'm starting to see them all over...combine that with a PowerWall, which you can charge during the day, and you have a really compelling argument to go all-in.

This. I recently switched to an all-renewable tariff[1]; if I had an electric car then that would have been all that was required for me to be running emissions-free.

[1] https://octopus.energy/where-does-octopus-energy-get-their-e...

you may want to read this : http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green

in most cases, turns out electricity is generated in a way that's much more carbon efficient than using gasoline. Electricity from natural gas, for example, has a much better carbon footprint compared to oil. petroleum parity is really the worst case.

In Quebec we sell electricity to the US for cheap and it's dam water powering turbines that generates it all.

In the US, about 2/3 of electricity produced is from fossil fuels. In the EU, this number is about about half, and in Slovenia it's lower than 25%. So with all else being equal, you reduce pollution by somewhere between one third and three quarters.

With that out of the way, even just pushing the pollution and noise somewhere else is a big deal, especially in cities. It doesn't matter for global warming, but for quality of life it's much better if fuel burning is happening away from people.

Agreed.

Also, a lot of those fossil fuels are now natural gas, which is much less polluting than gasoline. Also, centralizing power generation means it will be much easier to regulate moving forward (power companies are already heavily regulated, so they are accustom to dealing with federal and state initiatives to reduce pollution, cost, etc...)

What's a clusterfsck

Thank you. If you want to curse, just curse. I've seen "fuck" on HN dozens of times, and worse too. If you've got some hang up about maintaining the pseudo-professional/intellectual air of HN, just use a different word/phrase altogether.

It's when you check the whole cloud filesystem all at once. Not sure how it relates to tesla. Maybe the machine learning autopilot?

I have a diesel that's in at the mechanic at the moment because it's blowing plumes of blueish smoke every now and again. 4 different mechanics have all had different theories (ECG valve, turbo, air supply system, injectors) so as a result I've had to learn a lot about it myself because I no longer trust any of them.

Currently I'm starting to think the issue is with the DPF (diesel particulate filter) system which is responsible for pulling the soot out of the exhaust. The extra soot is the result of reburning the exhaust in a 2nd combustion to try to keep the emissions down. There's then another process (DPF regeneration) that pumps extra diesel into the engine during the exhaust stroke to try to burn the carbon particles out of the DPF to keep it clean.

Stopping to think about the horrors of the filthy process that goes on inside all of these vehicles is eye opening, to say the least. I know electric vehicles aren't without an environmental cost — but if there's anything that can be done to move the pollution away from urban environments that seems like a pretty positive thing to me.

I suspect in 50 years time people are going to look back on the burning of fossil fuels with shock.

> I still feel like electric is just pushing the pollution somewhere else

Ah, the good old "long tailpipe" fallacy occurs again to someone.

I'll link it this time:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-plot-to-kill-th...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe#Criticism

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13938279

If electric really displaces gasoline/petrol, we are going to need a lot more charging stations. I work at a company that had a larger installation of charging stations (relative to my locality) and the Tesla takes a long time to charge; i.e. there are almost never enough charging stations. And there aren't enough supercharging/fast charging stations.

Not to mention the fact that electricity gets surprisingly expensive at peak rates. I recognize we are doing this to try to reduce carbon emissions, but I find it important to remember that energy is neither created nor destroyed according to the laws of thermodynamics. So, we are only transitioning from one form of energy to another, which has its own pros and cons. Of course, electric "seems" to have more pros then cons, but it definitely still has cons (heat generation, lithium/battery tech byproducts/electricity generation byproducts, etc.), and no energy source is really ever "free".

Disclaimer: I don't have a Tesla but do drive a plug-in hybrid. It feels like a nice balance of gas/electric at the current time.

Unless you're driving more than 200mi you should be charging at home. Both for off-peak rates and because at < 10kW it does take a long time to charge.

If you live in suburb. If you live in an apartment and park on the street, no charging for you.

Many apartments are installing chargers in their parking areas now. The numbers are small, but it's just getting started.

There's no reason you can't have chargers available for street parking too. It's not common yet, but it's just a matter of demand.

Palo Alto has more than the average number of EVs, and has chargers at offices, public parking garages, some apartment building parking garages, and even a couple of street chargers. New construction is required to install a few chargers and a lot of conduit for future chargers.

Good to hear! If anyone is curious what the situation looks like, PlugShare is a fun web site to play around with:

https://www.plugshare.com

It shows just about every publicly available charger, and many private ones as well. Each one has notes on what kind of charger it is, availability, cost, and user-submitted comments. It's really useful for EV owners, and interesting to poke around on even if you can't currently make use of them.

Yep. As an example, you can see that there are 137 chargers at the Facebook campus.

Impressive! I've never seen anything like that, alas. Good to know it exists.

It might also be worth noting (to others reading the conversation, if there are any) that charging stations, while not cheap enough to just ignore, are pretty inexpensive to install. The main thing is getting power to the site. If power is already available, then it can be under $1,000 to put in a station (including buying the equipment), although of course there are many more expensive options if one wants.

> It shows just about every publicly available charger

It doesn't show any of the publicly available chargers in the state of Ohio. I don't know how many there are - I've never needed to care - but I'm pretty sure that if the local Wal-Mart has a few (and the UU church!), there are others.

Do you mean it doesn't show anything anywhere in Ohio? Something must be broken for you, then, because it shows me plenty.

Are you just looking at it zoomed out really far? It only shows a selection of chargers until you zoom in, otherwise the whole thing would just be a sea of icons.

Yeah, it was the default level of zoom. Thanks.

I can see how that would be confusing. They should probably show things a little more densely when zoomed out.

> Not to mention the fact that electricity gets surprisingly expensive at peak rates.

Extremely relevant point. EV penetration will cause huge surges in demand; a 100 KwH Tesla is ~10 days of household electricity usage here in the Netherlands. That's why demand response and load shifting will be critical.

> no energy source is really ever "free".

The sun is pretty close to free on the scale we use energy at. :)

> The sun is pretty close to free

nope. building solar panels pollute. disposing them more so. the setup with mirror and a standard turbine has less costs tied to manufacturing, but creates a huge no fly zone for birds.. and everything else really, so you can't plop a thousand of them all over the place. having them in deserts works, but you still need to transport the energy, which has a cost and again an environmental impact.

now, all in all the impact from solar is quite less than burning coal or oil, but there are other solution that are at least competitive (methane, nuclear) - but there are very few studies compare the total cost and pollution including externalities, because everyone likes to profit on the state incentives

>And there aren't enough supercharging/fast charging stations.

For sure.

I live in a place where there are line ups at GAS stations during the busy season. Imagine everyone trying to charge while on a trip? That "half an hour to stretch my legs and eat" becomes a queue of everyone doing the same.

I'm curious if the Tesla supercharging has the same problems that rapid charging a hobby lipo battery does - it only charges around 80% of the battery, and reduces the lifespan of the battery overall.

No, and no. It's true that the charging rate of a supercharger gets pretty slow once you pass 90%, but it doesn't stop. And Tesla says that repeated supercharging does not reduce battery life, apparently thanks to the active cooling system in the battery pack.

> It's true that the charging rate of a supercharger gets pretty slow once you pass 90%, but it doesn't stop.

That's what I meant: the supercharging stops at some less-than-advertised capacity, and becomes normal charging (and normal charging rates also slow down above the 80% mark).

> thanks to the active cooling system in the battery pack.

That makes some sense, as the damage does come from heat buildup in the cells. However, since battery packs are typically remarkably dense to achieve a good W/h : size ratio, that would have to be quite the cooling mechanism; I don't believe that simply cooling the air around the battery cells (such as with a peltier and a fan) would suffice.

I base this supposition on the completely unscientific method of recharging batteries in my garage in the winter; they still get remarkably warm with an ambient air temperature of around 40°F and normal charging (around 1c - their mAH rating). Perhaps they simply set artificially lower capacities per cell than the battery pack's real capacity in order to prolong their advertised lifespan.

Tesla's battery packs have liquid in them, not air.

Already a solved problem: anyone remember the video of the battery-changing station? Imagine racks of batteries charging via solar during the day time, and using off-peak electric grid power at night. Then it's just an abritraged amount based on the age/fitness of your current battery versus the 'new' battery.

In and out in a couple of minutes.

> If electric really displaces gasoline/petrol, we are going to need a lot more charging stations.

This is true but not to the degree you might assume. I've had a LEAF for almost 3 years now and it has been charged outside of my garage maybe a dozen times. My wife drives it to work every day.

It really depends on people's habits vs. the range of the cars they buy. We are seeing 200+ mile range on affordable cars (Model 3, Chevy Bolt.) If the standard range is that or higher then most people will not need a charging station outside of their garage.

The charging stations will still be convenient and people will ask for them for that reason, but they won't be necessary like they would be if we saw widespread adoption of the first generation LEAF with a realistic 60-80 mile range. Then more people would need a charging station at work to be able to commute. But that's not what's happening, so I think charging stations outside the home won't be necessary so much as desirable.

What will be needed for wider adoption is charging stations at apartment complexes and condos. That's one thing that is really holding EVs back and may hold non-homeowners back from being able to get them.

I have coworkers that drive the Leaf first and later gen. What they report to me is it works great until those times it doesn't work and you get stuck somewhere waiting hours to charge. Also, the cost of electricity is surprising to them as it is not as cheap (still cheaper usually than gas) as they expected.

Don't get me wrong, we are closer all the time to resolving all the concerns. I think we just rounding the bend. Hopefully Tesla and co will keep up the pressure for better alternatives.

Let's hope that the current government trends don't set us back years in the progress we are making.

I am optimistic that the electric trend has enough momentum that it will continue, but we have seen huge shifts in automotive tech happen before (for example, rubber tire conglomerates and freedom of cars shifted us away from mass transit in the past).

> it works great until those times it doesn't work and you get stuck somewhere waiting hours to charge

If you run out of charge and get stuck somewhere that's no more the Leaf's fault than it is a gasoline car's fault when you run out of gas.

In ~3 years that has happened exactly zero times to me or my wife.

> Also, the cost of electricity is surprising to them as it is not as cheap (still cheaper usually than gas) as they expected.

That varies based on where you live but for us it costs about $0.02/mile to drive the Leaf. Whereas our Honda CR-V which gets ~30 mpg costs about $0.08/mile right now. Gas prices are artificially low in the US right now, when they go back up it will be even more drastic (and of course if your car gets worse than 30mpg then it will be worse, or better if you get better mileage.) In order to reach $0.02/mile with a gas car I'd have to get 115mpg, though. (Gas is ~$2.30/gal in my town currently.)

> Let's hope that the current government trends don't set us back years in the progress we are making.

This is my main concern as well. Where I live the state government just passed a really regressive fee for EV registrations.

We need more charging stations

That is a solved problem

  Electricity is expensive

If you had a 100km*100km grid of easily maintained solar panels already manufactured and in operation, electricity is generated _without expense or by-products_

  Batteries and electric power have bad by products:

  1. heat generation

  2. by-products of manufacturing

  3. electricity generation by-products

Complete nonsense. We have 8 billion people driving cars that are decimating our air quality and have already drove the carbon cycle so many standard deviations from the mean levels in pre-industrial society that I am doomed to live on a scorched, dead earth. The negative effects of battery creation and usage are infinitesimal in comparison.

I am 22 years old. Because of society's slow uptake of carbon-neutral power generation and consumption, I will live through every consequence of past generation's short-sighted power decisions. The clathrate gun will happen before I am middle-aged. Your comment, complaining about things that are solved problems, is quite detached from the reality of Earth.

It's sad that you feel my comment was detached from your concerns. I sense you are upset about the world being left to you, and I can relate, I am not that much older than you are (35). I have all the same concerns.

I think you missed the point of my complaints, they aren't justifications for going against green tech, if anything, it's more like a list of obstacles to be solved. In your opinion, already done, so then we should be positive since you feel that way. Woohoo! No issue.

For the record, you should know that I have always been an ardent supporter of alternative/greener transportation, in fact, I put my money where my mouth is as much as humanely possible, which is why I drive a plug-in hybrid (I can't afford a full electric like a Tesla).

If my job wasn't 20 miles away, I would ride a bicycle or take public transit and forgo a car completely. Just not possible where I live.

Again, sorry you feel the way you do. I'm on your side.

Tesla doesn't need to compete with either of them. They just want to sell more cars. Any of a number of ways to do that.

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