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Comment by bitsoda | Hacker News Reader

If you're one of the people who put down the $1K refundable deposit, how do you feel about this page? I understand they're trying to push Model S sales, but don't do it at the expense of customers willing to wait years and put a hefty deposit down.

This strikes me as a rare misplay by Tesla. The Model 3 comes with a glass roof standard so it's conveniently left out of the premium options section -- that's pretty misleading. By the tone of the spec table, you'd think a well-equipped Corolla will be competitive with the Model 3.

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I'm one of those people. I think the deposit was put down in a moment of excitement, which has since died down quite a bit. Not only am I one of those people who gave them a deposit, I'm also likely one of those people who they meant to target: I drive a BMW 3-series, which would be the Model 3's main competitor.

Now given all that, this display made me really not excited about the Model 3. Electric car is nice but that's the only thing the Model 3 has going for it when compared to the 3 series. I don't see them emphasizing self driving and the acceleration is kind of just par for course, which shouldn't be the case for an electric car. Given Tesla's reputation for a Spartan interior, what am I getting out of it other than it being electric? The way I see it, I'm better off waiting a few more years to see if things improve. My current 328i has given me 5 years of good driving and no headache at all. Better integrating with smartphones would be great but the latest 3-series offers that as an option already.

So I have to wonder, why a Model 3 over a 3-series?

Personally I could never drive a ICE car when an equivalent electric vehicle presented itself. I would never forgive myself. Everyone needs to get to electric cars as soon as possible or we cook and die here on Earth. It makes the arguments about the interior seem really tone deaf. Again, personally.

EDIT: Autopilot and constant software updates are huge.

I think your response is a bit narrow and takes my response out of context. It also ignores a number of other issues to make electric cars look better than they really are.

1. Electric cars use a lot of copper and lithium. Mining of both are horribly polluting. The worst EPA superfund site is a former copper mine. Lithium mining is also pretty bad. However they are at least localized.

Electric cars still need power, most of which still comes from carbon emitting sources. Until the world switches to renewables, electric cars still generate carbon indirectly. California and other areas are much better about this but Tesla Model 3 customers don't all live in CA.

2. I was trying to answer the initial question from the perspective of a potential customer of the Model 3. If someone is as passionate about the carbon emitting issue as you, they can already do that with Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, or Chevy Volt. They don't need to wait nor pay more for the the Tesla Model 3. So within that context, the other things that make BM3 3-series what it is matters. These things include the interior, etc.

3. BMW already do updates over the air but not nearly at the rate that Tesla does. Tesla really has embraced software whereas other carmakers treat it as an overhead. I really hate how Autopilot is presented. It's not really self-driving because they keep telling you to be involved in the driving process. Until they can confidently say it's completely autonomous, it's more of a novelty than an useful feature.

Edited: Kudos for being so passionate about the issue. It does matter to me and which is why I still haven't completely dismissed the Model 3 as a choice.

To be fair on #1, even considering the entire supply chain and lifecycle of an EV vs ICE, the EV comes out WAY ahead of the ICE in terms of carbon impact. Even better if you have solar panels on your roof, or live in a place like California that has a significant amount of renewables in the main grid.

As someone who uses the autopilot v1 constantly, for me it really isn't a novelty feature. Driving 6-7 hours on motorway/highway, the car drives 80-90% of the way. Yes, I have to pay attention and supervise the car, but I am definitely less tired at the end of the drive.

Edit: spelling

That's a really good insight. Having never experienced that, I would have never imagined how the middle ground between full attention and complete autonomous driving could be a good place. That's definitely something for me to keep in mind.

Tesla reported that air bags being triggered dropped by 40% when they turned on the autonomous braking. Do you consider that "a novelty"?

Autonomous braking is collision avoidance, not 'autopilot' - it's widely available

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system#Lis...

Hey thanks for the reply. Sounds like you've also thought quite a bit about this. I'd like to offer my thoughts on your numbered points.

For 1, you're right, we have to mine minerals to get these cars to work. I'm not really sure how much more polluting the production of Lithium and copper is compared to steel, but I assume it's bad. However in the long term I assume most of those polluting mining processes could be electric, could they not? The point is that long term you could make mining those minerals completely clean.

For 2, you're right there are plenty of electric cars you can buy right now. And obviously Tesla interiors aren't terrific, we all know that. The main reason I would choose Tesla is that EVs are their bread and butter. Chevy and Nissan have an interest in keeping ICE cars going, so supporting them doesn't align with the goal of making all cars electric long term.

For 3, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with Tesla being a software company where other companies see software as a cost center. As far as the autopilot goes, you should cut Tesla a little bit of slack, because while their software is not true-to-the-name autopilot, they are also limited by regulators with how much freedom they can give the driver to rely on the software. So in many places where autopilot falls short of being true autopilot, it's likely due to regulators holding them back.

So that's my take on things. I'm in my early 20s, and I take you to be a gen Xer. You know, as an aside, I am really disheartened by Gen X's lack of passion for climate change, no offense to you. I love HackerNews but I get a little sad when I see people blow it off. I strongly believe that how we handle this climate disaster will define humanity's fate in the 21st century, but coming here people seem very relaxed about the whole thing. Oh well. Cheers.

Haha. Not really, I'm actually a millenial (on the older end of the spectrum though). I can see what you may think I'm Gen X though. It may surprise you to know that I'm actually an environmentalist as well. I was definitely more active and passionate about it when I was younger. Time and other priorities have dulled my passion over time -- regrettably.

"EDIT: Autopilot and constant software updates are huge."

Huge, unknown unknowns and huge attack surface, respectively.

Look, as the owner of an Audi A8 that had all kinds of MMI/Nav/Audio bugs, I very, very much appreciate the idea of frequent and iterative software updates - they were desperately needed.

Never once did I ever wish they were provided automatically, over a network connection. Never once did I wish the car even had a network connection.

A lot of hard lessons are going to be learned over the next decade. I would prefer that people learned these lessons with their idiotic wifi refrigerators and not on public roads.

> I drive a BMW 3-series, which would be the Model 3's main competitor.

See my other comments about how at the Tesla store they describe the Model 3 as a competitor to the Civic and Corolla, not the BMW and Lexus.

Oh wow.

Do they really think they can succeed with that? A Civic is a LOT cheaper than a Model 3. If Tesla can drive Model 3's price to be competitive with the Civic, then they really, really deserve a lot of accolade. A world with electric Civics would be a huge step forward for the world.

I think they are hoping to capitalize on the folks that want electric to save the planet or find the autopilot software worth paying extra for.

Civics have autopilot, too.

Yes, but how many lives has it saves per million miles driven?

I honestly care less about the all-electric than the autopilot features. Don't really want to spend 100k on a car, but want it to drive for me.

Just because you like driving doesn't mean it won't see something before you do. 12 or so cameras, ultrasound, and radar might well draw attention to something before you'd notice it otherwise. Even 0.5 seconds warning might well significantly decrease the severity of a crash or even avoid it.

The move obvious example is when a car two cars in front of a tesla had an accident and the telsa warned about it before most people would have noticed.

A decent chance of decreasing the severity of a collision or even avoiding it.

Meh. I put down a deposit because I wanted to keep my options open and if I didn't I probably wouldn't be able to get one before Tesla runs out of tax credits. When it comes out, we'll see what the actual specs are.

My main concerns about the Model 3 are that 1) I don't like the privacy and security implications of an always-on Internet connection, 2) it is yet to be seen how open Tesla is about service/maintenance documentation for the Model 3, and 3) I have some doubts about whether I'll like looking over to the right to see the instruments.

Tesla's model 3 versus model S page doesn't give me any insight into any of those concerns.

I have put down the deposit and don't really care until final unveiling. I understand their goals in upselling Model 3 reservation holders.

I don't really mind that the $1000 is holding my position in line at Tesla. Otherwise it would sit useless in my bank account.

It is a bit depressing how they downsell the Model 3, but I'm hoping it's just their weird strategy. If some people pull their deposits then even better, I can get my car sooner :P

But I definitely won't be buying before test driving it.

I waited in line to reserve a model 3. Pretty disappointed by the news lately.

It's pretty much a given that the first release will have some problems but add onto that the complete bareness of the model 3 base model and I'm scratching my head whether this is worth it.

If it's going to be close to 50k for a model 3 with autopilot I'm probably going to cancel. EVs are nice but I don't have loads of cash to throw at them.

I lined up pre-reveal to put my preorder in but I've already basically decided it's not for me. Looks kind of bland and the interior appears like it might be ridiculously spartan and the 4wd and performance versions are quite a way off, and their build quality will probably leave a lot to be desired for a while.

> you'd think a well-equipped Corolla will be competitive with the Model 3.

When I was at the Tesla store, this is what they said. Their exact words were, "Think of it as an electric Honda Civic".

Glass roof is standard on Model S too now...

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