Tesla Faces Accelerating Rate of Model 3 Refunds | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Faces Accelerating Rate of Model 3 Refunds

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221 pointsartsandsci445 comments

As somebody who got refunded: As much as I want to support Elon, I later realized the full total cost of the car (having a garage, doing the maintenance,..) wasn’t in my budget and that it’s simply better to invest in a lifestyle where I just don’t need a car. Interrestingly, I had the same conclusion about buying an house versus renting a appartment.

So you decided to not have a house or apartment?

If you live in an older condo building with an uncooperative board, and physical challenges/long distances related to surface mounted conduit routing in the underground parking garage, it could be $8,000 of licensed electrician work to run a new 240VAC circuit to your single parking spot.

edit: there are also a number of people who have street parking only. Look at any older neighborhood, it could range from Queen Anne hill in Seattle, to many parts of Boston. Houses may have neither garages nor alleyways.

One of the things they did with the Model 3 was to improve the efficiency of 120V charging, partly for that reason. Trivia: In Canada, the CEC since 2012 requires a NEMA 5-20 outlet for EV charging at a minimum, and with the Model 3 6-7 miles per hour with it is not uncommon.

It's still not going to be able to pull anything more than about 1700W from a 120V 15A circuit. Maybe slightly more efficient but the bottleneck is the amperage capacity of the circuit. Think of 120V charging as exactly like a hair dryer.

AFAIK for EV charging it is ~1400W for a 15A outlet and ~1900W for a 20A outlet (because the load is continuous), and the difference between the two for the Model 3 is probably around two miles per hour or so.

Correct, assuming a dedicated circuit in the US, code dictates that it'd be 1440W and 1920W for a 15A and 20A outlet, respectively. Continuous loads can only pull 80% of the max circuit load.

In theory, you could also run a 100% rated breaker to pull more power, but the car would have to be able to support it as well.

We use 120 to charge our leaf. It charges at 4 miles per hour. Plug it in after a typical 40 mile day and it is ready in the morning.

Some government agency is likely to step in and make this illegal, right? Just like the FCC allows me to put up a satellite dish no matter what my landlord or condo board says?

AFAIK some states have such laws, but apartment 120V charging will still likely be the mainstream in the short term. Especially as apartment dwellers are likely to live closer to work for example, not to mention the cost if every parking spot had it (there is even power sharing with EVSEs).

Don't count your chickens before they hatch. The government already stepped in to make sure that you had to pay $8k for an electrician to get the job done (actually you're probably paying for the licensed electrician to send out an apprentice to to the job). It's all about who's special interest group hires the better lobbyist.

The state laws I have seen don't dictate the exact cost, though there may be other issues like unions which applies to many kinds of electrical work.

I'm just saying that just because your side is "right" doesn't mean the other side doesn't have a better lobbyist.

Palo Alto has such a law.

I decided that it’s better for me to rent for now mostly to be totally free of any loan.

Also, I can optimize for lifestyle changes more easily (choosing to have a garden or not, living with more people or less, moving to a more luxirious or a cheaper condo based on my earnings,...)

I recently made that decision too. I sold my car and now never have to worry about parking. Uber and renting a car is substantially cheaper.

I see people say this all the time, but how is this possible? Do you work from home? I only live a few miles from work and Uber would still way out-expense a car payment, gas, and insurance...and even then, my car is worth a few thousand at the end, at least.

Not that I've seriously pursued this angle but napkin math tells me it would either break even or cost more to Uber.

> I only live a few miles from work

Bike?

Sure, but I was talking about Uber vs owning your own vehicle.

I used to Uber in the morning and take the bus home in the evening. Came out to less than $350 a month, including the bus pass. Not sure how that compares to a car payment plus insurance and everything else since I've never owned a car.

What I will say is that I was in a car incident while I was taking a ride share (competitor of Uber) and for me it'd be worth it just to not have to deal with the aftermath of something like that.

I can use Amtrak to visit family, which I greatly prefer to Chicago traffic. I walk to work and can use Uber with my company's pre-tax benefits when I need to go somewhere else. I don't have to pay for parking, which is pretty expensive and my driving insurance is half what it used to be. For the 4-5 times a year I actually want to drive I can easily rent a car. Uber pool is also pretty cheap if you are not in a hurry. Plus if I am desperate I can take public transportation. But at one point when I had a nonwalking commute I realized Uber pool was roughly the same cost as public transportation and much more comfortable. I probably pay 75 on Uber a month, plus the 25 for insurance. Vs 140 on parking and 68 on insurance. Car rental is 100.

Wouldn’t the appropriate parallel be renting a car? A rented apartment has zero value next month if you don’t pay for it; meanwhile a car and an installed charger would presumably have some value next month.

Cars depreciate, just like housing requires maintenance: https://affordanything.com/is-renting-better-than-buying-sho.... Housing does not automatically appreciate, though artificial limits on the supply of housing in some metros can temporarily make it feel as if it does.

Unless you're talking about renting vs buying the car, I still don't see the parallel. "Whether or not I should rent this shelter" has little to do with any of the concerns of "do I need a car at all?"

I just faced this issue of lease, finance, or mobility. I went for the latter since I don't want to go for the hassle of parking, fuel, and maintenance anymore. Further, I believe it's better for the environment.

I think this is key.

A lot of people got completely trumped on the supposedly low-price of 35k$. This is where the magical Charisma of Musk played so well.

At the end of the day, it is closer to a 60k$ car than a 35k$ car (not even accounting for tax-money helping people to buy it cheaper). And if you really think about it, I cannot see how you can justify the model3 being worth 60k$ !

you got sold on a 35k$ car, and before you know it, you spend 60k$

Do you mean because Tesla isn't yet building the base models?

because the car will be so bare down at the sticker price of 35k$ that most people will take some of the upgrades (for things you would expect out of the box for other cars at that price tag).

https://mashable.com/2017/08/01/tesla-model-3-true-cost-more...

But it’s the same for all other cars. If you look at a base Audi or bmw, they are also pretty empty for their starting price

There aren't any mainstream cars that base at $35K and option for $30K higher. Name a make and model.

Nissan GT-R.

Base is $99,990.

Premium edition is $110,490.

Track Edition is $128,490.

Finally, there's NISMO edition, $175,490. With all the options, nearly $183,000.

https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/sports-cars/gt-r/build-pr...

EDIT: Of course, a Nissan GT-R isn't even the same market as a Model 3, so I'm not sure you could really use it as an example.

There are many. It comes down to what you define as an option, but if we use Tesla's definition as "the same model":

- Camaro. Base: $27k. Fully loaded: Above $70k. Of course, this is mainly because it goes from a 2.0L turbo 4 to a 6.2L turbo V8, but then again, a motor upgrade is also available as an "option" on the Model 3 so... Its the same model, same platform.

- Mercedes C300. Base: $40k. Fully Loaded: Above $70k. No engine or platform changes, exact same trim level, just options; exterior trim, premium leather, sound system, tech, etc.

- BMW 3-Series. Base: $35k. Fully Loaded: $65k. Both an engine and drivetrain upgrade included.

- Ford Mustang GT. Base: $35k. Fully Loaded: $55k. Not as drastic, but significant because again no engine change; Ford sells both a premium "trim", a complete interior upgrade, and a performance pack that modifies things like the diff ratio, bodywork, etc.

Yeah that is not the same as a Model 3 comparison.

With the Model 3 you were led to believe a $35K car existed, but it never did.

A C300 4 banger will be not be confused with a AMG C63s before ordering.

The C300 in that example is not a C63s. Its a C300 completely optioned out. Same model. Same engine. Most of the cost comes in exterior options (which are often borrowed from the AMG models), interior comfort (ultra quality leather seats), and tech (premium speakers, some form of autonomous driving).

And that's just what is on their website. Especially with BMW, you can go wild at the dealers with customization. You can turn a $40k car into a $100k car easily, just with factory options.

Again, no. Just because you can dump a bunch of roof accessories and floor mats into a C300 doesn't qualify it for a $30K increase that you are mislead to believe.

Also, I don't know if you've ever bought a car, but you just can't add all the options up on a car's build page and obtain the highest possible price. Many of those options are redundant and cancel each other out when you run down the line and click on them (packages). What's your $100K C300 build link?

You have to be very naive to think that even a $40K BASE model car options to a hundred grand "easily".

Remember, we're discussing the lie that the Model 3 is. That it's a $35K vehicle that will ship mid to late 2017.

- BMW 3-series vs a fully loaded M3 is like 35K to almost 90K - Audi A4 vs S4 can be 30K added - probably any base luxury model has a huge sport upgrade path. The GT-R used to be a Nissan Skyline upgrade.

Challenge accepted. BMW 320i base is $34k. BMW 340i xDrive with all the trimmings is a hair over $60k.

How bare down? Is a base Model 3 much more bare than a 320i?

How about each with $5k in upgrades? 10k?

> And if you really think about it, I cannot see how you can justify the model3 being worth 60k$ !

I agree with everything you said but that statement. What in your opinion constitutes a 60k car?

I am always amazed by luxury cars whenever I ride in them, not by how nice they are, but by how they're just tacky "luxurious" material cladding slapped on a cheaper car. Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus, Acura, and Chrysler cars are just Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, and Dodge cars covered in tacky leather and lick&stick wood paneling costing 30k more.

You’re forgetting about performance. Cadillac and Lexus are usually rear wheel drive or all wheel drive and quite a bit faster than their non-luxury counterparts. And all of them have more technology than the non-luxury brands.

The power train and drive train can be different as you pointed out, and sometimes they're not. One of the upgrades for the Model 3 is to the power train and drive train as well.

As for technology, eh... maybe.

Safety features like airbags, backup cameras, ESC and anti-lock brakes are now mandatory on most smaller cars. Lane departure, dynamic cruise, blind spot detection, and huds are becoming standard features on most mid sized cars. Newer features like Super Cruise are optional just like Auto Pilot in the Model 3.

I don't think the entertainment or nav packages in any car are worth it. I would actually consider paying extra for them to remove it and instead put a shelf for my phone with a USB port.

For comparison, I was considering a Model 3 last summer. I had an old small truck that had broken down and was renting an Altima. I couldn't wait for the Model 3 reservation, so I got a certified pre-owned Camry Hybrid. It included a 7 year warranty and 8 year battery warranty, and I added an additional maintenance warranty. I had chosen an XLE, with all of the features I wanted and many more.

I drove the car home that day, and paid $3000 less than the theoretical base Model 3 would cost. The car gets 30-45 MPG consistently, so uses about twice the energy of a Model 3, and is limited to more expensive but more ubiquitous gasoline for fuel. But this is also okay as I'm in an apartment and have no charger at work.

I think some forget that the competition for the Model 3 is wider than just EVs. Lower fuel and maintenance costs are only worth so much.

How much does gas and maintenance cost you? Also, Model 3s will be available used eventually too. Obviously if you want a used car you can't get a newly invented model.

I paid for an extra maintenance package, so I believe I'll only have to pay for tires and paint for the next several years. The 14 gallon tank gives more than 500 miles of range, so I fill up about twice a month - about $1000-$1200 a year.

I'm very interested in adding batteries to my Camry Hybrid in the long run, to increase its battery range, and hopefully add plug-in functionality. The biggest question is where to put the batteries. In the 2018 model, they added one underneath the rear seat.

Conversely I don't need a new car and I'm unsure if we'll actually buy a Model 3 when our reservation comes up. Chances are that we won't because new cars, not just Tesla's, are ridiculously expensive and you get much better value for your dollar with used cars. However I still have my reservation because I believe in what Tesla is/has done and I strongly want them to succeed because I feel that if they fail it will give auto manufacturers an excuse to stop producing EVs. I feel so strongly that we need to get off the ICE and into EVs that I just might buy a new Model 3 solely to support an ideal even if it will put an excess burden on myself.

Lexus quality is nothing like a Toyota. Sure, it's the same core architecture, but the refinement is a league above. Driving a Lexus feels like gliding in a spaceship, and the interior comforts are more comfortable. I assume the other luxury cars are similar.

I wouldn't buy one, but I've driven one.

You would be surprised how much of that driving feel can be tuned in software or with relatively inexpensive suspension components.

The interior comforts are variable but I am always surprised by what passes as luxury in some makes. The BMW and Lexus cars I have driven are definitely on the nicer side but still not that impressive.

I can recall ever saying "wow this is impressive", the best has been "everyone should be doing this" but mostly it's just disappointment.

There will be the standard range battery model released later this year with a $35,000 price tag. In the U.S. after the $7,500 federal tax credit, the final price should be well below $30,000.

Tesla is focusing on producing the higher priced versions first in order to have the cash flow to produce the standard model.

If Tesla wanted to start with producing the standard model first, they probably would have needed a very large cash infusion with unfavorable terms. There are definitely conflicting opinions on this but they have chosen a slightly more conservative route in order to not put the business at risk. The end result is we have to wait a bit longer for the standard model, and as such some people may feel obliged to cancel their order, or even be upsold to a more expensive model 3 or even an S/X.

Do you think the tax credit will still be around by the time Tesla ships a $35000 model 3? That's going to be a narrow buying window!

Probably not the full credit, unless you have a spot in line already. The phase out starts during the quarter when the company hits 200,000 total deliveries. If we assume this is going to be July 1st, then the $7,500 credit is good for Q3 and Q4. This takes us to December 31st.

At this point, the credit is reduced to $3,750 for 6 months and then to $1,875 for 6 months.

Using a lot of speculation and extrapolation, I would estimate that if someone placed an order now and wanted a standard model they would still probably be able to hit either the $3,750 or $1,875 credits.

It's worth noting that the sense of a lot of media is that Congress is going to remove the cap before GM hits it, which is not so different from when Tesla is going to hit it.

And before you think it's a partisan thing, there is significant quiet Republican support for the credit.

Yes, I think it is because it will be kind of weird when U.S. automakers GM and Tesla hit the cap first and they are at a “disadvantage” as compared to the European and Asian automakers.

>not even accounting for tax-money helping people to buy it cheaper

Not accounting for the investors subsidizing it, either!

Is the Model 3 sold at a loss? I'm pretty sure the Model S was, but haven't heard anything definitive about the 3. Except for Elon Musk's comments, which I don't trust for a second.

If you looked at the price range of the Model S, then interpolated for the base Model 3 price, it's not hard to imagine the price of the configuration that you would be buying. Without going to the P model, the price of a Model S goes up 50% just with options. Extrapolating for the Model 3, base price of $35k means you are looking at $50k without a performance model, just with some options added.

If those numbers are painful, you really shouldn't be in the market formthis car in the first place. If a car costs more than ⅓ your annual income, you probably shouldn't be buying it.

EVs have lower maintenance costs than traditional cars. Over the 6 years I've owned a Volt, I've only had to take it into the shop a total of 3 times for oil changes, and another 6 times for general tire maintenance. The Model 3 should be the same.

I'm pretty sure the Model 3 car charger is tax deductible as well.

The only real caveat is that you need to own a house and most likely a garage, though I know there are many EV owners who have outdoor consumer chargers.

I was just talking to someone last week who installed a Tesla charger in the common garage of their condo complex, in front of their assigned spot. The condo hooked it up to the unit's electric meter so that they could get billed for the energy.

> The only real caveat is that you need to own a house and most likely a garage

Not necessarily. I own a Leaf and can make it to and from work (50 miles) with range to spare. I usually charge up at work, at cost, just to have that extra mileage for incidental need after work since I don't have L2 at home. It costs about $30 a month for me to do that which is less than 1/4 what I use to pay in gas.

I work in downtown Atlanta and many work places offer free charging stations. There are plenty of DC Fast Chargers around the metro area in convenient places like grocery stores where you spent 15+ minutes or more shopping.

With a higher range EV, like a Tesla, I think it would be pretty easy to get by without ever charging at home.

In most climates, you really do need a garage. I'm in southern Ontario, and we have neighbours with an electric Soul. They really like it, but they do have to do all kinds of goofy hacks to deal with the charger getting iced into the car on winter nights— stuff like wrapping a towel around the handle and then pouring a warm kettle over it.

I recently bought a used Volt, and man do I think it's such a shame this car gets so much less press than Tesla.

I think it's a great car, and when you think about it, it's a much better fit for the majority of people's lifestyles. My commute is short enough so that I rarely need to use gas. One tank has lasted me 3 months so far and I haven't even used half the tank yet. However, it's great knowing that I can use it when needed, and thus I never get "range anxiety".

Also, since the electric range on my Volt is 40 miles, I didn't need to install any special electrical equipment. I just charge it on a normal 110 volt outlet (I set the charging to 12 amps which is fine on this outlet because it's the only thing on it) and it easily charges overnight.

I really do think the Volt merges the best of both worlds, and while I do think that all-electric is the future, for the time-being a plug-in hybrid is really a better option for most people IMO.

Is there any concern around having a tank full of gas so old? Do you add a stabilizer to keep it from going stale?

If it does run often enough to burn the fuel, the generator will actually turn on solely for that reason.

His point is that gas spoils. It polymerizes creating a bunch of hunk that clogs the fuel lines

would be a good idea to run a good fuel preserver in the gas

https://www.goldeagle.com/product/sta-bil-fuel-stabilizer/ (no affiliation, I just have old cars in storage)

This mostly happens in the presence of air. As long as the gas tank is tightly sealed, this isn’t an issue. I drive a BMW i3, I regularly have a tank of gas sloshing around for months with no issues.

All of the plug-in hybrids run maintenance cycles every month or so to ensure that the motor turns over and some fuel goes through the injectors.

His point is that gas spoils. It polymerizes creating a bunch of hunk that clogs the fuel lines

This is something that post-apocalypse fiction usually gets wrong. After a year you would probably not be able to grab any random abandoned car and drive it (even if the battery held charge)

Yeah, and the old jeeps in Jurassic World have 20 year old batteries and 20 year old fuel, and a couple of kids got one of them working again.

If you find non-oxygenated gas, that shouldn't be a problem. Ethanol based gas will go bad faster, and have issues starting in cold weather.

This x1000. I’m in my 2nd used Volt and I’ll probably be driving one for the rest of my life. Such a fun car.

I finally got a 40 watt charger installed in my garage and will sometimes fully recharge 3 times in a day.

> 40 watt charger

Didn’t realize there was a Volt RC car — I’m sure the kids love playing with it!

Whoops :)

Interesting. I've always been attracted to the idea of the Volt, but having both an ICE and EV components struck me as worst of all worlds when it comes to maintenance. I take it you haven't found that to be the case? Do you have to go to the dealership or can a typical auto shop handle routine maintenance on it?

The Volt's ICE is only used as a generator. That's much better from a maintenance standpoint, if you compare connecting two engines to the drivetrain (like a Prius).

This isn't correct. Both the older gen 1 Volts and the newer Volts with the "Voltec" powertrain can directly drive the wheels from the engine, and in fact this is actually much more common with the Voltec powertrain. This article gives a great summary: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096942_2016-chevrolet-... .

Most people who own a Volt buy it with the plan of using the ICE as little as possible. Thus, if you use it, say, 20% of the time, you'd only have 40k miles of ICE driving after 200k miles of total driving. An ICE with 40k miles on should need very little in terms of maintenance.

Camry Hybrid engine gets an oil change and other maintenance every 10k miles.

They have a 5k mile checkup between the 10k, but that's mostly to straighten your floor mats and make sure they're locked in place. (Toyota had an unintended acceleration lawsuit years ago, partly due to the floor mat blocking the brake pedal.)

Just the dealership. I don't feel there's enough demand for technicians who know how to deal with a Volt outside of a dealership. Even dealers don't have a lot of techs who can deal with a Volt, which is why you always need an appointment for one. Of course, given that it rarely needs maintenance I don't have any issues with going to a dealer. I could be wrong but the real maintenance costs for EVs start around years 7 or 8.

I've owned my Volt for about a year now, it's frankly been the best car i've ever owned. I'm -shocked- that these things aren't selling better, on the used market it's probably one of the best values on the vehicle market today next to the leaf. I have the new gen with ~ 65 mile range in Florida. I visit a gas station -maybe- once every 3 months, and it's only when i'm doing a drive over to Orlando or the east coast.

I think Tesla's are beautiful and have set the bar, but if you want a capable & cheap alternative, look at a used BMW i3. Resale value sunk for many reasons but has bottomed.

<salesman>I bought a 2016 fully-loaded REX with 5,000 miles for under $25K, sticker was $58K. Factory warranty for 4 years, 8 years on the battery. Fastest BMW from 0-40mph. This thing flies for urban commuters. It comes with a charger that can plug into a conventional socket which can be nice for people who don't have the means to install a 240v. Fun to hack with BimmerCode to customize all sorts of stuff. My big complaint is the rear door system is awkward. It also rides a little high so I put 1" lowering springs and 15mm wheel spacers which greatly improved handling.</salesman>

I'm also interested in testing the Jaguar iPace. By most performance measures, its beaten the Model X.

but, but, the range :-(

It's actually probably fine for most people, but I have a long commute and it wouldn't cut it for me sadly.

The Range Extender means you can drive across United States without depending on the grid; the REX is a gas re-generator. The BimmerCode hack(s) makes it more enjoyable to actually go the distance. I now have a combined 140 miles per charge and ~2.5L gas reserve. There is a popular i3 Facebook Group where people log their long distance drives.

All of that said, my average commute is 10 miles so I'm purely electric about 95% of the time unless I forget to plugin. I got the REX because I thought the resell would be better in Texas.

The i3 has a "BEV" version that is much cheaper but more limited in its range; newer models are getting better tho.

The aesthetics of the BMW i3 are poor. Is that why resale value dropped?

Aesthetics are 100% subjective.

I think it's a fine looking car.

Whether something looks "good" is subjective. But you can't deny that the REX looks different from typical cars.

Subjective != arbitrary.

Yes, it's a clown car but I'm okay with that. Resale dropped due to federal tax credits and BMWs aggressive leasing plans.

For me, it was an experiment to try EV and I'm 100% sold. It also pushed me to go full solar on the home we're building. Rather make an environmental impact than a status statement.

If they made it look like any other BMW I think it would be a nice ride. I guess they may feel that dilutes the value of their other product lines?

$25k is still a bit much for a car that tiny. What you really want is a used Leaf that has bottom out at around $5000-$8000 for great condition specimens and drive great.

A used, low-mile i3 BEV (comparable to Leaf) is around $10-15k. I bought the REX which gives me 'unlimited' distance.

We got a ford focus electric it looks nicer than the frog face leaf and is zippy to. Almost like new was $16k and it works great as a local second car. But the range is really low, you can’t go more than 25-30 miles away from home. Still, we love it for what it is and does.

25-30 mile range is getting down to the point where a ~1500 e-bike would be almost as practical, unless you've got kids.

Or you live in a place with, you know, weather.

$14k buys a lot of hot cocoa

$16k on a small vehicle that can't take you more than 30 miles from home... yikes.

A Leaf is a glorified golf cart. If you can't afford a Tesla, the next best bet is a Chevy Bolt which has a 250 mile range and not a golf-cart range. (Also, you're buying American, if that's important to you)

Can go even less. I bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf with 19k miles for $8,500.

Just be careful if you’re in a cold climate. A buddy owned one and had to charge his leaf at Nissan dealerships in the cold to make it home after work - and if I recall right, his commute wasn’t more than 15mi/way.

That doesn't sound right. That's only 30 miles, total. This should be easily doable even with the cabin heater + battery heater at high highway speeds. Was this Leaf's battery healthy?

https://www.fleetcarma.com/nissan-leaf-chevrolet-volt-cold-w...

Seems like if it gets cold enough it might be a problem.

Those graphs show a 50 mile range on the Leaf. That’s still enough sub 0F to get me to work and back, twice.

This makes sense - for whatever inane reason (I'm not going to outright say it's malfeasance), Nissan chose to not include active thermal management for their Leaf line of cars. Even the one they sell today only has less effective cooling.

This means that older Leafs have a greatly reduced range. Even my budget Ford Focus EV 2017 ($16k negotiated cap cost) has active thermal management for the battery pack so I might keep it off-lease.

Keep in mind, the Leaf came out 1-2 years before the Model S, and and less that 1/2 the price. It uses totally different style of batteries. Probably all cost cutting. But yeah, cooling would be nice. They did some redesign for 2015, but it is still air cooled.

Sure, but why does the 2018 Leaf not have active thermal management for their battery pack?

If my compliance-car Ford POS has it, surely the top-selling EV in history should have it by it's 2nd version model.

I live in Kansas, and have driven it sub 0F with no issues.

Leaf is my daily commuter. I inflated the tires to 42-44psi and got the extra mileage out of that. The recommended tire of 35psi is way too low too.

That's amazing. I assume that includes (implicitly) $10k federal plus CA tax credit plus $11k depreciation on a base S model.

How old was it when you bought it?

I bought it used in 1/17, so under 2 years old. Base model with QC port. No tax credits available as it was used. Though between the $7,500 federal and $10k KCP&L (I live in KS) rebate, I could have bought a new 2017 for under $15k.

The asshat Nissan dealers wouldn’t budge on list price, so screw buying new. There is a guy locally who only sells used Leafs, as a bunch came off leases, and he flips them from auctions.

http://www.forgetfuel.com

There are lots of Leafs and Model S around Kansas City. I’m sure we have the best charging network in the country.

IMO nothing beats a slightly used Volt.

Yeah, but GM products are not exactly fashionable among people shopping for Tesla alternatives.

And the i3 is? That's one of the ugliest cars on the market.

It's not about the look of the car for BMW owners, it's just about the price tag and the name on the badge.

I thought the i3 was a pretty affordable BMW esp if you can get the rebates.

I think you may fall into the category of people I was referring to, if you think $45k for a slow, base model car is no big deal.

An ugly German luxury car is still a German luxury car.

the (v|b)olt has horrible charging infrastructure.

It doesn't matter for the Volt. Since it has a range extender, there's no real need for fast charging. Just charging it every night from a 120V outlet will eliminate most gas usage for most people. If you run out of charge, it's an annoyance rather than a disaster.

I can't speak to the Bolt since I've never seen one.

I've test driven a bolt and done the diligence on it.

It needs 4 (FOUR) days to charge on a standard outlet. If you happen to own a house, you can have the higher amp outlet installed for like 2k.

Otherwise, good luck finding a fast charging station for GM cars. They don't exist.

It depends on your mileage. 4days to fully recharge from empty, if you are on a road trip (which you obviously couldn't do in a Bolt). But overnight it will charge 50miles, which covers local daily use.

It is a ridiculously well engineered car. Way more power than the competition, bigger battery than the competition. The 2009 model is still technically ahead of all the other plugins on the market.

> wheel spacer > improved handling

X) doubt

Having previously owned a used BMW: I wouldn't touch a BMW without a warranty with a 20ft pole. I mean... The only way to realign the headlights if they get thrown off for some reason is to pay the dealership $200+ because they can't self correct and the only tool that can access the headlight controllers is BMW proprietary. Run, run while you can.

>Having previously owned a used BMW: I wouldn't touch a BMW without a warranty with a 20ft pole.

Yeah, i'd agree if we were talking about traditional cars, and this comes from someone who has wrenched on every bolt of their BMW.

As far as the DIY repair-ability of BMW's electric cars? About the same as every other electric car -- which is to say 'near-zero', unless we're talking about wiper blade replacement level stuff.

To be clear, are you saying you're okay with a lack of repairability in BMW electric cars because that's standard for electrics? You're free to your perspective, but I find it a little odd. My reaction would be to simply not buy any electric cars at all. Is there any reason why the owner shouldn't be able to realign headlights in an electric car when they are able to do so with ICE cars?

I’m sure they are referring to the fact that electric cars need very little maintenance.

Electric cars might need very little maintenance during the first few years of operation, but why should I be needlessly locked out from making repairs on my own vehicle? We've let car companies create what will end up being massive hunks of useless metal and batteries, all because we won't properly regulate them to ensure end users can work on their own cars and extend their useful lives.

That right there is why current electric cars are far from green, if it ain't repairable, its trashcan ready. Trashcan ready products are the anti-thesis of environmentally sound products.

That's true to a bigger extent with ICE's than with Electric cars.

There is very little you can repair in an electric car, Its basically a battery, motor, electronics and software, and that's a plus, not a negative.

Why do you want repair something that shouldn't even exist at the first place?

Many of the issues I've had with German vehicles were not related to the ICE. These are the issues I faced in 100k miles of German car ownership: Window motor, Parasitic draw, Blower motor, Headlight ballast, Wheel bearing, Strut mount bushings, Sunroof drain channel

My BMW ran for 107k miles, only repair until now - headlight lamps for $20, self-replaced. BMWs built after 2005 are extremely reliable.

There is not as much to have fail in an electric car, but that shouldn't mean I lose the right to repair a vehicle I own. Rebuilding batteries isn't new to me, nor is compiling software.

Why should Tesla be allowed to brick every electric car that gets in a fender bender, or refuse to sell parts for cars once the vehicle is out of warranty? A lack of enforcement of the right to repair has driven repair costs on Tesla's vehicles sky high, causing their vehicles to have notably more expensive insurance premiums.

Sure the engine needs less maintenance (at least that's the claim), but there's more to the car than that. Besides the specific example was for realigning headlights and I'm not sure why the maintenance of something like that should be different for an electric car.

Because servicing and spare parts are a huge business. And unless some one is specifically looking to disrupt that part of the business. Its in their interest to keep the charges for something like that high.

I believe you misunderstood me. My original question was why serf was okay with an electric car having this lack or repairability vs one with an ICE when the specific repairability question involves something like realigning headlights which has nothing to do with ICE or not. Of course you're right that manufacturers are more than happy to extract extra money from consumers through such servicing agreements, but that has nothing to do with my question. Besides that reasoning applies to manufactures of ICE vehicles as well so your point is honestly totally irrelevant.

Oh man though a BMW without a warranty though... once it hits that... the cost of repairs has to skyrocket and resale has to drop like a rock.

It's an electric car. They are usually reliable until the battery or drive train fails, at which point they can be used as excellent chicken coops. Things like brakes, body, electrics should be fixable on the cheap by regular non-brand shops.

Those aren't the expensive parts on a BMW, look up what a headlight assembly runs for instance.

The body has a high portion of elements made of carbon fibers. Depending on the damage it can very quickly be a total write-off.

i3 resale value sunk because it's ugly as sin.

It's like BMW didn't get the memo that electric cars don't have to look like electric cars anymore.

i3 was an early one.

Not early enough for that to be an excuse for BMW. It looks like it was “inspired by” the style of a neon rubber G3 iBook.

Next year's electric X3 doesn't look that much different from the normal X3.

With that argument the Model 3s resale value should be "we give you 1000 Dollar extra if you take it from our hands. PLEASE?!"

Why, what's wrong with the model 3 (tesla or BMW)? They're both pretty benign looking IMO.

I had never seen one. Googled. Exactly as described.

I thought the same. But over time the look has grown on me. I think the 2018 model looks really good. The interior is especially nice. It's the only game in town if you want an affordable RWD (fun) electric drive.

Or a Chevy Bolt!

> Fastest BMW from 0-40mph

What is this nonsense?

The REX isn't even as fast as the standard i3, nevermind considering actual performance-oriented BMWs. Your statement is so generalized it includes the S1000RR and HP4 superbikes in its comparison, hogwash.

glad someone mentioned bikes(motorcycles). very friendly to the environment, well except of course super sports | sports since they guzzle gas. but sill better mpg than most cars. my stolen fz1 used to get 50mpg when I was doing over 120mph

I highly doubt your fz1 got 50mpg while traveling over 120mph.

Presumably you mean you averaged 50mpg across a tank of gas which included some time spent > 120mph, which is a huge difference. Most riders can't really sustain > 120mph for an entire tank of gas, which is typically the granularity of measurement for casual mpg estimates made at fillup time.

My experience with liter bikes was that the fuel economy dropped to < 10mpg approaching vmax, which in combination with their small tank capacity poses a very real problem for those fleeing police.

i was like wtf at that comment too, partly because i drive a pure electric i3 for almost 4 years, partly because of the motorcycles, though a pure electric i3 IS fast.

I've never been in an i3, but just judging from the numbers on wikipedia; 168 BHP with a claimed 2635 lb curb weight, reminiscent of Mazda MX-5 numbers, is not what I'd call a fast power:weight ratio.

There's no doubt in my mind that the i3 feels quick off the line being electric. But I don't think it qualifies as fast unless you're comparing it to a Nissan Leaf or other comparatively slow EVs.

i3 with REX is _not_ the fastest BMW from 0-40. i3 pure electric is faster, for one counterexample.

Having driven one for nearing 4 years, it's crazy fast.

Correct. "one of the fastest..." is more accurate. The new m4's beat the i3 0-30 but only by a few fractions.

In any event, it's very very fast for an urban commuter and I annoy plenty of people driving AMGs and Porsches in my clown car.

  I'm also interested in testing the Jaguar iPace. By most performance measures, its beaten the Model X.

You are lying. The iPace is FAR behind the Model X in all performance measures. The iPace has a manufacturer's estimated range of ~350km, no EPA rated range given. The Model X has EPA rated maximum range of 475km - that's a third party verified range that is 125km above the estimated (and very optimistic) range of the iPace. As far as speed goes, iPace is 4.8s to 100km/h, while the P100D variant of the Model X is 0 - 100km/h in 3.6s, a solid second faster.

I don't know why you write such obviously wrong things. They are blatantly false and misleading. Don't write stuff that is blatantly wrong, you poison the internet along with the collective human consciousness.

I appreciate that someone is stable able to cast a critical view on those spreading non-facts. I hope this catches on.

A relative of mine who works for JLR was claiming that the iPace was better than the Model X in every way the other day too. He started reeling off figures that were blatantly inferior. I can only assume GP also works for them. It's a strange mindset over there.

One of us is correct, depending on what the other is talking about. But "FAR behind" is a bit of a gross overstatement. I also don't understand your negativity except that it must be rooted in a love affair for Tesla/Elon.

When I said performance, this is the video I watched that compelled me to get interested in what Jaguar was doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keWERJBfDPI

You are being fooled, they never show the backside of that Tesla Model X to reveal the battery size. They are also not really an independent third party

My first and only question: have you never owned a car before? Your message makes me think you jumped into the decision of buying a new car without much thought, or a lack of understanding of what car ownership entails.

But he didn't really jump into that decision. He put down money for an easily refundable deposit, and then got his money back.

He seemed surprised about general needs and maintenance of vehicles, or was I misreading his comment?

Yes, I currently have a cheap diesel car (bought it for 1500€) and I planned to resell it when my tesla would arrive. Nonetheless, I agree with you that it wasn’t well planned, but I guess is surely true for many other people whi pre-ordered out of excitement like me.

EDIT: Also at the time I was earning 3 times more than now, making it an affordable option

Not op but I used to own a car and I could not be happier about not owning one anymore.

My daily commute does not necessitate a car, nor does grocery shopping.

I have a boosted board for when I want to shorten my commute or explore the city a bit.

I sometimes use Lyft or rent a car but the cost is ridiculously smaller than what owning a car would cost me.

It is dependent on many factors, for example a job change might force to buy a car but right now it works extremely well for me.

Beyond that, it's just hard to commit to a huge purchase like a car 1+ years in advance. Once the day of arrival comes near it seems like there would be a lot of people who decide to get refunds for various reasons. I think the rate would be high even if things were going perfectly (which, to be fair, they are not).

I drive a moped, and I don't care =P

Yet another quarter has almost passed and, according to the Bloomberg estimate [1], Tesla will yet again miss their goal of producing 5.000 cars a week -- by far. In the most recent week, it was about half that, 2.560.

I guess some some people are just fed up with waiting.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/

For some perspective, the Model 3 is already outselling the Chevy Bolt by a factor of > 5x, and has already set the record for greatest monthly deliveries EVER for a plug-in car in the U.S.

https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

The Bolt is hideously ugly.

No. The Aztek is hideously ugly. The Bolt is nowhere near that ugly. Also, plenty of people don't care if something is ugly, if it's utilitarian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33AP0JnXSOA

A link to a Doug DeMuro video on HN, that's nice! Back on topic, I think the Bolt looks cool, I think it has an utilitarian and slightly ahead-of-its-time feeling about it which is just cool (the same as Renault Espace and especially Renault Avantime had back in the late '80s - the '90s, when everyone was hating on them, but now they're cool).

What's wrong with a link to a Doug DeMuro video on HN?

Nothing wrong with it, I was not trying to be condescending or anything, quite the contrary, it's just that English is not my primary language so maybe my comment got read the "wrong way", so to speak.

> plenty of people don't care if something is ugly, if it's utilitarian

I am one of these people. I live in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains 7-8 months out of the year. A nice car will be totally ruined in a few weeks of rain around here. So everyone just drives ugly Honda Accords and AWD Subarus.

Related side note, a teacher back when I was in HS about 10 years ago told a story about how she saw Bill Gates driving a beat up mid 1990s Accura around Seattle after he was crowned the world's wealthiest individual.

> A nice car will be totally ruined in a few weeks of rain around here.

What are you talking about? PNW rain isn’t going to hurt your car unless you leave the sunroof open.

Tons of people in Seattle drive late model luxury cars.

Whether this is true, rumor, or else: this. You could buy 20 cars like this for under the price of a model 3. Really, at the end of the day, everything is about just getting from point A to B!

We own an original Scion xB (lunchbox on wheels), a Nissan Leaf, and a VW Vanagon (which arguably could be a matter of taste). Utility uber alles at our house. And even we make fun of the Aztek, given that it lacks the utility to offset the hideous asthetics.

But I don't think I'd have to try really hard to convince the wife to get a Bolt. It sure as hell is better looking than anything else we own. And despite owning way more TSLA than is healthy for our portfolio, I'm not terribly impressed by the looks of the 3. It's not ugly, but it doesn't stand out, either.

I'm not terribly impressed by the looks of the 3.

The front of the Tesla 3 keeps reminding me of this guy. (You see, when I look at the front of a car, there's supposed to be something there, but there's something less than what I expected.)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Hannibal_Lect...

Someone should make a luggage rack for the Scion xB that looks like a handle from one of those old-school lunchboxes.

I actually saw an Aztek in person for the first time in a while recently. One thing I noticed is that it looks less weird compared to when it first came out (a lot of cars share a vaguely similar shape to it now), but no less ugly. Apparently the desgin was both ahead of its time, and bad.

Maybe people got used to seeing it on Breaking Bad.

It's still badly broken in the looks department if you ask me.

I just did some googling to remind myself how ugly the Aztek is and found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ4llaTn-hk

Video of a guy transforming an Aztek into a reasonably attractive sports car. Pretty impressive!

I don't get the "Aztek is ugly" thing. The front end is a little odd, but the back is Prius-ish and it is overall a generic small SUV crossover.

The Bolt is as boring as cars get. It's far from "hideously ugly," or even "ugly." It's basically as inoffensive and anonymous a car as you can get.

>The Bolt is hideously ugly.

It truly is. It's easily the fugliest car GM has ever produced, and this is from someone who owns and loves a Nissan Leaf. Whatever their next-gen purpose built EV may be, I hope to god it's not the same platform.

Can you explain how it's uglier than other generic GM hatchbacks such as the Chevy Sonic/Holden Barina?

GM made the Aztek.

The Bolt just looks like some generic little hatchback that’s trying a little too hard to look cool.

The bolt is a freaking work of art compared to many vehicles, the ones that immediately come to mind being the Juke, the Aztek, and the newer versions of the GMC Sierra.

Saying that it's less ugly that absolute eyesores doesn't stop it being ugly.

I think you're confusing that with the Nissan Leaf before its recent redesign. The Bolt doesn't look great but it's not ugly.

I don't see why you're getting down voted so much. Other than it's a pretty vacuous comment with nothing to back up the statement.

Nevertheless I do agree. I get really frustrated at how people are willing to accept cars that are so ugly.

The Bolt is better than others, but I personally think it's still a really ugly car. It's a complement to say that it's only as ugly as most regular cars are, but still it's ugly.

I'm impressed by the new leaf, it actually looks like a nice car. But the front of the first leaf looked ridiculous.

Tesla somehow figured out that people who want to buy electric cars, like cars that look nice too. It's the most obvious piece of advice, yet no car company could think of it.

Nice looking cars add something to the road scenery, bring pleasure to those who pass by them.

What I'm most impressed about is that Tesla have done what almost no luxury sports car brand has done and try and sell a mass market car and keep the nice looks of the brand. I'd liken the Model S/X to more like a Porsche/Aston Martin than a BMW. It's actually a bit simialr to the Porsche Boxter but that only makes up 10-20% of sales [0].

Personally the major attraction for me is that for $35k (when it comes in 2035...) you can get a car that has similar styling to a luxury sports car.

Making nice looking cars is worthwhile. The new Mini achieved it, the Fiat 500 managed it. Beauty is something to be cherished, and when you're going to make a million of the things and you only have to design it once, why not make it beautiful.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche#North_American_sales

I never understood the obsession of all car makers to always design EV and hybrid cars with ugly shapes and black plastic all over the body.

Can I just have a regular car that works on electricity please? Spare me the tacky from-the-future look please.

I think its to disguise the ultralight frame? Has to be plastic; sketchy frame means it has to stick out to cover all the bases.

I'd argue that no car is actually 'ugly', as in repulsive. Awkward perhaps, like the early versions of the Fiat Multipla and Ssangyong Rodius. But I'd rather look at something odd than something bland.

You quote the new Mini and 500 as nice looking. To me they are bland and unadventurous, and the Mini looks ridiculously bloated. I'd walk past them in a carpark to look at an Aztec.

Compare a 500 with a Panda on the same platform. The latter has much more internal volume and looks just as ... bland.

I do find ugly cars repulsive, but as other's say it's a personal taste thing.

It's the same guy, Dante Giacosa, who designed the Multipla and the 500.

I too dislike bland cars, but almost any mass market car is going to be bland. By mass market I mean anything under $/€20k and designed to appeal to the mass market. At least though with bland cars they just fade into the background and you can ignore them.

The problem was never the demand for the Model 3. Tesla needs to hit specific benchmarks if it wishes to meet the expectations of its sky-high market cap and it simply hasn't been able to do so up to this point.

I'm sure it's a difficult problem and I'm rooting for them to figure it out but until they start to produce more cars, there's going to be people asking questions.

The market cap is well off its highs, which is healthy given the slower-than-expected ramp. But the ramp is happening, and overly-aggressive targets notwithstanding, what we're seeing unfold right now is objectively impressive. The company will do just fine.

> The company will do just fine.

Obviously people have strong feelings about Tesla one way or the other, as it's obviously a pillar for the high-risk-high-reward ethos that gets people excited, but the future of Tesla is incredibly uncertain at the moment. Elon Musk is likely to be fired from his own company, they have to pay over a billion dollars in loans next year, their cash flow is a mess, and there is no telling when they will actually be GAAP profitable. I don't own TSLA stock nor do I have any short/put positions - but TSLA is almost as volatile as some cryptocurrencies.

Firing Musk is never going to happen. It would collapse the share price, and investors know that. They can complain, but they can't fire him and not lose a fortune all around.

That's what they said about Steve Jobs the first time around.

Is it really?

Depends who you ask. To be fair, it is not an apples to apples comparison (pun intended). Tesla is in a very different position than Apple in the early 90's.

With that in mind, the dialogue about Jobs / Musk feels oddly familiar with institutional investors having major issues and everyone else probably being too optimistic.

The early 90s? Jobs got fired from Apple in 1985, and he was never CEO during that first time there.

You are correct. It all kind of blurs together at this point :) Thanks for pointing that out.

Apple did start spiraling after they fired Jobs. By the mid-'90s, Michael Dell famously said Apple should just shut down and give the shareholders their money back. What finally turned Apple around was Jobs coming back, and they wouldn't have even made it that far if Microsoft hadn't felt the need to put them on life support in order to stave off monopoly charges. So I'm not sure that's an example of it not being a crazy decision.

Did Steve Jobs own a big portion of the Apple's stock? Elon and his relatives / close friends own a big chunk. (25-30% if I am not mistaken

No, Apple stock became very diluted thanks to its near death experiences. Steve became a billionaire through Disney/Pixar as much as Apple, and Apple has mostly produced shareholder wealth for Vanguard 401k owners since then.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-11/apple-is-...

When apple nearly went bankrupt? So much so that jobs was able to reverse aquire it with what was basically a startup?

The bond market certainly doesn't think they will do just fine. Their debt is commanding a hefty interest rate.

Elon doesn't really care about the stock price.

It's usefulness is when you want to raise capital by floating shares; but Elon will just do that a lower price by diluting ownership more.

Building hype was never a problem for Tesla. Building cars on the other hand...

Looking at the same chart, you really need to include the Volt as well. Comparing Model 3 vs Bolt/Volt sales, then it's only about 33%; about the same difference as the Prius Prime

Wow, the Model 3 has 25% of the total EV sales. When combined with the S/X it's over 33% of the monthly sales.

For one car company to have such a large share of a car market monthly sales is pretty impressive. Plus that list includes hybrids.

If you only include full electric Tesla has 9220 / 13074 ~ 70% of the monthly sales.

Model 3 is only available in the US. Other cars are sold worldwide. For example, the Nissan produces 8K Leaf / month worldwide, and could produce more if there were more demand.

Tesla is popular, for sure, but hard to produce at scale.

I must say the bloomberg tracker can be highly inaccurate and vary its values depending on your location. Likely not the best place to judge current tesla production capabilities.

They announced in the Q4 earnings that the target for 5k/week is the end of Q2 (End of June). They reiterated that they are on track for this in the Q1 earnings call. The Bloomberg tracker is accurate but it usually lags by a few weeks and the production has been volitale over the last several weeks as they had two planned retooling stopages in May.

They also won’t admit it publically but all indications are that they are approaching 200,000 total sales in the U.S. which triggers the phase out of the federal tax rebates. It’s a little complicated but this may mean they build cars in Q2 but push some deliveries to early Q3 and also deliver more to Canada. Both of these will affect the tracker as well.

All in all we are likely to see bursts of extrapolated 5k/week in late Q2 and steady 5k/week in early Q3. Don’t be surprised if it’s 4k or even 6k though :).

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/629549478...

> and also deliver more to Canada.

Just send some to Europe already, please.

That will require different headlights, different onboard charging, different software etc. Shipping some cars, north of the border is much, much easier.

Different onboard charging, what? So far only China gets a different onboard charging interface from Tesla.

In Europe type 2 is the standard EV connector, and the cars can charge on 3 phases, when charging from AC.

Fun Fact, first and second generation European Model S, dont have autoclosing charge ports, because the cargeport is bigger.

OIC. So just like China, Europe forced Tesla to not ship an external adapter, but to build it into the car.

BTW, the initial US Model S didn't have an auto-closing port. That was only added after the "snake" video was published.

Yes i know.. i have a euro spec 85D which is missing the auto-closing port. While its a feature on the US cars.

Accelerating deliveries could be correlated with accelerating refunds. The faster Tesla chews through the deliveries, the faster it will encounter people on the wait list who hit a decision point of pulling the trigger on a Tesla 3 or not.

You don't have to buy when your number comes, you can decide to wait.

but it’s still a prompt to action something that you decided “why not” for a year ago

They did a scheduled production stop at the end of May though, and these have usually served to increase production afterwards. Before the latest one, they were at more then 3500 per week, so we might see them ramp up to over 4000 soon. That being said, they would still be trailing the trajectory needed to reach 5000 at the end of Q2, so it remains to be seen whether they can actually hit their target this time.

The issue people don't bring up is that Tesla's failure to execute has provided sufficient time for other manufactures to enter the game or have promises close enough to keep brand loyalist away from Tesla.

However I don't think the refunds are much of an issue, we must remember they took full price deposits on the new sports car for first release versions (250k) and took 50k deposits on all following versions. There are also all the 5k/10k deposits on the semi.

anecdotal insert : I have two friends with pending Jaguar i-Pace orders that hope to take delivery before October, one is ditching his X (which his wife calls it their "ex" as in they want it done) and the other just wants a Jag.

So, after looking at the graph, which has a series of peaks with factory shutdowns to increase production between them, you're boldly predicting that the most recent shutdown is going to lower peak production? Gotcha.

To put this another way, they hit 70% of the goal mid-quarter, and the results of the latest shutdown are not yet known. In the previous quarter, they were at 40% of the goal mid-quarter.

I don't know why I bother to comment on this since people appear to really differ about what the graph means.

At least in the Tesla fan community, a number of people got tired of waiting and bought a Model S/X instead. It remains unclear how many upgraded and as a result of this fell off the reservation list. They should have asked that as well.

It would be interesting to see how many of the waitlist cancellers bought electric cars from other brands. The Bolt, the Leaf, and the BMW i3 are the obvious alternatives.

The Bolt, Leaf, and i3 are all fairly ugly. Most of the people I know waiting for Model 3s are doing so in part because it's actually a decent to good looking sedan, and not a weird jelly bean hatchback.

And no SuperCharging network.

There are plenty of non-proprietary charges around these days. For example go here (and turn off Tesla):

https://chargehub.com/en/charging-stations-map.html

There are still not a lot of good options for long distance travel. Third party fast chargers are usually slow, broken, busy, or badly located.

This is a weird thing to say. It's simply not true.

Search PlugShare for CHAdeMO chargers. There are a lot.

CHAdeMO is typically 50kW or less, sometimes just 20kW.

They’re often unmaintained and left broken for long periods of time.

They’re often installed in single units, leaving you vulnerable to being screwed by another user or someone blocking the spot.

They’re usually installed in cities rather than along highways. Many important corridors don’t have enough CHAdeMO coverage for a long trip.

I'd love to see some citations for these claims. Otherwise it just sounds like you have an agenda.

This comes from personal experience. If you want something more solid, PlugShare will show you. Go look at how they’re distributed, how many chargers are installed at each location, and what kind of speeds people report.

I'm in a suburb of Philadelphia. I've driven round trip to Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Atlantic City NJ, Baltimore MD on those CHAdeMO chargers. Always 50 kW available, always working, never blocked, for the 3+ years I've driven two different EVs (currently an '18 Leaf).

The networks all have realtime status via their apps/websites, there's no guessing about whether a charger is working or in-use. The distribution is fking fantastic: most of them are right at the rest stops on the PA turnpike or I95 and other highways, so you don't even get off the highway to charge. Tesla puts theirs in strip malls, so you have to go through a toll, exit the highway, drive through a town, charge, drive back to the highway, go through the toll again to resume your trip.

I work from home with no commute, but I put over 1000 miles a month on my Leaf because it's a great road trip car: a smoother, quieter ride than most luxury cars, that drives itself most of the time with ProPilot, with a nearly 10x larger charging network than Tesla's. Nissan throws in two years of free charging with new Leafs, so for the most part these road trips cost nothing too.

Those aren’t exactly long trips. A long range EV can do those without charging at all.

50kW is still slow. I consider Supercharger speeds to be the bare minimum.

Those are the longest trips people realistically take by car. Philly to Baltimore is 2-3 hours each way. There are vanishingly few trips taken longer than 2-3 hours from home by car, in your own car. People choose closer destinations, or switch to another mode of transportation like plane or train. I don't care to rehash in-detail conversations we've probably had already on reddit, so I'm not going to dig up the National Household Travel Survey reports, but that's essentially what they show.

Not that there's any reason you can't continue on from any of those destinations to another further one; the entire eastern and western coasts are covered by several CHAdeMO chargers for every Supercharger.

As for Supercharger speeds, most of the time spent plugged in to one is spent at less than 50 kW, it's really not that different. Especially if we talk about the Model 3, where the standard range battery is going to be similar to the old Model S 60, which would spend less than 5 minutes above 50 kW starting from low SoC on a Supercharger before the charging rate would be no better than any CHAdeMO station.

I doubt my 15-20 minute charging stops are much different from yours with your Model S 85 most of the time, except that I have a lot more options for where to charge without an adapter around here, and they're a lot more conveniently located. Most of the population lives around cities along the coasts, and those cities and coasts have excellent CHAdeMO/CCS coverage. Bolts and Leafs are viable for single-car households for a heck of a lot of people, not just Teslas.

The Model 3 has a much better battery chemistry. The LR version stays at 120kW for a remarkably long time. The SR version will not be as fast, but it won’t be like the old S60.

If your charging stops are 15-20 minutes then they’re similar to mine... except mine take me twice as far and thus happen half as often.

If you don’t want to consider trips over 3 hours then the whole issue of fast charging disappears for long range EVs. You can do those trips without charging in the middle at all. This discussion is completely pointless unless we look at longer trips.

> There are vanishingly few trips taken longer than 2-3 hours from home by car, in your own car.

Out here on the west coast, cities are much more spread out.

Getting between major cities is at minimum 2 hours.

99.9% of my trips aren't that long, but a couple times a year I go well over 3 hours.

Heck I'm planning a 10 hour trip soon. I'll be meeting in the middle with some friends in LA who are driving up 8 hours.

Plugshare shows an extremely large network of non-Supercharger chargers, most of which appear to be operational, based on the details panel that shows up when you click on a location. The chargers are heavily weighted toward California and urban areas, but otherwise generally mirrors the density map of the Supercharger network...and in many regions surpasses the Supercharger network's density.

Density is almost meaningless here. What’s important is the distance between them outside of cities. There are still substantial gaps.

The network is large, yes. But so many of the locations you see are single or dual units. You can’t count on such a facility when traveling, because it might be in use. I’d hesitate to count on any station with 4 or fewer stalls. I guess if the density is good enough you could hunt around for a free one, but that sounds awful.

You've just described the problem with the Supercharger network, which suffers from that problem at an even worse scale.

In most urban Supercharger stations, the stalls are almost always taken up by taxi companies. On heavily trafficked highways/freeways like the Interstate 5, most of the stalls are taken up by drivers for hours-long intervals. Same problem, but far worse--because Supercharger stations are more spread out than their non-network/non-Tesla counterparts.

Maybe I’ve described the problem with the Supercharger network in California, but it’s not like that at all elsewhere. In 10,000 miles of Supercharger road trips I’ve had to spend a grand total of 15 minutes waiting for an open stall.

Have had the same experience when traveling across the US with my Model S.

As mikeash mentions, anything non-Tesla for charging is either slow, broken, or unreliable.

This depends on your location. Norway and the Netherlands have fantastic non-Tesla charging networks. And the UK is improving rapidly with good coverage of reliable chargers in most parts of the country (still no >50kW chargers however).

To your point, no >50kW chargers. Superchargers are 100-135kW.

I’m in the US, and the charging networks outside of Tesla’s are fragmented and unreliable.

fastned in the Netherlands has 175kW charging stations (not all of them), and just they announced their first 350kW one:

https://fastned.nl/en/blog/post/fastned-onthult-nieuwe-gener...

> And the UK is improving rapidly with good coverage of reliable chargers in most parts of the country (still no >50kW chargers however).

Right, but that's a fairly personal and perhaps even cultural thing.

When Chevy Bolt came out, virtually every north american automotive magazine slammed its looks; and virtually every European immigrant friend of mine absolutely loved them.

Similarly, the Sedan nature of Tesla3 appeals to a lot of my 4th-generation-Canadian or -American colleagues, but screams impracticality and poor visibility to others.

Like the UI (the all-touchscreen paradigm is a HUGE deal breaker for me - I want buttons and levers I can operate without looking), the design is not universal :)

(edit: note that I'm carefully not saying anything about the i3... I have yet to meet a person even anecdotally who loves it for its looks - maybe it's just too ahead of its time ;-)

Anecdata: I love the i3 for its looks (do not own one).

They may be ugly, but they are here now and working. Love the 233 mile range on the Bolt after coming from the 78 mile range of a SmartED. Also the 10" touch screen with car play is sublime. So much better than the non-touch carplay in a Mercedes 250/300. Also bluetooth door/trunk open/lock. Can't wait to see what range is like in 3 years when lease is up on new EVs.

The new Leaf looks like a normal car, which is all a lot of (I suspect most) people want.

The Audi A3 e-tron isn't ugly at all. It's pretty beautiful for a 4 door hatchback.

Nothing says "beautiful" like having to fumble with a touchscreen to adjust the air vents.

How about fumbling with the air vents to adjust the air vents?

I acknowledge that taste is subjective but maybe you are referring to last year's Leaf?

You're the first person I've heard say they don't like the look of the 2018 Leaf.

https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/dSKLWFx0d35FPHtPvpJJg0dRBcs...

(Disclaimer: I own one.)

You’re the first person I’ve heard to claim it’s not ugly. From the Gillette razor looking faux air splitter, to whatever the heck they’re doing with that C pillar, it’s a complete mess. And that’s from someone who generally likes hatchbacks!

Blocky nose, plain interior, and panel gaps? The Model 3 is about as attractive and utilitarian as a Taurus. No nice lines like a 1970s Porsche or Dart, and doesn't look nimble like a Civic or Corolla. The people who buy it for appearance are likely the same ones spending $78,000 to "save money on gasoline".

They seem to have since resolved the panel gap issues of the early production cars.

You must be kidding...i3 an alternative to Tesla 3? I won't say anything about the looks but just considering the range should tell you there is no comparison.

Most people want a car that they can actually buy. How long until I can walk into a Tesla dealership and have a Model 3 within the week?

Hell, I waited 4 months for a VW Golf.

And ordering (and waiting months for) a car is the norm in Europe. I actually think the buy-something-off-the-lot culture is why we get so few options on cars in the US; just a bunch of shades of dull with dull options bundles.

I find this an interesting point - in a lot of markets (i.e. I'm in Australia) you have to wait for an optioned vehicle to be delivered, and some have waiting lists. I believe some people waited 6+ months for their Subaru BRZ here.. Obviously in the US people expect delivery to be much more rapid, it would be interesting to see comparable waiting times for new models of Ford/Chev/etc vehicles?

In the US, 99% of vehicles are bought off the lot because the buyers for some reason think they have 0 power and just have to settle for whatever happens to be sitting around the car park today for their $35k. For the most part, ordering is not 'a thing'.

There's a bit of legal stuff behind it too; my understanding is that you CANNOT be legally held to buy a car that you haven't seen (which, of course, seems like an obviously good thing). But a side effect is that if you order your Porsche in pink with purple polka dots and no stereo, then decide you don't want it when it arrives, the dealer may end up with a car that is not so easy to sell.

The range is only a big deal if it's your only car. If you are married and your spouse has a gas-powered car, you can use that one for long trips. I know several people who leased i3s and Leafs just for commuting to work because the savings over leasing or buying a gas-powered car are pretty compelling.

For families with children, an electric car plus a minivan is a combination that's pretty hard to beat. You get an efficient electric car for commuting, and a comfortable large car for weekend trips, hauling the kids around, and buying a bunch of crap at Costco and Home Depot.

The standard bolt has more range than the standard model 3.

I remember doing test drives of the Leaf vs. the Tesla Model S two years ago.

Back then, it felt like the leaf was the present, and Tesla was like stepping into a future of dreams. It was simply no comparison.

But dreams aside, I can see how the economics might push people one way.

I'd hope there would be no comparison between a car starting at $29,990 and one at $74,500.

I don't know, can you really tell the 3x difference between a $35k BMW and a $80k BMW? Sure the leather's probably nicer, the engine's more powerful, but do you feel like "holy crap I just tasted the future" vs. "I'm totally looking like a dork in this car"

I was one of those. I bought the Kia Optima Plugin. I really like it, but clearly not as spaceshippy.

The May monthly sales numbers say "not many".

https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

Anecdata. I cancelled my reservation last month after it came apparent that it would be a while before they start manufacturing base model [1]. Ended up getting the BMW i3 and love it. After incentives it came out $217/month to lease[2].

1. https://electrek.co/2018/05/21/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-ties-base...

  2. leasehackr.com/calculator?make=BMW&msrp=47245&sales_price=42450&months=30&mf=.00166&dp=0&doc_fee=80&acq_fee=925&taxed_inc=9500&untaxed_inc=0&rebate=3866&resP=61&reg_fee=400&sales_tax=9.5&memo=&zero_driveoff=true&monthlyTax_radio=true&miles=10000&msd=0

I've never seen leasehackr before, it seems really interesting. Did you use the site just for the calculator?

Mainly use it for the forums so I could compare other deals in my area. The calculator is just an ancillary benefit.

You can actually get an i3 for perilously close to $20k these days, at least in the Bay Area. PGE+BMW are offering $10k back to buyers, plus $7500 federal tax credit, plus $2500 CA tax credit. I was a model 3 reservation holder, and strongly considered the i3, but ultimately configured a Model 3 a couple of weeks ago (now pushed to July delivery as they're stalling to not hit 200k units before Q3).

Most folks on this board likely don't qualify for the $2500 CA tax credit.

However, PG&E also allows you to get a $500 credit if you've bought an EV.

$150k single and $300k married filing jointly?

.. if you say so.

I reserved a Model 3 in March 2016, and bought a new Nissan Leaf instead in February of this year.

Nissan claims over 40k orders pending for the new Leaf including 30k of those in Europe and is not the longer range model!

Yeah, it's kind of interesting how few people are talking about Nissan's bizarre and unexpected production bottleneck for the new Leaf. They know how to build cars in volume, so what's the deal?

Anecdata. I reserved a Model 3 on day one, but bought a Model S in the meantime. Still holding my reservation, but unless I can test drive a Model 3, and it's a lot more fun to drive, then I'll probably just get a second S.

Have driven both. The 3 is more (a lot is subjective) fun to drive. Similar to the difference between a BMW 4 series and 7 series.

Do you really think that a lot of people who reserved a $35.000 car decided to go with a Model S that costs more than twice as much?

I think it's more likely that a lot of people realised that they aren't getting a $35.000 car any time soon, and bought something in their price range instead.

I reserved a Model 3, but I'm becoming sceptical that I'll ever be able to afford it. Right now they are selling it for $50.000, and it doesn't look like it's moving into my price range any time soon.

From Musk's tweets, it appears it won't be before they hit 10k per week.

A few are buying new S, more are buying used Ses, some don't want to wait and bought something else.

BTW, the rollout of lower-priced 3's is being done exactly the same as model S and model X: while they're production constrained, Tesla ships the higher-priced models only. The smaller battery Model S shipped a year after the first S rolled off the line. Between that and not being an existing owner or employee, I'm not sure why you thought you'd get the lowest price version so soon?

Because Tesla consistently said the rollout would not happen like the S and X. They promised the $35K base model in "early 2018", on the Model 3 configurator, on the Model 3 delivery estimates, and in Elon Musk's tweets. All of those sources consistently said that it would be coming in early 2018, and it would be coming BEFORE the dual motor or performance versions... right up until last month when Elon announced that wasn't going to be happening after all.

They said that the rollout would be way steeper than S and X. The mind boggles that you thought they'd hit that rollout target! They're always late.

I haven't said anything about hitting rollout targets. That's a separate issue from changing the order of production. Regardless of when it happens, the base model is no longer being produced before the D/P models, which was what they promised was going to happen regardless of the ramp rate. It would have been reasonable for someone, like the person you were talking to, to expect Tesla to produce the trims in the order they promised to do so for over 2 years, rather than the order in which they purportedly offered the S/X. We should hope they're not replicating the Model S's rollout, in which the base model was never physically produced (they shipped a small number of software-limited batteries instead), and was removed from the configurator soon after it was introduced.

So you're saying Tesla should have produced the base model S40 even though almost no one ordered it, and it would have been a loss compared to giving people more expensive cars with a software limit?

OK then.

> So you're saying Tesla should have...

I didn't say that, and I don't have an opinion on what Tesla should have done 6 years ago. There's a pattern in this little comment chain of you criticizing people for beliefs they never expressed, or for saying something they never said. You're having conversations with yourself under the guise of replying to others. It's a little strange.

I think this is the most likely reality.

I was wondering this as well. More than a year ago, Tesla was pushing the "Model S 60" to reservation holders, and some of those reservation holders ended up buying the Model S.

I know, because I'm one of them.

I figured a few things: The Fed/State incentives might be gone by the time I got my Model 3, I didn't plan to buy a base model, I figured I'd add a bunch of options and figured I'd spend more like $55K than $38K, I didn't figure all the options would be available right at the start, and I drove a Model S and loved it.

I just canceled the Model 3 reservation a couple months ago, because I figured I'd hold onto the reservation to see what was happening when they finally became available. Maybe I'd need one for my wife or maybe I'd have a friend or family member who would use the reservation, or maybe people would be crazy about it and they'd be selling for enough that it was worth buying and immediately reselling... None of those came to be though.

I'm in Australia and I had a child coming. Tesla was going to be waaay to late here. I upgraded.

This is such a stupid article. Why do people insist on pursuing the idea that there may not be enough demand for the model 3? A car that Tesla can’t even produce enough of yet to meet a fraction of the demand from people already on the waiting list, all without having done any advertising, and everyone’s fretting nobody will want to buy it. It’s absurd.

The article is not stupid at all. The author never claimed that "there may not be enough demand for the model 3." You're putting those words in her mouth. What she said is that people are rapidly asking for refunds, that Tesla's manufacturing is in trouble, and that this is a serious cause of concern for investors. All of those things are indisputable facts that anyone interested in electric cars would want to hear.

And you can't claim that Tesla being unable to meet demand means demand is high. Supply is appallingly low, so even a low demand could result in the backlog of orders we see. The fact that demand exceeds supply doesn't imply that the demand is high enough to keep the company afloat.

The article is stupid. The author doesn't have to directly claim there isn't enough demand, because the premise of the article comprehensively implies it.

> this is a serious cause of concern for investors.

No, it isn't. It's immaterial. Tesla isn't about to get pushed over the brink by some canceled reservations. Even if they had to give up $150 million in reservations out of their several billion dollars on hand, production is gaining steam at a very rapid pace. They're delivering tens of thousands of Model 3's per quarter now. The income from the fulfilled reservations will eclipse the trivial cancellation numbers by so much that I consider it irresponsible financial reporting to suggest otherwise.

It's just short-side proselytising, is what it is. It's showing half the picture to reach a flawed conclusion for readers who don't know better.

And moreover, I love how in the past year or so suddenly everyone and their aunt is an expert on production and manufacturing and is quite confident that Tesla doing a bad job. Compared to what, exactly? All the other brand new car manufacturers that sprung up a decade ago? Oh, wait.

Seems to be all about shorts.

The article isn't fretting about a lack of demand. Clearly the demand is there. Tesla just absolutely sucks at delivering. I'm going to buy a new car this weekend, and if I could actually get a Tesla Model 3, I would. But I need a car, and I'm not getting in line and waiting a year on the off chance that they figure out how to actually manufacture something.

In May 2018 in US (https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/):

Tesla doubled the sales of Model 3 from LAST MONTH, maintaining their position as US best selling fully electric car.

Second and third best selling fully electric car is Model S and Model X.

Fourth best selling fully electric car, Chevy Bolt, had the worst monthly sales, at less than 1/5th of Model 3 sales. Then there's Nissan Leaf and Fiat 500e.

"sucks at delivering" is apparently relative and Tesla is being measured by a stick from a different planet.

You're not being consistent, and revealing your anti-Tesla bias. They have figured out to manufacture the Model 3, they deliver new serial numbers of that car every day of the week. And like I usually say in my replies in Tesla threads, it's really something to be grateful for that America is still a place where a car company can be built, and we should all share a collective pride towards those who have carved out the future for young Americans and young people around the world. I understand that you won't be buying a Tesla this weekend because they are not available but I really feel that the anti-Tesla bias is very much misplaced and resentful towards one of the greatest blessings of the 21st century.

> it's really something to be grateful for that America is still a place where a car company can be built

we should be proud we can manage to do something we've already been doing for 100 years?

Yes, we should indeed be proud that we can still do it over from scratch with new technology, since the past fifty years implied pretty strongly that we actually couldn't anymore, and certainly I don't see new car companies springing up anywhere else besides China.

What's more, by that clever little formulation of yours, you can cynically dismiss so many things of value. Why be proud of anything anyone does here unless you've never seen anything like it before on the face of this earth, right?

I think he's referring to the fact that most of the manufacturing once done in the US has been off-shored to China etc.

Why pay X for something if you can get it for X/3?

It's about Tesla leaving money on the table because they can't execute.

I ordered two (for me and my wife) the second online ordering opened via my phone at a restaurant as it happens which was novel since we were having a meal with out-of-town friends at the time.

We were both very immensely excited but when it became clear that the first release wasn't going to be the inexpensive model we decided to cancel and get a refund. AFAICT, it's still not clear when that model will be available so I think we made the right choice.

> which was novel since we were having a meal with out-of-town friends at the time. We were both very immensely excited

Behaviorally I am wondering to what extent the fact that you were having a good time with friends (and potentially drinking alcohol and/or at least enjoying your food) played a role in what appears to be an impulse purchase?

I say this knowing from way back how there are high end stores that give you food and alcohol while shopping (I have experienced that) and the idea tends to be to get you to purchase more than you would as a result of the heightened mood.

Curious on your take on this and playing a role?

Great question and I know what you mean but honestly, I think very little.

We'd been planning to order them for some time, following the news stories etc. and were going to order them at home on a desktop machine but our friends arrived from out of town, wanted to go out and eat dinner so we needed an alternative plan.

We didn't want to miss out so I tried using the phone almost as soon as we sat down and was pleasantly surprised by how painless the whole experience was, even on an older phone.

Made for some good subsequent dinner time conversation though :)

A couple months ago I got an email saying my Model 3 was ready to be configured. Chose all the base options and saved the order. When I came back the next day the page said I was still on the waiting list as if nothing had been configured... still have my reservation but think a 35k Model 3 may never actually exist.

Can't help but think this is on purpose. Elon straight up said they can't sell mostly base models right now and survive, they need premium configs to stay afloat.

Tesla does not need to sell premium configs to "stay afloat". They are selling premium configs so that their margins are not so brutally low, so that they don't get roasted for that as well. Honestly, Tesla can not win: Sell low margin base models, have a terrible quarter and get roasted. Sell high margin, high trim models and get roasted for high priced cars. They can not win.

I agreee that they are bound to upset either investors or consumers but Elon often promises the moon for both and I think that is what gets him in trouble most often. Would there be record reservations if the Model 3 was advertised as 50k base?

No but then they would be lying because base is 35k.

When your capacity is limited, selling higher-end models with higher margin is the completely obvious choice to maximize revenue and profit. "Have a terrible quarter" is far worse than "get roasted" by random people on HN.

They could win if they could ramp up production to hit their touted targets, and sell both models.

This will happen in Q3 - they want to get the maximum out of the "last quarter" of federal tax credits.

Where is Second Measure getting their data from? Is it statistically valid? They say they analyze "billions of anonymized purchases" which suggests some sort of credit card or bank account scraping.[1] Like the sort of thing those budget management apps do. But... given how small the Model 3 customer base is and how affluent they are, how likely are they to participate in such schemes?

Or are they buying wholesale aggregate data from credit card companies? Can they do that?

[1] https://www.quora.com/Where-does-Second-Measure-get-its-cust...

Not sure about Second Measure specifically, but many credit card players sell anonymized purchasing data. Investors often look at this to predict how companies are performing.

while I'm not too surprised that people want refunds on deposits as schedules for luxury goods slip, I feel that the article might have been a little more substance had they included information about percentages of deposit refunds among other verticals, and how those are affected by delays.

otherwise, this article feels rather flat.

Are there really many comparables? I can’t really think of many scenarios where a normal consumer pays a four figure deposit on something which doesn’t have a release date.

I have a new personal hypothesis on Elon and his companies.

Elon's companies are not necessarily better run than other companies, and in some cases are worse run. Their success and Elon's cult status as an innovator is a result not of above-average managerial competence but of a willingness to unilaterally defy the Nash equilibria of industries.

Automobiles, space flight, and energy are industries that have been stagnant for some time. Stagnation of an industry means that it's found some kind of Nash equilibrium where it's not really in anyone's short term best interest to innovate much or otherwise deviate from the norm.

Elon doesn't give a rat's you-know-what and innovates anyway. Game theoretically he defects. This results in companies that are loss-making in the short term, but if successful they will define a new Nash equilibrium where they are positioned to lead or at least to have carved out a significant chunk.

Another way of putting this is that Elon is willing to try to cross fitness valleys between local maxima.

It's a gamble of course: can you reach the next fitness peak / equilibrium point before you run out of cash? This is very hard, and is why Nash equilibria / fitness local maxima are so stubborn.

But the fact that he's done it twice with SpaceX and at least once with Tesla seems to indicate he's better average at running those races.

Perhaps I wasn't nuanced enough. I think Elon is better than average at the art of defying Nash equilibria -- both in the raising of funds to "disrupt" industries and in the execution of disruption.

This is not necessarily the same skill as boring old "ops."

Tesla isn't actually making money yet.

Edit: I'm actually not sure what you're counting. What happened once with Tesla and twice with SpaceX?

Bad way to measure success. Tons of companies don't make profit for a long term. Look at capital and sales growth.

He did something that any other company could have done but didn't and now he has a growing valuable company with lots of waiting costumers and ahead of the technology curve.

What op described, changing the Nash equilibrium.

For SpaceX, there was a status quo, SpaceX came in with radically different manufacturing ideas and changed the game. And then when they were done with that, with a profitable model, they did it again with reuse.

For Tesla, the Model S was sold at a profit, per unit. If they'd stopped there that would still have been a game changer (see all the companies working on EV).

> SpaceX came in with radically different manufacturing ideas and changed the game.

This never really happened. If this really happened, please provide a good article about the same, that describe what radically different manufacturing ideas and how they "changed the game"...

Elon had clever VCs/advisors that were scouting old technology that was uneconomical in the past, but became trivial/economical these days. Many of the battery-related things or NASA stuff were difficult/expensive/next-to-impossible in the 60s, but totally doable in the 2010s, but nobody was doing them.

I don't think Tesla is doing anything novel with their batteries. Aren't they made by Panasonic? I guess they're packaging them in novel ways, but I don't think there are any fundamental breakthroughs.

They took advantage of the lithium-ion battery newly improved performances in their first Roadster as early as 2008. Before that, they spent their first years researching how to arrange clusters of batteries in a viable way, which is probably what lead to their remaining advantage in autonomy. At SpaceX, key inventions include soldering sheets of metal together instead of using rivets, and other stuff that made their building process much cheaper than competitors. This is surely what parent meant.

They used to buy lithium-ion cells directly from Panasonic, and now they operate together at the Gigafactory.

Overall I don't think these could qualify as fundamental breakthroughs, but it is surely an important work, and what are fundamental breakthroughs anyway? I'd venture so far as to say that here the breakthrough is in the result: electric cars are coming, whether it's theirs or their competitors.

Yeah, I agree with that, and I doubt we'd even be talking about electric cars today if Tesla hadn't been created. But I don't see any Tesla technology that can't easily be replicated by any other car manufacturer. Plus the other car manufacturer's don't need to learn to run an assembly line.

> I don't see any Tesla technology that can't easily be replicated by any other car manufacturer

I'd agree with you if it weren't for the word "easily". I think even the original commenter would agree that such replication would then constitute the new Nash equilibrium.

> Plus the other car manufacturer's don't need to learn to run an assembly line.

I would argue that assembly lines are a very old technology that Tesla is merely replicating. It's just not easily replicated, at scale, especially with any novelty thrown in.

The teardown by german manufacturers revealed that they are using surprisingly little cobalt in their batteries, which means cost savings and reduced dependency on suppliers.

I'd put it even simpler. He's betting on uncertain future technologies, where it's completely unclear if the technology he is pursuing will work out.

Ten years ago nobody was particularly certain electric cars could ever be feasible, and currently nobody is sure that hyperloop will ever be feasible either.

In other words, is that next fitness peak even there? Or is it a mirage?

I don't think the current major players are lazily sitting on their hands, they just tend to focus more on the march of incremental improvement than blue sky research. Which can be incredibly valuable- the last hundred years of automobiles and fifty years of semiconductor manufacturing has been mostly the march of incremental improvement.

No, I think the parent has the right of it. I'm not equipped to analyse Tesla as well as I am for SpaceX, but I can say that the latter was not a bet on uncertain future technologies. While they have certainly deployed some pretty nifty technologies along the way, those have been in service of comparatively marginal improvements (improving payload margins). The more fundamental innovations in cost-reduction and reusability have not been particularly technology-driven, and could have been accomplished in the 1980s if not earlier.[1]

For example: putting most of your operations under the same roof, with engineering right next to manufacturing, and employing common fuel, engines, and tank manufacturing techniques for all stages. Nothing about that was at all technologically risky -- but SpaceX was able to get maybe the first 50% of its cost-savings simply by doing that.

What prevented this from happening in the past wasn't technology, but a Nash equilibrium, as the parent rightly says. Existing rocket makers couldn't put all their operations in one place because that would mean eliminating jobs in scores of congressional districts while only creating jobs in one or two. Would make too many enemies in congress that way, and because the government is the primary customer, you'd never get another launch contract again. And there isn't enough private demand demand to make up the difference, because the cost of spaceflight is so high. The cost of spaceflight is too high, because rocket R&D and manufacturing is split up over hundreds of facilities in dozens of states, creating insane inefficiencies. (Back in the 90s, one fellow I met who worked on the Atlas program told me that they had 7 managers for every engineer). And you can't reduce those inefficiencies because that would mean eliminating jobs in scores of congressional districts, etc...

See, the logic of the industry was self-supporting and entirely circular. Elon Musk's genius was in simply breaking this logic, and aiming for a new equilibrium where rockets are cheap, there's a strong market for private launch services, and contracts aren't awarded on the basis of how many jobs they'll create. Cool technology wasn't the key to this.

Like I say, I'm less well-equipped to analyze Tesla, but I can already detect a similar pattern of equilibrium-disrupting innovation with how he's approaching The Boring Company.

1: The Delta Clipper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X) demonstrated all the critical tech that you need for a reusable Falcon 9, in the early 1990s. It was preceded by some classified programs that accomplished broadly similar feats as much as a decade earlier.

Are you aware of a way to buy Boring Company stock, for instance on a second market anywhere? I'm assuming accredited investor status would be required regardless, but would this currently be possible for _any_ private, relatively wealthy (e.g. 1-2 million net worth) individual?

Not aware of any such possibilities, no.

But if you're interested in this kind of thing, ping me at nathan at podaris dot com.

Thanks for the feedback and the offer. Obviously hoping to be in a position to make these kinds of speculative investments at some point, but unfortunately not rich enough today, in the SOX/accredited investor sense. (In that sense it is probably premature to scope out the possibilities, but both curiosity and the speculative sense of knowing the terrain got to me).

[Edit: Hm, I just googled some details on a lark, and it seems there might be a clause that applies to non-US-persons that is relevant in my case. Don't be too surprised if I send you an e-mail at some point, for information if nothing else :)]

Overall I agree with your SpaceX comments, but I don't think the Delta Clipper demonstrated supersonic retropropulsion, which was never done before and is cited by the CNES director of launches as being a key technology.

https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/06/02/cnes-director-of...

> An engine is relit while going against the aerodynamic flow, which is actually quite complicated to achieve. We worked on that with ONERA, the French national aerospace lab, and realized it’s pretty complicated.

Ah, you're quite right, very fair point. Supersonic retropropulsion was indeed a novel technology that ended up in their critical path. Interesting to speculate on what they might've done if that hadn't worked out! Are there more off-the-shelf techniques that might've been good enough? (Eg. nose-first re-entry with a deployable heat shield.)

Anyhow, obviously SpaceX has done many other very technologically innovative things as well. But this would all have been a moot point if they'd operated per the rules of the existing industry, on cost-plus contracts with a wildly distributed workforce with each department or subcontractor focused on optimising its own particular subsystem without consideration of the whole. Breaking that paradigm was far and away the most important innovation of SpaceX today.

It's worth noting that they've now gotten the gains from escaping the industry's old local maxima, and that going forward (with the BFR) they're going to be more reliant on novel technologies than they have been to date. But they'll also be reliant on the emergence of new markets for spaceflight at the much-lower price point. I suspect that StarLink is part of this effort -- apart from being a good idea in its own right, it's a way of Musk saying to the world: "See guys? This kind of thing is what you can do with really cheap and reliable spaceflight! Start thinking on this scale, people!!!"

> I don't think the current major players are lazily sitting on their hands, they just tend to focus more on the march of incremental improvement than blue sky research.

I see the incumbents somewhere between those two sides: They have well-staffed R&D depts, but the margin of ICEs is just to sweet for them. Like how Kodak invented digital cameras, then utterly failed to monetize that invention because the profitable analog film business dominated the internal politics.

> Ten years ago nobody was particularly certain electric cars could ever be feasible

This really isn't true. The "mainstream" media and other fools said it wasn't viable. I lived in a place where an electric golf cart was an option for primary means of transportation. The city had "cart" paths through out most of it. Electric cars certainly have been more than possible for several decades.

Of course with all things context matters. This was a designed/planned city that built itself from scratch in the mid to late 80s. So driving a few dozen miles a day was very possible, but no one was driving NY -> DC in a golf cart :)

> This was a designed/planned city that built itself from scratch in the mid to late 80s.

Where was that, out of curiosity? It seems like an interesting city to read about.

First principles. Cost of lithium-ion batteries in rapid decline https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/latest-bu...

The question wasn't cost, as I recall it was basically power-density, longevity, & recharge rates. Ten or fifteen years ago, you couldn't fit enough battery in a car to get a useful range at any cost. That's why the supercharger network was a bigger deal years ago, and why fuel cells were in focus back then, and have dwindled as batteries gained ground (IMO)

It's also an indicator of the massive amount of energy put into marketing Elon.

Haha... The only marketing Elon has is word of mouth and the press interviewing him.

Elon's thinking goes back to college in areas he felt would affect humanity the most. These are Internet, sustainable energy (production/consumption), and space exploration and habitation. He eventually would have companies for all of these: Solar City for production, Tesla for consumption, Space X for space and internet. It is amazing that he is able to get a moonshot chance at all of these.

It is interesting that at the same time, sales of the Chevy Bolt aren't doing too good. This despite that at least a few reviews I've seen indicate it is a decent EV with decent range.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/04/05/ev-sales-table.asp...

I don't get GM. Just make it look like a ATS or something sporty.

Cars are still a fashion statement and a social signal. What are you saying with the bolt?

You assume these big car companies want to actually sell Hybrids or EVs. Until recently (still might be the case), I was only to find hybrids with every single option. Making Hybrids one of the top tier models.

Or they would create some odd looking car like the Bolt, Prius or Leaf.

I believe they don't want to sell many...just like BMW did with i3

That's plausible. It's also a really bad way to go. Tesla will hit ~$16-$18 billion in sales in 2018. All of that directly comes out of the pockets of BMW, Mercedes, Toyota (Lexus), Honda (Acura), and Nissan (Infiniti).

If they keep giving Tesla time, they might actually reach a point of being financially self-sustaining. In two more fiscal years they'll probably be at $28 billion in sales.

Small crossovers like the Honda HR-V, KIA Soul, and Chevy Trax are what sell to people looking for economical cars at that price point. The Bolt is designed to blend into that segment.

The ATS, by contrast, has been a huge failure in terms of sales for GM.

Maybe it’s a regional thing, but in this country I’d say at least half the cars on the road look more or less like the Bolt; non-descript hatchback. If anything, GM’s being safe there; by going with the less popular sedan format Tesla is taking more of a risk.

The Bolt has weird details on its snout. It’s like the slots in the side of a dogs nose. Compare to the Chevy Cruze Hatchback which is much more normal looking.

The Cruze also has a nice subtle curve to the side windows, whereas the Bolt looks like someone grabbed the roof and yanked it up.

I am quite certain they intentionally keep their design A-team far away from the EVs.

And as a side note, Tesla only has AAA designs for their EVs because they poached Mazda’s design lead, Frantz Von Holfhausen. Mazda was killing it during his tenure, with some of the best designs of their history.

They are saying “Yea it’s better for the environment but don’t fall in love with it too much we don’t want to start having to make tons of electric vehicles yet.”

Chevy Bolt's aesthetics look ridiculous and there's no way I'd buy it on that point alone.

I don't want a hatchback. I hate hatchbacks. Car manufacturers have hatchback fever right now, and they may sell ok, but I personally will spend extra money just to drive something that looks like a normal car.

EDIT: Some of this may be because other countries love small cars and it's easier to sell the same platform overseas as well. I still think they look awful and will pay extra money to not have to drive one. Yes I reserved a Tesla, and yes it's getting delivered in 3 weeks.

I can't speak to your desired aesthetics, but hatchbacks offer a lot of utility over a sedan/coupe in terms of cargo capacity. They're simply a much more efficient use of space for the same size car, and more versatile in terms of the kind of activities the platform can support. Its basically like having a small SUV. I drive a Golf GTI, which is quite compact of a car, but I can still carry a suprising amount of cargo without having to play too much tetris. YMMV of course, and I can empathize with your desire to have a nice-looking car, since I love mine paritally for the same reason (its also incredibly fun to drive!)

Yeah, totally understand that from a utilitarian point of view, hatchbacks are an incredible value buy. I have a truck just because of how useful it is.

It also looks cool (to me).

So I understand your position, but I honestly can't get over the look.

sounds just like your average truck commercial in america

"Real men, drive really big trucks, and they look really manly. and cool"

I will admit, there is many a time I wish for a truck for its cargo and towing capacity. Happy driving!

Chevy Bolt's aesthetics look ridiculous and there's no way I'd buy it on that point alone.

Looks like a pretty standard econobox hatchback/wagon to me.

I don't want a hatchback. I hate hatchbacks.

I guess that's how you see it.

> Some of this may be because other countries love small cars and it's easier to sell the same platform overseas as well.

The Bolt is the size of a subcompact SUV, like the KIA Soul, Honda HR-V or Chevy Trax. This is a fast-growing segment with a lot of new entries, so it makes sense for GM to put their new EV in this segment, rather than having it compete with their very profitable Equinox in the compact SUV segment.

Why do you like sedans? Why does anyone like sedans, actually? You can barely see out of the windows in the sun, let alone the rain, and they just look like those 50s land boats run through a wind tunnel.

> I don't want a hatchback. I hate hatchbacks.

I dunno, I like my eGolf -- mostly because it looks like a normal Golf, which looks like a normal car. Shame VW doesn't want to make them anymore.

15.000 electric cards sold in the U.S. in March, out of 1.6 million is an interesting number, closing in to 1%

My country (Uruguay) is at about 0.5% electric cars.

China is the world leader by quantity, about 2.1% of new cars are electric.

By percentage, Norway has an astonishing 40% of new car sales being electric, due to heavy tax incentives, it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

Since we're talking about the Model 3 and the Bolt, both all-electric vehicles, it's important to differentiate between only electric and the various hybrids. That 2.1% figure in China includes all variations of plug-in electric hybrids.

There were 26,373 plug-in electrics of all types sold in the US in March, a 42% increase over the prior year, and about 1.6% of all vehicles sold.

You're right, I hadn't realized that.

However, it's about 80% plug-in electrics and 20% plug-in hybrids according to Wikipedia.

Anecdotally, the plug-in electrics sold here in Uruguay are mostly Chinese BYD e6s (there are some Renaults, and other brands are starting to import). They're used mostly by the taxi fleet and seem to be faring well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_e6

The same applies to the Norwegian numbers, 20.9% battery electric, 18.4% plugin hybrid, 12.9% other hybrid

I believe there is internal resistance to the Bolt. There have been reports of dealerships being reluctant to sell them. I remember reading an article mentioning it was hard for potential buyers to actually find a Bolt to test drive at a dealership even though GM had plenty of inventory.

I believe there are also supply problems in hot markets. The Bolt is currently sold out with waiting list in Canada, I believe it takes months to get one there.

http://driving.ca/chevrolet/bolt/auto-news/news/the-chevrole...

I'm calling it now: This will be how EV adoption looks for the next five years. Partly the dealers won't cooperate, and partly the manufacturers won't be able/willing to produce enough vehicles (depending on the market in question). Multiple manufacturers have sold out the entire 2018 production, in some cases before deliveries have even started.

What's the reason that dealers won't cooperate? Fears that repairs will be lower?

That and selling the EVs means making sales pitches that make their other inventory look bad.

Maybe the Bolt was a loss-leader meant to make GM look good, rather than a serious product?

If I had to make a cynical guess, I'd say it's for CAFE standards.

GM may not be the only one. Other commenters have made a similar claim about the i3 in this thread - that BMW don't want to sell many.

Ford abandoned the sedan market, as they couldn't make money on small, efficient cars. (This is something that Henry Ford Jr told Lee Iacoca in the 1970s, according to Iacoca's autobiography - they'll never make money on small cars.)

Toyota is converting their fleet to hybrids to meet these standards. Nissan has been pushing the Leaf for several years, alongside a temporary Altima hybrid. Chrysler has the Pacifica, a plug-in hybrid van.

The title of this article is a bit misleading. Tesla is facing an accelerating rate of Model 3 deposit refunds. This is still not great, but as worded the title suggests people are unhappy with the Model 3's being delivered. The real (still big!) issue is that people are cancelling their reservation before the Model 3 is delivered.

I can totally relate, while we need a car upgrade right now/soon and I can currently configure and order a Model 3, I'm waiting for the 35K version as I just don't see a need for the current longer range model.

But at the same time there is no real alternate if I want an EV so I'm waiting. Worst thing is that the federal credit may expire by the time I can order the 35K version.

If my current car, a Prius, that needs to be updated dies, my 2 options are Prius Prime or the Honda Clarity Plug-in.

I visited a friend, and he showed me his goofy car, a Chevrolet Volt. This person is someone I'd met at a flying safety conference (I'm a pilot/aircraft owner) as was he and we became friends. He'd made his money in the 80's/90's selling his software company which produced accounting software and retired.

I was astonished to hear he'd sold his Lexus for this car. After driving it a few times, I became a bit intrigued. It was goofy, but one of the smoothest power-delivery I'd experienced in a car (I've never driven an electric) and the feel of the car felt good. It's not a luxury car but didn't seem to be lacking much.

Long story short, three months later I had traded in my Porsche Macan SUV for a Chevy Volt, the 65-mile range gets me 99% of the time where I need to go, and I've loved not having to stop at gas stations, almost ever. I would have bought the Bolt if I'd been able to get one, but this was late 2016, and they just weren't available.

Looking back, for what I paid for the car, what I'm spending on the car for fuel (electricity) and relative maintenance (almost none), this has probably been the best car I've ever owned. I went from considering purchasing a Tesla to now not even being interested because I have everything I need out of a car and am somehow at that rare place of being happy with the relatively modest vehicle.

To anyone considering a Volt, do not discount what a value this car is in the market if you have an effective way to charge the thing and it matches your commute cycle. I'll never be able to see petrol cars the same again. (I got a dealer demo with 500 miles for $30k and was able to get a $7500 tax credit), costing $22.5k for a new car. LOVE the vehicle and went from never owning a Chevrolet or American vehicle to now absolutely loving the car even though some people might find the car unattractive.

Buy what you like, but what works for you. There are excellent options out there now on the electric market, the problem for some is one of the most practical options is a Chevrolet.

Been thinking of cancelling my reservation as well. My need for a car has dramatically decreased in the last couple of years with the ubiquity of ride sharing services. Now with last mile services spreading more and more (scooters/bike shares) I'm thinking this trend will only increase.

I take the bus and bike to work. Small groceries are also done by bicycle. Whenever I go out to eat with my wife we use a ride sharing service because we enjoy a drink or two with our meals.

If you plan on having children and live anywhere in the US (including SF, excluding Manhattan), you'll most likely need a car for Drs visits etc.

Why would Uber not work for this?

Not necessarily disputing you, just wanted some clarification on why you think that. Anecdotally I know several carless couples with children ostensibly making it work for "unplanned" auto trips via Uber. They live close enough to walk for "planned" trips like grocery store/work etc.

Obviously you'd need to live close to those things but that was a major factor in their choice of home (location).

When the kids are small, where do you find an Uber with one or more suitable car seats?

It seems there's spotty availability in a few cities, but the standard from Uber is you get a single car seat appropriate for a child >12 months old.

Or do you supply your own, and then drag the seat(s) around with you at your destination?

That's an interesting point. At least in the parts of Europe I'm familiar with, Taxis have an exemption for car seat laws. Ubers don't.

Its quite easy to supply your own, as long as you find a lightweight stroller to drop the car seat into. As I commented above, (sorry to be redundant): Most infant car seats can be installed without the base in a car and typically connect with various lightweight (snap and go) strollers making portability via ride-share easy. There are one or two convertible car seat/lightweight stroller combos (for toddlers) that are very popular with urban parents who need to use ride shares. They are also useful when you travel via airplane. For example the Cosco Scenera car seat and the Mountain Buggy Nano stroller. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LotN7k5T2Q)

https://shopdoona.com

Main issue would be car seats. Uber offers the option to request a car seat in a few metros, but besides those you'll have to bring your own. I imagine most Uber drivers wouldn't be all that happy waiting for your to install and uninstall car seat(s). Additionally, you'll have to be going to somewhere you can store your car seat when you get there.

Once you get out of car seats and into booster seats, I could see it as pretty workable. Booster seats aren't all that big and are simple to install. But in CA kids need to be at least 8 years old and over 40 pounds before you can use a booster seat.

Most infant car seats can be installed without the base in a car and typically connect with various lightweight (snap and go) strollers making portability via ride-share easy. There are one or two convertible car seat/lightweight stroller combos (for toddlers) that are very popular with urban parents who need to use ride shares. They are also useful when you travel via airplane. For example the Cosco Scenera car seat and the Mountain Buggy Nano stroller. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LotN7k5T2Q)

What are the key features of a Tesla Model 3 that make people wait several years for their car instead of just going to a car dealership and buying what is available right now?

Here are a few: 1. Dealerships (experience) suck 2. Gas (petrol) sucks 3. Limited range sucks 4. Good performance is a plus

1. Convenience of all electric (start every day w/ "full tank", no oil changes or other regular maintenance)

2a. Social mission of the company/product

2b. Carbon footprint per mile driven gets better with age of car, rather than worse like with an ICE.

3. Autopilot

4. FSD hardware ready (even if you don't believe this, it's an advertised feature and may motivate some buyers)

5. No dealing with car salespeople

So electric+autopilot+online.

Are there no other electric cars available?

Are they not online?

Do they have no autopilot?

The Bolt fits the EV bill if you just need a commuter car. If you want to be able to take a road trip, Tesla is the only serious option.

No manufacturer offers anything remotely competitive with Autopilot.

Hopefully both of these things change very soon.

> No manufacturer offers anything remotely competitive with Autopilot.

This is for the better, given the number of collisions occurring with Autopilot engaged or recently engaged. It's too bad the Adaptive Cruise and Autonomous Braking can't be enabled without the Lane Assist.

Adaptive Cruise in a Camry Hybrid is a serious benefit and a life-changing amenity. I'm no longer willing to drive cars that don't have Adaptive Cruise.

> This is for the better, given the number of collisions occurring with Autopilot engaged or recently engaged.

I think this is very misguided. Tesla owners aren't suicidal or some big idiot collective. They understand Autopilot's practical intricacies (from experience) better than any other group. They continue to use it because they know it massively reduces driving fatigue.

> It's too bad the Adaptive Cruise and Autonomous Braking can't be enabled without the Lane Assist.

ACC and emergency braking work just fine without Lane Assist! One pull on the stalk for ACC; two for Autopilot.

Do they?

https://twitter.com/zedd/status/1002244316087992320

This person attributes AP to saving his life when he fell asleep at the wheel. But AP is not meant to be some kind of fail-safe for impaired driving. Had he crashed, wouldn't Tesla blame the driver, as they have in every other AP crash?

Look, people fall asleep driving cars every day. People text and drive, eat hamburgers and drive, wear headphones and drive all the time. For whatever reason, when they do this stuff in a Tesla, critics claim that Autopilot made them do it. I don't excuse this behavior from any driver, but all things equal, a driver who does this will fare better with Autopilot than without it.

I don't see a contradiction in your questions. Yes, Autopilot appeared to save this person from injury or death. Yes, Tesla would blame him if it hadn't. And yes, they'd be justified in doing so, because it would be his own fault for falling asleep at the wheel. Autopilot, like emergency braking, can mitigate a bad situation. But should it fail, it doesn't relieve you of responsibility for getting yourself into that situation in the first place.

I agree, people fall asleep (or worse) at the wheel, every day. The vast majority of those people don't die or even crash. So what I take issue with is this:

> but all things equal, a driver who does this will fare better with Autopilot than without it.

There's no science or evidence for this yet. Tesla has had the opportunity to release data but has declined, to the point where the NHTSA had to disown a misleading stat that Tesla kept citing in the wake of recent crashes:

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-safety-statistic...

It's not that I have an inherent distrust of automation (being a computer engineer myself), so I don't have a problem with AutoPilot in theory, and I can accept that AP may be better than its current peers. But what Tesla has presented, in lieu of studies and statistics, is a non-falsifiable claim: that AutoPilot increases safety.

We already have well-known examples of AP actively steering off the roads, because of ambiguous road paint. But besides those (perhaps relatively few) incidents in which AP arguably caused the crash, we have many instances where AP didn't prevent what seems like easily preventable crashes. Such as the Utah driver who drove 60mph into a parked fire truck. In those cases, I would agree that the driver was an idiot, but the question for overall safety is: does AP result in a net increase of accidents because drivers are too over-confident?

In the tweet that I mentioned, that's a guy who clearly has the means to call an Uber. Would he have attempted to drive himself if he didn't have Autopilot? Did AP make it easier for him to doze off? I've had a few instances of highway sleepy driving -- thankfully, the feedback from rumble strips or the rough shoulder was enough to jolt adrenaline in me, and get me to pull off at the next rest stop. AP's advantage seems to be that it will just stay within the lane as you sleep. But there's really no evidence that results in a net increase in safety, if Autopilot emboldens drivers who would've otherwise not tried to drive.

The main difference between AP and other safety measures is that, based on Tesla's defenses so far, there is literally no situation in which AP should be assigned blame, because it's ultimately the driver's responsibility. Whereas when an airbag fails to deploy, or just randomly blows up in a driver's face, there can be agreement that the airbag "failed".

I agree with much of what you've written. I think the main difference between our views is in who has the onus of proof to make a change in policy. You seem to be skeptical and want Tesla to prove that Autopilot is safer; whereas I see Autopilot's design intuitively as a safety improvement, and would want data to the contrary to withhold it from the market.

While we don't have a statistically significant data set to pine over, I do think we have evidence that "a driver who [falls asleep at the wheel or texts and drives] will fare better with Autopilot than without it." I use Autopilot on my way to and from work each day. It's pretty typical for AP to handle a ten minute stretch with no input from me. For any given minute of driving, there is a very high probability that I haven't given any input to the car. It follows then, that for any given minute on Autopilot during that stretch, I'd probably be fine if I were not paying attention. This stands in contrast to the alternative: if I gave no input to the car for an arbitrary minute without Autopilot, there is virtually no chance that I wouldn't cause an accident. This is where my intuition derives from.

> The main difference between AP and other safety measures is that, based on Tesla's defenses so far, there is literally no situation in which AP should be assigned blame, because it's ultimately the driver's responsibility. Whereas when an airbag fails to deploy, or just randomly blows up in a driver's face, there can be agreement that the airbag "failed".

I understand why this sounds like passing the buck, but I think this is the right policy (for the driving public's sake). People need to be responsible for how they use any L1 or L2 system, period. Again, I would liken it to Automatic Emergency Braking. There is no situation where a failure of AEB to brake would render a driver not responsible for an accident. The system adds a layer of protection, but it does not make any guarantees. I suppose if AEB or Autopilot acted in such a way that it overrode driver input -- say AEB braked hard on the highway and ignored the gas pedal input -- then you could blame AEB. And I'd say the same for Autopilot -- if it e.g. veered toward an object and overpowered a human trying to avoid it, I would blame AP for that. But as far as failures of logic, I think the driver owns that entirely until L3 systems are available.

> the question for overall safety is: does AP result in a net increase of accidents because drivers are too over-confident?

This is a good question, and I hope Tesla releases its data as promised so we can put it to rest. My own experience is that Autopilot makes it much easier for me to pay attention to my surroundings because I don't get fatigued and I'm less stressed than when I'm driving manually. I recognize that my experiences could be atypical, but having seen hundreds of similar sentiments on TMC over the years (and very few counters), it would take data to convince me otherwise.

Thanks for your insight. I haven't used AP but the general consensus seems to be that it performs better than its peers, so my complaints aren't regarding the quality of the system, just about the claims made versus the lack of rigorous study so far. Though I'm not a huge fan of how the tesla.com/autopilot page is primarily focused on full-self driving (including having the only video be of the 2016 FSD demo, as opposed to AP functions).

I read r/teslamotors pretty frequently. It seems a common theme in the threads about AP-related crashes for users to argue whether the road conditions were right for AP. Seems like there's a lot of assumptions and confusion about what AP can actually do, and ambiguity about computational features can lead to problems of its own. Hopefully the safety stats that Musk said they would start publishing will give us a better place to evaluate things.

Systems from Volvo, BMW and Mercedes are pretty close. Cadillac's system is arguably better than autopilot on the freeway, but it only supports freeways. So, I'm not sure if "remotely" is the right word... there are a few that are pretty close.

> Social mission of the company/product

What is your opinion on Elon's plan to "rate" journalists? (He was upset about "unfair" coverage of Tesla.)

Sloppy reporting and bad journalistic incentives are real problems, but Elon's solution is uncharacteristically dumb. Even outright falsehoods can be difficult to refute, let alone subtler varieties like "lies of omission." Few folks will see them for what they are.

As for Tesla coverage, my observation is that Elon is usually correct on the merits of his frustrations, but he always responds in the most defensive and tonedeaf way possible. I think he forgets that the people he needs to convince aren't the ones attacking him, but the ones watching from the sidelines. I consider myself a huge fan of his, and the way he comports himself often makes me sad.

My biggest pet peeve is that sometimes he'll cite a half-truth rather than a real truth, even when the real truth is on his side. His defense of Autopilot is a good example -- the data showing that Autopilot reduced crashes by 40% is very compelling, but he continues to cite the 1:340M miles stat which at best has a bunch of lurking variables. I understand why he does it -- it's easier to explain and it provides a baseline against the field rather than against Tesla's pre-AP vehicles. But it's dishonest, which is a bad look, especially when you're getting all pissy at the media for its dishonesty.

For better or worse, in a $50ish billion dollar company with the short position that TSLA has, there is a lot of working the refs, as far as the press goes. He's doing it embarassingly clumsily, but he's wise to be aggressive about it.

Price for the Tesla brand. The other options that are also Teslas are much more expensive (and, in the case of the Model X, much larger). There are no other "prestige" fully-electric vehicles with the same wide popularity, except for ultra-high-end options like Fisker.

They are coming, and fast. i-pace looks so good.

It's the coolest electric car on the market right now at a decent price. The other ones look like garbage. I'd place the Chevy Volt as second.

> Chevy Volt

That's not bad at all. The garbage-looking EVs are what essentially forced me down the route of hybrid.

The engineer in me says hybrids are overcomplicated and have more failure points.

However, the researcher and accountant in me has been surprised to discover that hybrids are, in fact, the best consumer proposition in this category by far and will probably continue to be for a while.

Yeah, I hate hatchbacks and bean looking EVs. IDK why those are the only ones being made.

"on the market" isn't.. really. If you're guaranteed a wait.

So, to rephrase your reply:

"It is so cool it is worth waiting for, versus the other ones which look so much like garbage, they aren't worth having right now."

I meant Tesla in general. You can get a slick S used for about 40-50k.

This guy has never driven an electric car. I used to be a muscle car guy. I barely drive mine anymore since going to electric.

I don't know about 25%, I've read 12% somewhere, but I'm thinking about it. I was not one of the first to pre-order and I'm not in the US, which makes the waiting time.. extra long. I'm wondering if by then (something like mid-2019 I guess) it won't be easier to get a "used" one, or even a used model S. I also don't like the opaque pricing: pretty sure with the options I'd like it'll cost no less than 50k€, which is far from the announced low cost. I still like the idea to get a model 3 though, and there is no good alternative as of today.

> I've read 12% somewhere

In the article. Musk stated 12% last August.

I reserved on 04/01/2016 and I am still holding my reservation, but not with the same enthusiasm. I love Tesla and Elon and I hope they succeed, but as I consumer I see the $35k as the equivalent of a click bait. It was the “click bait of the decade”. If I don’t get tired and get a refund, I’ll probably purchase the $49k version. But boy, is it frustrating to see Canadians that placed orders long after me receiving their cars. I understand the reasons, but still.

Everyone wants the future cheaper, faster, and without any compromise, even if there is only a single whipping boy (Elon) to bring it to him

I just want the future without the wrong expectations set.

Everybody who reserved knew they’d have to wait. That was and still is the compromise. If at least you could tell me any other situation where people compromised this much for something they believed and wanted.

The $35K Model 3 is only one year late. Enough to deeply cut into its leads over the cars that have been increasing performance in the existing $35K price-classes (Chevy, Nissan) to meet in the middle, and with an $8K/ wibble-wobble over the "will you get a tax credit or not", but overall it's not a "never going to happen". Also depends on whether you were mentally taking a $7500 discount for the tax credit that might expire before you can use it.

Where does SecondMeasure get their data?

I can imagine companies not being super happy about this info getting out, particularly if there are fiscal/stock implications.

The guy went 40M into debt to finance the company as it almost died a decade ago. Refunds increasing is hardly a hurdle.

The problem with the reservation system is that I couldn't wait any longer. My Leaf's lease was up, so my wife and I delayed to the AWD version and bought a different car.

Who knows what will happen when the AWD version comes? Will I be willing to replace our other car that we planned on keeping a few years longer?

The biggest question on my mind is whether there's a market for 500,000 Model 3 a year ongoing. BMW is an established player and they sell less than that across their entire range.

Depends on the price and other factors over then next few years.

I think the Chevy Bolt all electric vehicle is luring some customers. It's not as sexy but it's ~400km range and availability right now make it a great buy.

Is it unwise to buy the first version of car? Seems like you wouldn't want to buy something until they get the kinks out, maybe a few years after production.

I feel like this has more to do with the turning of the economic cycle than with tesla specifically.. any debt funded spending is starting to dry up.

We just need to wait for Toyota to release an EV capitalizing on the ~127mpgE of the Prius Prime, and kill everyone else for a little while.

I plan to buy Model 3 in about 2 years or so, so this is great news!

I wonder if they will change the policy on the full refund.

at least Tesla got to use those interest-free loans for quite a while...

Mods, can you change this to the original source article?

https://blog.secondmeasure.com/2018/06/04/tesla-faces-accele...

Thanks! We've updated the link from https://boingboing.net/2018/06/04/report-almost-25-of-tesla-..., which points to Engadget, which points to this.

Data is based on a report by Second Measure: https://secondmeasure.com

Y Combinator is listed on their website as a ... customer?

A quick Googling says they are Summer class of 2015.

This pertains to the people who plunked down a thousand bucks to get in line for one. This is an interesting tidbit, but also a non-story.

It was a win-win either way for Tesla. Worst case scenario for them, they got an interest free loan. They could've just put that money in a savings account and made free money off the 1% interest.

It's not a win win to lose potential customers because you could have made a few bucks in interest in the process.

I'm sure there was an expectation that some percentage of pre orders would refund. I don't think the fact that 23% we're refunded should be used to say Tesla lost customers, considering they're still plus several hundred thousand pre orders.

At the end of the day Tesla was able to guage demand, get hundreds of thousands of orders placed (even with the refunds) and get millions of dollars to use for investment/production.

Yeah ideally for Tesla no one would all for a refund, but I'm sure they expected some and this still seems like a big win for Tesla.

A big win for Tesla would be if they were able to produce the car at the pricing and timing they said they were going to. Right now it's at least 50% more expensive and way behind schedule, there is no way to call it a "big win". I bet taking deposits for a car that they have no intention of actually selling for years is a good way to turn a lot of potential customers off.

If that were true there would be way more than 25% refunded. I honestly expected it to be more, even if they had met their production schedule.

Trading long-term customer trust for a short-term cash infusion is not a winning play.

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