$35,000 Tesla Model 3 Available Now
tesla.com
tesla.com
Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores,"
Bold
Also does Tesla still have Tesla branded "service shop" to do car delivery/return/refund/service?
If anyone has ever had to cancel a car sale you’ll realize how much of a hassle it truely is to “return a car”
Your credit report will show a loan even after it’s been cancelled for weeks.
I once cancelled financing for a car due to it not being as described. Started looking for a new car and found it.
Got denied for a loan because my score showed a 60k loan with 0 payments made. It took almost 2 months to fully remove it from my report and start with a clean state
In summary, Tesla is essentially saying “you can’t test drive it but if you don’t like it you can cancel your car search for a few months and ding your credit score for nothing”
This is like mattress stores that give you a “free trial”, they know the resistance to actually doing ending your “trial” is crazy high
The finance has already written you a check, they’ve already done all this leg work.
You’ve already driven it, if you’re purchasing it in earnest you might have already invested in charging infrastructure for your home, a whole laundry list of friction.
Then there’s what happens to the car you returned.
I wouldn’t want to be the guy stuck with a car that went through multiple 1000 mile “test drives” with Tesla’s reconditioning track record of delivering cars with toe nail clippings in the seat rails
(traditional dealers do have offers like this from time to time, but it’s exceedingly rare they’ll actually let you keep the car for more than a few hours, and most importantly they don’t require you to buy the car first, they’ll take a deposit or let you rent the car)
They were not saying, everyone who drives one will want to buy one.
You can also steal one and drive it around for a bit if you don't mind.
I remember the “salesperson” talking about how quiet it was as wind noise whistled through the cabin like we were in a Corolla. The A4 I was driving at the time was immensely quieter at highway speeds but I nodded and played along.
I’m convinced the aspirational status of Teslas means people who haven’t experienced actual luxury vechicles are buying into the hype that Tesla is somehow peak luxury, or even deserves to be called luxury outside of pricing (especially when you compare a Model S to it's price-mates)
Which leads to hyperbolic statements like this one.
And even so, the comparison of Teslas to other cars just highlight the absurdity of their MSRPs relative to the luxury they deliver.
I’m assuming you mean Model 3 is the size of a Civic or similar so it competes with them.
I mean technically sure, but the pricing doesn’t reflect that!
Until today it cost as much as an A4 at A3 levels of room, and honestly maybe not even A3 levels of luxury.
Now you can pay for a Model 3 with no heated seats for a price that no “normal” Civic reaches.
I mean it ties with a Type R! That’s a sports car that you might compare to a what, 60k Model 3 Performance trim?
And for the rest of us there’s the 340i which is still only as expensive as what was the only Model 3 you could buy before 2pm today...
Second one of my cars is 4 series, I don’t own a 3 series. And it’s a 440i which is faster and more luxurious than a comparable Model 3. And I can put the roof down when I feel like it.
Third, why did you make an alt for this?
If you do take even some of those factors into account, it’s a no brainer.
For wind noise it’s not the best, but in many other aspects it’s far ahead.
Also, Tesla know this themselves! Elon admits that Teslas are overpriced and that current buyers are subsidizing future buyers as they scale up. Also, a friend of mine used to be the manager of a major Tesla delivery center. He said the quality control was terrible and they had tons of cars with paint and panel issues. In fact he said bad paint jobs was one of their biggest source of problems.
A friend took me for a drive in their model 3 recently. At one point we hit around 130mph, and it was the smoothest and quietest ride I’ve ever had at the speed.
That being said the BMW 7s I’ve been in were all from the early 2000s, but I never found any other car to be as quiet as a Tesla.
What do you mean year, Teslas don’t have model years because you’re always getting the most improved car
-Tesla “salesperson”
One slightly weird thing is that because there is no engine noise (other than a slight whine on heavy acceleration) all those other road noises become more noticeable and it seems noisier.
I agree with the luxury vehicle thing, especially on the S. Mine had the seal between the window and the front door literally fall off at one point early into ownership.
I got mine for two main reasons: the acceleration is great fun in the "performance" models and I don't have to deal with buying gasoline. It's also a pretty damn safe car, which is nice when I take the kids somewhere.
There are some nice tech features (like being able to summon the car from a tight parking spot) that feel luxurious too, but I agree that they badly need to work on fit and finish for a $150K price point car.
Same thing happens with luxury sports cars. I test drive Ann F-Type, and the damn thing comes a button to make your car louder. The call it “active exhaust” or something. It basically shoots gasoline into the exhaust so the car backfires. It’s basically rolling coal for rich people. The car was so loud, it was hard to have a conversation. I hated it.
And in my current car, compared to a friend's new S? No comparison, mine is far quieter, despite being a V8 (Jaguar XJ) thanks to in cab active noise cancelling and others.
If you want to be part of the solution go find an old, safe, (it’s 2019, a 10 year old car can finally in the “modern era” of safety, AEB and all) vehicle that has amortized the insane ecological costs required to make a new car
I tell people that the parts of the car that make it a car are excellent, and the parts of the car that make it luxury need some help. That being said, I've bought two Teslas so far with absolutely no regrets.
Oh boo hoo. Finance does a little more work.
I feel for the people doing the refurbishing, sure. They're probably squeezed to death non-union wage labor.
But the Pinstripes in finance? The likelihood the work they do for your loan involves "legs" at all is nil.
I spent hours on the phone talking to these people when they realized my closed loan was still affecting my ability to get a car and they went up and down trying to get someone to fix it.
Maybe they were just typing in numbers into a computer and hitting transfer but they’re still people doing a job.
I wouldn’t feel to good taking someone’s information, going over the process with them then having them call back in a week to tell me never mind we have to do it all over again.
...also, there's a $1,200 delivery fee. Is this the new "restock fee"? it is conveniently left out of the marketing materials.
edit: This was an honest question, and instead of downvoting, perhaps you could enlighten me?
They are certainly pitching the idea that "buy and return" is the new "test drive". So the question is "Do you have to pay the delivery fee?"
Even if that wasn't the case when you go to a dealership that delivery cost is part of the price. Claiming the car is $35,000 when it's literally impossible to buy it for that is a bit misleading.
The price of the monthly subscription(s) alone is a very significant proportion of my gas consumption (I'm a leasure only driver, I do maybe 5000 miles per year, the bulk of it is done in 4 to 5 road trips)
In Spain, the standing cost of a residential electricity contract that is sufficient to charge a Tesla (i.e. above the regular Spanish 3000W default contract) is similarly a significant portion of the gas price.
But he added that franchise-dealer opposition would be a violation of interstate commerce, and that is unconstitutional.
"Good luck with that," Musk said.
Sounds like Musk likes to pick and choose the laws he follows.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-is-eliminating-most-of...
Next time try buying a Honda or a Subaru. There's almost no wiggle-room in price.
Honda in the past. They may not move as much, but they definitely move.
Insider Tip: The internet desk is usually separate from the floor desk at your average dealership. When you know exactly which car you want to buy, negotiate through the internet desk only at several dealerships. But be prepared to walk if they try to pull a bait & switch when you show up to purchase.
As it stands, we are an unorganized mob who the middlemen and manufacturers are squabbling over and each making a profit. But it's becoming pretty clear we'll be able to program the middlemen cheaper/better in the near future (or services can just offer direct-online shopping), so should that remaining profit go to the manufacturer or the consumer? Tesla's being pretty generous now (or appears to be), but future (and present) direct online shippers may benefit greatly from the organizational imbalance. This is the same argument for collectively-purchased (government) healthcare, I believe.
(And yes, companies obviously should be compensated according to their risk and willingness to invest at scarce times - Tesla certainly deserves big praise from many angles - but examining this relationship from a societal standpoint and collectively bargaining for the end consumer (advocating for the poorest of us) is important too)
I may be a weird consumer but whenever I buy something expensive I always think about the unrelated things my money is paying for. So for example when I visit a car dealership I notice the big land footprint, the shiny offices, and well dressed salespeople—and I think to myself how much of my car purchase is going towards the upkeep of this crap, none of which I like or want.
If I want to learn about the car, I'd much rather access the manufacturer's website and read/watch independent reviews.
If I want to test drive a car I'd be willing to travel further to test drive one directly from the manufacturer. Or better still, just don't test drive it at all—you won't learn anything in an hour that you couldn't learn from a reviewer. The true character of a car usually takes a week or more to surface.
If I want to buy a car, I'd much rather buy it directly from the manufacturer and either pick it up from a central depot (to save money) or have it delivered directly to my home and detailed on my driveway (for a fee based on distance).
The only problem is that dealers usually only have cars with the most popular engines available, so you often can't actually try the car you want to buy...
Personally? yeah, I think renting a car is the way to go, if you want to evaluate how you will feel about the car later. A 20 minute test drive, to me, is like laying on a mattress for 20 minutes in a store and expecting to know what it will feel like to sleep on.
Remember: you're not special. You're just another meat bag that fits within a bell curve of normalness.
Edit: to the one person who voted me down, I was wrong. You aren't a meat bag, you are special.
I trust the guy at my local camera store to explain the pros and cons of a Canon vs a Fuji, I obviously don't expect they guy at my local Honda dealer to explain the pros and cons of a Honda vs a Toyota.
Camera stores is a great example. The vast majority of salespeople know how to convince you that a product suits your needs, but would have very little clue what is important to get the best outcome. They're not photographers—or if they are, chances are they're no more of a photography expert than you.
Perhaps the worst is "high end" hi-fi salespeople. These slick operators are great at convincing you to buy the unnecessarily expensive product and the criminally overpriced accessories. Unfortunately for the customer, most of the things that matter in making a good system aren't sold in a cardboard box with a big profit margin, so you'll never hear about them from a hi-fi salesperson.
There are only a few things that excite me more about a Model 3 than electric cars from established brands (particularly the upcoming Kia Niro EV) and a big one is the sales process.
Consumer price discrimination isn't something that should be occurring.
After all I'm not saying that car makers can't have "deals" but the price of any new car for sale—on special or a regular—should be published and not negotiated.
This doesn't make sense to me.
Thinking about it, my last three laptops were bought with a discount, just by not being afraid to ask for some.
When you're buying one laptop, of course not. You're talking a $3000 purchase vs a $40,000+ purchase. You negotiate on cars, because getting a thousand or two off is a huge deal for a lot of people.
The "No haggle" thing that Tesla is doing works fine for their $60,000-$120,000 cars. People spending that kind of cash on a car are probably not going to bat an eye at an extra thousand or two. Anybody spending that much money on a car isn't buying it because they have a limited budget, and are not trying to maximize their value.
I don't think it's going to work as well on their lower priced cars. People who don't have a $50-60k budget for a car don't have tons of money to throw around.
Haggling is stupid. Cars are usually overpriced because the expectation of haggling is priced in. I'd rather Tesla put a $35K price tag on their Model 3 knowing that's exactly what I'll pay than put a $38K tag knowing that I'll try to haggle it down to $35k.
A random citizen buying a single car isn't comparable to a corporation negotiating a volume discount.
Tesla doesn't let anybody else fix their cars. So you have to take it to their... what, repair center?
Dealerships may or may not have your best pricing interests in mind, so forcing them to exist is not particularly useful.
It says move all sales to online, but it only says closing many stores.
A car transporter carries 11 cars and can drive say 500 miles per day at a cost of $500 per day (including driver, fuel, and vehicle rental).
If the average delivery distance from factory to customer is 1500 miles, then transport cost works out to $136. Add to that the 'last mile delivery' which is probably going to involve a $20 per hour employee driving to the customers premises, doing a 2 hour training and handover process, and catching an uber home. Call that 4 hours, or $80 + $30 for the Uber.
Total delivery cost with an efficient delivery network could be $246.
Assume a 20% 'failure rate' (ie. where the customer rejects the car), and in those cases double the cost (returning the vehicle) and fold it into the amount the other customers have to pay, and you arrive at $369
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-inPRBhonfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXoOEuH9Jag
That feel to me awfully low. Can you be more specific on how you get to $500 for all that? Renting a car can cost me more than 100$ a day for similar distances. I can't imagine 11x that would cost less than half of it and on top of that include the wage of someone that have to drive full time.
That's barely his cost and doesn't consider anything else (administrative and etc..). I feel like it would be closer to 1500$ a day.
But there's a difference between the OSD MSRP discount. (i.e. buying off the OSD price sheet) and the standalone "Destination Fee" line item. Further, even though Volvo ships the car back to the the states for free for you, it's up to the dealership (and potentially your negotiation skills) whether they still add that destination fee to the final bill.
OTOH, I do know many people who paid delivery fees for customized luxury cars. The $35k Model 3, however, is not a luxury car and is barely customizable, even to the extent of available add-on packages.
This was the first google result that came up for "car destination fee" :- A "destination charge" is a fee that the manufacturer charges to deliver a vehicle from the factory to the dealership, and that is passed on by the dealer to the consumer; it is not included in the MSRP of the vehicle. Destination charges are typically not negotiable.
You may be doing that thing where you assume parent, and indeed everyone, is in the same country you are in, subject to the same laws, regulations, and traditional rorts.
As to why you’d want to: if you ask someone to quote bottom line, and they do, then you can start picking their line items apart to go lower. Or if you quote high, you can use line items as justification for it to some buyers.
But why? If I want a lower price I don’t care where they have to shave it from to do that do I? I don’t care about how they’ve arrived at a price or how it’s accounted for if I just want it be lower.
I say I want that price to be lower in order for me to buy and they say yes or no depending on if it’s worth it for them.
A more thorough discussion can bring down the offer they are willing to accept. You don’t have to care about the details to use them in a negotiation.
So why would you ever use the former approach? It’s strictly worse.
"Can you reduce bottom line by x" is like saying, "the documentation is a bit vague, can you improve it please?"
"Can you reduce line item n by x" is like saying, "there's no way the user could possibly intuit that the sampling period may be truncated to precisely hit the target value after the specified duration. Given that the programming language itself has no specification, this longstanding behavior must be explained clearly in the user docs."
Which response do you suppose will be more likely to lead to an improvement in the docs? It's probably the one that shows evidence you know your domain and how to assess quality there.
Of course, that analogy is the dream. In reality the car salesperson will come back with the reduced line item but with adjustments somewhere else. And it's hard to keep track of because, for example, how would an increase in the down payment affect your idea of the "total bottom line?"
This would be like a developer countering by saying, "Ok, but to clarify that section of the docs I added threading to the event loop." And then every single developer suddenly becomes some kind of darkworld saboteur, and you finally give in by saying, "I guess this is just how software gets made..."
Line itemisation is very silly for cars. All I need to know is how much does it cost me to get the car. I don't care that some of that money goes to person A and some of it to person B. Irrelevant to me!
But you would have already told them, "As long as I can afford..." So they'll spend the entire exchange trying to optimize for the maximum amount they think you can afford. They can try to convince you they've optimized when they really haven't, and they can try to pick a vehicle of a lower quality and persuade you that the price drop is the optimization.
If your response to every trick is to respond, "No, please try again to optimize for TCO," they'll eventually interpret your behavior as the equivalent of an ad-blocker. Then they'll either persuade you to reveal more data or move on to a customer who negotiates on their terms.
There is a difference simply because the results are different, whether due to the need to save face, behavior psychology, sales training, or more intangible factors.
What I'm saying is that either OP will accidentally give away information at the outset that virtually guarantees overpayment-- "Here's what I can afford"-- or robotically repeat a fair price calculated ahead of time and request TCO optimization until they are thrown out of the dealership.
It'd be like going to a shell game and requesting to pay $7 so your kid can have 10 guesses at where the shell is. Then when they ignore you, start asking what's wrong with that, I mean, those are the odds, no? I've even rounding up for that pure profit. Why wouldn't someone with a big crowd of good faith players want to accept that?
You have to be pretty bad at negotiating to be hit with a delivery fee since in my neck of the woods, aka SoCal, most dealers will waive that for everyone.
I recalled this wrong — I looked at the sticker for my car 3 years ago and it was $795. I think $500 was for my previous vehicle, and that was a long long time ago :)
P.S. by "dude" I meant that the man just drove the car to the owner's place from their Fremont factory (30 min).
Car haulers don't make sense for sparse local deliveries.
Then Tesla registered the car improperly and took months to correct.
Most Tesla owners I talk to say the same thing, they love the car and hate everything else about dealing with Tesla. I can't imaging removing dealerships is going to make this any better with customers.
>and then return it for free.
which implies that there's no financial loss on your end.
They should at least have phrased it in terms of "and you're only out the initial delivery fee".
Edit: I don't know what the actual status is. One commenter mentioned a delivery fee that's separate from the headline price; I was just going off the earlier discussion.
didn't realise being able to get a loan is a human right now.
I'm not sure that Tesla is saying you can't test drive it. There are other ways to evangelize the car and let people test drive it, ones that don't involve massive rents in premium retail spaces. Toyota brings the Mirai to my local Farmers Market, for example.
They could easily organize such events for the Teslas.
I even tried going with a different finance company to secure the exact car I wanted (it was an excellent offer I had driven the dealer to) and they came back with a flat no.
In my case they hadn’t secured the loan yet. I doubt they’d be so flexible even if the car had been totaled as I drove it off the lot without the loan being secured.
Say, for Spain the price of the long range model is 59K€, if you remove taxes and after currency exchange the price comes to 47K$.
Add oversea shipping and the cost is not that much higher than the US.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-pricing-info-released-eu...
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-long-range-325-miles...
Where do they say that? On the site is a big "Test drive" button which goes to https://www.tesla.com/drive which, I asume, will let me test drive a Tesla. Without Buying.
When I requested a test drive in a state with no dealerships I was directed to a store out of state.
These stores will no longer exist.
The messaging is also very clear, sometimes it’s ok to read between the lines...
We’re closing stores where you test drive + we’re pushing returns hard in the marketing = we want to move past test drives
This is a new annocument, other parts of the site don’t even have the right mileage and days for returns last I checked, give them some time before the site is consistent with the new reality
Does this include their dealerships? There are plenty of dealerships that offer test drives.
EDIT: I assumed that the "stores" were the places in malls etc. that don't have (say) a whole bunch of machinery for the service center etc.
Their “dealerships” don’t sell you a car, you just get handed off to the website
Loans, mortgages, etc. are based on your whole credit history, and if you take out a loan it will be marked on your history and when you cancel it within the 14-day cooling off period the credit history will be updated to say it's closed.
Unless you're doing this multiple times in six months or so, it won't affect anything (maybe your credit score might go down a bit when you take out the loan but it goes back up after a few months when it's updated again normally - but a this credit score doesn't mean anything it doesn't matter).
Would you be willing to disclose in general terms what you have in your portfolio of investments. Keen to learn.
You could easily achieve similar returns in an S&P 500 index fund.
This is not the mentality that gives someone good returns on their money so I’m forced to assume people who say it can’t afford the cars they’re talking about.
Why is it supposed to be easy? If it were easy you'd have too many people buying a car "for the weekend", costing the company money and driving up prices for everyone.
Like to the tee, they literally use the example of taking the car out with your friends on a road trip as a test drive.
To my mind the mere fact that someone would borrow money at all to buy _a car_ is a huge red flag against their creditworthiness / financial responsibility.
But I keep reading online that people who otherwise seem pretty sensible do this as a matter of course. Is it possible that living in a city with functioning public transport has sheltered me to the point of naivety? That is to say, is having a car really so essential to holding down a job and accessing services in most of America (etc.) that taking out a loan to acquire a car becomes a necessary evil?
It’s all about opportunity cost. If you have better things to do with the cash then it makes sense to finance.
Yes, it is, and it really sucks that we in Amercia designed so many of our towns and even cities this way.
If you're talking about the US, this is the greatest understatement I've seen in some time. I don't have a very good source handy, but for the median American under 40, try more like "$1,000".
Wow.
Given your healthcare system and the potential costs of being ill combined with having such a low amount of savings / safety money. Losing your job could potentially terrifying in the US.
How do people live what that level of stress continunally?
I could lose my job tomorrow and live for 4-5 years on savings and I'm not comfortable with that amount and occasionally find myself worrying about my financial situation.
Financial literacy is low, and financing is available on everything. Just tell the person that they can buy something with no money down and you're halfway to making the sale.
They have no other choice. Education is far too expensive to better yourself and train for a better career, everything is designed to suck every possible penny from those with less money than average, and if you don't work your ass off to pay what you can, you die on the street because we have no safety net. Being poor is a treadmill. If you were born poor and don't get absurdly lucky, you can look forward to being poor forever and passing that great experience onto your possible children.
Welcome to America, land of the free I guess
A 35K car loan at a net of 1.5% (3% - 2% + marginal tax rate on 2%) will cost over a thousand dollars over 4 years.
US public transit is really bad outside of major urban areas. In the (medium-sized) city I live in, the only public transit is an unreliable bus service that only covers a few areas of the city with really limited routes. We don't really have taxis, either, and there's enough sprawl that you can't bike to places easily, so your options are to either use uber/lyft for everything and hope you can get a ride reliably, or buy your own car.
Median household income in the US is only around $60k/year [1], which makes it pretty difficult to afford a car without some form of loan. If you save up pretty far in advance, and buy a cheaper used car, it's probably doable, but most people don't want to do that (and if everyone tried to do that, used car prices would likely go up to almost the price of a new car anyway).
Otherwise I’d say that’s the short sighted financial sense.
I was borrowing at a rate that was barely costing my anything in finance charges and gaining the opportunities having that much cash open for investment or other expenses gives me.
I don’t see a reason to buy a car in cash if you can get a good enough rate...
Hi Jeff Just a polite reminder that a) there's nothing wrong with financing, it's essential to the buildup of the US and b) the average US citizen doesn't have the same income distribution that the average HN reader does.
The median price of a car in the us is $35K [1] and the median household income is $59k [2]; For most families in the US the car is absolutely essential for work, life (kids) and basic necessities of life. The median American has less than $5000 in a savings account. This is especially bad for marginalized minorities [3]. It's practically impossible for most Americans to walk in and buy a car with straight up cash, and even if they could, I would consider that unwise.
Back to debt: there's nothing wrong with debt, and some of the smartest richest people I know use debt carefully to manage cash flow.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Till_Stowasser/publicat...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
[3] http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/img/...
Great value for money, and it had a relatively classic look that belied its price. That's the kind of car I intend to buy again in the future.
It generally makes little to no sense to pay cash for a car. Auto financing is cheap, and so there is is significant opportunity cost if you don't invest the money instead into something that appreciates. Also, inflation.
Apparently yes.
And as others have mentioned, if financing can be done for less than the value of the money in your pocket, it's better to finance!
I have a 0% interest rate for 7 years on my other car. That's literally free money.
You chose to forgo getting/negotiating a greater discount on the purchase price.
There's no way the lender could do business otherwise.
The average new car is around 35k. 35k with 7 years of returns even with extremely conservative investments should very handily make up for any lost bargaining power at purchase.
Yeah, I think so. Financing is pretty much standard in America when you make the decision to buy a new vehicle (and many times, when buying a used vehicle).
The median amount American citizens have in savings is just over $5k:
https://smartasset.com/checking-account/savings-account-aver...
Not awesome.
I find it hard to argue for getting a car loan when the car's value is above a certain amount. Certainly if the car provides value greater than it is worth (i.e., ability to provide mobility to/from employment location) but a Tesla is more in the "luxury" category.
Buying a new car lets you take advantage of warranties, free maintenance on some brands, having new tech years ahead of what’s otherwise availble (if you’re interested in that), not worrying about a questionable history (I’ve seen cars seriously damaged by driving habits in hundreds of miles of driving by abuse), and a myriad of other factors.
At the end of the day money is not just for hoarding. You can want to buy a new car as a treat, or a reward, and still do it a financial literate way.
Financial literacy != only spending money in the most utilitarian and minimal way possible, otherwise we’d all eat rice and legumes and live in shoeboxes to show how “financially literate” we are.
This is especially true with sports cars.
At one point I was considering buying a Nissan GT-R. I could get a brand new one for $120K, or a 5 year old one with 35k miles for a hair under $70k. You'd think the used one is a no brainer! But we're talking a car with ~550 horsepower, something someone could quite likely have been taking to a race track on a regular basis, putting untold amounts of wear on the engine and drive train.
I admit $50k is a lot to pay for peace of mind, but when you're like me and own a car until it dies, I like to know how it's been treated, and being the only owner is the only way to know that.
There’s a level of financial knowledge that’s just dangerous enough to hurt you, and I’d say this is it.
I’m not having any problems with credit, do I detect a tinge of jealousy in your overtly rude comment?
Even after hundreds of thousands of Model 3s have been sold, I still get nods from other Tesla drivers and chat with people at superchargers.
This move makes sense to me. They're able to shave off thousands of dollars for each buyer. Presumably most people aren't returning cars immediately or if they really care about checking the car they rent one for a day instead of the limited test drive from the dealer. So I think most buyers will think it's worth it to save a couple thousand at the cost of having a slightly harder return process.
You’re essentially saying people should fork out hundreds to test drive a Tesla (that’s the going rate for rentals unless you’re saying they hunt down someone to just give them a car) or buy it sight unseen, neither of which is reasonable for a mainstream buyer when you start talking about the “affordable” Model 3 this change supposedly allows.
I also don’t get what you mean by buyers saving a couple of thousand. They’re still paying delivery fees and such.
I was issued a check for the amount of the car, and while the check had never been cashed canceling the check and loan and having it removed from my CR took weeks
I think the biggest issue with a typical car loan is that the market value of the car decreases after it's driven off the lot, so Tesla must have some plan for dealing with that aspect of the first week returns. My guess is that they are declaring a vehicle "new" if it has under 500 miles on it, and they include the distance the car may be driven for delivery in that 500 mile "new" buffer. Thus if you take the car on a weekend getaway and return it with under 500 miles on it, it is still new (by definition) or at least as new as the Tesla that was driven 450 miles from a distribution center to a customer's door.
Normal dealers sell vehicles all the time that have been "demos" for sales people and may have a few hundred miles on them. They typically sell them for a bit below invoice, but a mint condition vehicle with < 500 miles is new as far as most people are concerned.
It's possible that Telsa is doing something more clever than the above, but if not that's a fairly low cleverness way of accomplishing it. There is probably a mileage limit that one must stay under in the first week to be eligible for a return.
But as long as they have a huge wait list for cars, and huge numbers of people who are willing to pay for cars without testing them this makes sense.
My response to your question is "Why should I (a preorder customer) pay a premium for Tesla's business model that allows YOU to do a test drive?"
Until the demand of the wait list customers has been fulfilled, catering to the HARD SELL customer is actually making my experience worse and more expensive.
2. $35,000 Tesla plus a $100 rental payment for a 24 hour test drive.
You honestly prefer the first option?
Rentals are cheaper on the weekend, and he got to try all sorts of cars. He started with the ones he was most interested in buying, but since he was for ing himself to rent different things, he tried convertibles, sub-sub-compacts, minivans, even a pickup.
When he finally was ready to buy, he had enjoyed a quirky period of trying different things, and was now very sure of exactly what he wanted.
I tried it myself for a summer, even rented an oversize SUV for a climbing trip. And I loathe driving SUVs, but hey, if it’s just for the weekend...
Yet all you (we) need to do is find a friend/colleague with a Model 3 and go to lunch/test-drive together. In fact, I would value my friend's frank opinion over a slimy car salesman's one.
Though on that point I hope they don't go the extra mile of savings by going "email only" support that companies like Google, Uber etc do.
Who needs repairs? Just buy a new one; it's cheap and easy.
If you are looking at the iron-ore-2-consumer chain of auto manufacturing for meaningful savings, it's hard to ignore the factory-2-consumer steps. Ultimately, that's a useful efficiency.
Now... "cutting out the middle-man" has a history of being much harder than it looks. You'll be following a well ridden path lined with skeletons. Just look at the factory-2-consumer markups on food, clothes...
Still... I think it's worth trying. If test drives are the bottleneck, it should be solveable somehow.
OK, so that last bit is BS, and it looks like there's a hidden $1,200 destination and doc fee, so the actual real price including tax breaks is $30,450 in NYC. Still not bad at all!
But including the federal tax credits and destination fee is fair I think. As far as I'm aware, no auto maker includes the destination/docs/handling fee in the MSRP. The Tesla fee amount is comparable to other automakers also (it's on the high side at $1,200; but it's not too different from Toyota's $930 and Honda's $920). Presuming your location due to geolocation is a bit too far (but that's debatable) since they didn't disclose that immediately up front.
Quite a few cars/trucks run synthetic these days which can really start adding up.
"Actual Tesla owners report about a 5% drop in battery capacity by the 50,000 mile mark but after than, the rate of degradation drops considerably. On average, cars with 160,000 miles on them still have 90% of their battery capacity remaining. Projecting forward from the real world data available, a Tesla battery should still have 80% battery capacity after 500,000 miles of driving, the group claims. The vast majority of internal combustion engines would have stopped functioning long before then."
Assuming a conservative usage of 20k miles/year, it will take you 25 years to reach 500k miles.
You also have to consider how much your time is worth of you're changing it yourself to get that cost.
Either way it's an added cost(along with transmission, differentials, etc) that you just don't incur on EVs. Right now my maintenance schedule is brake fluid @40k and coolant @100k and tires, that's it.
Most people don't need to change their oil anywhere near as often as the manufacturer specifies. Especially for large diesel engines, it's often fine to run them 3x-5x the interval, but you should do oil analysis and find out, instead of just using the rule of thumb ones the manufacturer gives you.
I agree that quoting a single figure here is misleading.
Small typo: $3,750
A credit is literally cash (assuming you have enough liability to cover it).
is not the same thing as:
"Tax credits reduce the amount of income tax you owe"
The former is a deduction. The latter is a credit. It's really that simple.
[1]: https://www.libertytax.com/tax-lounge/electric-car-and-vehic...
A deduction reduces the amount of income thats taxed. So for example if you're in a 25% marginal tax bracket, deductions are worth 25 cents on the dollar.
A credit reduces the amount of tax you owe, dollar for dollar. In addition, some credits are refundable, meaning that they're allowed to make your tax liability negative for the year, so you get benefit from them even if the credit is more than the taxes you would otherwise owe.
And to be clear, when I talk about the "tax you owe", I mean the total amount of money you need to have paid the IRS by April 15th, including payroll withholding, estimated tax payments, and so on, and not the size of check you need to mail to the IRS in early April.
so you can use a vpn/vps/etc to get the rebate?
But the Trump Tax Bill lowered everyone's refunds (largely because the IRS lowered withholding during the year), so more people have a year-end tax liability, and those that did before the TTB now have a larger tax liability, ultimately meaning more people can now theoretically benefit from the credit.
I do this for a living. I have plenty of clients who saw little to no benefit from the EV credit because their tax liability was not large enough.
And how do they determine the savings? If I am cross-shopping with a Chevy bolt, there won't be any gas savings... Surprised they put that on their, it really negatively impact my view of Tesla.
It lists 35k up front, and then lists estimated payment after incentive secondary.
Sure the U.S. is now god-blessed with the fracking miracle but the gas savings is also an option to be independent of the big oil companies. That could be worth more than $$$ to prepper-mentality Americans.
The prices didn't even go up that much in 1973 but a lot of queues and rationing went on. The 55 mph speed limit came in. It was not happy times.
If Tesla were a bit more frank they would mention this independence aspect, as it is they don't want to scare the children. Nobody knows what petrol prices will be next month so there is no way anyone can put a figure on savings. That said there are plenty of people who have swapped to Tesla and have the electricity bills to prove that the advertised savings are real.
Exaggerated E.g.
Tesla: You can only order online
HN: What if my internet is down? This is clearly a bad idea.
I'd say its more likely we aren't in awe because the Model 3 has been overpromised and the "mass-market EV" feat has already been accomplished by someone else.
Of course, most people are like you in that they don't know that. Because GM is hilariously bad at marketing (and has no cult-of-personality founder promising grand visions).
Isn't this the car that's being discontinued?
It's kinda like how people think the self-driving company Cruise, mostly owned by GM, developed Super Cruise, GM's high-end driver assist system. Nope...nothing at all to do with each other. And neither have any relation to the Chevy Cruze, either.
If the Bolt is "mass-market EV" the definition of "mass-market" needs to be revisited.
I was simply explaining why HN was "ignoring the amazing fact that an electric vehicle that can travel 220 miles is 35k."
It's not worthy of awe and amazement if big old lazy GM met those standards years ago.
The Bolt is the blackberry of EVs. Sure, on paper it checks the "mass market EV" boxes but no one is geeking out in cult-like fashion about Bolts like they do for iPhones and Teslas.
BTW, Tesla sold a lot more than 40k model 3s in 2018. It was over 130k. Bolt was about 20k.
But my first thought was, "Wow! Should I trade in my car?"
And then, "Of course not. That'd be stupid. It's like 2 years old."
But man, had I known of this price drop, I might have waited and not bought my Mazda. (Which I love, but it isn't even a hybrid.)
that out of the way, well it is about time. it is nice to see, I still don't agree with how they present the cost on their website but I am at the point that I think it will take regulations to fix that. Telsa seems immune to criticism on that front. I am in the camp of, truth in advertising.
Now, the value of the premium interior took a sizable hit. the remaining advantages are heated rear seats, more speakers for the stereo, satellite maps with live traffic, streaming media, and the internet browser.
so my question is, did I pay for life of the car satellite traffic and streaming? there have been hints that this was not the case. the rear heated seats and extra speakers certainly don't make up $2500 in value but if there is lifetime satellite maps with traffic that would be a selling point.
on a side note, the other area besides advertising pricing that Tesla needs to be called out on is providing parts to repair existing cars. The nightmare still exists for many owners with some being without their car for over six months.
People say there is no need for carplay because the cars built in stuff is so much better, but I'd bet that in 10 years time, the console will stop receiving updates, but phones will keep getting better...
There are opensource projects [1] to implement android auto, so perhaps if someone runs that on a modded tesla, and gets a bunch of youtube views it might embarrass tesla into implementing it properly.
[1]: https://github.com/gartnera/headunit/tree/master/ubuntu
New Prices
Cheap Interior
Standard Range (220mi) - $35k
Partial Premium Interior
Standard Range Plus (240mi) - $37k
Premium Interiors
Mid Range (264mi) - $40k
Long Range (325mi) - $43k
Dual Motor Long Range (310mi) - $47k
Dual Motor Performance (310mi) - $58k
* Prices above include potential incentives and gas savings. Learn More
Weird.
“Somewhat misleading”? Acting as though money saved on gas reduces your purchase price somehow is just straight up lying. The car still costs $35k when you sign on the dotted line, gas costs don’t factor into that at all. If you want to talk how much it’ll cost you after n years of ownership, talking about gas costs is perfectly valid. Purchase price though?
Total Cost of Ownership is a legit (and even preferred) way to represent cost in most industries. It's just not common in consumer purchasing. This is a variant of TCO. They provide a good calculator where you can figure it out.
I think there's room for discussion about how prominent you make the TCO calculator and the particular copy used in that. This is why I said it was somewhat misleading, because I think it could be better. But I definitely don't think it's lying, that's awfully black and white.
You don't get to SUBTRACT the cost of gas from X.
You can compare X to some other car's (Y + Gas).
Didn't think so.
Or the cost of installing a 240 line to your garage?
Hmmm.
It's more of an apples+cart comparison. It seems shady because they can't know what kind of car you're coming from - so they average it (in their favor).
The federal government even publishes per mile total costs for most vehicles that makes it fairly trivial to do.
It’s a bullshit metric. They could honestly present the information in a way that looked good for them as well... or even use it as a cross sell for solar.
> As a result of this change Tesla says it will be “winding down many of our stores.”
Buried lede here
Most will opt for $40k premium model. Though 37k is much better value, it's missing the core features that tickle fancy of Tesla buyers.
Standard Interior Includes:
Manual seat and steering adjustment
Cloth seats and base trim
Basic audio
Standard maps and navigation
Center console with storage and 4 USB ports
12-way power adjustable heated front seats
Premium seat material and trim
Upgraded audio – immersive sound
Standard maps & navigation
LED fog lamps
Center console with storage, 4 USB ports and docking for 2 smartphones
rear heated seats
Premium audio – 14 speakers, 1 subwoofer, 2 amps, and immersive sound
Satellite-view maps with live traffic visualization and navigation
In-car internet streaming music & media
Internet browser
Location-aware automatic garage door openerTwo of those I don't care about, and the manual transmission is a big win for me, so yeah, I'm with you.
Can you clarify what you mean here? I would think that the "core features that tickle fancy" would be things like autopilot, but that's an expensive add-on package regardless.
If I had ~40k burning a hole in my pocket I'd get the base spec with the big battery and all the self driving bells and whistles.
I can see the most basic model with the biggest battery being popular with the kind of people who buy an accord and put 200k on it over 8yr.
Now I have a Model 3 Performance because it’s amazing, it’s what I was saving for driving the Accord all those years.
If that's the case and the "bigger" battery costs nothing to Tesla, the $37k version has a higher margin if the enhanced interior features cost less than ~$2k.
The interesting part is "Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers."
Went down the street to Jaguar and bought an I-PACE. Sure, it's got a handful of "first gen" issues, but I have no real regrets. Given the choice between heading out of the garage in the Model X and the I-PACE, I've been choosing the I-PACE for the past week. Could be because of the novelty of the thing, but I sort of like things like Bluetooth actually working. I'll use the Tesla when I'm going far enough to need to use the superchargers. But I actually haven't used a supercharger in over a year now.
I've never had more fun driving. The GUI is NBD in about an hour. It's roomy for me, even at 180 pounds. Looks like my range will go from 310 to 325 with a software upgrade.
And it has built in emissions testing.
Also, I think the model 3 steering wheel scrolly button hat things are a little imprecise. Sort of like cheaper mice where you accidentally scroll instead of clicking but with left and right thrown into the mix.
The model S/X steering wheel controls seem a more refined.
Moreover, the I-PACE however is an engineering disaster. They did not develop the motor/inverter/aero enough and wastes power. They ended up needing a bigger battery to make the thing work, costing more yet giving horrible range... Even a Model X from 2016 is much more efficient.
Model X vs I-PACE vs Audi e-tron
Model X wins by far. @120km/h Tesla is 23% more efficient than the e-tron.
Model X - 24.8 kWh/100 km (39.9 kWh/100mi)
E-Tron - 30.5 kWh/100 km (49.1 kWh/100mi)
I-Pace - 31.3 kWh/100 km (50,37 kWh/100mi)
Source: https://nextmove.de/autobahn-test-tesla-model-x-beats-audi-e...
It's interesting to also note that the Tesla Model X is the largest of the 3, and still is more efficient.
How often do you adjust the steering column? I did it 4 months ago and just use my profile to drive now. Headlights are automatic..., A/C is one click to turn on and a long press to turn off.
After driving it for a few weeks, they said that they actually appreciated the overall spartan interior experience.
I would not be surprised to see them announce more price drops in the next years. They are not done making batteries better and cheaper and they seem to be very creative in figuring out ways to reduce cost in their production processes. I think it is that ability that is going to be key to their future because yes they have competition but the competition seems to have all the problems that Tesla already solved. They are ahead of the pack in terms of production capacity, processes, and battery efficiency with a product that so far seems to be selling such that they can do without the traditional overhead of having to have an industry of middlemen, sales, marketing, licensed dealers, etc. That's very disruptive to an industry trying to emulate what Tesla is doing while preserving all of that.
It's an interesting policy regardless. In sounds like it's pretty much 'no questions asked'. Any experiences with this?
I don’t know how they are making money on this. I’m inclined to believe they’re losing money, or someone is somewhere in the line.
Maybe they expect those battery costs to decline rapidly in the near future?
What do you think?
https://electrek.co/2018/11/20/tesla-gigafactory-battery-cel...
If so, I would expect at least some of that better margin will flow into Panasonic’s pockets (what part, I wouldn’t dare even guess)
They have a contract with Tesla to produce for them, but Tesla’s demand is so high they can’t produce enough. Production is 24/7. Even if Panasonic wanted to they couldn’t sell to anyone else. I don’t know what kind of price negotiations they have, but current battery production is not profitable. This I know.
Also, Panasonic just partnered with Toyota to produce batteries for all their EV’s.
Additionally, the Gigafactory is just 1 battery production location. Panasonic has many. Some in the USA, and others in Asia. They sell their batteries to many companies. Just not the same ones they’re making for Tesla.
Don't they just need to keep leasing them more space at the factory? What's the bottleneck there?
There are currently 4 steps in the manufacturing process, with a final inspection at the end. They have about 35 production lines in total, and will likely have over 60 when they finish. New lines will have higher output.
They run two 12 hour shifts a day, 7 days a week.
The bottle neck is MRO at the moment. Material costs are a factor, but I know nothing about that.
In the space of 3 years they implemented these 35 lines. Getting them up and running to meet the demand and timelines required massive investment, and cost savings measures were sidelined.
They’re just not beginning to figure out ways to cut costs in order to achieve profitability.
I don’t know if Tesla has a contract that dictates the cell price, but I know Panasonic production is not profitable at the moment. They will be, hopefully in the upcoming years.
Their battery production is the most state of the art. Not only the battery technology, but the manufacturing process. It’s unparalleled by a long shot. The scale is breathtaking. Around 3.5 million cells a day with a target over 10 million.
From what I know, bottle necks are costs. High equipment manufacturing costs, and high maintenance costs.
Space isn’t the issue. They have plenty of space.
I know the Gigafactory battery production intimately. I can tell you they don’t cost less than $2.50 per cell at the moment.
> In a rare disclosure of Tesla’s battery prices, Musk said in June that his company’s costs for battery cells—the small cylindrical components of its battery packs—had dropped to $110 per kilowatt hour (kWh) and would reach $100 per kWh by the end of 2018. That compares with an average price of about $127 per kWh industrywide.
Wikipedia[1] says there are 2,976 in the mid-range pack and 4,416 cells in the long range pack.
If the short range has perhaps 2500, that's $6250
And it looks like 4,400 in the Model 3
Also it appears Autopilot is now a $3K add-on (vs $5K previously). And the full self-driving is back at an additional $5K and includes some of the features that previously existed in AP.
It'd be like if I got to go in to a hiring offer and was able to demand a million dollars a year so that any lower salary seemed like a value.
Also the same with the advertised monthly leasing prices that you see on commercials - all subject to credit and other circumstances.
So I'd guess that there's also a component of the high MSRP + large standard discounts which is also making sure that you don't come in expecting to pay an advertised price, get aaaallllmost all the way through the process, get the final price with tax that is ~10%/several k$ higher, and then crap out there both because it is a real kick in the pants and you may not have the extra money.
Only $LOW/Month*
* After large amount upfront.
This is shameful and should be called out. Price is not the same thing as cost of ownership.
Is this some kind of intentional irony or something? Social Login force-tied to a specific company is Dark Pattern #1 in my books.
Edit: They define "dark pattern" at the top of their site:
> Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things that you didn't mean to.
That's exactly with Login With Twitter is. The user is presented with a simple option for logging in, but then is tricked by giving their metadata and account info that will 'sign them up' to be analyzed and targeted by Twitter for whatever purposes. Yes the TOS is probably there on social login, but aren't Long TOSs that are prompted in the middle of a user flow also Dark Patterns, as no user is likely to read them?
Can't possibly take that site seriously.
Edit 2: The darkest pattern from their site:
> We aren't great at responding to email — Twitter is best.
Yikes.
>Use Twitter to spread the word about Dark Patterns. It's the most effective way to put pressure onto companies to stop using Dark Patterns.
>Retweet, quote and favorite other people's tweets about Dark Patterns. >@mention the offending brands and tell them what you think about their practices.
>When you see a Dark Pattern, take screenshots and tweet it. Mention @darkpatterns or use the hashtag #darkpattern.
>If you've got an example that doesn't fit into a tweet, you can use a platform like medium or imgur, then tweet it.
Tesla's specifically dividing their trims by range, but chose to use "standard range", "standard range plus", "long range", etc. instead of just telling us the range. And their "standard" range is well below the standard range of an average car.
I'm not sure this qualifies as "shady" when everything is displayed within the same viewport.
At least that's what it was like before; in Australia, the Model 3 configuration screen is apparently now stuck in an infinite redirect loop. It looks like it's unchanged, but I can't look at the page for more than a second.
It seems concerning that outright dishonesty in consumer-facing material for large purchases might reasonably be considered par for the course.
What an abject failure of industry leadership.
Good thing they weren't kind enough to include the amortized battery replacement costs or other differentials in operating costs, like a comparison between their repair and maintenance schedule to an industry average.
CapEx and OpEx are different animals.
Oh, wait, cloud. Server leases. I guess we do it all of the time.
Its still going out of your pocket, if its one or the other.
[0]: https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...
After, my impression of Tesla is that it's incredibly shady and manipulative, and I have a great deal of anger at it because this page is disgustingly deceptive.
You've got to get a reasonable estimate of how much less likely I'm going to purchase a Tesla in the future, but before there was a nonzero chance I would, while in this moment I feel like I'll never purchase one. That's negative value, there.
It's deceptive enough--and 90% of people who saw that page would say that the costs of the cars are what's listed on the right column, which makes it deceptive--that it leaves a wildly unpleasant taste in my mouth. And, in my case, it's not even close to accurate: I don't own a car right now, and any purchase would be because I actively like a particular car. The "savings on gas" is a total lie, because I'll be spending nothing on gas anyway.
It’s not an imagined cost of ownership for me, an actual owner, who just got $7,500 back and pay $7 for 300mi.
The way they are selling these I would hope someone would be looking and clicking on that details button and really looking to make sure it is for them.
Does anyone have a good real world average for current wait times for delivery and service? Also wondering what these are for the flyover states (midwest) where I am at vs the coasts.
Where they show a video about full autonomous driving, talk a lot about full autonomous driving and then at the very bottom of the page write in very small print that "some jurisdictions" may not allow that at this time? Where "some" means probably "every one except lawless states like Somalia or so".
The base price of a given vehicle is $35k, and then I'd spend either $1500/yr on fuel and maintenance o, or $500/yr on fuel and maintenance if it's - for example - electric, on top the of the base price.
Spending $1000 less per year does not magically mean the car is now $34k. If anything, the price has gone from $36.5k to $35.5k for that first year.
I don't even understand the mental gymnastics you have to do, or how ignorant you have to be to not understand that.
Unless I'm taking crazy pills? Someone please correct my logic otherwise.
I definitely don't agree with Teslas practices of framing it that way, I'd rather they just show cost of ownership comparisons across a variety of cars. Especially since they can't even meet the demand they currently have, why resort to shady practices?
But only if you arbitrarily include the difference in fuel costs, which makes Tesla look cheaper, and exclude the differences in insurance and maintenance costs, which make Tesla look more expensive.
And of course you have to include full cost, ICE can not run without it, and most people want to drive their car.
Of course these are avg numbers and you have to do it with your personal driving numbers and how long you want to keep the car to get a more detailed picture of the cost.
However overall, pretty much all EV have a significant large part of up front cost to ownership cost so its totally fair to point that out.
That said, Tesla is of course a company and they are pressing this point to aggressive and that is irritating to many of us. The overall point they are making however, is backed up by the data.
To be clear, I like the Model S and appreciate what Tesla has done to popularize EVs in some circles, but that’s not a ticket to be bonkers. Shady practices, obscene waits, hellish repair schedules, broken promises and a CEO who just can’t shut his mouth to save his life... it is very weird.
I love what they've accomplished in the field; the cars are genuinely very good; the exaggerations and outright lies are unnecessary and therefore infuriating to watch...
Model 3:
(50 kwh battery)
* (0.166 $/kwh for Los Angeles residential power)
/ (220 mi range)
= 3.8 $/100 mi of fuel
Average ICE sedan:
(3.00 $/gal average regular gas in LA)
/(30 mi/gal)
= 10 $/100 mi of fuel
So it's a reasonable number if you're a Californian who would have bought a BMW instead of a Model 3. For everyone else, it's likely too high.
Nicely done math. Based on Toyota etc.’s marketing claims I guess. In which case it might be around $6/100 miles (guesstimate) versus Tesla $3.8/100 miles.
Haven't seen the desktop site, but on mobile the full price of $35k is clearly visible.
(with longer range than Model 3)
You linked to the Bolt-with-a-b, but said Chevy Volt-with-a-v.
Certainly the Bolt is comparable to the Model 3; the Volt not so much.
I picked up my Bolt for 30,900 in December of last year. (w/ fast charging option)
On the flip side: you don't have to deal with dealerships, which are _much worse_
You just configure the car, give your credit card information, and done. This is unlike most other manufacturers which, even if they do give you a quote, will then hand you off to shady salespeople.
I must just be out of touch.
I’m sure credit card would work too if you had a high enough limit but those are the other options.
It's completely unethical.
I guess computers should be considered free given that they enable so much productivity.
The price w/gas savings included at least makes it easier to compare against standard petrol vehicles.
It's kind of hard to rip on Tesla when the standard dealership model is nothing but shady advertising and sleazy sales tactics. They could get rid of the asterisk mark / learn more link and it would still somehow be more honest than going to any car dealership in the United States.
Sometimes I feel like Tesla gets judged in a vacuum. Kinda weird.
* Not sure if the low range model 3 is software limited.
Big question is, does Tesla make a profit at that price?
$8K more for 50% more battery. Or $24K for an entire large battery. Big markup there.
I see it more as them wanting to show again that they could build up a huge order backlog as that something that pretty much no other car company can do. That would help them with the market and potential future loans.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4239396-tesla-weak-model-3-...
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-s-x-sales-february-2019/
[citation needed]
Driving up 101 daily, I see truck after truck loaded with European-specced Model 3s heading towards the port of San Francisco.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-s-x-sales-february-2019/
This was in reference to the Ford Model T which was introduced at $850 in 1908 and was brought down to $300 in 1925.
"We’re also excited to announce that we’re implementing a number of firmware upgrades for both new and existing customers. These upgrades will increase the range of the Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive Model 3 to 325 miles, increase the top speed of Model 3 Performance to 162 mph, and add an average of approximately 5% peak power to all Model 3 vehicles."
Unwinding an auto loan, getting back your traded-in vehicle, etc. All of this seems non-trivial to me.
Carvana does the same thing (in fact: they already are doing the whole "buy the car online, return if you don't like it, we deliver to your house" model).
They could pay it off immediately for you?
> getting back your traded-in vehicle,
They could give you the cash value of it? Also, does Tesla even accept trade-ins?
> etc.
What else?
- Recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.
- Automatic driving on city streets.
Option Selected: $5,000
But in the projects I did, it was some dumb sales recommendation system. These people are doing it with self driving cars.
If those features ship before 11:59PM Pacific time on December 31st, I’ll be surprised.
(And I say this as a fan who owns two of the things.)
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-to-pay-march-convertib...
I mean that maybe if the bond owners see that Tesla is (really?) about to deliver the 35k model they'll opt less for cash and more for stocks? (therefore Tesla would have less problems with liquidity)
Woah. Elsewhere [0] it's describe as a fleet of mobile trucks. Don't they know that it's illegal/against community rules to service vehicles in a driveway or (for city folks) on the street?
For any major warranty work, I can take my new vehicle from just about any other brand to the shop, they give me a free loaner vehicle while it's being worked on. I would be outraged if my only option was 'fix in my driveway after we get the parts, meanwhile you just wait there'
Fail.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/28/18245296/tesla-stores-clo...
The Tesla store in the mall near my house is fun. My kids love going there and sitting in the different models, and my son knows how to trigger all the Easter eggs, like making the X falcon doors dance.
At the same time, I have zero use for the store now that I’m an owner, and I had zero use for the store in actually making my purchase. The test drive that I did finally do of the TM3 (after I had already put $3,500 down and was entirely certain I would be buying the car) was actually underwhelming because I didn’t get nearly enough time with the car to really appreciate it, nor get to drive it in any kind of interesting terrain.
Actually driving my own TM3 on the other hand blew me away from nearly the first moment and still does.
I wonder how many owners are like me in that with the massive quantity of YouTube videos and reviews, already knew with certainty a TM3 would be their next car without actually needing to drive it? BTW, I’ve never had that with another car, and never would have dreamed of buying a car without driving it, before Tesla.
At the TM3 base-range $35k starting price, I think the vast, vast majority of people who “trial” one will keep it. This is particularly true if you’ve already made any kind of actual arrangement to charge it at a decent kW rate.
I would add that they need to have a trial mode of the full auto-pilot functionality, and also perhaps the ability to pay monthly for auto-pilot software subscription rather than bumping up the sticker price. This would also help with reducing sales tax and excise taxes I think.
I just hope the car-buying public is ready for this. Tesla will rely heavily, extremely heavily on word of mouth without a way for people to easily get in and touch and test drive a model with no commitment. Luckily I give test drives to everyone I know who I can talk into it, and I’m guessing most owners act the same in an effort to evangelize.
But as they try to go more mass market and compete with the Accords and Camrys, as they have less of the evangelical early adopters, will that target market a) have the charging infrastructure readily available, and b) really be willing to buy purely online and sight unseen?
I want this to work, and fear that it won’t. They are pushing so damn hard to get to that $35k price point with any kind of margin left over. If they had another year of process improvements maybe they could do it even with the stores. Without a store they can pull forward a profitable $35k TM3 several months at least. So it makes perfect sense while still being a huge gamble. Wild ride.
(Copied from the other post about the same news)
Even though I timed it incredibly poorly (I have none of the sensors that new cars do), it is still an amazing car, even after almost 5 years of ownership.
IMO, it's the best car buying experience I've ever had -- no negotiating, no hidden extras, just clicking through some features and settling on a delivery date.
https://3.tesla.com/model3/design?redirect=no works for me to prevent this behaviour.
I'm not likely to buy a car without a chance to drive it first (even if I can return it "free", there's still a lot of time/effort in getting a loan, registration, insurance, etc)
But I'd be happy to pay $50/day to rent it for a weekend to give it a good test drive.
Pay existing owners a small fee to let prospective buyers drive their car. Have an app to coordinate.
Or have tesla employees bring out a bunch of cars to a Walmart parking lot every Saturday.
It doesn’t seem like you need expensive retail space just to cordinate test drives.
That was part of the intent of the referral program: rather than relying on a dealership network with expensive real estate and expensive marketing, encourage happy owners to sell by word of mouth.
Unfortunately Tesla inadvertently killed the program by picking a too-valuable top prize with the wrong incentive (a $250K Roadster in exchange for a lot of referrals by a single owner, limiting the network effect, rather than a smaller award for a smaller number of referrals spread across many owners). Plus there was no limit on the number of top awards, with some people achieving multiple Roadster awards.
That giant iPhone in the middle of the Tesla 3 puts a crick in my neck just from looking at the pictures.
https://www.stoddard.com/media/catalog/category/IMG_1365.jpg
Early 911 interior.
I think the people who want the performance version should get a dashboard, or the option of one. I'll bet a $3000 optional dashboard would sell like hotcackes.
I think the dashboard of the model S puts good information in your line of sight. In comparison, using the model 3 display seems a little like trying to use your cellphone while driving.
As to dials and guages, I'm not trying to pin it down to that. Just driving information in your line of sight.
I could also say a HUD would be cool too. I've actually spent some time in military aircraft simulators with actual hardware huds, and I can tell you that it draws you in.
But who knows, I might be one of those people bemoaning the new "iphone gadget" and it's lack of a keyboard :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_Mustang#/media...
Critical displays and controls in front of the pilot, other controls readily accessible by feel/muscle memory. Aircraft designers tend to be very conservative due to safety, but cars involve safety considerations too--which is why I think car designers do tend to stick to standard configurations.
In a car, you sorta need to know your speed, and that’s it. Even speed is not entirely necessary. In an ICE car you also might want to keep an eye on engine RPM, oil temperature, and other such things, but you don’t need them in an EV
If all your instruments go out in an airplane, it’s an emergency. Depending on the aircraft type and situation, it may mean certain death. If it happens in a car... I’m not convinced most drivers would even notice. Those who do would only be mildly inconvenienced at worst.
Edit: here’s an example of an airplane with side by side seating and a central instrument panel: https://www.pipistrel-usa.com/taurus/. Gliders are much more car-like in their instrumentation needs, although they still need a bit more, and losing them all is still an emergency.
I have the feeling safety would be an issue if I was fumbling around for the defroster menu item in the mountains rather than having it at hand when my windshield was rapidly fogging up--in any vehicle. (Ask me about my trip to Laramie, WY last week.) Driving off a cliff would be a bad day, too. What about the battery overheating indicator? I would rather that be in front of me too in an electric car. A chime could help in this situation, but what if people where honking at you while seeing smoke coming from your vehicle?
BTW, did you notice the redundant mechanical instrument cluster in the Cessna Mustang (located above the display with the map)--another design element that increases safety if you have a primary display failure...
The power meter, which is with the speedometer, has an indication if battery output is throttled. You can also feel it in the accelerator, no need to look.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner_battery_...
Having a coolant temperature gauge in front of you could show you a trending problem, before the car announces to you that it is shutting down as you attempt to merge into 75 MPH traffic.
The Tesla club comment at the top of your link is about a Roadster, not a Model 3.
OEM and aftermarket activated charcoal cabin filters (not the paper kind) to remove diesel and other exhaust fumes.
I think some luxury cars have them (Porsche?) but I think the rest of us should as well. They might sell like hotcakes too.
I'm happy to agree that we have different preferences.
It does make a few operations annoying but overall it works well and most people adapt pretty quickly.
https://mazdasla.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Mazda-Proteg...
I was kind of joking with my original comment, because this was an economy car--but it actually is a nice design:
http://gtcarlot.com/data/Mazda/Protege/1999/12552040/Dashboa...
I've been thinking about this more tonight and in a way, the clean minimalistic interior design of the Model 3 is more like the Protege and the "old" Camry than other modern cars. Obviously, the Tesla also has the advantage over these cars of not having a tail-pipe.
Keep in mind there’s a lot of misinformation out there. For example people have wrongly complained that turning on the wipers requires a bunch of interaction with menus on the screen and such. Not really. Usually they are on auto. If you really want to force an immediate wipe, there’s a dedicated hardware button for it right where you’d expect. Just an example. I could say more about it but... I’m replying to a six day old comment and maybe you already know this stuff.
I am making a bold prediction. Tesla may or may not go under water, but when they are short on funds Apple will acquire them.
Apple’s whole brand is built on making the best hardware and software and weaving them to a great user experience.
With billions of dollars in the bank, Apple would be stupid to not do it.
Next Tesla 2021 newsflash, we will continue to operate service centers but in order to reduce costs further we will no longer be able to come to you.
Has anyone done this?
15%? 20%? 25%?
For reference, General Motors reports less than 10%. Toyota, 18%.
The battery cost is the problem. I suspect that it's only a matter of time before a Tesla with all the amenities can be had for $35000. Good for them...
For even more context, it is ~ 62,000 EURO in Germany, that is "almost" $70,000. I would choose Canada instead :)
Probably to protect that margin your seeing.
If I'm wrong, a friend of mine would be interested :D
I'm going by what I've seen of people receiving orders in the last few months, over what time has it improved? If you buy one now, will the fitment compare to (for example) GM by the time it is delivered? How likely is the paint to be scratched all the way through to the base coat on delivery?
I want to believe that they can make these things right, but honestly I can not have that much faith in them given what I've seen.
Sarcasm aside, I'm inclined to be charitable to Tesla, but quality issues abound with every generation of Tesla products; and while things have improved, they are behind the industry in many areas.
That car in the video is I'll admit quite ridiculous -- I'm guessing it is an anomaly though. My car had nothing like that and I did inspect it carefully on delivery (I guess this guy did not). I don't think anyone is forcing you to take delivery if you get an insanely scratched car like that, but certainly it's fair to expect that a car company would not try to deliver such a scratched car in the first place. I just don't think it represents the normal experience these days.
https://www.google.com/search?q=honda+paint+defects+on+deliv...
https://www.google.com/search?q=bmw+paint+defects+on+deliver...
https://www.google.com/search?q=chevy+paint+defects+on+deliv...
They'll regret this when they find out how remote some islands near alaska are that you need to take a plane then a helicopter to reach...
Probably a good publicity stunt though.
So about $36k net CAD for the base Model 3
I like.
However, it appears they're doing all sales online? Smells like a last-ditch effort to cut operational costs. It's one thing to consider buying a $35k online sight-unseen (I never would), but are people going to shell out $80k+ for the luxury models? I just don't see how they will. Sitting in and driving a car is the most important aspect of buying one, IMO.
Thanks (local) government...
People might pay 50 bucks for a 1hr drive.
I can’t tell making consumers find alternatives to a test drive is good capitalism or bad capitalism.
For the consumer it means, that the cheapest Tesla is now available for 35k vs. 42k vor the mid-range until today. Thats 7k less and make Tesla cars available to a larger audience. While I don't like how Tesla represents the prices with savings, the effective price gets close or below 30k, which is huge.
For electric cars overall it is also important. Tesla is the largest manufacturer of electric cars and the waiting times for the Model 3 are way lower than the competition. So this marks quite some progress in the availability of affordable electric cars.
How was your reservation $2k though? It makes me wonder if you are really a reservation holder, given that you got the amount wrong. Fake outrage?
That's huge.
Over what time period? The $35k Tesla is the base model, and a base Accord looks to be $23k. And you can probably negotiate that down a little, which I doubt you can do with Tesla. That price difference buys you a _lot_ of gas.
It’s not exactly the same as a price cut.
I bought a Bolt EV off a dealer lot over a year ago, and the entire transaction took about 30 minutes. The car was $25,000 after incentives ($37K MSRP -> $35k Actual, 7.5k Fed Tax Credit, 2.5k State Credit). The Bolt can reliably go 240 miles on a charge, mine has had zero issues or service visits in 35k miles of driving. Also, it's made by GM which is a real car manufacturer, supported by thousands of dealerships and service centers across the country.
Run by true Scotsmen, I'm sure.
“For 6% more money, you get 9% more range, more power, and an upgraded interior.“
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-27/musk-s-tw...
Tesla charges a non-negotiable $1,200 "Destination & doc fee" which in CA is not a fee. It is not state mandated, and is just pure profit for dealerships that charge it (explaining why the amount varies wildly per-dealership).
Google it. It is NOT required anywhere, and all cars I've ever bought, I've gotten the dealership to pay it.
Also, 1.2k is a LOT of fee! Boardwalk and Momentum (two large dealerships here in norcal) both try to charge doc fees around $400, not 1.2 kilodollars!
Once people start having issues getting parts, these cars will be joining the market for cheap.
The best (and perhaps only positive) dealership experience I've ever had was when I bought my 1997 Saturn. Saturn was, at the time, no haggle, no negotiation.
If on some crazy change you actually got the dealer to line item doc fee as $0 on the contract, than they could be in a ton of trouble.
Dealers may charge buyers a document preparation service fee not to exceed $65 (or $80 if a Business Partner Automation (BPA) program participant). This fee is not required or collected by the department.
source: CA DMV: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/fee_calc/feecalcfaq
And to top it off, the RWD Long Range and Performance are getting firmware updates that give them extra speed (in the case of Performance) or range (in the case of RWD) but mine is getting... "about a 5% increase in power" whatever that means.
I get paying extra to be an early adopter (and have gladly done it). But I effectively paid $1000 for every month I had it early.
I feel cheated like Tesla just took the government money and instead of passing on savings to the customer they pocketed it.
Edit: As an aside, I love the car and would still recommend it. But I think people in my situation have a right to be a little upset.
I think when making purchases, it's helpful to be able to ask "is this a fair trade for me right now?" If it's no, don't get it. If it's yes, then when you complain to yourself or feel that you've been treated unfairly, the 2nd voice in your head should be saying "this was a fair deal that you chose to accept, be happy with it, don't be envious of better deals offered to others."
I owe the bank more than the car is worth NEW. Or close to it.[0]
So effectively, Tesla has tanked the resale value of the asset. So the $3000 isn't even the half of it. I am now also depreciated by that much more.
[0] I haven't done the math, I may be be slightly bellow by a few hundred bucks.
Edit: Removed the use of the word "underwater". Per sokolof's correct statement, it's a car, you're pretty much under water the second you drive off the lot.