Tesla Model S Options and Pricing | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Model S Options and Pricing

teslamotors.com

237 pointspbreit170 comments

I wonder why they've chosen to increase their costs and mfg complexity by offering all those options; does anyone one really want (for example) a car at this price range with the "base" seats? Is it really worthwhile to have (and support) 3 battery options? 5 charging options? It is worth the complexity, testing, etc. to support both the lesser and better tires, on a car in this price range? Worth building it with two kinds of headlights? Two stereos?

I wish they were taking more cues from Apple and fewer from GM. Make the car is just a few price points, and no "not so awesome" variations at all. Spend that time/complexity/cost budget on building more cars and signing up more dealers.

People have different desires and needs. It makes some sense to provide options--some people in the market for an electric car are probably also adverse to leather for example. And the batteries are hugely expensive so if you don't need the range, it could be wise to not pay so much more.

Apple provides tons of options. You're looking at it the wrong way--Tesla has two models. Apple has a bunch. You can customize either Tesla and similarly there are a bunch of custom BTO options from Apple (I'm typing this on one that I customized in fact).

You're probably right on the leather.

But I stand by the general point, and specifically I think it is idiocy to make any of the following optional in a car-of-the-future starting at $50K.

* Xenon headlamps

* Automatic keyless entry (seriously? fumbling with keys to unlock the door?)

* Homelink

I suspect Tesla itself is full of people who agree with this... and that all these obviously silly things were done solely to hit an "under 50,000" starting price point.

They're basically copying a strategy that has worked extremely well for Porsche.

Three base models with varying degrees of performance + a limited edition version. And then you can expect to spend ~10k in options.

Nearly all luxury car companies use this pricing strategy (and this certainly is a luxury car). The base models are often quite stripped, but the dealerships expect you'll want the options and stock accordingly.

Even non-luxury cars tend to do that, so they can advertise lower base prices. When I bought a Honda Civic, the base price didn't even include air conditioning! All the cars on the dealer's lot did, though; you would've had to special-order if you really wanted the stripped-down base model.

This is the standard price discrimination tactic that is used all over the auto industry, e.g. $700 for Bluetooth, $3000 nav systems, etc. It's good for getting people to spend as much as they're capable of.

I think automatic keyless entry refers to proximity-sensitive door locks that open automatically when you get near the car with the "remote".

True story: Two friends are walking towards a car equipped with a proximity-sensitive sensor. The car turns on (without the need to plugin the key or even to take them out) and they drive away. The driver drops her friend at her house and drives off. A few blocks latter the car shuts off.

What do you think happened? Turns out the driver had given the keys to her friend for safe keeping while they were shopping at the mall (not sure why so don't ask). Unfortunately the friend forgot to return the keys before she got off.

My friend told me a similar story, except that he was dropping off his friend at the airport. After he dropped him off, he drove off, not realizing he didn't have the key till a few miles later...

My previous car had automatic keyless entry. If the key is not in the car then an audible beep sounds. Be quite difficult to miss that. I wonder if the above anecdotes are based on after market installations?

My Nissan Altima beeps too. It also shows a picture of a key and "No Key" on the dashboard if the engine's on but a key isn't in range.

These stories are actually impossible with keyless entry. My car has keyless entry (2009 Hyundai Genesis) and if the key leaves the vehicle, you get a beep and warning message immediately that says "Key not in vehicle", and the car continues running, forever, until you stop the engine. The only way you could end up somewhere with a non-functional vehicle is if you threw the key out the window (or gave it to a friend), ignored the constant beeping and warning messages, and then proceeded to drive away, park the car, stop the engine, then get out of the car. You still wouldn't be able to lock the car doors without the key.

Cars that immediately stopped the engine while driving would be considered a safety hazard and no car company in the world would release a car like that. Imagine if your engine shut off at 70mph on the freeway.

While I agree that e.g. the Xenon headlamps or the two USB ports should be standard instead of options, I know some people who would PAY to have to use the keys to lock/unlock their car. I experienced numerous occasions on which I was not able to lock my car because of interfering radio signals.

FWIW homelink is all but useless in condo buildings as nearly all newer construction uses dynamic codes. Just can't pair them without the building manager. And that's even not getting into strata bylaws explicitly prohibiting in-car gate openers. So it's reasonable to have it as an option.

Automatic keyless entry is likely referring to automatic unlocking based on the proximity of the key fob and/or grabbing a door handle. Though I agree that this should be included by default, the same as Xenons (though these buggers are expensive to replace, could be up to $2K depending on the car).

I agree about some of the options, just not options in general. It's a way for them to get the bottom tier price down though which is important for marketing.

The upgrades have marginal cost to Tesla and a lot of value to the customer. The Model S Performance adds a bigger battery, better inverter, leather, and active suspension - imagine this costs Tesla about $5k and they can double the price of the car.

Are marginal costs enough to see the impact of offering multiple options? My concern is that by having so many battery & other options, Tesla is probably requiring different manufacturing processes, different equipment, which can dramatically affect costs (esp. fixed costs). To put it more simply, if you offered only 1 option, you manufacture at scale and can easily bring down unit costs. However, if you are offering, say 3 options that means you split your scale by 1/3 and its harder to bring unit costs.

This wouldn't be an issue if the parts being built were commodity items but I assume a lot of the parts for Tesla are quite customized / niche. To put it another way, I remember reading that for some American manufacturers it was actually more costly to produce manual cars since demand is so low in the US and assembling them would require a separate line which would reduce efficiency.

However I really don't know anything about manufacturing cars. Anyone with auto industry experience want to chime in?

Tesla is probably requiring different manufacturing processes, different equipment, which can dramatically affect costs (esp. fixed costs).

What manufacturing process are you speaking of? It's a single chassis and single production line. All the parts are bolted on the same way in the same places.

I've worked in a radio factory and it is a highly synchronized machine. All the parts arrive in the right place at the right time. For build cost it only adds a marginal amount which Tesla appears to be recouping.

to produce manual cars since demand is so low in the US and assembling them would require a separate line which would reduce efficiency.

This information is probably out of date. Most cars today are FWD. The gearbox is mated to the engine block and then dropped onto the chassis. They only have to select the proper linkages and shifter. It might be 1:10 US cars that are manual but I don't think it needs a separate line for this.

Makes sense - good to know. So basically there are no scale advantages with going with one battery type instead of 3?

I believe the marginal cost of the battery is much more expensive than that for them.

Hey, you'd like a macbook air?

11 or 13? slow or fast?

4 options - for model s and macbook air.

I'm quite happy they have a range of options for battery.

The Prius was criticized for having only a single higher end model early on.

The variations here makes sense. The main variables seem to be of fairly modular components: battery, motor controller/inverter, wheels+tires, suspension and trim. And of course paint.

This fits exactly with the Apple strategy of pricing variation in an area that is valuable to the consumer (e.g. storage/RAM/CPU-clock), but fairly modular and easy to create and support.

The optimal number of options depends on how long consumers spend making a buying decision. A $50,000 car should have more options than a $2000 laptop or a $500 tablet.

Don't you have that backwards? More options forces consumers to spend longer making buying decisions, surely.

Normal people put more time in making decisions involving large amounts of money. They are more likely to walk away if they can't get what they want. Letting them make minor decisions like color, pattern, etc invests them in the product so they are more likely to buy.

One of the reasons Tesla is better positioned than other makers to do well in electric cars is how they've designed the Model S. It's from the ground up designed with being electrified. The consequences of how they can lay out the architecture of the car is awesome. This isn't some sedan with a battery pack thrown in it, it's a sedan designed around having one.

Tesla might still be in a bit of a rocky position, but if this succeeds...watch out.

I still think it won't succeed. Electric cars have been build since 1904. But range have always been a problem. Ofcourse charging your car becomes quicker. But I still think a lot of people won't buy an electric car because they are afraid of not getting home.

"I still think computers will not succeed. They have been built since the 50s, and the price tag, the space they take, the heat and energy consumption have always been a problem."

I think you fail to realize where electric cars are on its technological trajectory. They're still in its infancy, and it's not like there's no more innovation to be had in battery technology etc.

I do realize this. But I was talking about the Tesla in its current form.

Ofcourse it might get a success some day. Maybe we won't have to charge them because they all will have a small nuclear reactor.

My point is: a lot of people are still thinking 300 miles on one battery charge is not enough. And maybe this is true when you go on holiday or something. But most of the time people are fine driving an electric car from home to work and back.

Tesla at this moment in time is not a car company that is marketing its product to the average consumer. They realize the technology is currently not their, but their go to market strategy is to market their luxury product to people who can afford a $50k car. At this point it is not about the worry of charging or where. My assumption is that the vast majority of people who own Tesla cars have a charging station in their home and understand the limits of the product.

They purchase the car for status, just like every other luxury product.

300 miles become irrelevant when you can recharge your car in 5-10 minutes, and that is where the technology is going.

Charging a 300mile electric car in 5-10 minutes is not going to happen any time soon, and it's not because of battery technology:

The model S uses 85kWh to go 300 miles (at 55 mph, remember which is way slower than you'll go on the freeway in California). 10 minutes is 1/6 of an hour so:

85kWh * 6/h = 510kW. Do you really think we are going to have 1/2 MW charging cables? Obviously this is not going to happen with home charging. Can you think of a way of even getting 1/2MW to a commercial charging station in a populated area? What about on e.g. labor day when large numbers of people want demand. If 10 people want to do a 10 minute charge in the same city at the same time, thats 10MW, which is a lot of coal we are burning to supply that (or if you want green power, about 100 acres of photovoltaics)[1].

I'm all for electrics, but I know the power grid is going to need an overhaul if more than about 1/8 the population adopts them, and on top of that current trends indicate that most of the new capacity is going to come from coal plants, which largely negates the environmental advantages of electrics.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellis_Solar_Power_Plant

I'm not very experienced in electronics, but couldn't you constantly store the source electricity in some sort of storage (battery, capacitors) and then dump it quickly into cars? This may not be feasible due to the efficiencies or safety factors involved, but the car wouldn't necessarily have to draw directly from the source line. The recharging stations could draw line power to recharge their storage overnight while the use of their charging terminals is low. However, I imagine the storage would be extremely pricey for the home market.

The most economical way of storing electrical energy on-site is probably the lead-acid battery. Enough lead-acid batteries to store 100 car recharges would be 1200 cubic meters. I found estimates from $0.17 to $0.50 per watt hour which would put the cost at over $1M to handle 100 car recharges. Charging that up continuously would put the energy requirements at 440kW assuming 80% round-trip efficiency.

Thanks for the numbers. It looks like we still need plenty of breakthroughs or drastic shifts in society for this to be realistic.

> 1/2 MW charging cables

Cables are rated by the current they support, not by the power of the devices connected to it. A cable up to 10 Ampères supports 1100 watts on a 110V mains, or 2200W on a 220V mains. Quick charging on electric vehicles probably is done at high voltages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampacity

EDIT: you are right about home charging not possible. And to the sibling, the best storage systems for fast charging are http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Supercapacitor and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

The current Tesla will succeed if there are enough people that want to, and have enough money to buy a high performance electric car. It's not so relevant what most people think about electric cars if you don't target the mass market. Most people that can afford a Tesla will probably afford another car to go on holidays (or they will be enthusiastic enough about their Tesla to plan their holidays around charging stations..)

Funny, when I looked at the specs, I thought 160 miles on a charge was more than enough for me. I think a tesla, or electric car in general, fits nicely into the second car of a two-car family model. Now we just need more renewable energy to power these things.

My phone cannot go for a whole day of heavy use without recharging, this is literally unthinkable 5 years ago. How can a phone be usable if you have to worry about charging it all the time?

Now, everyone is perfectly happy with carrying their chargers around. Maybe in a few years, people would get used to the idea of planning for charging their cars.

> everyone is perfectly happy with carrying their chargers around. Maybe in a few years, people would get used to the idea of planning for charging their cars.

that's because new mobile phones with crappy battery lives offer a lot more functionality than old mobile phones with much greater battery life. if this was the case with the electric car, then maybe yes, but i don't really see any significant benefits.

I bet the people who can throw $60-80k at a car already have other cars they can use for long-distance drives.

I agree, also the price is to high. $49.9k for a range of 160 miles? 5h+ for full charge? With the super charger it still takes 30 min for 160 miles charge, but then you have to buy the $59.9k option.

Of course the cars could hardly be any cheaper since they are built with new technology etc., but this still is just a prototype of sorts, electric cars won't become really commercial until either the recharge and price problems are solved or when the price of gas is so high that no one can afford it.

Tesla is hardly a mass market car. I think the price is too high for a BMW 5-series as well, but if they manage to sell the cars at that price, that's my problem and not theirs. I think Tesla made a good choice to expand downwards in the market, that's the only sensible solution for a small company.

If you want a mass market car, you can get a Nissan Leaf for half the price. I agree that it's not for everyone, especially since the battery warranty is not as good as it should be.

What about the market for car sharing? At Google we have a fleet of electric (and normal cars that are offered to employees for personal & business use and it's never been a problem since they are used for short trips. If they can produce a cheap model, I can see a market for players like Zipcar for dense urban centers where a majority of trips are quite short.

Yes it's a problem when there are not enough charging stations around. In some countries the network is quite well spread already but I guess not in the U.S. so far. Once that gets taken care of, I don't see any reasons for people not buying electric cars.

"I don't see any reasons for people not buying electric cars."

Almost all of my car journeys are from Edinburgh to various random locations in the Scottish Highlands to go skiing/cycling/walking - usually from 200 to 400 miles for the round trip - often parking in fairly remote spots. I just don't see an electric car being a sensible choice for our family any time soon.

You're not the market for this car.

Right now that market is upper-class commuters, who mostly go < 50 miles round trip and would likely use it as a second (or third) car.

I could see a decent market for these things from people who live in the US in VA/MD and commute into and out of DC, for instance. It's not a long distance, but it's a very slow trip because of traffic, and there's a culture of status-symbol cars.

It's still a 'chicken or an egg' problem, and charging times are not the same as filling up from a pump.

One can imagine the hypothetical scenario where a large filling station network would offer a battery subscription service of sorts, whereby you can stop at a station, swap in a charged battery, and drive off.

This is exactly what better place (Shai Agassi et al.) is doing: http://www.betterplace.com/the-solution-switch-stations

I don't see why this system can't replace re-fueling at a station. The retail store, restaurant, other services i.e the operator's profit, is all still there.

You just change the service/self-service oil option with the self-service electric vehicle battery switching option.

tintin, what is the difference in the logic behind 'afraid of not getting home' with regards to combustion and electric motors? Both run out of juice at some stage, you just make sure it doesn't run out right.

Combustion powered cars can be refueled anywhere in about 5 minutes. Electric cars take hours and that's only for a partial charge.

Also I doubt our electrical infrastructure will support large-scale EV recharging. We have brown-outs and black-outs now in many urban areas during peak demand times. So we'd at least need "intelligent grid" capability to throttle or disable vehicle charging during peak demand hours.

Finally the whole issue of road tax is never discussed. This is a significant portion of the retail cost of gasoline. If/when large numbers of people switch to EV cars, we'll need a way to meter and tax the electricity for road maintenance, or find another way to fund that.

With quick chargers you can charge an electric car in about 30 minutes. Charging that takes hours is not a problem if you can charge the car at work or at home.

It's pretty clear that a large scale switch to electric would require us to upgrade the grid, make available metering solutions and add tax the electricity. It's not going to be easy, but it's not going to be impossible either. And the transition is likely to happen very gradually. 150 years ago people likely told the first auto makers the same thing: How are people going to buy your product when there it's so difficult to get fuel? The problem was solved piece by piece as the market demanded cars.

Not that I have really looked hard, but I don't recall seeing electrical outlets in any parking stall I have ever used. I know there are none in the parking lot for my apartment.

If we are sharing anecdotes: both my condo building and office building have reserved spots for charging electric cars. However, I'm not a fan because they were both installe by government subsidy and currently offer free power. Just why we need: to subsidize the drivin habits of people rich enough to afford an electric car (as they currently command a price premium).

Where I live electrical outlets are quite common because many people use enging heaters during the winter. Also, the government has sponsored many free parking spots with charging (although the free part will probably disappear as soon as electrical cars get popular).

a) Car batteries are massive.

b) The batteries are shaped to the car[1]; standardizing batteries would require sacrificing car design (aka: goodbye back seat).

[1] From http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/battery "...integrating with the vehicle in the same way, providing structural, aerodynamic, and handling advantages."

It might be possible to have some of the battery packs replaceable and some fixed, so that you can get to 40% charge or so instantly if you need it. I'm a bit more pessimistic on getting the car makers to standardize on a battery size, especially as long as battery technology is a competitive advantage.

Tesla cars are built with exactly that in mind. The battery packs can be swapped out in minutes.

source?

[edit] Wikipedia claims this, but their reference no longer exists on Tesla Motor's website. Searching everywhere in the OP yields nothing about this.

Already is and will. Check out Shai Agassi. (BetterPlace)

EDIT- Israel, Denmark, Australia and some US testing. Why is this downvoted? My point was a solution exists and is being implemented on a large scale.

Agreed, it looks like a standard 5 seater sedan/saloon. I'm so conditioned to how cars should look, I just cannot figure out how (or where) the two additional seats are placed. I really wish they are successful with this.

Two optional children's seats in the trunk.

I saw and sat in the Model S on its tour stop in my city and quite frankly, this is the car of the future. In 10 years, all sedans will have the same design features you see on the Tesla right now. Two of the most notable ones:

1. The moving part of the car is essentially one large skateboard (battery, motor and control systems all in there), leaving room for an incredibly spacious interior with two trunks.

2. Touch screen replaces all buttons, regular screen replaces dash.

Having tactile feedback would be preferable, I think, to a touchscreen with soft buttons. Normally, I'm reaching and not really looking at the screen when I mess with the nav/climate control/audio in my Audi; it's not a great UI, but better than reaching down to a big touchscreen.

What I think would be best is a gesture-based display. Touch anywhere on the screen, make a squiggle in some kind of pattern -- it's all relative vs. absolute.

Good voice recognition would also work, but I haven't seen this yet in a car.

I think this is a really important point.

Sure, an infinitely flexible touchscreen has a nice wow-factor on the showroom floor, but when you're on the highway screaming along at 65 (because you're a good law-abiding citizen) and you reach down to change the radio station and hit adjust heat instead, and then the map destination, before having to take your eyes off the road to follow your finger to the right spot on the piece of glass - touchscreen not so good.

I'd give up some fancy full-color api driven whatever for a nice compliment of ergonometrically designed knobs and buttons any day.

As to voice, I think voice-feedback could be a good start. I have a hard-drive based music player in my car with an excellent audio interface. You can reach down, twiddle the knobs and browse through thousands of tracks without taking your eyes off the road at all because it reads the artists, albums, playlists etc to you. Very fine approach to a mobile interface.

You know what's annoying as hell? Climate control buttons so it takes either a ton of taps in succession to drastically change the temperature or one tap-and-hold. In my older Infiniti it has buttons to change the temperature and it's incredibly annoying. The next model year they changed it back to a knob because customers complained so much.

I wonder what Tesla did to make this a better user experience. I'm guessing: nothing.

> Good voice recognition would also work, but I haven't seen this yet in a car.

Ditto. This seems like the obvious solution to the future of UIs, especially when driving or something else that occupies your main concentration (walking, etc). In the age of Siri and Google Maps, you'd think your car could handle simple commands like "find 123 StreetName" and map to it in the city you're in or close to. I've hated the concept of voice recognition for a long time, primarily because I don't speak clearly enough for most of the technologies to understand me, but now that it's getting better I truly believe this is the future.

Now it's like (press button, wait for beep) "Find 123 StreetName". Response: "Tuning radio to 1100 AM". "Wait, no..."

For the future think Star Trek: "Computer, where is the nearest gas station?" (note: addressing the computer to activate instead of pressing a button on the steering wheel = genius). Then a kindly female voice responds: "There is a Chevron and a 76 at the next exit, would you like me to route you to one of those?". "Yes, route me to the Chevron", etc.

> Having tactile feedback would be preferable, I think, to a touchscreen with soft buttons

The 2004 Prius (and many other cars after that) has proven that touchscreens are viable for key functions... certain functions are not accessible in any other way (e.g.: climate control)... and touchscreen failures are not widely reported as a problem.

I have an older Lexus that is basically the same platform as that. It's great - I've never driven anything that has as painless a UI.

I spent the weekend with a Ferrari and it was pretty unreal how hard it was to use (you can't change the radio station without turning off the nav display, etc.)

Lambo (well, or Audi R8) is even worse; until I think 2012 MY, you got the same crappy RNS-E of a 2001 Audi A3, not even the Audi MMI from the A6.

> What I think would be best is a gesture-based display. Touch anywhere on the screen, make a squiggle in some kind of pattern -- it's all relative vs. absolute.

Audi does this somewhat already on a couple of models, you can write letters with your fingers to enter waypoints or call someone.

Touchscreen is a must have for the nav unit, specifically for browsing the map with the pinch zoom and drag panning. Multi-purpose programmable physical buttons are nice in theory but in practice they suck donkeys balls if you pardon my French. Inconvenient and more importantly they make the UI feel unfinished and temporary. Should they have customizable labels similar to those of the Optimus keyboard - that would've solved the problem, but at what cost.

With regards to a good voice recognition - the current generation on BMWs is really good, especially compared to the one from two years ago that was bloody awful. One thing that I do miss from the handsfree system is an ability to use different voice packs. It'd be super cool to have a dude with a heavy Indian accent :)

The main thing I really use is steering wheel controls; being able to one-touch answer incoming phone calls, up/down volume, mute, switch tracks (which are iPod playlist tracks, etc.) without removing my hands from the wheel is very important at "55 mph".

There's a fairly powerful tegra chip in there, so I imagine that voice recognition would be a software update away:

http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/customrel.do?easyirid=A0D...

touch screen instead of buttons is just an annoyance. What if I want to adjust the heat? I have to look. Adjust the radio? I ahve to look.

Right now I just reach over and do it.

For 2, a Siri-like voice command unit would nicely complements the touch control. Touch control requires taking eyes off the road, not good.

As an investor, I'm long TSLA & as a human I have to be bullish on this company. It's easy to root for them, but I really hope they get the roll-out of the Model S correct & focus on the customer, not the tech, damn it.

For those of you old enough to understand the joke, I don't think Elon will be trying to buy Cocaine anytime soon, but I'm worried about the next phase after the first round of sales to the enthusiasts like... us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeLorean_Motor_Company

In the hopes that Elon and the boys are paying attention, some things that bugged me from the plans so far & from the "butt test" I gave the Model S:

1. The options look great and I'm excited, but help me complete these sentence... "I've owned the Model S now for more than a year and I'm never worried about getting serviced because Tesla Co. will..." what?

2. Tell my mother, or anyone not in your core market, why they need this car & what role it plays in their life vs. buying a gas powered (or for extra points a Hybrid) car.

3. Tell them exactly what's required to put a charger in their garage and how much that will cost; better yet, help them do it (for a fee!) and partner with some other Green tech folks to make a house call and split the costs -- solar panel resellers for example?

4. Nit picking, but man was that 17-inch screen big! Couldn't we save some money a go with a 12-inch and a couple of physical (user programmable) buttons instead?

5. Listen, I'm a large man, where's my "oh shit handle?" http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oh%20shit%20h...

(And in case you missed it, I'm long TSLA & rooting for you all the way!!)

1. Tesla dealerships? Except for the battery, I'd expect this car to be more robust than average, due to the relatively miniscule number of moving parts. They also don't require oil changes. I think that lack of maintenance is a big deal. Most of the time, it recharges itself overnight, so you never need to go to a gas station.

2. Your mom would probably like no oil changes/gas fillups and less maintenance. For many outside the tech community, a car that looks and performs like a Maserati helps. Tesla is also planning on putting Tesla showrooms into malls, to act like Apple stores, which should generate a lot of buzz. I think their brand is going to be really, really strong among average consumers fairly soon. It may not be affordable, but it's going to be an aspirational car for lots, which should help a lot when Tesla finally launches their low end car.

3. Yeah, not sure about plug installation. I imagine that this is at the top of their mind. Perhaps partnerships with affiliated electricians set up by the dealerships? In most of the houses I've lived in, the breaker box was in the garage, so it should probably be relatively simple in most cases.

4. Addressed well by another commenter.

5. Heh no idea.

You can buy a charger from Nissan for $2,000. http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/faq/list/charging...

The question was about charger installation, though. These things are 83.3 amps at 240 V...

> 4. Nit picking, but man was that 17-inch screen big! Couldn't we save some money a go with a 12-inch and a couple of physical (user programmable) buttons instead?

A 17" screen is a very cheap component. Adding physical buttons wouldn't save much, if anything. When you're making a $60-90k car, a $100 screen isn't going to change the final price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE...

That $100 LCD isn't automotive grade, nor will it hold up to federal safety standards or intense daylight visibility. Adding a 17" pro-cap screen on top is not a cheap proposition either.

I'm really curious what the effective cost per mile to operate these will be, especially for high duty cycle operations. Assuming it works out, If I were an Uber driver, I'd probably get one (or two) -- the Tesla halo factor would get you some marketing/pricing benefit, and if it is lower cost to operate, then win/win. 300 miles in a day may or may not work for a livery service, although presumably the driver could be charging the vehicle while waiting.

If I had $100k for a new car right now, the Performance Signature would absolutely be my pick; it's higher social status (and more fun) than any other car I can think of.

Wow, 4.4 0-60 is really fast for such a big car. Worth the extra $$ for the bigger battery to win a few drag races.

The styling seems like a melange of Aston Martin, Jag, and Maserati -- too bad it's not something truly distinctive, but it still seems like a lot of car.

As someone who has desired each of a Maserati, a Jag, and an Aston Martin in the past, I really am not complaining. Especially since this is cheaper than each of those.

And yeah, the performance package puts this in pretty absurd company. Last model M5, had similar 0-60 numbers, I believe.

An M5's handling would probably spank the Model S.

Sadly, Maserati/Jag/Aston aren't that fast. I used to want a Vantage V8 but then I drove one.

The early reviews of Model S handling and ride were very favorable, and it makes sense that they would be due to its very even weight and low center of gravity. I don't know if it's in the same class, though.

I just really, really like how those other cars look. Recent Astons and Maseratis more, personally. Top Gear makes the DB9 look plenty fast.

I love the look of the Vantage V8. It is the prettiest car ever. But the same dollars of a Porsche or BMW will get so much more driving fun, unfortunately.

The car club has a DB9 that I could take out but others have said it is sorta lexusy so I haven't bothered.

I think the design is a smart move. They're getting parity on design with it while differentiating via the technology. A more distinctive car would be more of a risk that the market doesn't like it or it becomes dated too quickly, especially given that it's aimed more mainstream than the Sportster.

Besides, looking similar to the marques you mentioned is excellent for a first attempt at a design. If you're going to take one shot at it that really has to work first time, that's pretty good company.

The Roadster was based on the Lotus Elise, it looked good. The Model S is an in-house design, and I agree it's nothing really special.

Tesla has a roadster version where they put electric motors on both sides (not just the rear, call it the Roadster 4S?) and it has a 0-60 in the 2 second area. 60-100 isn't as impressive, along with the 120mph top speed. This is due to not having a gear box and maxing out the motor's RPMs.

The Roadster Sport goes 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, a 0.2 second improvement over the regular Roadster.

This is what a car manufacturer's website should look like in 2012. I'm tired of looking at flash "loading" screens and 12px type. This looks like a startup's site, in a good way.

Does anyone know if they have taken cold climates into consideration? ("They" being Tesla and other EV makers)

Will the performance of the battery pack degrade significantly if the temperature is below freezing?

(Tesla:) Are the self-retracting door handles likely to get stuck in the closed position due to snowstorm ice?

In a car with an ICE, cabin heat is waste heat from the engine. In an electric car, will maintaining a comfortable cabin temperature significantly reduce the range of the vehicle?

This is important. It seems to be a widely-held belief here in Canada that electric cars are rubbish in the winter. There might be a PR battle that needs winning.

I hope they have enough margin on those cars to keep making them. Automotive business is a tough business with fairly high margin. The BOM for an EV is much higher than regular cars and it looks like Tesla is running on quite a low margin to give those pricing.

You are kidding right? - EV drive trains are much simpler and have a order of magnitude fewer parts than ICE vehicles or hybrids.

I've read pricing on EV lithium ion battery packs is at around $450/kWh... that'd put it between $18,000 and $38,250 depending on which model you buy. It's definitely the largest cost component of the car.

Yes, the batteries are very expensive. Doubling the battery capacity adds $20,000 to the cost of the car. Most likely the batteries will have a 5 year lifespan, so the amortized operating costs of the batteries may be around $20,000/5 = $4,000 per year. There's also the issue of the environmental costs of the manufacture and of the disposal. These factors are seldom mentioned or discussion tolerated these days, buried under talk of going green and the low cost of the electricity to recharge.

They have an 8 year warranty, so hopefully they will last at least that long.

Don't forget the 6000+ lithium cells, each with charge leveling circuitry.

The battery pack and associated circuitry is a array of solid state components.

An internal combustion engine has thousands of different parts - many of them moving, unmonitored and uncontrolled.

The EV is much simpler to manufacture and maintain. The GM EV1 was famously robust and low maintenance. Personally i believe this is one of the reasons the previous generation of EV's were canceled - it radically changes the profit spread on a vehicle. The old school manufacturers make a lot af profit on vehicle maintenance and parts - this is about to change.

The part count on a typical automobile is 30000 according to toyota - I would love to know what the Model S count is - even with the 6000 battery cells.

> An internal combustion engine has thousands of different parts - many of them moving, unmonitored and uncontrolled.

And it's century-old tech... and millions of people know how it works at a very low level. Lots of the problems are known or solved.

Often these problems are solved through complexity. ICEs have very limited ranges of torque efficiency, so we work around them using a complex transmission. Other complexity eliminated by an electric vehicle: induction & emissions systems, environmental controls, ECU/fuel control & associated sensor networks, NVH suppression, fuel storage & delivery, belt-driven accessories (inverter, A/C, power steering).

Granted an electric motor is simpler and more durable than an internal combustion engine. The rest of the car, though, is still a car. It has a transmission, suspension, brakes, etc. all of which will need maintenance and repair like an ordinary car. And it remains to be seen how the battery packs will hold up over time, warranty notwithstanding.

Transmission? There is no transmission -- electric motors have flat torque curves, so there's no need. It has a "gearbox," but it's basically just a differential. The transmission is one of the most expensive and arguably the most complex parts of an automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. Ever priced one of these? It's around $4,000-$10,000 for a replacement -- manual or automatic.

Also brakes although present, won't be used as much due to car's motor regenerative breaking, so they will need a lot less maintenance.

Ah, I want one. 50k for the cheapest model doesn't seem that crazy either. I would want to hear some reviews of the 17" touch screen and what kinds of applications you can run on it.

I think 50k is still a bit high for their cheapest model. Hopefully they'll be able to offer cheaper models in the 25-30k range in a few years.

$50K is IMHO an insane amount of money to spend on a car. I haven't spent more than $9,000 on any car I've bought in the last 15 years.

Of course if you have the money and want to spend it that way, I have no objection. I might be there in 5 years to take it off your hands after you've financed the depreciation, depending on how they hold up in real world use.

You may have been able to get by with never spending more than $9k on a car, but somebody has to buy the car when it is new. Don't call those people insane when you depend on them to subsidise your vehicle purchases.

It's also unfair to imply a subsidy. Without a market of buyers the seller would end up continuing to use the vehicle or writing off even more of the cost.

Cars are a lot like watches. There are people who never spend more than $20 for a watch and people who never spend less than $2,000. Neither party can fathom the other.

They're usually not spending 50K on a car. They're investing 50K in the car, and taking a loss when they sell it a few years later. That loss, added to the cost of insurance for damage, theft etc., is what they're really spending on the car.

It's still be over $9,000 though.

That touchscreen definitely concerns me. I used to drive a Saab 900, and my favorite feature was this big "black panel" button that shut off all interior lights save the speedometer (when the fuel hit 1/4 tank, that backlight also turned on). Can anybody who's driven the S say whether it's possible to shut off the panel? I love the car, but having this huge glowing monstrosity right in the corner of my eye would just ruin night driving for me.

Check out this link, it shows a day/night mode

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/interior

Wow. For such a curvaceous exterior, what an ugly dashboard. The interior is probably still being designed so I honestly hope that, besides providing some physical buttons, the final dashboard looks nothing like that.

My family's q7 has default cabin illumination when the headlights are on. It took me 2 months to notice that was the case. As long as the screen dims automatically when not in use, I think that most people won't mind, but I could be wrong. I'd also imagine that Tesla was smart enough to think about having a way to hibernate the screen.

Prices are "After $7,500 Federal"

Is the only substantive difference between the Performance and Signature Performance option that you get white leather and red paint!? It doesn't look the extra options add up to the price difference. What am I missing?

Disclaimer: I only skimmed the price list, I didn't add up all the numbers.

You also get it a lot sooner.

Ah ha!

Looks awesome. Wish I could afford it.

Here's an idea, maybe someone could tell me if it's feasible. One of the annoying things about electric cars is the relatively long charge time, which, for day trips, is solved by charging at home overnight. However, a mistake such as forgetting to plug in one night could have dire results the next day. What about having a charging pad for people with garages? When they get home they park the car where the pad is and it starts charging automatically over the air. What are the disadvantages? Efficiency? Price?

Public charging spots will happen if/when popularity of electric cars takes off. It already has happened in some places, for example Oxford in the UK - http://www.oxfordjournal.co.uk/news/travel/2699-city-gets-mo... (I believe there's at least a few more since that article was written, could be wrong). Due to not having the same requirements as petrol stations (namely being able to store huge amounts of flammable liquid), there's no reason for them to be located there, hence their being in car parks in Oxford.

I think Tesla have already started this. At the Santana Row mall in San Jose, they have dedicated electric car charger parking spots and you will often see a couple of Tesla's parked up.

Look all Tesla Motors has accomplished in less than ten years. I bet by 2020 supercharging in 5 mins and reaching 500 miles will be common, most of us will be driving electric cars and by 2050 the transition will be complete in the whole world.

Stop and think about charging an 85 kWH battery pack in 5 minutes. Assuming 80% charging efficiency (no idea if that's what it is, just a guess) you will need about 100 kWH * 60/5 = 1200 kW. 1.2 million Watts draw for 5 minutes. 5,000 Amps at 240volts. Totally impossible with our current grid and generating capacity.

While I could never afford one, I find this kind of progress exciting for the world.

Really looking forward to buying my first used electric car in a decade (and rebuilding the battery pack).

You'd have to close your yes and really want an electric car to get one of these. You get a whole lot of dinosaur-driven car for the same price, any category.

I don't know. The base model looks not far off being competitively priced in relation to the luxury car market, with something like a 3-series (the low end of luxury) costing at least $40k. There are obviously going to be good savings cf. fuel, and an 80 mile return trip should cover 90% of most peoples journeys. Again, most people will have access to a second car too.

For all this to be true however, it does need to prove it is a luxury car. The external styling looks pretty good, but it needs a quality interior and handling too.

I completely agree - my initial impression is that it isn't up to par with something like the 3-series, but maybe I should wait until I actually try it in person.

Update: You have to pay $84,900 to get a model with leather interior. I'm not kidding.

Not sure about the interior, but I wouldn't mind that GPS http://cl.ly/3s2V0H2w3p0I2B1d2q21

Anyone know when/if this car is coming to Canada? I assume not many car repair shops are going to be able to deal with one of these bad boys.

Am I missing something or is this a typo: "Premium electric sedan with seating for up to seven"? I could see seating six, but seven?

Basically in the trunk area you can have rear-facing seats which can easily fold flat. 7 is 2 in the front, 3 in the middle, and 2 in the back.

They offer rear-facing seats for people under 5' tall (read: children) that you can install in the trunk.

There's mention of rear-facing jump seats as an option, that probably gets you 2 in front and 5 in back but the 5 in back probably only works well if they are children.

Curious, if I get a Model S and do my standard road trips to SF/LA, is there a list of available charging stations up/down the 101?

Wow, these almost make me wish I liked driving cars. Hope one of the next revisions comes as a self-driving car (-:

it is hard not to root for tesla here. they are breaking new ground. i love performance cars, and would love to keep a gas powered sports car in the garage, but for popping around town this seems more practical. the bar of expectations is very high, i hope they break past it.

I find it somehow ironic that there's a half-empty battery pictured on the features page, when electric car battery life is probably the top thing people are skeptical about – http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features

I like to think most people are smart enough to realise that no matter how much energy a battery might hold, when you've used half of it, the battery will be half empty. It's not like they're going to look at that tiny picture and think "well my gas tank never got half empty!"

How much does it weigh? I didn't see its mass listed anywhere.

Why is this on the front page of HN?

What is so special about this car?

Elon Musk, Tesla's founder, is well-known in tech circles from PayPal; that, combined with the new-tech angle and the Bay Area location, has gotten Tesla into the Silicon Valley press circuit.

Thanks for answering instead of downvoting. This is the answer I was after.

It's electric.

Love Tesla and the Model S is short of amazing, just wish more manufactures would adopt apple's product line mantra, simplicity.

Way to many options to choose from, make it easy guys.

Apple has a ton of SKUs. The iPad 2 alone is offered in 18 variations (White/Black, 3G/Wifi, CDMA/GSM, 16/32/64GB). Want a MacBook? There are nine models to choose from (4 Airs and 5 Pros) and each come with a bunch of customizations (CPU, RAM, HD, accesseries, etc).

But Apple tends to show off 1 or two models and let you choose the options yourself. Tesla should just focus on two models and leave the options below the fold.

They do... This is the "Options" page. Here's the Model S homepage:

http://www.teslamotors.com/models

Apple has gnarly comparison pages too:

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-compare.html

I think it's hard to compare to Apple because they don't make cars. People spending > $50,000 on a car will tend to want more choices than people spending $500 on an iPad.

So how does one charge these things?

I saw the roadster just the other week in the parking lot of Alice's Cafe. Very nice looking machine.

Ugh.. why a large size sedan?? Anyone who buys one of these thinking they're saving the Earth suffers from cognitive dissonance.

This car is not the future. We really should all be driving small, super-efficient, "SmartCar" sized electric golf-cart cars. They should be under $10,000, have 200+ mi range. A large luxury sedan built for the rich is not going to make one lick of difference in terms of pollution or fossil fuel conservation.

I'd argue that this is a good way to idealize the concept of electric cars in the eyes of society. Obviously not everyone will have the cash to spring for a Model S, but as time goes on and production gets more efficient, more "for-the-masses" models will arise and will permeate down the financial ranks. IMO Tesla is starting off on the right foot; showing what electric can do and dressing it up real nice. You're right that this model specifically will do little to save the Earth, but it's a step in the right direction; setting the stage for electric to become socially desirable.

So, you can't use the recharger network if you don't buy the most expensive models?

I don't think they actually intend to ship any of the less expensive models.

4 doors makes me sad.

Great looking car. But what's with all the bullshit vanity stats like kWh? Is this the new MHz of the electric car age? A meaningless number that consumers mistakenly use to quantify purchases for the next century? Some things never change. Just tell me how far the damn thing drives and I'll dig into the details if I'm really interested.

NB: I realize Tesla buries the actual range in the middle of the page. I'm just pointing out kWh at best meaningless without taking the entire car into consideration and at worst deliberately misleading consumers a la MHz and "megapixels."

What consumers understand: Range in miles, top speed in mph, acceleration (why don't they illustrate this with a graph instead of "0-60?"). What consumers can only vaguely understand: kWh, horsepower, CC of engine, torque.

How is that meaningless? It's what determines a large portion of the price of the car and it's range. You don't think it's helpful to know that the Leaf has a 24 kwh battery and the low end Tesla has 40? I'd say the range "estimates" are the useless number. The range is 90% determined by the battery capacity. The range estimates are whatever number marketing pulls out of its ass. This is nothing like megapixels and megahertz.

Yes. It is meaningless to know the Leaf has a 24 kWh battery and the Tesla has 40 kWh. Completely and utterly useless.

Range is determined by engine, weight, aerodynamics, and, yes, battery. The Leaf could, hypothetically, weigh half as much as the Tesla Roadster S, have a better coefficient of friction, a smaller engine, and get BETTER range with a smaller battery.

It's like telling people how big the gas tank is on a car. There's a hell of a lot more you need to know to figure out the range. To give an extreme example, just because my passenger van has a 30 gallon tank and my civic has a 11 gallon tank doesn't mean the van is going to win an endurance race.

Edit: Another concrete example, the Volkswagen 1L. It has a 1.7 gallon gas tank and gets a 400 mile range. [1] Your average Toyota might have a 50 mile range on the same amount of gas.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car

Yeah, but what if I'm buying a Tesla Model S... so all else is held equal? I don't understand how you don't see this as useful information when comparing options within a single line of vehicles.

Two important aspects that are covered by battery capacity but not range are cost to recharge and lower bound on time to recharge given a certain wiring capacity in your home.

So how many mA⋅h in your laptop's battery?

You know, I really like the idea of getting the real numbers for what I'd be paying for. kWh of the battery is a clearly definable number that makes it easy to compare between the different options. "How far the damn thing drives" is incredibly fuzzy and dependent on things like speed and driving habits - for a start, their estimate is at 55mph which seems slow to me to cover 300 miles at (is that the limit in the States or something?).

The 0-60 time is used widely across the automotive industry, as you probably know. I've not seen anyone use "a graph" before, but frankly I prefer this; those numbers tell me that they're all pretty quick (and the 4.4s one extremely so) and I can easily compare that to petrol alternatives.

> is that the limit in the States or something?

It depends.[1] Speed limits in the US are set by states rather than the Federal government, so they vary depending on where you happen to be driving. Larger/less-dense states tend to have higher limits than smaller/denser states do. There was a national speed limit of 55mph put in place on highways in 1974, but it was repealed in 1995.[2]

My guess is that they go with 55mph because memories of the national highway speed cap mean that figure is still fixed in lots of peoples' minds here as "highway speed."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Stat... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law

I imagine the range would be very hard to quantify exactly, since it would probably depend on many many variables, such as driving style, speed, road grade, ambient temp (battery efficiency), head winds etc. It's an electric car, with the dominating cost being the battery, I think it's a legit headline stat, and probably the dominant variable between the models, except for the performance model, which seems to have a beefier motor controller/inverter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com