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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

I hope someone from Tesla is reading this. I really, really wanted to buy a Tesla. But the Roadster was too small, and the Model S is too big. At 196 inches long, it's almost as big as a BMW 7 series. The Right Size for an electric car is ~170-180 inches, about the size of a Prius (or a Lexus IS or an Infiniti G). I was a little dismayed to see that the next car in the pipeline, the Model X, bills itself as a blend of SUV and minivan. That is totally the wrong direction IMHO. You already have one very big car and one very small one. You need a compact-to-midsize to fill out the lineup, not a second huge car.

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Tesla is in 'sniper' mode right now; few bullets, and they have to hit with them or the company goes down.

Selling a 50-100k sedan almost requires it to aim at the BMW 7 market, IMO. But don't despair, over time they'll expand the lineup and I'm sure they'll make one that fits your needs.

The next model should be 30-50k and I would expect it to be about the size that you describe.

I understand they're in sniper mode, and I understand why the Model S is the size it is. What I don't understand is why the Model X (http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx) is the size it is. They're going to have two seven-passenger vehicles and zero four-passenger vehicles. That doesn't seem like the right way to diversify.

The Model X is built on top of the Model S platform. That's probably why.

Making it smaller would probably require a lot more complex engineering and tradeoffs when it comes to the powertrain/batteries/etc.

It's actually very smart because they are leveraging all the work they have done for the Model S and getting another model out of it. Elon Musk has said in interviews that the Model S was actually over 90% new parts, which made it very complex to design and get the supply chain going. If the Model X has a significantly lower number of new parts, that'll make a big difference to the bottom line and time to market.

Ah. Well, I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense. But it does leave me wondering how hard it can be to shorten the wheel base. The battery pack already comes in different sizes so they must have that figured out. There's no drive shaft or transmission. It's hard for me to imagine that making the platform shorter is that much harder than designing a whole new body.

It probably requires re-tooling their assembly line. One of the main purposes of the Model S is to scale the assembly system.

Elon has five children. Getting Elon + 5 children into a Tesla is a key goal, and presumably his smallest child is going to outgrow the optional rear facing seats in the Model S at some point...

I think their rationale is: Their cars are very expensive. People would buy a 196 inches-long expensive car, they also would buy an expensive sports cars. They wouldn't buy an expensive Prius easily. Maybe they are using their high margins on those cars to have some chance against Asian makers in the future. But, sad truth is, they will develop the very tech that nissan, toyota, hyundai, et al, will use to kill them.

Tesla is licensing some of their tech to Toyota iirc. I think they are of the attitude that in the current market more electric cars from everyone is good for business.

and mercedes

They have a deal to get some of the interior trim from Mercedes. And Daimler (Mercedes parent company) owns a chunk of Tesla.

>>But, sad truth is, they will develop the very tech that nissan, toyota, hyundai, et al, will use to kill them.

Could you expand on this? How exactly will Tesla bring about its own demise?

By licensing, or being forced to license, their tech to extremely competitive companies. I believe that Tesla will end up making only high-end cars and making money mostly from licensing. But that's just an opinion, really. No one really knows where things are headed to. One thing is for sure: youngsters don't like cars as people my age.

I think their rationale is that they need to fit a lot of battery somewhere. The Model S is not just long, it's wide for a sedan. That's all about fitting the massive battery pack under the passenger compartment.

For a 7 passenger vehicle, the Model S is tiny. I hate SUV's and my wife hates minivans, but a 7 passenger vehicle would be really quite convenient. Nobody makes 7 passenger wagons any more, so we're quite likely to end up with a Model S simply because of the form factor. Not this year, though. Our youngest daughter is still too young for the rear-facing seats on this car. Maybe next year, though.

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