Consumer Reports Calls Tesla Model S The Best Car Of 2014 | Hacker News Reader

Consumer Reports Calls Tesla Model S The Best Car Of 2014

business.time.com

256 pointsjosh-wrale137 comments

I've got nearly 20,000 miles on mine. One thing I just discovered is that the tires, 21" super-soft compound high-performance Michelins, only last 20,000 miles and cost $2900 to replace. This works out to $0.145 / mile, which is 3x more per mile than electricity costs me. And about what you would spend on gas for a 25 MPG car.

I didn't really buy it for the savings, though.

You could easily switch to a high (but not quite extreme) performance tire like Continental ExtremeContact DW in the stock 245/35R21 size, which would run you only a little over $1000/set for a much better cost per mile without compromising performance to a high degree.

Or you could switch (maybe another Tesla owner would trade) down to a rim size with a more reasonable sidewall profile. I frankly don't understand the trend towards lower and lower profiles for street cars. The improved cornering characteristics are offset by the substantially harsher ride and propensity towards rim damage, and on the performance Tesla I believe even 19" wheels will easily clear the brakes.

I highly recommend Continental's ExtremeContacts. I'm on my second pair on my 5 series* and I think my dad has used them on multiple vehicles as well.

*My 530 isn't nearly as fast as the Model S, but it is a stick and I tend to drive in a spirited manner, yada yada yada...

Seconded. I had these on both of my 5 series and they were great.

I fully agree, especially on an SUV or truck low profile tires are a joke. The Ride on most Sport SUVs is stiffened up already to try to correct for the higher center of gravity.

Buying another set of high-cost low-life performance tires isn't a requirement of any Model S trims, is it? You could replace them with some ordinary all-season tires when the included ones wear out?

They're an unusual size, and you want the run-flat version since there's no spare, so the cheapest option seems to be about $2000 / set. Anyway, I like the ridiculous acceleration (3.7 seconds 0-60 MPH quoted) you get with the very soft compound.

Man, you don't want run flats on a fast car. Get an AAA membership and relax.

Run flats are trash.

Did it come as a surprise to you? Low profile tires are notorious for fast wear. When I test drove a Model S, the rep explained the differences between the 21" and the standard 19" tires, including the shorter lifespan.

The Model S is particularly heavy even for a large sedan, which combined with a lot of torque will result in extremely rapid tire wear even for a performance car.

The profile of the tires has almost nothing to do with wear. The treadwear (softness/stickiness) of the tire's rubber compound combined with alignment and driving style is what governs tire wear.

If anything, lower profile tires will actually wear less when driven aggressively as the sidewalls are less prone to folding (causing outer edge feathering) when cornering.

The biggest thing the Model S has against it for tire wear (both the 21' and the 19') is the 2° negative camber on the rear wheels when in standard suspension. While that is very useful for improved handling and preventing possible oversteer (especially likely given the huge amount of instant torque), it is hell on the tires.

P.S. While I'm an owner, I'm not that much of a car nut, and I am simply regurgitating the information shared by other owners who are car nuts. :)

I don't know if this is correct, but if it is, thanks for the wonderful explanation of the mechanics behind it.

"High Performance" anything tends to mean doesn't last too long and more expensive when it breaks. I'm sure the 19" standard tires are a little better on both counts.

Tires affect a vehicle's performance more than any other component. It's worth buying good ones. A shame more people don't put the thought and money in.

Can't you now replace the tires with cheaper ones?

Why buy a very expensive, high performance car and use cheap tires ?

Because the owner of the car was lamenting the price of replacement tires. Why would you not point out cheaper alternatives?

Because electric cars tend to be high performance as a side-effect of the tech used.

Personally, I am more interested in the car because of the gas savings. I won't buy the Tesla S to test it on the nurburgring.

About $2K worst case for a set of 4 21" according to Tire Rack.

http://tinyurl.com/n577bbc

Are those the rears? How long do you expect them to last?! I'd think of 20,000 miles as a reasonable lifespan. I'd always been under the impression that "only" didn't start until 10,000 miles ;)

When you're not buying racing tires, it's not uncommon to find tires that last 50 or 70k miles. Those are the lifespans I expect in my tires. If I were using tires on a track, of course, those numbers would change since I would be buying track tires.

Could you go with a nice, but not ridiculously expensive, set? I had a blast on Dunlop Direzzi Z1's for about 20k miles before they wore out, and a set was closer to $600. Awful in the rain, though.

Here's a link to Consumer Reports article on it. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/04/top-pick...

Edit: They split it into categories a pick a winner in each and then somehow pick a 'best overall'. I like the Tesla but I don't understand how they can pick a 'best overall'. It doesn't seem like something that can easily quantified fairly. It's also worth noting the Tesla is over $30,000 more expensive than the most expensive winner out of the other categories.

In the US, yes, but in some countries the Tesla is actually cheaper than the Audi (which is the car you are comparing it to there) because of tax breaks. See http://www.ibtimes.com/tesla-owners-norway-get-134000-tax-br...

Consumer Reports is targeted at people in the US too.

Taxes in other countries means that cars get different engine, so for example in the past we used to get Audi with the power tweaked down in Belgium.

Also Tesla is a lot more practical in Belgium (small dense country) than in Spain (where energy is expensive, there is no supercharger and your regular electricity contract is 15A (220V), so not enough to charge a Tesla properly in the average dwelling)

There are so many factors, it is better for consumer magazine to focus on a single country.

A unique choice for "best overall" gets Consumer reports a lot of press coverage and traffic. There's probably not much meaning to "best overall" anyway, and its great for them to pick something flashy and new.

I've lost respect for them since antenna-gate. They often rate Apple's phones the highest while writing articles about their horrible 'flaws'. It feels like two sides of the house aren't talking to each other.

That said, the Model S is supposed to be very nice and is a cool advancement for the industry over 'yet another model year of Civic/Focus/whatever'.

I would disagree - Consumer Reports is easily the most objective independent consumer product review organization that I've ever seen. It's not hypocritical to point out flaws in a product and chastise the company behind it for putting out spin while simultaneously viewing that product as excellent overall, despite its flaws.

One of their big things is holding companies accountable and trying to promote truth in advertising and shame those that violate that trust, so if they see a company spinning as hard as Apple does, they're likely to call them out for it.

"best overall"===Do Want.

Do people take anything consumer reports says seriously anymore? I was under the impression they started losing all credibility when they had a series of reviews where they ranked name brand products higher than their generic counterparts then it turned out the generic and name brand products were exactly the same (in some cases having come right from the same assembly lines) but with different badges.

Not that it was necessarily the case in the situation you are thinking of, but I believe that different brands often come off the same production line after QA is done.

So a factory for Duracell AA batteries might simply rebrand the batteries that to not meet their QA bar as "off-brand" batteries. The slightly defected or substandard batteries could then be sold to the consumer for a much lower price than the Duracell branded batteries, without risking damage to Duracell's brand.

I agree with that thought.

In fact at times I have purchased OEM hard drives through the Apple store instead of on Amazon.

My theory being that a manufacturer would (and this is important) be more likely to send their "A" production to Apple and do a better job of screening defects.

Might not be important for a laptop bag but a mission critical part I'm willing to pay a few extra dollars.

It's not a new concept in business that the better and more important customers [1] get better product and service.

[1] Ever try to hire through a temp agency? You don't get the same crop of people that the big guys get who give them a lot of business.

Doesn't really apply to HDDs or any other electronics manufactured in large numbers. They can't screen every item and they will try to use the best components in all of them. So you get the same DOA percentage from Apple branded HDDs and OEMs...

And LG, for example, assembles worse monitors than their competitors, who are using the same panels LG sells them as an OEM...

Their auto testing is some of the best, even the automakers look to them. Having read an extensive article in Automobile magazine about the facilities CR has and who actually does the testing I have no problem with their views. Doesn't mean I will always follow them but I damn well know what not to buy.

As for the Tesla, eighty thousand dollar cars better be damn good. If Tesla can snag similar praise making a car for thirty thousand then I might become a fan.

I believe it, I've just been skeptical of their reviews. It's good to know their auto reviews have credibility

How does that discredit Consumer Reports? Customer service is a completely reasonable factor to include in product rankings. If you've got two products that are physically identical but one comes with a good warranty for a small premium, then the latter will be a better long-term investment unless the odds of failure are very small. (There's also the question of how long you can expect the no-name product to stay identical - they're more likely to cut corners without letting anyone know, whereas the name brands will usually at least tweak the model number included in the fine print.)

Do you have a reference to this?

Odd, it's New Category this year, there was no "best overal" in the 2013 writeup... see, eg > http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/04/top-pick...

Aren't reviews on consumer products basically always going to be subjective?

The friends and family test might be useful.

"Would you recommend this product to your friends or family?"

This test is used as an important indicator for healthcare. Improving this score is nationally important in England and all NHS providers have to try to ask all service users this question.

Wow -- no matter what car is available over the next 10 months, it can't possibly be better than this one!

Anyone else hate "year inflation"?

This is hardly a new thing with model years.

FWIW Tesla doesn't use model years. Technically the model year is encoded in the VIN but it flips over at the start of the calendar year and isn't associated with any particular changes to the vehicle. Tesla has been adding features as soon as they're ready since launch. (e.g. parking sensors, power folding mirrors, upgraded seats etc)

That was the entire point of model years. They needed way to make people want to upgrade their 'old' car. So instead of making the Ford Focus for 10 years there is the 2013 Focus and the 2014 Focus and....

Now your Focus is only a 2012 Focus. You're behind.

The fact that the 2014 focus goes on sale in 2013 only serves to accelerate this.

Not all vehicles are produced this way, some motorcycles are literally identical from model year to model year and get "blessed" with the year they happen to be sold.

They basically make up updates to cars. Just little tiny tweaks to justify the new number. Fully new generations still only come every couple of years or so.

But isn't the result at least somewhat biased, as the car is mostly sold to environmentally conscious consumers, who might knowingly or not ignore car's potential problems to promote the nature friendly aspect of it.

"Electric cars aren't green" is a myth spread by a few op-ed pieces written in the LA Times and WSJ. The production of a battery is a tiny constant in comparison to the lifelong use of fossil fuels.

Electric vehicles become more environmentally friendly as grid power becomes more renewable, and grid power is becoming more renewable every day. When you invest in an electric vehicle you're investing in the future of renewable energy.

Specifically, there was a hit-job white paper (I think it was from a marketing firm, can't remember the title) published in the past 5-10 years arguing that Hummers were more eco-friendly than a Prius.

The paper was thoroughly debunked, but it got a lot of media traction initially. That sort of headline sticks in the back of someone's mind, particularly if they never follow up on it.

EDIT: Right, it was called Dust to Dust. Here's a pretty simple rebuttal from Slate(2008): http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_l...

And yeah, it was a "market research" firm. I feel confident saying I write with a closer attention to facts and accurate calculations on my personal blog than their "business" did in the report.

> When you invest in an electric vehicle you're investing in the future of renewable energy.

Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. Renewable energy doesn't need electric cars to take off, buying an electric car is not an investment in renewable energy in any real meaningful way. In the meantime, the US grid is currently 12.x% renewable, so you're running on 85+% non-renewable (2012). Not to mention the fact that running all those vehicles off electric would mean adding a huge amount of capacity.[0]

So yeah, powerful electric vehicles that enable you to continue to drive around like mad people while actually feeling smug about it is terrible for the environment. Buying non-powerful, non-oversized cars and using them a little bit (or a lot!) less is. We're much better of using the renewable electricity we manage to generate in other ways.

[0] To elaborate, electric power makes up about 40% of the total energy budget of the US, transportation makes up about 28% (2008 figures).

> the US grid is currently 12.x% renewable

Overall US power consumption has gone from 8.9% renewables 10 years ago to ~12.2% today. Vehicles that use fossil fuels as their primary source of energy will always make very little use of renewable energy. Electric vehicles have the potential to use solely renewable energy, which is the direction grid power is heading.

So should we invest in electric vehicles now, or should we use fossil fuels sparingly and settle with transportation that's unable to tap into renewables?

EDIT: 8.9% in 2002

Where are those numbers from? Wikipedia[0] states 8.90% in 2002 to 12.22% in 2012. (Edit: I see we're agreed on that.) Again, that's percent of the total electrical energy generation, not the entire energy budget, which is much higher.

I'm fairly optimistic that we'll end up using electrical vehicles down the road. But it's a long way off from becoming a sensible alternative; it'll take a long time to satisfy the current electrical energy requirements by renewables, and adding the transport budget essentially doubles the amount required.

And people are deluding themselves if they think they're being environmentally responsible by driving around a Model S. Maybe if you buy a Model S and don't drive it.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_...

> But it's a long way off from becoming a sensible alternative

Electric vehicles aren't going to flood the market overnight, just as renewable energy isn't going to suddenly become our primary source of energy. These things take time and money. The more traction we give them, the more attainable they will become.

Environmental responsibility isn't possible when you ignore hard facts about the future. By the time I reach old age there will be 2 billion more people on this planet. They are capable of much more damage than we are.

The main win to me is that electric power is fuel-agnostic. Transitioning to electric mobility means our energy infrastructure can shift to different fuel sources at its own pace, independent of the transportation infrastructure.

All of this rhetoric is completely besides the point as several studies show. Even in West Virginia, the most coal-heavy energy market in America, pure electric vehicles today produce less greenhouse gases than the average gasoline vehicle due to the efficiency of electric motors and the use of surplus offpeak energy. In almost all markets, it beats a Toyota Prius.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/smart-transportation-so...

http://www.automotivescience.com/press/4582462907

Shrug. Now we've moved from "good for the environment" to between better than an average American car (i.e. appalling) and about as good as a hybrid vehicle[0]. Which really isn't all that exiting. Again, you'd be doing something good by driving less; but that's typically not what people do next after buying a sports car.

No environmental strategy that asks people to make do with less is ever going to win. Take a look at what's happening in the BRIC countries and then try to tell me it's going to work.

People want more and will figure out how to get more. It's doing that sustainably that will save us. Kind of the whole point of the Tesla S.

If you read my comment and understood it fully, you'd notice that in most states, a pure electric vehicle is NOT "about as good as a hybrid vehicle", but cleaner than the cleanest hybrid. Electric vehicles are also getting cleaner with the electric grid while non-plugin hybrids have made no progress in over a decade.

Keep in mind that producing one gallon of gasoline uses more electricity than it takes to drive the same distance in an electric car as that gallon would take you in a gas car.

Even with non-renewable energy sources, creating the power at a massive GE Turbine is more efficient than a gasoline engine. Internal combustion engines are ~30% efficient in converting fuel to energy releasing the rest of the energy as heat. GE Turbines used at 100+megawatt powerplants are 60% efficient. Same fuel source, twice as efficient. So even if we're not using wind and solar, electric is better for the environment.

GG GLHF

Conveniently ignoring the efficiency losses involved in electrical mobility. But whatever -- I'm not saying buy an equivalent gasoline vehicle and drive around. I'm saying buy a much smaller car and drive less. Or don't, but don't pretend you're driving around a sports car for the environment.

Much of those 28% are locked into using fossil fuel. Electric cars are about enabling switching to renewable sources of energy down the line, not right now. It’s about large scale infrastructure change, it’s about the difference between changing millions of small things or only a few large things. It’s about where renewable energy will likely come from in the future.

I think the unstated assumption was

> When you invest in an electric vehicle [instead of a fossil fuel vehicle that you would drive the same amount] you're investing in the future of renewable energy

Really? An environmental analyst friend of mine refers to electrics as "coal-powered cars". E.g., Consumers Power in the midwest:

http://www.consumersenergy.com/uploadedFiles/CEWEB/OUR_ENVIR...

I think you're going to have to keep your electric car for a few decades for rewnewables to dominate that.

I am not an environmentally conscious consumer and I am going to buy one when our current lease is up. I am a monetarily concious consumer who sees the value in a high quality car which maintains its value well, has good purchase incentives. I also have a family and have seen the amazing safety record the car has put together so far and I am a hacker on top of all of it and have been to a Tesla center and explored the Model S. It is a technical marvel imho.

All of these things make me want one, not some green aspect.

> I am a monetarily concious consumer who sees the value in a high quality car which maintains its value well, has good purchase incentives.

That makes no sense. How does buying an $89K car instead of a $25K hybrid save you money? These incentives better be of $64K in value, otherwise there is no monetary argument to be made here.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Model S, I think it is a wonderful car with tons of innovative technology inside (and, no, I am not just talking about the battery power). But there is no financial argument you could make that would justify buying one over a Prius or Ford Fusion.

The only reason the Model S appears to have such a good resale value is that there was a huge backlog for a while, and people were paying OVER retail price just to get ahold of one. Kind of like the Nintendo Wii the first christmas it came out, doesn't mean a Wii maintained that value over the medium to longer term.

You're looking at it from the perspective of a person that can't really afford a Tesla. When you look at the world and say "What's the best bang for the $100k I'm going to spend on my next car?" then you may feel a Tesla is a good monetary value based on resale value or other factors even though it's not the most economical way you could transport yourself back and forth to work.

Tesla S competes with E Class MB, latter costs ~55-65k.

100k S Class is much better car than Tesla S.

Assuming Elon Musk comes through with his statement about not inflating prices for a specific country -- Tesla might start killing it in Australia.

(S Class starts at $215,000. E Class 4 door starts at $79K. Going up to 130 (or 250 for the AMG))

Tesla Model S costs $63k after tax rebate, and you'll save $3k per year on gas and oil.

How much are you really spending on gas?

I paid $11,000 for my now 3 year old car when it was 2 years old. I didn't finance it so I didn't pay interest. I average about 35 mpg and drive about 12,000 miles a year. If gas was $4 a gallon that is about $1,412 a year. If I drove 15,000 miles a year that is $1,700 in gas. My owner's manual* says to change the oil once every 10,000 miles or once a year whichever is first. The dealership does that for me for free.

I'd have to drive my car for 30 years to make up the price difference between the cars ($52,000)

If you want to get a luxury car, then get a luxury car, but don't act like you're doing it to save money.

*it is no longer true you have to change your oil every 3,000 miles for most cars.

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/how-do-you-really-know-when-to-c...

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4209/is-it-neces...

http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/stop-changing-your-oil.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/your-money/11shortcuts.htm...

I call straw man argument. Take everything "electric drivetrain" out of a Tesla and it's still far beyond $11k echelon. Also, buying a car without financing it is surely not the norm, especially for cars in the class of a non-electric Tesla (for the sake of discussion) -- though I could be wrong, as it is a "luxury" vehicle, after all.

I'm interested in seeing your argument re-framed against the Nissan Leaf, which in this case is more of an orange than a Tesla, to your Aveo (?).

>Take everything "electric drivetrain" out of a Tesla and it's still far beyond $11k echelon

So what? I was arguing that nobody is buying a Tesla specifically to save money and that $3k in gas an oil is absurdly high. I didn't say the two cars were comparable, I said one actually saves money on personal transportation. If saving money is actually an issue, it wouldn't make any sense to go Tesla over the other options out there. Everyone has different priorities and "far beyond" is completely and entirely subjective to each person.

I don't have an Aveo but I did rent one before (if I recall correctly) and I didn't like them. I also negotiated the asking price of the dealership WAY WAY down.

Anyway if I made $10 million a year, I wouldn't change a thing about my car purchase.

OP said E Class Mercedes, so this is comparing against an E63--16 mpg.

MSRP is $106k with normal options (almost exactly the same as S Class), with a $7,500 rebate that comes out to $98k.

That's for the performance version. Check your facts.

http://bit.ly/Mtgrlq

It is not.

I disagree on the S class. It is bigger but I find nothing else about it 'better' and certainly not 'much better'

De gustibus non est disputandum

No doubt there are components of the Tesla S which are nicer than the S Class. But taken holistically, they are not in the same class.

Wheelbase, length, interior volume, rear legroom & headroom, overall refinement are all quite different between the Tesla S and M-B S. Though they do weigh about the same...

But as I said, de gustibus non est disputandum.

What about torque/throttle response?

I really like the idea of a car that seats a good sized family comfortably but can drag race with an M5. I've driven and loved some very high performance cars, the Tesla is incomparable because of that ridiculous immediacy. Not having to compromise on practicality to get it puts it in a class of its own, IMO.

> The only reason the Model S appears to have such a good resale value is that there was a huge backlog for a while

I'd be careful calling it the ONLY reason. It's true - for the mid-term range (6-24 months?), resale values will be inflated due to backlogs. I have a hunch that the cars will hold their value well, especially if the main depreciating factor is the battery pack getting tired.

Another factor, as well, is the potential for Tesla to produce another luxury car that's either heads and tails better than the Model S for a similar price, or of the same quality for a significantly lower cost (scale + battery prices dropping?). Either of these cases could whack resale values of current Model S's down.

A friend of mine just did a TCO spreadsheet comparing the Model S with various assumptions of depreciation to an Audi, Infiniti, Suburu Outback, and a few other vehicles. Even assuming 70% depreciation the cost per mile was less than most of the other luxury cars at the point you hit 128,000 miles.

To me it's comparing the > $50K class of vehicles. If you're going to spend $50K you may as well buy a $90K Tesla, because it will be cheaper if you keep it 6 years or more.

Not to mention that the Tesla (and other hybrid ev) have been holding their value better than any gas powered vehicles. Though you did say "even assuming" .. just wanted to make that point clear.

I'd love to get a Tesla S, but being I live in an apartment, it's not really a practical option for me.

All things are relative. I am not some gazillionaire for which money is no concern but I am financially successful enough that I look at money a bit differently that most. When I consider buying cars I expect a certain level of quality and craftsmanship that you typically only find in higher end automobiles. Given that as my baseline - the Model S makes a pretty compelling fiscal argument.

On top of that value and cost are not the same. The value represented by the Tesla can far outpace the cost factors between its sticker and those of a Prius or Fusion.

tldr; I am not in the market for a cheap car, I want a great car.

Why lease then when you could buy?

Personal thing really, started about 10 years ago. I dont drive often but when I do I want it to be an enjoyable and luxurious experience which I often equate with the freshness of a new car. I also get bored of the character of a car over time. Leases gives me a controlled and knowable insulation (given the rapid depreciation of new cars) from the value downside. Basically, I get the new car experience far more often without taking big cash hits.

>I am a monetarily concious consumer who sees the value in a high quality car which maintains its value well...

Wouldn't battery degradation bite into that?

Which degrades and cost more to fix - a battery or a transmission and other mechanical parts?

People act like current cars have no parts or things that go bad over time. Tesla batteries look like they should be at 85% capacity at 100K miles.

Well that's exactly what I'm asking right?

If the quick charging mechanism is going to be "have a robot physically remove the battery and put a new one on" in a few years, then that's not as much of an issue.

I wasn't aware that Tesla were planning to go that route! Awesome if true :)

Swap demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZU0wnpyhF8

Wouldn't battery degradation bite into that?

Not nearly as much as for some other cars, as it's a modular part that can literally be swapped out in 90 seconds.

I will flip it before that becomes a concern, I am usually in and out of a car in under 3 years. I get bored easily.

Have you considered leasing? That might be more financially reasonable for you. Then again, you may be in the money range where when you sell your car, it is worth more money than you have left on the loan, so you're more or less ahead.

Just out of curiosity, would you be likely to buy one without the assorted tax incentives?

Yes, the federal is the only one that applies for me. My states has nothing in addition.

> But isn't the result at least somewhat biased, as the car is mostly sold to people looking for V8 noise and performance, who might knowingly or not ignore car's potential problems to promote the HEMI V8 aspect of it.

It works both ways.

That is way to meta. Can you elaborate on that "quote", what part of Tesla is HEMI V8?

The suggestion is that almost everybody is biased in some way, so that while biases may or may not balance each other out, to focus on one side particularly may be a little unfair.

Tesla will reach $500 per share within 3 years, if not sooner. When Gen3 comes out, it'll basically be the iPhone of cars. Everybody will want one.

The stock does seem a bit overvalued currently and I wouldn't be surprised to see some drops in the coming weeks. But regardless, $500 within 3 years. Mark my words.

>Tesla will reach $500 per share within 3 years, if not sooner.

And what valuation model are you using to arrive at this price? It seems odd that you consider it overpriced now, when the growth in the future that you're attributing to the Gen 3 is already priced in.

TSLA is great, and changed the auto game. But people are seriously underestimating the competition that is coming in the EV space, thanks to Tesla's success.

Is stock overvalued at $250 or is it going to be worth $500 within 3 years? It really can't be both.

Stock price should include risk. Just like a lottery ticket might be worth $0.5 and costs $1 to buy that doesn't mean that after the draw it's not worth buying it off someone for $10 dollars.

In this case I'd expect that he is also suggesting that he believes the stock to be overvalued on typical ways to evaluate stock but from what he believes the company will actually accomplish he thinks the value is higher.

Note that I'm criticizing this beliefs, and not the distribution of future probabilities. Of course company might be overvalued now at $250, and sure, it might hit $500 later.

But if you're certain it will be $500 in three years, you need some serious risk aversion (~2500bps) to think it's not worth buying it now at $250.

In other words, by saying it will grow to $500 you're expressing your view on value; this value is higher than price, so stock is undervalued.

Of course it can -- the company's real value could easily close that gap in three years. Also, equity pricing is as much about psychology as it is about real value. A stock's value is equal to what people are willing to pay for it.

> Everybody will want one.

How many people do you think can afford a ~$100k vehicle?

The Gen3 vehicle is supposed to be ~30-40k.

They don't need to afford it to be dumb enough to sign on a loan for one. Tesla gets the sales revenue, and later the customer goes to collections. Everyone wins.

the argument when the iPhone was released was similar

And they did drop the price (via subsidies), and it got way more popular...

yep. and they get cheaper over time as the market provides competition and technology advances. there will also be a larger pre-owned market and more supply.

The Gen. 3 is expected to be much cheaper than ~$100k.

So here's what's been bothering me about electric cars. The battery life. I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 years of battery life out of a laptop or iPhone battery. So it scares the bejezess out of me to have similar technology as half the value of my car.

Can anyone re-assure me? Is there anything that lets car batteries last significantly longer than phone batteries?

Most smartphone batteries have only a single cell in them. Laptop batteries vary more, but you could expect around 4 to 8 cells in many of them.

The individual battery cell has a pretty hard limit on the number of times it can be cycled (i.e. discharged and recharged). Your typical AAA NiMH rechargeable has a lifetime rating of about 100 cycles I believe.

If a battery pack has multiple cells, they can be connected to each other in parallel or in series (and any combination of the two choices). In series gives you more voltage (i.e. kick), in parallel gives you more amperage (i.e. duration).

If the electronics hooked up to it are "smart" then any parallel sets of cells in the battery can be charged separately. This means that the laptop might drain parallel set A down to 30%, set B down to 50% and set C down to 90% leaving you at an overall percentage of roughly 56%. If you then hook the charger up, the laptop will charge the lowest set A first, then B, then finally C. If you stop charging before it gets to C then you've saved an entire charge cycle on that set which means it lives a little longer.

So.. now on to the Tesla. It has 8640 individual cells wired into 16 parallel sets of 540 in-series cells. The car will selectively drain and charge each individual set to maximize the life of the battery.

By default the car also does not charge the battery to 100%. The default is 80% which gives you a typical range of about 230 miles. That leaves more choice to the charger about which parallel sets to charge without reducing the life of sets that are nearly full by topping them off.

If you are going on a long trip, you can put the car in "range charge" mode which will force it to top off to about 260 miles of rated range.

The predictions based on modeling so far is that the battery should retain over 80% of its total capacity even after 8 years of typical use.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Follow up question. How does the regenerative braking affect battery life? It seems like you be charging and discharging quite a bit just during normal driving?

Regen is factored into their calculations of battery life. While no one but Tesla knows the actual details of their recharging strategy, I suspect that the regen also selectively charges certain cells/strings of cells to reduce the overall amount of charge cycles. Hypothetically, maybe the car drains one string down to a low level and then each time the regen kicks in, it goes to that discharged string until it is full then that string will be put back into use and another discharged string will be the recipient of regen.

Tesla Roadster has been out long enough to see.

One thing different is they have you always leave the car plugged in when not in use as much as possible so they can manage temperature. They also slow charge after ~80% which most phones won't do.

The batteries come with long warranties. Even early Honda Civic Hybrid models from 2005 had 8 year warranties and a lawsuit extended that to 9-10 years. Prius batteries are, anecdotally at least, lasting even longer. I would imagine there's a very good warranty on the Tesla batteries, given their track record of standing behind their product.

thetruthaboutcars.com calls the 2014 Accord Hybrid the best car of 2013 if that matters.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/review-2014-honda-a...

Impressive. Still, reading the review and the comments, I'm still a bit concerned about a) the fact that it uses more of a series-hybrid approach to battery charging while b) having only a 1.3kwh battery.

Ride and cabin noise are very important, but even the Accord doesn't have air suspension like the Tesla Model S or many Mercedes models.

Well lets be real shall we, the Accord Hybrid plug in starts at 40k. It is priced within the reach of far many more households than the Tesla or Mercedes are. Then to top it off, I doubt the tax payers are ponying up 7500 dollars towards its purchase, so its a double win.

My 2005 Prius has a 1.3kwh battery. A 2014 hybrid can do much better - not to mention the fact that it doesn't sound like it's aggressively managing battery life like my Prius does (which still gets 53 MPG highway).

Now please make a $10k model so I can get one.

Either that or I'll have to wait a decade for one with a depleted battery and rebuild the pack myself.

I own a Nissan LEAF. A new Nissan LEAF only costs $199 per month to lease after the federal rebate. It's cheaper in some states.

If you currently spend over $100 per month on gasoline and charge the LEAF offpeak, you could think of it as a less capable $10k Tesla after rebates and gas and maintenance savings.

Not a Telsa but my Chevy Volt lease payment after rebates etc. is less than my cable bill; plus I get carpool stickers which down here in SoCal are priceless. My first American car after many Japanese and one German, and it's the most solid of the lot.

How high is your cable bill? I don't see the Volt leasing for anything under $200. My cable bill is $80. What am I doing wrong, or what are you doing right?

> after rebates etc.

Buy a motorcycle. 10k probably won't get you any new car, and certainly not a luxury sedan.

I went this route. I love my bike, but I'm probably paying a good bit of the difference on traffic tickets/lawyers and being boned by bad weather. The weather is probably a non issue in the Bay Area though. There's also that first accident thats probably in my near future to look forward to...

I wondering how many people on HN own a Tesla?

HN appears to have true love for any story surrounding Tesla.

Sure, HN is full of early adopters, so why not cars?

Here in silicon valley, you see them all over the place. We just picked up our second -- my wife got her 40kwh model last year. It's a big investment, but we've kept all of our cars 10 years (except for the Leaf's they replaced :)

> HN appears to have true love for any story surrounding Tesla.

That might have more to do with the fact that the Tesla is largely software-driven than that it's relevant to HN's readers as Tesla owners.

Also, it's a model for a future environmentally friendly car. I say it that way because driving a Tesla using present-day coal-generated electricity isn't a huge improvement from an environmental perspective, but a future power grid that's more reliant on wind, solar and nuclear, greatly changes an electric car's environmental impact.

I think it's because its a revolutionary auto maker that iterates like a software startup. They innovate like we want to innovate.

Yes, that sounds likely too.

Probably not many. But everyone who doesn't have one wants one!

Well how political...

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