Maximum Bob, telling it like it is about Tesla

[Jeff V.]

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture ... utz-tesla/

In a nutshell, he's not buying into the hype. Neither do I. It's a quality product, but I don't think the market for $100,000+ electric playthings really has legs. Their cost structure makes no sense over the long term.

[Monochrome]

Been saying that for years....

[DCIV]

have a local buddy who has one...crashed it...bought another one. So I guess he liked it!


Coop

[mjannusch]

They are very cool cars, but they need that affordable version to expand their market. I don't think the SUV is going to sell very well - it is just too expensive versus its gas-powered competitors. They'll sell some to the affluent Tesla-faithful, but I don't think they'll gain many customers with it.

They almost had to go with the "Tesla Store" concept because most of the large markets were screwing around with franchise laws and such to try to keep them out. I doubt they did it because they wanted to.

Electric cars need high gas prices to make them seem more reasonable, and right now we don't have that. It is getting near time to replace our 2010 Prius (my wife's daily driver), and I looked at the Model S but it is just too expensive. It is also very heavy, which in the winter up here is usually a detriment. So I'd want to get the AWD version, which is even more - in the $90,000+ range with options (not the P85D). That's a lot for a daily driver car...

I'm strongly considering the 2016/2017 Chevy Volt as the replacement. New Prius doesn't really do anything for me, and we've had two. Time to make a change.

[Jeff V.]

They are very cool cars, but they need that affordable version to expand their market.

There's no way in hell the Model 3 will be a $30,000 car. It'll be a "$35,000*" car and that * will be "after applicable Federal and state incentives and fuel/maintenance savings over the life of the loan". They're already marketing the Model S this way.

I'm also not sure they know HOW to build a sub-40k car. There's going to be a lot more to it than swapping out the leather for cloth and downsizing that gaudy LCD in the dash. So Bob is exactly right when he says they need to take a hard look at cost cutting. Especially if they're already losing money on the high end cars. They basically need to aim for the Audi A4 / BMW 3/4 series / MB C-class with this car.

There's also no way in hell it'll be out in 2016, unless maybe they do a few token VIP deliveries like they did with the X. We'd be seeing prototypes if they were that far along in development.

Eventually they're going to need a full redesign for the S too. Gimmicky "ludicrous speed" YouTube videos can only keep the hype machine warm for so long before the car starts looking old.

[mjannusch]

Yeah, I think the look of the Model S is getting long in the tooth already. Really doesn't stand out at all, and is fairly uninteresting. The tech is cool, but it just doesn't excite me enough to drop that kind of coin on one. The Stingray I fell in love with the first time I saw it, and had to get one. With the Tesla I have to find reasons to like it, and there just aren't enough of them to justify the price.

[Jeff V.]

I think the Model S looks hot. The guy who owns our building has a dark gray one with black wheels and red calipers. It looks great. But I can't stand the interior and that horrible LCD center stack. It's still the same look as it was at launch though. And there's nothing to visually distinguish a P90D from a "base" 2WD Model S 70.

For the money, I'd MUCH rather have an S7 or RS7. I'm really hoping the S7s get under 40k by the time my S5 is paid off.

[alienviking]

I hate the looks of the A7/S7/RS7. Really does nothing for me - looks like the car is wearing diapers.

[Jeff V.]

*Edited after finding a more fact-based article.

So I was right about the pricing Model 3.

http://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3-l ... 1797356952

The only way to get a Model 3 for $35K is to get absolutely NO options, and continue to wait for them to actually start building single motor, small battery pack models later this year. And even if you do that, you ONLY get it in black. Want silver? Now it's a $36k car. The mainstream car is going to be $44k. If you max it out, it'll be close to $60k.

Tesla is getting pretty close to selling enough cars that the government scales back the $7500 tax credit. So that's another factor.

I just built a Chevy Bolt on their website, and with every major option box checked it was $44,440. And I could actually go buy one rather than getting on some silly waiting list and hoping to maybe get a car some time next year.

[happygeek]

[quote=""mjannusch""]Electric cars need high gas prices to make them seem more reasonable, and right now we don't have that.[/quote]

That, and they need you to have a lengthy commute. Back in WA I spent ~$50 a month on gas to get to & from work when gas was around $4 with a 99 VW Jetta (when I was actually there, I spent about 3/8 of my time elsewhere & not commuting). In ID I walked. Here I bike. Gas prices have to be high enough and you actually have to drive enough to overcome that upfront cost vs a used Honda for example.

Edit to add: if you're worried about carbon emissions & global warming, you've also got to overcome those upfront emissions from manufacturing the Tesla.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/20/ ... e-driving/
https://www.nyteknik.se/fordon/stora-ut ... er-6851761

[BATMAN]

I was read this thread scratching my head about the comment Matt made about tl his Prius and was a bit confused. I was thinking to myself I swore he already bought a volt. Then hit too Jeff's reply about 2016 and then looked at when you guys made this thread and replies.

[happygeek]

[mjannusch]

While we're on the subject of Tesla....

The 2016+ front bumper is hideous. There's a white X around here that I see maybe once a week and the front profile of it is just terrible. That front bumper cover is just nasty with the sea of same-color paint. It makes the car look so boring.

[Jeff V.]

The new cars remind me of this (Nameless Ghouls from Ghost)



Or The Matrix, when Agent Smith made Neo's mouth grow shut.

[Jeff V.]

Here's another good article about it.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/31/1606 ... ns-model-s

In a nutshell, anyone who thought they were going to get a smaller Model S for $35k are going to be very disappointed.

You can buy a nice, used Model S for less than a loaded Model 3.

[mjannusch]

Yeah, but to be fair nobody should've been expecting at $35,000 getting Autopilot for free, or all the nice interior stuff, or even the long-range battery.

But I'm guessing a lot of people are second guessing having put a deposit down on a Model 3. Especially if the tax credits run out before they get theirs.

If anything, it'll probably push some people more towards the S if you are paying close to those prices anyways.

[Jeff V.]

As I said from the beginning of the thread, the $35k price point was going to come with some very significant asterisks. It wouldn't be such a big deal if Musk hadn't been focusing so strongly on the price while hyping this car up. An affordable Tesla for the masses! 500,000 per year!

The entire Audi brand only sold 210,000 cars in 2016. But Musk would have you believe their $35,000 $45,000 car will double that by the end of 2018?!

I respect what they're doing, but the hyperbole and cultish worship of Musk just rubs me wrong in a lot of ways.

[Jeff V.]

Here's a really good, down to earth read on why it'd be nothing short of a magic trick to build even 400,000 cars total at the Fremont plant.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/408092 ... t-possible

You should be able to read the first long page without a subscription. Getting 400k cars out of that plant assumes a level of perfection that no industrial manufacturer has ever achieved, and it's far, far short of what Tesla has demonstrated their capabilities to be from an engineering and logistical standpoint.

It would take them 2 years to build another plant, so there's no chance of that helping the 2018 production count. About the only other thing they might be able to do would be purchase another existing plant. But that would still present a long list of challenges.

The author also brings up the issue of how much it would cost to max out Fremont and/or add another plant. Tesla simply does not have the money to do it. Investors are already starting to balk at loaning them yet more money.

If the Model 3 does not make money, they're going to be in a very difficult place soon.

Which brings me back to my suspicion that they're really just following the Silicon Valley startup model. Throw cubic acres of money at a new idea long enough that someone much larger buys you out.

[mjannusch]

Considering the pricing structure of the Model 3, in the end they probably won't have to crank out 500,000 cars a year. I'm guessing a lot of people may bail once they figure it out.

[alienviking]

I said from the beginning that I expected a lot of people to bail. This just reaffirms that to me.