Tesla Model 3 revealed

[DonkeyApple]

manracer said:

Interesting, though anyone who knows me knows I certainly don't attempt to keep up with the Jones.

My motivation is simple: I like rapid acceleration, I like saving money on fuel costs, I usually like to have a slightly different vehicle (now I know that could be an issue if thousands of the bloody things hit the roads but I'm guessing it will still be less than the golf and the 3 series.

Oh and I like loud music so not that bothered about the lack of engine noise.

I'm also installing solar on the house and a Tesla Powerball to reduce costs. I'm in to this for the long term, because if I can do my bit to save the planet, save money and hit 60 in about 4 seconds then I'll be very happy.

This is a very practical way to head.

For me the end goal is to have our runabout car operating on batteries and to generate enough power domestically to both run the house and that car.

Personally, I don't think the time to do this however is now.

Over the next 5 years there is scheduled to be enormous competition arriving in all aspects of this market. Numerous car manufacturers are due to deliver enough EV products for that market to begin to be in competition and so compete on price. Once you can buy an EV from VW, Toyota, Nissan, Porsche, JLR, Mercedes, BMW etc then we should see initial prices tumble and residuals firm. Secondly, all these firms and others are bringing domestic power packs to market over the same period. This means that those costs will fall. And finally, the Chinese are building even more battery factories and Tesla's smaller 'biggest battery factory in the world' is also due to come fully in stream and even though they don't have contracts to supply enough raw materials to run their factory at capacity all this should mean battery costs fall dramatically, especially as recycling of cells becomes more and more viable with each pack sold.

For me the game is to wait as the savings from all round price competition will dwarf any immediate savings over the period in terms of running a system now.

The final dilemma is the cost and risk of installing domestic power packs. I wouldn't have them in my home due to fire risk on malfunction and installing them in one of the outhouses makes them an easier target for theft. One way or another the security and insurance cost of housing valuable battery packs is an area that not many people are factoring in at present. Again, within the next 3-7 years we will see off the shelf security systems available and competing on price.

[Tuna]

DonkeyApple said:

This is a very practical way to head.

For me the end goal is to have our runabout car operating on batteries and to generate enough power domestically to both run the house and that car.

Personally, I don't think the time to do this however is now.

Over the next 5 years there is scheduled to be enormous competition arriving in all aspects of this market...

Agreed. We were looking at building our house 15 years ago and there was similar buzz around domestic energy efficiency - everything from insulation through to generation. It was clear where the market was heading, but not how it would get there. I *could* have had a wind turbine on the roof and a gas- Stirling engine generator, each for the price of a small car.

I'm still worried that the bubble will burst with Tesla. The interior of the M3 is somewhere between 'futuristic' and 'sparse', which doesn't personally appeal - and compared with the vast number of toys on display in an equivalently priced Golf, it looks spartan. It may have a lot under the hood, but sometimes you've got to make that accessible and tactile for the occupants, or they start asking questions like "what have you actually paid for?".

[Jader1973]

otolith said:

Jader1973 said:

They probably need to diversify in to ICE / hybrid powered cars to maintain the volumes they need to keep going. Which is ironic.

How do you think that would help, given that the ICE/hybrid market is more saturated than the EV one, and that it is likely to shrink as the EV market grows?

By giving them a larger market because their product appeals to more people and therefore gains more income. At the moment they are a fraction of a tiny market, which isn't good and means they rely entirely on the EV to be a success. The others can afford to have an ICE not do well if the EV is, and vice versa. By launching the 3 and having such large production / sales goals they risk saturating the market for a Tesla. It isn't just the EV element that puts people off it is the relatively unknown brand with a small "dealer" network. By widening the range to include ICE / hybrid they can capture people who like the Tesla brand but don't want a pure EV.

manracer said:

Not a Tesla fan then, no?

Well Neither am I, But i've ordered a Model 3 - what label would you like to put on me?

Pragmatic, having read your response further up the thread. I realise that for some people it works. If I could get enough solar on the house, and a storage battery then I’d consider an EV for the wife to use as a daily. But I’m in Aus, where petrol is king, and while I could use an EV for my commute I couldn’t use it if we wanted to go on a long trip (even going to see the sister in law is out of range, and forget going to see the in-laws). So I’d need an ICE or hybrid as well. The EV wouldn’t be a Tesla though

GroundEffect said:

By the time the 3 is actually available in any great quantities the other OEMs will have BEV solutions that will ring circles around them for dealer networks, customer services, quality and eventually price.

Tesla motors is there as a game changer, not necessarily a long term contender.

Yup – 18 sales outlets and 8 service centres in the UK isn’t going to let them sell 8x the volume. It will be interesting to see how long Tesla last once Joe Public can walk in to any OEM's dealership and buy an EV.

jamoor said:

This was all part of the plan though wasn't it? That's why the patents are open.

Yes – he is a philanthropist who is using Telsa to force a game change – which is fair enough. I suspect that eventually he’ll sell it off to someone else who wants access to the production facilities and tech. Assuming he can find someone who wants it given most of them have caught up by now. Possibly some unheard of Chinese manufacturer. Then he'll go and live on Mars, or invent time travel or something.

Blaster72 said:

The first 30 customers are getting their cars at a delivery part on July 28th.

I hope soon after this we'll start seeing some real details and information and one of those 30 at least will do a proper review.

Edited by Blaster72 on Tuesday 11th July 23:13

There is speculation in the automotive press that most of the first 30 are actually going to employees. I suspect these production deliveries may be spin from Telsa and that these may in reality be a company test fleet to get data on real world usage and issues and not actually the start of production deliveries (most manufacturers do this – they move from fully camo’d engineering test cars to a fleet of pre-production but production spec company cars that get used by a variety of staff to get real world issues flagged). We’ll see though.

[Durzel]

I would've taken it as read that the signup process would've been available to Tesla employees for a limited time before going live to the public anyway.

[DonkeyApple]

Durzel said:

I would've taken it as read that the signup process would've been available to Tesla employees for a limited time before going live to the public anyway.

Yup. Being able to remove the income from and make homeless your early clients has a superb effect in keeping those customer reports positive at the outset.

He's not the greatest showman on earth for no reason. You've got to have your shills in the crowd.

[otolith]

Jader1973 said:

otolith said:

Jader1973 said:

They probably need to diversify in to ICE / hybrid powered cars to maintain the volumes they need to keep going. Which is ironic.

How do you think that would help, given that the ICE/hybrid market is more saturated than the EV one, and that it is likely to shrink as the EV market grows?

By giving them a larger market because their product appeals to more people and therefore gains more income. At the moment they are a fraction of a tiny market, which isn't good and means they rely entirely on the EV to be a success. The others can afford to have an ICE not do well if the EV is, and vice versa. By launching the 3 and having such large production / sales goals they risk saturating the market for a Tesla. It isn't just the EV element that puts people off it is the relatively unknown brand with a small "dealer" network. By widening the range to include ICE / hybrid they can capture people who like the Tesla brand but don't want a pure EV.

Your argument was that they won't be able to compete with established brands on EVs. I can't see that they would be any better at competing with established brands with ICEs. And of course, the point of Tesla isn't to build a massive car company, it's to build an electric car company and use it to drive the established brands towards EVs (and, I suspect, end up as a renewable energy technologies company).

My feeling is that the market for EVs is going to grow, and that for ICE/hybrid will shrink, and that while Tesla may have to accept a smaller slice of the EV pie than it has now, the growth of the pie will enable Tesla to continue.

[Tuna]

otolith said:

Your argument was that they won't be able to compete with established brands on EVs. I can't see that they would be any better at competing with established brands with ICEs. And of course, the point of Tesla isn't to build a massive car company, it's to build an electric car company and use it to drive the established brands towards EVs (and, I suspect, end up as a renewable energy technologies company).

My feeling is that the market for EVs is going to grow, and that for ICE/hybrid will shrink, and that while Tesla may have to accept a smaller slice of the EV pie than it has now, the growth of the pie will enable Tesla to continue.

It's really not clear what Musk's end goal is in terms of market share - I wouldn't trust a single word he says on that score simply because he's got to keep the show running. It would be madness for Tesla to get into ICEs though as being exclusively EV avoids too much exposure of the new company's weak points - no-one makes a direct like for like comparison between a Tesla and say a VW which would show up where Tesla are still building capability. He's making a strength out of a weakness.

EVs will grow, but what's enabling that is straightforward economics (battery prices coming down) rather than much else. It's hard to tell if improvements in manufacturing are going to be enough alone to bring genuine economic parity. In the mean time real world economics of infrastructure, charging and servicing are going to reassert themselves - no more free charging for life etc. Potentially the biggest upset would be new battery technology, which could derail Tesla given their huge investment in lithium batteries. It's really a question of whether Tesla can establish a firm base before external factors can cause real problems.

This is where I'm not sure he wants to be a 'energy technology' company, because from an outside perspective it looks a lot like he has all his eggs in one basket - if the Model 3/Gigafactory gamble doesn't pay off, Tesla may not be in a position to try a Plan B. If he were all about energy I'd expect some more hedging - things like flow cell storage, different battery chemistries and supply of (for example) drive trains to other automotive start-ups.

Edited by Tuna on Wednesday 12th July 16:48

[FurtiveFreddy]

Jader1973 said:

There is speculation in the automotive press that most of the first 30 are actually going to employees. I suspect these production deliveries may be spin from Telsa and that these may in reality be a company test fleet to get data on real world usage and issues and not actually the start of production deliveries (most manufacturers do this – they move from fully camo’d engineering test cars to a fleet of pre-production but production spec company cars that get used by a variety of staff to get real world issues flagged). We’ll see though.

It's not speculation or spin. It's been known openly for some time that Tesla employees will get theirs first, so probably all of the first 30 will go to workers at Fremont and once the employee's reservations are fulfilled, the next to get them will be residents of California as they will be closest to the factory in case of any remedial work or recalls.

Then the deliveries will move from West to East across the U.S. and after that into other countries.

[Plug Life]

FurtiveFreddy said:

Then the deliveries will move from West to East across the U.S. and after that into other countries.

What about Alaska?

[FurtiveFreddy]

Plug Life said:

What about Alaska?

Tuesday November 28th 2017 (according to the delivery estimator).

[DonkeyApple]

FurtiveFreddy said:

Plug Life said:

What about Alaska?

Tuesday November 28th 2017 (according to the delivery estimator).

What if a Tesla kills a polar bear?

[Burwood]

Ive notice a lot of Tesla SUV gull wing type cars out in Surrey. Every day I see one when it was rear even up to 6 months ago. My wife likes them but I'm not spending 70-80k on one. I don't like the interiors enough and the battery longevity concerns me (I could have misplaced concerns). I'll wait a few more years to see how the tech evolves.

[babatunde]

FurtiveFreddy said:

Jader1973 said:

There is speculation in the automotive press that most of the first 30 are actually going to employees. I suspect these production deliveries may be spin from Telsa and that these may in reality be a company test fleet to get data on real world usage and issues and not actually the start of production deliveries (most manufacturers do this – they move from fully camo’d engineering test cars to a fleet of pre-production but production spec company cars that get used by a variety of staff to get real world issues flagged). We’ll see though.

It's not speculation or spin. It's been known openly for some time that Tesla employees will get theirs first, so probably all of the first 30 will go to workers at Fremont and once the employee's reservations are fulfilled, the next to get them will be residents of California as they will be closest to the factory in case of any remedial work or recalls.

Then the deliveries will move from West to East across the U.S. and after that into other countries.

Simple logic would explain why if there is demand from their own workers it makes sense to fulfill those orders first. everything from speed of delivery and ease of support & rectifying faults, to motivating employees to build the best product they can.

The fact that a few hundred thousand people are willing to put their money where their mouth is should/has made the legacy manufacturers wake up to the demand for electric cars which I keep on repeating is a stated objective of Tesla.

Open any car magazine nowadays and there is another article about a "Tesla killer"

[DonkeyApple]

Is it worth asking why if Tesla received 400,000 pre-orders for the 3, BMW hasn't exactly had a comparable result with their i3?

It has to be a question to explore as the answer could be quite telling.

BMW is a big prestige brand so if there is a massive pending demand for EVs then why are we seeing good figures for Tesla's affordable car but not for an existing affordable car?

One thought is that Tesla is tapping a slightly different market that being the affluent, early adopter tech market. People who essentially are committing to the brand image rather than the product. As in the way some people emotionally attached themselves to Apple. If so then there is obviously that big commercial risk that once that demand is met there is little core demand sitting behind it.

The relatively dismal apparent demand for the i3 has genuinely surprised me. It's an aspirational badge, it's affordable and you would have expected many more to be on the roads if there was a large pent up demand for EVs waiting to be tapped.

Tesla's survival may even rest on the failure of all the mainstream products when they all hit the market over the coming years and the market for EVs reveals its true size and value. If demand is down to brand association rather than product then Tesla could still dominate this market for years.

Conversely, if new battery tech appears within the next decade that makes EVs genuinely cheaper than ICE then given what Tesla has invested in Lithium technology then they are finished overnight. Whereas the mainstream manufacturers have no significant exposure to that sudden tech redundancy, their suppliers do.

[AnotherClarkey]

DonkeyApple said:

Is it worth asking why if Tesla received 400,000 pre-orders for the 3, BMW hasn't exactly had a comparable result with their i3?

It has to be a question to explore as the answer could be quite telling.

BMW is a big prestige brand so if there is a massive pending demand for EVs then why are we seeing good figures for Tesla's affordable car but not for an existing affordable car?

One thought is that Tesla is tapping a slightly different market that being the affluent, early adopter tech market. People who essentially are committing to the brand image rather than the product. As in the way some people emotionally attached themselves to Apple. If so then there is obviously that big commercial risk that once that demand is met there is little core demand sitting behind it.

The relatively dismal apparent demand for the i3 has genuinely surprised me. It's an aspirational badge, it's affordable and you would have expected many more to be on the roads if there was a large pent up demand for EVs waiting to be tapped.

Tesla's survival may even rest on the failure of all the mainstream products when they all hit the market over the coming years and the market for EVs reveals its true size and value. If demand is down to brand association rather than product then Tesla could still dominate this market for years.

Conversely, if new battery tech appears within the next decade that makes EVs genuinely cheaper than ICE then given what Tesla has invested in Lithium technology then they are finished overnight. Whereas the mainstream manufacturers have no significant exposure to that sudden tech redundancy, their suppliers do.

Life is going to get really hard for the i3 when the Model 3, new Leaf and Bolt get going, nice car though it is. It would need to double its range to compete and is already looking too expensive. The REX will look increasingly like a bodge.

[otolith]

DonkeyApple said:

Is it worth asking why if Tesla received 400,000 pre-orders for the 3, BMW hasn't exactly had a comparable result with their i3?

The i3 is still of that generation of electric cars which need to show how modern they are by looking wacky. The Teslas don't, to the point of looking a bit generic. I guess the i3 is also a small car, and doesn't have the performance the 3 is promising.

[p1stonhead]

DonkeyApple said:

Is it worth asking why if Tesla received 400,000 pre-orders for the 3, BMW hasn't exactly had a comparable result with their i3?

It has to be a question to explore as the answer could be quite telling.

BMW is a big prestige brand so if there is a massive pending demand for EVs then why are we seeing good figures for Tesla's affordable car but not for an existing affordable car?

One thought is that Tesla is tapping a slightly different market that being the affluent, early adopter tech market. People who essentially are committing to the brand image rather than the product. As in the way some people emotionally attached themselves to Apple. If so then there is obviously that big commercial risk that once that demand is met there is little core demand sitting behind it.

The relatively dismal apparent demand for the i3 has genuinely surprised me. It's an aspirational badge, it's affordable and you would have expected many more to be on the roads if there was a large pent up demand for EVs waiting to be tapped.

Tesla's survival may even rest on the failure of all the mainstream products when they all hit the market over the coming years and the market for EVs reveals its true size and value. If demand is down to brand association rather than product then Tesla could still dominate this market for years.

Conversely, if new battery tech appears within the next decade that makes EVs genuinely cheaper than ICE then given what Tesla has invested in Lithium technology then they are finished overnight. Whereas the mainstream manufacturers have no significant exposure to that sudden tech redundancy, their suppliers do.

Coz the i3 is fk ugly

[Olivera]

Unfortunately the i3 has wardrobe on wheels styling only loved by OAPs and eco-lentalists. To everyone else it looks embarrassing.

[rxe]

manracer said:

Interesting, though anyone who knows me knows I certainly don't attempt to keep up with the Jones.

My motivation is simple: I like rapid acceleration, I like saving money on fuel costs, I usually like to have a slightly different vehicle (now I know that could be an issue if thousands of the bloody things hit the roads but I'm guessing it will still be less than the golf and the 3 series.

Oh and I like loud music so not that bothered about the lack of engine noise.

I'm also installing solar on the house and a Tesla Powerball to reduce costs. I'm in to this for the long term, because if I can do my bit to save the planet, save money and hit 60 in about 4 seconds then I'll be very happy

Do you have solar already? It makes no economic sense without the FIT subsidy, and the Powerwall makes even less sense in the UK. The average domestic solar installation can barely heat a tank of hot water in the winter. You'll have surplus in the Powerwall for about 3 months of the year and your very expensive battery will save you about 50p a evening.

Sure, if you live in Arizona, it makes complete sense. The UK is rather different.

[Blaster72]

The i3 has incredibly poor range for the price in the EV only version.

The number of REX i3's sold vs all EV has averaged around 2-2.5x

That gives you an idea of how important range is, I feel Tesla has got it right with the Model 3 as a real world 200 mile range will be acceptable for a lot of people.

They only sell around 2 thousand EV i3's a year and 4-5 rex i3's. This is still more than Tesla manage to sell in the UK each year and what I would consider low volume.

The Model 3 is aimed as a direct competitor to the 3-Series, a car that BMW sells 36,000 of in the UK per year.

If you consider the Model S and X as Tesla's niche cars and the Model 3 as the mass market model it's not a stretch to imagine them selling 5 or 10k a year in the UK eventually.