So who is getting a Model 3?

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Discussion

Heres Johnny

7,215 posts

124 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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FurtiveFreddy said:
The clue's in the name. It's aimed at the BMW 3 series. Which has a boot.
Just like the Model S is aimed at the Merc S class which is, err, not a hatch...

Musk wanted to call it a Model E but Ford stopped him. He thought it would be really funny to have models S E and X.

A hatch would have been more sensible but he wanted his glass roof.

98elise

26,541 posts

161 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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LeoZwalf said:
Call me a n00b but I've just found out that the 3 isn't a hatchback but is a sedan/saloon. From its shape I'd always assumed it was a hatchback, that it would be the S's smaller sibling. While I am certainly not in the market for one yet, it's totally surprised me and rather put me off the thing!

Yeah, I know, this post is kinda useless. I suppose I wonder if any of you guys have also been surprised about this, would you have been more interested if it was a hatchback... etc.?
It was nearly a deal breaker for me, we've always had hatchbacks as our family car. In the end we still ordered one, but I will probably order the 3 based SUV when its revealed.

Blaster72

10,835 posts

197 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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FurtiveFreddy said:
The clue's in the name. It's aimed at the BMW 3 series. Which has a boot.

What's the attraction of a hatchback? They have designed the opening and capacity of the Model 3 'trunk' to accommodate larger items than most booted cars.


The Model 3 boot/trunk doesn't look that good to me. Still prefer a hatchback myself and looking at the shape that's what I assumed it was.

Still, if the 3 Series BMW is it's main competition then I can see why the went boot instead of hatch.

The Tesla team are pretty smart but they could do with a bit of creative input with their choice of names for cars.

p1stonhead

25,540 posts

167 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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Blaster72 said:
FurtiveFreddy said:
The clue's in the name. It's aimed at the BMW 3 series. Which has a boot.

What's the attraction of a hatchback? They have designed the opening and capacity of the Model 3 'trunk' to accommodate larger items than most booted cars.


The Model 3 boot/trunk doesn't look that good to me. Still prefer a hatchback myself and looking at the shape that's what I assumed it was.

Still, if the 3 Series BMW is it's main competition then I can see why the went boot instead of hatch.

The Tesla team are pretty smart but they could do with a bit of creative input with their choice of names for cars.
I read it's because the glass starts at the windscreen and goes all the way back to the boot in one piece. They didn't want to break up the glass with it being a hatchback.

FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

237 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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p1stonhead said:
Blaster72 said:
FurtiveFreddy said:
The clue's in the name. It's aimed at the BMW 3 series. Which has a boot.

What's the attraction of a hatchback? They have designed the opening and capacity of the Model 3 'trunk' to accommodate larger items than most booted cars.


The Model 3 boot/trunk doesn't look that good to me. Still prefer a hatchback myself and looking at the shape that's what I assumed it was.

Still, if the 3 Series BMW is it's main competition then I can see why the went boot instead of hatch.

The Tesla team are pretty smart but they could do with a bit of creative input with their choice of names for cars.
I read it's because the glass starts at the windscreen and goes all the way back to the boot in one piece. They didn't want to break up the glass with it being a hatchback.
That's not the final boot opening design anyway. It'll be wider on the production model. The car names were chosen so the model line-up would spell S E X Y, but Ford had 'Model E' trademarked, so they had to revert to '3' instead. S 3 X Y.

Blaster72

10,835 posts

197 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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Where does the Tesla Truck fit in that line up - was it the Y?

I'm guessing Ford won't allow a Model T either.

FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

237 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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Blaster72 said:
Where does the Tesla Truck fit in that line up - was it the Y?

I'm guessing Ford won't allow a Model T either.
Well, as it's the U.S. the big truck will be called "Tesla Semi", so I'll leave you to come up with suggestions as to how "SEXY" and "SEMI" might be incorporated. biggrin

The Model Y is going to be an SUV.

Then there's a Tesla Pickup coming along in a couple of years on top of the rest of them.

red_slr

17,223 posts

189 months

Wednesday 10th May 2017
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Placed our deposit today, probably a bit late in the day but better late than never!

manracer

1,544 posts

97 months

Wednesday 10th May 2017
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red_slr said:
Placed our deposit today, probably a bit late in the day but better late than never!
Welcome to the club!
Just out of interest, when are tesla predicting you will take delivery of ordering now?

I ordered mine before the launch in march 16, I'm hopeful I'll see mine summer 18.

red_slr

17,223 posts

189 months

Thursday 11th May 2017
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Dealer told me to expect 2 years.

CooperS

4,503 posts

219 months

Thursday 11th May 2017
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Out of interest are you fitting the expected delivery date of your M3's within your current expectations of when you'll want to sell or hand back your current cars?

I can't imagine waiting 2 years for a car I have driven or seen in person yet. Nor know what the final price will be due to the fluctuation of the £.

Just seems like a lot of unknowns and hassle for a fairly normal car.

red_slr

17,223 posts

189 months

Thursday 11th May 2017
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We would still have other cars and would probably make those kind of decisions nearer the time.

We have ordered cars 18-24 months ahead before and its not actually a big problem as things get a lot more fixed nearer the time.

manracer

1,544 posts

97 months

Thursday 11th May 2017
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Same here. I've got a new golf gti on lease arriving next month on a two year lease, if it arrives next summer then the the Mrs said shes happy to take over the golf for a year and we shall simply sell her abarth.

I wouldn't say it's a normal car at all personally.

Paul 8v

730 posts

180 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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I think I'll have to buy an old snotter to drive around in for a while to fill the gap. My C class goes back in February.

What I do find strange is I've had nothing through the post from Tesla or anything, just an email. It doesn't feel particularly "Special"

FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

237 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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I'm not sure what sort of special treatment one should expect really. After all, we're just a few of the 400,000 odd reservation holders. They sent out the Model 3 artwork as a thank you, although I appreciate not everyone received that mailing.

What to expect next? Well, there's a VIP event at the Fremont factory on June 2nd where attendees are promised an "Exclusive Model 3 viewing", which will probably be as close to a production version as anyone has seen up to that point. Some information may leak from that event, but the pre-production prototypes are on the road right now and plenty of photos exist of them, so i don't expect the final design to be that much different.

After that, there could be a final 'launch' event or maybe a ‘Model 3 delivery event’, which should be sometime in July and will feature the first few production cars being handed over to their owners.

Once that's done and dusted, I'm assuming there will be another wait for the first RHD cars to be made and shipped to the UK to allow reservation holders to test drive them. It's not like Tesla really NEED demonstrators in order to create demand for the product, so I wouldn't think that step is a priority for them. Maybe they won't even bother with Model 3 demonstrators.

I expect they'll continue to push the S to 3 reservation holders in order to take the pressure off 3 production in the short term. Other than that, I doubt we'll be getting much in the way of further 'thank yous' or incentives just because we put our hands in our pockets all that time ago.

CooperS

4,503 posts

219 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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Imo it reads like those kick starter messages......

I honestly don't think many countries outside the USA are going to be a consideration for Tesla untill late 2018 / early 19.....

I'm intrigued as a it could be the natural successor to my i3 in 3 years time but the way Tesla do press releases or for that matter any of the new EV brands is very different to those of the big 4.


FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

237 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
You do know that Tesla don't have an advertising department and their marketing team consists of about 10 people for the whole world?

This is why they are such a breath of fresh hair IMO. I don't want to be bombarded with emails, texts and junk mail the way I have always been from the other car brands I've bought into. It suits me fine I'm not being bothered by Tesla until it's time for my car to be built.

In fact, if they were constantly teasing me about it I'd probably be quite resentful by now about the wait!

If you want to keep up with developments, there are plenty of places to go like Teslarati, Electrek, Musk's Twitter feed, TMC etc.


FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

237 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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getmecoat

No. I'm not going to edit my post

Heres Johnny

7,215 posts

124 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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FurtiveFreddy said:
You do know that Tesla don't have an advertising department and their marketing team consists of about 10 people for the whole world?

This is why they are such a breath of fresh hair IMO. I don't want to be bombarded with emails, texts and junk mail the way I have always been from the other car brands I've bought into. It suits me fine I'm not being bothered by Tesla until it's time for my car to be built.

In fact, if they were constantly teasing me about it I'd probably be quite resentful by now about the wait!

If you want to keep up with developments, there are plenty of places to go like Teslarati, Electrek, Musk's Twitter feed, TMC etc.
You do know that's not right.

They don't advertise in the traditional sense, but they have pop-up stands all over the place and they play the media all the time.

They could do with someone to gag Musk on twitter as most of his timescale predictions are way out. I'm talking as an owner.

Model 3 - be lucky if we get one here for ages, and they're starting on rear wheel drive only - and you probably don't want that one anyway as it won't be quick or clever. They're setting expectation already that the Model 3 will not be their best car, the model S will be the top as it should be given the price, but that means 4 year old technology or 5k autopilot.

If you're thinking of dropping 45k on a Model 3 when it launches, save yourself the wait and buy a year old 70D today for 50k .

FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

237 months

Monday 22nd May 2017
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Heres Johnny said:
If you're thinking of dropping 45k on a Model 3 when it launches, save yourself the wait and buy a year old 70D today for 50k .
I've got an open mind on it all at the moment. If the 3 isn't the right car for me once it's time to put my money down, I could very well switch to an S.

I've bought into the whole idea of owning an EV, which is something I didn't expect to even be considering a couple of years ago. Reserving a 3 was a bit of a punt, but I've no compulsion to own any EV right now. Next year will be the right time for me and I'll then have more choices than anyone has today, so all's good.