Electric cars anomaly
Discussion
Blaster72 said:
Shouldn't be too hard to explain then should it?
It was the first real EV with a decent range (250 miles). The final version (a £20k upgrade) has 350miles of range.It lead on to the ModelS which has lead on to almost every major car company playing catch up and making their own EVs.
The Tesla model3 now outsells the BMW 3 series in the USA, the modelS outselling the 7 series.
Currently here in the UK pretty much all current model EVs have a huge waiting list as manufacturers can't meet demand.
Norway is going all EV from 2025, Scotland from 2032 and England/Wales from 2040.
That is astonishing.
Edited by jjwilde on Friday 20th July 02:16
jjwilde said:
It was the first real EV with a decent range (250 miles). The final version (a £20k upgrade) has 350miles of range.
It lead on to the ModelS which has lead on to almost every major car company playing catch up and making their own EVs.
The Tesla model3 now outsells the BMW 3 series in the USA, the modelS outselling the 7 series.
Currently here in the UK pretty much all current model EVs have a huge waiting list as manufacturers can't meet demand.
Norway is going all EV from 2025, Scotland from 2032 and England/Wales from 2040.
That is astonishing.
None of that is “astonishing” as you put it. The use of superlatives when it comes to Tesla products is a little over the top. Nissan and Renault were developing and producing affordable mass produced EVs while a Tesla was starting its journey. It seems to me the battery tech was appearing at the time all this was happening and is the real reason viable electric cars could be produced.It lead on to the ModelS which has lead on to almost every major car company playing catch up and making their own EVs.
The Tesla model3 now outsells the BMW 3 series in the USA, the modelS outselling the 7 series.
Currently here in the UK pretty much all current model EVs have a huge waiting list as manufacturers can't meet demand.
Norway is going all EV from 2025, Scotland from 2032 and England/Wales from 2040.
That is astonishing.
Edited by jjwilde on Friday 20th July 02:16
The Tesla model 3 now outsells the BMW 3 series in the USA? BMW sold 100,000 3 Series in the USA last year. Tesla are doing what 6k a month at the moment for the Model 3 - how does that work? Toyota sells 210,000 cars a month in the USA. Stats can be used to skew things any way you like.
Without Tesla I have no doubt electric cars would still be the short term future of motoring, perhaps just with a little less hype and fanaticism. If you step outside the Tesla/EV bubble on the internet car sales are doing just fine for petrol and diesel cars and the only reason people will switch en-masse to EVs is if they cheaper to run and if government policy drives them that way.
Tesla have in all fairness done a fantastic job at creating large, tech laden EVs for the wealthy with a great family of loyal supporters. Nkt sure I’d agree the Roadster did anything other than kick Tesla into action. Other mainstream manufacturers were always going EV when the time was right.
I look forward to the day when the internal combustion engine is eliminated from the roads along with the pollution they bring but I hope the history books (and the internet) preserve the real story behind the change and where it was driven from.
Edited by Blaster72 on Friday 20th July 08:45
Blaster72 said:
The Tesla model 3 now outsells the BMW 3 series in the USA? BMW sold 100,000 3 Series in the USA last year. Tesla are doing what 6k a month at the moment for the Model 3 - how does that work? Toyota sells 210,000 cars a month in the USA. Stats can be used to skew things any way you like.
Try closer to 6k a week rather than month. Last confirmed figures were 5k a week production being achieved at the end of Q2 by a whisker. 7k cars total including Model S and X were manufactured that week alone. The next earnings call is on the 1st and we'll see if they've managed to ramp up any further this month.Edited by Blaster72 on Friday 20th July 08:45
As for the main topic - I have an i3s. It's c.180bhp, 6.7s to 60 and hilarious fun due to the combination of RWD, skinny tyres, short wheel base and having the bulk of the weight very close to the floor. Hot hatches and sports cars will come in time once they're producing the cars in volume and I'm sure it will catch on. I'm a huge petrolhead and don't miss the other aspects such as sound - there's a distinctive whine which is strangely addictive and the full dose of torque at any moment is very entertaining. You can go from driving sedately wondering what you should cook for dinner to a genuine full power in the time it takes your foot to hit the floor. The thing which lets the i3s down the most is the brakes, they're rubbish in both stopping power, feel and resistance to fade. But then you don't use them much at all in normal driving as the car uses regen to bring itself to a stop.
But on the whole as a first attempt at a warm hatch EV it's pretty good and I can forgive it. I've also read the I-Pace is a fantastic drive, so they will definitely come. At the moment they really can't do track days, so there's a space in my garage for another track car in the future, but on the road they make an awful lot of sense.
Edited by mcm87 on Friday 20th July 09:32
RobDickinson said:
Blaster72 seems woefully uninformed for someone I assume has access to Google.
Thanks Rob, nice to have a fan 
One day you will participate in a normal conversation with me rather than acting like a Tesla web bot but I won't hold my breath. Anyway if I'm woefully uninformed is that a double negative meaning I'm well informed?Erm, I may have misread the sales figures ever so slightly for the Model 3 so thanks to the poster above for correcting me.
Edited by Blaster72 on Friday 20th July 10:52
oop north said:
There’s a case to be made for dieselgate having a bigger impetus on the transition to electric cars than Tesla - though it would be foolish to say Tesla have been insignificant.
Totally agree, hence my push for that poster to elaborate - which he/she still hasn't done. To say the Tesla Roadster was the catalyst for transitioning to EV's (albeit incredibly slowly) was the part I took issue with.
Anyway, I'm off to pick up a Model S for the weekend. Wish me luck!
Blaster72 said:
Nkt sure I’d agree the Roadster did anything other than kick Tesla into action.
That is exactly what it was designed to do...Read Tim Urban's Tesla article here
Article said:
The group formed a team and started figuring out how to be a car company. One big problem they had was that this was a new technology, and the R&D costs early on for a new technology drive up the price of the product—that’s the same reason the very first cell phones and computers started out really expensive. Except in those cases, they were the first of their kind, so the product could be super expensive and still sell. Because perfectly good, affordable gas cars already exist, it wouldn’t work to come out with the equivalent quality of a $25,000 gas car for $100,000+. So this became the business plan:
Step 1: High-priced, low-volume car for the super rich. Come out with the expensive first product, but make the car so fancy that it’s worth that price—i.e. just make it a legit Ferrari competitor and then it’s okay to charge over $100,000 for it.
Step 2: Mid-priced, mid-volume car for the pretty rich. Use the profits from Step 1 to develop the Step 2 car. It would still be expensive, but more like a $75,000 Mercedes or BMW competitor instead of Ferrari.
Step 3: Low-priced, high-volume car for the masses. Use the profits from Step 2 to develop a $35,000-ish car that, after the government’s $7,500 EV tax credit and the savings on gas, would be affordable to the middle class.
Step 1 was the Roadster, step 2 the Model S and step 3 the model 3.Step 1: High-priced, low-volume car for the super rich. Come out with the expensive first product, but make the car so fancy that it’s worth that price—i.e. just make it a legit Ferrari competitor and then it’s okay to charge over $100,000 for it.
Step 2: Mid-priced, mid-volume car for the pretty rich. Use the profits from Step 1 to develop the Step 2 car. It would still be expensive, but more like a $75,000 Mercedes or BMW competitor instead of Ferrari.
Step 3: Low-priced, high-volume car for the masses. Use the profits from Step 2 to develop a $35,000-ish car that, after the government’s $7,500 EV tax credit and the savings on gas, would be affordable to the middle class.
article goes on to say said:
With the Roadster, Tesla wasn’t trying to make their long term car (one Tesla employee told me that from the beginning, Musk would make sure everyone knew that the company’s long-term mission “was not to make toys for rich people.”) They just wanted to build something awesome to A) show the world how great an EV could be, and B) generate revenue to develop their Step 2 car. So they didn’t start from scratch on the body design, instead basing it on a Lotus Elise.
The Roadster didn’t change the world—no $110,000 car ever could—but it sent a message to the industry that Tesla was for real. You may not have heard of the Roadster when it was announced in 2006 or when it started shipping in 2008, but some of the major car companies took notice—Nissan soon launched the all-electric Leaf and GM launched the plug-in electric Chevy Volt soon after the Roadster’s appearance (Bob Lutz, who was Chairman of GM at the time, openly credits Tesla for their decision to make the Volt, saying that after the Roadster unveiling, he went to the GM board and asked, “If a little company in California can do this, why can’t we?”).
The Roadster didn’t change the world—no $110,000 car ever could—but it sent a message to the industry that Tesla was for real. You may not have heard of the Roadster when it was announced in 2006 or when it started shipping in 2008, but some of the major car companies took notice—Nissan soon launched the all-electric Leaf and GM launched the plug-in electric Chevy Volt soon after the Roadster’s appearance (Bob Lutz, who was Chairman of GM at the time, openly credits Tesla for their decision to make the Volt, saying that after the Roadster unveiling, he went to the GM board and asked, “If a little company in California can do this, why can’t we?”).
captain_cynic said:
At flat chat, A Tesla model 3 cannot complete the 14 mile Nurburgring. A Model 3 at full throttle is estimated to have an 8 mile range which is why I'm highly suspect of it's alleged 340 mile range.
This Model S P85 did the 'ring in 8:50.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dphw4km60m4
The Model 3 is lighter and will have a 70kwh battery, so I see no reason to think that it couldn't lap the ring in a similar time.
I don't think anyone would drive any car at full throttle for 8 miles under normal usage so it's hardly a valid test.
SCEtoAUX said:
You sound like the sort of bloke who would have told Henry Ford that what the world needed was faster horses.
hardly.......I just like cars. Electric cars are currently crap. Goodwood FOS showed some better (looking) stuff, but I prefer noise, emotion and the way a rear wheel car delivers it's grip.
I'm not a fan of motors per wheel, and how that dynamically feels.
I like the initial acceleration but the electric cars I've driven were ultimately boring as f
k.So I'm the sort of bloke that would tell Elon Musk I want to keep the ICE. Nothing to do with horses - 1 horse power was never enough.
The Selfish Gene said:
SCEtoAUX said:
You sound like the sort of bloke who would have told Henry Ford that what the world needed was faster horses.
hardly.......I just like cars. Electric cars are currently crap. Goodwood FOS showed some better (looking) stuff, but I prefer noise, emotion and the way a rear wheel car delivers it's grip.
I'm not a fan of motors per wheel, and how that dynamically feels.
I like the initial acceleration but the electric cars I've driven were ultimately boring as f
k.So I'm the sort of bloke that would tell Elon Musk I want to keep the ICE. Nothing to do with horses - 1 horse power was never enough.
The vast majority of cars these days are sold as 'appliances' to get folk from A to B, with a bit of brand and lifestyle perception thrown in for good measure. For that purpose, EVs are perfectly serviceable as long as they meet the brand and lifestyle perceptions of the consumer.
Also, consider that it's VERY early days in the life of EVs, and they will improve. Then again, it may not be that they are crap, just sufficiently different that you don't like them in comparison. Someone who learns to drive in an EV and will never know anything else would not think they are crap.
ICE vehicles will likely end up the preserve of hobbyists for occasional use.
Edited by feef on Friday 20th July 17:30
completely agree feef..........but as an enthusiast I'm going to keep my cars as long as I can! Luckily I'm old enough at over 40 to know that I can keep racing, keep having fun and probably just about out live the modern electric st.
Currently looking for another V8 , or even better V12 to go with my two x 6 cylinders and my twin!
t.Currently looking for another V8 , or even better V12 to go with my two x 6 cylinders and my twin!
To continue the theme, it’s ‘horses for courses’!
I would be more than happy with an EV to replace my XF as long as it was of similar size, as well equipped, had similar performance, range and most importantly was competitively priced in terms of initial and whole life costs.
I don’t look to that car for fun or thrills, just to get me from A to B (which is often a good distance) reasonably quickly, quietly and in comfort.
Sadly, that EV doesn’t yet exist; hopefully it will whilst I’m still able to make use of one and a sincere thanks to the early adopters who will, eventually, pay for it to evolve.
I would be more than happy with an EV to replace my XF as long as it was of similar size, as well equipped, had similar performance, range and most importantly was competitively priced in terms of initial and whole life costs.
I don’t look to that car for fun or thrills, just to get me from A to B (which is often a good distance) reasonably quickly, quietly and in comfort.
Sadly, that EV doesn’t yet exist; hopefully it will whilst I’m still able to make use of one and a sincere thanks to the early adopters who will, eventually, pay for it to evolve.
I hate to piss on the petrol love in, but the vast majority of ICE cars are utterly dull. These are the majority of sales.
It’s no huge surprise that this is the initial target of mainstream EVs.
I have a leaf for commuting. It’s a very dull hatchback that does the job for minimal money. It replaced a very cheap hatchback that was utterly dull and did the job for minimal money.
As a point and squirt machine to 45mph, the leaf is surprisingly capable. I just wish it was a class smaller.
It’s no huge surprise that this is the initial target of mainstream EVs.
I have a leaf for commuting. It’s a very dull hatchback that does the job for minimal money. It replaced a very cheap hatchback that was utterly dull and did the job for minimal money.
As a point and squirt machine to 45mph, the leaf is surprisingly capable. I just wish it was a class smaller.
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