Tesla Says Model 3 Had 'Biggest One-Week Launch of Any Product Ever' (theverge.com) 270
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Tesla announced Thursday that it has received 325,000 preorders for its recently unveiled Model 3. If it sells every car that's been reserved, the company says it will earn enough revenue to make this the "biggest one-week launch of any product ever." A few days ago, the electric car company was saying it had received twice the number of preorders it originally expected to get. Now it's quickly approaching three times that number, which raises questions about the company's ability to meet its increasingly complex production goals. If it can, it stands to make a boatload of money. Tesla says the number of preorders it has received so far corresponds to $14 billion in implied future sales.
Hard to compare (Score:3)
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If they put it on their mortgage at 3%, it would end up costing them $45 in interest over the 18 months.
Oh no, $45!
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I'm no rocket scientist but I think that's $2.50 per month!
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If having $1000 to put towards something, anything, is what you consider ridiculously wealthy you might want to seek out a better job.
The fact you can't come up with that money doesn't mean others haven't managed their money as poorly as you have.
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So you think average people would give Tesla $1000 to hold for a MIN of 18 months on an off chance they would buy it? You're either ridiculously wealthy with no concept of money or an idiot. I'm thinking the former.
So I just checked my bank [skandiabanken.no] here in Norway, 0.75% per year interest on savings over 100 kNOK = $12k. So 1.5*$7.50 = $11.25, except I'll also pay 28% interest tax so $8.10 net, man I'm dying here. Sure I could possibly/probably do better in stocks or property, but risk-free interest doesn't even cover a fraction of inflation anymore. The ECB in the EU is the same, the US Fed rate is also scraping the barrel... I'd lose almost the same amount just putting it in the mattress, except it's probably safer at Tesla
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You are joking, right? I may be an idiot (I have 7 kids and while my wife works harder than I do she doesn't get paid for it), but I'm no where near ridiculously wealthy and I could swing $1000 for a down payment easily. Maybe you need a better paying job or you stink at managing your finances.
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So you can swing the $1000 (as could I) and you would put that money down for a place in line with only mild desire to buy one? Because THAT was the premise of the post I replied to. I'm not going to give anyone $1000 for 18months unless I really want it, neither would you and neither would the vast vast majority of people putting those deposits down.
That was my point, $1000 is a lot of money for most people and they aren't going to throw it down on a mild interest in purchasing something in 2 years.
And this despite lower gasoline prices (Score:2)
My one question is durability?
I mean, 8 years and your battery is almost a brick right?
A gas car you can keep going for 15 to 20 years.
OTH, maybe battery prices will drop by 90% over the next 8 years. In which case, no problem.
Re:And this despite lower gasoline prices (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, 8 years and your battery is almost a brick right?
No. It will have reduced capacity [quora.com], but it will still be functional. The quoted estimate is around a 30% reduction in capacity after 8 years.
If the reduced capacity is great enough to be covered by the warranty, then Tesla will replace the battery for you. If not, you will have the option of either using the battery as-is, or purchasing a better replacement yourself (which will probably be expensive, but less expensive in 8 years than it is now since battery prices keep decreasing).
A gas car you can keep going for 15 to 20 years.
Modulo maintenance, gas, and the various parts you will have to repair or replace, or course.
Re:And this despite lower gasoline prices (Score:5, Informative)
I keep fairly detailed records of the maintenance cost of my cars. My 2000 Toyota 4Runner, purchased in 2003, has cost me $13,479 in maintenance. I've put 140,000 miles on it. My 2007 Honda Accord has cost me $5174 with 95,000 miles put on it. This is excluding the purchase price and gas.
Purchase plus maintenance plus gas on the Accord comes out to about $0.37/mile. The 4Runner is $0.43/mile.
In theory the EV won't require nearly as much in maintenance cost and would save in gas so even if I had to buy a new battery for $8,000 every 8 years it would probably make sense.
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Holy hell, how are you spending so much on maintenance? I buy used cars with ~65k miles on them (best tradeoff between depreciation and reliability IME) and run then to 150-200k and they only cost me a few thousand dollars in maintenance, the second time a car costs me over $500 I seriously consider if it's time to scrap it and get a 'new' one.
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Probably because he's doing preventative maintenance by replacing key components before they fail instead of after/during - something most people don't do. This is the smart move if you want your vehicle to retain as much of its value as possible.
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He's spent more on maintenance for his 4runner that I spent for purchase + maintenance of my current vehicle, hardly seems like a smart move to me. In fact I just checked Fulio and my cost per mile excluding purchase but including insurance, gas, and maintenance has been $.17 over the last 30 months. If I get only 90,000 miles out of my car the full cost per mile will be ~$.26 which is about 50% below his figures. It's not like I'm giving up reliability either, my car has probably spent less time in the sho
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Maybe he's kept it immaculate, in which case, the question becomes why. But actually, I find the amount somewhat shocking as well. That's a lot for a Toy.
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No, you won't be selling it for any appreciable amount. What will actually happen is they'll give you a small fraction of what the battery is worth - maybe 5-10% to recycle it if they give you anything at all. People won't have the means to dispose of these things on their own, so they will be at a disadvantage. We see the same thing with every form of recycling - someone is benefiting from getting all the raw materials but the consumer is never really rewarded for it. In the most likely case you will b
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No, you won't be selling it for any appreciable amount. What will actually happen is they'll give you a small fraction of what the battery is worth - maybe 5-10% to recycle it if they give you anything at all.
If the battery is completely non-functional, that's true, but in many (most?) cases, the battery still works fine, it's just no longer storing enough charge to be worth carrying around in a car. In that case, the battery still has value as a fixed-installation energy storage device and can be sold at a higher price (dunno how much higher yet) to those who are setting up battery backup /energy storage systems for solar arrays, utility-scale energy storage, etc.
I expect that by the time your model 3's batter
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A gas car you can keep going for 15 to 20 years.
Modulo maintenance, gas, and the various parts you will have to repair or replace, or course.
And the Tesla's only maintenance item is tires.
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And replacement motors, batteries, coolant pumps, radiators, wheel bearing, suspension, differential, battery control electronics, charging electronics, HVAC system, seat heaters, dash computer, dash display. Yup, there's nothing that will ever need maintenance in a Tesla...
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And the Tesla's only maintenance item is tires.
I think this sentence best describes the "informed Tesla-buyer" demographic. They're clueless, and they don't know it.
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Well I saw lower figures but also found this while discussing this post.
http://www.hybridcars.com/stud... [hybridcars.com]
Summary is 20% loss after a little less than 3 years (like losing 5mpg to 10mpg in a gasoline car).
Also, a substantial group losing 30% in 800 days.
And with a dozen losing 40% in only 800 days.
And this is a pro electric car site using actual data.
I'm skeptical. My battery powered electric devices have shorter lifespans.
If it's as good as they say, I'd want an extended warranty from the manufacturer bac
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I haven't noticed much loss in my Model S after over 3 years and almost 40K miles. My previous car, a Prius, had no loss in mileage after 100K miles. The losses in the other cars are going to be much higher because of the much smaller batteries. The loss of capacity is due to cycling of the battery. For my P85, 1000 cycles on the battery is around 200K miles. The batteries should be good for longer than that. These are automotive grade batteries, not the crappy ones they put in most consumer devices.
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30% after 8 years seems rather pessimistic. Tesla tested a Model S 85kW pack up to 750,000 miles with 16% capacity loss. That's in line with what the battery manufacturer (Panasonic) rates the cells at. 3000 cycles to 80% remaining capacity. 300 miles range per cycle, for a total of 900,000 miles to 20% loss.
That's with constant supercharging too. Supercharging isn't actually that hard on the cells, as they are actively cooled and 120kW is only about 1.4C, not particularly high for lithium.
Re:And this despite lower gasoline prices (Score:5, Informative)
At a high level, the battery is damaged just a little bit each time it's charged. The amount of damage caused during charging is based on the temperature and how full the battery is. This means the longevity of a lithium ion battery is basically a function of how many times they are charged, the temperature, and if you charge it to 100% or only to 70%.
In the real world, with the Model S, people are reporting under a 20% degradation after 100k miles. It should last somewhere between 300k-500k before it's half dead.
As I understand it, as the battery capacity decreased, there should be a plan would be to install a new fresh battery pack, with the old one reused in a role for stationary storage, before finally being recycled.
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A gas car you can keep going for 15 to 20 years.
..and a lottery ticket might be worth a million dollars.
Back here in planet Earth the average car life expectancy in the US is 12 years and outside the dry snowless southern states very few cars last past 15 years.
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You're just thinking of people who drive 10,000+ miles a year -- those of us who do less driving naturally have cars that last a lot longer. My current car is 18, my previous car was 17 when it died, both below 100K miles.
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In other words, I'm thinking about the average driver which according to statistics drives 15K miles a year. Additionally in Northern climes the limiting factor is often the number of winters, not the total number of miles.
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No, the average AGE of car on the road today in the US is 11.5 years, the average age at destruction is 18 years which means the vast majority will make 15+ years.
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A) Many people DO keep gasoline cars going for 15 to 20 years.
therefore
B) a gas car CAN (it is POSSIBLE) keep going for 15 to 20 years.
Lots of people
a) Get into accidents (Huge affect on "average" car life expectancy).
b) Don't do proper maintenance
c) Drive the car to death
d) Choose not to repair it when a $2,000 repair could keep the car going another 100,000 miles.
so applying these factors to the tesla
a) Get into accidents (Huge affect on "average" car life expectancy). (Yup)
b) Don't do proper maintenanc
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I mean, 8 years and your battery is almost a brick right?
Is that an assertion of fact, or a question? It looks like a question, with that question mark there and everything, but then you keep going as if it's a fact.
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You heard wrong. I've had my model S for over 3 years and have about 40K miles on it. I have not seen any noticeable degradation in range. The Panasonic cells are rated to have 80% of their capacity after 3000 cycles. 3000 cycles is at least 600K miles with my 85KWH battery pack. The new cars have an even bigger pack (90KW) except for the lower end ones (70KWH). If I consider 200 miles of range per cycle it works out to 600K miles. I easily exceed the 200 mile range on a charge.
Just as meaningless as "Box office records"... (Score:2)
Good for him (Score:2)
If I had a better job I'd have lined up too. One of the few (only??) benefits of living in Quebec is the hydro power. But I remain carless for now, Montreal is not a very large city and I can still bike around at my august age.
But from all comments, the Teslas seem like quality cars, good for Musk! Shake up the establishment!
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Lots of reasons to put deposit down (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of reasons to put the deposit down:
1. Low risk - fully refundable until actually placing configured order. The only risk is Tesla going under.
2. Early Model 3 car still qualify for up to $7,500 US government tax credit. After Tesla has produced 200K cars for US market (including all Model S and X) the rebate drops off fast.
3. With this strong demand, those who put the deposit down will get their cars up to 2 years earlier. First releases of a new model car tend to hold higher residuals as there are no older alternatives.
4. Some may hope to speculate, buy an early car and sell it for profit to those who will pay an extra couple of thousand for not waiting 2 years for the new, trendy car. Once the $7.5K rebate drops off, that's an extra $7.5K value for the person who did get it and is reselling the car to those who can no longer get it.
So, rather that collect 0.25% in a savings account, place a $1000 deposit, with low risk, but lots of potential upside. Why do people think that's crazy?
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So, rather that collect 0.25% in a savings account, place a $1000 deposit, with low risk, but lots of potential upside. Why do people think that's crazy?
It isn't, you are likely correct.
That, and I don't expect more than half of the deposits to turn into orders.
There is a decent chance the $35K price doesn't hold either, or it will be really bare bones and the ASP (average selling price) will be closer to $45K.
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I thought about putting a deposit down, but the long wait for UK residents put me off. We aren't likely to see cars before 2019, and by the time the queue starts to clear 2020.
I really hope that the Model 3 spurs other manufacturers to take their EVs further.
Let's do the math (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for the $35,000 price tag. $14B / 325,000 = $43,000. Even if we assume that half the sales will be for the basic configuration at the bottom price, then the other half would have to sell for $51,000 to make the average price they are projecting. Sounds to me like the $35K version will be completely bare-bones, and you'll have to pay a *lot* for things that come standard in other cars (the Porsche way). Personally, I was excited to get a nicely equipped electric car for $35K. $51K? Not so much.
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Enthusiastic early pre-order fans who stand in line are unlikely to be bargain shoppers and more likely to go for premium options.
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If you look at current Tesla cars as a guideline, the biggest option will probably be a $10-12k performance option that gets closer to 4.5s 0-60. There will be a $3k premium interior option. A few $500-$2000 paint colors and tire options. A few $1000-$3000 options like high fidelity sound, smart air suspension, and autopilot features.
All together most cars without the performance option will cost around $40k, and $50-55k with the performance option. There will certainly be some people getting the base model
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gotta watch the conditionals, folks (Score:3, Insightful)
"...If it sells every car that's been reserved..."
I'm going to call it here, that less than 100,000 - maybe even less than 50k - actually turn into real orders.
Re:gotta watch the conditionals, folks (Score:4, Insightful)
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Most likely based on Tesla's inability to deliver in a timely fashion, given the enormous leap in production capacity required. (Five times their total deliveries to date, thirty times their largest year to date.) Buyer's remorse when it comes time to pony up the balance and actually order the car will also play a factor.
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Pent-up interest in transitioning away from fossil fuels?
If there was, there exist options at this price point already.
The incredible price point?
I continue to be amused at what people consider to be a good price point. The $35k is the base model, much like $70K is the base price of the Model S, but almost no Model S go for anywhere near that, $100k is closer to the average.
I expect most Model 3 to be closer to $50K than $35K.
Tesla's good safety and reliability record?
They don't have enough of a record to call it that. People buying $100K cars aren't the normal public and they aren't driven the same way.
That is without a doubt the stupidest prediction (Score:5, Funny)
...that I've ever seen on Slashdot. And I clearly remember "No wifi, less space than a Nomad, lame".
I will meet you back here in 4 years and then stalk you through every thread reminding you of this prediction. This god awful, hilariously stupid fucking prediction.
Tesla sold more that 50K Model S's last year--and that's a car with an ASP north of $85K. This year they are selling more than 80K Model S's + Model X's (the ASP on Model X's is even higher). And you think they won't manage 50K of a car that starts at $35K? You sir, are an idiot.
Not like an everyday "noone is going to buy iPads" kind of idiot, but like a platinum-level "noone is going to buy these stupid Model T Fords" kind of idiot--the kind that only comes around once every 100 years or so.
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lol.
That is all. I just needed to let you know that I was literally laughing-out-loud at this.
Absolutely spot on. It felt great to see one of these asshats with the ridiculous negative hyperboles around here get called out.
Well done.
Just goes to show (Score:2)
People WANT a car manufacturer to make quality products they stand behind and are (relatively) cheap to own and operate as well. GM/VW/Honda could learn something about what the consumer wants. We don't want expensive mechanical hybrids or miniature cars with 50 mile range.
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On second thought, lets see how many of those orders that Tesla actually satisfies in a reasonable amount of time.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would be enough to cause a crash in the oil market
Why not divert that oil to produce electricity?
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Very little of our electricity comes from oil, so there actually isn't much infrastructure for it. It's also not very cost effective especially with the price of oil being so volatile.
So why not divert the oil into not pumping it out of the ground in the first place until we need it?
=Smidge=
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So why not divert the oil into not pumping it out of the ground in the first place until we need it?
Good luck with that. Someone somewhere with oil will decide they need money, and they will go forth and make some with it. You can only get so far borrowing against the notion that someday someone will pay you even more for the oil because they need it to make seals for spaceships or whatever. There's always the risk that they'll come up with an organic technology that replaces your petro products and then... you know the rest.
Sooner or later somebody is going to figure out how to make oil out of seawater a
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Good luck with that. Someone somewhere with oil will decide they need money, and they will go forth and make some with it.
Except that's not going to work if there's no market for it.
Earlier this year the cost of producing bitumen (tar sands oil) exceeded the market value. The plants remained in operation only because they were gambling that the price would rise again and the cost of shutting down/restarting everything would be greater than a potential short-term loss. Tar sands oil is currently a financial loser.
Now imagine what would happen if the market crashed again due to lack of demand. You really think they'd keep it up?
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Informative)
Already in the works:
In an email sent out last night (see below), Tesla confirmed that following the overwhelming number of Model 3 reservations it received, the company is currently âoeincreasing its production plans to minimize the wait for Model 3â.
http://electrek.co/2016/04/07/... [electrek.co]
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They may have trouble keeping up. They hope to be able to satisfy 500,000 orders a year by 2020. They will need to fast track that considerably, but even at that rate Bloomberg says that EVs will displace over 2,000,000 barrels of oil a day by 2023. That would be enough to cause a crash in the oil market
Oh goodie! That means cheap gas for years to come for my big 6.2L V8 engine! :)
This of course completely undercuts the whole "most cars will go EV due to rising gas prices".
No, gas prices will go lower, not higher, if even 10% of cars sold become EV, thus putting a cap on EV sales due to gas being so cheap.
Gas cars will still be sold in the year 2100.
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Well, they claim that their factory, in the last 3 months, has been producing at a rate of 500k vehicles/year.
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Yeah, the 500k number is what they hope the plant can produce when fully equipped and running 3 shifts a day. The most NUMMI managed at the plant was a bit over 400k a year so I'd call that number optimistic for a company that's never done over 20k a month. Still if they can get to 350-400k units a year that's pretty significant.
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Tesla does use robots far more than the Nummi plant did, humans are used mostly for the finishing touches. Robotic production scales well. I doubt their approach of using prison labor to save on costs will scale, though.
Really, it's battery availability that's he bottleneck - what's the schedule on the gigafactory?
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Sounds like the reality distortion field is strong with this one.
... and Morton sells more than a billion grains of salt every week.
By "biggest" they don't mean just the number of items, but (items*price). 13 million iPhones for $500 each is still less than 325k cars at $35,000 each.
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Except the markup on an iphone is astronomical. It costs them less than $100 to make one.
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13m * $500 average cost = 6.5bn.
Tesla is claiming $14bn. Seems reality-based to me.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Informative)
Airbus sold 85 A380 for $400m a pop. Emirates purchase 140 of them in 2015 again for $418m a pop. Thats at least 54billion in committed revenue.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Informative)
However, the 380 purchase was not made all at once: 21 ordered in June 2003, and another 21 in November 2003 and so on. So this doesn't meet the requirement of "biggest one week launch ever".
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In the airline industry they frequently order a whole bunch but they rarely if ever purchase that many. The contracts aren't sales contracts, they are options to purchase in the normal world. I've heard the number that 50% of those sales will never execute.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Interesting)
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there are only 15 million cars sold in the USA every year. figure the dozens of models out there and this was a great launch
Last year 17.5 million cars and light trucks were sold in the US.
But so what? Tesla's pre-orders are world-wide, not in the US.
World-wide, 75 million cars were sold last year.
And Tesla will take several years to deliver all these cars.
So maybe 150,000 cars the first year, vs 75 million world wide.
Nice, but nothing earth shattering, and even 150,000 cars is still triple what they are doing now.
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Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:4, Informative)
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In 1.5 years.
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If they stay on schedule.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Interesting)
Refundable until the car goes into production.
By the time the car goes into production it will not be sight unseen. There will have been opportunities for test drives just like with the last two Tesla vehicles. I put down my deposit because in the worst case scenario I have $1000 in a non-interest bearing account for a couple years, and in a best case scenario I will likely be part of the last Tesla buyers who get Federal tax credits.
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No, worst case is you lose the $1000.
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The market returns around 7% on average. At best you will get 0% on this investment, and you'll overpay just for the honor of getting the first buggy models off of the assembly line. Good luck. I'll pick the 2nd year model up on the used market for 2/3 the price, because I'm not in a hurry to look cool.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Insightful)
The market returns around 7% on average. At best you will get 0% on this investment, and you'll overpay just for the honor of getting the first buggy models off of the assembly line. Good luck.
No, at best you get to buy a $35k car for $27,500 instead of $35k like everyone who did not put $1000 down. That is a pretty good deal. Even if your car isn't delivered until 6 quarters after the 200,001st Tesla is delivered, the tax incentive is still $1875. That is still quite the return on investment.
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I might suggest that you are ignoring the used value of the car. Unless you plan on driving it into the ground, you will eventually have to sell it. The used price will reflect the lower "actual" price of the vehicle. The subsidy is real, but (a least part of) the savings to the end user is merely a deferred cost. A Leaf has an MSRP of $30k, but the highest price you'll fetch on the used market after driving it off the lot is around $20k. So yeah, you "saved" $7500 that the used market immediately accounted
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Seriously. I don't want to call people "morons", but buying a car sight-unseen is bad.
Tesla has a well earned reputation for quality. My wife has a Model-S, and it is a very nice car. Certainly the best that I have ever driven. I think most of the people placing these pre-orders can afford the $1000 deposit.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:4, Interesting)
In 10 years we'll laugh at these impatient people who couldn't wait a year to get the same car at a steep discount. Like Apple line people, Cabbage Patch line people, Tickle Me Elmo line people, etc.
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Who is going to offer a Model 3 competitor at a "steep discount"? The closest competitor that's been launched is the Bolt, and for $2,500 more you get a smaller, less well appointed car with significantly worse styling. There's literally nobody with the technology or the battery production capacity to make a better, cheaper vehicle in the class. The only risk to the Model 3 being anything but class leading is if the timeline slips by several years and they can't ramp up production at the gigafactory enough
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You are comparing what is available right now, this instant with something that - if it comes to fruition - will not be available for several years. All talk of costs and availability are speculative and frankly don't matter at all. Tesla makes a nice luxury car - I'm a big fan even if I'm not in the market. I might even buy one of these new cheaper Teslas someday. But I'm sure as hell not buying from the first production run, and I'm certainly going to wait for demand to meet supply so that the price comes
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But I'm sure as hell not buying from the first production run
So then you are relying on the early adopters, the very people you are denigrating, to lead the way.
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Indeed. It's worse than that - I depend on some percentage of them not making the payments so that I can steal their almost-new cars at a steep discount. Fortunately, my post denigrating them on Facebook is unlikely to deter them - in fact, psychologically they are likely to double down and stand in an Apple line. The $1000 is a low-pass filter to separate out the people who can only afford to stand in line for sneakers.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget that after the USA cars have been delivered, the rest of the world gets it. And they have different tax rules. And after that, if noone is in the queue anymore because all orders stop today, *then* you might get one. Might.
For tax reasons, I'm putting down $1000. That's a bit less in euro's and it provides me with a chance at a company car in my own company, that has no additional "car tax" of 60%, that has a very low "road use tax", that has (due to environmental taxes) just a third of the fuel cost of my current Prius, that will come with a tax rebate of 25% in addition to the other stuff. Oh, and maintenance cost are near zero. And if I drive it as a business car, it will only count towards personal income with 4% of the car's original value as opposed to 25% for regular cars.
So, I'm putting down $1000 dollar which in the worst case I will get just back (Tesla isn't going to go bankrupt when they can get a loan based on 14 billion dollar worth of pre-orders) without interest. In the best case I get what looks like the best car on the planet (*) for half the price of a regular car. That's not a bad opportunity cost at all.
(*) I used to drive a Mercedes when I worked for the company - the model S is a MUCH better car than the Mercedes S-class and Tesla is also much better for its customers.
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You are comparing what is available right now, this instant with something that - if it comes to fruition - will not be available for several years. All talk of costs and availability are speculative and frankly don't matter at all.
Now hooooold on thar. This is not Tesla's first trip around the block. That was true of the roadster, it was true to an extent of the Model S, and it was slightly true of the Model X since it included a bunch of new kit. The only new thing in the new car is the big piece of glass, which could even get toned down before production if there was a problem. Since they've made a couple of cars, established relationships with suppliers, and generally figured out what they are doing, they should have reasonably li
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Well, we won't laugh at the people pulling $2 million a year. But then my question would be, why are you reserving the piece of shit model when you could drive off with a real one right now? No, these people are not rich - they are just impatient and caught up in fashion and hype.
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"the piece of shit model" - so more affordable means piece of shit?
And you want to buy it 2ndhand? Or the hand-me-down of the Leaf which is truly shite, when new, compared to any Tesla.
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If you look at the context of my comment it will make sense. The AC is claiming that rich people who won't miss $1000 are buying these. That's horseshit - those people can spend $100k on a real Tesla. I think this new model will probably be nicer than a Chevy or a Leaf, but compared to the S it will indeed be shit.
The best analogy I could offer is people waiting in line at Walmart for a new line of low-cost Louis Vutton bags. Those aren't the rich people - the rich people already have the expensive Louis Vu
Re: Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand your analogy, but in what way do you think this model will be shit? The specs already look much better than top of the line cars. Compared to the S, it's shorter. But most of the features of an S will still be on it.
Tesla doesn't have to do the regular "screw the customer" dance that I hated so much when working at Mercedes. They don't have to intentionally make a cheaper car less luxurious in order to justify the overpriced "luxury model". They don't have to avoid putting in a navigation so you have to put down $8000,- for the integrated navigation that's worse than the $100 garmin you buy in the store. They don't have to worry about cannibalizing sales of the model S and model X. Tesla can just sell the model 3 and make it as good as they possibly can, and become a huge car maker in the process because the competition is scared to match it.
The only company with a chance of catching up is Chevrolet and if you look at the Bolt you see the same attitude: it's intentionally made worse than it could be to avoid hitting the sales of their other cars. So if you base your attitude on the long standing practice of other carmakers I understand that. But Tesla is just not in the same position, and has a different strategy. So to assume the model 3 will be any less than the model S except in range and size is an assumption I don't share.
Re:Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s/6s+ in 3 days (Score:4, Informative)
People bought the first infinity car sight unseen when they did those stupid car commercials that didn't even show the car or talk about it. This is not even close. The Tesla 3 was demonstrated at the launch event, the internet is littered with photos and reviews by people that attended the event and got to drive one. It is still 18months before full production but the tooling is being built right now so there probably won't be significant changes before the retail model is available. The same method was used on the Model S and it changed very little.
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uhhh, yes?
$14b is greater than $1b
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It's not $14b - only $1,000 per car so it's only $350m by the most generous interpretation. Those putting down their $1,000 have NO obligation to ever give Tesla another dime and Tesla has an obligation to return the money on demand for quite some time so, arguably, it's really $0b. Tesla can't book these deposits as revenue.
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Except they don't have a reputation of producing quality cars. After Consumer Reports gave such a glowing review, they pulled their recommendation. Surveys of owners of cars that had been on the road a bit caused CR to give it a "worse than average" reliability rating. Some of the issues were specific to Teslas (charging system failures, drivetrain problems) as well as normal issues (rattles, squeaks, leaks, door handles).
A company trying to rapidly ramp up production is bound to have more issues than be
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CR is shit and has been for about 5 years.
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