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Tesla To Start Pilot Production of Model 3 This Month (reuters.com) 112

Posted by BeauHD from the ambitious-goals dept.
According to Reuters, Tesla is planning to "begin test-building its Model 3 sedans on February 20, a move that could allay concerns about the company meeting its target to start production in July." The sources familiar with the matter did not mention how many of the Model 3 vehicles Tesla aims to build in February, though the number is likely to be small to test the assembly system and the quality of vehicle parts. From the report: Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk last year told investors and more than 370,000 customers who put deposits down for a Model 3 that he intended to start building the cars in July 2017. At the time, many analysts and suppliers said the timeline was too ambitious and would be difficult to achieve, pointing to Tesla's history of missing aggressive production targets. If Tesla succeeds in starting pilot production of the sedan at its factory in Fremont, California on Feb. 20, the company would be able to share the news with shareholders two days later when it reports fourth-quarter results and better answer any questions about the Model 3 rollout. Musk had told investors last year that the company could miss the July 2017 startup target if suppliers do not meet deadlines.
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Tesla To Start Pilot Production of Model 3 This Month More

Tesla To Start Pilot Production of Model 3 This Month

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  • It was announced too early (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I think the enthusiasm has diminished for the model 3. It was announced way to early before final production had even begun to happen. Unless Tesla can produce and sell a boat load of the Model 3's and have customers be satisfied. Tesla has basically bet the store on the model 3. I have my doubts based on how Tesla has handled the limited production it has been doing. Where is the ramp up of support services that will be needed for this? I have not seen it happening.

    • They haven't fully revealed it yet. Pretty soon they'll have another event with the final version, and they'll be all over the media again. Expect enthusiasm to skyrocket. I don't think they'll have any problem selling 500,000 per year or more. Certainly not when the first test drive reports come in.

      Support services is another matter, I don't know what they're doing on that front, but I'm pretty sure someone will have thought of it. They're pretty nimble, so I think you'll see Tesla service centers popping

      • 500,000? (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You think they can make that many?

        Huh.

        • I said they'll be able to sell that many, not make them ;-)

          Making them may be a challenge initially, I expect they'll probably start around 300,000-400,000 in the first year which, while being objectively impressive, will be judged a failure because they didn't reach the full 500,000. After a couple of years, though, they'll easily surpass that number.

          • 300k to 400k, huh? I'm a fan of Tesla, and I even have one of these pre-ordered, but I'm willing to bet their yearly output won't be 1/10th of that. :) I expect to see 50k out the first year, and another 50k out the next. The rest of orders will either be cancelled by that time or they'll just be waiting much longer.

            • and that's on high-end luxury cars.

              What makes you think they'll be limited to 50K/year on a car that's designed for much higher manufacturing throughput?

            • That seems unnecessarily conservative. It sounds like Tesla produced over 25,000 vehicles in Q3 2016 alone, and as I recall the Model 3 is designed to be much faster/easier to produce than its predecessors. Assuming zero new production capacity (which seems like a foolish assumption), they should easily be able to produce over 100k new vehicles a year, maybe even hit 200k depending on just how much the production process was streamlined.

              Of course that would assume they stop producing previous models, whic

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by haruchai ( 17472 )

                "and as I recall the Model 3 is designed to be much faster/easier to produce than its predecessors"
                That's was the stated *goal* but we have, as yet, no idea if they've succeeded. I imagine it takes building hundreds or thousands of cars to get a new production process running smoothly. And your supply chain has to be managed precisely.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by haruchai ( 17472 )

              I'm also hoping they'll succeed but the cash burn has been so horrendous, it's hard to see how & when they'll turn a profit.
              That said, I give them full credit for beginning the move to EVs, which I've been calling the Tesla rEVolution for some time.

      • I think the question is how many would-be Model 3 purchasers are going to give up and get a Bolt instead.

        • The only advantage of the Bolt is that it's already available, while new orders for Model 3 will have to wait at least a year.

          Apart from that, Model 3 will blow the Bolt away. Bigger car, better performance, lower price.

          So basically, the only limiting factor for Tesla to sell these puppies is how quickly they can produce them.

          • Apart from that, Model 3 will blow the Bolt away. Bigger car, better performance, lower price.

            I'm just sitting here snickering at the thought of whose cars are going to have more defects; GM, with their long history of defects, or Tesla, with their short history.

            Apart from that, Model 3 will blow the Bolt away. Bigger car, better performance, lower price.

            Maybe. The only non-CUV cars which are popular right now are small ones, so who can say who wins there. The performance for the Bolt is more than adequate so I'm not sure who cares there, but the Tesla will have superior performance and surely some people will care. We'll see how the price finally falls out with an option or two when the new

          • Well, that and that Model 3 trunk hatch.

            They best do something about that uselessly small opening before launch. I'm wishing for a Model 3 hatchback model myself.

        • There won't be enough Bolts available in the near future to fill that demand. Chevy is only planning to produce 30,000 of them this year. The big obstacle to ramping up Bolt production is probably making the battery packs - that and the fact that it is widely believed that the company will be losing money on every Bolt they sell this year. Battery cost is likely to come down in 2018 so perhaps they can start making money on the Bolt then.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by short ( 66530 )
          Not me, Bolt has no 4WD variant. Besides that it is really ugly.
      • They are building out faster than ever with numerous showrooms/service centers and SC.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • What political reasons?

        (I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know)

        • Re:It was announced too early (Score:5, Informative)

          by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday February 09, 2017 @11:25AM (#53832661)

          What political reasons?
          (I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know)

          There have been a few people, possibly less than 10 from what I can tell from multiple news sources, who have cancelled their orders because Musk accepted a position on Trump's economic advisory council.

          I think Trump is bad enough to disregard Godwin's Law, but I still want competent business leaders to keep a line of communication open with the man. Criticizing Musk for trying to advise Trump is a Tea Party level of insanity. Then again the Tea Party has sadly had a lot of success, so maybe liberals need to stop relying on only rational responses.

          • Well, not just the liberals, but the far right have not bought telsa because they believe that musk is far left, and not the moderate libertarian that he is. In fact, it has been the GOP that have actively worked to destroy spacex, Tesla, and solar city.

          • As a liberal, I can see reasons to stay far away from Trump, and reasons to stay close to know what's going on and increase the ratio of intelligent suggestions so that if he follows one randomly it's more likely to be intelligent.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        They're also getting a few cancellations (for all models, not just the 3) at the moment for political reasons.

        FTFY

        It behooves them to get the product out of the door and close as many orders as they can.

        That is still true, but for very different reasons than you give. Even without the Model 3, Tesla will most likely hit the 200,000 US sales mark in Q4 2017 or Q1 2018 (probably 2017). That means the phase out period for the $7500 tax credit will start in either April or July 2018.

        I am a firm believer in buying used, and without the $7500 tax credit I will almost certainly buy a 2014/5 Cadillac/BMW/Lexus instead of a new Tesla Model 3. Tesla only has about 12 months to deliver my Model 3 or my pre-order

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by haruchai ( 17472 )

          "Even without the Model 3, Tesla will most likely hit the 200,000 US sales mark in Q4 2017 or Q1 2018 (probably 2017). That means the phase out period for the $7500 tax credit will start in either April or July 2018"
          I'm quite sure they'll try to shift deliveries to overseas markets to delay the tax credit phase-out as long as possible.

      • Yeah, maybe 1-3% max. So what? Who cares about that kind of trash? Once M3 starts, even the conservative WT will buy these.

      • They are? How many is a lot? 3? 5? 100?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      I think the enthusiasm has diminished for the model 3. It was announced way to early before final production had even begun to happen.

      Tesla is going to have at least a couple more major announcements in 2017 as they reveal the final design and specifications and then start delivering the first Model 3s. Both will be a shot of adrenaline similar to when they accepted pre-orders in 2016.

      Tesla has basically bet the store on the model 3.

      The whole point of the Tesla's last 10 years has been the Model 3. I agree the stock price hasn't priced in the risk inherent in the Model 3's success, but every investor should by now realize Musk's vision has always been to sell tens of millions of electri

      • Actually , I would say that up to this point, musk has constantly bet the store on each model and won. With M3, that bet is gone, as long as he really brings up the quality, which I think he will. Even his approach to the line( inverting it ) and suppliers (bringing in-house quickly if they do not deliver ) is right on the mark. No, the bet is gone. By 2020, Tesla should be in top 10 car makers, and by 2025, in the top 5.
    • Tesla's show rooms, service centers, and super chargers are going up all America and Europe. By end of 2017, America and Europe will have supercharger network that covers every 200 miles or less. The only states that are not covered directly by service centers is where GOP are fighting it ( and that battle end with trump telling his brown shirts to knock off ). In Europe, Every nation that Tesla installs superchargers gets a showroom/service center ( and considering that most European nations are relative
    • I have seen more and more showrooms and delivery centers... possibly based on where they are gettting Model 3 orders from. I was really surprised at the scale of their center in Honolulu (Kaka'ako).

      It seems like Tesla's is pretty good with real-time learning-- they seem to know their mistakes pretty quickly, and look tomhowmit can be fixed. Maybe it is the management style compared to the big companies.

    • I think the enthusiasm has diminished for the model 3.

      Who cares? Pre-orders is going to sustain the complete production run for the life of the current model.

      It was announced way to early before final production had even begun to happen.

      Of course it was. Pre-orders had to come in and finance it.

      Unless Tesla can produce and sell a boat load of the Model 3's and have customers be satisfied.

      Telsa already has sold them. The only thing left is for them to be shipped to the customers.

      • Unless Tesla can produce and sell a boat load of the Model 3's and have customers be satisfied.

        Telsa already has sold them. The only thing left is for them to be shipped to the customers.

        Um, no. Tesla has accepted deposits for them. Now they need to produce them and sell them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )
      Enthusiasm only matters where it's centered around likely customers. General noise might have subsided some, but most people aren't going to buy one.

      Additionally I expect that if Tesla can hit the price point that it has been working towards that excitement would ramp back up again. Ironically the Model 3 is the first mass-production fully-electric car that has somewhat conventional "three box" styling in a non-luxury price point. The other 100% electrics and even most hybrids look different. I may b
  • Never buy version 1.0 of anything. Any engineer can tell you virtually no hardware or software goes out the door without know problems, some of which may be serious. And in the case of a vehicle some problems will only discovered when vehicles come in for repairs or end up in crashes.

    The model 3 might prove to be a great car out of the gate, or over time especially as it is refined. The model S certainly did, the X not so much. I'm not sure why anyone want to gamble money on it though.

    • Re:The old adage (Score:4, Funny)

      by Mike Sheen ( 1155353 ) on Thursday February 09, 2017 @06:35AM (#53831585)
      Haven't you heard about the new Agile development methodology? It's great! Ship first, then deal with problems via updates as they arise from your annoyed (or dead, as in this case it may be) customers.
    • This is a particularly true adage for all car makers and models. Even "quality" of an established make's existing model diminishes briefly after most refreshes, redesigns, or platform changes. It may be a slight reduction or a major one, and it usually resolves within one model year. However, it is good advice to avoid the first model year of any new vehicle model or any recently changed car. In the case of Tesla, you have them not only being a relatively young carmaker but also introducing a new model on

      • True. But with Tesla pretty much everything they've done has been "v1.0", and it seems like reliability has been fairly impressive (probably in large part because there's so much less that can go wrong with an electric vehicle, but still). I've also gotten the impression that they've been really good about retrofitting even relatively major updates onto existing vehicles (such as the addition of an armored skid plate) - upgrades it's worth mentioning that have often taken the car from "one of the safest/m

    • Never buy version 1.0 of anything. Any engineer can tell you virtually no hardware or software goes out the door without know problems, some of which may be serious. And in the case of a vehicle some problems will only discovered when vehicles come in for repairs or end up in crashes.

      The model 3 might prove to be a great car out of the gate, or over time especially as it is refined. The model S certainly did, the X not so much. I'm not sure why anyone want to gamble money on it though.

      All the issues with the X were due the stupid doors that should never gotten past the idea stage. The 3 is just a smaller version of the S, so it is already v2 (or actually v9 since the S is already up to v8.0)

      • No, that's not how cars have historically worked out...any significant change results in a noticeable spike in recalls and reliability complaints for a model year or so after the change. New platforms or changes to platforms are usually the most notable times for such issues, and "based on" is not enough to negate this being a platform change/introduction.

        • No, that's not how cars have historically worked out...any significant change results in a noticeable spike in recalls and reliability complaints for a model year or so after the change. New platforms or changes to platforms are usually the most notable times for such issues, and "based on" is not enough to negate this being a platform change/introduction.

          Uh, speaking of history, how has Tesla fared with regards to considerable recalls as compared to every other car manufacturer?

          That might actually be a relevant component of the expected failure analysis that would preclude undue concern or even bullshit negative hype.

          No manufacturer is perfect, that is true. But some may be considered a bit more reliable than others, bolstering confidence even with v1.0 designs.

          • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            This is true, and Tesla is not one of them. Tesla has one of the highest recall rates of any manufacturer. If you read their earning reports, recalls are one of the biggest obstacles to sustainability of the company over all. Yes, they have so many recalls and spend so much on them that they might actually put the company out of business.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by goose-incarnated ( 1145029 )

              This is true, and Tesla is not one of them. Tesla has one of the highest recall rates of any manufacturer. If you read their earning reports, recalls are one of the biggest obstacles to sustainability of the company over all. Yes, they have so many recalls and spend so much on them that they might actually put the company out of business.

              Parent needs an informative mod

              • No he does not, since he is lying.

                • No he does not, since he is lying.

                  Speaking of lying, ethics is yet another factor here. If Tesla holds a high ethical stance to be truthful with regards to recalls, as well as a mindset in playing it safe rather than rolling the dice, even an elevated number of Tesla recalls needs to be weighed fairly and accurately against other car vendors who arrogantly can afford to roll the dice, and have plenty of times in the past, skewing statistics.

                  With regards to taking ethics to the worst level, the word liar and Volkswagen are forever synonymou

            • Re: The old adage (Score:5, Informative)

              by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday February 09, 2017 @11:42AM (#53832789)

              Tesla has one of the highest recall rates of any manufacturer.

              That doesn't seem to be true. [boston.com] Through September 2016 Telsa has averaged 936 total recalls per 1,000 vehicles. Porche was the best manufacturer with only 531 recalls, and Volkswagan was the worst with 1805. Of the 18 manfucturers listed in my link, they averaged 1072 recalls, or about 15% higher than Tesla. Toyota for instance had 10% more recalls than Tesla (per car sold) and Ford had 22% more.

              Even though Tesla is only a 10 year old car company, their recall rates are better than companies that have been doing this for 100 years.

            • Worth considering that many (most?) of their recalls have largely been PR stunts - things like armored skid plates to practically turn the thing into a tank. Stuff that other manufacturers with an established reputation and market niche would be tempted to simply ignore - you do enough damage to a car it dies, and maybe blows up. That's expected,. Don't do that.

              Plus, at this point their reference design in the S is damned near indestructible (we'll just ignore software abuse...), and the machine itself is

            • Wrong. Tesla has one of the lowest that are required by law. Only 2 have been done. They have had 2 others that the feds did not require, but Tesla did on own .

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Octorian ( 14086 )

            My first car, a Ford, seemed to get 3 recall notices every month. Basically, every wiring harness in the entire car was eventually going to get a recall notice. After a few years, I stopped getting those.

            My second car, a Toyota, never got any recall notices. I don't know if its because they didn't issue any, or if they simply never made it to my mailing address (and were handled by the service center invisibly).

            I've now had a Tesla for almost two years. The only recall notice I ever got was clearly a fleet-

          • Actually, Tesla has not had but a few recalls ( and always dealing with suppliers ). IIRC, only 2 were required by feds. The other 2 were them playing safe. They do regularly make software updates that improves things, but these are not recalls.
      • 3 is NOT a smaller version of S. Lots of differences. One of the biggest, is inverting the production line, which should increase the quality a great deal.

        • 3 is NOT a smaller version of S.

          It's got 4 wheels and 4 doors, the motor/battery config are fairly standard. Most of the changes are simply smaller/less of to skimp on features that add cost, unlike the X which added stupid expensive doors/seat config which were the cause of most of the issues.

          One of the biggest, is inverting the production line, which should increase the quality a great deal.

          I'm not even sure what you mean by this, I'm sure they aren't starting with a finished car and ending up with raw materials?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bazorg ( 911295 )

      On the other hand, the first lot will have even more attention from Tesla, and all their people who doesn't want to be linked with a PR disaster. If you dislike telemetry, these cars won't be right for you.

      • The first lot of M3 go to those of us that already own Tesla's. We know what to expect and are perfect first owners on these. The first 70k ( and growing ) are just to current American owners . This same approach will likely be used on MY, and I expect that the first 500,000 of those will be Tesla owners ( since European production is expected to start next year ).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 )

      It's the same for the other manufacturers as well. Some new models come out as duds and you don't find until much later. However, I didn't see anyone going around telling people don't buy a new model like the Pinto until you are sure it is safe. Why singling out Tesla when it comes to cars? You could say that the Tesla relies more on software, however it is the car that patches its software faster and much easier than any other.
      I am not a "fanboy" but I sure as hell like to see disruptive technologies succe

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        You're right, it's definitely true for all cars. Virtually no production vehicle is launched without some form of issue. It's always a good idea to wait a year or two after a product launches for the issues to be shaken out and the recalls to have happened.

        In this case however ~400,000 people appear to have lost their collective minds and preordered a car without knowing all but the most minimal information about it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ranton ( 36917 )

          It's always a good idea to wait a year or two after a product launches for the issues to be shaken out and the recalls to have happened.

          Unless you get a $7500 discount from the government by being an early Model 3 owner. I'll put up with a couple extra recalls for $7500.

        • >In this case however ~400,000 people appear to have lost their collective minds and preordered a car without knowing all but the most minimal information about it

          Isn't that always the case though? I mean sure, usually you can kick the tires and read some early reviews of a new model vehicle before buying it, for whatever good that might do, but the problems won't really start being discovered until tens of thousands of the things are on the road. Which means that yeah, it's good advice not to buy the

        • Relax. The first 70k or so will go to current Tesla owners. We know what to expect and check and will help solve the issues.
      • That's not entirely accurate...customers are often advised to avoid initial model year after refresh/introduction by various sources. It's not FUD targeted only at Tesla, it's commonly given advice for people who absolutely do not need to buy a car immediately or who aren't jonesing for that brand new model. Cars unpredictably have failures, even from well-reputed makes, that often do not show up u too the vehicle is in wide use. Giving it a year lets the leaseholders and people who absolutely HAD to have t

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I have first hand experience in this. Purchased a car in 2005 from a car maker with very high reputation for quality. I was one of the first customers, so this happened:
      - Doors would not close smoothly (they tried to improve it, but it never got anywhere near to what you expect from a quality car)
      - Suspension spring broke after three months (they changes the material of the springs soon after launch)
      - Nobody knew how to install the iPod interface, although they were actively marketing it.
      - Car was just too

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      Never buy version 1.0 of anything.

      I would normally agree with this, but because of government incentives early Model 3 owners will likely get between $1875 and $7500 off the sticker price (depending on how early they get their Tesla). While I would be wary of a first model year BMW or Cadillac as well, if they gave 15-20% off the sticker price to buy version 1.0 of their car it would certainly alleviate that worry. The same goes for the Tesla Model 3.

      $7500 to go through 2-3 recalls in the first couple years, along with replacing my 170k mil

    • Because, Tesla, unlike other car makers, works with customers and corrects everything. Their customers service is night and day above regular car makers and I can only guess that rolls is the only one that either approaches or beats them.

  • Meanwhile, you can buy a Chevy Bolt today... (Score:3)

    by Bearhouse ( 1034238 ) on Thursday February 09, 2017 @11:40AM (#53832779)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Stupid name; great car. (and I'm a Ford guy...)

    I'm betting you'll get your Chevy faster than your your Model 3; how long is it going to take to make 370k units?
    Years...even GM (who know a little about mass-producing cars) are only planning to ship 25k units a year, with the possibility of ramping up to 50k units "later".

    Of course, since the Model 3 will end up being more expensive than planned, I'm guessing many of those orders will get cancelled...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Chevy Bolt has very limited DC fast charging capability... typically 45 kW hooked up to available 125A CCS EVSEs. Plus, we don't know the cell degradation on the chemistry that GM/LG is using. Plus, it's an ugly econobox with a very cheap interior.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      Is GM only shipping 25k-50k units because of supply constraints or to not outpace demand? (honest question, I have no idea) But their overall capacity for light vehicles is WAY higher than that, 17.6 million units, according to their website. I understand that they can't just flip the switch and start churning out more vehicles, but it certainly seems like they could ramp up their supply if demand dictated.

      I guess the point i'm trying to make is that, assuming Chevy is producing at the rate they are beca

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jo7hs2 ( 884069 )
        I was assuming demand. GM, and to a greater extend, Ford, learned their lesson about pumping out cars just to meet production numbers. In fact, Ford nearly bankrupted themselves trying to maintain their status as #2 automaker by dumping large numbers of cheaper than reasonable fleet cars (Taurus at $12k for example, etc...) onto the market. There are several good books addressing Ford's recovery that get into this issue. I confirmed when I looked quickly into it. GM says they are not production limiting th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Eloking ( 877834 )

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Stupid name; great car. (and I'm a Ford guy...)

      I'm betting you'll get your Chevy faster than your your Model 3; how long is it going to take to make 370k units?
      Years...even GM (who know a little about mass-producing cars) are only planning to ship 25k units a year, with the possibility of ramping up to 50k units "later".

      Of course, since the Model 3 will end up being more expensive than planned, I'm guessing many of those orders will get cancelled...

      Well, I think we can all admit that the Chevy Bolt is certainly the biggest competitor of the Tesla 3 (well, until the Nissan Leaf upgrade their range), but it's too soon yet to decide which one of the two will be the best.

      Let's wait that the tesla 3 officially launch so we'll have some real number to compare.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Speaking as the owner of two Nissan Leafs and a pre-order holder for a Model 3, I would never buy a Bolt. There are two use cases for cars: normal commuting and long distance travel. For the former, normal around town driving and daily commuting, the nominal range of the Leaf / i3 / i-MiEV / Zoe is plenty and has been ever since they came out. Numerous studies and insurance company data have shown that the average driver drives less than 40 miles a day, so any of the "last generation" electric cars will

    • even GM (who know a little about mass-producing cars) are only planning to ship 25k units a year

      GM doesn't have a pre-order. GM isn't geared for production of electric cars.

      I also have my doubts about Model 3 production, but what GM are or are not doing has nothing to do with Tesla.

    • Sigh. All 400,000+ MS will be delivered by end of 2018. Yes, if you order today, you will not get the 7500 tax break. OTOH, a number of states offer incentives for EVs.

    • Or, you can buy a Chevy Volt today and get the great (if not best) of both worlds.

      My 2017 Volt goes 60 miles on a charge -- it's a *very* rare day when I exceed that. Essentially all of my daily driving is all electric. It has awesome acceleration: zero to 60 in 7.6 seconds. And it has that fantastic electric torque curve. But, when I need to drive across Texas, I don't have to plan ahead. Just gas up and go. Really, in today's world, the Volt is just about perfect.

      I do not work for Chevrolet, just a

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      On paper the Model 3 sounds very attractive. Self driving option, access to the Tesla charger network, regular software updates... If they can deliver and get the quality under control, it will be a great car.

      Have you driven a Bolt? They aren't releasing it in my country. One thing I have found, having driven just about every EV going, is that most have terrible dashboards. They are basically copies of petrol car dashboards with a few changes for EVs. Only the Leaf and Model S really seem to get it, with th

    • It doesn't look like it has anything like Super Charger capability. That, IMHO, is what makes the Tesla technology a real breakout--the ability to charge while you have lunch on a road trip. Less likely to affect most people's decision is the fact that you're giving money to the company that took back the EV-1s and crushed them. All else equal, people who know about things like that may feel better giving money to Tesla.

    • Of course, since the Model 3 will end up being more expensive than planned, I'm guessing many of those orders will get cancelled...

      And more expensive could be more serious issue than many might think - because the Model 3 is already in the range of a high end sedan.

  • When will a sub-$10K electric car be released? The Model 54?

  • There's a serious price gap between the Model S and the Model 3.

    I was kinda hoping that with cheaper battery production the Model S price would come down. Instead the price seems to be slowly creeping up. Admittedly that price includes a lot new features that weren't available three years ago.

    I guess I'm just gripping that they don't have a 100kWh battery model that starts under $95k.

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