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EU Power

Elon Musk Talks New Tesla Model In Europe (electrek.co) 102

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Elon Musk made rare comments about a new Tesla vehicle to be designed in Berlin, adding that the reason behind the new vehicle program is to attract new talent from Europe: "I think there's a lot of talent, talented designers and engineers, in Europe. And a lot of the best people, they want to work somewhere where they are doing original design work. They don't want to just be doing the European version of something that was designed in California. So, I think it's important in order to attract the best talent to do original design." Electrek reports: Tesla has been putting a lot of efforts into attracting top talent and it has been successful at it in its home country. Furthermore, Musk commented on the vehicle segment that Tesla plans to address with a locally designed vehicle: "In Europe, I think it would make sense to do I guess a compact car -- perhaps a hatchback or something like that. Something that answers "what do most people want?' in a given region. In the US, cars tend to be bigger for personal taste reasons and in Europe, it tends to be smaller. If you try to park in dense urban environments, having a car that fits in tight parking spaces is important."

Musk didn't offer a timeline for Tesla to design and build the new electric car in Germany, but it's not expected to hit the market for at least a few more years as Tesla focuses on bringing the European Model Y to production at Gigafactory Berlin next year. You can watch the interview where Musk makes the new comments here.
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Elon Musk Talks New Tesla Model In Europe More

Elon Musk Talks New Tesla Model In Europe

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  • Much of the existing Tesla designs are heavily influenced by the goal of reducing wind resistance as much as possible. Looking sleek and cool is nice but flowing air correctly gives them a few more percentage points of range.

    So what are the new designers going do do exactly? What can they do that doesn't run counter to that?

    • " What can they do that doesn't run counter to that?"

      Smaller, lighter and faster.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dabadab ( 126782 )

      Tesla M3's CD value is 0.23, the same as the current BMW 3er, Audi A4 or Alfa Rome Giulia, so apparenly there is room for styling. Also, the interior of the Teslas are exceptionally ugly, applying some European taste there could go a long way.

      • Re:Form follows function? (Score:4, Funny)

        by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @04:55PM (#60762724) Journal
        Have you seen Ikea furniture, or other furniture or homes with "European Style" interiors?

        Its spartan, minimalistic, and sort of looks like Tesla Model 3 interior.

        If you want a different interior for Tesla you need to recruit talent from the original Star Trek prop creators, who would put glowing jelly beans on consoles...

        • You're seriously likening Ikea to BMW?

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by dabadab ( 126782 )

          I was not talking about being minimalistic but being ugly.

          Ikea is (mostly) minimalistic and (mostly) nice to look at. Tesla's interior is minimalistic and ugly.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          You think Ikea is indicative of "European Style" interiors? You think Tesla interiors look "European Style"? Why not look at a European car interior? Do they look like Ikea furniture?

          Weak sauce.

          • Him thinking that is no problem. It's simply a sign that a European design team is a good idea. USians simply don't know European style.

      • Also, the interior of the Teslas are exceptionally ugly, applying some European taste there could go a long way.

        Not sure where that is coming from, but most times I have stayed in a modern European hotel the room is styled much more like the interior of a Tesla than something like Rococo architecture or Louis XVI furniture. In Europe I see lots of minimalist designs with clean lines, and high-tech fixtures.

        So I wouldn't expect any big breaks from what California is producing.

        • I wouldn't expect any big breaks from what California is producing.

          Then expect disdain from europeans. Who also know how to stick a pallet load of cell phone batteries in a car by the way.

          • Who also know how to stick a pallet load of cell phone batteries in a car by the way.

            My guess is you don't know much about engineering, but this is about like saying someone who can put on a pretty good puppet show in a shipping crate for a stage is equally qualified to produce an OLED television that will kick Samsung and LG out of the market.

            The most pessimistic estimate for Telsa is a 5 year technological lead and they are maintaining it.

            • Zero technical content in your post, you're trying to convince me you're an engineering genius? You're also a bit of an idiot, you know, "open your mouth and remove all doubt" variety. As it happens I work with electric propulsion, I won't elaborate further as I feel you are just posting to create stress.

              • Zero technical content in your post, you're trying to convince me you're an engineering genius?

                That's pretty amusing from the guy who wrote this:

                .. also know how to stick a pallet load of cell phone batteries in a car by the way

                Apparently that is your idea of superb engineering insight.

          • I wouldn't expect any big breaks from what California is producing.

            Then expect disdain from europeans. Who also know how to stick a pallet load of cell phone batteries in a car by the way.

            Modded down by an American I presume. Seriously, expect disdain from Europeans. Go there, look around, try to see an American car, you won't. The few that are there are just conversation pieces, a sort of low key joke.

            • I've actually seen two US cars around here. In fact, both of them were Teslas...so there's that.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jezwel ( 2451108 )
              Norway, 2019:

              The country's best-selling car in 2019 was Tesla's mid-sized Model 3 sedan

              Sep 2020,

              Tesla 3 down to second best seller after VW id3.

              Hardly "won't see an American car", though I will give you that it's only a single Nordic country.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by kuldan ( 986242 )

                I think the OP meant in the conventional automotive space.
                And - Trump complained about this a while ago - he is right: No-one in their right mind buys American cars in Europe. They're absolutely not suited for the local market in almost all criterias you could apply (from design to energy efficiency to size)

            • You know why is that? Because we Europeans are generally too poor to afford American cars. Go to Norway and Sweden where people are more wealthy and you will see quite many American cars from private import - mainly pickups and offroaders, but also many classic cars. A Swedish businessman running a company doing forestry automation can afford an F150 and will buy and F150 because they are great for towing boats and horse trailers. They are alos great for hauling gear into forests, where you may be testing y

              • we Europeans are generally too poor to afford American cars

                Sure! That must be why every German drives a Trabant.

                • Car ownership rates in Europe are much lower than in the us. There are very few households with more than one car, whereas in California everyone who can drive owns a car. The cars in Europe are also much smaller. Popular cars in Europe are Renault Captur, with a 0.9l base engine, or Peugeot 208 with a 1.2l engine. Both cars have around 90 HP in base models. For comparison, people in America roll in Honda Civics with 150 hp engines. Very few people in the US buy cars smaller than the Civc.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          Well, according to you designers only concern themselves with wind resistance anyway, so who cares. I'm sure the Cd of those modern European hotels is great. Are these hotel rooms blank slabs with a giant tablet computer velcro'd to them? I mean, what else is there for designers to do? Telsa design work is done.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Also, the interior of the Teslas are exceptionally ugly, ..."

        Cannot be said too strongly. Also, engineers have a lot of work to do to correct the worst quality cars on the planet. Manufacturability is an engineering problem. Who knew?

        • "Also, the interior of the Teslas are exceptionally ugly, ..."

          Cannot be said too strongly.

          Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I accept your take and the fact that many people probably feel the same way.

          For me, in my Model 3, I spend most of the time looking out the windows, not at the interior. And when I am looking at interior it's at the display. Whether or not the rest of the interior is ugly or not makes no difference - to me.

          I suspect owners of cars with "beautiful" interiors only really look at them while they're picking out the car.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by kuldan ( 986242 )

            Beauty and uglyness can also be the interface design - and I dread when I am moving to my next car as it will inevitably have a touchscreen for important functions.

            I'm a tech guy, I work in IT, but I think touchscreens in cars are one of the worst developments we had in the last 10 or so years.

            I get the advantages it gives to tesla in the sense that they can add / change features after the fact, but numerous studies have shown that controlling a car via touchscreen for basic functions is a bad idea. And yes

            • The lights and wipers CAN be set to auto, but you can also manually trigger the wipers using a button on the turn signal lever. High beams/low beams can be turned on/off with the other lever.

              Besides seat heaters and climate controls, which you're right, you can access using voice control, what other functions do you wish the Model 3 had tactile controls for?

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by kuldan ( 986242 )

                Honestly, it begins with things like a latch for the storage compartment on the passengers side (again, Tesla has reasons why they do it like they do, I just don't like it), adjusting the air stream for the vents (obviously not possible with Teslas design), a HUD (never buying a car without it anymore), a central instrument cluster behind the steering wheel (this can be replaced by a HUD in my eyes), heated front and back window controls (my car has both)...

                • Can't say much about that stuff, especially considering that you don't have much luck with voice commands.

                  I was really worried about the lack of central instrument cluster behind the steering wheel before I bought the car, I even found an aftermarket HUD that I could purchase to deal with that. But after driving it, I found that what would be in the central instrument cluster, was closer to my forward view than the rear view mirror was. And since I'm used to checking my rear view mirror every 10 seconds

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          engineers have a lot of work to do to correct the worst quality cars on the planet.

          We're not talking about Ford in this thread, just Tesla.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by kuldan ( 986242 )

            Is Ford that bad in the US?

            I know Ford in Europe had a lot of issues with steel quality when they built in eastern Europe, and your car basically rusted away after about 10 years (owned a 1992 and 1994 Ford, and they both exactly made it to 10 years until being uneconomical to maintain).

            But - I own a German-built 2004 Ford that has been my daily driver for the last 10 years, that I have modified in more than one way, has had multiple parking dents, big deep scrapes and bends in almost all parts of the exter

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by cusco ( 717999 )

              Here in the US they joke that Ford is an acronym for "Found On Road Dead" or "Fix Or Repair Daily". The exception is their truck line, which except for minor cosmetic modifications they've been producing unchanged since the 1970s so they have that down pat.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Alworx ( 885008 )

      I'd probably ask the guys at Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, Pagani, Maserati, Porsche, Pininfarina, .... ;-)

    • It's more about the passion of designing something new vs. iterating on the next year's model of Ford Sedan. It speaks to the type of talent they want to attract.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      It is an exercise in marketing. A European design and that is the some total of the intent, 'A European Design', that is all it is about. Tesla is about to run face first into a whole range of experienced competitors with a less than reliable vehicle (more to do with a lack of decades of experience in vehicle production).

      Right now with Tesla way overvalued, it would be a good idea, simply to use Tesla shares as junk bonds and buy an EU car manufacturer. Volkswagen would probably be a good fit, kind of a rev

      • The established players don't always win. It's called market disruption.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Yeah the disruption is coming to an end as they are playing catchup and doing a really good job of it and unless Tesla makes big moves it will fail. The logical move, use overpriced shares to buy an existing auto manufacturer to rapidly expand the range and sales and to 'electrify' that manufacturer. As it stands at the moment Tesla will lose out, not much competition, with a lot of very biased environmental support (which will no disappear) to lots of competition. The disruption will now be going in the ot

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Brannon ( 221550 )
            So again, just like how all the established cell phone vendors caught up and crushed the iPhone?

            There are two fundamental concepts that you need to learn:

            1. When there are big technology shifts, usually there is a significant cull and only some of the established players survive.
            2. Tesla doesn't need 80% market share to be a success, just like Apple is a trillion dollar company even though they are like #3 in worldwide smartphone sales.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by kuldan ( 986242 )

              If you look outside the US, this is basically what happened.

              Apple has a very high market share in the US, but that is an outlier in the global picture. Android is much more dominant globally.

              I think globally, Apple/Android is something like Apple/Android/other 10%/85%/5% - and even in a rich country like Germany, the sales are still 1/4 Apple 3/4 Android.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Brannon ( 221550 )
                Please read point #2 in the post you responded to and read it all the way to the end.

                Tesla doesn't need to completely own the EV market, and Apple doesn't need to completely own the smartphone market. Apple is a nearly $2T company despite having a minority share of the worldwide smartphone market.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by kuldan ( 986242 )

            Unfortunately, VW pretty much botched the Launch of the ID.3 - they should have given it 6 months more development until they put it out in the public.

            But, the lineup ID lineup they have shown so far looks pretty good, and much better suited to the EU market than the S3XY Truck Lineup from Tesla, so I do think designing a car in Europe for the European market is a very good idea.

            Tesla as a car manufacturer has many issues, but the biggest challenge to their supremacy will not come from other Automakers dire

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Much of the existing Tesla designs are heavily influenced by the goal of reducing wind resistance as much as possible. Looking sleek and cool is nice but flowing air correctly gives them a few more percentage points of range.

      So what are the new designers going do do exactly?

      Not be American.

      Oh,, sorry...that was probably a bit too blunt calling out the underlying reason Elon is now scouting outside the dumpster fire that is the "United" States right now...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "talented designers and engineers". Virtually everything designers and engineers do is unrelated to "wind resistance".

    • There is much more to design than shape. While shape is the most visible and, in some people's minds, the most glamorous, there are many more interesting design challenges waiting for the right engineer.

    • For instance sedans aren't popular in Europe. In the luxury car segment, the stationwagon is far more popular. Designers from Europe, designing for Europe know this. So they could conceivably design a Model 3 Stationwagon.

      This of course is not the only difference in taste between Europe and the US. In Europe range is far less important: people rarely drive more than 250 km in a day. Most rarely drive more than 100 km in a day. So an entry level low range (say 300 km) cheap Tesla could be a succes in Europe

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        Actually most drivers in the US rarely drive more than 50 kilometers in a day, although you'll find very few of them actually believe it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by kuldan ( 986242 )

        Ford is an interesting example, as there has been less commonality than difference across these markets. Ford of Europe and Ford USA were practically two different companies that had their own design teams that just shared some common parts between cars..

        (And for the record, the Mondeo always was vastly superior to the Fusion anyway.. ;)

  • Not one bit!

  • Please let there be a Tesla Superleggera!! (Wrong country, though)

  • Might work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Tuesday November 24, 2020 @04:46PM (#60762706)
    Normally I'm a bit of a critic of Tesla, but I do think there's a good chance for success in Europe. Europe tends to be centralized around key urban areas unlike the US which is heavily suburban, and there's a stronger trend towards de-carbonization than in the US. Plus he's right about Europe's tendency towards smaller cars; the cities were built long before cars were a thing so smaller cars that can fit into streets that tend to be tighter would be a positive thing in many European cities. Plus with a lot more commuting happening within a city, they can shoot for a smaller car reducing weight which gives better range between charges, and can go for smaller battery packs meaning they can sell the cars at a cheaper price, making them affordable. So this to me makes logical sense.
    • There are already a few smaller EVs with limited range on the market here: VW, MG, Opel, Renault, Seat and Skoda are just a few who have such an EV in their lineup, or will have soon. It would be interesting to see how Tesla would compete in this market. They have already shown that they can do well on manufacturing costs, and compete on price. Or perhaps their tech will be a compelling selling point. For instance: manufacturers here think that offering a small car with a smaller battery means that they

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        There are already many EVs with better range and lower cost than a Model 3 as well. The market is getting crowded and any new entrant will have to produce something pretty special to compete.

        For example you can get a Leaf 62 for around £30k, range 240 miles. A Kona or eNiro is a few k more list but with finance/lease deals they are very affordable, something like half the price of a base Model 3 for TCO, and range is around 280-300 miles. VW had just launched the ID3 as well, and it is getting s

        • We prefer slightly taller cars that are easy to get in and out of.

          Sure, but Tesla prefers not to make a people mover because it would make them look stodgy. More likely they will make a subcompact for your market, and it will be just as low as their other vehicles. When you raise up an EV the forces on the suspension add up quickly due to the weight involved.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            We are only talking a little taller, still a saloon shape. Well, we really prefer hatchbacks and crossovers it seems.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by grogger ( 638944 )
      Might be a bit challenging recharging though since there are few private parking spots inside most of the older cities, resulting in more street parking. This will make it harder for the owners to charge overnight . Also less places to put super-charging stations in cities with an extreme premium on space. Of course since urban dwellers tend not to drive as often or as far as North Americans this might be less an issue than here in Canada but it will require some innovative charging solutions. That shou
      • I'd mod you insightful if I could; didn't even think of that! That would put a bit of a crimp in Tesla's plans. However they seem to ride their brand's star power well enough to where owners are interested in installing the charging stations on their property near commercial parking to make themselves seem forward thinking. Good insight though!

      • Might be a bit challenging recharging though since there are few private parking spots inside most of the older cities, resulting in more street parking.

        Many European countries have charging infrastructure a-plenty. There's a reason electric car adoption in Europe is putting the USA to shame and it has nothing to do with Tesla.

        People currently park cars somewhere. Those somewhere can get charging stations. Like my nextdoor neighbour who works for BYD, when he got a company car he just told the government and they put a charging station up on the street outside our apartment.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 )
      Reduce weight, that gives better efficiency so it would get more range is a typical projection made by ICEV people coming into the EV world.

      In an EV weight reduction has 30 times less bang for the buck compared to ICEV. The root cause of inefficiency in ICEV is, when it brakes it converts all the kinetic energy into heat and throws it away. This is why ICEV has much longer range in highways compared to stop and go city driving. So weight reduction directly reduces the wasted kinetic energy and improves ef

      • Toyota came close with its Prius. Prius has very similar range in highways and stop and go traffic. Because it also stopped the engine at traffic light and never used ICE below 9 mph unless the battery was drained, they did not pay full attention to regen side of it. It has a mild regen more to decorate the display with green car icons than for anything useful.

        My classmate said he had access to Toyota engineers and they had dismissed regen as "not worth pursuing, it can only recover 7% of the kinetic ener

        • Excellent observation. The brakes are dissipating an enormous amount of power, and if you want to do regen efficiently you need to be able to absorb that power. Fast charging, long range, fast acceleration and strong regen go all hand in hand.

          • Tesla Model S, since 2012 had a regen energy display in the binnacle, showing everyone how much energy they are absorbing. It was marked in kW and most non technical people did not know kW and HP are similar to Celsius and Fahrenheit. But the other engineers knew, they looked at it, it is not some super secret thing Tesla was hiding or anything. In your face display showing regen exceeding 120 kW, on the dash! Still they were installing 8 kW chargers for their cars! The investment in heavy duty chargers pay

      • Also, in electric cars the factor limiting the power is the battery size. Bigger battery means more power. Using a more powerful electric motor enables also a higher degree of recuperation. I see non-Tesla electric cars with 150 HP and I am thinking to myself what the hell are they doing? The engineers certainly know what a bigger motor will give them more regen, so who is the idiot capping the motor power?

        • The weight, energy, power budget gets decided very early in the design cycle of the vehicle. Typically the handbooks they have for trade off between power and efficiency etc are based on decades of ICEV experience. So 150 HP ICE is their idea of decent balance between efficiency and performance. They did not really grok the electric motor. 300HP motor is not all that expensive compared to 150 HP nor is it much inefficent, nor is it too heavy. Its a lesson they will learn only after one or two design cycles.

      • Reduce weight, that gives better efficiency so it would get more range is a typical projection made by ICEV people coming into the EV world.

        You talk as if Volkswagen is a newbie [porsche.com] in the EV world.

        • This plot [cleantechnica.com] is part of the lawsuit between a Tesla founder and Elon Musk. It is filed in courts in 2003. So internally it is probably older than even the founding of Tesla as a company or part of work done by Musk's team before investing and eventually acquiring controlling interest in Tesla.

          This is the pay dirt. If you understand this plot, you would understand why Tesla did this well. Porsche, Cayenne etc are not the leading edge, they are the followers of the trail blazed by Tesla.

          No car company is a

          • The only trail that Tesla blazed is the financing model. Otherwise they just bolted standard stuff together. The rest is hype.

            • The only trail that Tesla blazed is the financing model. Otherwise they just bolted standard stuff together. The rest is hype.

              Maybe for the [original] Roadster, which I haven't looked deeply into electronics-wise. But since, Tesla designed their own motor controllers and even their own motors. They designed their own electrodes and built battery packs out of cells using them. They have even designed unique suspension components using designs formerly unknown. Shame about not bolting them together properly, but that's another topic. The fact is that Tesla came up with substantially new hardware.

              • See, Tesla can't do anything right in my book every since Musk outed himself as a pandemic asshole. Thanks for playing devil's advocate, you certainly found a devil.

          • And yeah, impressive to see that plot from 2003 but the same ideas actually go back a hundred years.

        • Reduce weight, that gives better efficiency so it would get more range is a typical projection made by ICEV people coming into the EV world.

          You talk as if Volkswagen is a newbie [porsche.com] in the EV world.

          Not to mention Mercedes Benz, who have won 7 straight constructors titles in Formula One, whose cars are the most sophisticated hybrids on earth. Electric tech that makes Teslas seem like kid's toys.

          https://media.daimler.com/mars... [daimler.com]

          • Hybrids are a blind alley. All the complexity of ICE just for having practically unlimited energy storage on board. Battery power density is doubling and cost is halving every seven years. For race cars, they can do a battery swap as fast as they can refuel. Key is battery, regen, quad motor, vectored torque, one pedal driving. Hybrids can delay, but cant stop the death of ICEV.

            No on would have believed the days of steam locos were numbered back in 1952. But a batch of locos for Pennsylvania Railroad made

            • EVs will take over eventually but there is an infrastructure problem for people who live in the sticks. For those people, mild hybrids will make more sense for probably decades, because charging stations are being installed so gradually — most of them in places such people avoid deliberately. And with people leaving cities in significant numbers due to Covid, and many of them probably not going back, the lack of availability of quick chargers is going to slow adoption. If you brake early then a mild h

            • FI cars don't swap batteries (or refuel for that matter). They do a lot of very heavy duty regen though, braking very quickly from 350km/h or more. Their current 800V systems will soon be replaced by 1000V+ systems. Whether you like hybrids or not, in this case they are test beds for some very exotic electric technology, and like in the past we can expect the tech from racing to trickle down to road cars in due course.

              And while you may think one pedal driving is cool, I can't think of many things I would

      • In an EV weight reduction has 30 times less bang for the buck compared to ICEV. The root cause of inefficiency in ICEV is, when it brakes it converts all the kinetic energy into heat and throws it away. This is why ICEV has much longer range in highways compared to stop and go city driving. So weight reduction directly reduces the wasted kinetic energy and improves efficiency. EV will convert it back to electricity and charge the battery. So weight of the car plays much smaller role.

        Weight plays an equal role in both types of vehicles if you want it to handle and corner well.

        • True, heavy cars handle sluggishly. Nothing can be done to inertia.

          But EVs can have two, three or four independent motors, and ICEV is restricted to one powerplant and complex transmissions, limited slip differentials and transfer cases. (Though some recent hybrids use an electric motor for one axle and ICE for another). Electronically controlled vectored torque is possible in EVs. We can put some wheels in regen and others in drive with micro second differences between them. When it comes to cornering wit

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The Leaf motors are an old design and not very efficient. A better comparison would be with BMW's drivetrain or Hyundai's drivetrain. The Hyundai one is the king of EV efficiency, the Ioniq being the most efficient mass produced EV on the road. It's only got 88kW (118 HP).

        • Each car company will eventually make very efficient motors, no question about it.

          The point I am making is, going from a 150 HP ICE to 300 HP ICE is a huge step. Lot more expensive, lot heavier, lot less efficient. Going from 150 HP electric motor to 300 HP or even 450 HP electric motor is neither as expensive, nor as heavy, nor as inefficient. The stopping capacity of brakes can be measured in HP. It is typically in the range of 250 HP and above. A weak motor can not capture all the kinetic energy back t

  • Although I think Musk is right that a large number of U.S. buyers want larger cars, there is I think a pretty significant number of people who would like a smaller U.S. car as well.

    Companies like MINI have been making ever larger cars so it would be great for an auto maker to trim down to a more compact size again...

    Only downside I could see, is possibly very significant range impact. But since the whole car would be lighter, maybe not.

    • There is a lot of cargo space in the Model 3. The frunk, the "well" in the trunk ... So we can reconfigure the Model3 as a smaller car with enough space for 60 to 80 kWh of batteries.

    • People in the US do want smaller cars. But only in a niche way.

      Sadly, the big automakers would rather leave that money on the table or try and convert those buyers to SUVs then give them (me!) what they want.

      Deathwatch:
      Honda Fit: cancelled
      Chevy Spark: Cancelled
      Chevy Sonic: cancelled
      Ford Fiesta: cancelled
      Ford Focus: cancelled
      Fiat 500: cancelled
      Mitsubishi Mirage: questionable continuation
      Toyota Yaris: cancelled
      Nissan versa note: cancelled
      Kia Rio: continuing
      Hyundai accent hatch: cancelled

      But, for instance, Hon

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kuldan ( 986242 )

      It's funny that US car sizes have grown so much that what is now called a "sub-compact" in the US might now be classified as a mid-sized car in Europe..

      I once got booked a car via my company, and they told me I will get a "sub-compact".. and I basically expected a Smart Car and complained. They laughed and gave me a car that was about the size of a BMW 3 series...

  • Something in the suzuki swift / volkswagen golf size class would be a good addition to the range.

    • VW is building a golf-sized EV, why compete? Better to make something different.

      I think Tesla should make an EV white van.

  • In Europe Tesla needs a station wagon and a small hatchback-SUV that is essentially a hatchback on stilts, like the Renault Captur. In Europe the niche filled in the US by pickups is filled by station wagons and vans like the VW Transporter or Ford Transit Custom. So Tesla would need an equivalent of VW Transporter too.

    • This. (At least the first part). Where the hell is the EV station wagon from, well, *anybody*?

      Electric vehicles still need to be as efficient as possible until ranges get to the 500+ mile level, yet if you want luggage capacity, apparently you have to have an SUV with the aerodynamic profile of a brick wall and the handling of an angry cow. Hardly the height of efficiency

      I really don't understand why every manufacturer is doing this, especially in Europe, where Sportwagon / StationWagon sales are s

  • . . . the car will be proud to say . . .

    Ich bin ein Berliner!

    Except, the folks I know from Berlin would probably say "ick" or "icke" instead of "ich".

    And they would probably say "Pfannkuchen" instead of "Berliner" . . . but that would kinda sorta spoil the joke.

    . . . although . . . Musk might like that joke, and name the new car appropriately.

  • Compacts and Subcompacts are also a popular vehicle segment in NA.

    My family has always owned a large vehicle (currently a Dodge Ram) and a small vehicle (currently a Honda Fit), such that both of them will fit in our garage.

    The *entire reason* we do not own a Tesla, nor have a preorder, is because the entire Tesla lineup is too large for our tastes. All of the Model S,3,X,Y are *too large* for our garage with the pickup. And the Cybertruck, is too large in general, with any compact car.

    • Compacts and Subcompacts are also a popular vehicle segment in NA.

      No, they really aren't. I'm saying this as an American that honeslty likes compact cars. Pretty much nobody else does.
      Here, the size of the vehicle is largely associated with how nice it is. It is simply beyond most people's comprehenstion that a small car could ever be nice.

      • Here, the size of the vehicle is largely associated with how nice it is. It is simply beyond most people's comprehenstion that a small car could ever be nice.

        Modern cars have too much padding for a small car to ever be nice. Even full-size pickup trucks are now cramped because of all the plastic bullshit. I remember when I could stretch out, and I'm two meters tall. And it was only a generation or so ago.

        Hobbits might enjoy small cars, but not full-sized Americans. We just don't fit in them.

        • Modern cars have too much padding for a small car to ever be nice. Even full-size pickup trucks are now cramped because of all the plastic bullshit.

          That's more to do with how fat your typical American is. We don't have a problem here in Europe. I have a Ford Focus which is also sold in the USA and my 6'4" son has no problems sitting in the back without his head hitting the roof and we've managed to get 5 adults in it just fine.

          • That's more to do with how fat your typical American is. We don't have a problem here in Europe.

            Much of Europe is now about in the middle of the fatness index, so while Americans shouldn't be pointing our fat fingers (and I wasn't) it's probably not such a good idea for Europeans either any more.

            The vehicles' interiors have swollen to improve crash standards. There's more space to crush before you hit a human, and you can stuff airbags in there.

      • I see a lot of families with one big vehicle that they use for everything including vacations and carting the kids to sports. If they need a second vehicle because both parents drive to work, it's mainly for commuting so they pick something optimized for fuel efficiency and these tend to be small.

        But that could just be in my area.

  • Talent (Score:2)

    by dknj ( 441802 )

    is the new resource. we are not people working on these products. we are resources. now we have been upgraded to the talent that works on these products. nice one elon!

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