Featured Model 3 has 310 mile range

Not wanting to call anyone out, but its intriguing that some here quickly / eagerly run up the flag - M3's losing money on the 1st batches. What are you supposed to do with that ......
Hey! I know! Let's put it in the same file with the people who wanted to run up the flag that the Gen 2 Prius was losing money on each unit sold .....

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Gotta pay to play

 

most likely true .... how ever consider also, that the present-day gasoline car doesn't "truly" provide "real" freedom. Manufacturers don't seem willing to install 50 gallon gas tanks in a Prius or Camry so that I can drive nearly 1,400 miles from so Cal to the flat head valley Montana. So I have to stop in Salt Lake City to refuel - around the 700 mile mark. So frustrating. Yet the cars still sell, even w/out "real freedom". Never mind the fact that Marathon drives like that (me) are such a tiny fraction of 1% of all drivers, & that a manufacturer would be insane to cater to such a pathetically small minority. Yet .... after a while .... a gas stop at 700 miles becomes ubiquitous for us marathon drivers. Is that crazy or what ....

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One could argue that this is nearly a perfect business strategy. Market share is not synonymous with profitability. Apple has usually not led market share in any segments, but became the largest publicly trade company by selling premium "niche" products to their faithful and grew a halo and captured lower and lower income segments. They still don't make any low end, narrow profit margin stuff.

Other vehicle manufacturers would dream to do the same thing if they could. But this has high potential to be handsomely profitable for Tesla. The market certainly thinks so.

The $35k (after incentives) and under crowd will largely have to wait for a while if they want a Tesla. They may choose a Bolt now or the Leaf 2.0 which will probably be available here around the same time as a $35k Tesla. But manufacturers don't really care about bringing world greendom by putting a sub $35k vehicle in everyone's home parking spot. They would all sell only the highest optioned vehicles if they could. Tesla can approach this, so they are, and they will continue to do so.

Tesla owner satisfaction remains ridiculously high. Everyone I have spoken to who owns one (n ~20) loves them. As long as there is a waiting list of premium buyers (many of whom don't have premium pocket books), the party will continue.

 

I love terms like "niche". They sound like a put down, but hold zero information.
Care to share with us what you mean by niche?
Are hybrids a "niche" market now?
It could be argued that sedans are a niche market.
You could even say the F-150 is a niche product, yet, as I recall, it is the single biggest seller of vehicles.

As for freedom, I would never return to the lack of freedom gas vehicle once gave me.

 

Interesting article which claims that after incentives, (base) Tesla Model 3 costs the same as Prius ;-)
Tesla Model 3 costs about the same as a Toyota Prius with incentives - Red, Green, and Blue

 

at the speed battery tech is advancing, and costs are dropping, i don't expect to have to wait until my grandchildren are old, unless you're talking about when they get their drivers licenses.

 

+1

Musk was rich before tesla, and bet most of his money at one point, now he's uber rich. I don't think its out of the the goodness of his heart He had a vision, and tesla was making something close to what he wanted. Now after a lot of work, a few misteps, but great management, they are at the threshold of being a technology game changer.

GM could have been here first. They murdered the ev1 and burried the battery patents, because they were scared the government would make them canabalize their cash cow. They instead invested money in hydrogen and hummer. American taxpayers had to bail them out. Toyota could have done it, but they thought hybrids and fuel cells would be more profitable. Hybrids have been short term, but ... They missed a grand opportunity to make an electric Camry. Internally they didn't think the batteries were good enough, because they didn't have tesla's vision to make inexpensive batteries reliable with sensors and cooling. BMW, VW, and mercedes all could have done it too. They were more interested in selling diesels. VW and mercedes look like they colluded to cheat to fool regulators.

The other companies, I don't think had the management or money to do it.

BMW is scared, very scared about tesla. I think Lexus should be too.

 

I sent in my deposit in April, 2017. Assembly is not expected until late 2018 or early 2019 .... which is fine with me.
I was initially shocked at the $9K price for 90 more miles. Given more thought, I can live with that, and put the money in other upgrades. By my due date .... I fully expect the supercharger network to have expanded.

If I had any lingering disappointment ... $1K for paint other than black. Comparatively .... its a small amount. But "greedy."

I do believe that many changes will occur over the next 15 months. Tesla makes changes when needed ....not waiting for the next model year.
Finally, my brother owns a Tesla S .... every time I talk to him he tells me what a great automobile it is (and he is a car-guy having owned Mercedes', BMW's, a Porsche, as well as Toyota's and Lexus')

 

never took the trouble to verify the fact, but it's often stated that the traditional Automotive stealership gets ~50% of its income from fixing its ICE cars. So between lost luxury vehicle sales, lost maintenance/repair business, & Tesla's impending low cost M3 ready to potentially take more business, the horizon might look a little stormy from their perspective.
I'm just jaded enough to wonder about the traditional auto industries' sincerity with electric vehicles. Being old enough to remember Netscape Navigator being crushed when Microsoft gave away their junkie browser, that kind of tactic wiped out businesses much better than Microsoft & then they found that tactic successful with their other junk products. Wouldn't be within the realm of impossibility for the automotive industry to try something like that.
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The Bolt has a fixed production volume.

GM will make their stated volume or go home.

I'm hoping it drives prices down but that's only because it will be cheaper for me to pick a leftover in 2018.

My thought is that EVs are a bygone conclusion by now, my worry is that fuel prices will collapse and bad EV taxation decisions will cripple the industry near term.

 

44% in 2013, probably lower now. Its higher in bad economic times, so I would bet 2008 it was much higher than 50% for service. Key profitable items are financing, extended warranties, and used cars.

call it the model 3 which does compete with the bmw 3 series, the bmw M3 though is much faster etc. The P version of the model 3 will likely compete with the bmw M3. Yes the model 3 is a danger to the dealership model. Tesla will make the most money if its low maintenance, which will force competitors to make their cars lower maintenance, and then they will have to give more money on new car sales to dealerships.

Well if we take the netscape example, and I can't remember most of it - aol bought netscape, and it stopped developing as well. microsoft built a better browser and gave it away on pc's and macs for free. netscape had open sourced its source code and open source used it to create fire fox, and open source community maintained it better than Netscape.

If this is correct users got a better experience from fire fox and internet explorer than they would by a aol owned badly manged Netscape. Now there is an even better internet explorer, chrome, safari, and opera - progress has been made. Microsoft's fears of a browser based computer has now materialized with chrome books. If this happens with plug-ins I'll be happy. Google, Microsoft, and apple have all made money making better browsers, and users have benefited. If tesla dies because someone buys them for lots of money, but 3 other companies make better bevs - that would be great. BMW and GM want to be two of those companies, but I think tesla will probably stick around.

 

I think aside from Tesla, which realizes fast charging infrastructure is necessary for their business model, car manufacturers expect to only be responsible for making cars and assume that other companies will build out fueling or charging infrastructure, as has been happening for the last several decades with gas stations. To some extent I agree with them, as there are some companies that are doing exactly that. But there is also a need to have at least a basic fast charging infrastructure in place before electric vehicle sales really take off. Tesla has built that basic infrastructure in some places and is constantly expanding it to ensure people see electric cars as an option. And because they built the infrastructure and currently only their vehicles can use it, they have the best chance of selling significant numbers of electric cars before anyone else. And the fact that they started at the top of the price market and are slowly working their way down to more reasonable prices and greater sales volume has helped their brand image as well.

I think the Model 3 is going to either spur Tesla's growth as a company far more than they planned or create some significant spin-offs. Increasing their manufacturing by a factor of 10 requires increasing the charging network, service centers, etc. in the same proportion (or more). So in order to remain as a life cycle integrated vehicle company (they build the cars, charge the cars, repair the cars, and buy back and resell or recycle the cars), they need to massively expand.

 

We don't actually know that, though - they don't list it in the specs, but they don't advertise the base Model S's standard cruise control either, as far as I know.

 

Here's a Twitter page of someone who already ordered, & was nice enough to link;
zl (@sfmartinlin) | Twitter
so you can see what the configurator page looks like (those who have a lengthy wait) & how outrageous these first run editions are - when/if fully optioned. Ballpark all optioned out to the max - it appears around $60,000 which still doesn't include your local state tax.
Whew !!
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All out range isn't an issue for me, but the availability of fueling anytime in the next 10 minutes with maybe a mile excursion off the highway counts a lot. When the kid in the back seat or the wife in the front tells me they gotta go, then I want to combine a refuel stop RIGHT NOW with a pit stop for all without having to search through some app and drive out of my way. A dangerous distraction I don't need.

I'm going 250 miles one way to DC to deliver some medical equipment to a friend this next weekend and to go to a memorial service that starts at 2PM. I don't have extra time. My v's entire trunk plus 2/3 of the back seat is full of stuff before luggage is added. Wife's Avalon wouldn't handle the bulk, doubt the Model 3 or i3 would either. I could get a Rav4h but loose cargo space and 20% MPG and have to spend $25k to do it. My v's gas tank will be full when I leave. 2 hours later I'll stop at the lowest priced gas station between here and there for a pit/gas stop and that will be the last I'll need to stop till I get back.

Now suppose I had a 200 MPC (miles per charge) EV. Could I stop for 15 minutes one time within sight of I95? Yes. Could I choose, should I need/want to, to stop at a rest stop and skip the fuel stop? No. Could I stop once either 20 miles earlier or 20 miles later? No. Could I have 20 options within 20 miles should the power be off or the refueling stations in use at my chosen refueling spot? No. Would the stop take 15 minutes? No. It is the darn flexibility of the gassing infrastructure that makes the EV problematical for me. The stories of the i3 trips above only reinforce the concern. Ditto the recharging times. The house we'll stay at has 110, nothing beyond that. I could recharge overnight there. But then the same issues on the return trip minus the time constraints.

If I could get an EV the size of the Model X with less goodies for the price of the v, I'd buy one today as my second car. Maybe even for $15k more. I want one, they don't make mine yet.