Featured Model 3 has 310 mile range

That is exactly right. We still are dependent on gas burners for transportation. Current EVs can serve only a subset of needs and it is nearly impossible to have an EV as the only vehicle. This is my point exactly. I am very much pro-EV and have said many times that it is the best way to power a vehicle, certainly better than ICE in terms of efficiency and gives wider choice of primary source of power (before it's generated as electricity). I am thinking in terms of future when we do not have to burn fossil fuel for cars any more and we are not there yet.

 

We are a two vehicle household with one of them being a midrange BEV (Leaf). The other is our PiP. Unless we go on a road trip we virtually never burn gas.
That being said, we plan to replace the PiP with a Model 3 in a couple years (unless something more attractive to us comes along in the EV world). We definitely are going full EV though, regardless.
We live in the midwest and take road trips 200+ miles very frequently, with some over 500+. I have zero worry about the Tesla infrastructure providing what we need. I understand everyone has different needs though.

 

true, if "we" - is the last 135 years of 6,000 years of all civilized cultures (~2% of time), & "we" discounts folks who only ride bikes, or many 3rd world/agrarian tribal folk, or ev families, or future cultures - maybe <50yrs out, based on intersecting population increases / renewables decreasing ....
yea .... THAT "we" ....

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The big problem with battery swapping is the colossal infrastructure investment that's required, combined with the fact that the infrastructure has to be platform-specific (each vehicle platform will have different batteries, mounting methods, cooling systems, interconnects, and the like). There's only been one successful battery swapping network, and it's Gogoro's, which uses 1.3 kWh batteries, which can easily be transported by humans without requiring robots, have no cooling to hook up, and drop onto a battery connector on the scooter.

Although, while I myself cite Tesla's battery swap attempts as being a mark against car battery swapping... it was one station, you had to make an appointment for the swap, you had to come back to the station to get your battery back, and the target audience was early adopters of the Model S, who were already fine with home charging and Supercharging rates - one swap station aimed at people who strongly believe in electric vehicles despite their limitations isn't the greatest illustration of battery swapping's issues.

 

Would be interesting to know if the Model 3 was made with any possibility of a "quick" battery swap.

 

I agree the fast charging is essential for an EV to replace a gasoline car. But the use case you outlined does not require fast charging at home - just at a gas station equivalent.

kevin

 

Tesla already has a published price to go up from a 90kWh to 100kWh. That being the case & how Tesla supported the long ago Roadster by offering up a bigger pack to go from about 260 to 400 miles .... they've done a lot more than most manufacturers as it relates to upgradability. Nissan on the other hand has emphatically abandoned the original Leaf slugs like ours that only got maybe 78 miles when new, does that say could never be upgraded to the better ones - that do near 100 miles range. Thanks nissan -
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For the Model 3? I didn't think they even published the kWh amount anymore. They said they were just naming range from here on out.

 

This will just lead to cheaper electric cars in the long run. Tesla will probably never come down in price, but I bet they make another smaller car that will be cheaper and have incredible range!

 

Tesla is bleeding money, lots of it daily. I don't know how much longer Mr Musk can come up suckers to invest in his dreams, could be everybody is lining up to buy an orphan.

 

too big to fail. same thing happened with amazon.

 

shorting the stock isn't goung well for ya, eh?

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Tesla's goal is to develop and spread a clean and sustainable ecosystem. And unlike some of their competitors, they not only realize all the factors needed for that to happen, but they also want to be a part of each of them. So Tesla is making solar panels, battery storage packs, electric vehicles and vehicle batteries, a network of fast chargers to use with said electric vehicles, and all the showrooms and service centers to replace car dealerships and dealer service garages. They're trying to build the whole ecosystem themselves, or at least get it going. And as a result, they're spending enormous sums of money to make it all work.

For a company that acts this way, investors have to consider if they can pull off what they're trying to do. If they cannot do it, then the company will crash and collapse. But if Tesla can be successful at what they're trying to accomplish, then they will be a world leader in a number of markets and poised to make billions. And currently, enough investors believe Tesla can reach its goals that it's valued above other car companies with more pedestrian goals.

 

I just sat down and read the last four pages of comments. Great comments, and I am educated by the thoughts expressed.

Interestingly .... this is a Toyota forum .... but Toyota was mentioned very infrequently.
I have read elsewhere that Toyota (due to it's conservative nature) will find itself left behind ..... at least in America.
Toyota seems to have cast it's lot with hydrogen .... but I rarely read anything about hydrogen (positive or negative).

A page or two back a writer said he did not want to wait to charge (or something to that effect) referring to a 5 min. gas-up.
My understanding is that (with todays battery technology) repeated fast charging will degrade the battery longevity and performance. Tesla seems to have found a reasonable partial solution to the problem.

On the highway (at least in our area) Tesla superchargers are most often located along the Interstate at or adjacent to restroom and eating establishments.
Maverick just announced many locations where high speed chargers would be constructed at their stations.

 

Median vs. mean. Be careful here. The median is the MIDDLE number in a set of three or more numbers. The median of 1, 4 and 500,000,00 is 4. The mean is 166666668.333333333333333. Only when there is a two number set is the total of the set divided by two. And that number is mean AND the median.

 

The same issues faced gasoline fuel.

 

you mean we overcame that herculean issue with very little hand-wringing? Wow. How society has changed ....
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Actually, the availability of gasoline came with much hand wringing. But it still came. BEVs and range limitations will be overcome over time and with demand. Just like gasoline.

 

Hopefully most gracing these pages understand basic statistical averages. But that example is a poor choice for one to be careful of the median as was discussed previously.

Unlike the example in post #175, vehicles are available and sold in numerous trims and options at numerous price points encompassing a broad, well populated smooth spectrum. So there is no low "n" or strange bimodal distribution phenomena with median averaging. The #175 example further emphasizes why we should therefore be careful of the mean when looking at what the population considers an affordable new vehicle, but not the median - the correct average we should seek.

 

We have a great spectrum when it comes to new cars and household incomes. Median household income in 2015 in the US was $55,775 while mean household income in 2014 $72,641. Average car loan in 2016 was a little over $30,000. What does that mean? Less than half the households can afford to buy a new car, any new car, very often. They buy used or keep their cars to be over 10 years old. Regulations and poverty have made the least expensive new cars very expensive for the average household. I have no idea of the median loan or car price, but I'm sure someone can find it, or calculate from information publicly available.

Does that mean that millions of households can't afford a tesla? Not at all. The top 20% earn over $100,000 per year, and many of those have a garage to plug-in. The top 20% means 26 million households in the US. I would say nearly all those households could both afford a tesla model 3 (at least the base premium $41,600 +ttl) and even most of those households with only one car could probably be fine on the super charger network with the occasional rental for long trips, or trips that needed more cargo. Say you can get 20% of them to buy a bev every 8 years - that is a market of 26 M x .2 /8 = 650,000 in the US. Numbers in china with a smaller percent and more people are even higher. Remember average number of cars per household is 2.3, so these numbers are not high penetration at all. Tesla probably needs a midsize less expensive SUV and a pick up truck to get to a million vehicles a year world wide, but that is definitely in the plans. In order to get all the Chinese incentives for that market they probably need to build factories in china, but that also is a good move.