Why I won't buy a Tesla Model 3

Sure and also you can slip a 7' surfboard through the trunk to the beach........

 

at least it will hold a spare tyre.

 

not needed, roadside assistance is a phone call away from the enormous 15" display

 

excellent. that leaves room for a suitcase.

 

as a matter of facts, by the displayed videos on the unveiling, the trunk capacity is large.
On the oposite side, on my Fusion Energy I can transport only 3 plastic crates side by side full of groceries, that's it

 

capacity is uge! it just can't be thicker than 8".

 

That's a rather misleading article -- I expect better of the Guardian.

Lifecycle analysis is a relatively new field of study and you will find varying assumptions about manufacturing energy and CO2e intensity. Sometimes these assumptions can overwhelm the overall results. This has happened with some earlier LCA studies of large battery EVs which assumed battery cell manufacturing CO2e at about 4x the level of the latest studies. Sometimes these CO2e emissions are conveniently centralized as is the case for battery cell manufacturing where most of the emissions occur during assembly of the cell. Tesla is installing lots of solar and wind at the GigaFactory in an effort to achieve carbon neutral energy use so their batteries should be considerably lower in manufacturing emissions than is commonly assumed in studies like this. Even today, though, BEVs generally come out smelling better on LCA co2e studies than even a Prius in many cases and will only look better in the future with electricity emissions improvements.

In any case, mid-sized conventional cars are generally assumed by LCA studies to "embody" 15-30 thousand pounds of CO2e. Such a car might get about 25 mpg on average. How long is "lifetime"? It's not how long the original owner keeps the car it's how long it is driven before being totaled in an accident or reaching the junkyard, on average. Let's say 150,000 miles but it's probably longer in reality. That implies 6,000 gallons of gasoline at 25 mpg. That's about 117,000 pounds of CO2 tailpipe emissions or just under 150,000 if counting upstream refining etc emissions.

117-150 thousand pounds of co2e is a lot more than 15-30 thousand pounds. Even assuming the article's 100,000 mile lifetime the fueling emissions would be 78-100 thousand pounds. Anyway, that gives you the right sense of scale -- manufacturing emissions of a new conventional car are about 10-25% of its total lifetime combined manufacturing plus fueling co2 emissions.

No, I don't think so. That's only true if you make the article's abstract generalizations about co2e per $ cost of the car and then pick an unusually expensive luxury car as your example.

However, that doesn't mean you should sell your present car in order to buy a new one with somewhat better gas mileage. That requires a separate calculation of how much lower the new car's co2e manufacturing and fueling emissions would be compared to the previous vehicle and the answer isn't always intuitive.

 

Unlike GM or Chrysler whose business sense is flawless? Unfortunately, evaluating a business plan requires a lot more than just evaluating randomly selected surface numbers. There is a huge difference between losses and ongoing investments. Another factor of critical importance is backlog. Then there is this little thing called return on investment.

You are quite correct for today, but exponential growth cannot continue forever. At some point Tesla saturates the early adopter market or (the future) mainstream (electric) vehicle market. Then advertising becomes a necessary business practice. Just wondering when others think this might be.

Exactly what "quality control" issues are you talking about? Present issues or opinions of future issues? I know Tesla has had addressed issues with door handles, motor noise, and other issues that do not strand drivers. I hardly expect the lessons learned and applied to the Models S and X will not be used to make Model 3 reliability very high. The biggest break down issues I know of with established car makers is cutting corners to the point the vehicles become unreliable. This is not a Tesla disease yet.

 

Even in CA, they aren't close to full except at peak periods.
We drove through CA over Memorial Day weekend and never needed to wait. This was simply because we planned our supercharger stops such that they didn't line up with those peak periods.

I am a bit concerned about the supercharger growth needed though.
I expect the rest of the low population locations to be filled out this year with some additional in high use areas.
Next year they can focus almost completely on density of SuperChargers in high populations density areas.

Hopefully that will make the transition as smooth as possible.

 

Well, nothing's been announced beyond supercharging being included with the base. Let's see how future announcements fare in comparison. In the last several years, they stated the first million vehicles would have superchargers included for (and this is the kicker) long distance travel.

 

Once lines start to form at Supercharger stations, you will see private investment companies building Supercharger stations where needed, and charge a fee for their use. I would suggest they charge a per minute fee with the first 30 minutes at a lower tier 1 rate, the second 30 minutes at a higher tier 2 rate, and anything above that at an exorbitant tier 3 rate - whether charging or not. This will encourage a high turnover in what would otherwise be a free parking spot!

Kudos to California and all of us tree huggers!

Well I guess a significant portion of Toyota's business model is screwed then!

Well they can always ask for a bailout like the other US auto manufacturers did!

 

I take it you love to see innovative companies fail. Remarkable!

I know how to use multi-quote and I have used it in this thread. Don't know what is happening on your end. Maybe if a "certain moderator" would allow posts to be deleted by the poster, that would help!

multi-quoted

 

Excellent! This is news to me, maybe others don't know about this feature either. Why is multi-quote so important? Let's work together rather than in opposition.

Thanks.