I was simply pointing out that your figure shouldn’t induce everyone in this thread to suddenly run out and buy an electric car with the assumption that they can be all-in for six hundred bucks. I was going to say, “but your point stands,” but thought that that part was obvious to you. Guess I was wrong to omit that.
everyone (not literally everyone, but you know what I mean) seems to suffer from those blinders or mental rut you mention. The biggest one w.r.t. EVs is the complaint that “I can’t recharge it as fast as I can fill my gas tank.”
well, no, of course you can’t. But that disadvantage can be offset by the fact that an EV can be “re-filled” or “topped off” when it’s sitting around doing nothing. The Meijer store near me (Roseville, MI) now has a 6-bay Supercharger station. Great! I’m in the store for a half hour or so while shopping, so why not “top off the tank” while the car is sitting on its ass? If my truck’s gas tank is near empty, nobody is going to take it to a gas station and fill it while I’m in the store.
it’s amazing how stubborn people can be when you suggest they make even the tiniest change to their routine. It’s like they think “My pappy drove his car to the fillin’ station for gas, my pappy’s pappy drove his car to the fillin’ station for gas, and con-sarnit that’s what I’m gonna do to 'til the day I die!”
Right. And it’s not a new feeling for most people–do people buy a giant car on the off chance that they need to haul 7 people on a road trip, or a cargo van for the times they need to move? No, they just rent or borrow or just don’t do that. But people have a set of things that they can currently do in an ICE, and which aren’t quite imaginary but are so uncommon that they might as well be, and yet without the experience they price those things way higher than the *real *benefits of an EV. So it ends up looking like a bad deal.
My dad pretty much described the entire revelation. The dealer was talking about the 24 mile EV range, and my dad just didn’t understand at the time–24 miles just seems utterly worthless; you can’t drive anywhere on that. But when you actually drive it, and can easily distinguish between EV and gas miles, it becomes totally obvious that it’s good enough 90% of the time. And that a real long range EV is good enough way more than that.
I have to laugh a bit; he’s a guy that built cars that burned through 5 gallons of methanol in a 1/4 mile run, and is now talking about regenerative braking techniques to eke out a few more miles worth of efficiency. And is suddenly a lot more interested in my Model 3 order. I may not disown him after all…
er, yes they do, else SUVs and the F-150 wouldn’t be atop the sales charts.
can you explain to me why Tesla/EV fans are so haughty like this?
It’s similar to the shift we’re currently undergoing from broadcast television to on-demand streaming. 40 years ago there were 4-5 TV stations and if you wanted to watch a program, you had to tune to the right station at the right time. Even as VCRs and cable television were added to the mix, that paradigm still held. The introduction of DVRs shifted things a little bit, but you still have to record a program that was on at a specific time. Now with Netflix etc., that is all changing for a lot of people. It’s incredible how different my viewing habits are now since I got rid of cable and went all streaming. The old model still works for a lot of people, and some are hybrid, but the shift is in process.
I apologize. You raised a good point, and I was still perplexed over Magiver’s overwhelming tendency to stretch reasonable points to insane lengths in order to prove his point. I shouldn’t have responded to your reasonable post in a snarky manner, just know that I didn’t really intend the snark to head in your direction.
First, the base Model 3 does have heated front seats (the premium package adds heated rear seats).
But it’s still a bullshit argument, and I’m surprised you made it in light of your other posts. It’s an unfair comparison unless you look at the whole ensemble of features and assign reasonable values to them. So fine, I guess the Camry has wireless charging. But the Model 3 has an infotainment system with a 15" screen and super-smooth UI. There’s no Camry package that offers anything close. How much that’s worth is up to the individual, but it’s ridiculous to ignore all these things.
Anyway, my point isn’t to claim that the Model 3 is a Camry competitor, especially if you’re a feature nut. Just that the comparison isn’t as obvious as it might seem if you include both fuel savings and value the Tesla-specific features.
I said “off chance”. For people that regularly haul 7 people or sheets of plywood, these situations are not off chances; they’re just daily needs. But for most people, these are situations that are rare but not completely unheard of. So they just use alternatives because it would be dumb to buy a vehicle based on a 0.1% need.
Obviously there are still more than enough people hauling drywall and plywood to make the F-150 popular.
It’s a joke, man. Pops is a massive Trump fan and I just got back from an early Thanksgiving get-together. We managed not to have a giant political blowout, and instead talked about cool stuff like EVs. He was impressed with the Doug DeMuro video.
I totally agree with all of this. What I can say from my last year-plus as an EV driver, is that I simply didn’t appreciate that going to fill my gas tank once a week or so was actually a bigger hassle than I realized. It was just normal.
So to fill my car, the gas station that’s sort of near, but not all that close, to my house charges like a dollar more per gallon than other places. And there’s no real convenient gas station along my commute, at least one that doesn’t look like I might get robbed there. I would end up having to go out of my way, most every week or so, to fill up. It wasn’t torture or anything, it was just normal.
Now I don’t have to do that. I get time back every week because I just fill up at home. It’s great – almost like my commute has been shortened by 10%. Yeah, that isn’t a heck of a lot of time, but I’ll take it. Wouldn’t you?
The trade off is that maybe a few times a year I might have a bigger hassle on my hands if I take the car out to go visit some vineyards or something in which the range of my car versus the charging infrastructure doesn’t guarantee a smooth trip.
Overall, I think the trade of eliminating a weekly minor hassle for a rare, moderate hassle works out great in my favor. But that doesn’t mean that the moderate hassle should be ignored, either.
In other news, a handful of non-employees are getting their Model 3 configuration requests. Some images here (nothing that isn’t known in there, though). It still seems limited to current Tesla owners.
nevermind how it seems you always need gas at the worst possible time…
For a change of pace, a Tesla that most of us can afford! 
Plus, the extended-range battery option is only $60 extra!
There are two main disadvantages of this lower-priced model:
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the distance from back of driver’s seat to the steering wheel is listed as 17". This could be tight for taller drivers.
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performance is less than the Model S or Model 3: it has a top speed of 6 mph or “a parent limited speed of 3 mph”
Cool. Now for that one I have a place to charge it. 
These Camry comparisons are way off base, I think. All of the arguments for Camry over Model 3 also apply to Camry over just about anything else. Unless you need a work truck, or something that can seat more than four adults, a Camry is a perfectly reasonable and boring choice. I think anybody who wants a Camry just gets one.
Here’s the Model 3 question I’ve been thinking about. If the $7500 tax rebate goes away, should I delay getting a Model 3?
My anticipated delivery is “early 2018” for the standard one, which I’m guessing means April-June. That will be in the first batch of standard ones. If the $7500 rebate is still available, I’m definitely getting the car as soon as possible, because a $7500 discount is a good response to any worries about getting an early version.
If the tax bill passes, and the rebate goes away, is it worth delaying? Will the cars in late 2018 be better built, have updated features, etc? I know nobody knows the answer, which is why I have to think about it.
The flip to that is my primary car is a VW with 120,000+ miles, and any serious money sunk into maintenance or repairs is wasted, because I’ll get rid of the car as soon as I have a Model 3. The difference between trade-in and scrap value is not much.
Right; the best option depends on which tax bill passes, which no one knows at this point.
If the existing rebate is kept, Tesla should cross the 200,000 unit threshold in Q2 2018, which means the full credit is kept for Q2 and Q3, and then $3750 for Q4 and 19Q1, and then $1875 for 19Q2 and 19Q3. That’s still pretty good odds for you, even with delays.
I’m not sure about features/build quality. Certainly, they will have some issues to iron out, but I’d guess most of the big ones will be figured out by mid 2018. There are no Falcon Wing doors or anything that looks to be like a serious quality obstacle. Feature-wise, I would be surprised if much was added (that is, stuff that isn’t a software update).
One thing to think about is a more granular feature selection, though. IIRC, Tesla has said they will debundle some features over time. So if you want (fake) leather seats but not the glass roof, then it may be possible to get that eventually. For now, it’s $5k or nothing.
In short, I have no good answer. The Federal rebate really is a huge factor and I can’t even assign a probability right now.
Two points.
First of all, I don’t understand what any of that means. Anyone who wants a Camry just gets one. Anyone who wants a Model S or Model 3 just gets one, too. A comparison of price and features is always valid between vehicles that are even remotely comparable, and the Model 3 is arguably trying to be in the “middle-class sedan” just like a lot of other middle-class sedans. It’s a comparison worth making.
Secondly, I personally have a problem with “boring” being used in an apparently derogatory way. I may have a preference for “boring”, but it doesn’t come from being an old fart, it comes from a long history. I’ve owned or driven a whole variety of sporty cars in my time; I know the fun of a Jag V12 convertible on a warm summer day on a country road. But I’ve never really liked cars like that as something I’d really want to own. My flirtations with sports cars ended in my 20s when I traded in the last one for … a new Chevrolet Caprice, a car so quiet and smooth you could hardly hear a sound inside it, automatic climate control, loads of comfort features. A car so quiet that I (literally) took it back to the dealership to complain that the console clock was making an occasional ticking sound (they replaced it). An old man’s car. Boring. I was twenty-something. I was delighted with it beyond words, and still consider it the most-loved car I’ve ever owned.
I don’t even fully comprehend what the opposite of “boring” is supposed to be in a car, other than design. Some cars really do look basic and boring; Teslas look pretty cool, but so do the new Camrys, Ford Fusions, and many others. What else could it mean? A car that accelerates like a bat out of hell? OK, but doesn’t that get old really fast, and doesn’t it also attract speeding tickets, stunt driving or dangerous driving tickets, or dead cats or dead pedestrians? A car with amazing cornering capabilities? Why? I totally cannot appreciate these things. If someone gave me a 1000-horsepower Lamborghini and I was forced to keep it, I’d probably put a heavy-duty trailer hitch on it and use it as a tractor. 
I think you’re missing my point entirely. I think fast charge batteries are not decades away but a few years away. This is what will change the face of cars from being a majority ICE to a majority EV. I also think it’s unrealistic to think there aren’t going to be large numbers of chargers around town just as there are gas stations. It’s a market driven inevitability because it’s too expensive to quick charge something at home. Maybe that will change.
Tesla,( Elon Musk) has operated in a fantasy world of hyperbole. It’s not the cars he’s created that are unrealistic it’s the production goals he’s made. He has no clue what it takes to deliver cars in large numbers. I predicted this current delay and I’ve gone on record as saying it’s hurting the future of the company. They cannot operate in this fashion without losing ground to other manufacturers who understand how to mass produce cars.
Of course those comparisons are valid. What I mean is, somebody who makes those comparisons and lands on “Camry”, buys a Camry. They’re not in line to get a Model 3.
“Utilitarian” might have been a better word. The Camry is pretty good at lots of things, but it is the poster car for being pretty good at lots of things, without inspiring enthusiasm or getting the heart racing. And that’s perfectly fine, if what you want is something that’s comfortable, reliable, economical, and reasonably priced. Some people are going to value performance, luxury, style, economy, or price in such a way as to rule out the Camry.
My point is as I said, the argument for Camry over the Model 3 also applies to the Camry over any sedan (sold in the US) from BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Acura, Infinity, Lexus (who am I missing?).
Look, I don’t understand why people drive around giant luxury trucks. That is so far from what I want in a vehicle, and at the $60,000+ price point, there are so many things I would rather have. Like even two Camrys…
As for what makes a car boring. I have occasion to drive a my own GTI, a Prius C, and a Civic sedan. They all cost roughly the same, they all get from A to B, and yet there is no question to me which is more fun to drive. That’s even taking into account that I rarely get the GTI over 3000 RPM when accelerating, and I drive within 5 MPH of the speed limit, or with the flow of traffic.
So what is your prediction for Model 3 production? Concrete numbers here, not handwaving.