After driving a ±85 mile EV for a year, I can attest that my way of thinking about cars has shifted a lot. The vast, vast majority of my driving is commuting rather short to moderate distances. I probably charge twice a week at home when the weather is moderate, if I use a lot of AC or heating, make that three times a week. I have charged not at home in probably less than two dozen occasions: mainly when there’s a free charger so I can literally save fifty cents or something on charging at home. Maybe four times have I actually needed a charge, two of which were fast charges that I only used for like 10 minutes to get another 20-25 miles.
We can all recognize that the longer range cars get, the less charging stations are an issue. But I think you did put your finger on an issue in that the non-EV enthusiast will want the reassurance of charging stations because they think of them as gas stations, and gas stations are everywhere! In reality, charging your car is not like filling it up. It’s more like charging your phone: you do it when you don’t need to use it, as opposed to needing to do it while you’re using it. But it takes experience for people to get this, so it is like a chicken and egg problem.
There’s other things that I have really discovered that are great about EVs (very low maintenance, very very rarely having to go out of my way to find a gas station because I have one at home, how EVs are simply better cars than ICE cars are, etc), but the whole range anxiety thing is totally overblown for a lot of drivers. Not all, but a lot.
I could rent a car or SUV for two weeks, unlimited miles, from $670-$1000.
If I had an EV and wanted to do a two week family of four tour-de-force of say, the West Coast, paying a grand to put miles and wear on someone else’s car for two weeks would not be a bad option. Breaks down? “Hey Enterprise, your car broke down. Bring me another!”
Exactly the point I was going to make. There’s no waiting list to buy a Bolt. They’re available now in many places and will be nationwide before the end of the year. Someday Tesla might be able to compete with GM on electric cars, but until you can walk into a store and buy one with less than a week’s wait, it’s little to compare.
I’ve been driving my Bolt since May. I considered a Tesla, but the models available now can’t compete with it. I’d prefer a Japanese or Korean-designed car, but their electric cars don’t have the range I need. Toyota doesn’t even have an electric car. Clunky old GM is beating them all.
Once my Bolt stops working and I need a new car again, I’ll take a look at Tesla.
That is certainly true. My dealership was rather clueless. I especially liked how their on-site sales manager’s bargaining position was completely undercut by their online sales manager emailing me an offer of way under MSRP.
Must be because they’re still rolling it out in many areas. My dealership had something like 50 Bolts on the lot when I bought mine. Quite possibly being in SoCal makes the difference.
Yep. My family has my commuter car that I drive to work and use when going about LA. For farther trips we use the our SUV (a hybrid Lexus, so not super gassy). Electric vehicles require a change in how one thinks of vehicles.
Once that one breaks enough to replace, we’ll definitely consider another electric. Renting a long-range SUV for the yearly road-trip isn’t that much of a leap of faith.
Well, we were talking pure electrics. To be honest, I’m done with gas cars. Done with oil changes, done with smog checks, done with stinking gas stations, done with clunky transmissions, etc. A plug-in hybrid would cover my commute but basically nothing else; trips to my parents or SF or whatever would be almost entirely gas.
I don’t use any Apple products but their success has changed my way of thinking in some ways; I no longer reject their design decisions based on narrow assumptions of what I need in a product. I thought, when the iPhone came out, that any smartphone without a physical keyboard was a non-starter. I was wrong, both in terms of market success but also usability. So I try not to make assumptions based on technology doing things in the way that I’m used to and instead listen to people that actually use a product.
I had mixed feelings when I first saw the Model 3’s minimalistic interior, but now I’m fully ready to embrace the aesthetic. I look at my current instrument cluster and realize how stupid it is in the context of an electric. As main gauges, I have fuel, speed, tach, temperature, and MPG. Tach and temp can be thrown out completely; MPG translates to current electrical efficiency but is really fairly useless; fuel is pointless even in a gas car, and should be “range” (which my car knows but hides in a menu); finally, speed is the only truly useful one but really doesn’t demand a front-and-center view. There’s nothing left.
That’s just one example, but in general I make it a point to reject long-standing assumptions. Lots of stuff stops making sense when the conditions change, and going from gas to full electric is one such transition.
I do look at cars as more than point-A-to-point-B devices; given the amount of time we spend in them, they’re virtually a residence. As such, I want them to look and feel nice, just as I want to live in a nice house. Pure electric is a huge step forward in this regard. Hybrids do not achieve this for me.
I’m surprised people find the Bolt quirky. I’m kind of turned off by how boring it looks. It’s a plain 5-door hatchback. It doesn’t stand out from the likes of the Toyota Yaris / iM, Honda Fit, Chevy Sonic/Spark, Hyundai Accent, etc. If I’m going to buy a non-conventional vehicle, I want it to look distinctive, like the BMW i3.
$9000 is pretty steep for an extra 90 miles in range.
Personally I make less than half a dozen road trips a year that are longer than 220 miles. Evenso, with all the Tesla supercharge stations near the interstate now, is the larger battery pack worth it? My road trip is in the midwest, is about 360 miles but even with that there are 6 Tesla superchargers on the interstate along the drive I make. The bigger battery doesn’t seem appealing.
Was it actually a race or was the Tesla driver staying within the speed limit? The Model S (and hi-capacity Model 3) charges 170 miles in 30 min (note that this doesn’t scale–you don’t get 340 mi in 60 min). At any rate, if you maintain a driving speed of 65 mph, you have to stop every 157 min for a 30 min charge. That’s an average speed of 54.5 mph, compared to the top speed of a Model T of 45 mph (not including fueling stops).
For me, the difference between 65 and 54 mph is small enough that I don’t care, given the rarity of long road trips that require it. And really, that’s something of a worst-case, since for some of those stops I’d be having lunch or stretching my legs anyway; it’s not really fair to count that as extra time.
It is pretty steep, but if you look at total dollars per mile, it’s a decrease from the base cost. For whatever that’s worth.
I don’t strictly need the range myself. My longest regular drive is to my parents and back, which is 240 miles. I could charge there if I wanted, but I’d prefer not to be a leech; plus I’d have to install some charging infrastructure for shorter (overnight) trips, since the 3-4 mph from standard plugs isn’t really enough.
Ahh… yeah, that would make a difference. Things have changed in the past 4 years, and Tesla claims that they’ll triple the number of Supercharger stations in the next year. They’ll need the capacity with all the new Model 3s on the road, but as a side effect the stations will have more granular spacing, so there will be less need to plan a stop at a particular place.
I’m confused by what that means, do you mean because the battery will undergo fewer charge cycles, the lifespan of the car will be longer? I suppose that is true, a 300 mile battery will only be recharged 67% as many times as a 200 mile battery. Or do you mean cost of the car vs. mileage range.
The extra $8k for the autopilot and full self driving though, I would totally get that.
Just that. It’s a bit of a silly metric, but in any case the LR model is $141/mi while the base model is $159/mi (sans rebates). The pack lifetime aspect is definitely a thing too, but if the Model S is anything to go on, pack degradation is not a huge deal. The numbers I saw were roughly 6% loss after 125,000 miles.
One thing about autopilot is that it can be added later if desired since it’s just software. They’ll charge more later, but that might be worth it if you can’t afford it right now or are skeptical of Tesla’s ability to deliver on it. The basic autopilot features are already working of course, but we’ll have to see how full the full self driving really is.
I’m also early on the Model 3 list. It’s saying the estimated time to get a long range version is November-January and a standard version is February-April. I can’t really justify $9,000 for the long range. The only thing that would make me get it is if it was the only way to get the $7,500 federal rebate. I don’t think that will be the case, though.
For me, I need a new car, I don’t want all the bother that comes with an engine, and I also don’t want something boring. That kind of leaves Tesla. Getting a $12,500 discount (federal+state) on a new car is also too good to miss.
I think I’ll be getting the standard model, in black, with the $5000 assisted driving package. I can’t see getting the $3,000 full self driving package yet, as the software is not written, and the regulations are not in place to use it. I’m expecting that in a few years when it’s ready, I’ll be able to upgrade. I’m also not paying $5000 for rear seat USB charging ports.
I have a free to use level 2 J1772 charging station at the elementary school across the street. If I’m willing to leave the car a block away, I can probably drive with no electricity costs.
I guess Tesla could still screw things up enough I won’t get one. The build quality on some of the prototype Model 3s looked bad. For all the Bolt advocates, the panel gaps were no worse than what I’ve seen on production GM products. I remember a rental Chevy something, where I could stick my fingers in panel gaps on one side of the car, and the other side was nice and tight. That was 10 years ago, so maybe they’re better now. Fortunately people who’ve seen the production Model 3s say the look better than the prototypes.
Yeah, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll get it unless you wait for the AWD version. The rebate clock starts ticking in the quarter that Tesla sells their 200,000th car in the US. That won’t happen until early next year. Then, they get the remainder of the quarter and then another full quarter of the full rebate. If Tesla is smart, they’ll delay their 200,000th US shipment until day 1 of Q2 2018 so that deliveries up to September are covered. Then, the rebate is halved to $3750, which lasts two quarters, then halved again for another two quarters. So shipments up to late 2019 should get some kind of rebate.
Guess you don’t care for the glass roof :).
One thing that sounds fun to me is car camping. Like in the car. Some Model S owners have taken to folding the rear seats down, putting in some padding, and just sleeping in the car. You can leave the heater on since it doesn’t require the engine; it’s only a couple dozen miles of range worth per night. Being able to see the stars from under the glass roof sounds great. The Model 3 should work just as well here; actually better since supposedly the seats fold without even a bump at the hinge.
GM is incredibly bad at this. One of my favorite things to do is walk through their display of current model cars in their world headquarters and look at their gaps and margins (I’m a body in white engineer professionally, by the way).
Typically when putting cars out for public display, you choose the best, or you refit them to be the best, because, you know, they’re supposed to represent what you will actually purchase. I guess maybe we can say GM is more honest; they don’t put nice looking cars on display; their crappy margins and flushness represents what you’ll really buy!
Although it’s been a couple of years, the Tesla Model S I looked at in Shanghai had a lot of the same types of issues (this is an honest appraisal; I’m on record somewhere saying that I think I’d enjoying owning a Model S, by the way).
You know who does a good job across the board? Even their crappy, little Corolla is dialed in quite nicely.
For tesla’s current Model S sedan, going up 76 miles in range from a 75D (259 miles) to a 100D (335 miles) is an extra $23k. $9k for 90 miles doesn’t seem all that bad, relatively.
There are other benefits to the larger battery size, such as acceleration (0-60 mph times of 5.6 seconds vs. 5.1 seconds), recharging rates, and an extra 20,000 miles on the battery warranty. 220 miles is the rated range, but will be less in cold weather, spirited driving & battery age (expect to lose 1% capacity per year). Also remember that to preserve battery life, you don’t typically want to charge more than 80% of full battery capacity unless you’re going to use it immediately after “topping off”.
For your 360 mile trip, the bigger battery may be the difference between 1 short supercharging stop vs 2, depending on where the supercharger is located and what the weather is.
I didn’t watch the full video, but there’s an interesting article here that estimates that we should more or less stop worrying about losing more than 20% of a Tesla’s battery capacity.
I may get a model 3. My reservation time is projecting November. A couple challenges I have, and some have nothing to do with the car itself.
[ul]
[li]The biggest issue is that in my household, I chose the last car for myself, so the other person pretty much gets their pick of what they want. That doesn’t always line up with what I want :)[/li][li]Trunk space is a bit limited. Hard to make costco runs with that tiny trunk.[/li][li]For both the Model S and the Model X, the interior finishes I have thought were kind of cheapish. The dash display is nice, but inside there’s little else. The back was either missing or had poorly placed cup holders. Behind the front seats was this odd plasticy material. It was roomy, but didn’t seem very useful. I don’t know how the model 3 will be.[/li][/ul]
So yeah, the interior finishes don’t scream out, this is awesome! I know, cup holders are a trivial thing to worry about, but I swear the cup holders are the reason I didn’t get an M3 before. And with young kids, cup holders, rear entertainment and layout, those are really really important.
That sounds familiar. My 330i has what I’d count as half of a cupholder. Technically there are two, but one is completely unusable as it sits under the armrest, and the other is only large enough for a soda can, not a largish bottle or coffee mug.
Supposedly the Model 3 has improved things over the S/X, including such features as door pockets, but I haven’t yet seen a full rundown of the interior amenities. If it has two real cupholders I’ll consider it a big improvement :).
The rear seats fold down flat or almost flat, so Costco runs shouldn’t be a problem unless you bring the whole fam.