That’s one badass machine. Congrats!
Thanks!
Obviously, I’m happy to answer any questions people have. I do have autopilot, but it hasn’t finished the calibration yet and so haven’t engaged it.
I really like the minimal interior. I got used to it almost immediately. Sure, there’s been some searching around for some buried options, but that’s no different from any other car with a menagerie of physical buttons. It’s mostly pretty well organized.
It’s a little weird to just get out of the car and walk away. There’s no shutting things down or anything. It’s cool, but I vaguely worry I’ll miss a few steps the next time I drive a “normal” car.
I see Tesla is doing the super flashy delivery center everywhere. Your pic looks like where I picked up mine. It was in a giant darkened showroom type place with all the vehicles being picked up on display with their own lighting on it. Made it look pretty bad ass. Here’s a quick phone pic - there were 4 rows of these.
Congrats!
Yeah, the showroom experience was pretty cool. The lighting made it easy to spot any defects. I probably should have spent longer here, actually–I wasn’t rushed by any means, but we’d gone over the basics and were ready to move on. Anyway, you can see from the pic that they had sort of greyscale geometric designs that reflect nicely, as well as dark mats on concrete to also give a nice effect in the reflection. Much better than having the car crammed into a gross parking space with whatever parked nearby.
BTW, although there were only around a dozen cars in this room, there may have been other rooms, and there were a bunch of cars outside that they were probably cycling in once they were detailed. From the schedule, it sounded like they were doing one every 15 minutes all day. So maybe 30-40 cars a day from this location?
Oh, and no upsell on anything. No floor mats, no underbody spray, no LoJack, no Tesla Solar, no whatever. I had to specifically ask about the de-aero kit (they said to order it online). Very refreshing compared to every other dealer experience I’ve had.
On what planet does someone just “pick up” something costing $50-60k?
This is what this thread has devolved to? Guy is excited about buying a new car, and we’re nitpicking colloquialisms?
I agree it is a nitpick, but I must also say that when I saw the words about handing over a check for $61,000, my first thought was, “I’m never going to be able to buy this car that was billed as “affordable.””
That figure was for the early run version. Pretty much fully upgraded including tax, title, and registration. All early reservation holders are only able to get the upgraded version right now. For those that are looking for the lower cost model they can delay the reservation until it’s available.
I’d say this is affordable if the comparison is to the BMW M3.
Sure, but we’ve had that discussion before. Multiple times in this thread, and others, with the exact same participants. The out-the-door price for the optioned out vehicle isn’t new information, nor is the ~$10,000 rebates at the federal and state level that weren’t factored into the quoted sale price. jz obviously brings valuable manufacturing experience into this thread, which before anyone forgets is in fact titled the “Model 3 anticipation thread”, but I was hoping would at least offer *something constructive *, like, say, a question on the gap tolerances/alignment on the trunk , or the door sealing, or the wind noise, if the common courtesy of “Congrats on the car, dude!” is too much.
Still cheaper than the Ferrari GT250 California Ferris Bueller was referring to…
The cultural illiteracy in this thread is astonishing :). The whole point to the joke is that you don’t just go and “pick up” a Tesla (let alone a $10M Ferrari), though they do make the experience rather easy.
As said, this is the fully optioned version. At this moment, it’s identical to the $50k model since Autopilot hasn’t activated yet. It does not include the Federal $7500 rebate, or the state $2500 rebate (which I would get if I made less money), or the PG&E $500 rebate. If I were in the exact same position but had a more constrained income, my final (pre-tax) price for virtually the same car would be $39,500. And I’d have it on the exact same day (in fact, I could have refused the Autopilot+FSD package up until a few days pre-delivery had I needed to). If black was OK instead of red, it comes down to $38,500.
Still not cheap, but within shooting distance of baseline 3-series prices.
Congrats, Dr. Strangelove! I’m sure it will be a great car and I wish it a long life. Blesses it with a wave of a disembodied gearshift from a 3 million mile Volvo
Will the 110v still take it from nearly empty to fully charged overnight (say within 10 hours)?
I take issue with the analogy that getting used to the screen menus is like familiarizing yourself with physical buttons. There is just no comparison between a dedicated button and a touch screen.
I don’t think that matters, and we shouldn’t be tolerating threadshitting because someone has some related credential. You are right to call him out.
Not even close! On 110 v, it’ll add about 4-5 miles of range per hour. That’s just 50 miles out of 300+. But my commute is <10 mi, so that’s more than sufficient for now.
In fact, in the very short term, I’ll probably just charge on the weekends. Due to my driveway arrangement, I can only easily park outside until I sell my old car. It’s kind of a pain to drag the cables around in this situation. I’ll have this taken care of soon enough but weekend charging will work for the time being.
It is not the exact same, but there is a degree of muscle memory involved, and at least in the beginning there is a search involved. I’ve never seen a car that didn’t require some hunting around for one button or other.
Pretty much all cars have some of their functions solely within the multifunction display now. So if nothing else, Tesla is more consistent in this respect. If it’s not on the touchscreen (or one of the stalks), it doesn’t exist.
But because of the phaseout of the Federal subsidies for Tesla, as well as the slower production ramp than expected, there’s zero chance I will get that. In addition, I don’t live in California, so I do not qualify for their $2,500 subsidy. I do live in DC, so I get a nice break on registration fees for an EV, but that isn’t close to making the car affordable by any stretch. In fact, my very first post in this thread stated this same thing, that the $7,500 Federal rebate will not apply to me.
I believe I also said early in this thread that I saw almost zero chance that anyone could ever buy a Model 3 for less than $30,000 after the tax credits, despite a lot of hype about that in the media (fed by Tesla, which often or always shows a price after incentives in their online tools) over the last few years.
So seeing that someone bought a fancy car with a lot of options for a very high price was just one of those small moments of “I just got a dose of reality and I will very likely never afford a Tesla despite it being marketed as affordable.” I don’t begrudge how anyone spends their money; and I’m actually quite excited that the good Doctor has a very cool car and I do want to hear more about it… but my reaction is also much like hearing that someone got an affordable vacation to Tahiti. Sounds awesome, but when I hear how much “affordable” is, I realize I will not be meeting them there. It’s disappointing, I guess.
Totally fair. I expect it to get close to that $30k mark, though. The next two quarters, at the least, will get the $7500 rebate. The next two after that will get a $3750 rebate. I think they’ll be selling the base model by then, but we’ll see.
Tesla undoubtedly plays some games with their pricing, sometimes even including gas savings in the final price for their online calculator. But the predominant media message for the Model 3 has been $35k before rebates. I’ve never seen them try to cite $27.5k or whatever as the price.
Yeah, sometime after 2023 based upon realistic extrapolation of production trends.
But although the upfront cost is high for a car billed as “affordable” even after the rebates and subsidies, to be fair in looking at the total cost of ownership the maintenance costs should be much lower without the various maintenence items (fluids, belts, plugs, starter battery) and componence that can frequently fail and require replacement (pumps, starter, exhaust and emissions control), and of course that you don’t have a regular operating cost tied to the every fluctuation cost of fuel. Assuming that the motors, battery, and other functional items on the car are reliable, the maintenance costs plus amortized price of the vehicle should be more comparable to a mid-sized lux-consumer sedan like an Acura TLX or an Audi A4.
The fundamental problem with cost is the battery technology. The prices on lithium-ion batteries have dropped significangtly since 2014 after largely flattening in 2011-2012 timeframe; however this isn’t because it has become significantly cheaper to manufacture the batteries but because of competition by manufacturers and government subsidies in building new large scale manufacturing plants. There is currently an oversupply of manufacturing capacity, especially by South Korean and Chinese manufacturers, but once more companies start building battery-electric cars that will likely flatten out or even correct once demand starts outstripping supply. The other potential limiting item is copper for electric motors, although this can be addressed through advances in motor technology.
The Model 3 is arguably already priced at a relatively marginal level (and given the problems Tesla has had with instituting automation while failing to ramp up production to projected levels they are probably taking a loss even at this price point) and if battery costs don’t continue to go down or correct it may be that the costs of an electric vehicle of this range capability is just going to be at this level until some revolution in battery technology comes along (lithium-sulfur is on the horizon but order-of-magnitude performance per cost projections don’t seem to be panning out technically).
However, when autonomous vehicles become more prevalent and automobile transporation (likely) moves away from an ownership model and toward a subscription-and-pay-for-use model, this may be less of an issue as the increased cost is built into fees and improved transporation efficiencies and lower maintenance requirements offset upfront costs. Since these developments are still speculative it is difficult to make a quantifiable estimate of how it will pan out, but electric vehicles are the likely future for commuter transportation regardless of whether Tesla survives or not. For longer range transportation and operating in remote locations, some kind of liquid hydrocarbon fuel vehicles (internal combustion, electric-hybrid, or fuel cell) will still have some portion of the market segment for particular applilcations.
Congratulations on the o.p. for his new purchase of a luxury item, but like others I would like to hear a critical evaulation of the vehicle’s strengths and weaknesses rather than just an “Oohh, ahhh,” over its glossy features.
Stranger
If you have specifics in mind, let me know. I’ve only had it for 24 hours so far, so a useful report on weaknesses will have to wait until I have more miles on it.
Thanks for the updates and major congrats on the terrific car – wish I had one! And the delivery experience sounds like a very classy act on Tesla’s part.
I just wanted to add, in case you haven’t come across it, that I once looked at the different charging modes for the Model S (presumably Model 3 is the same), and was surprised to see that 110V charging is actually less efficient (i.e.- more costly) than the 220V mode. Not that electricity cost is going to be a big deal, but just an interesting factoid.
I don’t have any specific questions ATM, but I’m reading your commentary with interest, so keep 'em coming.