I mean, we do have the BEV Focus, since late 2011, so we’re not really late to the game.
The CX727 will be an attractive choice of BEV, because, well, the Focus isn’t really all that exciting in the North American market.
yeah, I was kind of ignoring compliance cars… The Focus is one where (even if it was offered for sale in this state) I’d have to be religious about plugging in at home and at work.
Let’s remember: Tesla being a year or two late on delivering cars is just what happens in business sometimes.
Any other carmaker launching a car at any time in the future is “late to the game.”
Ford has been making plug-in hybrid cars since 2012 - the C-Max Energi and the Fusion Energi. Which means they have quite a bit of experience designing and producing EV technology.
yes, but those- thanks to the much smaller battery- can basically be retrofit into existing vehicles. for an EV with usable range (200-300 miles per charge) you pretty much have no choice but to design an architecture around the battery.
Right. As an owner of a 2013 C-Max Energi I am satisfied overall, and its range is adequate for many of my daily commutes, but it is very clear that this was a car retrofitted to serve as a plug-in, not one designed as such. The battery impinges significantly into the rear storage space and its rear location on this front-wheel drive car results in just a bit less traction and control in slippery conditions.
A car purpose built to be an EV is a completely different beast.
My “Make a payment” button appeared on the Tesla site. I’ve bought expensive things online, but never this much. And that includes the down payment on my house. I’ll send the money a few days before pickup. No reason to be speedy about this.
I hope they let you make a payment with your credit card? I’d love to get all those points!
I think they just let you use a card for the initial preorder and the nonrefundable (~$2k) deposit, at least when I bought mine a few months ago.
The $1000 I loaned Musk 2.5 years ago was on a card, and the $2500 deposit at order time was on a card. Yeah, may as well get the 1-2% kickback.
The final payment is an e-check/ACH transfer. They’ll also take a cashier check, but I’m buying a 4.5 second 0-60 smart phone, not a used car in 1998, so a check seems a bit archaic.
When I bought the solar panels and home battery from Tesla, they let me use a credit card. Thanks for the points!
Part of the Fremont production facility just caught on fire, but it looks like the fire department was able to get to it quickly enough.
Yeah, sounds like it was just a bunch of cardboard boxes. Based on one image I thought it might have damaged their big tent, but the scale is all wrong–it’s actually just a little tent for recyclables.
Cryptic quotes from The Wasteland and a big giveaway of Etherium? I’m a bit worried about Elon’s stability to be honest.
I can’t help you on The Wasteland (aside from the connection between it and Iain M. Banks’ work), but the Ethereum bullshit is purely the work of scammers. This one was fairly obvious–the username is @ellonnusk. Some of them are a bit less obvious. They use some trick with Unicode characters that look like Latin ones to spoof the display name. I’ve no idea why Twitter can’t crack down on this, at least for their relative handful of users with millions of followers.
Doh, good point on the crypto scam.
Still the eliot quote is a pretty weird.
I realize that in the age of Twitter, this is among the least plausible suggestions, but quoting poetry could just mean the man is… literate.
SpaceX’s two autonomous drone ships, Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You come from Iain M Banks’ Culture series–specifically The Player of Games. Consider Phlebas is another book in that series, and takes its name from The Waste Land (and specifically that quote). Another book in the series was called Look to Windward.
For my money, in the realm of poetry on the subject of “every great man is brought low in death”, my go-to quote is from Ozymandias:
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-45306117
Whomp whomp.
I anxiously await the explainations of the fanboys how taking Tesla private was a great idea, but keeping Tesla public is an even greater idea.
FWIW if I was ready to buy, Musk’s recent erratic behavior would give me serious pause. Like it or not the long term future of this company is currently at least intertwined with his outsized personality. He seems to cratering some (as opposed to just being a jerk) which raises the risk that company may likewise do so more than production delays do. These are (based on the need for OTA updates, the charger network, etc.) vehicles that rely even more on the continued ability of the company to support the product. I would be thinking long and hard about how 100% sure I was that such support is a sure thing for the (likely very long) life of the vehicle.
that’s ok, he’s playing 10 dimensional chess.