should be. if they’re planning to start deliveries late this year or early next year, then I can guarantee there are already Model 3s driving around. Typical development times in the industry (for an all-new model) run from 4-5 years, with the first working prototypes anywhere from 12-18 months prior to the start of volume production.
Well, deliveries are supposed to be late next year, but that’s roughly within your 18 month window (not counting delays). Still, it was 3 years between the Model X announcement and first shipment, and what they delivered was pretty close to what they announced, so I’m reasonably confident. And they seem to be a bit further along in Model 3 development than they were with the X back in 2012. Even so, I’m basically assuming this will be a 2018 car…
Tesla itself says the Model S takes a supercharge of “as little as 30 minutes” for a 170-mile charge, and a half-charge in as little as 20 minutes.
Let’s assume the Model 3 will get to the 200-mile range in that same 30 minutes (or more.)
Of the five or six road trips I take each year, I can always count on at least one from St. Louis to Cleveland. I know the route intimately. I-70 east, then north on I-71. Almost exactly 550 miles door to door. Easy peasy.
I leave St. Louis. But wait. There’s no supercharging station 200 miles away. Indianapolis is too far from St. Louis, so I have to top off in Effingham, IL, which is only 100 miles.
200 miles past Effingham? Oops, no charging stations in eastern Indiana, so I’d better stop at Indy.
On the road again, I can easily make it to Columbus, but I have to stop there, because there are no charging stations on I-71 between Columbus and Cleveland.
That’s three stops to recharge, figure 20-30 minutes each. At least an hour for a 550 mile drive. In my conventional cars I can make the entire trip with one stop for gas.
Another one of my favorite road trips is St. Louis to Dallas. I can throw those plans out the window. There are exactly NO superchargers between St. Louis and Oklahoma City on I-44. I’ll be stranded in the Ozarks.
St. Louis to Memphis? Sorry, nowhere to charge along I-55. Ditto to Louisville on I-64 and Nashville on I-64/I-57/I-24.
In short, any Tesla is doomed to be my around-town car. Call me in 10 years. I might be able to get a good deal on a used one, and there might be an infrastructure to support it.
Keep in mind that there are charging stations other than the ones put up by Tesla, although you might need to pay to use them.
The car doesn’t suit your needs. For my family, howver, we would never have a range issue. 200 miles, Seattle to Portland, is as far as we ever go. If we ever wanted or needed to take a longer trip (and recharging stations were not on the route), we’d take the Prius.
Probably won’t have to wait that long. Tesla has been increasing their Supercharger density by impressive amounts. Their 2016 deployment plans involve a bunch of them along I-44 and I-55, and maybe some of the other routes you mentioned (hard to tell from the map). There’s definitely a big dead zone in the Missouri/Arkansas/Mississippi area at the moment.
Anyway, good on you for actually doing the research, and I certainly wouldn’t buy anything based on promised deployment plans. But you might keep an eye on things if you’d seriously consider one otherwise, since this stuff is moving fast (and I expect it to move even faster once the Model 3 starts shipping).
I’m not aware of another car maker that has refunded a down payment because of a tweet.
This seems pretty unique to Tesla. And by Tesla I mean Elon.
Kunilou, for my driving, the infrastructure already supports it. I can charge every night in my garage. I don’t do a lot of road trips. There are convenient charging stations along the ones i have checked. And i have a second car, that i could use for the rare road trip without charging stations, or with tighter time constraints.
My climate is often too wet or cold to use a convertible. It wouldn’t meet my needs. But there’s a market for them, because other people have different needs.
I wouldn’t buy the Tesla in your situation, but i am talking seriously with my husband about putting down a deposit on the model 3.
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act applies to all consumer goods if they are offered with a warranty. It was not, and is not, targeted at the automotive industry.
yeah, this. I think their cars are fine; they’re flawed but still pretty much do what it says on the tin. It’s the frat-boy tech bro behavior of the company principals which turn me off.
The first statement is mostly true (though you ignore implied warranties); the second, false. The Magnuson-Moss act evolved out of the proposed FTC Automobile Quality Control Act. They generalized it to apply to all consumer goods, but it was certainly targeted at the auto industry as that’s where most warranty complaints were coming from (which is not surprising given the expense of cars and their requirement for regular maintenance).
Believe me, I am not anti-electric car. I actually seriously considered getting a used Nissan Leaf for a second car. Even with its extremely limited range, I knew I could make it home each evening to recharge.
But there are several orders of magnitude between what I would’ve paid for a used Leaf, and $35K for a new Tesla. If I’m going to pay that much, I need an all-purpose car, and that includes long trips in the Midwest.
Just a reminder – the big Tesla 3 reveal is tonight at 830 pm pacific time. You can put in a deposit online during the event.
If you’re in the neighborhood of a Tesla dealership, you can be higher on the list by going to one in person and putting down a deposit there as soon as the store opens.
Tesla fan AND driver for Uber. You’re full of eccentric automotive/financial choices. 
Just got back from the Tesla store (Fremont). Arrived 2 hours early and there were already ~150 people there. Probably 300 by 1 hr before and 500 at opening time. Madness, but they were prepared and the line went fast once open. Wheee!
You are aware, of course, that Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, was also a lead at Mazda. I think you can see some subtle influences that carried over to the Model S and X.
I decided to buy a Model 3 after test driving a Model S. Best car I’ve ever driven. You may have driven a better one, and if so good for you. I have not.
I probably won’t reserve tonight, as it appears that Tesla was overwhelmed by the number of people reserving at stores today and I don’t know if the website will stay up once reservations start. And by “overwhelmed” I mean shocked and surprised.
I hope they publish how many reservations they got.
A major factor enticing me to stand in line was the expiration of the Federal tax credit. The credit applies to the first 200,000 vehicles sold per manufacturer and then some additional number based on some complicated rules. Tesla has sold ~50k units in the US so far, and I expect around 100k more (S+X) by the time the 3 ships. So there’s a somewhat limited window and I wanted to be sure I’d be in that.
Interestingly, the tax credit is per kilowatt-hour, with a base value and overall cap. A 70 kWh Tesla would receive $2500+$417*(70-5) = $29,605 if it weren’t for the cap! If only.
Personally, I don’t think that the technology is yet quite mature enough for an all-electric vehicle, though I certainly don’t begrudge the early adopters who think otherwise: After all, they’re the ones who are funding the R&D to mature the technology. For me, though, the only thing that’s stopping me from buying a plug-in hybrid is the price tag. Right now, if I buy a car, it’ll need to be a budget used car, and hybrids (much less plug-in ones) aren’t old enough to really be on that market.
Now, ideally, I’d want a self-driving plug-in hybrid, but I realize that it’ll be a few years before those show up even on the new market.
Are you my wife? This is almost word for word what she said when I told her I was reserving one.
Never mind. You’re not her.