It’s not exactly early-adopter territory any more. The prices need to come down further, even after the Model 3, and more range never hurts, but it’s very much at the point where they come out way ahead for some sets of preferences. The Model 3 is a 4th-gen electric (actually more, but I’m calling the Roadster first-gen).
Test driving a Model S genuinely ruined ICE cars for me. I have a pretty nice BMW 3-series, and it took days to get used to it again after the test drive. It’s really all the little things that add up–the instant throttle response; the quiet; the lack of any gears; the general sense that there isn’t a bunch of shit sliding around under the hood. All ICE cars, even (or especially) hybrids, feel like a rickety prototype afterwards.
If the range and recharge rates fit within your typical driving patterns, and the price is acceptable, there’s simply no reason to have an ICE at all. They’re the rolling dead.
At this point, I see it the other way: ICE cars come with too many compromises to be worthwhile. Their extended range has almost no value to me, and their price delta is reducing to nothing. At the same time, I lose a great many valuable features, such as the ability to refuel at home.
You left off one thing: electrics are jaw-droppingly less of a pain to own. No oil to check or change (except the gear box, which it is very rare to get into), no filters to replace (except that HEPA thing in the Model X), or plugs or belts, no valves to grind, and if you drive it right, you might never need a brake job. The electronics will eventually fail, wires may get old, and the battery packs are liquid-cooled, but overall, electrics must be the most reliable cars on the planet.
the technology is fine. Electric motors are well understood, and battery cell chemistry is as well. TTBOMK all manufacturers of EVs, HEVs, and PHEVs use rather sophisticated battery management strategies to make sure the battery lasts at least the design life of the car (10-15 years, 150-175,000 miles.) Which means when the battery is new, it’s only ever charged to ~70% of full capacity, and only ever discharged to ~30% of capacity. As the battery ages and its inherent capacity degrades, the charge/discharge percentages grow to ensure the electric range the owner gets doesn’t perceptibly degrade until finally cells start to die. There have been stories written about Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid taxis where they’ve put 500,000+ miles on the original battery.
as far as electric cars go, the technology is mature and it is here today. The real elephant in the room is that we don’t have enough electric generation capacity to support a wholesale shift from ICE vehicles to plug-ins.
that said, even though it’s a “compliance car” with some of the killer lease deals on it, I’m considering asking the condo association if I can have another 240V 30A circuit run and getting a Focus Electric for going back and forth to work.
hate to say it, but you’re just plain wrong. Consumer Reports took the Model S off of its “Recommended” list because it has a ton of niggling quality problems.
and see, that’s what kind of ticks me off about this whole thing. People trying to promote EVs compare them to ICE cars as though the average ICE car on the road was built in 1950. people aren’t constantly checking their oil or transmission fluid; hell, if you have certain cars (BMW) there’s no dipsticks to check. Except for rare cases, cars don’t leak or burn oil anymore. Most machine shops have gone out of business since when is the last time you’ve ever heard of anyone grinding valves? as for belts, let me just say that I had a Dodge Neon (SRT-4) which went 95,000 on its original timing belt and 170,000 miles on the factory accesory belt.
go look at Consumer Reports’s classification of trouble spots from which they down-mark cars. A hell of a lot of them are electrical and electronic. Tesla is no better than (and in some cases worse than) the rest of the industry. Electric cars are still going to have ball joints, tie rods, wheel bearings, struts, shocks, and an ever-growing number of electronic modules all with software which needs to work.
I agree they’re they’re the future come lately. But I"m going to miss the thundering beasts of old. I wouldn’t turn down a Hell Cat for a Tesla model anything.
Just finished watching the webcast. Looks great! The nose could use maybe a bit of tweaking, but I like the overall body style. Almost like a combo of the Roadster and Model S. Nice looking body creases.
115,000 preorders in the past 24 hours. Pretty amazing. Glad I got in early!
Autopilot standard, supercharging standard, 215 mile base range, <6 s 0-60 mph. They’ll have faster models, too. They didn’t mention AWD (IIRC), but I’m guessing that’ll be an option. I’m sure a larger battery will also be a possibility. Very pleased overall.
I’d say they’re gorgeous. The most interesting thing to me is what looks to be the entire elimination of the dashboard. Just a steering wheel, pedals and a touch screen on a kind of pedestal.
The screen looks kind of distractingly busy and blinky, but presumably it’s all lit up to draw attention to it. To me the interior looks way more revolutionary than anything else I’ve ever seen.
My dad owns a Harley, and I’ve ridden it a few times. I don’t deny that there’s a certain visceral thrill to something that makes that much noise and vibration, even when the performance isn’t that great. So I think it’ll be a while before EVs take over all of these niches.
I wouldn’t want that for my daily driver. The excitement is wearying over time. But at the same time, I do want high performance. There aren’t many ways to have both an extremely quick and extremely tame car. A Hellcat doesn’t fit; a Tesla does.
My BMW is a manual. I chose that because, well, I’m not gonna drive a fuckin’ slushbox. Shifting can be fun, but the main reason is just that I like the feeling of having direct control over the car. I choose exactly when to shift and how to modulate the power going to the wheels. Automatics never get that right.
Single-speed EVs solve the problem elegantly. I don’t have to shift, but I also don’t have to give up the responsiveness. It is just as comfortable in dense traffic as it is flooring it off the line. The high regeneration level even give it the nice engine braking feel that my manual has, but without the jerking when I’m not careful.
The “thundering beasts” will just become a niche, not disappear. People still drive muscle cars on the weekend.
I’ll bet they have a quarter million deposits by this time tomorrow. Tons of people, me included, wouldn’t put down money without even seeing or learning something about the standard features.
250k wouldn’t surprise me either, though the refundability of the deposit seems to put a damper on the logic of holding off until you see it. Taking the time off to stand in line would be a bigger issue, I think.
The demo cars were AWD. So obviously that’s an option. I’ll probably spring for this if it’s in the ballpark of $5k (the same delta as the Model S 70 vs. 70D).
The “instrument cluster”, so to speak, is just the upper-left corner of the console display. Might take a bit of getting used to, but seems ok. It’s not like I need a tach or water temperature gauge front-and-center.
Also, to clarify something I said above:
The autopilot hardware will be in all models. The autopilot safety features (which they didn’t elaborate on, but I presume includes things like auto-braking and blind-spot detection) will also be in all models. Left unsaid but implied is that full autopilot software support will cost more, and likely be something you can add later. It’s $2.5k on the Model S.
This is certainly the first time I’ve felt any lust for a car that I could conceivably own. I’m looking to get my first Real Job after grad school, and if I [del]sell out[/del] start working in pharma the Tesla 3 would within my means…
… but realistically, there’s no way I’m going to enter a wait list for a car without a certain delivery date, before there are any reviews or reliability data. In the real world I’ll be buying a Very Sensible Used $10k commuter car, then probably a Very Sensible Family Hauler. In 5-10 years, after the wheels fall off one of my old commuter cars, the Model 3 or one of its competitors will be at the top of my shopping list. 200 miles is plenty of range for a commuter, especially since the Very Sensible Family Hauler will still have a gas tank and the 350+ mile range for comfortable road trips.
They have some pics up at the website, and though I didn’t see it last night, I now understand what you mean about the nose needing work. It’s as if they were planning to put on a grille, realized they didn’t need one, and just left blank metal over the space. Reminds me of Terminator 2.
I won’t argue with that statement. The difference is that I don’t claim to be a car enthusiast. To me, a car really is just an appliance, a way of getting from Point A to Point B. If I want the thrill of perfect control over my motion, I’ll ride my bike, or better yet, walk.
And while electric motors and generators are quite mature (if anything, even more so than internal combustion engines), batteries are not. Even if electrochemical cells are as good as they’re ever going to get, they still need to come down in price considerably. And, frankly, if they are as good as they’re ever going to get, that might just mean that we’re going to have to wait for supercapacitors or rechargeable fuel cells or some other new technology to replace them before we have practical general-purpose all-electric vehicles. Because right now, while electric vehicles are very good for some niches (it would be “great”, if not for the price), they’re still not versatile enough to be a sole vehicle.
Speaking as a car enthusiast, I wouldn’t mind an autopilot as long as I can turn it off. I love driving, but there are lots of situations in which:
A) Driving is boring, e.g. driving on the Interstate through Kansas, or sitting in traffic at rush hour.
B) Driving is hard, e.g. I’m sick / tired / intoxicated / etc.
C) I’d rather be doing something else, e.g. looking at scenery as I drive through Colorado.
If the autopilot were something I could turn on and off, like cruise control, I’d use it all the time. In fact, it would lead to me using my car more often: if I could read a book or work on my laptop while the car spends 2 hours driving me somewhere, I’d travel a lot more often!
What I’m really looking forward to is being able to sleep in my car while it drives me somewhere overnight. Go to bed at 10 PM, and wake up in Las Vegas!
We were in Montana last summer, taking the Taurus over some rather rustic roads now and then. After getting back on the highway, there was this odd noise, so we pulled over and discovered that the cataclysmic perverter had obtained a divorce from the exhaust manifold and was dragging in front, suspended only by the tailpipe hanger. Not quite a valve grind, but one other ICE weak point that an electric would not have. Luckily there was cell coverage, in the middle of not much of anywhere, but we had to cool our heels in an almost-BFE town for two days waiting for the part.
An electric might not have weathered the mistreatment that car took any better, I cannot be sure. It was pushed close to or beyond its design limits.
