Tesla Motors May Be Having an iPhone Moment 452
pacopico writes "Telsa Motors has started churning out 500 of its all electric Model S sedans per week. Bloomberg Businessweek just did a cover story about the company, suggesting that Tesla is becoming more than just a fad of rich folks in California. According to the story, 75 percent of Tesla's sales now come from outside of California, and the company appears poised to raise its sales forecasts for the year. There's a lot of talk about Tesla's history and why it survived when Fisker and Better Place failed too."
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, I love iPhones and I love the entire Tesla story but what was the point of dropping "iPhone" into the title of this post?
Oh. That's right. Page views.
meh...
Ummm ... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, it's not just a fad for rich folks in California, it's becoming a fad for rich folks in other places too.
Right.
MSRP of $62,400 Though? (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the whining and moaning about rich people, that seems to be how society advances often. A rich person's fad then becomes a commodity.
Yeah ... but I mean to call the Model S no longer a rich person's fad is stretching it. Their MSRPs [teslamotors.com] for a 60 kWh car is $62,400. $72,400 for an 85 kWh and $87,400 for the 85 kWh with upgraded features. Is this really affordable? I thought I was living a pretty average lifestyle but I spent $6,600 on my current car ... Of course, if you're calling it the iPhone in that everyone else is buying it and I'm laughing at how much money they're spending on phones then, yes, it could be called the iPhone. Still very much a rich person's car though.
Re:Testla is good... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you saying that Tesla was some campaigner for green energy? I don't think so. He would however think electric cars are pretty cool.
Re:Testla is good... (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally false.
Go read a damn book.
Gasoline does not appear as if by magic at your local station. It gets trucked there, after being refined, after being pumped out of the ground, after being fought over in wars.
Re:Testla is good... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think its an insult to call this Tesla motors. An insult to his once great name. These electric cars are just as poisonous to the environment as anything else but liberal idiots keep on keepin on.
I guess you are thinking about the electricity coming from dirty coal power plants or similar, but it doesn't have to. Electric cars are one part of the puzzle, cleaning up electric power generation at source another, it isn't either or, you should do both. This is absolutely possible at large scale with today's technology (see fx Germany). And as an added benefit you avoid the local pollution, big city smog is a significant health risk many places.
Two Drive Around My Florida Town (Score:5, Insightful)
Just about every morning on my way to work, I see two of the Tesla Model S on the road. I commute between Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter, Florida. That's less than a 20-minute commute.
If you're looking for a conversation starter at the country club or marina, a BMW, Mercedes or even a Bentley isn't going to work nearly as well as a Tesla.
While $65,000 to $75,000 seems like a lot for a car (I cringe at paying half that), there are just as many cars in that price range rolling in Palm Beach County that aren't nearly as exotic or as head-turning as the Tesla. I pass dozens of $65k+ cars on the way to work and it isn't unusual to see $100k+ cars either. Those are mostly background noise because they are so common.
Cheers,
Matt
Have you actually driven a Model S? I have (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, I just don't care for battery cars, just like I don't care for iDevices -- perhaps the (dumb) analogy is more accurate than the author intended.
I've actually sat in a Tesla Model S at a electric vehicle show. I defy anyone to actually test drive one and claim that they "don't like battery cars". The Model S is obviously too pricey for most folks but it is an awesome car almost any way you care to measure it. It's fast, handles great, has range comparable to gas cars, looks nice, doesn't need gasoline, has a terrific interior and can even be recharged relatively quickly given the state of the art in recharge technology. Given it's range the recharge time problem is significantly mitigated. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I had the money.
If the technology can be developed to get recharge times down to 5-10 minutes you had better start learning to like "battery cars" because that is really the only serious problem holding them back. Until we get to that point I think we're going to see a slow but steady migration through plug in hybrids. I've driven the Volt and the Ford Fusion Energi and I'm seriously considering buying one or the other. They're both genuinely good cars for reasonable prices (not cheap but competitive) and I can do much of my daily driving without needing to use gas.
The Touch Screen (Score:5, Insightful)
"...Franz von Holzhausen, can barely contain himself as he talks about the design of the Model S. “It’s like the leap of faith Apple (AAPL) took with the iPhone,” he says, explaining why the car has a touchscreen instead of the usual physical buttons."
This is monumentally wrong. Touch screens succeed on a phone because a phone is a portable device and the touch screen is lighter and smaller. Physical controls are preferable for humans because they model the physical world to which we've adapted. In a car, you need to use the controls without taking your eyes off the road. This means location by feel is important. A touch screen can't provide that.
It seems the entire design world has this backwards, include appliance manufacturers. I hate the buttons on my oven.
Re:MSRP of $62,400 Though? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I find it hilarious... (Score:4, Insightful)
In ten years, can you convert your gasoline car to run on solar, wind, hydro, or nuclear power? You can with an electric car. They are not a panacea, but they do allow us to move away from a specific fuel dependency (and one which also doesn't compete with food).
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I got the impression "iPhone" was used deliberately. He's making a comparison to another product where others already existed in the space, but where some company managed to package it in a way that somehow caught the imagination of non-technical users and became wildly popular.
It's as if that New York Times hit-job on the Tesla had read:
"No instant refueling. Less range than a Ford Focus. Lame."
Define "Rich" (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you define "Rich" though? Something like 90% of Americans define themselves as middle class, so it really covers a wide amount of territory.
So what's your definition? $1M+ in assets? $5M+? $100k in income/year? $250k? More?
Let's look at the basic 85 kWh model, which comes with free charging and such. $72,400. That works out to $1,207/month over 5 years. Ouch, no kidding. Let's say that our theoretical 'middle class' person is:
A: Car focused; they're going to be driving the 'best' car they can get no matter what, even if it impacts their savings/housing. Nobody ever said everybody 'middle class' is 100% financially logical/responsible.
B: Has access to free electricity for charging(work, supercharger stations, whatever)
C: Itemizes on taxes already.
D: Drives an average amount of distance per year, but no trips outside of a Tesla's range.
Please note that I'm trying to be favorable to Tesla in this case, in order to see how low it could realistically go.
1. $72,400 minus the federal rebate of 7,500 becomes $64,900
2. 15k miles/year@20mpg(nasty city driver, best case for electric, worst for gasoline), 750 gallons@$4 = $3k/year. $15k in fuel savings. $49.9k left
Picking on GM, the Cadillac CTS-V Sedan is more expensive(3.9 v 4.2 for 0-60), and the XTS and CTS Sport are close. BMW 7 Series are uniformly $25k+ more expensive. You need to drop to the 5 series to reach that price point.
It's not even to middle-middle class yet, but I'd say it's moved from 'rich' people to 'upper-middle'.
Re:Testla is good... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:MSRP of $62,400 Though? (Score:4, Insightful)
"At introduction, a PC with 64 kB of RAM and a single 5.25-inch floppy drive and monitor sold for US $3,005 ($ 7,588 in today's dollars)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC [wikipedia.org]
Clearly it was far too expensive for most consumers people to afford. But it led to an industry in which ever better PCs became ever cheaper.
Whilst that won't be as dramatic with electric cars, they will certainly reduce in price over the years to become comparable with ICE. And as the price of fossil fuels continues to rise, EVs will become better value over their whole lifetimes even quicker.
Re:The best thing about Tesla so far (Score:4, Insightful)