Tesla Model 3 Was California's Best Selling Car Through First Quarter (cnet.com) 191
Through the first quarter of this year, the Tesla Model 3 was California's best selling vehicle. CNET reports: Data from the California New Car Dealers Association released last week shows the Model 3 sold 18,856 units through March 31 of this year. The figure is greater than any rival car, and even trumps mass-market cars and crossovers. The car to come closest was the Honda Civic with 18,001 units sold in the same time period. The Toyota Camry (17,871 units), RAV4 (17,261) and Corolla (15,575) round out the top five cars through Q1 in California. The CNCDA categorizes the Model 3 in the "near luxury" category, which has it compete with cars like the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. In its respective segment, the electric car blew rivals away. The 3 Series sits in second place with 3,437 units sold to the Model 3's 18,856. The Lexus ES (2,703 units), C-Class (2,199) and Audi A4 (1,099 units) fill in the final results, and it's clear, Californians dig their Teslas.
I don't see how the legacy automakers can sell any (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll probably get modded to hell for this, but I don't see how the legacy car makers can sell a car right now! The Tesla Model 3 is literally superior in every way to what they are producing.
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(Disclaimer: I own a Model 3, and I fucking love it)
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If you don't think externalities of your decisions affect you, you just don't think.
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That is the most asinine reason to not buy a product that you like, especially since Tesla is a publicly traded company.
And this is why libertarianism doesn't work.
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I test drove one last year but it was too small. The car is very low, which is great for efficiency but means it is hard to get in and out of. You have to swing right down to get into the low seat, but the door sill is quite high for some reason (I guess to give the door enough clearance that you can open it next to a kerb). Then the wheel gets in the way of my knees as I try to slide into position... I need a taller car with more upright seating position.
Once in it drove pretty nicely. Screen wasn't hard t
Re:You mad bro? (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? You're gonna praise his bashing of CNN? You know that CNN didn't just make that story up, right? The governor was the one who said they never delivered. But even then, CNN didn't just go with it. They contacted Tesla's public relations department for comment but Tesla refused to respond. When your company has a department whose job is to handle press inquiries, and then they ignore press inquiries, you don't get to bitch about the press. Try bitching about your shitty employees instead.
Re: You mad bro? (Score:2)
They contacted Tesla's public relations department for comment but Tesla refused to respond. When your company has a department whose job is to handle press inquiries, and then they ignore press inquiries, you don't get to bitch about the press.
Eh, if I got an inquiry from CNN I'd probably ignore it too. If they want to make fools of themselves, why stop them?
That's the problem with ruining your reputation by attacking 15 year old boys as racists during the odd periods when you're not too busy making up shit about the president. Once it's gone, it's never coming back. Who in their right mind would want to talk to you.
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Quick refilling.
Stations everywhere.
Fit and finish.
Can tow while keeping reasonable range.
Cheap to repair.
Repair centers in every state.
Sane leadership.
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I hear the fit and finish are adequate now. Not everyone can be Audi, thank goodness. I'll give you everything else except sane leaders. It's not sane to build and sell environmental devastation machines if you have credible alternatives.
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"what is insane about building fossil fuel vehicles?"
Perpetrating their contribution to the destruction of the biosphere. They live here too.
They might be excused if we were using non-topsoil based biofuels, but we aren't.
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Carbon is the least of things they remove from the soil. Many plants don't need soil carbon.
Leadership? (Score:2)
You factor in how well the CEO performs when buying a car?
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Sane leadership.
Americans don't demand sane leadership. It's never been part of our core values. I could cite examples if you need them ...
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If that suits you then great. Personally I enjoy the benefits of driving an EV.
Quiet, smooth ride.
Excellent performance.
Both fun to drive and relaxing to drive as I prefer.
Rarely any need to go out of my way to charge, 99.9% done at home or while shopping.
No handling smelly petrol.
Saves a lot of money by not buying petrol.
Nicer cabin than any fossil car (Honda e).
Plus (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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It seems that because the Model 3 sold well they abandoned their plan to make an affordable mode.
For about 3/4th the price you can get a Kona, eNiro or Leaf 62 with similar or better range. For about half the price you can get a Leaf 40 which for most people is more than adequate. There are a few other cars around that price bracket too now, the MG ZS EV (catchy name) etc.
I wonder if maybe it's partly down to California skewing things a bit. Wages are high there because it costs a lot to live there, so the
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It depends.
With a Tesla, you're paying a lot of expenses up front. With other cars, you're just spreading out the payments across the years. After all, you've got to pay for gas, oil, maintenance and other stuff.
Sure, if you're a mechanic, you can save a lot of the cost, but if you're jus
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For most people though it's not worth paying the extra for a Tesla over the many other EVs available. For about 25% less you can get a car with similar range, and for about 50% less you can get a car with less but still good range.
Unless you do a lot of charging on the go it's not going to be worth spending 50% more to save an hour or two a year at most, and of most people the time saving will actually be zero.
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I'll probably get modded to hell for this, but I don't see how the legacy car makers can sell a car right now! The Tesla Model 3 is literally superior in every way to what they are producing.
Are you joking, or are you serious? I mean, I've read the loonies on eletrek and greencarreports, but this almost sounds like something one of them would say.
re: Yeah, he's probably serious! (Score:2)
Electric cars are NOT for everyone. But as a skeptic who finally, hesitatingly, bought a used Tesla S a couple years ago? I can assure you that yeah, they're superior in almost every respect. The Model 3 beats out the 2014 Tesla S I had in many metrics, including lower retail price, far greater range, newer battery technology (lets it recharge faster and probably last longer), better handling/cornering, and all the latest technology in it for autopilot/driver assistance type stuff. The main downside vers
Re:I don't see how the legacy automakers can sell (Score:5, Interesting)
I took a look at the Tesla Model 3 for my next car (which I'm still undecided about) and quite frankly the way legacy car makers can sell cars is because they are cheaper. Don't underestimate the power of cheaper.
Here in NZ, the "600km range range" Tesla Model 3 (chosen because we would need the range) has a list price on the Tesla website of $97,000 NZD - but they cleverly hit you with a second price of $91,000 after deducting "estimated savings" based on reduced petrol usage. So the drive away price is $97k. Let's ignore electricity prices here because let's face it, its negligible - thats the benefit of an electric car after all.
We picked up my wifes brand new Toyota Fortuna GLX, a fairly nice SUV to drive and it does everything we want, for $52,000 NZD brand new. It came with a 3 year manufacturers warranty and a 3 year service package built into the cost - so thats no annual service costs for the three year period. We just extended the warranty and maintenance package out to 5 years for another $3,000 NZD, so total cost on the car is $55k.
We haven't replaced any major parts yet, nearly 3 years into the ownership, so theres still some unknowns there - ICE cars have more moving parts and are more complex overall, so I would expect to see more cost in maintenance the older the car gets over the Tesla. We have replaced the tyres (which I will call a wash with the Tesla, because the Tesla would need to do that also over the life time), and my wife has done about 60,000 KM so far.
Here in NZ, we pay a tax (the Road User Charge) of $72 per 1000KM for this vehicle - so thats an additional cost of $4,320 for the Fortuna. From next year, electric cars also have to pay this tax, but I will ignore it for now for the Tesla.
So the Fortuna is up to $59,320 NZD.
We get roughly 700KM out of a tank (80 litres), which means we have put in roughly 6,800 litres of fuel during its life. When combined with an average diesel price of $1.20/litre over the past 3 years (being generous here toward the top end - diesel prices have been much lower than that but equally they could go higher over the next 2), that means we have spent $8,160 on fuel. Lets assume we will do a similar mileage per year as we have so far for the next 2 years, and tack on another 40,000km, and that gives us a cost of $13,500 on fuel for 5 years and 100,000km.
So the Fortuna is up to $72,000 for purchase, maintenance and fuel. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting.
$72,000 NZD for a good guestimate on 5 year ownership costs vs $97,000 NZD costs for the Tesla Model 3.
I'm $25k better off buying the legacy diesel. Sure, I don't have the cool toy, its not a Tesla, but its a damn nice SUV with good boot space and 4WD. Then again, I'm not doing anything for the environment...
If I was keeping the car longer than 5 years, the figures would certainly swing into the Teslas favour on fuel usage and maintenance costs - but that requires people to budget properly, and basically no one does that. It's going to be "what can I get financing for over the next 5 years", and when you look at it that way, $52K looks a lot more affordable than $97K. Remember that people don't consider things like fuel costs in their car purchase either - that $8k saving Tesla says you will have looks nice, but its going to come in at $50 here and $60 there over the course of the period they are estimating, which feels a lot less ... epic.
So, do I spend an extra $40K upfront (even on finance) and go with the Tesla, or do I go and buy another legacy car? To be honest, even after I've done all the figures, I'd still like the Tesla (even a lowly "affordable" Model 3 - a Model X would set me back $160K here and is pretty much dismissed out of hand...)
Please, go ahead and rip into my figures - I've rounded here and there, and I'm sure Im missing something so please go ahead and set me right on the figures. Help me make my case to the wife...
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And if you're in CA, it is even worse, because we pay between $0.15 and $0.50 per kWh
Here in SoCal, literally half of the houses on my block have photovoltaic panels on their roof. They're crazy cheap and getting cheaper every month. I have 8KW worth up there that will have paid for themselves after 4 years of use, after which they're essentially free electricity. Another reason EVs are a good match for California: PV power for the EV.
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They're crazy cheap and getting cheaper every month.
That's actually stopping me from installing solar.
Every time I run the numbers, waiting another year for the solar cost to plummet more offsets about what I'd save with them over the year.
I just looked, and it looks like the estimated install cost in my area is down almost $900 from last year. We paid $1100 for electricity last year, but only like 75% of that is the actual electricity. The rest is all the other fees and crap that I'd need to keep paying unless I went totally off-grid. I saved more money del
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Do you really need all that range? If you do regular long journeys it might be worth it, but a quick look at some maps of chargers in NZ seems to suggest that they are not too sparse so it basically comes down to time saving.
For a lot of people in the UK they might as well get an EV costing half as much as the base model Tesla because at worst they will end up spending a few hours a year more charging on long journeys. It's not worth spending 2x as much to save a few hours a year.
I drive electric even thoug
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Yes, we do need the range because of the nature of my wifes work (rural doctor, when on call cant wait for charging, need the range in the bank just in case). But even then, the legacy car still beats the cheaper lower range Tesla 3 base model on price, just not by as much margin.
The rest of your comment was about other EVs or non-economical justifications for your choice - the comment I am responding to is specifically about how the Tesla 3 is so superior to everything else that legacy manufacturers cant
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Ah okay, it seems like you do need the range. Would 450-500km be enough though? Because then you could get something like an eNiro or Kona for a fraction of the price.
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It's the size of a Toyota Celica inside, and it's so heavy it drives like a boat.
They're better than the 3 series or the Mercedes C, but most people don't want that kind of car. The Y will sell very well, though.
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Teslas are freaking expensive, that's how other car companies can sell a car.
Tesla is also misleading as hell in their pricing.
The website lists the Model 3 as $33,690*
The * is 'after calculating gas savings of $4300'. So it's $37,990 to buy it. They don't say how many years that gas savings is calculated over.
And that giant-screen interior is just fugly. I hate center-gauge-cluster cars, and replacing them with what looks for all the world like an iMac glued to the dash is not an improvement.
The cheapest
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Tesla got a lot of stuff right when it comes to EV tech, where many other manufacturers still struggle to get it right or even "get it" at all (I mean, a satnav that is able to plan long journeys with charging breaks should be basic kit on an EV). And Tesla have proven innovative in other areas as well. But I still ended up with a Hyundai Kona EV instead of a Model 3, simply because I prefered the interior and the way it handles, and it was slig
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Tesla currently offers nothing appealing to me.
I require:
- Large trunk with space for the travel bench of our Golden Retriever
- Towing capacity of at least 1200 KG
- And the ability to tow extended distances (we travel with a caravan 1000-1200 KM in two days each summer)
So yeah. If the model 3 was a station wagon it could become a contender. I'd still had to hire a gas car for vacations though.
My wife may buy an electric car when her current car needs replacement. She only drives short distances with little
My takeaway from this (Score:2)
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My takeaway is that most people are not buying "cars" at all, because the most popular cars are classified as "light trucks".
In order to pretend their cars are fuel-efficient, most of the gas-guzzlers in Americas are now simply not covered by the same statistics or rules.
This means SUVs and small pickups, as well as big chassis-based trucks, and these outsell vehicles classified as "cars" in the US.
Still, nice to see the Tesla has out-sold even the Ford F-series in those figures. Well done.
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I think you meant 2Q 2020.
The article doesn't match the data (Score:2, Troll)
The article doesn't match the data. To spin this as they did required a lot of creativity.
Here's the data: https://www.cncda.org/wp-conte... [cncda.org]
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Covering first quarter 2020, Market share for new vehicle brands
Toyota, Honda, and Ford are Market Share Leaders
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Market share for Q1 20, Tesla: 4.6%
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Who's talking about brands? The article is talking about models. Specifically the Model 3.
The data certainly seems to support that claim.
It's a dumb way of looking at it. Tesla sells only one model at that price point, their lowest price point. The other manufacturers sell a wide variety of them. If Tesla sold 10 different models at the Model 3 price point the per-model sales would be minuscule.
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If Tesla sold 10 different models at the Model 3 price point the per-model sales would be minuscule.
So you're going with the "If Tesla made a whole lot of cars that nobody wanted as much it would dilute their sales numbers" line of reasoning?
Sure, why not.
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I want one (Score:2)
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Or you could move and then buy one.
Re:Pandemic blip (Score:4, Informative)
In Q1? California went into lockdown only a week before the quarter ended.
Re:Pandemic blip (Score:5, Interesting)
Overall change -4.3%
Chevy-1.5%
Dodge -19.3%
Ford -14.1%
Honda -7.5%
Hyundai -5.8%
Kia +9.2%
Mazda -0.8%
Nissan -31.4%
Tesla +9.3%
Toyota +6.1%
VW -12.0%
It also states "New vehicle sales in the state likely declined by more than 10% in the First Quarter of this year." So if it wasn't the virus scare, something hit car sales hard in the first quarter. Tesla happened to be immune to it because it's filling a backlog of pre-orders.
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Until prices rise again. This is the trend in auto sales for a few decades - gas prices go up, people buy smaller or fuel efficient cars; prices drop and the sales of big-ass pickups and SUVs goes up; and then this repeats. It's like there's a bit of collective amnesia going on.
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EVs are making less financial sense.
Nobody buys a Tesla to save a few nickels.
Teslas are status symbols, especially in California where your friends are likely to be greenies or techies or both.
Disclaimer: I live in California and my spouse drives a Tesla.
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EVs are making less financial sense.
Nobody buys a Tesla to save a few nickels.
Teslas are status symbols, especially in California where your friends are likely to be greenies or techies or both.
Disclaimer: I live in California and my spouse drives a Tesla.
Thank you. It should be pretty obvious you wouldn't buy one to save money, given that a $20k or less economy car plus $20k of gas and maintenance would get you a very long way indeed. And that's not even accounting for the cost of electricity, which is also something nobody bothers mentioning.
Re: Pandemic blip (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you. It should be pretty obvious you wouldn't buy one to save money, given that a $20k or less economy car plus $20k of gas and maintenance would get you a very long way indeed.
Average cost of fuel and maintenance in the USA is about $2k per year at around 15k miles per year, so it would get you about 10 years and 150,000 miles. In other countries it would be far less since fuel is far more expensive.
And that's not even accounting for the cost of electricity, which is also something nobody bothers mentioning.
Google tells me that electricity in Cali is 10.5 cents per kWh. The Tesla Model 3 has a 50kwh battery with a range of 220 miles, costing about $5.25 per "fill-up", ignoring loss in charging. Bump it up to $6 to account for that and other factors. The previously discussed 150,000 miles would therefore cost around $4,000 compared to $10,000 for the gasoline powered vehicle. Maintenance is harder to estimate but shouldn't exceed half of the ICE vehicle cost, so that's around $5k. After 10 years you've spent $20k for the gas car, and $9k for the Tesla, or $11k in savings. Given that the base Model 3 costs $35k you're looking at about a $4k loss over 10 years compared to your $20k sedan.
That's assuming you live in the USA and gas prices stay relatively flat. Fuel costs for the same period in Canada would be somewhere around $13,500 USD. In the UK it would be something like $25,000 USD. Electricity is also more expensive in the UK, but would only bring the fuel cost for the EV to about $7k USD for the same time period, resulting in $18k savings for fuel or $23k for fuel+maintenance. That's $8k cheaper than your $20k sedan.
Of course the real savings are realized if you keep your car longer, or drive a lot more. Someone in California who drives for a living and racks up 600,000 miles in 10 years would realize $16k in fuel savings alone. The same scenario in the UK saves you $72k. Keeping the car for 20 years instead of 10 likewise results in much greater savings over ICE.
In over words, it's complicated. But even if I lived in the USA with your incredibly cheap fuel, drove no more than 15k miles per year, and only kept the car for 10 years, I would gladly pay $400 extra per year to have a car that accelerates like a $60k muscle car. Anywhere else in the world I would get that benefit while also saving money over your $20k sedan. And - as a bonus - wherever I happened to be in the world, I wouldn't have to worry about the volatility of the oil markets or rising costs due to oil depletion.
Re: Pandemic blip (Score:3)
In order to drive a Tesla for 600,000 miles you would need to replace the battery at least twice.
Nonsense. Real world data shows about a 10% loss in capacity after 180,000 miles, and about 15% after 300,000 miles. That's variable to some extent based on depth of discharge, but in 600,000 miles you shouldn't have to replace it more than once. Meanwhile on an ICE vehicle you would almost certainly have to replace at least the transmission and probably the engine. I didn't mention it because it tends to balance out.
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I could care less about saving gas. I bought one because of the performance. 0-60 in just over 3 seconds. Nothing in this price range comes remotely close to that level of performance.
I've enjoyed the car quite a bit and the fact that it only costs me about $8 in electricity to travel 300 miles is a bonus.
I could never go back to a gasser.
Econ professor calculated "cost" of his Tesla ... (Score:2)
Nobody buys a Tesla to save a few nickels.
More like tens of thousands of dollars.
An economics professor calculated the cost of his Tesla Model S. Not a model 3 but the savings model could be applied to a 3 as well.
"For those who can't get the tax credit and have to pay for juice, let’s just take out the $10k subsidy and reduce the gas savings by $6,600 ($2,200/50k miles). That puts the cost of a new Model S driven 150k miles under this simple model at $21,660"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/g... [forbes.com]
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I don't see Model 3 on your list at all.
My liability coverage is significantly cheaper with my Model 3 than it was with my previous car (Honda Insight). I don't know why, it just is. I added full collision coverage this time, though, so the overall cost is higher. But still not very expensive.
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Sales are reported quarterly. Tesla's next sales reporting will probably be in the 1-3 July range.
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Besides, most of the Model 3 and Model Y sales were pre-orders, no? I'd bet that most of those sales came in before the pandemic started.
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This year, California. Next year, Texas (with the cybertruck).
Re:With Elon going Red Pill, this will quickly cha (Score:5, Insightful)
EVs are part status symbol and part social signaling. What Elon failed to realize is that he is not in a car making business, he is in a social activism business. His sales will tank, at least in California, and the rest of US will not pick it up as these are still too expensive and too impractical for long travel even with superchargers.
LOL. That tired old line of dogma is over. The cat's out of the bag this time and no amount of oil company made up bullshit arguments are going to put it back. It's over. Electric is the future.
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It's over. Electric is the future.
Electric cars are the future, and always will be.
Electric cars are like nuclear fusion, in 20 years they will dominate the market. It's always just 20 years away, year after year after year.
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So all of these Teslas I see around... are driven by time travelers?
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Nice straw man.
Did I say that electric cars are impossible to produce? No, I did not. I said that electric cars will not replace hydrocarbon burners. Electric cars will remain as inherently hobbled compared to those with an internal combustion engine. Hobbled in range, in speed to refill/recharge, in ability to carry/tow cargo, and so on.
Are there places where battery electric cars shine? Sure. I saw this when I used to work in a welding shop where they had two forklifts. The electric forklift was po
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My current car is a plug in hybrid.
My next car won't be.
It's going to be full electric.
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Good for you. The exception does not define the rule.
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The exception does not define the rule.
That's true; we're all exceptions - except for you, who are the norm, of course.
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If you live on the urban side of urban/suburban, an electric car can be hard to charge.
Either fast charge at more cost than gas, or move to where you have a charger where you park.
On my block we have 2 garages, and I built a driveway out of 11 residences (10 in the row, one is split into 2 apartments), and we have more driveways/garages than most in the city.
Residential areas even in many if the suburbs have streets full of
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Most ICE cars have a range of around 500-600 miles per fillup. Electrics are slowly moving into the 400-500 miles per charge range. The cybertruck in particular looks to be the first reasonably priced electric vehicle with reasonable range. I expect the range of electrics to double within a decade at which point they will be burying ICE cars. Tesla already announced cheaper batteries which should bring costs down to ICE levels soon. Give it another decade and they might even charge acceptably fast. I really
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So you admit that EV range will be a problem for 1/4 of the population.
Checkmate libs!
You don't care, but what of the 1/4 of drivers that do? It's because of this 1/4 of the population that EVs will not replace the ICE. It's because a used ICE has the same range as a new ICE that they will keep their value longer than EVs
Ah so that's why the entire population drives minivans, because 1/4 of them need one so everyone has one...?
As EV technology develops I expect these technologies to be adopted into ICE ve
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The end state improvement of ICEs you have written is an EV.
If that's your definition of an EV then a diesel train is an EV. As I described the vehicle the energy for propulsion comes from hydrocarbon fuels, like a train, just because there is an electric motor to make the wheels spin does not make it an EV.
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If that's your definition of an EV then a diesel train is an EV.
Diesel electrics aren't usually hybrid drive. And no one buys a diesel electric freight train out of range anxiety, they buy one if the routes they want to run aren't electrified.
You wrote about a car with a battery and an electric drive train. That's an electric car with an expensive, useless ICE tacked on.
The thing is you missed the last step. Well, you have a fully electric car with a mostly useless ICE stuffed in there. The first manufactur
Re:With Elon going Red Pill, this will quickly cha (Score:5, Interesting)
What Elon failed to realize is that he is not in a car making business, he is in a social activism business.
An intriguing premise. Where is your data? Did you find some kind of survey where EV owners overwhelmingly said they spent tens of thousands of dollars for virtue signaling rather than to buy a useful car?
these are still too expensive and too impractical for long travel even with superchargers.
I have a 2012 Tesla Model S, with a current max range of about 230 miles (and it's best practice to charge to 90% so I usually stop at 205 miles). I have bike racks on the roof, so the range is worse than a Tesla with clean aerodynamics. I believe my car is one of the slowest-charging Teslas (aside from the original Roadster), and it still charges from empty to 90% in about an hour at a Tesla Supercharger. In short, I have one of the worse Teslas for long trips.
The longest trip I have taken in it, so far, was 250 miles; that was completely practical. We drove for two hours, stopped for a meal while the car charged up, and could have finished the trip without charging but chose to make a second charging stop (and I got coffee and a snack while the car charged).
We have a gasoline car and the Tesla, and I would totally make that drive again in the Tesla. IMHO it's "practical".
If you are a traveling salesman who routinely drives 8 hours a day and goes to really remote areas where there aren't Superchargers yet: congratulations, a Tesla isn't the best car for you. But for me: it's working out very well.
By the way, even an old used Tesla is IMHO an expensive car. I don't spend that kind of money to virtue-signal. I wanted a car that wouldn't cost me a lot of money in repairs. It's out of warranty and I'm really not spending much on it so it's working out so far.
My wife noticed the other day that she hasn't bought gasoline in over a month. Both of us are mostly driving the electric car now.
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My wife noticed the other day that she hasn't bought gasoline in over a month.
Well not to belittle your great post, but many people haven't bought gasoline in over a month. ;-)
I actually am more extreme case. 2 weeks ago someone started talking about cars and I pointed out that I hadn't even seen my car in 2 months. I honestly couldn't tell you if it were stolen.
Well it wasn't stolen, and it couldn't be stolen either. It didn't start. Battery was completely dead.
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Even before I started working from home, I barely bought gasoline once a month, since the round trip to the commuter train station is only 4.5 miles. Still, I'd rather have an electric vehicle, I just don't want to spend the money compared to buying a used gasoline car. And I definitely don't want a flat screen TV for a control panel.
Re:With Elon going Red Pill, this will quickly cha (Score:5, Interesting)
His sales will tank, at least in California, and the rest of US will not pick it up as these are still too expensive and too impractical for long travel even with superchargers.
You can't drive 5 minutes in Southern California without seeing a Tesla. They're everywhere. People love them. I've asked plenty of Tesla owners what they think about their cars. People who could buy whatever they like. To a person, each has told me they love their Tesla, They talk about the features, the perfomance, the feel of driving the car and passenger comfort. They have near universal praise. Not one has mentioned any social reasons for their purchase. They almost always say that car accelerates like a race car and drives like a dream. I don't own one, don't have any stock in the company, and I work for myself. But I've been very curious since Tesla's first production car to see whether Tesla would be successful. So far, In SoCal they clearly are.
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We had a few of the early model Teslas at work, they seemed nice but the price point was way high. It was essentially a status item, but the price helped Tesla grow the business and offer cheaper models later. When the Model 3 came out, suddenly there were lots of them at work because the price point is not that bad relative to mid-range sedans with all the options, and of course the tax rebate as long as it lasts. Quite a lot showed up after the Christmas break was over. Of course, you need the ability
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Well, in CA we also give those folks $7000 for buying their Tesla. So we kind of pay them for their virtue-signalling to the unwashed masses...
Except...we don't.
From Forbes:
For Tesla, the phase out started on January 1, 2019. That's when the $7,500 credit was cut in half to $3,750, and it stayed there until June 30. ... And this is the amount that goes away entirely at the end of December, so any Tesla that gets ordered this year but delivered in 2020 will not qualify.
That literally took me 5 seconds to find with Google. It took me way more time to type this reply.
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California doesn't give everyone a $7,000 rebate. That's a $7k max, it's first-come, first-served and subject to income limitations. Says so here:
https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/lct/cvrp.htm
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Quick look at the CA website shows that Tesla 3 is eligible for $2000 rebate and is subject to income limits:
"Applicants are not eligible for CVRP rebates if their gross annual incomes are above the following thresholds: $150,000 for single filers, $204,000 for head-of-household filers, or $300,000 for joint filers. "
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You neither addressed nor refuted anything I had to say. What you said is not an argument, it's an insult.
There was noting to address or refute. It was meaningless hand waving over symbolic and cultural nonsense. Don't waste my time with this stupid drivel. It's a car.
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Whether you or anyone else wants to make it into a symbol of something mystical or political or social or whatever is utterly uninteresting to me. I don't care who does it or why they do it. Full stop.
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His sales will tank, at least in California, and the rest of US will not pick it
Probably you are trolling, but I think you need a new angle. We have been seeing this assertion for more than 5 years now and it is no more true now than it has been proved to be in the past.
Tesla is at least two years ahead of everyone else and everything I see suggests they will maintain that. At that is assuming both Ford and GM come up with a great product line.
Tesla sells batteries. If you look at it from how the money flows, the cars themselves are almost the status of delivery containers. An
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Ford and GM both have good electric cars, and more affordable than Tesla as well. Even with the lower prices for Model 3 (and variants), it's still priced noticably higher than the other EVs and plug-in hybrids. I think much of that cost comes from the extra batteries to provide the longer range rather than actually having superior luxury features.
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Sandy Monro did the first teardown and panned model 3 in the most unflattering terms. See what is is saying now a days. [youtube.com]
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Social signaling? All the pundits have been saying negative things about Tesla. The PR image is terrible. Who in
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Tesla is in the Autopilot selling business. EVs are cool, Teslas are great to drive and I couldn't go back to a normal car... but Autopilot is what sells.
If they continue to deliver improvements to AP they'll keep selling cars just fine.
Why do you think Elon doesn't know that? (Score:2)
> What Elon failed to realize is that he is not in a car making business, he ...
What in the world makes you think Elon Musk doesn't know his customers?
Soft drink commercials feature bikini-clad young women, athletes, and whatnot instead of taste tests because Coke knows it's not the taste of phosphoric acid they are selling. The perfume makers do their ads the way they do because they know you can't sell "smells good" for $60/ounce.
What makes you think Tesla is unaware of what they are actually selling?
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What makes you think Tesla is unaware of what they are actually selling?
He keep posting on Twitter.
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They're compelling cars and there's many people that won't even consider them because of the California perception.
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EVs are part status symbol and part social signaling.
You mean like most every other product out there?
His sales will tank, at least in California, and the rest of US will not pick it up as these are still too expensive and too impractical for long travel even with superchargers.
But he's not selling range and super chargers, right? He's selling status. This might mean people drive a different car when range is an issue since in this price range a large number of the buyers will have more than one car.
I have to wonder if there will be a point in which Tesla will use their brand to sell plug-in hybrids. Such vehicles will unlikely bear the Tesla badge on the hood, but people will know there is Tesla technology under it somehow. Thi
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The existence of your disorder is well documented -- through owner's anecdote, as well as sentry mode video. But, the question is why? What the fuck is your problem?
Probably a reaction to all the people going on and on about Tesla.
To be fair, when my neighbor drives by in his loud ass lowered pickup truck, I kind of want to punch him in the face. Maybe it's similar.