Tesla Model 3

[Unicorn Jeff]

My wife and I are already on board on getting one. Just been waiting for them to come down in price. Even though 35k isn't bad... I still have a hard time to stomach that much.

[8mpg]

I love the Model 3 idea...hell, I love the Model S. Been thinking of getting a Model S

[BLAKE]

I love the Model 3 idea...hell, I love the Model S. Been thinking of getting a Model S

They're pretty amazing. Even the slowest Model S has an acceleration that is surprising. It just goes.

[8mpg]

They're pretty amazing. Even the slowest Model S has an acceleration that is surprising. It just goes.

I havent test driven one yet...plan on it. Love the styling. I can easily put in a 50a circuit and it will be quick to charge. I drive 35 miles a day and with 250 mile range, I wouldnt have to charge every day. They are expensive.... but I guess its just one of those luxuries you pay for if its something you really want.

[sc281]

I don't give a shit. I hope he sells a million.
Whatever it takes to make that home electricity storage device viable, reliable, and affordable.

Agreed. That will make the idea of living off the grid a whole lot more appealing.


Better solar panels + badass battery bank = live basically anywhere I want.

[Strychnine]

325,000+ reservations confirmed by Tesla.
"The preorders represent about $14 billion in implied future sales, making this the single-biggest one-week launch of any product ever."

[CWO]

So what you are buying into here is a fad like and iPhone or iPad or the like.

Musk is a master of marketing snake oil to idiots. Seriously. Genius!

I like you... but the iPhone is a fad? It is a part of technology that is constantly evolving, and quickly. If it were a fad you either wouldn't have cell phone or still be using a Nokia 3310.

People said the same thing about the microwave, color TV, the CD, fuel injection, disc brakes, or any other technology for that matter. Is it early in development? Yes. Is it a fad? Not even close.

[GhostTX]

325,000+ reservations confirmed by Tesla.
"The preorders represent about $14 billion in implied future sales, making this the single-biggest one-week launch of any product ever."

Forbes article wondering if the pre-orders are real and if even the plant can make that number in a reasonable time.

...
For a long time, the 12,000 orders written on the launch day of Citroen’s legendary DS in 1955 were considered as the record to beat. When a new Ford Fiesta, one of the world’s best-selling cars, was launched in 2011, it made headlines for receiving “6,000 reservations and more than 100,000 handraisers, months ahead of its launch this summer,” as a Ford press release trumpeted at the time. Those handraisers did not have to fork over $1,000. By the end of 2011, the Fiesta had sold 781,147 units.

To put the unbelievable number of pre-orders even more in perspective, the world’s best-selling electric vehicle, the Nissan Leaf, has sold a total 211,000 units globally since its launch in 2010, as Nissan spokesman Dion Corbett told me this morning.

With so many Model 3 reservations supposedly taken in just a few days, the number could easily double within a few months. Musk expects that to happen. Two days ago, he tweeted that 500,000 pre-orders are possible “if the trend continues,” before part 2 of the launch event, which could be anywhere from within a few months to “closer to start of production,” whenever that will be. Which leads us to the biggest question:

How is Tesla planning to make all those cars?

At the launch event, Elon Musk glossed over the question, saying that “our Fremont factory, in the past, has actually made almost 500,000 cars a year.” Past performance is, as we are wont to ignore, not an indicator of future results. According to contacts at Toyota, a company that pretty much donated the Nummi factory to Tesla’s cause (and to appease the gods in Washington, as the WallStreet Journal claimed) the capacity of the plant was closer to 400,000 a year. The biggest problem, however, is the fact that the plant is nowhere ready to crank out cars in large numbers.

“When we left Nummi, there were two lines, one for sedans, one for trucks,” said the Toyota contact, who requested anonymity on account of not having anything nice to say about the competition, Musk’s “fool cell” barbs notwithstanding. “We pretty much dismantled most of the equipment when we left, except for the stamping equipment and the paint shop,” the contact continued, adding that some of the machinery left behind dated back to 1962, when the plant was opened by GM. Hardly the cutting edge technology Tesla should let close to its cars. Tesla learned this the hard way when it refurbished the paint shop last year, and promptly ran into problems with California’s environmental regulator.

Meeting the demand of the 276,000 cars supposedly pre-ordered in the first three days would fill the capacity of a completely new plant. To build one in China, or India, where most of the car factory building is taking place these days, costs anywhere from $1.5 billion on up. Nobody dares to guess what a new plant would cost that meets the strict requirements of California. Also, you would build a plant sized for the volume you expect in three to five years, not for hands raised between Thursday and Saturday of last week.

To put matters even more in perspective: Carlos Ghosn’s Nissan builds a million cars a year in Japan, and it does that with five huge plants all around the country, augmented by a long list of support facilities, a wholly-owned transmission maker, and three proving grounds. In January, Elon Musk announced plans for “at least a few million a year” by 2025, requiring, using Nissan’s yardstick, 10 plants in less than 10 years. They would take a few years to build, and between $20 billion to $30 billion to pay for.

Which brings us, before we address the money part, to another problem with Tesla’s mass-market aspirations: The challenging part in the auto industry is not the relatively mature technology of the automobile itself, especially not the much simpler technology of the electric vehicle. The holy grail of the industry is production engineering, the art and science of putting out large amounts of cars in consistent quality, made on flexible lines that can handle many different models at the same time, lines that can build each car according to customer specs. Tesla has grappled with production problems many times, even while in boutique production mode.

Elon Musk often complains that “people don’t quite appreciate how hard it is to manufacture something. It is really hard.” It sure is. It will be much harder when you produce 2,000 cars per day, and when the slightest glitch in your system produces seas of unsalable cars that spill over your parking lots.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2016/04/06/teslas-unbelievable-model-3-pre-order-mirage-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/#53f6ebc4dcb0

[BP]

Agreed. That will make the idea of living off the grid a whole lot more appealing.


Better solar panels + badass battery bank = live basically anywhere I want.

You know it wouldn't be that complicated to tap into a Tesla battery to power a house the same way their wall packs do. There are plenty of people that use hybrids as gas powered generators during power outages, there really isn't anything stopping someone from doing the same thing with a Tesla and a working Supercharger station nearby.

[fastwhite99gt]

Down south, a Tesla is not a bad idea for short trip people. They come up here to Alaska and test every year at our track and when it's really cold outside, you have to have the supercharger setup from them to get it to charge. Even moderately cold temps, you have to have a 30+ amp 220v circuit to charge with, 110v circuits just barely keep up to keep the batteries from freezing. The acceleration is awesome, even in the snow and ice, AWD and an electric motor torque makes for a lot of fun!