Tesla Motors Announces Prices For Their Upcoming Models

Shivetya writes with a list of prices for upcoming models from Tesla, noting that "they aren't cheap and the prices are listed assuming the $7500 tax credit. A 160-mile range S will set you back $49,900, the 230-mile is at $59,000, and the 300-mile range S will cost $69,000. Battery sizes are 40, 60, and 85kwh respectively. For your money these cars also include a very large seventeen-inch touchscreen. Is this the electric car you've been waiting for or another rich person's toy?"

Comments

Both

[bonch]

Is this the electric car you've been waiting for or another rich person's toy?

Can't it be both? Because right now it's both.

Re:Both

[GameboyRMH]

Yeah anything over $40k is well into the "rich guy toy" range, good deal or not.

Re:Both

[Nethemas the Great]

Yes and no. Obviously "rich guy" is a relative term but there are plenty of people who plunk down $40K on full-size pickup trucks and SUVs that are firmly seated in the middle of the middle-class. Is it a wise choice given alternatives? Debatable. But the $50K base model is definitely not a "rich guy toy" just a white-collar guy toy.

I'm a software engineer and not what most people in the Western world would call rich, just "comfortable" in my income. I'm actually giving the car serious consideration for purchase in a few years after the lease expires on the next car I'm getting in a month or two. By then hopefully the bugs will be more or less ironed out and production ramped up so there isn't a year long waiting list like their Roadster--a car for which few people would argue against is a rich-guy toy.

Re:Both

[Guspaz]

45 minutes gets you 80% of capacity. If I wanted to drive from Montreal to Toronto (545KM) with the high-capacity model S (480KM range), you're looking at one single 45 minute refueling stop halfway. So yeah, the trip that takes 6h13m in a gas car now takes 6h58m in the electric car, but that's not a huge difference. And, to be honest, most people stop halfway for lunch when driving to Toronto anyhow, so if you can charge midway while eating, you're potentially not using up any extra time at all.

All this presupposes that there's a recharging station halfway between Montreal and Toronto, although since they're the two largest cities in the country and it's one of the most heavily traveled routes in the country, it's not an unreasonable thing to expect we'll see some recharging stations along that route eventually.

But as with all technology

[goldcd]

We need the rich guys to buy it first, so the rest of us can pick them up when they get mass market - if there is a mass market (which personally I think there is)
The first "motorized carriages" were quite definitely impractical toys for the rich. See also the first airplanes and pretty much "the first anythings"

Re:But as with all technology

[rjstanford]

The problem with that statement is that it is an average. Probably close to zero Americans actually drive 40 miles per day. The point is this: Only rich people can afford a $60,000 car that is worthless other than for everyday commuting along with a second vehicle for longer trips where stopping for several hours after every 2 hours of driving is impractical. The average American may drive 40 miles per day, but the average American probably does make a one-way driving trip of over 160 miles at least a couple times a year (twice per major traveling holiday).

The average American, in your case, can rent a car twice a year. In fact, they frequently do so after getting in an airplane and travelling many miles. Plenty of people never drive their personal car over 250 miles (the larger range offered) in a single day ... ever.

Re:No

[GameboyRMH]

Battery swapping is going to seem like a laughably silly idea 10 years from now. I think it's silly right now myself.

EV makers should stop trying to appease the "range anxiety" crowd, they can't be appeased. Have battery swap stations at every corner and cars with a 500 mile range and they'll be "anxious" about getting a dud battery and breaking down in the desert they drive through every morning.

I mean the high-end model goes 300 miles. There are only two reasons to have a problem with that range: You actually drive further than that regularly, in which case you have no business driving an electric car right now anyways, or you've got some kind of "range survivalist syndrome" where you're always worried about "what if I run out of juice and then ZOMBIES ATTACK!?"

Re:Tesla

[Overzeetop]

I'll give you a call as soon as I have a day when I actually need the towing capacity of diesel truck on a daily basis.

(ever wonder if maybe you weren't the target market?)

Re:I can't wait

[CaptainLard]

I'd much rather my tax dollars went to electric vehicle manufacturers trying to get off the ground and make waves in the system than to companies that have been recording record profits the past few years in a row (looking at you Exxon...).

Re:the electric vehicle

[yurtinus]

Maybe it's not the automobile, but Los Angeles that is unsustainable...