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Tesla To Unveil Its $35,000 Model 3 In March 2016
An anonymous reader with the news, as reported by Ars Technica, BGR, the WSJ, and more, that Tesla, in the course of the company's most recent earnings call, has announced plans to show off its much-anticipated Model 3 in March, 2016, and somewhat more tentative plans for actual availability; "late 2017" might be optimistic, but it's a start. You can listen to the whole earnings call here. Other bits gleaned from this call include a "late summer" planned delivery for the Model X SUV, and the fact that the PowerWall household battery is sold out until the middle of next year.
What's this constant crap about a boutique car factory that doesn't even sell 5000 cars a month? Give em a break and some time away from the spotlight to get their act together. Geez, it is worse than the iphones.
Hmmm maybe because /. community is interested in tech and electric stuff? And if you want more "business oriented" news may I suggest Forbes's website?
Elok
Because when something like this becomes more accessible to people, it will sell more than 5000 cars a month?
(I can haz DIY build-your-own-Tesla kit? Pretty please?)
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Elon Musk built this car in a cave!!! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!
That's why.
Say what you want about the man, but he's probably the closest thing to a real-life Tony Stark as we're going to get. In a world that seems to otherwise be content with the status-quo, he's pushing the envelope and bringing us the future of things. THAT'S why.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
100% of gasoline powered cars rely on fossil fuels
~66% of electricity in the us is generated using fossil fuels, 39% is from coal
In some sense we are trading the smoke-plumes around, but keep in mind it is vastly more efficient to regulate and control the pollution out of one stack than one million different little stacks.
Only difference is the guys camping out the day before release at the mall entrances are millionaires ;-)
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
There is also one more benefit that you sort of touched on a little, but maybe could use some elaboration.
One gasoline-powered car runs on gasoline. You can bend the gasoline a little by putting something somewhat comparable like ethanol in it, but in the end, you can't stray far from the basic formulation, and that formulation is made not just from fossil fuels, but from one specific fossil fuel. Synthesizing gasoline from coal or natural gas is theoretically possible, but expensive and impractical barring a crisis.
One electric-powered car runs on electricity. You can bend the "formulation" of electricity a number of ways (AC vs. DC; various frequencies, voltages, currents, phase counts) and interchange them pretty efficiently. The electricity itself can come from coal, several grades of oil, natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, biomass, whatever. Effectively, an electric car runs on whatever is available.
For bonus points, an electric motor has torque where it counts: at the bottom of the curve. You need the torque to get the car moving, preferably before the motor has come up to speed. Electric motors will do that. ICEs, on the other hand, need you to temper your load by feathering the clutch, or using a torque converter or hybrid drive system.
Electric cars also have features in common with hybrids, to wit, regenerative braking and no idling.
www.wavefront-av.com
Maybe because electric cars are a piece of revolutionary technology that we are all watching be developed right under our eyes. Many advancements these days require real specialized knowledge to fully appreciate. These guys are actually *shipping* cars. And the last barrier to mass adoptions has been price. A 35k electric car is within reach for probably half of the population. It's going to be a very disruptive technology. Everything from urban planning to electric grids will be affected. So yeah, we all want to know about this stuff and discuss it. Many of us will probably even *buy* this. Some ./ are in a financial position to own one of Tesla's existing production cars and talk about their experience. As I don't know anybody who owns one, I find that to be interesting.
By that logic nothing has happened in computers in the last 60 years. After all, there were computers 60 years ago.
In a way, so you have with a gasoline car.
Fuel has to be transported from the refinery to the depot, then distributed from depots to the stations. And then fuel has to be burned (a huge conversion loss).
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
They're a small, growing company hoping to release an entirely new manufactured line in just a couple years. It would be bizarre if they were making money on a quarterly basis under these circumstances. I imagine if they were content being nothing but a niche player, they could be turning a profit.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I would buy an affordable tesla just to avoid dealing with car dealerships.
Amazon doesn't survive due to selling "zero emissions" credits that it gets from the Californian government to other manufacturers. I'd like to see Tesla make a profit without all the cronyism and end user tax credits.
Tesla doesn't make a profit because it reinvests everything into R&D and the capital equipment it needs to scale. It would be a bad sign if they did make a profit, as it would mean that they don't have any ideas on where to spend money on growth.
You need to learn to read financial reports. Tesla indeed makes a unit profit on their cars even without the government incentives. They are just spending a ton developing two new cars (X,3) and building one of the largest factories ever built.