Slashdot Mirror
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.
Maybe they need more factory capacity. I suggest adding 21% more to the Gigafactory...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
For the price of 2 gold apple watches you can get a new Tesla! I can't wait :) The ultimate future hipster: iPhone, iWatch, iTesla
Come up with a Tesla motorcycle and a Tesla light pickup truck, and then we'll have a conversation. Especially a motorcycle.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
As much as I inherently love the idea of a totally-electric car (actually, a true fuel-cell car would be even nicer!), I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process.
Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
Here's to hoping that they actually go into production:
http://www.eliomotors.com/
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Can't wait to see what this game-changer look like. If the car can live up to my expectation (including a drop in the price of battery pack), I'll certainly be more than interested.
And also think the success of this new model 3 will be necessary if Tesla ever want to enter the major league. With they business model of prepaid and get your car later (closely similar to how aircraft maker operate), Tesla depend on a huge cash entry to be able to multiply their assembly line and manufacture an decent number of car.
Elok
Ok, ok, I know Ford would sue the bejezus out of Tesla if they did it, but... I so hoped that after the Roadster ("Model R") and the Model S (...well...), the affordable car for the masses would be the Tesla Model T. Can they at least spell out "Three" on the nameplate, with a big capital "T"??? Please ?? :)
I think not...(*poof*)
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
In the first quarter of this year, the company built 11,160 cars, averaging more than 1,000 per week during production. In the next quarter ending in June, Tesla hopes to build around 12,500 vehicles and deliver 10,000-11,000 vehicles. And although demand is high for its vehicles, the company lost $154 million in the period ending on March 31, 2015. The company plans to deliver around 55,000 vehicles total in 2015.
Extremely popular, sold out at the release, priced at eye popping 75K to 100K a piece. And .... the company *lost* money! If it is losing 40 million a quarter selling 11000 cars, it works out to 3600$ per car.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Coupled with the fact that unless you live in a detached home and have a garage that can hold two cars, you may not even have parking available for two cars for your household anyways.
Make a vehicle with either enough range or a fast enough recharge time (with suitably spaced recharging facilities) to travel 1000km in a single day, and we'll talk.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm probably in the same low-end car market you are, but a $75k car is not eye-poppingly expensive. A whole bunch of cars on the road cost that much, and many cars cost much more.
If I earned, oh, maybe twice as much then I'd be in the market for $75k cars. If Tesla offers a car at $35k, I'll get on the waiting list (and save up).
Tesla had announced some time ago that they wanted to work towards an electric sedan in the $30-40k MSRP range. You could argue that has been a large component of their general strategy for some time, really. There have been photos of the model X SUV on the web for some time as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Tesla motorcycle.
Have you ever heard a Tesla?!
I was nearly T-boned at a stopsign by some guy in zooming along in a Tesla. Look left, look right, look left again, almost pull out and zzzzzzzoooooooommmm! or was it fwwwwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiissssssshhhhhhh! ? anyhow, I would have heard an IC car from that distance.
LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES.
why do you want to kill off more motorcyclists?! I infer that you are an evil bastard.
Their gross profit per car is about 28% (i.e. about $25,000 per car).
The company lost money because it is spending everything it makes on new factories (Gigafactory, etc.) and developing new models (X, 3).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
They're investing a lot into infrastructure - charging stations, R&D, the giant battery factory - it's not surprising that they are losing money on paper right now.
It's obviously a gamble, but one they are hoping will pay off. They're still in the early stages.
You don't understand finance do you? Start with 'capital accounts' vs. 'cash flow'.
They can't legally write off those costs in a single year.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
These are all great steps. I will, at some point, seriously consider a "mostly" electric car. I have only one extra requirement; a "limp-home" mode run by a small generator of some sort. If it can manage a steady 75mph (NOT difficult at all; remember that the very un-aerodynamic Classic VW Beetle can do this on around 36hp), so I can still get to where I'm going in the event that I need to drive further than a charge can take me, or in the event of unusual circumstances. All other arguments aside, the current difficulty finding charging stations, speed of charging, distances I need to travel, etc, simply means that a pure electric is out of the questions for me. A limp-home mode that can be powered via. traditional methods is all I ask for...
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.
Right.
That's why they "lost money" in 2014.
My point was that they make money on every car they sell which the OP didn't seem to understand.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I think it's FANTASTIC that an American company is making THE "it" car of the last few yrs! BMW obviously makes damn good cars too & you have to assume Toyota will ship one under the Lexus label to "keep up w/Joneses" but in the mean time Tesla is an (unfortunately increasingly rare) excuse for a good old fashioned "USA! USA! USA!". we currently have two Lexuses (Lexi?) but Tesla will be the 1st place we look when one of them needs replacing. LS & S are basically already same price & it sounds like the 3 will be same as ES & X will presumably be comparable to RX so for same $ why not go Tesla?
Just wondering, since I've been waiting for this model to finally come out, now that I've switched to 100 percent green power and bought four solar panels through Seattle City Light.
Be great to know if it can cope with the winters in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, Idaho, BC, and Alberta.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Okay, at $35k, it's got to do one thing:
It's got to, hands down, performance and handling-wise, beat out the 3 series.
If it can't do that, it's an expensive Nissan Leaf.
Go ahead, downvote me, but EVERY car that makes it UP to the $30-$40k mark has to pass this test, no reason Tesla should be any different.
That's only after selling zero emissions credits to other manufacturers. If it wasn't for that, they would be losing nearly $10k on each car.
You are simply wrong. You have to amortize capital costs. They lost money while writing off only a fraction of their development and build out costs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They amortize r and d on a product they haven't released yet, and of course they don't amortize profit. You know just enough to be even more wrong.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The 3 will be a market changer for the low-end of electric vehicles. If they hit $35K with 200+ mile range, it means all the other electric vehicles in that range, such as the Nissan Leaf, will also have to hit 200+ miles or drop below $25K.
Right now there are a number of cars with 80-100 mile ranges in the $30K-$35K range. They won't be able to compete with the 3 without some major improvements.
This also will shake up the used market. Right now 80%+ of Leafs are leased, so about the time the Model 3 comes online all the Leafs on the road today will be for sale. That's a lot of cars, all with 80-mile-ish ranges. Now if new cars at $35K have over double the range, the price of the used cars will be much lower. So if a 80-mile range is sufficient (perhaps for your second or third car in the family), then you'll be able to go electric at a fairly reasonable price in two or three years.
I think the long-term impact will be that most people who have a good place to charge their cars at home will consider electric cars after the Model 3 has had a couple of years to shake up the market. I would guess in five years it will be typical for families with more than one car to have at least one electric, and in ten years the majority of new cars will be electric.
This is worse then Apple and the Apple watch. What kind of company can survive if it can't keep up with demand? Tesla has the brilliant end and the poor business end of things. Great and well engineer ideals poorly implemented and marketed. Other people will see this demand for a Power wall and simply offer a solution available now. That's how business is successful. I think a more affordable Tesla car is welcome too, but GM will beat them to the punch and offer a much more robust service availability through its huge dealer network. Again, Tesla passed on doing a significant dealer network foot print. Mr. Musk needs to hire someone with some real business sense and pronto.
Musk has already been exposed for his lies... just wait, this is just another one of his BS stories
http://doubtingisthinking.blog... does a great job cataloging all the bs.
I would buy an affordable tesla just to avoid dealing with car dealerships.
The 3 will be a market changer for the low-end of electric vehicles.
Maybe. Hopefully. Never a good idea to declare a product to be a market changer until you can actually get your hands on one. Tesla has done some really good work so far (the Model S is an awesome car) but it is still very possible they could drop the ball in some way. I'm hoping they hit it out of the park because I think it would be a shakeup that that the auto industry needs but I've seen too many failures before to be confident of it.
If they hit $35K with 200+ mile range, it means all the other electric vehicles in that range, such as the Nissan Leaf, will also have to hit 200+ miles or drop below $25K.
I certainly hope the do this. A vehicle that can't cover 100 miles can never really be more than a toy or a test bed. I hope Tesla can keep pushing the state of the art in electric vehicles because no one else is really trying or at least not competently trying. The Leaf is swell but it's the very definition of a niche vehicle. All the rest have thrown their effort at hybrids which is cool too but not going to push certain key technologies like fast charging.
There's no need to synthesize gasoline, when bacteria will make Butanol for you. It's a 1:1 replacement for gasoline.
And why would we want to do that? Butanol has some advantages but the feedstocks are the same as for ethanol and has the same ultimate problem of little/no net energy gain. You burn a bunch of fuel farming feedstock so you can make butanol/ethanol/etc which provides no more fuel at the end of the day than if you had simply burned gasoline/diesel without all the extra work. You still have the pollution problems, you haven't closed the carbon cycle and you've spent a lot of money for no actual energy gain at the end of the day.
I've got nothing against bio fuels but I have seen very little in that industry that is anything more than a subsidy to the farming industry at the end of the day.
Except that, when the "little stack" is sitting in your driveway, it isn't consuming ANYTHING, nor producing ANY pollution, whereas the "big stack" WILL be running 24/7, and at many times, will be actually CONSUMING and PRODUCING without actual NEED.
What do you mean "producing without actual need"? There is a need, it just isn't your need. Just because you aren't using the lights in your home doesn't mean someone else isn't. The amount of electricity the power plants generate has to pretty closely match the amount actually being used or else bad things happen to the grid.
If you are trying to make an argument that automobiles are in any way efficient, you're failing miserably. They are terribly inefficient, dirty and wasteful.
Coal power is a declining percentage.
While it is true that we are using a smaller percentage of coal in the last few years, it is largely because we have replaced it with cheap natural gas which is still a fossil fuel and while cleaner, still pretty dirty. Renewables (solar/wind) have had significant growth but they have replaced less coal than gas has in recent years.
Here's the thing about coal in the US. The US has VAST reserves of coal, just under a quarter of the worlds reserves. We are to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. For better or worse I do not see any reasonable scenario whereby coal as a source of power will not continue to be a substantial percentage of our power production for the next several decades at minimum.
Look, HornWumpus, I agree with you. You are right. They lost money because they invested a lot of money in new factories, etc. and the accounting rules, etc.
However, that is not what the OP and I were discussing when you inserted yourself into this thread. The OP said that they were losing $3600 on each car they made. I pointed out that they made money on each car they made but the company lost money because they spent all the money they made on each car plus other money on investing in new factories and new models.
It seems that you have enough understanding of economics to know the difference between losing money on each car you make and having the company lose money because they are investing in the future... this is a big difference. I would be worried if they lost money on each car (the car cost more to make than they sold it for). I am not worried (and most of the investors are not worried) that they lost money because of their investing in factories and new models.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You can ignore capital investments when evaluating the continued viability of a product already in production. The fact that Tesla makes $25k/unit shows the potential long term future profits. The fact that Tesla makes $25k/unit shows they can pay the bills and makes it easier for them to raise capital for future R&D, assembly line modifications and expansions, etc.
Amazon was in business for 20 years before they were profitable tax wise, but they were never not making money; they were just spending more on additional investment than they were making. Likewise, it's not necessary for Tesla's Model S or Model X to completely pay for their own R&D, since much of that R&D will apply to larger volume products. This is the same way Volkswagen can afford to make and sell things like the Bugatti Veyron, a car with a $2m that costs more than $6m to produce when you amortize R&D. ... but again, that only works if you pretend that the R&D spent making the Veyron wasn't applicable to any other products in the Volkswagen Audi group.
Yes, but they are selling everything they can produce and they will produce 6-12 months in advance. Meaning, they have an advantage in comparison with other companies (ms with its tablets..., they also gambled... and ate unsold tablets). If I can solve the charging problem, I live in an apartment building. I'd get one of those 35k€ models...
How long will america and other nations aging electrical grids be able to keep up with the demand and load *if* EV's ever become economically practical for the majority of people? 1 billion cars is a lot to replace. What happens to them and their toxic waste? Not to mention all the new coal plants we'll have to build to keep up with demand. Nuclear isn't an option as long as people are scared of things they can't see or perfectly understand.