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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.
Maybe they need more factory capacity. I suggest adding 21% more to the Gigafactory...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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
I suspect that since the Tesla S is much closer to a true clean-sheet design than cars from existing automakers, it's going to have more nifty-factor. Granted, Tesla got some experience with their dealings with Lotus for the first car, but if I remember right, they were upfitting electric drivetrains into existing car bodies, not even building those car bodies. In that sense, if Tesla is successful, they'll be the first 100% electric upstart to truly compete against the large automakers without resorting to internal-combustion vehicles. Besides, the point in the Model 3 is to be a mid-line car, priced so that the middle class can afford it.
We're going to pay attention to this simply because my wife's fourteen year old car crossed 160,000 miles on it last month, and she'll probably seek to replace it around the time it hits 200,000 miles, so the timing is good. Get the first units out and into the real-world, let their bugs get worked out with the early adopters, then look at what a more stable version of the product looks like, cost-wise. Our main panel is fairly close to where she parks, so running some EMT along the ceiling and down the wall in front of the car to a subpanel or charging station wouldn't be any trouble either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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.
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!
Here's to hoping that they actually go into production:
http://www.eliomotors.com/
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
| Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
Centralized generators run more efficient thermodynamic cycles than internal combustion engines which need to emit a widely varying power output over short time periods.
Centralized generators often run on hydroelectric and natural gas, which produce less emissions than coal or petroleum, and a few are solar, nuclear and wind-powered which have no emissions.
The end-to-end comparisons have been done with quantitative accuracy and show advantages to electric vehicles in many situations. You are hardly the first person to think of this consideration.
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.
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*)
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
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?
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.
No. It wasn't. I had various smartphones for years before the iPhone came out. It didn't even have apps (at first). You fell for Apple's marketing, which wasn't remotely true.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
No, Amazon survives by evading paying sales tax. The difference, of course, is that Amazon actively evades collecting sales tax. Although Tesla takes advantage of the ZEV tax credits, they didn't lobby for them. California originally *required* all car companies to sell a certain % of zero-emission vehicles. A tax credit was provided to make it easy and encourage technology development. None of the exting car manufacturers could achieve that goal. Tesla rose to the challenge. So the law achieved exactly it's purpose. Whether that was a good idea or not is up for debate, but the California legislature set out to create a subsidy that would encourage ZEV sales and the law achieved its purpose. I don't see how we can fault anybody for that. I remember years ago people complaining that they couldn't buy California PZEVs if they didn't live in California. Duh!
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.
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.