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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.
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!
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.