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Tesla Says Its Model 3 Car Will Go On Sale On Friday (apnews.com)
Electric car maker Tesla says its keenly awaited Model 3 car for the masses will go on sale on Friday. From a AP report: CEO Elon Musk made the announcement Monday on Twitter. The car is to start around $35,000 and with a $7,500 federal electric car tax credit, could cost $27,500. Tesla says the five-seat car will be able to go 133 miles (215 kilometers) on a single charge and will be sporty, accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in under six seconds. Editor's note: the article was updated after the Associated Press, the original source, updated its report.
$30k for a car isn't "expensive bling" and 200 mile range is sufficient for most. So other than your main premises your argument is a great one.
The only question that really matters is: What is the charge time? 215 miles is a reasonable enough range; but if you're planning a 250 mile trip, you don't want to have to make an overnight stop! If you can charge the car enough in, say, a 15-minute rest break that it can keep going for another couple of hours, then it's a viable vehicle. If not, it's not.
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
The S sold like hotcakes here, partly thanks to the attractive price (due to not having the aforementioned extra tax on petrol cars). They are even used as taxicabs, as they offer a nice ride to clients while being cheap to operate. If the 3 comes in at around €35k as expected, I expect they'll sell even more. Most people here don't really need a station wagon and few people own a trailer; so most just rent a van if they have to move stuff.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Longer trips require more planning, because we're in early days. It's a lot like when gas cars were new & you had to be sure to have a way to get enough fuel.
No, it's not like that at all. Batteries just don't hold the same amount of energy as gasoline, neither by volume nor by weight.
A car back in the early days could carry extra gasoline. An electric car can't carry extra batteries for the same range extension, because the extra volume and weight would be prohibitive.
The order of magnitude difference between how much energy is stored in gasoline versus how much is stored even in the best batteries is too big to be caught up by incremental improvements - a radically different new battery type would have to be discovered.
Workarounds have been investigated.
Ultra-rapid charging stations have their own problems in that you get far less usable energy per kWh drawn from the grid, and much higher cost due to local consumables (batteries). It's not nearly as green.
You also shorter range after filling unless you then switch to slow charging at the end, in which case it takes a long time again, and you need more charging spots.
Ad-hoc battery replacement is another one, where you switch out packs of batteries. One problem with that is that you lose your original new battery for someone's old battery, which wasn't attractive for users in the test pilot. And it requires standardization between brands, or it will be too expensive to have wide coverage.
For now, hybrids seem to be a better solution. You can take advantage of the immensely higher energy density of gasoline and rapid fueling, while still having the benefits of electric motors.
AC doesn't really make much difference in my gas powered vehicle. Mileage from the summer when it runs nonstop, wide open cold to cool days when I ride with no AC is absolutely nothing. 19 MPG year round unless I take a road trip and mileage goes up to 24 on the Interstate. I had an AC problem where the compressor died and it was a few days before I could get it into the shop. That week I ran with the windows down and no AC. My mileage dropped to 17.5. Aerodynamics apparently makes more difference.