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Tesla's Promised $35,000 Model 3 Is Still a Long Way Off (engadget.com)
When the Model 3 was first unveiled, it was pitched as an EV for the masses that would have a reasonable $35,000 price. Two years later and we still don't have a clear timeline as to when the $35,000 Model 3 will ship. In fact, Elon Musk last weekend unveiled the pricing and specs of a newer, more expensive Model 3 with AWD. It will cost $78,000. Engadget reports: CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted that the $35,000 Model 3 now won't ship until three to six months after Tesla achieves its 5,000 vehicle-per-week production goal. The reason for the new delay in the base model is simple: If the company was to ship it now, it would lose money on every vehicle and "die," as Musk put it. If Tesla had hit its initial forecasts and was producing 5,000 vehicles a week by January, the base, $35,000 Model 3 probably wouldn't have been delayed by so much. One potential problem for Tesla, as the WSJ points out, is that many of the 500,000 buyers who laid down a $1,000 deposit did so expecting to buy a $35,000 car, not a $49,000 one. When they get a letter saying the time has come to configure their EVs, quite a few might decide to back out, which could impact Tesla's already precarious cash flow situation.
It's almost like you want to sell the higher margin ones first, in order to help pay for the amazing capital expenditure it takes to build a car assembly line.
Who is shocked by this? Nobody should be, as this is how it has always worked.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Dear mutual friend. My name is Pieter Mercer-Koch and I am a poor billionaire short seller and, due to a strange circumstance I am now in debt for 4037 (four thousand and thirty seven) Tesla shares. I am writing with an offer which will be of joint appreciation. I know you possess 45 (forty five) Tesla shares and are afraid that if, in the current delicate circumstances you attempt to sell them the share price will collapse under the unbearable weight of having to sell their cars for to much money (dollars, dinero, cash, folding stuff). Send me your share certificates and I will relieve you of this problem.
Please. I'm begging now.
CAPTCH: slumming
This is a fantasy and will never happen.
Elon Musk is a religion.
Word is that Tesla will need another round of funding before they can fulfill all the existing Model 3 orders. It makes sense they'd try to avoid this by fulfilling the most profitable orders first. There are likely enough of those to 'put off' the $35k Model 3 for a while. Given they recently announced options for a more powerful Model 3, they're likely going to remain in 'premium' territory for a while. Soon they'll be making more Model 3s each month than Bolts are made each year, so it's not like competition is stiff; they can afford to keep the less-profitable customers waiting.
Worst case scenario, Musk pulls a Bezos and gives a Billion to Tesla (a la Blue Origin).
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
By the time Tesla manage to make a $35,000 Model 3, other manufacturers may well have beaten them to it.
Some are already close. The electric Hyundai IONIQ is less than $30,000 and if the range improves by 60 miles or so (50%) it will be competitive with the Model 3 - which doesn't seem like a huge leap.
And this is just one model. There is already the 180+ mile range Renault Zoe available in Europe, and the new LEAF has around 170 miles.
Found the short!
Indeed. But there hasn't been any logic behind Tesla stories for at least 6 months now. There are a lot of investors who are seriously on the hook if Tesla is able to get production running smoothly. Some of these may face an existential crisis if a short squeeze were to develop.
In light of this, it makes complete sense that investors would be motivated to talk the stock down to give themselves a chance to offload some of their short positions. Given the immense scale of Tesla shorting this is likely to continue for some time.
The trouble is even if a small number of short sellers are trying to exit their positions, this creates upwards pressure on the stock price, which makes the situation worse for them. I think Tesla stock is overvalued (though in the current financial environment of unicorn tech stocks, maybe not over valued in a comparative sense), but I would not be suprised if a good portion of that overvaluing is due to all the short sellers themselves.
Musk is probably right. Either he will go down in flames, or Tesla will become a widow maker for short sellers. In light of these two binary choices the media war around Tesla stock is hardly surprising.
People will drop off the list. Others who didn't want to put money down that far in advance, have since had a car wear out, or since become more successful will gladly throw in. As the car becomes more available, moves out of the beta phase it has obviously been in, people see them, people ride in ones their friends have, etc., reservation numbers will increase, not decrease.
There is a steady stream of negative stories about Tesla popping up recently. So many that it is starting to feel a bit artificial.
Every. Bloody. Time. Whenever a Tesla crashes anywhere in the world, it's front page news. I mean, how ridiculous can you get? And while it's not impossible, it appears quite doubtful that AP was on. The driver was driving in a 35mph zone, but their speed "was great enough to leave the roadway, hit a fence, keep going down an embankment and into a pond on the property" AP would have limited his max speed to 40mph. Everyone always blames AP first, and then never comes back and corrects the dozens upon dozens "It must have been AP!" stories after the fact. Yes, AP has been involved in a few high profile crashes. That does not in any way, shape or form justify this breathless coverage of every single Tesla crash.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
Your Corolla would cost you $22k extra in gasoline prices over, say, six years of moderately intensive driving in my country.
Ezekiel 23:20
People in the market for a Tesla want an EV that they can use as an actual car (incl. trips without excessive wait times), and which isn't a hair shirt, but rather something that's actually fun to drive.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
Heck, just point me to the Corolla that can out-accelerate a 3-series ;)
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
Mine too. Doesn't even need to be that intensive.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
Any Corolla can outrun something, which won't be available for sale for the next 3 years.
The schedule was front and centre. Production of LRs was to begin first and follow an S curve starting at in July, peaking in December. Anyone logged into their account could see their particular estimated window for the LR version, which for early US reservation holders was somewhere along this curve. They could also see that if they chose the SR pack, it wouldn't be available until after LR production had peaked, in Q1.
Literally nothing has changed except for how long the LR rampup took. Maybe a slight stretch between LR peak and SR delivery, depending on how you interpret the delivery windows, but nothing meaningful. Yet once or twice a month we're treated to concern trolling about it, from people who have no interest in the Model 3 themselves. Just like we've been enduring this relentless concern trolling about the rampup. But now that the rampup has nearly completed, I guess we have to switch the concern trolling to something else. Tell me, after the SR is delivered, what's going to be the next topic to incessantly concern troll? Air suspension? The tow hitch? The Model Y?
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
No, everytime it crashes WITH autopilot engaged it is front page news. I am sure their are thousands of other tesla crashes that are never reported.
I don't care a ton.... but if I could get an AWD Tesla with a longer battery life it'd be nice. There are a few charging stations near my area, and I don't travel long distance often enough to warrant much fear on the battery life. Plus the Ludicrous Speed thing would be fun.
But there's honestly not enough to make me get one right now even if it was available to instantly purchase. I've yet to feel like I'd need to flame or defend Tesla though.
Assuming 36 mpg of "decent car mileage" (kind of standard around here), you'd pay $32000 for those 200k miles. Gasoline price is US$5.8/US gal. right now. Electricity rate for electric vehicles is $0.1/kWh.
Ezekiel 23:20
. Actually, given the awful build quality, the serious QC and engineering issues, the high price,
Works for apple.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Alternative explanation: it's actually very small.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
that maybe so, that won't make the average punter who forked out the $1000 to support Tesla and reserve their $35k any happier that they are being given the arse end of the deal.
If anyone plunked down a deposit expecting to not have to wait a long time then they are idiots. 1) Tesla ALWAYS over promises delivery dates and routinely misses them. This is nothing new. 2) Tesla has ZERO experience with production at this volume. There is a learning curve. 3) If you buy the "cheap" model then you aren't their best customer and you should expect to go to the back of the line. Every business serves their best customers first. 4) A car received later is better than a car not received at all. 5) Tesla was up front that the pimped out models would be delivered first. Almost everyone has had to wait a little longer than hoped for.
It's just frustrating. I don't want to go back to fossil, but I need more range. The Leaf 40 is a disaster, and who knows if the 60 will be any better.
So buy a Chevy Bolt or a Volt. Both have much better range than the Leaf and are decent cars in their own right. The Leaf is a car that is useful for short commutes and that's it. If you need more then buy something else.
Which suggests that all those people who "only" buy the $35k model (expensive for a car, still!) are second-class customers whose business alone can't sustain the company, whether or not they are early adopters, first in the queue, etc. etc.
You fail Cost Accounting 101. Tesla invested a huge sum of money up front to build an assembly line. To recoup that cost you have to sell a lot of units. The fastest way to get out of the red is to sell the units with the highest margins first. If you don't get out of the red then the company experiences an opportunity cost having the money tied up in capital equipment that it could put to better use elsewhere.
You shouldn't be using CAR SALES to pay for the CAR ASSEMBLY LINE. That's what all those millions in investment were for.
You have no idea how manufacturing actually works do you? The ONLY thing that will pay for that assembly line is sales and that is true for every product from any company. The investors money isn't a gift and it has to be repaid. Doesn't matter if the money to build the line came from the company savings or from outside investors. The only difference is the cost of capital. You have to sell product to pay for it and capital tooling expenses get paid for over periods of years. Any company that doesn't serve their highest margin customers first is monumentally stupid. Furthermore Tesla was up front that this was EXACTLY what they were going to do.
No, everytime it crashes WITH autopilot engaged it is front page news.
No, every time a Tesla crashes the article says "we don't know if autopilot was engaged" but it's still reported. Then we find out later whether it was or wasn't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Odd, I have a friend driving a Model 3 right now in California. How'd he get it if it won't be for sale until 2021?
Oh that's right, you are an idiot.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
There's the powerful counterpoint of course that those vehicles actually exist, the $35k Tesla 3 does not in production quantities and is sliding further into the future with every announcement.
The Ioniq EV sold 6797 units last year globally. Tesla delivered more Model 3s than that last QUARTER and is accelerating production. In fact Tesla delivered more Model 3s than the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Lead COMBINED in Jan and Feb this year. Right now Tesla is delivering around 2800 Model 3s per week.
By the time I can walk into a Tesla dealer (especially in the UK as the RHD will be even further behind) and buy a standard Tesla 3, there will be probably another 2 major updates to that Ioniq. And maybe Ford etc will have their hands properly in play.
That's a nice little fantasy story you are telling yourself. You do know Ford is literally stopping production of almost all non-truck vehicles right? And you think the Ioniq is going to magically be redesigned massively to compete on range with the Tesla?
"Gasoline price is US$5.8/US gal. right now" Maybe in California, in N. Texas, it's right around $2.80
-Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
Hell, he is just maximizing subsidy value, get over it. He can't deliver car 200,000 until the beginning of Q3 2018, or a very large number of people would lose out on the tax credit. Tax credit is more valuable on the more expensive cars.
The Anti-Musk trolls / astroturfers are really getting old. Tesla might have issues, but they are very much out in the open. At least you get transparency...
Wish I could get gas that cheap. Most gas stations right now seem to be selling for 225 ISK/l... aka $2,13/l... aka $8,05/gal.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
Will Musk reach Mars before he is able to offer a $35,000 car? I might need to look into that bet.
I am sure their are thousands of other tesla crashes that are never reported.
In this "anti-Tesla" media environment we're currently experiencing?! Do shut the fuck up.
Unless Congress extends the tax credit, al lot of those people waiting for 35K Model 3's will not be eligible for it since Tesla will have hit 200K before tehy start on the base Model 3 deliveries. If those waiting for the base model and planned on it being around 27.5K after the credit (less any additional state rebates / credits) they are in for a shock. I wonder how many will stick around if the credit sunsets for Tesla?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
$5.80 A GALLON??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What socialist HELL HOLE do you live in?????
Just $5.80/gallon? Here in Norway the gas price is closer to 8 USD pr. gallon (or rather, 16.65 NOK/l)
Here, 37% of new cars sold in March 2018 were electric vehicles. In addition, about 27% were hybrids.
Hint: when someone ends a sentence with a question mark, that makes it a question, and you're supposed to respond with an answer.
Captcha: no captcha. I'm logged in because I'm not afraid to defend my views in public rather than posting AC.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
Nope, Central Europe.
Ezekiel 23:20
Neither are available here.
I have no idea where you are but I'll guess Europe. If so buy a Renault Zoe. Or a BMW i3 with a range extender.
First, a portion of infrastructure costs is paid for by means of highway tolls. Second, the state may be losing somewhat on gas taxes but since negative externalities of ICE vehicles still haven't been internalized in any other form than the consumption taxes on gas itself, the fact that vehicles without a significant portion of those externalities are cheaper to operate largely turns the gas tax into a desirable Pigouvian tax. Plus, by the time the number of electric vehicles will be appreciable to the extent of making any significant impact on infrastructure maintenance, chances are that the operation of the then-much-cheaper electric vehicles won't be significantly impacted by adjusting the taxation of the BEV electricity rate to compensate for the losses. Hell, even today, an expensive quality BEV with high battery lifetime and high utilization (company vehicles, taxis etc.) might still win in operating costs even if you subtract the substantial consumption tax from the ICE vehicle's operating costs - the difference in operating costs shrinks to $9k per those 200k miles but it's still significant.
Ezekiel 23:20
$35k is double the price of a Corolla
Kind of states they are talking about the $35K Model 3, doesn't it? Or are you suggesting you can get the high-end model for just $35K?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
EXCUSE ME? I pay high, being in Ventura California, and gas is right around $3.80/gallon. You're off by quite a bit...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
There are many states in the world with even higher prices. You gas buddy must be wrong. And the electricity rate is a special rate for off-peak EV charging. The usual rate is around $0.2/kWh.
Ezekiel 23:20
I am indeed a bit off, by about 6000 miles from California.
Ezekiel 23:20
No, it was a serious question, and "deflection" is trying to move on without answering a question directly posed to you. This conversation will not move forward until it gets an answer: "What's going to be your go-to line when the Model 3 SR starts deliveries Q4-ish?"
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
For lending Tesla $1,000 at 0% interest and using you to advertise an artificial "reservation count". In turn, helping lift the stock price so Elon could borrow hundreds of millions against it while insiders(like brother Kimbal) could cash out at a crazy valuation. Feel honored, the last time Musk thanked the shareholders was when they bailed him and other insiders out by tying the failing SolarCity albatross to Tesla's neck. The question now is, who's going to bail out Tesla?
Keep this in mind depositors; in a bankruptcy you are an unsecured creditor. And given that the Fremont plant was just put up for collateral, there will be very little(if any) left once the secured creditors are paid.
Dunno about gas prices in your country or how much you drive, but here in America $22k worth of gas will get over 200k miles out of any car with decent gas mileage.
When making the argument on costs of mileage between gasoline and BEVs, people tend to forget to factor in the cost of a new battery for the BEV.
There are many states in the world with even higher prices. You gas buddy must be wrong. And the electricity rate is a special rate for off-peak EV charging. The usual rate is around $0.2/kWh.
The GasBuddy URL clearly showed it was for USA prices. I interpreted your "US$5.8/US gal." to mean it was a price in the USA.
If your gas price was $3 instead of $5.80 would you make a different decision?
I didn't, and that's why I specifically mentioned *quality* BEVs, such as the Model S with the recently predicted usable lifetime of something like 700k-800k miles. Yes, the initial price is steep but it turns out that in our country's specific case, the car, if used frequently, practically pays for itself completely so that an ICE car wouldn't be competitive even if you got it for free.
Ezekiel 23:20
I love how the trolls switched from "You can't get a Model 3" as their go-to line to "you can't get a $35k Model 3".
Article title: "Tesla's Promised $35,000 Model 3 Is Still a Long Way Off "
Are you not clear on which Model 3 version we are talking about? Or do posters have to keep adding the $35k every single time?
Electricity rate for electric vehicles is $0.1/kWh.
You think that rate will stay the same once electric vehicles reach critical mass? All those gasoline taxes are now going to start getting attached to the electricity that you charge with.
One one hand, the electricity tax rate will most certainly be adjusted (this rate already includes taxes, BTW). On the other hand, electricity rates for intermittent charging of vehicles are set to drop like a brick. We're headed into a future where there's intermittently a large surplus of renewable electricity that you have to use or lose and electric vehicles are one of the few sensible applications. On the third hand, BEVs are only going to get cheaper whereas ICE vehicles are unlikely to get significantly more mature, so the decreased TCO benefit of electric vehicles after the tax adjustment is likely to get compensated for by economies of scale in vehicle battery manufacturing. The point you're describing only occurs when there's hundreds of times more electric vehicles than are on my country's roads right now anyway.
Ezekiel 23:20
Why is "it's beneficial for him to help the people who paid him more instead of those who paid him earlier" a valid argument for why I shouldn't think he's an ass?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Musk has no one to blame but himself, he courted the media attention when you do that all the negatives as well as the positives get magnified, fuck him responding to the media in this way will only make it worse as he draws attention to it. No amount of butt hurt you feel as a fanboy is going to change that.
When that happens they will say you can't get a model Y.
Last I checked it was as fully refundable deposit. If it were not I would agree with you.
this rate already includes taxes, BTW
But those taxes are not because of electric vehicles. Gas is so high in many countries because of taxes to pay for roads and transit. When gasoline taxes dry up with the shift to electric cars, where do you think politicians will go to make up that loss?
It's almost like you want to sell the higher margin ones first, in order to help pay for the amazing capital expenditure it takes to build a car assembly line.
Who is shocked by this? Nobody should be, as this is how it has always worked.
Henry Ford started out with the affordable mass market car and built out from there. Economies of scale and all that.
The new generation Nissan Leaf drives itself. My local dealers are selling the top trim for under $30K. That comes to $22.5K with the tax benefit.
It also now has a more powerful battery pack and 30-minute fast charging and, thankfully, electric vehicle warning sounds, the lack of which has been a pet peeve of mine with electric cars.
Kriston
You have a habit of not reading things to the end, or at all.
So it's no surprise you would be upset about something that you should have read and known about, but didn't, and then complained about not knowing.
Clearly you've never gone to BMW, Audi, or Mercedes and built a car on their online tools - they all do the same thing. Example from BMW:
Start with a base model 3-series, add the larger engine but not the largest and all-wheel drive(330ix), and a modest (not highest end) option package, and you end up at $48,250 before the dealer charges and taxes. Base model 5-series? Starting at $51,200.
Also, it's of note that BMW, Audi, and Mercedes *never* start with new features and technology in their "compact" sedans - it always begins with the highly profitable full-size sedan 7-series / A8 / S-class, and then find there way to the mid-size 5-series / A6 / E-class, and then eventually end up in the 3-series / A4 / C-class. Why? For the same reason as Tesla started with the more profitable extended range model 3 - to pay for the development faster, work out the kinks of mass production, and then throw the factory to high speed.
It's almost like Tesla is a company that makes luxury cars, and follows the same pricing schemes and strategies as other luxury car makers. But you already knew that, and you're just bitching for the sake of bitching. Because Tesla.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
But they would be. They would include the maintenance costs. That's why we have a special BEV rate, of course. (Alternatively, you could use GPS data for that.) Anyway, even if you fully compensate for the losses by adjusting the taxation of the BEV electricity rate, renewable electricity will still be way cheaper than gasoline. Without any taxes at all, we'd still be at $2.8/US gal, which I have to add is uncompensated for purchasing power parity. (Feel free to double it for a meaningful comparison relative to US salaries.) We're far away from reasonable oil wells but the sun shines every day here. That is why the prospect of effective "electric gasoline" cost of $0.75/US gal is even more interesting to us: our budgets are tighter so if we have to pay the same for road upkeep, we'd vastly prefer at least the energy used for transportation to be much cheaper.
Ezekiel 23:20
No, it's still much cheaper to use electricity. It merely shrinks the gap somewhat between the capital costs of the ICE vehicle and the BEV at which you reach TCO parity.
Ezekiel 23:20
You show your hand. You own stock, thus have a literal investment to fight against any legitimate concerns of others
I literally own stock in nothing. It's unfortunate, for me, but fortunate for anyone who listens to me since I am not shilling for anyone. I call out Tesla's failures regularly - check my posting history. However, that doesn't mean I want them to fail. I want them to succeed so they keep pushing us towards EVs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're my favorite Slashdotter. And I'll be in Reykjavik May 27, May 28 and June 7... may I buy you lunch?
(Sorry to spam a bunch of your posts, but I wanted to be sure you saw my invitation.) Reply to GPSpilot1@NOsPam.gmail.com.
And you're right... it's ridiculous that we can't type a thorn here.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.