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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.
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.
There is a steady stream of negative stories about Tesla popping up recently. So many that it is starting to feel a bit artificial.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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...
Nobody replaces the batteries in these cars. A Prius battery is $7500 and by the time you need to replace the battery the car is already ready for a trade in.
Why do people still think hybrid and EV batteries need frequent replacement? This isn't the junk cellphone they bought that won't last a hour after 2 years of use. Prius are frequently used as taxis with 300,000 miles on them. Consumer reports tested a 2003 215,000 mile Prius and found the battery capacity barely diminished. Even if somehow the battery is dead, Toyota MSRP for a replacement battery is $3,600 but there's a $1,300 refund for the old battery so you're really only paying $2,300. That's not bad. https://www.greencarreports.co...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
$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!
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