It seems like your approach is to just ditch the car after 3-5 years to dodge most of the more expensive maintenance costs that come from age
You might want to look up what percentage of BMWs are leased vs purchased.
The majority of them are. People who can afford such vehicles either lease them, or buy and trade more often. Ok, not ALL people, but lots of them.
Tesla (which I wouldn't say is really entirely comparable to a Fusion - I'd liken it more to a Merc/BMW as a status symbol and a car).
You might say that, but have you actually been in a Fusion in the past 2 years? They have gotten SO much better.
Take my Taurus, which people here have made fun of "oh, that is a silly car, it is just a Ford, it is a Taurus, they only sell 60k of them, blah.
You know what? Everyone who gets in it and I take for a drive says "THIS is a Ford? A Taurus? It drives and feels more like a luxury car".
The bottom level Merc/BMW don't even have real leather in them, you have to spend a lot of money to get the interior nice.
TL;DR - don't knock it till you've tried it.:) I can afford a BMW/Merc, I don't find them to be worth the money.
I guess I'm more intrigued by a life cycle cost comparison for those that want to run both into the ground (say cost of repair(s) > some % NPV of the car) and then under what conditions which system is favorable.
I don't think EVs have been around long enough (not the modern versions) to really answer that. But let me ask you... after you've saved all the yearly MX for a gas car, what do you give up to buy a battery pack after 7 years for a EV? Depends on the car of course, just tossing it out there.
It is also worth noting that few people do that anymore, buy a car and keep it until "the wheels fall off", or close to it. My Father did that, he bought a brand new 1984 (yes, 84) Cadillac Eldorado and drove it for 26 years. He had it repainted, the interior redone, etc. for a long time. Beautiful maroon on maroon (inside and out). He loved that car and thought the rounded newer models looked boring.
But he is the exception, not the rule. So for people who don't keep their cars longer than 3-5 years, I think a lifecycle cost isn't going to matter much to them. As for resale, keep in mind that while the Model S (as an expensive status symbol) has kept its value, most other EVs have not. The Nissan Leaf is terrible, having lost 2/3 of its value in 3 years, as an example. You can get a 3 year old version of that car for $10K! If EVs are so loved, why can you buy a 3 year old off lease Leaf for $10K?
I would also be curious how foreign policy might change if there was a sudden shift to electric vehicles. How much meddling would there be in the Middle East and how significant would the savings be?
There is more to the middle east than oil. Yes, too much of the conversation is about oil, but we couldn't leave even if the oil was gone.
Few people buy the base model or the maxed out model... But there are exceptions...
More than 50% of all Yukons sold are the Denali trim, but that is an exception.
The Fusion, for example, comes in a S, a SE, and a Titanium trim, and the SE is by far the best seller.
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I took a look at the Fusion Hybrid, based on someone else's comments...
Actually, the price is pretty reasonable, all things considered... $29K gets you a nearly loaded SE model with adaptive cruise control, nav, and lots of features.
44 MPG city, 41 MPG highway. Note: Sticker is $35K, $29k is the actual selling price due to discounts and rebates.
At say 42 MPG mixed, you'd have to drive a crap ton of miles to make it make sense over a $40K Model 3. (why $40K? because you can get a Fusion Hybrid for almost $10K less, I'm picking a well equipped model)
A lot of production has slacked off when prices went too low. I'd expect gas to stick around $2/gal for awhile, maybe go to $2.50/gal. But if it goes above that, production will rise again.
The amount of oil that can be recovered with fracking is truly huge. Colorado has largely not been touched and there may well be a trillion barrels there. Shell has had pilot wells there for over a decade, but largely hasn't been allowed to drill more. Rising gas/oil prices will change that.
To add to that, as cars slowly become more fuel efficient, the price of gas gets further undercut. A 10% increase in fuel economy causes a huge drop to gas prices due to supply/demand.
Have you looked at the CAFE standards lately? the trajectory on battery costs?
CAFE standards are words on paper, if car companies can meet them, they will, if not, they'll be changed.
Batteries will get less expensive, to be sure. Maybe they will get as cheap as you expect. But there is no law that says they have to do so.
In 10 years the additional cost for a hybrid drivetrain vs. a pure-gasoline one will be $1500, which will yield an efficiency improvement of 15+ mpg.
Example: Fusion Hybrid gets 44 MPG in the city, standard Fusion gets 26 MPG in the city. That is a huge increase. So why don't we see tons of Fusion Hybrids being sold?
Ford Fusion - MSRP $22,495 Ford Fusion Hybrid - MSRP - $25,675
The price is already only $3,000 difference, yet the Hybrid isn't selling. But the Prius is.
Why? I honestly think that a whole lot of Prius sales are "image sales", people care less about the utility and more about the image. The Fusion Hybrid doesn't "look" any different to the gas version, so no one cares, even if it gets massively better fuel economy.
Of course, there is a problem with that idea... The Chevy Volt doesn't have an image problem, all Volts are hybrids, yet they aren't selling. (not really)
I think the truth is that most people simply don't care one way or another. Most people are monthly payment buyers, whatever gets them the cheapest payment is what they want. All the details on the rest of it are a lot of noise to a busy mom or dad who is just trying to get a cheap, reliable car to move their family around in.
For example, where are the hybrid mini-vans?
You're predicting that in 10 years we'll have cheap hybrids and EVs, yet we still don't have more than a handful of poorly selling hybrids today and they don't cover major market segments.
I remember a few years ago listening to a lecturer who asserted that the world had hit "peak oil," and that gasoline would continue from that point forward to get more and more expensive--to the point where gas-powered cars would become increasingly expensive to operate and electric cars would become cheaper and cheaper to operate by comparison (and hence more and more in demand, obviously).
:) That prediction has been around for a very long time. A number of things have happened to keep it from being true.
1. We didn't just stick to the old ways of recovering oil, we have gone back to the "depleted" fields and they are in some cases producing more today than they did in the 70s.
10+ years ago I was flying off shore in the Gulf of Mexico for an oil company, the platform I flew to for 6 months was built in the 70s and went almost dry in the 90s. It was sold off from a major oil company to a smaller one who could afford to operate it at its new low level of production (a trickle). Then in the early 2000s, new technology allowed them to pump chemicals down into the well and suddenly it was back to 70's levels of production.
2. We have found oil in a whole lot of new places, and some of those finds were huge. Who, 10-20 years ago, took fracking seriously? Are you aware that Colorado, all by itself, probably has a trillion barrels of oil under it, accessible only by fracking? Shell has had pilot projects there going back more than a decade, but hasn't gotten permission to do large scale work (because, environment). If we have an oil crisis and the price rises, expect that to change.
3. We have become, overall, much better at using the oil we have. Demand has been dropping, not because of EVs, but because we finally have been making more fuel efficient cars. Well, this started 10+ years ago, but it takes time to replace the worldwide auto fleet.
Look at the F-150, Ford does still offer a V8, but it no longer is their flagship engine. A turbo-V6 is. Car companies are finally building nice, powerful, well equipped vehicles (including big trucks) that no longer suck at fuel economy.
A 10% increase in average fuel economy has a massive impact on the price of gas, and thus the price of oil.
What about the difference in maintenance costs? There's a lot of stuff in ICE cars that need some levels of regular work that electric cars don't have.
Like what?
I see all the time people make that point. Sure, after 3 or 5 years there starts to be odds and ends, but frankly, not much.
You do have oil changes, but lets be frank, those are trivial (and many dealers will toss in 2 years of those for free to get the deal signed, mine did). Oil changes are also now 10,000 mile items. The days of every 3k miles are gone. So once or twice a year, $20-30 depending on where you live.
The transmission and sparkplugs are 100k mile items these days, which puts them on average at the 7-9 year mark of ownership. Timing chains are 100k+ mile items, timing belts might be 60k miles, but they aren't expensive.
Brakes? Meh, all cars have brakes and even EVs will need service, but you usually don't have to touch those for 60k+ miles on modern cars.
I think a lot of people either drive old cars and compare them to new EVs, or simply have this mental image of the way things used to be. Gas cars these days are shockingly maintenance free (or close to it) the first 5 years of ownership.
If you lease (which a huge number of buyers do these days) for 3 years, what difference does it make if it is a Ford Fusion or a Tesla Model 3? Your maintenance for the 3 years you'll have it is mostly zero.
My point is that it wouldn't be $5k more, it would be double the price.
Look at the Chevy Volt. It is $40K. It isn't $5k more than a non-series hybrid. The Volt is closer in size to the Focus, it is double the price of a gas car. (yes, I've been in one, it really is a compact car IMHO).
To give a big pickup enough battery to be useful and still keep a big enough engine to keep it going is going to be a whole lot more than $5k.
Also, just to be a pedant, Cheapest Toyota camry appears to be $23k
List prices and what they actually sell for rarely are similar.
There is in fact a Toyota dealer here in town who sells Camrys for about $17K., they have a big billboard up about it.
Similar to the Ford Fusion (same size car) that lists for $22K, it sells for $16K in reality.
When Tesla starts offering discounts and rebates, perhaps that will change.:)
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Side note: Toyota and Ford sell very few of their cars in true base trim. Some they do, but most people want a mid level trim and so you're more likely to find a Fusion for $20K than $16K and a Camry for $22K than $17K.
Just like the Model 3 may have a base price of $35K, but that isn't any different than the Model S's base price of $70K, and few of those cars are sold for that. In fact, most are closer to $100K.
We know EVs are getting cheaper and will continue to do so with scale
We do?
Since when did cars becomes computers that get cheaper and faster each year?
Is there a law of economics that says EVs will become cheaper than gas cars, but gas cars will just keep getting expensive?
so at some point there is a threshold that makes an EV a more attractive proposition for most people. It might not this year or in the next 5, but I think it will be in the next 10.
1. Tesla has made a bold announcement, lets see if they can deliver. A whole lot of people are assuming this is a done deal. I might tend to agree if it was launching in 6 months, but 20 months is a LONG time.
2. I can draw a straight line on a chart with the best of them, but that doesn't mean it will come to pass. Yes, there is always the chance that EVs will continue to get cheaper, but there is no assurance they will become cheaper than gas cars.
3. Even if they do (and I don't think it would be within 10 years), then you have other issues, such as range. Price is only one reason why millions aren't rushing out to buy them.
4. Keep in mind that Nissan has thrown everything and the kitchen sink at the Leaf to move units, it is priced around $30K (less with tax credits) and Nissan has been offering some killer lease deals, and yet they sold fewer than 30k of them last year. It has 107 miles of range, which granted is half of the Model 3, but I don't think that is the problem.
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There seems to be this "EVs for everyone" hysteria going on with Slashdot recently, but the reality is, they aren't selling in other than modest volume. Yes, the Model S cars seem to be holding their value, but have you seen the price on a used Nissan Leaf? You can get a 3 year old one for 1/3 of the sale price. That is TERRIBLE. People do not want them, or they wouldn't be going for $10K used.
The Tesla market isn't people who want the cheapest possible car for their money. It's a new and interesting segment and as such will attract people who don't mind paying a premium for something new and interesting.
You might be right, but if that is the case, they are going to have trouble selling millions of them.
The question becomes, what is the goal? Musk claims it is to change transportation for all. But that won't happen as long as it remains expensive.
It is almost like people are so enamored by the whole thing they suspect the laws of economics.
An Audi R8 does too though right?
Yes, it does. How many of those does Audi sell? Is it changing the world?
you are looking at around $46k for a camry hybrid or $51k for a Petrol Camry, I'd much rather spend around the same (plus or minus %10) on a tesla, something a bit different, and damn cool, than buy a goddamn camry.
Well sure, if they are the same price, I imagine many people would buy a Model 3.
But if a Camry is $51K in NZ, then don't be shocked if a Model 3 is $80K. What does a Model S cost there?
Keep in mind that your Camry doesn't cost $51K because Toyota is getting rich. If they were, competition would cause Honda to sell for $45K and steal sales. Then Ford would sell for $42K and steal more.
The price is there because of your government, nothing more or less.
Now it is possible that your government will provide large tax incentives or credits to bring down the price of a Model 3, and that's fine. But don't kid yourself, you live on a beautiful island with a messed up cost structure for stuff.
do you know why Camry's are popular fleet cars? because they are reliable and boring as milky rice with boiled beef.
No, they are popular fleet cars because they are CHEAP!:)
When buying vehicles that solve the basic "moving people from point A to point B" problem, price usually trumps all.
Everybody would prefer a fast car if they could afford it.
That is either a troll comment, or a comment from someone who doesn't see anything beyond themselves.
My mother is 71 years old, she still drives, and couldn't care less what the 0-60 time is or how fast her car is. She really does drive like a little old lady.
My wife isn't quite that bad, but she doesn't care either. She wants something that is easy for the kids to get in and out of, something that is safe and reliable, and something that carries lots of stuff.
Performance is about number 47 on her care list, if it exists at all.
Musk's explicitly stated goal is to revolutionize personal transport not sell vanity goods.
Fair enough, but so far he has been doing the later, not the former.
To do the former, he has to deliver a product that people want to buy in large quantities. Price, features, performance, utility, all matter in that market.
Right now, it doesn't really matter what the Model S is, so long as it is decent, because of the volume shipped worldwide (which is small, compared to major car companies).
To scale that up will require appealing to people who don't actually care as much about the whole EV thing as the early adopters and rich people might.
Tesla *invested* half a billion into a huge factory for an emerging product.
Like to try again?
Even backing that out, they lost money, hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even backing out ALL R&D doesn't make them profitable.
Tesla is losing about $15K per Model S sold. The fanboys like to talk about future investments and the gigafactory, but if you bother to read their income statement, you'll see that backing those out doesn't redress the problem.
Tesla isn't profitable on what they build now. The Model 3 won't be profitable either, not for awhile. There is no assurance they will EVER been profitable.
I'm wondering how many cancellations they will get once people find out the $7500 fed tax rebate is no longer available. This is lowering the cost of the car to $27,500, which frankly is a hell of a deal.
It would lower it to $27,500, if most people bought base model cars.
In general, they don't. Everything from the Ford Focus to the Tesla Model S are sold are higher level trims.
In addition to the rebate going away at some point, when people see that the Model 3 will really be $50K with all the options on it, that will draw a lot of cancellations.
Musk was really careful with his words: All Model 3 cars would come with autopilot hardware installed, and the base model would come with the emergency braking feature active.
The base model doesn't come with a lot of stuff turned one, which has to be paid for separately.
You need to be due these $7,500 in income taxes in single year and can't rollover credit to next year. For that you need around $56,000 taxable household income.
People buying a new $35K+ car should be over that, or they are buying the wrong car.
In addition, keep in mind that $35K is the starting price of the car, most that are sold will be $10K over that price, give or take something.
It's a car without the range to do a road trip. I realize they want to change that with rapid charging stations but it's not there yet.
This weekend we took a road trip to Galveston to visit the beach. So yea, it really isn't a road trip car.
That being said:
So for a lot of people this would be a secondary vehicle, with a primary vehicle being gas or hybrid. Could be done Werth a married family. Certainly no range anxiety for commuting
Yep, we own two vehicles, a really big expensive SUV and a full size car. The Model 3 could easily replace the car, except that it is smaller than our full size car and costs more.
I pay $347 a month for my car and that was with nothing down, and I'll own it at the end, that isn't a lease.
It would, frankly, take the Model S to provide a similar size vehicle, but even if we consider the Model 3, it would cost nearly twice as much.
It is still too expensive for what it is. Get me a Model S, even with just 200 miles of range, for $30K, and I would seriously look at one.
The Model 3 would need to be $20K, if it was, I'd seriously look at it.
Not if the Model 3 is charged by coal, oil, or natural gas power it doesn't.
And frankly even if it is powered by wind or solar, at the end of the day, if it costs twice the price as a gas car, it isn't going to get very far beyond the well off and "save the earth crowd".
Those groups aren't "small", but they aren't "huge" either.
The Model 3 competes in the same class as a BMW 3-series which is similarly sized and has a base price of, what for it, hold on...$33,150.
Based on what? Why do you think the Model 3 is in the same class as the BMW 3 series? Because it says "Model 3"? Because of the price?
I don't see anything in the car as shown today that remotely puts it in BMWs class.
Show me one fucking $20K car that has auto-pilot, a 15" screen, full glass roof, and 0-60 of 6s; that's before we even get to the fact that people just prefer electric cars.
First, the Model 3 doesn't have autopilot for $35K. It comes with the hardware, it isn't enabled. Read closer. The only feature enabled is the emergency braking.
Second, full glass roof? Really? That feature sucks and I'll be surprised if it makes it to the final car.
0-60 in 6 seconds isn't that hard to do anymore, or close to it. The Fusion does it in 7.3 seconds, which is good enough for most people.
As for "people just prefer electric cars", no, they clearly do not. The only way to sell them is with massive tax credits and incentives, and even then, less than 1% of cars sold in whole world are either EVs or plug-in hybrids (those two gets lumped together), even in Europe the number is only 1.27% for 2015.
Take those tax incentives away and the sales dry up fast. Georgia deals found that out the hard way last year when they removed the state $5,000 credit and instead put an annual tax on EVs to cover road costs (since they don't buy gas, but use the roads). EV sales dropped by 90%.
Considering they sold a couple thousand roadsters, they sell >60K/year of Model S's and X's, they're on a pretty good trajectory.
They sold 50,000 Model S last year, they haven't sold any Model X yet.
Tesla wants to sell 500K of them per year, and they already have 200K deposits...in the first 48 hours. That is a lot of cars.
500k per year would make it one of the best selling cars in the world. At a BASE price of $35K, that is so not likely to happen. The cars that sell that well tend to be closer to $20K. The only other vehicles that sell those kinds of numbers are trucks (such as the F-150), but those have utility beyond just driving people around.
As for the deposits, indeed, that is a lot, but it is world wide. In 2015 almost 75 million cars were sold. Tesla has done a wonderful job of marketing, so they have that "Apple Effect", it is getting people to sign up in numbers that most other companies wouldn't. The question is, how many of those deposits turn into sales? The $1K is refundable.
1. Tesla has almost 2 years before the Model 3 actually goes on sale, a lot will have to happen between now and then.
2. At the moment, the idea is a fantasy to the early adopters, once the reality hits, we'll see how many actually buy out of that 200k. Maybe it will be half of them, maybe more. We'll see.
So I guess half of all car buyers are just too stupid to realize they could get a Ford Fusion for half that.
Half of all car buyers aren't buying a mid-size 5 seat car. They are buying SUVs, trucks, and fancier full size cars.
If this were the Model X being sold for $35K, then by all means, you'd have a point.
Seriously, dude, wtf is your problem?
I don't have a problem...
The problem in general are people who are confused about EVs, thinking that 10s of millions of people are just chomping at the bit to go out and buy them, and that a $35K mid-sized car is somehow going to make that happen.
1. Tesla hasn't built them yet. They might, but a lot of stuff has to happen between now and the end of 2017.
2. $35K is the starting price. Other similar sized cars have starting prices in the 20K range. It is still expensive.
This isn't 2003 anymore--the whole "EVs are expensive toys" schtick is getting pretty old.
The sales will tell the tale...
EVs still have a ways to go, and even then, it isn't just price. Price so far has been the primary issue and it remains so. Assuming price gets solved, then there are other issues.
The primary issue is people who think the EV revolution will be a 20 year thing. It won't. It MIGHT be a 50 year thing, but honestly I think a huge number of gas cars will still be around in 2,100.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like your approach is to just ditch the car after 3-5 years to dodge most of the more expensive maintenance costs that come from age
You might want to look up what percentage of BMWs are leased vs purchased.
The majority of them are. People who can afford such vehicles either lease them, or buy and trade more often. Ok, not ALL people, but lots of them.
Tesla (which I wouldn't say is really entirely comparable to a Fusion - I'd liken it more to a Merc/BMW as a status symbol and a car).
You might say that, but have you actually been in a Fusion in the past 2 years? They have gotten SO much better.
Take my Taurus, which people here have made fun of "oh, that is a silly car, it is just a Ford, it is a Taurus, they only sell 60k of them, blah.
You know what? Everyone who gets in it and I take for a drive says "THIS is a Ford? A Taurus? It drives and feels more like a luxury car".
The bottom level Merc/BMW don't even have real leather in them, you have to spend a lot of money to get the interior nice.
TL;DR - don't knock it till you've tried it. :) I can afford a BMW/Merc, I don't find them to be worth the money.
I guess I'm more intrigued by a life cycle cost comparison for those that want to run both into the ground (say cost of repair(s) > some % NPV of the car) and then under what conditions which system is favorable.
I don't think EVs have been around long enough (not the modern versions) to really answer that. But let me ask you... after you've saved all the yearly MX for a gas car, what do you give up to buy a battery pack after 7 years for a EV? Depends on the car of course, just tossing it out there.
It is also worth noting that few people do that anymore, buy a car and keep it until "the wheels fall off", or close to it. My Father did that, he bought a brand new 1984 (yes, 84) Cadillac Eldorado and drove it for 26 years. He had it repainted, the interior redone, etc. for a long time. Beautiful maroon on maroon (inside and out). He loved that car and thought the rounded newer models looked boring.
But he is the exception, not the rule. So for people who don't keep their cars longer than 3-5 years, I think a lifecycle cost isn't going to matter much to them. As for resale, keep in mind that while the Model S (as an expensive status symbol) has kept its value, most other EVs have not. The Nissan Leaf is terrible, having lost 2/3 of its value in 3 years, as an example. You can get a 3 year old version of that car for $10K! If EVs are so loved, why can you buy a 3 year old off lease Leaf for $10K?
I would also be curious how foreign policy might change if there was a sudden shift to electric vehicles. How much meddling would there be in the Middle East and how significant would the savings be?
There is more to the middle east than oil. Yes, too much of the conversation is about oil, but we couldn't leave even if the oil was gone.
I didn't say "max out", I said mid-level trim...
Few people buy the base model or the maxed out model... But there are exceptions...
More than 50% of all Yukons sold are the Denali trim, but that is an exception.
The Fusion, for example, comes in a S, a SE, and a Titanium trim, and the SE is by far the best seller.
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I took a look at the Fusion Hybrid, based on someone else's comments...
Actually, the price is pretty reasonable, all things considered... $29K gets you a nearly loaded SE model with adaptive cruise control, nav, and lots of features.
44 MPG city, 41 MPG highway. Note: Sticker is $35K, $29k is the actual selling price due to discounts and rebates.
At say 42 MPG mixed, you'd have to drive a crap ton of miles to make it make sense over a $40K Model 3. (why $40K? because you can get a Fusion Hybrid for almost $10K less, I'm picking a well equipped model)
And gas prices will go back up.
Yes, but not by as much as you might think...
A lot of production has slacked off when prices went too low. I'd expect gas to stick around $2/gal for awhile, maybe go to $2.50/gal. But if it goes above that, production will rise again.
The amount of oil that can be recovered with fracking is truly huge. Colorado has largely not been touched and there may well be a trillion barrels there. Shell has had pilot wells there for over a decade, but largely hasn't been allowed to drill more. Rising gas/oil prices will change that.
To add to that, as cars slowly become more fuel efficient, the price of gas gets further undercut. A 10% increase in fuel economy causes a huge drop to gas prices due to supply/demand.
Have you looked at the CAFE standards lately? the trajectory on battery costs?
CAFE standards are words on paper, if car companies can meet them, they will, if not, they'll be changed.
Batteries will get less expensive, to be sure. Maybe they will get as cheap as you expect. But there is no law that says they have to do so.
In 10 years the additional cost for a hybrid drivetrain vs. a pure-gasoline one will be $1500, which will yield an efficiency improvement of 15+ mpg.
Example: Fusion Hybrid gets 44 MPG in the city, standard Fusion gets 26 MPG in the city. That is a huge increase. So why don't we see tons of Fusion Hybrids being sold?
Ford Fusion - MSRP $22,495
Ford Fusion Hybrid - MSRP - $25,675
The price is already only $3,000 difference, yet the Hybrid isn't selling. But the Prius is.
Why? I honestly think that a whole lot of Prius sales are "image sales", people care less about the utility and more about the image. The Fusion Hybrid doesn't "look" any different to the gas version, so no one cares, even if it gets massively better fuel economy.
Of course, there is a problem with that idea... The Chevy Volt doesn't have an image problem, all Volts are hybrids, yet they aren't selling. (not really)
I think the truth is that most people simply don't care one way or another. Most people are monthly payment buyers, whatever gets them the cheapest payment is what they want. All the details on the rest of it are a lot of noise to a busy mom or dad who is just trying to get a cheap, reliable car to move their family around in.
For example, where are the hybrid mini-vans?
You're predicting that in 10 years we'll have cheap hybrids and EVs, yet we still don't have more than a handful of poorly selling hybrids today and they don't cover major market segments.
I remember a few years ago listening to a lecturer who asserted that the world had hit "peak oil," and that gasoline would continue from that point forward to get more and more expensive--to the point where gas-powered cars would become increasingly expensive to operate and electric cars would become cheaper and cheaper to operate by comparison (and hence more and more in demand, obviously).
:) That prediction has been around for a very long time. A number of things have happened to keep it from being true.
1. We didn't just stick to the old ways of recovering oil, we have gone back to the "depleted" fields and they are in some cases producing more today than they did in the 70s.
10+ years ago I was flying off shore in the Gulf of Mexico for an oil company, the platform I flew to for 6 months was built in the 70s and went almost dry in the 90s. It was sold off from a major oil company to a smaller one who could afford to operate it at its new low level of production (a trickle). Then in the early 2000s, new technology allowed them to pump chemicals down into the well and suddenly it was back to 70's levels of production.
2. We have found oil in a whole lot of new places, and some of those finds were huge. Who, 10-20 years ago, took fracking seriously? Are you aware that Colorado, all by itself, probably has a trillion barrels of oil under it, accessible only by fracking? Shell has had pilot projects there going back more than a decade, but hasn't gotten permission to do large scale work (because, environment). If we have an oil crisis and the price rises, expect that to change.
3. We have become, overall, much better at using the oil we have. Demand has been dropping, not because of EVs, but because we finally have been making more fuel efficient cars. Well, this started 10+ years ago, but it takes time to replace the worldwide auto fleet.
Look at the F-150, Ford does still offer a V8, but it no longer is their flagship engine. A turbo-V6 is. Car companies are finally building nice, powerful, well equipped vehicles (including big trucks) that no longer suck at fuel economy.
A 10% increase in average fuel economy has a massive impact on the price of gas, and thus the price of oil.
What about the difference in maintenance costs? There's a lot of stuff in ICE cars that need some levels of regular work that electric cars don't have.
Like what?
I see all the time people make that point. Sure, after 3 or 5 years there starts to be odds and ends, but frankly, not much.
You do have oil changes, but lets be frank, those are trivial (and many dealers will toss in 2 years of those for free to get the deal signed, mine did). Oil changes are also now 10,000 mile items. The days of every 3k miles are gone. So once or twice a year, $20-30 depending on where you live.
The transmission and sparkplugs are 100k mile items these days, which puts them on average at the 7-9 year mark of ownership. Timing chains are 100k+ mile items, timing belts might be 60k miles, but they aren't expensive.
Brakes? Meh, all cars have brakes and even EVs will need service, but you usually don't have to touch those for 60k+ miles on modern cars.
I think a lot of people either drive old cars and compare them to new EVs, or simply have this mental image of the way things used to be. Gas cars these days are shockingly maintenance free (or close to it) the first 5 years of ownership.
If you lease (which a huge number of buyers do these days) for 3 years, what difference does it make if it is a Ford Fusion or a Tesla Model 3? Your maintenance for the 3 years you'll have it is mostly zero.
My point is that it wouldn't be $5k more, it would be double the price.
Look at the Chevy Volt. It is $40K. It isn't $5k more than a non-series hybrid. The Volt is closer in size to the Focus, it is double the price of a gas car. (yes, I've been in one, it really is a compact car IMHO).
To give a big pickup enough battery to be useful and still keep a big enough engine to keep it going is going to be a whole lot more than $5k.
Also, just to be a pedant, Cheapest Toyota camry appears to be $23k
List prices and what they actually sell for rarely are similar.
There is in fact a Toyota dealer here in town who sells Camrys for about $17K., they have a big billboard up about it.
Similar to the Ford Fusion (same size car) that lists for $22K, it sells for $16K in reality.
When Tesla starts offering discounts and rebates, perhaps that will change. :)
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Side note: Toyota and Ford sell very few of their cars in true base trim. Some they do, but most people want a mid level trim and so you're more likely to find a Fusion for $20K than $16K and a Camry for $22K than $17K.
Just like the Model 3 may have a base price of $35K, but that isn't any different than the Model S's base price of $70K, and few of those cars are sold for that. In fact, most are closer to $100K.
We know EVs are getting cheaper and will continue to do so with scale
We do?
Since when did cars becomes computers that get cheaper and faster each year?
Is there a law of economics that says EVs will become cheaper than gas cars, but gas cars will just keep getting expensive?
so at some point there is a threshold that makes an EV a more attractive proposition for most people. It might not this year or in the next 5, but I think it will be in the next 10.
1. Tesla has made a bold announcement, lets see if they can deliver. A whole lot of people are assuming this is a done deal. I might tend to agree if it was launching in 6 months, but 20 months is a LONG time.
2. I can draw a straight line on a chart with the best of them, but that doesn't mean it will come to pass. Yes, there is always the chance that EVs will continue to get cheaper, but there is no assurance they will become cheaper than gas cars.
3. Even if they do (and I don't think it would be within 10 years), then you have other issues, such as range. Price is only one reason why millions aren't rushing out to buy them.
4. Keep in mind that Nissan has thrown everything and the kitchen sink at the Leaf to move units, it is priced around $30K (less with tax credits) and Nissan has been offering some killer lease deals, and yet they sold fewer than 30k of them last year. It has 107 miles of range, which granted is half of the Model 3, but I don't think that is the problem.
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There seems to be this "EVs for everyone" hysteria going on with Slashdot recently, but the reality is, they aren't selling in other than modest volume. Yes, the Model S cars seem to be holding their value, but have you seen the price on a used Nissan Leaf? You can get a 3 year old one for 1/3 of the sale price. That is TERRIBLE. People do not want them, or they wouldn't be going for $10K used.
Bear in mind that quite a bit of Tesla profits are going into the Gigafactory
Profits? What profits?
A lot of people (you're not alone) here on Slashdot could really use a class in how to read a balance sheet and a P&L statement.
Tesla doesn't make a profit and the capital expense of building a factory isn't subtracted from short term profits, accounting doesn't work like that.
Even if you back out 100% of the R&D spent in the last year, they STILL don't make a profit.
Tesla is losing about $15K per Model S that it builds. The numbers never lie.
The Tesla market isn't people who want the cheapest possible car for their money. It's a new and interesting segment and as such will attract people who don't mind paying a premium for something new and interesting.
You might be right, but if that is the case, they are going to have trouble selling millions of them.
The question becomes, what is the goal? Musk claims it is to change transportation for all. But that won't happen as long as it remains expensive.
It is almost like people are so enamored by the whole thing they suspect the laws of economics.
An Audi R8 does too though right?
Yes, it does. How many of those does Audi sell? Is it changing the world?
you are looking at around $46k for a camry hybrid or $51k for a Petrol Camry, I'd much rather spend around the same (plus or minus %10) on a tesla, something a bit different, and damn cool, than buy a goddamn camry.
Well sure, if they are the same price, I imagine many people would buy a Model 3.
But if a Camry is $51K in NZ, then don't be shocked if a Model 3 is $80K. What does a Model S cost there?
Keep in mind that your Camry doesn't cost $51K because Toyota is getting rich. If they were, competition would cause Honda to sell for $45K and steal sales. Then Ford would sell for $42K and steal more.
The price is there because of your government, nothing more or less.
Now it is possible that your government will provide large tax incentives or credits to bring down the price of a Model 3, and that's fine. But don't kid yourself, you live on a beautiful island with a messed up cost structure for stuff.
do you know why Camry's are popular fleet cars? because they are reliable and boring as milky rice with boiled beef.
No, they are popular fleet cars because they are CHEAP! :)
When buying vehicles that solve the basic "moving people from point A to point B" problem, price usually trumps all.
Everybody would prefer a fast car if they could afford it.
That is either a troll comment, or a comment from someone who doesn't see anything beyond themselves.
My mother is 71 years old, she still drives, and couldn't care less what the 0-60 time is or how fast her car is. She really does drive like a little old lady.
My wife isn't quite that bad, but she doesn't care either. She wants something that is easy for the kids to get in and out of, something that is safe and reliable, and something that carries lots of stuff.
Performance is about number 47 on her care list, if it exists at all.
Musk's explicitly stated goal is to revolutionize personal transport not sell vanity goods.
Fair enough, but so far he has been doing the later, not the former.
To do the former, he has to deliver a product that people want to buy in large quantities. Price, features, performance, utility, all matter in that market.
Right now, it doesn't really matter what the Model S is, so long as it is decent, because of the volume shipped worldwide (which is small, compared to major car companies).
To scale that up will require appealing to people who don't actually care as much about the whole EV thing as the early adopters and rich people might.
Tesla *invested* half a billion into a huge factory for an emerging product.
Like to try again?
Even backing that out, they lost money, hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even backing out ALL R&D doesn't make them profitable.
Tesla is losing about $15K per Model S sold. The fanboys like to talk about future investments and the gigafactory, but if you bother to read their income statement, you'll see that backing those out doesn't redress the problem.
Tesla isn't profitable on what they build now. The Model 3 won't be profitable either, not for awhile. There is no assurance they will EVER been profitable.
I'm wondering how many cancellations they will get once people find out the $7500 fed tax rebate is no longer available. This is lowering the cost of the car to $27,500, which frankly is a hell of a deal.
It would lower it to $27,500, if most people bought base model cars.
In general, they don't. Everything from the Ford Focus to the Tesla Model S are sold are higher level trims.
In addition to the rebate going away at some point, when people see that the Model 3 will really be $50K with all the options on it, that will draw a lot of cancellations.
Musk was really careful with his words: All Model 3 cars would come with autopilot hardware installed, and the base model would come with the emergency braking feature active.
The base model doesn't come with a lot of stuff turned one, which has to be paid for separately.
You need to be due these $7,500 in income taxes in single year and can't rollover credit to next year. For that you need around $56,000 taxable household income.
People buying a new $35K+ car should be over that, or they are buying the wrong car.
In addition, keep in mind that $35K is the starting price of the car, most that are sold will be $10K over that price, give or take something.
Consider it in the context of what people want. Go electric or resign yourself watching taillights tail lights recede in the distance.
The number of people who care what the 0-60 time is on their car is a very, very small percentage of the total number of car buyers.
Most, as in the VAST majority, don't know what their current car is, don't care, and it isn't a factor.
It just needs to be "good enough".
Performance will only sell so many cars.
It's a car without the range to do a road trip. I realize they want to change that with rapid charging stations but it's not there yet.
This weekend we took a road trip to Galveston to visit the beach. So yea, it really isn't a road trip car.
That being said:
So for a lot of people this would be a secondary vehicle, with a primary vehicle being gas or hybrid. Could be done Werth a married family. Certainly no range anxiety for commuting
Yep, we own two vehicles, a really big expensive SUV and a full size car. The Model 3 could easily replace the car, except that it is smaller than our full size car and costs more.
I pay $347 a month for my car and that was with nothing down, and I'll own it at the end, that isn't a lease.
It would, frankly, take the Model S to provide a similar size vehicle, but even if we consider the Model 3, it would cost nearly twice as much.
It is still too expensive for what it is. Get me a Model S, even with just 200 miles of range, for $30K, and I would seriously look at one.
The Model 3 would need to be $20K, if it was, I'd seriously look at it.
Not if the Model 3 is charged by coal, oil, or natural gas power it doesn't.
And frankly even if it is powered by wind or solar, at the end of the day, if it costs twice the price as a gas car, it isn't going to get very far beyond the well off and "save the earth crowd".
Those groups aren't "small", but they aren't "huge" either.
In 10 years > 75% of new passenger cars in the US will have some sort of electric drive, either hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or EV.
You're smoking crack... really, you are...
The Model 3 competes in the same class as a BMW 3-series which is similarly sized and has a base price of, what for it, hold on...$33,150.
Based on what? Why do you think the Model 3 is in the same class as the BMW 3 series? Because it says "Model 3"? Because of the price?
I don't see anything in the car as shown today that remotely puts it in BMWs class.
Show me one fucking $20K car that has auto-pilot, a 15" screen, full glass roof, and 0-60 of 6s; that's before we even get to the fact that people just prefer electric cars.
First, the Model 3 doesn't have autopilot for $35K. It comes with the hardware, it isn't enabled. Read closer. The only feature enabled is the emergency braking.
Second, full glass roof? Really? That feature sucks and I'll be surprised if it makes it to the final car.
0-60 in 6 seconds isn't that hard to do anymore, or close to it. The Fusion does it in 7.3 seconds, which is good enough for most people.
As for "people just prefer electric cars", no, they clearly do not. The only way to sell them is with massive tax credits and incentives, and even then, less than 1% of cars sold in whole world are either EVs or plug-in hybrids (those two gets lumped together), even in Europe the number is only 1.27% for 2015.
Take those tax incentives away and the sales dry up fast. Georgia deals found that out the hard way last year when they removed the state $5,000 credit and instead put an annual tax on EVs to cover road costs (since they don't buy gas, but use the roads). EV sales dropped by 90%.
Considering they sold a couple thousand roadsters, they sell >60K/year of Model S's and X's, they're on a pretty good trajectory.
They sold 50,000 Model S last year, they haven't sold any Model X yet.
Tesla wants to sell 500K of them per year, and they already have 200K deposits...in the first 48 hours. That is a lot of cars.
500k per year would make it one of the best selling cars in the world. At a BASE price of $35K, that is so not likely to happen. The cars that sell that well tend to be closer to $20K. The only other vehicles that sell those kinds of numbers are trucks (such as the F-150), but those have utility beyond just driving people around.
As for the deposits, indeed, that is a lot, but it is world wide. In 2015 almost 75 million cars were sold. Tesla has done a wonderful job of marketing, so they have that "Apple Effect", it is getting people to sign up in numbers that most other companies wouldn't. The question is, how many of those deposits turn into sales? The $1K is refundable.
1. Tesla has almost 2 years before the Model 3 actually goes on sale, a lot will have to happen between now and then.
2. At the moment, the idea is a fantasy to the early adopters, once the reality hits, we'll see how many actually buy out of that 200k. Maybe it will be half of them, maybe more. We'll see.
So I guess half of all car buyers are just too stupid to realize they could get a Ford Fusion for half that.
Half of all car buyers aren't buying a mid-size 5 seat car. They are buying SUVs, trucks, and fancier full size cars.
If this were the Model X being sold for $35K, then by all means, you'd have a point.
Seriously, dude, wtf is your problem?
I don't have a problem...
The problem in general are people who are confused about EVs, thinking that 10s of millions of people are just chomping at the bit to go out and buy them, and that a $35K mid-sized car is somehow going to make that happen.
1. Tesla hasn't built them yet. They might, but a lot of stuff has to happen between now and the end of 2017.
2. $35K is the starting price. Other similar sized cars have starting prices in the 20K range. It is still expensive.
This isn't 2003 anymore--the whole "EVs are expensive toys" schtick is getting pretty old.
The sales will tell the tale...
EVs still have a ways to go, and even then, it isn't just price. Price so far has been the primary issue and it remains so. Assuming price gets solved, then there are other issues.
The primary issue is people who think the EV revolution will be a 20 year thing. It won't. It MIGHT be a 50 year thing, but honestly I think a huge number of gas cars will still be around in 2,100.
This isn't the perfect solution so many dream of.
The real question is does it run systemd.
Bah... the real question is "can I get a beowulf cluster of these?"