I'm sure there are things in your budget I'd consider "wasteful" and I'm sure there are things in mine that you'd consider wasteful.
A household "budget" by definition is "an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time" and if you run yours and you can afford something while meeting the other obligations that you need/should cover, then that's a successful budget. Whether it is irresponsible is a much bigger question that every family/city/country has to decide independently and as a unit.
Also, totally not the point of the original post which was about disproportionate coverage of Tesla compared to other similarly priced vehicles (and far disproportionate compared to less expensive ones).
I guess that totally depends on where you live. If you live in a major metropolitan area, not even a "super rich one" (Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, San Diego, Nashville, etc) they're not particularly rare. Sure, they're rarer than Honda Civics, but that's bell curve economics for you...the more expensive a car is the fewer you'll see. But Tesla hardly exists in some rarified airspace uninhabited by other manufacturers.
But the original point stands...Teslas are no more "for the rich" than any of those other cars I mentioned. When was the last time you saw a national headline about someone wrecking their Lexus, Porsche, Cadillac, etc? I practically guarantee they get wrecked with pretty much equal frequency.
If you can't afford $1,200 a month on a car payment (an approximate payment on a $70k loan) while making $140k a year...well I was going to say you're pretty shitty at budgeting. But that's completely untrue. You might have plenty of other things that you budget your money on. But given that your take home should be at least $7-8k a month, you should be able, if you chose, to cover the cost of that car.
I'm not saying you should. I'm not saying it's the most prudent use of your money. But for you to arbitrarily imply that that's out of someone's price range, or "foolish" implies your priorities are the right ones. Spoiler: They're not...they're just yours, and that's fine.
I agree with you, 100%. However teslas are for the rich, we can't afford them, so i can see why they get picked on. Kind of like people who total their lambos. Usually makes the regional news at least.
People who think Teslas are "for the rich" and are "Like people [sic] with lambos" are confused about price tags.
A Tesla S starts at $75k. Ceiling around $140k.
A Lamborghini starts at $200-250k and just goes up from there with practically no ceiling (ok, of course there is...but it's high).
Yes, for some folks $75k might as well be $1M for all it matters to them, but there are tons of cars in the $75-90k price bracket, so pinning Tesla as some kind of super rich person toy that is deserving of some special media attention when someone runs it into a tree is just websites looking to sell clicks.
For instance, every single one of these cars has a starting price more expensive than a starting Tesla S (full cash price, no tax credits): Cadillac Escalade, Porsche Panamera, Lexus LX and LS Hybrid, Audi A8...etc
Yep. I don't think I know anyone who hasn't ever been involved in a car accident. If there are Tesla's on the road, they'll be in accidents. It's not worthy of headlines unless the things go up in a mushroom cloud when hit or something.
Yeah, when I rear ended someone in my Lexus, I don't recall a Mercury News headline. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
To expand...danheskett...the person bitching about the NTSB "solving private sector problems" on the taxpayer dime. You realize what you're complaining about is, literally, the government doing the job we pay them to do right? Are YOU going to hold a car manufacturer accountable for putting a dangerous product on the road? Were you personally going to pony up the cash to fly out to the crash site, check the forensics, go over the debris field, and make sure that what happened was a genuine accident and not the result of some guy cutting corners in the factory to improve his bottom line by 1%?
No? You weren't offering to do that? Gosh, I guess it's a good thing we all pay taxes and the NTSB does this stuff so that the rest of us have at least some slight reasonable reason to believe that manufacturers are making quality products. Yes, even Tesla...but also GM, Ford, Acura, Porsche, Kia, et al. They aren't doing those company's jobs for them. They are, quite literally, capable of shutting those companies down if they find a critical flaw in their product. That's not doing their job for them, that's keeping your disingenuous, passive aggressive, Neanderthal butt safe.
The battery catching fire is an interesting point. I'd be interested to know if the emergency responders initially followed the published guidelines for cooling the battery or if they stopped when they stopped seeing flames. Regardless, it's an interesting point and an important one for the future.
Regarding the rest of the OP's posting...yeah, 2 teens died in a Tesla in Florida while speeding 50-60 around a corner marked for 30 mph. Yes, a lady crashed her car into a Starbucks. Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend? I'll bet you $50 it happened. Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car? I'll put $20 on that one. What, no national headlines on those ones? What gives? Or do we think miraculously owning a Tesla makes you immune to being a stupid/careless/human driver? I didn't know Musk was advertising that feature. Is Ford? Honda? Lexus?
To be clear, your $1000 for tabs is all-inclusive and that fee gets divided into a lot of different pots. Unless the bulk of that $1000 is a specific EV fee (which here in Washington is $150 per year) it's not really comparable to what you'd pay in gas tax.
They don't know, that's the obnoxious part. They charge me a flat fee and I've run the math on it. For this year, based on my miles driven, I'm paying a fee equivalent to if I was driving a 30 mpg car. My old ICE was 45mpg, so I'm paying substantially more towards the roads than I was back when I was paying for gasoline.
So...50% more miles per dollar isn't "dramatic?" Where's your threshold for "dramatic?" 60%? 70% 100%? Seems like you have some kind of arbitrary cutoff.
Many states, mine included, make me pay an extra fee with my tabs to cover the money I'm not paying in gas tax. When you run the math, I'm actually paying MORE than most folks who drive non-SUV/Pickup trucks. Essentially I'm paying a fee with my tabs as if I were driving a 20 mpg car.
So no, my electricity prices don't subsidize the road. But my tabs are adjusted to reflect this. Next question?
1) Burns are fatal from fluid loss and infection. But I grant you that, according to the books, Darth Maul survived essentially the same injury that Snoke received, and fell down a mine shaft to boot. But the guards aren't medics, how are they supposed to know that he can be saved if they get him to a med bay? Either way, they have to deal with Kylo and Rey first regardless of what the first aid options are.
2) Oxygen? I think the occupants need that. Also, all the starship engines run on some kind of fuel to produce electricity to power ion drives. Presumably some of that fuel can also combust.
3) The thing is the size of a few cities...I assume it has some blast doors that seal when there is depressurization. Seems reasonable to build those into a space ship at least.
4) Meh, because that's what audiences are used to. You can also complain about the sounds of swords in sword fights and when arrows are fired from bows. Foley artists create what audiences expect, now what is reality.
If I mount a weapon on it, can I say it's a special kind of gun and that registering or regulating it in any way whatsoever it is an infringement of my 2nd Amendment rights? WIN!
First they make a statement that they think the Tesla Model 3 will have average reliability despite noting they haven't looked at it or had enough discussion with anyone who has looked at it to make any kind of statement...and now they preemptively have a recommendation (or lack thereof) about the Surface 2 despite not having received it yet?
If they can make statements about products without actually laying hands on them, that's some impressive skills. But where's the actual "Reporting" come in if they're going to make statements about unreviewed products?
I think some of it is that, for whatever reason, Tesla drivers have embraced the idea of road trip as recreation. If it takes 6 hours? 5? Either is OK. 4 days? 5? Also OK. Lunch stop for 30 minutes? 60? Sure.
For us, for instance, as long as we get into our destination in time for socialization and dinner we're pretty much OK. We don't need, or really want, to take trips that demand squeezing the absolute most out of the day. We have enough anxiety as it is without making our recreational trips an exercise in time trial racing.
But sure, if you're going to suddenly have to make a time critical trip over 2000 miles at the drop of the hat with very specific requirements for time, distance, and lodging...maybe not the choice for you. But I'd kind of be interested to know what your starting/ending points were to see, academically, if your trip was doable by charging/supercharging in a reasonable manner. A lot of folks, though not all, are surprised.
I wake up at a normal time of 7-8. We eat breakfast. We get the car packed up, we try and get on the road by 10 or so. We have lunch around 1. We cross a time zone. We get into our destination around 5.
You're correct, right now with the Supercharger network you do have to stop in specific places. In our case this doesn't limit us at all as far as where we can go...because we aren't looking at these 9 hour drives. We typically drive around 300 miles at most in a day. So that means we can leave at normal non-rushed times, and we can arrive at normal not-late times. We don't have to worry about whether lunch takes 30 minutes or 60 minutes. We can throw the ball for the dog at a rest stop if we want. Honestly, I LIKE that we specifically don't have to plan to squeeze every minute out of the day. But sure, I'll conceed that if you really do NEED to drive 600-700 miles in a day, an EV just isn't a fabulous option quite yet...especially if you have kids. On the other hand if you don't, and you're already WILLING to drive for 9+ hours, you only are adding ~1-1.5 hours to your day to charge up at Superchargers. So if 9 is no big deal, why not just do 10? Personally they're both intolerable to me, so it's a non-issue for our family.
You can't win this argument. There seems to be a set of people that are convinced that unless you can do these marathon drives...by which I define it as driving until your tank gets to zero, filling up while you use the restroom and grab a package of beef jerky and a soda and then jumping back in to drive another 400 miles...if you can't do that in your car it's not "practical."
The folks who require this are certainly not a non-zero number. As evidenced by the folks who make this argument. Alternatively, the folks making the argument aren't these kind of people, but like to believe that there are many of them out there. Regardless, if that's your requirement, great, use a gasoline car for now.
For the rest of us, self included as a Tesla owner, I do road trips 300 miles in a day. I have a toddler and a dog. After 3 hours in the car I'm GLAD to get out of the car for a 30-40 minute lunch break, thank you very much. I do remember doing 600 mile drives when I was in my teens and twenties and I'm seriously glad I gave up on that and I hope that the number of times I have to do it again in my lifetime are limited to a number I can count on two hands.
Almost like you'd want the car to be able to read signs...wonder if anyone is working on putting cameras in cars that can recognize signs. Maybe someone will get on that.
He didn't build SpaceX on the off chance that the government would pay him back. If you look at his clients for SpaceX, it includes NASA but is not REMOTELY exclusive to NASA. Additionally, he built SpaceX partially because it was well known that government funding for NASA was drying up. You might expect him to build solar arrays on speculation if, for instance, the government announced it's plans to get out of the energy business entirely...then there might be motivation for him to get into that business similar to SpaceX.
And he has an agreement, up front, for the government to pay for it when it's complete. He's not building it on speculation "in case" the government decides to buy it after the fact.
Several weeks of storage? For those several weeks where the sun doesn't shine every year?
Yes, I know there are periods of low insolation due to inclement weather and seasonal variations, but depending on the size of your array, "several weeks" is hyperbole.
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I'm sure there are things in your budget I'd consider "wasteful" and I'm sure there are things in mine that you'd consider wasteful.
A household "budget" by definition is "an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time" and if you run yours and you can afford something while meeting the other obligations that you need/should cover, then that's a successful budget. Whether it is irresponsible is a much bigger question that every family/city/country has to decide independently and as a unit.
Also, totally not the point of the original post which was about disproportionate coverage of Tesla compared to other similarly priced vehicles (and far disproportionate compared to less expensive ones).
...all of which are pretty rare.
I guess that totally depends on where you live. If you live in a major metropolitan area, not even a "super rich one" (Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, San Diego, Nashville, etc) they're not particularly rare. Sure, they're rarer than Honda Civics, but that's bell curve economics for you...the more expensive a car is the fewer you'll see. But Tesla hardly exists in some rarified airspace uninhabited by other manufacturers.
But the original point stands...Teslas are no more "for the rich" than any of those other cars I mentioned. When was the last time you saw a national headline about someone wrecking their Lexus, Porsche, Cadillac, etc? I practically guarantee they get wrecked with pretty much equal frequency.
If you can't afford $1,200 a month on a car payment (an approximate payment on a $70k loan) while making $140k a year...well I was going to say you're pretty shitty at budgeting. But that's completely untrue. You might have plenty of other things that you budget your money on. But given that your take home should be at least $7-8k a month, you should be able, if you chose, to cover the cost of that car.
I'm not saying you should. I'm not saying it's the most prudent use of your money. But for you to arbitrarily imply that that's out of someone's price range, or "foolish" implies your priorities are the right ones. Spoiler: They're not...they're just yours, and that's fine.
I agree with you, 100%. However teslas are for the rich, we can't afford them, so i can see why they get picked on. Kind of like people who total their lambos. Usually makes the regional news at least.
People who think Teslas are "for the rich" and are "Like people [sic] with lambos" are confused about price tags.
A Tesla S starts at $75k. Ceiling around $140k.
A Lamborghini starts at $200-250k and just goes up from there with practically no ceiling (ok, of course there is...but it's high).
Yes, for some folks $75k might as well be $1M for all it matters to them, but there are tons of cars in the $75-90k price bracket, so pinning Tesla as some kind of super rich person toy that is deserving of some special media attention when someone runs it into a tree is just websites looking to sell clicks.
For instance, every single one of these cars has a starting price more expensive than a starting Tesla S (full cash price, no tax credits): Cadillac Escalade, Porsche Panamera, Lexus LX and LS Hybrid, Audi A8...etc
So where's the "Honda crashes into bus!" stories?
Right here
Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend?
Oh please! He didn't die in the pickup truck.
Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car?
Apparently, not a lot of old ladies drive a Ford Fiesta... but when they do, it's epic. ;)
Hah. I'd hug you if I could. You rock.
Yep. I don't think I know anyone who hasn't ever been involved in a car accident. If there are Tesla's on the road, they'll be in accidents. It's not worthy of headlines unless the things go up in a mushroom cloud when hit or something.
Yeah, when I rear ended someone in my Lexus, I don't recall a Mercury News headline. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
Someone give this guy a mod point. Seriously.
To expand...danheskett...the person bitching about the NTSB "solving private sector problems" on the taxpayer dime. You realize what you're complaining about is, literally, the government doing the job we pay them to do right? Are YOU going to hold a car manufacturer accountable for putting a dangerous product on the road? Were you personally going to pony up the cash to fly out to the crash site, check the forensics, go over the debris field, and make sure that what happened was a genuine accident and not the result of some guy cutting corners in the factory to improve his bottom line by 1%?
No? You weren't offering to do that? Gosh, I guess it's a good thing we all pay taxes and the NTSB does this stuff so that the rest of us have at least some slight reasonable reason to believe that manufacturers are making quality products. Yes, even Tesla...but also GM, Ford, Acura, Porsche, Kia, et al. They aren't doing those company's jobs for them. They are, quite literally, capable of shutting those companies down if they find a critical flaw in their product. That's not doing their job for them, that's keeping your disingenuous, passive aggressive, Neanderthal butt safe.
The battery catching fire is an interesting point. I'd be interested to know if the emergency responders initially followed the published guidelines for cooling the battery or if they stopped when they stopped seeing flames. Regardless, it's an interesting point and an important one for the future.
Regarding the rest of the OP's posting...yeah, 2 teens died in a Tesla in Florida while speeding 50-60 around a corner marked for 30 mph. Yes, a lady crashed her car into a Starbucks. Where are the headlines about some random kid who died in a pickup truck this weekend? I'll bet you $50 it happened. Or the old lady in her Ford Fiesta who ran into a parked car? I'll put $20 on that one. What, no national headlines on those ones? What gives? Or do we think miraculously owning a Tesla makes you immune to being a stupid/careless/human driver? I didn't know Musk was advertising that feature. Is Ford? Honda? Lexus?
To be clear, your $1000 for tabs is all-inclusive and that fee gets divided into a lot of different pots. Unless the bulk of that $1000 is a specific EV fee (which here in Washington is $150 per year) it's not really comparable to what you'd pay in gas tax.
That's sales and use tax, not gasoline tax. Entirely separate. Yes, my car was exempt from sales tax, but I still have to pay for my tabs each year.
They don't know, that's the obnoxious part. They charge me a flat fee and I've run the math on it. For this year, based on my miles driven, I'm paying a fee equivalent to if I was driving a 30 mpg car. My old ICE was 45mpg, so I'm paying substantially more towards the roads than I was back when I was paying for gasoline.
So...50% more miles per dollar isn't "dramatic?" Where's your threshold for "dramatic?" 60%? 70% 100%? Seems like you have some kind of arbitrary cutoff.
Many states, mine included, make me pay an extra fee with my tabs to cover the money I'm not paying in gas tax. When you run the math, I'm actually paying MORE than most folks who drive non-SUV/Pickup trucks. Essentially I'm paying a fee with my tabs as if I were driving a 20 mpg car.
So no, my electricity prices don't subsidize the road. But my tabs are adjusted to reflect this. Next question?
1) Burns are fatal from fluid loss and infection. But I grant you that, according to the books, Darth Maul survived essentially the same injury that Snoke received, and fell down a mine shaft to boot. But the guards aren't medics, how are they supposed to know that he can be saved if they get him to a med bay? Either way, they have to deal with Kylo and Rey first regardless of what the first aid options are.
2) Oxygen? I think the occupants need that. Also, all the starship engines run on some kind of fuel to produce electricity to power ion drives. Presumably some of that fuel can also combust.
3) The thing is the size of a few cities...I assume it has some blast doors that seal when there is depressurization. Seems reasonable to build those into a space ship at least.
4) Meh, because that's what audiences are used to. You can also complain about the sounds of swords in sword fights and when arrows are fired from bows. Foley artists create what audiences expect, now what is reality.
Guess I spoke too soon. Looks like this has actually gotten think time in legal circles.
https://www.usnews.com/news/ar...
Well darn. So much for not infringing on my rights to form a militia. Guess I'll keep my day job.
If I mount a weapon on it, can I say it's a special kind of gun and that registering or regulating it in any way whatsoever it is an infringement of my 2nd Amendment rights? WIN!
First they make a statement that they think the Tesla Model 3 will have average reliability despite noting they haven't looked at it or had enough discussion with anyone who has looked at it to make any kind of statement...and now they preemptively have a recommendation (or lack thereof) about the Surface 2 despite not having received it yet?
If they can make statements about products without actually laying hands on them, that's some impressive skills. But where's the actual "Reporting" come in if they're going to make statements about unreviewed products?
I think some of it is that, for whatever reason, Tesla drivers have embraced the idea of road trip as recreation. If it takes 6 hours? 5? Either is OK. 4 days? 5? Also OK. Lunch stop for 30 minutes? 60? Sure.
For us, for instance, as long as we get into our destination in time for socialization and dinner we're pretty much OK. We don't need, or really want, to take trips that demand squeezing the absolute most out of the day. We have enough anxiety as it is without making our recreational trips an exercise in time trial racing.
But sure, if you're going to suddenly have to make a time critical trip over 2000 miles at the drop of the hat with very specific requirements for time, distance, and lodging...maybe not the choice for you. But I'd kind of be interested to know what your starting/ending points were to see, academically, if your trip was doable by charging/supercharging in a reasonable manner. A lot of folks, though not all, are surprised.
I wake up at a normal time of 7-8. We eat breakfast. We get the car packed up, we try and get on the road by 10 or so. We have lunch around 1. We cross a time zone. We get into our destination around 5.
You're correct, right now with the Supercharger network you do have to stop in specific places. In our case this doesn't limit us at all as far as where we can go...because we aren't looking at these 9 hour drives. We typically drive around 300 miles at most in a day. So that means we can leave at normal non-rushed times, and we can arrive at normal not-late times. We don't have to worry about whether lunch takes 30 minutes or 60 minutes. We can throw the ball for the dog at a rest stop if we want. Honestly, I LIKE that we specifically don't have to plan to squeeze every minute out of the day. But sure, I'll conceed that if you really do NEED to drive 600-700 miles in a day, an EV just isn't a fabulous option quite yet...especially if you have kids. On the other hand if you don't, and you're already WILLING to drive for 9+ hours, you only are adding ~1-1.5 hours to your day to charge up at Superchargers. So if 9 is no big deal, why not just do 10? Personally they're both intolerable to me, so it's a non-issue for our family.
You can't win this argument. There seems to be a set of people that are convinced that unless you can do these marathon drives...by which I define it as driving until your tank gets to zero, filling up while you use the restroom and grab a package of beef jerky and a soda and then jumping back in to drive another 400 miles...if you can't do that in your car it's not "practical."
The folks who require this are certainly not a non-zero number. As evidenced by the folks who make this argument. Alternatively, the folks making the argument aren't these kind of people, but like to believe that there are many of them out there. Regardless, if that's your requirement, great, use a gasoline car for now.
For the rest of us, self included as a Tesla owner, I do road trips 300 miles in a day. I have a toddler and a dog. After 3 hours in the car I'm GLAD to get out of the car for a 30-40 minute lunch break, thank you very much. I do remember doing 600 mile drives when I was in my teens and twenties and I'm seriously glad I gave up on that and I hope that the number of times I have to do it again in my lifetime are limited to a number I can count on two hands.
Almost like you'd want the car to be able to read signs...wonder if anyone is working on putting cameras in cars that can recognize signs. Maybe someone will get on that.
+1
He didn't build SpaceX on the off chance that the government would pay him back. If you look at his clients for SpaceX, it includes NASA but is not REMOTELY exclusive to NASA. Additionally, he built SpaceX partially because it was well known that government funding for NASA was drying up. You might expect him to build solar arrays on speculation if, for instance, the government announced it's plans to get out of the energy business entirely...then there might be motivation for him to get into that business similar to SpaceX.
And he has an agreement, up front, for the government to pay for it when it's complete. He's not building it on speculation "in case" the government decides to buy it after the fact.
Several weeks of storage? For those several weeks where the sun doesn't shine every year?
Yes, I know there are periods of low insolation due to inclement weather and seasonal variations, but depending on the size of your array, "several weeks" is hyperbole.