

Tesla's Model 3 - gmays
http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2014/07/teslas-model-3

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exDM69
The SUV is the perfect "form factor" for an electric vehicle because they are
typically large and heavy so the big battery pack will not hurt so much in the
weight budget. The Model S weighs in at around 2100kg, when similarly sized
cars with internal combustion engines are around 1400-1700kg.

The Model 3 has potential to shift the whole market if they can provide a
practical electric family car for the average people living in suburban areas.

~~~
pilom
I completely disagree on the SUV being the perfect "form factor" for electric.
At least if the SUV is being used for things like carrying gear for an
excursion or off-roading. In those cases, it is a terrible form factor
(especially with the gull-wing doors that prevent you from using a roof rack).
Off-roading isn't as efficient at regenerative braking compared to stop and go
traffic in an urban area. They go to areas not at all served by charging
facilities let alone superchargers. They generally need even greater range
than urban only cars. All of these things make an electric SUV not the SUV for
me.

If you just mean the silly way Americans use SUV's (to simply be taller than
the other cars on the road) then maybe it is a decent form factor.

~~~
blt
No, most Tesla SUV drivers will not go off road. The Model X is a "crossover"
SUV with very limited off-road capability. You can tell in photos: its ground
clearance is low and it doesn't have large suspension travel. It's going to
take sales from the Lexus RX, Mercedes M-Class, BMW X series, etc. Nobody
takes those cars off-road.

I used to share your disdain for SUVs until I dated someone who drove one.
They can be really useful for carrying cargo and the smaller ones get decent
fuel economy.

That said, I think a lot of SUV buyers are motivated by fear. They feel that
collisions are inevitable so they want to drive a big armored box. They want
4WD even here in the Southern USA where it snows 2 days per year. I think a
lot of them have kids and it's one more part of the protective worrying parent
mentality.

Personally I can't stand the handling of tall vehicles.

~~~
rayiner
> Personally I can't stand the handling of tall vehicles.

There was a time when I loved the handling of my 3-series with sport
suspension. Now, I just want something that makes my toddler less pukey on
these shitty northeastern roads.

~~~
psaintla
Or drive a vehicle that can get through two feet of snow when you work in a
field where taking a day off isn't an option.

~~~
rayiner
This past winter my car might as well have been a sled.

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ranran876
Not to be a contrarian, but there isn't really any reason to believe that the
Model 3 will be any better than the already-on-the-market Nissan Leaf. Tesla
hasn't really invented any new technology here that would be a game changer.
The vague claim of a "closer alliance of Tesla and its battery supplier" isn't
going to suddenly double the mileage when compared to the Lead- and it's not
like Nissan hasn't been streamlining their production process for the past few
years either.

The Model S is exceptional in that you can pay a ton of money and get an
electric car with a very respectable range. But that doesn't really scale down
when - like the article points out - most of the cost is in the battery.

~~~
GreenPlastic
People who would buy a Model 3 would never buy a Leaf because it performs like
a Leaf. The target market is BMW 3 series buyers who buy the car because it
looks nice, has tons of power, and handles well.

They're going after the guy who wants a 3 series with instant torque. Range is
a secondary consideration as long as it gets over 200.

~~~
ranran876
If in 2017 Nissan will have a cheaper, less powerful car with a 200+ range
that will also be cheaper than the Model3 - then I think Tesla will be left in
the dust.

The Model3 is their chance to break out of the luxury market and the Leaf is
going to squeeze them really hard from the low end.

I think at the point, the main thing setting them apart is the Supercharger
network. The financial viability of that endeavor is a bit unknown.. but if it
translates into significant car sales, then it may pay off.

~~~
GreenPlastic
I don’t think you understand the point I was trying to make. I could be wrong,
but I don’t think Tesla intends mass-market to mean targeted at the Camry
buyer. The person who is looking at a Tesla isn’t looking at a Nissan Leaf as
a fungible product, similar to how an iPhone 3G or 4 buyer didn’t really see
Android as a viable alternative in 2008-2009 or even now. To a large extent,
the target customer is price insensitive within the 35-45k price range and is
an enthusiast looking at entry level luxury alternatives like the BMW 3
series, Audi A4, Mercedes C class, etc.

As someone who has driven a Model S, the experience is so much better than an
ICE vehicle (acceleration, technology, not having to go to a gas station),
that the other entry level luxury vehicles, while very nice, feel very
obsolete and uninspiring.

I do, however, that the market will be much bigger than anyone anticipates
because many will realize the cost is similar to a Camry after gas savings. I
also think they’ll drive one of these vehicles and realize that it’s a much
better experience than other vehicles.

Luxury car manufacturers are very good projecting who their customers aren't.
To a certain extent, a car purchase says something about who you are not as
well as who you are. A lot of iPhone buyers are saying I'm not an Android as
much as they're saying I'm an iPhone user. A lot of Tesla's target customers
for the Model 3 fall into the same category.

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Aardwolf
"the car was going to be called the Model E, until Ford said it already had
that name trademarked" (...) "We'll have three bars to represent it and it'll
be S III X!"

3 also happens to be the '1337' slang variant of E.

~~~
Thiz
Yep. S3X doesn't look bad to me.

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kmfrk
Pay- or registration-walled, alas.

~~~
davidw
FWIW, The Economist is a pretty good magazine (err, I mean "newspaper"), worth
subscribing to.

~~~
bellerocky
I get that it might be, but if I subscribed to all these news sites, the
nytimes, the wsj, the economist, the information, the financial times, I'd be
out a lot of money each month for what is basically an "I don't know how to
use the icognito tab on my browser"-tax. I want to support these sites but
they are too expensive, and it's too easy to circumvent their paywall. I
actually subscribed to the nytimes for a month and I felt stupid for it, which
is a weird feeling to have about it.

The Information has a real pay wall, and it's actually the most expensive out
of this list, but if I subscribed to it, at least I wouldn't feel like a
jackass for doing so. These companies want the Google crawling and the
subscription fees, but it seems like you can only have one.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I want to support these sites but they are too expensive"

I've been thinking about this a bit recently. Back before these sites were
free online we picked the publication we liked and purchased it. We didn't
need to read every publication and someone who chose to read the NYT was
informed on the same world events as someone who read the WSJ. Then the
internet came along and we read bits of everything for free. Now we have to go
back to the old model it feels strange - but it shouldn't. Whether you chose
to subscribe to and read the NYT or WSJ doesn't matter. You'll get the same
information each with it's own slant. Same as before. You aren't going to miss
anything. The publications need to convince consumers that this is ok and they
don't need to be checking 10 different publications each day. Whether they can
do that or not is another thing (short attention spans appear to be a big and
growing problem) but I've definitely tried to pare down the number of sites I
read and subscribe to and I've tried to focus on the best sources rather than
10 almost identical stories with slight variations. I've found it freeing.

~~~
bitJericho
What we need is like a spotify for news. Anybody can put their news in and if
a reader reads an article that news company gets part of the subscription
fees.

I don't know if that would be better or worse though!

~~~
k-mcgrady
I like that idea. Although I have to say switching from lots of sources to a
few good ones has increased my productivity (less time wasted reading similar
articles). There are some things that I think people like NYT need to sort out
with their subscriptions. Charging for web access separate from mobile access
is a joke. Charge one fee ($20 per month) to read on any electronic device. I
can't see how their current fragmented pricing model doesn't seriously hurt
their conversion rate.

~~~
bitJericho
Well users could sort out by publisher so they can read news only from their
local newspaper and/or the NYT or something else or if they'd rather read all
tech news, a place like HN can be integrated somehow to allow for the dynamic
community sorted news.

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scragg
The $35,000 will be starting after rebate, so $42,500 out the door with zero
upgrades. I'm pessimistic they can get that low of a price with 300 mile
range, so I'm predicting that is an optional battery upgrade from the base
price. There are options you will want like the tech package which is $3k+ on
the S.

I snagged a 40kwh S before they discontinued it. Had it for a year, never
needed to charge anywhere but my home. I get about 135 miles on a charge and
it has been more then enough for commutes around the metro.

~~~
speeq
Source? This is what they said during one of their earnings calls:

Barclays Capital – Question about $35,000 price point – before or after tax
credits?

Deepak Ahuja (CFO): The $35,000 does not assume that the $7,500 federal tax
credit is no longer available, but that the 35,000 Tesla Gen 3 pricing is
without any subsidy.

Elon Musk: Helpful to have credits, but Tesla is not counting on them.

The tax credit applies for the first 250,000 (domestic?) units per
manufacturer though, so if you pre-order a Model 三 you might be able to get it
for $27,500.

~~~
scragg
This was said over a year ago in an earnings call. I hope he is correct. It's
a detail that is regularly omitted, wonder why. That tax credit will be
available for the gen 3 based off of S sales. There are also phase out periods
for the credit when the sales target has hit for 50% and 25% of tax credit.
Telsa will want to have optimal production capabilities when that time comes.

