
Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week - melling
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/29/tesla-q2-production-and-delivery-numbers.html
======
williamscales
"It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a
longer period of time."

I think this is the million dollar question—was this just a sprint effort to
hit a milestone for PR sake or will they produce 5000 next week too?

~~~
stingraycharles
I think it’s a good question to ask, but it doesn’t mean the milestone was
meaningless. Several months ago this would have been unthinkable, and the 5000
deadline was arbitrary anyway.

~~~
Someone1234
> the 5000 deadline was arbitrary anyway.

Wasn't it in multiple letters to shareholders? It is literally an update to
debtors on the company's position, far from arbitrary.

Were Tesla required to give an estimate? Nope. But doing so may be used to
attract further investment into the company, so it is far from innocent.

~~~
Robotbeat
Shareholders aren't debtors. It's still arbitrary, a goal they set for
themselves.

~~~
Someone1234
SEC likely wouldn't agree, and haven't agreed historically.

~~~
Kranar
What are you claiming the SEC would disagree with? The claim is that Tesla set
a goal of 5000 vehicles per week.

There are two things you could disagree with but you don't specify which. You
can disagree that Tesla set this goal for itself, or you can disagree that the
number 5000 is arbitrary.

To disagree with the first part, you'd need to show that the 5000 figure came
from an external party, do you have such a source for this?

To disagree with the second part, you'd need to show that there is something
significant about the number 5000. Is your claim that there is some
significance to the number 5000?

If you can't substantiate the claim that some external party gave Tesla the
goal to make 5000 vehicles per week, and you can't substantiate the claim that
the number 5000 has some fundamental significance when it comes to car
manufacturing, then you have no grounds to refute the statement that Tesla set
this arbitrary goal of 5000 for itself.

------
philipodonnell
> with the final car rolling off the assembly line on Sunday morning, several
> hours after the midnight goal set by Chief Executive Elon Musk

No, they missed the deadline, twice now. Lot of Muskites in these comments,
remember, Tesla failed to meet the same deadline in January and pushed it to
June. (EDIT: I've been told they missed this 3 times now, the 5K/wk figure was
originally Dec '17, then Jan '18 then Jun '18).

When it was clear they would miss again, they put up a third production line
in a canvas tent, which the NYT quoted as "never heard anything like this
ever" using what Musk tweeted as "scrap we had in warehouses" to build the
cars. And even then, and running all three lines 24/7 striving to hit that
goal for just 7 consecutive days with the whole world watching... they still
came up 150 cars short.

(5k/wk / 168 hrs/week = 30/hr * missing the deadline by 5 hours = 150 cars
short)

~~~
panarky
Imagine that today is July 1, 2020. Looking back I see three scenarios.

1) It's clear now that the company is a sham and Musk is a snake-oil salesman.
It's all smoke, mirrors, bubblegum and baling wire. After hitting 5000 cars
per week one time, they never reached that level again. The company had to do
a punishingly dilutive capital raise just to get 6 months more runway, and the
company's market cap is now $6 billion (down 90% from 2018).

2) The company has continued to stumble from failure to failure with just
enough successes to delay the day of reckoning. Musk is still sleeping in the
factory trying to iron out kinks in the manufacturing process and automation.
They're producing 3000 cars per week, but the quality is so poor that 30% of
cars must be returned to the factory for rework. Competitors are likely to
match Tesla's battery technology in the next 3 years, and the company's market
cap is down by 50% from 2018.

3) After many delays and billions of dollars of cost overruns, Tesla has
perfected the "machine that builds the machine". It's producing 40,000 cars
per week in three factories in the US, Europe and China, and a fourth factory
in South Korea opens next year. Tesla is cash-flow positive and the company's
market cap is $600B (up 10x from 2018). In hindsight, all the delays people
anguished about in 2018 proved to be nothing but amusing anecdotes in the
company's history.

I assign probabilities of 10%, 50% and 40% to these scenarios, which equates
to an expected market cap of $250B in two years. At $60B today, it looks like
a bargain.

~~~
gizmo
Why should Tesla be worth 600B if they produce 2 million cars a year? Toyota
makes 10M cars per year and has a market cap of less than 300B.

Future growth is already baked into Tesla's current valuation of 60B. They're
not making any money today (in fact they're losing billions) but they have a
high market cap because they might become profitable years from now. Once (if)
they become a mature car manufacturer their valuation multiple will go way
down. They'll be judged on their profit margin and FCF like any other car
manufacturer.

Your best case scenario of Tesla growing their market cap by 550B in the next
2 years is completely unrealistic. Even Facebook didn't grow that quickly, and
their profit margin is second to none.

~~~
slg
Tesla's best case scenario is much more than an automaker. They also have
hopes of being an energy company, a battery company, a transportation company,
and a logistics company. There is still a lot of debate whether any of those
will actually become profitable (and I think 2020 is a very aggressive
timeline for any of this to happen), but there are huge potential revenue
streams for Tesla that simply don't exist for other automakers like Toyota.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
Toyota or Ford or any other car company can enter any of those fields, either
directly or through investment. That they choose not to probably indicates
that the risk/reward doesn't make sense for them, and they probably aren't
worth that much if Tesla manages to pivot. They chose not to play in EVs until
recently, for example, because the market appetite wasn't there

~~~
gleenn
You gotta hand it to Elon for stirring the appetite for EVs though. What makes
you think he can't do similar things in other markets?

~~~
rootusrootus
I am not convinced he really changed the market's desire for EVs. He made a
halo car, and now he is selling the baby version for Average Joe. I think the
success of the Model 3 has a lot more to do with the brand than it does with
it being an EV.

~~~
colordrops
It's simply ignoring reality to not acknowledge Tesla's center role in
popularizing EVs. It's not even a question.

------
isoprophlex
That's impressive. I've read a great many analyses stating Musk'll never
succeed in his model 3 ramp up. Let's hope he keeps this up in the coming
months. It's a long way to 450.000 vehicles...

~~~
grecy
This means they're now making about 7,000 vehicles total per week (S+X+3),
which means they'll make more vehicles in the next 12 months than they have
made in the previous 10 years.

I'd say they're ramping pretty fast!

EDIT: 7,000 per week, not per month, thanks below.

~~~
gizmo
Tesla pulled people from the S&X lines to reach their 5000 Model 3 goal. No
way they also produced 2000 S&X cars in the past 7 days. In addition, their
current death march schedule isn't sustainable. They won't come close to
producing 7k cars in any week in July.

Tesla needs to spend billions in capex in order to get to 5000 M3 and beyond
if they want to produce at a sustainable pace with acceptable quality.
Billions they don't have.

~~~
themgt
Musk just tweeted out: "7000 cars, 7 days"

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1013519243030253570](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1013519243030253570)

~~~
gizmo
I stand corrected. Thanks for the update.

------
chrisper
Does quality match the quantity here? I remember Tesla having lots of quality
issues (misaligned doors etc)

~~~
aphextron
Given that half of those 5000 are being produced in a tent in the parking lot
with summer heat and no AC, I can only imagine.

~~~
raverbashing
You can have AC on big tents, and I would be surprised if they didn't as your
external 40C could easily become dangerous in a _literal_ greenhouse.

At least forced ventilation is needed.

~~~
IshKebab
There was a video linked of the "tent" and the ends are open, so I don't think
AC would work.

~~~
manicdee
The video clearly shows the ends are being closed up.

------
jiggliemon
Tesla is still maturing as a company; more to the point, they’re maturing as a
manufacturer.

While other companies would order whole componants from vendors - Tesla will
only order parts - and assemble in house. For instance - Toyota will order
brake assemblies. While Tesla orders guards. Toyota will order a door - and
Tesla a door panel. Even worse - Tesla has a history or delivering third
parties sub-par China made tooling; and expecting 2-3x performance out of it -
when in actuality their sub-par tooling will reduce efficiency. Trying to save
money on tool manufacturing isn’t where mature companies cut corners. Trusting
vendors to look after their own interests is a good practice (provided those
vendors have a proven record)

Eventually Tesla will work it’s way into understanding that it’s core
competencies are IP, design, and marketing - and leave the micro manufacturing
to third parties.

A 6mo miss in production on one vehicle isn’t a sign of the times for a
company with a 10yr road map. The markets aren’t super forgiving, but I think
this will all get smoothed out as Tesla grows up.

~~~
adventured
> The markets aren’t super forgiving

Tesla's stock is 40% above its 52 week low and was just near its all-time
highs two weeks ago. That's pretty forgiving. Must drive the bears crazy.

------
Nokinside
> It was not clear if Tesla could maintain that level of production for a
> longer period of time.

When Tesla reached it's 2,000 units per week deadline, they had production
line shutdown soon afterwards. Then ramp up again from lower level.

Based on their previous numbers I would say that their next 3 month production
average will be 60% - 80% of their last peak.

------
jacquesm
What are the chances that cars from this period will develop above average
defects?

------
woodandsteel
You know, it is really interesting watching the Musk haters over the years.

The more he succeeds in doing what he promised (albeit usually behind
schedule), the more they hate him, and the more convinced they become that his
present projects will all turn out to be complete failures.

It almost makes you think they have some ulterior motive, like they work for
the fossil fuel industry, of one of the other rocket launch companies, or a
major auto manufacturer, or maybe they bet their life savings on Tesla stock
crashing.

Any Musk haters out their want to respond? And if you do, be sure to tell us
about your past predictions, and if they turned out right or wrong.

~~~
saas_co_de
yeah, when he crashes and burns it will burn 100 billion dollars and the
credibility of the whole tech industry (like Theranos but 100X).

There will be a nuclear winter in tech investment after that which sets back
legitimate companies with real innovation by years with lasting damage to the
global economy.

Same story as Uber and why people "hated" on them before the adults cleaned
things up (as best as possible).

These con artists are shitting in the water for everyone else which has direct
financial impact. Not hate, just money.

~~~
rich-w-big-ego
I think there's something to this argument. Elon actually realizes this part
himself:

    
    
      when he crashes and burns it will burn 100 billion dollars and the credibility of the whole tech industry
    

Elon has stated publically that it would be "really bad" (his words) if Tesla
fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric cars will
never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an EV startup
- to say nothing of the investment crater that's leftover from their death.

However, I don't understand the rest of the comment regarding the "con
artists" and how this is at all like Uber.

~~~
woodandsteel
>if Tesla fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric
cars will never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an
EV startup

Except that during the last two years all the major car companies have started
big EV programs, and in China, the world's largest car market, the government
has gone all-in on pushing EV's. So no matter what happens with Tesla, EV's
are here to stay. In fact the experts say that when batteries get cheap enough
around 2025, the whole market is going to swing in their favor.

------
Luc
Bertel Schmitt on Asymco's podcast was amusingly anti-Musk this week (listen
from about minute 37) [http://www.asymco.com/2018/06/27/asymcar-44-the-view-
from-to...](http://www.asymco.com/2018/06/27/asymcar-44-the-view-from-tokyo-
with-bertel-schmitt/)

~~~
annerajb
Amusingly? He has been like that for the past two years.

------
chriselles
Hitting 5000 Model 3 Units in a single surge week is an anomaly, until it
becomes a repeatable and sustainable pattern.

And a pattern that includes low/no rework, because building 5000 units a week
is one metric, building 5000 high quality units with no expensive rework is
another metric entirely.

Questions:

Why would someone work in a non air conditioned tent under high stress when
they could earn the equivalent wage working across the road in an air
conditioned McDonalds?

What impact will the major step down in Solar City/Tesla have in commingled
Tesla finances?

Why is Bloomberg’s Tesla tracker showing a fast flattening(rather than
accelerating) production trend?

Back in 2016 at GSB we were supposed to get 80 minutes with Musk in class, but
it turned into possibly the first “sleep at the end of the factory line”
narratives.

Am I the only one who things a fancy tent is a modern equivalent of a Potemkin
Vilage?

Fast, cheap, good.

Pick one today, maybe two later.

I find Tesla requiring $1000 deposit holders to contribute an additional
$2500( for a combined $3500 converted into an advance payment no longer
deposit) interesting.

At Amazon in the very early days we had 100% float from publishers for 30-60
days for a 20% gross profit operation.

Tesla’s attempt at the same is 5% float for 3-6 months for a -20% net profit
operation.

It’s like using a single dish sponge to absorb a negative cashflow tsunami.

Making stuff is hard. Making stuff at industrial scale is super duper hard.

~~~
greglindahl
Do you have a source for Tesla assembly line workers being paid the same wage
as McDonalds workers?

~~~
chriselles
Hmmmm....

I couldn’t actually find a McDonald’s that paid the same as the $15 starting
rate for Tesla production specialist/hourly as found on Glassdoor.

My bad!

But I did find In ‘n Out Burger that offered the same.

------
njarboe
I would guess Tesla announces the 200,000th domestic sale sometime in the next
week. They could be hitting their ramp-up to high production of the Model 3
right when they hit the 200k domestic electric car milestone. This also
happens to be right at the beginning of a quarter so they can get as many
$7500 federal tax credits for their customers as they can. One would guess
this is not just some lucky coincidence, but who knows.

~~~
andromeduck
That's only for American sales so no reason why they can't ramp production and
just export to other markets.

~~~
njarboe
That is why I said "domestic sales". They want to hit 200k US sales at the
beginning of a quarter and when they have a high production rate. That would
be this quarter starting July 1, as they are already very near the 200k limit.
It's not reasonable to think they could export the whole next quarter's
production of S, X and 3 production without many serious repercussions. One
being pissing off hundreds of thousands of US model 3 reservation holders.

------
chemmail
Elon may have did this the wrong way. He should have released the 2020
Roadster first, price it at a lux $500k, beat the snot out of every hypercar
out there. Get the Semi out, make actual money, then lose money on every Model
3, but have a subscription service to have monthly income. Kind of how Amazon
loses money on the thing people mostly use it for, selling physical stuff, but
makes money everywhere else.

~~~
rich-w-big-ego
Your analysis might make sense if money and profitability and staying solvent
was what Elon was most interested in. However, money alone is not the goal;
getting us off of oil is the goal. I think that Elon really wanted to make a
mass-market car as soon as possible, which explains why he chose to take the
harder path of making the mass-market car before the hypercar and the semi's.

------
rjplatte
There's a pattern from Elon of overpromising, and then pulling through, but
way later. I wouldn't be surprised if they're easily staying at a 5000/week
production baseline in the next three months.

~~~
rich-w-big-ego
Elon used the same over-promising strategy during the build-up to the start of
Model 3 production. Elon promised that Tesla would start producing Model 3s in
July 2017, noting that production would not _actually_ start until sometime
later; since some supplier somewhere _would_ mess up and miss the deadline
(and have themselves fired), they would inevitably be delayed. It's the same
thing in this case: promise really aggressively, and be serious about the
promise, but understand that Tesla will be delayed by the least lucky, least
effective part of the team/production line. This way, Tesla can be aggressive,
even though if you go by their promises, they should be _really_ aggressive.

------
kardos
So if I calculated correctly that's 4855 per week or 3 percent short. Not bad!

------
bpd1069
So much insecurity in these comments. Hilarious. I hope you didn't buy into
the shorts thesis.

------
pkaye
Can anyone tell me why they are taking a long time to ramp up? This is not
their first electric car and electric cars are supposed to have a lot fewer
components than gasoline engine cars.

~~~
gameshot911
Producing physical things is _hard_. Issues crop up every step. Of the way,
and any one thing can have big downstream impacts. Just think of the web of
supplies chains that feeds into the components that go into a car. And in
Tesla's case, throw in the fact that they are still a new company and haven't
had decades to iron out all the kinks.

~~~
rootusrootus
They've been around 15 years and they bought a modern manufacturing plant
purpose built to make cars. They can buy talent. I won't cut them too much
slack, supposedly they're worth more than GM. Now prove it.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Up til now they've only been doing relatively low volume production. I doubt
Bently could scale up either and they know a bit about making cars.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Well, Bentley is making ~9000 cars per year with ~3000 employees. Tesla is
making ~100k cars per year with ~37k employees (not counting all the
subcontractors). That's exactly the same ratio, and it's bloody awful compared
to large-scale car manufacturers. E.g. Toyota has 10x the number of employees
as Tesla but makes 100x as many cars. Even if next year Tesla production is
5000 cars per week all year, they will still have >4x as many employees per
car built compared to Toyota.

Also, Bentley is fully owned by Volkswagen. If they wanted to "scale up" to a
downmarket Model 3 equivalent, they'd take the VW MQB platform, use most of
the non-platform components from the Mk7 VW Jetta (probably offering the 250hp
and 300hp engines with AWD), spend 2-3 years developing sufficiently distinct
styling parts, and then be able to churn out 100k cars per year.

~~~
Theodores
Exactly. The Bentley thing would be just a badge, in fact now there is very
little of their SUV being 'made in England', it is done in some Skoda factory
somewhere.

But how much of a Tesla is Tesla? Don't large parts come from suppliers, e.g.
all the seats from Lear corp? Or did they re-engineer those too?

I think the Ford F150 truck is the benchmark, in the U.S. there are 3000-4000
made a week. The price starts around the price of the Model 3 and then goes up
and up with options.

Plus you get a lot of truck for that compared to a car, and due to the Chicken
Tax there are incentives to buy the things.

Recently there was a fire in a supplier plant that affected the F150, with JIT
they had to close the lines. But then they shipped the dies to England and
restarted making the vital parts so production is back on. Really Musk should
not be making promises if even the mighty Ford F150 truck can be brought to a
production halt due to one fire in one supplier factory.

That story is quite interesting and right now there is a 747 flying those
parts back from England to make sure Ford can keep on getting their $40
billion in revenue from selling that truck.

[https://eu.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/16/ford-
launch...](https://eu.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/16/ford-launched-
international-airlift-restart-f-150/617196002/)

I would be intrigued to know the numbers of vehicles per employee for the
F150. Note how there is zero export potential for the F150 for a multitude of
reasons whereas the Tesla products are definitely hot in international
markets.

~~~
inferiorhuman
> Don't large parts come from suppliers, e.g. all the seats from Lear corp?

One of the problems for Tesla is that they make a bunch of things in-house
that other manufacturers don't (e.g. seats).

[https://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-still-figuring-out-the-
model-3...](https://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-still-figuring-out-the-model-3-as-
it-builds-th-1827268649)

------
Robotbeat
7000 cars in a week. 5000 Model 3s.

------
loourr
This is such a horribly biased and negative article.

------
woodandsteel
You know, when the Model 3 came out and terrible production difficulties meant
they were producing only 200 cars a month, the Tesla-is-a-scam people told us
that the company would never get production much above that.

But actually it has been improving production at a steady rate, and is now at
least close to the promised 5,000 a month. So the Tesla-is-a-scam believers
were quite wrong.

~~~
scarejunba
TSLA has been public a long time. The guys who shorted it are losing money.
The guys who say it's a scam but don't short it are probably bullshitting.

~~~
dlp211
Or don't believe you can time the market. You can be bearish on a company and
still think shorting it would be a disaster. The market can remain irrational
longer than you can stay solvent.

~~~
scarejunba
Yeah, but their predictions have no predictive value at that point so I’m just
going to ignore them.

------
tardo99
I wouldn't want to drive a car built in a tent at breakneck pace to prove to
investors how fast they could build cars. Not for me.

------
empath75
Let’s see if they’re actually building 5000 a week after another few weeks or
if they just built these in a burst and it’s not sustainable. And let’s see
how many returns and recalls there are.

~~~
colordrops
I don't understand the skepticism. He's not claiming to have built a perpetual
motion machine. Even if it were the case that it's just a burst, it
demonstrates feasibility. Of course the lines will get augmented and more
efficient with time. It's not like there's some law of physics preventing
regular deliveries of 5000 cars a week.

~~~
pwinnski
The skepticism is simple: Musk has a history of making schedule pronouncements
that fall through. He predicted they'd hit this milestone last year, and they
didn't. In fact, he predicted they'd be far beyond this milestone by now, and
they aren't. And he really, really, really hates it when people point how his
broken promises and failed claims, so it's reasonable to expect he might be
trying to play with some smoke and mirrors and distract everybody with a one-
time hit at 5k, hoping we forget he's late, and that he said that would just
be a stepping-stone on the way to 25k/week.

Or, you know, it could just be late, and he's on track slowly. But the
skepticism is absolutely warranted, and there are probably better odds for the
skepticism.

~~~
colordrops
Skepticism of hitting goals by certain dates are fair. But you are conflating
skepticism of promises of meeting milestones with the ability to execute at
all. They met the 5000 car a week goal. There was no promise of a date for a
consistent 5000 cars a week. Is your claim that you are skeptical that they
can _ever_ hit a regular 5000 cars a week?

~~~
shawabawa3
> There was no promise of a date for a consistent 5000 cars a week

I'm pretty sure that was December 2017 [1]

    
    
        [1] "Chief Executive Elon Musk announced that production of its mass-market Model 3 would start this week and build to 20,000 per month in December. " - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-model-idUSKBN19O0GE

~~~
colordrops
That's an old article, and Musk has since updated his estimates and dates, and
was explicit that they would target burst builds before ramping full-time [1].
But that's beside the point - the question is, what is the source of
skepticism of the ability to execute _at all_ (not by a particular target
date)? We can go back and forth on dates and numbers all day, but that's not
my question.

[1] [https://bgr.com/2018/04/17/elon-musk-
model-3-production-6000...](https://bgr.com/2018/04/17/elon-musk-
model-3-production-6000-july/)

------
timwaagh
promising news i think. a friend of mine said they would go under. i dont
really want them to go under though.

~~~
LoSboccacc
Unless you are the one to receive the tent assembled model 3. If past rushes
are an indicator of the future to be I totally expect a large recall operation
following this stunt

------
ourcat
Would you trust a car built in a hurry?

------
JUDAS
Musk has said to appear on Rogan's podcast when production of model 3 hits
5k/w.

[https://jrelibrary.com/upcoming-guests/](https://jrelibrary.com/upcoming-
guests/)

[https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1005924723983675392?lang...](https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1005924723983675392?lang=en)

~~~
abledon
That will be one of the most entertaining conversations. I love how chill the
atmosphere is on that show.

~~~
obscurantist
"Jamie, pull up the video of the chimp getting run over by a Tesla."

------
ycnewbienomore
I can’t give up my Model 3. Driving any Tesla car is a dopamine hit. You
really have to try and drive them to experience it and you’ll be hooked. Many
people don’t realize what a refreshing and tremendous difference a smooth and
powerful torque curve gives. Seriously forget all the noise about Elon Musk.
Try and drive an electric car, which are by far still smoother than gear-
shifting gas powered cars, and then try a Tesla.

~~~
pasta
Tesla is not the only brand that creates electric cars.

This is all about Elon making clames he could not make true.

The danger for Tesla is that people don't want to wait for broken promises
anymore and will choose another brand.

Edit: for example the Jaguar I-PACE might be very competitive.

~~~
stevehawk
I have yet to hear anyone say they're impressed with the I-Pace

~~~
geor3
1\. "I-Pace is the most exciting, innovative car Jaguar has made since 1961,
and it has the dynamics and look to back it up" \-
[https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-
drives/a22003661...](https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-
drives/a22003661/2019-jaguar-i-pace-first-drive/)

2\. From someone not in the automotive press: "The interior build quality is
second to none." \- although he sees enough negatives to hold out for a Model
3 instead - [https://model3ownersclub.com/threads/jaguar-i-pace-
review.62...](https://model3ownersclub.com/threads/jaguar-i-pace-review.6231/)

------
pooya13
Leave it to CNBC and HN to take such a success story by Tesla and turn it on
its head to call it a failure. 1- Emphasizing the 5hr delay as opposed to the
almost 5k figure WHEN THEY THEMSELVES SAID A FEW MONTHS AGO THAT TESLA WON'T
PRODUCE MORE THAN 2k PER WEEK 2- Accusing Tesla of having low production
quality in their tent line without any evidence 3- Criticizing Tesla for not
being able to produce performance and dual versions, then when they do
criticizing them for selling those before cheaper options when that is what
any sane company would do 4- ... Honestly it is baffling to me that you guys
keep being proven wrong over and over again, yet you keep insisting that Tesla
will fail. If you really believe Tesla is doomed I suggest you start shorting
them (and let me know how it works out for you!).

~~~
dayaz36
Not surprised the only sane and accurate comment is grayed out at the bottom
of the thread. HN is filled to the brink with anti-tesla shill bots. The
astroturfing is so obvious it's comical. That's why I don't ever trust HN
comments..

~~~
dang
The community is obviously divided about this. That's not the same thing as
"astroturfing". The guidelines ask you not to insinuate that without evidence,
so please don't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
dayaz36
Look at the comments. It's 90% anti-tesla and all the pro-tesla comments get
down voted into oblivion. So the community is not "divided" it
seems...Statistics is my evidence. The extreme slant and voting behavior of
all Tesla threads, mixed with debunked misinformation peddled by oil and gas
industries being presented as fact pervasively in these threads is plenty of
evidence

~~~
dang
That's neither statistics nor evidence. You may be falling prey to the Hostile
Media Effect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

It makes things seem intensely obvious that actually aren't true. People on
the other side of the fence from you are just as convinced that HN is
dominated by pro-Tesla shills.

------
ArtWomb
Finally got to drive Model 3 yesterday. A friend received his car a few days
ago and let me try it on some suburban streets. Nothing fancy. But I did take
it for a mini "drag race" against another buddy's Porsche 911. Again this was
on a residential tree-lined street with kids playing outside. Not exactly fast
and furious. But it definitely kept pace that first eighth of a mile ;)

In my humble opinion it outclasses all similar rides: Audi A4, Mercedes C
Class, BMW 325, etc. And with charging stations popping up in every
supermarket, office park, highway rest area, etc. It may rapidly become the
brand of choice for young, urban commuting professionals.

~~~
tsunamifury
I find it hard to believe that it would outclass a C-class on interior luxury,
a BMW on overall sportiness. I've driven all these cars, and when you get in a
Tesla is definitely feels like a significant step down.

~~~
selectodude
For a lot of people, "sporty" means "torque" and that's about it.

