The G Man

I was in the same shoe a few months ago, looked at the used Model S and new Model 3, I was very impressed with their performance but that was it, everything else fell short. Since I use my car everyday, 50 miles to work one way, I need a level 2 charger in my garage. I had an electrician came out to the house and quoted my $5500 to upgrade my service to 200 ampere and put in a 220V supply in my garage. I usually keep my car for 1 to 2 years, so this is a pretty expensive expense when taking that into consideration. The interior of the car is also very high on my priority, I may be able to tolerate the Model S' interior for a bit but the Model 3 is just too basic for me. The interior of this B9 is what did it for me, it is light years ahead of anything Tesla has to offer.

belzebutt

It's not a big secret nor is it wrong that Musk got the rich and the state (taxpayers) to subsidize EVs. Now the subsidies for his company have run out while other companies can still get their subsidies. Rich people still had to spend $100k to beta-test EVs for the rest of us and now the rest of us can get more affordable, more reliable and desirable EVs for less.

You have to remember where we came from. A few years ago I was wondering what would replace the ICE, that if gas gets really expensive what will the rest of us use to commute if we want to keep the same standard of living. Well, Tesla has proven that you don't really have to sacrifice much with EVs. Do you have to wait longer to charge them sometimes? Yes. Does it have to be a crappy car to drive, or slow, or prohibitively expensive, or too short-range, or too ugly? No. Sure, I like my S5 better but I could totally live with a Model 3 if I had to, and that's far more than I would have said 8 or 10 years ago. The future of the car looks a lot brighter thanks to Tesla, IMO. The government regulations and incentives are not just freebies for Musk, they're a way to get all of us more smoothly onto the next 100 years of transportation, now that we're coming to terms with the problems from 100 years of gas-powered transportation and the oil economy. You guys who think EVs are some kind of fad don't seem to realize what kind of problems we're facing right now with oil and gas and that a change is inevitable.

PhillipH

If you go EV and add solar power to your house, you start to save a lot of money quickly ( at least if your house is in a good sun zone )


That is the killer combination.

The G Man

A typical payback time for a home solar panel system is about 6 to 8 years.

SQ5.TO

There are definitely many people that won’t accept the reality that Electric is the way of the future, whether some like it or not. There is a big push by many countries to disallow sales of ICE vehicles over the next 10-20 years. I think every mainstream auto manufacturer that will be in business in 20 years has plans for the change. Performance brands Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren have already got programs and vehicles that are either hybrid or electric. Just wait a couple of years until Tesla roadster comes out, it will instantly change the performance car threshold. No ICE supercar will be competitive. Then The Electric Truck, that will make the popular F150, Ram and GMC dinosaurs �� overnight. Tesla and a couple others are going to introduce electric transport trucks soon. That will definitely change that industry with tremendous efficiencies for carriers. There is no way back. ICE will be done sooner or later.
I truly love my Audi S5 and the 911T, they are thrilling in their own right. But I know that a Tesla is a keeper for at least 8 years without service and minimal maintenance and no gas fill ups. There is something refreshing about that. In the relatively short ownership the vehicles have already transformed with a number of major upgrades, all over the air while the household is asleep. That’s a fantastic feature no other manufacturer has grasped or has the ability to do so. Autopilot has been a great feature and the ability for autonomous driving is not that far away as it seems. We should all enjoy what we drive, we are here because we share a certain passion, no matter if we disagree at times. This thread has been informative and interesting to say the least.

JD15

The Tesla Semi is vaporware, as there is no facility to build it and no capital to fund the tooling and production lines, and the same is likely to be true for the pickup. The current reality of Tesla's business is far different from what one would infer from Elon's tweets and other public comments.

The G Man

I don't think anyone in here will denied that EV will play a bigger part in our future, as the battery charging technology get better, more American household will be able to drive one as their day to day driver. That charging technology might come from an onboard charging system that utilize renewable energy or an external wireless charging system. Couple the EV with self driving cars and you can have a network of public transportation within a urban environment. The biggest challenge is to able to build an EV for the 90% of the population, it will take more than the auto manufacturer's investment to accomplish that goal, it will take EV infrastructure investments by the government. Some predict that EV will populate 15% of our market in 15 years and will continue to climb, I agree with those projection but only under the conditions that I have mentioned above.

belzebutt

Part of this "investment by government" is handouts to companies like Tesla. The oil sector already gets handouts and has the advantage of 100 years of incumbency, but also the disadvantage of free pollution into everyone's air supply. Making the pollution (particles and CO2) not free is a first step. If we truly want to speed up the transition and overcome the inertia of being used to oil, then other investments are needed too. I'm all for free market solutions but sometimes the free market has bad consequences - like the "free" pollution that's free for the polluters but actually very costly for the everyone else.

The G Man

History has shown that the internal combustion engine was a very important part late in the industrial revolution, without the ICE, the EV evolution would probably not be the same today. Tesla as a company have gotten about $5 billion dollars in tax subsidies from the US government and Musk has build his stake in his empire to over $10 Billion. I do not think any auto makes has gotten so much in such a short period of time, Musk definitely goes where the free tax money is.
As the government begin to shift its funding from manufacturer and consumer incentives to EV charging station infrastructures, charging technology and other area, which I think is happening now, manufacturers like Tesla will face some real challenges. The investment in charging technology and EV infrastructure will push EV sales into other demographics of the population. Anyone who think the current charging technology and charging station infrastructure will suffice for future growth is simply " seeing the forest but not the trees". With the shift in government funding, companies like Tesla will need to build their car cheaper and maintain funding for R&D at the same time with less help from the tax players. This is where I see healthy companies such as Audi will outlast financially struggling companies such as Tesla in the EV industries.

ArvX147

It was said above that a car should be able to be charged in 2-3 hours from a 120v 15a circuit - I dont see how anyone can think that is possible. Power is I * V and the most your able to extract from a 120v 15a circuit is 1800w (per hour)

The current batteries are 64kwh in size, there is no possible way to fully charge that battery in under 35hr with 1800w

The only way you could conceivably get the charging time down is using a smaller battery, but that is limited by physics as the car can only be so efficient - a theoretical minimum energy to move a mass exists.

Still it is a bit absurd to say that people cant have easy and cheap access to 240v charging circuits at their home. It may drastically increase the power demands in areas though.