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The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

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Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#171

Post by ams6110 »

osweiller wrote: post #144
ma2rten wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a quick Google search. According to KBB the average price for a new car in August 2015 was $33,543. Since this doesn't include used cars, I think it's fair to say that the average household is spending less than that.

The goal posts seem to keep moving, but this whole discussion began because of a disagreement about whether this would qualify as a "mass produced" car because "Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car". Yet the #1, most popular vehicle sold in the US, the Ford F-150, sells for over $41K generally. There are many other completely ordinary, most certainly mass produced, vehicles in that price range. Bought by entir…

Most F-150 sales are fleet purchases by utilities, construction companies, highway departments, etc. That's why the numbers are so high. If you looked at private party purchases they would be much lower.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#172

Post by osweiller »

knodi123 wrote: post #169
osweiller wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average new car buyer keeps it for six years. 17 million new cars are sold in the US per year. So 102 million Americans (which of course grossly underestimates as most are bought by couples/families) are buying new cars in that lifespan. Of those people, the average price is $32,000 or so. Again, the data tells us that an enormous number of completely normal, ordinary Americans buy new cars regularly, and that th…

Let's not lose track of what started the conversation. It was somebody saying "the median family spends nowhere near that on a car". That's what we're discussing. That the amount people pay for a car, is less than what people pay for a new car. That's the only point I leapt in to defend, and if you're arguing with me against other points, then you're talking to the wrong guy. Look- the average number of arms for a te…

Now, you want to argue that among people who buy a new car,

This conversation is specifically and only about new cars, in this case the Tesla Model 3. It is outrageous that you're implying that I'm the one diverting the conversation, when the very root post by dionidium was a completely irrelevant non-sequitur as they injected some completely irrelevant sociology bias into the conversation. If we were discussing the average price of a fast food meal, would a comment about a Cup O' Noodles have any relevance?

No one cares to argue what people pay for used cars, or for no car at all, because that is irrelevant to this discussion.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#173

Post by martin_bech »

Reason077 wrote: post #139
martin_bech wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The i3 is a nice small car, but warranty of the battery is horrible, and the range is only so so, specially in cold weater. The i8 is really a plug in hybrid, looks really amazing, but is slower, holds fewer people, and has less space than my Tesla Model S85D. The autobahn is very valid point, driving at 200km/h+ for sustained amounts of time will drain the battery(the amount if sheer wind resistance, makes power use…

The i3 is a nice small car, but warranty of the battery is horrible The battery on the i3 is warrantied for 8 years or 100,000 miles, with a drop below 70% of the original capacity considered to be a battery failure. Tesla also have an 8-year battery warranty, with unlimited miles, but (afaik) they do not explicitly specify what level of capacity loss would be a warranty failure. Considering most people are unlikely…

I was sure the warranty was worse, when I was looking at buying one, but 70% of realworld range would be something like 44miles on a full charge to empty. That would be horrible. My Tesla has lost very very little range in ist first year, 1 or 2%.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#174

Post by osweiller »

ams6110 wrote: post #171
osweiller wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal posts seem to keep moving, but this whole discussion began because of a disagreement about whether this would qualify as a "mass produced" car because "Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car". Yet the #1, most popular vehicle sold in the US, the Ford F-150, sells for over $41K generally. There are many other completely ordinary, most certainly mass produced, vehicles in that price range. Bought by entir…

Most F-150 sales are fleet purchases by utilities, construction companies, highway departments, etc. That's why the numbers are so high. If you looked at private party purchases they would be much lower.

>50% of the F-150s sold are their top tier, premium models (Lariat, King Ranch and Platinum). There are zero fleets that buy these models. This excludes the millions of lower models bought to pull boats and carry egos. Which is how the average selling price is greater than $45,000 now (which, again, is far beyond what fleets are buying for service trucks).

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#175

Post by stonemetal »

osweiller wrote: post #157
dionidium wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're the second person in this thread to think my post had anything at all to do with the definition of "mass-produced," I guess I should apologize for being unclear. That wasn't my point at all. Obviously it will be "mass-produced" for any reasonable definition of the phrase. My point was that this is still a luxury vehicle that will be purchased by people whose wallets will be able to handle production prob…

From your original post. The statement that everyone apparently isn't understanding right- One minor counter to this is that you shouldn't get too caught up in the hype about this being a mass-produced car. HN and tech journalism is a bit of a bubble. Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car. You are moving the goal posts around to somehow derive a win through some simply wrong statements. That's hardly uncommon,…

I don't see any goal post moving.

He claimed :Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car.

He further clarified that his definition of normal person to be one that doesn't tend to buy new cars, only used.

You point out that 18 million new cars are sold per year and that average new car price is over 30K a year. That completely misses the point that approx 60 million cars are sold in the US per year or around 1/3 of cars sold are new cars. The average price of a used car sold in the US is around $18,800. Therefore the average car sold is A) used B) cost less than $30K.

Number of Used cars sold: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/08/22/used-car-market-showing-no-si...

Average price of a Used car: http://www.edmunds.com/about/press/used-car-prices-increase-...

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#176

Post by dionidium »

osweiller wrote: post #157
dionidium wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're the second person in this thread to think my post had anything at all to do with the definition of "mass-produced," I guess I should apologize for being unclear. That wasn't my point at all. Obviously it will be "mass-produced" for any reasonable definition of the phrase. My point was that this is still a luxury vehicle that will be purchased by people whose wallets will be able to handle production prob…

From your original post. The statement that everyone apparently isn't understanding right- One minor counter to this is that you shouldn't get too caught up in the hype about this being a mass-produced car. HN and tech journalism is a bit of a bubble. Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car. You are moving the goal posts around to somehow derive a win through some simply wrong statements. That's hardly uncommon,…

For no other reason than that I have low self-esteem, I'm going to make one last attempt to convince anyone still confused that my statement wasn't some random class-baiting non sequitur. I was responding to this comment:

Creating an affordable EV at mass consumer scale is a much harder problem than creating a luxury EV at modest volume.

...which was advanced in the context that regular people wouldn't be as forgiving with Tesla's production problems as current owners have been. My point then (and now) was that we shouldn't get too carried away with that line of thinking, because the Model 3 is still going to be a luxury car that will be purchased by people who can afford to deal with some issues.

People who buy new BMWs (by analogy) know that they're going to cost more to fix than a used Honda Civic.

That was my entire point. If it wasn't clear, then I'll take the blame for that. What I won't cop to is some sort of concealed sociological attack. Now, if I know what's good for me, I'll shut up :P

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#177

Post by dionidium »

ams6110 wrote: post #171
osweiller wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal posts seem to keep moving, but this whole discussion began because of a disagreement about whether this would qualify as a "mass produced" car because "Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car". Yet the #1, most popular vehicle sold in the US, the Ford F-150, sells for over $41K generally. There are many other completely ordinary, most certainly mass produced, vehicles in that price range. Bought by entir…

Most F-150 sales are fleet purchases by utilities, construction companies, highway departments, etc. That's why the numbers are so high. If you looked at private party purchases they would be much lower.

A couple things about the F-150:

1) It is absolutely true that they sell more retail trucks than fleet trucks

2) I was merely pointing out that it wouldn't be the most popular vehicle on the market without the fleet sales

3) This has nothing to do with my original point and I probably shouldn't even have responded to it

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#178

Post by jtuente »

forgetsusername wrote: post #106
agumonkey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying not to be too much of a fan boy I smiled at the fact that, on its way to develop EV market recognition and infrastructure they made cars that topped anything else in safety and speed. 'if you want to have EV, all you have to do is buy the best cars we just made' kind of.

> that topped anything else in safety and speed. In what sense? Look at European NCAP safety ratings; the Model S is great, but certainly didn't "top anything else". There are quite a few cars with better overall safety ratings. And speed? Good acceleration, sure. But not faster than anything else. Top speed either. Where does this myth originate?

I imagine that his basis point is among consumer electric vehicles, which is an admittedly small pool to work from.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#179

Post by talmand »

osweiller wrote: post #157
dionidium wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're the second person in this thread to think my post had anything at all to do with the definition of "mass-produced," I guess I should apologize for being unclear. That wasn't my point at all. Obviously it will be "mass-produced" for any reasonable definition of the phrase. My point was that this is still a luxury vehicle that will be purchased by people whose wallets will be able to handle production prob…

From your original post. The statement that everyone apparently isn't understanding right- One minor counter to this is that you shouldn't get too caught up in the hype about this being a mass-produced car. HN and tech journalism is a bit of a bubble. Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car. You are moving the goal posts around to somehow derive a win through some simply wrong statements. That's hardly uncommon,…

>> elsewhere you twisted it to not only somehow claim that these people aren't "normal", but also that people who buy a more expensive car are wrong and shouldn't be doing it anyways

Um, just wow. I find it hilarious that you seem incapable of understanding you are talking about new cars while dionidium is talking about used cars.

And then you go off the rails with some strange conspiracy theory about dionidium labeling people as not normal and that people buying luxury cards as wrong when no such thing happened.

I think you should apply your words to yourself and reflect a bit.

Re: The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (2006)

#180

Post by Reason077 »

martin_bech wrote: post #173
Reason077 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The i3 is a nice small car, but warranty of the battery is horrible The battery on the i3 is warrantied for 8 years or 100,000 miles, with a drop below 70% of the original capacity considered to be a battery failure. Tesla also have an 8-year battery warranty, with unlimited miles, but (afaik) they do not explicitly specify what level of capacity loss would be a warranty failure. Considering most people are unlikely…

I was sure the warranty was worse, when I was looking at buying one, but 70% of realworld range would be something like 44miles on a full charge to empty. That would be horrible. My Tesla has lost very very little range in ist first year, 1 or 2%.

I see your point. A 30% drop in capacity in an 80-mile range car is worse than a 30% drop in one that started with 280 miles.

But these are worst-case scenarios. Hopefully the batteries will last much longer than what they're warrantied for.

And with any luck, affordable aftermarket battery replacements will be common enough by the time the battery needs replacing (and may give a lot more range, too).

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