Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#151

Post by partiallypro » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #131

partiallypro wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $1000 is 100% refundable. A person that can afford a Tesla can afford to put down $1000 with no risk. Heck, even a normal middle class person could probably foot $1000 at no risk. Reservations are not sales. They are just something to tout to shareholders. If they wanted real numbers they'd make it non-refundable and up the down payment. The stock trades at an absolutely insane valuation (it's actually valued not…

> Heck, even a normal middle class person could probably foot $1000 at no risk. Huh? What "middle class" are you talking about? In the USA, 2 in 3 people can't afford a $500 car repair or $1000 emergency room visit [1]. My guess is that people putting $1000 down on a car are either pretty rich or pretty serious about buying it. 1: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/63-of-americans-cant...

That article is not about the middle class, and the target audience of Tesla is generally going to be someone that has disposable income and an education (which your own article alludes to having increased savings.)

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#152

Post by rmxt » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #130

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's the marriage that costs you half your assets, not the divorce.

Seriously? No sympathy for men who have everything taken from them in divorce after a few measly years? Way to make sure I'll never get married.

It's not just men that can "have everything taken from them".

Portraying yourself as some sort of "victim of the system" because other people can get married doesn't exactly seem like the strongest way of arguing against asset division during divorce.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#153

Post by kunai » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #124

Someone1234 wrote: post #15

Tesla could have done a better job communicating that the internal look or feel wasn't finalised. Clearly that didn't impact pre-orders but I think a lot of people didn't love the internal look even if they thought it was nice looking externally (disclaimer: I was one of these people). In my OPINION the 3 won't be fully self driving (for certification/legal reasons). But we can reasonably speculate that it will have…

They barely communicated anything at the reveal. It was like a few minutes of leadup, five bullet points about the 3, and then they showed the cars and ended it. Given the audience they had, a bit of a wasted opportunity.

I'm fairly certain the Part 1 reveal was intended to be a media machine/hype generator, while more details about the vehicle itself are coming in Part 2.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#154

Post by andersen1488 » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #117

whatever_dude wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by the assertion. Do you mean that a lot of people that reserved are not serious? They had to pay $1,000 for the reservation, so that looks unlikely to me. Or do you mean the company has inflated the number of actual reservations?

The $1000 is 100% refundable. A person that can afford a Tesla can afford to put down $1000 with no risk. Heck, even a normal middle class person could probably foot $1000 at no risk. Reservations are not sales. They are just something to tout to shareholders. If they wanted real numbers they'd make it non-refundable and up the down payment. The stock trades at an absolutely insane valuation (it's actually valued not…

>If the orders don't come through

This is absurd. Do you seriously think that Tesla wont have every single Model 3 sold the moment it comes off the line? People were waiting in half mile long lines for days to pre order a CAR.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#155

Post by marssaxman » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

djloche wrote: post #121

electrograv wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that the demographic that pre-orders a Tesla Model 3 (years before shipping), is a demographic that is unwilling to embrace change. I also doubt that it will have no manual control mode, so it shouldn't an issue regardless. Tesla is clearly going the route of being a strict super-set of the capabilities of other cars, until the market decides what features are obsolete many years down the road (e.g. steering…

It's really a question of demographics. How many people that have put down a reserve are buying a car to drive vs buying a means of transportation? Obviously, this is all speculative since they haven't revealed what they're talking about.

I might like to buy a car with the Model 3's general parameters - I had the electrical service on my house redone a couple of years ago in part because I wanted to have the capacity to add a car charger someday - but I am almost completely uninterested in a Tesla because I am not on board with their "just sit back and trust us" philosophy. No, thank you, I don't trust you, or any car maker, and don't want your auto-updating auto-everything machine!

And I basically just hate trying to deal with touch screens. They get smudgy and gross at the blink of an eye, and their total lack of tactile feedback demands a tedious degree of conscious attention which makes them inefficient ways of performing routine tasks, which adjustment of an automobile's cabin controls ought to be.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#156

Post by MagnumOpus » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #37

phkahler wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the oblong steering wheel they mentioned and spaceship like controls, I'm thinking they just don't want the steering wheel sticking up in front of that awesome view. Perhaps an airplane-line yoke? There is the problem of the steering wheel needing to go multiple revolutions, but there do exist some variable ratio steering systems where you might limit rotation to +/-90 degrees but the wheel travel is speed depen…

> Perhaps an airplane-line yoke? Is there a reason that basically NO car manufacturer has EVER made a production model with steering by anything other than a wheel and pedals?

Mercedes has presented a prototype with joystick in 1999, said to have been easier to learn for beginners than steering wheels, and quicker to perform emergency maneuvers with.

They said that German legislation does not allow for cars with side-stick rather than steering wheels, and that it would be cost-prohibitive to introduce - the latter is probably no longer true...

http://www.economist.com/node/290976

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#157

Post by rincebrain » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #132

mattbeckman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Also, TIL you can "Mute Tab" in Chrome before anything starts playing.

Please elaborate.

Chrome at some recent point grew a "Mute Tab" option on the per-tab right-click menu.

cf. http://i.imgur.com/QCM78rl.png

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#158

Post by bluehawk » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #132

mattbeckman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Also, TIL you can "Mute Tab" in Chrome before anything starts playing.

Please elaborate.

Right click, mute tab.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#159

Post by dghughes » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #123

SkyMarshal wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except a hatchback actually has a functional purpose, the Model 3's grill-less grill not so much.

A grill on an electric car doesn't serve a purpose. The lack of a grill does serve a purpose: don't cut holes in body panels if you don't need to.

The drive motors must need some sort of air cooling.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#160

Post by kevan » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #142

Someone1234 wrote: post #15

Tesla could have done a better job communicating that the internal look or feel wasn't finalised. Clearly that didn't impact pre-orders but I think a lot of people didn't love the internal look even if they thought it was nice looking externally (disclaimer: I was one of these people). In my OPINION the 3 won't be fully self driving (for certification/legal reasons). But we can reasonably speculate that it will have…

>auto-braking, lane keep assist, automatic cruise control, and similar I bought a mazda cx recently with all of these feature. I must say I don't find any of these really useful, but again I don't text while driving. I think these features breed a false sense of security and encourage users to text while driving. Features like these should be introduced only when they can protect users from all cases of distracted dr…

To be fair, auto-braking isn't useful until you need it, and by that point you're about a half second away from smashing into another car so you don't have much time to think about it. That feature alone could reduce total crashes by 10% [1]

[1] http://www.autonews.com/article/20160128/OEM06/160129871/aut...