Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#161

Post by resters » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #133

Latteland wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it was a development loan, not a bailout. I don't understand why you point it out as underhanded. How would you compare Tesla to Chrysler and gm which really went bankrupt and had actual bailouts, not loans to develop new products in unexplored technical areas. GM got a more than $20b investment from the us government. I am glad we did save our auto industry in the us - but Tesla wasn't a bailout as I see i…

I didn’t say Tesla was a bailout, and I didn’t say it was underhanded. I said that Tesla would not have survived without government money, and that is true.

So you are arguing that without that capital Musk would not have been able to raise money from the private sector?

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#162

Post by King-Aaron » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:14 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #147

King-Aaron wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, I'm not from the United States.

You probably have class warfare in your country, too. You didn't say anything about the average consumer, but they're criticizing you as if you had.

Very much so. However it could be noted that the 'average' Australian income is in the area of $80k/yr ( https://www.livingin-australia.com/salaries-australia/ ) and the purchase of a $60k car is not uncommon at all.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#163

Post by greglindahl » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

pretendscholar wrote: post #148

greglindahl wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what a "thought experiment" is -- you confidently said something that has no basis in reality and no argument behind it. You didn't say "maybe" or "might". A "thought experiment" is when you set the stage to explain something using fundamental physics. There are hundreds of thousands of one-gear cars on the road. There is data.

There's no basis in saying that single gear ice vehicles would break-down more frequently under conventional driving conditions? A thought experiment needs to explain something using fundamental physics? What about a math or logic related thought experiment? Why would I have to include maybe or might in a thought experiment?

You literally said "A car with only one gear", not "single gear ice vehicles".

I'm down with math and logic, as well as physics. But the problem here appears to be that you left out a word, so your audience is mystified.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#164

Post by threeseed » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #106

threeseed wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is an opportunity for upstarts who only do electric to take on gas cars. Sure. But the mistake everyone makes is that the drive train technology is not what differentiates a car. It's the brand, the design, quality of interior, availability etc. Those are much harder for upstarts to get right as we've seen with Tesla.

It is not that the drive train differentiates the car. It is that the drive train constrains possible electric cars to be poor fits for the existing mass market. Which provides a market opportunity for manufacturers that focus on what is possible with the technology now, regardless of how well it fits in current Detroit marketing plans. By the time electric is capable of being used for comparable cars at comparable p…

> they will wind up offering an inferior car at a worse price than the upstarts

Jaguar I-Pace. Mercedes EQC. BMW iX3.

Far superior to Tesla on all the metrics I mentioned before.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#165

Post by jungturk » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #128

alexandros wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to go on the record as saying that the big car companies of today, short of a miracle, are on track to meet the big mobile phone companies of the pre-iPhone era. Remember when Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel, Sony seemed unassailable?

Both Audi & Jaguar are looking on track to, on their first attempts, quite soundly beat Tesla at the electric SUV game. Similar price, similar range, and vastly better quality. And really if you think about it that shouldn't be surprising. The big car companies today don't need a miracle at all. They are in a pretty good spot. They know how to do all the really hard stuff about building a car (the actual manufacturin…

I wonder if they're behind the curve when it comes to the software that's become so central to the Tesla experience.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#166

Post by cagenut » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:21 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #63

smaili wrote: post #13

> Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September. > And it’s doing so at a higher price than other mass-market cars. The most expensive versions of the Model 3 are currently the most popular, with an average selling price approaching $60,000. It would be very interes…

> Tesla's surge in ranking would be caused more by fleeing luxury customers Scuttlebutt I've heard is a lot of Lux brands haven't kept up with increasing quality expectations over the last 40 years. People expect their cars to go 120-150k miles without major problems and these cars often aren't living up to that.

I've seen lots of enterprise saas vendors leave simple things broken in their product for years and years because they like the fact that it spurs the customer to "reach out and engage in further discussion".

wouldn't surprise me at all if merc sales people like that their customers come back to chat every year or so.

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#167

Post by jbob2000 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

RickS wrote: post #150

smaili wrote: post #13

> Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September. > And it’s doing so at a higher price than other mass-market cars. The most expensive versions of the Model 3 are currently the most popular, with an average selling price approaching $60,000. It would be very interes…

I've been driving the C class cars through CarToGo, their rideshare-as-marketing operation. They are horrid . Clunky, with seats that could never pass as leather, gaudy plastic bits everywhere, and needlessly complex interfaces. Not to mention their touch screens, which... ugh. They are like a poor person's idea of what a rich person's car might look like. Flash and trim and affectation with no underlying reason what…

I actually really like my 2016 C-class. It has a “hold” feature where, if you are at a stop light, you can give the brake pedal an extra push to “hold” the brakes and you can then take your foot off the brake pedal to rest, while the car keeps the brakes on. Then, when you start to accelerate, it automatically releases the brake and you go, just as if you swapped from the brake pedal to accelerator. You can also do this on a hill!

This is a killer feature for me and I will look for it in my next car.

It also has this eco game thing, where you earn “points” when you drive efficiently, and it penalizes you for driving inefficiently (hard acceleration, braking instead of coasting, inconsistent speed). This “game” has transformed the way I drive, it should be in every car.

I will say that I’ve had two warranty repairs (one very serious - the alternator pulley exploded on the highway) and the car is only at 36,000km. Kinda happy it’s a lease!

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#168

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #41

smaili wrote: post #13

> Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September. > And it’s doing so at a higher price than other mass-market cars. The most expensive versions of the Model 3 are currently the most popular, with an average selling price approaching $60,000. It would be very interes…

You'd have to survey their customers. Speaking personally, my wife and I are new customers. This is the first time that we've spent over $30k on a car. Between rebates, the cost of gas, and reductions in maintenance costs, we think that we save somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 on the lifetime cost of ownership over the life of this car versus an ICE car. It is still a luxury, but between features like the driving assist,…

You really expect it to work out cheaper than an ICE car? Interesting. The Model S, as a data point, is one of the most expensive cars you can own, by total cost of ownership over five years. The 3 is cheaper but still pretty expensive for the class it's in. I guess if you plan on keeping it 10-20 years it might eventually recoup the high capital cost in fuel savings, but that's a pretty daring bet. Good luck!

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#169

Post by King-Aaron » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:25 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #142

King-Aaron wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've just listed a group of $100,000+ AUD cars there. Just as a point of interest.

Right, exactly - but yet to listen to the grandparent comment, "that's hardly much money to spend on a car these days".

To highlight where I'm coming from, $37k USD is around $52K AUD, which then if you consider onroad and dealership costs, lands you in the ballpark of $60k AUD.

Which is what you spend on a Kia Stinger, which while isn't an entry-level car, certainly isn't a Euro.

https://www.carsales.com.au/demo/details/Kia-Stinger-2017/OA...

Re: Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans

#170

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:27 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #168

btilly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to survey their customers. Speaking personally, my wife and I are new customers. This is the first time that we've spent over $30k on a car. Between rebates, the cost of gas, and reductions in maintenance costs, we think that we save somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 on the lifetime cost of ownership over the life of this car versus an ICE car. It is still a luxury, but between features like the driving assist,…

You really expect it to work out cheaper than an ICE car? Interesting. The Model S, as a data point, is one of the most expensive cars you can own, by total cost of ownership over five years. The 3 is cheaper but still pretty expensive for the class it's in. I guess if you plan on keeping it 10-20 years it might eventually recoup the high capital cost in fuel savings, but that's a pretty daring bet. Good luck!

EVs, mile per mile, are less expensive by half to operate than an internal combustion vehicle [1]. Length of ownership, cost of petrol, and cost of electricity all play into the calculation of course. My Illinois home obtains power at 1-2 cents/kwh between midnight and 5am (Time of day metering, nuclear power); it's almost free for me to charge my Model S there, while my gasoline costs would be ~$3/gallon. I expect my cost of power to decrease as renewables continue to come online, displacing natural gas and coal (Illinois provides a zero carbon subsidy to Exelon's commercial nuclear fleet to keep them in operation).

[1] https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf