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

#241

Post by King-Aaron » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:49 AM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #155

muraiki wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if there was ever a perfect example of someone misunderstanding what "Autopilot" does in a manner that could have killed somebody, this is it!

Can we stop calling the Tesla driver assistance package by its inaccurate brand name? It is harmful.

This is an interesting statement, because while I agree that it might be good to name it something else, the name 'autopilot' is not inaccurate. An autopilot system in an aircraft does not stop for pedestrians or stop signs. Nor does it completely fly the plane itself.

The problem is that people don't understand what an autopilot does. But that's not something that should be argued around, when it wouldn't be a big exercise to name it something else.

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

#242

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 6:11 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #238

stephengillie wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a car 60x more useful than a phone? (Honest question, and probably varies by user. Though most cars last longer than most phones.)

Well, the point is that it’s 60x more expensive.

The question is - does the price match the utility - does the 60x cost device provide 60x utility?

Were these developers, I'd ask if the $900k developer is 60x better than the $30k administrator.

Were these knives and forks, I could ask YouTube.

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

#243

Post by ObsoleteNerd » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 6:37 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #215

ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. The entire discussion is about an expensive electric car. Of course it's not going to be seen in working class suburbs. I have no idea what you're on about with it being one of the wealthier suburbs either. It's not on any list I can find online. As I said, I moved here recently, and still learning demographics, but it seems like a pretty average inner city suburb. If you head o…

The point was that you can't make general comments about the popularity of the Tesla when you live in a very wealthy suburb who can affords Teslas. And wealth is generally based on average house price which is $1.5 million in Prahran i.e. towards the very expensive end across Australia.

I was replying to a comment about anecdotal data a user has personally noticed, with my anecdotal data about what I've personally noticed.

Also, the average cost of a unit (which most people live in here, by a factor of around 6:1 depending on source) is $490k, which is quite cheap for inner Melbourne. I rent a 2br here for $500pw, which was among the cheapest I could find in inner Melbourne. You quoted the average HOUSE cost, in an inner city suburb where houses cost a fortune due to being rarer and more popular among wealthy people. All of which is irrelevant, but if we're nitpicking over data in a casual comment about what I've seen, then we might as well be honest. It's not a "rich" area.

Context matters in both of the above. Of course anecdotal data is biased by the person's situation, location, etc. That's why it's anecdotal. It doesn't mean it's not still relevant.

In the context of sharing our personal anecdotal observations of a very expensive electric car made in niche numbers in another country, with zero local presence other than some "dealerships" (store front in a mall with some customer service staff), I thought it was still quite interesting that I regularly see them, that's all.

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

#244

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

King-Aaron wrote: post #241

stephengillie wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop calling the Tesla driver assistance package by its inaccurate brand name? It is harmful.

This is an interesting statement, because while I agree that it might be good to name it something else, the name 'autopilot' is not inaccurate. An autopilot system in an aircraft does not stop for pedestrians or stop signs. Nor does it completely fly the plane itself. The problem is that people don't understand what an autopilot does. But that's not something that should be argued around, when it wouldn't be a big e…

Someone always brings out this argument - that it's acurate in the aviation world.

But that is different from the average human, who expects the autopilot to automatically pilot the car - including stopping at stop lights and for pedestrians.

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

#245

Post by King-Aaron » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 7:52 AM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #244

King-Aaron wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting statement, because while I agree that it might be good to name it something else, the name 'autopilot' is not inaccurate. An autopilot system in an aircraft does not stop for pedestrians or stop signs. Nor does it completely fly the plane itself. The problem is that people don't understand what an autopilot does. But that's not something that should be argued around, when it wouldn't be a big e…

Someone always brings out this argument - that it's acurate in the aviation world. But that is different from the average human, who expects the autopilot to automatically pilot the car - including stopping at stop lights and for pedestrians.

That's what I am saying. The average person is incorrect in their assumption, so the simple solution would be to change the name of the system.

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

#246

Post by davidgould » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 7:59 AM UTC

xltk wrote: post #229

ghouse wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Superchargers in CA cost $0.25/kWh. The model 3 averages If you charge at home, overnight, you pay about $0.125/kWh, which extends the operating cost advantage further.

I paid $15.34 for 59 kWh ($0.26/kWh according to the receipt), which at the conversion rate you describe of 3mi/kWh comes out to 177 miles. Using your example of 32mpg and $3.64/gallon, 177 miles would cost $20.13. So roughly 25% cheaper for the supercharger vs gas. Bear in mind filling up gas takes five minutes whereas the supercharger took over two hours. Good point about charging at home overnight though.

The model 3 does quite a bit better than 3 mi/kWh typically.

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

#247

Post by majewsky » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

ghouse wrote: post #191

xltk wrote: post #90

I personally wouldn't purchase a Model 3. I rented the long range version for a round-trip trip from San Francisco to Sacramento (about 90 miles/2 hours each way). The main things that stood out: - Changing volume and airflow through the central touchscreen were much more challenging than the physical knobs and buttons most cars have. I'd even argue they were distracting and dangerous to use while driving. I don't be…

Superchargers in CA cost $0.25/kWh. The model 3 averages If you charge at home, overnight, you pay about $0.125/kWh, which extends the operating cost advantage further.

> Gas in CA is also expensive -- $3.64/gallon in San Jose.

Tangential: I'm always baffled that Americans consider prices like this expensive. In Germany, gas goes for €1.20-€1.50 per liter (which is $5.22-$6.52 per gallon).

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

#248

Post by nickik » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 8:37 AM UTC

alexandros wrote: post #25

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 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?

While I agree that Tesla is in a good spot, I think you underestimate just how huge the car market is. Tesla would have to scale exponentially for a long time to even have chance to capture so much of the market.

And outside of Tesla there is not much, there is no electric car Android, specially outside of China.

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

#249

Post by nickik » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 8:40 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #70

btilly wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been obvious to me for about 20 years. Ever since I read the case study in The Innovator's Dilemma explaining that electric cars would take over around 2020. If Elon should burn out and crash Tesla, it will still happen. Only instead of being Tesla delivering the death blow, it will be those electric golf carts growing up, turning into full cars, and wiping out traditional automakers. Either way the underlying…

> 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.

Tesla has the most popular brand.

Availability will be a huge problem for traditional makers as well, as we have already seen with all their electric cars. Its not clear at all that they can simply massively scale electronic cars. People who say that as soon as VW makes a electric car they can just produce millions is wildly optimistic.

And quality of the interior is one of the easier things to improve.

I think range, acceleration, mobile phone integration and digital features, 'autopilot' are far more important.

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

#250

Post by nickik » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 8:48 AM UTC

asauce wrote: post #60

HBlix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk says a lot of things, I’ll believe that they have a viable pickup when it’s rolling off the assembly lines. I’m also not sure that the market for pickups will care too much about having an EV. All in all it’s a very different market with a different customer base than luxury sedans.

Yea I fully agree. In my experience the truck market is the one that is the most attached to their ICE's. I could be wrong, but Tesla will probably have a lot of trouble taking a solid portion of that market.

There has been market research and this 'attached to ICE' is true as long as people don't see a viable option that the can compare to.

There will surely people who will hold on to ICE but if you can buy a produce that has electric drive train and competes on all metric its is incredibly unlikely that it would not find a market.

Specially if it has features that ICE don't have, like the ability to attach power tools.