Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#161

Post by jmpman » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

Cookingboy wrote: post #159

pdq wrote: post #12

Per the new lease: "Please note, customers who choose leasing over owning will not have the option to purchase their car at the end of the lease, because with full autonomy coming in the future via an over-the-air software update, we plan to use those vehicles in the Tesla ride-hailing network." Elon once again promising fully autonomous vehicles in 3 years. Also, isn't this a rental? A lease normally has a residual,…

This has nothing to do with FSD. Tesla can now set the lease rate with a very artificially low residual value so they can charge more monthly (but is offset somewhat by the capitalized cost deduction of the tax rebate), and then actually sell the car at market value after 3 years. It's one way to double dip on the same vehicle and get more than 100% in revenue in respect to the original MSRP. But sure throw that line…

When would they be able to book the monthly lease, and the subsequent sale to their bottom line? It seems like a lease wouldn’t be the best method to help the short term finances.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#162

Post by Cookingboy » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

jmpman wrote: post #161

Cookingboy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with FSD. Tesla can now set the lease rate with a very artificially low residual value so they can charge more monthly (but is offset somewhat by the capitalized cost deduction of the tax rebate), and then actually sell the car at market value after 3 years. It's one way to double dip on the same vehicle and get more than 100% in revenue in respect to the original MSRP. But sure throw that line…

When would they be able to book the monthly lease, and the subsequent sale to their bottom line? It seems like a lease wouldn’t be the best method to help the short term finances.

It's not, but it's better than no demand, that's why it's the last lever they wanted to pull.

Tesla is getting a bit desperate. Model 3 demand is obviously not shaping up to what they hoped.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#163

Post by pyify » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #52

Ah, another Tesla announcement that's backtracked after a couple of weeks. Purely as an outsider looking in it seems like there's a lot of caveat emptor about buying a Tesla: wait times seem apt to increase, models seem like they'll be arbitrarily subject to conditions, and random conditions seem to get attached about which models can and can't use chargers. There also seems a high likelihood of waiting a long time a…

If you were buying a car, would you not judge it by its merits, such as its handling abilities, safety, fuel costs, pollution, and ability to get you from A to B? That is the kind of consistency which most people look for when buying a car.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#164

Post by njarboe » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #130

njarboe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would an auto-car that crashed at a rate 1/10th of humans be a successful "full autonomous" vehicle? You could save 30000 lives a year in the US by deploying such vehicles and probably more due to knock-on effects. But that would be about 10 auto-car deaths/per day. No way that works with the current media. Unfortunately, it seems many people are not going to accept auto-cars with less than airplane like safety level…

> an auto-car that crashed at a rate 1/10th of humans This is incredibly generous assumption, especially given the fact that cars with advertised Autopilot features, like Tesla's offerings, actually make accidents more likely[1][2]. Compared to the driver fatality rate in other luxury vehicles, Tesla's offerings nearly triple driver fatality[3]. This is like theorizing about a car that survives 99.9% of all impacts a…

No assumption, just a serious question. I agree no one is near that good yet. But it was a question that people should be thinking about. How good will be good enough to let the auto-vehicles operate on the roads?

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#165

Post by pyify » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:35 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #92

pdq wrote: post #12

Per the new lease: "Please note, customers who choose leasing over owning will not have the option to purchase their car at the end of the lease, because with full autonomy coming in the future via an over-the-air software update, we plan to use those vehicles in the Tesla ride-hailing network." Elon once again promising fully autonomous vehicles in 3 years. Also, isn't this a rental? A lease normally has a residual,…

Tesla’s self-driving promises are reaching Theranos levels of sheer implausibility. The frustrating part is that they don’t need to make these absurd claims about self-driving; they already have a successful electric car business.

Except that they actually have a limited form of self-driving, which has proven successful over millions of miles of driving?

Comparing something to Theranos only works if that something doesn't have a working product. You can see that Tesla's autopilot works. It isn't perfect yet but it is a real thing.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#166

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

trickstra wrote: post #124

mhermher wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasnt that done in the 90s? Why be skeptical it could be done?

I don't know, you tell me... "The SpaceX ORBCOMM-2 Mission successfully landed the first stage of a rocket during an orbital launch, a feat never before accomplished."

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#167

Post by mandeepj » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #148

mhermher wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of "full" is ambiguous. Maybe your point stands if just "autonomy" was used generically. But "full" has a specific implication.

The primary cause of the ambiguity is that "Full Self Driving" is a marketing term that Tesla uses and not a unconditional promise. It is just like how cell phone companies promise "Unlimited Data" with a variety of caveats. So there is a question of whether people are talking about the primary definition of "full" or Tesla's marketing definition of "full".

> not a unconditional promise

Please try to avoid using double or more negates. It’s a bit hard to read.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#168

Post by pyify » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #78

legitster wrote: post #26

I get the strong impression that even as a loss leader, the $35,000 figure was based on some back of envelope calculations. We know that they have had to expand or increase the cost in several ways since they started production. I know they really want to make the Model T of electric cars, but it took about a decade of development for Ford to deliver one under $500. And I don't think Tesla has quite mastered the scie…

I believe it was an outright lie, an effort to solicit deposits and lure people into a bait-and-switch of higher priced models. All evidence to date suggests I'm right. Of course, they're never going to come out and say 'we fooled you' but I don't know what level of evidence people need before they reach the conclusion for themselves.

"All evidence to date suggests I'm right".

Can you give us some examples of all of this evidence?

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#169

Post by kbenson » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

r_smart wrote: post #126

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...some small number of places in specific circumstances.. Airport parking/shuttle service. They could even augment the AI by using markers in the roadways. That's about as autonomous as we're going to get in the next decade.

Driving through airport terminals is possibly one of the most chaotic possible environments, with people almost suicidally throwing themselves in front of you, not to even speak of the cabs, double lane parking, security guards telling you to move and other things. It's probably one of the harder environments to automate for outside of inclement weather.

Some airports have shuttles on private circuits to take you from one wing of an airport to another wing of the airport. The ones I've seen that have this either have a rail system, or a human driver. It would be much cheaper to just throw a bus with some software to track digital route markers and some visual matching for unexpected situations than to build a dedicated point to point system rail/track system (and maybe marginally cheaper than hiring someone, depending on other costs).

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Model 3 Lineup

#170

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #54

FireBeyond wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the "The car will be able to self-drive, coast to coast, this year" back in Jan/Feb, you mean?

It’s not unreasonable to heavily critique the fact that Tesla deadlines are blown repeatedly, and yet who among us has gone from 0 to 300k+ vehicles manufacturer and sold per year in 12 years and delivered an EV into an elliptical orbit with a privately developed heavy lift vehicle? Don’t say something is impossible while someone else is delivering, slowly and missed deadlines or not. @sbov (deleted reply while I was…

It’s not unreasonable to heavily critique the fact that Tesla deadlines are blown repeatedly, and yet who among us has gone from 0 to 300k+ vehicles manufacturer and sold per year in 12 years?

Well, for starters the Korean automakers managed to go from 0 to several hundred thousand vehicles in under 5 years. Kia went from 26 cars to 95,000 in a year...

A pessimist’s “bullshit” is an optimist’s missed deadline and inaccurate forecasting

An occasional missed deadline is one thing. But missing every self-proclaimed deadline? That's not just inaccurate forecasting--at some point that crosses the line into fraud.