Given the recent stories behind the scenes of Musk's companies... I can't help but imagine that there are hundreds of almost broken, spent, and exhausted young people (many of them very low paid "interns") who have been working for peanuts making this happen.
Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
61–70 of 124 posts
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the (gas engine) cars sold today can go 180.
Most of the high end cars will go 225 or 249 (legal limit enforced by the engine firmware, also related to what the tires the car is sold standard with can handle). A small car doing 180 will not live long.
I once had my little Honda CRX almost up to 110 mph on an empty highway one late night in Nevada. (I might've made it with a tailwind!) Pretty exciting. Not something I'd want to do for an extended period of time. Car journalist David E. Davis claimed he had fun driving the same car on the Autobahn, however.
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also curious about this. Tesla has the ability to to hoard millions of hours of driving experience per year. Data seems to trump all in ML applications so far and Tesla definitely has the most available to harvest. At the same time, Tesla is primarily video based and it is likely quite difficult to call home with gigabytes of video every night.
Is it possible to disable reporting? If, say, I'm not thrilled by idea telling the guys from Tesla where I'm heading to?
Yes
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#6420,000 cars per month by December is an incredibly ambitious goal. If achieved, they have a very good chance of getting their 500,000 cars in 2018, something that virtually everyone (including myself) thought could not be done. So two things: 1) If you don't have a dog in this race, wait and see if Tesla really does achieve these goals. Outrageous claims require strong evidence. 2) If you're a competitor, now is not…
I think there's an aspirational piece too. Without looking, do you know the names of the CEOs of any other car manufacturer?
So are you going to buy a car from one of them.. or the guy who is going to take us to Mars?
Which Vision do you want to be a part of?
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#6520,000 cars per month by December is an incredibly ambitious goal. If achieved, they have a very good chance of getting their 500,000 cars in 2018, something that virtually everyone (including myself) thought could not be done. So two things: 1) If you don't have a dog in this race, wait and see if Tesla really does achieve these goals. Outrageous claims require strong evidence. 2) If you're a competitor, now is not…
[deleted]
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, a whole bunch of sunk costs. The internal combustion engine is fantastically cheap for what it entails. It's as complicated as a bloody rocket engine, but an entire vehicle can be bought for a few months California rent. It took literally trillions to engineer it to what we have today. Companies don't want to abandon that investment. And yet... That's what they'll have to do. The electric car will be so much che…
As far as I can tell, the internal combustion engine and related components are not the most expensive part of a modern car to build or maintain. Suspension, braking, tires, electronics, drivetrain and interior features are the parts of a car that typically increase the cost the most. They're also the parts that get the most wear and tear, and the parts that are the most expensive to replace. And they're all still pr…
Brakes and drivetrain are either much simpler or experience far less wear on an electric car.
And your point about how good internal combustion engines are for the price is exactly what I said earlier. It's pretty amazing that we HAVE been able to make ICEs so cheap and (relatively) reliable, considering how complex they are with so many moving parts.
The fact that Tesla had teething issues with their early electric motors does not change the fact that fundamentally, brushless electric motors are simpler, more wear resistant than internal combustion engines in principle by a huge margin.
Tesla isn't the only one who will be able to take advantage of the simplicity of a pure electric drivetrain.
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the high end cars will go 225 or 249 (legal limit enforced by the engine firmware, also related to what the tires the car is sold standard with can handle). A small car doing 180 will not live long.
I once had my little Honda CRX almost up to 110 mph on an empty highway one late night in Nevada. (I might've made it with a tailwind!) Pretty exciting. Not something I'd want to do for an extended period of time. Car journalist David E. Davis claimed he had fun driving the same car on the Autobahn, however.
CRX is a car that is quite frequently modded the crap out of because the engine is capable of substantially more HP than it puts out standard, you'll also find these engines in many other custom builds (super popular in souped up classic minis for instance).
They'll definitely go fast (even in the standard setup) but I'd really hate to have anything unexpected happen at those speeds. Even in a larger and more stable car that would be taking your chances but in a CRX you'd be in little pieces all over the road, just a deer would make you really wish you were somewhere else.
I've driven a little Daihatsu Copen (660 CC, 63 HP, a bit over 800 Kg), which was a ton of fun to drive and would go quite fast (on the GPS about 175), it's mere inches off the ground so it feels much faster still. But I always realized that I'm playing the lottery when doing that.
Coming back from Poland to NL one night through Germany I came upon a bunch kids in their CRX's going flat out on the autobahn, I could keep up with them easily because of the better handling of the Copen but on the straights they definitely had the advantage. Wicked fast for such small cars.
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#6820,000 cars per month by December is an incredibly ambitious goal. If achieved, they have a very good chance of getting their 500,000 cars in 2018, something that virtually everyone (including myself) thought could not be done. So two things: 1) If you don't have a dog in this race, wait and see if Tesla really does achieve these goals. Outrageous claims require strong evidence. 2) If you're a competitor, now is not…
I think there's an aspirational piece too. Without looking, do you know the names of the CEOs of any other car manufacturer? So are you going to buy a car from one of them.. or the guy who is going to take us to Mars? Which Vision do you want to be a part of?
I'm not speaking for everyone but the CEO's vision really doesn't affect my decision to buy a car. I'm personally more fond of 'luxury' cars so I'd go for an S-class unless I already own one and am buying a 'fun' car.
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell, the internal combustion engine and related components are not the most expensive part of a modern car to build or maintain. Suspension, braking, tires, electronics, drivetrain and interior features are the parts of a car that typically increase the cost the most. They're also the parts that get the most wear and tear, and the parts that are the most expensive to replace. And they're all still pr…
Brakes and drivetrain are either much simpler or experience far less wear on an electric car. And your point about how good internal combustion engines are for the price is exactly what I said earlier. It's pretty amazing that we HAVE been able to make ICEs so cheap and (relatively) reliable, considering how complex they are with so many moving parts. The fact that Tesla had teething issues with their early electric…
Yup. I can't even imagine how cheap, efficient and reliable electric motors will become after the kind of engineering effort applied to ICEs is applied to them.
Re: Tesla's Long-Awaited, Lower-Priced Model 3 to Arrive Friday
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do live in Germany, and it is a concern for me. The VW e-up costs 22k EUR and has a top speed of 130 km/h, the BMW i3 full electric version w/o range extender costs about 35k EUR and has a top speed of 150 km/h. This performance would be fine if I bought a car under 10k EUR but not for this price.
A car that can only drive at 130 km/h would be turn-off in many regions where the legal speed limit is lesser. There is such a thing as overtaking other cars safely (e.g. overtaking a car that drives 100 km/h on a 120 km/h road in Sweden).
Yeah I guess I assumed that basically every modern car can go at least 120km/h