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Scared by Tesla? I believe that Tesla is far ahead of any electric car maker in the world right now. The three stage vision of making an affordable car by Elon

Scared by Tesla? I believe that Tesla is far ahead of any electric car maker in the world right now. The three stage vision of making an affordable car by Elon Musk is now a reality. Most of the elite car makers like Mercedes and BMW cannot price their units down to $35000. Tesla didn't only think of making a car but also they have created a web of charging stations in US. Tesla Model 3 will be everywhere by 2020.

dovdovdov 9y ago
Well, I only saw a model X on Cebit, although the materials are good quality, the build quality is poor for the price. Then I saw a hybrid Porsche, and the X felt like a higher mid class suv in comparison. Worry not about German carmakers, they have infinite money to throw at any project. Once they decide to go serious about electric, Tesla won't be able to keep up with the competition. Don't get me wrong, I root for everyone, mainly for our future, but stop daydreaming.
- _ph_ 9y ago
  The German carmakers have great production facilities, technical abilities and deep pockets. Unfortunately, their mind set has been focussed on selling their dirty Diesel cars at all means. So I am doubtful to their current commitment to electrical cars, but who knows. Also, I don't see them build up battery capacities on the scale Tesla does. So, I really wish that they give Tesla a great competition, but so far I am not too optimistic.
  - holydude 9y ago
    Well that's the thing they do not really have deep pockets or technical abilities. Building a platform, an electric future generation car is way different than building a car with classic engine.
    - struppi 9y ago
      And if you believe Elon Musk's own words, it's significantly easier ;) Joking aside - Yes, German car makers are behind on electric vehicles, but all (except mercedes now) have one. They are late, they probably are at a disadvantage, but IMHO the game is not over yet.
  - c3833174 9y ago
    >their mind set has been focussed on selling their dirty Diesel cars at all means Or maybe it's because that's what people buy, since diesel is cheaper than the upfront cost of an electric car.
    - _ph_ 9y ago
      Yes, they are cheap to buy, because they don't have a working exhaust cleaning and don't comply to the emission laws. I think it is a big fallacy to claim that Diesel cars are so popular, if you consider how the public has been mislead about the illegal levels of pollution produced by the cars and that they have been sold without a working exhaust cleaning. Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing, are Diesel engine cars going to be popular, if they are more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)?
      - c3833174 9y ago
        >Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing They might not have been practical, but affordable lead-acid based EVs already existed during the rise of small diesel. >more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)? Adblue is pretty cheap and isn't going to be used up that fast, most people are more concerned about the filter blocking up because of short commutes not leaving enough time for it to fully warmup.
- flexie 9y ago
  German car makers don't have infinite money. They run huge operations on tiny margins and cannot afford to cannibalize the sale of their upper-end cars with cheaper electric cars. The Model 3 is comparable to the C-Class in both price and size but vastly outperforms the C-Class on driving performance if the reviews are to be believed. The bling-bling leather, chrome and wood of the German high-end cars is more luxurious, but is not for everyone. Let's see. My guess is as good as yours but I think the Germans will bleed if they don't transition to EVs very fast. If Tesla has the market for itself in all of 2018-2020, it might be too late for VW, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Right now, they have plans and talk, but not a single competitive EV on the market, no fleet of hundreds of thousands of self driving cars recording and learning, no network of superchargers, no thousands of talented EV and AI engineers, no remote update, no battery factories. I sure hope they wake up. Competition will only be good for us consumers.
  - bgarbiak 9y ago
    There are many other cars that could be compared to Model 3. Mazdas, VWs, Hyundais, Hondas. If we take only size, price, performance and interior quality into consideration then Model 3 is certainly not the best choice. But it's an EV. And others are not.
    - Thlom 9y ago
      There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in both price and range. There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in range and price. VW e-golf costs about the same (or less) with comparable range and size. Hyundai IONIQ is cheaper with about the same range and size. Then you have the ugly EV's like Nissan Leaf and Kia Soul. Cheaper and with comparable range and size (perhaps a bit smaller trunk).
      - grecy 9y ago
        > There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in both price and range No, there isn't. Here's a chart made by a Redditor comparing price with range of all the Evs on the market. Checkout how much of an outlier the Model 3 Long Range is. Even the Standard Model 3 has much more range than all the other EVs except the Bolt, and other Teslas. http://i.imgur.com/M4o8czW.png http://i.imgur.com/M4o8czW.png
- martin_bech 9y ago
  I somewhat agree on build quality, but the germans will loose infinite amounts of money, if the 3series etc loose out to the Tesla Model 3 in sales. Remember Nokia? Blackberry? Ericcson?
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    None of those companies are German? Finnish, Canadian (now Indonesian), and Swedish; respectively.
- krylon 9y ago
  > Worry not about German carmakers, they have infinite money to throw at any project. Once they decide to go serious about electric, Tesla won't be able to keep up with the competition. If they have not come around by now, I seriously doubt they will make serious investments in electric cars unless the government forces them.
  - kagamine 9y ago
    They have hybrids of current models so assume that they are hedging their bets and taking it slow. Heavy investment in the wrong direction could destroy a company even the size of VW group. Tesla is a youngling with heavy investment and no guaranteed future. Like so many tech firms it could be gone in a flash. Once the Euro EV subsidies and tax breaks disappear as the have begun to do in Denmark Tesla will be on a level playing field. Expect the opposing teams to foul if it means scoring goals.
    - blkhawk 9y ago
      "hedging their bets"????? Thats like falling out of an airplane and not pulling the paracute because you don't know exactly how far away the ground is and if its soft or not.
      - kagamine 9y ago
        More like parachutes are deemed environmentally wrong and need to be replaced by something, so parachute manufacturers are coming up with wing suits and big bits of foam and then Parachutes_International are thinking were do we put our money and how do we change our 100 years of parachute manufacturing industry and what will SuperDryChutesJpn do and what do consumers want and where did I put my glasses?
  - dageshi 9y ago
    Two "governments" already have, French and British governments will ban sales of combustion engine cars in 2040, those are two big markets for German cars.
- Denzel 9y ago
  I find this thread interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706548 In short, odds are greater that Tesla will exist in a post-combustion world than established automakers. I mean look at the battery supply chain alone. For them to deliver at Tesla's scale, they'd need enough batteries, which, right now, would require major investment a la Tesla's Gigafactory: which is set to produce more batteries at one factory than the entire world's current output... all to support Tesla products. At what phase are the established automakers in their infrastructure investments? They're all years behind. And I'm afraid they won't catch up.
  - dx034 9y ago
    Isn't BMWs new battery production at a similar scale? The main difference between Tesla and big manufacturers is not necessarily factory size but marketing. The gigafactory is huge as one building. As a car manufacturing plant it's not that big, compared to the cities that some of the other manufacturers have.
martijn_himself 9y ago
Well that is what I thought until I read this article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/31/16069960/tesla-model-3-not-luxury-car-options-model-s https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/31/16069960/tesla-model-3-no... You are looking at $55000 if you want comfort levels comparable to a BMW 3 series? I'm in the UK and I don't know how these prices compare, but the $35000 version seems rather spartan. This will not stop people buying the car though (including myself, I can only hope).
- _ph_ 9y ago
  And what does a BMW 3 series cost, which competes with the $55000 Model 3? That price currently includes all options, including the enhanced auto pilot. I looked onto the BMW configurator this weekend, and depending on the options selected, it is somewhat cheaper or more expensive than the Model 3, on average, they are very competitive. If you don't need the high range battery, the Model 3 is likely to be cheaper even (if you don't count the basic BMW with a 3 cylinder engine and 129 hp).
  - martijn_himself 9y ago
    Ah OK, I didn't really know how they compare. I suppose it is an attractive proposition if it really is an all-electric alternative to a BMW 3 series at a comparable price. I love the minimalist interior of the Tesla, and I sure would love to own one.
- icc97 9y ago
  I disagree with that article almost wholly. > The truth is the Model 3 costs $40,000 if you want a standard version with autopilot You don't need autopilot > If you want a different color, add $1,000. Yeah possibly, I can see this as something a lot of people would want > And if you want a longer range ($9,000) to get over 300 miles per charge instead of 220 This is possibly worth the money, but 220 miles is still a damn excellent range. If you're prepared to accept the range limitation with buying a car 220 instead of 310 miles is fine for everything except long trips. So it's not $50,000 it at most is $36,000 for a damn excellent car. I'll take it in Black, pretend I'm Michael Knight and blow the $1,000 on a leather jacket. That's not before you get the incentives. In California that can take you down to $26,000 and in Belgium where I am, they still ridiculously allow all company cars to have 50% tax rebates, for electric cars its a 120% rebate. The UK has similar incentives (100% first year deduction and £4.5k grant [0]) Then you have to take into account the running costs of electric with something like 2-3 times the 'electric' miles per gallon vs a BMW 3-series and the cheaper prices of electricity. Edit: Quote from MSDN over running costs: > Tesla hasn’t yet released a cost calculator for the Model 3, but keeping Tesla’s current cheapest car, the Model S, juiced up costs approximately $601.50 a year in home energy costs if you drive 15,000 miles, according to Tesla’s own calculator. Fueling a gas-powered car that gets 30 miles to the gallon will cost you almost twice as much money — $1,105 — even at the current 12-year low of $2.21 per gallon. [1] In Europe petrol prices are at least double that. So you're saving ~$1,600 per year in the UK on fuel costs. So you're really not comparing it to even a BMW 3 series. Ok, then the rest of that article: > If you purchase a standard Tesla Model 3, the seats must be manually adjusted, as will the steering column. The side mirrors aren’t powered or heated, and there’s no auto dimming. I've never understood the love for electric seat adjustment. The back I almost never adjust and moving the seat back or forwards is done much faster manually. > There are no LED fog lamps FOG lamps. That's FOG lamps it's whining about. > If you’re looking for what you’ve seen in the Model S — a premium interior, autopilot, and around 300 miles of range in a color of your choosing — in a smaller form factor, well you’re not getting out without paying at least $55,000. No that's not what I'm looking for, because then I'd buy a Model S. But saying that, for $35,000 you get almost all the cool factor of having a Model S. It still looks beautiful unlike say the BMW i8 vs the i3. > The Tesla Model 3 isn’t a luxury car, it’s a midsized car masquerading as one. No it's not, it's a midsized car masquerading as a midsized car. It just happens to look nicer, go faster, run cheaper and pollute less than all the midsized cars out there. [0]: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/incentives?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/incentives?redirect=no [1]: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/you%E2%80%99ll-save-money-on-gas-with-the-tesla-model-3-but-you-may-end-up-paying-more-elsewhere/ar-BBDV6uD http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/you%E2%80%99ll-save...
TheArcane 9y ago
>Tesla Model 3 will be everywhere by 2020. Not sure about that. If you order one now, you'll have it delivered by the end of 2018, early 2019. And that's the best case scenario according to Musk.
- _ph_ 9y ago
  Well, this time frame is based on the assumption that they roughly mange to deliver the 500k preorders till then. So the plan is to have about 1 million Model 3 built by 2020.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    But that's far from everywhere. It will still be a niche car for rich people in 2020 until they somehow multiple their production.
  - princeb 9y ago
    just need to make another 25 million or so teslas in that timeframe to get to half the volume of VW.
nearlyepic 9y ago
$35,000 is the price of a BMW 3-series. Calling that "affordable" is being generous to the average car buyer.
- nradov 9y ago
  The average new car price in 2016 was $34K.
  - nearlyepic 9y ago
    Source? I wonder how much that's inflated by truck sales. I should re-phrase and say that 35,000 is expensive for a passenger car; The Ford Fusion and Honda Accord both start around $22,000.
    - nradov 9y ago
      https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/the-average-new-car-purchase-price-is-now-above-34000/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/the-average-new-car-purch... Light trucks are often used for carrying passengers.
aphextron 9y ago
Hyundai, Chevy, and Nissan are doing sold work, too. Like it or not, the Leaf was the first mass adopted full size, purpose built EV available in the US at a reasonable price. It's a great car, and the next gen being released this week (!!!) has an estimated 200mi range[0]. Hyundai just released the Ioniq with 120 miles (200+ expected next gen) range, and the highest average KW/Mile efficiency of any EV ever made [1], at a price point < $30k sticker price before incentives. All told, there will be 6 mass production EVs from 6 different manufacturers with ~200 mile range or greater at the $30k price point or below by this time next year. Exciting stuff. http://carttraction.com/2018-nissan-leaf/ http://carttraction.com/2018-nissan-leaf/ [0] https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/20/hyundai-ioniq-ev-hybrid-review/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/20/hyundai-ioniq-ev-hybrid-... [1]
- icc97 9y ago
  The leaf is still ugly unfortunately, but in all other accounts it seems to be a great car. This is one of the main differentiators that I've seen with Teslas, they actually make electric cars that look better than petrol cars, not freaks of nature. It makes them actually desirable rather than just doing it for the good of humanity.

dovdovdov 9y ago

Well, I only saw a model X on Cebit, although the materials are good quality, the build quality is poor for the price. Then I saw a hybrid Porsche, and the X felt like a higher mid class suv in comparison. Worry not about German carmakers, they have infinite money to throw at any project. Once they decide to go serious about electric, Tesla won't be able to keep up with the competition. Don't get me wrong, I root for everyone, mainly for our future, but stop daydreaming.

_ph_ 9y ago
The German carmakers have great production facilities, technical abilities and deep pockets. Unfortunately, their mind set has been focussed on selling their dirty Diesel cars at all means. So I am doubtful to their current commitment to electrical cars, but who knows. Also, I don't see them build up battery capacities on the scale Tesla does. So, I really wish that they give Tesla a great competition, but so far I am not too optimistic.
- holydude 9y ago
  Well that's the thing they do not really have deep pockets or technical abilities. Building a platform, an electric future generation car is way different than building a car with classic engine.
  - struppi 9y ago
    And if you believe Elon Musk's own words, it's significantly easier ;) Joking aside - Yes, German car makers are behind on electric vehicles, but all (except mercedes now) have one. They are late, they probably are at a disadvantage, but IMHO the game is not over yet.
- c3833174 9y ago
  >their mind set has been focussed on selling their dirty Diesel cars at all means Or maybe it's because that's what people buy, since diesel is cheaper than the upfront cost of an electric car.
  - _ph_ 9y ago
    Yes, they are cheap to buy, because they don't have a working exhaust cleaning and don't comply to the emission laws. I think it is a big fallacy to claim that Diesel cars are so popular, if you consider how the public has been mislead about the illegal levels of pollution produced by the cars and that they have been sold without a working exhaust cleaning. Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing, are Diesel engine cars going to be popular, if they are more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)?
    - c3833174 9y ago
      >Besides that affordable electric cars are a very recent thing They might not have been practical, but affordable lead-acid based EVs already existed during the rise of small diesel. >more expensive to buy (1-2k) and operate (regular AdBlue refill)? Adblue is pretty cheap and isn't going to be used up that fast, most people are more concerned about the filter blocking up because of short commutes not leaving enough time for it to fully warmup.
flexie 9y ago
German car makers don't have infinite money. They run huge operations on tiny margins and cannot afford to cannibalize the sale of their upper-end cars with cheaper electric cars. The Model 3 is comparable to the C-Class in both price and size but vastly outperforms the C-Class on driving performance if the reviews are to be believed. The bling-bling leather, chrome and wood of the German high-end cars is more luxurious, but is not for everyone. Let's see. My guess is as good as yours but I think the Germans will bleed if they don't transition to EVs very fast. If Tesla has the market for itself in all of 2018-2020, it might be too late for VW, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Right now, they have plans and talk, but not a single competitive EV on the market, no fleet of hundreds of thousands of self driving cars recording and learning, no network of superchargers, no thousands of talented EV and AI engineers, no remote update, no battery factories. I sure hope they wake up. Competition will only be good for us consumers.
- bgarbiak 9y ago
  There are many other cars that could be compared to Model 3. Mazdas, VWs, Hyundais, Hondas. If we take only size, price, performance and interior quality into consideration then Model 3 is certainly not the best choice. But it's an EV. And others are not.
  - Thlom 9y ago
    There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in both price and range. There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in range and price. VW e-golf costs about the same (or less) with comparable range and size. Hyundai IONIQ is cheaper with about the same range and size. Then you have the ugly EV's like Nissan Leaf and Kia Soul. Cheaper and with comparable range and size (perhaps a bit smaller trunk).
    - grecy 9y ago
      > There's a lot of EV's comparable to the Model 3 in both price and range No, there isn't. Here's a chart made by a Redditor comparing price with range of all the Evs on the market. Checkout how much of an outlier the Model 3 Long Range is. Even the Standard Model 3 has much more range than all the other EVs except the Bolt, and other Teslas. http://i.imgur.com/M4o8czW.png http://i.imgur.com/M4o8czW.png
martin_bech 9y ago
I somewhat agree on build quality, but the germans will loose infinite amounts of money, if the 3series etc loose out to the Tesla Model 3 in sales. Remember Nokia? Blackberry? Ericcson?
- 24gttghh 9y ago
  None of those companies are German? Finnish, Canadian (now Indonesian), and Swedish; respectively.
krylon 9y ago
> Worry not about German carmakers, they have infinite money to throw at any project. Once they decide to go serious about electric, Tesla won't be able to keep up with the competition. If they have not come around by now, I seriously doubt they will make serious investments in electric cars unless the government forces them.
- kagamine 9y ago
  They have hybrids of current models so assume that they are hedging their bets and taking it slow. Heavy investment in the wrong direction could destroy a company even the size of VW group. Tesla is a youngling with heavy investment and no guaranteed future. Like so many tech firms it could be gone in a flash. Once the Euro EV subsidies and tax breaks disappear as the have begun to do in Denmark Tesla will be on a level playing field. Expect the opposing teams to foul if it means scoring goals.
  - blkhawk 9y ago
    "hedging their bets"????? Thats like falling out of an airplane and not pulling the paracute because you don't know exactly how far away the ground is and if its soft or not.
    - kagamine 9y ago
      More like parachutes are deemed environmentally wrong and need to be replaced by something, so parachute manufacturers are coming up with wing suits and big bits of foam and then Parachutes_International are thinking were do we put our money and how do we change our 100 years of parachute manufacturing industry and what will SuperDryChutesJpn do and what do consumers want and where did I put my glasses?
- dageshi 9y ago
  Two "governments" already have, French and British governments will ban sales of combustion engine cars in 2040, those are two big markets for German cars.
Denzel 9y ago
I find this thread interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14706548 In short, odds are greater that Tesla will exist in a post-combustion world than established automakers. I mean look at the battery supply chain alone. For them to deliver at Tesla's scale, they'd need enough batteries, which, right now, would require major investment a la Tesla's Gigafactory: which is set to produce more batteries at one factory than the entire world's current output... all to support Tesla products. At what phase are the established automakers in their infrastructure investments? They're all years behind. And I'm afraid they won't catch up.
- dx034 9y ago
  Isn't BMWs new battery production at a similar scale? The main difference between Tesla and big manufacturers is not necessarily factory size but marketing. The gigafactory is huge as one building. As a car manufacturing plant it's not that big, compared to the cities that some of the other manufacturers have.

martijn_himself 9y ago

Well that is what I thought until I read this article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/31/16069960/tesla-model-3-not-luxury-car-options-model-s https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/31/16069960/tesla-model-3-no... You are looking at $55000 if you want comfort levels comparable to a BMW 3 series? I'm in the UK and I don't know how these prices compare, but the $35000 version seems rather spartan. This will not stop people buying the car though (including myself, I can only hope).

_ph_ 9y ago
And what does a BMW 3 series cost, which competes with the $55000 Model 3? That price currently includes all options, including the enhanced auto pilot. I looked onto the BMW configurator this weekend, and depending on the options selected, it is somewhat cheaper or more expensive than the Model 3, on average, they are very competitive. If you don't need the high range battery, the Model 3 is likely to be cheaper even (if you don't count the basic BMW with a 3 cylinder engine and 129 hp).
- martijn_himself 9y ago
  Ah OK, I didn't really know how they compare. I suppose it is an attractive proposition if it really is an all-electric alternative to a BMW 3 series at a comparable price. I love the minimalist interior of the Tesla, and I sure would love to own one.
icc97 9y ago
I disagree with that article almost wholly. > The truth is the Model 3 costs $40,000 if you want a standard version with autopilot You don't need autopilot > If you want a different color, add $1,000. Yeah possibly, I can see this as something a lot of people would want > And if you want a longer range ($9,000) to get over 300 miles per charge instead of 220 This is possibly worth the money, but 220 miles is still a damn excellent range. If you're prepared to accept the range limitation with buying a car 220 instead of 310 miles is fine for everything except long trips. So it's not $50,000 it at most is $36,000 for a damn excellent car. I'll take it in Black, pretend I'm Michael Knight and blow the $1,000 on a leather jacket. That's not before you get the incentives. In California that can take you down to $26,000 and in Belgium where I am, they still ridiculously allow all company cars to have 50% tax rebates, for electric cars its a 120% rebate. The UK has similar incentives (100% first year deduction and £4.5k grant [0]) Then you have to take into account the running costs of electric with something like 2-3 times the 'electric' miles per gallon vs a BMW 3-series and the cheaper prices of electricity. Edit: Quote from MSDN over running costs: > Tesla hasn’t yet released a cost calculator for the Model 3, but keeping Tesla’s current cheapest car, the Model S, juiced up costs approximately $601.50 a year in home energy costs if you drive 15,000 miles, according to Tesla’s own calculator. Fueling a gas-powered car that gets 30 miles to the gallon will cost you almost twice as much money — $1,105 — even at the current 12-year low of $2.21 per gallon. [1] In Europe petrol prices are at least double that. So you're saving ~$1,600 per year in the UK on fuel costs. So you're really not comparing it to even a BMW 3 series. Ok, then the rest of that article: > If you purchase a standard Tesla Model 3, the seats must be manually adjusted, as will the steering column. The side mirrors aren’t powered or heated, and there’s no auto dimming. I've never understood the love for electric seat adjustment. The back I almost never adjust and moving the seat back or forwards is done much faster manually. > There are no LED fog lamps FOG lamps. That's FOG lamps it's whining about. > If you’re looking for what you’ve seen in the Model S — a premium interior, autopilot, and around 300 miles of range in a color of your choosing — in a smaller form factor, well you’re not getting out without paying at least $55,000. No that's not what I'm looking for, because then I'd buy a Model S. But saying that, for $35,000 you get almost all the cool factor of having a Model S. It still looks beautiful unlike say the BMW i8 vs the i3. > The Tesla Model 3 isn’t a luxury car, it’s a midsized car masquerading as one. No it's not, it's a midsized car masquerading as a midsized car. It just happens to look nicer, go faster, run cheaper and pollute less than all the midsized cars out there. [0]: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/incentives?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/incentives?redirect=no [1]: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/you%E2%80%99ll-save-money-on-gas-with-the-tesla-model-3-but-you-may-end-up-paying-more-elsewhere/ar-BBDV6uD http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/you%E2%80%99ll-save...

TheArcane 9y ago

>Tesla Model 3 will be everywhere by 2020. Not sure about that. If you order one now, you'll have it delivered by the end of 2018, early 2019. And that's the best case scenario according to Musk.

_ph_ 9y ago
Well, this time frame is based on the assumption that they roughly mange to deliver the 500k preorders till then. So the plan is to have about 1 million Model 3 built by 2020.
- richardknop 9y ago
  But that's far from everywhere. It will still be a niche car for rich people in 2020 until they somehow multiple their production.
- princeb 9y ago
  just need to make another 25 million or so teslas in that timeframe to get to half the volume of VW.

nearlyepic 9y ago

$35,000 is the price of a BMW 3-series. Calling that "affordable" is being generous to the average car buyer.

nradov 9y ago
The average new car price in 2016 was $34K.
- nearlyepic 9y ago
  Source? I wonder how much that's inflated by truck sales. I should re-phrase and say that 35,000 is expensive for a passenger car; The Ford Fusion and Honda Accord both start around $22,000.
  - nradov 9y ago
    https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/the-average-new-car-purchase-price-is-now-above-34000/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/the-average-new-car-purch... Light trucks are often used for carrying passengers.

aphextron 9y ago

Hyundai, Chevy, and Nissan are doing sold work, too. Like it or not, the Leaf was the first mass adopted full size, purpose built EV available in the US at a reasonable price. It's a great car, and the next gen being released this week (!!!) has an estimated 200mi range[0]. Hyundai just released the Ioniq with 120 miles (200+ expected next gen) range, and the highest average KW/Mile efficiency of any EV ever made [1], at a price point < $30k sticker price before incentives. All told, there will be 6 mass production EVs from 6 different manufacturers with ~200 mile range or greater at the $30k price point or below by this time next year. Exciting stuff. http://carttraction.com/2018-nissan-leaf/ http://carttraction.com/2018-nissan-leaf/ [0] https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/20/hyundai-ioniq-ev-hybrid-review/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/20/hyundai-ioniq-ev-hybrid-... [1]

icc97 9y ago
The leaf is still ugly unfortunately, but in all other accounts it seems to be a great car. This is one of the main differentiators that I've seen with Teslas, they actually make electric cars that look better than petrol cars, not freaks of nature. It makes them actually desirable rather than just doing it for the good of humanity.