Tesla Model 3 - WOOF!!!

[fulcrum1]

I think the challenge ahead is now to produce, 198k preorders so far! The other issue is reliability and delivering a glitch free car as this will be the primary vehicle for many of these drivers. The higher end Teslas haven't done so well in that department.

[rustywelder]

According to Elon Musk yesterday they expect deliveries before the end of 2017, and he said he was pretty certain they would meet that goal.

What in Tesla's unblemished record of failing to meet production goals makes you believe Musk now? If anyone sees one of these in their drive before late 2018 early 2019 I'll be shocked.

[rustywelder]

Ugh, this might be the worst interior ever designed. Everything about this car leaves me feeling completely meh.

Edited April 2, 2016 by rustywelder

[11bee]

Ugh, this might be the worst interior ever designed. Everything about this car leaves me feeling completely meh.

Go back to your Firebird. The times they are a changin'.

Edited April 2, 2016 by 11bee

[rustywelder]

Go back to your Firebird. The times they are a changin'.

Spare me. <_<

And BTW, I'm a Mustang guy.

[11bee]

Spare me. <_</>/>

And BTW, I'm a Mustang guy.

I had a 5.0 LX back in the day. Loved my Mustang but at some point we have to evolve. Gas ain't always gonna be < $2.00/gal. Plus, I'll take this over a lame Prius any day.

Edited April 2, 2016 by 11bee

[rustywelder]

I had a 5.0 LX back in the day. Loved my Mustang but at some point we have to evolve. Gas ain't always gonna be < $2.00/gal.

I agree, but I still don't see any hope that the infrastructure for plug in EVs will ever be sufficient for the portion of the population that does not live in cities or own their own home.

And as far as my feeling about the 3, i think it is an overly conservative but decent exterior wrapped around an interior that is minimalist to the point of making IKEA designs look over wrought. And that whacking great screen just kind of stuck on seemingly as an afterthought is painful to look at.

Edited April 2, 2016 by rustywelder

[Wayfarer 30]

I'm sticking to burning Dino bones. I like the concept but I will let it develop before sacraficing the awesome roar of my V-8 (mustang) to the lame whirring of an electric motor. I'm biased because I have always been a gearhead. I understand nothing beats the torque of an electric motor but my engine is a Symphony to my ears. And I would choose a Firebird long before driving this thing. Any year to including early eighties.

Also woof is right. Kinda homely looking. But that is only an opinion.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Wayfarer 30

[11bee]

I agree, but I still don't see any hope that the infrastructure for plug in EVs will ever be sufficient for the portion of the population that does not live in cities or own their own home.

And as far as my feeling about the 3, i think it is an overly conservative but decent exterior wrapped around an interior that is minimalist to the point of making IKEA designs look over wrought.

Infrastructure will be the key. That's why I want Tesla to succeed. it's not so much that I love the Model 3 but if they can get a viable network of charging stations out there, it will be the catalyst to allow the other US manufactures really focus on electric vehicles. At some point we are going to run out of cheap gas. I'd much rather see an American company being on the cutting edge rather than more imports flooding in.

Edited April 2, 2016 by 11bee

[nickdanger]

My brother has a model S and goes between LA and Phoenix (365 miles) to visit our dad. There are super chargers along the way so it very much is a road trip car.

It's insanely quick, super fun to drive, economical, stylish, and good for the planet. I'd love to have one too.

[Berkut]

What's the electric cost compared to gasoline at the pump? I've always wondered that. Would love to get one but if it tripled my electric bill and cost more than a gasoline car then that would just seem like throwing money away.

Yes yes planet and all but unfortunately I'm not a comfortable enough place to only care about the planet.

It is very easy to calculate and there is a calculator on Tesla's website;

https://www.teslamotors.com/models-charging#/calculator

Otherwise according to this it is 12 cents/kWh in Ohio;

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a

Model S has currently 90kWh pack as the largest option. Charging efficiency is about 90% meaning one has to buy 100kWh to get 90kWh on the pack which costs 12$. 90kWh gives 288 miles of range meaning it is 0,04c per mile driven.

You've never road trip'd Murica have you?

Because one has to have personal experience with everything in order to say anything. How many do you honestly know that have taken a cross country trip like ever? And the superchargers are placed along major routes which is logical because... they are major. That is where most people travel. If you are going to talk about corner cases of corner cases we might as well be talking about using Model S in Tibet.

What in Tesla's unblemished record of failing to meet production goals makes you believe Musk now? If anyone sees one of these in their drive before late 2018 early 2019 I'll be shocked.

They have met the production goals just fine, they have just had slow ramp on Model X to ensure quality. The issue has been deadlines, not production goals but i agree with the general sentiment.

[Trigger]

Wonder if my tax subsidies paid to them can count toward my down payment?

No, because Tesla paid those back to the DoE in 2013 - a full nine years early.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Trigger

[Trigger]

Starts at $35,000. Last year the average price of a new car in the US was $33,500 so the Tesla doesn't seem to be overpriced.

Plus there are federal (and depending on where you live, state) tax incentives that'll lower that price.

[Trigger]

Will be interesting to see how the big 3 US automakers try to keep up.

By lobbying state governments to ban Tesla dealerships.

[82Whitey51]

I think we are looking at what will be the typical car on the road within 15 years or so. Truly groundbreaking - until now, electric cars were just impractical oddities. Will be interesting to see how the big 3 US automakers try to keep up.

Go Tesla!

I think the Big 3 took their shot with Chevy and the Volt. The other two sat back and watched as sales went...?

[82Whitey51]

No, because Tesla paid those back to the DoE in 2010 - a full nine years early.

Good for them...but it was still our tax money funding their private enterprise. I know it happens all the time but just ain't cool with that.

[11bee]

Good for them...but it was still our tax money funding their private enterprise. I know it happens all the time but just ain't cool with that.

Dunno, it seems like it's some of the better money spent by the feds. If the government puts out seed money which enables a US firm to become a world leader, is that a bad thing? Obviously not every company will make it but even if only a percentage do, I still like it. Existing domestic industries aren't exactly setting records for R&D spending, need some way to keep innovation alive in the US.

Edited April 2, 2016 by 11bee

[dnl42]

By lobbying state governments to ban Tesla dealerships.

Which is the case in NJ, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and Virginia.

I'm not a fan of battery vehicles as a technical issue. I much prefer fuel cells, but they've got their own issues... :(

I don't know how much of this is the "3 big automakers" versus the dealerships groups (Tesla sells direct to customers). But no matter, it's organizations protecting their incomes by convincing government to intervene to "protect the ______", "prevent unfair competition", or "level the playing field", activities both parties are paid well to participate in...

[Trigger]

Not nearly enough and limits your routes, I'll pass.

Which is a totally irrelevant point since the Model III won't arrive until the end of 2017; at which time, the Supercharger network will be much larger than it is now (as of today, it covers 98% of the lower 48)

[Trigger]

Good for them...but it was still our tax money funding their private enterprise. I know it happens all the time but just ain't cool with that.

And yet you directed your snarky comments towards one auto manufacturer, not the others.

In addition to payments made in 2012 and Q1 2013, the wire transfer of almost half a billion dollars ($451.8M) on On May 22, 2013 repaid the full loan facility with interest. Following this payment, Tesla was first American car company to have fully repaid the government.

How did GM and Chrysler do? In the 2015 State of the Union address, we were "The auto companies have now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration invested in."

In December 2014, the Treasury Department announced it sold the remainder of its 54.9 million shares in Ally Financial — formerly, General Motor’s financing service, GMAC — for $1.3 billion. With the deal, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the United States was "winding down the Auto Industry Financing Program," the federal program that saved the auto industry— or bailed it out, depending on your view.

Back in 2012, the re-election campaign claim that GM and Chrysler "repaid their loans" was half true, partially because the government still owned stock in both automakers and it was too soon to say if taxpayers would recoup their investment.

But there are several circumstances that make this confusing and complicated. For starters, the bailout of the auto industry started in the waning weeks of President George W. Bush’s tenure. It continued during the early months of the Obama administration.

All told, the Treasury Department reported that the program cost taxpayers $79.7 billion, of which $70.4 billion was recovered. Under that estimate, the program lost about $9.3 billion. In April, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the program would end up costing about $14 billion.

The White House, however, makes the case that only $57.3 billion of the investment came under their watch and therefore that should be all that they’re accountable for.

Let’s review the timeline, starting in 2008: Bush secured $700 billion to bailout the financial institutions under the Troubled Asset Relief Program in October 2008. In November of that year, Obama was elected and soon after met with Bush to discuss the transition. It was during those early meetings that Obama began to lobby Bush to provide some financial assistance for the auto industry, according to reports.

The New York Times wrote Bush had "balked at allowing the automakers to tap into the $700 billion bailout fund, despite warnings ... that General Motors might not survive the year."

A month later, Bush announced a $17.4 billion bailout for Chrysler and GM that provided short-term financial relief through March 2009. He handed off to the incoming Obama administration the decision on how the companies would have to restructure themselves. The investment would grow to about $23 billion in short-term loans by the time Bush left office.

As Politico noted in December 2008, Bush’s move was a "reversal for the White House," adding that, "President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats had long advocated that course, and Bush had resisted it."

The New York Times reported that Obama "embraced the plan," though he did not comment on the details.

To get to Obama’s claim that the "auto companies have now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration invested in," the White House is taking credit for all of the money recovered from the auto companies in the last six years.

This is somewhat problematic. Why? Obama is essentially saying ignore the money Bush invested and only look at what my administration spent on the bailout when calculating the "expenses" side of the ledger. But for Obama to make the claim he has recovered everything he invested "and more," he’s including money paid back on loans also given out under Bush.

You might ask, "Why not just look to see which loans were repaid?" It’s a good question. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Both GM and Chrysler went through structured bankruptcies in 2009 to remain viable. The process resulted in both automakers essentially killing off their old companies and creating New GM and New Chrysler. During that process, most of their debt was converted into preferred and common stock owned largely by the government that would gradually be sold off (in the case of Chrysler, it was acquired by Italian carmaker Fiat, while the GM stock was publicly offered and later partially bought back by New GM).

Some of the dealings resulted in profit, some did not. Additionally, Old GM and Old Chrysler were saddled with some debt that has not been recovered.

Because most of the debt was in stock, it’s difficult to know if the money coming back into the Treasury was from the Bush loans or from the Obama administration.

At the same time, it’s possible the Treasury would not have recovered any of the investment from either administration had Obama’s White House not taken the steps to restructure the companies through a managed bankruptcy.

Obama created a taskforce upon taking office to determine how to proceed with the auto companies. They had three options: no further government assistance; more loans with no strings attached; or more financial resources on the condition the companies would restructure. In both cases, the third option was chosen. The administration had a heavy hand in the restructuring, forcing the sale of Chrysler to Fiat and requiring GM to fire its CEO, close plants, shrink staff and eliminate lines like Pontiac and Saturn.

The general consensus from both a legislative panel and experts is that the intervention by the administration kept both companies out of long, drawn out bankruptcies that could have resulted in the liquidation of GM and Chrysler. That likely would have impacted Ford as well (Ford didn’t take government money, but lobbied for GM and Chrysler to receive assistance, noting that the three automakers shared parts suppliers) and threatened the U.S. auto industry existence.

It’s impossible to know what would have happened had the administration not stepped in. However, it’s fair to say right now both companies are profitable and American car makers are in stable positions. Additionally, a $9 billion hit is less than the $24 billion loss the Treasury predicted in 2011.

The White House said, "The auto companies have now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration invested in."

We’ll note that losses from automaker loans were expected to be higher, and the action taken by the current administration resulted in GM and Chrysler paying back the bulk of their loans.

But to say they've paid back "every dime and more," requires considerable cherry-picking. Obama doesn’t count any outstanding loans made by the Bush administration, which seem to have been made with Obama's quiet support and which were restructured (resulting in some losses) under the bankruptcy Obama's Treasury helped manage. And to get into the black, he counts money the automakers paid back for Bush administration loans.

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores facts that would give a different impression. That’s mostly false.

So if you want to complain about your taxes going towards a discount on a car, go visit your local GM or Chrysler dealership

[Trigger]

Good for them...but it was still our tax money funding their private enterprise. I know it happens all the time but just ain't cool with that.

Dunno, it seems like it's some of the better money spent by the feds. If the government puts out seed money which enables a US firm to be come a world leader, is that a bad thing? Obviously not every company will make it but even if only a percentage do, I still like it. Existing domestic industries aren't exactly setting records for R&D spending, need some way to keep innovation alive in the US.

This.

Via NPR:

On July 8, 2011, the space shuttle Atlantis rumbled off its launch platform and rose skyward, marking the last time we sent Americans into space using our own rockets launched from our own soil.

Since then, our access to orbit (and the Space Station) has come via tickets bought on Russian rockets in Russian crew capsules. If all goes well, this reliance on Russia may end in 2017. That's when private space companies, through contracts with NASA, begin launching American astronauts into space with American technology once again. When these launches come it will be historic — but today it's important to understand how we ended up stranded on Earth in the first place.

Our long and painful absence from human space access did not appear in a vacuum. U.S. investment in science has been lagging for many years. In fact, in many ways NASA's investment in private spaceflight represents a cost-cutting measure to refocus its efforts on exploring deep space, while leaving low-orbit missions to the private companies. The vibrancy of the nascent commercial space industry is something to applaud. But the long wait for a U.S. return to having its own launch platforms can also be seen as a visceral and public experience of what a strained scientific/technological infrastructure looks like when it begins to breaks down.

NASA and a growing ecosystem of private rocket companies have been driving towards a new age of space innovation for nearly a decade. This is one of the most exciting developments in space exploration since Apollo. In 2006, NASA created the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, acting as a special kind of investor for the emerging private space industry and awarding development funds on completion of specific milestones in launch capabilities. In 2010, NASA created the Commercial Crew Development Program (CCDev) to provide human access to space. Partnering with private companies, their goal was to quickly develop crewed launch vehicles for low Earth orbit. In September of 2014, awards were made to Space X and Boeing to develop and construct the new space fleet.

So, progress is finally being made. But it took far longer than required because funding for the program was woefully inadequate. When Charles Bolden assessed the situation in 2014, he said "Had [the Commercial Crew Development Program] been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches — and the jobs they support — back to the United States next year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we're now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017."

The important point here is that this habit of progress delayed or denied is not confined to NASA. It has spread across most domains of U.S. research. The National Institutes for Health budget, for example, was essentially flat for a decade and, then, dropped two years ago. It has only barely been rising since then. In a poll of cancer researchers in 2014, almost 30 percent said they were postponing launching new clinical trials and 23 percent said they were limiting patient enrollment in new trials they could start.

Things have become difficult enough that the problem has been given its own name — the innovation deficit. Compare our stalled investment in science and technology with other nations, who have doubled or tripled their investments over similar timescales. When the U.S. dropped out of the ExoMars program (designed to look for evidence of life on that planet), our former partners in the EU found a ready new collaborator in Russia. And for all the excitement about the Higgs Particle, the U.S. share of that particle accelerator was just $500 million out of a total $12 billion dollar cost. The outsized role we played in the discovery came only because of investments made decades ago. Now, it's not clear we will still be significant players 10 years from now.

The long delay in getting Americans back into orbit on their own power shows how deeply we've neglected a space science and technology effort that was the envy of the world. It is a self-inflicted wound driven by a thousand budget cuts — and space science is just the tip of the iceberg.

A nation doesn't reach world leadership in science and technology overnight. It takes decades of strong and continued investment. The conspicuous absence of rockets roaring to the high frontier from our shores can be either a bell tolling the end of an era or a wakeup call. As past Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England saw quite clearly, "The greatest long-term threat to U.S. national security is not terrorists wielding a nuclear or biological weapon, but the erosion of America's place as a world leader in science and technology."

The simple fact is, to be a economic leader, an economic superpower, a nation has to invest in science, technology and research. The US auto industry hasn't had any innovations since the assembly line. When Fiat bought Chrysler, they discovered that Chrysler had invested a grand total of $0 in their own R&D in the two previous years. The big three simply don't produce world class cars any more.

When Chevy has an ad campaign where they have to win over potential customers by removing all branding from a Chevy Malibu (so they don't know it's a Chevy Malibu), that right there is admission to the the company's failure. Compare that with Tesla, who has secured over 150K (and climbing) reservations for a car that they first showed to the public not even 48 hours ago.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Trigger

[niart17]

If you live or drive close enough to a Tesla Supercharging station, it costs nothing. You get free access to them.

Ahh, there's that really expensive word , free. Europe, here we come.

[Trigger]

Ahh, there's that really expensive word , free. Europe, here we come.

Supercharging access is not exactly free — the necessary components are part of a $2,000 charge included in the MSRP of newer models.

And when you buy a Tesla, you get hardware to recharge your car at home, using your own electricity that you pay for every month. A full charge on a Model S runs around $6-$7.

[vince14]

In other news, I ordered one of these last week;

[TaiidanTomcat]

The important point here is that this habit of progress delayed or denied is not confined to NASA. It has spread across most domains of U.S. research. The National Institutes for Health budget, for example, was essentially flat for a decade and, then, dropped two years ago. It has only barely been rising since then. In a poll of cancer researchers in 2014, almost 30 percent said they were postponing launching new clinical trials and 23 percent said they were limiting patient enrollment in new trials they could start.

Things have become difficult enough that the problem has been given its own name — the innovation deficit. Compare our stalled investment in science and technology with other nations, who have doubled or tripled their investments over similar timescales. When the U.S. dropped out of the ExoMars program (designed to look for evidence of life on that planet), our former partners in the EU found a ready new collaborator in Russia. And for all the excitement about the Higgs Particle, the U.S. share of that particle accelerator was just $500 million out of a total $12 billion dollar cost. The outsized role we played in the discovery came only because of investments made decades ago. Now, it's not clear we will still be significant players 10 years from now.

The long delay in getting Americans back into orbit on their own power shows how deeply we've neglected a space science and technology effort that was the envy of the world. It is a self-inflicted wound driven by a thousand budget cuts — and space science is just the tip of the iceberg.

A nation doesn't reach world leadership in science and technology overnight. It takes decades of strong and continued investment. The conspicuous absence of rockets roaring to the high frontier from our shores can be either a bell tolling the end of an era or a wakeup call. As past Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England saw quite clearly, "The greatest long-term threat to U.S. national security is not terrorists wielding a nuclear or biological weapon, but the erosion of America's place as a world leader in science and technology."

But who was Stimulus?

LOL J/K anyone Remember that? when we spent a trillion bucks?

Edited April 2, 2016 by TaiidanTomcat