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I honestly don't understand all the hype with electric cars. They aren't a viable solution right now; batteries have such heavy materials that we might be better off with petrol. Not that I'm in favour of the current model (I hate it) but this isn't a solution either.

How is this not a solution? Batteries can be recycled, the "gas station" is in your own home, the current range covers the vast majority of daily commuting needs, battery tech is getting better, and we are slowly converting to more sustainable electricity production. I've never understood the defeatism. We should stop moving forward because it's not perfect right away? Not to mention that even burning coal or natural gas, a power plant will always be more efficient than a ICE.
 
You know? I'm sort of ok with this missing grill thing, since it could come to be known as one of the defining styling characteristics of a Tesla. It's good to have design cues that give a vehicle unique character. (Cadillac, for example, always did the long vertical tail lights.)

But overall, I find this new Tesla a little bland looking. Nothing horribly wrong, but just too much like every other 4 door sedan. Styling-wise, not many risks were taken. It might turn out to be exactly the right way to approach this, given the demographics of who Tesla thinks will purchase it? But personally, I'm disappointed it's not a little more sporty looking. I think the Model S does a good job of riding that fence between a sports car look and a sedan look, so both crowds find it very acceptable-looking. This one leans much more heavily towards Honda Accord or Toyota Camry look-alike.


Nice looking car except for the front, it looks like they went on a coffee brake just before they were going to design the grill but someone came and picket up the design before they came back.
 
I love it and hopefully will be able to actually buy one in 2018 as they are saying
 
I'm not sure electric cars make a lot of sense for a large part of the population yet, either. But your comments confuse me a bit too? For starters, solar energy and battery technology really have to go hand-in-hand for solar to make a lot of sense. Right now, we have a bunch of people living in sort of a fantasy-land that slapping $35,000 or so worth of solar panels on their home's roof will give them all the free electricity they need. Yet what *really* happens is they wind up generating about $90-110 worth of power per month (on average), most of which gets dumped back onto the grid between the hours of 10AM and 2PM when the sun shines on them optimally. If too many people in one small area go solar, there's more power generated in that time window than there are customers for it on that segment of the power grid, so some of it just goes to waste.

There are big power losses involved with transmission of power down long lengths of lines, so it doesn't make sense to push the electricity long distances. So PV solar needs to be making power close to where it's actually needed, at the time it's generating it.

And obviously, NO power gets generated as soon as the sun goes down -- yet that's when much of America is just getting home from work and using power for things like hot water for baths/showers, fixing dinner, watching TV before bed, and maybe washing and drying a load of laundry.

If you want solar to become a real solution, you're looking at marrying it with better, cheaper battery technology.


I agree with you, actually, and I consider myself an environmentalist. We still haven't cracked the problem of having to burn dirty coal in order to charge these things. And the battery disposal is horrible for the environment as well. I like the steps Tesla is making, but a lot of this electric car stuff is BS. If it's not solar powered, I'm not super interested.
 
It's cool, it's getting more affordable, but still a hight end expensive car. Ignoring the environmental benefits, the whole point of electric should be that it's super cheap to charge and maintain, but if the car itself costs 10 times the price of a regular car, it's not worth it, and you probably don't need one anyway since you're rich enough to not have to save money on petrol. Of course Tesla is on the cutting edge here, and it does look like they're going in that direction. I just don't know if they will ever make a truly cheap car, or if they're like Apple and it's just not their thing.

I wish someone just made a basic, small electric city car that doesn't have a luxury interior and high-end features. Like an electric Fiat Panda or Suzuki Swift - something super basic that is nothing more than a basic car, except it would be electric. Tesla seems to love these big family cars but most cars never tend to have more than 1 or 2 people in them.

Of course it looks like Tesla is to cars what Apple is to phones and computers: revolutionary and strictly high-end. But with computers, it makes sense to buy high-end sometimes, because there's some things you just can't do with a cheap PC, like video, music, or image production. Things like a slow CPU or low RAM will prevent you from getting some things done. But a car is a car. Every car gets you from point A to B. The rest is for your comfort and for showing off. I just wish someone started the low-end now, for those who want to benefit from the low cost of electricity vs. petrol, but who don't care for luxury comfort features and just want to have a cheap car.
 
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Fixed.

30dgx1s.jpg
 
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I'm not sure electric cars make a lot of sense for a large part of the population yet, either. But your comments confuse me a bit too? For starters, solar energy and battery technology really have to go hand-in-hand for solar to make a lot of sense. Right now, we have a bunch of people living in sort of a fantasy-land that slapping $35,000 or so worth of solar panels on their home's roof will give them all the free electricity they need. Yet what *really* happens is they wind up generating about $90-110 worth of power per month (on average), most of which gets dumped back onto the grid between the hours of 10AM and 2PM when the sun shines on them optimally. If too many people in one small area go solar, there's more power generated in that time window than there are customers for it on that segment of the power grid, so some of it just goes to waste.

There are big power losses involved with transmission of power down long lengths of lines, so it doesn't make sense to push the electricity long distances. So PV solar needs to be making power close to where it's actually needed, at the time it's generating it.

And obviously, NO power gets generated as soon as the sun goes down -- yet that's when much of America is just getting home from work and using power for things like hot water for baths/showers, fixing dinner, watching TV before bed, and maybe washing and drying a load of laundry.

If you want solar to become a real solution, you're looking at marrying it with better, cheaper battery technology.
Well, yes, we have to come up with better ways of STORING the solar energy too, which is another engineering conundrum. I guess my point was just that we already have an almost limitless (at least in our lifetimes) and completely clean way of powering the entire planet: the sun. We just don't have the science yet to use it correctly. Tesla cars are a good step along the way, but they're not the solution yet.
 
I'm not sure electric cars make a lot of sense for a large part of the population yet, either. But your comments confuse me a bit too? For starters, solar energy and battery technology really have to go hand-in-hand for solar to make a lot of sense. Right now, we have a bunch of people living in sort of a fantasy-land that slapping $35,000 or so worth of solar panels on their home's roof will give them all the free electricity they need. Yet what *really* happens is they wind up generating about $90-110 worth of power per month (on average), most of which gets dumped back onto the grid between the hours of 10AM and 2PM when the sun shines on them optimally. If too many people in one small area go solar, there's more power generated in that time window than there are customers for it on that segment of the power grid, so some of it just goes to waste.

There are big power losses involved with transmission of power down long lengths of lines, so it doesn't make sense to push the electricity long distances. So PV solar needs to be making power close to where it's actually needed, at the time it's generating it.

And obviously, NO power gets generated as soon as the sun goes down -- yet that's when much of America is just getting home from work and using power for things like hot water for baths/showers, fixing dinner, watching TV before bed, and maybe washing and drying a load of laundry.

If you want solar to become a real solution, you're looking at marrying it with better, cheaper battery technology.

It does not make sense for 3rd world right now, but for every others it is starting to make sense. I suggest watching this video:
making understanding energy more profoundly. Battery technologies are getting good enough, when Tesla started with Roadster it was like 160Whr/kg, now it is getting close to 300Whr/kg. This is in about decade.
 
Touch screens also lack tactile feedback to let you know you are using the right one without actually looking at it. I can adjust radio volume, temperature, etc. in my car without taking my eyes of the road. A touch screen would require me looking and verifying I am pressing on the right place on the screen.
being pedantic somewhat what you are talking about is not tactile feedback so much rather it is muscle memory. muscles can memorise actions, hence why world class sport stars such as footballers(sorry Americans I mean soccer players) practise taking free kicks etc so that their muscles can remember how they did it. I agree that it can make it somewhat harder to operate a touchscreen than it is a button. However technology has been created that allows virtual buttons on a touchscreen to feel like regular buttons. Maybe on day we will have such tech on cars such as teslas etc
 
The "no grill thing" is because it's an electric car and doesn't need a grill. Putting a fake grill on a car is about as dumb as piping fake exhaust sound into a BMW or covering your 1998 Pontiac in body cladding.

Leaving the grill off may look a bit odd now but it's the future.
That may be the case, but there are other cars without a traditional front grille that look much better (such as the Porsche Panamera and of course their rear-engine sport cars). The Model 3 nose looks like it originally had a grille that was later removed, leaving behind an empty spot. From the side it looks a bit like the car has been in a fender bender.

But I'm pretty sure this is not the final design (same for the interior). It's just an early prototype.
 
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I think they desperately need to add an instrument cluster, I hate the straight line with instrument placed in the middle screen.
Yes, interesting set up. I wonder if one misses that instrument cluster when driving it. The new mini had moved the speedometer to the centre console, but was criticised and today it features at the steering wheel.
Right now I'm driving a Honda Civic which I really like. No chrome (I hate chrome) but also not a boring slab of beige plastic with a 15" monitor stuck in the middle.
Honda has caught my attention in the past. Yes, some cars on the market have gone wild with chrome. I seem to recall the unveiling vehicles of other Teslas being slightly different to the final production version, so it might be worth your while to feedback to Tesla your opinion, as they refine the final designs, assuming that car interests you. I didn't like the displays in the previous Tesla, appeared too "hack job" but this one seems to appear balanced as it floats out front.
 
Tesla says it will have doubled the number of charging stations worldwide and will include charging for free.
I heard Musk say that the Model 3 would have access to the Superchargers. He didn't say free. The website also says "Supercharging", but doesn't say free.

I don't know that this means Tesla will charge Model 3 owners to use Supercharging. Perhaps they haven't decided yet. I just haven't heard them say that unlimited use of the Superchargers is included in the base model purchase price, the way it is with a Model S or Model X.

I also heard him say that the base model would come with Autopilot "hardware". He didn't say if that hardware would be activated at the base price. It may be that you have to make an "in-app purchase" to activate the feature, if you didn't choose it as an option to begin with. If that's the case, it's nice that you could upgrade your car via an OTA update (you don't have to take it to the shop), but I'm interested in getting clarification.

Musk seems a bit disorganized in these reveals (compared to the carefully choreographed Apple events). But something about the way he worded these two items struck me as deliberate.

Maybe the answer is that they haven't decided exactly what, if anything, these features will cost.
 
Not really. We've seen a drop in battery prices but not a substantial one. The materials used to make batteries are seeing an influx in pricing which means we'll likely see battery prices stay the same or even increase with time. Add to that the lack of breakthroughs in battery technology in the past 10 years and we're not making much progress. Unless something very substantial changes, we're unlikely to see huge change on the horizon.
True that their has not been much breakthroughs in the past ten years however that is not the case these days. Presently there are a few major breakthroughs to be made within the next few years. Tesla (and others) are working on graphene batteries which enable much further travel before running out of charge and Musk himself has said that within a few years there will be batteries capable of going 1000km on a single charge. Then again there is what I am working on which is a self charging battery system that enables the rate of battery charge loss to be minimised so that it takes longer before you run out of charge. Thus enabling a much better range. once BEVs become more mainstream the costs will fall quite a way. The same thing happened once ICE cars took off into the mainstream and enabled the material costs to fall from what they were. This alone with better manufacturing processes helping production to be more efficient. I can only see things getting better in this regard within the next decade.
 
I agreed. As much as I like the car I want to test drive and try it out first. As it is a big ticket item. But then again, it's probably safe to assume that quite a few of the pre-order are people with money to spend. It's more of a toy for them. I don't mind not being the first, so I'll wait and see.
Tesla didn't take preorders yesterday. They basically let people reserve a spot in the waiting list. The money is fully refundable at any time, so there is really no risk (unless Tesla goes bankrupt).
 
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Not sure the Tesla signature roof-line works on this, smaller model. The Model S looks miles better. Either way, if Tesla manages to get this car on the market for $35k, that is victory enough.

Being a true petrolhead, an electric car could never replace a loud, lightweight sports car for me. However, I could definitely see myself having an EV for a daily driver, together with a weekend sports car. No reason for me to deplete the earths resources for going to/from work. The occasional weekend fun however, I very well damn deserve. :cool:
 
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Not crazy about the front, wish there was some type of grill or something similar to the Tesla S.

But, that matte black looks nice.
 
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