The $36k Tesla Model 3 is here.

Error404 said:

I'll probably have to go electric at some point but with luck I can hold out for hydrogen powered instant torque. I think (green) hydrogen is a greener way to answer the question of "How do we store all this power we generate renewably and through new nuclear plants?" Plus if I have to convert to the cult of instant torque at least I'll still be burning something. 

We really like the Mirais we have, due to the incredible discount offered by Toyota. Having said that, our E cars provide significantly more torque (butt dyno) on a day to day driving.

mr2s2000elise said:

Error404 said:

I'll probably have to go electric at some point but with luck I can hold out for hydrogen powered instant torque. I think (green) hydrogen is a greener way to answer the question of "How do we store all this power we generate renewably and through new nuclear plants?" Plus if I have to convert to the cult of instant torque at least I'll still be burning something. 

We really like the Mirais we have, due to the incredible discount offered by Toyota. Having said that, our E cars provide significantly more torque (butt dyno) on a day to day driving.

And boy, if you're worried about the charging infrastructure for EVs, I have bad news about hydrogen :)

Keith Tanner said:

mr2s2000elise said:

Error404 said:

I'll probably have to go electric at some point but with luck I can hold out for hydrogen powered instant torque. I think (green) hydrogen is a greener way to answer the question of "How do we store all this power we generate renewably and through new nuclear plants?" Plus if I have to convert to the cult of instant torque at least I'll still be burning something. 

We really like the Mirais we have, due to the incredible discount offered by Toyota. Having said that, our E cars provide significantly more torque (butt dyno) on a day to day driving.

And boy, if you're worried about the charging infrastructure for EVs, I have bad news about hydrogen :)

Keith,

I think you quoted the wrong person.  Our EV (non Tesla)/Mirai all see 25-30K miles a year. Infrastructure isn't an issue for me. 

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Sorry, that was really for Error404. 

If you don't live in CA or have a private hydrogen farm, there is basically no infrastructure for hydrogen refueling at all. Even once there are "green" hydrogen production lines running, the entire distribution network would have to be created from scratch.
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html#/find/nearest?fuel=HY 

Slippery said:

No Time said:

The price and credit is intriguing, but what is real world lifespan of a Tesla Model 3?

Would it make 10 years while putting 20-25k miles a year on it in a state that uses salt?

 

Paging 84FSP

He is using a M3P under those conditions I believe.

I'm doing 25K miles a year in salty Midwest conditions in a 21 M3P.  It's been a fantastic vehicle for the job.  Lots of the 600mile round trip to motor city.  I did put good snows on it as the performance tires don't like frozen temps.  It's a beast in the snow.  With the way the company Motus reimbursement works and crappy gas prices, the car is paid for completely.  While I still opt for the engaging CTSV and MK1GTI to go really DRIVE, the Tesla is ridiculous and will destroy the vast majority of super cars.

A Tesla is not on my list for many reasons, but I am excited by this news.  I hope it drives market pressure on the whole field. 

My next vehicle is likely to be a new GR86, but the one after that will hopefully be an EV.  They're not *quite* hitting my mark yet.  I can't wait for an electric GTI, or Civic Si, or even 3 series.  But they're not here yet.  Hopefully the next round of vehicle releases.  BMW has this, which is fugly:

But when they finally cave to market pressure and make this electric (currently hybrid only, but you can't tell me the running gear from the 4 series above doesn't fit):

Then I am very interested as a buyer.  Don't mark it up as an EV and load it with a ton of stupid "luxury" options like lane keeping assist and other nonsense, let me spec a mostly base model, add sport/M package to it, paint it blue, and ship it. 

dculberson said:

In reply to Mr_Asa :

The only reason their market share is dropping is because the ev market is growing so fast. Their sales increased 40% in the last year. 

Yeah, I know.  That's the first thing I said in this thread.
Global sales of EVs increased ~55% last year.  As long as any manufacturer had EV cars, they were gonna get sold.  

That's another problem Tesla had last year, actually, meeting delivery goals.  Not isolated to just Tesla, of course but it didn't help matters concerning the rest of the stuff going on with them

I'm hoping I still got some kind of deal on my Performance 3 I bought this year lol, but like hell I could have waited. I can second that it's phenomenal in the snow.

Also to add- LFP is the battery chemistry that has about a 5x lifespan of Li-ion; if the car is well taken care of, it's genuinely a 10+ year car even with routine max charges. LFP is getting stupid hardy and I think it's the next "big thing" for EVs.

I'm not shocked they dropped prices like they did; they were likely trying to milk as much as they could at the high rates until they saw some kind of saturation point. Carmax supposedly has ~750 or so Tesla's now.

LFP is more stable and has a longer life (although it will be interesting to see if that's actually a meaningful difference, given owner-generated data on degradation rates). It's less energy dense so you'll see it more in the lower range and lower performance models. It's also more affected by the cold, iirc. It's got some real advantages in production as well.

After living with an EV for 3+ years, I think I'd probably look for LFP next time despite the lower range. I think we'll be seeing a lot of it. It's not the battery revolution some people seem to holding out for - almost the opposite in some ways - but it's a good evolutionary step. 

We didn't go looking for the longest range model when we bought ours, we wanted AWD and that happened to be paired with the big battery. 

It makes sense that Carmax is getting Teslas. The Model 3s have been around long enough that the first high volume sales cars are coming off lease, and I think that's what Carmax feeds on.