Is Telsa really that much ahead?

[seattlite2004]

I test drove a Bolt too, nice car, but where are you going to charge it on a road trip? Once I had to use both EVGO and ChargePoint on a trip and ugh, they were terrible! That did it for me, Tesla or nothing.

I've been taking road trips up and down the west coast and neighboring states for the last 20 years...and I was thinking if I would ever take a long, >300 mile, trip in an EV...Tesla or other...and I don't think I would. I'd rather take our hybrid or regular gas car... I have no patience in waiting at a charger or do I like being constrained in routes. Why would I want a >200 mile range EV... I don't really need one but I'll take it if it means me getting the mod 3 earlier or if I finally decide on the Bolt instead of the Mod 3. Also...it allows me to just use 110VAC since my daily commute is about 30 miles ... I dont really need to charge up to full but I also welcome the extra mileage to reduce/eliminate any range anxiety.

 

[daniel]

OK, perhaps this is a weird take, but the EPA ratings can be considered a consumer service, to let the purchaser know just what they are committing to in terms of the energy purchase commitment they are signing up for. Since Tesla has graciously offered many of us free supercharging for life, the EPA ratings should be adjusted accordingly. Thus the MS and MX Teslas should have EPA ratings through the roof!

How many people use those superchargers other than for road trips? I've been driving my Roadster for 6 years and I've never plugged it in anywhere but at home. If there had been a free charger a mile from my home, I'd never have used it, because it's so cheap and convenient to charge at home. So there's really no way to take the free supercharging (which only some owners get) into account when calculating efficiency.

In any case, MPGe is, IMO, a useless number. Wh/mile or /km is what matters. And even then it only matters in areas with high electric rates and if you don't have solar.

 

[David99]

How many people use those superchargers other than for road trips? I've been driving my Roadster for 6 years and I've never plugged it in anywhere but at home. If there had been a free charger a mile from my home, I'd never have used it, because it's so cheap and convenient to charge at home.

Filling up a Model S costs about $10 here in California even when using the cheap off peak rate. During the day you pay double. That's not a lot, but many people still go to Superchargers to safe money. In fact, many do. In Los Angeles, Superchargers are frequented by locals charging.

I agree, the convenience of charging at home is awesome, but some see it different.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Maybe its a Canada thing. One of my local dealers that's giving at least a 5K discount from MSRP has 20+ in their inventory.

Nope. We stopped in at the chevy dealer in Palm Springs last week. We wanted to take a look at the bolt. We have seen and test drove one before but that was last model year and we wanted to see if there was anything new. None at the dealer. Manager had one from the lot at home. None expected. No real interest. I don't know if it is like that at other Chevy dealerships but if it is, Tesla has no worries about Chevy getting serious.

But yes, also none at our home town in BC Canada and our contact there says maybe one or two for 2018. Go Tesla. Now Nissan leaf is another thing and our dealer is quite excited about the new Leaf. They always have new and used Leafs and they just added two more PUBLIC easily accessible level two chargers. Well located downtown as well. Go Nissan.

 

[seattlite2004]

Nope. We stopped in at the chevy dealer in Palm Springs last week. We wanted to take a look at the bolt. We have seen and test drove one before but that was last model year and we wanted to see if there was anything new. None at the dealer. Manager had one from the lot at home. None expected. No real interest. I don't know if it is like that at other Chevy dealerships but if it is, Tesla has no worries about Chevy getting serious.

But yes, also none at our home town in BC Canada and our contact there says maybe one or two for 2018. Go Tesla. Now Nissan leaf is another thing and our dealer is quite excited about the new Leaf. They always have new and used Leafs and they just added two more PUBLIC easily accessible level two chargers. Well located downtown as well. Go Nissan.

Interesting...lost up here in WA state....so much so that they are offering at least 5K+ discounts on the Premiere trim. A quick search on the Chevy site shows a bunch of cars at various dealerships near Palm Springs...but the Seattle area has 3x more inventory than the Palm Springs area...maybe the reason for the discounted prices.

The new Leaf was also at the Seattle Autoshow but they had it locked up...so just exterior and peeking through the window. Exterior fit an finish was really nice...couldn't find any issues. The thermal management system is still a concern with the Leaf...hopefully they improved it on the 2018s.

If interested...here is the link to Bolt Inventory near Palm Springs:
Find A Chevy Vehicle Near Me | Chevrolet

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Interesting...lost up here in WA state....so much so that they are offering at least 5K+ discounts on the Premiere trim. A quick search on the Chevy site shows a bunch of cars at various dealerships near Palm Springs...but the Seattle area has 3x more inventory than the Palm Springs area...maybe the reason for the discounted prices.

The new Leaf was also at the Seattle Autoshow but they had it locked up...so just exterior and peeking through the window. Exterior fit an finish was really nice...couldn't find any issues. The thermal management system is still a concern with the Leaf...hopefully they improved it on the 2018s.

If interested...here is the link to Bolt Inventory near Palm Springs:
Find A Chevy Vehicle Near Me | Chevrolet

I noticed the other day that the la quinta dealer has some. We may take a drive up there this week. Appreciate the link though.

 

[N5329K]

To respond to the OP question, Tesla's lead in the EV market is substantial because it's about the only automaker that wants to make electric cars and it behaves accordingly. With few exceptions, everyone else is throwing out "concept cars" like squid spurting ink to cloud their confusion while they grudgingly sell a few not-very-good EV's because:
1. They have to,
B. They think they have to.
When (and if) legacy manufacturers get serious and decide they want to make EV's, Tesla's lead will erode. But that's a good thing. We'll all have more and better cars to choose from - and at more price points - as a result.
Robin

 

[dhanson865]

Perspective: the 100 kWh battery pack has the equivalent energy storage as LESS than 3 gallons of gas (33.7 kW/gal gasoline per EPA).

The 3 gallons of gas equivalent might be technically true in one context but is woefully misleading for general consumption.

Cars in the U.S. are more fuel-efficient than ever. Here’s how it happened. says fleet average is below 25 mpg.

So you tell Joe Average that your EV can store the same energy as 3 gallons of gas and he goes and tells everyone "Hur hur, that fool bought one of them EVs that only goes 75 miles." 3 x 25 = 75 so Joe Average can do the math and you let him walk away with a misconception.

Maybe if your goal is to heat a room or boil water or something that 100 kWh = 3 gallons of gas has some use as a conversion factor.

But if you can drive hundreds of miles on 100 kWh (I'd expect to get ~400 miles on that, more if it's spring/fall/summer, less if it is winter) then why ever bring up that stupid conversion factor?

I'd say the EPA should hide that somewhere in a whitepaper and not make as if that is a useful thing for consumers to see.

Even a crappy EV gets insanely good range in MPGe vs MPG of a gas car. A more meaningful metric I'd suggest they use is the average cost of electricity for the US as a whole vs consumption per mile to give you an "EPA cents per mile" instead of MPGe.

Give me EPA rated range and EPA cents per mile and that's all I need to know (and they put that on the Monroney label anyway so I'm good.

 

[insaneoctane]

The 3 gallons of gas equivalent might be technically true in one context but is woefully misleading for general consumption.

Cars in the U.S. are more fuel-efficient than ever. Here’s how it happened. says fleet average is below 25 mpg.

So you tell Joe Average that your EV can store the same energy as 3 gallons of gas and he goes and tells everyone "Hur hur, that fool bought one of them EVs that only goes 75 miles." 3 x 25 = 75 so Joe Average can do the math and you let him walk away with a misconception.

Maybe if your goal is to heat a room or boil water or something that 100 kWh = 3 gallons of gas has some use as a conversion factor.

But if you can drive hundreds of miles on 100 kWh (I'd expect to get ~400 miles on that, more if it's spring/fall/summer, less if it is winter) then why ever bring up that stupid conversion factor?

I'd say the EPA should hide that somewhere in a whitepaper and not make as if that is a useful thing for consumers to see.

Even a crappy EV gets insanely good range in MPGe vs MPG of a gas car. A more meaningful metric I'd suggest they use is the average cost of electricity for the US as a whole vs consumption per mile to give you an "EPA cents per mile" instead of MPGe.

Give me EPA rated range and EPA cents per mile and that's all I need to know (and they put that on the Monroney label anyway so I'm good.

That "stupid conversion factor" was brought up because it supports the statement that EV cars are necessarily more efficient than ICE.

 

[daniel]

To respond to the OP question, Tesla's lead in the EV market is substantial because it's about the only automaker that wants to make electric cars and it behaves accordingly. With few exceptions, everyone else is throwing out "concept cars" like squid spurting ink to cloud their confusion while they grudgingly sell a few not-very-good EV's because:
1. They have to,
B. They think they have to.
When (and if) legacy manufacturers get serious and decide they want to make EV's, Tesla's lead will erode. But that's a good thing. We'll all have more and better cars to choose from - and at more price points - as a result.
Robin

Nissan really does seem to be serious about EVs. However, Nissan has chosen not to compete in the same market niche as Tesla. Nissan is aiming for the low-price market while Tesla is aiming for the performance market. The issues with the Leaf are all related to the need to keep the car as affordable as possible. They really screwed up the initial roll-out, which is why, six months after my promised delivery date and no car in sight, and twice pulling the specific car they had assigned me and re-assigning me another, I gave up on them and got my Roadster. But I'm sure I'd have been very happy with a Leaf. It's a fine car for the price, and they're building them in reasonable quantities.

Tesla, though, IMO, has better technology and therefore better cars, if you can afford the price. But I might be accused of brand loyalty because I love my Roadster so much.

I just wish Tesla would acknowledge that their AP is sub-par (based on what I've read here) and contract with Google/Waymo for AP technology. My dream car would be a Tesla the size of my old '89 Civic and with Google self-driving technology.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Not sure this is a model 3 thread.

 

[joefee]

Don't forget to factor in Tesla's Global charging infrastructure, Tesla energy capabilities (including in house manufacturing capability, solar tile roof, energy storage), no legacy pension or dealership costs and the ultimate weapon: Elon Musk!

 

[FlyingKiwi]

Extremely flawed example.
Those companies admitted themselves that they are building flawed low quality gearboxes designed to break (common practice for ICE cars - make customer pay and pay and pay again for repairs 'till he or she buys a new car):

See Tesla problems with Roadster's gearbox, ~35:25 has the best part <- click this for a direct link to that part, or watch whole video:

"Our legal defense; we were always incompetent"

The problem was they went with a second rate transmission company*, and also went against the advice to just do a single speed trans , which eventually they settled on once they got Xtrac involved. If they had gone with a decent transmission manufacturer (ZF, BorgWarner, Getrag, Aisin, Quaife etc) They would not have had so many problems.

*that to be honest I'd never heard of, do they primarily do US domestic stuff? Might explain why people in the US seem to think transmissions are such a problem. I rarely hear of japanese cars needing conventional automatic or manual transmission replacements/major work if they have had even a modicum of servicing and not been thoroughly abused. (CVTs being somewhat new are a different story, but now are much better than the first generation handgrenades.)

 

[internalaudit]

I think you are totally overestimating Teslas advantages except in battery tech and supercharger network; and its more the headstart on the build out of the supercharger network rather than any inherent tech advantage IMO.

There is a massive pool of talent and experience in building inverters from a few kW to multi MW size, they just need to be poached from companies like ABB and Allen bradley. Sure, there are some differences between mostly air cooled stationery inverters and liquid cooled units for automotive but nothing that a decent team of engineers won't cope with. Toyota and Nissan already have a pool of talent from their hybrids and EV/FC programs too.

ICE companies have been building complex multispeed transmissions for years, an EV transmission is the simplest of them all, single ratio, no clutches, torque converter, valvebodies or synchronisers etc. You've pretty much eliminated everything challenging from the transmission, you have a handful of gears and maybe 6 bearings, and a casing to hold them in place and keep the lubricant in. Their biggest worry is going to be making it as cheap and easy to manufacture and assemble as possible.

You think the ICE manufacturers are struggling to build an EV.. I don't, I think they are struggling to design/build an EV at a low enough cost that they can manufacture in scale and sell at a profit.

I think it's much simpler than that. The drive motor unit is likely cheaper to manufacture or outsourced compared to the engine + transmission. What's holding car makers back is the cost of the battery because these are mainly sourced from Japanese and Korean companies. Toyota does mention solid state batteries will most likely be available by 2022. By then the battery industry could experience a significant shakedown. Tesla and others also patented zinc air battery technology so we may be moving away from Li-on.

Dealerships are going to feel the hit to their bottom line with fewer maintenance and upsell opportunities for BEVs too I don't see any first mover advantage for BEVs. Most are no better owning a Tesla from a pure financial perspective. Whatever money you saved on gasoline and oil changes are probably going to be eaten up by Tesla vehicle repair costs post-warranty. The only reliable BEV is the Leaf:
Nissan LEAF Named Most Reliable Car In Survey

Tesla makes cool and fun car and for now, people are willing to turn the other way for long service times and crazy expensive repair costs since most cars are still within warranty but Nissan, BMW, Kia/Hyundai and GM are slowly increasing BEV offerings, and this bandwagon is showing in the way stock prices of these companies are also slowly creeping up and will hit all time highs soon.

 

[anonim1979]

Well they said in that video "one of the biggest" I won't be arguing with it being top notch or second rate.
I have no idea if all those companies (or only that particular one) are competent (or incompetent ) enough for ICE cars and only Roadster's 2 speed manual gearbox was too hard for them. Quite a few pieces had to go right in it at once.

The point is at least that one argued in a court case that industry policy is to 'make worthless crap'.

 

[FlyingKiwi]

Well they said in that video "one of the biggest" I won't be arguing with it being top notch or second rate.
I have no idea if all those companies (or only that particular one) are competent (or incompetent ) enough for ICE cars and only Roadster's 2 speed manual gearbox was too hard for them. Quite a few pieces had to go right in it at once.

The point is at least that one argued in a court case that industry policy is to 'make worthless crap'.

Because what is said in a court case is of course 100% true and not spun to suit the situation.

 

[Topher]

I suspect it has more to do with looks since the Bolt has been getting very good safety ratings.

It certainly has a substantial effect on aerodynamics. And being smaller up front doesn't seem to drop the price of the Bolt any.

I have a refresh S and the frunk is about as useless as the web browser.

I wasn't commenting on its usefulness (since I have never used it), but on what its presence tells us about the engineering decisions. Sorry that wasn't clear.

Thank you kindly.

 

[jelloslug]

I think BMW actually has the record on efficiency with the i3, although some of the newer EVs are giving it a run for its money. Tesla is not really the top of the pack on that stat.


Edit: here is one list. Yes, the EPA could be considered a flawed test, but is certainly a consistent way to compare efficiency across various cars.
Fuel Economy

I can tell you that my i3 never hit the efficiency that it was rated at. My Leaf that I had and my Model S had no problems hitting it.

 

[AustinPowers]

Nope. We stopped in at the chevy dealer in Palm Springs last week. We wanted to take a look at the bolt. We have seen and test drove one before but that was last model year and we wanted to see if there was anything new. None at the dealer. Manager had one from the lot at home. None expected. No real interest. I don't know if it is like that at other Chevy dealerships but if it is, Tesla has no worries about Chevy getting serious.

That is so frustrating. Over here in Europe, or at least in Germany, Opel says "due to the overwhelming demand, we currently can't take any more reservations." That is reservations where, like with Tesla, you have to pay 1K Euro in order to even get a reservation!
I know many people who would consider an Ampera-e (Euro-Bolt), myself included, but GM just isn't able to produce enough to even insure that people who did manage to order one will get theirs before 2019!

 

[electracity]

Suddenly the Bolt is hot. Like the Bolt, Tesla's reputation will continue to be enhanced by a car people think they might want but can't buy.

GM is probably not going to export a lot of Bolts to Europe until they get the distribution deal they want.