Is Telsa really that much ahead?

[Krugerrand]

And Mary Barra apparently delivered the Bolt without a campout at a plant suffering from "production hell".

Nope but she did go on about how GM was first to market with a long range more affordable BEV after she got all the specs from Tesla and then proceeded to not make any effort to produce them or promote them in a meaningful number or way promptly keeping it a compliance car so she wouldn’t kill her ICE cars in that segment. Let’s give her a standing O!

 

[democappy]

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.

This is where my mind is too. I have an S60 and 99.9% of my charging is done at home. When we go on long-trips, we take a non-BEV (or way more commonly, an airplane ). It is really nice that we CAN make these trips in my S, but it is not really that important to me. Almost all of my driving is local, so I am not spending a huge chunk of money to upgrade a car for the 1% use case when we have another car that can cover the gap. I could easily get by with <100 miles of range.

Different people have different needs and folks that primarily do city driving don't have a huge need for giant batteries.

 

[daniel]

I take one long road trip per year, because it's to an area where there's no commercial air service. I would have bought a Model S years ago, in spite of it's being way too big for me, if there were superchargers along the way. But for the same reason there's no air service, there are also no major highways, and so no superchargers.

I would take a half-hour break at a supercharger to make that trip electric, but I won't spend 4 hours at an RV park, so I drive the stinker. The minute there are superchargers on my route, the stinker will be sold. Sadly, I don't expect that to happen any time soon. Secondary 2-lane highways and small towns are a very low priority for the supercharger network. Maybe in a decade, by which time I'll be too old to drive.

 

[david_42]

Sort of, if you look at the side profile of a Bolt, it looks like they took out all the space the frunk would need, not that they filled the same space up. If you took the frunk out of a 3 it would have a profile closer to the Bolt’s. Some argue that Tesla increases safety that way, but I suspect it has more to do with looks since the Bolt has been getting very good safety ratings.

I agree 100% here. Tesla/Musk wants to build beautiful, efficient cars; not cars that shriek ELECTRIC and look dated in a few years. The Model S is the top-rated super luxury sedan AND it's electric. I'm seeing reviews that compare the Model 3 with top of the line ICE vehicles, not just other electrics. The Model 3 does extremely well in comparisons to the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C300.