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Shocked by the new Roadster rolling out of the Tesla Semi!
- Thread starter rudholm
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- Roadster 2020
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Luckily for the rest of us Tesla seems not to agree with you at all, so they are unlikely to ever make a vehicle of which you approve.
ElectricFuture
Member
Don TLR
Active Member
NO, Tesla should not make a Roadster "Lite" do any other manufacturers make a same body style for the entry level crowd, No, there's no Corvette Lite or 911 Lite, pony up the $$ or buy a Boxster.. 
NO, Tesla should not make a Roadster "Lite" do any other manufacturers make a same body style for the entry level crowd, No, there's no Corvette Lite or 911 Lite, pony up the $$ or buy a Boxster..
I think the Boxster option is exactly what he's looking for, though he didn't delineate the differences in styling specifically.
I think it's funny, reading all these comments, that many of us have visions of what Tesla should be/do/have. And all the while, Musk goes on the record with his exact vision: speeding up the transition to renewable energy. In this case, we have people second guessing the intent of the new Roadster, even though Musk said it plainly, to give the final smackdown to ICE cars. So with that being said...
Will Tesla make and sell a lot of new Roadsters? Nope.
Will the promise of new Roadsters influence Model 3 sales. Probably not, Model 3s are all but sold out for the next three years (er, sort of).
So what's the point of delivering this smackdown in 2017? To send a shot across the bow of all the other manufacturers, performance-minded or not, that either they step up their BEV game or they risk annihilation in the marketplace from the other makers that WILL embrace and upgrade their BEV offerings.
At the very least, hypercar manufacturers like Bugatti and Koenigsegg are probably considering full EV powerplants for their future cars. Koenigsegg already markets a hyper hybrid, so it's a reasonable move for them. Bugatti can barely fit all of the coolers and necessary items in to manage the huge engine in the Chiron, so making it even larger and more powerful will only go so far... and it still might not be able to out accelerate (at least to 60mph) the new Roadster.
Heritage performance manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche have years of tradition and loyal customers and fans, so they're not in immediate danger, but... now that the world knows that an EV will soon appear that will absolutely trounce their very best cars, well, they will be forced to respond.
Will Tesla make and sell a lot of new Roadsters? Nope.
Will the promise of new Roadsters influence Model 3 sales. Probably not, Model 3s are all but sold out for the next three years (er, sort of).
So what's the point of delivering this smackdown in 2017? To send a shot across the bow of all the other manufacturers, performance-minded or not, that either they step up their BEV game or they risk annihilation in the marketplace from the other makers that WILL embrace and upgrade their BEV offerings.
At the very least, hypercar manufacturers like Bugatti and Koenigsegg are probably considering full EV powerplants for their future cars. Koenigsegg already markets a hyper hybrid, so it's a reasonable move for them. Bugatti can barely fit all of the coolers and necessary items in to manage the huge engine in the Chiron, so making it even larger and more powerful will only go so far... and it still might not be able to out accelerate (at least to 60mph) the new Roadster.
Heritage performance manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche have years of tradition and loyal customers and fans, so they're not in immediate danger, but... now that the world knows that an EV will soon appear that will absolutely trounce their very best cars, well, they will be forced to respond.
Luxury / performance brands can switch quickly, especially if they become "yesterday's news." Ask Cadillac, Lincoln, Jaguar or many other of the top 5 brands from the 1950s and 1960s. The issue with Porsche is that they are too big to be a niche player like Lambo and are already behind H2H comparisons for the Model X vs. Cayenne or Model S vs. Panamera. The roadster will take out the top end "street" 911 turbos and it may be all over if Telsa releases a $150k version of Roadster 2.0.
Tesla could build a $100K Roadster version that would be a far better car than a base 911. Please Elon, build that car!
My point is that Porsche WILL build a sub $100k all electric 911, because of Tesla's new roadster. They have done a great job with the hyper hybrid 918 and the new 600+ horsepower Panamera hybrid, so a full BEV has got to be on the drawing board already (dating myself with that reference).
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
Porsche just need to replace the transfer case in the TT with two 50 hp per wheel front motors and a 4 (ish) K W-Hr battery to fill in corner exit torque gaps. Viola, a new and exciting car without all the weight, heat and range baggage of BeV. I think they would call it a sports car.
Define "better".
I'm not a Porsche fan per say, but if you hear people witht the wallet to collect cars, and spend/cell a million's worth of supercars per year, Porsches are actually really high quality. Durability off the bat with new models, and interior refinement. Also for their money.
They're doing a Panamera-like BEV soon which is targeting the Model S price point. They don't don't seem to be kidding around. Working on faster charging, etc.
Tesla may be the best in the world in getting traction from a given tire, but for the type of handling a sportscar owner expects, Model S is not exactly that. The orginal Roadster had a lot of Lotus DNA which really worked well for it. A ground up Tesla sportcar, whether that will be considered fun to drive to the clientele that is used to paying such money on sports car...remains to be seen.
Expensive cars sell in small numbers and require actual manual labor. The latter is Tesla's enemy, they fully intend to robotize all the jobs they possible can. Cost, cost, cost. They may have the engineering down to move the goal post on the industry, they are not a Bugatti or Porsche when it comes to cars that approach a Million.
Yes, Porsche makes very high quality cars. I’ve owned 6 Porsches. Within a month after getting a Model S in 2013 I no longer wanted to drive my Porsche, or any ICE car.
I think it would be relatively easy for Tesla to make a $100K 2+2 sports car that would be, on balance, a superior car to a 911 in that price range, for all the reasons I outline above.
I don’t care about track lap times (and I have raced on tracks, meaning not just done laps but competitive racing in VARA). I am talking here about vehicles purchased by the public to be driven on public roads.
By all those measures the new 2020 Roadster will very likely be a “better” car than the “supercar” vehicles it will be competing against. Cars in the Porsche 911 class are not “supercars”, but they are very good cars. The new Roadster will beat them. But that price class is beyond the reach of all but a very small percentage of all sports car buyers. I hope in the future Tesla can broaden their sports car offering and appeal to a larger market segment.
In my opinion, on balance, a quality long-range EV like any Tesla since the original Roadster is a “better” car than an ICE car in the same class. For example, on balance a Model S 100D is a better car than a Panamera because of the driving characteristics of the Tesla electric drivetrain, the user interface is simpler and easier, maintenance needs are far less, “refueling” takes less time (most of the time it just takes seconds to charge at home and road trips are easy), the Tesla gets regular software updates at no charge, the autonomous driving capabilities are far superior, it emits far less pollution (measured “well” to wheel), it can be powered by sustainable energy, I could go on and on (and I have numerous times on TMC in the past few years). All those factors make the Tesla Model S “better” than the Porsche Panamera.
I think it would be relatively easy for Tesla to make a $100K 2+2 sports car that would be, on balance, a superior car to a 911 in that price range, for all the reasons I outline above.
I don’t care about track lap times (and I have raced on tracks, meaning not just done laps but competitive racing in VARA). I am talking here about vehicles purchased by the public to be driven on public roads.
By all those measures the new 2020 Roadster will very likely be a “better” car than the “supercar” vehicles it will be competing against. Cars in the Porsche 911 class are not “supercars”, but they are very good cars. The new Roadster will beat them. But that price class is beyond the reach of all but a very small percentage of all sports car buyers. I hope in the future Tesla can broaden their sports car offering and appeal to a larger market segment.
