So the Model 3 is real, and in prod: what will the naysayers shift to now?

[electracity]

I can buy 5-10 pieces of 10' 1/4" or 1/2" schedule 40 PVC put one end in the passenger foot well, and the other end stays inside the hatch on the drivers side with the hatch closed in my 2005 Prius (all doors closed and latched, all windows closed, you can even have a passenger in the front seat).

99% of the cars the naysayers compare it to couldn't do that.

A Tesla Model S can do it. My Nissan Leaf can't

I can load 3 times as many bags of mulch in the cargo area of the Prius as I do the Leaf. I'm thinking I'll be less likely to put mulch in the back of my first Tesla.

To me the 2004-2009 Prius was Reliability, Efficiency, Utility. Nothing in there about novelty. Real world practical use.

I hope the Model 3 will do for a run like that by doing the fold down rear seat into the trunk method but if not I'll have to keep an old gasser around that can or buy a CPO Model S. It's not my biggest concern. Worst case I have to borrow or rent a vehicle someday. Maybe I can get a self driving Tesla Model S or X or Y to pick me up and go to Lowes by then.

I have no clue what sort of novelty you think a hybrid or EV holds. It's just a car. I just want it to get me from A to B without breaking down and with some advantage in either initial cost and/or cost per mile after purchase. Once I'm past that I'll take range over other features (range is the best feature), then features over acceleration (the slowest Model S would still be the fastest car I've ever owned).

nov·el·ty
ˈnävəltē/
noun

1. 1.
   the quality of being new, original, or unusual.
   "the novelty of being a married woman wore off"
   synonyms: originality, newness, freshness, unconventionality, unfamiliarity;

 

[McRat]

PS - I used to carry 3 x 110lb bales of alfalfa (horse chow) in a Chevy Sprint. And it never broke even once in 180,000 miles.

That doesn't mean it was a great car. But it was better than a Prius because... Sprints were cheap to buy, cheap to operate, cheap to maintain.

 

[dhanson865]

What are you 12? Do you know what happened in the year 2000?

nov·el·ty
ˈnävəltē/
noun

1. 1.
   the quality of being new, original, or unusual.
   "the novelty of being a married woman wore off"
   synonyms: originality, newness, freshness, unconventionality, unfamiliarity;

Yeah but why would you use that word to talk about a car that's been around for so many years. It wasn't "new" when it hit it's peak sales. It wasn't wholly original, other 5 door hatchbacks existed before it, it's a minor tweak to the power train compared to the grand scale. It isn't that unusual, tons of cars look like it now and it sold in big enough numbers to become common.

It's like you take the comments about it from it's first couple of years and still want to use them about it now a decade later.

 

[dhanson865]

PS - I used to carry 3 x 110lb bales of alfalfa (horse chow) in a Chevy Sprint. And it never broke even once in 180,000 miles.

That doesn't mean it was a great car. But it was better than a Prius because... Sprints were cheap to buy, cheap to operate, cheap to maintain.

I bought my Prius for about $10K and in the last however many years I've bought a v-ribbed belt (~$23 put it on myself, 4 spark plugs, 4 tires, windshield wiper blades, air filter, cabin air filter. I can't see how anything but an EV could have less maintenance.

I still have it and expect to one day get rid of it still in perfectly usable condition.

 

[cdub]

They wouldn't have been able to afford one if they were that stupid anyway

Ha! there a TON of stupid rich people. They're a dime a dozen out here... Living off of Daddy's money or becoming a celebrity.

 

[kierants]

We have just seen the first pictures on serial number 1. It is a real car, and produced at the factory by Tesla.
So if you are a Tesla bear, what do you shift to? You used to say “they won’t make it to production” or “no way they deliver cars to customers in July”.

How about:
- Not being a traditional automaker, they will not scale fast enough, the number of deliveries will be low
- They will be of low quality because of unorthodox production methods
- Most customers have cancelled! Elon is hiding the real numbers!

I look forward to Tesla destroying each and every one of those attempts at bringing down Tesla and Elon. You are on, bears.

The model three cant get airborn and bypass traffic. This is a clear design failure.

 

[Waiting4M3]

I can buy 5-10 pieces of 10' 1/4" or 1/2" schedule 40 PVC put one end in the passenger foot well, and the other end stays inside the hatch on the drivers side with the hatch closed in my 2005 Prius (all doors closed and latched, all windows closed, you can even have a passenger in the front seat).

99% of the cars the naysayers compare it to couldn't do that.

A Tesla Model S can do it. My Nissan Leaf can't

I can load 3 times as many bags of mulch in the cargo area of the Prius as I do the Leaf. I'm thinking I'll be less likely to put mulch in the back of my first Tesla.

To me the 2004-2009 Prius was Reliability, Efficiency, Utility. Nothing in there about novelty. Real world practical use.

I hope the Model 3 will do for a run like that by doing the fold down rear seat into the trunk method but if not I'll have to keep an old gasser around that can or buy a CPO Model S. It's not my biggest concern. Worst case I have to borrow or rent a vehicle someday. Maybe I can get a self driving Tesla Model S or X or Y to pick me up and go to Lowes by then.

I have no clue what sort of novelty you think a hybrid or EV holds. It's just a car. I just want it to get me from A to B without breaking down and with some advantage in either initial cost and/or cost per mile after purchase. Once I'm past that I'll take range over other features (range is the best feature), then features over acceleration (the slowest Model S would still be the fastest car I've ever owned).

I value my 2004 Prius for the same reasons. I bought it just for the fuel efficiency, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how much it can carry, the technology, and how reliable it is. Keyless entry/start and BT integration were quite new at 2004. The only things that broke over 13 years and 160K miles were the AC compressor that got punctured by road debris, and 2 dead 12V batteries when I left the lights on in the car, I'm still on the original brake pads.

Around 3 years ago I started thinking trading up for newer cars, but just didn't see anything that is as efficient, useful, and reliable as the Prius. That is until I heard about the M3. The trunk space will not be able to compete with Prius, but my lifestyle has evolved and I don't fold the backseat down much these days. On everything else, the M3 will be a major upgrade than the Prius. In the absence of the M3, I might have considered the Bolt, Leaf, or the 2nd gen Volt, but now it's M3 or bust for me.

 

[mmd]

Tesla Model 3 will not arrive until ‘very end’ of 2018, says once TSLA-cheerleader Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas • r/teslamotors
And you also have a Business Insider article claiming the same if you google "Tesla won't produce any Model 3 until 2018"

Sorry, can't find the business insider article by searching with that. Please provide the link if you have one.
You are also pointing to an electrek article written by an author who perpetually wears his opaque rose colored glasses when writing about Tesla. But more importantly, Adam Jonas is a Tesla uber bull, not a bear. He invents non-existent businesses to justify his high price target for Tesla. He probably meant meaningful M3 volume in 2018. Have to find the original wordings, not the electrek interpretation.

Here is a more neutral recent piece about Jonas' target for M3 this year.
Tesla Model 3 Production Targets Provoke Sceptics

Morgan Stanley predicts only 2,000 Model 3s will be delivered this year, and 90,000 next year, which is less than half its forecast three months ago.

He predicts 2000 M3 deliveries in 2017, not zero. He may be sand bagging, so if Tesla delivers 2001+ M3 in 2017, he will come back and raise the price target to $5000, saying "See! Tesla did the impossible! It is ahead of my prediction! Time for another cap raise to speed things up even more". Or he could really have inside info from talking to management. Before Elon tweeted the reduced ~30 cars in July, someone here on TMC was already reporting that the internal target was 50 cars in July, not thousands of "mass produced" M3.

At the end, M3 deliveries in 2017 could end up close to Jonas's targets, a soft launch barely good enough to vest another $1.6B of options for Elon and more options for other top execs. Never mind that the target was publicly set at 100k-200k M3 this year one year ago, right before a big round of capital raise back in May 2016.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

California's government is not exactly famous for keeping their word to the citizens.

We will see. I hope it's not cut for good, but you cannot predict what Sacramento will do.

They may not be famous for it, but we've been here before.

Clean vehicle rebate funding reinstated

 

[Barklikeadog]

In replying to the first post...
I think the naysayers had other issues... And by naysayers I mean actual critics and financial peeps.
1. Tesla is burning through cash, will run out soon.
2. Not enough service centers to handle the model 3s. Any problems will be a mess.
3. Tesla will not produce 500k cars in 2018.
4. Quality control will suffer

 

[tsla007]

must produce exactly or more aggressively than stated.

 

[JeffK]

In replying to the first post...
I think the naysayers had other issues... And by naysayers I mean actual critics and financial peeps.
1. Tesla is burning through cash, will run out soon.
2. Not enough service centers to handle the model 3s. Any problems will be a mess.
3. Tesla will not produce 500k cars in 2018.
4. Quality control will suffer

In their defense, these are legitimate issues. Assuming a good ramp up, the cash thing will sort itself out over time as long as Tesla doesn't overextend itself.

 

[electracity]

3. Tesla will not produce 500k cars in 2018.

I don't think falling short really matters in the long run. There needs to be confidence in the quality and quantity of the model 3 by mid 2018. They probably don't need to build 400K Model 3 in 2018. The model 3 will never fund Musk's aggressive growth plans.

But there is no reason that Fremont can't build 40-50K cars per month. The questions is the degree to which they have been able to successfully spend money to rush the development process.

The next phase of factory building will be fascinating.

 

[JoaoD]

Sorry, can't find the business insider article by searching with that. Please provide the link if you have one.

Here is the link: Full production of Tesla's supercheap Model 3 won't happen until 2018
It may be an old article, but still says that Model 3 won't be available until 2018 as you asked for, more so if you only read the title. If you want quotes from this forum saying Tesla won't be able to produce any Model 3 this year I think I will be able to find some too!

 

[internalaudit]

So we are suppose to believe this article, written by an outsider?

 

[JoaoD]

So we are suppose to believe this article, written by an outsider?

If that is in reply to the article I posted, my response follows from the original request:

Please point to just a SINGLE claim like that, claiming Tesla won't produce any M3 till 2018.The OP started off with a made up bear argument, but subsequent points are somewhat valid.

Nor the claim nor the articles share my opinion, that we will have at least one Model 3 produced by 9th of July 2017

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

PS - I used to carry 3 x 110lb bales of alfalfa (horse chow) in a Chevy Sprint. And it never broke even once in 180,000 miles.

That doesn't mean it was a great car. But it was better than a Prius because... Sprints were cheap to buy, cheap to operate, cheap to maintain.

You're in luck! A gen ii Prius is now cheap to buy, cheap to operate, and cheap to maintain.

 

[Barklikeadog]

I don't think falling short really matters in the long run. There needs to be confidence in the quality and quantity of the model 3 by mid 2018. They probably don't need to build 400K Model 3 in 2018. The model 3 will never fund Musk's aggressive growth plans.

But there is no reason that Fremont can't build 40-50K cars per month. The questions is the degree to which they have been able to successfully spend money to rush the development process.

The next phase of factory building will be fascinating.

I'm looking at it from a numbers perspective. We are talking about a 20% difference between projected numbers and reality.
At some point investors will say enough is enough. Other automakers are down 3%, still making billions, and they get whacked.
Apple makes all time record profits, but comes in a fraction under expectations, and they get beat up for a week.
I think it is a valid critique to say that the honeymoon is nearing an end and they can't simply dismiss being off by 20%.

 

[deonb]

Most people who own a phone can survive a day or two without their cellphone (shocker). Most people who own and use a car cannot survive a day or two without their car, especially in places where public transportation is a joke/nonexistant.

Well I'm in that exact bucket (cellphone more important than car), but that's beside the point.

For most people, the cases where an EV needs to charge any faster than 8 hours doesn't overlap with the "cannot survive a day or two" scenarios.

 

[e-FTW]

Most of this is fantastic discussion. And most of it is on topic! ;-)