TACC should be standard on Model S without EAP

[whitex]

Good - this is what we want and what Tesla wants. In the meantime, however, Tesla needs cash and like you say, the free market will allow it -- for now at least.

Right you are, when you're the only game in town you can charge a premium. That said, it is an option and people have a choice not to pay for it (as I did on the AP2 car - $5K not worth for TACC and auto-steer is far from safely useful as it requires constant attention to make sure you catch the whatever the low percentage of the time it's going to screw up - even Tesla says so with their warnings/disclaimers).

But I would just add that the competitors also need to catch up on building a fast charging network, with large banks of maintained fast chargers, before there will be any true competitor to Tesla, at least in my view.

Absolutely, this is by the way Tesla's biggest advantage today as cars like Bolt have already caught up and actually passed the Model 3 since the former is already available while the latter is still "coming soon". It's a little bit of a chicken and egg situation, no chargers means less EV sales, less EV sales means no need for chargers, But let's say GM was to throw some resources at it, how much do you think it would cost to match Tesla SC network? There are 366 superchargers in the US, if GM was to put $400M at it they could probably get there in a year, no? World-wide there are 871 supercharger, so less than a billion dollar barrier to entry. Problem for the likes of Fisker or FF, but not GM if they really wanted to get there.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Right you are, when you're the only game in town you can charge a premium. That said, it is an option and people have a choice not to pay for it (as I did on the AP2 car - $5K not worth for TACC and auto-steer is far from safely useful as it requires constant attention to make sure you catch the whatever the low percentage of the time it's going to screw up - even Tesla says so with their warnings/disclaimers).


Absolutely, this is by the way Tesla's biggest advantage today as cars like Bolt have already caught up and actually passed the Model 3 since the former is already available while the latter is still "coming soon". It's a little bit of a chicken and egg situation, no chargers means less EV sales, less EV sales means no need for chargers, But let's say GM was to throw some resources at it, how much do you think it would cost to match Tesla SC network? There are 366 superchargers in the US, if GM was to put $400M at it they could probably get there in a year, no? World-wide there are 871 supercharger, so less than a billion dollar barrier to entry. Problem for the likes of Fisker or FF, but not GM if they really wanted to get there.

They can eventually get there by throwing money at it, but not in a year. Tesla's been at this for years and the rollout still has delays from permitting. GM starting from scratch will take a lot longer to catch up, esp. given Tesla's a moving target.

 

[whitex]

They can eventually get there by throwing money at it, but not in a year. Tesla's been at this for years and the rollout still has delays from permitting. GM starting from scratch will take a lot longer to catch up, esp. given Tesla's a moving target.

Tesla started as an underdog and didn't have a billion dollars to throw at it from the get-go - they bootstrapped the SC network. If you set out to install 400 superchargers in the US and start all of them in parallel and have the budget to back it up, it could likely be done in a year.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Tesla started as an underdog and didn't have a billion dollars to throw at it from the get-go - they bootstrapped the SC network. If you set out to install 400 superchargers in the US and start all of them in parallel and have the budget to back it up, it could likely be done in a year.

Well Tesla now has money to throw at the problem, and even they won't be able to do their current network from scratch in a year (the current expansion is largely by expanding existing locations; new locations take longer).

Also, assuming the shareholders will allow them to throw disproportionate amounts of money at the problem seems extremely unlikely. GM has come up with a policy that charging is not their problem, and the shareholders aren't disagreeing.

Theoretically they can hire multiple teams to scout, solicit, sign, permit, build in parallel (and that's a big if, as there might not be that many personnel available to hire with experience in this area), but that's going to be extremely wasteful rather than a smaller team that can be sustainable for future expansions. Charging networks are money losers in the first place, so this makes things worse.

 

[Viking1]

The posters that said they were going to put the $8,000 in Tesla stock and wait on EAP and FSD are looking pretty smart right now (i'm not one of them). If Tesla is successful then their stock will go up and then can easily pay for the upgrade. If not successful they saved the money on the options, and the stock will still be worth something.

 

[xyeahtony]

Here we go, the same people complaining about autopilot. Just because autosteer doesn't work great for you doesn't mean its not a functional part of EAP. Just drove 500 miles today, autosteer on 90% of the time going between 85-90 and i wont lie i was distracted half the time #shrug and not once did i have a surge of adrenaline and fear for my life.

My $47k Lexus ES300h had radar cruise control as an option, wasn't even standard. This was a 2015 model. Had to pay extra for it. So no i don't agree that TACC should be a standard feature, its not a standard feature on most (if not all) vehicles. And none of the other implementations work as well as Tesla's, meaning they dont work under 26mph or in stop and go traffic.

 

[whitex]

Here we go, the same people complaining about autopilot. Just because autosteer doesn't work great for you doesn't mean its not a functional part of EAP. Just drove 500 miles today, autosteer on 90% of the time going between 85-90 and i wont lie i was distracted half the time #shrug and not once did i have a surge of adrenaline and fear for my life.

Just because YOU are willing to take the risk by driving and not paying attention, and nothing bad happened to you, it doesn't make it safe. 5 out of 6 players in Russian Roulette walk away unharmed, but it nobody will claim it's a safe game to play (well the 5 guys could write a post like yours - "I played and nothing bad happened to me")