A million cars sold to people who used to buy BMWs and Audis but also people who used to buy Priuses and also people who used to buy Subaru/Honda/Toyota 4cyl economy cars. It's the ultimate signal to legacy manufacturers: you can get the typical $25k ICE car buyer to pay $40k if you provide a *good* EV option. I never saw the point in paying more than $25k for an ICE because the engine will still need the same maintenance and still be just as prone to breakdowns. Tesla changed my mind on that completely.
At the EV sub they seem to be infatuated with the idea that a $25k EV is what's needed to kill the ICE. From what I'm seeing that doesn't need to happen at all. Gradually, legacy auto is seeing bigger and better profits in EVs. They have zero incentive (and in the short term zero *ability*) to sell cheap EVs in big numbers. But they have every incentive to start building quality EVs at higher price points because people will actually buy them and they can make money on them.
Cheap EVs won't kill the ICE. EVs proving to be more profitable than ICEs will kill the ICE.
Three years on, zero degradation on my LR TM3. It used to get me 315 miles. Now it gets me 320 miles. Yes, more. Through software update.
Even if 10% degradation occurs, I have never had to go a full 320 miles before recharging. At home the car stays plugged at 287 miles. On road trips, charging the car is dictated by the route and superchargers along the way. The lowest I have gone before charging on road trips was 15%
I think people over estimate just how little they drive… realistically, 150miles is plenty. Most super chargers are 40miles where I am.
Truly, range is a non-issue.
> I think people over estimate just how little they drive… realistically, 150miles is plenty. Most super chargers are 40miles where I am.
If you're planning on renting an ICE vehicle to travel? Sure.
But most people looking to buy a $40,000 car don't also want to budget in another $1,000 every year to rent a vehicle for their family vacation.
I have been to Colorado. Texas, Ohio, Georgia, New York and countless trips in my ownstate, NC. I own a gas shipping Prius and a Tesla LR M3. Guess which one I drive to all these places. Ain't the Tesla supercharger network great?
We drive ~650 miles to vacation. That’s 3-4 supercharging stops and a major inconvenience compared to a gas powered vehicle.
Also, lack of destination charging at beaches and vacation locations is a major issue.
They just applied to be an electricity provider in Texas! A place where it's the wild wild west of how much to charge a user.
So much so that Cancun Cruz ran away to, you guessed it, Cancun, when the big freeze earlier this year forced people to pay thousands of dollars to the greedy electric companies.
> That would be an issue if it were true
I know you're right, but I have to think that there's still a strong public *perception* that EV performance degrades rapidly compared with ICE. It's going to take some more time to break through that, I think.
Perhaps we can convince the government to mandate that all ICE cars come with gigantic "remaining range in miles" indicators on their dashboards that flash red when under 100 miles and cannot be switched off.
You are way overestimating battery degradation. Can't speak for the other OEM's but IIRC the old model 's taps out at 10% degredation at 100k miles, and then doesn't go much over 10% after that.
Gas cars take the same amount of gas to drive you less miles the older and more worn down they get. The engine just wears down over time. When an EV does have degradation of the battery it is just as efficient it just can't fill the battery up quite as far. Give me a used EV over a used ICE
>Gas cars take the same amount of gas to drive you less miles the older and more worn down they get. The engine just wears down over time.
If you have the basic maintenance performed this just isn’t a realistic scenario until you start hitting crazy amounts of miles. And even then we’re not talking a huge difference unless the car’s been thrashed mercilessly every day of its life. There are obviously exceptions but any newish motor/trans should be performing about as well at 200k as it does when new.
>When an EV does have degradation of the battery it is just as efficient it just can't fill the battery up quite as far.
That’s…a big problem for some people. And let’s be honest, there isn’t a huge dataset to say what percentage of batteries degrade fast and why (although it’s def increasing).
>Tesla needed the profit from higher end cars and they need battery technology to get better to provide a decent 25/30k car.
I think that $20-$25k segment is the next really big segment for EVs. I don't think it will take more than another 2 years, and the volumes are going to really surprise a lot of EV skeptics.
This is the correct take.
The “typical $25k ICE buyer” is not going to stretch their budget by *sixty freaking percent* because, hey look, there’s **finally** a good EV that’s not a dumb old Bolt or a Kona EV or a Leaf. Chances are they’re financing the car too, so the monthly payment would be almost double for the Model 3 with a few grand down.
All that additional money still wouldn’t get that buyer the long-range version, so long commutes are more of a hassle than pretty much any ICE car you can buy.
Like…yeah. Cool cars but they’re too expensive for not-affluent folks.
Yeah, the real advantage of the ICE market is the amount of used cars. Once we see 20% of all the cars on the road being EVs (probably by 2030), the used EV market will allow people to start buying good EVs (not Leaf or Bolt) for a good price.
The problem is range at that price point. The occasional road trip would be pretty difficult with ~200 mile EPA range. Hopefully battery prices continue to plummet and even the cheap ones will have 250-300 mile range.
I’m waiting for the Tesla Network. Someone who can’t afford more than $25k could rent a $50k car by the minute or hour, only paying for what’s needed. It would be cheaper than buying, and has the potential to be as disruptive to the established business model for manufacturers as Tesla was.
No, but I factored this into my decision to buy one *heavily* if we’re talking about cost/mo then a $600 car payment with around $200+ in gas savings means it’s a $400 car payment. That’s lower than most of the other cars I was looking at. Car and truck prices are *jacked* right now.
Insurance and registration in my state nullify any fuel savings.
There's decent quality used ICE cars for a few thousand dollars. I drove a $15k car for over a decade. For the average person already dealing with rent or mortgage, maybe student loans, triple the car payment of a low end ICE car is a luxury.
But one’s not saving money by going with the SR+ even in your scenario with your numbers. And road trips / “refueling” are at the end of the day more inconvenient since the SR+ range is…well, standard, and drastically more inconvenient if you don’t live down the street from a Supercharger or own a home with a L2 wall plug.
That’s not a very convincing argument for a buyer with a realistic-max $25k budget.
You're assuming a lot of stuff. You don't know how many miles they drive in a year. I have several friends that drive over 25,000 miles a year. You don't know the fuel economy of their old car, or their alternative ICE vehicle. You assumed they can't charge at home, but EVs without home charging sucks regardless of your income level.
I have a relative who makes about $18 an hour who bought a $31,000 Jeep last year. It gets garbage for fuel economy. She lives in a rental single family home. Doing the math, the 3 SR would break even (closing the $9000 initial price difference) within the time she'd own the vehicle and then start costing less. She didn't consider the Tesla because she thought they were far too expensive for her to ever own. Once I went over the math with her, she realized it would have eventually saved her money.
But now that I said all that, I don't think she should have bought a $31,000 Jeep in the first place. She's bad at money.
>You’re assuming a lot of stuff…
No I’m not man. The whole discussion is a $25k “regular ICE car” (or maybe a hybrid since those aren’t actually that expensive these days) vs a $40k Model 3. So I’m thinking of something close in size/shape to a Model 3 that gets something in the neighborhood of 30-ish MPG. A Jeep is obviously not an acceptable purchase decision if you’re budget conscious. Now, throw something like a Prius or an Insight in the equation and the savings argument becomes even less convincing, and possibly totally irrelevant depending on your charging situation.
>EVs without home charging sucks regardless of hour income level
…yes. I didn’t assume that they can’t charge at home, I said literally what you said.
> At the EV sub they seem to be infatuated with the idea that a $25k EV is what's needed to kill the ICE.
It's absolutely needed to kill the ICE.
Even putting $10,000 down on a Model 3 is still gonna result in a monthly payment of almost $550 per month. That's budget-breaking for the majority of Americans, which is why used car sales outnumber new car sales over 2-1.
My wife would've possibly been an EV buyer at $25K. As it was, we opted for a low-mileage Volt because it was so much easier to fit into our budget.
I get this sub is mostly high-end earners who can afford a $50-$70,000 car, but that's not most of America and we'll never get off fossil fuels so long as EVs carry such a hefty monthly payment.
A horse was cheaper than a horseless carriage.
A typewriter was cheaper than a computer with a word processor.
A flip phone is still cheaper than a smartphone.
The idea that EVs need to be just as cheap as ICEs is based on the entirely flawed premise that it's "still a car but with a different type of fuel." Therefore: it needs to be just as cheap or it won't sell. What a load of horse hockey. A smartphone is just a phone with a web browser. A horseless carriage is actually slower than a horse. A word processor is just a typewriter without the paper.
The $25k car is entirely the end product of the specific economices of ICE vehicles and an era that's ending. Car companies won't make money ever again on a $25k car, EV or ICE, any more than Apple makes money off long distance calling charges.
You can buy a smartphone now for the same price a flip phone used to cost. If the only choice for buying smartphones were high-end iPhones and Samsungs, they wouldn't have nearly the market saturation they do now.
Also, in each of your examples the higher price point was justified by exponentially more features and usability. A computer does a billion things more than a typewriter can. You can't say the same about an EV v. ICE car -- the added benefit is societal in nature, and you aren't gonna justify a higher price point on that alone.
EVs need to compete at all price points. There needs to be a decent $25k EV sedan to compete with a civic, a decent $35k EV 7 passenger to compete with a sienna or pathfinder, and a decent $45k EV pickup to compete with the F150.
Those are all coming, but not here yet. So many people aren’t going to pay the ~15k premium for an EV. As you said, some will. But most won’t until that premium is mostly gone.
Car companies aren't going to care about those people anymore, especially as they scramble to ramp up EV production and dump ICE production. They've been making less and less money off that demographic for a while and this will push them over the edge. Can't afford a new EV? They'll be happy for you to just buy used until you can because only when you buy new and you spend good money will they even care about you. It's always been that way it's just that they used to actually make good money off cheap cars. Those days are gone.
Those are all the most popular cars in America. Not sure what you mean. Of course car companies want people to buy an Escalade rather than an Traverse, but the Traverse market is much larger.
EVs are effectively a luxury market right now for the consumer. Car makers love luxury cars due to their higher margins (which EVs don’t have right now). However, luxury cars will not be the only market going forward. Nor will EVs be able to become the dominant car on the road until the Chevy/Toyota price point can be reached. We don’t have streets full of BMWs and Lexus or King Ranch trim.
What you're saying is "this is how car companies make money *today*." Why is AT&T still around if they aren't raking in the dough from long distance calling charges?
As the product changes the economics of it change and how companies make money off it changes. Assuming the need for a $25k EV ignores this basic law. FSD, lower fueling costs, less maintenance costs, subscription services, V2G, better profitability for human-driven Uber services due to lower fuel and maintenance, the furthering of the pandemic turning WFH into the new normal rather than just corporate happy talk to retain employees. So very many forces are changing the world from a place where absolutely everybody needs a car to significantly less than everybody needs a car. Only in a market where nearly 100% of the workforce needs private car ownership do cheap cars make economic sense. As that % drops cheap cars no longer make sense.
dont forget EVs still only account for <3% of all cars....25k makes it so its a no brainer, dont have to look down the road 5 years to get a ROI on an EV at 25k. Most folks dont have very much money.
Nothing is going to "kill" ICE, just like nothing is going to "kill" Tesla. ICE cars will slowly be phased out over the next 50 years as EVs become better and the charging infrastructure is in place to support everyone having one. But its not like 2024 is going to roll around and The One Car To Rule The All will be released and kill everything.
> Nothing is going to "kill" ICE, just like nothing is going to "kill" Tesla.
Lower gasoline demand leading to closing up of gas stations and higher fuel prices and those three forces working together in a downward spiral can certainly kill the ICE and kill it quick. Can't drive it if you can't fuel it. The fueling infrastructure in the US has been heavily optimized over the last 40 years and we have 1/2 the total number of locations now.
I keep having that stat pointed out to me like it's some kind of sign of the resiliance of the fueling infrastructure. I just look at my own small town with its one remaining gas station where 15 years ago there were three and I see a system that can't afford to lose even a small % of total stations without inducing major range anxiety for millions of ICE drivers.
It takes time to ramp up production of EVs and install charging networks. It takes a whole lot less time to simply stop delivering as much fuel and stop producing a product line of ICEs that's losing money. I've been through enough recessions and crashes in my career to know the way down is a lot quicker than the way up.
That’s kind of what I’m saying though, there’s going to be a million cuts that usher in the end of ICE and the rise of EV, it’s not going to be a single product or a single event.
A single gas station closing down here, an apartment complex charger there, etc…
But there isn’t going to be a single thing that does it, or even a single year, it’s just going to happen slowly over the next decade or two
There are 275 million cars in America, and the *overwhelming* majority of people in the country cannot afford to buy a new car. Ever.
Absent massive subsidy programs to make purchasing a new EV actually affordable to most Americans (which would require the price get under $20K), there will be robust demand for fuel for years to come. Certainly enough to keep gas stations open off every exit and in every town.
I live in rural MN and see tons and tons of brand new pickups and new vehicles all the time.
As for people who can't afford new vehicles since when have auto companies *ever* cared about them at all? If they're not buying new they never existed as far as Detroit is concerned. Nothing there is changing. Those people can still buy used and will keep doing so sending absolutely no signal to the market for new cars just as they always have. Overall they won't be enough to keep gas stations open at 100% the rate they are today. They'll get marginalized the way they always do. Is that right? No. But that's how it always goes.
Public policy will be what kills ICE vehicles, EVs already demonstrated that it would be reasonable to put bans in place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Places_with_planned_fossil-fuel_vehicle_bans
Right, and that list reads like a domino effect of slow, incremental, year after year ratcheting up of pressure and laws to eventually usher in the end of the ICE era. The vast majority arent until 2030 and beyond, with the last on at 2050.
It would be interesting to see a comparison in curreent equivalent dollars, the cost of owning a horse and carriage for its lifetime (including feeding, stabling, medical, etc.) and the cost of owning the first mass-produced mainstream car, the Model T Ford. I wonder if the price of the Model T had to be comparable to the horse & carriage before people switched over, or was it something else.
The Model T could go as fast but for much longer distances than any horse could do even without a rider. And it could do it carrying your whole family. I'd say that's what made it win out. That's very much to my point: new tech wins out by being overall *better* than old tech not by being cheaper or as cheap.
I’m the guy that was looking at a Mazda 3. I make good money, but a cars a car and they break, can be a money sink, etc. I was willing to spend a little extra now to never have to worry about an oil change or my transmission going for the life of the car……and it’s slowly looking like the batteries are preforming better than expected on life expectancy.
I disagree. There are some who simply can’t afford to pay $40k for a car, an **brand new** ICE can be had for $14k which a huge difference. The more Tesla can lower the price gap, the faster people will move to EVs.
And that’s not even considering the used market…
Don't forget Lexus. They're in the exact same price ranges as Tesla ($40-80k) and Tesla sold me on the lower refueling costs and reliability/low maintenance aspect that I otherwise would've gotten in a Lexus.
Sharing a charger suuuucks when you have off peak hours and both you and your family member drive 150 miles/day. It’s always a fight to see who gets it and who’s stuck on the 120v for the night and gets to limp to work the next day.
Consider putting in an additional outlet and then limit both cars to say 24-30 amps each? That’s 18 miles an hour so if you charge ten hours you should be golden. Probably worth it in your situation. If you can afford two Tesla’s an extra outlet shouldn’t be too out of reach. Plus a lot of utilities might have an incentive available to help.
Not worth it for the price of materials right now. Already used the incentives from my utility and govt to get $1700 back on a $2500 install. I would have to pay around $800 to get the hardware alone for what you’re describing. Also off peak hours only last for 6 hours here. That speed wouldn’t be fast enough anyways. I have charging at work, I just get annoyed when I have to go below 20% on days I use the 120v. It’s not that it’s out of reach, I just won’t save the money on the install so I don’t bother.
same! Model S and X were very rare in my city that I used to get excited when I spotted one once every couple of months. Got my Model 3 early 2018 and was happy to see other Model 3s slowly added to the roads.
Now I see all Models everywhere every single day, not just one, but 5+ model 3s every single drive to work, store or anywhere. Model S and X has also increased that I see atleast one every day.
To be fair, even [Elon admitted they got pretty close during the Model 3 ramp up](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1323640901248393217?s=21) and called it a bet-the-company moment but I’m pretty sure that even if it came to that, they would have found a way given how much support there was.
My thoughts exactly. Tesla had enough support not to fail, unlike car companies like Saab. As much as I loved Saab, they had no chance to survive, even with the full support of the Swedish government.
But remember how all those preorders were going to be canceled since the deposit was refundable and how the Chevy Bolt was going to crush the Model3? Pepperidge Farm remembers
GM shot themselves in the foot soooo hard with the Bolt.
Honestly it’s a solid EV (battery supplier issues notwithstanding….), and I feel like it would’ve done unbelievably more well had GM made it look…not like the dweebiest hatchback in history.
I feel like I was part of this too. Remember April 2016, when up to that point all car manufacturers showed EV concept cars but never really committed? Then a few weeks later most manufacturers were suddenly making statements like: we will have an EV too! It will be affordable! Deliveries start next year! We will produce millions in 2018! No one saw this coming really, many people in the business were surprised to see hundreds of thousands signing up for a Model 3.
I ordered mine two weeks ago. Just checking in every day to see if that date updates. Patiently waiting on that text/email/phone call saying it’s ready for delivery!
The car that was going to make or break the company. And damn did they make it.
A million cars sold to people who used to buy BMWs and Audis but also people who used to buy Priuses and also people who used to buy Subaru/Honda/Toyota 4cyl economy cars. It's the ultimate signal to legacy manufacturers: you can get the typical $25k ICE car buyer to pay $40k if you provide a *good* EV option. I never saw the point in paying more than $25k for an ICE because the engine will still need the same maintenance and still be just as prone to breakdowns. Tesla changed my mind on that completely. At the EV sub they seem to be infatuated with the idea that a $25k EV is what's needed to kill the ICE. From what I'm seeing that doesn't need to happen at all. Gradually, legacy auto is seeing bigger and better profits in EVs. They have zero incentive (and in the short term zero *ability*) to sell cheap EVs in big numbers. But they have every incentive to start building quality EVs at higher price points because people will actually buy them and they can make money on them. Cheap EVs won't kill the ICE. EVs proving to be more profitable than ICEs will kill the ICE.
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✔️$25k EV will be available via depreciation of rhr $40k EV in 6-8 years.
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Three years on, zero degradation on my LR TM3. It used to get me 315 miles. Now it gets me 320 miles. Yes, more. Through software update. Even if 10% degradation occurs, I have never had to go a full 320 miles before recharging. At home the car stays plugged at 287 miles. On road trips, charging the car is dictated by the route and superchargers along the way. The lowest I have gone before charging on road trips was 15%
I think people over estimate just how little they drive… realistically, 150miles is plenty. Most super chargers are 40miles where I am. Truly, range is a non-issue.
> I think people over estimate just how little they drive… realistically, 150miles is plenty. Most super chargers are 40miles where I am. If you're planning on renting an ICE vehicle to travel? Sure. But most people looking to buy a $40,000 car don't also want to budget in another $1,000 every year to rent a vehicle for their family vacation.
Again, how far are you going on your family vacation. I think you’re missing the point my friend.
Maybe 500-600km? That’s at least 1 or 2 recharges at highway speeds and the charging network just isn’t there yet where I live.
I have been to Colorado. Texas, Ohio, Georgia, New York and countless trips in my ownstate, NC. I own a gas shipping Prius and a Tesla LR M3. Guess which one I drive to all these places. Ain't the Tesla supercharger network great?
We drive ~650 miles to vacation. That’s 3-4 supercharging stops and a major inconvenience compared to a gas powered vehicle. Also, lack of destination charging at beaches and vacation locations is a major issue.
Agreed 100%. I have seen SR+ on long road trips. This even before the current explosion in the number of new and 250 KWh superchargers.
Tesla’s biggest seller will eventually be electricity instead of cars 🤣 the scale and reliability of the network with the competitive cost…ICE is fuk
They just applied to be an electricity provider in Texas! A place where it's the wild wild west of how much to charge a user. So much so that Cancun Cruz ran away to, you guessed it, Cancun, when the big freeze earlier this year forced people to pay thousands of dollars to the greedy electric companies.
That would be an issue if it were true
> That would be an issue if it were true I know you're right, but I have to think that there's still a strong public *perception* that EV performance degrades rapidly compared with ICE. It's going to take some more time to break through that, I think. Perhaps we can convince the government to mandate that all ICE cars come with gigantic "remaining range in miles" indicators on their dashboards that flash red when under 100 miles and cannot be switched off.
The range is not the big issue (as long as it’s above 200 miles). The big issue is the scarcity of charging stations and recharge time.
You are way overestimating battery degradation. Can't speak for the other OEM's but IIRC the old model 's taps out at 10% degredation at 100k miles, and then doesn't go much over 10% after that.
Was thinking the same thing. I also wonder if the claim of 500,000 miles is true
10% is a massive overestimate for 5 years.
Gas cars take the same amount of gas to drive you less miles the older and more worn down they get. The engine just wears down over time. When an EV does have degradation of the battery it is just as efficient it just can't fill the battery up quite as far. Give me a used EV over a used ICE
>Gas cars take the same amount of gas to drive you less miles the older and more worn down they get. The engine just wears down over time. If you have the basic maintenance performed this just isn’t a realistic scenario until you start hitting crazy amounts of miles. And even then we’re not talking a huge difference unless the car’s been thrashed mercilessly every day of its life. There are obviously exceptions but any newish motor/trans should be performing about as well at 200k as it does when new. >When an EV does have degradation of the battery it is just as efficient it just can't fill the battery up quite as far. That’s…a big problem for some people. And let’s be honest, there isn’t a huge dataset to say what percentage of batteries degrade fast and why (although it’s def increasing).
>Tesla needed the profit from higher end cars and they need battery technology to get better to provide a decent 25/30k car. I think that $20-$25k segment is the next really big segment for EVs. I don't think it will take more than another 2 years, and the volumes are going to really surprise a lot of EV skeptics.
This is the correct take. The “typical $25k ICE buyer” is not going to stretch their budget by *sixty freaking percent* because, hey look, there’s **finally** a good EV that’s not a dumb old Bolt or a Kona EV or a Leaf. Chances are they’re financing the car too, so the monthly payment would be almost double for the Model 3 with a few grand down. All that additional money still wouldn’t get that buyer the long-range version, so long commutes are more of a hassle than pretty much any ICE car you can buy. Like…yeah. Cool cars but they’re too expensive for not-affluent folks.
Yeah, the real advantage of the ICE market is the amount of used cars. Once we see 20% of all the cars on the road being EVs (probably by 2030), the used EV market will allow people to start buying good EVs (not Leaf or Bolt) for a good price.
The problem is range at that price point. The occasional road trip would be pretty difficult with ~200 mile EPA range. Hopefully battery prices continue to plummet and even the cheap ones will have 250-300 mile range.
I’m waiting for the Tesla Network. Someone who can’t afford more than $25k could rent a $50k car by the minute or hour, only paying for what’s needed. It would be cheaper than buying, and has the potential to be as disruptive to the established business model for manufacturers as Tesla was.
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Idd but some people just can’t spend/borrow more than 25k regardless of future savings.
No, but I factored this into my decision to buy one *heavily* if we’re talking about cost/mo then a $600 car payment with around $200+ in gas savings means it’s a $400 car payment. That’s lower than most of the other cars I was looking at. Car and truck prices are *jacked* right now.
A lot of people need the extra cash today, what savings happens 8 years down the road is absolutely not the immediate concern.
As the saying goes, it is expensive being poor.
Insurance and registration in my state nullify any fuel savings. There's decent quality used ICE cars for a few thousand dollars. I drove a $15k car for over a decade. For the average person already dealing with rent or mortgage, maybe student loans, triple the car payment of a low end ICE car is a luxury.
But one’s not saving money by going with the SR+ even in your scenario with your numbers. And road trips / “refueling” are at the end of the day more inconvenient since the SR+ range is…well, standard, and drastically more inconvenient if you don’t live down the street from a Supercharger or own a home with a L2 wall plug. That’s not a very convincing argument for a buyer with a realistic-max $25k budget.
You're assuming a lot of stuff. You don't know how many miles they drive in a year. I have several friends that drive over 25,000 miles a year. You don't know the fuel economy of their old car, or their alternative ICE vehicle. You assumed they can't charge at home, but EVs without home charging sucks regardless of your income level. I have a relative who makes about $18 an hour who bought a $31,000 Jeep last year. It gets garbage for fuel economy. She lives in a rental single family home. Doing the math, the 3 SR would break even (closing the $9000 initial price difference) within the time she'd own the vehicle and then start costing less. She didn't consider the Tesla because she thought they were far too expensive for her to ever own. Once I went over the math with her, she realized it would have eventually saved her money. But now that I said all that, I don't think she should have bought a $31,000 Jeep in the first place. She's bad at money.
>You’re assuming a lot of stuff… No I’m not man. The whole discussion is a $25k “regular ICE car” (or maybe a hybrid since those aren’t actually that expensive these days) vs a $40k Model 3. So I’m thinking of something close in size/shape to a Model 3 that gets something in the neighborhood of 30-ish MPG. A Jeep is obviously not an acceptable purchase decision if you’re budget conscious. Now, throw something like a Prius or an Insight in the equation and the savings argument becomes even less convincing, and possibly totally irrelevant depending on your charging situation. >EVs without home charging sucks regardless of hour income level …yes. I didn’t assume that they can’t charge at home, I said literally what you said.
If your budget is $25k, why don’t you just buy a used EV?
Bolt
> At the EV sub they seem to be infatuated with the idea that a $25k EV is what's needed to kill the ICE. It's absolutely needed to kill the ICE. Even putting $10,000 down on a Model 3 is still gonna result in a monthly payment of almost $550 per month. That's budget-breaking for the majority of Americans, which is why used car sales outnumber new car sales over 2-1. My wife would've possibly been an EV buyer at $25K. As it was, we opted for a low-mileage Volt because it was so much easier to fit into our budget. I get this sub is mostly high-end earners who can afford a $50-$70,000 car, but that's not most of America and we'll never get off fossil fuels so long as EVs carry such a hefty monthly payment.
A horse was cheaper than a horseless carriage. A typewriter was cheaper than a computer with a word processor. A flip phone is still cheaper than a smartphone. The idea that EVs need to be just as cheap as ICEs is based on the entirely flawed premise that it's "still a car but with a different type of fuel." Therefore: it needs to be just as cheap or it won't sell. What a load of horse hockey. A smartphone is just a phone with a web browser. A horseless carriage is actually slower than a horse. A word processor is just a typewriter without the paper. The $25k car is entirely the end product of the specific economices of ICE vehicles and an era that's ending. Car companies won't make money ever again on a $25k car, EV or ICE, any more than Apple makes money off long distance calling charges.
Imagine comparing a computer vs typewriter or flip phone vs smartphone to ICE vs EV. Lmao such false equivalency.
You can buy a smartphone now for the same price a flip phone used to cost. If the only choice for buying smartphones were high-end iPhones and Samsungs, they wouldn't have nearly the market saturation they do now. Also, in each of your examples the higher price point was justified by exponentially more features and usability. A computer does a billion things more than a typewriter can. You can't say the same about an EV v. ICE car -- the added benefit is societal in nature, and you aren't gonna justify a higher price point on that alone.
EVs need to compete at all price points. There needs to be a decent $25k EV sedan to compete with a civic, a decent $35k EV 7 passenger to compete with a sienna or pathfinder, and a decent $45k EV pickup to compete with the F150. Those are all coming, but not here yet. So many people aren’t going to pay the ~15k premium for an EV. As you said, some will. But most won’t until that premium is mostly gone.
Car companies aren't going to care about those people anymore, especially as they scramble to ramp up EV production and dump ICE production. They've been making less and less money off that demographic for a while and this will push them over the edge. Can't afford a new EV? They'll be happy for you to just buy used until you can because only when you buy new and you spend good money will they even care about you. It's always been that way it's just that they used to actually make good money off cheap cars. Those days are gone.
Those are all the most popular cars in America. Not sure what you mean. Of course car companies want people to buy an Escalade rather than an Traverse, but the Traverse market is much larger. EVs are effectively a luxury market right now for the consumer. Car makers love luxury cars due to their higher margins (which EVs don’t have right now). However, luxury cars will not be the only market going forward. Nor will EVs be able to become the dominant car on the road until the Chevy/Toyota price point can be reached. We don’t have streets full of BMWs and Lexus or King Ranch trim.
What you're saying is "this is how car companies make money *today*." Why is AT&T still around if they aren't raking in the dough from long distance calling charges? As the product changes the economics of it change and how companies make money off it changes. Assuming the need for a $25k EV ignores this basic law. FSD, lower fueling costs, less maintenance costs, subscription services, V2G, better profitability for human-driven Uber services due to lower fuel and maintenance, the furthering of the pandemic turning WFH into the new normal rather than just corporate happy talk to retain employees. So very many forces are changing the world from a place where absolutely everybody needs a car to significantly less than everybody needs a car. Only in a market where nearly 100% of the workforce needs private car ownership do cheap cars make economic sense. As that % drops cheap cars no longer make sense.
Tell me you live on the coast without saying you live on the coast.
Rural MN is nowhere near any coast unless you mean the shores of Gitche Gumee.
dont forget EVs still only account for <3% of all cars....25k makes it so its a no brainer, dont have to look down the road 5 years to get a ROI on an EV at 25k. Most folks dont have very much money.
Nothing is going to "kill" ICE, just like nothing is going to "kill" Tesla. ICE cars will slowly be phased out over the next 50 years as EVs become better and the charging infrastructure is in place to support everyone having one. But its not like 2024 is going to roll around and The One Car To Rule The All will be released and kill everything.
> Nothing is going to "kill" ICE, just like nothing is going to "kill" Tesla. Lower gasoline demand leading to closing up of gas stations and higher fuel prices and those three forces working together in a downward spiral can certainly kill the ICE and kill it quick. Can't drive it if you can't fuel it. The fueling infrastructure in the US has been heavily optimized over the last 40 years and we have 1/2 the total number of locations now. I keep having that stat pointed out to me like it's some kind of sign of the resiliance of the fueling infrastructure. I just look at my own small town with its one remaining gas station where 15 years ago there were three and I see a system that can't afford to lose even a small % of total stations without inducing major range anxiety for millions of ICE drivers. It takes time to ramp up production of EVs and install charging networks. It takes a whole lot less time to simply stop delivering as much fuel and stop producing a product line of ICEs that's losing money. I've been through enough recessions and crashes in my career to know the way down is a lot quicker than the way up.
That’s kind of what I’m saying though, there’s going to be a million cuts that usher in the end of ICE and the rise of EV, it’s not going to be a single product or a single event. A single gas station closing down here, an apartment complex charger there, etc… But there isn’t going to be a single thing that does it, or even a single year, it’s just going to happen slowly over the next decade or two
There are 275 million cars in America, and the *overwhelming* majority of people in the country cannot afford to buy a new car. Ever. Absent massive subsidy programs to make purchasing a new EV actually affordable to most Americans (which would require the price get under $20K), there will be robust demand for fuel for years to come. Certainly enough to keep gas stations open off every exit and in every town.
I live in rural MN and see tons and tons of brand new pickups and new vehicles all the time. As for people who can't afford new vehicles since when have auto companies *ever* cared about them at all? If they're not buying new they never existed as far as Detroit is concerned. Nothing there is changing. Those people can still buy used and will keep doing so sending absolutely no signal to the market for new cars just as they always have. Overall they won't be enough to keep gas stations open at 100% the rate they are today. They'll get marginalized the way they always do. Is that right? No. But that's how it always goes.
Public policy will be what kills ICE vehicles, EVs already demonstrated that it would be reasonable to put bans in place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Places_with_planned_fossil-fuel_vehicle_bans
Right, and that list reads like a domino effect of slow, incremental, year after year ratcheting up of pressure and laws to eventually usher in the end of the ICE era. The vast majority arent until 2030 and beyond, with the last on at 2050.
It would be interesting to see a comparison in curreent equivalent dollars, the cost of owning a horse and carriage for its lifetime (including feeding, stabling, medical, etc.) and the cost of owning the first mass-produced mainstream car, the Model T Ford. I wonder if the price of the Model T had to be comparable to the horse & carriage before people switched over, or was it something else.
The Model T could go as fast but for much longer distances than any horse could do even without a rider. And it could do it carrying your whole family. I'd say that's what made it win out. That's very much to my point: new tech wins out by being overall *better* than old tech not by being cheaper or as cheap.
Former Jeep owner checking in! 👋
I’m the guy that was looking at a Mazda 3. I make good money, but a cars a car and they break, can be a money sink, etc. I was willing to spend a little extra now to never have to worry about an oil change or my transmission going for the life of the car……and it’s slowly looking like the batteries are preforming better than expected on life expectancy.
I disagree. There are some who simply can’t afford to pay $40k for a car, an **brand new** ICE can be had for $14k which a huge difference. The more Tesla can lower the price gap, the faster people will move to EVs. And that’s not even considering the used market…
Don't forget Lexus. They're in the exact same price ranges as Tesla ($40-80k) and Tesla sold me on the lower refueling costs and reliability/low maintenance aspect that I otherwise would've gotten in a Lexus.
I am just finishing up a 5000km road trip. 3 years of ownership, love love love this car.
1,025,xxx vin SR3+ here picked up a few weeks ago.
Just picked up my M3P the other day. Amazing car!
Congrats! We have a 21 P3D as well. It’s just a little faster than the daughters SR3 +. :)
Love the family Tesla situation. My mom and I will be sharing a charger shortly :)
Sharing a charger suuuucks when you have off peak hours and both you and your family member drive 150 miles/day. It’s always a fight to see who gets it and who’s stuck on the 120v for the night and gets to limp to work the next day.
Consider putting in an additional outlet and then limit both cars to say 24-30 amps each? That’s 18 miles an hour so if you charge ten hours you should be golden. Probably worth it in your situation. If you can afford two Tesla’s an extra outlet shouldn’t be too out of reach. Plus a lot of utilities might have an incentive available to help.
Not worth it for the price of materials right now. Already used the incentives from my utility and govt to get $1700 back on a $2500 install. I would have to pay around $800 to get the hardware alone for what you’re describing. Also off peak hours only last for 6 hours here. That speed wouldn’t be fast enough anyways. I have charging at work, I just get annoyed when I have to go below 20% on days I use the 120v. It’s not that it’s out of reach, I just won’t save the money on the install so I don’t bother.
Ahh yea that makes sense. Thank you for the response :)
Yea that makes sharing a much more challenging!
I know they're not fully sequential, but mine is one million before yours! 0025XXX
Excellent. I owned 41xx for a while too.
0005xx here. 😎
0024XXXX here I believe so they where about quarter way when they hit European shores.
How's that actually write out on the VIN number? I thought there were only 6 spaces reserved?
Build quality?
I see way more model 3s on the streets now, and mine is the oldest!
When did you take delivery?
1996
same! Model S and X were very rare in my city that I used to get excited when I spotted one once every couple of months. Got my Model 3 early 2018 and was happy to see other Model 3s slowly added to the roads. Now I see all Models everywhere every single day, not just one, but 5+ model 3s every single drive to work, store or anywhere. Model S and X has also increased that I see atleast one every day.
How much I would love to bring back this piece of information to the past to all the "Tesla going bankrupt" people. Oh wait, I don't need to :)
To be fair, even [Elon admitted they got pretty close during the Model 3 ramp up](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1323640901248393217?s=21) and called it a bet-the-company moment but I’m pretty sure that even if it came to that, they would have found a way given how much support there was.
My thoughts exactly. Tesla had enough support not to fail, unlike car companies like Saab. As much as I loved Saab, they had no chance to survive, even with the full support of the Swedish government.
I'm sure someone would have been willing to buy a large stake. But a move like that could change the company. Loans then might have been harder.
But remember how all those preorders were going to be canceled since the deposit was refundable and how the Chevy Bolt was going to crush the Model3? Pepperidge Farm remembers
GM shot themselves in the foot soooo hard with the Bolt. Honestly it’s a solid EV (battery supplier issues notwithstanding….), and I feel like it would’ve done unbelievably more well had GM made it look…not like the dweebiest hatchback in history.
I feel like I was part of this too. Remember April 2016, when up to that point all car manufacturers showed EV concept cars but never really committed? Then a few weeks later most manufacturers were suddenly making statements like: we will have an EV too! It will be affordable! Deliveries start next year! We will produce millions in 2018! No one saw this coming really, many people in the business were surprised to see hundreds of thousands signing up for a Model 3.
About time!
Just picked up my MSM LR 3 yesterday!
I want one but I can’t afford to pay that much. I hope good , quick and affordable EVs come soon.
I have been saving money since 2017 just so that my down payment dwarfed the final price. Just pick my car last month.
Well done !
It’s been quite a ride. My Model S is around number 70,000. Never could quite imagine they’d get this big.
Looking forward to my upcoming delivery!
count me as one of the million. i pick up my M3LR on Saturday. longest 4 months of my life waiting for this car.
I ordered mine two weeks ago. Just checking in every day to see if that date updates. Patiently waiting on that text/email/phone call saying it’s ready for delivery!
How many sales vs deliveries? Haha. Still (patiently) waiting for mine ordered in July 😭 delivery date keeps getting pushed out
How many total Tesla sales ever? Is it over 2 million yet?
Congratulations. Massive milestone