Tesla makes huge price cuts to Model S and Model X

[ffr]

Tesla finally announced the long-awaited (and long-promised) $35,000 base version of the Model 3 on Thursday, but the company also dramatically reduced the starting price of its other cars, the Models S and X. Each version of those cars now costs between $12,000 to $18,000 less than they did earlier this week.

The Model S now starts at $79,000. That base version is now called “standard range,” just like the Model 3.
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Above that, Tesla now sells a long range Model S for $83,000 that can go 335 miles, has a top speed of 155 mph, and does 0 to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds. This Model S previously cost $96,000...And the Model S Performance with “Ludicrous Mode” now starts at $114,000, down from $132,000. Ludicrous mode shaves the 0 to 60 mph time down to 2.4 seconds. - The Verge

Tesla Model S nearly beats a £1,000,000 McClaren 720s, but stomps all over it up to the finish line.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Even the low, low price of $35,000 is about twice what I'm willing to pay for a car.

What's scary is that car manufacturers have done an excellent job of persuading Americans that they need to spend vast sums on such a depreciating asset.

[ZZenith]

3. Except this is a sea change type of product.

Tesla’s development costs are higher than established auto makers and once you factor in rebates and fuel savings it becomes more practical.

The internal combustion engine cannot die fast enough.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. It's still more than I can afford.

Electric cars are going to have to come out in the same range of prices that gas powered vehicles currently do for them to gain wide acceptance.

It's not just that I'm not willing to pay 35k for a car, it's that I can't afford that price. I'm not about to take out an 8 year loan.

My current car is a 2017 Honda Fit that I bought back in September. I've already put on some 7,000 miles, mainly because I make long drives on a semi-regular basis. I'm getting 30 something miles to the gallon, so a tank of gas takes me nearly 300 miles. If I'm driving from Santa Fe to Overland Park Kansas (something I've done twice since I bought the car and will be doing again in a few months) a range of 355 miles is unimpressive if it's going to take several hours to recharge. They're no doubt absolutely fabulous for in-town driving, but not for road trips. Once they can recharge not much more slowly than it takes me to fill a gas tank, then we'll talk.

[ZZenith]

6. Once you factor in fuel and maintenance savings it becomes a little more equal.

It’s also a chicken and egg scenario - in order to bring the price down they have to sell in greater volume and in order to sell in greater volume they have to bring the price down. Musk is a total loon but I think he’s been very smart about the pacing and pricing of Tesla’s products. Someone, thank gawd, has finally gone out on the limb and pushed the all-electric car into the mainstream.

Another ten years and the electrics will be way cheaper than gas=powered cars, batteries will recharge more quickly at readily-available charging stations and your grandchildren may have some air to breathe.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. The ability to charge quickly, as in no more than 15 minutes,

will be crucial. Let me calculate how long it would take me to drive a Tesla from Santa Fe to Overland Park. According to the Google it's 744 miles. Which is more than two times the maximum range. Realistically it would take three days: I drive to Guymon, OK, stop and recharge for 8 or 9 hours, then drive to Emporia, KS, recharge for another 8 or 9 hours, and then it's only about a hundred miles to Overland Park. The return would be something similar.

With my gas car I can, if I want, do the drive in one rather long day. In recent years I always break the trip, stopping on the way out in Pratt, KS, on the way home in Liberal KS.

Either people with all electric cars never drive more than a hundred miles at a time, or they also have a gas car, as the only Tesla owner I know has. Actually, I think she leaves the Tesla in Los Angeles, where she works part of the time, and has the gas car in NM where she also lives and works and goes on longer drives. At least the times I've seen her getting in and out of a car it's been a conventional SUV.
And the mainstream includes people like me, who can't afford even these cheaper Tesla prices, and drive hundreds of miles on road trips.

So, the range isn't the important thing. My Fit has a smaller gas tank than my Civic did, which means even though it gets the same or slightly better mileage, I need to fill it more often, which has taken a bit of getting used to. It's the time to fill the tank, recharge the battery that's the issue.

And how much does a battery recharge cost, anyway?

[ZZenith]

10. Clearly an electric car is not for you at the moment because of your semiannual trip.

But there are teams of scientists and bureaucrats trying to solve every issue you have raised because they understand that we have no other choice. We must wean ourselves off of fossil fuel as soon as possible and that process may include some inconvenience. The alternative is not an option.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. No, not semiannual trip.

More like at least a half dozen each year. Since buying my current car, I've been to Tucson, Denver, Colorado Springs, and twice to the Kansas City area. Colorado Springs is just within that 355 mile range, Denver and Tucson outside it. Next month I'm driving to Portales, NM, which is only 221 miles. I make all of those trips, and sometimes a couple more, every year. So a car I have to spend hours recharging after less than 400 miles is just plain stupid. Gas powered cars could probably be significantly more fuel efficient than they are. I happen to have zero sympathy for those who drive a gas guzzler and then complain about the high cost of gas. Which is why I own a Fit.

Yeah, I could stay home and never take any of those trips. Or I could maybe fly to a couple of them. Remind me again how much better airplanes are? And I'd still need to rent a car on the other end, so I probably wouldn't save any money.

You will be pleased to know that I'm making another trip to the Kansas City area in May, and for that trip I'm taking Amtrak. That's because the thing I'm attending is about a mile from Union Station. I would take the train to Denver and to Colorado Springs if I could. But I can't, not really, not from Santa Fe. And not to Colorado Springs at all. We need a lot more passenger trains on a lot more routes. We need that even more than we need to convince everyone to buy a 35k electric car.

I also did a bit of research about the cost of recharging electric vehicles, and it turns out that it can easily be at least as expensive as the cost of gas. And until every single electricity producing plant is run on renewables -- wind, solar, hydroelectric -- then the electricity itself may be just as bad.

And apparently, a lot of electric cars have a much shorter range than 355 miles, which would make a long drive even more problematical.

[ZZenith]

15. "So a car I have to spend hours recharging after less than 400 miles is just plain stupid."

Not nearly so stupid as continuing to burn fossil fuels with all of their inherent evils. I know that right now, as things sit for you, an electric vehicle does not make sense but for many people it does, and Tesla has been working towards making cars more affordable for those people. We will not soon be getting Americans out of their cars - it’s too ingrained in our infrastructure and our culture - but the rest of the world has been doing it while we fall further and further behind, and the cars they do make and sell are WAY more efficient than ours. Why is that?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Silly me.

I want to be able to travel 800 miles in less than three days.

Okay, so I should have said the car was "just plain stupid for me."

And my definition of affordable is still significantly less than 35k.

And the more I research EVs, the more I see they are not as totally wonderful as is hyped. They can be relatively expensive to recharge, even ignoring the current time factor. Tesla has an infrastructure of charging stations, but apparently newer buyers have to pay for charging. And even for those with "free" charging, there's some kw limit. Plus, there is still the issue of the plants supplying the electricity.

Oh, and I take public transportation whenever I can. I lived for seven years in the Washington DC area without a car. And this was before the Metro started running. I only finally acquired a car when I decided to return to school, and it simply wasn't possible to go to school, get home, and then get to work in any reasonable time frame.

If I ever relocate it will be to a city that has much better public transportation, that's for sure.

[ZZenith]

17. I appreciate the conversation PoindexterOglethorpe.

For decades the automobile made absolutely no sense for the vast majority of people and it remained a plaything for the rich until manufacturing techniques and refueling infrastructure made it feasible for the average person. “A horse, of course, is more dependable” was the common refrain.

Fast forward a hundred years and we are in a similar situation, except that owning and riding horses did not threaten our very existence. My wife and I were recently in the market for a new car and the idea of an all-electric made perfect sense for us - she is a daily commuter but rarely travels more than 50 miles in any given day. We live in the Pacific Northwest where we get our power through the Bonneville power station, which is churning out inexpensive electricity all night during the low-usage hours. After weighing all of our options and needs we settled on a Prius, but might have been tempted by the Tesla had this announcement been made earlier.

I am glad to see the trend towards long-range all-electric vehicles and feel Tesla’s moves should be applauded because it is movement towards the ideal even if it currently falls short of it for many people.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. My mother was born in 1916, on Long Island.

Her father worked as a gardener and chauffeur on estates for rich people there. He was an immigrant from Ireland.

In the 1930s, when she was a nursing student, another student thought her family was rich because they owned a car. Mom found that laughable, because they were far, far from rich, but lived somewhere that more average people already owned cars. Henry Ford understood that the best way for him to get rich was to make cars inexpensive enough that his own assembly line workers could own one. He started paying them a decent wage some time in the teens -- I think it was $5.00 a day and was severely criticized by other auto makers for that. Sort of like the guy who runs Costco is hated by the Walton family because Costco workers make a good wage.

When I decided to move to Santa Fe ten years ago, it was after considering various other parts of the country. I seriously considered the DC area, and had I moved there I would have given up car ownership and depended on bus, subway, and the occasional rental car. My younger son used to live in Portland, OR, which has an amazing public transportation system also.

[ZZenith]

19. Portland is an amazing city in many respects.

If I had to live in a big city, that is the one I would choose. Oregon is working towards making your 15-minute charge a reality, and before long the entire I-5 corridor will be EV friendly:

https://goelectric.oregon.gov/charge-your-ev

Our state houses and governorships have long been held by liberal Democrats, who now have supermajorities in both houses, so progress here has been steady. It will require the careful cooperation of both Industry and Government to see it through, but future generations will soon look back on gas engines as barbaric.

New Mexico has different geography and different demographics, but hopefully it won’t be too long before you’re zipping quietly up I-25 in your affordable and quickly replenished EV.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Thanks.

[Finishline42]

21. Your characterization of Henry Ford is a bit off

What actually happened is that Ford workers were striking for a higher wages and benefits and that's when Henry Ford came to the realization that if he paid them more they could become more than just workers but also customers.

I seriously doubt what drove Henry Ford was to become rich. People like that are motivated by other things than just money. Money is the byproduct of their accomplishments.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

24. Were they striking that long ago?

He instituted the $5/day in 1914, and I'm thinking that's well before the workers started unionizing.

Oh, here's a link to a very interesting article on that topic: https://www.thehenryford.org/explore/blog/fords-five-dollar-day/

[Finishline42]

22. I know of a Doctor that lives in Michigan and works at times in Eastern KY

and drives a Tesla S. One particular trip he has his car charged at the hospital in Eastern KY and drives to Louisville after he finishes his stint. The next day we meet and he lets me drive his S to the local supercharger location. We plug in and walk across the street to the local coffee shop and before we finish a cup of coffee he's up to 80% charge. We finish up and drive back to his hotel. He then starts back to Michigan. He has one more stop in Ohio somewhere - you don't really have to fret much - the car knows how far it can go and where the next supercharges are. Pretty much the same process for most people when they stop for gas and the bathroom after a couple of hundred miles.

BTW, you can still buy used Tesla's from their site where the supercharger is free. And your info is wrong about what it costs to charge up a car, but it is dependent on when and where. Plus EV's are the only car that you can provide your own power.

It pretty much doesn't matter where or how electricity is being generated, it's still a more efficient use of energy than a gas driven car. You can get your dander up about natgas, coal, nuclear or oil, but the very first thing that we should be concerned about is how we use the energy, how much is wasted.

[MichMan]

2. Everyone who currently owns one just took a big depreciation hit.

[ZZenith]

4. Early adapters must be prepared for that eventuality.

I am sure most understood that going in.

[kysrsoze]

7. Bodes well for me! I may buy a used one in 2 yrs. A friend just picked up a used '14 S for $35K.

Then again, everybody's going electric in the next 5 years. I think prices are going to continue to drop.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. Everybody will not be going electric in the next 5 years.

Even if the cost of the electric cars come down to the kinds of prices you currently pay for certain Hondas or Kias or whatever else comes in at a lot less than 20k.

Remember how long it took for cars that only used leaded gas to disappear from the roads?

[Quemado]

11. The Tesla Model 3 price cut does not change my mind.

Last edited Fri Mar 1, 2019, 08:01 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm not totally down on the Model 3. There are a lot of positives about the vehicle. It's just that for me that buying the Model 3 (or any other EV) does not make sense at this time.

That being said...

EVs will eventually have a lower acquisition cost than ICE vehicles. However, that day might not come for a few more years. If I had to guess, it would be around the year 2025, maybe 2022 at the earliest.

EVs still have a long hill to climb to convince people to buy them. A lot of us still have range anxiety. Some car owners are 1-car households, and at this time, it is not practical for all 1-car households to own an EV as their only car. Excluding the Tesla supercharging network, there are many places in the U.S. not well-served with chargers. Yes, you can get a home charger installed, but that only helps you when you stay local. Drive outside your range, and you must be careful where you go.

EVs have a tendency to lose capacity when the weather is cold. It's my understanding that, depending on the temperature, there could be as much as a 40% loss in capacity.

Also, there is a problem with EVs in general. There is no one standard for charging. There are numerous charging plugs and receptacles. ICE vehicles have basically one size gas inlet and can fill up at almost any gasoline pump.

My thoughts...

I am holding out until 2025, maybe 2023 at the earliest, to buy an EV. It's my hope that prices will have come down significantly by then, and a big improvement in battery technology has taken place, such as a solid-state battery, or a super capacitor, or some other huge advancement that:

will enable an EV driver to recharge the battery from 10% to 100% in 15 minutes or less; and
EV chargers will be be much more common than they are now.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Thank you for all that information.

As far as I'm concerned it makes no sense for me to acquire an EV until such time when the recharge time is 15 minutes or less. Especially as I'm one who goes on rather long road trips multiple times a year.

[NNadir]

14. Even at the "low, low, low" price equal to the annual wages of 43 Congolese, it's still...

...a piece of unsustainable bourgeois shit for distracted people who don't give a rat's ass about the semi-slave laborers in the "Democratic Republic" of the Congo who dig Coltan to make this consumerist fantasy.

The per capita income in the "Democratic Republic" of the Congo is $400/year.

Amnesty International: Electric Cars, Running on Child Labor

This piece of shit car, by the way, has nothing to do with the environment, except in the imaginations who have no idea whence electricity really comes..

Somehow the people who buy into this Trump style marketing have convinced themselves that solar and wind are 1) clean, 2) sustainable, and 3) significant.

The number of the 3 preceding claims that are true is zero.

The same people also believe that electric cars are "green." This too, is a Trumpian scale misrepresentation. The incontrovertible laws of thermodynamics require that a battery is a device that wastes energy.

The proportion of electricity on this planet that is produced by the combustion of dangerous fossil fuels is growing, not falling.

We have now seen concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in this planet's atmosphere exceed 412 ppm, and still people are burning electricity produced by gas and coal to market the junk produced by that appalling asshole Elon Musk.

It's a car. The environmental destruction wrought by cars is beyond imagination, and most of the cost will accrue to children not even born yet. This bit of three card Monty will have zero effect on the result.

[Finishline42]

23. I guess

Wind comprising 17% of the electricity to the Texas grid and 35% of electricity in Iowa is insignificant.

In a car with regenerative braking batteries actually provide a way to save energy. Normal braking in a car WASTES energy.

You must be jumping up and down some more.