Not a big deal, but the Diesel V8 was used in the Toronado, which was a two door coupe, not a sedan. My buddy had one.

When the engine eventually blew in the mid '80's, he put a gasoline engine in. Funny as hell to hear it start as the starter & flywheel was for a diesel. It spun like your Tesla's wheels do on acceleration.

Zero more full months until the start of production.

Hah.

Yeah they used that terrible engine in a bunch of cars. I actually owned an '85 Toronado (not a Diesel though). Very cool car. Cherry red leather interior. Digital dash. And it talked. It would tell you in an 80s speak-and-spell voice if your fuel was low or your door was ajar. My wife drove it through a fence into a cow pasture in Canada. R.I.P. (The car, not the wife)

My Dad bought a 1983 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royal Brougham Coupe Diesel. I remember the name because I thought it was so ridiculous it was funny....in fact my friends in high school used to make me repeat it and we'd all laugh.

That thing was a BOAT...but it saved my Mom's life in an accident.

OK I have to admit it... I drove an electric car and had fun doing so. I did not even have a drivers license! I was about nine or ten years old I guess. And it was in Sandusky Ohio, Cedar Point's Dodge Em cars.

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Why do you claim range of 250 miles and the Tesla website only 215???

https://www.tesla.com/model3

"Model 3 combines real world range, performance, safety and spaciousness into a premium sedan that only Tesla can build. Our most affordable car yet, Model 3 achieves 215 miles of range per charge while starting at only $35,000 before incentives."

The manufacturer claims are conservative, as they don't know what your driving conditions will be. GM says the range on my Volt is 53 miles, but in the summer I routinely get 60+ miles per charge.

Yeah, I know what you mean. You should try the newer electric go karts, they are an absolute blast, with the added benefit of not having to huff the fumes off those gas beasts.

Maybe looking at a '15 p90d with ludicrous mode at 10,000 miles local to me. Is an individual not a dealer. I've never driven one. Not sure I can stomach the kind of money he's wanting. It is pretty loaded as far as I can tell.

What kind of price would be a reasonable one to expect? I looked on nada and saw some numbers but not sure how accurate they are as just not many Teslas around in my neck of the woods.

I would love to grab it for $80k just not sure if that is realistic. I might be really off. I've yet to contact the person as I dont. want to come off as an idiot which isn't hard to do if you're me!

I'm so happy I am that out of all that I wrote, /that/ was the single thing you found to have an issue with.

They're required to use EPA estimates which as noted before are lower than actuals. But in reality there are so many variables when you drive (any kind of power, not just electric) - terrain, road surface, wind, how heavy your foot is, traffic, temperature, air pressure... they're just estimates.

I mean, someone got 400 miles on a single charge in a Tesla Model S, but they had to drive 25 miles per hour to do it!

Personally if I drive in a sane manner, I get better than EPA estimates.

I love Tesla as a company. Love the fact it's no longer Tesla Motors but they encompass all aspects of a smart business model. They provide the solar to capture the energy, the battery power to store it and the cars to use it. No other company in the world does all three like this. I have believed in them for a few years now. Picked up the stock at $48/share back in early 2013. Holding on to that one. And, my Solar City stock also converted to Tesla stock. Now, I love their cars but I also like driving my V8 powered classic 1965 Corvette too. I think I might pick up a model 3 after the hoopla settles down at launch.

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I've never bought or sold a used Tesla, but you can at least look at KBB.com for what they think the price should be. I think they're pretty accurate, at least as accurate as Pinside's market rates. eBay completed sales can be useful too, but I just don't know how many Tesla's are sold there.

That is a beautiful ride, tdwin.

thanks. The weather here in S Florida is SO hot and muggy. I only drive it about 3 months out of the year.

Your car looks nice, I always liked the cars from the 50's with the fins and a LOT of chrome. The model 3, my friend who lives in the San Francisco area, said she has seen at least one of them driving around (test models by Tesla employees prior to it's release). Starting in July, the first model 3's will be sold to mostly Tesla employees and regular rollout will then begin. I'm excited first to see them hit the streets and second as I own Tesla stock. Currently, the Chevrolet Bolt all electric is on sale here but they aren't selling as many as they had hoped for. I saw one online and my opinion of the Bolt...typical GM garbage (a LOT of plastic) and the car isn't cheap at about $46000.

I can give these numbers with precision, as we bought a used Nissan Leaf recently for a whole host of reasons. The biggest reason, however, was the amount of money I was projecting we would save. Used Leaf cost $7600. And, before the argument, like a friend just had with me, that "proves" that it's a terrible investment, thanks to incentives in many states right now, new Leafs start at $13000 (even Wisconsin has a $10,000 dealer rebate for some reason). In that case, a four year old car that only loses a couple thousand bucks? Not bad.

Additionally, and I haven't run the numbers for this week yet, we save on average a touch above $20 per week on fuel compared to electric costs. Regular weeks, we're over $25 in savings.

That number does not factor in the cost for oil changes, transmission flushes, or a bunch of other stuff we don't have to do for it. At the end of the year, we'll save $1000+ in costs just for the fuel alone. Not to mention time too!

Exactly. My brother-in-law said that our Leaf was like owning a Smartphone that happened to be a car, and it's a great comparison point. You take it home, plug it in, and you're done. It's so much easier than our traditional cars.

Think about how fast Smart Phones caught on. I was a hold out on that, just because I didn't want the cost of buying one, and it was six years from the point when I didn't have it as an option at all to the point that I ended up with my first one. I expect electric cars will work near the same way, and I expect the Model 3 is the first step in that process.

Here's the other side of it too, unlike a lot of those other technologies that you named, electric car adoption will raise the price of everything else with traditional vehicles. Every additional EV on the road impacts gas demand. Gas won't have the ability to drop to a place cheap enough to encourage people to use it over the cost of an EV. Gas would have to be at about 50 cents a gallon before it would be cheaper to drive our gas car than our Leaf. Instead, you have gas stations that are selling less and less gas with other fixed prices, so they start to go away, resulting in less convenience to get gas for drivers. And again, no matter what, getting gas is less convenient than my plugging in at my house at the end of a day, so it has no way to win.

Auto driving cars play a huge role because when they take over, it could very easily be just as cheap to ride in a shared auto car than it would be to pay to drive a gas car (especially when factoring in for insurance and maintenance).

Eventually, there will be a tipping point where gas it going to need to start going up in price a lot to keep up. Once that happens, it's over.

Those that value Tesla high say that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a technology company. Comparing what will happen with traditional automakers or electric car manufacturers from 100+ years ago simply isn't a factor here.

Did anyone else read that insurance companies are raising the rates on Tesla's by 30% because they have more claims then other car makers? I would not have expected that.

I'm going to call myth on that one.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-04/aaa-raises-premiums-teslas-saying-owners-file-claims-abnormally-high-rates

Written by a guy calling himself "Tyler Durden" -- Doesn't exactly scream objective and professional journalism.

The insurance on my Model S is less than it was on my Challenger.

It's only AAA right now, and I can tell you from having AAA as an insurer for many years now, at least in my minimal interactions with them, it always seems like they are winging it. I wouldn't be surprised if they are only insuring like 100 Teslas and have had a slightly higher than average issue rate with them, and used that as the basis.

Not to reply to my own thoughts... But, well...

This got me thinking... Another reason insurance companies of any type might try to stop Tesla's from looking attractive in the market is that if (really, when) autonomous driving tech catches on, what will that do to insurance company profits. If right now, in Beta, when using autonomous driving the car is already 40% safer than a human, what happens in five years or whenever adoption of autonomous vehicles becomes widespread?

If my car driving for me drives down insurance rates greatly, and / or if I don't really need a car because carsharing an autonomous car is so cheap why bother, then what happens to insurance company profits?

goatdan I think your point about carsharing is the bigger concern for insurance companies. If the number of people needing car insurance drops by even 20%, which is very plausible the bottom line to the insurance companies would take a huge hit. Ramifications to the transportation industry will be unprecedented in the next 20 years: Taxi, Uber and Semi drivers all looking for jobs - Car to Car communication eliminating accidents reducing jobs - People traveling at night (no need for a driver) eliminating airfare. On the other hand if anyone can grab a autonomous ride for pennies maybe more cars will be crowding the streets.

Not sure how much impact that will have...some...on really short flights. It will still take a long time to drive cross country when you can fly in hours. Hell it takes 21 hours for me to drive to Florida nonstop...2 1/2 hours by air.

Well your Challenger SCREAMS muscle car... is it a HELLCAT or just a HEMI.
I don't know how value of each car compares.
I now wonder about the cost to replace the battery pack if damaged in a collision, and how well protected it is.
Is that battery cost a factor in insurance rates???

BTW I pay twice as much for my Panoz Esperante than for my Corvette. Value of the car and cost to repair.
Also being one of 235 cars over six years, made may put it into the exotic class.

So here is the big question: if they intend to start deliveries in July, how do they also intend to not release the configurated before end of July? Are the first couple thousand cars configured in some dark room?

I stood in line on the launch day! Hopefully I will be at the front of the build line.

Behind Tesla employees, Space X employees, current and previous Tesla owners, all deliveries to the West Coast......
Would not call that front of line

I see Tesla wants to get their cars out for the world to see.

In case anyone missed it:

-Deliveries start in July
-The first people to buy will have 2 options, wheel size and color
-A schedule of when other upgrades will be available at launch
-AWD has a slight chance of coming this year, but realistically early next (hopefully very early next)

This shouldn't be an issue for most people. Most people probably wouldn't have got their car much sooner than October or November anyway, so waiting until February (speculative) for AWD for example shouldn't be that big a deal.

I'm waiting for AWD. I'm willing to wait a little bit for a panoramic roof, but not very long, I'm hoping it drops before AWD. I also want black seats and a stereo upgrade, hopefully all those are available so I can order all those in February-ish.

Oh, once that goes live, I expect the revolution to be ridiculously fast. It's estimated that the US only actually needs about 25 million cars to handle all the driving if people could auto share.

I went to the beach this last week Sunday. It was crazy busy, it was insane to find parking, and it was very stressful. Imagine instead, the car drops you off, then picks up the next group of people and leaves with them. It would be amazing. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Auto ownership will crash. Auto insurance will crash. Parking lots won't be needed, or at least much less of them. Jobs fixing card would go down exponentially. It would be quite the revolution. I would hope that it would start us perhaps down two paths:

1) the need to do less work. Yeah, we've all got jobs, but if we can automate a huge chunk of our life and that automation is exponentially cheaper than it was when we did it ourselves, why not? Renewable energy (where once it's up, it just does its thing for a long time without needing people to shovel or transport fuels) and self driving cars will eliminate the need for tens of thousands of jobs, but save everyone tons. If we can turn that into a 30 hour work week or somethint and still end up with the same level of services, man... I know a million people with jobs and kids that would practically kill for that...

2) the ability to do our own thing. After 18 years of running my own side business (retro video game resale), we have finally grown the company to the point that I am going to try to do it basically half time next year and think about going full time in the future. An extra ten hours? I could pursue a lot more of my own stuff.

If we're not crazy about it, sounds like freedom to me.

They do. In fact, the world wants them so much that they are starting delivery of this one six months earlier than originally planned, and have thousands of in house preorders that are expected to be able to "bug test" the cars as production ramps.

I don't know of any other car companies that have 400,000+ preorders for a car that almost no one has sat in or driven, much less seen what the final price is. And for the record, they did that with zero commercials. You obviously heard of them, can you name the most recent mid sized sedan from the majority of the other auto makers? I sure as hell can't. That in itself in incredible.

And for the record, the whole screen in the middle thing, I had to take my old Nissan Sentra for a long drive this past weekend and I realized I check the center console of that thing more often than my speed. It shows the time over there, and I'm constantly curious about how long I've been stuck in the car, and so I check it pretty often. The center mounted model 3 console? If I get one, I'll be used to it in about five minutes.

Sorry deleted post found my own reply. Google is your friend.

Those people have never PRE-ORDERED a pinball machine like Predator, Magic Girl, and Alien..

This.

Tesla pulled off the most successful product launch in human history with no advertising.

It amazes me that people don't give Tesla the credit they deserve for this astounding feat.

Let's not forget that, at the time of the pre-order weekend, many auto industry insiders and stock analysts didn't think Tesla could launch the Model 3 in December of 2018 let alone December of 2017.

It amazes me even more that Toyota, which made so much money selling the Prius, not only has turned their back completely on electric, but recently divested of Tesla (which led to another bump in Tesla's stock price). You'd think they of all automakers would realize that the public is starved for a good looking electric car in a Prius price range.

No need to shout.

I hope you're joking, because that's an incredibly silly statement.

Bob, you have a really unusual car from a miniscule handmade American luxury automaker. Presumably you want whatever company made it to succeed? What's with all the hate, scorn and attitude towards one of the best examples of American engineering we've had in decades? I don't get it.

I don't know what this has to do with anything.

There is a surprising amount of demand out there for electric cars, and it is growing as more people learn about how they actually work. A lot of people think, as some people in this thread do, that an electric car is like a cell phone, and after a year the battery is crap and you have to get rid of it and can't resell it. They point to the resale value of electric cars being so low and say see, there you have it! It's a fad!

Using the Leaf as a quick example, they did have troubles with their first two years (2011-12) and their batteries. They seemed to have fixed this for 2013. As a matter of fact, our 2013 Leaf which we bought used for $7600 has a battery that seems to be a bit of a unicorn - the car has gone 45000 miles so far, and it will have 80+ miles of range on it tomorrow. And that range is legit.

But wait! You bought a $30,000 car that was four years old for $7600! What TERRIBLE resale value! Except that in many states right now (including Wisconsin, which an energy company person pointed out to me actually tonight), you can buy a brand new Nissan Leaf for $13500 after rebates. $7500 tax rebate, $10,000 Energy Company rebate. When you look at it like that, the used Leaf retains a pretty decent amount of it's value...

AND I'll be the first person to tell you, the Leaf is NOT a practical long-range car, and we wouldn't have one if we didn't have a car that we could use for long drives! We had to take our gas cars on trips twice in the last two weeks because they were beyond our range. So, the Leaf is a nice commuter car for a married couple to save some cash with (gas cost saved in five weeks, *including* added electrical cost...$111.33.)

There was a survey just a few weeks ago that said that something like 30% of buyers in the market for a new car were planning to get an electric car next, and it was laughed off by someone from I think AutoTrader who said that they don't see that in their new car searches at all. Well, of course they don't. What realistic options are there?

Tesla is bringing to market a relatively affordable electric vehicle that ticks every box. I've argued before, the Tesla appeal is *all* about the SuperCharger network. I never considered an electric car until I saw that. The new Bolt car has a similar range, but if I'm driving to another state to go ride roller coasters or go to a pinball show, it would take me hours to charge that thing up halfway. No other company has a charging network half as fast as Tesla does, and they made the network so you can go place to place easily. A lot of stock trackers think that because the luxury market is following Tesla's lead and most models are going all electric that they will take over from the Model S because their interiors will be a degree or three nicer, but they don't take into account just how important this network is.

Beyond SuperChargers, the Model 3 is damn fine looking. The range is long enough to cover a decently long day of driving without charging. It has capacity for putting stuff in. People that have rode it says it has comfortable space in it. It has all the hardware needed to make it autonomous. When the day is over, you plug it in like a cell phone and never have to stop at a gas station.

Since we bought our Leaf, I have taken a lot of curious friends and family for rides in it. Almost no one feels they can commit to a Leaf - too short of a range. A lot are seriously interested in a Model 3 (or perhaps another electric car, my uncle was sending me information about the Ioniq EV after I got our Leaf saying he was seriously considering buying one of those next).

Electric vehicles offer some crazy improvements over traditional vehicles, but few companies are poised to get there quickly. Tesla is valued at so much in part because if the demand for the Model 3 isn't fake - and I will be absolutely stunned if it is - Tesla will have a HUGE advantage in that space for years to come.

It seems like everyone that rides in mine for the first time has kind of a revelation. I've had the same conversation dozens of times where they start off like "wait so there's no gasoline engine at all? No pistons or engine block?" and "what if the battery dies" but after a few minutes in the car they are telling me how this is so obviously the future and asking me why Tesla is the only company that seems to get it.

The same thing happens in the Leaf. I've had about ten people ask to see under the hood because they are certain I must be wrong and it has a gas engine hiding in there. Then, there is this "wait, how often do you do oil changes? What about transmission, that's got to be more? What cooling system maintenance do you need? Where is the exhaust?

And again, the weird thing of Tesla being the only company that gets it comes up, even with this not being a Tesla. The range and charge speeds are asked about, and no one that needs it as a first car can do it. But they say if the range was around double and you could charge it in "less than 30 minutes" they'd be in.

I have about four people actively waiting to hear news of the Model 3 now because they want one. One friend in particular was going to trade in their car in a month or two, and is now planning on keeping it a year or two until he can get one of them.