Picked up my P85+ yesterday in Pittsburgh and drove it back to Cincy in a snow storm. I had the dealer swap out the high performance summer wheel/tire comb with 19" snow tire setup. It was solid like driving a tank with regen on high. Well worth it.

IMG_8907 (resized).JPG

It will be interesting to see 5 to 10 years from now each manufacturer's take on a luxury fully electric vehicle.
Also, eventually I suspect there will be a standardized charging port/connection between most brands but with some exceptions like modern cell phones.

There is a lot of fascinating stuff with the whole change, but...

Once companies start informing people of why electric cars are better, I think the shift will be even quicker than people who think it will be fast realize. We're going to get hit with a bunch of options that I truly believe that a bunch of people will discover are better at about the same time, and then used gas counterparts will become cheaper, eroding the value of purchasing a new gas car because nice gas cars are cheap, and the resale market on gas cars will become more questionable than that of electric cars.

The big key is dealer networks HAVE to change, both for the dealer who will make a lot less from service and the customer who needs to be informed of exactly what an electric vehicle can do.

The most surprising thing for me about owning the Leaf has been that when I talk with people about it, I am careful to say that I love it, but the application of it is rather limited due to the range of the car. The majority of people are actually shocked that it can go 84 miles before charging it, and they say to me that it's better than they expected.

For a number of years, there have been various surveys coming out that said that a certain percentage of people were considering an electric vehicle for their next car, and then they have someone from CarFax or whatever talking about how they can't be right because no where near that many people look for them. I think that is almost entirely due to there not being much in the way of options out there. If there were 50 options, and those options were competitively priced, I think you'd see huge market penetration very quickly.

We're used to plugging in our cell phones. Plugging in a car that you never have to do anything else for is incredibly appealing. But the options have been really limited, and those that there are either had issues or misconceptions - the Leaf had early major battery issues that Nissan handled really poorly, and the car is known for having a terrible resale value... but people NEVER explain that the resale value is driven by major rebates and incentives, as well as the early issues. Model S and X are super expensive and not options for the majority of the world. But you hit that number, and I think things are going to go faster than people project. A lot faster.

And to spur it on, even if the US loses the $7500 tax rebate, which who knows if it will or not (and if it does, I think it just really screws those companies who haven't sold many EVs and were expecting to be able to charge higher prices because of that), China is going to requite automakers to sell at least 10 percent of their fleet in China as EVs by 2019. They wanted to start next year, but Germany complained on behalf of Volkswagon that it was too fast and they couldn't do it, but they are set to go the following year. They intend to increase that number each year. So if you want to sell in China, you better have electric.

I hope to come across this post ten years from now. I honestly expect that by then, new models will be almost exclusively fully electric, and we'll be talking about what to do with all the gas stations, parts stores and so on that aren't needed in the same numbers as today.

I think we will look at them the same way we look at empty public phone bezels at gas stations that still haven't been removed. We remember a time when people actually had to find a gas station to return a phone call on their pager. Now EVERYONE has a cellphone.

To an extent, I think you're right - but there are environmental factors that come into play with the buried tanks that don't.

But I think that's a perfect example. I've been a teacher recently (not this year by choice ), and the students would ask me what my cell phone was like when I was a kid. I told them I didn't have one, and I was the first of my friends to get one... when I was 18 (1999). Kids are absolutely shocked by that because it seems like cell phones are something that just existed forever, but realistically mass cell phones are about 18 years old.

I fully expect the shift to electric to be completely over by 2035. There will be a few gas cars still around, but it won't be easy to use them because the infrastructure will be mostly gone.

i dunno. people love their cars a lot more than they loved pay phones. i don't think there was anyone who was like "these newfangled cell phones have no soul. CORD TILL DEATH!" plus, there are probably 1000 internal combustion engine vehicles for every pay phone that once existed. i don't think the transition will be as total or as swift as the cell phone revolution. i mean i am as bullish on electric cars as anyone. i just think ICE is going to hang on in certain niche applications for a long time.

No, but my dad kept his pager as LONG as he could.. he REFUSED to up pay for a cellphone, just like he refused to pay extra for digital dialing on his land line because he knew their cost was less for digital versus analog (yes, even if you had a button dial phone, unless you paid for it, you'd hear the clicks like on an analog phone as it dialed) . Then he was forced to at least switch over to a basic phone with texting.

I don't think it will disappear quick, anything in the auto industry seems to take a decade to really penetrate the market (just look how long it took for manufacturers to realize it was cheaper to install power windows than manual cranks). Wasn't until honda did financial analysis to switch over to it.

I believe there will still be alcohol dragsters, I believe there will still be people with gasoline classic cars that keep racing even though stock teslas can whip them all day long (perhaps auto racing will need a separate class for electric). I don't think everyone will switch to electric semis right away (only corporations that know they can start saving money right away). There will still be a bunch of lower income families that won't be able to switch over right away, but eventually the used market will trickle down (almost is with cheap first generation leafs). For sure canadian and alaska semi drivers will refuse to switch simply because they get stuck in the middle of nowhere a lot, and being able to run heat sometimes for a day is important (also not sure how well batteries would do in negative 70 degrees).

Speaking of semi's, this youtuber does some interesting calculations on fuel cost savings, maintenance savings (no more engine repair, no more brakepads, etc), but then at 9:30 he talks about something I didn't realize which is that supposedly from day one they have for a convoy option where there's a driver controlling the lead semi, and he can have 2 more unmanned semi trucks behind him that aren't completely driving themselves, they are simply following the leader. That reduces the labor cost to 1/3:

Forget about electric for a sec.

Every major auto manufacturing company is just as quickly adding autonomous features to their vehicles. Lane assist, smart cruse control, auto parallel parking, ect. I foresee a future where driving on public roads will become illegal. Once autonomous cars prove their safety and insurance companies get behind them, then people will won’t be allowed to control such a heavy powerful piece of machinery. If you want to physically drive your car, then you will have to trailer it to a track somewhere. Gas stations will dwindle down to just a handful of locations, most of them will be at racetracks.

It will start with city centers and eventually move out to rural areas. This won’t happen as quickly as the electric shift will, but mark my words. The future will not have regular people driving their cars on the road. Kids born today might not need to ever get a drivers license.

just as long as the cars don't turn evil

It always seems like big and expensive transitions take much longer than anticipated to become the standard. I am guessing in 20 years around 50 to 75% of vehicles on the road (not including trucks) will be electric or some other environmentally friendly alternative. In 10 years I am guessing it will be closer to 15 to 30%.

You have summer tires?

I'd say you are a little optimistic but not far too far off. They will have to catch on way faster than hybrids. Seems like Prius are really popular right? They are not even in the top 50 vehicles sold in America. There are 14 F-150s sold for every Prius.

Yes, but you could still sell 14 F150s for every Prius, they would just happen to be electric.

Electric actually makes a ton of sense for a work truck. You'll probably need at least a 150 kwh battery on board, but since trucks already cost a bunch, I don't think that'll be a huge problem.

... And that's the key reason that I think the electric revolution is going to take over fast. Autonomy is a few years away, and once that happens, it'll be cheaper to not own cars. Running gas card will go up in price thanks to less places to get them repaired and stuff like that, and it will push people without the financial resources to rent autonomous cars for taxi rides cheaper than taking their own car anywhere.

And, after having a wrong way driver barely down the (divided) highway toward me the other day, and seeing a big collision yesterday right in front of me from a car blowing a red light, I'm not so concerned about my own driving, but I'd rather these morons can't drive, and if the car is as safe as me, I'd trust it over them.

I just test drove a Bolt for the heck of it.

It feels smaller than the Leaf and oddly to me a lot louder. It wasn't bad, but with the exception of the range, it didn't seem much different than our Leaf. It didn't help that roads are slick and cold, so I could tell it had more power, but mostly just used it to spin the tires...

But wow, the dealership network is going to be a big problem for anyone other than Tesla to overcome. I pretended to not know anything about it, and they couldn't tell me much at all. No idea how fast it charges, where to charge it, if the charger was a standard or not, benefits of it over a regular car, it it needed any maintenance or not... It was... Enlightening in a fascinating way.

I could go on with a bunch of points where they just didn't know things that you should know about a product that you're selling, but... Yeesh.

It shows my why Tesla has the valuation they do. The dealer network is going to be a tough thing to overcome.

"so do i just put d-size batteries in somewheres when it dies or whut? how many batteries does it take anyways? i still got my radio shack battery of the month club, so i got that goin for me"

To be completely fair, they just called me a little while ago and answered the maintenance questions after doing some research, which on one hand is really cool, but on the other it just seems like with an electric car, that's a huge selling point, and you should probably have some idea of what it is.

dealerships are so useless and obsolete. are there really people who DONT walk in already having researched the answers to all their questions online? i mean this is the way most people shop now, isn't it? look up all the facts. compare online. then go into the dealership and waste a shitload of time doing the haggle dance.

People hating on dealerships make me laugh. I'm a consultant in the auto industry, the selling of the car isn't why dealers were a staple, it was the servicing. Without dealers, anyone without a 700 credit score will have a much harder time buying vehicles and costs for manufacturers will skyrocket in addition.

It's a huge issue for tesla, and ev doesn't reduce failures, it increases it. Failure rate for ice is super low compared to the tech required for electric.

If tesla just used dealers instead of trying to fight an unwinnable fight we would be so much further ahead.

Autonomous will be a thing way before ev is main stream.

?? Dealers aren't loaning out the money, they use credit companies. I suppose because of volume sometimes dealer relationships can increase chances of getting a loan if your credit sucks. However, this is what the great auto dealers do to poor low credit buyers:

Based on what? and what constitutes as failure? Is an electric car more complicated? Perhaps, but only because of the sensors and features it's adding. If you're just looking at the car driving, I don't see how applying PWM electricity to a brushless motor has higher failure rate than a gas engine that has to time sparked explosions thousands of times per minute, at a variable rate... all the while it's depositing carbon onto the cylinder walls and gunking itself up.

I don't think this was by choice. He had to go at it alone because dealers selling electric cars undercuts their own business:
https://insideevs.com/tesla-direct-sales-vs-franchised-dealership-battle-continues

I work for a company that builds landscaping equipment. We have some electric versions of our gas products, but it's nearly a loss right now because it's such low volume and it's mostly sold to home owners. Professional landscapers can't possibly use them because they can't invest in a bank of batteries to keep working all day. However, we are building product now so that when the next amazing power source comes along, we have product already designed and established.

buying a Tesla is as easy as buying something from Amazon. they can help you get a loan far better than a dealer can. You could not be more wrong about this. i LOVED the Tesla buying experience. it was a million times better than dealing with a shitty dealership.

ahaha, no. electric vehicles are several orders of magnitudes simpler than ICE vehicles, and will be far far far more reliable once the tech matures even a little bit. ICE engineers have about a 100 year head start, but electric motors are going to blow them away in terms of reliability. by the way, one year 3 months and counting and i've had zero issues on my Tesla so far.

HELL no. lack of dealerships is one of Tesla's greatest assets.

man you are wrong on literally every point. the electric vehicle revolution is happening already. pretty much every car company has begrudgingly admitted this by now. and you're a consultant for the auto industry? yeesh.

Actually, I'm not. Tesla is losing what, 600 million a quarter?

The dealership model is absolutely the best thing for an average customer. For wealthier than average pinball collectors? Perhaps not. But the experienced finance managers that manage loan to value ratios, debt to income structure and vehicle selection for payment to income issues are absolutely crucial for any consumer with negative equity of a sub 700 credit score, about 75% of Americans. Saying tesla does it better is not only not true, at current structure it's not even possible. Dealers need to adapt to a changing world, but a world without dealers would severely hurt the credit challenged and service levels.

You may personally hate dealers and think a tesla in a one year ownership experience is great, but when you have to flatbed a tesla to jersey to have it fixed because they don't have the repair facility infrastructure, it will suck. While it's a niche for only the wealthy it's not a problem, but on a main stream scale it's unsustainable.

Electric MOTORS are far simpler, but powertrain breakdowns are really few and far between, it's the computers and tech in vehicles that die in cars right noe, and tesla is loaded to the gills. You should see what the tesla loss ratio is on warranty claims, it exceeds Porsche and land rover.

Yes, autonomous will be first. It requires no infrastructure changes to a power grid, doesn't upset the fossil fuel lobby and is far easier to implement. EV will happen, Mercedes is actually doing some really interesting things due out in 2021, but it'll take time.

Auto world moves slow. Look at how prius adoption has moved.

you really really are, if that non-sequitor is all you have in the way of rebuttal.

most people hate dealerships for good reason. they are shitty, unnecessary middlemen. sure, service stations will always be necessary. (nobody's saying otherwise). But a lot of the dealership experience sucks, and the way Tesla does it is far superior. Ask anyone who's been through it. or here, check this chart.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/car-brands-ranked-by-satisfaction/

Tesla is #1 by a mile in customer satisfaction, over literally every other car maker.

Do some research before spreading misinformation. Tesla can work with a number of lenders to get someone a loan. We have the internet these days, you know. They set up my loan with a third party over email. It was easy.

Again, do more research before making false claims. There's a service station only a few miles away from me, in Tyson's Corner.

haha you really are out of touch if you don't think every car on the road is controlled by multiple computers. Tesla computers are as reliable as anyone's. They are off the shelf AMD/Intel/nVidia components. And these cars are not "loaded to the gills". Have you been in one? They're actually pretty sparse in terms of interior features.

In the past they've had issues with early drivetrains (which they've since solved -- you yourself admit EVs have an inherent advantage in reliability), and issues with assembly quality (which they've since solved). But to suggest it has anything to do with being an EV instead of an ICE ... you are objectively wrong.

Prius is irrelevant. it's just another gas car. Autonomous driving and EV will go hand in hand. it's not a coincidence that the first carmaker to produce consumer semi-autonomous cars also exclusively makes EVs.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair

See, you've chained three things together that don't seem at all related. Are you just stringing together thoughts or do you believe these statements are connected?

I think what you are saying in your first argument is that servicing is what makes a dealer a "staple." We all know that dealers make their money from selling service instead of cars. That's one of the reasons they cannot be expected to sell EV's because it forces them to reduce their own revenue because EVs require vastly less maintenance. What's your point?

Your second argument is that dealers somehow have some magic juju that other professional credit organizations lack for getting people with poor credit histories car loans. As has been pointed out, this isn't remotely true.

What seems to be true is that subprime auto loans from dealers seem to be rampant, see:

https://www.investors.com/news/gm-risky-subprime-auto-loans-fuel-sales/

That's not much of a good reason to use or trust big auto credit.

And your third point... cost for manufacturers will somehow "skyrocket" because... well, you don't say. Could you explain what you mean?

Here you go, chaining things together that aren't related again. It makes it really hard to follow whatever point you're trying to make.

By "it" presumably you mean financing? Surely you are aware that Tesla has their own financing arm?
https://www.tesla.com/support/tesla-lending

You claim that failure rates for ICE cars are lower than the "tech" required for EVs? Seriously?

You'll have to give citations for that, please. My direct experience is that my Tesla is by far the least expensive car to maintain in anywhere near the same price range that I've owned.

Maintenance. Not repair. Yes, a Tesla Model S costs more to fix when it's in an accident. That's not the same as reliability /at all/. Anyway I'd argue, from experience, that has more to do with the aluminium body, sole source parts, and rarity of the vehicle than EV tech. This however, has to do with insurance, not maintenance.

That ship has sailed, my friend. The dealers lost years ago. It just hasn't fully played out yet. It's like the music publishers and retail CD sales -- they died sometime around 1998 when the first MP3 players hit the market, it just took a few years for the adoption rate to catch up with their momentum.

People /hate/ dealers. There are real reasons for that hate. Like you, dealers have had the luxury to stand back and laugh instead of innovate, or address the reasons for hate. And because of that attitude, they're dead.

I've spent my entire life in the tech industry in one form of software development or another, and in school I studied AI. I can tell you that you're totally wrong. And even /if/ full street autonomy were to be attained next year at the research level (which it will not be), time to market for big auto will be at least a decade to put full autonomy in ordinary low end cars like a Bolt. Hell, just the regulatory hurdles could take a decade.

So, and it's odd I have to say this to you given that you're in the auto industry, haven't basically all of the major automakers have already announced EVs for next year or the year after? I'm not talking about crappy compliance cars, but real EVs. And don't most predict major shifts to be primarily EV in just a few years? And how many have announced ICE models with full street autonomous features for sale in the next few years? None, right? That kind of kills your argument right there.

You make that sound as if it's a bad thing. Yes, they're investing in a multi-billion dollar supercharging network that may literally be unbeatable. And in a multi-billion dollar battery factory that, yeah, may literally be unbeatable.

That's what a company should do with it's money. INVEST IT. It makes me sick that Apple (and others) are sitting on billions instead of making better products. It's shameful. I cannot think of a single other company that so aggressively invests in better products. It ought to be law. Yes, great, take profit. But don't sit on mounds of cash like a greedy dragon, FFS.

I'm pretty sure that a smartphone app can do that better, faster, cheaper, fairer and to a wider audience of credit offerers and auto sellers than someone walking into one lone dealer.

I'm also pretty sure that the best course of action for an individual, particularly one with a lower credit rating, should first be aggressively shopping for the best credit deal, and only then matching the right cars to that, and then let those manufacturers come back with their best offer. That is never going to happen in a dealership, mate.

No, the world will be a better place once they're gone.

I can walk to my nearest Tesla service facility. It's cavernous - bigger than any dealership I've ever seen.

Your claim that autonomous cars are easier to implement than EVs had me howling with laughter.

The auto world moves slow, yes. That's why they were displaced by Tesla, a silicon valley startup. And that's why they'll be even slower to adopt autonomous car technology. Can you imagine how many lawyers will need to be convinced at GM or Ford before they allow a fully autonomous car on the road? The big auto firms will insist on Federal regulations that cover their asses before they sell a single one of them!

Back in the day I test drove an EV1. The experience was really strange - the dealer was trying to talk me out of it the entire time, talking the car down, emphasizing it's weaknesses.

Fast forward to test driving a Leaf, right when it came out. The dealer had no idea what it could do, similar to your experience.

About two years ago we leased a VW eGolf for my wife (knowing Tesla would be late delivering their Model 3 to us). It's been a great car, even though it's a compliance car that was never meant to sell in volume. It's no Tesla, but my wife loves the thing. It's sporty and fun to drive. All it needs is range like the Model 3, she says (well, and the Tesla supercharging network). We got an incredible deal on one, and negotiated free service to boot.

The thing is, the dealer experience was abysmal. They knew nothing about it. Range, operation, service, charging times, basic care and operation. Critical things like the difference between one type of charger option and another and even which type of charging system the very car we were leasing had.

The truth is, the dealers don't /want/ to know anything about EVs. They are hoping that EVs will go away, because they know that EVs will kill their service profit.

Think of the last thing you had done on your ICE car, chances are an EV doesn't have that part. With an EV there's no oil changes or filters, no spark plugs, no transmission, no drive shaft, no exhaust systems or catalytic converters, no fuel flow sensor, no turbo, no oxygen sensors, no radiators, no cylinders or gaskets, not even fluids besides brake fluid and windshield washer fluid. They're even reducing the wiring harnesses, at least at Tesla.

EV's are vastly more reliable than ICE cars. Batteries are holding more charge than expected after years of use. Electric motors are holding up extremely well - having no moving parts helps.

All that that means no money for the dealers to make.

Because of this truth, dealers as we know them will be gone in a few years. And nothing of value will have been lost.

Most people can not afford a new car and don’t even think about going into a dealership to look at new models. Used 3rd party sales lots are where most people buy cars. If you have shitty credit then your looking at buying a $2000 beater, not a new car.

One thinkg that I’ve realized in the past year is that you will never change someone’s opinion based on facts. People don’t care about facts. You need to change their emotion before they will look at the situation in a new light. It’s all about how they feel about the issue.

The ONLY argument you could have for ICE is that everything is "serviceable" or "fixable", whereas with electric you probably wouldn't be replacing your own dead cells in a battery pack (though maybe someday that'll be the case), nor would you be likely to work on your own electric motor (but I don't know what would go bad other than bearings). But with that said, I would MUCH rather have all the things that COULD go wrong in an ICE vehicle gone. I've only driven one car to it's death (192k miles on a corolla), never any transmission issues but it was burning oil because of misfires, and after spending $400 each at two different repair shops (both who said the fix may not solve it) it became apparent I was going to start dumping more money into it than it's worth. Nobody is going to dump $3-4k for a new engine into a corolla that's worth less than $2k either.

Even though the leaf is only 6 years old, and tesla only a few years before that, it'll be interesting to see how the secondary market pans out (and how many miles some of these vehicles can rack up and still hold value). If it just comes down to plopping in a new battery after so many charge cycles, so long as the car keeps going there's always going to be someone willing to buy it and keep driving it.

The Leaf is in a uniquely terrible situation, and in some ways it sucks it was the first mainstream EV.

First, the earliest Leafs (model years 2011-12) had a known battery issue where the battery would degrade a lot quickly. In 2015, Nissan stated they fixed the problem by making a new cell chemistry, but it appears they actually fixed it in 2013 and just didn't tell people. Our 2013 car has 50,000+ miles and still shows that it can go 84 miles at full charge, although it has just recently shown that it's capacity is slightly less than 100%.

The battery problem is not great, but Nissan compounded that by having people sue in a class action lawsuit over it. Those who opted in were given longer warranties if certain criteria was met for battery degradation where Nissan would replace the battery. Those who opted out of three lawsuit, Nissan has been absolutely terrible and *refuses to service their batteries at all*. Since you don't know who opted in and out, it's completely possible to purchase a 2012 Nissan, have its battery degrade and for it to turn into a big paperweight.

This, as it should have, absolutely killed the secondary market for them, as it should have. People are less aware of the newer versions not having that issue, and so resale prices tend to stay super low. It's how I got my 2013 for $7600.

Thanks to this, Nissan was also offering insane discounts through utilities and things like that for the Leaf. If we would have bought ours new last year, it would have cost me about $13,500 after the $7500 tax credit (which is apparently preserved in the tax bill) and a $10,000 utility rebate check. When you look at it like that, the secondary market is actually pretty darn good, losing only about $1500 a year in value, or roughly the same amount the Leaf saves me over a comparable car in fuel savings.

As for dealerships, it is absolutely not necessary to have them. The whole song and dance to buy a car is stupid and annoying, and it benefits no one. Service dealerships want you to have a car that needs service so they can provide it. What works best for them may not work best for you. To build brand loyalty, you'd usually want to give a customer exactly what they want and do it better than they expect. Dealerships don't have that incentive. They dance around the price because they want to sell through car for as much as they can above what they pay for it, and then they hope it breaks sometimes so you get it serviced.

As for reliability, I stop at the local Nissan dealership once in a great while to kill time and get free electricity. Bonus that I get free popcorn, soda and donuts when I do. It's like a coffee shop with free gas and food.

Anyway, a few months ago I had stopped and was charging and one of their service employees was walking by. He asked if I bought it there, I sheepishly said no, and he said no problem, what did you pay. I told him, and his response was that it's the best deal in cars.

His exact quote was something to the extent of, "I've been working in service here for the past four years, and I've never seen one come in with a problem, other than to upgrade the computer (more on this in a sec). It's definitely going to be my next car." This dealership by the way is the only place that services Leafs in the city, and there is a pretty decent number around here.

I asked him since he worked repairing other cars if he was worried about the change. He said that it was going to happen one way or another, and he might as well get the car he never needs to worry about.

Before the auto consultant jumps in and says see, the computer doesn't work!, I upgraded the computer to be able to communicate with the car with my phone. Older Leafs had computers that used a cell network that doesn't exist any more. There was no reason to upgrade it for the car itself.

I would much rather have the car break down maybe once a year and have even a couple day wait for service than it to break down and me need to service it multiple times a year like I do my gas cars. My Sentra which is still in service right now has had two oil changes and one trip to the mechanic for a minor issue (cost me $20) since we got the Leaf. We have driven the Leaf about 10,000 miles, the Sentra has gone about 5,000.

The Sentra has cost me about twice as much to operate. To me, that says it all.

Goat.

I think you are painting a picture off one car to say that all ICE cars are unreliable.

I have a Subaru Legacy 2007 which an O2 sensor and battery had to be replace was like $300 for the O2 sensor maybe $150 for the battery.

Of course I change the oil and tranny and diff fluid, replaced brakes, wiper blades all that that has been a couple thousand dollars. Plus gas.

I’ve had other cars like my BMW that was a money pit but not every car is, my Honda’s and Acura’s have needed very little or no mechanical work even in the 120K+ miles mark.

I'm not sure what you mean.

The Nissan tech told me that the Leaf is by far the most reliable car he has seen. Not my Leaf, all of them. As far as I understand, there is one Nissan dealership in Milwaukee that deals with Leafs. There is ONE guy that services them there. That I know, because they told me they had to check his schedule specifically. So if you meant I'm comparing ICE cars to the best selling EV worldwide, then sure.

If you're comparing it to my Sentra, I mean, I feel like 6 months and a $20 repair is pretty good. But yes, I'm totally going to lump having oil changes and transmission flushes in with repair costs on my cars, as they are a real cost and a pain in the ass to do. The Leaf has none of that.

I like it too. Even the second one.

The only problem with the leaf to me is that it is utterly hideous

btw, nancy cartwright (voice of bart simpson) drives a tesla

oh i got a chance to see a couple of model 3's up close and personal last weekend at a Tesla owners club meet up. it's a gorgeous car. it has sort of that understated class of the Model S. the interior is very spartan - if you go comparing it feature-by-feature with other cars, you will end up with a lot of physical gadgetry in the other vehicle's column, but if you back up and look at the whole driving experience, the Tesla just nails the important stuff in a way other car companies can't seem to figure out.

it was the morning after a dusting of snow, so unfortunately all of the cars had a layer of grime and salt on them, but here are a couple shots i took.

IMG_1897 (resized).JPG
IMG_1895 (resized).JPG

(a couple of gen 1 roadsters were there too)
IMG_1893 (resized).JPG

unsurprisingly, Tesla dominated Consumer Reports' annual Customer Satisfaction Rankings again this year (third year in a row, and they won by a huge margin).

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/car-brands-ranked-by-owner-satisfaction/

also, the Model S had the highest satisfaction rating of any individual model of car on the market:

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/10-most-satisfying-cars-owner-satisfaction/

Wow. Nice center console compared to the emptiness of the S. Looks great. I'm still debating if it is worth $500 to buy a nice aftermarket center console.

I was in Los Angeles this week and saw my first Model 3 "in the wild" on the freeway with new tags and a delighted driver inside. I just got a glimpse of it, and I almost mistook it for a Model S. It looked beautiful.

It's so exciting to see these getting delivered. Yet another thing "they" said Tesla couldn't possibly do -- even by the end of 2018:
https://electrek.co/2016/11/23/tesla-model-3-late-adam-jonas-morgan-stanley/
https://electrek.co/2016/08/09/tesla-model-3-2-years-late-wrong/

On the drive down from Sacramento to Los Angeles on the 5 freeway, I saw four semi trucks loaded with brand new Teslas.

Now it'll be interesting to see the goalposts for Tesla's success getting moved by the Tesla shorts and uninformed armchair prognosticators. Now that Tesla is delivering they'll have to change their target for why Tesla is such a bad company, just as they did with the Model S and X. Production of the Semi or the Roadster perhaps?

I keep reading news articles talking about how Tesla is going to run out of money by summer.. something about 900 million in operating costs, and a 1.8 billion dollar loan due from bonds he sold. UBS is making these claims, but how can they possibly know the financials from Tesla, the gigafactory, and spaceX accurately? Even in a worse case scenario and Tesla had to file bankruptcy, they would either wipe part of that debt, or someone could happily swoop up the company.. Not like the company would disappear.

UBS knows because Tesla is a publicly traded company. All publicly traded companies must freely publish their earnings, expenses and cash on hand among many other things (including the gigafactory) every three months. You can see them here:
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/stocknet/secdocuments.aspx?symbol=tsla

SpaceX is privately held, so very few people know the financials of that company, which is separate from Tesla.

Having said that, this article seems to address Tesla's many options for dealing with any cash crunches that do occur, if they do:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4127268-tesla-cash-problem

Tesla has a dozen different ways to raise capital when they need to. they will be in business as long as there is demand for their cars. debt isn't really an issue, they can play as long a game as they want. that's what pundits and haters get wrong.

This is not exactly Tesla related but check out this cool video of the SpaceX rocket:

https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c13_1514079836

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-model-3-owner-on-cross-country-road-trip-has-alre-1821646237

I saw a fascinating recent look at Amazon, circa 2001. There were some people that were bullish and saying this is the future. Some company, I think it was Sears, was laughing at the fact that they would ever compete with them, because it was an online business and they could just step in and crush them whenever they felt the moment was right. Pundits were saying that Amazon needed to sell every book that every bookstore in America sold and yet they would STILL be losing money, and that throwing any money at them as an investment was stupid. And they kept talking about how Amazon was one of the most shorted stocks.

I feel like Tesla's supposed cash crunch is the exact same thing. The Amazon naysayers only saw them as a bookstore and thought they could never be anything else. The believers expected it to be more.

Tesla naysayers like to point to one thing and say see, they make this car and they don't make any money! It's over!

Tesla isn't creating a car though, they are making a whole ecosystem. Seeing up that ecosystem is expensive, but they realize it's better to do it now than later.

I believe this is the video you mean (I saw it recently too), it's circa 1999. I love bezos' modesty, driving a basic honda and using a door for a desk because he doesn't spend more than he needs.

Yes, that's it!

At 11:00ish: "The company says it's investing for the future, skeptics say it would have to sell every book sold in the world today to justify it's stock price."

Then, right after that is when they say that the market cap is worth more than Sears by 20%, and the host is like, "How can that be right?!"

The investor explains hey, it's about what else they have.

Seems really, really familiar with these Tesla arguments. Amazon made an entire ecosystem. If you just valued them on selling books, it was insane. But that wasn't their goal.

Tesla's goal isn't to get one car to sell for a profit.

Porsche wants to compete with Tesla for the high end market.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/porsche-apos-electric-mission-e-123100664.html

A full second slower to 60 than the current Model S, less range, less practical, and it doesn’t even come out for two more years? What will Tesla have in 2019? The Model S will have moved on, not to mention the Roadster 2.0 will be out by then. (And oh yeah where are you gonna charge it? Tesla has thousands of charging stations).