Posted on 08/04/2017 3:46:40 AM PDT by SMGFan
During a quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that about 63,000 people have canceled their Tesla Model 3 orders over the past year.
Total orders for the vehicle have fallen from 518,000 to 455,000, Musk said, according to Business Insider. But the drop in orders doesn’t hurt Tesla too much: The electric-car company has averaged about 1,800 new Model 3 reservations per day since last Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Maybe people are starting to realize that the federal subsidy is going away soon as production ramps up.
The front end of the Tesla 3 reminds me of an old nudist magazine I saw once. All the “interesting parts” were airbrushed out so the people looked like space aliens.
Why did they cancel?
Putting up $1000 for something years away is easy.
Realizing you may actually have to pay the other $39,000 persuades many to cancel.
Maybe they did some late research and discovered the environmental impact associated with the manufacture and eventual disposal of the battery far outweighs what a gas powered vehicle does.... Just my 2 cent.
As I’ve stated elsewhere, Musk’s genius is in removing the smokestack from his coal powered car and money from the taxpayer’s wallet.
Tesla people are like lemmings or cattle. If they perceive a stampede, they will join in. If they get the impression that Teslas are going out of style or will make them a laughing stock, they will plunge forward, away from the car.
A Tesla is hugely overpriced compared to a gas model and it would take a decade or more of driving to make up the cost difference in gas. Somewhere in that decade the battery will need replacement. Given that cars depreciate rapidly, what will that battery replacement cost in comparison to the residual value of the vehicle? In four years you won’t be able to give these cars away.
I don’t think they can produce the cars fast enough to keep up with the orders. Even Musk said it’s like an “hour-and-a-half wait for hamburgers”.
My guess on the battery is that by 2025, it’ll be determined that it has to be disposed in a particular way, and only one such plant in the US will handle it (somewhere in New Mexico)....for $2,100 per battery (my humble guess o the cost). At that point, everyone who owns a battery-powered car will have a laugh...dumping their batteries in some local landfill or on some dirt road.
The only way battery operated cars would ever work is if the batteries are universal regardless of vehicle make (much in the way gas/diesel fuel is universal for conventionally powered vehicles)and were able to be removed and replaced in 10 minutes or less. That way the flat battery could be exchanged at a “station” so there would be no recharge wait time. The Blue Rhino company does something very similar this with propane tanks every day. But again, there is still the issue of environmental impact from the battery. IMO, hydrogen is the way.
Tesla is known to fudge numbers of all sorts. It’s possible there were few cancellations and the number of orders was adjusted down to match some other fudged number.
I can see that....when I want to buy a car....I want to buy it NOW.
It disgusts me every time a see a “Zero Emissions” tag on the front of these cars.
Give me a Civic and call it a day..!!
Appreciate the info but there’s still the issue of charging. From cars.com:
Q: How quickly does the Tesla Model S’ battery charge?
A: The Model S offers a choice of lithium-ion battery packs, a standard 60 kilowatt-hour battery or a more expensive, more powerful 85-kwh unit. How long it takes to recharge a depleted battery depends on whether the Model S has one or two onboard chargers and the source of the electricity.
Tesla says the 60-kwh battery provides a range of up to 232 miles (the EPA pegs it at 208 miles), and the 85-kwh battery (a $10,000 option) provides up to 300 miles (the EPA puts it at 265 miles). Here are some examples for recharging times: With a single onboard charger plugged into a standard 110-volt outlet, Tesla says you will get 5 miles of range for every hour of charging. From zero to 300 miles would take about 52 hours at that rate. With a single charger connected to a 240-volt outlet, which Tesla recommends, the pace speeds up to 31 miles of range for each hour of charging, and a full 300-mile charge takes less than 9.5 hours.
Step up to twin chargers on the car and connect to a 240-volt, high-power wall charger (an extra-cost charging unit, not just a 240-volt line) and the charging speed zooms to 62 miles of range per hour, and the total charging time drops to under 4 hours, 45 minutes.
Really in a hurry? Stop at a Tesla Supercharger station and you can top off the tank with 300 miles of range in just an hour, as long as your Model S is configured with Supercharger capability If a Supercharger station is out of reach, most public charging stations can recharge the Model S at the rate of 22 miles of range per hour of charging.
“Tesla Supercharger station” not exactly one on every corner. So the quickest you could ever hope for if there was one available is an hour to charge. Unacceptable IMO. I know this technology is in its infancy, when I gets better I might get onboard but I refuse to backup and have less efficiency than I do now.
“Maybe the first model is still a collectible for the Jay Leno wannabe set, and maybe the sellers don’t get what they are asking, but compared to the Nissan Leafs, the Teslas are holding their value. “
Rarity. They aren’t mass market cars. They were something special in their day. They are also much more attractive than the mass market version. You could think back to the Packard 120, a mass market version of the custom made Packards that preceded it. The 120 was a high volume seller, but destroyed Packard’s Rolls Royce image. It took Packard about 20 years to die from that point. I suspect it will take Tesla a lot less time as the cycles for everything today are compressed by devalued currency, regulations and a much more competitive marketplace. In the fifties the resale value of the “senior” Packards stayed comparatively high. The mass market cars, not so much.
Tesla’s market has, thus far, been liberals who have the money to be several steps above the Volt liberal. To make a success of the new venture Tesla is diluting its brand image to attract those who would have bought a Volt. GM has already announced it will discontinue the Volt. At times, they had months of unsold inventory. Here is an article from USA today on unsold inventory.
The article points out that Tesla is the exception. We are going into probably one of the largest year-end vehicle gluts in history. (From an article last month, unsold inventory was; GM 200 days, Chrysler 150 days and Ford 100 days. These were smaller cars, like the new Tesla. Trucks and SUV’s are doing great.) The same thing happened in the 1958 recession where Ford had introduced the new marque; Edsel. Three years later Edsel was out of business. But, who did benefit from the 1958 recession? The sales of AMC’s Rambler went up substantially. It was a temporary success. The article points out the Tesla’s orders have gone up. But they are entering the market at an exceptionally difficult time for a new manufacturer to crank out a new model. Let there be just a few negative articles, say vehicle fires or people who bought the car and can’t find a place to charge it, and they will be in serious trouble.
Electric cars do not yet make sense for most drivers. People tend to figure out what is best for them and I suspect there are not enough Volt liberals to make Tesla a long term success. As an aside, I don know a conservative who owns a Volt. He said, “they practically gave it to me.”
Lithium battery recycling is already established and working. There are plenty of non-car lithium batteries already in the economy. Recycling lead-acid batteries already shows how will work. But for automobile batteries, it will be the service companies who replace the battery packs that do the recycling....not the individual consumer.
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