I agreed, they suck and the streets will be a lot cleaner…
All I know, is that if I could walk into a dealership and buy one I could take home today, I would.
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I really wish Tesla would just bail on their $35K version for the next few years. If they have a backlog of two years for the $49K-$65K version, then why even bother selling the cheaper one with less profit margin? I think they should sell the $49K version for as long as there’s a backlog of those, then sell all the backlog of dual motor models, then sell different interiors, and finally when you can walk into the showroom and configure your Model 3, then you can get the option of a $35K version.
The issue isn’t them selling the 49-65k car. The issue is, it’s just another broken promise in a line of broken promises/missed deadlines from Tesla thus far. They should’ve started with that car to begin with if that was their objective, rather than rile everyone up to get an “affordable” one. By the time the 35k model shows up, the tax incentives will be gone, eliminating many who initially planned on purchasing this model from consideration.
I applaud Tesla’s innovation, but their execution, throughout their existence thus far, is terrible.
Thank God they don’t promise anything like putting rockets into space, imagine the cluster$%& it would cause if they delayed supplying the ISS.
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What does SpaceX have to do with the car? SpaceX isn’t taking 1,000, interest free, deposits and continually missing deadlines, or changing the script.
No, not a $1,000.
“The failure cost taxpayers $110 million for the rocket, and SpaceX only received 80% of its expected payment after the failure of the mission.”
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I must’ve missed that + misunderstood what you were getting at. Ouch.
I’m not sure myself what I was getting at, other than people need to have lots of patience to achieve something revolutionary.
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growing pains. Lofty goals don’t always pan out. I don’t fault Tesla for missing the mark on the 35k pricetag, but I feel they should accept the miss and go full force on the not so affordable, but much more affordable than the Model S version.
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Just picked up another i3 lease (my second) because the price was too damn good to pass up. Mentioning this here because though I enjoy driving the i3 and paying less than even Bolt owners are paying, the charging networks other than Superchargers are a dumpster fire. Any EV that’s not a Telsa is crippled by this fact. Now if you’re like me and charge at home 99.5% of the time anyway and have a second car to use for long trips it doesn’t practically matter, but I think even then there’s the psychological American “I need to be able to drop everything and travel cross country at the drop of the hat and I NEED this car to do it” thing.
So here’s a long story of how bad they are in practice. I had to drive my new i3 about 320 miles home (I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t going to extremes chasing crazy lease deals). 
The car comes with “ChargeNOW” cards that include 2 years of free DC fast charging. For the first 150 miles there’s exactly zero of these things (fail #1). I know this only because I use various apps on my phone. While the car does know about chargers, it does not differentiate between an extremely slow charger and a DCFC (fail #2). In fact, the i3 nav interface is more helpful for gas stations than charging stations, despite this car being designed-from-scratch as an EV!
The dealer didn’t help with setting up this charging card account at all—just handed me the cards (fail #3). I activated a card soon after leaving the dealer on the ChargePoint network which I had incorrectly assumed was all that needed to be done (fail #4). When I pulled up to the station that only has a single CCS plug (fail #5), I tried the card at the station it said “card not authorized” (fail #6). I call ChargePoint and they tell me I need to enroll in the ChargeNOW program in addition to activating the card. I go on their site and find where this promo is and successfully enroll. Card still not accepted. ChargePoint supports says I need to call EVgo now as it’s technically their station. (Fail #7) So I call them and they say “oh sorry, it takes at least 2 business days for that enrollment to process on our end.” (fail #8) I mean why would anyone need to charge the same day they buy an EV amirite? 
So the NRG support is kind enough to send a command to this machine to let me charge free anyway (I bet this happens a lot!), which is nice. I attempt to plug in and it doesn’t engage fully. There is dried mud inside the charge plug! (Fail #9) OMFG this is getting unbelievable… Luckily I had my emergency tools and after about 10 minutes managed to dig the mud out with a tire plug tool and start charging. Wasted at least 30 minutes before I could even get the charge going!
NONE OF THIS is a problem for Teslas! The charging sites are basically everywhere you need them, the nav knows in great detail about supercharger locations, it shows each location status live, there aren’t any cards to activate, there’s no third party accounts, there’s no third party networks, and there are always multiple stalls so even if one has an issue you just move over to the next stall.
I see different people saying “well Tesla isn’t going to survive past [INSERT YEAR MANUFACTURERS “PROMISE” TO FINALLY HAVE A COMPETITIVE EV] and every time I’m like uhhhh, no… There is no competition period until that major flaw is fixed, no matter what the car looks like or how it performs.
The kicker is the MSRP on my i3 is higher than the $49k Long Range Model 3!
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My apologies for the long screed. Most people here don’t seem to be experienced in EVs so I thought this very practical example does a good job illustrating that when it comes to EVs there’s basically Tesla, and there’s everyone else.
And unless major changes happen (that there are currently very little signs of!) this will still be true even after the Porsche Mission E, the Audi E-Tron, and whatever else comes out in the next 2-3 years.
If Tesla can’t make money soon, I’m not sure how this matters. They can’t stay in the red forever and still remain alive.
Technically they can stay in the red forever as long as they are able to keep raising more funds. I’d assume eventually that too will run out, but no one knows when.
The good news for Tesla is there is a lot of investor money willing to recognize superior products.
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It’s called “Pyramid scheme”
It will soon be renamed the Musk scheme after the greatest master of the scheme
No, it’s called “Amazon”.
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You seem to be confused. Amazon is not in red and doesn’t borrow money from new customers to provide services to new ones. And does not need to raise funds to survive.