wizee

thebishman

acoste

The difference comes from the earlier mentioned air drag coefficient. The higher the number, the more power the car needs at higher speeds. At low speeds / city driving I-pace range is similar to a Model S (similar weight). (Model X is 600 lbs heavier).

There are 3 spots (could be more but this is what I see) what makes the air drag coefficient worse:
- Jaguar kept the ICE look on the front unlike Tesla, (grill and larger intakes)
- and also the roof line was designed to look cool instead of efficient. When you look at them from profile, Model X roof is curved from the bottom of the front windshield to the tail lights (similar to Toyota Prius) while I-pace top is almost straight.
- from top view, Tesla is more rounded - grille area and corners,
Audi e-tron has lower range for the same reasons.

One thing I like about Jaguar is that they minimized the total area of the battery. (they made it taller instead). So the Jaguar has more crumple zone on the front and on the sides as well, this makes it safer.

groundhog

EvilTed

Perhaps because model 3 deliveries only started in Europe 10 days ago and aren't expected in RHD United Kingdom for another 9 months. The waiting list remains long so it hasn't been a realistic option for most of us.
I'm not sure I agree about the Model 3 size being better suited to European roads though. Incredibly not all our roads are mud and stone, some of them even have two lanes and very occasionally they are covered in this smooth black stuff.

whiz944

The wait will be worth it! It is really a fun car to drive.

Yeah - I've been to England and the Continent and have seen a few of those roads. (Amazed when I was in Peniscola, Spain a few years ago though - watching/avoiding the cars driving around narrow streets in the old city/castle. Not sure I'd want to drive anything larger than a Mini in there...)

groundhog

The price of the Model 3 in Europe will be ~ in euros ~ 55k to 75k depending options etc.

The Renault Zoe is ~ 20k (without rebates which can total ~5k).

The Leaf is ~ 30 to 38k

For reference the base Cayman is priced at ~55k

The 2017 E sport concept.

If they made it - I'd buy it.

whiz944

Isn't that the price sans battery pack?

groundhog

I think you pay 75 a month for 36 months (which is ~ 2.5k, more than off set by the rebate).

Lorenfb

Really? Could you be specific and elaborate fully on "has raised the bar" with regard to Tesla's contribution to technology and not what vendors such as Nvidia have contributed.
As an example of not leading, Telsa used an AC synchronous motor in the MS/MX and now has followed Nissan with a PM motor in the M3. Remember, Tesla offered their
EV patents free to all automotive OEMs, but most just yawned.

whiz944

Most other manufacturers haven't given much more than lip service and "compliance cars" to the EV community.

If you bother to watch some of the numerous Model 3 tear down videos, the advances over the S/X drive train for better packaging, lower costs, and higher efficiency are quite obvious. The S/X could, and probably should, be updated to incorporate many of them. And who cares if they buy their GPUs from Nvidia? Nvidia offers some great tech. Likewise their many-year relationship with Panasonic for batteries. No different than the German automakers buying a lot of their tech from Bosch, Continental, etc...

The rear motor in the Model 3 is not a typical PM motor. It is a hybrid reluctance motor that incorporates PMs into the design. I think the BMW i3 motor is somewhat similar, but not aware of any other manufacturer using anything like it. The front motor in the Dual Motor cars remains an induction motor - which has its own advantages and trade-offs.

Lorenfb

So basically on par with other OEM's technology. Hardly having "raised the bar"! With regard to the tear downs, Munro estimated that Tesla's cost for the M3 was $28K - $30K.
Elon a few months ago indicated the M3 cost as being $38K. Besides, Munro had no idea about evaluating the semiconductor or processor technology being used. So much for that "tear down".

manitou202

This is good news. Some serious funding for Rivian. Out of any of the non-Tesla EV startups, Rivian seems the most impressive and attractive. I'd love for them to succeed.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/rivi...by-amazon.html

whiz944

Uh huh. The i3 costs as much as the TM3 and is less car. Bolt EV costs a little less, but it has its issues as well. (Yes, I have driven both.) Moving up the food chain, the i-Pace looks like a nice first shot. But it seems to be taking some serious hits in software stability, efficiency/range, and charging - compared to a Model S or X. It will be interesting to see where it is at in a year or two.

... with the LR battery pack. How much does that drop with the MR or upcoming SR pack?

Methinks Elon is sandbagging to justify selling higher priced/more profitable variants for as long as he can. (Which I'd think most TSLA shareholders would agree with.)

acoste

It is naive to think that a new car maker can suddenly outsmart every other car companies with decades of experiences. They can cut corners in some areas that looks like an advancement but turns out later on that there is a reason why others don't use those practices.

People's believe about Tesla being a supercar comes straight from Elon who is quick to make unrealistic statements and from people's experience who got used to slow auto transmission shifting and throttle lag and sitting in an electric car after those is a relief for sure.

Tesla's marketing strategy also adds to the false image. They were focusing on numbers everyone understands and pushed them to the limits. For example range and 0-60 acceleration time. And once another car maker comes out with higher consumption people think that's because they aren't as good engineers. But this is very far from truth. It is the marketing department who dictates. One of Tesla's marketing goal was the range, while for example Audi's marketing target was to try to lure ICE believers buying into electric cars, so they designed the car that looks like an ICE car (remember the front black oval that looked like a radiator inlet on the pre-facelift Tesla Model S?) and also to keep all the usual AUDI convenience features in place which adds energy consumption and weight. Both Audi and Jaguar prioritized the look instead of the range.

Another thing is the OTA updates
OTA updates make everyone excited and they don't realize this is a drawback and a potential safety issue.
First. Car makers should release products that are ready. They test prototypes for years. Once the car is in production there is hardly any need for software updates, because it is ready. It rarely happens that they need to fix something by software later on. BMW has OTA updates for maps which totally makes sense. But why would they need brakes update? It would be a red flag.
Tesla uses it as a feature, but the reality is they are just not ready with the product and finish it on the fly. For example they had a major brake system update after the Model 3 was released. Or for example they enable features later in the ownership. Is that good? Do I really want a product that isn't ready yet? Why I can't have a dash cam or blind spot detection from the beginning of the ownership?
Also every software update comes with a risk of incomplete testing. The more frequent the updates are, the higher the risk.
I believe this software update will get regulated later on and every update will have to be re-certified. US doesn't have much regulation, but EU does.

Autopilot.
Due to the long testing times, cars rarely get the latest technology, they usually lag by at least 3-4 years, but it is for our safety. Tesla did risk to release the autopilot before it was ready. They call it beta version for legal reasons and use owners for testing. Everyone can have their opinion if this is ok.
They are ahead of some car companies, but MobilEye, GM and Waymo already have better products but they aren't released to public, except Cruise. There are one or two areas where they are ahead, in others they lag.

Simplicity.
This is about using the center display and omitting a lot of misc parts. Now the fastest and cheapest way to design a car is using a generic computer instead of designing car specific hardware. They saved a year by doing so plus tons of money, and also played on people's screen addiction. It has its benefits and drawbacks everyone understands. Less noticeable minimalism is for example omitting the rain sensors and trying to detect rain by cameras (which is still not working properly). Or for example instead of having a dedicated light near the rear view mirrors, they just display blind spot detection on the central display. And so on.

Elon's false statements.
For example safety. He called Model 3 being the safest car even though a 3 series BMW is safer in a side pole collision. And he made this statement based on the NHTSA crash test that covers 40% of all the different tests. They only do full overlap frontal crash and no half or quarter overlap. He never mentioned that the Model S battery gets damaged in the 20 mph side pole test.
He also said AutoPilot makes his cars safer which also wasn't true but twisted statistics. They tried to cover the truth after accidents, always blaming the driver.
Just to show an obvious example how big magician he is, he presented "real solar tiles with conventional look" to convince investors about SolarCity acquisition while none of the demonstrated tiles were working and they aren't ready even until today.
FSD. Elon uses the term Full Self Driving which is completely misleading. People think that is a production ready self driving system, but on their website they say "twice as safe as a human driver" which questions the previous definition. 2 years ago he said FSD is Level 5 autonomy but nowadays it looks like it's going to be Level 2 (needs driver's full attention).

People not familiar with the matter simply believe everything Elon says.


ps: to earl pottinger
I don't need to be balanced. The thread is balanced by the comments from multiple people.