Nicole

In the end, it's not just the car alone, but also the support it receives out on the road. The Supercharger network is superb to any fast charging network out there at this time. Tesla is 8 years ahead of the competition. I have a difficult time imaginig that these independent charge provicers can catch-up within less than 5 years, leaving buyers of non-Tesla EVs with much fewer charging options on long trips.

And then there is the mobile service, and the free software updates. I hope others will start offering those as well, as it should be standard these days. But I doubt the conservative Germans will ever take it to the level Tesla does.

groundhog

LOL - "the conservative germans" are all germans conservative? Have you heard of the Lohner-Porsche hybrid and do you know when it was invented?

cometguy

I don't see the Tesla supercharging network as doing much of anything to increase Tesla sales significantly between the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast, so far. It sounds like 98 percent of sales (just throwing a figure out there) of Teslas are made within 50 miles of the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines...
I think that for the foreseeable future, people buying all-electric cars will do so primarily to drive within a hundred (or couple hundred) miles radius of home while retaining at least one vehicle in the home stable with an ICE in it. But that may be a significant market that can be expanded upon. As with the rapid increase in ICE vehicles a century ago, it took more than a few years to get gas stations conveniently placed across the US for long-distance trips. But perhaps by 2030 or 2040, things will look very different in terms of electrical charging stations, and perhaps there will be some great advances in battery storage technology that will push the revolution even faster.

whiz944

Any owner of a plug-in car will tell you that the first two questions people ask are "how far will it go?" and "how fast will it charge?". Folks are used to the idea that they can get into any ICE car and drive coast to coast - regardless of whether they would ever actually do it.

Here on the left coast, it is quite common for folks to drive between the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles. For most Teslas one would make a 20-30 minute stop at Harris Ranch (18 Supercharging stalls and yummy food) or Kettleman (_40_ Supercharging stalls) - and you are on your way. In an ICE car, I always stop at one of those two for food/bio needs anyway. So there really is no time difference.

In another rennlist thread, I mentioned that my single-day, solo-driving, limit is about 700 miles. I did it a few years ago in an ICE car between Portland, Oregon and the SF Bay Area. I just entered the same trip into a EV route calculator (https://abetterrouteplanner.com/). It calculated I'd need to do one hour and 8 minutes of Supercharging along the way. Of course in an ICE car I'd be making bio and food stops as well. So again, overlapping them with Supercharging and there is no time difference.

I'm planning a trip to the Midwest later this year. I'll Supercharge and/or use overnight Destination Charging at motels along the way. It should take me the same three days it always does in an ICE car. The return trip will, in part, veer onto some byways outside of the Supercharging network. It will be more about sightseeing and less about "cannonballing". So again I'll again take advantage of any overnight Destination Charging I can find. Might need to use a RV park or two along the way.

Cross-country drives in non-Tesla cars are not so fortunate since the other automakers refused to join with Elon on developing the Supercharger network. The other U.S. and European makers decided to re-invent the wheel with CCS charging. (Of course they also ignored the CHAdeMO capability that the Nissan and the rest of the Japanese standardized and deployed nearly a decade ago.) So now they have to build out an entirely new nationwide capability - which will take several more years compared to what Tesla is providing their customers today...

umwolverine

Of course Musk is a 'unique' individual (his pot-smoking interview was actually quite good), but he has done some amazing things, and I do believe he has moved technology forward in massive ways that no one else could have (I'm including spacex and the boring company).

The ICE engine will go the way of horse-and-buggy in the next 20 years for sure. He saw this coming, and is now building and selling the most popular luxury sedan in the US. Of course there are problems, but look at what he did, and look at how all the major car companies are scrambling to catch up. He's more interested in advancing technology than making money or building a huge company - that's why all his patents are out there free to be used. Pretty amazing really.

I actually feel a bit guilty about buying a 'copycat' car from Porsche, but not that guilty...

bdoviack

Here's an interesting interview with Sandy Munro, the guy whose company takes apart cars down to their individual pieces and then sells the research to manufacturers around the world. He was one of the first to breakdown the Model 3.

Here's why he says Tesla has been able to succeed while other manufacturers have struggled. It's a long video but I tried to link to the Tesla portion:

daveo4porsche

"At the end of the day the Model 3 Body is awful as far as manufacturing is concerned - the good part is everything else on the car" - time stamp 10:00 in the video…he goes to great lengths to note areas in which Tesla is way ahead of the rest of the industry.

industry leading, electronics, battery, electric motors, harnesses etc…

"electric motor in the Model 3 is smaller and lighter - but out performs everybody else's motor…"

comparing the i3 vs. Bolt vs. Model 3 - time stamp 24:00 - he gives Tesla credit for the best engineering across the board - best of breed in everything except the body design - which he says is too heavy - picture the Model 3 with a lighter stiffer body…it would be a world beater - the rest of the car is apparently world class.

summing up the Model 3 - everything "inside the skin" is brilliant and world beating - the only problem with the car from any engineering point of view is "the skin".

time stamp 36:00 is interesting - Elon is visionary and excellent engineer and vision…
time stamp 40:00 Tesla is a wake up call to the rest of the industry that they've been wrong all these years…

he thinks the body is very fixable - and can be redesigned no problem - but keep the rest of the car - and come out a lot lighter.

if you bring traditional manufacturing technique to Model 3 - it's profitable at 30% or more - 41:00 time stamp…18% margin on the base model.

time stamp 53:00 - the super bottle - best in class cooling/heating.

talking about Talent at Tesla at 60:00 mark - not dummies - really really smart people.

1:16:30 - talks about how good it is as a car if you ignore the body issues…

Nicole

I had one of the early Model 3 and thought it was amazing. The three things I did not like:

- no hatchback - the trunk is impractical for my needs
- no display in front of the driver
- no manual override for the electrical door poppers in the rear

Too bad the Taycan will come with an equally stupid trunk.

acoste

I have the impression that you don't understand these technical details. He is talking about manufacturing. Not technology. The only tech he mentioned is the motor design.
Superbottle for example. It is an expansion tank with integrated pumps. Just like a windshield washer bottle in any cars on the road.
40% less wiring. Yes because Tesla uses one generic computer instead of having a hardware specific modules. And left out as much feature as possible. they also left out the fuse panel that every car has. Fuse panel adds a lot of wiring because every unit gets power on individual wires from the fuse panel. I believe a car with a fuse panel is safer since it provides passive safety, no active circuitry involved in the protection.
Industry leading electronics: he was impressed how they integrated the power electronics. Again, this is manufacturing, not tech.
The "industry leading battery" is a battery that Panasonic sells in retail. Nothing new there. Tesla Model 3 as I mentioned earlier has the disadvantage of the battery modules being huge (instead of having larger number of smaller ones) so it's costly to replace them. Recycling is another nightmare due to the small cells.

Munro sent the company a list of 227 suggested improvements. It is a new car company, so this is not a surprise. Musk arrogantly refused it. And that is his issue. He thinks he can do better than anyone else. Remember he wanted the fastest manufacturing ever. It turned out to be the slowest. He didn't listen to experts and skipped the usual testing of press tools causing manufacturing hell. I credit him that he kicked out the electric vehicles finally that no one else wanted to touch (is that right? nope there were couple of hybrids out there in 2000s already. and many production ready BEV prototypes from 1970). But no one wanted to tackle the charging network for example. This is where he helped. But as a car manufacturer CEO (rather COO) he isn't great (except that he created the Elon Musk religion that brings in a lot of sales). He should just focus on initiating things and motivating but leave the rest for the experts.

Forgot to say. After the tear down Munro said BMW i3 is as revolutionary as the Ford T model.

manitou202

Does that statistic take into account that Tesla is much more vertically integrated? BMW and GM rely on a huge number of suppliers to build and design large subassemblies etc. If those suppliers aren't counted it's a meaningless stat.

Lorenfb

That's not correct! The M3 like all ICEVs uses distributed processors (modules), e.g. motor controller, ABS/traction control, battery controller, & AP. Given the need to minimize the vehicle's wiring
and the need to minimize communications over the vehicle's multiple CANs, no single processor (computer) would be an optimal solution (fast enough/cost effective). Furthermore, it's highly unlikely
that Tesla designs all the modules for its vehicles, e.g. ABS/traction control, with exception of the motor controller and the MCU (media control unit - Nvidia help).

Lorenfb

Tesla is "much more vertically integrated" versus other automotive OEMs, a real joke!

Schnellisporsche

acoste

Good points. My comment to that is if we take a look at ICE car makers, most of them design and manufacture their engines in house. That is more complex than the bits and pieces of the Model 3. Again it is not surprising that a new car manufacturer is not as efficient as others. But.
Musk "solves" everything by firing people. For example the one responsible for the body design. In reality couple of hundred employees saw the battery case design, and its flaws are obvious by the first look. So he should have fired all of them including himself. But with this firing habits and high pressure he makes a very unhealthy environment. High turnover rate. Experience gets wasted because the previous guy who learnt something by building the part has got fired.


The WSJ article says that Tesla has to outsource manufacturing.

"Mr. Musk might want to turn to a different page in Apple’s playbook, the one that outlines that the real money isn’t in building beautiful, well-designed things, but finding another company to put together your must-have products.

Apple has long contracted with Foxconn Technology Group to make its iPhones, protecting itself from the expensive, cyclical world of manufacturing. The iPhone isn’t soaring as high lately, but it has been a cash cow since 2007 and remains the envy of consumer product makers around the world. Foxconn is a big reason why.

..

Tesla churned out 260,000 cars last year with a workforce of 45,000 people, or equivalent to about five cars built per person employed. True, Tesla performs more production tasks in-house (such as manufacturing seats) and makes solar panels, but consider luxury auto makers churn out three to four times as many cars per employee. "

acoste

Yes the motor controller, airbag and ABS are separate where high power needed or has a different safety category. But (part of the) body control, wiper control, climate control, light control, instrument cluster, seat control, rain sensor and so on. Anything missing from the dash is integrated.