tcbrown

Just saw announcement that Tesla will launch a roadster with 1.9 sec. 0-60mph time and over 250 mph top speed. Also claiming 620 mi range. Founders series cars will cost $250K. This really ups the ante for Porsche as it enters the ev space.
Have they captured the high ground?

daveo4porsche

no - it's vapor ware until Musk ships it in 2022 - and the Mission E will be 1/2 the price - color me unconvinced until it's proven track worthy - and I own 2 Teslas and love them - but they have a long way to go to match Porsche as a "true" sports car...Porsche as a much shorter distance to cover to match the Model S - and I'll be one of the first in line if they pull it off to trade in my Tesla Model S - but until then the S is the best Sedan for me, and pretty good over all - prefer it vastly to a Panamera.

tcbrown

If you have 2 Teslas daveao you are way deeper into the EV thing than me. I never even entertained buying a Tesla but I am seriously considering the Mission E. I just hope Porsche can deliver both the product we would love and the infrastructure to support it.
Its interesting but all the commentary is on the 991 thread, mostly from folks that are probably not even potential buyers of either car.

daveo4porsche

Actually 3 - two Tesla’s and a Bolt - love all 3 great cars! EVs are the future but there is still some things for gas to do...

venom914

Tesla being 250k +
Mission E quoted between 80-100k

Also, with the mission E arriving much earlier than the Roadster, I'm sure they'll have some time to play with full electric capabilities.
Mission E is a bit more touch of luxury where as roadster would be full blown sport in my opinion. Porsche has proven their electric/race capabilities so I'm sure Porsche's rendition of a full electric full sport would be a contender if not #1.

Interested in other thoughts!

Gus_Smedstad

The knee jerk reactions in that thread were ridiculous.

I'm repeating myself here, but the main things that come to mind are:

* I very, very much want it to succeed, but I won't be buying one.

* $250k puts it in a very different market from the Mission E.

* The serious overheating issues of the Model S when delivering full power for any sustained length of time would make think 3 times about getting the new Roadster, even if price weren't an issue. Not a knock against electric sports cars, it's a clearly because of Tesla's engineering decisions. They might do that again.

* Quality control issues with the Model S are also a concern. For some reason the serious Tesla fanboys hand-wave those away even though they're well known.

* The Supercharger network, on the other hand, is a huge plus and something Porsche won't match.

* 600 mile range! Woah. That makes the car road-trip capable even without the Supercharger network. 600 miles is a reasonable day's drive, which means overnight charging isn't so bad.

* Love the look of the new roadster, but it's a concept car. I loved the Mission E Concept's look, and find the shots of the (probable) actual production car to be meh.

* It'll likely be long delayed, as Daveo4Porsche says. That's Tesla's track record at present.

* I'm not entirely sure Tesla will be here when it's ready to ship. I look at Tesla's financials regularly, and if it weren't for Musks's charisma and ability to charm new money out of banks, I'd seriously consider shorting TSLA.

* In the same vein, the Model 3 is pretty terrible from what I've seen, and it may kill the company if the cult effect ever wears off and people start comparing them to, say, Bolts. Lots of plain bad design decisions, like no proper instrument dials. You have to use the center tablet to see your speed!

tcbrown

I also think Tesla is in really difficult financial shape. The Roadster launch may be a bit of a desperate attempt to raise some capital.
They are looking to sell 1000 of the “Founders” models at $250k each paid upfront! That’s $250 million without going into the markets.

promocop

Tesla in BIG trouble They can't even produce the in demand model 3...how on earth are they gong to crank this out by 2020? I call BS . They need bundles of cash and fast...YO APPLE?

daveo4porsche

I've talked to a number of battery engineers - the "overheating" issue isn't actually serious - it's Tesla being very very conservative since they offer an 8 year unlimited milage warranty on their batteries, they are managing battery thermals for longevity and therefore kick in extra cooling and throttle limits when the battery thermals heat up a little bit - by keeping hte LiON batteries in the ideal temperature range they significantly increase battery longevity and decrease wear. Also for those that have never driven a Tesla or any other EV - overheating in a battery isn't like a ICE car overheating - there is no long term damage - in Tesla's case they simply limit maximum throttle and discharge rate until the battery cools down a little bit - the net effect is you don' have quite the "punch" when you press on the accelerator - for steady state speed/driving there is _NO _ issue even when being overheated.

Example: my 2014 P85D has been in "battery overheat" mode at thunderhill - and when I preset o the throttle it's simply sluggish to accelerate, the reason is if you look at the dash I can normally dump 400+ Kilowatts under full acceleration - when I"m being thermally limited it's restricted to 150 KW - which places less demand on the battery and allows it to cool...it's not quite a "limp mode" - but the car is simply more sluggish at acceleration - but works fine for steady state speed in this state - it normally clears in 2-5 minutes and then full power acceleration is possible again, and no lasting damage to the battery has been done.

As far as quality problem my 2013 P85 had a few issues, but my 2014 P85D has been mostly flawless - I've actually had quite a few more problems with my wife's Boxster and my 2015 GT3 had a number of issues. I also work in a Silly-con valley tech company where my co-workers have literally 100's of Tesla's and an active EV commuter/charger forum - we report all sorts of problems - the general consensus is early models of Tesla all have problems, but generally after Tesla has made about 30,000 units of anything they seem to get pretty good - I'd be curious to hear what if any quality issues you actually think are occurring - local service centers in the area also report a decrease in warranty issues these days vs. the early years. I'm not saying Tesla is the best, but I can find horror stories about any auto-manufacture and I know people that won't buy Porsche's, BMW's, Mercedes etc…when ever I see someone bringing up quality issues based on a limited data set it's generally confirmation bias - they wouldn't buy one anyways and they use that as justification of their decision. Tesla has now shipped over 300,000 vehicles world wide, and if there were serious systemic issues with 300,000 cars in the fleet - I believe:

1. we'd be hearing a lot more about it - class action lawsuits and recalls
2. Tesla simply wouldn't be able to keep up and again it wouldn't be very quiet

I will say if you have an accident with your Tesla I've heard/confirmed horror stories about getting parts from Tesla for typical body shop style repairs - it can take _MONTHS_ and is not in the same league as with other cars for ease of repair to rehabilitate the car from damage.

daveo4porsche

I call BS on ANY Elon Schedule - he's wrong, and I honestly believe he lie's but that really really upsets a lot of people on the Tesla forums to suggest Elon's knowingly lies about schedules. They honestly believe he's just optimistic/ambitious - I believe the stakes are high enough that he lies, knowing it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Gus_Smedstad

I'm mostly talking about Consumer's Union only recently upgrading predicted Tesla reliability from "below average" to "average." Since they're one of the few organizations that's working with a broad range of responses, rather than just anecdotes. The anecdotal stuff is mostly forum people talking about minor defects rather than griping about repairs, build quality issues like slight misalignment of body panels and such. Oh, and there's Edmund's experience with their long-term test car, which needed two replacement power trains in the first 20,000 miles, but that's just one car.

Still, there's considerably gray area between "class action lawsuits and recalls" and the sort of high-quality work I expect from Honda, Toyota, or Porsche. "Average reliability" from CU isn't exactly a glowing recommendation.

When talking about overheating, I was thinking about the sort of drastically reduced power output you describe, not permanent damage. Dropping to 150 KW output (200 HP) is still unpleasant. It's acceptable in a sedan that's not meant to be a performance car, but not in a $250k sports car. If it weren't for Tesla touting the Model S as a "super fast car" rather than just a sedan, the model S thermal issues wouldn't come up. It's irritating the Tesla talks about drag racing as if that were the only important aspect of performance.

daveo4porsche

most of the data I've seen - and people would actually have access to - is from about 2013/2014 - early Model S's had some problem in excess of average - but in all cases they were taken care of under warranty - I would not call early 2014 Model S "reliable" by any stretch of imagination - current Tesla's and since about mid 2015 are showing vastly better quality and I expect that to show up in the data sets relatively soon…it's really not that bad for a new car company, and the +'s out weight the minus's in the grade scheme of things…my wife's Boxster S got a new PDK transmission at 2,500 miles, so Porsche is not immune to major defect either…

the performance thing is tricky - the Model S is a performance sedan IMHO - but it's not a track car - my opinion is for the Roadster to be consider a serious/legit supercar it has to be able to run at least a 25 minute hooked on driving HPDE advanced session without neutering itself - if all Tesla does is focus on the 1/4 mile and 0-xxx mph performance I'll be very disappointed but NOT surprised - I'm very very skeptical it will actual be any better than a model S for track duty - that won't render it bad for daily driver - but will still leave some high ground for ICE's in their relative maturity for extreme demand applications

EV's are not a panacea and I still see lot of applications for ICE's - I don't see ICE"s going away - but I do see them declining in the next 20 years - most applications can use an EV, for ones that can't use an ICE - we as a species have literally invested 1000's of trillions of $$$ in R&D to perfect the ICE eco-system - we should not blindly throw it away over night - it's a vast "engine" of progress and ability - but EV's will rise, and once you understand what they can and can't do I'm personally loving them as my daily driver....

but I'm taking my wife's Boxster to the track monday Nov. 20th - and I'm very very excited for my '18 GT3 as my track weapon of choice -

Archimedes

Mission E and the Tesla Roadster are two entirely different animals. Not comparable at all.

Gus_Smedstad

Given that one isn't in production yet, and the other is still at the concept car stage, that's a sweeping statement to make without further clarifying what you mean.

It's not clear exactly what the Mission E will be yet. It's going to be a 4 door, but will it be a performance sedan like the Panamera, or will they finally make an electric sports car? The concept car sure pushed the "this is a real sports car" image, but the test mules smell like a smaller Panamera. Until the Mission E is in showrooms, we won't know for sure.

The projected $200k production-run price of the Tesla Roadster pushes it into 911 Turbo territory, but the price tag may end up being misleading. We don't know how much engineering is going to go into it yet (assuming it ever ships). The claimed 0-60 times mean nothing, since that's purely about the electric motor. A P100D will outrun a 911 Turbo to 0-60, but that doesn't make the Model S a sports car.

We really won't know how far apart the two cars will be until they're actually in production.

rayng

Why are we comparing a 4 door sedan like the Tesla S to a 911 Turbo. I have both and both drive very differently. This is why comparing the Mission E to the Tesla Roadster is not really comparable. These cars were meant to do different things. The Mission E compares to the Tesla S. So how many Tesla S owners will buy the new Porsche EV sedan? From what I've seen so far of the Mission E, I've no cause to switch.