Tesla's Model 3 Is a Long Way from Elon Musk's Grand Goal

[OKIsItJustMe]

Last edited Fri Jul 28, 2017, 05:18 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608331/teslas-model-3-is-a-long-way-from-elon-musks-grand-goal/

Tesla’s Model 3 Is a Long Way from Elon Musk’s Grand Goal

Many things still need to change before electric vehicles can become a mainstream choice.

by James Temple | July 28, 2017

Eleven years ago, Elon Musk laid out a grandiose, three-point plan for a niche electric car startup known as Tesla Motors. The company would deliver three vehicles at successively lower prices, funneling cash from sales of its sports car and luxury sedan back into research and development, driving down costs and speeding up the timeline for the ultimate goal: an all-electric, low-cost family car.

Only once clean vehicles reached the mass market could the company achieve what Musk saw as Tesla's overarching purpose: expediting the shift from "a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy" (see “Elon Musk’s House of Gigacards”).

On Friday, against all reasonable expectations a decade ago, the company will arrive at the final step of that initial plan. During a carefully staged event at its manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, Tesla will deliver the first of its long-awaited Model 3s to several dozen early customers. The four-door sedan starts at $35,000 before incentives, with a range of 215 miles per charge.

You can quibble over whether that's genuinely affordable (auto observers would generally call it “entry-level luxury”). But there's little doubt the vehicle will lure a wider mix of customers to electric vehicles—and no dispute that Tesla has already reshaped the automobile market. The company helped make plug-in vehicles appealing in a nation infatuated with brawny, gas-guzzling cars and trucks, forcing other manufacturers to initiate or accelerate their own EV plans.

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[SHRED]

1. Electric cars are coming on quickly

They are much less expensive to build and maintain.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. That would explain why so many people are buying battery electric cars...

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608331/teslas-model-3-is-a-long-way-from-elon-musks-grand-goal/

… For all the rapid recent growth, electric vehicles are still a tiny market, representing less than 1 percent of new sales globally.

…



It really doesn’t matter much whether you like electric cars or not. What does matter is what most people are driving.


https://www.nada.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=21474849663

[GeorgeGist]

2. Shit headline.

That is all.