EV technology is pretty much "there", for day to day living.
What I'm looking forward to is (what I hope will be) an explosion of creativity in EV design. Once the base platforms are there for 3rd parties to build on and people don't care about squeezing out every last mile of range (because it doesn't matter), cheaper and more fun cars will emerge.
I can’t wait for the first cheap EV sports car, like an MX-5, gt86, or similar size. It would be cool if you could design one with an h pattern, for the driving fun, but I’m sure it’s not necessary. It better be cheap and no frills, too, as I don’t need any tech other than a good EV drivetrain and 150 miles of charge.
Range tanks when you’re having fun, and batteries last longer with longer range cars.
I’m hoping for a small sub 30k car with decent handling and 320+ miles of EPA range fairly soon. But I suspect that would seriously hurt Model 3 sales so I doubt Tesla’s going down that route anytime soon.
The main Model 3 is pretty much there already? $40k base price, -$7500 for the rebate, -$5000 for picking an inventory model. That's well below your $30k for the 250 mile variant, and not much above for the 320.
And prices will continue to steadily drop all year. I'm fairly sure Tesla will prefer to sacrifice margin to maintain volume.
Tesla’s price is bouncing all over the place but the quote I just got from there website for a long range Model 3 = Vehicle Price $47,740 + Destination fee + $1,390 + Order Fee + $250 = $49,380.
That’s the price people are generally using for comparisons. If they built a car without any self driving hardware or gimmicks like electronically controlled vents, and didn’t charge a large premium for larger batteries they could get much closer, but that’s not their business model.
tesla.com/inventory is about $5000 cheaper than the build-to-order options.
And people don't compare prices with destination fees. Perhaps they should, but they generally don't. And your refusal to include the rebate indicates to me that you're more interested in scoring Internet points by taking shots at Tesla than you are at actually purchasing a Tesla for under $30k.
Try and be consistent. Tesla.com/inventory cars can be ~5,000$ cheaper but only if you ignore the very tax credit you’re talking about. “Eligible for $7,500 Business Tax Credit only” Demo Vehicle 1,165 mile odometer
Useful if you make to much money for the federal tax credit and don’t mind a used car, but we are still talking $43k + fees and taxes.
On the other hand if you get a car that’s actually 30k then you may or may not qualify for a tax credit on top of that price. But at minimum it’s going to be far cheaper.
I was looking through several which explicitly mention they aren’t, thus the direct quote from their website I was using here.
The company isn’t simply applying a discount for no reason otherwise they would just ship one out when someone orders a normal car with the same specs.
What I'm looking forward to is (what I hope will be) an explosion of creativity in EV design. Once the base platforms are there for 3rd parties to build on and people don't care about squeezing out every last mile of range (because it doesn't matter), cheaper and more fun cars will emerge.