Tesla Model 3 Sedan Debuts Priced at $35,000, 215 Miles of Range | Edmunds.com

Edmunds.com

Tesla Model 3 Sedan Debuts Priced at $35,000, 215 Miles of Range | Edmunds.com

Tesla pulled the wraps off its long-awaited Tesla Model 3 sedan, confirming key price and performance details.

Read the full story here

throwback

""At Tesla, we don't build slow cars," said Musk"

as a car enthusiast I approve of this message. As for the car, I'll reserve judgement until I see it in the metal. That snout is not very appealing. looks like it is hunting for truffles!

stever

Looks good in the photos. Hate the tires (not the wheels, the tires). Wonder if you could put 16s on it.

The monitor screen on the dash may be a bit much.

fintail

I think that "picture" is a digital render. Actual physical mockups were shown last night.

IMO, the smaller shorter car seems to wear the rounded egg shape better than the larger cars. It's like a generic version of a future car from a decade or two ago, and not trying so hard to be exotic to beige people. I dislike center instruments, no matter what one says, it is a cost cutting move. I suspect the base 35K car won't be as flashy as the mockups last night - probably on plastic frisbee wheelcovers and with a burlap interior.

The Fed tax gift expires when Tesla sells a certain number of cars, right? It'd be amusing if it ran out before most of these see delivery.

stever

Thanks Fin.

Yeah, the number I saw for the tax credit was 200,000.

Tesla seemed to have that many people waiting in line yesterday.

markedwards

Hype, hype, hype. We'll see if the reality lives up to yesterday's hot air when it finally arrives. I don't expect that will be until 2019 given Tesla's pattern of delays.

fintail

Interesting take on Tesla right now

I got in trouble on another site for mocking the cult behind all this - it's the iPhone of cars, but without an actual product for delivery.

Time will tell. I await the competition, and the gradual shortage of charging stations once the hyper masses jump on board.

stever

I think the biggest risk to Tesla in the short term is the Volt (and no, not the Bolt).

The WSJ is reporting that Tesla secured about 180,000 reservations on the first day of orders for the Model 3.

the_jerns

If they have this many orders already they don't need my tax money buying people cars.

500rwhp

Does anyone really believe that if Tesla sells 250,000 cars per year that the supercharger network won't be at 500% capacity? With only 200 miles of range, you have one supercharger between you and anywhere you might go. If it's a 30 minute wait,....that's a real problem every three hours.

tacomamudpit

Question: There’s not allot of mechanical info released yet. However are these cars exclusively REAR WHEEL DRIVE, unless you select the AWD option? Anyone know if the Bare Bones Base model is RWD?

tacomamudpit

Question 2: Anyone that has had a battery powered car, or engineers reading - If you're crusing down road at 60 MPH, head lights on, AC on, Raido on, other required car electroincs etc on - and you start on a fresh full charge are you going to get 200 miles on a charge? If less anyone know about how much LESS with all that equipment on? Also, if I'm a HOT foot on the road and have a full battery charge, are we talking signficantly less range if I'm "full on throttle" at every stop? As the battery gets used up lets say 20% left would you still have full on power when you need it?

zoomzoomn

One area that i find amusing is that Mr. Musk says that we need to get rid of cars that put dangerous gases into our atmosphere yet he doesn't address the power plants that will be doing as such even more so when they are charging these cars in mass. Until we develop better alternative and cleaner energy producing sources there is no solid answer.

stever

Better to localize the pollution for ease of monitoring than having every car belch out their own emissions. Then when a cheat is found, you just have to fix the one power plant, not every TDI on the road.

Mr_Shiftright

I really don't think Tesla will be in business by around 2020.

fintail

Or just import the pollution to someone elses backyard - it's the bleating greenie SJW way. Buses and shoebox apartments for all, but I will keep my private car and large house I bought for nothing 30 years ago, thank you very much.

I wonder what the range is at 75 mph. Maybe a good city car anyway. This will be a car that is served well by autonomous features, as it will be like a magnet for many drivers who just don't care.

Mr_Shiftright

Might work for metro trendies, in places like San Francisco, where cars are punished for merely existing. But I just don't see the practicality of a car that has the range of about a 5 gallon Yaris at freeway speeds.

Maybe it's me. I'm just picturing myself having spent (with tax and a few paltry Tesla options), well north of $40K for a car that I have to stop and charge every 3 hours. I couldn't bear it.

If it were say the price of a stripped-down Chevy Spark, I might think differently about it.

fintail

And by the time you are able to get one, the tax break will likely be long gone. It'll be 60K loaded, just wait.

The range is the killer. I can make it to Reno or to SF from here on one tank in a modern diesel MB, and would only have to stop for about 10 mins at most to refuel. At wide open highway speeds in this new thing, I'd have to stop by Salem or Tri-Cities at best for how long? But in city driving, where it is more efficient, and you have time to charge, it works.

wheelmccoy

Mr_Shiftright said:

Might work for metro trendies, in places like San Francisco, where cars are punished for merely existing. But I just don't see the practicality of a car that has the range of about a 5 gallon Yaris at freeway speeds.

Maybe it's me. I'm just picturing myself having spent (with tax and a few paltry Tesla options), well north of $40K for a car that I have to stop and charge every 3 hours. I couldn't bear it.

If it were say the price of a stripped-down Chevy Spark, I might think differently about it.

Can you picture charging in your own garage? Or picture no more trips to the gas station? Or picture no more oil changes? And that you can fit a lot of pictures in the trunk and the frunk (front has no engine, so it can be used as storage).

If your commute involves more than 200 miles, then this is not the car for you. Just as the Miata is for some people, and motorcycles for others, and Mustangs for yet other others, Tesla has its own target market.

7driver

tacomamudpit said:

Question 2: Anyone that has had a battery powered car, or engineers reading - If you're crusing down road at 60 MPH, head lights on, AC on, Raido on, other required car electroincs etc on - and you start on a fresh full charge are you going to get 200 miles on a charge? If less anyone know about how much LESS with all that equipment on? Also, if I'm a HOT foot on the road and have a full battery charge, are we talking signficantly less range if I'm "full on throttle" at every stop? As the battery gets used up lets say 20% left would you still have full on power when you need it?

The 70kwh battery in a base Model S goes 240 miles. Without boring you with the math, that translates to about 17.5kw (about 23.4 horsepower) to go 60mph. Being that k=kilo, that's 17500 watts. For comparison, a set of LED headlights use about 65 watts. My boombox at medium volume uses about 10watts. My laptop is probably smart enough to run a Tesla and it's about 40watts. Most of the portable heater-fans I see from Walmart average out to about 800 watts on high (they seem to cycle between on and off periodically) and maybe half that on medium.

TL;DR: Add it all up and convert to gearhead terms, it takes about 23hp to cruise at 60mph and less than 1hp to do all the additional stuff you asked. So no, if the Model 3 is rated at 215 miles on a charge then turning on all that stuff probably won't affect it enough to make it get much less than 200 miles if at all.

Being a hot foot on acceleration will reduce range since proportionally more power is converted heat than motion but it's not as bad a gas powered car since a good portion of that motion will be converted back to charge when you slow down. What will kill your range more than being a hot foot on acceleration is aggressive braking. The batteries can't drink from a firehose (metaphorically speaking), so nailing the brakes wastes more charge than nailing the accelerator.

Lastly, physics says you still have full speed/acceleration at 20% charge as you do at 100% charge. However, software may say differently.

Mr_Shiftright

Of course I can picture charging it in my garage...IF I make it back to my garage.

I completely understand that this type of car is only for certain people in a particular driving situation. I think I indicated that pretty clearly in my other post.

As for "not visiting gas stations", you are essentially doing the same thing when you supercharge on the road--in fact, given the 1/2 hour you have to wait for a full charge, you are visiting 5 gas stations, time-wise.

And you don't have oil changes, but you have other forms of maintenance with a Tesla, specifically $2400 over the course of 50,000 miles (data from Tesla website).

EVs are a trade-off just like most everything else you buy.

This isn't a miracle, it's very good marketing.

stever

Under the Tesla service plan, there's an inspection (wheels off, and rotated if needed), cabin filter and wiper replacement, fob battery replacement, brake fluid replacement and AC service at 25k and battery coolant replacement at 50k.

So the first service is $400 at 12,500 miles, $700 at 25,000 miles, $400 at 37,500 and the big one at 50k is $900 for a total over four years of $2,400.

Edmunds' True Cost to Own has maintenance for a Prius hatchback over four years/60,000 miles of $59, $474, $433, and $984 for a total of $1,950.

The Audi S6 may be more comparable, at least price wise, to the Tesla S.

Maintenance TCO for the S6 is $492, $589, $1,287 and $2,595 for years one through four for a total of $4,963.

Twice as much as the Tesla in other words.

Cars aren't cheap to maintain - Telsa should be aiming to beat Prius maintenance numbers for the Model 3 or they're going to have some irate customers.

explorerx4

I guess I can see those Prius numbers if you go with the dealer recommended service.
We have 2 Escapes with over 50k miles on them. Dealer service every 5k, including several wiper changes and a cabin filter totaled about $600 each before the various kickbacks.

stever

$1,200 every 5,000 miles to maintain your two Escapes? Ouch, that sounds high, but not too out of line with TCO in years four and five.

explorerx4

@stever, No, $600 total each over 50k miles. Our 04 Escape was about $1400 over 50k miles, which included new front rotors/pads and a trans flush.

stever

Oh good, that sounds more like my territory. I'm around $450 for the last two years with the latest van, which includes some new ant-squeal qizmos for the rear brakes.

carlover92

The one thing that bothers me is that Tesla is copying off of Porshe. The looks of this vehicle remind me of the Porsche Targa 91, the Panamera, or better yet, the Volkswagen Beetle.

Mr_Shiftright

That's partly do to computer modeling. It's limited of course by what someone wrote for it.

Tesla is touting the 3 as the "electric car for the masses", ala the Model T Ford.

But this is a false analogy on so many levels. While I'm sure it'll be a nice car (if it ever gets built before the Germans destroy Tesla), it's not "for the masses"( at $40K + by the time you're out the door(, and to get a tax credit you have to make enough to pay substantial taxes to get those credits.

Also, the Model T enabled the "masses" to do what it had not been able to do before (and thus had a liberating quality), but the Model 3 actually limits what they were able to do before, and charges them more for it.

So, yeah, there's a lot of pixie dust being thrown around in Tesla marketing. I think of it more like the Apple Watch of cars. You want it, but you probably don't need it, and how much good is it, all things considered?

And we haven't really touched on Tesla reliability issues.

I'm going to be ornery and stick to my original (and no doubt for some, tedious) mantra about the truly successful EV. It's the 3-3 Rule. It has to cost under $30,000, and it has to go 300 miles minimum, under any conditions.

THAT would be an EV "for the masses" and a home run for whoever can pull it off. Maybe it'll be Tesla someday!

actualsize

tacomamudpit said:

Question: There’s not allot of mechanical info released yet. However are these cars exclusively REAR WHEEL DRIVE, unless you select the AWD option? Anyone know if the Bare Bones Base model is RWD?

Yes, as I said, the standard configuration has its motor positioned low between the rear wheels, with dual-motor AWD being optional for an as-yet-undetermined price.

actualsize

the_jerns said:

If they have this many orders already they don't need my tax money buying people cars.

Yes. Agree. The point of the tax credit was/is to coax people into trying it. Once they're lining up, coaxing is no longer required. And $35,000 without a credit seems a reasonable price. A VW e-Golf SEL costs more than that before credits, and the Model 3 prototype I saw and rode in is much more car than that. The 200k cap (per manufacturer) has been part of the program from the start.

The same incentive mindset underpins single-occupant carpool lane access program in California. At one time a normal Prius was eligible in order to kickstart demand for hybrids, but now they're popular enough on their own and their yellow-sticker access has been allowed to expire. Plug-in hybrids got the same incentive with their green-sticker access, but that's also set to expire in a matter of months. They've stopped issuing new green stickers, and the ones in circulation will sunset sometime next year. After that only pure EVs, hydrogen and CNG cars and their white access stickers will be allowed single-occupant carpool access.

bankerdanny

Have none of you people read the Edmunds LT blog on their Model S? All these questions about range based on 75mph speeds, or using lights and AC etc. Edmunds (and C&D and other sources for that matter) have been consistently able to get the ranges cited for the Model S in normal driving. I don't see any reason why the Model 3 should be any different.

stever

Yeah, but that car was sold July 2014. Ancient history in the tech world.

Kind of bummed that the 3 isn't FWD, but it's not like I much drive in rain, much less snow, since we moved.

markinnaples_

With the batteries over the rear wheels (or close to it), traction in the rain or snow shouldn't be much of a problem so I don't see the lamentation for front wheel drive.

actualsize

stever said:

Looks good in the photos. Hate the tires (not the wheels, the tires). Wonder if you could put 16s on it.

These were clearly shown with what had to be an optional 20-inch summer high-performance tire upgrade consisting of Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires in size 235/35R20 up front and 275/30R20 in back. They didn't talk about base-level equipment at all, including tires and wheels, but looking at the available brake caliper clearance I figure the $35,000 starter configuration will have 18-inch all-season rolling stock of the same width at both ends.

alexa0002

No interest in electric cars.

Mr_Shiftright

EVs have a long LONG way to go yet. And with Consumer Reports sticking Tesla on the "worst used cars" list, and the nuisance of charging stations, I'm thinking that many of these "reservations" on the Model 3 are going to dry up.