Quote:
Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue
I ran into this friend of a friend at a Potbelly once. He showed me his car, took me for a ride in it, and all of that. It's crazy impressive. A very cool driving/riding experience.
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There are a lot of "ifs" here, but
if Tesla delivers the Model 3 in 2017, and
if it has 200-300 mile range, and
if they are able to keep the price in the $35K range, it's going to be a game-changer. Yes, there will still be people that will have range-anxiety and won't be in the market for a full electric car, and there are people for whom a $35K pricetag (even considering lower operations costs and federal incentives) is just too high, but a car that hits these key metrics -
especially from Tesla, where you can feel pretty confident it's going to drive like a mofo and look amazing - is going to really break open the full electric car market.
I expect they won't be the only ones at these metrics. Nissan knows they're going to have to significantly boost the range of the Leaf without raising the price given the threat from the Model 3, and others that are dipping their toes (BMW, VW, Ford, Fiat, Mercedes, GM) have to know that a new bar will be raised, and it will be match (or exceed) or GTFO.
While there's reason to distrust projected street dates from Tesla, the Model 3 might be different - it shouldn't require any significant new tech (unlike the Model X) and is really just a scaled-down version of the S, with the cost (presumably) driven down by economy of scale from their new battery gigafactory. On the other hand, inevitable continued delays on the Model X might force them to push it back, which could leave open a window for a competitor to hit those metrics first.
Our current Leaf lease expires in 2017, so I'm hopeful the Model 3 is A) ready and B) not significantly more expensive than they're currently promising.