Per the new lease:<p>"Please note, customers who choose leasing over owning will not have the option to purchase their car at the end of the lease, because with full autonomy coming in the future via an over-the-air software update, we plan to use those vehicles in the Tesla ride-hailing network."<p>Elon once again promising fully autonomous vehicles in 3 years.<p>Also, isn't this a rental? A lease normally has a residual, so you can choose whether to buy the car.
Here's the actual Tesla announcement:<p><a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup" rel="nofollow">https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup</a><p>"Given the popularity of the Standard Plus relative to the Standard, we have made the decision to simplify our production operations to better optimize cost, minimize complexity and streamline operations. As a result, Model 3 Standard will now be a software-limited version of the Standard Plus, and we are taking it off the online ordering menu, which just means that to get it, customers will need to call us or visit any one of the several hundred Tesla stores. Deliveries of Model 3 Standard will begin this weekend."
I get the <i>strong</i> impression that even as a loss leader, the $35,000 figure was based on some back of envelope calculations. We know that they have had to expand or increase the cost in several ways since they started production.<p>I know they really want to make the Model T of electric cars, but it took about a decade of development for Ford to deliver one under $500. And I don't think Tesla has quite mastered the science of car production yet.
Ah, another Tesla announcement that's backtracked after a couple of weeks.<p>Purely as an outsider looking in it seems like there's a lot of caveat emptor about buying a Tesla: wait times seem apt to increase, models seem like they'll be arbitrarily subject to conditions, and random conditions seem to get attached about which models can and can't use chargers.<p>There also seems a high likelihood of waiting a long time and paying $2,500 deposit for something which never arrives. And if you do get stiffed, there seems to be an attitude of 'it's your fault' (usually for not spending even more money with Tesla).<p>Not the kind of consistency I'd want when making an investment in a car, to be honest.
Maybe if they hadn't included $5,000+ worth of (fake) "full self-driving" hardware <i>by default</i> into <i>all</i> Model 3s, they wouldn't have needed to do this, and maybe they would've been able to make the base Model 3 a little cheaper, too, which I'm sure would've positively impacted its popularity (I think a $29,900 base Model 3 would be far more popular than Standard Plus).<p>I could understand all the other carmakers being lured by the bells and whistles of "self-driving" marketing blitz over turning their cars into EVs, but I expected more from Tesla.<p>Making great EVs that are also affordable should have <i>always</i> remained Tesla's #1 priority. Last I checked, Musk said he wanted the world to switch to EVs and the way to do that is through them making cheaper EVs with each generation. The priority shouldn't be to keep adding gimmicks to those Teslas and keeping them more expensive than they need to be. Has he forgotten that?
I've been considering a Tesla. Buying the base model with zero options just never really crossed my mind. Seems that's the case for a lot of Tesla buyers.<p>For me it's like buying a base laptop. For my personal one, I'll always max the SSD and memory.
Once again I gotta say the negativity is astounding. People are so stoked to be rooting for this American tech company to fail. I really don't get it.<p>The main gripe I see is that Tesla misses deadlines or makes promises they cannot fulfill. Is this not super common in nearly every industry? Have none of you missed deadlines?<p>I remember this article[1]from last year stating GM would release fully autonomous cars with no steering wheel in 2019! Yet clearly that is not going to happen and I never heard any backlash, but I guess it's not cool to hate GM.<p>I also am astounded to see people constantly saying Autonomy is a decade+ away. They already have cars driving people 95% of their miles, which would've seemed impossible 6 years ago, and yet here we are, and the last 5% is going to take a decade? How many times are people going to doubt Elon before they realize they're betting against someone whose done the impossible many times over.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16880978/gm-autonomous-car-2019-detroit-auto-show-2018" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16880978/gm-autonomous-ca...</a>
So I guess jailbreaking Teslas will become a thing at some point in the future. If all the limits are software only people will find ways to use the car they own in the way they want...
Here’s a new interview with Musk on self-driving:<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dEv99vxKjVI" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dEv99vxKjVI</a><p>The podcast if you prefer:<p><a href="https://lexfridman.com/elon-musk/" rel="nofollow">https://lexfridman.com/elon-musk/</a>
Prior HN post that included some discussion on this point: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863</a>
And just look at what you get for your money: <a href="https://twitter.com/Arronwu23/status/1116691772300599296" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Arronwu23/status/1116691772300599296</a>
This article makes the change sound negative and confusing.<p>But reading the original Tesla announcement [1], it all seems reasonable. People were buying the Standard Plus model six times more often than the Standard model, so they got rid of it. Good.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup" rel="nofollow">https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup</a>