Tesla's Big Gamble: Can The Electric Car Go Mainstream?

My parents used to joke that it took three owners to create a new ski resort, the first to do all the permitting paperwork and go bankrupt, the second to acquire that completed paperwork for free and then to go bankrupt removing trees and rocks and installing lifts, then the third to get the paperwork and the equipment for free and to start marketing it.<p>I really really really want Tesla to succeed. But I cannot convince myself to buy a Model-S, it is just past my pain threshold. And for that I am sad.

I'm very excited for mine to arrive in the next 90 days. I know I will be an early adopter in the EV world but I look at it as less of a splurge and more of an investment that could move the industry forward. This will be my fifth car owned and I am tired of two faced dealers, incremental improvements, design without vision and an industry that can but won't improve because of the lucrative parts &#38; service aftermarket. Radio and television is littered with people giving away cars with 0% financing (baking in the profit elsewhere I suspect). It's only a matter of time before we have to bail the auto makers out again.<p>I'm putting my money into Tesla because I believe that if they can make it to the Model E (Bluestar - $30-40k sedan) then we'll have a whole new ballgame on our hands in the automotive space. The Model S is the testing ground for volume manufacturing, the Model X will test platform re-use, then we reach the Model E which will drive down costs.<p>In the mean time I encourage you all to test drive one - even if you are not going to purchase - it's quite the experience. The Tesla stores around North America are now getting their in-store models for test drives. With leasing opening up next summer (rumour has it) it should also make it a tad more accessible to the general public.

I'm sorry but we're past the "can" stage.<p>Electric propulsion just <i>is</i> better for any type of friction based transport within our atmosphere (trains/buses/planes/cars/bikes). The only problem was battery density per dollar. However, thanks to the incredible - and I mean incredible - success of laptops, phones and tablets over the last decade that problem is just about solved (due to astonishing volume/economies of scale/incremental li-on research/massive factory investment).<p>High battery density at low cost (key) + 92% efficient electric motors (already done) = cheap, efficient transport for all - everywhere (think the electrification of trains - but throughout suburbia). Hook up this electrified network and make it fully autonomous (cars/trains/buses/planes) - and we've just turned the physical world into the Internet. No more oil shocks, no more traffic jams, no more pollution (in city centres), no more time wasted, fully networked, no more car ownership, no more driver deaths - for more see Google car discussions elsewhere.<p>We will utilise fully electric transportation systems within the decade for the same reason that gasoline/diesel based transport dominated electric back in 1900 - it's just better, faster and cheaper.<p>It also has the benefit of allowing us stop giving a shit about the hell hole that is the Middle East (I went there).<p>With the introduction of electric cars, the astonishing growth and dramatic lowering in cost of solar PV (thanks to China) and the development of nuclear fusion with the ITER plant - you'll soon wonder why you cared about the price of oil at all.<p>The electric car will send everyone in the Middle East back to Africa level care and development levels - a.k.a. We will no longer give a shit and brutal poverty.

I hope someone from Tesla is reading this. I really, really wanted to buy a Tesla. But the Roadster was too small, and the Model S is too big. At 196 inches long, it's almost as big as a BMW 7 series. The Right Size for an electric car is ~170-180 inches, about the size of a Prius (or a Lexus IS or an Infiniti G). I was a little dismayed to see that the next car in the pipeline, the Model X, bills itself as a blend of SUV and minivan. That is totally the wrong direction IMHO. You already have one very big car and one very small one. You need a compact-to-midsize to fill out the lineup, not a second huge car.

Tesla, here's what I want.<p>- $30k base (I buy around $20k, but can justify the delta because of the fuel savings), could care less what the top end is, but probably no more than $45k.<p>- Accord or Sonata size. I'd even settle for a BMW 3-series or C class size.<p>- For the base price I want 300 mile range.<p>- Seats 4-5 adults<p>- don't need leather seats or other fancy stuff, just a/c am/fm/hd/xm radio with an Aux in. Don't care about touch screen nonsense, GPS nav, maybe just give me a place to put my phone and it'll fill in for all that stuff. I don't even care about a CD player, the phone will handle it all through aux.<p>- Cruise control is cool, but I won't pay a dollar more for it<p>- 0-60 in under 6 seconds.<p>- 5 star crash ratings all around<p>- sell it with civic/accord like reliability for 5 years<p>- then I'll buy it<p>everything else is cool, hell I'd love to plunk down on a top of the line model-S, I drool when I watch Veyron top speed runs, I love this stuff, but honestly when I get down to it, I think of cars like rapidly depreciating transport appliances. They have to be cheap and reliable, utilitarian and just reasonably comfortable (not luxurious). I don't care if the car is 50/50 weight balanced, or the car can park itself, or the cup holders retract into the dash. I don't give a shit about this. It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that I'd rather do other things with my money. This is not a value judgement on those that do spend on cars, but it's not what I spend <i>my</i> money on.<p>I'm the type of car buyer that buys 1 car every 10-12 years and drives them for over 250k miles or till the wheels fall off. I buy in the segment of cars that sells something like a quarter million cars a month in the U.S. alone. There are a lot of us.<p>(and yes, the model-S and X are probably among the most beautiful production cars in the world today)

I think in order to make the electric car go mainstream, we need to move past the idea of car ownership.<p>For a lot of people, car sharing provides people with the benefits they need from a car without the hassle of owning it.<p>In the case of electric cars, where a huge barrier to using one is the charging time, car sharing nearly completely solves the problem. Because cars are returned to the same locations in between reservations, they will be constantly charging during the time they're not being driven. Plus all the infrastructure cost is shared over the members (if, for example, you live in a city, you might not be able to install a charging station because you have on street parking)

&#62; Musk says eventually the company will make another car that many more of us could afford.<p>&#62; "It's really been my goal from the beginning for Tesla to produce a mass-market car," Musk says.<p>It blows my mind that the article and comments here have yet to mention the Nissan Leaf.<p><a href="http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index" rel="nofollow">http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index</a><p>Isn't that more mainstream already? By <i>miles?</i> I see them in New Hampshire for chrissake. You can get them for 27K after rebate.<p>Does nobody care because it doesn't look fast?

Note that Toyota declared today they are getting out of the plug-in (no gas engine) business entirely.<p>It's interesting it that it likely means they cannot make the margins they want.

Probably not when their cars start at $50,000. I would really love for it to happen though.<p>But perhaps I am just poor.

I believe for cities and dense populated area's were charge points easily viable that electric cars have there real niche if the price and incentives to migrate are there. Offset against cleaner air in dense populated area's/cities and its a win win. But until some extra leaps in power storage are made then we still have a little way to go until things truely pick up.<p>Though a car that could act as a pod that could attach onto a transport train line would truely open up interesting options in personal transport and charging alternatives.

One of the big downsides I see in owning a Tesla is the need to also own a house with a garage. The Model S has the range to handle my daily commuting needs, but I have no place to charge it.

any numbers on cost per mile just to get from point a to point b as compared to a gas-powered car?