mustang_sallad

No, but it does mean you can breath air that's a little cleaner and that your grandkids won't have quite as hard a time with the planet you leave behind for them. A completely free market doesn't always take the long view into account.

Oddly enough, I think even Musk has admitted that this is an unlikely target to hit. Kind of defeats the purpose of setting a goal that's out of reach if you let everyone know that you know it's out of reach.

Don't forget the Tempo!

If you were on the fence with the 2016 Focus Electric, sounds like the 2017 would be just right with 100 mile range.

So who was right? The people saying Ford should get off their ass and compete? Or the ones saying Ford should wait until it makes financial sense? /trickquestion

What do you mean "supposedly"? Just take some time to do the calculations, it's not rocket science. Gas tax works out to around $100-$200 per year, and some states are already charging that to EV drivers. That's not going to sway anyone who's making a financial justification for driving an EV, where annual fuel costs would be reduced by 50% to 80%. I've done the calculations for myself, and I'm at the top end because I drive a lot and have cheap electricity, but I will be saving about $2000 per year when I make the switch (hopefully this year).

Plenty of DC fast charge stations are already charging usage fees. It's typically somewhere around $5 to $10 for a full charge on a Leaf - a premium over what you would pay at home at typically electricity rates, but it costs money to install and maintain public charging equipment. Generally speaking, fast charging is a once-in-a-while kind of thing, and so EV drivers are okay with paying close to the equivalent of gas for fast charging if they typically pay 1/5 to 1/2 the cost of gas to charge at home.

Again - did you even click on that link I provided? It's both a well-to-wheels analysis and a life cycle analysis of the impacts of EVs, taking into account the full cradle-to-grave cycle of building the car and disposal. I totally agree that EVs should not be seen as perfect, there are of course impacts of mining, and sometimes it's difficult to weigh very different types of environmental impacts against each other. But at the end of the day, EVs waste a lot less energy, and they can run on energy that's getting easier and easier to generate without burning anything (rooftop solar, utility scale solar and wind, or even natural gas which is much more efficient than coal).

Did you even look at the link i posted? Like i said - it's not rocket science to do the math and calculate well-to-wheels emissions for electric cars with different grid mixes. You can do it yourself (the data is readily available from a number of sources, e.g. epa for US plants) or you can just click the link I provided and see a thorough and recent study. EVs in the US are at worst as good as the most fuel efficient gas cars, and at best are way better. On top of that, they are improving every year as the grid is quickly cleaning up.

EV's are good for the environment. "Saving the planet" is a bit much, no silver bullet, but electric powertrains take a huge chunk out of the overall impact of transportation, even when you take into account how they're made. Cars use a LOT of energy, and yes, we should consider what it takes to build a car, but many people have already considered this for you, done the calculations (it's not rocket science), and repeatedly come to the conclusion that EVs are a very solid step in the right direction, and they continue to get better as we streamline production and generate electricity more efficiently. The Union of Concerned Scientists does well-to-wheels and life cycle analysis on this subject - and they've already seen a significant improvement in the case for EVs over the past few years as coal has gone from about 50% of the US grid down to around 40% or even lower. See here for a quick summary or click through for the full study: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.Vxh65Mc3fgk

The notion that li-ion is on it's way out "just because" is kinda silly. There's a lot more to it then "well, previously, battery chemistries have changed every couple years, so this will just keep happening". I don't think a week goes by where I don't see some article about some lab somewhere that has some new type of battery that's either more energy dense, less costly, or has a longer lifespan (usually only one or two of the three). In all cases, I skim over the article to see whether a major battery supplier or automaker is actually looking at scaling this technology up anytime soon. You have to start somewhere, but for the most part, these are all still science projects - no clear successor to the li-ion battery has emerged. I saw a presentation on a very recent study from EPRI (early 2016) that assessed all of the alternate chemistries in terms of timeline to market, and they concluded that we are likely sticking with li-ion for at least another decade, and that we will likely continue to see ongoing incremental improvements, which have already given significant improvements to existing EV models (reduced costs, 25% capacity increases in same form factor...) There are a few that have some long term potential, probably most notably Toyota's aspirations for metal-air batteries - Toyota seems to be practically sitting out entirely on li-ion, being one of the only hold outs in the complete switchover from NiMH, aside from two variants of the Prius.

This guy should have a look at how Nissan's 100-mile Leaf is doing. Sales have not picked up despite the launch of the 30kWh 2016 Leaf. That said, they are still about exactly 10 times higher than the current Focus EV, so there's plenty of room to grow for Ford.

That's a silly thing to say. Right from the start, Tesla has been saying $35k before any incentives. I haven't once heard them talk about how that might mean sub $30k depending on incentives, they've stayed away from that entirely. That contrasts with GM and the Chevy Bolt, where they have highlighted that the Bolt will be around $30k depending on incentives.

So basically... "I could do that, but I don't wanna" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NDGaxVV0h4

Nobody's ever going to get 200 miles out of 30kWh in a car this size - that would be a breakthrough (an incredible one) in aerodynamics and drag reduction. Battery advances will mean cramming 60kWh into a smaller volume. In this case, GM fit a battery that's 2.5 times bigger than the one in the Focus EV, in a smaller car, and the Focus is the one with a ridiculous hump in the trunk. Breakthrough? maybe not, but at least they're moving the ball forward.

PHEV F150 would be a game changer for a lot of fleets, but it sounds from that Mark Fields quote like they are focused on HEV instead. In general, i've heard a few Ford folks suggest they would focus on PHEVs more than BEVs. That's fine by me, as long as they figure out a way to do it and retain practicality of the vehicle in terms of the cargo area.

Really? You have opinions this strong about the company and you didn't realize they were using 18650 cells? Okay, as soon as I typed that, I realized how much of a nerd I sound like, but 18650's are pretty common, and I thought Tesla's use of them was pretty broadly reported. It was something over 6000 cells in their first car, and that was definitely one of my original criticisms of the company. But with the gigafactory, they are at least switching to a larger cell, so hopefully that'll reduce cost and complexity significantly. But really, as far as battery design and packaging goes, they're doing it better than anyone else, regardless of cell form factor.

Reservations are still rolling in... 276,000 as of last night. Before the reveal, I wondered if it would flop and the 110,000 or so would have regrets, but it seems like only the opposite has happened. Does this kind of a backlog increase Tesla's ability to borrow money? That's a $276M commitment from buyers to about $11B in sales...

I don't think anybody is praising Tesla for their Model 3 timeline, but yeah, I don't think i would be complaining about Model E if Ford was targeting end of 2017, early 2018. It's exactly that, 2019 is a year late, in my opinion. A year late to what... ultimately succeed in making money on EVs? Probably not, but a year late to keep my excited and keep Ford front and centre with the growing segment of the market that want an EV. I'm sure a year won't matter 10 years down the road, but meanwhile, I'm probably going to buy something from GM.

Oooof, thanks for sharing, I was looking for that. Hopefully they work on that for the production version, but it they're set on this massive rear glass thing, that might be a result of the design. I'd say the spaciousness of the Model S is one of its greatest features, especially the rear hatch and the huge space underneath it. I'd definitely sacrifice headroom in the rear for a proper hatchback...

I think you're just making a bit of a different point from our previous discussion that was more specifically about their financials. Unless your point is that Tesla=bad no matter what aspect of them we discuss. I hear you about the televangelist comparison, you think he's a good salesman for a product and/or business model that isn't good. Maybe I'm reading too much into this 115,000 number, but I just feel like that goes beyond the enthusiasts, armchair investors and internet commenters, and into more mainstream vehicle buyers putting their money where their mouth is. You can argue that these people are sheeple, but if they actually succeed in building the car and this is any indication of the likely demand for it, it doesn't really matter whether you think these folks are brainwashed or not. I think your more important point is that they may run out of cash before they actually build this car - they've still got a long way to go.

That's pretty much the Model S in 2013...120kW charging. Model 3 unveiling tonight announced that it will have access to the same charging infrastructure, which now spans the US, Europe and a good chunk of China and Japan. Ford and others are already working on pushing fast charging rates even faster than that. SAE is upgrading the CCS connector to handle 350kW - that would be about 250 miles range in 15 minutes.

Done made 100,000+ people line up for their car as though it was the latest iPhone, except that in this case, Steve Jobs hadn't even gotten on the stage yet. No they haven't made a profit yet. To even have a hope of making a profit they need to sell an order of magnitude more cars than they have been selling (yes i know what an order of magnitude is). Something about what they've done so far has led to a general population that is much more excited about their products than any other automaker. You argue that Tesla's products aren't exceptional and that anybody could do what they're doing. I think Ford could announce they're cutting the price of the Ford GT down to $35k and still not see anywhere near the response that Tesla saw today. Before I build too much of a reputation for myself here, I should point out that I have no intention of buying a Tesla, and if anything, my next car is most likely going to be a Volt. In fact, with many other audiences (other websites, in person) I'm usually the one being the most critical of Tesla. I just think they deserve even a TINY bit of respect for what they've accomplished so far.

The Bolt and Model 3 share more or less the same driving range and price. Advantages of the Model 3: - Aesthetics (nose aside) - Brand cachet (i.e. 100,000+ deposits sight unseen) - Supercharging network (GM outright said they are not building out charging infrastructure) - Faster charging - presumably 120kW, vs Bolt's surprisingly low 50kW Advantages of the Bolt: - Will beat the Tesla to market by at least a year - Made by a company that sells 2M+ conventional cars annually to keep the lights on - Uses a standard fast charge port that benefits from infrastructure deployments spearheaded by governments, utilities, and other automakers (leading to GM thinking they don't have to do anything). Most would argue that to date, Tesla's infrastructure is more complete and reliable, but that will change as momentum builds with other automakers.

I kinda agree about the grill. I mean, I get it, the car doesn't need a grill. Maybe I'll get used to it, and everything else about the exterior is more or less perfect, but the nose just looks strange. I almost see a bit of 911 in there: For the interior, my guess is it's just not complete. Musk started to walk back expectations on Twitter this week, saying it'll be Part 1 of 2 for the unveiling. Not too big a surprise, I think a lot of people are forgetting that this thing is still at least 1.5 years away from production. This is really a production-like concept car. I think the biggest news is the number of people who were willing not only to drop $1000 on the car without seeing it, but also to take hours out of their day, some in terrible weather, just so that they can get theirs sooner than everybody else.