Tesla’s new cut-price EVs: A $39,990 Model Y and $36,990 Model 3

A smaller battery and less standard equipment cuts prices, but not by enough.

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Wait, single motor Teslas are rear wheel drive?! That must be terrible for snow handling! I never knew!

When you say manual mirrors to you mean manual folding or are they now power adjustable? If it's the latter that's inexcusable for a "luxury" car. In fact the whole thing is inexcusable as you can get fully featured econoboxes for less than that which will feel more luxurious.

Truly a pathetic showing from team Swasticar

 

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Remember the lies that would supposedly enable a 25K car. Elon, the self ascribed greatest manufacturing mind in existence, came up with the revolutionary "Unboxed Manufacturing" process that would reduce costs by as much as 40% (hilarious picture attached). Cancelled.

Then there was an also revolutionary new battery design: lighter, cheaper, higher density. Also vaporware.

What is "unboxed manufacturing" even supposed to mean? That diagram is outright hilarious though. Were they proposing to assemble the car vertically? That was supposed to be more efficient, to fight gravity the entire way for every part being inserted/installed compared to the operational orientation?

 

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Yeah, they always have been. So are single-motor Mach-E, Ioniq 5/6, Lucid Air, Volkswagen ID4 and ID.Buzz, the new Cadillac Optiq, and more. It seems that most newer single motor EVs built on dedicated EV platforms use RWD. It's not nearly as big of a deal for EVs as ICEs, but still I expect most people get AWD versions if they will regularly do winter driving.

Of course, the real problem with the cars is the whole nazi thing.

Well that kind of sucks to hear, nothing like having to pay more due to living in an area with inclement seasonal weather. But at least it seems cars like the Equinox EV that someone else linked to are FWD or AWD and not RWD

 

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What the hell are you even talking about? The new model Y (Juniper) refresh came out in the last yesr and is better than the old gen in every conceivable way.

(Currently own both)

Eww, why would you buy a swastikar and brag about it?

 

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Can somebody explain how the removal of the tax credit improved the EV sales? I would think it would go in the opposite direction.

People rushing to buy before it expired on October first, basically lots of purchases for the upcoming quarter got pulled left into the last one to beat the deadline

 

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The main issue is if you’re in a rut needing to turn; you can end up just pushing the wheels sideways through the snow. On the flip side, going uphill you have better traction with RWD than with FWD.

With a BEV the weight is fairly balanced front/back, unlike in a typical ICEV with the engine up front. So you get efficiency improvement from having RWD — the weight balance shifts backwards when accelerating.


This new 3 is trying to be an electric Corolla. It’s not at all trying to be a luxury car; even the original 3 wasn’t.

Not with those prices it's not, it's solidly priced in the lower luxury bracket, it's not priced like a mass market vehicle like a Corolla, and Tesla absolutely pitches it as a luxury model albeit the oxymoronic "affordable luxury" segment

 

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Corolla was, I admit, overreaching. Camry fits; nicer trims of the hybrid Camry top the price of the new 3. The bZ with the larger battery is within a few hundred bucks of the new Y, for the equivalent range. The new Y is cheaper than a RAV 4 PHEV. The new 3 is $3k more than the Prius PHEV, which is itself $5k more than the Prius. These are not high-end cars by any stretch of the imagination.

"Premium" or "affordable luxury" is where the 3 was initially placed to compete with -- Audi A4 or BMW 3 series. The new trim is 20% cheaper than any A5 or BMW 3 series, and 10% cheaper than the cheapest A3 (the A4 doesn't exist anymore). It's clear the intent for the new trim is not to compete with what the release model was meant to compete with. Basically, the 3 and Y are going downmarket.

Not far enough to be a Toyota, that price is still on par with Lexus, Toyota's actual luxury mauque. A camry costs a full 10k less than this new "cheapened" tesla and still includes such basic features as, a radio, and the corolla is even less

 

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That worked so well for Intel with their 486SX and 486DX.

The SX was a way to salvage otherwise garbage chips where the floating point unit failed validation that would have been thrown out

 

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For what it's worth, it turns out that the roof is actually still panoramic glass, it's just covered with headliner on the inside.

Which is frankly completely bizarre.

Tesla are so uninterested in selling this vehicle - or so unconvinced by its market value - that they are completely unwilling to spend any money retooling in order to save a significant amount of COGS on each vehicle.

It's a damning indictment of Tesla's manufacturing, and their complete inability to compete on this front.

The modular platform manufacturing capabilities of every single "legacy" automaker in the world clearly runs rings around Tesla.

Seems more and more like this trim is nearly vaporware, they might make one or two, but it's purpose is to try and upsell you on the more expensive former base trim.

And yep, just look at how the same platform underpins the Ford Escape and Maverick for instance, along with the Mondeo, Bronco Sport, Focus, Edge and their matching Lincoln models. Meanwhile Tesla can barely share a part between two of their vehicles, and their recent spaghetti on the wall styling just makes that even worse

 

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Again, most ICE vehicles the weight is up front. Pickups are very light in back. Tires make a huge difference too. My FWD sedan was worthless if there was any snow on the ground with the Eagle LS tires where our RWD Durango got around fine if there was less than 12 inches.

If that Charger had the normal summer tires, it would be terrible in the snow.

I grew up in snowy upstate NY and I've never had snow tires in my life, only good all season tires. I had my back end kick out once on a couple inches of snow on a pretty flat untreated road going under 20 and if it had been RWD I absolutely would have hit the line of parked cars next to me because even though I was off the gas and not on the brake the moment traction regained on the rear it would have vectored right towards the parked cars instead of where I had my wheel turned.

The only vehicle I've ever had spin out on me was a 98 Ranger on a rain soaked on ramp because once those drive wheels are slipped you have no hope of choosing where your power goes anymore

 

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You think that Tesla model 3 has "Aston Martin-ish" look?

Ok, that is new.

(hint: no, it absolutely doesn't - unless you've only seen Aston Martins on pictures...)

If anything I'd say Tesla is a bad knockoff of Porche's styling than anything else, especially their huge rear fender flares compared to the cabin width

 

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And it's still bigger than the old full size. Today's Ranger is a fair bit larger than a 1990s F-150. The "mid size" Chevy Colorado is now a 3/4 ton truck (the old "full size" C1500 was a 1/2 ton) and the standard Silverado is a 1 ton - a size that, 25 years ago, was reserved for serious commercial haulers.

The Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa-Fe are the only actual "small" pickups on the market today, and while a bit larger than the old Ranger they are at least a good deal smaller than "mid size" currently is. I'm not going to split hairs on if they're a "real" truck or not because their unibody as that would also make the new Silverado EV not a "real truck"

 

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Santa Cruz, the Santa Fe is the three-row SUV.

I'll note that the Maverick is also built to act as a pickup truck first, while the Santa Cruz is more like an SUV with a truck bed. The Mav's bed is built around flexible utility and options on how to configure it, including slots for 2x lumber to make custom dividers/utility items, like a board with bike fork mounts. You can get dividers, extenders, tonneau covers, toppers, camper units, and so on for it.

The SC's bed is more of an afterthought, with a built in retracting tonneau cover that restricts bed space and can't be removed. It has no hybrid option, it has only a few color options, and it gives you less features for more money.

But, like I said, there's also a few new EV pickups on the way that, if they don't crash out like Canoo did, could be competitive in the small truck market.

Canoo fell for the same trap of overly radical design that the Cybertruck falls into (among many sins of they cybertruck). At least Slate went with a truck that looks like a conventional truck, and Ford seems pretty unlikely to abandon the market segment with their promised small EV truck given that they're the only one even really serving it right now with the Maverick, so I think the future looks pretty bright