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Tesla announces $35,000 Model 3, is closing its stores to pay for it
On Thursday afternoon, Tesla announced that it's finally ready to start selling the cheapest versions of its Model 3 electric vehicle. For $35,000—before any federal or local tax incentives—you can now order a rear-wheel drive Model 3 Standard Range. This car gets black paint and the as-yet unseen standard interior, which means manual (not power assisted) seat and steering adjustment, cloth trim, and a stripped-down audio system. Tesla says the cheapest Model 3 will have 220 miles of range, will hit 60mph (96km/h) in 5.6 seconds before topping out at 130mph (209km/h).
[...] However, these new, cheaper Teslas come at a cost. Tesla also announced that it is now moving to an entirely online sales model and will be shuttering most of its retail locations in the US. "Going to online only is incredibly helpful to us; in many parts of the US, we're unable to sell cars because of franchise laws. This substantially opens up our ability to buy cars. It's 2019—people want to buy stuff online," Musk said.
That means job losses. "There's no other way for us to achieve the savings required to produce this car and still remain profitable. There's no way around it," Musk said. However, when asked about the number or timing of job losses, Musk would not be drawn into details and dismissed the question as "not today's topic."
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Friday March 01 2019, @07:38PM
Thank you for clarifying. I'm really looking forward to the point where battery tech hits that workable tipping point too. I like your analysis on how quickly the situation can flip too when technology is ready. Though one variable here is the cost difference - $350 to $1000 for a computer monitor vs $35,000 vs $100,000 for an electric car and that is quite the ratio.
If you throw out a CRT there is also some loss of energy. If you huck an entire car chassis into the crusher you have lost a lot of energy that was invested in creating the material, shaping it and joining it. Even if you recycle the material and produce another chassis out of it you still invest quite a bit more energy into producing a new chassis than just using the existing one.
This is why it's a good thing to not crush existing ICE cars when they become obsolete.