April 1, 2016 – When Elon Musk announced the launch of the Tesla Model 3 in Hawthorne, California yesterday I doubt he anticipated that there would be long line ups at Tesla offices in cities across North America. Here in Toronto and elsewhere people camped out overnight to be first in line to plunk down a $1,000 deposit on a car they won’t see until sometime late next year. It’s quite a statement when a vehicle launch draws lines similar to advanced ticket sales for a rock concert.
The Tesla Model 3 (seen below at last night’s unveiling) will be the company’s first mass-market electric vehicle. The anticipated production volumes, 500,000 cars per year by 2020. The first cars off the production line anticipated in late 2017. The price $35,000 US. In Ontario with government rebates and allowing for the dollar exchange, a Model 3 can be had for around $32,000 CDN.
The Model 3 has a range of 320 kilometers (215 miles) before recharge. That makes it a very suitable commuter vehicle for going from the suburbs to the city and back on any day. But for longer trips drivers who fear range anxiety will be happy to learn that Tesla’s Supercharger network is rapidly expanding across North America and elsewhere with thousands of in transit and destination charge stations being added every year.
Can you drive an electric car on a long highway trip?
In the past few weeks a story in the Toronto papers described a family trip to Florida and back using Tesla’s Model S. The driver and author of the piece found no lack of supercharging stations enroute. The breaks to get powered up took about 30 minutes, enough time for the family to buy and eat a meal before traveling further. Finding the supercharging stations was easy because the onboard software plotted the route taking into consideration their locations. The only drawback, it added a few extra hundred kilometers to the total trip, probably one-half day extra of travel, but it was doable, and comfortable for this family of four.
The Model S isn’t the Model 3. But if CEO of Capital Market Labs, Ophir Gotlieb is right when he says, “this $35,000 car isn’t going to be viewed as a $35,000 car: it’s going to be viewed as a $150,000 car on sale,” purchasers will ine up to buy it. The Model 3 doesn’t lack features. In fact it includes many of the more expensive ones found in the Tesla Model S which can be pretty pricey. Here are just some of what the Model 3 has to offer:
- available in a four-door sedan form factor that is smaller than the Model S but not in interior room space.
- room for 5 adults with more than adequate leg and headroom both in front and rear (that number 5 is important for maximizing government green rebates here in Ontario which can reduce the sticker price by as much as $14,000 CDN).
- floor-mounted lithium-ion battery pack to maximize interior space and minimize access for maintenance.
- minimal analog controls with most car functions controlled through a central dash mounted touchscreen display.
- two trunks, one front and one rear providing excellent storage for five travelers.
- acceleration from 0 to 100 kilometers (approximately 60 miles) per hour in less than 6 seconds.
- autopilot software standard (see paragraphs below for a more detailed explanation of this amazing technology).
- free use of supercharger network (30 minutes charge extends car’s driving range by 270 kilometers or 170 miles) included with the price of the car.
CEO of Capital Market Labs, Ophir Gotlieb, believes that the Model 3 will exceed Tesla’s own forecasts of 500,000 vehicles sales per year by 2020. He states, “this $35,000 car isn’t going to be viewed as a $35,000 car: it’s going to be viewed as a $150,000 car on sale.” Gotlieb sees the expansion of the supercharger network will give Tesla’s electric cars the competitive edge over any other electric vehicle manufacturer.
The autopilot feature is another distinct competitive advantage. Introduced as an optional update in 2014 for the Model S it brings vehicle autonomy closer than ever and includes adaptive cruise control, automatic lane control, hands-free lane changes, 360-degree collision warning, and automatic parking.
How does autopilot work?
The car features a pack of sophisticated sensors including ultrasonics, cameras, GPS, and forward and side-mounted radar. To use autopilot a driver sets the maximum speed, and desired car lengths for vehicle safety spacing and then flicks the toggle switch. When the driver engages the turn signal the car takes over moving into the desired lane only when it senses it is safe to do so. The car periodically chimes to remind the driver to touch the steering wheel so that it knows he or she is present. Otherwise the vehicle finds the best avenue to make a safe and controlled stop. And of course the car keeps the driver informed about the status of the remaining charge in its battery pack and knows where the next Tesla supercharger is located to plot a route to it.
For Elon Musk the building of the Model 3 is a mission. Before the unveiling he talked about why Tesla exists. He stated it’s not because the world needed another car manufacturer. He began his presentation with a slide showing a graph depicting the near vertical ascent of carbon dioxide from 270 parts per million in the atmosphere of the 1970s to 403 today. He talked about rising atmospheric mean temperatures and about the extreme heat events happening more frequently in our world. He shared statistics on the tens of thousands that die every year from the tailpipe pollutants coming from vehicles running internal combustion engines. For him sustainable transport is in his words “really important for the future of the world.”
Postscript update: April 4, 2016
Since the Model 3 announcement as of yesterday, Tesla has received 276,000 orders for the new electric vehicle model. Each potential purchaser has plunked down $1,000 U.S. pumping $276 million into the company and adding almost $10 billion to the order book. This speaks to a latent public demand for a way forward to address transportation’s contribution to atmospheric warming greenhouse gases. One can’t help think of the phrase, “build it and he will come” from the movie Field of Dreams. The consumers of the world get what needs to be done to address climate change. They need business to provide the technology answers that give consumers the way to contribute to a solution to the problem of global warming.
For Tesla, who up until now has had limited capacity with annual production of 50,000 electric vehicles, the challenge has been cast. Meet the pledge to increase production to 500,000 annually by 2020, or sooner and see the reward as money flows in.
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