Agree. I think an underestimated advantage Tesla has over the traditional car makers is their software process. Tesla just released version 8, and rolled it out to all their customers.

Traditional manufacturers must recall cars to fix a software problem, and charge customers for software upgrades. I guess it's hard for traditional car manufacturers to offer an integrated experience like that, you need to design a car from the ground up (including the software that's running in components from suppliers, like batteries) for that.

True. I have a Chevy volt, which I love. The check engine light came on while under powertrain warranty. It took them 5 days to upgrade the software to fix the problem, and they charged me for it since "software isn't part of the drivetrain."

GM is a very early adopter of the connect car, with their On Stsr technology. Your Chevy Volt should have it and if it's a newer model probably LTE. I would guess that there's some contractual or legal obligation that says GM cannot do work on your car. The dealers must do the work, and then get reimbursed by GM.

There's antiquated laws hat dictate manufacturer and dealer relationship, the most famous one being a manufacturer must sell cars through a dealer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the original rationale behind requiring cars to be sold through dealers was to regulate the market and create competition among different dealers. Without that requirement, manufacturers could easily undercut dealers due to lower overhead. I'm not really sure what the point of car dealers is, but they have somehow found a way to prove themselves "necessary" to some lawmakers in some states.

> I'm not really sure what the point of car dealers is

From a DOJ analysis:

> Auto production is a capital-intensive business and a franchise system allowed manufacturers to concentrate their resources upstream while accessing capital through franchise fees from independent entrepreneurs at the retail level.

Given capital availability and resources at the time, it made sense for the auto makers to franchise.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/economic-effects-state-bans-dire...

Not sure why you're downvoted. This is the first rational explanation for this I've ever seen - thanks. Doesn't really justify it still existing today, but makes me hate the system a little less.

I'm not surprised, anything that doesn't toe the Musk/Tesla line is usually met with downvotes here (already -3).

Musk is pretty divisive here to be honest. I see tons of anti Musk comments. I assume from your tone you aren't a fan of his, so I think what we're both seeing is confirmation bias that everyone is against our opinions.

It's a rationale explanation and I see a part of it. It's not like McDonalds, where they have a corporate owned store and a franchisee store. Any price difference would be measured in nickels and no one is going to drive to the other side of the city to buy a burger. But if a corporate dealer can knock off $1,000 on a car just because there is no middle man, I can see why no one would want to franchise a dealership.

It's stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Thank you for responding to my confusion with this excellent article. It is intriguing to me that increased information on pricing and availability through the Internet has already eroded some of the benefits of dealership regulation. Perhaps they are a dying breed even with protective regulation that at least in the past proved mutually beneficial for automakers and dealerships.

If that were true, then they wouldn't need laws forbidding manufacturers from selling directly.

Dealers love to tell us how useful they are, but then they turn around and lobby for their privileged position to be enshrined in law and enforced by the government. Does not compute.

Dealers must provide value. Using laws to "create" competition is foolish and wrong.

If there's no value in me buying a screwdriver set from Home Depot I should be able to buy it from anyone else, including the manufacturer.

In other words, there's no fundamental reason or "right" that says a dealer must exist between a manufacturer of a good and the consumers of that good. Forcing such a structure is artificial and causes problems.

For example, lots of people hate the car buying experience and dealing with a "mafia-like" (as a friend put it) dynamic between hungry commission-based sales people and the manager in the back. The whole process is disgusting. It took three hours to get out of the dealer last time I bought a car and it was a brawl to not get screwed.

I hate dealers too and hate this law, but read this[1] comment that is a sibling to yours. It explains why this law exists. It's a shame it hasn't been removed yet because it is quite dated at this point.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12564578

As a manufacturer I am very familiar with the distribution model. Dealers do create an opportunity to have a smooth flowing supply pipeline as well as inventory distributed near consumers. They make money, you make money. The difference is that in my business I have very tight controls over what my resellers can do and how they do it. The government doesn't get involved.

In the auto business dealers can be horrible places to walk into. The other day one of my friends at the gym bought a used car. She got royally screwed. I didn't tell her because it'd break her heart. They did the old "let's talk about the monthly payment" trick. She is mathematically challenged and couldn't have managed the stream of information during the negotiations. She will be paying $24K for a $10K purchase.

Yes, I've always been astonished at how bad the software and software management is in the auto industry.

And I'm personally still annoyed at BMW from about 8yrs ago when my X5 was occasionally throwing a spurious trivial dashboard warning and I asked about it at the dealer when I went in for some other warranty service. When I got back there was a $200 bill for doing a flash update to some controller, and the dealer insisted that it was BMW that kept it off warranty and charged them for each install.

While I could perhaps see some trivial $15 service fee to install it, charging $200 to fix their own damn bug is pretty outrageous. They should just be installing the full set of accumulated updates every time the car comes in for service.

But that's not how the auto industry thinks, so yes, that is a huge advantage for Tesla, even if the others are starting to come around, they are effectively a decade late.

I anticipate (and hope) Google and other software vendor can step in and fill this void.

By the time other car makers going to release any serious competitor to Tesla , Tesla's software will be far advanced than those companies, and the thing about software is its design and implementation takes professional teams with a lot of experience. No matter how effective and advanced your team is, you need time to create a professional team to make mature software.

So the idea of other car makers somehow magically will design and implement software as mature as Tesla's , is wishful thinking I think.But software companies like Google, Microsoft, etc have required expertise in software development.

I expect iOS/Android for cars will handle the infotainment part of car software, but not the rest.

Yes. All the stories I ear about software developed by traditional car makers confirm your point. Traditional car makers produce very bad software and have very bad organisation for software development.

To a certain extent, this comes from historically creating safety-critical software which is an entirely different process compared to what is done for web apps etc. I don't think Tesla are as robust with their development processes, but they are able to make up for it with over-the-air updates.

I have worked for nuclear domain and for aeronautical domain. These are domains where safety critical software is understood. AFAIK, software is not understood in car industry. It looks like they compensate poor programming by more testing.

You should see Toyota entune. New RAV4 SE, awesome car, tons of safety and sensors. Garbage software.

I think car makes just don't realize how big of a role, great software plays in how you feel about a car.

Does every car have an LTE connection? Do you have to buy a sim from your local provider or how does that work?

Every recent Tesla has a built-in LTE connection. (I think some of the earlier models were 3G only)

You don't need to buy your own SIM - it comes with its own international roaming SIM, with free data for 8 years.

What happens in 8 years? Do you pay Tesla for a subscription?

Minor correction, it's free for 4 years.

As for what happens, nobody knows, because nobody's run out the four years yet. When they announced the four free years, they also said that the clock started for existing customers on January 1, 2014, so nobody will hit the end for another year and some.

I'd guess that it'll end up being a paid subscription after that, but nobody really knows yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla doesn't know yet. I wouldn't be too surprised if they just make it free for life, since it's pretty cheap to provide and so important to the car, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

There will be a cost, but it will be minor, to offset their data costs on ATTs network for the massive amount of data they using for autopilot telemetry.

There is a rumor their cellular costs far exceed their Supercharger electricity costs.

I wouldn't be surprised if that last part was true. With my electricity costs, I pay about 4 cents per mile. If that's typical, and if the average Tesla driver does 1,000 miles/month with 10% on Superchargers (which I think is vaguely close to the truth) then the electricity costs would be something like $4/month/car.

Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Peugeot all sell electric or hybrid-electric cars.

"Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Peugeot all sell electric or hybrid-electric cars."

Audi has a A3-etron which is not an electric car. Maybe they have some $500k etron-R8 but I am not sure if they ever built that.

BMW has the i3 which is kind of interesting, in a low-production-run, dip-your-toe-in-the-market kind of way. i8 is not an electric car. Some hybrids. Who cares.

Volkswagen has the e-golf which, in a sense, is more progress than the others since it's an actual VM car that actual people buy and is actually electric. It's not a car I would buy, but again - it's not a cutesy test market car and it's not a half-assed hybrid, so kudos to VW.

I don't know anything about Peugeot. Probably hybrids so who cares.

In conclusion:

We're in the same place we've been for 9-12 years: CEO of Audi/BMW/Porsche/Merc announce a major electric car initiative with consumer models (6 years from now) and a sexy concept car at a trade show. Then nothing happens. Then three years later, repeat.

Over and over and over.

> I don't know anything about Peugeot. Probably hybrids so who cares.

YTD in Germany, Renault sold twice as many purely electric cars (1836 Zoes) as Tesla (978 Model S and 56 Model X.)

Source: https://www.goingelectric.de/zulassungszahlen/2016/ (in German only, sorry; data is coming from Germany's DOT)

He was probably thinking of Renault, not Peugeot. The Renault Zoe is one of the most popular EVs in Europe. (Why? It looks cool, drives well, and it's cheap!)

I don't think Peugeot have done anything much notable in EVs recently.

How do these electric cars compare against Tesla?

I purposefully took a BMW i8 and a P90D for a test drive.

The i8 was woeful in comparison in all departments. They are different types of cars but the only area the i8 could speak up a little bit was in the looks department.

I haven't tried the i3 but I think it has a certain style of it's own. I'm not a huge fan but I like to see it when it rolls by as it means one more victory on the way to electric cars (and one less diesel cloud filling my lungs).

The i3 appears to be a really well designed car. It costs about $7000 more than the model 3, but it already exists. And they've just increased the battery capacity 50%, so the nominal range is 200 miles, or 275 with the range extender. I just read BMW think they can double that by 2020. Tesla certainly has at least some competition.

The i3 and i8 are terrible cars as far as I am concerned. Range sucks. And, frankly, if I have to go to a gas station might as well get rid of the electric components and make a nice car. I like the physical design of the i8. I spent a hour looking at one. Ultimately, the idea of having to endure both visiting a gas station and plugging in just turned me off. I'd consider it as a pure electric with decent range or gas only but not the combo.

That's a very odd statement to make. Most people like the reassurance/range-security of being able to visit a gas station in addition to having an electrical engine. That's supposed to be a selling point of the car over Tesla even though it's electrical range sucks and Tesla's extensive supercharger network all but removes range anxiety.

Some of the newer hybrid drivetrains, like the new Honda Accord Hybrids, are basically electric cars mated to a gas powered generator and instead of a big battery just have a gas tank - a smaller battery bank "caches" the generated energy. Thus you only take it to the gas station every ~600 miles and don't bother the rest of the time.

(and yes, the gas engine in this kind of drivetrain will mate to the electric motors during power intensive operations for a boost, but that's not strictly required in this kind of approach)

I suspect most people only _think_ they want the range-security of going to a gas station. In practice they'd find it a huge hassle to both plug in the car and go to a gas station. Probably the average person would end up either only using either the battery pack or the gas tank, not both.

Fair enough. But I still don't know why this is a hassle not a feature. You don't have to visit a gas station. Put it this way: if the Model S could have a gas tank (without losing electric range, trunk space or any of the other features that make it unique - I know pipe dream), wouldn't customer be happier to have this option as well.

Because I want to go electric to not have to deal with gasoline ever again. I don't want to have anything to do with gas stations. It would almost be embarrassing to me to buy a $100K+ "electric" car and have to visit the gas station at all.

And, yes, it's a hassle. Life with a pure electric is simple: Plug in at work, plug in at home, plug in at the mall, visit superchargers during trips if needed.

With the BMW's you have extreme electric range anxiety (only 80 miles) if you want to "be electric" and you have to now: plug in at work, plug in at home, go to the gas station by work, go to the gas station by home, plug in at the mall, gas-up by the mall, no superchargers during longer trips, so gas-up frequently due to the 10 gallon (or is it 8?) tank.

Then there's the complexity. You are lugging around 2,000 parts you didn't really want to be lugging around. Is that generator built to last like real auto propulsion engines?

Put it simply: It's a pain in the ass, it is likely to require more maintenance and it is embarrassing.

I thought the selling point of the i8 over the Tesla is that the i8 is a proper sports car with BMW handling, and for the i3 the selling point is that it's way cheaper.

Test drove both - P90D had the i8 beat in every department except maybe looks. And even there there's an argument to be had.

No, for the latest i3 BMW only claims a range of 114 miles. https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0259560EN...

I was just reading a review which said 200 under ideal conditions, interesting that BMW claim so much less. Does anyone know is there a shared standard for these claims, used by Tesla and the other companies? When Tesla says 200 miles for the model 3, is that 200 miles with a.c. and hills, or is a theoretical maximum?

There are two major shared standards, the American EPA testing cycle and the European NEDC testing cycle. Both are based on essentially taking a car out and driving it in a certain way until the battery is dead, and seeing how far it got.

The EPA range is fairly realistic in my experience, at least with a Tesla. Hills and climate control (AC not so much, but heating is huge) will affect it, but I get fairly close to the official numbers much of the time.

The NEDC test is much more gentle and provides wildly unrealistic numbers. You won't achieve NEDC numbers unless you're doing something like a steady 55MPH on level ground with no climate control.

You can see this in action by going to Tesla's design page and switching the country between the US and the UK. For the US, the Model S 60 is rated at 218 miles and the P100D is 315 miles. In the UK, those numbers are 253 and 381.

BMW says 300km, or 186 miles, for the larger i3 battery under the NEDC:

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newvehicles/i/i3/2016/showroom/ran...

But the EPA range is more like 125 miles.

Tesla's stated Model 3 range of 215 miles is the EPA rating, and so should be fairly realistic in mild conditions, less so in the winter or with a heavy foot. The BMW number to compare to would be 125 miles.

Very interesting, exactly the answer I was hoping for. Glad to be corrected.

Glad to help. The existence of both EPA and NEDC numbers is really confusing, especially since most range numbers you see don't specify which one they're using. Once you know what's going on with that, it all makes a lot more sense.

They tore down the i3 and showed some really interesting manufacturing techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDr4L6BzpP8

If only it didn't look like a product of 4 different design departments welded together at the last minute, it would be almost perfect. Seriously, look at that car from the side - each panel(front body, front door, rear door, rear body) literally comes from a different designer - it doesn't even have a consistent line throughout.

I saw one the other day in my town, and liked the look of it. It does look wonky in photo shoots, but people don't look at cars in the same way in real life.

The i3? It looks exactly as wierd to me in real life as it does in photos. It's like they crossed a BMW, a Fiat, and a Roomba.

Hah, I'll stick up for it. I think it's got a certain distinct style of it's own. It's a damned sight better than some of the electric vehicles from the old days. I think it looks like a good city runner and I'd be happy to drive it.

Not a BMW fan at all, default detest of that brand, but I respect their trying to push into e-vehicles. i8 was a big mis-step though. Cannot believe anyone bought it over a Tesla.

As an i3 driver... I don't think it's very competitive. The range is pretty far from the stated numbers. Noticeably worse than the much cheaper Fiat 500e, even.

I wouldn't compare anything to the model 3, though, because I don't believe teals will hit their dates or price point.

Not a fan of the design though. I'm sure it's functional but to my eyes it looks more frankencar than daily driver.

I think the i3 is one of the coolest looking small cars around. It is distinctive, and the designers clearly made a choice to go for a design that would get noticed. I do think it looks better in all-black, rather than the two-tone colors.

It's easily one of the most popular EVs here in the UK (along with the Tesla, Renault Zoe, and Nissan Leaf). Very nice to drive with a stylish, comfortable, minimalist, premium-quality interior. BMW's software does let it down, though - at least when compared to a Tesla.

But still, i'd argue if you want an EV and can't afford a Tesla, it's the best option available right now (at least until the Bolt is released).

only other one that looks decent is the e-golf and focus. but not a fan of hatchbacks

And they are all either:

A: Hugely overpriced plug in hybrids

B: Have pathetic range

And everybody knows that Model S is not an expensive car.

Yes, but it's fully electric, not an hybrid with a tiny all-electric range.

For the performance and features, it is in no way expensive. The P100DL beats a Lamborghini Huracan off the line up to 100mph+ at a fraction of the cost. Disclosure I own a Models S 85D.

Sure, but you're not gonna do a race lap at full speed with a Tesla. These 0 to 100 numbers don't tell the full performance story at all.

I don't know what country you're from, but in the US there are a lot of people who obsess about straight-line drag racing. For example, in the Fast and Furious movies, while they drive cars in all kinds of ways, the obsession is about a "10 second car", which is a straight-line 1/4 mile measurement.

Also in the US, there's an even larger group of car buyers who will never drag race their cars, but like knowing that the car they just bought is excellent in some way.

Completely agree (I'm also European). When Porsche unveiled the Mission E, they made spec comparisons to the Tesla Model S. But the Mission E is a concept, slated for 2020!

VW/Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes need to take a long hard look at themselves. The market is changing way faster than they expected IMO.

Just sell a bloody 250 mile range car I can buy for £25k. That's it. It's not hard. Do it, now. Not in 3 years. Now.

>It's not hard.

If it's so easy why don't you do it? Let me guess, you've never designed, built, or shipped any physical product.

You're like a first-year art student 'designing' the next iPhone in a 3D rendering program (Half as thick, with twice the battery life! Indestructible edge-to-edge screen!)

I see what you are saying and I partially agree with it. But the point is Audi,BMW,etc they are not first year art student. They have billion dollar R&D budget.

Update:

And keep in mind Tesla is not product of yesterday. Vibe for electronic car was around I think much longer than Tesla.But big names (Audi,BMW,etc) just ignored it for so long (maybe because of no serious competitor or corruptness -why do they need to work on something revolutionary when they are market leaders) until some guy stepped in and challeged them seriously.

And they evidently are working on it. But to say "release it now, don't make me wait 5 years" is beyond ignorant.

There's a cultural difference among traditional automakers in which new innovations are withheld from being released as they are not required to maintain a competitive position. This is very different from the attitude in the Valley/startups in which there appears to be a genuine desire to advance innovation of mankind.

As someone who has followed the car industry closely for many years, I disagree. Most automakers have been competing to survive on many dimensions throughout their life. It's just that Tesla has added more dimensions to the mix that automakers didn't prepare for, and playing catch-up takes time with such a complex product.

True but I think his point was "it's not my problem that you didn't start your R&D in a timely manner...say 5 years ago".

Anyways that's what I read into it.

As consumers we assume hugely successful historical automotive powerhouses like BMW would have something ready to go NOW because they've been working on it already for 5 years (or ten years+ considering Prius).

Maybe not always fair, but it's generally what people are going to assume.

Beyond ignorant? That's polite.

Maybe if the OEMs had spent the last 10 years designing and building electric cars instead of putting out diesel agents that broke the law in dozens of countries they would be in a better position.

"Hard" is relative. GM is doing it right now, Tesla is doing it next year, so there's no real excuse for other car makers other than them simply not wanting to.

Sure, I couldn't do it. But the difficulty has an upper bound based on a simple existence proof.

It's not hard for existing car manufacturers...

"But the Mission E is a concept, slated for 2020!"

... that will be quietly dumped in a year or two, just in time for a new "company changing electric initiative" in 2018, with production slated for 2024.

I hope they save these press releases and just put in new dates - it would be a shame to rewrite them every three years.

If it's not hard then why is nobody doing it?

Tesla's Model 3 costs £27k, has a range of 215 miles, and is promised to start delivering late next year.

That's the state of the art. Best the world can do. Pretty sure that means it's hard.

No, that's a promise from a company that routinely misses ship dates.

State of the art is probably the Chevy Bolt, with its 200+ mile range and cost around $40k. And unlike the Tesla Model 3, it exists. There are lots of reviews of it, and full production starts next week.

No autopilot.

No supercharger network.

No over the air software updates.

No 8 year/infinite mile power train warranty.

State of the art?

You must have missed the bes where General Motors announced last year they will produce a car that will have 200 Mile range , and have it below $30k after federal tax incentives.

And you must have missed the announcement last week when they gave specifics on cost and range. The cost is what they promised, and the range is more than Tesla 3. It will go on sale for the general public at the end of the years. That's you and me, without having to put down a deposit, and wait who knows how long. That probably means those cars are churning out their manufacturing line now.

And you must have missed the news when one of Tesla's biggest supporter, Steve Woz, said he would ditch his Tesla for the Checy Bolt.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1106012_apples-woz-likes...

Give credit when credit is due. One of the largest and oldest auto manufacturers in the world turned around a, well received fully electrical vehicle on a short amount of time. It is reasonable priced and has more range than Tesla's Model 3.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1106012_apples-woz-likes...

Tesla is a relatively new company. What's hard for them right now is scaling up production. That shouldn't be hard for the existing car companies out there. Additionally, Tesla have made their battery technology open source in order to drive competition and allow (read: motivate) other car manufacturers to build EVs. So basically, Tesla have already laid all the groundwork. The fact that all the other car manufacturers haven't brought something to market yet shows that they are dragging their feet for some reason or another.

Look at it from a different angle: They have invested billions in 'traditional' combustion engines, gear-boxes etc. They are earning billions with that technology. Now image a board meeting and you are the guy asking for all the R&D money such that you cannibalise the cash cow. They don't target early adopters but the mass market and that's not where you/we want it to be. I believe that's the reason why their A engineers still work on the 'old' stuff.

That's the classic "Innovator's Dilemma."

I've heard German brands mock the self driving marketing, seen as irresponsible to them, not the vehicle engineering side. But I may be wrong.

Their exit strategy is probably much like Jet so you can't really blame them.

I think that Europeans living in Europe really don't understand how startup work.