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Re:Tesla Completes L.A.-to-New York Electric Model S Drive C... by r00fus on Monday January 27, 2014 @03:50PM (#7133131)
Range is a significant factor of the Tesla's cost, and it'd require a order of magnitude of efficiency increase to both support a cheaper model while also keeping the same charging range and keeping Tesla's profit margins in place.
Re:Tesla Completes L.A.-to-New York Electric Model S Drive C... by revelation on Monday January 27, 2014 @06:38PM (#7134182)
Posting this on HN, of all things... processing power improved hundredfold in just 20 years. With every step, Intel just sold more of the things with better margins.
Re:Tesla Completes L.A.-to-New York Electric Model S Drive C... by tjmc on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @03:42AM (#7136068)
Tesla's deal with Panasonic [1] should bring their costs down by a hefty margin. Current battery tech is improving at around 7% per year. So even without a true "order of magnitude" breakthrough like lithium-air batteries, you're looking at battery efficiency doubling every decade, plus additional savings from economies of scale.

My personal suspicion is that electric cars will hit mainstream sales levels by around 2020 and by 2025 they'll dominate new car sales.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/11/06/teslas-b...

Re:Tesla Completes L.A.-to-New York Electric Model S Drive C... by toomuchtodo on Monday January 27, 2014 @05:27PM (#7133778)
The more you make of something, the cheaper it gets to make each one. The price will come down.
Re:Tesla Completes L.A.-to-New York Electric Model S Drive C... by grecy on Monday January 27, 2014 @04:31PM (#7133383)
uh-huh, and you can say exactly the same thing about the first cars, computers, commercial (or private) planes, and about 10 million other things.

Why do you think complaining about the Tesla is somehow different from complaining about all those other things when they were in their infancy?