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Thinking about q3, q4, q1/19 - the i-pace won't come in their small 20k annual run rate until next year, so it doesn't matter much for now. It does look like a reasonable car. Probably better interior than the tesla, decent range, good design - without access to superchargers not very practical for long trips, but I think it's a perfect example of what legacy automakers can do if they try hard. The other big question is where will they get enough batteries to mass produce an ev - apparently that's a major reason they can't make many. It's the best competitor to the tesla so far. Does that car have chademo or ccs charging? I've never seen a ccs charger, wonder if there is one around seattle. The chevy bolt is a great little car, it's just not as a sexy as the m3 (will tesla take this over from bmw's namespace :-)). Of course it's half the price of the current selling model 3's. I think the bolt is a fine car, not too sexy, but sales in the us are anemic, yet people complain they are hard to find. Also gm isn't making many of them, perhaps for same reason as ipace. hyundai kona ev looks like a nice car too. All those cars are inferior evs to even the model 3, but they aren't that far away. If only they could mass produce them, and the biggie, get auto dealers to try to sell them - that's the part that's really missing so far. It's literally against their own interest at least in the short term to sell evs. I think you should look out more than 6 months. Tesla has enough customers world wide for the 3 to sell another 100-150k of them - remember they are hardly even selling them in Canada up to now, just recently ramped up. It's only after the pent up demand is handled that we'll know. I'd say look at what q3 and q4 next year do - Tesla sales are set through mid next year just be putting their cars in other countries. The optimistic case if they'll reduce manu. costs and be able to make the base short range model and survive making a 35k car. Meanwhile, and this is the exciting bit, the higher-midrange of bmw, mercedes, audi, maybe low end porsche will face significantly reduced sales because of model 3. Those companies aren't doomed, but the 3 is so awesome, there's so much pent up demand. Even in seattle the sales office was packed last weekend, and they put 100s and 100s of them on the road last month. |