[krrrh]

Just in case anyone is wondering how this plays out pricewise, the base model is $46.2k, but they headline the price as $33.2k:

Price $45,000

Incentives: -$7,500

Gasoline savings: -$4,300

Price after savings: $33,200

Destination & doc fee: $1,200

It's rather disappointing that for all the talk from Tesla about disrupting the way people buy cars they maintain nonsense practices like adding on destination and doc fees, and add new ones like working gasoline savings into the displayed price.

[FireBeyond]

Only in the US would be advertising a sticker price that includes hypothetical "gas savings" be not considered misleading to the consumer.

Perhaps if they want to advertise gas savings they should be forced to also add "increased home electricity costs".

[imladyboy]

They do account for electricity costs in the "gas savings":

"The average person drives between 10,000 and 15,000 miles and spends between $1,000 and $1,500 on gasoline per year. In comparison, the cost of electricity to power Model 3 over the same distance is up to three times lower. Over the six year average length of car ownership, that's between $4,300 and $6,400 in gasoline savings.

We've assumed a fuel economy of 28 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered sedan, for example, the 2017 BMW 3 series. We've also assumed the national average of $0.13 per kilowatt-hour for electricity and $2.85 per gallon for premium gasoline over the next six years."

[dragontamer]

But the cars I plan to buy also don't use gasoline. Ex: Chevy Volt, or the Prius Prime.

I dunno, I find it dishonest. Any electric vehicle shopper knows that gasoline is a major cost-driver and reason to buy electric instead.

The Chevy Volt is currently $33,520. Then gets a $7500 Federal Credit (and unlike Tesla, Chevy hasn't run out yet. If your Tesla 3 is delivered in January 2019, you only get $3750 in credits). AND it mostly won't use gasoline (50-mile all-electric range == good enough to not use gasoline in over 99% of my expected drives)

[refurb]

Agreed, it's smarmy.

It almost wants me to walk into a Tesla showroom and show them their press release and say "I'll take the $33,200 model. Here is my check."

The back pedaling and hand waving would be entertaining.

[koolba]

What are the ramifications of never changing the gas in a hybrid like the Volt? Does it “go bad” eventually?

[bkanber]

Yes, it would! Fuel lasts about 30 days before it starts to oxidize. That basically starts to leave a gunk behind as the gasoline both oxidizes and slowly evaporates from the not-quite airtight tank. The fuel in the injectors evaporate and leave grime behind, clogging them, and this happens in many other places in the engine as well. The process starts after about 30 days, and by a year you're almost guaranteed to have fuel so rotten/sticky that the car doesn't start, or just barely generates power.

The Volt, BMW i3, and basically any other car with a range extender periodically run the engine in "maintenance mode", because it's good to circulate fluids, burn off some gas, and take some load off the battery for a while.

If you need to store a car for more than a month, you should top off and add a bottle of fuel stabilizer before driving home.

[dragontamer]

https://www.plugincars.com/putting-thought-putting-gas-chevy...

It appears that the Volt will detect the gasoline going bad (or at least, puts it on a timer and then assumes), and forcibly burn it off roughly once a year. Before doing so, it encourages you to use a bit of gas.

To be honest: this is the first link from a search engine. So its not an issue I've looked into very strongly. Nonetheless, it seems like GM has already figured out a procedure for "stale gas" issues.

https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/volt-gas-goes-stale/69063

So it seems to be a timer of some sorts, roughly on the order of ~once a year or so.

EDIT: I found a video on youtube showing the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEe4Rkg4GfA

The author of the video notes that you can drive the Volt just fine. He just had a camera handy and stay'd in his garage in this case however.

[jmccaf]

That is a concern. I am a happy driver of a Chevy Volt, and in daily commuting only ever use battery. The practices I use to preserve gas in the tank for long-term storage are:

* Keep the tank full of gas: air space is prone to condensation

* Avoid ethanol-added gasoline, it's more hypro-philic

* Add a fuel stabilizer (like 1 fl oz per 5 gallon)

* live in California, it's really dry.

These are adapted from techniques for winter storage of cars.

[spindle]

I tried the steps you suggest, but on adding up the cost after a few weeks I found that, what with commuting from California to work, I was making a net loss.

[compsciphd]

Volt has 2 maintenance modes it automatically goes into

Engine Maintenance mode: haven't used the gas engine in some period (month?) so it uses the engine for a small period of time (less than my 12 mile commute) so get the engine oil moving.

Fuel maintenance mode: doesn't let average age of gas be over a year. i.e. I filled my tank August 30, 2017 from basically empty. On Aug 29, 2018 it went into fuel maintenance mode and even though I had a full battery, it would only use gas. I was probably around 1 gallon left, I filled it up, so expect around june 2019, it will go into fuel maintenance mode again unless I finish off the tank and fill it up again.

[cdkee]

The Volt has something called "maintenance mode", which starts the engine about every 4-6 weeks, and does a process a little more involved every few months or so to burn gas that would go bad.

[Someone1234]

While I dislike them using the gas saving in the headline figure, I cannot criticize the way they came up with the gas saving figure, that's an extremely fair way to calculate it (almost too conservative).

[imladyboy]

And while it may be a bit hidden (After incentives & gas savings -> Gasoline savings) they even allow you to customize it a bit based on Miles/Year and gasoline price.

[titanomachy]

Numbers are even better in Canada where we have cheap hydro power and tax the shit out of gasoline.

[seanmcdirmid]

Washington state has cheap hydro also, as to a lesser extent do many of the other states in the west coast (California has lots of hydro, but they also need lots of electricity and even import from Washington).

Is electricity in Canada generally cheaper than in the states?

[titanomachy]

It looks similar. 10¢/kWh in Canada vs 12¢ in US (US cents for both). https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-elect...

[justtopost]

I bet it depends on region, distance to station, maint, etc. I moved an hour outside a major metro and my electricity prices increased 60%, but gasoline only 2-5% in the USA. Plenty of trucking, but not much hard infrastructure. Most neighbors still burn wood or truck in propane for heat, yet the average home value is quite high. Its an odd situation, and points out how many of these solutions miss even the suburban populations, much less the rural.

[joezydeco]

What about the cost to have an electrician install the charging system in your garage?

And the Tesla wall unit also costs $500. Is that included in the price of the car?

[threeseed]

That is disgraceful behaviour.

I guess bottled water then should be considered free since it's significantly healthier than drinking any else.

Or maybe my laptop should be considered free since it's used to earn money.

[devy]

Totally agree. And their full $7500 (max possible) federal tax rebate just ran out a few days ago.[1] Now it drops to $3,750 (max possible) and orders delivered after June 30 2019 will only receive an $1,875 (max possible) tax credit.

[1]: http://fortune.com/2018/10/12/tax-credit-tesla-deadline/

[mynameisvlad]

If you order right now, there's a chance you'll still get the car by the end of the year (which is all that really matters with the credit), but you'd be cutting it pretty close. All Tesla claimed was that Oct 15 is the deadline for guaranteeing getting the car before the end of the year. Likely, there'll be a bit of leeway that will see people ordering within the next few days also get the car by the end of the year, especially with a 4-6 week promised turnaround for the AWD models (6-10 on the RWD one talked about here cuts it really close).

[toomuchtodo]

The full $7500 tax credit is applicable on any new, inventory, or demo vehicle previously not registered to someone until December 31st, 2018. You might have to order a Model 3 by a certain date to take delivery before then, but the tax credit is applicable until the end of the year.

[devy]

Source?

[billhathaway]

I also find the way they are listing the price annoying, but the destination fee is government mandated and has to be a separate line item per KBB.

[1] https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/articles/destination-charges/

[joyeuse6701]

To their credit, Tesla does not inundate the masses with ads designed to incite emotional responses and associations that incentivize you to buy no matter the price.

[justtopost]

They don't? Different marketing channels is very different than some egalitarian no advertising model. Tesla was launched on 'incintive to buy no matter the price', their roadster was hardly practical, nor superior to supercars at the time.

[matahwoosh]

Looks like they still don't have the "standard interior" option available, so that's extra $5k. Once (or if) they offer standard interior, we're talking $40k. If they're calling this battery option mid-range and it's 260mi range, then it's sounds like we're yet to see the 200+mi (maybe 210-220) $35k car. They're probably not able to produce the $35k car yet without losing money.

[greglindahl]

You're making a huge assumption. Tesla's past behavior is that they fill their assembly line with the highest margin cars until they run low on demand for them, then add lower margin cars. That says nothing about the profitability of the $35k car. Plus, we're talking marginal profitably: the assembly line is a sunk cost now that it's fully purchased.

[zeroxfe]

I kinda get you, but just because there's a bunch of marketing gibberish on the pricing page doesn't mean they aren't being disruptive.

[krrrh]

I was specifically addressing their claims of disrupting the buying process. Under that criteria, ending price obfuscation (especially the doc fee) should be table stakes. As for the gas savings, it wouldn't be bad at all if they trumpeted the net cost after 5 years and clearly demonstrated the savings, but they lead with a made up price that no one will be paying. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[RL_Quine]

I think part of the point of being disruptive is that you don't need to sink that low.

[greglindahl]

The iPhone disrupted the phone buying process, and still showed you a discounted price, after phone carrier subsidy.

[threeseed]

Thank god in most places in the world that kind of disruption is illegal.

[benatkin]

TCO isn't nonsense.

Because they aren't comparing to the TCO of other automobiles, they have to adjust the sticker price to help buyers consider the TCO.

[threeseed]

Did Apple include TCO in their iPhone pricing given that they support their device longer than other OEMs ? No.

Did Toyota include TCO in their hybrid car pricing given that it also reduces gas consumption? No.

Did Rolex include TCO in their watch pricing given that the resale value doesn't significantly depreciate ? No.

Nobody does this because it's intentionally deceptive.

[greglindahl]

Actually, iPhone pricing from US telcos used to only show the discounted price, with the carrier subsidy. You paid sales tax on the full price, but that number was in the fine print.

These days you can buy it either way, so it's more obvious.

[olliej]

Back in those days I didn’t think you could buy them unlocked, which I guess makes it a more “fair” private than if you were to do it today.

But yeah it was weird in other countries when you would see “Thing X costs $Y” and everyone would do the $Y * exchange rate and say “why is it so much cheaper there”. Then you come to America and discover that the advertised price excludes compulsory fees and taxes. All American companies do this, and I would argue it is unethical, and should be illegal, but I don’t have the billions of dollars needed to buy a law.

[seanmcdirmid]

The $7500 incentive halves this month, it’s too late to get it ATM.

[imladyboy]

I keep seeing people saying "it's too late", but the order page literally says "All customers are eligible for the full $7,500 Federal Tax Credit if they take delivery by the end of the year."

[njarboe]

As long as you take delivery before Jan 1, you will get the $7500 federal tax credit. Tesla said you had to order by Oct 15th to guarantee delivery before then.

[seanmcdirmid]

Yes, that is what they told me.