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A few observations, before I derail I do not want to dismiss the efforts of Audi or Jaguar but I think their initial focus was being good examples for their re

A few observations, before I derail I do not want to dismiss the efforts of Audi or Jaguar but I think their initial focus was being good examples for their respective brands with regards to their packaging. Their interior quality of a different generation and caliber than Tesla. The EV part was an important concern but secondary. They can still rack up significant ZEV credits in California letting them off the hook of buying them from others. Tesla needs to refresh the S and X to improve interior fit and finish but also concentrate on making them quieter, an issue I have with my 3. without the drone of a motor every sound stands out and EVs tend to ride on stiffer, noisier, tires. As for difficulty, other than i3 and Tesla cars I do not believe any other EV was a clean sheet design. Even the Leaf appears based on traditional cars. the Bolt is simply a spark when a new motor cradle and battery back pushed under it. The Hyundai/Kia models are all adaptions. Not 100% sure about the iPace but Jaguar even contracted out assembly. -- The manufacturing difficulty is probably secondary to the seismic shift crossing the auto industry and associated industries. EVs don't need the large established dealership base and their included maintenance facilities. Secondary market means little use for parts stores and their suppliers. Gas stations will be right out with most charging done at destination points. Manufacturing of the autos themselves will implode the number of employees and that will lead to union difficulty in some countries; where they sit on boards and can stymie the move to EVs and loss of production jobs. The Kia Niro EV numbers you mention are not EPA which was 258. I mention this because your other numbers were EPA.

codeulike 8y ago
Thanks, sorry I gave the european rating for the Kia, have edited. I believe the i-Pace was a ground-up design.
ajuc 8y ago
> EVs don't need the large established dealership base and their included maintenance facilities I never understood that. Why does power source matter in the context of dealership base and maintenance? EVs still break.
- quanticle 8y ago
  They break at much much lower rates, because they have many fewer parts. EVs don't have the pistons, valves, belts, fans, compressors, alternators, spark plugs, etc that gasoline engines have. There's probably order of magnitude fewer parts to break. Having seen the interior of an automatic gearbox, the surprising thing to me is that conventional automobiles are as reliable as they are.
  - georgerobinson 8y ago
    I don't have any data to back this up but I would think that most cars going into the dealership network for maintenance are still under warranty; are less than 5 years old and not going in for expensive or time consuming engine work such as replacing head gaskets, belts, bearings, etc. Instead, I would think most cars going into the dealership network are either: 1. Having a part replaced under warranty because it is faulty or there is a recall 2. Having a service under a service pack or because the car is still in warranty 3. Having some kind of interior defect fixed (rattling in the cabin, infotainment issue, etc) and that these issues are still common enough in EVs that I don't expect the dealership network to change much.
    - brownbat 8y ago
      Oil changes belong in here somewhere too. I'm not sure if oil changes are the biggest source of profit, but they probably are the highest volume service. And those get customers in the shop for generally unnecessary upsells (like pumping cleaner into the climate control system to "flush" it? that is a scam, right?). Marketplace's analysis: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-mechanic-do-when-electric-cars-bring-less-work https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-... If anything, proprietary software will keep standard updates at the dealer. (Though I expect the schedule will drop way down.)
      - georgerobinson 8y ago
        It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.
martin_a 8y ago
> Not 100% sure about the iPace but Jaguar even contracted out assembly. I think I have heard they outsourced that to Range Rover. Or the Range Rover Velar (or something like that) has the same baseplate as the iPace. Not sure.
- georgerobinson 8y ago
  It's the same organization, Jaguar Land Rover / JLR.
  - martin_a 8y ago
    Something new to learn every day. :-)
hopler 8y ago
If a quiet engine makes the other noises noticeable, they don't need to silence the car, just add a little synthetic white noise like offices and movies have.
woodpanel 8y ago
Good point. Having driven Model S/X/3'es as well as an e-tron and i-pace I can absolutely echo your statement. Teslas offer a different USP than E-Tron/I-Pace alikes. It's EV vs. Premium-Cars that happen to be EVs. If you've never owned a (premium) car and thus have no feeling for differences in interior- and general-manufacturing-quality, a Tesla is the reasonable choice (it even maybe that an Audi's interior will come across as needlessly pretentious). However, if you've driven premium Audis/Jags you will notice what Teslas are lacking. It's reasonable to assume that Teslas are thus more likely to be bought by newly affluent millennials (than by already affluent people), though being a TSLA stockholder I wonder how large that group of millennials might be outside of my software engineering bubble.
- fumar 8y ago
  I have a VW Golf R and test drove a Tesla M3 last week. I had set my expectations ahead of time but I was still let down by the interior quality of the vehicle. German auto companies have a great understanding of what makes a car feel like higher quality. It is a mix of design, materials, fit, usability, and sound. VW group, Mercedes Benz, and BMW spend considerable amount of money refining the user experience. Tesla is early in its life cycle and likely prioritizing drive train, batteries, and auto pilot. I see Teslas as more utilitarian in that sense, but I won't kid myself. I love the feeling of a well built car that can go fast and feel fast and sound fast while keeping me happy with creature comforts. Side note, the M3 should really have a full hatch instead of the traditional sedan trunk.
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    I agree here. I’ve owned 6 Audi’s, one Lexus and a Jaguar and the interior quality/attention to detail in the Tesla is really sub-par.
  - rconti 8y ago
    I sold my 2016 Golf R around the same time we picked up the 3. I actually was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the 3, to be honest. Maybe my expectations were low-ish because I spend a fair bit of time in a Model S, but I really thought they did a good job of stepping up and making the interior relatively premium. Where cars like the R feel 'premium' to me is how they glow at night. The interior just felt REALLY high end, better than a base BMW, all the glowing buttons and stuff. But the Tesla just doesn't HAVE the buttons. To me, that's different, not worse. The nav/display is obviously better in the Tesla (although my Golf didn't have the digital cockpit that they're putting in the new ones). Both cars have their 'fancy' seating material (leather/fake leather/whatever) on the seating surfaces only, cloth elsewhere (and, by the way, I hate leather seats, I just want cloth in everything.. I'm just saying, this is one way premium cars are differentiated, is by FULL leather). The most galling thing to me on the R, the only real sign of cost cutting, was the manual passenger seat, where the 3 has a power seat. A low end touch on both is the totally spartan, stripped out finishing of the trunk/hatch area. No swiveling headlights on the 3, but the headlights are actually better, significantly so, particularly on high beam. Perhaps one thing that keeps me from being as critical of the 3 is that it's an appliance to me. I'm a german car fan, and I hate sedans. My BMWs and VWs have been cars I'm passionate about. The Tesla just takes me from Point A to Point B. And it's a fantastic car. But maybe that makes my expectations lower.
Duladian 8y ago
Slight derailing again. 1997-1999 GM EV1 Gen 1 & 2 (leased for 1 year at a time with 3 different cars), 2001 Ford Ranger EV, 2003 Toyota Rav4 EV, 2010 Nissan Leaf, 2011 Chevy Volt, and 2017 Chevy Bolt. These vehicles were owned in the household I was living in at some point. With this being said, I've ridden in a Model 3. It is by far one of the noisiest electric vehicles I've seen. For anyone curious, the GM EV1 was by far my favorite. Those were years ahead of their time.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > For anyone curious, the GM EV1 was by far my favorite. Those were years ahead of their time. This is literally true: they were compliance products that were years beyond GM's (or anyone else’s) ability to make and sell sustainably, which is why GM and other manufacturers lobbbied to neuter the mandate and discontinued and destroyed the vehicles.
- m463 8y ago
  I wonder what makes the EV1 memorable to you. I've driven a model 3 performance dual motor, and I thought it was a very good car. Super fast. I don't remember it being noisy. I've driven a few model s's and I thought they were extremely quiet. Now noise -- I've driven a 2012 Leaf and it was a nice car, which Nissan didn't forget how to make. But it was super noisy in a ridiculous way. Nissan added all kinds of stupid sound effects to the car. Some you can turn off, like the silly startup sounds that remind me of a canon camera. But some sounds like the fake electronic driving sound or the backup beep-beep-beep cannot be disabled. sigh.

codeulike 8y ago

Thanks, sorry I gave the european rating for the Kia, have edited. I believe the i-Pace was a ground-up design.

ajuc 8y ago

> EVs don't need the large established dealership base and their included maintenance facilities I never understood that. Why does power source matter in the context of dealership base and maintenance? EVs still break.

quanticle 8y ago
They break at much much lower rates, because they have many fewer parts. EVs don't have the pistons, valves, belts, fans, compressors, alternators, spark plugs, etc that gasoline engines have. There's probably order of magnitude fewer parts to break. Having seen the interior of an automatic gearbox, the surprising thing to me is that conventional automobiles are as reliable as they are.
- georgerobinson 8y ago
  I don't have any data to back this up but I would think that most cars going into the dealership network for maintenance are still under warranty; are less than 5 years old and not going in for expensive or time consuming engine work such as replacing head gaskets, belts, bearings, etc. Instead, I would think most cars going into the dealership network are either: 1. Having a part replaced under warranty because it is faulty or there is a recall 2. Having a service under a service pack or because the car is still in warranty 3. Having some kind of interior defect fixed (rattling in the cabin, infotainment issue, etc) and that these issues are still common enough in EVs that I don't expect the dealership network to change much.
  - brownbat 8y ago
    Oil changes belong in here somewhere too. I'm not sure if oil changes are the biggest source of profit, but they probably are the highest volume service. And those get customers in the shop for generally unnecessary upsells (like pumping cleaner into the climate control system to "flush" it? that is a scam, right?). Marketplace's analysis: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-mechanic-do-when-electric-cars-bring-less-work https://www.marketplace.org/2017/08/24/sustainability/whats-... If anything, proprietary software will keep standard updates at the dealer. (Though I expect the schedule will drop way down.)
    - georgerobinson 8y ago
      It's interesting that a lot of readers here and websites in the U.S are saying oil changes every 3,000 or 5,000 miles. This is absolutely not the case in Europe where most cars are on 10,000 or 20,000 mile intervals. I wonder if this is due to much more diverse weather and temperatures you see in the U.S throughout the year and so different grades of oil are required that degrade much faster.

martin_a 8y ago

> Not 100% sure about the iPace but Jaguar even contracted out assembly. I think I have heard they outsourced that to Range Rover. Or the Range Rover Velar (or something like that) has the same baseplate as the iPace. Not sure.

georgerobinson 8y ago
It's the same organization, Jaguar Land Rover / JLR.
- martin_a 8y ago
  Something new to learn every day. :-)

hopler 8y ago

If a quiet engine makes the other noises noticeable, they don't need to silence the car, just add a little synthetic white noise like offices and movies have.

woodpanel 8y ago

Good point. Having driven Model S/X/3'es as well as an e-tron and i-pace I can absolutely echo your statement. Teslas offer a different USP than E-Tron/I-Pace alikes. It's EV vs. Premium-Cars that happen to be EVs. If you've never owned a (premium) car and thus have no feeling for differences in interior- and general-manufacturing-quality, a Tesla is the reasonable choice (it even maybe that an Audi's interior will come across as needlessly pretentious). However, if you've driven premium Audis/Jags you will notice what Teslas are lacking. It's reasonable to assume that Teslas are thus more likely to be bought by newly affluent millennials (than by already affluent people), though being a TSLA stockholder I wonder how large that group of millennials might be outside of my software engineering bubble.

fumar 8y ago
I have a VW Golf R and test drove a Tesla M3 last week. I had set my expectations ahead of time but I was still let down by the interior quality of the vehicle. German auto companies have a great understanding of what makes a car feel like higher quality. It is a mix of design, materials, fit, usability, and sound. VW group, Mercedes Benz, and BMW spend considerable amount of money refining the user experience. Tesla is early in its life cycle and likely prioritizing drive train, batteries, and auto pilot. I see Teslas as more utilitarian in that sense, but I won't kid myself. I love the feeling of a well built car that can go fast and feel fast and sound fast while keeping me happy with creature comforts. Side note, the M3 should really have a full hatch instead of the traditional sedan trunk.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  I agree here. I’ve owned 6 Audi’s, one Lexus and a Jaguar and the interior quality/attention to detail in the Tesla is really sub-par.
- rconti 8y ago
  I sold my 2016 Golf R around the same time we picked up the 3. I actually was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the 3, to be honest. Maybe my expectations were low-ish because I spend a fair bit of time in a Model S, but I really thought they did a good job of stepping up and making the interior relatively premium. Where cars like the R feel 'premium' to me is how they glow at night. The interior just felt REALLY high end, better than a base BMW, all the glowing buttons and stuff. But the Tesla just doesn't HAVE the buttons. To me, that's different, not worse. The nav/display is obviously better in the Tesla (although my Golf didn't have the digital cockpit that they're putting in the new ones). Both cars have their 'fancy' seating material (leather/fake leather/whatever) on the seating surfaces only, cloth elsewhere (and, by the way, I hate leather seats, I just want cloth in everything.. I'm just saying, this is one way premium cars are differentiated, is by FULL leather). The most galling thing to me on the R, the only real sign of cost cutting, was the manual passenger seat, where the 3 has a power seat. A low end touch on both is the totally spartan, stripped out finishing of the trunk/hatch area. No swiveling headlights on the 3, but the headlights are actually better, significantly so, particularly on high beam. Perhaps one thing that keeps me from being as critical of the 3 is that it's an appliance to me. I'm a german car fan, and I hate sedans. My BMWs and VWs have been cars I'm passionate about. The Tesla just takes me from Point A to Point B. And it's a fantastic car. But maybe that makes my expectations lower.

Duladian 8y ago

Slight derailing again. 1997-1999 GM EV1 Gen 1 & 2 (leased for 1 year at a time with 3 different cars), 2001 Ford Ranger EV, 2003 Toyota Rav4 EV, 2010 Nissan Leaf, 2011 Chevy Volt, and 2017 Chevy Bolt. These vehicles were owned in the household I was living in at some point. With this being said, I've ridden in a Model 3. It is by far one of the noisiest electric vehicles I've seen. For anyone curious, the GM EV1 was by far my favorite. Those were years ahead of their time.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> For anyone curious, the GM EV1 was by far my favorite. Those were years ahead of their time. This is literally true: they were compliance products that were years beyond GM's (or anyone else’s) ability to make and sell sustainably, which is why GM and other manufacturers lobbbied to neuter the mandate and discontinued and destroyed the vehicles.
m463 8y ago
I wonder what makes the EV1 memorable to you. I've driven a model 3 performance dual motor, and I thought it was a very good car. Super fast. I don't remember it being noisy. I've driven a few model s's and I thought they were extremely quiet. Now noise -- I've driven a 2012 Leaf and it was a nice car, which Nissan didn't forget how to make. But it was super noisy in a ridiculous way. Nissan added all kinds of stupid sound effects to the car. Some you can turn off, like the silly startup sounds that remind me of a canon camera. But some sounds like the fake electronic driving sound or the backup beep-beep-beep cannot be disabled. sigh.