Tesla Model 3

[Phuncz]

I think we'll be leasing or renting our cars mostly in about a decade, if self-driving cars are going to keep having this momentum. And at that point it becomes a type of public or personal transport because the driver involvement is gone and all you have left is cost and comfort.

 

[iFreilicht]

Car-sharing is already quite viable in larger cities already, maybe we'll get country-wide services in a few years so you can actually travel with that.
The problem is that the best car-sharing services, in my case DriveNow, are operating at a slight loss because they are basically advertising their own cars for young people to buy in the future.

 

[EdZ]

I could probably juuuust stretch to getting a Model 3, but the main reason not to is charging: I don't have a permanent place to park, so there is zero guarantee I'd be able to charge it. I'd have to drive 10+ miles into central London for the nearest Supercharger, which is a good extra hour added to any trip if I needed to do so regularly.
If I had a driveway or garage allowing for overnight trickle-charging it would be a no-brainer.

 

[Ceros_X]

Ah you meant that they lose some of their capacity after an amount of time or recharge cycles, depending on the weather. But you don't need to change them because of that. But you can offset the price of getting a new pack installed by the amount of money you saved charging it. The US prices are different and you'll probably know better than I could, but in my region it makes sense:

Let's say 100,000 miles = 160.000 kilometers
Super 95 (95 octane) is around 1,20 € per liter here
A 2016 Ford Mondeo (or Fusion in US) 2.0 EcoBoost has a Combined consumption of 7.3 L per 100 km (0.073 L per 1 km)
So 160.000 km * 0.073 L = 11.680 liters of fuel
Which makes 11.680 L * 1.20 € = 14.016 €

Calculating how much you'd spend on electricity will vary a lot on how you procure your energy and how much you depend on it for other usage (heating, cooking, cleaning, etc.) but let's say you'd spend half versus a full tank of gas, you'd still have 7.000€ for a new battery pack. Here in Belgium, most people who personally own a car (not company lease) won't do more than 15.000 km a year (~9,000 mi) because you can drive from our East to West borders with around 250 km (~155 mi) and North to South with around 280 km (~175 mi), so 160.000 km is about 10 years of usage for us.

So to me in my situation, it sounds reasonable.

I understand what you're saying, but I think it is a little different in the US vs Europe - it isn't uncommon for people to drive an hour to work and back every day in the US. The average driver in the US drives 13,476 miles (21,687km) with men aged 35-54 driving the most miles per year around 18,858 miles (30,349km). [source]

I also think that people will be weary of buying an electric car with a lot of mileage on it, specifically because of battery pack concerns (just less range vs buying new). Also, just because people will save $7k in fuel at the pump won't mean they'll have that money available when they need/want to spend a few thousand to replace the battery pack. Chances are the fuel savings are offset by a higher purchase price/monthly payment. Thanks for providing the view from overseas, interesting to see how you guys operate!

 

[Phuncz]

It can still vary a lot from country to county, in the Netherlands, there is a huge added tax to the purchase of a car, but electric cars are exempt from this, bringing their relative cost down considerably.

 

[jeshikat]

Elon just posted Part 2 of his master plan and it's ambitious: https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

Basically he wants Tesla to become a big player in solar power generation and storage, release a compact SUV and pickup truck after the Model 3, get into semi-trucks and city buses, and have all of them capable of fully autonomous driving.

And it's just a short section at the bottom, but one of the most potentially revolutionary ideas is the idea of Tesla owners being able to basically rent out their autonomous cars to other users when they're not using it for supplemental income. Not only that, Tesla will operate their own fleet of self-driving "Uber" cars where demand exceeds the supply of customer-provided cars.

The idea of summonable, self-driving cars in lieu of personal car ownership isn't new. But I would say that Tesla is the first company realistically capable of actually implementing that idea in the somewhat near future.

It may not be too long from now when owning and driving your own car becomes as quaint as riding a horse-drawn carriage into town

(And yes, I'm fully aware that I'm a total Tesla fanboy)

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

Why even own the car at that point? Why doesn't Tesla have a distributed network of autonomous vehicles as a service, such that you use an app to say when you need a vehicle and what kind, and it will be in your garage or at your destination once you need it? Or summon a vehicle when you want one?

Assuming I had the means, I'd totally pay a lease for that sort of service. All the benefits of vehicle ownership (in fact, even more so, because you could use any vehicle), none of the drawbacks.

 

[jeshikat]

I imagine owners renting out their cars is just an intermediate step on the path towards the future you're talking about.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Well larger cities do already have carsharing programs where you pay a membership fee into the program and can then use one on an as-needed basis rather than owning your own car. The only thing that's missing is the cars being able to drive themselves, and I wouldn't be surprised if companies like Zipcar showed an interest in buying a few Teslas.

 

[Phuncz]

It's all coming together as I was expecting it to, but I'm curious in what time frame this is supposed to take place. For all of this to work, not only does the technology need to be there, but also the legal, with liability still being a big one. I'd be glad to be in a future where I don't (need to) own a car.

 

[BirdofPrey]

You can have that now if you move to a walkable city.

 

[Phuncz]

Quite drastic to just move to a dense city, the problem is the car TCO, not my life I don't like inner city life (Goldie reference) for every day, I like my peace & quiet along with my job, friends and environment, it's just not possible to replace those and it costs a lot to get that comfort level in the city.

 

[BirdofPrey]

I didn't say you had to move to a dense city (granted, a certain level of density is required, but it's not Manhattan or Tokyo levels or anything), just one where you can walk to things.

Still it does illustrate a point. How feasible is it to not own a car if you need one to go to work every day or grab a gallon of milk from the grocery store? High tech cars don't change the built environment, so a future where you don't need to own a car is based more in urban design than automotive engineering.

 

[iFreilicht]

Not only that, Tesla will operate their own fleet of self-driving "Uber" cars where demand exceeds the supply of customer-provided cars.

I absolutely love that idea. Honestly, I'd love to have a car for myself, but no way that I could ever afford that in the next 5 years. Living in a city, I can get everywhere with my bike, public transport and carsharing. For the few trips where I need to transport something bigger, I can rent a transporter, no problem, and that's still all much cheaper than buying a car. Seeing it as an investment that is going to pay off reliably might open the gate for less expensive loans if you actually want to get a new car, because the bank can be sure that some amount of money will be made by the car itself.

Why even own the car at that point?

If you want to go on vacation, I guess. And, if the car belongs to you, you can be sure that it will be in your garage in the morning when you need to go somewhere. The option of turning off the sharing aspect and then just have the car for yourself is really nice to think about. Humans like to own things.

Still it does illustrate a point. How feasible is it to not own a car if you need one to go to work every day or grab a gallon of milk from the grocery store?

As Phuncz showed, it only really depends on where you live. I could live my whole life without a car if I stay where I live right now. Riding the bike somewhere is often faster than driving there by car. Even when I go on vacation to somewhere in Europe (where most people get with cars), I can still do that with train and bike if I plan accordingly.

Really, especially in the context of cities, cars should be eliminated wherever possible. If all those people that drove to work everyday for an hour because they're in a traffic jam would just ride with a bike or public transport, there wouldn't be such a thing as traffic jams anymore. The roads would be free for ambulances, fire engines and transporters.

While I'm not sure how feasible Teslas autonomous bus concept is, everything else Elon states as a goal seems quite achievable from their position.

 

[Phuncz]

I didn't say you had to move to a dense city (granted, a certain level of density is required, but it's not Manhattan or Tokyo levels or anything), just one where you can walk to things.

Still it does illustrate a point. How feasible is it to not own a car if you need one to go to work every day or grab a gallon of milk from the grocery store? High tech cars don't change the built environment, so a future where you don't need to own a car is based more in urban design than automotive engineering.

While in Belgium we have a few "dense" cities that allow this, like Brussels or Antwerp, I'd still need to switch jobs (I support 10 campuses in a 50km radius and need to transport hardware), my friends and family would be 50-100km away, etc etc.

Owning/renting/leasing cars is indeed something that's based more on the environment of the person, because not everyone will be better off with not owning their own car and I can contemplate this being so for the upper-middle-class years down the road. I wouldn't even be sure that I want to share my car or use a shared car, unless society suddenly becomes responsible for their actions and not leave a dirty car behind.

Back to the subject of the "Master Plan", I'm also looking forward to automated logistics. While this will cost jobs on one hand, this will also require jobs on the other hand. But it would be one step closer to the futuristic utopia science-fiction sometimes promises us, allowing us to do more passionate jobs that access our skills. I'm certain amongst all the truckers (as an example) there are a lot of very skilled people that just have no chance to make use of their hidden talents. But I tend to dream into a direction where machines do the labour and humans focus on happiness and progress.

 

[BirdofPrey]

As Phuncz showed, it only really depends on where you live.

Exactly. Self driving cars and a peer to peer carsharing economy are great, but they won't have much impact on whether or not you need to own a car as it's a city's design that impacts it most.

Back to the subject of the "Master Plan", I'm also looking forward to automated logistics. While this will cost jobs on one hand, this will also require jobs on the other hand. But it would be one step closer to the futuristic utopia science-fiction sometimes promises us, allowing us to do more passionate jobs that access our skills. I'm certain amongst all the truckers (as an example) there are a lot of very skilled people that just have no chance to make use of their hidden talents. But I tend to dream into a direction where machines do the labour and humans focus on happiness and progress.

That would be neat to have.
There are already automated warehouses.
Though again, making the trucks automatic won't, by itself, create new opportunities for truck drivers. Programmers and managers, sure.

 

[jeshikat]

but they won't have much impact on whether or not you need to own a car as it's a city's design that impacts it most.

But that's the beauty of self-driving cars. Current carsharing programs like Zipcar are dependent on there being a parked Zipcar nearby for the program to be useful, so it only really works in relatively dense cities.

With autonomous cars though, you could summon them to wherever you are and the cars could also move themselves to areas of anticipated demand. They could move into the suburbs during the night to pick up people for their morning commute to work, run around doing random jobs/deliveries during the day, then move into the city for the evening commute home.

Of course this wouldn't be practical in a rural area due to the distances involved, but autonomous driving makes carsharing type programs viable across much more of the population than is possible today.

 

[jtd871]

Work hours will need to become more flexible with so many "on-demand" cars demanded at (currently) peak times, but that seems doable in an age where commuting to an office may be on the decline as companies recognize the value in letting workers (that can do so effectively) work from home.

 

[iFreilicht]

Work hours will need to become more flexible with so many "on-demand" cars demanded at (currently) peak times, but that seems doable in an age where commuting to an office may be on the decline as companies recognize the value in letting workers (that can do so effectively) work from home.

Well, Elon said he wanted to have that integrated into the app if I understood correctly, so ideally an autonomous car would not only get one person, but four who would normally travel a similar route. That way you can reduce traffic down to 1/4th, and everyone going to work/leaving at the same time would help with the efficiency of such a system.

 

[jeshikat]

BTW, I take it from the comments so far that no one has any qualms about letting a computer drive the car even in light of the recent Autopilot fatality?