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Comment by dhughes | Hacker News Reader

Still too expensive and too limited for my taste but I guess someone will buy it.

In Canada there is such long distances between towns and cities I can't imagine being limited to 480km ideal would be 1,000km. The deal breaker (besides the $70,000)is not being able to charge it except at home even at 5 hours with the 20KW charger is still too long.

Plus living in a snowy land where in winter you can see your gas gauge move you use so much fuel heating the car, spinning wheels, knobby snow tires.

People seem to see vehicles as just another device like a new phone or TV I don't doubt they'll become more popular and drop in price.

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> Still too expensive and too limited for my taste but I guess someone will buy it.

> . . . I don't doubt they'll become more popular and drop in price.

That's exactly Telsa's (stated) plan.

Phase 1 was the Roadster. The Roadster was made in small numbers, using very "hands on" construction methods. It was very expensive, but it was designed to feel and perform like a very high end vehicle. For people who can drop $150k on a car (and there are more of those sorts of people than you might think), the Roadster was a very competitive option

Phase 2 is the Model S. The production line for the Model S is a lot more automated, and production runs are larger, resulting in a vehicle that is fairly competitive "mid range" luxury vehicles (e.g. the BMW 6 series).

Phase 3 will be a more "average consumer" targeted vehicle. Taking advantage of the lessons learned (and to some extent, the capital raised) in the first two phases.

Phase 2a Model S

Phase 2b Model X

At some point there is supposed to be a refresh of Roadster (model R) using the model S drive train. Probably itching to make the car for the masses the Tesla Model T (trademarked?).

Nissan is already doing that with the Leaf but it's still too limited I think only ~120km-160km per full charge. Although I do like the solar panel roof option to trickle charge the car's batteries.

The ~160km is misleading though because heating the car in winter and in southern climates cooling the car must require a lot of power.

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