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kleinbl00  ·  2917 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Comparison: Tesla Model 3 vs. Chevrolet Bolt

...sorry, got distracted by that McLaren video playing on the right, which shows about how much interest I have in 4-door electric economy cars.

THAT SAID

Tesla has an edge in that they don't have to turn a profit. Tesla subsidizes your purchase of their cars by $4000 each which is the sort of thing you can afford to do when you're in that halo of market penetration awesomeness and none of your shareholders expect you to make money. GM, on the other hand, gets hammered whenever they don't produce a dividend.

Tesla also has an edge in that they don't have to stick to their guns. They jacked up the price on the Roadster and the S between taking orders and delivering and because they've got the halo, people either pay it or sell their places in line. Ain't nobody getting in line for this thing.

Finally, Tesla has an edge in that they aren't having to be a car company. they get to be a bespoke gadget company that swoops in with white gloves and fixes things without you really knowing what's wrong, whereas Chevy has a whole dealer network full of cranky people who want to know why their electric car doesn't have the range they were promised even though they spent $3k more than if they'd just bought a Prius like their mother told them to.

It really isn't going to come down to which is a better car - the Model 3 has to be, hands down. It'll come down to what sort of excesses the market will permit of Elon Musk because he's Elon Musk.

I just wish they weren't all so forgettably ugly. I mean, even the wholly imaginative renderings of the upcoming roadster are boring. THIS IS YOUR MIATA ON PROZAC