rconti 5 years ago

This strikes me another aggressive price discrimination move. The RWD Long Range 3 has been out the longest, so there should be 0 'pent up demand' for it. By getting rid of the RWD LR option and pushing all LR buyers into the AWD version (and Performance), they squeeze extra money out of buyers at the top end (assuming the profit margin is the same or higher on AWD models).

Then, they bring in this new mid-range model to try to shave off a few more short-range (SR) holdouts and push them into a more expensive model; maybe you weren't willing to pay $9k for the bigger battery (plus $5k for premium) but you can be talked into $5k for a bigger battery (plus $5k for premium, I presume).

It's also interesting how often they've changed the price on the AWD model; it's jumped up and down a thousand a bunch of times. There's no reason this couldn't be replicated by a manufacturer with a traditional dealer model, except the dealers would tend to be annoyed at having on-lot inventory that fluctuates in 'value', although I think traditionally dealers don't actually pay for their inventory until it sells, regardless. And obviously price messaging is harder in a dealership model.

The $35k Model 3 was always going to be the hardest to produce profitably; we're either not there yet, or Tesla sees no reason to produce the lowest profit margin vehicle until they absolutely have to. The backlog of US orders must be low enough that they may as well squeeze the remaining holdouts -- although the demand certainly doesn't seem to be tailing off too quickly.

  • kennysmoothx 5 years ago

    I agree with you entirely.

    The RWD LR model 3 was my go-to and the one I was considering.

    With this change, they have now essentially replaced that model with one that has 50 mile less range with very little savings on price.

    Now the long range version looks so much less appealing as the price is now over $60k for an AWD upgrade I have absolute no use for.

    • rconti 5 years ago

      Well, if the numbers are correct, the LR RWD was $49k and this MR is $45k, so that's 4000 less.. and the LR battery upgrade was $9000 more than the SR is supposed to be, so they're effectively splitting the difference. But I agree, it doesn't sound like a lot. (I'm assuming the $45k price assumes the $5000 premium upgrades that the LR forces you to buy at this point in time as well).

      As another comment mentioned, you can still get the LR RWD this week. We've got one, very happy with it.

    • andrewmunsell 5 years ago

      If you're seriously considering it and want to purchase it now, Elon has said that both FSD and RWD LR are available "off menu" for the next week.

  • cptskippy 5 years ago

    Price discrimination is charging customers different prices for the exact same thing. The SR has a physically different battery. The LR and AWD have different motor configurations. So not it isn't price discrimination.

    We actually bought the RWD LR two days ago. The process for purchase is using their website to select the options you want while the sales associate sits there quietly waiting to answer questions.

    Color choice was the only non binary option.

    There was no "premium" option you describe.

    Autopilot and full autonomous driving were optional and the associate said all cars are fully equipped to support both and they can be added at a later date.

    Having 3 power train configurations is added complexity they might just be trying to avoid while also milking those who think they need LR for another 5k.

    They told us up front the notugly rims were a % reduction in performance and cost extra. They're not trying very hard to separate fools from their money.

    If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the hardware to support full autonomous driving might no longer be included in vehicles and they'll be shipping with just what is necessary for Autopilot, assuming there's a difference.

    • rconti 5 years ago

      I'm not sure what the term is, then. I checked "price segmentation" but it has the same definition. Anyway, I think you know what I'm trying to say. Push people into buckets that benefit the company by moving higher end customers upmarket, and current SR abstainers into a more-expensive-but-cheaper-than-LR option (since they've elected not to buy LR thus far), without much likelihood of LR RWD folks moving 'downmarket' to the MR.

      There was no "premium" option because you can't get a car without it, but premium is $5000. $35k+5k premium+9k LR battery = $49k. Presumably the MR is the same; $35k+5k premium+5k MR battery = $45k.

      We've got the ugly rims; I figured for the money I can get something I like better. But, my wife likes them, and I'm not in a hurry to spend the money, so on the car they stay :)

      • kbob 5 years ago

        The ugly wheels actually have ugly plastic covers. If you take the covers off, they're nice spoked alloy wheels underneath.

  • omarforgotpwd 5 years ago

    Yesterday the $35k Model 3 was 3 - 6 months away. Now it is 4 - 6 months away. Situation has not changed much for those buyers that were waiting, but now they have the option of a midrange model they can order today and could qualify for the full tax credit.

  • r00fus 5 years ago

    s/price discrimination/market segmentation/

    Price discrimination means posting a price, and then offering discounts/markups to different groups in the same timeframe to maximize profits (while also trying hard not destroying future profit potential - your customers need to not rebel).

    Market segmentation is more around defining different products with different prices at different times. At any given time, the same people will pay the same price for the same product.

  • nradov 5 years ago

    Traditionally franchise dealers rely on floor plan financing from a bank. They use it to purchase inventory and can roll it over continuously. Banks are usually happy to lend to dealers at low interest rates since the loan collateral is right there at the dealership and relatively easy to repossess if the dealer goes bankrupt.

    • rconti 5 years ago

      Good to know. My understanding had been that they used to buy before sale, but more recently it had been inventory they didn't have to pay for until later. It's probably not the same everywhere, anyway.

jijojv 5 years ago

This is really frustrating as someone who bought a Tesla just for the FSD. This means the Oct 2016 FSD video was a scam and won't come to fruition this decade.

  • andrewmunsell 5 years ago

    I'm predicting that they are temporarily eliminating this while they work on the HW3 suite. If they kept offering FSD, that would be more AP computers they'd have to replace for "free". They already know the 2.5 computer isn't good enough for what they want, so why give away the new hardware for free when they can just bring FSD back later for a higher price to make up for the difference.

    • nradov 5 years ago

      Even if the computers are good enough, they don't have the software to make it work. Realistically they're still many years away from software that could legitimately deliver Level 4 autonomous driving on every road in the US.

  • ma2rten 5 years ago

    The video wasn't a scam, but maybe it was misleading. Telsa is very far behind Waymo/Cruise (and even waymo hasn't fully solved the problem yet), they are constraining themselves to use less sensors and they have less AI expertise in house.

  • ghaff 5 years ago

    I expect that over the next few years, a lot of people are going to be disappointed as it becomes clear that full self-driving is going to remain something that's coming "soon" other than some pretty limited trials.

  • sweden 5 years ago

    Not really, every car they manufacture (with or without FSD) always comes with the latest AP hardware they have. The FSD they were selling was just a software activation, they will probably start charging for it again later.

    • davidgould 5 years ago

      They have said that there is new hardware coming later for FSD and the existing cars sold with FSD would get hardware upgrades. I take that to mean that the FSD will not run on current hardware.

  • shiftpgdn 5 years ago

    Someone correct me if I'm wrong but having FSD as an unfulfilled feature is a liability on your balance sheet. I once worked at a place that had to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in account credits (to be used for future services) in prep for a merger.

  • John_KZ 5 years ago

    You didn't buy it, you pre-ordered it. Ask for your money back.

  • gizmo 5 years ago

    Yes, that video was a scam. The car took a hardcoded route and they simply kept trying over and over again for a take where the driver didn't have to take over. It's estimated they needed over 100 attempts to get usable self-driving footage.

    Now they're removing FSD from the website in response to DoJ pressure.

    • Allvitende 5 years ago

      Source?

      • oldgradstudent 5 years ago

        That's probably the most reasonable interpretation of their disengagement report for 2016 and 2017. Still speculation, though.

        Hundreds of disengagements, all in a few days in October 2016.

        Consistent with multiple attempts of filming their self driving promo.

        No disengagements apart from that in 2 years.

        https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/f1873c87-4f21-4beb...

      • daxorid 5 years ago

        This is one of the stronger conclusions by, of all things, $TSLAQ Twitter. The conclusion is derived from the fact that Elon's plane made two very recent visits to D.C., that none of the actual salespeople were prepared, and that there is precedent of companies under investigation to pre-comply with DoJ requests to drastically reduce charges under settlement.

        Most of these $TSLAQ people are, of course, short-sellers, so take it with a fair bit of salt.

      • striking 5 years ago

        Especially wrt the DoJ claim. What does the Department of Justice have to do with anything?

        • dragonwriter 5 years ago

          > What does the Department of Justice have to do with anything?

          While I haven't heard anything about the DoJ related to the self-driving feature, how they might be involved is pretty obvious:

          The DoJ prosecutes federal crimes, including, reportedly, a recent criminal referral from the SEC.

          While the trigger for that was Musk's tweets, federal criminal investigations aren't narrowly restricted to the conduct which triggered them; Tesla has made representations, regarding the self-driving feature to investors as well as consumers; to the extent those representations did not fully accurately represent Tesla’s knowledge, and materially impacts Telsa’s expected costs and outlook, that's a potentially criminal securities fraud.

ceejayoz 5 years ago

Good. The idea that you could know what hardware would be required before successfully getting all that hardware to actually do the thing was always a bit laughable.

  • tjoff 5 years ago

    Agree, a big turn off. The whole "interior is ground breaking because it isn't focused around a human driver" made me cringe so hard.

    The car is good enough to stand on its own.

    • syspec 5 years ago

      But not good enough to drive on it’s own

    • blattimwind 5 years ago

      Model 3 interior eerily reminds me of the Twingo I interior. (Though, to be fair, Renault actually had mostly working QA).

    • village-idiot 5 years ago

      That center console is designed around self driving. If they had planned on the car being human driver for its entire lifecycle from the beginning, they would have put in a regular instrument cluster or a heads up display.

      There's no other reason to put all the vehicle information so far away from the center other than planning on eventually phasing out human drivers.

      Edit: to be clear, I believe that Tesla was way too optimistic on when self driving would be available, and that over reliance on the center console is a bad design.

      • tjoff 5 years ago

        It was designed to be hyped and cheap.

        Do anyone actually believe that any car massproduced today will ever be self-driving? (Without major modification).

        I'm not bashing on Model 3, I want one. But I'd rather see it didn't have any self-driving hardware in it at all. It just isn't ready for that.

        • LoSboccacc 5 years ago

          I too believe it's quite not there and won't be in a while, but sneaking the hardware on the running fleet allows to gather load of real world training data.

          • ghaff 5 years ago

            Are you suggesting that Teslas send a live running stream of all their sensor data while autopilot is on, including video, back to HQ and that data is then analyzed to find errors so the software can be updated? Because that's what getting value from all those cars driving around would imply.

            • antsar 5 years ago

              Nice straw-man. The cars might send summarized metrics, maybe even video snippets of extraordinary events. That provides plenty of value while being a far cry from live-streaming all sensor data including video.

              I'd still be pissed if my car did that without explicit opt-in, but it doesn't have to be nearly as bad as you make it sound.

              • ghaff 5 years ago

                I'm not sure what metrics it would summarize though. As I understand it, self-driving systems mostly use supervised learning for feature detection. If someone isn't flagging anomalous events/detections when they happen, I'm not sure what having summarized data is buying you for the most part. (Sure if there's an actual accident. But that is hopefully a rare event.)

        • iMarv 5 years ago

          Self driving will work well when everyone uses a self driving car. The reason why ant colonies do not have any traffic issues is that they work together. Now imagine if all cars on the street would communicate with each other, knowing where each wants to go and when. I think the problem with self driving is the people on behind the wheel rather than the technology

      • blattimwind 5 years ago

        > There's no other reason to put all the vehicle information so far away from the center other than planning on eventually phasing out human drivers.

        Might be a little early to do this in a production car now, given the tech is still 10+ years away.

        • village-idiot 5 years ago

          Which is why I don’t like that center console at all

      • notheruser 5 years ago

        I think the design of the TESLA is just meant to make you think "OOOOH it's so high tech, like an IPAD!" It's not engineered around practical use.

        • Joky 5 years ago

          Not sure if you’ve been driving one for some real time, it is very practical, I wouldn’t go back to any of my previous car.

          • justtopost 5 years ago

            Lack of tactile buttons was the defining reason I went with something else. Its unintuitive and unsafe, for an actual driver human.

      • Bedon292 5 years ago

        There really isn't a whole lot different about the location of the vehicle information in the 3 than other cars. A standard navigation system in a vehicle is in the same place. Same with the stereo and climate control. And the speedometer is actually closer to the driver than in a Mini. It is an extremely efficient way of putting all the data in one location, and I actually like it.

      • juliushuijnk 5 years ago

        I can think of some.

        • village-idiot 5 years ago

          Okay, name some good reasons why the driver should have to look away from the road to see their speed.

          • juliushuijnk 5 years ago

            "There's no other reason to put all the vehicle information so far away from the center other than planning on eventually phasing out human drivers."

            It's to the right of your steering wheel so you can see it and touch it with your hand.

            The screen should not be essential to use to drive safely. No brakes, speed changes, turn signaling, etc. These should be tactile, so you can use muscle memory and focus on the traffic. Obviously any screen can also be distracting, so it's important that it is designed well and thoroughly tested.

            Paying attention to your speed, means not paying attention to the road. No matter where the dial is. Checking your speed is not something you need to do to drive safely. A responsible driver can pick a safe moment to glance.

          • Bedon292 5 years ago

            You already do on a 'normal' speedometer. The glance slightly down, vs slightly down and slightly right are no different. A HUD would be cool, but that is not common yet on vehicles.

            • village-idiot 5 years ago

              The current position of the speedometer is a poor excuse for moving it further from where the driver’s attention should be: the road. The distance and context of where the driver information is displayed matters a lot.

              My car has its entertainment display roughly where the display is on a model 3. I can tell you that looking at the speedometer is much much quicker than glancing over to the screen in the middle. Probably by an order of magnitude or two. Even checking the clock takes a dangerous amount of time compared to checking my current speed, the difference is that drastic.

              Further more, the instrument cluster is designed specifically to be easy to read and driver oriented, Porsche’s habit of putting the tachometer in the middle comes to mind. The center console has to support many more activities, including entertainment, and is thus much more distracting by design. This is true on my car, and the center screen is much simpler than a model 3.

              HUDs aren’t exactly exotic supercar material these days. The Honda Accord Touring (MSRP $33k) has one standard. Now that’s the top level trim for that model, but it’s also in a much lower market segment than the model 3.

            • nradov 5 years ago

              It's a shame that HUDs aren't yet more common as they deliver a real safety benefit. Some GM vehicles have had HUDs for over 20 years now and other manufacturers are starting to catch on.

dang 5 years ago
  • Judgmentality 5 years ago

    This really isn't the same discussion.

    Edit: Actually I guess you could say they are, although the titles are so different I think it will attract different people into the comments. I would not have clicked on that link but I immediately was interested in this story.

    • dang 5 years ago

      Yes, that's why we haven't marked it as a dupe. It's a quasi-dupe though.

kennysmoothx 5 years ago

Why would customers pay for the unreleased FSD if its available for an upgrade at any time?

Why would you pay for an unreleased product before is available having the option to upgrade to it when it is available?

Tesla has been selling FSD for years now and it has never been available, why would you buy it on the Model 3 knowing that?

These 3 questions are essentially the same, just worded differently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • Someone 5 years ago

    You might buy it now if you think it will be more expensive in the future, or if you think it won’t arrive unless users send money to Tesla now, so that it has money to create it (a kind of Kickstarter, or an investment that may or may not end up being a wise one)

    (If the latter, you probably are better of buying Tesla shares than buying the FSD option now. If Tesla reaches the point where it sells a fully self-driving car, those shares probably will be worth more than the price of that feature)

    • lathiat 5 years ago

      Or because you can finance it if you order it now.