Tesla Model 3 - Stunning - Says An Owner of 2

Stunning - the one word that describes the Tesla Model 3 all-electric sedan - according to an owner of two 2018 long range rear-motor Model 3s. This Tesla owner who previously owned numerous luxury vehicles and raced high performance cars, can't stop raving about his Model 3 that cost him around $56,000 (including California tax and registration fees and after receiving the Federal tax incentive). Extras included the $2,000 Red Multi-Coat paint and the $6,000 Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features which Tesla will later upgrade to a 100 times more powerful computer with regular software updates. The over-the-internet upgrades occur at least once a month, one has already boosted range and power by 5 percent.

Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically for other vehicles and pedestrians within its lane, while Full Self-Driving is automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars, automatic lane changes while driving on the highway, Autopark in both parallel and perpendicular spaces, and, believe or not, Summon where your parked car will come find you anywhere in a parking lot, currently to be upgraded at no cost.

Stunning - the relaxation of highway driving with the aforementioned features and the automatic stop-and-go in traffic, the cabin's quietness, clear display screen, large trunk, and, of course, the all-glass roof which especially benefits rear seat passengers adding immense visual space to the generous interior legroom. He feels much more refreshed after long trips due to the absence of typical vehicle vibration and engine noise.

Registering about 11,000 miles since buying his red Model 3 in November, he's very satisfied averaging about 260 miles per charge which is about 80 percent of the posted 325 miles due to driving style and terrain. The batteries charge from empty to full overnight on a home charger or 30 minutes for $20 at a commercial charging station.

The only cautionary words from this very happy Tesla owner is that there's no AM radio, possibly because of electric motor interference, and the Model 3 is wider that you expect, something I found out from scuffing the curb with the right rear wheel while turning a corner. The 41 PSI tire pressure creates a road feel that can bother some passengers.

(The standard range Tesla Model 3 gets an estimated 220 miles and the price starts at $35,000.)

Elon Musk: Tesla's Goal - Compelling and Affordable Electric Vehicles

Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla Motors, in a one-on-one interview format at the MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium last Friday, focused primarily on his SpaceX venture which was more aligned to his student and facility audience but he did discuss Tesla and the $5 billion battery factory to be built in Nevada, that was announced in early September and the math behind the world of creating electric cars. It was an interesting event, as was my entire experience at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.

"The gigafactory is the least bad solution that we could come up with" to make batteries, according to Musk.

In his words:

"If we want to make electric cars we need enough batteries for the electric cars. Last year all lithium-ion production combined was 30 gigawatt hours approximately, that's nothing. Or at least it's nothing when you consider if you want to make half a million electric cars a year that's how much you need. There are a hundred million new cars made every year. There are 2 billion gasoline or diesel cars on the road worldwide. So just do the basic math, you don't need just one gigafactory, you need like 200 gigafactories just for new car production and that assumes you're going to replace the fleet at the existing rate which has a refresh every twenty years.

Given that we want to try and get to full capacity at our Freemont plant in California of half million vehicles a year, we need half a million vehicles a year of batteries. Obviously, we can't use all of the other battery factories combined because people want cellphones, laptops and other things. Therefore we have to roll this factory.

We have a great partner in Panasonic. Panasonic is taking care of the cell formation part of it. There are actually many aspects to this - there are anode, cathode, sepralator, electrolite, can at the precursor level. Raw materials coming in from the mines that feed into a variety of other companies like Sumitomo Metals and Mining, Hitashi and others. They do the precursor processing and then Panasonic takes the anode and cathode materials separate and whatnot and puts it into a cell. Then it goes into the Tesla section which creates the module, which is all the electronics, packaging, conductors, safety mechanisms, cooling loops, then the modules go into the pack which has a lot of crash structure associated with it. Then the pack goes in the car. Tesla is the landlord of the whole thing as well."

Musk says the goal of Tesla is to make something "compelling and affordable".

"Everything will go fully electric one day except for rockets", says Musk.

Audi R8 5.2 Convertible, Bentley & Tesla's Musk In Iron Man 2 Movie

I waited for the crowds to die down and went to see the movie Iron Man 2 which took in $211 million in its first two weeks in U.S. theaters. There's lots of product placement, especially on the car front. The film features Iron Man Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) driving an Audi R8 as he did in the first Iron Man film but this time it's the convertible R8 5.2 FSI quattro which starts at $146,000 and has a 525 horsepower V10 engine able to thrust the R8 5.2 to 60 mph in only 3.7 seconds on the way up to a top track speed of 196.4 mph. Bentley, another VW brand, also makes an appearance as it drives head on into Formula One traffic at the Monaco Grand Prix.

 A cameo appearance is made by Elon Musk (pictured on the left), a real life Iron Man who is behind the electric Tesla vehicles. In Iron Man 2, Musk says he working on an electric airplane and, in reality, he tells me he'll start that project in a year or two. As with electric cars, I'm sure range, recharging and batteries will also be big issues for electric jets.

Tesla News
On Thursday Tesla Motors said it purchased the former NUMMI factory in Fremont, California, where it will build the Model S sedan and future Tesla vehicles. As recently as April, the NUMMI factory was used by Toyota to produce the Corolla and Tacoma. It's billed as one of the largest, most advanced and cleanest automotive production plants in the world capable of producing half a million vehicles per year or approximately 1 percent of total worldwide car production. Last August, GM stopped making the Pontiac Vibe, the re-badged Toyota Matrix, at the Fremont plant which is conveniently close to Tesla's Palo Alto headquarters.