Long wait for Tesla's Model 3 invites buyer defections
For Tesla Motors, 2018 can't come fast enough.
With rivals Toyota and General Motors marketing their own plug-in, long-range cars, the more than 400,000 reservations holders for Tesla's Model 3 — all of whom have plunked down $1,000 to be on the list — are vulnerable to being plucked away.
Tesla changed the language on its website this week to indicate that anyone who joins the Model 3 waiting list can't expect to see the $35,000 electric car glide into their garage until "mid-2018 or later."
That's good news for Toyota, which just started marketing its Prius Prime Plug-In, and GM's Chevrolet, which will bring its Bolt long-range electric to showrooms by the end of the year.
"It's one thing to put in a reservation that really speaks to you like the Tesla Model 3, but to be told you won't get that vehicle for several years is a real impediment," says Ron Cogan, publisher of the Green Car Journal.
Chevy has already fired the first shot across Tesla's bow. As far back as April, Dan Nicholson, GM's vice president of global propulsion systems, firmly placed Bolt as a Tesla alternative in a speech at an engineering conference.
"It will have 200 miles of (electric) range, and it will be in production by the end of 2016, so it's not necessary to put down $1,000 and wait until 2018 or sometime after that," Nicholson said.
Reached for further comment Friday, GM spokesman Fred Ligouri demurred when asked directly about Tesla and said, simply that the Bolt is "a great car for anyone looking for a small crossover" and that it will be in dealerships soon.
Toyota, for its part, is ready with its $27,100 Prius Prime plug-in.
Prius Prime isn't fully electric like the Model 3 — it has a backup gas-electric hybrid system — but it just achieved what Toyota says is the highest government mileage rating that tries to take into account how most drivers will use plug-ins. At 133 miles per gallon equivalent, or MPGe, the Prime's rating is higher than a Tesla (99 MPGe for Model S and 93 MPGe for Model X) or the Bolt (119 MPGe).
Toyota's U.S. CEO, Jim Lentz, says he is "not sure how much cross shopping there would be" between a mainstream Toyota product and a luxury brand like Tesla, but that the two brands "are sharing a lot of environment and engineering."
Tesla has said it expects to have the Model 3 on the road starting next year, priced at almost half what it costs to buy either the Model S luxury sedan or Model X luxury SUV at present. In terms of keeping reservation holders from wanting to wander away, Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped this week by dangling hopes that the car will have self-driving capability in addition to being a long-range electric.
He said all Teslas, including Model 3, will come equipped with the hardware necessary to give them self-driving capability, although he didn't announce a time when they will be able to actually use that feature. In doing so, it appeared Tesla is ready to leapfrog other makers in the race to fully self-driving cars. At present, Tesla has a partial self-driving system it calls Autopilot.
Besides Chevy and Toyota, other competitors could emerge. Faraday Future, an upstart electric car maker, said it will debut its first model in January. Some existing electric cars could also get range boosts that will allow them to compete as well against Model 3.
BMW's i3 electric car, for instance, just received a 40% range boost to 114 miles per charge, and it can go up to 180 miles if ordered with a backup gas engine.
Reached for comment Friday, Tesla noted that Musk has repeatedly expressed hopes that other automakers would develop electric cars in hopes that a larger market will attract more buyer interest. At one point, Musk even offered to open Tesla's patent book.
How will the long wait for Tesla Model 3 play out?
"This will give other automakers an edge in selling electric vehicles," Cogan says.
Contributing: Brent Snavely, The Detroit Free Press.