CarCast+Edmunds - Tesla cuts prices and features on the Model Y and Model 3. Is it worth it?

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Hello, welcome to the Edmunds Car Cast Podcast. I'm that moderator Andrew here with Alistair Weaver. How are you? Welcome back!

Thank you. It's been quite a full on couple of weeks. I went down to the Tesla Gigafactory last week in Texas. That was quite a trip and then we've been shooting a new series of Edmunds U-Drags this week.

I'm not going to talk about the actual top secret but we're going to talk. I'm happy to talk about my trip to Texas which was hot and humid but fascinating at the same time.

While you were in Texas, I got a hold of the Lexus LC500 which we touched on briefly last week. I said they were sending it over. It's just a car that I really enjoyed.

I do like that luxury two-door coupe, not necessarily the super high performance supercar or even sports car. It's interesting because I don't think the LC500 is even as practical as a new Mustang.

Mustang being a little bit easier to get in and out of and decent ride height from the factory and good features but there's just something to say about those cars. I don't know if there's a long term place for it like an LC500 and a Mercedes SL but they keep hanging on and they're a joy to drive.

I just drove the Mercedes SL. It's not the SL, it's the AMG GT Coupe which is basically the coupe version of the SL this week without giving anything away which may have been at the U-Drags course.

Yeah, I mean beautiful, beautiful car. I mean it's the same thing as you've got the LC, these sort of GTs but then the 911 has also really become, unless you go for like a GTS or a GT car then they are also now Grand Tourers and the LC is pretty.

Yeah, I guess they are.

Yeah, they're not. I mean the 911, if you get a Carrera or something, it's not really a, it's a GT car.

This Lexus, it's V8, it's their specs are 471 horsepower, 0-60 in 4.4 seconds. I know that's quick but in the world of sports coupes, two door coupes, it's not incredibly fast but it's got a great sound, the interior is gorgeous, it's comfortable.

They've done a lot of things really nice on this car. By the way, solid feel like the door closes well and it feels like it's got a proper sound deadening in it and thick glass and just like all of the things you'd expect in a high-end Lexus, especially at $100,000 plus.

Yeah, it's because obviously it's being replaced soon but it's a nice thing. I only talked about it on the show last week, if you get a used one, it could be a good car but none of these cars really sell.

I mean obviously the 911 is still the default sports car and that crosses over into GTs and the AMG GT Coupe, I think is a really nice thing. I mean that one starts, you get the 43, I was looking here, it starts at $107,000 but it's still a ton of money.

I think the Lexus when they sent it to me as it was trimmed out is about $109,000 and here we're looking at on the screen is this inspiration series. Again, looking at how many they could possibly sell, I don't know, maybe they sell 12 or 1500 LC's a year but this inspiration series is going to be a limited edition.

You can see a little bit different wheels, a little bit different bodies, little canards up here in the front but look, 200 Coupes and 350 convertibles which is also interesting because that sort of implies to me they sell more convertible LC's than they do Coupes.

It's a Florida retirement car.

It's a gorgeous car. It has a great sound.

It's a dinosaur.

It kind of is though, right?

Yeah, we like dinosaurs.

When I first drove it though a couple of years ago when it came out and I enjoyed it, the track pad, it was a deal killer for me. It was hard to enjoy the car and even as you're trying to memorize the things and you're moving that little cursor on the screen, you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was just weird. Now they've done away with it. I don't know if you can see it in the photos but by the way, the interior, that's gorgeous.

I think that everybody tried to do, we're not doing, you know, everybody gets this customer feedback, we don't want to do touch screens and they're also all from a design perspective.

The problem, and you know, we're going to talk Tesla in a minute, which is the, you know, everything's a touch screen.

The problem with the touch screen from a design perspective is it naturally means that the dashboard has to be a certain distance away.

You know, an arms reach of the average driver.

Yeah.

So then everything, I mean, even this Lexus, I mean, I agree with you, I think it's a beautiful looking too, but the screen looks like what it is. It's like an afterthought.

And I got into a, I've got a little Ford Maverick parked outside my house today and that's a car that we own or a truck we own.

And I got in and I was like, this screen looks really silly because it's vertical.

So with your eye lining looks like it's tilted actually towards you.

And he's just like, oh God, we're just going to stick the, we forgot the iPad again.

And unfortunately that that, because everybody now expects a touch screen, every car interior ends up looking largely the same because once you put the, once you put the instruments in front of you and the touch screen within reach, you haven't got that much to play with.

Yeah.

It's depressing.

You know, you do look at this interior and like, oh, this interior is gorgeous and it's functional, but you're right.

It does look dated.

First of all, it has proper buttons on the dash here for the AC control.

You don't need to fuss around with the touchscreen next to the shifter where you would rest your hand.

It has a giant these days by comparison, volume knob, right?

And you can switch between channels.

Like it's just nice to just be able to have like a nice, proper, you know, buttons, knobs and stuff that you can, you can play with.

Not everything being in the touchscreen, but we look at it and go, oh, this car is 10 years old.

Well, I drove up, I drove up to the Denjudo's week in a, in an RS6, an Audi RS6.

And this is an older Audi.

And I was going to say this to next week's show, but now we're talking about it.

I drove the S6 e-tron and the interior quality and again, big screen.

You can't miss the damn thing.

It's like having a big telly and it's like being in your living room with a massive telly.

And then the quality of the plastics and everything else.

Audi and all the switches, Audi's always been renowned like Lexus for, you know, the haptic controls and everything else.

And it was, and I got in, and I just was so disappointed with the quality of that car.

And then I got into an RS6, which is basically an older Audi now.

I mean, it's going to be replaced next year.

I thought this is mega.

This is just such a nice car.

And I think that, you know, when people say, what's your favorite car?

The moment I think like an Audi RS6 is just for my lifestyle and everything else.

Adore that car.

But yeah, it's, I've done, you know, quite a, about 700, 800 miles in this week.

And I thought that's, that's an awesome car.

But yeah, we should talk about this more on another show because it feels like a common theme.

All right.

Tesla.

A couple of new versions of existing models.

Yeah, it was not like you went out and you got the Tesla Roadster because I don't think that's happening at all.

No, the Tesla, that's all going to be quiet.

So is the $25,000 car.

So is the massive Arctic.

Now, I think there's still, I think there's people still working on them.

I mean, you know, it's such a, it's such a fascinating company.

But yeah, we were invited out to the Gigafactory in Texas, which in itself is an extraordinary place.

They took us on a tour.

We weren't allowed to take any photos or anything, but they took us inside the Cybertruck production line.

And then also where they build the model, the Model Y and it's a mile and a half long.

And it's all, you know, there's a lot of automation in there.

So I said, how many people are employed here?

And there's like, well, about 8,000 people who, you know, in different ships working on the line,

and then about another 4,000 who are in, you know, more kind of office type roles, 12,000 people.

And then next door, they're building some massive new supercomputer, you know, presumably for Gork and so that's so extraordinary place to visit.

Just the, you know, the kind of crushing scale of the place is amazing.

And there's all these Cybertrucks driving around towing stuff, you know, actually being used for, you know, the stuff that you never see in LA.

Cybertrucks actually being used to kind of like tow things around the factory and stuff, which is kind of fun.

And watching the Cybertruck being built, they said, we weren't allowed there, you know, they were very, they banned all cameras and everything else.

But it's a really interesting and we'll get into why we're actually there in a minute.

But they have the most cars are built essentially from the outside in that you have the body and then, you know, in goes the dashboard, in go the seats and everything else.

The Cybertruck is quite unusual in that it's almost built from the inside out.

So the battery pack is load bearing.

So you've got this kind of battery pack with a bunch of effectively cross braces onto which stuff is screwed or assembled.

And then they do this kind of concertina thing where it meets the body and it all gets it all gets put together.

And we watch one of these happening and it sits on a platform, almost like a scissor lift and up goes the interior and gets married with the with the body, which is fascinating to see.

But yeah, kind of interesting as you end up with this big battery pack that looks like a sort of glorified skateboard with the seats then just like bolted to it.

So it's kind of unlike any place any kind of car assembly I've, I've seen before and I've been in plenty of car plants around the world, but super interesting.

So that was the kind of like, you know, injection of, you know, this is who we are and what we are.

And, you know, that was really interesting to see.

But the reason for going was to new versions of the model Y and the model three.

And it was the expectation is that these were going to be mildly detuned versions of the existing cars, which would, you know, a few bits and pieces taken away and that would be it.

And it'd be selling for a bit cheaper, a bit like the old standard range plus used to be on the model three.

So that's what we thought.

And then about a day before stuff started to leak out as things tend to do that this was actually going to be something quite different.

And the why the what we'll talk about the wine talk about the three because three is slightly different again.

But the Y is an extraordinary car in that they've gone through everything and taken out so much cost or tried to take out so much cost.

So it feels like philosophically a very different departure for Tesla.

Because you think about where Tesla came from is all about like, we're going to make an electric car so exciting that you can't ignore it.

It's going to be fast.

It's going to have features that you've never seen.

It's going to have crazy technology.

It's going to have, you know, class roofs, it's all this, all this stuff.

And I mean, I was there at the launch of the Model S in 2000 in 2012.

And it was like, wow, this thing's a spaceship.

I've never seen a car like this before.

And in some extent the Model 3 when it was launched in 2018 also had that vibe about it.

It felt like way beyond, you know, like a Honda Civic or an Accord at the time.

And now Tesla's basically gone, OK, Model Y cost a fortune to make.

How do we make it cheaper and sell it cheaper?

And they've just gone through everything.

So I give you a couple of a couple of examples.

There's the roof.

Every Tesla, I can remember this glass roof, which is a bit of a signature feature.

So they said, OK, we're going to get rid of the glass roof for two reasons.

This is what the engineer was telling me.

One is if you get rid of a glass roof, you lose the heat soak.

You get a lot of heat soak through the glass roof on a hot day.

If we don't have the heat soak, we can run the air conditioning on a lower setting.

That helps the efficiency.

It doesn't mean you're not using too much of the battery to power the air conditioning.

So that's a win.

Then we also want to get rid of the double glazing in the side windows because that's expensive.

But if we get rid of the double glazing in the side windows and we keep the glass roof,

you've got a noise problem.

So if we get rid of the double glazing, but then seal the roof,

we can put sand insulation in the roof and then we kind of kill two birds with one stone.

So they go through that process and it's like, OK, kind of makes sense,

but a little bit of shame because you haven't got the vista.

And then the next thing you realize is, well, hang on a minute, the glass roof is still here.

Why is the glass roof still here?

Well, when we looked at engineering it to have a steel roof,

it was more expensive than keeping the glass roof and basically sealing it.

OK, so that's what we have.

And if you're in the front, it doesn't matter too much because your eye lines forwards.

But for anybody in the back, you know, you just lost that kind of big Sky Country vibe.

So it has a glass roof that and then it's covered all the time.

Or does the cover roll back?

No, no, it's a sealed fabric roof.

So it's got a headliner in it.

A headliner. Sorry, that's the right. That's the correct.

And the headliner is simply blocking the glass roof.

Correct. So we were like cheaper glass like without the is that the point is like it's a thinner, cheaper glass.

I suspect that they don't have to treat it in quite the same way.

So they probably got some cost saving in, you know, in the way that they're managing the glass.

Or they could just maybe not because they still don't want to heat up the fabric.

I mean, the glass could just be black.

It doesn't have to be like tinted and see through, you know, like it could just be blacked out.

But it's still kind of, yeah, it's all because we were like, could you just get a scalpel and like get a sunroof or something?

I don't know. I mean,

Interesting, there's got to be more to it because you think about like,

I had this conversation flipped with Fisker years ago when the Fisker Karma was coming out.

This is going on some years ago and they displayed it four door electric.

It's got the range extender steel roof, no sunroof, no moonroof, no glass roof, nothing.

And I was just curious.

I go, you know, for a car, a luxury car, is there any sort of like panoramic roof option or anything?

And at the time someone said, no, because the R&D would be $5 million and we'd have to recrash test the vehicle to see how it would perform.

Because they need that version of the vehicle with the glass.

I wonder if in the instance of the Model Y they go, if we took out the glass and put the steel roof back in, would they literally have to recrash the vehicle and commit to all this money just in getting it, I don't know, certified again?

You see, I'd be, it's a good point, but I wonder whether they're going to have to do that anyway because they've also changed like the front headlights, you know, longer get the light beam, the rear lights, you know, got a head beam, you haven't got the,

you haven't got the double glazed glass, you know, what point does it become?

Because I remember, I shot a documentary years ago on the development of the Ford Focus RS.

I was amazed at how much crash testing they had to do for that car.

Because it's like, it's just a focus, right?

It's a focus, it's like, no, you know, we've changed enough that we have to, I think they had to crash 29 cars, if memory serves me right.

I mean, that's like huge money.

Yeah, so it's a good question, but I don't know the answer.

I was told that it was basically because, because they all buy so many glass roofs, it just was un-economic to start taking the glass roof out and then retooling the factory to build a steel roof.

So, I mean, they can go on, there's a ton more they've taken out, they've got rid of the center console, that's gone.

They've got, they've redone the side of the doors, so now instead of having nice carpeted, in a nice carpeted door pocket, it's now just like hard plastic.

Does it have power windows?

It's got powered windows.

Oh, but it doesn't have power mirrors, is that right?

They doesn't fold, they don't fold by power, they manually fold.

The seat controls have been moved from the seat to the, to the touchscreen in again, probably not a big deal.

You've got a manual, a manual steering wheel adjust, which again, I can't remember that.

That I kind of like.

I'm okay.

Unless you've got low, it's a bit of a first world problem, right?

Unless you've got like five different people driving the car all the time.

Or it like, does that feature, like we talked about in the Lexus where you, you know, you put the car in park and it moves the seat back so you can get out easily and then moves it forward, you know, like that kind of stuff.

If you want that feature, you can't do it now.

The stereo, you know, you've gone from 15 speakers and a sub to seven.

They got, yeah, in the center, you've now got like just a bin on the floor instead of the kind of center console thing.

I mean, looking at the photos though, already the Tesla kind of seemed bare to me with just that big screen and nothing else.

And now I was going to say it looks like a rental car, but it looks like an amusement park ride.

Like you get in it, there's a screen there.

I don't mean it like terribly bad, but it just seems like, you know, great.

Now you can just wipe the whole thing down with a rag.

Like it's just easy.

I mean, in the back, they've also got rid of the, so the front, are you showing the front there on the picture?

So the front, they have got rid of the front trunk.

They've got rid of what they call in a baffling.

Basically this, if you look at the existing model, why all the model three, it's kind of a nicely sealed unit.

So you can put, you know, valuable stuff in there.

Now they've got rid of that and it's just a sort of cheap piece of injection molded plastic.

So even the engineers were saying, yeah, I wouldn't put a laptop in there now because there's not, you know, it's not.

I would suggest like for those who are listening to the podcast, go watch Alistair's Edmunds video on this because when you kind of touch it and clink around and feel it,

it feels like they just threw a plastic bin and to fill the hole in the front of the car.

It does feel, it seemed a little cheap, at least in the video.

I was like, why is it kind of flopping around?

And I think that's just you tapping on it.

So what I think, what I think it probably is on the front, because there's an electric, there is an electric button to open the front.

Tesla will have all the data.

Because obviously your cars, your Tesla is talking to Tesla.

They will have all the data on how many people actually use the front.

And I suspect they've looked at the data and gone, you know what?

Nobody really, you know, nobody uses this thing anyway.

So let's not worry about it.

But then I'll go on with a couple more like things that stuck in my mind.

The center armrest in the rear seat, that's gone.

It now falls down from the actual seat back.

So you effectively got the back of the trunk.

Yeah, that's what you were talking about.

Then you've got, they've got with the parcel shelf, that's gone.

So it's like every little bit and then when you drive it, and we expected a slightly smaller battery.

They're still staying in range of over 300 miles, which is still very competitive and that's a good place.

It's still sort of fast enough, but you don't get that instantaneous kick of acceleration because they've retuned it to protect the battery life.

So you don't get to protect the range story.

So you don't, in most Tesla, in every other Tesla I've driven, they deliberately engineer it.

So as you prod the throttle, it gives you a lot of torque.

Now that makes it feel very fast.

They kind of brought it home to me.

My wife briefly drove our Rivian truck when we were on the highway and I had to do some work.

And she'd got out of her Model 3 into the Rivian truck.

She's like, oh, this thing's not fast.

So we're talking about it.

It's got like, you know, 700 horsepower or something.

And I realized what it was is in the Tesla, you touch the throttle and you get this boom of torque and they do it deliberately to make it feel fast.

Yeah.

And in the Rivian, because it's a massive heavy truck, they didn't do that.

It's much more linear.

So it doesn't instantly feel as fast.

And then in this car, because they don't want to burn the battery up, they don't do that either.

So it's much more progressive.

And then they've got rid of the fancy, what they call in the frequency damping, but it's basically a more expensive damping solution, which means that you can combine strong body control with a supple ride.

Because the first Model Y, and we were huge critics of this, was so stiff because they wanted to give you that very kind of planted sporty feel and that very aggressive turning that all Tesla's have.

You turn the wheel a bit and it darts.

Yeah.

In the Model 3, you can do that and keep a decent ride.

In the Model Y, because the center of gravity is higher, the only way to keep that is to have either very stiff springs or to have like expensive dampers that can, you know, that can react.

So they got rid of these dampers because obviously they're expensive, but they didn't want to go back to a car with a stiff ride.

So what they've done is soften the whole thing off.

So you get quite a lot, quite pronounced body roll, good ride quality, but more body roll.

And again, it doesn't feel very Tesla like.

So when you've done all of this, it feels like quite a different vehicle.

It's not a bad car.

But is it comfortable to drive?

Yeah.

I mean, this is the thing.

If you just look at it in isolation and it's just over 40 grand, this is a good car.

It's comfortable.

It's spacious.

It's versatile.

The technology works.

It's got a decent range.

It's fast enough.

It's a good car.

Yeah.

So I'm saying to everybody, let's not go too far.

It's still a good car.

The problem is they've done all of this and it's only five grand cheaper than the other Model Y.

So you're like, oh, and then if you build that into five grand into a finance deal or a lease or whatever, then, you know, it's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be a massive amount different per month.

So it's like, and I said, you're taking, you've done all of this and it's only five grand cheaper.

And they kind of inferred to me that, yeah, like we've done all of this, but it's just expensive to build.

Well, it has to still be profitable for them as well.

Right.

So there is, you know, there still is a business here.

What's interesting is, is when you take away the tax, the EV credit, you know, they could sell you a vehicle that's five grand cheaper, but everyone that bought the nicer version and got the $7,500 tax credit is still coming out ahead.

You know, a nicer car and save $2,500.

I mean, now that's gone and you can't really compare that anymore.

But we did talk about how the car manufacturers are trying to, you know, balance the, you know, before EV tax credit and after EV tax credit, you know, what can they do to, you know, to balance that out a little bit.

And this is sort of an effort in that direction.

I mean, that's right.

And I think, you know, this car was obviously designed and developed before they knew the tax credit was going away when it is.

Yeah.

I think everybody knew the tax credit was going away, but I think most of us expected it to be around probably at least until the end of this tax year, but probably, you know, I think there's going to be a sort of ramp down, but obviously that all changed.

So when I arrived in Texas, two things had happened.

One is obviously tax credits gone.

And then secondly, Hyundai just slashed the price of the owning five.

Yeah.

So the only five suddenly 35 grand.

And it was, you could tell there was a sense of, hmm.

Okay.

So now just over 40 grand, it looks expensive.

And to what Tesla can't do, which Hyundai can is say, oh, well, we'll just, you know, swallow the losses on the Ionics and we'll make, you know, we'll make it back on the Palisades.

Yeah, right.

And Tesla has to build, even Tesla has to build a vehicle that they can sell at a profit.

And that's difficult.

Okay.

Before we take a break and talk about the Model 3, which you also, you took a look at, how do you think this Model Y is going to compare to the other versions?

Like you're talking about the Ionic 5.

Equinox, Chevy, Equinox and Mustang Mach-E and, you know, there's other competitors that are out there.

How does this going to fit in?

I think, I mean, we're going to wait till we get it back to Tesla and run all the numbers.

But I think it's, I think it all depends probably because, you know, obviously Tesla sells directly so they can manipulate things to a certain extent.

You know, if they, there's no lease deal at the moment, if they come out with a really aggressive lease deal on this car, then it'll shift, they'll shift it.

But it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like it's cheaper but doesn't necessarily feel like a better value was the conclusion that we kind of came to.

What does the Chevy Equinox cost?

Is that $40,000?

Well, $35,000 gets you the base one.

But yeah, I mean, similar, you know, spec for spec, similar sort of money.

Like there's, there's, you know, this sort of 40 grand mark is becoming a sweet spot, which is still 10 less than the average new car transaction price in the US at the moment.

And, you know, in the last week we've seen Chevy.

Well, yesterday we saw as I was recording this Chevy came out with a new bolt, which is 29 grand Nissan's in with a leaf, which is like 30 grand.

Everybody's coming.

But I think what's really interesting about these cars, and this is true of the Tesla.

And I'm about to put this on LinkedIn.

These are basically normal cars that happen to be electric.

If you think about it, all of the Tesla's today have been like, this is a spaceship.

This does stuff that you've never seen before, the technology, the over the air updates, the performance, everything is like this is a step into the future.

Now the EVs that we're seeing launched at the moment, including this Model Y standard are like, yeah, this is kind of a normal car.

Yeah.

You know, this, if you look at the things like the bolt and, you know, the leaf and then also like the Equinox, Equinox front wheel, it's basically like, here is a front wheel drive hatchback that sort of SUV that happens to be electric.

So, and it's the same price as a gas car.

And it's the same with this Model Y, 40 grand.

It's a direct rival now to a Honda CR-V, to a Toyota RAV4, and it has to compete on those grounds, you know, as a consumer, it's like, do I want a Model Y?

Do I want a RAV4, a CR-V?

Because they end up doing a very similar function.

Yeah.

And they're all going to have similar technology.

And I think that everything's merged.

Gas cars now have over-the-air updates.

They have the same sort of technology inside.

Yeah, there's not, EVs aren't this kind of brave new world anymore.

Everything's kind of arrived in the center.

And I mean, I guess there's still a bit of, I don't know, brand equity, a little show-off-ness to it.

I think that's died down a little bit over the years.

I think on the higher-end cars, there's, you know, do you want to drive an Audi because it's an Audi?

Do you drive a Porsche because it's a Porsche?

Sure.

But on a lot of the cars that we talk about in this 40-ish, you know, $1,000 price range, I don't think people are quite as brand loyal as they used to be.

They're just going for the best deal, the most range, or whatever.

So, you know, to someone who says, I drive a CR-V and somebody goes, I drive a Tesla.

Somebody may think, oh, the Tesla is a luxury vehicle compared to the CR-V, right?

But not necessarily.

Maybe part of that is the brand image that Tesla has put forward and maybe they can sell some cars just based on that.

Yeah, although their brand image, you know, that's been up and down a little bit of late as well.

So, yeah, I think that's true.

And actually, we have data, you know, we look at the kind of admins and look at the cross-shopping data.

There is much less, I mean, the market today, there is much less brand loyalty generally.

And certainly in the EV space, there's a lot less brand loyalty, partly because, like, you know, certain brands are only just getting into the game.

But also, I think people are shopping around saying, well, this is a nice car, like the way that Hyundai looks or look at the lease deal on this.

So there isn't, you know, yes, there's certain brands that like Honda that, you know, sell prologues to Honda customers.

But that, you know, a lot of people are willing to shop around and, you know, I look at my own journey.

We had a Model 3 and then at the end of it, should we get a Model Y?

Well, everybody's got a Model Y and the Genesis is great.

Let's get a Genesis and, you know, come next March when the lease is up.

I don't think we're going to have like, you know, innate loyalty to Genesis.

We've enjoyed the car, but we'll just look around and see what deals are available and what we like.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Somebody published some data on it recently.

I forgot where it came from, but it was like, yeah, the brand loyalty is diminishing a little bit, especially on the more accessible cars, right?

I think it was us.

Could have been you.

I think it was us.

You guys do a lot of data stuff.

All right.

I've definitely seen that data from us.

So maybe it was us.

Maybe we just didn't brand it enough.

All right.

Let's take a quick break.

Then we'll get into the Model 3.

All right.

Yeah.

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Okay, talking about Tesla, you went out to Texas drove a couple of the cars from Tesla.

The model three.

Now, a little different than what they presented to you with the model.

Why?

Yeah, the model three was really interesting because this is actually cheaper.

The price differential rather than the rest of model three range is actually more is five and a half.

But they barely taken anything out.

It's quite a strange conundrum.

It's like, well, hang on a minute.

You've ripped all of this stuff out of the wine.

It's five grand cheaper.

And then the three is like barely touched and it's five and a half grand cheaper.

So it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

I understand that the reasons why it's that way is because of the way the model three is made is different to the model Y.

So there was again, it's a bit like taking the glass roof out.

It just didn't make sense to play with it more.

But in the model three, you've still got the the front is the same.

You know, you still got the carpeted door pockets.

You get into it and you know, you know, it's like, well, what have they changed?

Almost nothing.

It's like, oh, well, now you don't have a cover for the cup holders who cares.

You know, you don't have as much LED lighting, but again, like, you know, first of all problem, it still feels like a really nice thing.

It's like, oh, we got rid of all the vegan leather.

Some of now we have cloth inserts alongside some of the stuff.

It's like, well, it looks really nice.

So honestly, I think this is a very different car.

I think this is just the obvious choice.

Unless you want the performance and want to go really quickly.

I think at 30, what is it?

38, including destination.

It's just a really, it's a really nice car.

It's a really nice size.

It's still pretty spacious and versatile for families.

You know, it's still does not to 16 under six seconds.

It still drives like a Tesla.

It's still sharp and engaging to drive.

I just thought, I just thought it was a, oh, there I am.

Look at that.

I'm on the screen.

I was watching the video.

I thought it was a really nice thing.

And I kind of thought both me and the Tony, the cameraman who was with me, we both kind of came away saying,

actually, maybe I'll go back to a model three because one of these would be, would be really nice.

And it's a good thing.

The model three, the bang for the buck, they're, they're trying to save money on a few of the things like you talked about reducing like the LED lighting, the ambient lighting, you know, light bars in the front and the rear and stuff like that.

I guess smaller battery.

Smaller battery, 10 to 15% smaller.

But Tesla, and I, and I agree with this.

Tesla's basically said, look, we're not going to launch a car with an EPA range less than 300.

Because we feel like that is, you know, that's, that's where people want, you know, I'm sure they've done a ton of research, but that's where we want to be.

So this is, so this, this, I think is 320 miles something on the EPA and our Edmunds EV range test is actually the Tesla's have started matching their EPA.

I think a few things have changed around, you know, so plenty of range, zero to 60.

They're saying 5.8 seconds.

Subjectively, it felt that fast.

You know, the premium version, the next one up does 4.9.

Well, again, you know, it's a family car, 5.8 seconds to 60 is plenty.

So it's, it's a bit like, well, you know, what, what else, you know, again, the seats, the seats switches are now on the screen, but you know, who cares.

But one thing they have brought back, I'm sure we talked about this and show at one point how annoying it was.

But they've listened to obviously the howls from customers who hated the push button indicators.

So the column stalk is back.

Yeah.

Now you have proper turn signals.

You're not like faffing around, getting your thumb on the wrong button and screwing it up.

The Tesla drivers used it anyway.

So, you know, we'll see.

And they got rid of the rear screen.

Like the premium version has like a rear telly.

And I'm like, I'm down with that because my kids are obsessed with TV.

Every time I'm getting a Tesla, it's like, I want to put like Sheriff Labrador on the way to school.

And we always have a fight because I'm like, no, we're not putting TV on the drive, you know, the six minute drive to school.

It's not happening.

They've got rid of it.

That's like, amen.

Because the kids, you know, everybody said, oh, you can turn it off.

Well, you have kids, the kids know that like it's a switch.

You know, they're bright enough to know that at the push of a button and Sheriff Labrador is back.

So just taking it out, that's a win for me.

That's the reason to buy this.

But there was one other idiosyncrasy we should talk about on these cars that did wind me up a bit.

So you remember like autopilot was this big Tesla thing.

We got this car that will steer itself, drive itself.

And for years with bases, well, all it really is is adaptive cruise control with a bit with steering assistance.

And now pretty much everybody else is doing that.

On these cars, they've got rid of it.

Except they haven't.

Because both of these cars will do full self driving.

So all the technologies there, all the cameras, all the heart, you know, all the processing everything.

And it's got lane change keep assist.

So we demonstrate in the video that if you veer towards the side of the lane, the car will auto steer you back into the centre of the lane as a safety thing.

Right. Okay.

But they've turned off the auto steer functionality, presumably to incentivise yourself, either to buy full self driving or buy the or buy the next model up.

So we were like, this is so so it's everything is here.

Car will do it, but you've written a piece of code to turn it off.

Now that feels really cheap and cynical to me.

Yeah.

But we've talked about this before.

That's kind of the direction the car companies are going in is they're selling features and features.

It seemed like all of the features in cars.

Not that long ago were, you know, essentially mechanical features, something needed to be like a chip needed to be installed for heated seats or or something.

And now they're going, well, all the components are there because these components are multifunctional.

A single chip manages more than one thing.

It can it can do versions of self driving and all of these other things.

So they're keeping costs down by supplying it in all the cars.

But now they're going, oh, well, but we should earn money for this.

We should, you know, this is a feature you should get.

So, I don't know.

It's interesting.

I know we griped about it a lot, but it's also the interesting part about it is, I don't know if Tesla does this, but theoretically is you can get the lesser version of the car and add those features, I guess, down the road.

You could be like, hey, you can't add auto steer.

You can add full self driving and that's that's 99 bucks a month.

Yeah.

So it's hard to imagine somebody getting one of these for, let's say 400 a month and then adding, you know, that's that's a 25% of your of your of your lease or your finance deal.

So it's hard to imagine, you know, that then adding that back on.

So I get your point, but for me, this is up there with BMW's famous heated seats, isn't it?

Where we're going to charge you an extra whatever it was to turn them on.

This feels like the same thing to me that, you know, there's.

So difficult.

You're right.

Because, you know, everything's now electronics, but to deliberately turn something off that's so patently obviously there is a bit cheap.

Yeah.

Well, so the question I was going to ask you, I'm not sure if you know this is we're talking about these different versions of the Tesla in this instance, the Model 3 and it's got a smaller battery and it's a little slower.

Are all the Tesla motors.

The same and it's just bigger battery and it's just, you know, like our so does this one have different motors.

It has a different one.

So it's delivered is delivering less power.

I can't remember and I should know this whether it's the same like a same moment.

No, it's not actually, I think it's a different.

It's a different motor because you can have different motors that are, you know, tuned if you want to use the parlance of the old world differently.

But I think this is actually a different motor.

So it's one motor at the rear, rear wheel drive, but I think it's a different motor to what is in the other cars.

So you've got.

Well, they must have figured out that that was going to be a cost saving, even if they don't make as many, you know, like we were talking about the glass roof is like the glass roof.

They buy so many.

They might as well just keep it in and or buy a lesser fancy version.

Maybe it doesn't have the additional tint or glazing to it, but the piece of glass is the same.

And a lot of these motors, they have to, you know, then it's all about the software tuning because yeah, you've got to balance.

You've got to balance performance versus range.

I mean, in the gas car, you do that part for sure.

I get it. It's in the tune or the programming, which is essentially the same thing.

We just use it differently.

But I was just wondering if they go, Tesla makes a motor and then some cars have one, some two, some four, like whatever.

And then the battery is bigger and the tune is different.

And they, you know, they spin it faster or it's more aggressive.

You know, the throttle, you know, tip in is more sensitive like all the things.

But if it's just the same exact electric motor, then I can see the cost savings.

But I guess if Tesla is using several electric motors in the lineup of vehicles they have, they must have saw that there was a cost savings there.

Well, I mean, also, you know, just the sheer scale of what they do these days.

I mean, the model Y, it used to be the biggest selling car in the world.

Actually, I think the RAV4 has now overtaken it again.

Yeah.

But you know, the sheer volume that they're selling and obviously the supply chain that then comes with that.

But the other interesting is this, these vehicles are U.S. only.

So they're obviously a response to kind of where the U.S. market is.

Yeah.

They're not being sold as well because now, you know, Tesla has building Model Ys in China, building Model Ys in Berlin, building Model Ys in Texas.

So, you know, and there's quite a few interesting little nuggets that I discovered.

This is something I didn't know.

The paint is different.

Actually, building Model Ys obviously, obviously the free one practice as well.

But where the, there is different, there is statewide legislation and regulations around paint.

Yeah.

So they're actually saying that the Texas paint is different to the California paint because the rules are different around it.

Yeah, we've got to have the water-based paints here.

That's right.

It's something I didn't know.

I was fascinated because when you move to the U.S., you don't realize like all these state idiosyncrasies.

So in California, you have to have water-based paint.

But in Texas, you can have oil paint, can you?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know what the Texas rules are because I don't think they've changed.

Probably aren't any.

But, you know, being in California and all we get is more and more rules.

Yes.

You know, you got to go out of state for, you know, for a chroming and you got to go out of state for, you know, for paint.

You know, unless it's water-based paint and stuff.

I don't even know.

The rule for a long time was even like aftermarket chrome shops.

If you were an existing shop, you could stay in business or sell your business to somebody else.

If it was all, you're not moving it.

It's all the same.

But I don't think you can open a new chrome shop there.

You won't get the licenses because the chemicals used to do chrome, for example.

That's crazy.

I didn't know that.

You can't do it out here.

So so many hot rod builders and still like in the hot rod world, it was a big thing.

But if you still think about like how many pieces of new cars have like chrome metal pieces and the window trim and, you know, even a door handle or just something like that.

We still have a lot of that.

I just don't think you could do it in California.

You could do polished metal.

I guess you could polish stainless or aluminum or something, but you can't can't chrome it.

You know, so yeah.

Apparently you want to take Teslas made in Texas because the paint is the best.

You should buy your Tesla in Texas just because the paint is better.

It's fascinating.

The water, the water-based paints have gotten a lot better over the years.

But I think this also is just an illustration of, you know, to be fair, it's just how difficult and rubbish, in many ways, rubbish industry car manufacturing is.

You know, you're thinking about little nuances of paint and it's this and it's that.

I can almost guarantee when Tesla was coming together and they're all like, California, we're going to make it here.

They didn't think about paint.

They didn't think about.

No, they thought we've got a deal.

We've got a deal here on a car plant that Toyota used to have.

They didn't have any more.

And yeah, California is cool and techy.

Painters that I know that when they had to switch from like lacquers and stuff like that to water-based paints, they're like, oh, you spray it differently.

It lays down differently.

Like they had a practice to get into it.

And so in my head, I'm thinking the machines that spray a Tesla in California have to be different than the ones in Texas or at least calibrated differently to lay that paint out.

This is like a lot of robots coming because we're talking about it.

A lot of the robots come from China.

Yeah.

You know, you've got Chinese robots coming in that then the Tesla engineers like reprogram and it's if you've never been in a car plant and I spent a lot of life in them.

It's their incredible place.

And I've seen, you know, I've been to like Zahlui in Germany where they made the Ford Focus and it feels very kind of old school and quite manual.

Yeah.

You know, you go to the Tesla one, then I haven't been to I need to get out to China and see some lady stuff there because I understand some of that is extraordinary how automated it is.

But it was a really fascinating.

I mean, here I've been to the Rouge, which is, you know, more of like an amusement thing because it's so much industrialism and history and like, you know, so there's you do that plant, you do that tour.

That's like, you know, that's like a ride, you know, like at, you know, because there's like a big screen and here's the history and here's the story of why it came to be and what we do and how it evolved over the years.

And then I go to Nissan and you're right.

That's just more like, here's your hard hat.

Here's your, you know, your protective lenses get in the back of this golf cart.

We're going to go for a ride.

A lot of the assembly is the same.

They just didn't have all sort of the fanfare leading up to it.

Right.

So yeah, but you're right.

Getting a chance to even see some of that.

And those two specifically are interesting.

Yeah.

It's it's it's an extraordinary extraordinary business.

I need to get out to China and see like the high level of automation out there.

I think that would be fascinating.

So I mean, in conclusion, it was great to go down there.

Fascinating to see really nice to meet, you know, a lot of the Tesla people and, you know, you see, you know, a lot of the engineers on the ground and everything else.

You know, it's, it's like any other car company, you know, once you strip away, it's, it's, they've got the same challenges, the same things to overcome.

And, you know, I love the Model 3.

I think the Model 3 is a great, you know, is just a no brainer for me at the price point.

And, you know, that you wouldn't, unless you want the performance version, I'd buy this one.

The Model Y, I think we'll be really interested to see how it goes.

I think it depends how the finance deals shake out.

But, you know, it is so noticeably different from the premium.

And I'm not convinced that five grand is enough to differentiate the two, but not that it's a bad car.

It's still a very good car.

But, you know, for me, you know, I'd pay the if I could, I'd pay the extra five grand and, you know, build it into finance.

Because I just think it's a, you know, it's a more convincing all round package, really.

Yeah.

It certainly seemed to make sense.

That direction in the Model Y felt a little more like, I don't want to say rental car or fleet car, but...

It's the car that is the one that the Uber drivers will choose.

And not to be rude about Uber drivers.

They do a good job, but it's just, you know, the association.

You know, you are, you know, you arrive and if you care about these things and I don't, but, you know, lots of people do.

It's like, oh, well, you know, if you turn up, your neighbors are going to see you bought the poverty spec version.

Yeah.

We shouldn't care about plenty of people do.

Okay.

So the videos are up for that.

It's on the Edmunds YouTube channel.

Yeah.

So check those out so you can see and hear and have Alistair walk you through all the wonderful,

all the details or lack thereof.

Yes.

All the details that have changed.

I tell you what one, I don't do it because I know because our social, I had a social media who puts puts together some of the social clips from, from these shows.

So I didn't like your social thing on the other model.

Why?

Why not?

Because like your t-shirt, you got water on your, on your polo shirt.

And I said, it was like 105 degrees and about, you know, 120% humidity.

I was like, that, that is sweat, my friend.

That is blood, sweat and tears.

That's, that is all natural.

You do.

I mean, Austin's a beautiful place.

And I, we were down by the Colorado River and, oh, sorry, one final item.

I'm going to tell you what I had to go out because this is, this is, this is a production first for me.

So Tesla sort of suggested somewhere to go, but there wasn't really like a plan.

So anyway, we drove out there and we saw this car park.

We looked on Google maps, saw this car park like this could work.

So we, we rock up and I said to the guy, can we come and film in the car park?

There was a car park attendant.

He said, so I'm, I'm not sure you want to, would want to do that.

So I said, no, no, yeah, I mean, it looks, it looks like it's, this is the nudist beach.

And then we looked at the sign and there was like no dogs, no food, like, like just this whole like thing.

And I was like, this is Austin, Texas.

Like I just never, never anticipated on a Thursday afternoon showing up at a car park to discover that this was like, you know,

oh, natural. So anyway, we didn't stay.

So you said, yes, I'll do it.

We're going to stay.

Yeah, we could have got some views.

We could have got some views.

All right.

So yeah, that's it for today.

We're going to catch you guys next week.

Edmunds.com is the website for all of this stuff and the YouTube channel.

And thanks so much for listening until next time.

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CarCast+Edmunds - Tesla cuts prices and features on the Model Y and Model 3. Is it worth it?

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