Salespeople only care about one thing - lining their pockets. Whether they do so by selling you an EV or an IC vehicle, they really could care less. The problem is almost none of them have a clue about vehicles in general, but know enough to tell people “this has a V6 instead of a V4* so its better”.

As for resistance…

The Bolt does have direct DC capability. The problem is simply in the format of the connector (easily resolved) combined with getting the communications right between the car and the charger to control the rate of charge. No reason why Tesla can’t design the connector (since it isn’t a proprietary GM design) and sell…

Sure - but most of that points to the pure ignorance of dealers, not actually forming resistance to selling them.

To be fair, that’s a problem with any hybrid or EV. If you buy a Tesla, you’re a slave to their service departments, which are far from cheap, btw (when you have to pay). Hell, their year 2 service of a multi-point inspection (those things are damned near useless everywhere), tire rotation, alignment check, cabin air…

The problem with the Volt is a high MSRP that isn’t exactly reflective of actual purchase price. Pretty much every fall you can pick one up from the outgoing model year for around $28-29k before tax credits.... Other times of the year you can get them around $31k before tax credits.

People think they’re much more…

Just as a reality check, you can get a Nissan Leaf here for $26,543 before tax credits without any haggling through TrueCar. That’s $8,500 cheaper than the cheapest Model 3, and available today.

$8,500 justifies quite a bit of differences.

No reason Tesla can’t make adapters for their network to sell to Bolt owners and offer charging at a price... give themselves some profit to try to keep themselves in business...

For most people, though, the charging network available for the Bolt is just fine. It really only fails on distance driving in the center of the country. Even there, it works just fine as a second vehicle.

GM could easily build a network to rival Tesla’s - they have the capital to be able to afford such a push, if they…

What dealers have shown resistance to the Volt?

I’ve never noticed that - I’ve just noticed they’re completely lacking in knowledge of the Volt, just like every other offering on their showroom floor. When I shopped for a Volt (didn’t end up buying, going for a used Fusion from a family member instead), the salesmen…

You assume that Tesla will keep their same service model on a cheaper car.

Also, that someone can wait a day or two for Tesla to show up in some locations (not a problem in cities with service centers, of course). Generally not an issue with the absurd abundance of Chevy dealers. For the majority of the population,…

2nd:

GM’s hybrids haven’t had the traction of the Prius because, frankly, GM’s hybrids have stunk, apart from the Volt. The Volt actually has significantly outsold the Prius plug-in because in that case, the Prius offering actually stunk.

Funny how the market works sometimes.

Who does he think he is? Linus Pauling? (Chemistry and Peace)

Too high end. This car is supposed to be cheap, remember?

Ah - looking over the details of the phase out more carefully, I see that they phase out starting the second calendar quarter after the 200k mark is reached, not when it is reached. So that removes all ambiguity of whether or not you’d get the tax credit - because you know at a bare minimum you have 3 months’ warning…

It doesn’t really need to be that difficult, I don’t think. From my understanding, the problem with charging is in the heat. Track the battery temp and you should have a pretty good indicator of wear, I’d wager.

Well, the first 200k might even run out before the Model 3 enters production. They have 128,575 left, according to insideevs.com. At the current sales pace through the first 3 months of 2016, they have about 42 months left before they hit the 200k mark. If past experience with Tesla meeting shipping dates is any…

I think this just goes to show how mileage are a stupid way (by itself) to measure age of a car.

Some parts age whether used or not. A serpentine belt will age just sitting doing nothing. Seals will fail, etc. For many of these, pure age in months is the best way to measure life.

Some parts age more based on miles…

This is very true, but few model 3s will actually qualify for the $7500 tax credit, unless sales of the S and X fail to live up to Tesla’s projections.

Realistically, Tesla is doing economic rationing here as well, by shipping high end models first. So those with the money to feed the hype get the first ones, and when the hype dies off some, everyone else gets theirs at a lower price... just as if it was something like the last Ford T-bird, which went for insane…

Here’s the rub: Tesla has said they will prioritize sales on geography and sales price, with the typical price will actually start more in the $42k range for the options most people want.

By the time the model 3 hits the market, if Tesla has reached its sales goals along the way, very few customers will get the full…