What will it take to make you seriously consider an EV?

Estimates vs Actual:
390,000 - @TSLAFanMtl
382,000 - @FutureAZA
377,251 - @ICannot_Enough
377,000 - @garyblack00
375,000 - @TroyTeslike
375,000 - @CuriousPejjy
372,000- @grok
365,645 - Analyst consensus
358,023 - Actual Deliveries

 

Tesla Y&3 pre refresh looked better (to me) , and being 50-60% cheaper sorta make any potential buyer wonder if 20-30k depreciation could have bought them lifetime worth of fuel instead!

I received an email from Rivian (update your address,in June you be able to reconfigure R2),but more likely I will go with kia EV3 instead

 

This map converts EV at-home charging costs into a gallon of gas equivalent.

 

Cybertruck is generating a lot of sales to Musk-owned companies.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/s...cybertruck-sales-were-inflated-100008488.html

House of cards.

 

All smoke and mirrors from Tesla. Notice how @Space Ghost has not mentioned FSD at all as of late. I thought Tesla was "super ahead" of the competition? It's halfway through 2026 and where is Robotaxi? Why is it still only in Austin?

When will you admit that Elon is a liar and nothing that he hypes up comes to fruition?

 

He only posts when he feels threatened..and then he pulls up a random Waymo that's stuck or a Chevy bolt on fire with "competition is coming".
But like the little btch he is, he won't post when it's negative news for Tesla or Musk.

SpaceGhost's posting characteristics
- mockery of other companies or products or politicians
- deflection and change of topic usually with sarcasm
- unwavering support of his savior Musk

 

On a more general note, if these last 6 weeks haven't shown people the value of renewable energy and EVs, I don't know what will. Price shocks because of wars and distribution systems or clean energy in your neighborhood? Tough choice. I posted in another thread that I recently "filled up" my EV for about $10.50 in electricity costs. It would be much, much less if I had solar and/or wind attached to my house.

(We are putting our "raising kids" house on the market by the end of the month and will rent for a year or so while we build our last home, which will be a smaller one-story but will also have integrated solar and wind systems with batteries, car and bike chargers, and earthquake resistant construction, as well as some other gizmos that will allow us to adapt to future changes. In short, we will trade square footage for cool stuff and independence.)

 

I just asked ChatGPT this question. It says if you live in Texas and assume gas costs $3.50/gallon and drive about 12,000 annually, you'll spend <$500/year recharging your car at home. Equivalent gas costs would be up to $1,400/year. So yea, this chart checks out.

If you have solar panels and batteries, you can save a lot more (excluding the cost of the panels/batteries of course).

 

Only in Austin?

 

It appears that you are using News that has been released on April 18, 2026 to counter a Post made on April 17, 2026.


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Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences

Tesla announced today that its “Robotaxi” service is now rolling out in Dallas and Houston, marking the company’s first expansion beyond Austin and San Francisco. The company shared maps of the two new service areas, which appear to cover small slices of each city.

The Houston geofence covers approximately 25 square miles, according to early user analysis of the maps, while the Dallas zone appears to center around the Highland Park area. For context, Tesla’s Austin geofence has grown to roughly 245 square miles after months of gradual expansion — but that took nearly a year to reach from an initial 20-square-mile footprint.

Tesla’s official @robotaxi account on X posted the announcement with two map images showing the service boundaries, but provided no details on fleet size, whether rides will be supervised or unsupervised, or pricing. The post simply read: “Robotaxi now rolling out in Dallas & Houston.”

What we know — and what’s missing
The announcement is notably thin on specifics. Tesla did not disclose how many vehicles will operate in each city, whether those vehicles will have safety monitors inside (as the vast majority of its Austin fleet still does), or when the geofences might expand.

As we reported in March, Tesla’s Austin operation still relies on only a handful of unsupervised vehicles — somewhere between 4 and 12 Model Ys operating without a human safety monitor — out of a total fleet of roughly 80 vehicles, though most of those are not operating at the same time. The remaining cars still carry safety monitors in the driver’s seat, and all vehicles are remotely supervised by Tesla staff.

The company’s track record on “Robotaxi” promises provides reason for skepticism. Elon Musk predicted 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020. He promised 500 vehicles in Austin and over 1,000 in the Bay Area by the end of 2025 — the actual numbers were roughly 42 and 130, almost all with safety monitors. He claimed the service would cover half the U.S. population by year-end 2025. None of it materialized.

Safety record raises questions about expansion
Expanding to new cities while safety concerns remain unresolved is a bold choice. Tesla has reported 15 crash incidents to NHTSA since its Austin launch, with crash rates approximately 4 to 9 times worse than human drivers depending on the benchmark used. One July 2025 crash was quietly upgraded months later to include a hospitalization — a detail Tesla never publicly disclosed.

Tesla also redacts all crash narratives as “confidential business information” in its NHTSA filings, unlike Waymo, Zoox, Aurora, and Nuro, which provide full incident descriptions. The service still shuts down during rain, a significant limitation given that Houston averages over 100 rainy days per year.

The company’s own data confirms crash rates 3x worse than humans even when a safety monitor is present — and that’s using Tesla’s own favorable benchmarks.

Waymo is already there — and operating at scale
The most striking context for today’s announcement is that Waymo has been operating in both Houston and Dallas since February 2026, with fully driverless vehicles — no safety monitors, no chase cars, no remote supervision required.

Waymo is now delivering 500,000 paid robotaxi rides per week across 10 U.S. cities, on its way to a target of 1 million weekly rides by year-end. The company operates approximately 2,500 active robotaxis nationwide, with independent research showing it reduces serious-injury crashes by 91% compared to human drivers.

While Tesla is launching with an estimated 25-square-mile geofence in Houston and an undisclosed number of vehicles, likely Model Ys with safety monitors, Waymo is already scaling toward public availability in both Texas cities through its partnership with Avis Budget Group.


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This is what several places on the Internet are showing for the service areas in Houston and Dallas.

If I find something more definite, I will post it.

 

Hmm 4 days before the quarterly earnings report. Yeah I'm sure that's a coincidence.

You're one of the suckers that Elon takes advantage of

 

lol. But that's part of the problem when people say things like "switch to solar to save money!" and then don't take into account the cost of the panels, installation, batteries, etc. Same with the electric vehicle since they're probably not factoring in an electric Kona costs something like $8k-$10k more than an ICE Kona off the bat. In both situations, there may be years of recouping costs to just break even. Now, if you're just doing it for the good of the universe and to save future generations, that's awesome, but if it's just for savings - it may take a while assuming you still even own the car by the time you can break even. I don't know what the break-even period is nowadays, but I know in the past people have calculated it to be anywhere from 4-7 years or so.

 

All I can tell you is the fuel, repair and everything else costs for my 2018 Model 3 have been ridiculously low. All I've paid for besides charging are tires, wiper blades, two windshield replacements, one 12V battery and one or two air filters. It came with an 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty that covered 2-3 other repairs that my car flagged and told me to have serviced. There is no regularly scheduled maintenance. Because of regen braking, I have never changed the brakes. For me as a homeowner at the time of purchase, the proposed economics and ease of ownership seemed too good to be true but ended up being way beyond what I could have dreamed of. My decision to buy had zero to do with the environment. If Elon Musk weren't a toxic piece of radioactive waste, I believe a whole lot more people in the U.S. would have EVs.

The economic differences for installing solar panels and buying EVs are not comparable. Right now, Model 3/Y don't cost much (if any) more than comparable ICE vehicles and the savings from fuel, maintenance and repairs kick in almost right away, not 4-7 years.

 

You are doing it wrong.

Here's the thing about solar+batteries, the talking point about ROI is a dead narrative as the landscape is fundamentally shifted. Nobody ever asks Generac people if they get their ROI, right? A Generac costs about the same and will never decrease your bill.

These days, whole home batteries work better than generators (in many respects). So many people do the switch for household resiliency, not for the ROI. If you take the plunge, then you get two nice side benefits.
1. Reduce your monthly gas and electric bills
2. Be a better steward of the planet

I don't even have solar (yet) but I do have batteries for resiliency. Last time my neighborhood lost power, I didn't notice cause the battery kicks in instantaneously. I only noticed cause two houses nearby installed Generacs that kicked in about 60 seconds later and they are crazy loud. (Batteries are silent). As a side benefit, my last electric bill was $90 in a 2500sq/ft house. I changed electric plans that charges me higher peak rates but nearly nothing at off times. So now I program my house to run off batteries during peak times. It's called power shifting. I wont' recoup the cost but that's not the point.

When my ICE car dies, I'll get an EV. I'll probably soon install solar panels too. Not to save money but so I can perpetually exist in the event of extended grid failure. Right now, my batteries get about 2 days of run time, which covers most outages. If the outage last longer, I pull out my gas generator (at my leisure) to recharge the batteries.

Back on EVs, if it can reverse charge so it can supply power to the house, that gives you even more options. I probably wouldn't ever do that but I like the option. As I understand, Tesla doesn't allow you to reverse charge so that's yet another reason I wouldn't buy a Tesla.

 

Keep doing your part soldier.

Spoiler

 

Nobody asks Generac people if they get their ROI because no one that wants a generator is using it to save money (at least I hope not). Generac doesn't claim it'll cut your electric bill. A whole-house generator is there for emergency situations, and, as long as you have the fuel to run it, can run continuously for days. A portable generator you can take with you, as well. Solar, on the other hand, for most people - the savings is the draw and that is the claim on most home-related forums by those out there trying to promote sales. The #1 factor holding the majority of people back from either of these solutions is the costs, so to dismiss ROI may be ok in your situation, but not the vast majority of people who are looking at the costs and whether or not it's worth it. Hell, I've even thought about if I see a hurricane coming, would it just be cheaper to just go get a hotel in another city until it's gone. lol.

As for me, I don't care about the initial costs - I can afford either solution, but I do care about the ROI. For example, I don't care if the power goes out for a few minutes a couple of times a year or a few hours every few years. I can easily survive that. I care more about emergency situations where power is out for days. I would love for it to save me money, but if the sales guy is saying that saving money is a calling card for the product, then, yes, ROI matters because you can't tell me how much it'll save money and then say ROI isn't important.

Saving the environment is secondary for me, but agreed that it's a good byproduct. So is charging an EV.

I've thought about going with something like BasePower, but those batteries would be lucky to last 2 days and their plans were a bit more expensive the last time I looked. I think they have an option to hook a generator up to the batteries or something, but I haven't looked into that. I think my last electric bill was around $50-something on the new house (3000'ish sq. ft.), but that doesn't include the gas bill which was probably another $40'ish last month. Also, that's just with my elderly mom living at the new house. lol. My combined bill at my other house where I live (2900'ish sq. ft.) was $120 last month. These are going to be some of the cheapest bills for me for the year, probably. When summer hits, they'll definitely go up. lol.

Maybe if and when China is allowed to sell in the country, we'll get some more reasonably-priced vehicles or bang-for-the-buck ones, at least. Of course it would probably be somewhat of a death knell for domestic manufacturers unless the imports are taxed to hell, so I don't see that happening anytime soon. I just hit 190k on my ICE car and am wondering if I should sell and buy something new, but it's running and is reliable as hell, so I may just keep driving it another 30-60k. I would like to have an EV, but, in the end, it'll be whatever fits the bill at the time I need one.

 

I've got a 2015 Acrua TLX I've been driving since 2014 that just hit 190,000 miles. It had a puddle light on the sideview mirror replaced under warranty after it went out. The only other repair it's needed was a new wheel bearing at 158,000 miles or so. It's been silly reliable. I don't plan to keep it past 250,000 miles, though - don't want to risk it. lol. That being said, yeah, it's needed oil changes, a timing belt change (and another one needed soon), transmission fluid changes, etc. as part of the regular maintenance. There are reliable ICE vehicles out there.

As for Elon - more people would buy a Tesla if it weren't for his shenanigans, true. But I think there's also another subset that have been told "EV bad, oil good" and they're used to the old ways and would rather stick with the old ways, slowly drag the US back to the Stone Age, etc. We're seeing the US fall behind in every day tech as a result. The other issue is that all these EVs in the US seem to be overpriced (like pretty much everything). When people say that the Model 3 is priced similarly to "comparable" vehicles, that depends on the definition of "comparable". For example, there is a huge amount of the public who would buy an EV just to replace a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry. Those start under $30k or so the last I looked (I think they went up to these prices after tariffs - not sure how much is just an excuse and how much is really caused by tariffs). Get some of these EVs down there for people to buy. Most people just want a reliable car for transportation and hauling their family/junk. They don't care about fart noises, beta FSD you pay thousands more for and may not even be able to take advantage of before you sell the vehicle/get a new one, powering their house with their car, etc.

 

Yea, that's my point. It's an outdated narrative that the main draw to solar is savings. Anybody that repeats that today is either trying to sell you something and/or is not aware of recent advancements.

Nowadays, whole house batteries are strong enough to compete with Generac. So you get the benefits of a Generac but with instantaneous responses, as opposed to 60 delays. The downside to batteries is their short run time so you have to recharge them somehow. So if you can recharge them with solar, great. Ideally, you should still have a portal generator as tertiary backup in the event of extended cloudy days.

So if you install batteries+solar, you get the benefit of a Generac but you also reduce electrical (and gasoline) costs as a side benefit. But again, that's not the primary benefit.

Generac, btw, still has a single point of failure. I heard of cases where trees fell down and the roots ripped up gas lines. Plus we've had city wide power and water outages. Why not a city wide gas outage?

As an aside, I wouldn't do one of those battery services. If there is a grid down situation, which is the whole point, can you trust them to manage your batteries to your advantage?