Tesla and their selection of a new site for a new plant

**Dmberko11** · July-25-20, 09:25 PM

As someone who lives in Austin, I can assure you, it’s not “rural” at all lol! Pretty soon Austin will have the envy of skylines in Texas, and that’s saying something because Dallas and Houston are giants.
I think he chose Austin because we have a wealth of IT people here and high tech manufacturing as well. It’s not just software people here. A lot of people are moving to Austin too because it has better taxes, cheaper cost of living, it’s business friendly, and there’s a lot of good land to build on. California is too congested. Austin is pretty centrally located in the country as well. I see just as many Teslas on the road here as I do priuses. The market here is huge for electric cars. In Detroit because of the Big 3 there’s a lot of hostility towards Tesla since it’s so disruptive in the auto industry. They’re now the most valuable auto company in the world. Don’t get me wrong though, ICE cars aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. IMO electric cars are still too expensive and kinda gimmicky. I recently was looking at a model 3 and it takes $22 to fully charge its 240 mile range battery! That’s BS. You can fuel up a car for that range.

**313WX** · July-26-20, 06:12 AM

Originally Posted by Dmberko11

As someone who lives in Austin, I can assure you, it’s not “rural” at all lol! Pretty soon Austin will have the envy of skylines in Texas, and that’s saying something because Dallas and Houston are giants.
I think he chose Austin because we have a wealth of IT people here and high tech manufacturing as well. It’s not just software people here. A lot of people are moving to Austin too because it has better taxes, cheaper cost of living, it’s business friendly, and there’s a lot of good land to build on. California is too congested. Austin is pretty centrally located in the country as well. I see just as many Teslas on the road here as I do priuses. The market here is huge for electric cars. In Detroit because of the Big 3 there’s a lot of hostility towards Tesla since it’s so disruptive in the auto industry. They’re now the most valuable auto company in the world. Don’t get me wrong though, ICE cars aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. IMO electric cars are still too expensive and kinda gimmicky. I recently was looking at a model 3 and it takes $22 to fully charge its 240 mile range battery! That’s BS. You can fuel up a car for that range.

The cheaper cost of living part isn't really true for Austin any more. Maybe if you're coming from California, but it's certainly more expensive than Detroit these days.

In fact, it you looked at wages relative to COL, Detroit probably offers the best bang for your buck of any city.

**Dmberko11** · July-26-20, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by 313WX

The cheaper cost of living part isn't really true for Austin any more. Maybe if you're coming from California, but it's certainly more expensive than Detroit these days.

In fact, it you looked at wages relative to COL, Detroit probably offers the best bang for your buck of any city.

Yeah, that’s what I meant. It’s cheaper when you’re coming from California. Detroit still has their damned no-fault auto insurance though. Back in 2015 when I lived in Dearborn Heights and drove a POS beater car I STILL had to shell out roughly $2200 a year on car insurance premiums, and that was with good credit and a good driving record.
But I would agree that Detroit has a favorable cost of living to most other places. Don’t worry, they’ll experience one Texas summer here after they’ve moved into their new digs and they’ll be like, what have we done?!

**p69rrh51** · August-04-20, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by Dmberko11

Yeah, that’s what I meant. It’s cheaper when you’re coming from California. Detroit still has their damned no-fault auto insurance though. Back in 2015 when I lived in Dearborn Heights and drove a POS beater car I STILL had to shell out roughly $2200 a year on car insurance premiums, and that was with good credit and a good driving record.
But I would agree that Detroit has a favorable cost of living to most other places. Don’t worry, they’ll experience one Texas summer here after they’ve moved into their new digs and they’ll be like, what have we done?!

Dmberko11, I have a customer who is relocating his recording studio from Los Angeles to Detroit. He looked at a number of cities including Austin. He did not choose Austin because of the cost of living and of all things the LA type traffic. With all the taxes, and high no fault insurance rates Detroit was a better location than Austin and several other cities.
Watching a documentary on the Tesla plant in Nevada I had to laugh. The person doing the tour of the plant was waxing on about all the new and cutting edge technology that went into the design of the plant. I thought to myself "congrats" you just discovered 100 plus year old technology! Nothing like ripping off Albert Kahn's designs and claiming them as your own.

**Dmberko11** · August-05-20, 10:18 PM

Originally Posted by p69rrh51

Dmberko11, I have a customer who is relocating his recording studio from Los Angeles to Detroit. He looked at a number of cities including Austin. He did not choose Austin because of the cost of living and of all things the LA type traffic. With all the taxes, and high no fault insurance rates Detroit was a better location than Austin and several other cities.
Watching a documentary on the Tesla plant in Nevada I had to laugh. The person doing the tour of the plant was waxing on about all the new and cutting edge technology that went into the design of the plant. I thought to myself "congrats" you just discovered 100 plus year old technology! Nothing like ripping off Albert Kahn's designs and claiming them as your own.

Your costumer made a good choice. Motown is legendary for its music scene. To be fair Austin is the live music capital of the world, but it ain’t no Hitsville. Austin indeed has been californicated and is turning into a San Francisco at an alarming rate of speed. Heaven help us! COL is a bit high here. Although I rent an entire house all to myself for $800 a month and it’s only 11 miles from downtown. Garage to park my cars in too. Not bad. Detroit has professional sports teams to watch too, Austin does not. We only have the university of Texas in town and as a Michigan wolverines fan I won’t go to any longhorns games lol.

You’re right about the technology. Tesla is a gimmick. They’re using old technology that’s been around for over a century and they’ve packaged it into an okay electric sports car offering but you way overpay for what you get. I have a 2012 Hyundai Genesis with probably more than the 429 horsepower it came stock with since the previous owner tuned its 5.0 V8 and it has similar performance to the Tesla model 3 dual motor with 460 horsepower that people pay 50-60 grand for. I paid $12k for my Genesis. I don’t get the hype for electric cars. It also costs a lot to charge them than originally promised. Like $22 to get to full charge for the base model 240 mile range model 3. What a bunch of crock. Gas is cheap here in Texas so an electric car is still a niche product.

**masterblaster** · August-05-20, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by Dmberko11

I don’t get the hype for electric cars. It also costs a lot to charge them than originally promised. Like $22 to get to full charge for the base model 240 mile range model 3. What a bunch of crock. Gas is cheap here in Texas so an electric car is still a niche product.

The hype is to reduce air pollution and reducing the release of greenhouse gases. A more than noble goal. Hopefully the Detroit automakers can be the leaders in improving/innovating electric vehicles and making them more affordable.

**Mind field** · August-07-20, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by Dmberko11

I don’t get the hype for electric cars. It also costs a lot to charge them than originally promised. Like $22 to get to full charge for the base model 240 mile range model 3. What a bunch of crock. Gas is cheap here in Texas so an electric car is still a niche product.

Where are you getting this figure of $22 from? Source? What is the price of electricity in your area of Texas, per KwH?

**Dmberko11** · August-07-20, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Mind field

Where are you getting this figure of $22 from? Source? What is the price of electricity in your area of Texas, per KwH?

https://evannex.com/pages/tesla-char...on-and-answers

I believe that was where I saw that number.
To be fair, that was charging it with a supercharger, so $0.25 cents a KwH versus the standard $0.13 cents anywhere else. That’s not bad? But to me it’s not compelling enough when you have to outlay $40,000 just to get their cheapest model. Charging your car still takes forever unless you go to a supercharger.

And Teslas have reliability problems and many owners complain of build quality. Look at this article https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dri...ty-issues/amp/

Consumer Reports apparently removed their recommended label for Tesla too. I LOVE Elon Musk and his mission? But I am totally impartial to anyone. And frankly I’m disappointed that all these years later they’re still building meh electric sports cars that most can’t afford. So much for changing the world :/