Best speculation of a 2023 6th generation I have seen
- Thread starter peter78
- Start date
Sorry, no. The whole point of TSLA, the investment, is fully autonomous driving.
AI starts with copious amounts of data--and no other automaker has anything resembling Tesla's. Nowhere close.
This is why TSLA the stock is not valued like traditional automakers and most analysts failed to grasp it before TSLA became profitable and many continue to fail today.
Automotive journals and CR's all have their agendas, mostly to sell as many clicks as they can. Besides, who knows what parameters they are using and how. What they say may be true at the moment and with respect to their specific parameters.
Rival C-suite guys have to talk themselves up and talk Tesla down. It is their job to make their companies look good and their rivals--not so good. Does not mean they are right.
On a funny note I finally discontinued my 10+ years of CR after I bought their #1 ranked Bosch dishwasher and my wife and I swear at it every day.
I was not talking about what will happen in 10 years but what is happening now.
CR isn't the only one that ranks others higher than Tesla. Just google.
FWIW I may have bought that same dishwasher. Does not dry worth a damn!
I dont subscribe to CR and haven't since I had a free subscription back in the mid-00s. So I don't disagree with you. CR was just the first one I grabbed. I've seen others give similar but different rankings. Tesla is never a top one.
Tesla also puts together a crap car. Fit and finish are garbage and the understeer is atrocious. They're designed so poorly that any issue costs a fortune to address.
All that data will never mean anything if they can't figure out how to make better cars to use that data in.
Bingo on multiple points here. If Tesla really was so far ahead on autonomous with all their data, they wouldn't be arguably falling behind GM, Ford, and others right now.
TSLA stock valuation is insane and was driven up by the fact that it was treated like a tech start-up with tons of venture capital and generally insane valuations. Yes, the company is still worth ~$690B, but it has had around ~$150B in market cap wiped out in the last quarter or so and this is likely going to continue. Tesla has a fleet of 4 aging vehicles that can only go well in a straight line (albeit, the updates to the Model 3 do sound compelling) along with a stainless steel joke that is going to cost the company dearly. Cybertruck reminds me of a Delorean to be honest!
On a slightly more related (unrelated) topic, someone convince me why I'd b an idiot to trade my 2020 TRD Pro for a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk 4xe. I drove one while looking around for a replacement for my Land Rover and really liked it. Main thing that bugs me with it is the 31" tires (oh yeah, and that it's a Jeep). I'm sick and tired of waiting for a Toyota vehicle that doesn't have a power train from the last century
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thatoneguy
New member
This is a joke, right?On a slightly more related (unrelated) topic, someone convince me why I'd b an idiot to trade my 2020 TRD Pro for a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk 4xe. I drove one while looking around for a replacement for my Land Rover and really liked it. Main thing that bugs me with it is the 31" tires (oh yeah, and that it's a Jeep). I'm sick and tired of waiting for a Toyota vehicle that doesn't have a power train from the last century
Things to do with a GC Trailhawk 4XE
-have (much) less offroad capability than a 4Runner
-enjoy extremely questionable long and medium term reliability with such a complicated powertrain in a Chrysler vehicle
-have it be a little faster than a 5th gen.
The 4.0L and 5-speed is dated, but it does work, and always works, and never doesn't work. If I wanted to play the Jeep game for a couple years before a 6th gen 4Runner, I'd get a 2.0L turbo nonhybrid Wrangler with the 8-speed automatic. Very good drivetrain, in a vehicle that crushes it offroad.
If you can't wait another year or so, you could try to be one of the first to own a 2024 Tacoma, and trade that up in a year or two once 6th gens are available? Or try to get one of the first Land Cruiser 250's?
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thatoneguy
New member
The 2024 Tacoma was officially revealed very nearly six full months ago (5/19/23). When are these things going to hit showrooms??? Still no build-and-price tool either.
That 4 Cylinder on a vehicle that heavy will be a dog as the battery declines.
Jetboy
New member
It's taking for F'n ever to get this thing into production. The only vehicle I know of that took this long was the new Bronco. Had a bunch of production delays that went from reveal in August to first models arriving end of June the following year IIRC. But the new F150 had order page open the next day and deliveries are expected roughly 12 weeks after reveal.
Other Toyota models I looked up were around 4-5 months from reveal to cars in driveways. The LC250 - I'm not totally sure it'll make it into production within a year of release. Supposedly production starts around Jan 1. But those dates seem to get pushed back.
I don't have a ton of confidence we'll see a new Tacoma before spring of 2024. I hope they aren't waiting that long. But if they still don't even have pricing figured out... that's a problem IMO.
Hah, I'm mostly joking. I've never been quite as comfortable with my 4Runner on difficult trails as my 2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, so I tend to keep to things that would be rated easy or moderate in most cases. I feel like a GC Trailhawk could get through most of that with no major issues.
I also do think I'd prefer the GC for long distance driving (which I do a lot of with my 4Runner currently), plus the 26 mile PHEV range is pretty tempting for our use case (school runs, puttering about near home, etc.). Of course, I'd vastly prefer a Toyota PHEV but that is at least a few years off it would appear.
The Stellantis reliability scares the hell out of me also given that the Pacifica Hybrid has definitely had issues over the years it sounds like anecdottally. That being said, I took my 2012 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited up to about 80K miles with really no drama whatsoever.
Mid-size pickup truck form factor wouldn't work for us but I could pull the trigger on a LC or GX550 in the next 6 to 12 months as they start to be available. Definitely will look at one sooner than later once they're out.
Some of it kind of comes down to what I replace our Land Rover with. If I go with a 3-row, in theory I could step back to having a Wrangler again (since the 3-row will take over as our long distance road trip vehicle).
Decisions, decisions, decisions
.So I actually drove one with a depeleted battery and it still had impressive pick up. Way better than the CX90 PHEV I drove right before it actually.
It is possible in a sustained load situation (like climbing a pass in Colorado) it could start to suck wind though.
Jetboy
New member
I think the killer for any Toyota PHEV is going to be the price. We're due to replace our RX350 - but a new PHEV version is over $70k. A Tesla Model X is $72k. I love our RX - but the PHEV is wildly overpriced IMO. A roughly comparable Model Y is around $40k for the AWD long range model. There's just no way I'd be willing to pay another $30k for the RX over the Model Y. Or similar money to a Model X. For me - I'll take a Model Y and a base model Bronco for my $75k. I think a PHEV 4Runner at $70k isn't going to be a very viable product. The GC at $55k is a lot more realistic at least on the price side.
The other thing is that Toyota has inherently made an effort to not really push PHEV at all with regards to production numbers. The RAV4 Prime and Prius Prime are both effectively impossible to get outside of somewhere like California perhaps and even then you're probably going to be nailed on mark-up. My Toyota sales guy even told me that a regular Prius is effectively impossible to get in Arizona for the 2024 model year (which didn't make sense to me but perhaps they already have enough people lined up to exhaust their annual allocation at that dealership).
I've also seen the early press on the TX550H indicating it is just too expensive and noticeably heavier than the TX350 and TX500H (plus they made a strange engine choice on the V6). I think the performance focused hybrids using the Hybrid Max powertrain are genius, but Toyota definitely doesn't seem to have it together on PHEV quite yet. I think the big challenge still with most PHEV is that you're adding between 600 and 1000 pounds of weight to the vehicle typically and this is really hard to tune out the effects of dynamically.
So you get a vehicle that can go in a straight line well but is going to feel heavy whenever you get on a road with any sort of cornering and/or climbing required.
As you mention, the GC 4xe starts at about $60K, but with incentives plus the fact that the $7500 leasing credit (yay Bidenomics) is being pushed heavily by Stellantis, you can get one on a ~36 month lease for somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 a month.
Jetboy
New member
We looked about a year ago for a Rav4 Prime. The only one I found that was actually for sale and available was $68k after the dealer mark up. Nope. Not even a serious consideration at that price. At the original MSRP of around $40k they were a pretty decent value. Now that they're MSRP of $50k and no tax credit, it's $10k more than a Model Y Long Range. I'd rather buy the Tesla. It's really not a close call for me. Toyota's pricing on them is nuts. I think it's a really great product. It's just not available and way overpriced.
Toyota is probably even worse in the EV segment right now. They aren't really even desirable for me. I see Lexus is offering $15k on the hood of the Lexus RZ. Even then I don't think it's competitive. With a $67k sticker price, you still only get it down to about $52k. That's $12k more than a Model Y and it's a seriously inferior product. Not that the Model Y is great. But at least it charges quickly and has pretty good range.
I think Jeep is on the right track with the 4xe models. Toyota needs to catch up. If Tesla had built a normal styled midsize trucklet and priced it like a Model Y, I think they'd have a huge hit. Basically an EV version of a Ford Maverick. Maybe Toyota will do it.
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Yes, agree on lack of value in the RAV4 Prime at this point, especially with mark-up on them. It's kind of a moot point due to availability overall though.
Electrics are interesting since you really need to look at the combination of range and DC charging rates I think in combination with if a manufacturer has an agreement in place yet with Tesla opening up their super charger network (and the coming transition towards NACS).
The RZ is actually a pretty nice vehicle, but relatively useless as anything other than an urban commuter/run-about given the fact that it's range is pitiful (I seem to remember reading it could barely get 150 miles on a charge usually) in conjunction with the relatively low 150 kwh charge rate (assuming you do have access to good Level 3 DC fast chargers). And as you said, you really need to want that RZ for some reason when the Model Y long range is a much better balanced vehicle overall (and way more usable). The one place I could see a car like a RZ being worthwhile right now is as a lease for predominantly local usage. My wife for instance runs all over the Phoenix metro area, but rarely is more than 40 to 50 miles from home. The 5% of the time we'd want to take it out of the immediate area we'd just use our 4Runner. It's still a big compromise to make though to own a vehicle that is potentially crippled in utility though (and this is for a multi-vehicle household; forget about if you're single).
I really think the only downside of the Wrangler and GC 4xe is that the electric range is pretty mediocre at this point. If you factor in tax credits, especially when leasing, I think in some ways they are a better buy than the ICE versions of the respective vehicles. I think Stellantis is partially only pushing them as hard as they are since they likely need all the CAFE offset they can get right now. I do see a good number of them rolling around in Phoenix now (and there are a decent amount of them sitting at Jeep dealers' lots).
Tesla's "lead" in EVs is simply because they lie about their range. For example, the brand new Model 3 tested by motor trend...
Access Denied
"While we are still waiting on official EPA estimates for the new Model 3, we ran this Stealth Gray example through MotorTrend's road-trip range test and saw disappointing results: just 211 miles, short of not only the old Model 3's EPA estimate but also the anticipated number for the new EPA estimates [272mi]. In other markets, the 3's official range figures rise by about 10 percent, an improvement Tesla hasn't disputed could happen here in America. The also updated Dual Motor Long Range Model 3 didn't fare much better, its 250-mile performance in our test falling shy of the old Dual Motor's 333-mile EPA range estimate."
I get why they lie. It's almost an unprovable thing to verify that they are stacking the deck to get the best number possible. Customer complains about range... "Oh, you were running too much HVAC. Oh, you were accelerating too hard. Oh, you were braking too late." And almost no one ever actually checks the actual power going into the car. It's easy for me to accurately confirm my gas mileage. I know exactly how many gallons I put in the car and how far I drive. A layperson isn't going to track the actual kWh that go into their car because their electric bill typically covers the cost of their entire household as well and, TBH, it is cheap enough that most people that can afford a Tesla don't care. Add in the "tech company" culture and you have a recipe for bending the truth to make the product look great on paper. BTW, it is well known that Tesla has planted teams online to try to discredit people that complain about actual range versus predicted.
Tesla's genius was position EVs as a luxury item with the model S and getting their charging network out there before anyone else. Every car after the S is badly built and rides on the coattails of the S.
gomiami
Member
Have you been inside a TX? They are ugly, the interior layout does not look and feel like a Lexus at all...especially on the TX350 models. The TX500H starts at $70K.
It's a "luxury" Grand Highlander and not worth the money. People should buy the GH if they want that size vehicle.
Not yet actually as I've been waiting for a 500H to check out with the birch/black two-tone interior. Base interior does seem pretty close to the Grand Highlander from pictures at least... I figure looking at and/or driving a 350 is going to be underwhelming.
That being said, the $15K extra cost of a TX500H versus a Grand Highlander Hybrid Max is a indeed a tough pill to swallow.
To be honest, I think if I stick with the 3-row idea (and am leaning this way due to the periodic need) there is about a 75% to 80% chance of getting an Acura MDX Type-S now. The only thing I don't like about it is the fuel economy to be honest (and perhaps the Acura infotainment). To me it's way better looking than most 3 rows, not as huge as some, drives fantastically (especially given the adaptive dampers and air suspension) and will be more reliable and likely hold value better than anything except perhaps a Lexus.
Jetboy
New member
I'm not a Tesla Stan. But they are unique in a lot of ways. And it's very rare for someone to own one and not love it. My diesel f250 driving, 2 stroke dirt bike racer, brother bought an older model S a year or two ago for a commuter to his job manufacturing military hardware. He's the anti-tesla demographic. His other daily driver is a Ford Galaxie. After owning it for 6 months they sold their other SUV and bought another Model Y. They're just soo much better as daily drivers than any ICE.
I'm not sure it'll be a Tesla - but I won't buy anything to replace our RX that isn't either a PHEV or EV. I'm a bit on the fence as between the two options. They need to be close to price parity for me to go for a PHEV over BEV. Right now they're so far apart I'd buy the Tesla.
gomiami
Member
When I was placing my deposit on the GX I'm buying, the first TX350 came rolling in from the factory. It was dark gray with black softex (nuluxe.) I waited around for it to be unloaded from the carrier and the sales guy and I crawled around inside for a couple of minutes.
I was thoroughly unimpressed. I'm not saying it won't drive fine and I'm sure it will adhere to Lexus build quality...the materials and the vibe just didn't say Lexus, let alone $60K. made me feel better about getting the GX, to be honest.
I'm not a big fan of Acura but the MDX is much nicer inside than the TX. My problem with Acura is that I have owned Hondas for 27 years and I cam't see the $30K+ premium to buying a 75K car that feels like a Honda to my biased eye.
TexasFunRunner
New member
"Land Cruiser FJ" anyone...
Trademark: "Land Cruiser FJ"
商標ウォッチ
Toyota's Baby Land Cruiser to be called "FJ" ?!
Trademark: "Land Cruiser FJ"
商標ウォッチ
Toyota's Baby Land Cruiser to be called "FJ" ?!
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On the GX, are you jumping in on an initial 550 or grabbing one of the last 460s (honestly curious).
So without seeing a TX350 in the flesh yet, I'd tend to agree considering a lot of the 350s are pushing up over $60K. I'd argue a Hybrid Max Grand is a WAY better deal for what you are paying for than a TX350 (assuming you can actually get one at MSRP which may be tough). The TX350 doesn't seem like it's interior is much different than the Grand to be completely honest. Honestly, if the TX500H didn't have the birch/black two-tone interior, I don't think I'd be able to stomach even considering one. There are a bunch of things about that car like the adaptive dampers and the Lexus chasis tuning that make me think it'll be way better than the Grand Highlander dynamically, but perhaps I am over thinking it... If I didn't care about these things, I could definitely save money
.On the MDX, keep in mind that it's mroe like a $10K to $15K premium unless you're chasing a Type-S. A Honda Pilot Elite is about $54K now I think while an Acura MDX Advance (which is as loaded as you can get the non-Type S) tops out at $65K. Base is around $37K vs. $50K if I am not mistaken.
I'm not sure if the Type-S is really worth the money to be honest, but I just really like the overall packaging of it along with the fact that you can get some pretty crazy color and interior combos on it (like Azurite interior with Tiger Eye Pearl paint). I think physically it is one of the best looking 3 row vehicles on the road in the US personally. Maybe it won't drive like an X7, but it also doesn't look like a turd and cost $90K+.
