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> Tesla stockholders must be very, very optimistic about its future performance or about their ability to flip the stock to the next buyer while the going is still good.
Not true. We are not all short sellers.
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Battery packs for EVs are expensive and heavy. And more complicated than people realise. They're not just big batteries. Making an electric car with decent range at an affordable price* is not easy at all. Tesla is closer than anyone else. * edit: an affordable price that isn't loss-making, I should say
I can go to a dealer today and grab a Chevy Bolt for under $32k with no haggling with 238 mile range. Hyundai hasn't come out with US pricing for their Kona EV yet, but in Norway they're selling it for the equivalent of $40k with 258 mile range. It certainly isn't trivial and Tesla has invested a good bit in EV technology, but it looks like rivals aren't that far behind.
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> Tesla stockholders must be very, very optimistic about its future performance or about their ability to flip the stock to the next buyer while the going is still good.
Not true. We are not all short sellers.
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Both Chevy and Hyundai have decent range EVs that are significantly less expensive than a Tesla, so it seems like it's not a problem only Tesla knows the answer to.
The Chevvy bolt is sold at an $8000 loss. The Hyundai Kona Electric looks cool but is only going to be sold in small numbers and won't be available in much of the USA https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-limited-u-s-avai... I wonder why.
The fact remains that both Chevy (or LG) and Hyundai clearly know how to make a battery that competes on price. Tesla doesn't have any magic technology, what they have is good marketing. They have a plausible shot at replacing BMW as the image car of choice for folks in the lower premium car range, which seems fairly lucrative. Not a bad niche to be in.
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Stockholders just believe the no one else will ever be able to make an electric car.
They are able, but they don't do it. The only full electric car BMW currently produces is the wacky i3, which doesn't appeal to the average BMW buyer. For some reason all car manufacturers (except tsla) build really lame, goofy, small electric cars, why can't we just have a traditional luxury saloon? The current 5 and 3-series are not offered in an full electric version. Which means that maybe, if we are lucky, there…
The i3 is what you get when you build an electric car that is optimized towards what an electric drive is good at _right now_. Given the range problem of the current battery technology, a short range city car with minimized energy consumption is where the electric drive is best at showing off it's benefits.
The Tesla on the other hand is what you get when you brutally try to hammer the electric drive towards matching the range that people are used to. It's a heavy machine that uses most of it's energy to hauling around it's battery.
And while, as you can grasp from what I wrote, I really like the idea behind the i3, it's obvious that the Tesla approach turned out to be better. It leads to a more practical and competitive car that is easier to sell.
The story if BMW i is a bit sad, as things didn't turn out that well. The idea was to make purely electric vehicles and built them sustainably (the interior of the i3 is largely made from some kind tree leaves if memory serves me right) - but BMW quickly figured out that they can't sell enough of them. Which is why they switched their approach towards developing vehicles that can either be built with an electrical drive train or with a combustion engine.
They basically have Teslas problem in reverse: Tesla can't build their factories fast enough to meet the demand for their cars, BMW can't build demand for electric cars fast enough to fill the production capacity they have (3 million cars per year).
(This reads more pro BMW as I mean it - I don't wanna say what they do is the best they could, I don't know that - it's more meant to try to see their point of view to understand why they do what they do.)
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The Chevvy bolt is sold at an $8000 loss. The Hyundai Kona Electric looks cool but is only going to be sold in small numbers and won't be available in much of the USA https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-limited-u-s-avai... I wonder why.
Not only are they losing money, it also starts at $36,620 which is more than the Tesla 3 base model and it’s tiny. Bolt: 164″ L x 70″ W Model 3: 185″ L x 73″ W Which is not nessisarily a bad thing for a city car.
1) GM seem to go out of their way to make the Bolt seem cheap and unappealing. The seats in particular are too narrow and are uncomfortable. The car is wide enough to accommodate more comfortable seats, but they just decided to use the cheapest seats possible.
2) There is no DC fast charging network that the Bolt can use in the US.
Thanks to the supercharging network, I can (and have) take thousand mile road trips in my Tesla without worrying that I'll be able to find a place to charge in a reasonable amount of time.
With a Bolt, any trip approaching 1/2 the car's range (eg roughly 115mi) from home suddenly becomes an adventure where you have to look for slow level 2 chargers and be prepared to wait hours for your car to charge. The Chevy dealership where we drove the car had a charger, but it was ICE'd in by their inventory of giant gas guzzling SUVs. I imagined this scenario would be typical.
As a former BMW fanboy, here's my take: 1) Over the past decade, BMW has snuffed the enthusiast/semi-enthusiast crowd to cater to mainstream luxury buyers. 2) Anecdotally, I've noticed that the Tesla buyers of today were the BMW/Audi buyers of yesterday. Who's still interested in new BMWs?
Tesla is the new status symbol. Tech is in today. If you are an elite business man and don't have the highend flagship phone, either pixel 3 or iphone XR etc... you are not respected. Similarly if you don't have the coolest and most high tech car (Tesla), you are not respected.
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Both Chevy and Hyundai have decent range EVs that are significantly less expensive than a Tesla, so it seems like it's not a problem only Tesla knows the answer to.
The Bolt at 238 miles is still quite a bit under the Tesla which can reach 300+. But at half the cost, its a price point that will suit many folks.
I think BMWs failures are the most significant part about it. They are still tainted by their emissions cheating scandal and accordingly viewed as shifty people who will sell you a car that isn't really accredited. I would be overjoyed to see others entering the electric market at a broad scale but right now I haven't seen anything to give me confidence. They are trying luxury with a tarnished brand and even say stuf…
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The Chevvy bolt is sold at an $8000 loss. The Hyundai Kona Electric looks cool but is only going to be sold in small numbers and won't be available in much of the USA https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-limited-u-s-avai... I wonder why.
I'm more concerned with what's available on the market, not whether or not it sells in enough quantity to offset R&D, etc. Tesla had it's first profitable quarter in what, 15 years? It might be premature to move the goalposts ;-). The fact remains that both Chevy (or LG) and Hyundai clearly know how to make a battery that competes on price. Tesla doesn't have any magic technology, what they have is good marketing. Th…
No, they don't. That's my point. They've made long range EVs that they are selling at a loss, or only in small numbers which implies either loss-making or supply-chain problems.
Tesla doesn't have any magic technology
Thats not clear. Look at the recently announced Audi and Mercedes EV efforts (and the Jag i-Pace) and see how they compare with Tesla in terms of battery size, weight and efficiency.
Sandy Munro says the Model 3 is at least 4 years ahead of anything else. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-10-25/why-tesla-s...