Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#141

Post by hedora » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #127

leesec wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, I was driving around the other day and saw entire parking lots full of inventory at this weird thing called a dealership, maybe GM and Ford are going under since they have all this inventory sitting there?

US car sales have been down for the first three months of the year [1], not to mention that Ford has got out of the car-market almost all-together in the States and I suspect GM is going to do the same pretty soon, too. All things considered the next few years are going to be pretty challenging for everyone involved in the auto market, from suppliers to manufacturers to dealerships. [1] https://www.autoblog.com/2019/…

Ford just announced a head-on competitor to Tesla, based on the Mustang:

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/4/2/18292752/ford...

They’re clearly staying in the car market.

Instead, they realized that gas guzzling midrange sedans don’t sell anymore, and killed those off. That lets them focus on smaller and larger vehicles, which is where the demand is.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#142

Post by jdhn » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #122

sschueller wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you not plan for that? It's not that people are waiting for non existing cars. They are waiting for cars that have been produced and are sitting in lots and ship yards.

Remember how the last U.S. car company to make it to mass production was over 100 years ago? Scaling up cars is really, really hard. It is not software.

While scaling up is hard, it's not like the expertise to scale up doesn't exist. The auto industry is pretty established, and I'm sure that there are companies and/or consultants that could help Tesla out.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#143

Post by olivermarks » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

https://www.fleetcarma.com/electric-vehicle-outlook-2019/

There are 3 million EVs on the road today, of which around 2 million reside in China

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#144

Post by pbreit » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:19 PM UTC

bksenior wrote: post #112

yumraj wrote: post #101

I think it's more or less generally agreed that Tesla has the best in class battery, charger and perhaps drive train, including motors, technology. However, they have a single car plant and struggle with production and quality, after sales support and so on. I wonder, as a thought experiment, if Tesla would be more successful if they become the OEM, providing their technology to the various car manufacturers. Somethi…

You think thats bad. Tesla is about to have to head to head with all the majors who are now starting to finally harvest about a decade of their own research in the space (prompted by Teslas early success). Musks ambitions and outbursts strike me as a man who suffers from the top killer of successful entrepreneurs, The skill/talent portability fallacy. It's this idea because you did something similar well, that your a…

What has Elon done or think he has done that is similar?

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#145

Post by wyldfire » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

tntn wrote: post #135

leesec wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, I was driving around the other day and saw entire parking lots full of inventory at this weird thing called a dealership, maybe GM and Ford are going under since they have all this inventory sitting there?

Most cars at dealerships don't have "dead" written on the windshield. I'm not sure what that means, but it doesn't sound that great.

shrug, someone made a poor choice when assigned the task of triaging the product returns. Should've used a database or some other sort of private index, this publicity looks bad.

> Tsla was always storing cars at 761 but not this many

Production is up, ergo returns are up.

The count of units returned is useless without normalizing it against the units produced. Of course, even with that it's likely a bad score for Tesla. There have been many public reports of poor quality product leaving the factory because of Tesla's challenges scaling up production. These returns are just the inevitable outcome from those earlier reports.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#146

Post by ineedasername » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #101

I think it's more or less generally agreed that Tesla has the best in class battery, charger and perhaps drive train, including motors, technology. However, they have a single car plant and struggle with production and quality, after sales support and so on. I wonder, as a thought experiment, if Tesla would be more successful if they become the OEM, providing their technology to the various car manufacturers. Somethi…

I don't think so. They may have a lead on battery tech etc., but I wouldn't say it's a commanding lead. Given a few other EV options that come close in range, other manufacturers seem likely to keep plugging away on their own tech rather than rely on someone else with marginal & decreasing advantages. On drive train, motors, etc., established manufacturers have decades more comparable experience they can bring to bear on these things.

For me the main question of Tesla is whether or not they can lower the cost fast enough to avoid having big manufacturers gobble up the low end of the market first. Volkswagen's MEB platform, for example, is set to come online with about 150,000 vehicles in 2020, a projected range around 300 miles, and cost in the $21,000 area. Will Tesla's still be nicer? Very likely. Will that matter? Not to people looking to spend under $30,000 for the their next car.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#147

Post by wyldfire » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #70

thesimon wrote: post #55

http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla... >we had only delivered half of the entire quarter’s numbers by March 21, ten days before end of quarter

Wonder of there is a way to buy these tesla with small defects.

Absolutely, Tesla will be motivated to sell this inventory that can no longer be described as new vehicles. They can easily repair the reported problems and describe them as "re-certified" and you can probably get a significant discount (10%?).

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#148

Post by karpodiem » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

jtx22 wrote: post #77

karpodiem wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read HN, drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and short Tesla.

Admit it, you don't read anything; you just look at the pictures.

I've got some 'Best of HN' comment sections printed out and stuffed underneath the mattress.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#149

Post by leesec » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #142

leesec wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember how the last U.S. car company to make it to mass production was over 100 years ago? Scaling up cars is really, really hard. It is not software.

While scaling up is hard, it's not like the expertise to scale up doesn't exist. The auto industry is pretty established, and I'm sure that there are companies and/or consultants that could help Tesla out.

Any operation of this size is going to have a multitude of issues. There is literally no way to do this cleanly.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#150

Post by zaksoup » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #101

I think it's more or less generally agreed that Tesla has the best in class battery, charger and perhaps drive train, including motors, technology. However, they have a single car plant and struggle with production and quality, after sales support and so on. I wonder, as a thought experiment, if Tesla would be more successful if they become the OEM, providing their technology to the various car manufacturers. Somethi…

Tesla tried this with Toyota on the Rav4 EV, for which Tesla provided battery and drivetrain. Toyota decided Tesla was so hard to work with that it was worth ending all future partnerships. Tesla also provided the full battery and Drivetrain for the Mercedes-Benz B-class EV and Daimler ultimately cancelled the project to bring the technology in-house. I don't think the issue is that Tesla is unwilling to be an OEM, but that their customers are unwilling to out-source development of extremely competitive technologies to a relatively volatile supplier.

https://insideevs.com/insight-toyota-tesla-partnership-marre...

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15340139/bye-bye-baby-b-m...