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

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#151

Post by leesec » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #141

paganel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah yes, ships in 2020, a full 7 years behind Model S and with no available specs to compare.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#152

Post by notfromhere » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:31 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…

It's probably going to turn out that the guys who've been building cars for a century can figure out battery technology faster than the battery guys figuring out how to scale auto manufacturing

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#153

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:32 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 think it's more or less generally agreed that Tesla has the best in class battery, charger and perhaps drive train, including motors, technology.

Isn't the battery tech, at least in significant part, licensed, non-exclusively, from Panasonic?

> 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.

Possibly, on an expected value basis, but Tesla is being run on a swing for the fences basis not a maximizing expected value basis.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#154

Post by rifung » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #67

karpodiem wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You’re being sarcastic, right? What is the signal you’re trying to send by admitting to choosing one of the most unreliable car brands on the market?

> You’re being sarcastic, right? What is the signal you’re trying to send by admitting to choosing one of the most unreliable car brands on the market?

Your statement is pretty closed minded.

What if they just like the car enough they're willing to put up with the unreliability? That's like suggesting people who buy new cars are all idiots because the depreciation is much worse.

Different people are allowed to have different priorities and tastes.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#155

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #153

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 think it's more or less generally agreed that Tesla has the best in class battery, charger and perhaps drive train, including motors, technology. Isn't the battery tech, at least in significant part, licensed, non-exclusively, from Panasonic? > 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. Possibly, on an e…

Isn't the battery tech, at least in significant part, licensed, non-exclusively, from Panasonic?

It's producing the whole battery unit that's the hard part. Toyota gets their automatic transmissions from another company.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#156

Post by jfoster » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #134

Klathmon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Tesla is like Apple in a way. They are both the "Brand name" and the "technology" all in one package, and splitting the 2 would lead to each one being significantly less than half their total. Personally I think what would be best for Tesla (in a vacuum) is if they stopped trying to grow so quickly, and grew much like the other car manufacturers did, over a longer period of time, so that missteps an…

If we follow your analogy, Apple provides both hardware and software value. In the case of Tesla, IMHO, the value is mostly hardware as in the core technology, not, IMHO, in the car/controls/screen/ that they put around. Again, as a thought experiment: Would customers not like a Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Audi/Jag... with Tesla battery/drivetrain/superchargers but in a Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Audi/Jag... car shell(for lack of a b…

Have you talked to Tesla owners much about this? I think you'll find that they do value the package far beyond the mechanics that move the car.

In particular, I think Tesla may be well positioned in terms of autonomy. Although Waymo and Cruise might have a more robust approach, they are taking their time. I see that Tesla is very serious about bringing the benefits of autonomy to market across all their vehicles.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#157

Post by dragontamer » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #145

tntn wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 T…

> Production is up, ergo returns are up.

Production is down actually from Q4 2018.

http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...

> Production in Q4 grew to 86,555 vehicles

http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla...

> In the first quarter, we produced approximately 77,100 total vehicles

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#158

Post by rifung » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #54

These kind of posts are good publicity right? I don't see any other car company we follow so closely on the market. Tesla is the only name I can see come up again and again here, and guess what, most people on HN are the actual population that is buying teslas.

> most people on HN are the actual population that is buying teslas.

Is that really true?

I can't speak for everyone on HN obviously but I don't make enough to spend that much on a car. If I were willing to spend that much there are other cars I'd much rather get personally but that's besides the point.

Also given the relative infancy of EVs compared to gasoline powered cars now I would expect the pace of advances to be much better which fares poorly for depreciation.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#159

Post by cromwellian » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

notfromhere wrote: post #152

bksenior wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's probably going to turn out that the guys who've been building cars for a century can figure out battery technology faster than the battery guys figuring out how to scale auto manufacturing

Isn’t that sorta like what Steve Ballmer said about the iPhone, and then laughed?

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#160

Post by InTheArena » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

BaconJuice wrote: post #57

is now a good time to buy? [serious]

It's not a good time to buy a stock. The market is pure speculation, which is why you have this phenomena of twitter assholes (TSLAQ) being sure that every bit of bad news is sign that the company is about to go bankrupt, and all of their stock shorts are suddenly going to make them the next Gordon Gekko. Couple that with the fact that Tesla is a really volatile company, none of my money would go there.

On the other hand, a company with zero self-driving cars in the hands of consumers is supposedly being values in capital raises at $75 billion, while VW is about to pour $50 billion into their EV efforts. Tesla is way ahead of them in adopted augmented driving, battery chemistry (which is theirs, not Panasonics) and electric drivetrains.

In terms of cars, absolutely. The Model 3 SR+ is awesome. I have a MR and love it.