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

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#311

Post by tj-teej » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

adamvalve wrote: post #306

legitster wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mazda developed their physical controls by blindfolding testers and making sure they could use everything on touch alone. In comparison, Tesla's approach of putting everything in a single touchscreen is a cost cutting measure being sold as trendy BS. And dangerous to boot.

Who moved my cheese? It really isn't a huge deal. There is a divide that I notice, older people cling to buttons and younger people are fine getting rid of them. Is it dangerous? Hardly, I just wait till I stop if I need to adjust something that isn't on my steering wheel which is actually pretty rare.

"I just wait till I stop if I need to adjust something that isn't on my steering wheel which is actually pretty rare."

Tesla knows some people won't, and they still built the car this way. That is objectively dangerous.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#312

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #126

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should it matter? You can analyze this disparate piece of evidence independently of the agenda. In fact, you might even say that by putting the cards on the table, at least this source is transparent about which stance of the topic it is taking, giving you opportunity to take care when evaluating single pieces of evidence.. this is possibly better than sources which purport to be fair and balanced and go to greater l…

Most of us don’t have the time to perform our own analysis from scratch. So, yes, it matters a great deal.

If you have the time to make ad hoc Hacker News comments in the weeds about the credibility of a link from a comment from a niche post, then you obviously have enough time to evaluate disparate pieces of evidence instead of trying to discredit them by applying blanket heuristic judgements based on seeming one-sidedness from a glance.

Nobody is saying you need so much spare time to rigorously analyze every source. That would be a disingenuous false dilemma. Instead, just apply slightly more effort than your stated dismissive heuristic.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#313

Post by navigatesol » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #132

mhermher wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't believe those cars are? I don't get it. What's to believe or not?

I don’t know if I should believe the analysis. I don’t know if the video being presented is representative or being selectively chosen to tell a story.

>I don’t know if I should believe the analysis.

What "analysis" is necessary? There are threads of people going around the country, taking photographs of parking and car lots filled to the brim with Teslas. How do you explain it? The cars are made-to-order, I'm assured.

Furthermore, I don't understand "can't believe an account that attacks Tesla". What do you believe is more likely:

1. A random person wakes up one day (maybe an Big Oil shill!) and says, 'I think I'm just gonna randomly hate on Tesla, make a bunch of stuff up, and risk my livelihood on the lies'.

2. An investor starts doing due diligence and finds a lot of holes in the Tesla story, then dedicates their online presence to spreading that message.

1 is possible, but I'll bet 2 is far more likely. So many people are going to get a rude awakening if this thing goes down. If I recall correctly, HN loved Theranos too; only after the fraud was revealed did people claim it was obvious.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#314

Post by twblalock » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #278

twblalock wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jaguar is part of Tata. If Tata gets good at manufacturing electric cars in large quantities it would be a big deal.

The point was more that Tesla has already scaled beyond the level where "these companies know how to build cars" is reasonable spin. Tesla's building plenty of cars, making money doing so, scaling rapidly, and can only be expected to be doing better still by the time those competitors arrive in the market. That's not to say that they won't be highly competetive cars, they might (I for one certainly hope they are). Bu…

> Honestly... your argument is a year stale. The window on "Tesla can't scale" closed. They did.

They are not building at the scale of the large automakers. To build at the scale of millions of cars per year is significantly more difficult than what Tesla is doing now, and it is not simply a matter of building more of the same factories.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#315

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #88

refurb wrote: post #64

Interesting tweet shows lots of Tesla's sitting in inventory after being rejected by customers or other problems. https://twitter.com/Latrilife/status/1113799586567426049

Looks like that entire account is dedicated to attacking Tesla. Can we believe it?

[deleted]

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#316

Post by philwelch » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #290

philwelch wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans didn't own cars until a few years after the Second World War. So that's maybe 70 years ago, but let's give the car companies some credit because they already scaled up to produce war materiel about a decade previous. Volkswagen, though, started from 12,000 cars per year in 1946, which is remarkable in itself. Between 1949 and 1969, Toyota scaled from tens of thousands to millions of cars produced per y…

>unless you're willing to pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist Well that's why I said U.S. car company...

Because you're willing to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist? There's no other point to qualifying it like that--manufacturing and logistics techniques from Japan or Korea or Germany or China still work when applied to the United States.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#317

Post by gnicholas » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #291

gnicholas wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do ICE car companies not issue OTA software updates, some use the same software for driver assist features for years in a row. I had heard good things about Subaru's EyeSight system and went to check out the 2019s Outback. I was floored to learn that the system is no smarter than it was in 2017, when this version came out. Are they not learning from the millions of miles their customers have driven in the la…

> Not only do ICE car companies not issue OTA software updates Not true. In fact Jeep did this. And many of the same people who praised Tesla were saying "OMG, vulnerability vector" when it was Jeep.

Sorry, didn't mean that no ICE car companies do this, but that the vast majority do not (and I wasn't aware of any that do. Good for Jeep!

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#318

Post by navigatesol » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

gordon_freeman wrote: post #170

If I want to invest in Tesla or any other company (another ex: Boeing), I'd ask myself this q: Is this something temporary problem that smart people would easily able to overcome? Or is this something fundamental or structural issue that's gonna be there long-term. I don't see this delivery issue for Tesla dragging on beyond this quarter. Lately, I have seen specifically with Tesla that short-term concerns have been…

>I don't see this delivery issue for Tesla dragging on beyond this quarter.

The mistake in your analysis is believing this is a delivery issue, not one of demand.

>Lately, I have seen specifically with Tesla that short-term concerns have been dragging down the stock way too much.

Wait, what? This company was at one time bigger than Ford and GM based entirely on future expectations. Yet you think the share price is driven by short-term concerns???

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#319

Post by philwelch » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #299

philwelch wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do countries other than the United States exist, but many of them are considerably better at car manufacturing.

Sure, but the article is about a new American car company, and we are discussing problems with production ramp. People often use GM or Ford for comparison, and I'm pointing out the silliness. Most of the EU based car manufacturers are even older than GM / Ford.

By volume, the largest EU car manufacturer is Volkswagen, which barely existed before WWII. The other German manufacturers also had to start from scratch.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#320

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 8:21 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?

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

People in glass cars shouldn't throw stones...

Have you seen the Tesla reliability reports? (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/24/tesla-...) They're even worse than Jeep's reliability reports, and Jeep's excuse is that they make cars for off-roading and other extreme activities that place heavier demands on the car's parts and frame. Tesla makes...road cars.