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Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

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341–350 of 488 posts

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#341

Data point: I'm a current Tesla owner who during Q1 was in the market for replacing my remaining gas-powered car with an EV. Looking at the options available, the direction I'm seeing with respect to charging infrastructure, and the character of the company (yes, there's a touchy-feely part to me), I went with a Jaguar I-PACE instead of another Tesla. I feel that directly contributed to at least one lost potential sa…

I completely agree about buttons. Touch screens have no place in a car.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#342

Data point: I'm a current Tesla owner who during Q1 was in the market for replacing my remaining gas-powered car with an EV. Looking at the options available, the direction I'm seeing with respect to charging infrastructure, and the character of the company (yes, there's a touchy-feely part to me), I went with a Jaguar I-PACE instead of another Tesla. I feel that directly contributed to at least one lost potential sa…

I tried the Jaguar I-PACE (a friend just purchased one), but the reason it is a no-go for me is the lack of fast charging. I would be effectively stuck in a one-hour radius from my home. My Model 3 can conveniently do cross-country trips. I really wish Jaguar and Porsche adopted the Tesla charging system (I think Tesla tried to get them to).

1 hour radius? The car has a over 200 mile range. How fast are you driving?

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#343
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried the Jaguar I-PACE (a friend just purchased one), but the reason it is a no-go for me is the lack of fast charging. I would be effectively stuck in a one-hour radius from my home. My Model 3 can conveniently do cross-country trips. I really wish Jaguar and Porsche adopted the Tesla charging system (I think Tesla tried to get them to).

1 hour radius? The car has a over 200 mile range. How fast are you driving?

80mph, but I have to drive back home. I’m usually not at 100% and I don’t want to get back at 1%.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#344
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Tesla owner here. For me everything you say sounds convincing until I look at the Supercharging network. From my perspective every single issue you mention is a valid point; it's just that Tesla's nationwide (in North America) supercharging network is worth 5,000 points. When other manufacturers solve this problem (and Tesla hasn't met their quality standards) those manufacturers will be an option.

It doesn't seem hard for other manufacturers to come to an industry standard for car charging, and then have that built out. There's only 119 supercharging stations in the US. For the rest of the automotive industry to match that, especially if they all decide to collaborate, would take less than a year to catch up.

Even if everyone started planning tomorrow, you'd be optimistically looking at a couple of years before this hypothetical new charging network began to be useful. That makes your car useless for a large fraction of its lifespan. Whereas Tesla's charging network exists today. (And I would add that I've heard nothing serious about a plan like this being in the works, so it may in fact be several years away if it ever happens.)

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#345
post #231

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…

I think if they could do one thing to improve their chances, it would be to find a check on Elon. A Gwynne Shotwell for Tesla, basically. Someone who can divert his energy towards reality, and stop him from making impulsive, insane mistakes. Example: Trying to ramp up the 3 way too fast, and over-automating their production. Those were undoubtedly very expensive missteps, and if I recall, there were a bunch of top-le…

Is Gwynne Shotwell even the best example? It isn't like SpaceX is really in the best of a financial situation. Information on their financials is limited, as they are a private company, but most information shows they haven't reached a sustainable profit, and many of their ideas of how to reach their valuation (like Satellite internet) have hit snags.

Their last loan, they had to cut by $500 million due to lack of demand: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/elon-musk...

That doesn't seem like a company without turmoil either.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#346

Data point: I'm a current Tesla owner who during Q1 was in the market for replacing my remaining gas-powered car with an EV. Looking at the options available, the direction I'm seeing with respect to charging infrastructure, and the character of the company (yes, there's a touchy-feely part to me), I went with a Jaguar I-PACE instead of another Tesla. I feel that directly contributed to at least one lost potential sa…

This. As much as I'd like my car to have the shiny, futuristic stuff, I think buttons are essential when doing more common stuff without taking my eyes off the road.

I don't mind hybrid approaches like the newer touchscreen capabilities on new BMW iDrive systems, but having physical buttons that I can feel and interact with without crashing is good UX design. Fwiw, you don't see high performance cars with an all touchscreen interface, because that'll be mental for the drivers under high vibrations.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#347
post #134

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…

To elaborate, there are many many automotive suppliers for engines, brake pads, wiper blades, tires, wheels, et cetera, that many current automotive manufacturers utilize to attempt to create their cars. They aren't the major value in the chain. Those products end up getting commoditized quickly. No one buys a car because it comes with AC Delco brake pads.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#348
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tesla produced 77,000 vehicles in Q1, worldwide. Let's assume they hit their target of 400,000 vehicles in 2019. They would still need to triple production after that point to reach the top 20 of auto manufacturers in 2016 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manufacturers_by_motor...

And is being the top 20 some sort of required metric for being a "valid" car manufacturer? I'm growing increasingly tired of these arguments that because they're so far behind the "established" players that they'll never be successful or worth supporting. A company can be successful and valuable while not being the absolute leader. It's a bit disingenuous to put them down for not making as many cars as conglomerates that have been around for ~100 years...

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#349
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Production is up year over year, no? We don't know what timeframe the tweet author is talking about. Did he mean there weren't many Tesla's there last quarter or a long time ago?

> Production is up year over year, no? Ok, sure. Now what happens to y-o-y growth when q-o-q growth is stagnant?

Stagnant is an understatement. It dropped 30%

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#350

Data point: I'm a current Tesla owner who during Q1 was in the market for replacing my remaining gas-powered car with an EV. Looking at the options available, the direction I'm seeing with respect to charging infrastructure, and the character of the company (yes, there's a touchy-feely part to me), I went with a Jaguar I-PACE instead of another Tesla. I feel that directly contributed to at least one lost potential sa…

Another Tesla owner here. For me everything you say sounds convincing until I look at the Supercharging network. From my perspective every single issue you mention is a valid point; it's just that Tesla's nationwide (in North America) supercharging network is worth 5,000 points. When other manufacturers solve this problem (and Tesla hasn't met their quality standards) those manufacturers will be an option.

> it's just that Tesla's nationwide (in North America)

Do you mean nationwide (in the United States) or continental (in North America)?

North America isn't a nation.

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