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Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

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Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#371

Post by lazyjones »

twblalock wrote: post #240
steelframe wrote: post #233

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…

Jaguar, Audi, and BMW are all working on electric cars to compete directly with Tesla. These are large car companies who know how to build millions of cars per year. They have large dealer networks already in place to sell and service their cars. Competition is going to get a lot tougher for Tesla over the next few years.

The Audi is crap (hundreds are already on mobile.de sold by merchants, they buy it from Audi so Audi can report sales > 0). The Jaguar is fun to drive, but has poor range. They're all 7+ years behind Tesla and haven't even learnt the importance of aerodynamics.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#372

Post by sizzle »

legitster wrote: post #287
steelframe wrote: post #233

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…

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.

Wow I always felt my Mazda 3 was extremely intuitive to use and in a class of it own in that respect. They really nailed the information architecture and layout of the UI + Commander wheel input.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#373

Post by lazyjones »

twblalock wrote: post #268
ajross wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla builds more cars per quarter than Jaguar already. But yes, competition is (finally!) coming and that's a great thing.

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

Tata isn't manufacturing it and neither is Jaguar. It's built by Magna in Austria (they build a few expensive models for BMW, Mercedes etc. too, but their yearly capacity is below 200.000 for all their contracts) and most likely too expensive to build in large numbers.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#374

Post by sizzle »

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.

Human brains generally work the same and not having to take your eyes off the road will always be the safest solution, whether using knobs or using your voice to speak commands. Distracted driving is deadly period.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#375

Post by dmode »

steelframe wrote: post #233

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 data point has no correlation with the headline. As Tesla has no problem selling Model 3s - the car with absolutely no buttons. The market has spoken and there is overwhelming support for no button car. Deliver reduction is primarily due to Fed tax credit expiry, shipping bottlenecks, and slowing S/X sales since they are very old cars. Also, Tesla making ~70k vehicles in a quarter is a remarkable achievement as they were selling 20k cars a quarter till last year

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#376

Post by dmode »

twblalock wrote: post #240
steelframe wrote: post #233

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…

Jaguar, Audi, and BMW are all working on electric cars to compete directly with Tesla. These are large car companies who know how to build millions of cars per year. They have large dealer networks already in place to sell and service their cars. Competition is going to get a lot tougher for Tesla over the next few years.

GM also competed with Tesla with its Bolt. Where are they now ?

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#377

Post by toasterlovin »

mprev wrote: post #328
toasterlovin wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If dealerships were a good arrangement for manufacturers, dealerships wouldn't have to turn to legislation to ensure their own continued existence. I mean, how much do you think it bugs the shit out of the German auto manufacturers that they spend an unfathomable amount of time and energy making world class cars, only to have their customers have to deal with a car salesman in order to actually buy one.

In the UK, and I think the EU generally, anyone including the manufacturer can sell to the public. When Daewoo entered the UK market they made a big deal about not having franchise dealerships or commissioned salespeople. After a few years, the Daewoo owned showrooms were replaced with traditional dealerships. Companies outside of traditional franchises haven’t cropped up selling brand new cars. New car sales happen…

Thanks for the data point. I guess the model that always comes to mind for me is Apple. At some point they realized that they needed to control as much of the retail portion of the customer relationship as possible in order to successfully sell highly differentiated, but expensive products (Macs). Even their high-profile retail partners (like Best Buy) have Apple designed areas in their showroom. If I were BMW, Mercedes, or Audi, who all sell highly differentiated and expensive products, I would want a similar relationship with my customers.

Also, FWIW, Daewoo is basically a non-entity in the US auto market. I'm not sure how they fared in the UK and EU, but if it's similar, that may be a confounding factor with that particular answer. And, generally, I think the dealership model arose originally because the auto industry is immensely capital intensive before you start talking about having inventory sitting on a lot in every minor city in the world. And the auto industry was more speculative, so the manufacturers were happy to let someone else front the capital for carrying finished inventory. But the auto industry is established and capital is plentiful these days.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#378

Post by cameldrv »

ssewell wrote: post #269
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My Model 3 can conveniently do cross-country trips. Not compared to gasoline, though.

Would have to mostly agree here, but it's trading time spent at one place for time spent at another. (Disclosure: I'm a Chevy Volt owner, so I have the option of both EV charging and gasoline, on rare occasion). I recently saw someone make a valid point (IMHO) that I hadn't given much thought in the past: The time spent a DC chargers is somewhat offset by lack of stops at a gas station. Assuming you stop for gas once…

Yeah but that's neglecting the time it takes to plug and unplug your car every night/morning. I'd say it takes about 15-30 sec for each action. If you do this once per day to make sure you're topped off, and you drive 30 miles per day, you get about 50 miles of charge per minute of your time.

A typical gas pump fills at 9 gallons per minute, plus 2-3 minutes to pull into the pump, swipe your credit card, etc. If you have a 15 gallon tank and get 30 mpg, that's about 5 minutes for about 450 miles, or about 90 miles per minute of your time.

Tesla should start selling their robot charging snake thing to aleviate this.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#380

Post by gnicholas »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #359
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…

Some people actually prefer a car whose characteristics stay similar after they buy it. Sometimes these updates are beneficial, like when Tesla improved the braking performance by 20% after getting ragged on by Consumer Reports. But on the other hand I would be pissed if I bought a car that started trying to kill me after an OTA tweaks some weights in a neural net(e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a…

I understand the risks of OTA updates, but it should be possible for them to release a 2019 model that has more nuanced algorithms than the 2017 model.
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