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Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

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Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I'm a Tesla owner; I don't understand the point of this argument. Yes, in a ICE vehicle you can reach your destination marginally faster (we're talking about an hour on an 11-hour trip up the I-95 corridor, in my experience), but is that actually an important factor? For 99.9% of trips that are within a couple hundred miles of home, travel time is the same. If time is such an important factor on a long ro…

A Corolla gets double the range on a tank of gas than a Tesla. > If time is such an important factor on a long road trip, you should probably just be flying instead. This is rather tone deaf. Not surprised. A car designed and priced for rich people, attracts rich people. What a luxury it must be for you to afford to fly. Plenty of people make road trips. Growing up all we did was drive, often times 15 hours, for vaca…

> Plenty of people make road trips. Growing up all we did was drive, often times 15 hours, for vacation.

Same here. I also grew up taking long road trips with my family, and took plenty of long trips when I had an ICE vehicle, and now take plenty of long trips in my EV, which is my point. It is eminently possible and practical to do road trips in an EV with access to the super charger network. That is the only point I was trying to make. The parent's comment was that road trips are more conveniently done in a gasoline vehicle than in a modern (Tesla) EV. I've driven the Model 3 up and down the east coast twice now (both by myself and with human/canine accompaniment), and do not feel as though I'm sacrificing any convenience when compared to previously doing so in an ICE.

> This is rather tone deaf. Not surprised. A car designed and priced for rich people, attracts rich people.

Ad hominem, not necessary, and not correct. You have no idea or right to assume my financial situation or what I may have or have not sacrificed to purchase a given vehicle. I'm simply relating my personal experience and it appears it does not agree with your preconceived notions about EV ownership.

I do not think it's that outrageous nor tone deaf to say that if minimizing time spent traveling is the most important thing, you will optimize that equation by paying to fly instead of driving. Some people enjoy spending the time on the road with their family, just enjoy driving, or want to (or need to) save money on airfare, and will drive instead of fly.

> But the value isn't there yet, for me to switch from ICE.

And that's fine. I'm not a sales person, and I'm not trying to convince you to buy a Tesla. We obviously have different value propositions and that's fine (such as the relative importance of "eco-friendliness"). I commented because I genuinely hope for a faster national transition to EVs for the sake of our air quality, energy security, and foreign policy. I become bothered when people who have no hands-on experience with EVs bemoan their shortcomings, so as a driver in a very happy EV-only household, I feel the need to help educate people that there are very few sacrifices to be made by switching. I believe that the vast majority of people don't realize that they could switch to an EV today and it would not significantly impact their daily lives, except they would have to plug their car in at night like their phone, and wouldn't have to go to gas stations ever again.

> gas is cheap anyway

To an individual consumer, yes, but as a society (as evidenced by your exact statement), we haven't even begun to account for the externalities of our fossil fuel-based economy, and I hope (perhaps idealistically) that we will soon.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#412
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Boise, Idaho area. Far from a "coastal elite" location. They are also surprisingly everywhere here, where everyone love their pickup trucks. Just the other day, I say a Model S as soon as I exited our subdivision. Saw 5 Model X's and another 6 Model S's. So no, not really.

How many Toyota Corollas did you count? Or F-150s?

Let's keep moving the goalpost and changing the topic. :) But I'll indulge you since you need a quick history lesson.

Toyota: Founded: August 28, 1937

Ford Founded: June 16, 1903

Tesla Motors: Founded: July 1, 2003

So what's your point exactly?

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#413

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…

In my opinion, the Supercharger port (and the junction box) is way more advanced, compact, and cheaper than a CCS port. The Tesla onboard charger is clever enough to sense that it's connected to a DC charger, so they can use the same pins for AC and DC charging. Otoh, the CCS is a bulky connector + the germans were clever enough to add the PLC protocol as well, to make it even more complex and expensive. Don't get me…

So, Betamax versus VHS?

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#414

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’m sorry but the I-Pace is a terrible value, just like the e-tron: https://twitter.com/matty_mogul/status/1113871540158914561

But to each his own, I guess.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#415
post #331
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that they were subsidized a lot. If you got in early and combined it with some other subsidies the 100k model S cost about 20k. Now that the subsidy is largely gone i'd be surprised if the sales stay that high. You see the same with the Mitsubishi Outlander: sales dropped to nearly zero after the hybrid subsidy was taken away.

€80k subsidy? Surely there’d be a national outcry.

You are right, it's 70k. Source: https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/70-000-euro-subsidie-vo...

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I'm a Tesla owner; I don't understand the point of this argument. Yes, in a ICE vehicle you can reach your destination marginally faster (we're talking about an hour on an 11-hour trip up the I-95 corridor, in my experience), but is that actually an important factor? For 99.9% of trips that are within a couple hundred miles of home, travel time is the same. If time is such an important factor on a long ro…

A Corolla gets double the range on a tank of gas than a Tesla. > If time is such an important factor on a long road trip, you should probably just be flying instead. This is rather tone deaf. Not surprised. A car designed and priced for rich people, attracts rich people. What a luxury it must be for you to afford to fly. Plenty of people make road trips. Growing up all we did was drive, often times 15 hours, for vaca…

> Growing up all we did was drive, often times 15 hours, for vacation. Can't imagine stopping every 3 hours for a half hour to charge.

This is laughable as someone who grew up comfortably middle class and made 20+ drives between PA FL. We looked forward to the stops along the way for many reasons: to relax, stretch our legs, and eat the sandwiches we packed; to check out all the cool stuff at South of the Border; catch a beautiful view; or — my personal favorite — stop for Kristy Kreme doughnuts before they made their way up north.

I love to drive. And I’ve never taken a road trip — car or motorcycle — where a 30min rest stop wasn’t welcome.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#417
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that they're great cars (I tried very hard to find and purchase a b class), but the reporting I linked suggests strongly that both Daimler and Toyota intended to continue the partnership past just the CARB complaince models but ultimately changed their minds. This was not a limited partnership that was always ended to end at 2600 models.

Maybe it was intended to last longer. The vehicle pricing was up in the $50k+ range, and I think deep discounting was required to move them. Rumor is that Toyota lost many millions. Cars.com allows you to search for the Rav4EV and B-class rather easily. The RAV4EV is going for around $14k these days. It’s a great commuter car, but doesn’t have the distance to make it a very practical solo vehicle. I supplement mine w…

Sure. I think we're maybe off-topic from my original point which is just that Tesla has done the OEM thing in the past and for whatever reason it hasn't expanded into a larger set of supply contracts.

And yeah, I ended up with a Ford Focus because I want to actually be able to make it from Oakland to Truckee without having to stop to charge...

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the Supercharger port (and the junction box) is way more advanced, compact, and cheaper than a CCS port. The Tesla onboard charger is clever enough to sense that it's connected to a DC charger, so they can use the same pins for AC and DC charging. Otoh, the CCS is a bulky connector + the germans were clever enough to add the PLC protocol as well, to make it even more complex and expensive. Don't get me…

I remember Tesla saying they are letting anyone use their patents. Was that just some PR stunt?

Pretty much, as it would require the other party to make their own patents available to Tesla, or at least not use them against them - and Tesla just doesn't have anything like the patent portfolio that other manufacturers have, so they would be getting pretty much all the advantage.

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#419

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…

And then I would just shrug my shoulders and buy more index funds. Investing in individual companies, no matter what you think you know, is always unwise compared to index investing.

I have mostly index funds, but I bought a share of Tesla and a couple of other companies because I want them to succeed. Not because I expect them to. Its amazing what they've accomplished so far, but it's still a rocky road ahead

Re: Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet

#420
post #340
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…

They still have only 1! factory. Compared to any almost any other automotive manufacturer that is a bespoke operation.

They have a battery factory in Nevada and a car factory in Fremont.
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