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Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

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Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#191

Post by amyjess »

tryitnow wrote: post #182
lowdose wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what the same people also said about Amazon.

My understanding is that amazon was basically cash flow positive, but ran GAAP losses and never really "struggled" financially. Whereas Tesla does indeed have some systemic financial issues. In other words Amazon could have been "profitable" on a GAAP accounting basis fairly early on, but Tesla would struggle to do that.

Specifically, Amazon was cash-flow positive but deliberately chose to reinvest all their profits into the company instead of paying out dividends, so that appears on the books as a loss but it really isn't.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#192

Post by bryanlarsen »

pja wrote: post #171
bryanlarsen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EPA range of the electric mini is 114 miles, the Model 3LR is 310 miles. Make sure you use the same measurement standard when comparing vehicles: the WLTP standard massively overstates range.

The LR version of the model 3 costs a lot more than the Mini is projected to cost. Even the stock Model 3 costs £12k more than the currently planned price of the electric Mini (both including UK electric car grants.) That’s why I compared the Mini with the range of the ordinary Model 3 & not the LR version. The price difference between the stock models is wide enough already - it seems completely unreasonable to comp…

In the US, the Tesla 3SR+ is $39K with a 220 mile range, and the electric Mini is projected to start at $35K-$38K with a 114 mile range. I don't expect the electric Mini to sell well in North America.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#193

Post by greedo »

taneq wrote: post #61
onion2k wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home charging isn't an option for a lot of people who don't have a garage or a driveway. We're going to see a lot of "electric petrol stations" being built very soon - it's already happening... https://fastnedcharging.com/en

The Supercharger network is already an "electric petrol station" network and it's pretty comprehensive in many parts of the world. Edit: Also it's notably cheaper than the one you linked, generally below $0.20/kWh according to https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-supercharger-tiered-pricing-... compared with $0.35/kWh

Tesla considers having a single Supercharger stations as comprehensive? My city has one. A city of 300K + people. We have over 100 gas stations. Superchargers are a nice premium during the early adoption period but as the number of owners rise, its utility drops. Unless Tesla plans on increasing the number of stations by a magnitude, it won't be more than PR.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#194

Post by WorldMaker »

threeseed wrote: post #7

Terrible article: 1) It's only about the US. 2) Tesla's big seller is the Model 3 which isn't a competitor for the Audi e-tron and I-Pace. And given the size difference probably isn't a competitor for the Model X either. 3) No one is claiming to be a Tesla killer since no one really has direct 3, X, S, Y competitors. The existing car companies are all off doing their own thing e.g. VW ID.3 (hatchback), Hyundai Kona (…

> The existing car companies are all off doing their own thing e.g. VW ID.3 (hatchback), Hyundai Kona (mini-SUV), Renault Zoe / Chevy Bolt / Nissan Leaf / BMW i3 (small-car) etc.

I'm not sure those are the strongest examples, as you can defend most of them (maybe not the BMW i3) as perfectly legitimate cars in the current market and maybe more than Tesla's counterparts:

* The S and 3 are almost retro in how much they resemble a traditional sedan, and supposedly that's not what Americans want in the current marketplace. (Enough so that both Ford and GM saw boosts on the stock market for abandoning the entire class of vehicles [admittedly, to imports and the S and 3].)

* The X looks like "soccer mom" minivan more than SUV, and I've seen Americans look down their nose at it as "uncool", very cool falcon doors aside.

Meanwhile:

* VW ID.3 looks like a modern reinvention of the classic VW Golf, a tried and true decades-spanning form factor. The VW Golf itself being something of the grand-papa of the modern hatchback trend and influencing almost everything else on the market (the Prius, the Tesla Model Y, everyone owes at least a little something to the Golf).

* The Hyundai Kona is in a class of SUV that is very popular in American and abroad. (Look at uglier ICE relatives like the Nissan Cube and the Honda Element, both of which have been relatively high sellers, despite their boxy, not-quite-a-full-SUV thing.)

* The Renault Zoe is in a somewhat common form factor space for European cars. Compare the Mini and the SMART.

* Chevy's Bolt is trying to be a normal "cross-over", and that's again where GM and Ford are almost entirely focused outside of trucks.

* Early versions of the Nissan Leaf were hatchbacks of a Prius (or Tesla Model Y) sort, and recent versions look like tradition sedans.

All of that is of course my opinion, but claiming that the existing car companies are doing their own thing and Tesla is somehow the only one doing "proper" cars seems to be the inverse of reality: Tesla is doing their own thing, and everybody else is trying to do what they think the market will best support (and it is not traditional looking sedans).

(Plus, the VW ID family is already gearing up to eat the rest of VW's lineup as they drop the diesel lineup like its hot. BMW is doing the same. We're about to the tipping point where EVs are beyond early adopter-focused, one-off models, and manufacturers are about to hit every form factor with an EV or two.)

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#195

Post by solarkraft »

kylecordes wrote: post #139
LeonM wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Tesla's competitors stop designing and electric car and start designing a really great car that just happens to be electric then Tesla will have competition. Until then all the supposed Tesla competitors will be a joke. This. I never understood why car manufacturers all make such weird wacky electric cars. When the Model S came out it was such a relief that finally there was a _normal_ looking electric car. Wh…

Tesla is trying to make cars to compete with other makers’ non-electric cars. Other makers are trying to make cars to compete with Tesla, without competing with their own non-electric cars. Currently, it is probably impossible to achieve a good profit margin on a mass-market electric car. Battery costs are too high this early in the manufacturing process. Tesla is willing to operate at the bare edge of fiscal viabili…

Model 3 is estimated to be "solidly profitable": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17542864

Tesla operates at no profit, but not because they couldn't with the hardware, but rather because they still need to scale. The old manufacturers wouldn't even need to do much of that.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#197

Post by kevstev »

nimbius wrote: post #35
kenhwang wrote: post #25

That's an interesting interpretation of the data. To me, it looks like Model S/X sales have noticeably dropped since the introduction of the Jaguar and Audi. I don't think there will be a singular Tesla killer, but rather, Tesla is increasingly going to be attacked by all sides: Hyundai/Nissan/GM on the mass market side, Jaguar/Audi/Mercedes/BMW on the luxury side, and Porsche on the ultra luxury high end. The Model…

Another aspect is repair. Speaking as someone who works full time as an engine mechanic, sourcing parts or even being allowed to do repair work for a Tesla is a tedious process. Everything comes from one factory with no distribution network, so a door panel repair can take months to fix . In contrast, I can get nearly any part for an Audi delivered to the shop in 2 days and the digital books for service interval and…

This to me is the biggest issue with Tesla- they aren't a startup that just did its first big product release and is struggling to keep up with demand, they are a 16 year old company that is still failing to keep up with demand and can not support its customer base.

They aren't building on a scale never seen before, this is relatively small scale for the traditional manufacturers. Yet you hear stories about how 3's in particular seem to be in some cases thrown out the door out of sheer will.

Tesla is just kind of fascinating this way- pushing the envelope in so many places, but just floundering to get the basics right in so many others. I really hope they succeed, and may even buy a model 3 when I am next in the market for a new car, but I feel they are still selling to "early adopters" when they really should have been out of these growing pains years ago. I would never recommend one to my less tech enthused family members.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#198

Post by ryandrake »

LeonM wrote: post #127
pmorici wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Tesla's competitors stop designing and electric car and start designing a really great car that just happens to be electric then Tesla will have competition. Until then all the supposed Tesla competitors will be a joke. For example it was recently reported that the Jaguar I-pace requires that you drive 17 MPH with the climate control off to achieve the manufacture specified range per charge. [0] They have 6 mont…

> When Tesla's competitors stop designing and electric car and start designing a really great car that just happens to be electric then Tesla will have competition. Until then all the supposed Tesla competitors will be a joke. This. I never understood why car manufacturers all make such weird wacky electric cars. When the Model S came out it was such a relief that finally there was a _normal_ looking electric car. Wh…

Maybe I’m alone in this opinion but I’m tired of all these boring looking sedans. It seems all cars out there on the road look like identical bars of soap. Maybe the grill of this car looks a little different and the tail light cluster on that car has a different style but in general they all look the same. If a modern sedan is 10 meters away I can’t tell you if it’s a Camry, Civic, Accord, Taurus, Jetta, Altima, or any other model, unless I look at the badges.

Let’s get some more variety.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#199

Post by mikeash »

greedo wrote: post #189
mikeash wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It compares to the Model Y in size but to the Model X on price. This doesn’t seem like a winning combination. Edit: that’s a bit too glib. I’m sure it’ll do just fine as a niche product for a certain group of buyers, which is what Jaguar is all about. It’s just not really competing with Tesla, which is trying hard to go after the mass market.

Based on sales, I still consider Tesla a niche. The Camry sells about 3x the Model 3. When you compare the M3/S to all of Nissan/Toyota/Honda/Kia/Hyundai/Mazda/Acura/Infinity/BMW/MB/VW-Audi sales in the US, it's a drop in the bucket. And that's just "imported" cars. Add US automakers and it drops even further. EDIT- Forgot about Honda and the Korean car makers too.

Sure, the difference is that Tesla is aggressively expanding (sales have been increasing around 100% per year for the past few years) while Jaguar has its niche and is happy to stay there. The I-PACE can sell significantly fewer units than the Model Y (and almost certainly will) while still being successful. And conversely, Tesla sales matching Jaguar’s in the long term would spell doom for Tesla.

Re: Jaguar and Audi SUVs Fail to Dent Tesla’s Electric-Car Dominance

#200

Post by eldenbishop »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #135
pmorici wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Tesla's competitors stop designing and electric car and start designing a really great car that just happens to be electric then Tesla will have competition. Until then all the supposed Tesla competitors will be a joke. For example it was recently reported that the Jaguar I-pace requires that you drive 17 MPH with the climate control off to achieve the manufacture specified range per charge. [0] They have 6 mont…

Except the Tesla isn't a "really great car". The Model 3 is basically an upscale take on a page out of the FCA playbook. It's a straight line rocket with a middle of the road interior crowned by a massive touchscreen. Don't get me wrong, there's definitively something to be said for that but Tesla does not make good all around vehicles. Tesla make vehicles that excel at a few things and are mediocre in most other reg…

I've driven nothing but BMW for the last decade and several of my friends now drive Teslas. I can't think of a single aspect other than subjective preference for rear-wheel drive bias where the BMW is any better than the Tesla. And it is objectively worse on a number of easily measurable factors. Anyone who thinks these cars are not fantastic is in denial. Are they perfect? Of course not. But on virtually any measurable scale they absolutely blow their competition out of the water at their price-point.
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