171–180 of 460 posts
My brand new Toyota C-HR comes with an entertainment screen that is not Retina display. Technology that has been out for half a decade and is found in the dirt cheapest of smart phones. It honestly doesn’t surprise me that the rest of their tech is so far behind.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...
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Just saw a 2020 top spec model 3 that still has a few misaligned gaps and bunching seals in the doors. The leather around the back where it was punched out is creased. It's a great car, but the for and finish sadly still has a ways to go.
Yea, Tesla is selling cars sight unseen which makes minor cosmetic issues a very low priority for them. It says less about build quality than their sales model. Personally I doubt most customers notice or care, but it’s an obvious thing to criticize.
Software with a battery pack (and no headache of a drivetrain). Luckily for Tesla, most of the other car companies disdain software engineering and see it beneath them and mechanical engineering. My friend had sold his software company to BMW in 2008 and they didn’t even ask him to join BMW. Even more shocking they used the same software for over ten years with NO upgrades and updates.
Which company is that?
This is grand, apart from the build quality of the mechanics is ~10 years behind. Go to a tesla showroom, Look at the doors of the model three. Note that they don't line up. Look at the paint job, notice that there are bumps and chips, especailly on the edges of the doors. This is on a _demo_ car, stuck in a showroom. these should be perfect. Even a budget Kia has better build quality than this. Its not the isolated…
I hear this fit and finish critique of Tesla often. But the whole package of a Tesla is clearly compelling to people, who are willing to pay a luxury price for it. High end Volvo’s are a good example of old-school quality — gorgeous interiors, beautiful trim. But they’re still predominantly internal combustion engine era designs. The height of it from a luxury finish standpoint. But, Tesla’s different . Maybe it’s th…
Also, the condition of the body and the interior matter more to the vehicle’s resale value than the condition of the rest of the car - again they are indicators of the quality and care taken with the rest of the car.
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Toyota’s market cap is more than twice that of Tesla, around 200 billion, and they sold 10 million cars last year. I do expect Tesla’s is dramatically inflated, I have no idea if Toyota would buy them, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. If Toyota could successfully integrate all the Tesla stuff into their vehicles, it would also have a greater impact than anything Tesla will likely accomplish on their own.
As of this very moment, the market caps of both are as follows: Toyota: 228.41 Billion Tesla: 144.2 Billion That's time and a half, but not more than twice. I find it stretching credibility to think Toyota could afford to buy a company with such a high market cap knowing the stock would rocket up on any rumor of an acquisition.
Look, I’m a firm believer in the “market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent” and especially in our post-2008, QE money printing, Saudi sovereign wealth fund, unmoored-from-reality present. So honestly, who knows how it will all pan out. Maybe we now just live in a hyperreal future where Musk’s marketing shenanigans are materially equivalent to the solid fundamentals and record of a company like Toyota. Could very well be.
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Oh, the article gives numbers! Tesla: $158/kWh Competitors: "more than" $200/kWh Model 3 SR+ has a 54 kWh battery. Tesla advantage = (200 - 158) * 54 = $2268 per car. Yes, an advantage today, but not too bad.
The Maxwell Technologies battery technology is allegedly 10x cheaper to manufacture due to no oven or liquids and as a result, and also lighter. Elon says the "holy grail" of batteries is being able to develop an automotive grade battery at <= $100/kWh. The Maxwell tech looks to be below that, but we'll find out specifics on the upcoming Battery Investor day.
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It's absolutely an early-adopter surcharge. At luxury prices, because that's the only way to start a completely new car manufacturer at this scale. Most new car companies are small affairs that hand-build fairly simple cars at luxury prices from their garage. They get away with it because they offer something unique. So does Tesla, only they try to do it at scale.
It's not like this wasn't a publicly known fact, a strategy they officially wrote about.
> The computer powers the cars' self-driving capabilities as well as their advanced in-car "infotainment" system. Now I'm scared. I hope it is mistake of Nikkei and these two subsystems doesn't have anything in common, including power supplies.
There are two versions of the MCU and 3 or 4 versions, depending on how you count, of the autopilot computer.
It's not that Toyota or VW can't afford in software/hardware research - because they have more than enough resources for this. Those are the biggest car manufacturers in the world. They simply price more reliability. Especially Toyota is good example for that, their models are usually 3-5 years in "gadgets" behind VW group or Korean makers, but their cars offer solid reliability and usually they simply drive for years without much troubles.
Another example of how Tesla is ahead: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30361800/tesla-model-3-lo... >Not only is this the first time we've ever had a long-term car suffer a catastrophic failure while parked, it's also an extraordinarily rare case of any car leaving us stranded, something unacceptable for any new vehicle, particularly one that costs $57,690 and with merely 5286 miles on the odometer. Even our problem-prone Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio was at least able to limp to the dealer following each one of its numerous issues.
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The Bolt is not priced the same as the Model 3. Examples: https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mdId=362...
MSRP is exactly the same as Model 3. The fact that they have to offer them 40% off MSRP because no one wants them isn't a good thing.
The Bolt is the best value for money EV in the world at the moment. It's untouchable in price for range.