Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 110 posts

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#91

Post by ariwilson »

jm4 wrote: post #60
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The kinds of routine maintenance and repair items you typically don’t want to take your car to a dealer for aren’t much of a thing on a Tesla. They're still cars. Give it 10yr and you'll still need all the same suspension and steering related service that every other car needs. Nobody wants to pay a dealer to do something trivial like CV boots or wheel bearings.

True, but I won’t own the car in 10 years so I don’t care. I’m not discounting your point or anyone else’s on merit. What I’m getting at is that it’s a minority position and most people don’t care. How many 10 year old cars do you see out on the road? Yeah, they’re out there, but most of them are a lot newer than that. Most buyers just don’t keep a car long enough for any of this to matter and the ones that do care h…

The average American car is 11.8 years old.

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/06/27/record-average-age-cars-...

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#92

Post by ariwilson »

jgalt212 wrote: post #69
amcoastal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck! Tesla's are marvels of technology, but the lockdown they have on maintenance and repair -- which includes extremely high costs -- is enough to shy me away until we get a 'right-to-repair' law.

> the lockdown they have on maintenance and repair This is not endemic to Telsa, or even to the auto industry. It's in $800K tractors as well. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-05/farmers-f...

Tesla's much worse about it than other car manufacturers. Not sure how industrial equipment is relevant here (not sold to consumers).

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#93

Post by gamblor956 »

cptskippy wrote: post #83
ghastmaster wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very expensive way to get free publicity.

All of Elon's companies give free publicity to one another. They all somehow manage to keep in the active news cycle. There was an announcement last week about the Boring Company in Vegas that mentioned Tesla's would be used as people movers.

There was an announcement last week about the Boring Company in Vegas that mentioned Tesla's would be used as people movers.

This has always been part of the plan for the Boring peoplemover in Vegas...

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#94

Post by gamblor956 »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #78
nicoburns wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that people are expecting a monetary return on their investment. I suspect a lot of Tesla investors are expecting a return in the form of reduced problems due to climate change.

Such investors tend to hold, they don't sell just because the stock hits a certain price. This reduces the actual float, making shares harder to buy. This could be an issue if Tesla were to be added to the S&P 50O in Q2 or Q3, forcing big players to get hold of the stock at market price. Let's see.

Generally the S&P only adds companies that are profitable (at the time they are added to the index), in addition to several other criteria. (https://qz.com/1587963/how-the-sp-500-is-built-and-who-decid...)

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#95

Post by gamblor956 »

tonycoco wrote: post #55
steelframe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla was amazing and unparalleled from about 2012 to 2018. In the U.S., since the Kona/Niro EVs, I-PACE, e-tron, and Taycan have shipped along with the Electrify America rapid charging network, Tesla no longer has a corner on the EV market. A fully-decked-out Model S costs the same as a base Porsche Taycan 4S. I'd challenge anyone to test drive both cars configured at the ~$115k price point and then come back and te…

Cheapest Taycan I could find was $145k. 192 mile range. I'll take the Model S that is faster and nearly double the range at this point.

The Taycan is a true luxury performance car. You're not buying it for the range or nominal maximum speed, you're buying it for the creature comforts...and the ability to go 95% as fast as the (current versions of the) Model S for 100x longer, or even faster with the creature comforts removed for racing.

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#96

Post by gamblor956 »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #84
clouddrover wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're car companies selling cars. Volkswagen is the world's biggest car company. It's no surprise that they're becoming the biggest EV company as well. I really wouldn't worry about it.

> I really wouldn't worry about it. You should worry about battery production capacity. VW has been having issues and won't be able to build EV in volume for some time unless they start manufacturing them. Being the world's biggest ICE company does not help with securing battery supplies, especially when your #1 competitor keeps increasing its global lead. Tesla has far more purchase power than VW for batteries (NB:…

Panasonic and LG also make batteries for VW...

Note that Samsung does not make batteries for Tesla's vhicles, only its stationary products like the powerwall. This is the same for LG outside of the Chinese market.

Additionally, Tesla's battery factory is actually Panasonic's battery factory. Panasonic is the primary partner in that joint venture.

Tesla still has the same dependence on external parties as VW, they were just first to the ball and have contractual priority on production capacity existing or planned at the time the contracts were signed.

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#97

Post by jm4 »

close04 wrote: post #65
jm4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But my point is that most people don’t care. Certainly the ones who buy a Tesla don’t. This is like arguing that the iPhone is a bad phone because it doesn’t have a removable battery. For some, that’s a real issue. It may have been somewhat controversial in the beginning. These days no one cares because it hasn’t turned out to be a major issue for most. A bunch of manufacturers find ways to get owners back to the dea…

> But my point is that most people don’t care. Plenty do, they just also want a premium electric car despite the downsides , not because it has none. You just keep oscillating between your point being that "you" don't care, or "most people" don't care. I think the biggest single disadvantage Tesla has compared to other manufacturers is the service network, either dedicated or partnerships. Even in places where there'…

Sure, the service network is a weakness, but it's partially mitigated by the fact that there's far less service for which you need to return to Tesla than there is with other cars. In practice, it's just not a major concern because there's no dealer maintenance schedule. You're not taking it in every few months like with a gas car. You fill the wiper fluid, you get the tires rotated and you change the tires once in a while. You can take it almost anywhere for tires. Brakes aren't an issue because you hardly use them in a Tesla. The rest is mostly warranty type stuff you'd go back to the dealer for anyway and collision repair which sucks no matter what you drive. It's just not really as much of an issue as critics want to make it out to be. I've never had a lower maintenance car in my life. People are on here talking about suspension replacements and other high mileage repairs and most people, particularly the ones who buy a Tesla, won't own the car long enough to be concerned about that.

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#98

Post by jm4 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #82
jm4 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ends up on a used lot, at an auction, shipped overseas or in a junk yard depending on how long I drove it and what kind of shape it’s in. But I don’t care. The next owner isn’t my problem and I’m not going to give it a second thought. The fact is I’m not going to keep a Tesla long enough that the warranty expires and I can trade it or sell it for reasonable value in order to get a new one so the ability to get it…

Tesla cares at least somewhat about what happens out of warranty because producing junk that costs an arm and a leg to keep running beyond the warranty is not how you build the kind of reputation that lets you move downmarket which has been Tesla's stated goal since the beginning.

That's their problem, not mine. My concern as an owner is whether I could reasonably sell or trade the car for a new one after I drive it 3-6 years and that's been satisfied. The point where it's difficult to unload a used Tesla is when I question whether it's worthwhile to buy a new one. As long as you can buy one, take it somewhere to get it repaired, expect reasonable resale value and then easily sell or trade it in, that checks the important boxes for most buyers. Tesla has achieved that. Is there room for improvement? Sure. Is it turning off a few potential buyers? Maybe, but not enough of them that it hasn't become a mainstream car.

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#99

Post by natch »

marssaxman wrote: post #86
3pt14159 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Tesla makes the best electric cars and as they reach economies of scale total cost of ownership will dominate fossil fuel cars. They need to lower prices now because Teslas are still relatively expensive compared to, say, a Toyota; but in the long run they won't need to lower prices further than a certain point. Plus Musk sees angles that few others do and a platform of mobile sensors operating around the pla…

a platform of mobile sensors operating around the planet That is seriously creepy. Is there any way, as a Tesla owner, to prevent one's vehicle from being used like this?

It’s opt in.

Re: Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k

#100

Post by jgalt212 »

ariwilson wrote: post #92
jgalt212 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lockdown they have on maintenance and repair This is not endemic to Telsa, or even to the auto industry. It's in $800K tractors as well. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-05/farmers-f...

Tesla's much worse about it than other car manufacturers. Not sure how industrial equipment is relevant here (not sold to consumers).

many farms are small businesses, and thus are closer to a B2C relationship than B2B.

But aside from equivalency, I posit that the general expectation of buying something is that you should be able to do what you lawfully want with it.

Post reply on HN