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Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

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Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#161

It seems like a smart decision once you look at car companies' market caps: Tesla: $651 B Toyota: $288 B Volkswagen: $152 B Daimler / Mercedes: $99 B Ford: $60 B

People said this 3 years ago too, arguing Tesla was too big. guess what: it got way bigger. Tesla is forcing other brands to have to adapt or die. They are way behind Tesla in technology, infrastructure, and marketshare for electric vehicle and battery tech.

> They are way behind Tesla in technology

Electric cars are simpler then ICE cars... and Ford has the Mach-E SUV, VW has the ID.4, etc...

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few more in the pipes: - Rivian (Private) - Lucid (Private) - Arrival (ARVL): $10B - Nikola (NKLA): $7B - Canoo (GOEV): $2B - Lordstown Motors (RIDE): $2B Although: > EV Startups Are in Trouble. Investors Don’t Care. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ev-startups-are-in-trouble-inve...

Canoo is the manufacturer to watch. They have the bmw I vehicle team on staff and have been in talks with Apple.

Lucid is mostly ex-Tesla and ex-Hyundai.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#163
post #155
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is easily 10-15 years ahead of all other manufacturers. Well the majority view is that the Porsche Tycan is a better car, but at a different price point - considering the (im)maturity of the market 10-15 years seems a stretch, particularly considering there are some great cars coming out like the mini electric.

100k car is better then 40k in a few metrics. Wow what an achievement. Model 3 Performance can keep up with 120K+ Tycan. And Model S leaves a Taycan behind it like a the Taycan was a Ford Focus. > particularly considering there are some great cars People made the same argument in 2014 and all those cars came out. People made the same argument in 2018 and all those cars came out. And non of that changed Tesla growth o…

Well the statement “nobody makes a better car at that specific price point” is a bit less bold than the original claim that every other car company is “easily 10-15 years behind”.

I mean it’s obviously an absurd claim anyway, Tesla is less than 15 years old and clearly the other car companies aren’t starting from scratch.

Besides, the Taycan now starts at $79k, not $120k. You are comparing the cheapest Tesla against a higher range Porsche. It’s pretty much cost competitive with the Tesla Model S. Not everything is about performance anyway, I doubt I need more power than either car - a comfortable driving experience and build quality would be more important to me if I was in the market for one of these cars (which are all more than I would want to pay for a car).

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I considered the Taycan as a replacement for the e-tron but it has all the same problems as the e-tron. The interior finish and handling dynamics are nicer than Tesla for sure but literally everything else they get wrong. Like I said, they are at least 10 years behind. Here is an example: recently the Audi app which you use to control the car from your phone was down for two weeks for server upgrades. I have worked i…

I'll agree a 2 week outage is insane, but that's hardly an example of the tech being behind. Shitty process sure and lazy software development too. How about the charge range or stability control? Any idea about the battery's expected life span? What technology do you think Audi is behind on? My impression has been that Tesla nailed the charging network, charge range and raw straight line performance. Everything else…

Things you'll care about on a daily basis:

* Rear hatch will occasionally just open by itself. There was a TSB from the dealer to resolve this where they reprogram your keys and adjust the sensitivity of the kick sensor but I'm still skeptical. The audi app should alert me if the hatch has been left open for more than X minutes with the car off.

* Audi App in general is very slow and unresponsive. Sometimes I'll try to precondition the car and the app just spins for minutes and then silently fails.

* The onboard charger can run with either 50% of 100% of a circuit, nothing else. If you are at a shared 240 or 120v system where there is a lot of load (RV camp ground for example) your car simply won't charge.

* Electrify America is a mess. You can google this and see thousands of examples.

* There is no regen or one pedal driving. You can manually activate regen by pulling the levers on the steering wheel but the behavior isn't consistent and the regen isn't strong.

* There is no way to enable "creep" mode like how a traditional automatic ICE car behaves.

* There is a feature to schedule charging for those who have off-peak rates. You have to set this every single time you use the car.

* The virtual cockpit and 360 camera occasionally fail to initialize so you just have blank screens.

* Consumption is extremely high. For reference for Tesla people a good day in an etron is 400wh/mi.

* Vehicle nav map shows me gas stations, no way to search for charge stations.

* Vehicle still has ICE based service reminders built in.

---

Now for things that are going to get someone killed:

* The vehicle rolls backwards on hills. This + lack of creep means that you have to feather the gas. There is a "hill hold assist" which will randomly kick on but it's not reliable. Stop and go traffic in a hilly area is very annoying.

* When parking the vehicle will roll backwards or forwards for about a foot until the brake catches. This could easily entrap someone in an enclosed space.

* If the vehicle is "on" or "off" isn't completely clear as a user. If you put it into accessory mode it looks exactly the same as the vehicle being on sans one small green line. I've accidentally put the vehicle into neutral with the vehicle in accessory mode while parked on an incline and it began rapidly rolling away (the thing weighs almost 7000lbs) while I tried to pump the non operational brakes.

* Vehicle automatically shuts off climate control after 30 minutes of idle. I'm glad I learned about this while waiting for someone instead of when I had left my dog in the car.

* Getting out of the driver seat shuts off the car completely when in park. See prior points about climate control and rollback.

I could go on. This is just what came to me off the top of my head.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#165

It seems like a smart decision once you look at car companies' market caps: Tesla: $651 B Toyota: $288 B Volkswagen: $152 B Daimler / Mercedes: $99 B Ford: $60 B

The other companies are valued so low because their ability to innovate is so low. Tesla is a vertically integrated company, while the others are horizontally integrated. The combined proprietary technology of Tesla is greater than the combined proprietary technology of all the big auto manufacturers. A lot of those companies just buy technology from some other vendor, so while it looks like they are competing with T…

On the flip side it sounds like Tesla may be suffering from a Not Invented Here syndrome which would seriously hamper their ability to innovate quickly and inexpensively in the future.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#166
post #107
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is easily 10-15 years ahead of all other manufacturers. Well the majority view is that the Porsche Tycan is a better car, but at a different price point - considering the (im)maturity of the market 10-15 years seems a stretch, particularly considering there are some great cars coming out like the mini electric.

Depends on how ‘better’ is being judged. Premium fit/finish, interior quality, handling, etc. - i.e. the things that the legacy Porsche business was already good at, Taycan is better. Battery tech, motor tech, vertical integration, and (arguably most importantly) overall efficiency, Tesla is ahead, and probably by many years. Tesla also far ahead in effort/time out into developing self-driving, though the jury is obv…

> (arguably most importantly) overall efficiency

Sorry but pretty much no one cares about efficiency after you break 300-400km range

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And how is this any different than accelerators like YC investing in founders vs business ideas? VC funds are (1) diversified, so it’s less risky — their success or failure isn’t tied to any one persona or even any one company, (2) fund investors have a lot of money so they can afford it if their entire investment goes to zero, and (3) the investors are well-versed in assessing the likelihood of that risk when they…

Fair points. I'm unsure how to protect retail more without handicapping those who know what they're doing. Taking away exposure opportunity from retail isn't going to help, but neither does encouraging gambling (although that's what investments are, educated gambles). Musk is exploiting an edge case, but I'm unsure if I can blame him for it based on how it's turned out. Don't invest (or gamble) what you can't afford…

> Don't invest (or gamble) what you can't afford to lose on high risk investments. Index funds are your friend.

100% truth, but many people don't listen to that. Too boring. I'd rather have Joe Robinhood Investor sink $2,500 into Musk and his mission with Tesla instead of sinking $2,500 into GME or casinos.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#168
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it got way bigger. It's still unclear whether this is due to fundamentals like the ones you mention, or just an irrational stock market. Now that more and more companies are coming out with their EVs, the truth might become clearer.

As a recent owner of a model 3, I've been blown away by the charging infrastructure advantage. The non-Tesla chargers near me in Colorado are just plain garbage. Sometimes, they work great, but other days I go back and the terminal won't function. And currently, these chargers are all the owners of non-Tesla EVs have. I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging…

> I'm actually surprised there isn't a legal push by Congress to force Tesla to open up their charging infrastructure to others.

I honestly don't understand this sentiment.

Tesla invested many many years creating a charging network in a competitive environment that actively resisted it. So now that Tesla is super successful in part because of this long-term investment, how is it fair that Tesla _must_ open it up to the _same_ people that resisted them earlier?

That's like Apple being forced to give up their Lightning specs to third-parties because they invested years of R&D into creating a fast plug-and-play standard before USB-C gained a foothold.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#169
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So selling = dumping? Edit: ok so dumping=selling the whole lot I guess that makes sense. I think this post explained it better https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27633163

No it is not. Stop trolling or go learn financial slang. It is not hard, you can google it. I worked on an exchange and currently with trading systems for one of the largest banks in the world.

Your credentials aren't really relevant unless you're making an ad hominem argument to the effect that we should believe everything you say about finance because you're an authority.

Use of slang or jargon in a headline only subtracts points, in my gradebook. And if dumping is mostly just selling, why not say selling? Well the answer is "because clickbait." A devaluation, insult, or attack on Tesla generates more "engagement" than a sale of Tesla.

Besides which, dumping is an analogy. Nothing is literally being dumped, just like nothing ever gets literally pumped. Nor does anyone ever literally "take a bath" or "get taken to the cleaners." Nothing "crashes" and nothing "booms." And unless people start fucking cows or grabbing salmon out of rivers with their hands and biting their heads off, nobody is "bearish" or "bullish" either.

Re: Panasonic sells its $3.6B Tesla stake

#170
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is easily 10-15 years ahead of all other manufacturers. Well the majority view is that the Porsche Tycan is a better car, but at a different price point - considering the (im)maturity of the market 10-15 years seems a stretch, particularly considering there are some great cars coming out like the mini electric.

I considered the Taycan as a replacement for the e-tron but it has all the same problems as the e-tron. The interior finish and handling dynamics are nicer than Tesla for sure but literally everything else they get wrong. Like I said, they are at least 10 years behind. Here is an example: recently the Audi app which you use to control the car from your phone was down for two weeks for server upgrades. I have worked i…

Two weeks?! Not even FCA's UConnect infra was down that long!
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