Live data from Hacker News

Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

economist.com

341–350 of 463 posts

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#341
post #339
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this deceptive? Anyone who has ever charged a phone is probably familiar with the concept that a higher wattage charger provides faster charging speeds - electric cars are no different. Higher power chargers charge faster is not some secret. The car simply states the fastest DC connection it supports - 350kw. It works with any charger up to this wattage, just like my laptop charges from any USB-C source up to…

The specs say: [1] DC Fast Charge Time (10-80% @ 350 kW via Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) Level 3 Charger: Approx. 18 min. and Drive Battery Energy: 77.4 kWh The battery is 77.4 kWh. This implies the battery is charging at 180kW. If it were taking in the full 350kW and losing 170kW as heat that would be one (inefficient and dangerous) thing, but it doesn't sound like it actually draws 350kW? For comparison, they…

As battery charges its pretty common to taper the charge rate to improve health of the battery. To my knowledge, no EV today will sit at 350kw for the full 10 to 80 percent even if it can draw this. You still get faster charge times as the full draw can usually happen at close to empty, but charge rate will taper as battery fills. 181kw average is still pretty great - there are many EVs on sale that still max draw at 50 (looking at you VW...).

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#342
post #231
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * when in full-auto on a single lane road, when there's an exit on the right the Tesla 3 almost always slightly swerve towards the exit before coming back in its lane. None of the Megane, the EQE or the BMW i4 do that. A minor nuisance. Unless you happen to be at the ready attentively double-checking whatever the assistance is doing - then it must be infuriatingly annoying! Guess what you're supposed to be doing, a…

Any car behaving differently to a human driver is outright dangerous. For example, motorcyclists depend on inferring behaviour more than the average driver. Someone swerving towards an exit is far more reliable an indicator of them taking it than a signal - many drivers don't bother using them. Many bikers I know avoid Teslas like the plague, as they're deeply difficult to read at best, and lethal at worst.

> motorcyclists depend on inferring behaviour more than the average driver

And honestly it's less inference and more "I assume this person is going to try to kill me. How would they do so and how do I avoid that?"

I haven't ridden in years, but even in my car I'm allergic to being in someone's blind spot.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#343
post #326
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, anyone have a video to back this up? For all of Tesla's woes, their mapping screen is above and beyond superior to any native GPS I've ever seen.

Tesla is far behind everyone else on navigation due to the simple fact that Teslas do not have Carplay. There's no Waze on Teslas, how can you drive without it? But here's how the current Mercedes navigation looks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgy3askMcM The AR stuff works really well and is arguably way ahead of anything Tesla offers.

Waze is not able to plan a route with all the charging stops you need. Waze is fairly bad in an EV.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#344
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, some comments here also feel the need to justify that they’re not an “Elon fanboi” if they’re saying positives about tesla which shows how bad it is. The whole FSD debacle feels like people just arguing semantics and gotchas. I recently watched some videos of FSD operating in tight, hilly and unusual roads in CA. I was very impressed, its obv not perfect, but its fucking cool. People here made it sound like a s…

As a FSD purchaser, I can tell you that watching videos do not give you the full experience of sitting in the driver's seat while FSD is on. The amount of times I need to regularly overtake control in both urban and rural environments on simple turns is enough to make me not recommend the FSD option to prospective Tesla buyers. At this point, the way it's marketed, I would lean more towards scam than even gimmick.

But do you agree it's getting better with every update?

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the competitors are STILL building on an ICE chassis and stuff batteries where the center axle would have been etc. When enough of them finally switch to pure EV platforms things will quickly improve I guess. But designing a new chassis that behave as well as their previous premium models, is not something they do in 1 year so it makes sense there is some delay.. The competitors also charge much less quickly,…

This is a huge dealbreaker for me tbh. Tesla's competitors are mostly still using an electrified ICE platform, showing even now they're years behind. It's comparable to countries who were pioneers in broadband internet and who are now lacking in progress and falling behind, or like MS Internet explorer that totally stagnated and held back browser technology.

[dead]

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#346
post #341
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specs say: [1] DC Fast Charge Time (10-80% @ 350 kW via Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) Level 3 Charger: Approx. 18 min. and Drive Battery Energy: 77.4 kWh The battery is 77.4 kWh. This implies the battery is charging at 180kW. If it were taking in the full 350kW and losing 170kW as heat that would be one (inefficient and dangerous) thing, but it doesn't sound like it actually draws 350kW? For comparison, they…

As battery charges its pretty common to taper the charge rate to improve health of the battery. To my knowledge, no EV today will sit at 350kw for the full 10 to 80 percent even if it can draw this. You still get faster charge times as the full draw can usually happen at close to empty, but charge rate will taper as battery fills. 181kw average is still pretty great - there are many EVs on sale that still max draw at…

If the peak current draw were 350kW then I'd agree the specs were fine.

I'd thought they were advertising a 10% to 80% charge because that's the period over which they can charge at max speed? Looking now, it seems like they start tapering at 50%, and it's peak draw is 235kW? https://www.arenaev.com/kia_ev6_crowned_the_best_charging_ev...

(I agree this is very good, but it's still wrong to quote 350kW if they never draw this much.)

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#347
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is not the only fast charging network though. In Switzerland for example there are many (Move, GoFast, Ionity, etc.) and some are even cheaper than Tesla.

In the US at least their charging network is top tier. EA is rolling out pretty wide with US highways but most non-Tesla Supercharger site's reliability is laughable right now. To the point where they simply don't work when it's cold outside [0]. We (US) really need more competition in this space. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq0RAjJ1PKQ

According to the International Energy Agency, Europe (includes UK) has 49 thousand fast chargers vs. the USA's 22 thousand. (Also 307 thousand slow chargers vs 92 thousand.)

That's a much bigger difference than I would have expected. Probably the slow charger need is less in the USA with more houses and fewer apartments, but the fast charger requirement should be higher, with longer average journeys and more interstate travel.

I don't often travel by car, so I'm rarely in the kinds of places a fast charger would be located, but on a recent trip to Britain I was surprised to see so many chargers. I think they were in almost all the car parks we used. The UK has 7 thousand fast chargers, 29 thousand slow.

(China's numbers are incredible, 470 thousand fast chargers!)

https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2022/trends-in...

https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#348
I believe the reason is much simpler - 2017-2019 was a peak of hopes for Tesla. New models, scaling up, Roadster, Semi, Cybertruck announced, the competition was weak and sky was the limit. FSD / Robotaxi was promised to be ready in matter of weeks/months.

The shares were around $20-25 (today's worth, taking in account the splits). I do not see any reason why it would be worth more than that.

- Roadster and Cybertruck are not only late, they were even removed from their landing page. DOA. Ford, Rivian and even GM brought solid product (pickups) to the market and the fat cake is being eaten. - Semi was very late and doesn't look too promising. - FSD turned from an advantage to a huge liability. I believe it has now a negative value (current and potential future lawsuits). - competitors started producing comparable or better cars at better prices (VW ID3, Mercedes EQE, any EVs from Hyundai/Kia) - there's a strong perception of Elon being bored with Tesla. We've got a billion dollar ship with no captain.

I do not believe in Elon's political involvement having such a great impact, other than taking his attention away.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#349

What did Elon do to make Tesla earn so much money that the original founders couldnt do? Is it just about debt loans needed?

Actually make a production car that people could buy.

He bought into a car company that made no cars. The people trying to imply he bought his way into the auto industry are trolling just as much as Elon does all while complaining about Elon trolling. Sure he wasn't a Founder of Tesla in the technical sense, but everything important that happened, happened after he bought it.

Re: Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And if Tesla would move to block them from doing so, they would set themselves up for an anti-competition suite of epic proportions in all markets, from the US over the EU all the way to China.

The problem of procurement is about access to Lithium and Nickel ores. Telsa has a joint partnership with a Nickel mine in New Caledonia and rights on mining Lithium in Nevada. GM, Ford don't and there is a global shortage, so I don't see them succeeding in battery production long term. If they source batteries from Panasonic, they're buying an inferior battery. If they source from Tesla, that's obviously positive fo…

If you hold a de-facto monopoly on certain taw materials, you are legally obliged to share it with competitors.
Post reply on HN