501–510 of 591 posts
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Only if other companies aren’t growing faster. VW tripled electric car sales in 2020 compared to 2021: https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2021/01/Volkswagen-bran...
When you sold 1 car yesterday, and sell 2 today, you have doubled your sales. It's misleading to talk about growth in terms of percentage points (or doubling/tripling, etc), if it's somewhat low numbers.
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With "family car" I meant something like the VW Touran. A somewhat affordable car that still has enough space for all the stuff you might want to take along, like strollers, backpacks, scooters, kid bikes, skis, helmets, boots whatever. (Not all of that at the same time obviously) There isn't really a great EV in that category yet, but I hope it's just a question of time. Obviously you can use any car as a family car…
That’s exactly what the Model Y and Model X are. Both beat an ID4 in cargo volume without even counting the frunk (which VWs don’t have). Even the smaller Model 3 is plenty for a 4-person family, while it doesn’t beat in liters because of ceiling height the trunk is very spacious.
So I searched Wikipedia and the types of car I was thinking about are apparently called "Compact MPV" [1]. My thinking was that these cars are mostly targeted at families, so I called them "family cars", but apparently people have different ideas what a family car is.
My point was that VW is going to end up building a large number of different EVs in the next couple of years, and Tesla will face the problem that each of their models will have to compete with 3 models from VW.
No matter what model Tesla your interested in, there will be a car from the VW group with slightly more space, and one that's cheaper, and maybe one that's a bit sportier. It's going to be very different from now, where there's very little competition to Tesla (if you want an EV)
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Your global figures for Ford and GM look wrong to me... but otherwise, I agree: If Tesla continues to grow at these rates, yes, eventually they will catch up with leading car manufacturers, all the way up to VW, currently the world's largest. Tesla's online manufacturing capacity at quarter-end was ~1.05M EVs/year (~600K/year in California, ~450K/year in Shanghai), which works out to a run-rate of 262K/quarter, vs. 1…
It's possible for Tesla and Musk to overtake the likes of VW in volume -- if anyone can, it's them. But it's not certain that they'll be able to do it. It's not certain they'll want to. Much better to stay a higher end brand and focus on "fun" and exciting high end cars people (and other car makers) aspire to, rather than trying to out compete Toyota and VW in making Corolas and Polos.
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This is peak HN, calling 30% annual growth on a $750 billion company flat
The $750 billion valuation (approaching the combined value of other car companies) is precisely why I said that it was flat compared to the valuation growth , the valuation has grown about 1300% in the last few years. Also the vast majority of those profits are not car sales but regulatory credits and Bitcoin sales, they are barely in profit on selling cars, which makes the valuation even more absurdly optimistic. IM…
Did you even see the earnings report yesterday? I don't care about non-cash expenses (Stock-based compensation of 614M).
They made a profit of $1.05 billion out of which ~102M was from the bitcoin sale and 518M was from reg credits. In what world is ~$430 million in a single quarter "barely anything"?
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As noted elsewhere, I've put 70,000 miles on my Model 3. After driving a 328i for 20 years, the Tesla is more fun in every way. As for build quality, my maintenance so far is $850 for a windshield. Cuz... I drive it so fast all the time, pebbles chipped away at it until it cracked down the middle. That's it. I can also attest that operating costs are 1/4 the BMW. Energy costs, yes, but also $0 for brake pads (I'm at…
You should still change the brake fluid every few years. I don't know what Tesla recommends but most car manufacturers recommend brake fluid flushes every 2-5 years (the Germans generally recommend 2 year intervals, GM generally recommends 5 year intervals, the Japanese brands seem to recommend 3 year intervals). DOT 3, 4, and 5.1 fluid will absorb water on purpose and disperse it throughout the fluid. Over time if y…
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> I find this to be a major milestone in the transition to BEV. This is an achievement. While I agree it would be great if we had 0 emission vehicles, today EV in US or Germany run largely of coal , hence battery production is anything but green... Thus I still don’t see the point of what’s called « Transition ». Climate change is real , but at the moment without nuclear fusion I fail to see how this is going to chan…
Germany has more solar than coal https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=en&...
Coal - almost 30% vs less than 10% of solar
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I follow the development of the stations pretty closely. It is much much much harder than you think it is. Some stations take well over a year from permitting to lighting them up. Tesla has also made deals with a lot of businesses and states to put them on highway rest stops. The other charging stations are spotty at best. I live one mile from the Electrify America HQ. Even the station at their HQ is iffy and I had i…
Tesla has made approximately 2000 deals. Years aren't decades, and the cost just isn't high enough that it will drag out. It's sort of neutral that there's more than one manufacturer of the other chargers, if the chargers work well with vehicles it doesn't matter if they come from 15 factories or 2. Tesla clearly has a lead. My point is that it is unlikely to be durable.
https://insideevs.com/news/389891/exclusive-interview-electr...
“Electrify America currently uses units made by ABB, BTC, Signet, and Efacec. Every time they have a software or hardware update, it has to be done on all four brands, and they don't always all work the same afterward. Fitezek has to work out the kinks with all four partners and they all respond on different timelines. I could see that this was clearly a pain point for him.”
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Examples: IBM with IBM PC And we all know how many IBM PCs IBM has sold over the past decade. I think that IBM might actually be the most apt analogy for Tesla. 20 years from now Tesla will be a niche player in the market they built basically from scratch.
IBM PC was released 40 years ago, in 1981. They sold their PC division in 2004, after 23 years of run, when PCs were on every desktop and every server rack. If Tesla goes out of business and sells itself to an Asian automaker when EVs have completely conquered the transportation landscape, I'll be OK with that :)
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My X has wiper controls on the stalk. Does that make it a real car for you?
https://electrek.co/2020/08/04/tesla-wiper-controls-ruled-il...
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As I’ve commented above, “conflicting sensors” doesn’t make much sense as an argument. If sensors A and B conflicted, you could just ignore sensor B and get performance at least as good as just having sensor A. Does sensor B have enough other benefits to outweigh the costs of adding it? I don’t know, but that’s the actual crux of this problem.
Sensor B “enhancing” sensor A is the exact same situation as a sensor conflict. How do you tell them apart? You’re oversimplifying the issue as if it was a matter of simple addition.