Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#61

Post by piker » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

crunchyfrog wrote: post #50

lykr0n wrote: post #4

Impressive, but they are going to need to dramatically increase that number to if they wish to compete when the big car companies wake up.

And Google is going to be in big trouble when IBM releases their search engine. It always seems like it should be easy for legacy companies to stamp out disrupters but it almost never works out like that. It is very hard to refocus giant companies.

Tell that to Netscape. Point being, there's anecdotes in both directions. Only time will tell if Tesla's brand is truly industry defining or if it's just the vanguard of a broader industrial shift.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#62

Post by devwastaken » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

bischofs wrote: post #10

rconti wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems fair to compare an automaker to another automaker. Declining sales among your competitors is a strong indicator of a difficult environment to sell into. Unless you're saying the cited sales are sedans only, in which case I get your point.

Not really fair, I can walk into a dealer and buy any car from one of those other brands. The Tesla numbers are 1-2 years of built up demand being built/delivered in one quarter. These numbers will definitely not continue.

>Not really fair, I can walk into a dealer and buy any car from one of those other brands.

That's like saying Amazon won't continue because I can walk to Walmart. If the numbers won't continue give specific facts relating to the market of teslas vehicles. Unless the vehicles become failures themselves, a better alternative is made, or tesla suddenly bottoms up, 400,000 new vehicles isn't too bad.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#63

Post by semi-extrinsic » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #41

codeulike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After seeing the recent Audi and Mercedes efforts, consensus seems to be that making EVs is not as easy as everyone thought and the big car companies still have a long way to go before they catch up "UBS says Audi's new electric car shows industry has a long way to go to catch Tesla" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/ubs-says-audis-disappointing...

I'm very interested to see what Ford is coming out with in the 2020 time frame, with their fleet of "electrified" vehicles. I have a strong feeling that gas/electric hybrids which get decent electric-only range will be where the market is at (however they need to be targeting more than the 20-mile electric range they currently have). And I also like what I've read in some Ford interviews, where they aren't pushing el…

I also expect hybrids to be where it'll be at. The new Kia Optima wagon claims 40 miles pure electric range. Electric cars seem still to be (artificially?) limited, e.g. no station wagons, mostly no roof racks (except Model S), no tow bar (except Model X). All of which means most people 'round here can't have just an EV, it's only useful as a second car.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#64

Post by octorian » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

dgritsko wrote: post #14

sbradford26 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it benefits Tesla to produce more cars to compete with the big auto companies. But I do not believe that suddenly any of them will be able crank out a cost competitive electric car with the same range in any large quantity. Sure your existing car companies are better right now at physically building the conventional parts of a car, but the most expensive part of an electric car is the batteries. Tesla's partners…

Don't forget the Supercharger network; seems like that's another big part of Tesla's first-mover advantage that any serious competitor will need to address at some point if they want to "catch up".

> Don't forget the Supercharger network For some reason, the majority of the "competition" does forget the supercharger network. Its the reason Tesla is a road-trip car, and capable of being your primary/only vehicle.

Meanwhile all other EVs are nothing more than commuter cars. Maybe suitable for day-trips if you're really lucky.

Tesla also acknowledges that you need these high-speed charging stations conveniently located along the highway. Not in the middle of town, and certainly not in the parking lot of a store you'd never spend more than 10 minutes at.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#65

Post by iamleppert » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

Tesla has a product that people want, and, importantly appeals to the new generation of prospective car owners in a way the other auto manufactures can't come close to even hoping. Youth haven't really been interested in cars in the same way and with the same level of excitement they once were for awhile now until Tesla came along.

To put simply, they will eventually figure out their manufacturing and economies of scale (they are already well on their way to doing so) and when that happens it will be a dramatic rise and unseating of power. We've seen time and time again market share and dominance means very little in the long term and the ability to manufacture a car isn't an exclusive right to the current incumbents.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#66

Post by semi-extrinsic » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #40

mikestew wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue though is that there is no uniform paying experience I grab the appropriate card of the two (Blink and ChargePoint) in the console, tap it, sorted. But you don't have the super charger network which might be a deal breaker. In seven years of Nissan Leaf ownership, I’d bet i could count the number of times I’ve used a public charger on both hands. Electric’s aren’t like ICE where you’re always looking for a…

The supercharger network is one of the main reasons I bought a Tesla, rather than a competing car like a Leaf or a Bolt. Without the Supercharger network, road-trips become charge-seeking adventures. I recall reading a story about somebody who drove their Bolt across a few states, and how they had to stop for hours at Chevy dealers, and scrounge charging wherever they can. With my Tesla, I stop for 30-45min every few…

"Infrequently-used feature Z is why I bought the $80k car instead of the $40k car."

Really? Unless you do road trips every week, you'd be way better off buying the Bolt or Leaf and then renting an ICE for whenever you go on a road trip.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#67

Post by Latteland » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #65

Tesla has a product that people want, and, importantly appeals to the new generation of prospective car owners in a way the other auto manufactures can't come close to even hoping. Youth haven't really been interested in cars in the same way and with the same level of excitement they once were for awhile now until Tesla came along. To put simply, they will eventually figure out their manufacturing and economies of sc…

It's not rocket science of course (hah), they can just keep plugging away at manufacturing and get more and more efficient, eventually being as good as a "real automobile" company. I can't understand the continuing feeling that they can't just make more cars with practice, that people actually want to buy some of them. They aren't for everyone, but they are just fun electric functional cars.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#68

Post by Latteland » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #3

- accelerating China factory due to tariffs of about 40% into China, they don't indicate what accelerating actually means Numbers: - Q3 production 53,239, - Bloomberg’s estimate: 53,457 - North American deliveries of 55,840 rank the Model 3 among the 10 best-selling sedans in the region--and the only one that's electric - pretty good news in the face of what other car companies are doing - GM sales are expected to fa…

If you closer into the sales numbers (look at electrek's article about the last quarter [0]), they appear to be reducing mid-priced sedan sales at most of the other leading companies, especially the generally excellent euro manus (bmw, audi, etc). also see [1]

0: https://electrek.co/2018/08/01/tesla-claims-model-3-outsold-... 1: https://electrek.co/2018/05/02/tesla-model-3-best-selling-mi...

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#69

Post by Latteland » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

jackhack wrote: post #32

wintercharm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's a clear shift coming in the automotive industry. The auto makers who don't have plans for electrification right now are in big trouble. Thankfully, the VW group will actually be okay - they've tasked Porsche's engineers with electrification of all the companies owned by the group. The Taycan will be built on the J1 platform (Porsche controlled/built). Porsche is developing 3 different packages for other…

And just for completeness, Porsche "only" sold 55,000 cars in 2017. Tesla shipped 30%+ more automobiles in one quarter, yet there is debate about whether Tesla is a viable company and no-one is predicting the imminent demise of that tiny car company, Porsche. Bias + old thinking dies hard, it seems.

I think it was at least something to consider, whether tesla would ramp up manufacturing and sales enough to become profitable. All signs were looking good, but if they failed to make them in volume they could have failed. It was stunning to me how many financial analysts just looked at the company and said something along the lines of "they just lost 2 billion dollars in q1, x billion in q2, they will be bankrupt by q3 or q4". But they were spending on improving their infrastructure, they were ramping up. I just expected more in depth analysis than that - I guess they just don't see companies selling expensive products with such a slow painful ramp up in production much; they should just feel embarrassed.

Re: Tesla delivered 83,500 vehicles in the third quarter, more than expected

#70

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

kemiller wrote: post #58

lykr0n wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Ford makes 1.6 million cars (worldwide) per quarter. Tesla, while impressive, cannot keep up when someone else enters their market segment. If tomorrow Ford/Chevy/Toyota announces a model 3 like car for 2020 release with something close to the 3's specs, Tesla is dead unless they can pull a rabbit out of their hat. Tesla can do what- 350k to 400k cars a year based on current numbers? The big players can do that…

The battery is not an afterthought. The big players do not have an answer to the gigafactory at this point. They can build all the cars they want but without batteries they won’t be electric.

[deleted]