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Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

reuters.com

71–80 of 91 posts

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no clue whether it's a piece of shit or not. But the specs you mention seem fine to me.

100-150 kms range is fine with you? I’m certainly not going to spend 20k for such range. I might accept lower build quality, less acceleration, slow charging, ugly design… but for 20k I expect at least 250-300 kms of real range in 2023.

Considering it's literally the only widely available vehicle in that price range, why would you expect such a thing? The price is so low in big part because it has such characteristics such as low range. Also, the market for it is short range day commute and related trips, for which the range is sufficient.

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#72
The (now deleted) comment poking fun at the German minimum wage is especially funny if you consider how anti-union Tesla is and that the German industrial union IG Metall only last month managed to get into Tesla, despite the management's best efforts.

The minimum wage in Germany is €12/h (Oct 2022), compared to $7.25/h in the US (2009). When introduced in 2015 the German minimum wage was €8.50/h. If it had only ever been adjusted for inflation, it would have been at €10.05/h at the start of 2023. By contrast, if the US minimum wage had been adjusted for inflation following its last adjustment in 2009, it would have been at $10.40/h by now. Remember that anything less than correcting for inflation represents an income reduction as it means a loss of spending power.

For additional context: in German law, minimum wage is tied to a representative index of union wages (the Tariflohnindex, tracked by the federal office of statistics). Despite an overall decline in membership (mostly due to the "liberalization" of the job market, i.e. the creation of temp work agencies whose "contractors" can not join unions - though these may still benefit from union wages negotiated in the companies they are stationed at, and the heavy regulation around unions effectively prohibiting micro-unions like in the US or coordinated "solidarity" strikes) this index provides a good "temperature gauge" for wage developments. In other words: when union wages (in aggregate) go up, minimum wage goes up. When they stagnate, minimum wage stagnates.

This is different from welfare (formerly Hartz IV, now Bürgergeld, which previously was supposed to be a form of federal UBI) which is intended to track inflation as it is only meant to cover a standard of "needs" (which in turn are supposed to be individualized by taking into account various factors like number of people in the household).

In other words: welfare exists to provide a social safety net to cover a person's needs, federal minimum wage exists to provide a baseline for wages to ensure employees are paid a non-exploitative wage for their labor if they're unable to join a union that would help them negotiate a better wage and there is no union available to them.

So minimum wage is really more of a "fallback union wage", typically benefitting direct hires in low prestige jobs like cleaning. Note that a better equivalent of American company-specific unions is the construct of a Betriebsrat, a form of works council, which the employees of any company with at least 5 "regular employees" are eligible to form and grants special protections to its elected officials (the number of which is also specified by law). Neither has anything to do with worker ownership, i.e. cooperatives, or employee share schemes (more common in the US).

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#73
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of budget you have? 25k euro is a pretty good price range for a small electric car, maybe you're better suited looking for second-hand cars.

25k is quite a lot for many average salaried people in Europe, indeed the step bump of price (almost 2x in 10 years) of non-electric cars already put the eu market in a dire position where most people are not able to replace their car anymore and keep using very old cars with very high pollution outputs

That's exactly my point. Thanks for putting it down in words :-)

A car is not a luxury good: it's something I buy because I have to. I'll go Dacia this time.

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no clue whether it's a piece of shit or not. But the specs you mention seem fine to me.

100-150 kms range is fine with you? I’m certainly not going to spend 20k for such range. I might accept lower build quality, less acceleration, slow charging, ugly design… but for 20k I expect at least 250-300 kms of real range in 2023.

Sure. You are paying for the cheapest option and sacrifice in range. 99% of car usage for me would be short trips <30km.

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#76
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regular bikes are super cheap, but if you buy a top of the line, specialised and low quantity bike you're paying a premium of course. Price is never about the material used... an iphone would be $200 if it was the case. Look into economy of scale, how money is made through maintenance/parts/after sale services, &c.

I'm not talking about 10k bikes, but also not supermarket bikes. I said complexity and materials. An iPhone is extremely complex but it's only so cheap because electronics scale extremely well, probably only software does better. Logically there should be more bikes than cars so the economy of scale should be in their favor. Bike maintenance isn't cheap either. Cars need to go through much more certification etc. The…

You can buy a basic city bike for https://www.decathlon.fr/p/mp/moma-bikes/velo-trekking-hybri...

> Logically there should be more bikes than cars

There are twice as many cars than bikes in France from what I can find online, not sure about the rest of the world.

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#77
post #64
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how many locations depend on having car available and public transport offerings are a joke even in Europe, I am more going into the deadlines being pushed back scenario. Not everyone is living in Amsterdam, Berlin, London,... city center.

Here in the Swiss countryside public transport is okay, at least to my tastes (I know I criticize sometimes but only first world problems). So if those other countries need a working model, here we are waving at them...

Sure, if they also manage to have Swiss income and life quality in first place.

I lived there for a couple of years during my CERN days.

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#78
post #69
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's an absolute piece of shit that does 0-100kph in 20s and tops out a 125kph (and at that speed you're not going much farther than 100km)

It's a (sub)urban vehicle, those sound perfectly in line with its role. Do you judge vans and other utility vehicles on their 0-100 kph too?

The 1.0l 3cyl shitbox my dad bought for 12k euros new a few years back accelerates 50% faster and tops out at 170kmh so yes sorry but this is just unacceptable at that price, it's borderline unsafe

20k is a lot of money to put in a car for most people in Europe, you can buy a decent used ice car and enough gas for the next 50 years if you exclusively use your car in an urban environment

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100-150 kms range is fine with you? I’m certainly not going to spend 20k for such range. I might accept lower build quality, less acceleration, slow charging, ugly design… but for 20k I expect at least 250-300 kms of real range in 2023.

Sure. You are paying for the cheapest option and sacrifice in range. 99% of car usage for me would be short trips <30km.

But if you use your car so little why would you spend 20k on one of the worst car experience of modern history ?

You have no perf, no comfort, no status

Re: Tesla to build 25,000-euro car at German plant

#80
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he is a liar because he is known to have lied in many of his "predictions". The fact is that those were not predictions, those were lies aimed at pumping up the stock price of his company, massively overpromising things that he likely fully knew were unachievable. I don't even hate the guy by the way. It's difficult to read balanced takes on him since he is such a polarizing figure, especially after he bought Twi…

> No, he is a liar because he is known to have lied in many of his "predictions". Ok, so please provide the exact time you consider it a "lie" and not a "prediction" > The fact is that those were not predictions, those were lies aimed at pumping up the stock price of his company, He's won every single lawsuit about this so far, but feel free to sue him if you think this is what he did. With the level of scrutiny tesl…

Well,

> https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk...

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