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Comment by kayoone | Hacker News Reader

Tesla needed to have something groundbreaking like the Model S, otherwise they would never have gotten the attention and sales that they got. The germans already had an established business and didn't need to take risks. Also their sales are strong and even increasing, so i don't buy the argument the press is spinning that Audi/BMW/Merc/Porsche are being left behind by Tesla. They have some very impressive technology in the works and Tesla still has to prove that it can be really profitable.

Still i love Tesla for what they did and the movement they started.

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> Also their sales are strong and even increasing

Nokia and Blackberry unit sales rose for 3.5 years after the iPhone debuted.

Tesla is making enormous investments in their business. (For example their enormous gigafactory will provide scale advantages). When these investments start bearing fruit the Germans may find it difficult to compete

The canonical reply from Elon Musk on profitability is that they hope to profitable on a GAAP basis in 2020. Let's see if external investors hang in there long enough to allow this. ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/as-tesla-g... )

It will be very interesting to see what happens to the used Model S prices now that Tesla took away the buyback guarantee for new cars.

Compared to shorter range cars I think they are going to do much better. A 90 mile Nelson leaf is ok, a 60 mile neon leaf on the other hand. A 5 year old model S likely has more range than a new leaf and if it bothers you getting a new battery will drastically boost that range.

So, at resale a model S is probably well north of 30k.

Tesla is eating into their luxury sales: The 70-100K+ car market segment is smaller and the USA/Japanese dominate the lower end.

Every rich guy buying a Tesla instead of an Audi or Merc is taking away market share the euro car makers are unlikely to get back. I don't hear many stories of people "upgrading" from a Tesla to an Audi or Merc.

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