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Comment by lumberjack | Hacker News Reader

>They created a product that is way differentiated from every other car out there and people want to buy it.

What? The Bolt has slightly better range, and probably much better build quality. The difference in price is $2k on a base price of $30k.

And if Chevy could do it, I'm positive most others can too.

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I really like the Bolt and agree as an electric vehicle it is super competitive.

But can I buy a Bolt today and get self driving capabilities on the same car in a few years? That's a pretty massive pull towards the Tesla even if you consider everything else equal.

You don't even have to pay for it now, you can wait it out and pay for the self driving to be activated later once you are sold, but not having to buy an entirely new car to do so is crazy.

I'm hugely bullish on Tesla because they just have so many different angles to win. They have the most experience with electric, they have a massive (and fast) charging network that continues to grow, their electric cars are the priority not a hedge and as mentioned above, they are moving fast into self driving.

I'm not sure if I'd buy a vehicle with promised "self-driving capabilities" (especially if we are talking about full replace-human-pilot watch-movies-instead-of-driving capabilities) in mind until the manufacturer has positively demonstrated that yes, they are able to create that kind of capability with the sensors and hardware vehicles are equipped with.

For example, turning on a self-driving feature that still requires constant vigilance and treating it like it does not ... sounds accident-prone.

There is a long list of companies that are planning to go all electric or to significantly electrify their offerings in the next few years [1, 2, 3]. Chevy/GM is an early entrant into the market because they -- much like Nissan -- need to gain a competitive advantage over VW and Toyota [4].

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/07/volvos-elec...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/07/29/italian...

[3] https://www.ft.com/content/a43ac2ce-3198-11e7-9555-23ef563ec...

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/01/30/its-of...

You get a lot more car with the Model 3 than with the Bolt. Not only do you save $2,000, but you get somewhat better performance, better looks[1], access to Tesla's excellent fast-charging network[2], and excellent active safety systems. If you're willing to pay the extra $5,000 to activate it, you can get Autopilot, which is a game-changer for long highway drives.

Chevy seems to agree with this assessment, planning for an annual production of around 50,000 units.

[1] Subjective, I know, but I think I've yet to see anyone say the Bolt looks better.

[2] You have to pay an extra $750 just to get fast charging enabled in a Bolt, and it only gives you access to CCS chargers, which suck pretty hard as a network currently and are significantly slower.

And Renault Zoe, and BYD ev300. There are electric cars available all round the world, but somehow Tesla got the hype up that they are the only one.

I'm a huge Elon Musk/Tesla/SpaceX fanboy, but I make it a point to reinforce this.

Especially with Tesla, the hype is way, way overboard. It's not connected to reality.

I say that as someone who reserved a Model 3 on the first day, and will be buying one hopefully in a few months. And I also believe the Tesla Motors will very likely become a global, major auto-maker, not based on stock price, but based on how many cars they make.

I do think Teslas are either the best cars in their class or close to it. But the alternatives aren't that far behind, and there's no reason to believe they won't catch up or even surpass the Teslas.

I will end by noting that I believe Elon Musk when he states his goal for Tesla: to 'push the ball forward' regarding the production and use of sustainable energy. He fully expected Tesla Motors to fail, and it nearly did.

So Musk's primary goal isn't to become the largest auto maker in the world. His goal is see the vast majority of new cars being electric, whoever sells them.

I think that kind of straightforward, honest and pragmatic perspective is a big piece of what drives the often rabid fanboyism, and the irrational stock price.

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