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Comment by robocat | Hacker News Reader

"Tesla has been an excellent example of a micro-bubble. Tesla’s current price is arguably fair if most cars are powered by electricity in 10 years, if most of these cars are made by Tesla, if Tesla can make those cars with sufficient margin and quality control and can service the cars properly, and if Tesla can raise additional capital sufficient to cover a $3 billion annual cash drain and another billion to service its debt."

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So far the QC is sorely lacking on Tesla's cars, nevermind getting parts for your car after a few years. Its incredible what Tesla has gotten away with in terms of locking people out from repairing their own cars!

If you own a salvaged Tesla, you can’t get a single part (not even a screw or a little plastic bolt cover), you can’t use the supercharger, you can’t use AutoPilot, you can’t apply for any recall (not even government mandated ones) and the software diagnostics tool is paid by the hour.

There are several Youtube users that have salvaged a water-damaged Tesla by using the battery, engine and electronics from a crash-damaged Tesla using nothing but backyard engineering. Tesla doesn’t supply parts so they have to grab everything from donor vehicles.

I have to say knowing someone who has a salvaged Tesla, that this doesn't sound right at all. He's a very happy owner of an early (2013?) Tesla. Biggest complaint after 4 years is the rear toe-in, but that was fixed at the alignment shop. Maybe there are issues with the newer ones, but he loves his and the few issues he's had were easily fixed. He uses (and pays for) Supercharging.

"If you own a salvaged Tesla, you can’t get a single part (not even a screw or a little plastic bolt cover), you can’t use the supercharger".

With ebay and other on-line tools there is a thriving 'Junkyard' scene for Teslas... parts are available and relatively cheap. Maintenance levels are lower (no ICE/transmission) and most parts have German equivalents. Yes, there are 'makers', 'hackers', and backyard mechanics... some of them are dangerous (crazy car mods). Biggest concerns are the cooling system for the batteries and the wiring harness since those are safety critical and unique to Tesla.

On the other hand we have have 60k deadly Takata airbags driving around on the road (post recall) and no-body (not NHTSA or the insurance companies) are trying to do something about it. Think about all of the bad fuel pumps and rotting hoses on old gas-powered cars...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/why...?

https://jalopnik.com/thousands-of-you-are-still-riding-aroun...

How are you supposed to get repairs then?

The car is disposable, meant to be sent to the crusher once its out of warranty. Really screwed up business model IMO, but people seem to be buying Tesla's still.

That is not true. The very first Tesla had little that Tesla bothered to repair, and so for any major repair, Tesla would tell the insurance that the car was totaled. Which was a boon for people who salvage them.

A friend salvaged a 85 that had no structural damage, but was dimmed totaled by insurance. Tesla then revised the policy and now Tesla repairs more. I know a mechanics at Tesla, and his job is to repair Teslas. Tesla used to send him across the globe and shipped parts so he could repair the car on site. Now, Tesla expands its repair facilities, so no more travel for him.

strange there hasn't been a lawsuit about this as its almost certainly massively illegal.

Nope, John Deere (tractors) has been doing it for ages and the farmers are trying to fight it.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pamkqn/watch-trac...

It's entirely legal because all of the rules surrounding the right to repair and maintain cars are related to emissions certifications, which Tesla doesn't have to do... Other car manufacturers, like Nissan, certify their fully electric vehicles as zero emission solely to have them count in their total fleet CAFE standards numbers, but that means that they have to provide warranties, parts, repair manuals, etc. in line with the federal rules. Tesla exists outside that system.

We should be pushing to have the warranties and the safety critical systems parts and repair information covered under the NHTSA safety certification rather than the EPA emissions certification, but that hasn't been necessary until very recently, and honestly, the majority of people willing to buy a Tesla aren't going to work on them, just like the majority of people buying a regular car aren't going to work on them, so it hasn't been a real issue yet. Personally, I wouldn't buy anything that I don't have a legally enforceable guarantee of aftermarket parts, manuals, etc. on because I don't trust any company to actually provide ongoing support, esp. in tech cough google chat services cough. Particularly given the dollar figures involved...

If you're in the US (I'm going by the reference to a lawsuit), then I don't think it is. This is just the way this company does business and in the states they are free to do so.

why would it be illegal?

Those youtube videos are highly recommended

Apple did the exact same for computers, Tesla is surfing on the same kind of hype wave I suppose

But cars cost A LOT more than phones...

What about tractors? See John Deere:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pamkqn/watch-trac...

Principles shouldn't depend on price for applicability.

It's not like it's that much better with other automakers. I have a 2008 Prius touchscreen that could use replacement. From the manufacturer, you're looking at 700-1k for that repair, on a car that is worth possibly 3k. I could search through a junkyard for a replacement, but even then, I'm possibly spending 15% of the value of the car on a non-essential repair.

Getting specialized/rare parts in general is just a pricy proposition. It's a sad fact of buying machines these days.

Not saying the quote's depiction is accurate, but I like the way that the stock price is connected to a future state. Much easier to understand than "the PE ratio is too high".

The stock price is always connected to a future state. The PE ratio is one way to think about that connection. But if the future state is going to be amazing, then the (current) PE isn't really a relevant number. The PE only works if there's normal continuity between the current state and the future.

Or rather, the PE only doesn't work if there's a large discontinuity between the current state and the future. If the amazing future isn't going to show up, then you're left with "the PE ratio is too high".

stock price is the market consensus on the current value of all future cash flows to the firm (in a wisdom of the crowds kinda way). stock price getting disconnected from that underlying basis is one way to define a bubble.

Financial projections will undervalue Tesla because they are very different from other car companies - they are a monopoly with gigantic barriers to entry on many fronts. Other carmakers could copy some features of Tesla's cars, but they can't easily copy the multi-billion-dollar factories that make other features possible. They have better engineers than other car companies and a culture that works them harder. They avoided the dealership system and built their own stores. Elon Musk's PR stunts and Twitter feed are a much more effective method of advertising than the TV and Internet ads other car companies use.

> very different > gigantic barriers to entry

What are those? I'm fond of Tesla, but they don't have an insurmountable moat around their technology. There's nothing intrinsically novel about their approach (especially outside the US where direct to consumer is a common model), they just had the benefit of a clean slate to build it out, rather than incrementally changing systems, platforms and procedures like other car manufacturers.

The halo of an eccentric billionaire genius wears off pretty quickly if they can't continue to compete on price, design, safety, and other areas of public perception.

It remains to be seen if Tesla engineers are objectively "better" than those at other car manufacturers, because very few directly compete at present. The number of "ground up" electric cars is quite small, compared with ones hamstrung by retrofitting electric powertrains into existing platforms.

> Elon Musk's PR stunts and Twitter feed are a much more effective method of advertising than the TV and Internet ads other car companies use.

Elon Musk's PR stunts and Twitter feed are a much more effective method of advertising to the ahead-of-the-curve, switched on audience who're interested in Tesla's current offering than the TV and Internet ads other car companies use. Again, there's nothing yet showing you can extrapolate this out once other manufacturers are truly competing in the same space.

I think they're great, and I want one - but we do need to be a little pragmatic about their position in the industry.

> They have better engineers than other car companies

Huh... Quality of Teslas by most accounts is terrible. Not to mention the recent scandals over autopilot safety. Not sure where you got that idea.

All launches of a completely new automobile by any automaker will tend to have quality problems. It’s unclear whether Tesla’s quality issues are significantly different from those experienced by more established automakers.

Ok, but that doesn't really demonstrate that Tesla have better engineers.

I have never been in any Teslas car. But I am so curious about this:

>Quality of Teslas by most accounts is terrible

Can you elaborate a little bit about this?

Peruse Tesla owner forums and reddit. The model 3 in particular has quality issues on brand new cars. Compare it to buying a Honda or Toyota - you're not going to have the kinds of problems described.

I did what you asked. I stopped after a few minutes.

http://www.odyclub.com/forums/54-2011-2017-odyssey/197033-bo...

https://www.civicx.com/threads/any-issues-so-far-fit-finish-...

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/misaligned-rear-bumper.5...

Well of course you're going to see people post about issues they're having if you look on forums. Nobody goes out of their way to look on forums and make posts sharing their frustration over the lack of problems they have with their car.

I've been on Honda and Toyota forums in the past, and there was nothing like "my car panels are misaligned fresh out of the factory".

Come on, I'm trying to be scientific about this and you're just going to swing in with a rude, ad hominem argument about "Tesla fanboys"? Claiming that Tesla having bad QC is "common knowledge" doesn't somehow insulate you and your friends from stuff like confirmation bias.

And to address your other point, if you search the web for panel alignment issues on Honda or Toyota cars there seem to be plenty of those out there as well.

Fair enough! My main point was it's not clear that engineers at Tesla are better than those elsewhere. Even if all car companies are terrible. The other biases are my own, and are purely anecdotal based on my own experience and what others tell me. I'll leave it to other people with more time to do a scientific comparison.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+quality+control+issues...

Googling "toyota quality control issues" returns news about a recall of 1.75 million cars. So it seems the "reliable" brands have the same problems. Unless we can quantify it better, it's hard to compare.

JD Power typically produce rankings of faults per 100 vehicles, which seems to be the best metric: http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/jd-power-2018-us-vehic...

Unfortunately Tesla aren't part of this study.

Except when Toyota does a recall, its just a note in the mail and a little extra work at your next service appointment.

When Tesla does a recall, its a major headline news story and fodder for many forum trolls to use in their rants against the company. (plus, a notice and a little extra work at your next service appointment)

> Elon Musk's PR stunts and Twitter feed are a much more effective method of advertising than the TV and Internet ads other car companies use.

I think there's a bias here. This kind of PR resonates more with "techie" people (as found on HN) than with the rest. For some groups of people, TV ads are probably much more effective.

Musk's tweet from 9:00 is the 10:00 news headlines. News headlines are (probably) more effective than ads.

In the USA that might be but abroad I don't think it'll be enough. I doubt Musk's tweets make (regularly) the headlines in Germany, Japan or China.

Not even in Norway where we have more Teslas per head than anywhere else.

> they are a monopoly with gigantic barriers to entry

A monopoly on what, precisely?

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