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Comment by aerovistae | Hacker News Reader

This is such a stupid article. Why do people insist on pursuing the idea that there may not be enough demand for the model 3? A car that Tesla can’t even produce enough of yet to meet a fraction of the demand from people already on the waiting list, all without having done any advertising, and everyone’s fretting nobody will want to buy it. It’s absurd.

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The article is not stupid at all. The author never claimed that "there may not be enough demand for the model 3." You're putting those words in her mouth. What she said is that people are rapidly asking for refunds, that Tesla's manufacturing is in trouble, and that this is a serious cause of concern for investors. All of those things are indisputable facts that anyone interested in electric cars would want to hear.

And you can't claim that Tesla being unable to meet demand means demand is high. Supply is appallingly low, so even a low demand could result in the backlog of orders we see. The fact that demand exceeds supply doesn't imply that the demand is high enough to keep the company afloat.

The article is stupid. The author doesn't have to directly claim there isn't enough demand, because the premise of the article comprehensively implies it.

> this is a serious cause of concern for investors.

No, it isn't. It's immaterial. Tesla isn't about to get pushed over the brink by some canceled reservations. Even if they had to give up $150 million in reservations out of their several billion dollars on hand, production is gaining steam at a very rapid pace. They're delivering tens of thousands of Model 3's per quarter now. The income from the fulfilled reservations will eclipse the trivial cancellation numbers by so much that I consider it irresponsible financial reporting to suggest otherwise.

It's just short-side proselytising, is what it is. It's showing half the picture to reach a flawed conclusion for readers who don't know better.

And moreover, I love how in the past year or so suddenly everyone and their aunt is an expert on production and manufacturing and is quite confident that Tesla doing a bad job. Compared to what, exactly? All the other brand new car manufacturers that sprung up a decade ago? Oh, wait.

The article isn't fretting about a lack of demand. Clearly the demand is there. Tesla just absolutely sucks at delivering. I'm going to buy a new car this weekend, and if I could actually get a Tesla Model 3, I would. But I need a car, and I'm not getting in line and waiting a year on the off chance that they figure out how to actually manufacture something.

In May 2018 in US (https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/):

Tesla doubled the sales of Model 3 from LAST MONTH, maintaining their position as US best selling fully electric car.

Second and third best selling fully electric car is Model S and Model X.

Fourth best selling fully electric car, Chevy Bolt, had the worst monthly sales, at less than 1/5th of Model 3 sales. Then there's Nissan Leaf and Fiat 500e.

"sucks at delivering" is apparently relative and Tesla is being measured by a stick from a different planet.

You're not being consistent, and revealing your anti-Tesla bias. They have figured out to manufacture the Model 3, they deliver new serial numbers of that car every day of the week. And like I usually say in my replies in Tesla threads, it's really something to be grateful for that America is still a place where a car company can be built, and we should all share a collective pride towards those who have carved out the future for young Americans and young people around the world. I understand that you won't be buying a Tesla this weekend because they are not available but I really feel that the anti-Tesla bias is very much misplaced and resentful towards one of the greatest blessings of the 21st century.

> it's really something to be grateful for that America is still a place where a car company can be built

we should be proud we can manage to do something we've already been doing for 100 years?

Yes, we should indeed be proud that we can still do it over from scratch with new technology, since the past fifty years implied pretty strongly that we actually couldn't anymore, and certainly I don't see new car companies springing up anywhere else besides China.

What's more, by that clever little formulation of yours, you can cynically dismiss so many things of value. Why be proud of anything anyone does here unless you've never seen anything like it before on the face of this earth, right?

I think he's referring to the fact that most of the manufacturing once done in the US has been off-shored to China etc.

Why pay X for something if you can get it for X/3?

Seems to be all about shorts.

It's about Tesla leaving money on the table because they can't execute.

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