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Comment by leesec | Hacker News Reader

In my mind, these big players need to sort out the fields where they're lacking years ago. I can think of about 4 off the top of my head.

1: Batteries and battery tech ( the supply field is limited and Tesla has the biggest leverage here )

2: Self driving, just way way way ahead of the competition you listed ( though i do think Japanese and European brands will start to catch up)

3: Supercharging network (way faster charging, way more coverage)

4: Operating system (Tesla's car is a comprehensive piece of code, the rest of the OEMs can't even send over the air updates for much more than their map, Tesla just gave its car 15 mile extra range for free, has fixed breaking issues in the past, etc... with software update)

And I just don't think they're agile enough to compete with Tesla.

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1: Money fixes this, the others have more money than you can imagine.

2: Tesla self driving is statistically shit, the only two players that count are Cruise and Waymo, and only one of those makes cars. Either way, we're really far off from most people caring outside of HN

3: Electrify America in the US, and a bunch of public stations in Europe. It's a fancy plug, I don't get why people act like they're unobtanium. You can throw one in a Target parking lot and boom, extra customers for an hour or so. I bet they'd even pay for the installation.

4: Sure, I'll give you this one

I love America and American cars, and I want a great new American car company. Tesla is acting like a Silicon Valley parody, and needs to get their shit together. If they can, they can use their brand advantage - they're the new, true Cadillac - and mindshare to kick serious ass.

1. Panasonic actually makes the battery cells and holds the patents on the underlying chemistry. Tesla's battery IP is related to the assembly of the cells with cooling components and other electronics, which isn't much of an advantage.

2. Tesla's self-driving is way ahead of the competition...in terms of dead drivers. The competition restricts the use of self-driving functionality because they would prefer to have living customers who will buy more cars from them in the future, but independent testing suggests their self-driving tech is on par with Tesla's.

3. Tesla's latest-generation charger announced this past month is slower than the latest-generation standard chargers announced 1-2 years ago. While Tesla does have more publicly accessible chargers, there are far more non-Tesla chargers available...and that's not including the charger network VW has to build as part of its emissions scandal settlement. The completed VW network is expected to dwarf the Supercharger network.

4. The rest of the OEMs choose not to send OTA updates for security and safety reasons. Case in point: the SF Tesla death may be related to Tesla changing the way Autopilot worked through an automatic OTA update the owner may not have even been aware of. (And note: Tesla didn't just "give" its cars 15 miles extra range for free--they adjusted the range estimator to be less conservative about mileage remaining.)

agile enough to compete with Tesla

Agility has proved just as much as an Achilles heel to Tesla as an advantage.

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