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Comment by sytelus | Hacker News Reader

I'm still trying to figure out the root cause. Is it because, production is not keeping up to demand? Or is it because demand is dying? So far it seems former, not later. Some analysts are saying random things like impact of tax credit and competition coming in to EV market. I still don't see anything close to Tesla offering in EV space, at least in US.

They really need to focus on offering EV at $18K price point with 300 mile range. Keep self-driving stuff for later. I love Tesla and hope they would come through this.

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EV are still too expensive and Tesla ridiculously so. That’s not a problem if you can’t keep up with demand, but competition creeps up.

Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?

We need better leadership though. I live in Denmark where EVs aren’t very widespread because of taxes. In Norway more than half of new vehicles sold are EV. Norway has more money than us, but they didn’t really need it for this transition and nothing they did are things we couldn’t have.

They simply had better political leadership than we do. I know some Americans might call free market, but we have 150 years of history to show that big advances in society are driven mainly by the public sector if they are to benefit all and happen quickly.

First of all, you basically cannot buy a Hyundai. The production is far below Model 3 levels. Here in Germany, you are looking at 12 months wait time due to demand far exceeding supply.

Also, the Model 3 is a very attractive offering. It is the faster car, aims at the typical BMW audience, and most of all, has the supercharger network available.

As another German I can definitely tell you that no one here sees a Model 3 at anywhere near a BMW in production quality.

If Tesla intends to market the Model 3 at the "BMW audience" - whatever differentiates them from, say, the "Audi audience" - they are horribly miscalculating at what German people expect from a car. It is not limited to EV range.

Also, Volkswagen is ramping up production on their Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB) [1] and within 2-3 years cars with this technology will hit the market.

I wonder if Tesla can keep up when Volkswagen, Toyota or other car heavy weights begin serious EV production once they belief the market is ready. Diesel sales are better then ever in the last years, so they simply could afford to wait and continue to make money until infrastructure ramps up and technology improves. Tesla cannot do that.

[1] https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/modular-electric-driv...

Do you have any info about VW's batteries? If they are building up MEB for the next 2-3 years, they should have some idea of what they are going to do about batteries by now right?

So far, it appears that batteries and drive train efficiency are the secret to Tesla's dominance in efficiency. VW would be a dumb competitor if it comes out in 2-3 years with a car that costs as much or more than a Tesla with only 60% of its range.... there is risk for VW as well here..

Several tests comparing Tesla with NIO show that the efficiency is the same, so not sure about "batteries and drive train efficiency are the secret to Tesla's dominance in efficiency."

Niro has efficiency but it's fast charging and acceleration is considerably worse than Tesla's.

eTron has fast charging and acceleration but efficiency is considerably worse than Telsa's.

Thanks didn't know, was just replying to the parents "efficiency" argument.

> they are horribly miscalculating at what German people expect from a car.

Can you be more specific? What are Teslas lacking for the German market?

Not a German, but we Austrians love wagons and hatchbacks. Sedans are something that only old people drive here.

A car with a tiny trunk like the Model 3 is no good for driving on vacation with the kids.

So, Model Y?

No. Model Y looks more like a crossover or a fastback. These types of cars are getting slightly more common here (for example BMW X4, Mercedes GLE, ...) but they are not mass market cars. These are fancy cars for people with too much money.

The sloping roof means there's not a lot of space in the back. The Model Y might be an improvement compared to Model 3, but it looks like it is still way too long for the amount of space it offers.

Lots of people drive station wagons around here. Cars like the VW Golf Variant, Passat Variant, Audi A4 Avant, BMW 5 series Touring...

People with kids buy family cars like the Citroen C4 Picasso, Opel Zafira, Touran. The Model Y doesn't look like it can compete with those on space.

Smaller SUVs (Tiguan, Peugeot 3008, Nissan Qashqai) are also very popular here, but Model Y doesn't really look like an SUV either.

>> I mean BMW's are considered pretty low end cars here in the US (compared to Audi and Benz) I feel BMW's have just gotten worse and worse in the last 8 years, however Audi and Benz is another story.

>> however the scale of engineering is something else ---> I had a lecture from the CEO of Benz, and i can tell you they are going all in on EV. Tesla needs to survive a few more years >> it is still significantly hard achieving what they have achieved for VW and Benz -> they have production lines tooled for Gasoline -> guess how hard it is to change that and retool? not easy...

> guess how hard it is to change that and retool? not easy...

This is one of the main reasons for VW to develop the MEB. This drive matrix can be used as the foundation for EV iterations on many of their current production models plus new ones of course:

> The MEB platform is part of a wide strategy to start production of new battery electric vehicles between 2019 and 2025. In 2017, the VW Group announced a gradual transition from combustion engine to battery electric vehicles with all 300 models across 12 brands having an electric version by 2030.

> As of May 2018, the VW Group has committed $48 billion in car battery supplies and plans to outfit 16 factories to build electric cars by the end of 2022. The upcoming Volkswagen-branded production cars will be assembled in VW's Zwickau plant in Germany for the European market from 2020, while two production centers in North America and China are planned to be "launched at almost the same time". The Škoda-branded SUV Vision E is to be produced in the Škoda plant Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic, along with electric motors and electric car batteries. [1]

I wonder how Tesla will keep up with that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform

Maybe not the Model 3, but the model S has replaced a lot of the Mercedeses that used to dominate the taxi fleet in Amsterdam.

It's entirely possible that Germany is more conservative than Amsterdam, though.

This was mostly due to a tax incentive if I remember correctly.

> Maybe not the Model 3, but the model S has replaced a lot of the Mercedeses that used to dominate the taxi fleet in Amsterdam.

> It's entirely possible that Germany is more conservative than Amsterdam, though.

The taxi driver I spoke to about it told me they were using Teslas because they had gotten an agreement for free charging. I believe this has since changed though (this was almost four years ago).

> As another German I can definitely tell you that no one here sees a Model 3 at anywhere near a BMW in production quality.

Good!

>Also, the Model 3 is a very attractive offering. It is the faster car, aims at the typical BMW audience

Until you find out your range goes down significantly when you drive fast... I was seriously considering tesla model 3 as most of my trips are below 40 miles, but occasionally I do need to drive to another city 200 miles away, and when I do I want to be able to drive at the same speed I normally use at the motorway (around 90-95mph, or 150km/h). Tesla model 3 will give you less than 100 miles of range at that speed and that is what will kill Tesla for many people who currently drive VWs and BMWs.

Most cars at that speed will get significantly reduced range, due to engine inefficiency and drag. Even then, a battery with 220 mile range should still get well over 100 in reality .

I don't know where you got your numbers from, but according to next move it has about 200 miles of range at 150km/h, going ever so slightly slower (and you probably will have sections with a speed limit anyway in between) would let you comfortably make the trip: https://nextmove.de/tesla-model-3-reichweitentest-bei-150-vs...

"Why would you buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?"

Lol, is this a serious question?

is this a serious question?

Of course it is. Saving a lot of money on a car means you can spend a lot of money on other things you enjoy. So why would you pay a lot of money to drive a Tesla instead of a Hyundai? Because the Tesla looks better? Drives better? Has better safety features? Is more reliable? Has a higher status value?

I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to buy a Tesla instead of Hyundai and had they cost the same then sure I'd buy a Tesla as well. But if I was in the market for a new electric car then "Why buy a Tesla when you can buy a Hyundai Kona for a lot less?" would definitely be a serious question I would be asking myself and I'm not sure I would come up with a good answer (or at least not a better answer than Tesla's are cool).

>I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to buy a Tesla instead of Hyundai and had they cost the same then sure I'd buy a Tesla as well.

The MSRP on the base-model Kona is $36,950, which is a bit less than the $39,500 Tesla SR+, but not dramatically. The next level of trim above the base model Kona is $41,500, and doesn't seem to add any significant features (LED headlamps, etc., which Tesla already has.) The highest level of Kona trim is $44,900, which is only $5k less than the Tesla Long Range model! My suspicion is that, given the low production numbers, Hyundai is going to focus primarily on selling the more expensive models. In practice this means (with a few lucky exceptions) you're looking at Tesla prices to get a Hyundai.

Fair enough. I was looking at the prices here in Sweden and here the base model Kona is ~$18k cheaper than the base model SR+.

> Lol, is this a serious question?

A lot of people can't afford expensive cars...

And a lot of people who can afford expensive cars might still priorities spending their money on other things.

Obviously, my point was that OP was just brushing away something like 60-80% of the population like they didn't exist.

>I'm still trying to figure out the root cause. Is it because, production is not keeping up to demand? Or is it because demand is dying? So far it seems former, not later.

That's what you conclude after seeing them produce more cars than they delivered last quarter, with inventory build-ups all over the country, and quarter-over-quarter decrease in revenues, even though they slashed prices? That they still can't keep up with demand?

There's also a general slump in car sales in Tesla's main M3 markets lately:

https://www.best-selling-cars.com/international/2019-latest-...

I suspect we are still quite a few years away from an $18K EV, maybe even a decade.

I wonder if the industry might have been better off focusing on plugin hybrids to start with, you can get most of the benefits whilst battery production ramps up and costs fall.

They are slightly overproducing the SR+ (with fewer battery cells) and slight underproducing the LR (with more cells). What does that tell you about supply constraints?

> Or is it because demand is dying?

The demand was for something that they no longer sell.

Two things:

The demand for the semi-premium model outweighed the standard by 6 to 1, so no, the demand is right where the new obvious entry model is.

It is still technically available, but not in any obvious way (if you weren’t to already know, it’d be fair enough to assume it wasn’t available anymore).

That’s because they called literally every SR purchaser and hard sold them to get SR+; and said SR was many months away from delivery.

That was part of it, but also an extra $2,500 for 20 miles more range and a much nicer car was a very appealing offer. I certainly would have taken it.

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