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Comment by neuronic | Hacker News Reader

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...

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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.

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).

>> 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

> 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!

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