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Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

> Tesla which is run by a delusional snake oil salesman

Dude, you may not like Musk personally (which is glaringly obvious), but at least stick to the facts - he triggered much needed car industry transformation more than anybody else in recent times. industry itself wouldn't change itself so rapidly even if planet would be burning, that's obvious. And mankind gravely needs it now. Plus small detail about revolutionizing whole commercial space industry in extremely effective way.

Mankind now gravely needs more of these 'snake oil salesmen', even with their missteps

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Ah yes, because it's not like the Prius demonstrated that there was a market for green car, or the CA or federal green car credits and HOV access provided incentives to people to buy said green cars, or federal regulations regarding fleet emissions standards created the market for trading emissions credits that has singlehandedly kept Tesla afloat everytime it's come closer to running out of money.

No, apparently Tesla did all that on it's own.

It's silly to shun emissions credits that are desperately needed to electrify transportation considering the trillions of dollars of subsides petroleum has received and the severity of climate change. The market for an underpowered hybrid like the Prius is not the same as a market for an EV with no compromises (how does one compare a Model 3 to a Prius?).

Any automaker gets ZEV credits and federal tax credits for their EVs sold, Tesla is the only automaker selling EVs people want to buy (in quantity). Tesla has already sold more Model 3s in a quarter than Chevy has sold Bolts ever. So why is Tesla the one selling hundreds of thousands of EVs per year and no one else is?

"How dare Tesla take advantage of these regulatory and market advantages anyone else could be taking advantage of!" /s

Saying that Tesla has "no compromises" is very much definition of selling snake oil.

Sorry to hear that's your opinion! Besides waiting a bit longer to Supercharge vs getting a tank of gas (which is rare, only when traveling, I charge at home every night), my experience has been much better with a Tesla than any internal combustion vehicle I've owned.

That's not really the only compromise Tesla has. It got terrible ergonomics, lack of what is now isn't considered particularly luxury features, mediocre build quality, repairs that can take months etc. But it got fart jokes! So it all evens out. /s

For my personal usage, when I am traveling (which usually is something like driving 2000 miles with a single long stop) filling/charging time makes all the difference between getting there how I want it or not, too.

You might have a point if there wasn't any demand, but Tesla is shipping almost 360k vehicles a year (and Gigafactory 3 in China is about to turn up). Someone likes the cars they build.

Very, very few people use their car as you describe (2000 miles in a single sprint). If you must perform such a trip, most will fly or rent a car just for that trip.

Oh, of course there is demand, that's quite obvious. (Well, there was demand for Juicero, too, for a while)

Not too many people might use the car exactly like that, and I do it only when I actually need to get the car there. Otherwise flying is more pleasant. But there are quite a few use cases where recharge/refuel time, usually for people who need cars to make a living.

Personally, I just will not, ever, buy anything from Musk, because I think that he is a terrible (even by SV standards) person, but yeah, sure, Teslas obviously work for some people. But saying that they are the bestest, uncompromiziest, never before had the world seen anything as awesome super-vehicles is just ridiculous.

If anything, driving across Southern US, even if you are on a leisurely road trip, in a car with cooled seats (a $30K Hyundai works) is far more pleasant than in a car with fart jokes.

It's silly to shun emissions credits that are desperately needed to electrify transportation considering the trillions of dollars of subsides petroleum has received and the severity of climate change.

It's disingenuous to claim that subsidies for petroleum are remotely the same thing as subsidies for EVs. You're comparing corn to apples here. The proper comparison would be subsidies for renewable energy like solar and wind to subsidies for petroleum, since in both cases the subsidies are indirect to the market that's were talking about: automobiles.

It's also disingenuous to claim that subsidies stretching out over a century, and partially rooted in global geopolitical politics, are the same thing as subsidies that have been around for about a decade.

Finally, it's disingenuous to cite the "trillions" of subsidies worldwide for petroleum while leaving out the hundreds of billions of subdisidies that green power like solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear have received worldwide.

Tesla has already sold more Model 3s in a quarter than Chevy has sold Bolts ever....So why is Tesla the one selling hundreds of thousands of EVs per year and no one else is?

The Chevy Bolt is supply-constrained; total global production is 30,000 vehicles a year. There are currently waitlists at every dealership selling a Bolt. Competing EVs like the iPace are similarly supply-constrained and also have months-long waiting lists. Unlike Tesla, other automakers launch models slowly and scale up production as demand proves itself and production hiccups reveal themselves and are addressed. Last I checked, there's no months-long waiting period to get a Chevy Bolt fixed because (a) they don't need fixing straight out of the factory like so many Teslas do and (b) the supply of repair parts is readily accessible due to Chevy's mastery of basic automobile logistics...

Tesla made it cool. Prius was never primarily known for being eco-friendly, it was known as the car that dorks and hippies drove. Ignoring the cultural impact of Tesla is why plenty of green vehicles failed in the past.

Tesla made it cool.

Outside of SV, Teslas aren't viewed as any cooler than Priuses. They're actually seen as much worse--elitist vehicles--since Priuses are affordable for most families and Teslas are not, plus require lots of expensive infrastructure just for basic use.

I know a few people who drive Teslas. Not one of them is someone who would even be remotely described as cool. I know a lot of people who drive Priuses, and they range the gamut from dorky to cool.

Ignoring the cultural impact of Tesla is why plenty of green vehicles failed in the past.

What cultural impact? Tesla's influence operates largely in a self-made echo chamber. Outside of the echo chamber, it's had literally no impact on car sales or car culture.

Green cars failed in the past because they were (a) super expensive and (b) had no marketing spend. Tesla's innovation was the same innovation that Toyota made a decade earlier with the Prius--green cars will sell if you market them to customers. (And despite Elon's claims that Tesla spends $0 on marketing, Tesla spends roughly $100m/year or more on marketing, per their SEC filings.)

The Prius succeeded in spite of itself. They are ugly as hell, didn't offer plug in capability for years despite customers begging for it, so slow you can barely merge onto the highway and not the most ideal family car. It's the kind of car you put up with because you want to be green or you have a shitty commute and you're tired of paying $4/gallon for gas. Nobody buys a Prius for any reason other than that it's a hybrid with great fuel economy. Nobody. Then there was the Honda Insight which was worse in every way.

Teslas appeal to both the customers who want to be green and the ones who don't give a rat's ass about the environment. They look nice, they go fast, they hardly require any maintenance and they have a badass infotainment system which no other manufacturer has been able to get right. The first Model S really popped and people were buying it in spite of the uncertainty around it being electric. Then they started loading them up with tech and driver aids.

I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I don't know how anyone who's into cars can look at one and not find something cool about it.

As for "expensive infrastructure", you do realize the first car manufacturers didn't decide to start building gas cars in the beginning simply to take advantage of the gas station infrastructure that was already in place? Electric cars are here to stay. Sooner or later somebody had to start building charging stations just like somebody had to start building gas stations.

> Nobody buys a Prius for any reason other than that it's a hybrid with great fuel economy. Nobody. Then there was the Honda Insight which was worse in every way.

I don't understand this comparison. Yes, it's a commuter appliance. Any car you spend 90k on is going to look nicer and go faster than a Prius. So will a 7 series, who cares?

What the Prius did is mainstream the idea of hybrids and "green" vehicles in general, and they've sold a zillion of them. Go ahead and call it boring (it's super boring), but so is essentially every other commuter car it's competing against. The Model S on the other hand has only "popped" among people who can buy luxury sports cars to begin with. It's fast, it's impressive, and it's a niche luxury product whose entire fleet is a rounding error in Prius sales figures.

Except that "dorks and hippies" drove it very much because it was the eco-friendliest thing out there.

The Prius is hybrid, what has it to do with green cars?

correct, thank you for acknowledging that.

What did he trigger exactly that wasn't triggered by regulation? He just exploited some regulations to keep his structurally bankrupt company afloat long enough. Tried the same with Solar City and failed BTW.

No other automaker is building EVs at the scale Tesla is (nor has built out global EV charging infrastructure to support those vehicles being built and sold). No EV being sold today meets the standards set by Tesla's vehicles sold in 2013.

I don't disagree but I thought that they triggered some sort of transformation. Here you are agreeing with me that they didn't.

I'm not agreeing at all. BMW just lost their CEO because they've lost so many sales to Tesla. Other automakers are desperately trying to play catchup to them.

I have never had people come up to any other car I've owned (Chevrolet, Mercedes, Jeep, Toyota, Lexus, Infiniti) besides our Model S and Model X with questions, tell us the car is beautiful (in an Aldi parking lot no less), or want to go for an impromptu ride along. I've never had kids run up to any of our cars besides our Teslas and go "omg it's a Tesla!!".

The transformation was making electric cars better than internal combustion vehicles in every way, sexy, and desirable. Mission accomplished.

Kids absolutely love Teslas. Can’t tell you how many “look mom a Tesla!”, “Oh my god Joey did you see the Tesla!”, or my favorite, “Tessslaaaah!”

And they just start grinning at you as you drive by. It’s like what we used to do for the Lambos.

CEOs come and go and that has nothing to do with Tesla, despite how much you want it to be.

So the transformation that he triggered was that people would ask about your car? Or what? A 0.5% market or thereabouts market share?

What a mission to accomplish! Bravo.

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