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Comment by pmorici | Hacker News Reader

Sure is, you can haggle about whether it will be in 5 years, 8 years or somewhere in between but I think Tesla growing as big as Toyota is almost inevitable.

In 5 years Tesla will be producing at least 7 models including 2 cars (S & 3) , 2 crossover/SUVs (X & Y), 1 sports car (roadster), 1 pick-up truck, 1 semi-truck.

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I don't think Tesla will get as big as Toyota. Toyota is the second highest selling car company, and they're a close second to Volkswagen. Volkswagen Group will be the biggest electric car company in a few years because they're spending the most money on it:

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vws-91b-spend-evs-out...

Volkswagen's current and soon to be released battery electrics are the VW e-Up!, VW e-Golf (though this is being discontinued), VW ID.3, SEAT Mii Electric, SEAT el-Born, Skoda Citigo iV, Skoda Vision iV, Audi e-tron, and the Porsche Taycan.

Future Volkswagen battery electrics are the VW ID Crozz, VW ID Roomz, VW ID Buzz, Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, Porsche Macan electric, Audi e-tron GT, and the Audi e-tron Q4. Volkwagen's roadmap is bigger and broader than Tesla's can be simply because Volkswagen operates at a larger scale.

I doubt VW will be able to compete with Tesla in the near term on EV's. Look at the Taycan for example. It's a nice looking car but unless you had brand loyalty to Porsche it doesn't stack up against the Model S. It's slower in both acceleration and top speed, has less range and for that less good car you pay a lot more money. VWs struggle is going to be producing a car that can compete on specs with Tesla at a similar price point. They just don't have the battery cost advantage that Tesla has spent the last decade building.

> I doubt VW will be able to compete with Tesla in the near term on EV's.

Volkswagen sells EVs cheaper than any Tesla and Volkswagen also sells EVs more expensive than any Tesla, which is the point. The selection of EVs from Volkswagen is already broader than what Tesla offers.

The Porsche Taycan's Nürburgring lap time of 7:42 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m31EgQkswg) has apparently provoked Tesla into doing a lap in the Model S next week: https://electrek.co/2019/09/05/tesla-model-s-nurburgring-rac...

> They just don't have the battery cost advantage that Tesla has spent the last decade building.

The Volkswagen ID.3 will be cheaper than the equivalent range Tesla Model 3. The base model ID.3 (330km WLTP) will be around 30,000 euros, the midrange ID.3 (420km WLTP) will be around 40,000 euros, and I haven't seen pricing for the long range model (550km WLTP) but let's guess 50,000 euros. Volkswagen is officially launching the ID.3 in a few days. They might announce the final pricing then.

It's well known that the Teslas are no good on race tracks as they typically cannot complete even a single hot lap without overheating. In this respect the Taycan is in an entirely different class, it has higher voltage electrics (800V) which allows it to run at sustained high power for much longer periods.

Of course, Musk will likely have the overheating protections disabled on the test car to keep the fanboys happy. Without that the Model S has no chance to beat the Taycan.

I hear people say things like this about Tesla, but I am really skeptical. The company is still highly unprofitable despite having scaled production up significantly. It survives because of investor capital. That kind of strategy runs out of steam when investors stop believing the company's promises of future profits, or when a recession hits.

The things that make them unprofitable are one time capital investments. If you buy a 50 million dollar stamping press the serviceable life of which is measured in decades you probably aren't going to recoup that cost in year one. They are however profitable on a per vehicle basis and they have a lower cost of materials than any other EV maker.

That’s not how accounting for fixed assets work. If you buy a stamp press with a 10 year life, you convert 50m in cash into 50m in fixed assets. Both of these are assets, so this conversion affects liquid cash, but does not change your profits.

You then take 1/10th of the value of your stamp press and subtract it each year (depreciation). This is the amount subtracted from your profits each year.

Accounting as a profession has been around longer than tech companies. They know full well that companies buy fixed assets. Tesla isn’t some special case in this regard.

Toyota sells somewhere around 40 different models and 10 million units worldwide per year. There is no way Tesla is getting to that size in 5, 10, or even 15 years.

Tesla could potentially remain the number one EV manufacturer if the big manufacturers scale their EV efforts slowly and Tesla continues to expand aggressively.

A whole 7 models that's less than AUDI have and they are a nice mid to high level car maker, not a behemoth like toyota

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