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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Actually they aren't doing so great. Everything has changed.

Before last year it was basically just Tesla and a few token cars e.g. Leaf in the electric vehicle space. Now every car company is jumping in and any detractors e.g. BMW CEO are being swiftly moved on.

And so Tesla is now competing against the most highly capitalised, profitable and experienced companies in the world. Porsche Taycan is based on every review the best EV car money can buy. VW has the ID.3/ID.4 coming out shortly which look seriously good and they have plans for 70 models to be released in the coming decade. You have startups like Rivian which are attracting significant outside funding and disrupting segments. And at the cheaper price points you have dozens of Chinese manufacturers entering the fray.

Tesla is about to have the fight of their life and all while they are losing hundreds of millions each quarter.

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People have been making that exact argument for years. There have been so many "Tesla killers" that I've lost count. None have panned out.

The Taycan is roughly twice as expensive as the equivalent Model S Tesla and has greatly inferior range and, among people likely to buy electric cars, presumably less brand value. People haven't forgotten VW's emissions scandal. Let's not forget they haven't even shipped a single Taycan yet. BMW has sold a crappy, overpriced electric car/washing-machine-lookalike for years (i3) without it catching on.

Furthermore, there's no real competition on the horizon just yet for the Model 3. Tesla have a 3-6 year head start on making electric cars which will be difficult to overcome.

And you seemed to have completely missed my point.

Car companies have been doing nothing for years. But now for the first time they are all 100% committed to EV. And as we've seen with the Taycan, EQC and the ID.3/4 they can easily compete with Tesla.

That remains to be seen. There's no evidence yet. As I already said, people have been making that exact argument for years.

> as we've seen with the Taycan and the ID.3/4 they can easily compete with Tesla.

The Taycan is not really competing with anything but Tesla's highest-end and presumably lowest-volume products, and the ID.3 and 4 don't exist as production cars yet (AFAIK).

Competing with them is obviously possible but these aren't very good examples.

The Taycan is DOA. If I want an electric car then I’m getting a Tesla because it’s the easiest to own, easiest to charge, the most proven and outperforms every other EV. If I want a Porsche then I’m getting a 911 turbo because it’s their most iconic car. I’m not about to spend 150k on their first attempt at an EV, the riskiest model in their catalog and the one that will most likely sell the lowest volume. I don’t understand where the market is for the Taycan. Forget about it being a “Tesla killer”. It’s good that they’re going electric. I hope they stick with it and do well. But Tesla has already established themselves as a premium brand. It’s not like Porsche is coming in and filling a void here. They are going up against the leader in the leader’s strongest segment, and one which is low volume and not much pie to share.

> The Taycan is DOA.

No, they'll be selling about 20,000 a year which is what they always planned for. They're actually increasing production capacity at the moment:

https://electrek.co/2019/10/02/porsche-taycan-increase-produ...

> I’m not about to spend 150k

There are two cheaper variants on the way. Buy one of them if you want:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/cheaper-porsche-taycan-ev...

No one can “easily compete” with Tesla until they’ve secured 50GWh+ scale battery production and built out a global high-speed charging network that approaches the supercharger network’s coverage.

In the EU for example Ionity is a superior charging network to Tesla's. And Tesla gets their batteries from the same place that everyone else does i.e LG.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-23/tesla-sai...

In the EU Ionity has 150 locations and Tesla has 400.

There are currently 474 supercharger stations in Europe vs. 150 for Ionity: https://supercharge.info/charts

The link you provided refers only to the LG supply deal exclusively for Model 3 / China.

Tesla owns the largest battery production facility on the planet (Gigafactory 1 in Sparks NV) which supplies battery in partnership with Panasonic.

> There are currently 474 supercharger stations in Europe vs. 150 for Ionity

But the difference is Ionity is CCS and all EVs can charge at its chargers. CCS cars can use any CCS provider like Ionity, FastNed, Allego, etc. which is the correct approach. I can fuel my ICE car at any fuel station and I should be able to charge my EV at any charging station.

While accurate, your post only serves to underscore Tesla’s strategic advantage here.

There are no long term advantages to closed networks. They either become dead infrastructure or they get converted to the common standard.

Tell that to Facebook and Apple.

You mean two companies that run their businesses on a global, standardized, interoperable computer network aka The Internet?

You're making the case for CCS. I agree with you. A common charging standard is better for everyone, just like common internet protocols allow Facebook and Apple to be successful.

No, I mean two companies that are notorious for vigorously defending their proprietary walled gardens.

Tesla's current charging network is more like the early days of AOL or Prodigy. They both eventually converted to being internet providers.

Seems you think Tesla is going to fail due to the legacy car companies producing better EVs. Though I disagree, I would be ecstatic to see something like this happen. Sadly, as of today, I can't purchase any of those compelling vehicles you've mentioned.

I wouldn't say 100% committed. VAG sells 10,000,000+ cars/year worldwide, so if they sell 100,000+ etron/Taycan/egolfs/etc this year, then they're maybe 1% committed. Hopefully the ID.3/4 will improve that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Back in 2010, Audi said they would produce the etron by the end of 2012, which apparently is German for 2018. ;)

https://www.wired.com/2010/03/audi-electric-vehicles/

Atleast in Europe i3 is selling almost as well as all Tesla models together. http://carsalesbase.com/car-sales-comparison/

I don't get why most models of the i3 have asymmetrical tyres front and rear. They couldn't even choose standardtires so you can choose, but they chose limited tires, so you have little choice in what to get.

I'd argue that it's because Tesla has been unable to deliver in enough quantities, which is about to change.

Most of central European i3 sales can be attributed to German power companies making a deal with BMW under the table. Pretty much 100% of i3 sales in Poland in 2019 went to innogygo, a Green car sharing company. Why Green? Because parent company, Innogy, is a subsidiary of RWE. The lets strip mine ancient Hambach forest (https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-hambach-forest/) for Lignite - THE dirtiest coal possible RWE. Sprinkle if with freshly cut Romanian forest (https://www.fern.org/fileadmin/uploads/fern/Documents/Up%20i...) and burn it all in Green coal^^^biomass!!1 fired power plants. Because in Germany co-firing dirtiest coal possible with small wood addition counts as green energy. Everybody wins, for a very specific definition of "everybody".

I dont know whats wrong with that, isnt it better they buy green cars than ICE cars?

Nothing, other than i3 sales being fake, driven by desire of polluting German energy sector to greenwash its image and acquire carbon credits.

> Furthermore, there's no real competition on the horizon

Volkswagen will be delivering a lot of EVs in 2020. They're targeting everything from the low end (SEAT Mii) to the high end (Porsche Taycan).

Here's Volkswagen's EV lineup for the next 18 months:

- VW e-Up!: https://www.carscoops.com/2019/09/vws-updated-e-up-offers-16...

- VW e-Golf (will be replaced by the ID.3, but still available): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah4lrqWx8E0

- VW ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op4HO6GHC8Q

- VW ID.4: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...

- SEAT Mii: https://www.electrive.com/2019/09/11/seat-mii-available-to-o...

- SEAT el-Born: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZI7WFtwc8g

- Cupra Tavascan (maybe, not confirmed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYHRKp4n1w

- Skoda Citigo iV: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...

- Skoda Vision iV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1g9xl6W_E

- Audi e-tron (and also a new "sportsback" variant): https://www.audiusa.com/models/audi-e-tron

- Audi e-tron Q4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwevzHsCbU

- Audi e-tron GT (maybe 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMEdiq2xTbQ

- Porsche Taycan (and the Cross Turismo variant in future): https://www.porsche.com/uk/models/taycan/taycan-models/

And they'll have more models out in 2021, more in 2022, etc. Volkswagen means to be the biggest EV maker in a few years. They have both the investment and the scale to achieve it.

This is the same company that had to scale back production because they couldn't make 50,000 etrons in 2019. So I'll believe it when I see it.

And yet none of these many examples are really compelling compared to a Tesla (wrt. range and performance). Quality > Quantity.

I'm actually glad they are trying, but they need to try harder.

The Tesla Model 3 has 409km range WLTP for the Standard Range Plus model and 560km for the Long Range model. The ID.3 will have three battery sizes for 330km, 420km, and 550km WLTP at lower price points. The range argument isn't really there.

Taycan's Nürburgring performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m31EgQkswg

Tesla Model S Plaid's Nürburgring performance: https://www.thedrive.com/news/29946/porsche-taycan-laps-brok...

It's disappointing they're not even trying with the current Model S. The Plaid drive train is still a year away. Porsche is a year ahead on performance at this point.

Car you cant buy yet is a year ahead on performance over another car you cant buy?

You can buy the Taycan now. They started production a month ago:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/29865/watch-the-2020-porsche-t...

But you're going to be in a queue behind the 20,000 or so preorders.

And where the heck do you charge a Taycan or any other EV that’s not a Tesla? Never mind the fact that the Tesla beats every other EV on the road for a moment. The killer feature is the supercharger network. Are other manufacturers going to build 12000-15000 chargers all over the country that can top off the battery in 10-15 minutes before or after they build a decent car? You can’t take these other cars on anything but local trips if you can’t charge quickly. Most public chargers only charge at about 30 mph.

> And where the heck do you charge a Taycan or any other EV that’s not a Tesla?

On any CCS charger. Here are some examples of Taycan road trips:

- https://www.carscoops.com/2019/09/porsche-taycan-makes-408-m...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIsMlMU8MjI

A road trip where Porsche selected the route with one charge stop isn’t impressive. It’s not a long range car until the typical owner can drive the continental US - or at least most of it. I’ve never seen a fast charger anywhere besides a Tesla supercharger.

There are a number CCS charging networks in the US. Electrify America, EVgo, and ChargePoint have roaming agreements so the one account can be used across all networks:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/evgo-electrify-america-ch...

Tesla should convert their chargers to CCS now rather than sticking with a propriety plug. They've already converted their European chargers to CCS, although they're still not allowing non-Tesla EVs to charge at them:

https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...

So they have competition now, and they're spending more than they're making.

What are they spending it on? Maybe they're spending it on the same aggressive growth without which they'd never have achieved the head start they have now?

I'm not a Tesla owner nor a Tesla fanboy and my original comment was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I have to say that your comment seems to me to be dripping with narrative.

Anyway, we will see, won't we? I've got my popcorn ready.

> Maybe they're spending it on the same aggressive growth

They have cut back drastically on capital expenditures.

I do believe that all competitive advantage is temporary and that better offerings are to come from a variety of players... However, there is simply nothing close to Tesla on the planet today. It will be some time before others can catch up. They will. It is inevitable. Right now, Tesla has something others are unable to produce.

But is the size of the market growing even faster ? Tesla is making money on each car sold. But you are right, they do invest a lot in R&D and factory expansion (e.g. new factory in China starting this month to produce model 3 cars). I am still not sure if we can tell now if they are doomed, it might be too early. It is a tricky game, but as long as they make money on each car sold, and keep some technological edge (battery, manufacturing, etc.) they should be fine.

I translate "losing hundreds of millions each quarter" to "using hundreds of their millions to get entrenched for the approaching Market Share Wars".

It really irks me that comments like this are downvoted, including my comment on Tesla. Presumably it's from people who drive Tesla. Come on guys.

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