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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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/

> 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.

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

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