Hacker News Reader

Comment by trade_unionist | Hacker News Reader

I hope Musk is still cool once Tesla is a monopoly. Companies have a tendency to turn on their users/customers once they get giant.

View on HN

Tesla has gone from being the number 1 BEV manufacturer in Europe to now being number 3. Soon Hyundai will also overtake them in Europe and Tesla will fall back to 4th:

https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/april-2020-european-elec...

So don't worry about Tesla becoming a monopoly. It's not a practical reality.

Tesla was amazing and unparalleled from about 2012 to 2018. In the U.S., since the Kona/Niro EVs, I-PACE, e-tron, and Taycan have shipped along with the Electrify America rapid charging network, Tesla no longer has a corner on the EV market. A fully-decked-out Model S costs the same as a base Porsche Taycan 4S. I'd challenge anyone to test drive both cars configured at the ~$115k price point and then come back and tell me you wouldn't chose the Porsche.

Cheapest Taycan I could find was $145k. 192 mile range. I'll take the Model S that is faster and nearly double the range at this point.

> Cheapest Taycan I could find was $145k.

If you use the online configuration utility and select Taycan 4S, you will find you can purchase one for $114,340: https://imgur.com/X3KAfBd

> 192 mile range.

Since the first Taycan deliveries happened back in January, it's a well-known fact that the EPA's range is completely bogus: https://electrek.co/2020/02/10/porsche-taycan-tesla-model-s-...

When driving 75mph on a road trip, you can expect to get 209 miles out of a Taycan and 222 miles from a 2020 Tesla Model S Performance. Given that the Taycan charges at 270kW, that means you will complete a road trip significantly faster in a Taycan than you will in a Model S: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30894056/porsche-tayca...

The Taycan is a true luxury performance car. You're not buying it for the range or nominal maximum speed, you're buying it for the creature comforts...and the ability to go 95% as fast as the (current versions of the) Model S for 100x longer, or even faster with the creature comforts removed for racing.

To be clear, Taycan has a gearbox and a higher maximum speed. I think the word the poster you're responding to meant was "quicker." Regardless, the 2020 Tesla Model S Performance is neither quicker nor faster than the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images...

Or maybe Tesla couldn't ship car to Europe for delivery in April -- contrary to the VW group, whose sales are mostly local stock and who don't have to ship the cars across the Atlantic.

Also, Tesla delivers most its cars in Europe in the first month of the quarter. So comparing VW and Tesla over two periods with only partial quarter sales makes very little sense. Matthias Schmidt has known this for years, for some reason, he still prefer not to tell his audience about such a huge bias in the data. Weird.

They're car companies selling cars. Volkswagen is the world's biggest car company. It's no surprise that they're becoming the biggest EV company as well. I really wouldn't worry about it.

> I really wouldn't worry about it.

You should worry about battery production capacity. VW has been having issues and won't be able to build EV in volume for some time unless they start manufacturing them. Being the world's biggest ICE company does not help with securing battery supplies, especially when your #1 competitor keeps increasing its global lead.

Tesla has far more purchase power than VW for batteries (NB: needing them for cars and stationary storage makes you a better partner too). They have more control over their supply chain, they have big contracts with all cell manufacturers (Pana CATL, LG, Samsung...), they run their own factories, they're integrating cell and car production in all new factories, they develop their own chemistry and will soon reveal a roadmap to achieve 1-2TWh of cell production... per year (source: https://youtu.be/SG-59Os2H5o?t=2279)

Good intro on how Tesla could do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtV9a5MW_X0

Panasonic and LG also make batteries for VW...

Note that Samsung does not make batteries for Tesla's vhicles, only its stationary products like the powerwall. This is the same for LG outside of the Chinese market.

Additionally, Tesla's battery factory is actually Panasonic's battery factory. Panasonic is the primary partner in that joint venture.

Tesla still has the same dependence on external parties as VW, they were just first to the ball and have contractual priority on production capacity existing or planned at the time the contracts were signed.

> especially when your #1 competitor keeps increasing its global lead

Volkswagen's #1 competitor is Toyota.

So combined Volkswagen, Audi, ŠKODA, SEAT and Porsche have outsold Tesla? Doesn't really sound like an achievement, except if you're in charge of mergers and acquisitions.

They're all the same company. Volkswagen owns 12 automotive brands:

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/brands-and-models.html

And Volkswagen will soon be making further investments in Chinese brands:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-investment-chi...

They are now, but they weren't originally, they bought their first place. I doubt the general public knows.

I really don't know what you're talking about. Volkswagen is a big car company and they invest in their car business. There is nothing surprising about that.

After the "get back to work" fiasco Musk is dead to me

You can always hop brands once someone gets too big and turns evil.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com