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It’s only a matter of time. These companies are huge, with massive infrastructure, partnerships, supply chain strength, R&D power and wisdom, etc... they also do not want to see Tesla eat their lunch.

Electric vehicles are also not rocket science. A company who has been making vehicles for a century will have a substantial leg up once they get some momentum. They’re far more simple as far as the driveline goes than an ICE powered vehicle would be. No transmission. No oil coolant lines. No engineering the engine and trans to work together. No fuel tank, no fuel lines, no injection system, no fuel pumps. The list goes on.

With an electrified powertrain it’s basically just a motor and juice (I’m over simplifying, electric motors and batteries require cooling as well for instance).

These companies are going to eat Tesla for breakfast as soon as they get caught up.

You’re ignoring Tesla’s software and super charging network, neither of which the legacy automakers seem capable of duplicating.

I thought their software was impressive until I started driving a base model 2020 Forester that autopilots itself on highways. I’m not saying it’s as good as Tesla’s but it surprised me, showing me that no it’s not rocket science either and soon every car will have these features.

Adaptive cruise control has been available on mainstream cars for at least 5 years, and on fancy cars before that.

That is not is what is interesting about Tesla. It's the developer like OTA updates with massive new features. Vs... the Forester gets an infotainment system when you buy it, and likely never gets a change for the life of the car. Compare to a 2 year old model 3 which is getting brand new features monthly.

Ahh interesting. What kinds of features are showing up every month? Often people just like the concept of free features, but I'm curious if they're actually real value adds.

This might be useful: https://www.notateslaapp.com/index

Tesla's Supercharger network is certainly a significant infrastructure investment, at least in the US. But what's so special about their software? The German luxury carmakers certainly have pretty significant assistive driving features and other software-based capabilities. They just don't pretend they are more than they are.

When was the last time a legacy automaker added a new feature to their cars and pushed it out over the air as a free update? Tesla does that about once a month.

Their software is better because they listen to customer feedback and continually improve it. It’s not one massive thing related to autonomy that’s better, it’s the 100 small things that Tesla has been adding over the past three years that when combined make the overall package superior.

I don't know about others, but I actively do not want my car to download ota updates. I'd highly prefer it to be programmed so well that it doesn't need any patches at all and for the controls to stay the same indefinitely. Actually, a touchscreen in a car is already considered a critical design flaw by me. Give me knobs and dial to tune settings, not some flat surface with zero feedback. If VW can create a car that feels like I'm in a cockpit and doesn't require Internet access, it'd be an instant buy from me.

What advantage does Tesla software has which is not achievable by others. I think a lot of those features can be commoditized with something like Android Auto.

If you are talking about "Autopilot", I think a lot of people will have different perceptions on what it is marketed as and what it does.

A lot of the infotainment can be commoditized (and should) by Android Auto and Apple Car Play instead of the various levels of awful put out by the legacy manufacturers but where Tesla shines is the interplay of the actual car hardware and software for non entertainment purposes and it gets better over time. A real world example: they recently pushed an update to include the side cameras when the rear view camera is loaded https://electrek.co/2020/06/18/tesl-software-update-2020-24-...

You can argue that it should have been included from the get go, but at the very least it could be after the fact, so it was.

The example you gave is again, perfect example of something that can be commoditized and I am sure it would be commoditized quite soon.

We already have traditional desktop OSs or even mobile OSs allowing OEMs to plug the hardware they bring.

It would need some willingness on part of individual auto manufacturers to let go of some amount of control, but I think they would see the advantage of it.

Sure, it can be done and I'm all for it, but historical track record hasn't been great here with automakers keeping their systems pretty close to the chest.

Yeah, that hasn't been great. But I think as cars get more "smart" features, it would become expensive for low/mid volume manufacturers to compete against each other, specially to build an ecosystem.

They will probably see the value in it, Tesla might still be at an advantage and able to nail a seamless and predictable experience as Apple was able to do on Macbooks.

I'm hopeful and generally agree with your points, actually. The Tesla value prop is very much the seamless/tight experience, and that has its pros and cons much does Apple vs others. Consumers win when there's both. My overall point is that there is a slice of the market that they've so far successfully cornered and I think they'll retain it as long as they can scale the quality and service. That doesn't mean they'll dominate and leaves plenty of room for the other players who can make the transition.

1. super charging network

2. brand name , a car is still a status symbol, owning a bmw, kia ect is not a social signal.

3. autonomous driving and software

Wait, I must have missed something. Is BMW's image bad? That wouldn't explain them able to survive some of the high price points, they sell cars at.

Depends which BMW :D

In Poland, BMW can mean "expensive luxury sports car", or "Bolid Młodzieży Wiejskiej", a pejorative name that means "Village Youth Vehicle", as a lot of used BMW from specific series were available cheap and with good performance. To the point that road police started stopping cars based on them being specific BMW models.

I think this sort of image, high end car plays like Jaguar, Lexus avoid to an extent. I don't see how Tesla would maintain an edge of luxury over them if they can get good performance in their EVs.

He said social signal, not status symbol.

Both cars say something about how much money you make. It's the other stuff that's different.

Its not its bad, different type of signaling.

BMW = money is king, capitalism, golden toilet, 1990, closed minded to new things.

Tesla = environmentally conscious, "i care" , forward looking, open to trying new things.

Most people in Germany consider BMW and Porsche to be highly prestigious, while Tesla is seen as a wannabe hipster toy. If you consider that most CEOs are 40+ and have driven BMW for 20 years, that kinda makes sense.

> most CEOs are 40+ and have driven BMW

This precisely proves the point i was trying to make, thank you :)

BMW, Mercedes ect represent old school "money is everything" mentality. Porsche is famously a "doubhebag" car

https://www.gq.com/gallery/douche-cars-jamie-lincoln-kitman

Tesla's super charging network is essentially the future of gas stations, and there's no reason to believe that Shell, Chevron, et al don't re-purpose their petrol pumps to become battery superchargers once the demand for ICE falls.

As someone looking to buy an EV in the next few years, I don't see the benefit of the supercharger network. It locks me into a proprietary charger when there seem to be thousands of CCS Combo chargers from Electrify America, EVgo, and others.

I do think there's something to be said for both. Tesla software truly is pretty impressive and it's unheard of for a car to get better over time and supercharger helps alleviate a lot of range anxiety.

That all said, it's a question of whether the legacy players can catch up fast enough before Tesla can work out its affordability AND quality + service issues at scale. The latter should not be slept on as even the worst of the old guard are still far more consistent and IMO a quite serious issue for Tesla.

Tesla's autopilot is basically what all normal German cars already had 5 years ago, but they called it lane and distance assistant.

As for the Superchargers, most people prefer an open standard over vendor lock-in.

> Tesla's autopilot is basically what all normal German cars already had 5 years ago, but they called it lane and distance assistant.

No sir. I've had those two things you mentioned on my mazda, subaru for many years too. But thats not what tesla autopilot is.

Tesla has just 2,000 Supercharger stations for the whole Europe.

BDEW has 5500 publicly accessible stations in Germany and 10000 more planned. All petrol stations in Germany will be required to offer electric vehicle charging points. German government is throwing few billions for subsidies for pubic charging stations. At least 7,000 fast-charging points are planned.

As EVs go mainstream, a charging network will need to be provided on a vastly larger scale than anything Tesla has ever done so far, and it will need to be standardised so all vehicles can use it. Whether or not Tesla's existing charging network provides a useful advantage by then remains to be seen.

The important parts of the software don't seem to be anything special with Tesla so far either. Many other brands have had driver assistance for years too, they just don't slap fancy titles on it and pretend the car will soon be fully autonomous.

If anything, it seems like the biggest real lead Tesla might have right now is in battery development, but again as EVs go mainstream we're going to need to solve that problem on a much larger scale so it remains to be seen whether Tesla's progress to date will provide a decisive advantage.

There isn’t any evidence of this yet. These sales are in the home turf of Tesla’s bigger three competitors, and these aren’t revenues, they are units. Would you rather sell one $80K car for a $10K profit or four $20k cars with a $1k profit in each?

It’s like saying Apple is in trouble because of $40 Android phones.

This line of thinking happens in a lot of tech companies and it's why these companies eventually die. It's documented in [0] though the book is incredibly hard to read.

The gist is that companies very rarely move downmarket when threatened with competition and instead move upmarket to protect their high margin customers. Over time, the entry level competitors gain more and more features and move up, squeezing the original players.

So you're correct that a $40 Android phone is not a worry to apple, but when those manufacturers start releasing a $300-$500 phone that has most of the features of the iPhone, that's when Apple has to be worried. But by the time they notice, it's too late. If we look at [1] we see that iPhone sales peaked in 2015, and then have been slightly down since then. But it took until 2020 to release a new lower-end phone.

0. https://www.amazon.com/Product-Strategy-High-Technology-Comp... 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-ipho...

Apple is always doomed. So doomed they just released a $399 phone that’s faster than any android device ever made.

It’s not just the device, it’s the system and that includes software.

Yup, as soon as the "real" auto companies start selling EVs Tesla will be doomed. Any day now, surely...

I think this link seems to suggest that that day is closer than we think...

The one thing you have wrong is that they are not "getting caught up". They have been patiently watching and waiting. In no way have they been caught on the back foot, now scrambling.

So the Kia Niro EV is a $40k crossover with 239 miles of range. It's not as fast as a Tesla, but it's a very nice car and has many nice features. It also doesn't have lots of the fit and finish problems Teslas tend to have.

I still wouldn't write off other manufacturers yet, and some companies like Hyundai/Kia invest massive amounts into alternative powertrains.

The Niro PHEV is a really nice little car and clocks in quite a bit cheaper, or at least it did when my wife and I were looking

The Hyundai Kona EV looks quite nice too. 258 mile range.

> This is... a bit surprising to me.

This surprise is likely due to the power of hype in an echo chamber. Tesla has drastically lost both market share (relative decline) and sales volume (absolute decline) throughout Europe. Norway, which was once paraded around as the Tesla future dominance preview, is now indistinguishable from zero for Tesla sales. The only market where Tesla is still growing volume is China.

And, at least in the US, like solar panels, EVs become a lot less interesting when they cease to be a cash transfer to upper-middle and upper-class consumers.

It has always been about volumes. Supply of high quality batteries was the bottleneck. Tesla had huge edge there.

European car manufacturers joined together and and started huge battery factories in Europe in joint operations with LG Chem, CATL and others. Berkshire Hathaway provided some of the funding. Now when they have battery supply secured and skateboards are ready, they are ready to compete.

I am from Germany and you'll see a lot of french EVs (e.g. Renault Zoe) on the road here since they're relatively cheap and you can get some tax deductions.

Not so many people want to spend Tesla money for mediocre build quality.

Also, to spend £100k on a car (cost here in the UK[0]), you really have to be into the aesthetic, I think, and Teslas look a little bit vanilla for my taste, plus I don't entirely love the proportions.

They also don't do an estate/station wagon so if I was going to spend that kind of money on a car (I'm not - I couldn't even if I wanted to) it would be something like an Audi RS6: all of the performance, and all of the practicality.

(Yes, I know the model X would nail the practicality as well, but I really hate SUVs and trucks.)

[0] Edit for clarity: this is the approximate cost of the Model S P100D, which is the model I've been most interested in. Please see my grandchild comment.

>Also, to spend £100k on a car (cost here in the UK)

Google suggests that Tesla Model 3 starts at £42.5K and the S and X are around ~ £80K, which I guess is what you had in mind

True, but the only model that's really interested me is the Model S P100D, which rolls in at or near £100k. It's not an estate, but it does have a decent amount of cabin and boot space - and it's obviously incredibly fast.

The Model 3, which I find deeply unappealing in looks, is about the same price as a top end Volvo V60 hybrid (the fast version), which to me is a much more interesting/useful vehicle simply because it is an estate. Also much closer to the kind of money I could spend. What I'll probably end up doing is buying a 2 year old V60 hybrid in a year or two, to dodge at least some of the depreciation, to replace my aging and "characterful" Saab 93 wagon.

> and the S and X are around ~ £80K

Plus VAT at 20% - and the non-base S models are around £88K, so you end at £105K plus any other registration fees. The X tends to be about the same for non-base.

The Tesla website lists the S at £78k and £93k, including tax and all applicable fees, but really you should then minus the 5k EV grant.

Anything selling to consumers is listed with VAT included.

There's nothing at all unique about Germany. The Kia/Hyundai crossover and the newest version of the Renault Zoe are 250-300 mile cars that cost half as much as a Tesla, and if you're into buying a luxury car, the Jag and BMW options actually provide the luxury in a package where all the doors fit and the bodywork doesn't look like someone elongated an old AMC Pacer.

Price and look-and-feel is putting a massive dent in the side of Tesla, whose primary feature isn't the car but the charging network - which is clearly in an entirely different league than anyone else. But even that might not be worth thirty grand to most people

One Reason is that Teslas are large while Zoes are small.

Then compact segment is very popular in general and Sedans are not. Teslas are also quite expensive. Even if you remove tarifs they are still on the higher side of what most people would buy.

I own a Model S and a Nissan Leaf, and can confim that plenty of non-tesla manufacturers make great EVs.

Tesla owns the space for sexy, somewhat self-driving, longest range cars, but they are very expensive.

Alternative manufacturers make great cars many different price-points.

Based on my experience with Tesla and non-Tesla EVs, I would expect market share numbers in 5 years in the US to look more like the German market share numbers. Teslas are like BMWs or Mercedes: they are great cars, but not mass-market.

> Perhaps there's something unique about the German market? Is there anyone from Germany here who can shed light on this?

I'm from Germany (but not in the car industry in any way) and I think the main reason why they have sold so much cars is not because they are competitive, but because they have to. They have to sell the cars to fulfill whole-fleet emissions requirements, otherwise they'd be punished by fines.

So they push the cars into the market at losses, but it's still cheaper for them than paying the fines.

> According to Auto Motor and Sport, at least in the first phase, Volkswagen does not plan to make money on EVs and expects to lose around €3,000 per each I.D. sold

https://insideevs.com/news/346510/volkswagen-id-sold-loss-30...

"Chairman of the Daimler Supervisory Board: No company earns money with electric cars yet" (German)

https://ecomento.de/2020/01/16/daimler-aufsichtsratschef-kei...

> In view of the threat of fines being imposed on the EU for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, it is worthwhile for car manufacturers to sell electric cars at a loss (without covering all costs). Because electric cars reduce the average CO2 emissions of a vehicle fleet, manufacturers can sell many profitable cars with combustion engines with an optimized amount of electricity and still remain below the generally prescribed average of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer, calculated Prof. Dr. Peter Hoberg from the University of Applied Sciences in Worms. (German)

https://www.elektroauto-news.net/2020/co2-grenzwerte-verlust...

Comparing monthly sales is meaningless. The fact that only 203 Teslas were registered in July just means that no boats full of cars arrived in July.

Normally you can fairly compare quarterly numbers, but COVID-19 prevented Tesla from shipping to Europe for Q2. I expect a big spike in September as Tesla's Q3 boats arrive. I doubt it'll be enough to catch up, but the comparison will be much more fair then.

Chatted with some extended family on the topic a while back, and their take was that the Tesla "brand" isn't terribly well received. (They're mostly middle-ish class professionals.)

Their take was that Tesla is overpriced for erratic quality and generally too flashy. "Toys for attention seekers" was one phrase I recall.

Agree. Here in Germany, the people who mention Tesla's autopilot are seen as idiots because they let themselves get tricked by marketing over substance. Plus we Germans like to buy a car with 5+ years of warranty, but Tesla just doesn't have the quality needed for that.

Purely an opinion, but I would guess that range is something that matters significantly less in most of Europe than it does in the USA, to make a broad generalization.

Drives are shorter in distance, and charging opportunities are much more readily available given the density of much of Europe. I would hazard a guess that trains are much more popular for longer-distance trips where flying isn't an option, a big contrast to the USA.

This is why vehicles like the Honda e exist as an "urban car" at a lower price point than Tesla cares to hit. With a max range is only 137 miles, it's not "competitive", but it's priced ~14k GBP less than a Model 3 from what I can tell.

Commutes are usually a lot shorter in Europe, so the emphasis on range isn't too relevant... Value/price are a bit in the eye of the beholder, Tesla isn't exactly renowned for its build quality.

And some people actually value a dealer network.

Range is about road trips rather than commutes for most? people. If 250 vs 300 miles is a make or break it for a daily commute, you need to much a lot closer to work.

Sure, but how often do you take a road trip vs how often do you commute? In Europe there are plenty of rail options for road trips.

And, even for longer road trips, there are fewer genuinely remote areas in Europe than there are in the US. At this point, there's no way I would buy an EV as my only vehicle in the US. I'm not going to plan out weekend trips based on whether there are charging stations available.

Have you looked at the super charger network in the US? It’s pretty dang good.

> not really competitive with Tesla's offerings on range, efficiency, advanced features, and value/price

One big factor probably is you just don't need as much range in Europe. Cities are more densely packed so travel distances are shorter and if you really want to go really far there are better options than driving like trains.

Also I think the cars Tesla has put out are probably larger than people want over there. They're putting out large SUVs and regular sized American cars where Europe has traditionally favored more compact cars.

Previous article about the Zoe outselling in Europe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23963732

It seems in the end price and size are the most important factors in a lot of European countries.

I have a personal anecdote from my dad who bought a Smart EQ. He just wanted a good car for commuting and the Model 3 is too expensive for it.

Germans are very brand and country loyal. Usually they perceive German products to have higher quality. Usually they are right as well.

Source: my wife is German

My perception of Tesla is that it is a dishonest company and has mediocre quality.

I wouldn’t buy a Tesla either if I were in the market and would probably look at a German brand or one of the Volkswagen group or Volvo or something, maybe Toyota.

>German products to have higher quality. Usually they are right as well. Source: my wife is German

So you have loyal high quality wife that is usually right. Good for you.

Only if I don’t call her a product. I don’t think that would go over very well. Also, officially, she’s always right.

See also iOS market share in Europe, I would say that in general price/features is more important factor then cool factor, if you don't have the money you buy a cheaper car and if you have the money you buy the one that has the comfort and you perceive is better quality.

They don't have the complete Supercharger network advantage there. Europe offers much better DC fast charging alternatives than here in the US and it's more standardized. That's probably why, on top of the tax advantage of buying local EVs.

The Berlin Tesla factory is supposed to make up to 40,000 cars a month so hopefully someone will want them. :) Maybe they need a smaller model for outside the USA.

I'm not sure why this is surprising? There's nothing much unique about Tesla that would preclude other, more established car companies from competing in the EV space. It was only a matter of time. This is why I've never understood Tesla's high stock prices. Sure, Tesla's got big battery factories, but those are being set up by other manufacturers as well. There's not a lot of secret sauce here.

I always expected Tesla to be on the upper bottom of the list once the big car companies offer their EV vehicles.

Well, I can only give a bit of my perception about how I see it and how some people around me sees it in northern Spain (which is not Germany, meaning salaries tend to be lower).

Tesla is expensive, and the Model 3 screen in the middle is something that puts some people off. I want physical buttons and no distraction, and so does the people around me for what I can gather.

For what I see in Youtube about people who buys Tesla, they seem to complain a lot. One of those I follow settled with a SEAT Mii [https://ev-database.org/car/1191/SEAT-Mii-Electric], which another segment (and way cheaper) and it's not even designed as an EV from the ground up.

For the same, or different reasons, people is pushing traditional brands to sell reasonably priced EVs. I'm particularly waiting for an A segment car, with range extender.

I doubt I will buy a Tesla unless they come up with a car about ~15k that ticks some of the above boxes. I know, I know, I'm way off prices.

I am no expert in these matters. But from what I can tell, Volkswagen lists ranges around 400-550km on their German page for id3 cars starting significantly cheaper than any Tesla.

Also significantly smaller and less comfortable.

Smaller is a plus.

Comfort is in the eye of the beholder, as a lot of people claim that Model S comfort "is nothing to talk about"

Maybe, but 10k€ matters to some people more than legroom does to others... case in point: article above.

A big summary is that:

- Teslas are expensive

A Tesla is going to be in the upper-end of the price range for most people, and in fact a lot of the time they were status symbols in the sense of how rare they are.

In fact, I have just checked used cars, got surprised to see 86 Teslas on sale of all kinds in Poland, lots of kilometers driven... and prices that I can buy a plane or helicopter for.

- Tesla has ridiculously low build quality

This goes hand in hand with the price, except the build quality is worse than low-end of the price range. Things that I've seen people in the USA somehow accept (parking cameras failing on newly bought car, involving voodoo rituals for resets) would lead to the car getting returned and with request for full refund. Better not to mention the tone of any "user's review" that would follow.

- There's no bonus in the form of build-out supercharger network

While there are superchargers in Europe, as far as I know the network is quite sparse in comparison with USA, electricity is not necessarily cheap, and many (something that all BEVs deal with) there are issues with charging your car if you live in a city.

- shorter-distance BEV are more acceptable, especially as "city car"

This is big, because it means that smaller cars with smaller batteries (and let's be honest, the "secret sauce" of Tesla is their battery supply chain) are not as much of a problem as in USA. Combined with with (lack of) availability of charging stations, this meant that a lot of earlier BEV purchases went towards "fleet buy", at least locally in Poland. As an organization, it was much easier to arrange charging in parking space etc.

Such fleet buys, some with "rent-a-car" setup where you can pickup a car a bit like you'd pickup an electric scooter, helped "prepare the land".

- Tesla cars were made for USA roads

A bit of beaten horse, but there's noticeable difference in how wide the roads are, parking space availability, etc.

While modern USA sedans and so on aren't gigantic like old full frame cars, American cars are still noticeably bigger. US brands selling in Europe tend to sell models adapted for Europe.

- Servicing.

Even in USA servicing Tesla cars is full of horror stories. While in the western Europe there's less focus on smaller car service companies, the availability and cost of parts are probably just as noticeable.

- The big Tesla sales were subsidized

I remember how last year everyone on HN was crowing about Tesla being most popular new car brand in, if I recall correctly, Netherlands.

Barely anyone noticed the part where the BEV purchases were driven by ending of package of tax rebates and subsidies for buying a new BEV car, which ended because the BEV market was "coming together". And Tesla simply had brand recognition for electric car and availability.

(and last, but definitely not least) - Volkswagen et al had been making slow and steady progress towards BEV offensive

Meanwhile, European (and not only) car manufacturers were slowly ramping up capability on BEV front, with 2019 marking huge marketing campaign from Volkswagen bringing, excuse me, "BEV to the masses". We're talking huge manufacturing capacity that turns like a supertanker, but it can probably outproduce Tesla ten times over, switching tracks to BEV as a whole.

And that shift in manufacturing is slowly starting to hit general population. Electric cars are moving away from curios, slowly shifting to mainstream.