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Comment by xiphias2 | Hacker News Reader

It's easier to create a luxury car, just how Tesla started, so at least they have a chance to come out with the $170k product that looks great.

I can imagine people buying it just so that they can be different from Tesla.

Nicola wanted to compete in high volume battery manufacturing, which can't be done without a long ramp-up time.

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Many Tesla fans are willing to turn a blind eye to defects that you typically wouldn't find in other luxury cars. I don't think Lucid Motors' fan base is that dedicated and forgiving.

If they get a fan base, then by definition that base is going to be willing to turn a blind eye to some defects because they love some other aspect of the car. For Tesla, people loved the acceleration, handling, and interior styling, and so they were willing to forgive some of the build quality issues like gaps between the door and the body.

The question is whether Lucid can deliver some unique experience that customers value, and if so, then they too will be forgiven for their own gaps.

I’m trying to decide between buying a Tesla or a Porsche Taycan, and the main thing why Tesla is interesting to me is autopilot and the supercharger network: many people write that they can go 2x as far with autopilot without getting tired, which sounds great for getting lots of vacations or for traffic jams.

Purely anecdotal, but modern Porsches that is not a coupe (defined as having 2 doors) have shown horrible reliability of onboard electronics. Not that Tesla is a lot better either (MCU black-screen-of-death comes to mind), but yeah, YMMV.

I do agree that Supercharger matters a lot more than its "sticker price" and all the drama on various incentives. Turns out it did compensate (somewhat) early adopters for the, uh, rather brutal depreciation not completely anticipated by all, and is a huge enabler for even the not-so-long-ranged variants.

As a recent Tesla owner, the Taycan looks real nice. As far I have distilled it, the pros list comes down to roughly

Tesla:

* Price

* Supercharger network

* Minimalism

* Autopilot on highway

* Range

Taycan:

* Interior quality

* More familiar coming from ICE

* The Porsche dealership experience

You can see my lists are a bit lopsided, and I actually prefer the minimal Tesla interior to the luxury Taycan interior.. but I actually think the Taycan is a great car and can't fault someone for considering it.

I just did come back from a 1200 mile road trip that I could not have done very easily in a Taycan. The supercharger network was pretty flawless.

Having an electric car is still a luxury, and most people understand it. Economy of scale is not yet at the level of gas cars (the turning point will be when self driving starts working or at most 2030 when the batteries get cheap).

I know a few long time luxury car owners and enthusiasts. They also invest in TSLA. I’ve asked them: if you invest in TSLA and you spend millions on your car collection how come you don’t own any Tesla cars? The answer is they are not perceived as luxury. They don’t have the exclusivity of a real luxury car. So therefore I don’t think we can say that electric car is luxury. It is just electric. Will there be luxury electric cars? Someday but not now. And im not sure with Lucid either

Taycan is considered luxury by most owners. I consider it as a dumb luxury electric car, similar to a Rolex watch that I bought but never use (compared to an Apple Watch that people use even though it’s not a luxury).

It depends on your definition of “luxury”. I’d consider Tesla “luxury” like BMW is “luxury”, but a bit less refined and heavier on the technology.

If you’re spending millions on cars you’re probably into “exotics” / “supercars” like higher-end Porches, Ferraris, and up.

It's easy to create a prototype, the true test of any manufacturer is it's ability to roll these from the factories at scale. How many have they rolled yet?

I think this is a greatly underappreciated point. Tesla is the picture of success these days but people forget things were looking quite grim from a production perspective not too long ago, and even now, Tesla's rush to scale has earned their cars a reputation for factory defects. Success is not a given even with a compelling prototype.

Why would they need scale for a $170k car? I don’t think there are many buyers in that range.

I don’t agree with the $24B valuation, I just think that they have at least a chance to sell real cars, unlike Nikola that had a bad strategy from the start.

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