Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

It seems that in trying to debunk marketing spin you've deployed even worse spin of your own:

> the premium sedan category (including Tesla 3) is declining overall

Uh... wat? Model 3 sales are growing very rapidly! Trying to argue that they aren't because the category they are being compared to is not is... somewhat weird.

I mean, look. The M3 is now selling more cars than Mercedes or BMW do in the same price segment. That's... pretty impressive, isn't it? I don't think that's spin, the E Class and 3 Series are very successful cars. They seem like a pretty good benchmark.

But yes: it's true that people bought fewer of them during the pandemic. It's also not very surprising, nor very informative about Tesla, who sold far more cars in 2020 than 2019.

View on HN

Can we please not refer to the Model 3 as the M3, an already well known car from a competing manufacturer in the same segment?

I think we can all infer that when referring to mass market sedans, the super-sport model of one particular BMW is not what is being referred to.

The BMW M3 is a different car than the BMW 3 Series. An M3 is as much a 3 Series as an Alpina B3 is a 3 Series. It is ambiguous in this situation. I had to read the comment several times to figure out if it meant that somehow BMW was selling more M3s than the whole 3 Series lineup.

>> The M3 is now selling more cars than Mercedes or BMW do in the same price segment.

> I had to read the comment several times to figure out if it meant that somehow BMW was selling more M3s than the whole 3 Series lineup.

The whole 3 Series lineup is not in the same price segment as the M3, is it?

How could BMW sell more M3 cars than the total number of cars they sell in that price segment?

The usage is ambiguous because it may mean something like the BMW M3 even at a higher price is now generating more sales than the normal 3 Series lineup but those sales are not included in these numbers.

Using the name of a car from an adjacent price range in the same segment is absolutely ambiguous, especially when Tesla is competing on price/performance.

If you want to abbreviate it then call it a TM3 or something. The M3 has been a car for 35 years and it's too similar to the Model 3 for that not to be confusing.

Sometimes it’s ambiguous. In this particular case not that much, I think. That comment is in the context of “Tesla 3” and “Model 3” mentions in the two preceding paragraphs. (And Tesla is selling as many model 3 cars in one year as M3 cars have been sold by BMW in 35 years!)

The mention of "Model 3" in the previous paragraph is what makes the usage of M3 even more confusing. Why inconsistently use this "unambiguous" abbreviation? Especially in a sentence that references BMW?

It’s in the larger context of Model 3 sales relative to other cars with an unclear definition of what those cars are. They compare sales of the Model 3 to the Mercedes E class! It’s reasonable then to wonder if M3 numbers are or maybe are not included.

Additionally the M3 has been a significant volume seller in the past. There are a lot of E46 M3s in comparison to the rest of the E46 fleet. It would surprise me to learn BMW is selling more G80 M3s than G80 3 Series but with declining sales in the segment maybe the “premium” car is the one retaining sales.

The usage of “M3” is ambiguous because at first glance all of that seems possible, if surprising.

Why are we arguing about this? The M3 is a 35 year old name that is in the same segment as a Model 3. Calling a Model 3 an M3 is always going to cause confusion. It would even cause confusion on the showroom floor of a Tesla dealership.

I think the true “spin” is that you think the E Class and 3 Series are way more important than they are because they USED to be important. That’s the cache Tesla is using.

The Germans will admit the SUV are the US market (look at their lineup) and the day that the Y outsells GL class cars, then I’ll eat humble pie.

For Context: The SUV class of the same relative size sells about 3x the sedan.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210108005349/en/Mer...

> the day that the Y outsells GL class cars, then I’ll eat humble pie.

Do you really have doubt this day isn't coming very soon? 2023 tops. Mercedes SUV are niche luxury. Tesla will only shed away price on the Y's due to declining battery prices, improved manufacturing with gigafactories, and their mission of reducing emissions by getting everyone into EV's.

Don't count out Mercedes' ability to come up with a seemingly overly robust lineup of models that cover every conceivable variation/combination of needs for the luxury SUV consumer.

I mean sometimes I think "who the hell needs a GLB AMG??" but it's one of the few SUVs of that size that seats 7 passengers and serves a need for families in certain EU and Asia markets.

Any given Mercedes SUV may be niche luxury but they cover many many niches with their lineup.

> it's one of the few SUVs of that size that seats 7 passengers

Literally the Model Y also. Not sure if this is the need you're referring to or something else. But Mercedes is far behind on EV's and not even close to Tesla. This switch is happening now, if you haven't noticed all the SUV PHEV, ID.4 launch, and Toyota BZ4x announcement. Once the majority of developed nations aren't using much gasoline, taxes will be raised and Mercedes lack of EV will be critical. I mean they are almost dead last behind Tesla, VW, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM, etc.

I have extreme doubts in the trajectory of the Model Y.

Tesla bundles its sales with the Model 3 (bad sign) & 3rd party data suggests they sold 3k in Q4:20 with negative trending.

I agree EVs are the future, I think Tesla was a major innovator in the space, but has stagnated recently and the blind faith in Musk / Tesla is ultimately bad for the cutover

> Uh... wat? Model 3 sales are growing very rapidly! Trying to argue that they aren't because the category they are being compared to is not is... somewhat weird.

I mean, kind of? It's much more complicated when you look at market over market. Tesla sales in the US haven't really grown much since the summer of 2019, and that's despite releasing a whole new model in that period. They've definitely been selling more cars, but the majority of that growth is fueled by entering new markets, not growing existing ones. That's important, because both types of growth have different levels of sustainability.

Pandemic and working from home. I wasn’t about to buy a new car.

This isn't just the pandemic, the fact that Model Y sales just displaced Model 3 sales in the US should be concerning. Also, given the narrative that Tesla is a supply-limited company, the pandemic really shouldn't change their sales at all.

"is... somewhat weird."

No, it's not. If you sell more horses worldwide out of the “four legged category” it has no relevance as long as less and less people are buying horses for transportation.

I repeat the more focused point: you don't find it impressive that a car from a manufacturer that was barely on the map five years ago is now beating the Mercedes E Class (edit: C class, sorry) in its own price category?

I mean, by your logic if Tesla isn't impressive for what the Model 3 is doing then Daimler Chrysler must be a flaming disaster, right?

Look at their statement and realize how Tesla is intentionally misleading their shareholders.

If Tesla is so impressive, why do they need to do that?

What incorrect idea do you think shareholders may have taken away that is any worse than "Model 3 sales are shrinking" that you tried to imply above?

> This demonstrates that an electric vehicle can be a category leader and outsell its gas-powered counterparts.

ICE is currently 97% of the automobile market. A BEV taking the lead in any vehicle segment is a major milestone. Nothing is misleading about that.

I agree it's impressive myself. Though they probably mean C or A Class. The E class is larger and quite a lot more expensive than a Tesla 3.

I'm not sure how a Model 3 or a BMW 3 Series can be compared to a Mercedes E Class. The comparable cars there seem to be the Tesla Model S and the BMW 5 Series. The Mercedes equivalent of a BMW 3 Series or a Tesla Model 3 is the C Class.

Greatly increasing the number of horses you sold in a time when people are buying less horses overall is a better achievement than doing so when total horse purchases increased, not a worse achievement.

Not necessarily. If you mean by a "we were running against the wind" sense, sure, but if you mean in a "what should the valuation of your company be" sense, no.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com