Hacker News Reader

Comment by hellbannedguy | Hacker News Reader

Tesla has some big competition coming up from Ford, Audi, and the rest.

The next race will be for a reasonably priced electric vechicle the middle class can buy.

Preferably from a company that will around for the next decade. There's a bunch of startups that are catering to the over $70,000 wealthy crowd, but I'm not seeing low priced vechicle from companies that have longevity.

I really got to hand it to Elon. I don't think we would be here without him.

I am so close to retrofitting, or buying a salvage title Tesla.

(When buying a salvaged Tesla, you don't have access to firmware updates, parts, etc., but I would love one, even if I didn't have access to all the bells, and whisltles.)

View on HN

We've been hearing these stories about how $large_car_maker is making an electric car but so far I've only seen renders and wishful thinking. Not to mention lack of charging infrastructure plans to rival Tesla's. Maybe around 2030 time frame but before that I'm skeptical.

Chevy already sells the bolt. Ford sells the Mach-e with the f150 not far behind. Vw and Volvo have several cars already available.

If you’ve “only seen renders” you haven’t been looking very hard.

News articles have been puplished for the last decade or so about how Tesla was going to die to these larger car companies when the larger car companies really start making electric cars. Which could be true, but so far, not so much. The Bolt is electric, but not a very good comparison to Tesla.

The offerings from the other car companies do not currently surpass Tesla in any meaningful way I can see, and the assumption that the other car companie can "will into being" a technical marvel better than Tesla, seems to continue to be only an assumption.

I do not like Tesla or Musk very much, and would love for my next pickup to me an electrified F150, but none of the current electric offerings seem all that appealing if you aren't looking for a Tesla or can't reasonably commute in a Leaf. I am still skeptical I will be able to buy an F150 electric within the next 2 or 3 years, and would not be surprised to have to wait 3-5 years as they work out the kinks. I am not looking to plunk down 100k+ on GM's Hummer, either.

Dislike for Musk aside, I have to acknowledge Tesla is delivering a reasonable vehicle (discounting the stupid auto -pilot that isn't auto-pilot), whereas most other companies are still delivering small numbers of electric vehicles, but large marketing campaigns, which seem aimed at getting people to continue to wait on buying an electric car, because the next best version is always just around the corner.

Tesla doesn’t have to die for other automakers to succeed in EVs. Every vehicle sold will eventually be electric, up from something like 3% today. Huge growth ahead and plenty of room in the market for everyone.

As for marketing campaigns, almost every car ad I’ve seen this year in the UK is for electric models. Only Toyota persists in spreading EV FUD.

Autopilot is autopilot in that it mostly maintains the course with minimal need for intervention. My real flight time is minimal but I’ve done a ton of flight simulator and Tesla autopilot matches the airplane definition of autopilot well.

Right, I should have said more specifically Musk's FSD claims, the actual current function of autopilot seems pretty great vs. where we were.

We test drove a Mach-e and a model y within days of each other. They Mach-e has a far better interior, performance is a toss-up. Unless you truly believe that Tesla is going to deliver on FSD (which I’m skeptical of) I’m not sure how you could claim they have an unassailable lead.

Tesla's lead is not unassailable, my point is the other car companies are still lagging. Mach-e is the lone offering from Ford, who just released a brand new Bronco which has no electric version. Ford also has worse infrastructure support for charging. Fit and finish on Tesla seems to still be pretty poor from what I keep hearing, and warranty issues etc.

If/when Ford gets a lineup at least as broad as Tesla, I'll believe they are fully engaged to electric. The fact they are coming out with (I'm assuming) popular completely new vehicles like the Bronco that are still only ICE looks like they are still putting their R&D dollars into ICE far more than electric, or were until very recently. Heck, there are 2 more trim options available for the Bronco than the Mach-e.

> $large_car_maker is making an electric car but so far I've only seen renders and wishful thinking

the existing inertia of these large car companies means they can't flip fast. There's existing roles that depend on the performance of petrol car sales, and those people may, one way or another, not want electric cars to succeed (coz it means they lose out).

Core business cannot switch that fast, no matter how much they want it to.

They flip fast but you can't see it. You can see Tesla fight some local environmentalists in the news while they are building a new factory but you can't see an existing car manufacturer switch over an existing factory to 100% EV. When the change happens it appears instantaneous.

Car and Driver named the Mustang EV car of the year. Just watched Sandy Munro tear down the Mustang EV and he had praise for most of it's engineering, even over Tesla.

Because Ford doesn't manufacture it's own batteries you've got to wait a year to get one;<(. Outside of a few big city dealers you can't even find one to do a test drive. A few dealers have them but they want $15,000 over list. But at least in Michigan you can get them repaired locally, a sizeable advantage over Tesla.

Sandy Munro initially praised the suspension but when he dug into its electrical system, he savaged it for cost, complexity, weight, and reliability. It’s more of a mixed bag with Tesla still way ahead. Ford’s advantages will probably be brand loyalty, styling, and politics.

https://youtu.be/eVi0MQFy9K8

https://youtu.be/C1dQtlrI7uU

https://youtu.be/4vRjo0gaG1g

There are additional videos that you can peruse yourself to make up your own mind. Just search the channel for all the other Mach-E videos.

I would put more stock in Sandy Munro than Car & Driver (less conflict of interest and obviously far, far more depth).

According to the following article VW sold over 200k electric cars in Europe during the last 12 months and is now out-selling Tesla in the European market...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/24/volksw...

Europe imposes a 10% tariff on imported cars.

I do think that the EV city car is an area where some European car manufacturers have an advantage.

Europe is not a country. Or do you mean all countries in the EU have a 10% tariff?

Yeah. You are right. The EU imposes a tariff.

From the perspective of a goods importer, the EU is effectively one country.

The EU is a customs union. Import tariffs are set by the EU, not by individual member countries.

The 10% import tariff applies to vehicle imports from countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the EU, including the US and China.

Imports from countries such as South Korea (Hyundai, Kia) and Mexico (Ford) are exempt from the tariff thanks to bilateral FTAs. Japan also has an FTA which phases in over the next decade.

I think the parent comment was being pedantic/correct that Europe is not a customs union, country, or set of laws. Europe is a continent, and the EU is (among other things) a customs union.

Can you give a citation for this? On the contrary all I can find is that the UK intends to put a 10% tariff on EU-produced cars.

Citation from the European Union's official website:

https://trade.ec.europa.eu/access-to-markets/en/results?prod...

VW and the others have some really cool competition for tesla. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfP85iAWD3w

Their EV aren't doing so well in China though.

> ”Not to mention lack of charging infrastructure plans to rival Tesla's.”

Automaker-owned charging networks like Ionity and Electrify America certainly have plans to rival Tesla’s. Just they’re not there yet.

Tesla announced recently that they will open their Supercharger network up to all vehicles:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

Of course, the devil is in the details, like price. What premium will non-Tesla vehicles pay to charge at a supercharger?

Tesla owns EV charging. No other experience compares. What better ad for Tesla than pulling up to a supercharger in any other EV, watching Tesla owners watch Netflix on their car while charging insanely fast, and then watching them leave before you.

It's a smart move. Like releasing iTunes for Windows.

> iTunes for Windows

Sounds like we've had vastly different experiences with this piece of software

Oh, it wasn't good, but that was the point. You had to wrestle with your Window 7 laptop to get your songs onto your iPod, which Just Worked™. It gave users a peek into the walled garden.

Supercharging will obviously be a hassle for non-Tesla owners, but they'll sit there and watch people effortlessly using the system as it was meant to be used, and that will have an effect.

In North America there’ll be a bit of friction with having to use an adapter or whatever.

But in Europe, China, etc, Tesla are well positioned to offer a top-tier user experience.

For one thing, Tesla designs and manufactures all it’s own charging hardware. The other networks often consist of a mix of charging equipment from multiple different manufacturers, which contributes to bugs, unreliability, and higher servicing costs.

Yeah, the Tesla portion of the experience will be great. That will serve to emphasize that users are being given a treat, getting to use the good system.

I had horrible experience with iTunes and iPod on Windows. It killed Apple for me.

My brother bought me iPod as a present, it was cool device, but I failed to upload music to it.

On normal MP3 players I just moved files onto the player and it just worked.

Apple on the other hand... I never figured out how to do it with iTunes, I still don't know.

Some years later after installing Ubuntu I had an idea of using Rhythmbox to try to put music on that failed iPod and that worked like a charm.

Ubuntu instillation was easier for me than iTunes.

Well, I never even thought about buying Apple device ever since.

I had a similar experience. It should be drag and drop. Having to use something like itunes was a huge turnoff. The original iPhone was the only apple smartphone I've ever owned.

That will just convince people to buy a Hyundai (Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6), a Volkswagen (Porsche Taycan, Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, Audi e-tron GT), or a Lucid Air. They all charge faster and come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Spoken like someone who's never tried to road trip in an EV other than a Tesla. Tesla also beats every single one of the cars you listed on range per dollar, as well as 0-60, handling in several cases, and actually being able to buy one in other cases (Lucid Air should be called Lucid Vapor).

They all charge faster, sure. Where? I can drive two hours and reach 5 V3 superchargers. EA is notorious for chargers frequently glitching or failing altogether.

CarPlay and Android Auto are nice if your built-in infotainment are awful. Tesla has excellent infotainment, so need to lose functionality by bringing in a third-party vendor. That's less of a selling point than you may think.

The Kia EV6 does look absolutely marvelous, and I'm looking forward to driving one. The Taycan is a gorgeous car, and I'd like to check it out as well. Hyundai has been doing great things in the EV space, and they're some of the only cars that can match the Model 3 for WH/mile. Cool stuff.

We'll see if Rawlinson can pull Lucid out of production hell, and how well the end product stands up.

Point is: Tesla is being smart. They have a better product for less money than the competition, and unlike several other OEMs, they don't lose money per EV sold. Making people who are already EV owners stare at Tesla vehicles for hours is a smart move.

> They all charge faster, sure. Where?

Everywhere there's a 350+ kW CCS charger. Even Teslas charge faster on CCS chargers: https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-fast...

That data is intensely misleading, leading to false interpretations such as the one you have offered. This is just three data points retrieved from three different sources about different vehicles, different temperatures, and wildly different starting SOC. The two supercharger curves shown on that page dip early because they started from a 0% SOC. Charging between 0–10% places additional thermal strain on the battery which results in a slower overall charge rate than if you started from 10%+.

There is much better data out there which demonstrates that if you keep the variables under control, superchargers and CCS2 chargers with the same peak power availability have nominally identical charge rates.

> That data is intensely misleading, leading to false interpretations

There is no false interpretation. It's a flatter charge curve with a higher average charge rate. Similar to how the Mercedes EQS charges faster than the Model S Plaid:

https://insideevs.com/news/522577/mercedes-eqs-fast-charging...

> superchargers and CCS2 chargers with the same peak power

But they don't have the same peak power. 350 kW CCS chargers are common. Some are 400 kW. No Tesla charger offers that yet.

Tesla switched to CCS in Europe a long time ago. Tesla ought to switch to CCS in North America too. Cutting your customers off from easy access to an additional 4,550 CCS charging locations is not doing right by your customers:

https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html

When the data is misleading, defending your interpretation of it by pointing to the same data isn't a rebuttal.

There are millions of electric cars on the road. People charge these cars fairly often. If your interpretation has merit, it could be substantiated by hundreds—if not thousands—of data points. If you really want to rehabilitate your interpretation, maybe start by finding a handful of them.

As for the rest of your post, you are responding to an argument I did not make and have never made. I never claimed that CCS chargers cannot be faster than Tesla chargers.

> If you really want to rehabilitate your interpretation

I love your pomposity. Here's the Model 3 charging slower than three other cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxcukAhIAU

Even the Audi e-tron beats it. How? Flat charging curve.

Should have put that Model 3 on a CCS charger.

Where are you from? Because here in Europe there are tons of VW ID3,4, Audi e-trons, Hyundai Kona's, BMW i3, Nissan Leafs. Some newer models from Kia, Skoda etc...

That, plus the electric charging situation has sort of already been solved in the EU by mandating the CCS plug.

Granted, the fast chargers are a plus for Tesla. But at least every EV can use every charging station over here.

Except Tesla's chargers... But luckily the other manufacturers didn't copy that business model.

It's really hard to observe a market from a distance. It's a bit like how Beyond Meat snuck up on all of North America between two visits to my home town.

But yes, there are lots of options in Europe. Tesla is just one of them, nothing special.

Here in EU, that is not entirely true. You can buy a VW iD3 or ID4 today. I see a lot of Hyundai Kona EVs on the road. Some Kia ones. Porsche Taycan. I’m more excited for the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

I personally don’t like the “all touch screen” interface of Tesla. I like tactile buttons at least for climate control. Also not a big fan of being dependent on Tesla’s interface for everything. I happen to like CarPlay.

I also think “Autopilot” is a wilfully deceiving name for a barely functional “copilot” that a driver always need to baby sit.

So, I’d rather buy a Hyundai Ioniq 5 with slightly lower tech specs than Tesla, but with better ownership choices.

> I also think “Autopilot” is a wilfully deceiving name for a barely functional “copilot”

I'm confused by this. Generally, "autopilot" has traditionally referred to a relatively dumb computer that is capable of keeping a vehicle/craft on an arbitrary heading.[0] Whereas a "copilot" is generally a human with similar skill and training as the pilot. If a vehicle manufacturer called their system a "copilot" that would surely be far worse than Autopilot.

(Or in the colloquial sense, "autopilot" can also refer to a person who is performing a task without conscious cognitive awareness. "I started getting ready to go to work this morning like I was on autopilot, but then I remembered today is Saturday.")

I see VW electric cars all day. You'll maybe see a Tesla once every month. This is in Germany by the way.

US and EU EV adoption is very very different.

Tesla factory in Berlin may balance it a little, but I don't expect a full swap.

It wasn't until last year that Tesla Model 3 surpassed the Nissan Leaf to be the best selling electric car. I know the Leaf is not as competitive in some ways, but it's sold in the US for years with plenty of success.

Very different cars though.

Leaf is a cheap way to go green. Low performance, outdated UI, but pretty cheap.

Tesla is going green in style. Minimalism, performance, at a slight premium to ICE.

One thing to note is that leaf is one of the WORST vehicles values at % of resale value retained after 3-5 years, while Tesla is one of the best. So the market is very clearly looking for used Tesla over used Leaf.

No argument here, but the comment I was responding to said no major brands had an electric car to show, but the best selling electric car for years was by one of the most common household name brands for a car.

Success is relative. Tesla sold more Model 3 in one year (2020) than Nissan sold Leafs in a decade (2010–2020).

I've been seeing the Ford Mach E somewhat frequently in my area (New Jersey).

> Tesla has some big competition coming up from Ford, Audi, and the rest.

Do they? Out of everyone in my social circle, when electric cars are brought up in any capacity (heh...), it's always Tesla.

They have something more important than market share - mind share.

On paper, there are some great Tesla competitors. For most people and their use cases, Tesla wins. Commuting? Autopilot is the best driver assistance. Road trips? Meet the supercharger network. Racing? $56k for an absolute track machine. Double that for a literal hyper-sedan.

I can see other manufacturers gaining market share, and I think Tesla will eventually fall into the niche that Apple occupies for phones—not necessarily better on paper, but much better design and execution.

Apple point is probably the most important one to really understand Teslas role.

The car industry is going electric, fact. Phones are all touch screen, amazing cameras etc..

Tesla will be the 'fashion' brand everyone wants, and desires. Yes a Ford/Samsung might be nice, and have certain technical points that are better, but you won't be able to beat the end to end experience and desirability of Tesla/iPhone.

Tesla will be the status symbol that your Fords of the world can never be. Mercs are quite popular around these parts and are a status symbol today, but the premium on a Tesla, design, features and just pure speed tops all comparable Mercs.

The difference is that upper brands Mercedes/BMW/Porsche are exist in car market but not in smartphone market. I wonder Tesla just join the club, replace the club, or replace Toyota/Honda/Hyundai club.

Toyota and Honda are popular for reliability, build quality, longevity, and low TCO. Tesla has a lot of work to do if they hope to replace those brands.

I have a tesla and autopilot is not the best L2 system out there. That crown belongs to GM with Supercruise (though they are doing their best to squander the technology by not racing to get it into every car they make).

Supercruise allows hands free operation and properly tracks user attention, 2 things autopilot doesn't do. It also has a much safer disconnect behaviour by slowly and safely pulling the car over to the side of the road rather than expecting the user to just take over.

Cabin cameras are a thing now, I am fully expecting Tesla to allow hands free soon(tm). We will see.

> . It also has a much safer disconnect behaviour by slowly and safely pulling the car over to the side of the road rather than expecting the user to just take over.

Maybe? What happens if the shoulder is not really a shoulder, but part of a hill? What happens if no shoulder at all? Being rear-ended on a highway for going too slow is a thing.

The disconnect behavior I generally see is AP turns off, but TACC stays on. So you stay in your lane, staying a safe distance back, but no more lane changes. I believe if AP is really mad at you, it eventually will stop, but I don't want to stop on a highway to test it out.

supercruise is geofenced to laser mapped highways (over 250,000 miles already mapped), so it knows exactly where to safely pull over.

GM was just showing off supercruise while towing: https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/41643/super-cruise-hands-f...

Autopilot could add any and all of these things, but right now supercruise is the best L2 system available.

And only 1 person I know bought a Tesla. All our mutual friends opted for other electric cars. And the one person who bought a Tesla (with FSD) is getting a little irate they put down thousands for a feature that doesn't work.

Anecdotes are fun.

They do, but the F-150 Lightning is going to challenge that. Right now there are very few serious competitors in the EV space, but it's clear that Ford is now taking EVs very seriously. It seems like Volkwagen is doing the same, though their cars aren't as popular in the American market.

> catering to the over $70,000 wealthy crowd

A Tesla model 3 is $39,990 right now on the website. I get that isn't quite "middle class affordable", but it's also not even close to "over $70,000"

OP is talking about e.g., Lucid, Rivian, etc., not Tesla -- which is definitely not a startup anymore.

Why would you not have firmware updates and parts for salvaged vehicle? Are they expliciply preventing that? If so that's just dangerous both to the individual and economically.

the ford maverick compact pickup is $20,000

It's not full electric. It's a hybrid.

Such a shame that they aren't making an electric one, but I suspect they will once they hit the limit on EV tax credits for the Lightning and Mach-E.

A ~$40,000 car is absolutely something that the 2021 American Middle Class can reasonably afford, thanks to the combination of 6+ year financing, and no reasonable hope of ever being able to afford home ownership, which means having more money to put towards something like an expensive car that you would otherwise not buy.

You can buy a home near me for under 100k. No one forces people to live in NYC/SF.

Where about do you you live where you can currently buy a livable home under 100k? I’ve got family in White County, GA that can’t find a non-mobile-home option under $130k. Even then, sellers are being courted with 10-20% above asking price.

If there’s a place more low-cost than northeast GA I’m very interested to hear about it.

Not saying it’s going to be your dream home, but there are livable 1-2 bed houses around me for 100k still. South Bend, IN.

Example at 109k, bet you could offer 100

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3910-Addison-St-South-Ben...

I'm not sure what the point of your comment is. People would rather rent in NYC/SF than live in a city where buying a home is affordable.

What exactly are you trying to say with your comment? "People who don't want to live in my city should move here, purchase a home, and increase property values" ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com