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Comment by aluminum96 | Hacker News Reader

Multiple commenters have observed that Tesla faces increasing competition from Ford, Porsche, and others. But I don't think it's obvious at all that competitors can catch up:

* Autopilot. Safe or not, autopilot is very convenient and super permissive, and owners seem to love it.

* Superchargers. Third party charger maintenance is an unsolved problem, and CCS DC fast chargers are often broken, where they exist at all. It's truly awful. Maybe the federal government will bail out Ford here with a charging infrastructure program... or maybe not.

* Status symbol. There's a reason Tesla has replaced Cadillac as a symbol of luxury in pop culture.

* The Model 3/Y itself is a smooth, luxurious and fast ride. Don't discount the car's ability to compete on the traditional merits. (Edit: this is my opinion, based on comparing a Model 3 to a 3 series as well as various Nissan cars. YMMV; it's subjective.)

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The book, The Innovator's Dilemma, totally changed how I view situations like this. Logically it makes sense that Ford or GM could use their existing resources to build a electric car factory, and use their existing dealerships to sell those cars under their existing brand.

But in reality those existing assets are why GM and Ford cannot catch up. Dealerships make money on services and maintenance. They don't want to sell an Electric that will never need much maintenance. Trying to convert a factory that was designed for ICE cars isn't as easy as building a new factory. And the union employees that have specialized in ICE parts do not want to switch over to Electric. So GM will end up delaying plans so long that they will not be able to compete on price due to Tesla's existing economies of scale.

It was obvious in 2012 that Tesla was a threat to ICE, GM and Ford have done very little since then to catch up.

It took them way too long to switch over from the initial "sell electrics only to a niche crowd that wants to be unique", leading to absolutely ugly cars like the BMW i3 and whatever Citroen calls their abominations.

Check the top selling electric car list and it's all normal looking cars with electric drivetrains. It wasn't just the production that messed up, but also the design and marketing department.

My assumption is the ugly design of early electric cars was intentional to make sure they didn’t sell too well. Tesla broke that cartel and showed the reason those early cars didn’t have universal appeal is because they were horrible vehicles not because they were electric.

The fact that even BMW created an abominably ugly electric car is proof enough for me that it was an active decision to uglify them as a disincentive to purchase.

BMW must have been in a very difficult spot to release that swollen pug-face of a car into public view.

It's "smart" business, but "smart" business almost always overlaps entirely with "X unfriendly" (where X = consumer, environment among others).

Early hybrids and EVs were designed to stand out and show that the owner cared about the environment to drive an EV.

Now that EVs have arrived and make sense for every car, the styling should change to just be a good-looking good-driving car.

At least that's what they tell us the design was for.

Do they even have to be electric or hybrids? Is it that EV buyers specifically prefer normal looking cars or is it the case that cars are getting uglier and uglier and demand for non-goofy cars have been brewing for years?

Cars are definitely getting uglier. Compare the current Smart fortwo, which is horrible, to the cute original styling.

But ugly must sell, because I recently saw another non-Smart car that was essentially a clone, looks wise at least, of the current model. Why??

I'm guessing cute saturates market faster, and ugly sells consistently.

This was one of the high points for my ID.4. It was futuristic enough while still being accessible. No button to unlock the door, no weird Tesla door handle to get in. No strange wanna-be look like the i3 as you mention it. Yet because it was electric, the back seat's floor is completely flat which my dog loves, and wouldn't be possible in an ICE. The turning radius is also INSANE (and better than a Tesla) because they were able to push the wheels much further out.

We leased the ID4 knowing how much competition would be out there in a few years. Honestly the last two points are the main take aways that we'll look for in any new car. Living in a city and being able to do a U-turn from a parallel parked position without making it a 3 point is just magical, especially on a compact SUV.

You say that, but I actually love my VW ID.4. I test drove Audi's eTron, Tesla 3 & Y, and ultimately bought an ID.4. I liked that it wasn't a Tesla (especially in the Bay Area where it's gotten BMW-asshole status.. and I say that as a previous BMW owner), was more comfortable, bigger interior, had CarPlay, more like a traditional car (no single middle screen), and was quite a bit cheaper. Were there things I liked better about other cars? Sure. But they largely weren't the important factors for me. I also got 3 years of free charging with the Electrify America network, which is no small thing, although I primarily charge at home now.

I wouldn't downplay any competition. It can take a while to catch up, but cars are fickle things that people buy for all kinds of reasons. It's not like pre-Tesla everyone owned only one brand.

Of course there will be other brands. The iPhone is by far the most successful phone brand, and they ship less than 30% of new phones each year. Something similar could happen here, where GM loses share like Nokia did, and new companies like Lucid take a market segment, like LG does with phones.

Important to note though that Apply extract a great deal more than 30% of the profit from the market

The most recent numbers I've heard of is 75%. So android is typically a battle to the bottom, with various mostly failed efforts, consolidation, various vendors giving up on markets, etc. Motorola (bought and then sold by google), Sony, HTC and many others are not making much profit. Samsung is doing better, but constantly fighting cheaper competitors. Seems like Samsung is doing as well as it is, because of synergies relating to their production of CPUs, having a chip fab, screens, dram, flash, and cameras for the world wide market.

Android's a tough market to be in, you are competing with Google (who makes pixel phones), numerous low cost manufacturers, Apple, and your ecosystem taxed by google through the app store and the market is split among many companies in the android system so it's hard to catch google's services, play store, etc. Not that android manufacturers aren't trying. Amazon made an effort, but seems to have largely given up on calling their devices android.

I wonder if driverless cars could follow that same android lath with Waymo being the alternative car OS that all the other companies have to use - but this time having to also pay google a lot more!

Possible, I would see waymo providing a autonomous driving solution ... as long as they could show ads during the trip.

Please, please - could people stop making this analogy?

Cars are not phones, and will never be. American lower class or Chinese middle class are not going to shell out $70k for a new toy every two years. Cars are not going to be made with 60% margins. You cannot wear a car in your pocket to show it off to your relatives or business partners.

Apple's business model, in short - is selling mediocre hardware for premium prices, and mask it with excellent software. Optimizing software to make it 10x better, faster, using less battery - fairly common. For any activity that interfaces with the physical world - forget it - we're tapped out, making 2-5% improvements per year. No amount of refinement will make a $20k econobox sellable for $60k

(also, ironically, LG dropped out of phone business)

>You cannot wear a car in your pocket to show it off to your relatives or business partners.

There's a few striking errors in your post, and this one is the most glaring - in that it's very visual, and also very wrong.

Consider the photo of the Tesla (Model 3) key fob [1]: it's a small car that one does, in fact, wear in one's pocket to show it off to one's relatives or business partners.

Similar with the Tesla App [2] - it shows a desirable car on your phone's screen for the very same reason; the rest is nice extras.

[1] https://imgur.com/a/L4AwONf

[2] https://imgur.com/a/oBw64Dy

It takes 30 hours for VW to build an ID.4 vs 10 for Tesla to build a Model 3. That won't be an easy gap to close.

Seriously, does anyone really care about how many hours it takes?

The manufacturers no doubt. Musk, and by extension Tesla, has been seriously focused on ease of manufacturing. Probably since the huge problems Tesla faced in the late 2010s.

They should be. The longer the build cycle the more errors there will be in the build.

Each job is a dependency for the next job. A long build time either indicates that individual assembly technicians have too many steps in their job (it is much harder to remember 25 steps than 5 steps) or that the plant is assembling more parts locally than their competitors. If you have an engine shipped in complete from your supplier that is less time your plant spends assembling a dependency at build time.

Electric cars should in theory assemble much faster than gas. Fewer parts. Less complexity in the mechanical assembly of the drive train.

When corporate overlords dictate that an assembly plant meet production numbers that it isn’t capable of accurately producing they shell out complete garbage. Inspection lines flag errors that managers ship with disregard in order to meet numbers. Every time.

The economics of scale trickle down into cost savings for the consumer, even if it is by only a fraction of what the manufacturer saves. There's a reason the id.4 costs about the same as a base Model 3 and you get less of a car for it (not factoring in federal tax credit, which might be returning to Tesla soon anyways).

Does that include how much they have to fix after the fact because of non-existent QA?

..and you can tell by the fit and finish too!

https://jalopnik.com/watch-a-pro-detailer-point-out-all-the-...

Does it matter how long it takes? Doesn't just total output matter?

Heck, "throw more servers at it" has been an accepted practice. Who cares if it takes 30 hours as opposed to 10 if you can have 3x the number of cars under construction at one time.

First of all worker 30 hours of labor * factory workforce is a significant fraction of the cost of a car, and not easy to improve.

Additionally a plant that takes 30 hours per car is typically going to have less output than a plant that takes 10 hours per car. Typically each minute during production the car is taking up space, being worked on humans or robots, etc. Additionally efficiencies favor shorter pipelines. Generally a 10 hour pipeline is physically shorter than a 30 hour. Parts, staff, troubleshooting etc is easier on a smaller pipeline. Additionally having each car bridge 4 working shifts for the workers has overheads of it's own compared to 1-2 shifts. Doubly so if you are trying to iterate quickly.

Imagine an assembly line moving at 0.5 mph, for the same physical foot print you could have 3 lines that are 10 hours each instead of a single line that runs for 30 hours. Now imagine there's a issue that shuts down a line for an hour, it's better if it's 1/3rd of your capacity down instead of 100%. If you try an improvement, it's better to put 1/3rd of your production capacity at risk instead of 100%.

For a typical car, only about 10-15% of the manufacturing cost is labor. And that's talking about Toyota Corollas and euro econobox hatchbacks. For a premium electric car, it's probably a single digit

Also, the whole claim would really need a citation, and careful parsing of the methodology. 3x difference in a mature industry like car assembly is very unlikely, and requires a very strong proof to back that statement up.

The proof? VW CEO statement.

The 10% difference pays the next factory.

Tesla gives tours, and frequently discusses optimizations in reduced part counts, design tweaks for manufacturing, etc. I'd think someone with some expertise could tell if Tesla's claims are true.

Some highlights: front 3rd of chassis is one piece, rear 3rd of chassis is one piece, the glass roof is a huge piece and before that's installed things can be installed by robot (steering wheel, dash, seats, etc). Many things are radically simpler, like the interior, dash is basically a aluminum bar the width of the car with an arm for a 15" monitor. Even the ventilation system is simple, few parts, and easy to install. Most cars spend quite a bit of complexity for gauges, displays, buttons, vent controls, temp control, fan control, fans, emergency brake, air valves, etc.

Monroe on youtube (engineer with significant experience, used to work at Ford) took apart an early model 3 and wasn't impressed, didn't recommend it, and called out many details that were expensive, labor intensive, etc. He did a new model 3 and model Y and left quite impressed. Many innovative changes to make things easier to produce, cheap to reduce, reduced parts counts, etc. Monroe claims tesla is iterating their production faster than anyone else he's looked at, and he's looked at a very wide variety of cars (and other products for that matter).

Monroe also reviewed the VW ID.4 and left quite under impressed. Ironically he didn't expect much from the Ford Mach E, but was very pleasantly surprised to see innovative engineering, impressive design, and overall was quite impressed. Although he was horrified by the complexity of the cooling system and has serious doubts about it's long term reliability.

30 hours does not necessarily mean 30 man hours. And part of the difference seems to be that parts are assembled before they get to the line with Teslas (the front and rear 1/3's) , so it could be that they have the same labor costs baked in there.

Meanwhile, I assume that space is the cheapest part of the car factory, dwarfed by robotics.

I mean, the VW is cheaper than the 3, so that implies they aren't spending that much more.

I’d be curious to know what’s QA in that breakdown, or where you got that data, and what Tesla’s numbers have been over time.

But let’s assume that’s true. Tesla has been building electric cars for how long? VW is basically just getting started for real (modular platform for all their cars unlike the eGolf), and still makes ICE cars as well.

It’s never a good idea to discount your competitors. I doubt Elon does even if comments on HN do.

We aren't seriously thinking that Tesla beats the likes of VW in mass production of cars, are we?

Teslas are much simpler designs to build at scale, while traditional automakers have perfected the ICE design and manufacturing, they see everything through that eye and bring the warts and complexity from the devil they know (as an example, most non-Tesla EVs do not have a floor battery architecture). It is not at all inconceivable for Tesla to leapfrog the traditional automaker in building EVs they design. That does not contradict VW's ability to produce ICE at scale.

Yes, listen to Herbert Diess.

Why not? Once you switch to building EVs you can instantly throw your 100+ years of experience building internal combustion engines out the window.

Engines? Sure. The actual FAL where all comes together? The logistics that come with it? Not so much.

You mean labor hours? Time in the factory from beginning to end?

How many Id 4's have water in the trunk due to poor build quality?

* >and was quite a bit cheaper*

There are reasons why your ID.4 is cheaper than the others (and it always boils down to quality of the parts).

Take a look at this Tesla, Ford, & VW's Electrical Architectures for instance. There are other tear-downs that can confirm

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRkm6-bBk4U

Thanks for linking to this nice 40-minute deep dive by Sandy Munro with help from his peers at https://www.3isinc.com

> I liked that it wasn't a Tesla

And that is why everyone expects them to own the car market in the coming years. When the competition's best marketing opportunity is selling to people who've pre-decided to buy something else, you've already won. No one decides to buy a car because it's "not an Audi".

(As a Y owner, btw: the ID.4 absolutely does not have a larger interior.)

"It's not a domestic" is basically the entire value prop of the Toyota pickups and SUVs these days (last 5yr) though they have fancy marketing ways of saying that.

I mean, people don't really buy not-domestic for the sake of it, they buy non-big-3 cars because the big 3 have a terrible reputation for quality control and reliability.

This is an unusual take. Toyota pickups and SUV's are generally chosen because of their reputation for being the most reliable manufacturer bar none. Tacoma's and Land Cruisers are near indestructible. It's why out in the most remote places in the world with scant access to parts, terrorist orgs and the UN drive Hiluxes and Land Cruisers, respectively.

And ordinary Afghans apparently can't get enough of Corollas.

Got a source on the "terrorists drive Hiluxes" comment? Genuinely curious. We don't get Hilux in North America so I've never been in one, and I wonder what makes it terrorist-friendly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux#Use_by_militant_g...

It's not just wikipedia though, you can find it all over.

Hiluxes are extremely durable and widespread is why. Tacoma is the closest we get to a Hilux in NA. They use to be the same, but NA market likes things a bit bigger and luxurious so the Tacoma's just don't come in single-cab and generally have more amenities.

Which is ironic since Toyota pickups and SUVs are all made in the USA due to bizarre outdated tariffs on importing consumer trucks that have never been repealed.

I’m not entirely sure they are more bizarre than any other tariffs are they?

But I say good anyway. We should manufacture things here. Tariffs are one way to accomplish that.

The tariffs are bizarre because they don’t apply equally to passenger cars. Just pickup trucks. I believe they don’t apply to the new unibody crossover SUVs, making the situation even more confusing.

I mean, Android's entire selling point was "Not an iPhone". Seems to have done well for Samsung.

And if you disagree, it's enlightening to read the very first opening sentence in Google's first response to the Epic Games lawsuit against Android Play Store. No, not the case against Apple (which Apple largely won) and not a case which has anything to do with Apple—but the case against Google and their Play Store.

INTRODUCTION

Android, Google’s open-source mobile operating system (“OS”), is a critical source of competition against other operating systems, such as Apple’s iOS.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...

This wasn't really the case early on. The early android phones had LTE before the iPhone and also had turn by turn nav which was a critical feature. They also supported more networks than just AT&T.

With the iPhone 5 Apple caught up (and arguably has continued to increase its lead since then).

I thought it would have worked for Windows Phone. Those Nokia's were actually nice phones at the end and the UX was decent enough...but it was too late.

The App Ecosystems were too developed by the time Windows Phone arrived. I think they should have either (a) added the ability to run APKs in a well optimized emulator or (b) spent literal billions getting app developers to compile Windows versions.

That's for sure. Still, I held on to my Nokia for longer than I would have thought. Ultimately, I needed the Didi taxi app to have any decent chance of hailing a taxi in Beijing, so switched back to an iPhone. My MIL then got it and used it until she broke it.

We talked about all those things in Microsoft at the time. Even the running android app solution, which I might have been roped in to work on if it wasn't shot down. The reasoning being that "running android apps would discourage people from writing WP apps", which wasn't wrong. My feeling on this is that Microsoft was just way too late, you need the right thing at the right time.

> Apple takes 75% of smartphone profits, despite fewer sales than Samsung

https://www.cultofmac.com/755598/apple-smartphone-profits-q2...

Per this link, the BMW has more trunk space than the Model Y:

https://www.volkswagenofdesmoines.com/model-comparisons/2021...

but it hardly matters, it's comes in 2nd to the Model 3/Y in every other category. If ugliness was a category, the ID.4 would certainly win that though!

I haven't seen that number before, and seems somewhat spun having looked closely at both cars. The most commonly cited metric in EV circles is Bjørn Nyland's "banana box" test[1]. Both cars held 9 boxes in the back in a standard configuration, but the Y went up to 26 with the seats folded vs. 25 in the VW. And the Y has a frunk which holds another, where the ID.4 skipped that feature (somewhat inexplicably).

The Tesla is also just a somewhat larger car, to the tune of 8cm of width and 17 in length. It's definitely "bigger" for basically all reasonable consumer use cases. I'm sure there's something that fits in it that won't in the Tesla.

[1] So-named because, well, it's obvious. Nyland is probably the single best source for EV comparisons out there Definitely a must-follow youtube channel if you're into this stuff.

This sounds like an Android take (although apparently you are an iPhone owner).

The problem is that now it's hydrogen's turn to do the same with batteries. Tesla is facing it's own disruptive threat, something it is completely unprepared to deal with.

You have made this and similar claims over and over again on HN, but you seem much more interested in making such claims than in supporting them, and your response when challenged has mostly been just to reiterate your statements that hydrogen fuel cells are better (for energy storage in cars) than batteries, or are inevitably going to replace batteries.

It reads more like advertising than like actual discussion.

What evidence is there that should lead us to expect hydrogen fuel cells to win over batteries, given (1) their currently much much higher costs, (2) their lower efficiency in turning electricity at the power station into kinetic energy of the car, (3) the currently much greater complexity of mechanisms required for a fuel-cell-based vehicle?

(2) doesn't seem relevant, as generating hydrogen happens whenever electricity is cheap and charging cars happen whenever the care pulls up.

Other that that, I thought hydrogen was cheaper than batteries. But I don't know much about it.

What I've read lines up with the three points you've made, so I tend to agree. However:

What we're seeing in Australia is federal government support for hydrogen power after over a decade of strong resistance to alternatives (specifically renewables: wind and solar), and no support for electric vehicles at all. I'm definitely mixing together a few different areas of power / electricity / energy here, but the fact the Australian government is seizing upon hydrogen just makes my cynical mind assume that hydrogen manufacture and usage fits better with the status quo and therefore is easier to understand by those in power - ie. centralised / consolidated control as opposed to more consumer-level control.

This could be Hydrogen's killer feature in the end.

There is the possibility that Australia is simply correct in their assessment. They're a long ways away from both Silicon Valley and Brussels, and may be acting as an independent entity that is free from external influences.

Australia is a major suck-up to the US, the government of Australia is infringing on it's citizens freedom and releasing more co2 into the atmosphere per capita than any other country.

I doubt physical distance has much to do with it. Australia is closer to China than the US, for example.

Australia gets a LOT of sunshine and has a LOT of empty space, which is conducive to being solar friendly. Australia also exports a lot of coal and a lot or iron ore (which is then processed using coal-generated heat), which is conducive to promoting its value and suppressing any alternatives.

Electric vehicles, however, work towards solving a specific national security problem for Australia in it's "domestic fuel security"[0][1][2][3]. A problem of which the UK is kindly highlighting the importance.

[0]: https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/a...

[1]: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-must-fast-track-...

[2]: https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/7790-what-s-n...

[3]: https://www.drive.com.au/news/government-scrambles-to-mainta...

In this case it's mental distance. It's not be affected by the politics of other countries nearly as much as others.

One big idea in Australia is the possibility of exporting hydrogen. It might be a factor on their thinking.

the infrastructure bill working its way through the US includes a few $billion in subsidies for hydrogen fuel, too.

there’s a couple takes on why, but the most charitable one is that solar/wind/batteries have enough momentum that they don’t need subsidies, and govt views energy diversity as a valuable thing and is subsidizing hydrogen to achieve that.

The problem with (1) is that complaining about this is usually the last bastion of a dying industry. This is particularly true if the alternative is a completely new idea it would normally be much more expensive to begin with. So it would really just be a countdown until it is no longer true.

The problem of (2) is that all attempts to generate electricity with renewables (and with no fossil fuel backups) have resulted in extreme problems. In short, when it is windy or sunny, you have too much electricity and no way of storing it. When it is not windy or sunny, you have nothing and are forced to resort to fossil fuels. Ultimately, it's being found out that being able to store electricity is far more important than making it efficient.

And (3) is just dumb Ludditism. As if the small increase in complexity is any kind of problem. Fuel cells are far simpler than internal combustion engines after all. Batteries are actually worse from a supply chain standpoint since now you have a much higher need for certain elements that are not widely available.

Your reply feels to me like blustering, and trying to shout down the question.

Some data on why you think systemic hydrogen costs are going to catch up with systemic battery-electric costs, for example, would contribute to (1) far more than your posturing.

You'd be a better advocate if you spoke to the issues.

As it stands now, the biggest revolution in energy right now is the rapid reduction in hydrogen cost: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/06/24/low-cost-renewable-hy...

Once things hit their exponential growth curve, things might happen a lot faster than people expect.

I charge my car from my own solar panels. Cost me nearly nothing.

Solar panels cost money. It is not really nearly free. In the near future, you can make hydrogen with your own solar panels too.

So far as I can see, literally nothing in your reply has anything to do with hydrogen fuel cells. You could say all the exact same things if what you were proposing was little nuclear reactors in cars, or storing energy in very heavy flywheels, or literal magic, or going back to burning hydrocarbons.

Therefore, nothing in your reply can give us any reason to think that hydrogen fuel cells in particular either should or will win out over batteries.

The difference is that for fuel cells, it has mostly already happened. It's quickly becoming a kind of denial where the haters simply pretend that it doesn't exist or insist on unsolved problems that have long been solved. It frankly reminds me of how Blackberry executives denied the viability of the iPhone even after it launched.

Every one of the three points I mentioned is a thing that has not, in fact, already happened. The vehicles are still more expensive than otherwise similar electric vehicles, and hydrogen is still more expensive than equivalent quantities of electricity; from a given amount of sunlight or natural gas or whatever we can still produce more car-movement via electricity than via hydrogen; fuel-cell vehicles are still more complex and difficult to make than battery-electric vehicles.

You have still not made any actual attempt to address any of these points, preferring to bluster about how people who disagree with you are stupid, ignorant, or insincere.

I am curious. Do you have any financial interest in the success of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, and/or in the failure of battery electric vehicles?

Yes it has happened or is nearly about to happen. FYI, the LR version of the Model 3 is $50k, about the same as the Mirai. By many metrics they've reached cost parity. Even if you angrily deny this, remember that EV are produced in larger quantities and benefit from greater economics of scale. It's pretty obvious the fuel cell cars are going to get a lot cheaper from here.

And as countries invest more into renewable they're are quickly running into a dilemma: Wind and solar are too unreliable to directly replace fossil fuels. This requires seasonal energy storage to solve, which as of today is only solvable by hydrogen energy storage: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/236723/1/Ruhnau-and-...

In short, even EVs will be hydrogen powered to a large extent. You can easily imagine a kind of plug-in hydrogen car that matches EVs on efficiency in broad strokes.

Ultimately, this is not really a difference of opinion but rather a difference in understanding of the facts. You simply haven't realized that fuel cell cars are already here and have already solved the fundamental problems of green energy. Batteries cars have not, and barring a miracle battery discovery will not either.

The difference is, that Tesla's Model 3 LR profit margins are about 30%.

Toyota Mirai... well, while I can't tell it precisely, I think Toyota is making a loss of $100-900k per car.

It wouldn't shock me if the Mirai has even bigger profit margins. Fuel cell systems aren't that much more expensive than internal combustion engines to build.

If the Mirai really had those losses, Toyota would be literally losing billions on the Mirai by itself.

I think Mirai has been a huge loss so far, to the tune of several billions. A ton of research and development and practically no returns.

Toyota does have a very good fuel cell, but what does it actually benefit?

This is very short sighted thinking then. They could end up disrupting the car industry. Especially in heavy industry where they might clean house against companies that haven't invested correctly.

Also, all of the cost is R&D. The cost of building fuel cell cars is probably very low.

In my estimation, the ultimate problem with hydrogen isn't any of those three - it's that it's simply far less convenient than battery.

Once someone has experienced what it's like to be able to "fill up" overnight at home for all their day-to-day driving, the idea of reverting to the old "visit the fuelling station once a week" routine seems decidedly passe.

It could work for long-haul commercial vehicles though.

Except no one drives at home. Every EV fan still complains about lack of public charging stations. I suspect few people really find home recharging as any kind of game changer.

We've owned an EV for two years and charging at home has been a huge deal, especially for my SO.

She needs to get to bed early, so when hanging out with friends she hated having to go to the gas station on her way home. Often resulting in panic the next day. More than once she ran out of gas cause she forgot to look when driving off in the morning.

It takes about 3 seconds to plug in the car when we get back home, and we never have to worry about running out when we drive away in the morning.

Hydrogen would have to be significantly better in price and range to offset this for our future vehicle purchase. A mere 2x range increase over pure EV won't cut it.

This is just post-hoc rationalization. The extra few minutes of refueling time is hardly a problem.

Even so, eventually you likely will be able to refuel at home since home electrolysis is possible.

> This is just post-hoc rationalization.

For you maybe. For my SO I can assure you it's absolutely not.

Having owned an EV for two years now, it's clear that it's been good enough for us. Yes range is a bit limited, but for us it hasn't been an issue. It has some upsides like fairly trivial home-charging if you got a garage.

As such, hydrogen can't just deliver the same to be competitive. Hydrogen will have to deliver more. Longer range at same cost wouldn't be enough for us, the negatives would make it a no-go. So it would have to be longer range for much cheaper.

But I don't see how cost can be significantly cheaper, given the process inefficiencies and infrastructure required.

Looking at the concepts[1] I can't imagine them being cheaper than a home EV charger, which is about 1000-1500 USD installed. Never mind that we don't have any space for such a huge thing.

And I'm doubtful as to how much H2 we'll be able to generate here in Norway during winter.

[1]: https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/home-hydrogen-fuel...

Then I will have to disagree. I insist that it is still post-hoc rationalization.

Sooner or later, hydrogen cars will be cheaper to own than a battery car. Once this happens, none of this reasoning will hold up to scrutiny.

Should be noted that you can have hydrogen delivered in the same way propane/LPG can be delivered. In fact, gasoline/petrol could have been delivered since the first days of the automobile. None of these ideas really mattered in the end.

> Once this happens, none of this reasoning will hold up to scrutiny.

My point is it can't just be say 20% cheaper to own. It'll have to be much more than that to offset the pain of having to refuel.

Sure, if it's 20% cheaper including having the H2 delivered at home, then we're approaching something that can be considered.

As we are talking about a large ticket item (cars), a 20% difference is a big deal.

As with all fuels, this shouldn't be much more expensive than from a fueling station.

My experience is that complaints about lack of public charging stations tend to be more from those considering buying an EV than those actually with one.

(Those who drive an EV tend to complain more about the maintenance of the public stations than the number of them).

Same thing. Everyone uses public stations all the time.

They really don't. Pretty much anyone with the ability to charge at home, charges at home for all their day-to-day driving, with stops at charging stations used only for infrequent longer trips.

Only because they have to. If there was a way to recharge within 3 minutes publically, the home charging solution would be rarely used.

Why do you think so? The convenience of taking a few moments to plug in when you park for the night, over taking a specific trip to a charging destination, seems pretty hard to beat (and that's before factoring in that home electricity rates are in general considerably cheaper).

In the Northeast, people often use fuel oil delivered to their house for heating. Except that this fuel oil is basically diesel/kerosene, meaning we already had a system of delivery fuel to people's houses. And yet there was never an outcry for home refueling for their cars. It clearly wasn't something that people wanted even when they had it. So it's hard to see why now all of a sudden this is a real selling point.

Probably because the idea of "you have to be home with the car waiting for the fuel guy to turn up" destroys a lot of the convenience, and the fact that car fuel tanks are more than 15 times smaller than typical heating oil tanks means you'd be paying a lot more overhead.

You have a big tank of fuel that can be stored up until you need it. It also takes a few minutes, not the hours you have to wait until a battery is full.

I don't see how this follows as a response to the previous comment.

(The time required by home charging is not particularly relevant if it's happening while you're sleeping or the car is otherwise idle, anyway).

To clarify: Considering how popular it is to get other frequently-used consumables home delivered, like food and alcohol, it is on the face of it somewhat surprising that the same is not true of liquid vehicle fuel. My prior comment was suggesting some possible reasons this might be so.

Thinking through it some more, the objection around the vehicle needing to be home at the time the delivery is made can be overcome by having the deliveries made late at night, as long as there was some way to give the delivery driver access to the car's fuel tank. At the end of the day it may just be too inefficient to have liquid fuel delivered weekly in 30-60 litre quantities, the overhead being too great.

Home charging was one of the primary reasons I bought an EV in the first place, I hate going to gas stations especially when they're out of the way or when I'm not driving through a great area.

Everyone says this but they still talk about public charging all the time. It's mostly just a rationalization.

They do? I've never had a problem the handful of times I needed to charge on the road.

The point is that they talk about it. Either positively or negative, it means that they're using the public chargers.

What do you mean by public chargers? Does that include superchargers?

Yes, all of the above.

I do a lot of driving and still I have only had to use public chargers a handful of times over 2 years. Even if not staying at home I can usually at least plug into a 110v outlet somewhere or I stay at a hotel that has an EV charger.

Even a 110V plug still counts as a public charger. The point is that you still care about them. Even if you go out of your way to not think about them, you're still forced to use them from time to time.

When do hydrogen roof panels come out? Will they be competitively priced with electric?

Actually they exist now. You can generate hydrogen directly for sunlight and a photocatalyst. Although we don't know how cost effective this is right now, and the traditional way of having a separate electrolyzer might be cheaper for the time being.

How easy is it for someone handy to set up? Can the home hobbyist install a hydrogen refueling system in their garage with some panels up on the roof? (related: Does conduit handle hydrogen at 10,000psi or do I have to build it out of black iron?)

Possible. In fact a company called LAVO is building a home hydrogen battery for energy storage. Although compressing it to 10,000 psi at home is not quite ready yet, although companies are working on it.

A point I want to make about the "Innovator's Dilemma" with regards to my other comment: It does not happen when everyone gets together and just agrees that "X is true" with zero critical thought. It happens when a group of radicals abandon old ideas and rethinks the problem, leading to radical new ideas.

But the problem is that everyone here is just convinced that it can't happen, usually using very facile thinking. Few are asking any hard questions. As long as this stays true, hydrogen will continue to pose an enormous threat to Tesla.

Hydrogen will not be a threat to any electric personal vehicle simply because it’s 3x less efficient (electrolyze water to split it) and thus 3x more expensive to run.

Really just a meme at this point. The risk here is that hydrogen cars end up being cheaper to run than electric cars. A real possibility due to the production of hydrogen from curtailed renewables, higher battery costs, hydrogen being much more efficient than believed, as well as cheaper distribution costs since hydrogen can be piped in natural gas pipelines.

> hydrogen being much more efficient than believed

God/Allah/Nature obviously don't understand disruption, growth mindset and can-do-spirit. facepalm

There are hard physical limitations that no amount of human ingenuity can do anything about. 237kJ/mole is the theoretical minimum of energy required for water electrolysis. energy->electrolysis->energy round-trip efficiency won't exceed 45%, even if everything, from the energy source to the car wheel spinning, is perfectly frictionless and operating at peak theoretical efficiency. No, you cannot use existing gas pipelines for transporting hydrogen.

For passenger cars, EVs today are already better than what physics allow hydrogen cars to ever be.

Except you can extract 237 kJ/mole from hydrogen. A fuel cell is a battery and can approach the efficiency of a lithium-ion battery.

> No, you cannot use existing gas pipelines for transporting hydrogen.

You absolutely can. In fact gas companies are already planning this exact thing.

> For passenger cars, EVs today are already better than what physics allow hydrogen cars to ever be.

Your "physics" is entirely pseudoscience.

I thought too you can but it's only theoretically, not absolutely. See for example: https://youtu.be/vrKvj2MHLVw

It is fully viable: https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/news/magazine/2020/...

I prefer opinion of independent expert over that of technology vendor soliciting EU's investment. But even they say "won't be before 2030" anyway.

It will likely be a transition from blended hydrogen before reaching 100% hydrogen later. Just because it won't happen all at once doesn't mean it hasn't already started.

I am not against hydrogen, but seems to me as if nobody in the space is noticing the disruption what electrical batteries already are. If battery trends continue by 2030 the value of refitting infrastructure to hydrogen easily becomes questionable [note], when there's a way to both transport and store energy more efficiently and at the same price if not cheaper. There are no signs of battery improvements to stop anytime soon or price to stop dropping.

[note] for pure hydrogen eventually everything except the pipelines will have to be replaced

I think those people are simply living in the past. It is hydrogen disrupting batteries, not the other away around. In fact, I see a flattening of the pace of battery improvements, meaning the speed of this disruption event should be moving faster than expected. By 2030 the battery "revolution" might have already collapsed and left for obsolescence.

It's important to remember that hydrogen fuel cells are batteries too. There is no reason for the metal lithium to have magic properties over other battery technologies.

Thinking about it, indeed lithium charge/discharge efficiency over 90% is kind of magic :) and not even needing high pressure or cryogenic vessels.

All close cycled cells have the same properties. Ultracaps are even better.

Nope. Both NiMH and lead acid batteries are less efficient in this regard. And supercaps have lower energy density, although they are improving quickly too.

NiMH is around 90% efficient too. Lead-acid around 85%. Also, li-ion don't do well under high discharge rates and can drop to <70%. It's not a perfect cell technology by any means.

Does hydrogen get added back into the fuel cell as the car breaks?

Related anecdote: mega-brand Kodak died because film retailers threatened to stop carrying film if Kodak made serious moves into digital photography, as retailers relied on foot traffic driven by film (enter store once to buy film, again to return it, again to pick up photo prints). Kodak couldn’t risk its money printer, so couldn’t be ready when consumers switched to digital practically overnight.

Ditto cars. Manufacturers are beholden to dealers, who need complex vehicles that need extensive repairs. Related, fueling stations need customers who can’t power vehicles at home.

I think this explains their delay to electrify, but at this point they all realize Tesla is an existential threat that must be competed against. They essentially let Tesla prove the market and now they know what their competing with. Dealers and service revenue is the analog to the buggy whip industry, it has to go. On what time horizon is the question.

Fuelling stations just need traffic. The fuel itself is break-even, they're corner stores with a gimmick to get you in the door.

If I remember the Kodak case well - their own research predicted that digital cameras will massively shrink the total addressable market. Which is exactly what happened. Outside of professionals or hobbyist, who even buys a camera nowadays?

No amount of innovation, pivoting or clever engineering could have saved Kodak. They were not flabbergasted at the technological change. The best course of action was to milk the existing market for as long as possible, which is exactly what they did

The real irony is that parts of Kodak where totally on top of digital photography before anyone else. They built both the first digital stills camera and the first commercially available digital SLR. In fact there was a time in the 90s where they owned the (admittedly very small) digital SLR market. However the film side of the business convinced the senior executives to kill the digital side of the business, to protect their film margins.

Clayton and his friends at Harvard did a great job justifying how Tesla would not be a long-term disruptor when it expanded into the $35,000 vehicle class. It was a safe and justified thing to say in 2015, but it turns out they were pretty darn wrong about Tesla's future!

In 2015 it was a question whether Tesla figures out mass production before the others figure out EVs. I guess it was draw, Tesla figured out a way to build the existing model range reasonably well at scale while the others figured out EVs well enough to prevent Tesla from being the "only" EV manufacturer. Tesla still has to do face lifts for the existing range so. And Tesla has to show that they can build cheap EVs for a mass market.

In the luxury segment, sure Tesla is a serious contender. In the compact segment much less so.

Tesla will be a series competitor in that segment when they strategically decide to play in that segment.

The cheap Tesla are cheaper then much of the competition. And Tesla are produced at higher rates from single lines then literally any other EVs.

It simply doesn't make sense for them to go into compact segment yet. They are still growing 50% a year just on Model 3/Y and Cybertruck has gigantic potential. They simply don't have the batteries or chips to grow more. Why introduce more models if you are limited by the supply chain?

Once Tesla actually launches a compact it will be coming to all China, Europe and the US being manufactured in each place with their own battery production located near by.

The only reason I don’t have a second Tesla, is the falcon wing doors. Hoping for an alternative and putting it off as long as possible.

Model Y?

I like it, but I need the largest vehicle possible. It would be replacing a minivan (which is not really possible)

Ah, sensible, more options are coming, but minivan replacements are tough.

Tesla seems to only care mostly about the US market, currently all the other brands are a much better option to own around European countries.

Why do people talk about only Ford and GM, as if they’re even relevant in the car world anymore?

The danger to Tesla is not these companies, aside from some competition in the electric F-150. The real challengers are those like Kia, Hyundai, and the Japanese and European brands. Kia is already making all electric cars, so it’s proof that ICE manufacturers can switch over. Brands like Kia have decades of experience making dozens of different models every year, iterating on them, and creating new ones. Tesla barely manages with three or four models. My Kia Optima SXL has better fit and finish than any Tesla I’ve been in. I also find the Teslas I see on the road very bland. They look like old cars, because they are (in terms of their overall design).

I’ve also been in several Chinese brands, including Nio. Nio blows Tesla out of the water in terms of interior design, and I like the external look better. It’s much more luxurious feeling. We’ve yet to see if Chinese brands can compete in the west, but Nio and WM Motor are very nice cars. There are also several, and I mean several, all electric car makers in China that make quite nice cars. I’ve ridden in several where I was like, whoa, what is this car?

I personally will be quite surprised if Tesla can outlive the hype it’s gotten from first adopters and its poor practices alongside increasing competition.

https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev6

Making a few EV is easy, making many is hard.

The Japanese have largely closed their eyes to any problem and pretend EV don't exist.

VW among the Europeans is the only one that seriously has invested in battery capacity and supply chain. BMW has not even switched to creating dedicated EV platforms yet. Daimler is a huge company that has very high aspirations for profitability and they are partially unwilling to that kill their cash cows.

Hyundai is fine and they will be a good in the market.d I mean several, all electric car makers in China that make quite nice cars. I’ve ridden in several where I was like, whoa, what is this car?

Nio is small yet and they are selling only premium cars and they are really design for cities in China more then anything esle.

> I personally will be quite surprised if Tesla can outlive the hype it’s gotten from first adopters

If at this point your are still talking about first adopters you have missed what is happening.

The idea that Tesla would go bankrupt is crazy, they literally have years long waiting list for some of their products. Yes, of course they will not have 100% market share. The point is, Tesla is far ahead right now in terms of how many BEV they produce. They are expanding really fast and they are doing really well on margin. They are well ahead of going down the supply chain, making their own cells and even their own battery factories.

Tesla has proven to be very porfitable making only EVs, non of the other non-startup companies have done that. In fact they do everything they can to not share that information.

> The idea that Tesla would go bankrupt is crazy, they literally have years long waiting list for some of their products.

Plenty of companies have gone bankrupt while customers waited for products - this does not strike me as so unrealistic as to warrant being written off entirely

It was a big risk in 2017 but as long as they can continue to execute their manufacturing its a pretty small chance.

It not unrealistic but I think Ford and other OEM are far more at risk then Tesla.

No, they're doing just fine.

Tesla Model 3 is a very popular car, but aside from that, it's competitive across the field.

Japanese will fill in while US makers lag a bit but my bet is these things take time to change, and GM/Ford have incumbency advantage esp. with trucks etc..

Tesla will end up being 'another car company'. Amazing feat to break into the business, but really, if you look at EV sales over time, Tesla was just one of many players.

I agree, and I think it's software - legacy companies suck at software and it's hard to become good at it.

Tesla is a software company that makes cars and they've gotten pretty good at making great cars.

The legacy car companies mostly make crap and their software is universally terrible*. In addition to that they're constrained by the awful dealership system and all the bad incentives associated with that.

I don't expect any of them to offer any serious competition.

*Maybe a notable exception here for Cruise which was bought by GM, but they're relegated to just one trim level on one car iirc which suggests GM doesn't recognize the threat. They also focus on high-res mapping which Tesla argues is a dead end. It's also only a subset of the problem, the car's UI systems remain bad.

Another great software anecdote. During this chip shortage due to supply chain issues, Tesla sourced some alternate chips and updated their software in a few weeks to accommodate. Meanwhile the GMs & Fords of the world have spun down factories & sent workers home, not having the same agility.

> not having the same agility

More like for not being able to port their cobol-ass running UI for anything but the one target chip it was developed for lmao.

Probably they asked the contract software supplier what it would take, and got an answer back with too many years in the schedule and too many $ on the bottom line.

This is fascinating. Are there more details on what they did? What chips they swapped etc?

I saw a post here I believe, generally Tesla seems to have made a car from scratch with sane decisions made when Tesla was small. I've heard engineers claim that the central compute module for Tesla has a level of integration rarely seen outside of satellites.

Large car manufactures typically have empires built inside of them for major areas of the car. Transmission, engine, suspension, chassis, entertainment, etc. Each with financial budgets, staff budgets, weight/size budget for anything in their car.... yes they literally count grams. They fight for their resources.

As a result of their org tree, that impacts the design and connectivity inside the car. Often have different networks of sensors, different CPUs, even different power delivery systems.

https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/elon-musk-mindset-tesla-rec... has some details.

It's not about agility, it's about other manufacturers wanting a tried and tested chip design they know will last. Tesla is more willing to gamble, although they also removed radar from their cars to reduce the need for chips.

I don't buy this.

Is it the same reason other car manufacturers continue to use tiny shitty displays? I remember hearing similar arguments back then about that - the displays were 'hardened for cars' or something.

The simpler explanation is the other manufacturers can't adapt.

Radar was removed because the computer vision got to the point where the radar data was introducing noise and errors into the system - the quality of the sensor data went up after removing it. Karpathy's latest talk goes into this.

those comments were made after Tesla ran into problems with their consumer grade displays. Running into parked emergency vehicles also went up without radar.

If your "simples explanation" requires all non-Tesla carmakers to be incapable of using alternative chips because they "can't adapt", you should examine your personal biases.

I think Rivian might be able to pull it off.

Let’s reevaluate in ten years, we’ll see how the legacy companies are doing then.

Remember that this "chip shortage" isn't just for fancy tiny nm-process micros, it's across the whole industry. I'm in embedded systems for medical devices, and shortages of NOR flash memory, EEPROMs, oscillators, high-side drivers, ethernet PHYs, PMICs, you name it... output is just not keeping up with demand and the 1000-pound gorillas, the Toyotas and Fords and Apples and Samsungs, they make it extremely difficult when they vacuum up all the parts. It's hard to keep our lines running with our yearly quantities in the low thousands.

I rode in a model 3. The ride is awful for a normal family car, as well as the road/wind noise. The owner admitted as much, terrible for the ~50k they paid for it. It's not a luxury car.

The status symbol is changing as well. As more people experience them , they quickly realize that compared to BMW & Porsche, they're not that special past the shiny iPad on the dash.

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/15/tesla-model-3-reaches-1... (Tesla Model 3 Reaches #1 In Germany In 29% Plugin Vehicle Share Market)

https://cleantechnica.com/files/2021/10/Top-20-plugin-vehicl... (Graphic)

BMW is on there, but Porsche is not. They better get moving before Giga Berlin starts up.

Why would people buy PHEVs in Germany? AFAIK there isn’t any meaningful incentive to do so, registering pure-ICE cars is already cheap enough.

1.59 euros per liter * 3.79 liters per gallon * 1.16 usd per euro is about 7 USD for a gallon of fuel. That's a pretty big incentive.

I understand that Tesla sells a ton of cars, and will continue to do so. However, I don't think they make a better product, and it's certainly not luxury. That was the point I was responding to.

The important point is that "better" and "luxury" are subjective, distilled down to "value". I can't speak for those buying Teslas (disclosure: Tesla owner), but its clear it meets their requirements; the demand is validated. Everyone has their ideal and what is most suitable for their needs. Leather and fancy interiors for some, plastic spaceship rocket cars for others.

It's the Tacoma of commuter sedans this is to be expected.

They're selling an image. The car is just a vehicle for that image.

The road noise has been improved a lot on the newer model 3 though. It's still not a very silent car but it's now normal.

Indeed, they have always been quiet, but it makes wind noise more noticeable not having any engine noise.

One big change is from switching the regular glass with thicker "acoustic" glass that's better at damping the wind noise. Also some changes where the glass meets on the roof and the model Y has larger roof glass so less seams.

I have an older Model S, drove a Model 3 last week, and experienced an extremely smooth and quiet drive, basically free of NVH complaints. Will be trading in soon.

The ride is dogshit in the model 3 and model y but you're not buying a luxury car when you buy one of those. Most of that money is tied into the software and the battery. Not amenities.

> Safe or not, autopilot is very convenient and super permissive, and owners seem to love it.

Well, Tesla best hope that other competitors don't come up with safe L4 before them.

> The Model 3/Y itself is a smooth, luxurious and fast ride.

It really, really isn't. Fast, sure, smooth, sometimes, although perception may be messing with things, because wind noise is terrible in these models - but it may also be more noticeable because of less drivetrain noise.

But it absolutely is not a luxurious ride. Go sit in an Audi Q7 or A6. BMW E Series. And feel what really comfortable seats are like. A dashboard that doesn't flex. Doorwells that don't creak when you lean your elbow on them. Nicer finishes, with higher attention to detail. I've driven in an S, a Y, and the interior build in those more resembles my older Altima, Maxima, than coming anywhere near close to my Audis, let alone my Jaguar.

> the interior build in those more resembles my older Altima, Maxima

Having driven both an Altima and a Model 3 extensively (i.e. thousands of miles), I couldn't disagree more. The vibe of these cars is night and day different.

This is not quantifiable though, it's just my opinion.

I will give you that, on the vibe. The M3 has a much more futuristic vibe to it. But in material quality? Hmm.

Having driven both an Altima and a Model 3 extensively (i.e. thousands of miles), I couldn't disagree more. The vibe of these cars is night and day different.

You said the ALtima and Model 3 is different, but which one is better?

Owned an Altima for 5+ years and now a Model 3 for two. I can objectively say that the ownership and driving experience has been significantly better with the Model 3.

Most people buying a 3/Y are probably the people that only considered at most $35k car pre-Tesla, but now that they're trendier and electric (saving on gas bringing the price down at least $5k over the lifetime of the car), will buy the Tesla to be part of the club and the ride will be better than the cars they considered before. It also helps that people like simplistic design now more than ever, so antiquated interiors with loads of buttons to learn and keep in mind don't add to the appeal for all the millennials shopping for a luxury car.

I wonder whether attitudes about luxury cars might be changing. I've owned a luxury car before, but I just don't care about those details so much any more.

Sure, that stuff is nice. But you quickly adapt after a couple weeks and practical concerns take over. I'd rather be in a so-so interior and get fast charging easily than have a great seat and be hunting around.

I just can't get excited about luxury cars any more. Who wants to spend a ton of time in a car anyway?

Maybe a luxury car is nice for a date at a fancy place, but that's a couple times a year or something. Not a lot of people are doing black tie dinners and the opera all the time.

How much do you drive? I would guess that if you don't drive a lot, the "quiet cab" wouldn't be much of a thing to notice. Also, if the car is fun to drive, the other things are less noticeable unless you are a passenger.

Luxury cars are like business class plane tickets or a 5 star resort pool villa: they are really nice, but absolutely not necessary. If you have lots of money, why not? If you don't, you probably have better places to spend your money.

> But it absolutely is not a luxurious ride. Go sit in an Audi Q7 or A6

Why are you comparing a Model 3 to an A6 and not an A4?

Well, a few points - the A6 is comparable price wise to the Model Y. Depending on trim, the dual motor 3's are comparable to the A6, the base model to the A4. But an A4 trim isn't much different to an A6, and still above a Model 3

> Well, Tesla best hope that other competitors don't come up with safe L4 before them.

Well I can't see anyone even being close at the moment. The only companies doing such things are using company drivers and doing taxicab-like services. Companies other than Tesla don't seem to want to actually sell their product to customers.

re: Superchargers

I would love to be able to even consider another brand of electric car for my next one but given where I live (Vancouver Island), I just cannot. Sure, 3rd party L3 and L2 chargers around me are fine for going around town and maybe up-island, but I cannot reasonably say the same for longer trips.

I just came back from a 3k KM roadtrip to Calgary and back and I honestly do not think it would be possible (at least, not in a reasonable amount of time) with any other car. The infrastructure is just not there. With my Tesla (SR+), the stops were like those you'd have in any other car - stopping here and there to eat and use the restroom. The car and the chargers worked flawlessly.

It really is the killer-app for Tesla.

Maybe you’ll join the billions of people who do not drive everywhere they go.

Perhaps, but it's neither here nor there, given the thread is about cars.

Also, I wouldn't bet on public transit improvements in the United States anytime soon. Even the most important project for the country's highest-ridership corridor can't get built (the Gateway Project in NY).

> Perhaps, but it's neither here nor there, given the thread is about cars.

It's absolutely relevant; one of the things that creates messed up car culture is that people buy a car that makes sense for the road trip they make once a year rather than a car that makes sense for the commute they make twice per day. A short-range EV supplemented by other modes, taxis, or even just renting a traditional car a few times a year could easily end up being a better lifestyle overall.

lots of assuming going on in this thread

I believe that Petro Canada has the Trans Canada fully connected with chargers, so that trip should have been possible with a different EV.

> I just came back from a 3k KM roadtrip to Calgary and back and I honestly do not think it would be possible (at least, not in a reasonable amount of time) with any other car.

A Better Routeplanner (https://abetterrouteplanner.com/) is a good tool for getting an idea of what roadtrips are like in different EVs.

ABRP says Vancouver Island to Calgary in a Ford Mustang Mach-E Extended Range RWD takes 18 hours and 12 minutes. 2 hours and 8 minutes of that time is charging.

A 2021 Tesla Model 3 SR+ with 18" aero wheels takes 17 hours and 56 minutes. 1 hour and 34 minutes is charging.

A Kia EV6 Long Range RWD takes 17 hours and 22 minutes. 1 hour and 18 minutes is charging.

A Lucid Air Dream Edition takes 16 hours and 59 minutes. 1 hour and 1 minute is charging.

Deleted.

> It's worth noting that neither the Kia EV6 nor the Lucid Air have shipped a single unit to customers, so the above are only promises based on the optimistic claims of manufacturers.

False. The EV6 is shipping in Korea and Europe right now. North America to follow. But let's do some different cars since you're distressed:

- Volkswagen ID.4 Pro is 18 hours and 4 minutes.

- Porsche Taycan 4S 93 kWh is 17 hours 56 minutes.

- Audi e-tron 55 is 17 hours 50 minutes.

> This video by Marques Brownlee is an interesting example

That is not a road trip from Vancouver Island to Calgary, which is what we're talking about. Do you have any specific information about driving from Vancouver Island to Calgary in particular?

> "since you're distressed"

Not interested in conversing further in response to this kind of needling. I'll leave you to it.

Don't worry about it. Just reserve your Canadian EV6 and be happy:

https://www.kia.ca/ev6comingsoon

Yeah the issue and imo the difference between my drive and MKBHD's is that mountain driving has a whole set of challenges you don't get with "regular" driving. As an example, between Kelowna and Merrit, we hit a snowstorm -- it took 40+ minutes extra driving 15-25kmph and we burned through an extra 20% battery. Had I not charged to 100% the night before I would not have made it (that drive is basically a fairly steep hill 50% of the way)

So you're saying:

1. You need more range than your current car has to deal with these unexpected situations easily instead of luckily.

2. Balkanized charging infrastructure is brain dead. You need Tesla to switch to CCS in North America (like all other EV manufacturers have already done) and you need Telsa's chargers to charge all brands of EV (like all other charging networks already do).

The good news is Tesla will supposedly open their chargers to other brands soon. They can go ahead and put two ports on the chargers like they already did in Europe:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...

https://insideevs.com/news/343728/most-tesla-superchargers-n...

The next step is for Tesla switch to CCS on the North American cars, also like they already did in Europe.

None of those seem terribly good differentiators:

Autopilot - They don't seem particularly advanced, and there are two main types of drivers. Those who never use autopilot (so it's not a selling feature) and those who overrely on it (which leads to crashes, bad PR and lawsuits)

Superchargers - Musk says they're going to open it up to all EVs by 2022.

Status Symbol - Where are you that a Tesla is a status symbol? I mean, for a while it was because it was the only EV, but now that there are competitors it seems to be losing out.

Luxurious ride - I've only been in Model 3s, but it didn't seem that luxurious. Plenty powerful, but I expect that to be true of any EV. The fit and finish didn't strike me as on par with, say, a 'vette. Certainly, if you compare it to cheaper cars it should stack up (isn't a Model 3 still more expensive than a 3 series?). But against comparably priced cars, it seems to lose out.

I will admit that I find the giant touchscreen a huge turnoff. So it's possible that I am overly harsh on the luxuriousness.

> They don't seem particularly advanced, and there are two main types of drivers. Those who never use autopilot (so it's not a selling feature) and those who overrely on it (which leads to crashes, bad PR and lawsuits)

Isn't that fairly biased? There is surely a group of people who use AutoPilot not overly in irresponsible ways, but because the media is selection biased to bad outcomes, we never hear about them.

I'm sure it's biased - it's based on the people I know and the people who make the news. Those are two non-random samples. Although, my two groups aren't the same as the two groups I put forward. IIRC, there were a lot of FSD purchasers upset because they feel like they didn't get what they paid for in the news.

I've had a model 3 for almost 2 years, I consider the autopilot a toy.

Superchargers are a huge advantage today, Tesla may partner with others to open their network, but they are going to charge, so it's far from apparent which cars will have access.

Status symbol, could care less. My previous cars were an Acura GSR (somewhat legendary when it came out for how ugly it was), Subaru WRX (quick, but ugly), forester (even uglier). I was shopping for something quick, fun, and RWD or AWD. Considered Golf R, Ford Focus RS, Subaru WRX/STI, various BMWs (1 series, 2 series, x1, m235i, etc), and Teslas.

Luxury ride. I've a Model 3P, 0-60 in 3 seconds, decent lap times at various tracks, and pretty competitive with today's semi-exotic rear engine corvette (0-60 in 2.9 seconds), and will beat quite a few of the corvette's on the road today in a 0-60. Not going to hang on a track with a new rear engine corvette. But way more practical, even pretty large costco trips can fit in a model 3 easily. Driving cross country with a kid, dog, and partner works well.

I cross shopped BMWs and model 3's. Ended up with the Telsa because of it delivering performance similar to some of the fastest BMWs (M3, m235i, etc), and the practicalities of a their larger/slower cars like the 335/x3. Without all the maze of expensive upgrades that BMW plays. Things like intentionally degrading the standard headlights to be significantly worse than a prius unless you pay a few $k for the good headlights. You know it's bad when the NHTSA has to embarass BMW and deny them the safety ratings until fixed. Seats that you have to pay for to fold down or have a ski passthru. Not to mention the new "wonder" 4 cyclinders (2 liter ish, turbo, 16v, etc) are getting pretty famous for exploding and leaving behind $30k engine repairs and BMW significantly shortening their engine warranties on their CPO cars.

I admit the giant touch screen was a turnoff at first, but now that I'm used to a giant map with working pinch/zoom and as responsive as a decent phone. I recently sat in a late modem 3 series and was pretty disappointed with the map/nav/entertainment system. It's really nice to have a giant responsive map (or sat mode if you prefer) built in. I'd much rather have that then a standard cockpit with a tiny map screen, often with the old/slow/gross capacitive touch screens that don't even allow pinch/zoom.

i think you’re conflating luxury with performance and practicality. Parent probably means things like smoothness of ride, seat quality and feel, sturdiness of dashboard etc.

> Luxury ride. I've a Model 3P, 0-60 in 3 seconds, decent lap times at various tracks, and pretty competitive with today's semi-exotic rear engine corvette (0-60 in 2.9 seconds), and will beat quite a few of the corvette's on the road today in a 0-60.

Performance isn't luxury. I've seen plenty of powerful cheap cars. I mean the look/feel of being in there. The Tesla is fine, but a nice car feels good, not fine, to be in.

But yeah, I expect good performance from any EV.

> Driving cross country with a kid, dog, and partner works well.

Except for the need to stop at superchargers along the way and wait. How did you manage to choose the one use case that Teslas (and all EVs) manage to be worst at?

As for opening their supercharger network, Musk announced it would be to any car that could plug in (with an adapter they plan to sell), if the drivers downloaded the Tesla app.

Meanwhile, I'm surprised people use any built in map/nav/entertainment system. I have a phone and a tablet. Why would I want a second rate experience baked into a large purchase? Like "look at the quality of the tablet permanently mounted into this wall" isn't a selling point to me for a house.

Long term travel is no big deal. I plugin at home, so I always have a full battery when leaving, instead of the normal refuel at the beginning of long trips. My car charges at 550 mph when low. So we drive for 3.5 hours or so, everyone gets out to stretch their legs, grab a snack, potty the dog, and meet back in the car. Sure sometimes we end up waiting an extra 10-15 minutes waiting for a charge, just not a big deal. Especially when over a normal year I skip 50-100 trips to a gas station. It's really nice to wake up in the morning and know that unless I'm driving for 5 hours or more I just don't have to worry about it.

I'm a fan of the latest/greatest phones, I have a Pixel 6 Pro on order. But when driving I find it MUCH nicer to have a 15" display always showing the current map than to have some tiny phone clipped to my dashboard or windshield. I wouldn't call it second rate at all. Phone calls, voice recognition, etc works great in my Tesla. Having moved to a new city recently, I've really appreciated the nav.

One big difference is many other cars have a nav system that feels over a decade out of date from day 1. So they age really poorly.

These points are getting tired. It feels like people who pay attention to Tesla pay attention to no other cars.

* Nearly every manufacturer has an Autopilot equivalent that is as good or better.

* Superchargers will be open to all EVs. There is massive investment in charging networks. They should not be proprietary anyways if we truly want EV adoption.

* F-150 has been the best selling vehicle for years. As far as vehicles go, it doesn't need to be a status symbol to sell.

* Lots of cars are smooth, luxurious and fast. This has been a solved problem for years.

Perhaps, but I'm just trying to post-hoc explain why Tesla seems to be outselling the competition.

Also, have you considered that Autopilot is less about the quality and more about the permissiveness? Volvo sells lane keeping software that works just as well if not better, but it requires me to look at the road and keep my hands on the wheel. Tesla has no such scruples -- arguably a bad thing, but drivers seem to like it. Maybe it's the "Uber model" of self-driving: ship it early, break all the rules, but satisfy your customers.

My volvo has no requirement to look at the road and I can let go of the wheel just as long as I can in my Tesla.

My Volvo is better than my Model Y in every way except range. And it’s cheaper because of the tax credit.

> it requires me to look at the road and keep my hands on the wheel. Tesla has no such scruples

Note that for Model 3/Y with in-cabin cameras that’s changing with the rollout of their FSD beta software. It instantly goes to “oh crap grab the wheel” alerts if you cover the camera or play with your phone.

I think the real reason that Tesla is successful is because they do it all with a certain swagger that is embodied in Elon and is utterly magnetic to potential buyers. This is the same type of magnetism that Apple had in the years with Steve Jobs. The other guys are suits and they’re jeans and tshirts. The other guys are the establishment, and you know who everyone loves to hate these days? The man. Elon hates the man too. He’s just like you.

> The Model 3/Y itself is a smooth, luxurious and fast ride.

They're not luxurious though, even though the price is quite steep.

Tesla cars may be way better EVs than the competition but I'd really suggest anyone thinking a Tesla is luxurious to go and sit in a Porsche Taycan (which, btw, is not that much more pricey than a Model S).

Yeah, I have a model s and it's a solid ride but there are better luxury cars out there for the same price. What you can't beat though is absolute performance and honestly software. It's pretty neat to get OTA updates

> Maybe the federal government will bail out Ford here with a charging infrastructure program

Even if they did I don't think it would help. DC chargers are fundamentally a construction project.

Tesla Supercharger locations often get delayed for months/years as they hit roadblocks like permits, disputes with landowners, shortages.

So it's still going to be years before CCS chargers match the footprint.

If/when Tesla opens up their network it could help a lot though.

The number of CCS plugs in North America is currently at 70% of the number of Tesla plugs:

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

CCS plugs will overtake Tesla plugs eventually. Tesla putting CCS plugs on their chargers will make it happen faster.

> There's a reason Tesla has replaced Cadillac as a symbol of luxury in pop culture.

Cadillac hasn't been the symbol of luxury in pop culture for a few decades now. Lexus and the German up brands (BMW, Mercedes, Audi if not in the USA) are much more pervasive.

> comparing a Model 3 to a 3 series as well as various Nissan cars

I know this is your subjective opinion, but I just thought you might be interested to know that Nissan is not well regarded by car enthusiasts (their one sports car notwithstanding). A more fair comparison might be one of the luxury German brands like BMW or Mercedes, or if comparing EVs, the new Ford Mach-E.

> But I don't think it's obvious at all that competitors can catch up

They are catching up as evidenced by Tesla losing market share. It's not a very surprising result. As other manufacturers ramp up EV production they will gain EV market share because not everyone wants the same car.

Tesla is no longer a leader in EV technology. Lucid's and Hyundai's EV platforms, for example, offer options that Tesla doesn't.

Have a look at Europe. In 2019 Tesla had 30.8% market share: https://eu-evs.com/bestSellers/ALL/Groups/Year/2019

So far in 2021 Tesla has 14.2% market share: https://eu-evs.com/bestSellers/ALL/Groups/Year/2021

Tesla are not losing market share of total passenger vehicle sales. That's the only number that matters.

It's still an important sign in terms of where Tesla will end up in the overall market.

Tesla is a tiny player in terms of overall sales, so a 50% YOY growth in marketshare is still possible. If they're also experiencing a 50% decrease in the share of new EV's sold, that's not a sign that they will dominate the EV market as their current valuation would suggest.

It doesn’t matter if Tesla is losing marketshare if they continue to grow deliveries >50% year over year while being production constrained

How long do you think they can realistically maintain a 50% YOY growth rate in deliveries? They're small enough now that 50% growth is very attainable, but that doesn't mean it's sustainable.

Volkswagen's BEV deliveries have grown 138% in the last 12 months, and they're still just getting started. It will be more and more, year by year.

It's not surprising that the world's biggest car manufacturers will manufacture cars, BEV or otherwise.

> Don't discount the car's ability to compete on the traditional merits.

I sat in a friend's brand new Tesla recently and I had to bite my tongue because the interior just seemed... cheap.

Like, felt stretched over plastic cheap. Microsoft brown Zune cheap. And not even in the same league as my Mazda, let alone something like a Mercedes.

- Superchargers I made a San Jose <--> Portland trip recently and their importance and convenience was etched in my mind forever. I was really surprised with the one in Laytonville, CA.

- Regular software updates over the air is also a superpower. I am not sure if other car makers have them.

Autopilot was not a factor in my decision to purchase a Tesla. I don’t use it.

Screams for an Apple comparison. Sure, there are plenty of competitive devices. But iPhone dominates the mind-share and profit-share.

The one threat they cannot win against is if batteries become obsolete in the face of advances of hydrogen fuel cell technology. This represents a disruptive event, and something they cannot easily fight against.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells!?

Yeah. Right after cold fusion. Hell freezing over. And pigs flying.

Unlike the others hydrogen fuel cells are already here.

Thats the first sign of their failure.

Hydrogen EROI is negative at 1:4 or 1:5.

All vehicles are "negative." This doesn't make sense as a metric.

You can already own a fuel cell car in California

If I recall correctly, the math for fuel cells doesn't really work out. It's more efficient to charge a battery directly than to use energy to create hydrogen and then to convert it back into electricity.

There are certain use-cases where you might want it, but probably most of the cars of the future should be battery-based EV's.

The problem with this mentality is that is impossible to create a zero emissions grid with just batteries. You'll find that long-duration energy storage is necessary. Except this can only be solved via hydrogen energy storage. So even EVs will just be hydrogen powered cars in a lot of respects.

Compared to fuel cell cars, especially plug-in fuel cell cars, EVs are the unavoidable loser. They'll be more expensive, heavier, and generally will have shorter ranges while failing to produce a real efficiency advantages.

Hydrogen is a big player in grid storage but Vanadium fuel cells, pumped hydro, more grid tie-ins all have a role.

As much as I’d like to believe hydrogen would be a great commuter car power plant, efficiency (and I mean well to wheel efficiency), safety of high pressure hydrogen, wear snd tear (mirai cars are not doing great after 6-7 years) need to be solved.

None of those alternatives have anything but a minor role. The overwhelming majority of grid energy storage will be from hydrogen energy storage:

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/236723/1/Ruhnau-and-...

All of the safety and wear and tear issues have been solved. This is really just fearmongering at this point.

As I said, I would love hydrogen to be mainstream. I can appreciate an argument that Elon musk has a whole “fool cell” army. I still don’t see the anti hydrogen conspiracy. I follow the space industry and can swine that similar challenges with hydrogen storage exist at 1 atm.

Toyota (and Japan) still haven’t done much H2 stuff for nearly a decade despite their awesome success with the Prius. Would love to be proven wrong.

You are already proven wrong. The biggest event in green energy is hydrogen right now. The only reason why people disagree at all is ignorance of recent events.

Hydrogen infrastructure is complex. If we need hydrogen as a storage buffer, why not do it on an industrial scale at centralized locations? Why do we need a hydrogen distribution network in parallel to the EV charging networks?

If you do one you can easily do both.

I don't know if your a fanboy or not, but personally I don't think Teslas are luxury symbols, maybe they're status symbols for environmentally conscious people, or the subset of them who can afford Teslas.

I think anyone buying a Tesla because s/he wants to show off being rich would be similar to the kind of people who buy Trump-branded products because they think that brand is a symbol of wealth/luxury.

Teslas are ugly and boring. The model S might have been status symbol a few years back but they're now the modern Honda.

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