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Comment by randerp | Hacker News Reader

what is tesla's competitive advantage going forward? brand cachet?

The Supercharger network is a selling point as well. Much of the US is well covered. The chargers seem more robust than competitor's set-ups (which are often broken when you arrive).

Trying to charge a non-Tesla during a trip can be a bit of a crap-shoot. Will the station be available? Will it be functional? Do I need to create yet another new account on yet another new app to access it?

This won't last. But until the competition makes their charging network better, it's a selling point for many buyers.

> The Supercharger network is a selling point as well. Much of the US is well covered.

How many truck buyers are realistically driving their trucks cross country? The ideal truck EV owner is the ranch owners in Texas who drives to the local TSC, grabs his stuff and then is doing work somewhere on the 10 acres ranch. If it meant never driving to the gas station that's a huge time saver. F-150 is a great fit for that.

The people I know interested in the Tesla cybertruck are tech bros who have enough disposable income that buying a cybertruck is basically a solution in search of a problem. They'll end up using it to tow their boat or go camping.

The same number of buyers that take their ICE trucks cross country? Most truck owners don't need trucks, or need a truck very infrequently, but buy one anyways.

I'd consider a Lightning if my Honda Ridgeline wasn't only a year old. Except I'm not sure it has enough range to actually get me from DC to Canaan Valley and back without a long detour to charge on the way home. Using ABRP, it has 90 minutes of charging and another 30-45 minutes of extra driving to get to a charger. This is over what should be a 6 hour drive (3 each way), so pretty ridiculous.

Compared to a Tesla Model X (standard range), which needs 45 minutes of charging, but no extra distance because there's a Supercharger on the way (using Tesla's maps). The 45 minutes charging is still pretty silly, given an ICE can do the round trip on a single tank, but that's way better than the non-Tesla option.

Does Tesla's patent portfolio serve as a competitive advantage? I don't follow such things, so I don't know.

Regardless of patent portfolio, I think it's a safe bet that Tesla views their (vaporware-ish?) self driving tech as a competitive advantage. Probably why they emphasize it so much and Elon seems absolutely fixated on it.

If I interpret this correctly[0], their patents have no competitive value?

It just feels like we're at an inflection point where Tesla's production will soon be dwarfed by competitors and consumers having the choice of dozens of EVs vs a handful is going to drastically shift the market.

[0] - https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...

That's just a bog standard mutual license patent clause wrapped up in some silly "open source" phrasing.

> where Tesla's production will soon be dwarfed by competitors

If theycan get enough batteries, that's currently the bottleneck for most manufacturers. Tesla has spent the last decade securing battery supply.

Tesla's supercharger network still seems to me a lot more reliable and easy-to-use than Electrify America (which Ford uses), but EA is building out fast. I'm also a bigger fan of Tesla's cylindrical batteries than Ford's pouch batteries, but time may prove me wrong.

Yeah, the supercharger network is years ahead. I wish EA would do something similar to the tesla chargers where it would automatically bill your account. I love not having to use a CC or scan a fob.

There is plug-in charging that uses your car's VIN. No need to credit card/fob/anything.

https://www.engadget.com/electrify-america-ev-charging-payme...

Perfect. This is one step closer to making EVs even more convenient than gas. Forget your wallet? You can still get a quick charge if necessary.

EA is just one of the CCS networks in the country, there's also EVgo, Chargepoint, probably others.

Point taken. Tesla is soon going to have to make its US network CCS compatible too; their European cars already use CCS connectors because the law there requires it.

It's kind of an unoptimal result because CCS is a big ugly connector while the Tesla connector is small and sleek: Tesla uses the same pins for both AC and DC, while CCS requires separate pins.

Oh well. VHS beats Betamax again.

I think Tesla still has a leg up on range. I looked into buying an F150 but the range is just a bit low for me. The Lightning has a purported EPA range of 320 miles which if you subtract off the top 10% and bottom 10% means it really has 250 miles of usable range at EPA standards which would probably drop it to 150-180 if you're driving it at highway speeds with a load. It's just a bit too low for me if I'm going to take this thing camping or hauling a trailer for a boat.

That said, I think 150-180 miles is plenty of range for people who would just drive this thing to work and back.

Most Teslas are similar. ~320 miles at best, and closer to 200 in the real world on the highway with reasonable buffers.

320 is a fair mark, but I didn't do the math for real world reasonable buffers for the lightning. That would drop it further to about 130-150 miles.

I'm confused. You said you subtracted off the top 10% and the bottom 10%?

TBH, comparing my Model Y to the Lightning, the only range issue that I see is the charge speeds. The Lightning's 400V CCS system limits it a bit, so charge times would be quite a bit higher on longer trips.

Yeah, you pretty much have to do that with any EV.

You don't want to frequently charge over 90% to preserve the integrity of the battery. Same with the bottom 10%. You don't want to frequently drive the car down to 1%. I think it's not a huge deal if you drive it down to 5% or so, but as an owner of an EV, it gets pretty scary to go below 10% before you charge if you're on a trip. If the wind speed/ temp/etc gets out of control, it can sap your battery before you make it to the next station.

Ignoring 20% of the battery is pretty much the standard on today's EVs.

Important to note that many tesla models under-perform their EPA estimates when tested in more real world conditions while most other manufacturers tie or outperform them, sometimes substantially [1].

The Mach-E for instance has a -48 mile EPA range compared to an M3LR but only a -4 mile range in the edmund's test.

Same for Taycan, EPA rating of 203, edmunds got 323.

Tesla M3P EPA is 310 but edmunds got only 256.

When you factor in actual expected range and price (especially the federal tax credit) Tesla's range advantage is rapidly disappearing and as far as I'm aware there isn't anything coming down the pipe that will radically change that (4680s maybe, but we haven't seen any of the touted benefits proved out yet).

https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-range-and-cons...

I tend to prefer the insideevs 70 mph test, as its closer to a practical test, but yes, the range in the real world is different from the rated range to varying degrees.

Teslas tend to come pretty close to their EPA highway rating when tested on the highway under similar circumstances. But the EPA highway rating isn't the one that gets advertised. :sigh

That makes a lot of sense, most people talking about range don't care about commuting range but care a lot about # of recharges to travel some long distance so it stands to reason that highway numbers are more valuable than a combined metric.

Although for me traveling up and down 95 is so slow that I end up hitting the city number on my hybrid :)

Isn’t F150 range calculated with 1000 pounds cargo?

I saw some speculation of that, but it isn't clear that its actually true.

Supercharger network, much longer range, significant investment in battery technology that should make their cars comparatively cheaper, FSD when it arrives, fantastic safety scores and cult like brand loyalty. Tesla has a lot going for it atleast for the next 5-10 years.

No union. Supercharger network. Battery factories. Solar cells. AI and software. Much less baggage as a newer company.

All valid points - I still think there is something brewing behind the scenes of Ford with their Model E division, some financial engineering to spin it off and shed pension liabilities or whatever.

That last part is a huge deal. No meaningful debt and very positive cash flow will give them some meaningful advantages.

Exactly. With over 20% margin, Tesla can afford to cut prices a lot if they ever need to, whereas most other manufacturers are probably barely breaking even on their electric vehicles.

I think it is brand and their charging network.

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