Hacker News Reader

> This means at comparable margins,

So what about in reality, where Tesla makes over double the margins of GM or Ford[0] or on the extreme end, 8x Toyota's profit margins[1]?

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas...

[1]: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Tesla-earns-8-t...

View on HN

I am no MBA but how do mass market auto makers defend margins like these in the presence of robust competition? Porsche is a brand built basically on top of VW infrastructure and they painfully win their high margins from expensive add-ons to cars which are (mostly) shared platforms with VW and Audi. Can Tesla carve out a similar niche? If you look at value, Teslas are not at the top of the list in terms of quality or the percentage by which their batteries empirically under/over-perform their range ratings. Consumers are slowly coming to learn how to compare EVs and no matter how well things go for Tesla I am a bit skeptical that their profit margins will survive fully intact.

Tesla has a similar operating margins as BMW or Mercedes, which makes sense because they only sell premium cars.

Once Tesla starts selling Prius & Corolla competitors, their margins should go down accordingly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com