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Comment by stephc_int13 | Hacker News Reader

Electric cars have a brilliant future.

It seems that Elon Musk have over-promised and under-delivered repeatedly, including about Tesla; the market acted like it believed that everything he announced was going to happen.

I would not be surprised if the majority of what he said was magical thinking.

Given the actual business performance of Tesla compared to other automakers, what do you believe the stock value should be?

I never tried a Tesla, but I've seen contradicting reports about the build quality and customer satisfaction, I think this is a relatively important heuristic to evaluate the potential of any consumer product.

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It's funny, 5 years ago everyone was wondering if they would ever actually deliver the Model 3. 10 years ago they were digging themselves out of the e-Lotus hole.

I'm not one to bet on volatile stocks, but if FSD ever becomes a thing, they're the only automaker actually capable of taking advantage of it. From a automotive market capitalisation perspective they're overpriced, but from a high growth tech focused company with their own manufacturing capabilities they really aren't.

Toyota still doesn't have a 100% electric vehicle. VW still makes electric cars using chassis designed for ICEs. Meanwhile Tesla is on their Nth electric chassis/drive iteration. Yes, it's just engineering, but so was Apple vs BlackBerry.

I think the correction in Tesla's prices are coming from increased interest rates and the risk inherent in growth stocks, not due to public sentiment about Musk, Twitter or anything else.

> If FSD ever becomes a thing, they're the only automaker actually capable of taking advantage of it.

How does that follow? The other thread today talks about how catastrophically bad FSD is. Other carmakers have driver assistance tech that's as good or better (but they're not setting expectations sky high with "full self driving" moniker).

> VW still makes electric cars using chassis designed for ICEs.

Yeah, cars still have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

> Other carmakers have driver assistance tech that's as good or better

Yes, but at what price point? I don't feel like splurging for an S-class just to get highway assist.

> Yeah, cars still have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

This level of dialogue isn't particularly constructive. There is a material difference in the experience of the end user with a purpose-designed product compared with a square peg jammed into a round hole.

The two largest manufacturers by volume still have no effective answer to BEVs. Everyone agrees BEVs are the future, and Tesla is the market leader for BEVs despite what anybody thinks about their CEO. That is sufficient for their enormous valuation, since it seems nobody else has even bothered to roll out charger infrastructure, for example, even if they did design a competitive vehicle.

> Yeah, cars still have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.

That isn't really the issue. The issue is that they tend not to use space as well as purpose built platforms. This leads to either compromising cargo capacity relative to a purpose built platform or the necessity to make it larger and less efficient.

That isn't to say that they are bad cars. IMO, of the people building on ICE platforms, BMW is doing it best right now. The ix is a pretty good compromise all around. Charging is far from class leading, but range is excellent. I bet that is enough to make up for the slower charging for most people.

> Toyota still doesn't have a 100% electric vehicle.

1. They have the bZ4X.

2. Toyota also has whatever Subaru's E-SUV is, which is just a re-badged bZ4X. (For the rest of time, any Subaru vehicle that isn't an ICE will just be a Toyota vehicle re-badged and decorated for the granola-yuppie-cum-soccer-mom- demo).

3. Toyota's big bet on the plug-in hybrid space is also a smart market position for the next 10+ years. An absolutely MASSIVE percent of non-beater-car-driving Americans have:

3a. short enough commutes/daily trips that they don't need a huge battery to mostly avoid gas usage, as long as they can charge nightly

3b. access to nightly charging via a garage or driveway

3c. still need >500 miles of range often enough that a pure EV is a really expensive proposition for the foreseeable future.

Plug-in hybrids are a great solution for that demo, and it's probably like 2/3rds of the TAM of Americans who will pay $40K+ for a new car (mostly suburbanites who their car on vacations)

Does Toyota even have a reasonably long range PHEV?

The Chevy Volt with it's 53mi electric range was, what I had hoped, would be the harbinger of long electric range cars (say, 100mi electric + 500mi gas).

Instead we have EVs that barely do 250mi range and PHEVs with minuscule electric ranges.

The 2023 Prius PHEV is 40 miles, which is pretty close to the Chevy Volt's 53. So, not really but better than the really tiny numbers of a few years ago.

For me 40 miles is about the optimal amount of electric range -- I either go <20 miles a day or >400 miles a day. It's an interesting optimization regime, though, and very customer-specifc. 40 still seems low for the average US customer, I suspect. I expect there will be more e-range options in future model years.

Not sure if Tesla is going to be the first to have FSD, from the information I can gather I don't see where their edge is.

And about the car themselves, the factories are impressive and all, but what matters is the actual product, compared to others.

Not sure if people care much about the chassis or anything related to the innards of the car, they care about the use and what they get from it.

Toyota does have one, the bz4x. Its not very good, but it exists and is being sold again now.

VW have been building on the electric first MEB platform for 2 years now.

The biggest question in my mind is whether the electric cars from the traditional auto companies are profitable on their own, or are they being heavily subsidized by their fossil-fuel offerings

Hasn't Tesla been propped up over the years by government subsidies?

What makes you think existing automakers can't have profitable EVs? Wouldn't it be easier for them to be profitable? They have existing supply chains, manufacturing, distribution, etc.

Every subsidy Tesla has used has been offered to other manufacturers.

Initially wouldn't it be unprofitable as they are dealing with new technology?

I think Tesla is so much like Apple. Both sell a product of debatable quality. Both do their utmost to differentiate from competitors - most visibly by using non-standard charging ports for their respective products. Both had a quirky CEO that gathered a cult-like following. Both are headquartered in the SF Bay Area and have very loyal fans.

My biggest concern as a Tesla stockholder would be that lots of Apple's retention power is due to the walled garden and making everything slightly different so users have hard time switching to competing products.

I don't think Tesla has many such technical obstacles to stop customers from selecting a different brand for their next car. They need to compete by being actually better and successfully maintaining a premium image.

> Both had a quirky CEO that gathered a cult-like following. Both are headquartered in the SF Bay Area and have very loyal fans.

That’s a highly euphemistic way of phrasing things. They were were deeply narcissistic individuals. The difference is that while Jobs was able to mostly hide that side of himself from the public, Musk revels in making it his entire public persona. And while certainly some people are attracted by that, happily many are not. Apple’s fans mostly supported it despite Jobs’ unpleasantness. Musk’s support him because of it.

iOS software quality has been declining and iPhone hardware is only marginally improving recently, but they still remain better built phones than competition.

And yes they have extremely loyal customers.

Is it comparable with Tesla? I've heard complaints about the build quality. There are better brands I think.

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