Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Ehh, Tesla just sold their 4 millionth vehicle (waited until then for investor day so they could flex), are breaking ground in Mexico shortly on their new factory, and are rapidly approaching $100B/year in revenue at a 25-30% margin (while other EV startups are teetering near death and legacies are slow to catch up). Constructive skepticism is fine, but strong evidence of their innovation capacity is available (especially around power controls and propulsion, but also structural and environment, such as their heat pumps). Elon’s a liar, but also effective. Both of these things can be true simultaneously.

https://electrek.co/2022/08/05/tesla-model-y-on-track-worlds...

View on HN

I have been a huge skeptic of Tesla, but when you visit Europe the roads are FULL of Teslas, and in the US the roads are now full of them too. In Europe it's more bizarre because generally those consumers were sticking with European brands. Seeing Fords or Toyotas is very rare there, but Teslas are everywhere. That made me a believer. However, I do think the company is probably overvalued.

I think Elon Musk does a lot of very good things, but I do think he often is stupid, a liar, and at worst a useful idiot. In the end though, SpaceX, Starlink & Tesla have all been net positives for humanity. Jobs and Gates both were/are not great people, but their products and companies have been good for basically everyone, so it's not a new concept.

It's possible that where you live and visit is full of Teslas, but that might not be a random sample.

But for a while, you had to get a Tesla to get a pure EV. The real question is, as competitors come online, are people likely to purchase another Tesla or try something new?

EV start-ups competing with Tesla are all struggling. It's very likely that Rivian will simply go bankrupt in the next few years. The big automakers are also struggling, largely because their best sellers are bigger vehicles, at least in the US and charging & battery tech just isn't there for those models. Look at the attempt at the EV Hummer, it's a joke.

My sample doesn't have to be random, 10 years ago I could go to a large wealthy city in Europe and only see European cars. Again, that is/was the norm. You would not see Toyotas or Fords, etc. Tesla has been made into an exception. So far the only European brand that even has an EV that can compare with Tesla's is Porche and it's 2x the price. If I'm not mistaken Tesla is now Norway's number one make, which seems like a big deal.

This could change, but I don't see it changing anytime soon given how bad some of the competition is. I was excited about the EV F150 but it too has shown they are still very far behind. Still don't think Telsa should be worth more than every major automaker combined. I'm not arguing anyone should buy their stock.

Huh, I was actually surprised at all the Fords I saw in The Netherlands when I went (2007-8 somewhere in there)

(And no I’m not confusing it for fjords in Norway)

> You would not see Toyotas or Fords, etc. Tesla has been made into an exception.

I'm sorry, but this is just completely false. Both car brands are extremely popular in most parts of Europe, not sure where you've been...

Teslas are also popular, no doubt about it. They have some advantages (for example, the charging network) compared to others, we'll see how long it will last. As opposed to the US, the main EU high-speed charging network competitor (called Ionity) is actually getting close to full coverage in most EU countries (except for Greece, for some reason), and is of similar quality, albeit a bit more expensive.

> I'm sorry, but this is just completely false. Both car brands are extremely popular in most parts of Europe

Extremely popular? I don't think so. 7% of market share is not "extremely popular." I've been in most every country in Europe and barely ever see any Fords, Chevys or Toyotas. Maybe some commercial vehicles for Ford, but rarely a car/SUV/truck. Most every car is a European brand or a sub-brand. Tesla doesn't have much share but is already at around 2%, however Tesla's Model Y was the top selling model in Europe last year. When I go to Europe now it's hard not to spot them because they make up such a significant portion of new car sales there. The most popular Ford (Kuga) was outsold ~6x by the Model Y, the most popular Toyota (Yaris) was outside ~2x by the Model Y. That's pretty significant given Ford and Toyota have been in Europe for a long time. Maybe you're conflating the UK with the rest of Europe, where Ford is more popular, I'm mostly referring to the mainland.

Any reason that Norway’s car brand popularity is a big deal in the larger scheme of things?

It has the highest EV penetration in the world. Nearly every single new car sold is an EV. It's therefore a great indicator about how various EVs will fare on a greater scale, perhaps.

Norway is extremely wealthy. This undoubtedly skews the results by a lot. It's a bit like extrapolating that the next big consumer car-brand is Ferrari based on your trip to Monaco.

Perhaps. The USA EV market outpaces Norway by a pretty large margin, and Tesla leads the US EV market in a similar way to Norway, I guess it depends on what data point is being looked for specifically. Relatively speaking Norway is a pretty tiny market to make large scale indications off of.

USA has nothing on Norway in % of vehicles sold being EVs.

Norway's population is a fraction of USA's, so of course USA will have the raw numbers.

However, Norway's new car BEV % is 80%. The remainder is split between hybrids and pure fossil.

Norway started buying EVs when Tesla was the only game in town. Of course they have a lot of Teslas. It seems like a bad idea to expect that experience to generalize now that there are more options.

Hmm. I saw vastly fewer Teslas in the UK last month than I see in the US.

I drove the length of the country so don't think this was a sampling problem.

Where in Europe, because outside Norway Tesla's don't dominate at all. [1] They had around 15% market share and the last few months that dropped.

Maybe because in Europe you have other auto makers that make electric and non electric versions of the same car so you just assume they aren't EV? The Hyundai Kona is basically the same outside except for the front grille and no exhaust. Unless you know that, you don't really know the difference. I would say (in Portugal) on my daily drives I identify around 6/7 Evs for every Tesla. And as I said, I probably missed some as I can't distinguish them

[1] https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/general-i... (oct 2022, first data I found but there is also anual)

Careful, this comment comes awfully close to expressing something resembling nuance... Pretty sure that's illegal these days.

Strong evidence of their innovation capacity will never overcome intense dislike of the brand. And will never translate into a sale (n=1).

N=2. I love my model 3 but doubt I will ever buy another Tesla branded device. I’m currently speccing solar with batteries for my house, and I’ve taken Tesla off the table.

They make good gear but I don’t want to put another dollar in that guy’s pocket.

I mean this as politely as possible: no one cares what a few people in the HN bubble think.

Units sold are units sold, and the total global addressable market for EVs is substantial (60-80 million units/pa, depending on bucketing).

I too have personal opinions, but crucially, one should not extrapolate them out to entire markets without a rigorous examination of observations and data. Put your ear to the ground, otherwise you’ll get trampled.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am under no illusion of Tesla's success.

Forget the total addressable EV market. They can cruise for another decade or more just based on the number of Elon worshippers.

That’s acceptable, people aren’t rational.

For example: Half the people on this board daily drive phones from the biggest spyware company on earth.

> revenue at a 25-30% margin

I love how Tesla fans are so quick to applaud how much money Tesla is making from them. It seems most of "the mission" is (re-) building Musk's wealth.

> such as their heat pumps

The heat pumps that have been a problematic nightmare?

My BMW’s heatpump is great. What are you talking about?

;-)

Money pays the bills. It’s why Tesla is successful and automakers who tried to sell econobox EVs couldn’t. Build sexy cars people with purchasing power will buy, and younger consumers aspire to. Pour that into fast DC chargers and rapidly expanding global manufacturing capacity. Profit. You cannot will these things into existence, they require capital (investment, revenue, whatever).

No one ever said Katy Perry had the Bolt or Nissan leaf of tour stages. I recommend some brand equity reading, as well as behavioral economics around the psychology of auto purchases (lots of emotion, brand loyalty, etc).

https://twitter.com/katyperry/status/444228348319784960 (“Omg someone just called my stage the TESLA of tour stages... It was like, the coolest modern compliment ever.”) (2014)

What problems with tesla heatpumps are you referring to? I haven't heard of any, works great in my car

https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+heat+pump+problem

Recalls and multiple software fixes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com