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Comment by traceroute66 | Hacker News Reader

> The long term future of Tesla is a battery manufacturer and a charging network. Those are the two things they are good at.

Agree 100%.

At present, Tesla really feels like a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" job.

I'm certainly no Elon fanboi, but I will happily state that there are clearly a number of things they do well (certain core components and the charging network).

But the cars themselves as a whole. They feel like what they are. Cheaply built, but sold at a premium price.

Tesla would do well if they became the OEM's OEM.

You know, a bit like how Dell, HP and everyone else ship servers with Seagate drives. Tesla should become the Seagate and leave the outer shell bit to others.

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> At present, Tesla really feels like a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" job.

That's an odd take. Model Y is the best selling vehicle in the world, and the second best selling vehicle in the US after the Ford F-150. It outsells the Corolla, Camry, Rav4, Civic, etc. Look at Mercedes, BMW and Audi sales, they've been plummeting because everyone is buying a Tesla instead.

They're also the leading battery storage company and their battery storage business has been growing like crazy.

> But the cars themselves as a whole. They feel like what they are. Cheaply built, but sold at a premium price.

This has become such a meme that I think anyone who says it has never driven a Tesla for more than a few hours. The interior quality is not on par with Mercedes/BMW and maybe there's a few panel gaps, but every other part of the car is significantly better. The handling, infotainment system, performance, efficiency, autopilot, maintenance, etc. A $50k Model Y competes with $70-80k cars, but has the interior of a $35k car. Most people are more than happy with that trade off and that's why it sells so well.

According to the 2022 numbers I was able to find, the Model Y was number 9 in the US, behind the Tacoma, CR-7, Sierra, Camry, Rav4, Ram, Silverado, F-150.

And the numbers on most non-Teslas seemed down because of chip supply.

I don't think it's controversial to say that cars have been supply constrained in the past few years.

I guess I should have been specific that I'm referring to the last quarter. Tesla's sales growth has been ~50% YoY so comparing to 2022 numbers won't be so accurate going forwards.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/26/23738581/tesla-model-y-ev...

> They're also the leading battery storage company and their battery storage business has been growing like crazy.

Do you have a source on this? I assumed Tesla outsourced most of their batteries from CATL, Panasonic, and LG.

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/2023060514-catl-drops-despi...

CATL seems to be ahead of everyone.

https://thedriven.io/2023/04/21/worlds-largest-battery-maker...

I wasn't referring to the cells, but the products themselves. CATL produces cells, and yes Tesla uses cells from many of those companies. But a battery storage system is more than just the cells. I was specifically referring to Tesla's PowerWall & PowerPack/Megapack products, which has been growing at a fast rate. Just in the last ~3 weeks there were two several hundred million dollar battery storage projects announced that use Tesla Megapack[1][2].

In terms of cell technology, it's really hard to say whether those press releases announcing major break throughs actually matter or not. Tesla is also producing its own cells, but they'll happily buy whatever cells are available since at this point they're constrained by cells.

[1] https://electrek.co/2023/06/20/tesla-megapack-2xl-power-new-... [2] https://electrek.co/2023/05/31/tesla-power-massive-500-milli...

I've had a Tesla (Model S) since early 2020 and once the initial allure wore offI've missed driving a BMW and once the i5 is here I'll be backing to driving BMW. The supercharger network is by far the reason I've stuck with the Tesla this long, but there's enough options now. The build quality, the drive quality, service quality, all of it is subpar. The Model 3 is a zippy car but the lack of an instrument cluster is a deal breaker for me.

Tesla deserve all the credit for getting everyone else to wake up. But they are so so at making a car I actually want to drive.

> Cheaply built, but sold at a premium price.

How many successful brands have been built off that one sentence alone?

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