On the other hand having the best selling vehicle on the planet is a gargantuan achievement Tesla should be proud of.
Curious about its future beyond cars. Musk described Tesla like 15 startups under one company.
The only thing saving Tesla from being absolutely clobbered in the market today, at least in the US, is the competitors doing some baffling and outright dumb things with their own EVs. Like Toyota announcing that they think EVs are a fad and aren't worth pursuing. Or GM ditching its only EV that actually sells for some vague promise of a car that is at least 2 years away.
I also think the lower numbers for last year are due to dumping tons of money into a truck platform that seems unlikely to be a good seller. I'm expecting that once you factor in all of the R&D costs the Cybertruck will be a net negative for Tesla with poor sales and low (for Tesla) margins.
(Speaking of the ADHD customers, I guess I can get $100 back?)
Given that's the exact same playbook the company was founded on.
Build and advertise halo project. Use halo margins to build mass-market model at competitive scale. GOTO 10
A more apt comparison might be Microsoft, who has roughly the same market cap as Apple, while having their operating system be on so many more computers. They sell their OS, not give it away (like Android) so maybe more accurate?
But they don't have the quality, mindshare, or respect that most HN-ers give Apple, so in terms of success it doesn't appear to be just units shipped that matters most.
The auto windshield wipers straight up don’t work.
I don't have numbers handy, but I suspect the bestselling vehicle globally is also probably a moped, potentially the Honda supercub by its prior sales velocity...
That "Corolla" is not a car/model but a whole category that combines many body types such as a sedan, a wagon, a hatchback and a crossover model (Corolla + Levin + Allion + Lingshang + Fenglanda + etc).
Tesla could create two nameplate: "Cyber" for pickups and "Model" for other vehicles (S+X+3+Y) and call it a day too.
(early Tesla investor, no current exposure)
[1] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...
Panasonic also has very tight relationships with Toyota, for example. There's nothing about the Panasonic/Tesla relationship that's really a "moat".
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If all your competitors need is just to establish a relationship with Panasonic to get their technology, that's a very different thing than like holding a patent or other "true moat".
https://insideevs.com/news/694239/toyota-cuts-ev-sales-expec... (“Toyota Cuts EV Sales Expectations By 39 Percent As Its Profits Soar Thanks To Hybrids”)
If I had a Tesla share for every time someone said “but $legacy_automaker plans!” Talk is cheap, building is hard.
In any case, my point remains clear. There's no kg/watt-hr advantage that Tesla holds here. Panasonic is the owner of the chemistry. Its Panasonic that's key to this relationship.
And if not Panasonic, then CATL, the Chinese company Tesla has partnered with for Gigafactory Shanghai. In both cases, Tesla does NOT own the chemistry. That's a huge deal to anyone trying to pretend that "Tesla is an energy company" or other such claims.
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The energy companies are Panasonic and CATL in this relationship. These are the companies people should be focusing on.
Moving into Utility scale, the bulk of the manufacturing problem is once again, CATL (for pushing LiFePo4 chemistry), or Panasonic (for the other Li-ion chemistry Tesla uses).
EDIT: It does seem like LiFePo4 is the push for utility-scale, while the Panasonic one looks increasingly obsolete in comparison. But there are very high tariffs on CATL cells for USA's use at least. I do believe there are some non-Chinese LiFePo4 producers selling in the USA's market.
EDIT: But its _these_ issues that are currently plaguing the utility market today. I'm not really sure if Tesla is on top of its utility game. Or if the Panasonic relationship is even relevant (especially due to the current trend of LiFePo4 vs other Li-ion chemistries).
https://insideevs.com/news/670249/panasonic-third-ev-battery...
I don't think that's changed, as grid scale storage is a cut throat market. Maybe residential storage paired with solar will have higher margins, but the limit there is regulatory, and there's also ample competition in the solar market.
Which is to say, cars really seem to be Tesla's best bet and core driver of other value, IMHO.
Signature Solar has an 18kW, 61.44kWh battery plus inverter setup for about $22k. If you could buy 64 of these, you get just over 3.9MWh and 1.15MW for about $1.4M.
Tesla’s system presumably operates at a nicer 480V and is intended to scale larger, but the cost isn’t amazing if you pretend this is apples to apples.
https://electrek.co/2023/09/15/tesla-autobidder-product-330-... ("Tesla’s little-known Autobidder product has already made over $330 million for energy investors")
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> ("Tesla’s little-known Autobidder product has already made over $330 million for energy investors")
A lot of investors looking for returns would love to save 30-40%. I also wonder whether Autobidder, which is hosted on Tesla’s cloud, would actually be very exciting for grid operators who value reliability and things like black start.
Anyway, my real point is that I’m comparing apples to oranges, but Tesla’s value proposition in the energy sector doesn’t look unassailable to me. If I worked at a company like EG4, I would seriously consider trying to compete.
This is like saying "all of these slow moving, conservative, entrenched, low paying organizations can compete with software companies if they just tried." And if horses could sing. Engas has terrible enterprise fundamentals to try to create an engineering culture ($$$) to obtain market leverage [1].
TLDR Culture and resources matter to innovate and deliver. The stars must align.
https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-18kpv-hybrid-inverter-system-...
Amusingly, it’s from EG4, and they seem to be capable of innovation. But it’s not the same EG4 :)