Tesla's 'nightmare' year continues as a big drop in deliveries sends stock down | Hacker News Reader

Tesla's 'nightmare' year continues as a big drop in deliveries sends stock down

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21 pointsachow35 comments

Completely anecdotal, but I recently drove by a mall parking lot here in NJ and noticed that there was a whole section parked with new Teslas. There have typically been inventory in this lot as there is a sales/service center ~1 mile away. But I did a double take because there were so many more than usual.

I myself recently purchased a Prius Prime (plugin hybrid) and it's been fantastic. 1000 miles on the first tank and $32 to fill it. My driving pattern means that 3 days a week, I'll burn a few miles worth of fuel. But otherwise, I'm electric. I like that I can charge it up overnight on a standard 120v outlet and didn't need any new wiring or installing a charger. I like that I'll never have range anxiety and I can always just drive it as a very efficient gas vehicle.

But do you like having to constantly change oil, filters etc.?

You say it as if they had to change oil once a month. In their case is probably every 6 months minimum.

10,000 mile service interval. I probably won't need to change it for a year, but will do so at 6mo. interval I think.

I think changing oil is the least annoying thing about owning a gas vehicle. I think the 100% top problem is Smog checks and catalytic converter replacements.

A cat usually has to be replaced only once during a car's life and the interval is so long it's very unlikely to affect the initial purchaser.

I've had to replace about 4 in the lifetime of the cars I've owned. If you replace a car every 5 years then you may not have to deal with it, but if you are a broke college student driving an older car or someone who buys a car and drives it for 10+ years it's a real problem. Especially when the engine starts to get more tired or someone uses a cordless Sawzall on it...

Every other repair I've made to older cars has been relatively painless compared to the price of a catalytic converter. Radiators, head gaskets, clutches, and brake master cylinders were a couple hundred bucks. But catalytic converters? Some of them are up to $2500 just for the part.

Electric cars have their own long term reliability issues, but for gas cars my main problem is the cat. Everything else lasts with good maintenance. Unless it's a Chrysler...

Oh I always buy cars of 10+ years old and keep them until they become too expensive to maintain.

One of them blew a transmission which was the end of that obviously. Another one had an ECU error but drove normally so I kept it until I left the country anyway.

But a cat never failed on my and then I'd just switch to another car anyway. But I've never spent more than 2200 on a car anyway :) The last one was not bad though, full leather heated seats, automatic everything etc. Really nice condition too, it's just that big cars are really unpopular and thus expensive here due to the road tax.

But these days I just don't even bother with a car anymore.

Constantly, like every 10k miles or once a year.

How much do you enjoy endless service centre visits to correct manufacturing defects?

On a Toyota?

No with a tesla

Those are pretty trivial things that don't involve a huge amount of time, hassle, or money. When I'm thinking of the downsides of ICE vehicles, and there are many, those would be at the very bottom of the list.

I like not having to wait half an hour to fill the tank.

Quaker Bridge Mall I am guessing? There are always so many teslas parked there.

Its probably an indicator of the EV market as a whole reaching a saturation point with current tech.

Anybody who wants an EV and can afford 45K+ already have one. The rest are either waiting for the next jump in battery tech from the current 250-300 mile max range, a price drop or living in an apartment.

Ultimately, EVs will win out due to their simpler architecture and general convenience but its likely 10 years out.

Also in Europe competition is ramping up. Tesla has been complacent and is now falling behind. For instance BMW, Renault and Mercedes all have much better "self-driving" than Tesla (capacitive steering wheel, efficient automatic overtaking, no phantom braking, 360° cameras, fully automatic parking that actually works, etc), and there are good, much cheaper models such as the Cupra Born or the MG 4.

I think it’s a lot less than 10 years out - EVs being pricey has some connection to the technology but mostly due to the manufacturers choosing to focus on high-end luxury vehicles trying to maintain the much higher SUV/truck-level profit margins they’ve been enjoying rather than dropping down to traditional sedan levels. There is a fair chunk of people who don’t have easy access for charging and a smaller group who really need greater than 200 mile ranges, but there’s still a ton of ICE sales to people who don’t have those problems (especially suburban 2 car households where even 100 mile range is overkill for taking the kids to school on the way to work and overnight garage charging works fine) but they’re looking for a $20-30k car rather than a $40-70k luxury truck. It’s not a coincidence that GM is easily selling every Bolt they made and the Mach-E started moving after lowering the markup - people aren’t willing to overpay so much when interest rates are twice what they’ve been for over a decade:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/290673/auto-loan-rates-u...

The thing which has me bullish on EVs is that the rest of the world isn’t so skewed towards massive vehicles and their corresponding markups. Some of those models are going to be offered here, too, and it looks like BYD is going to be moving in slowly, which will mask pressure on the established companies to offer affordable options.

Tesla needs a new leader.

Tesla used to appeal to logical car buyers but once you really research it as an option it quickly stops being a good choice.

1. Poor build quality

2. FSD = broken promises, danger to other road users

3. Expensive and lengthy repairs after accidents

4. High insurance rates compared to non ev

5. Supercharging is expensive, often not worth to buy an EV for non-home owners

6. Poor service, gaps or issues "up to spec"

7. Lack of 3rd party OEM part manufacturing

8. Expensive out of warranty battery replacement, which renders the car useless

9. Elon says a lot of stupid shit and many might not want to support him by buying his product

10. Used Tesla prices have collapsed, with some dealers even refusing to take in as a trade in

For these reason I would not buy a Tesla right now. I feel like buying a hybrid Honda will be cheaper over a 15 year period. I understand many love Tesla here as it is tech centered forum, so I expect counter arguments.

A lot of these things are just not fixable within the short term either, so a new leader probably won't improve things much. Take poor build quality, for example, which takes many years of iteration to improve.

9. Elon says a lot of stupid shit and many might not want to support him by buying his product

I think this is actually a bigger thing than people realize though. Initially I think Elon was the selling point, people liked him more and wanted to support him. Not anymore.

I don't know about that, maybe in the tech nerd crowd that's true. But repair costs and mainly Teslas being very unreliable and breaking down a lot has been going viral on instagram and probably tiktok for months.

> maybe in the tech nerd crowd that's true

I live in Wyoming. I know two people who passed on buying a Tesla because they didn’t want to be the jackass driving around town making that sort of a political statement.

That’s my experience as well. My non-techy potential EV buyer friends are split on Tesla. Group A thinks the range and specs are industry leading, for now. Group B wants nothing to do with Tesla regardless of how good or bad the cars are because of Elon.

EV's in Group B would be awesome!

Bring on Group B-EV

The only point I ever hear any non tech person say is that they hate Elon and won't buy the car. Period.

5-10y ago these people were gushing to see the frunk and talking about how they can't wait to afford one.

He should be awarded soothing recognizing the absolutely massive amount of goodwill that he created and destroyed in about 1 decade

Anecdotally this is mostly correct, but I also have heard non tech people acknowledge how hard it is to get parts/repair the cars as a downside as well.

It won’t be quick but I would bet that they could make fairly big improvements quickly if they had a less chaotic leader: someone who acknowledges the problem and makes it their top priority instead of chasing impulses or being obsessed with something which would be cool if it worked but doesn’t. I guarantee that there are people in that organization who know how to improve reliability but aren’t empowered in a culture of intimidation.

You forgot poor cost-cutting decisions that have reduced their utility as actual cars. No parking sensors, no rain sensors, no stalks, no gear shifter, no physical AC controls.

I'm not undoing 20+ years of driving muscle memory just so Elon can make a few bucks extra profit per car.

Why is there not a website with sensor parts lists and 3-D print files so that you can festoon your Tesla with all the latest sensor and tangible-UI technology ?

The number of people willing to pay bmw prices for a golf cart seems to be smaller than some predicted.

But hey, 20 million cars / year in 2030 or when was that prediction.

And a colony on Mars.

Perhaps their fearless leader is in the “finding out” phase.

I personally am not bothered.

I cant afford a new electric car and I wont be able to afford a second hand electric car either.

Put on your cape and your tighty-whiteys for full-tilt, fantastic adventure with Fanboy and Chum Chum.

I live near to the Tesla car sales, car park, collection point in Staines. I huge expanse that is filled with ussless contraptions that only the rich can afford.

Just up the road there is a now empty VMware office building and up the road a little further is the now empty Bupa main office. Staines renowned for the "Staines massive" of "Ali G" Fame. We once had Quentin Tarantino visit our only night club, its not a night club as such as it only opens until 2am.

It is because I live so near to my hero, he has a car park up the road. Even though he lives in America we are sort of neighbours, we must be, it used to only be a 4 hour flight on Concorde, which is nearer than my 6 hour drive to Snowdonia, So neighbours it is. Because of that I can try to convince as many peoiple as possible that he and I are close friends. We are!

So, all you people who believe and think that you are convinced you are a personal friends of the main man.

I was there first, so there.

What on earth are you doing following this fantasy figure and his chrtistmas toys.

On and on the fantasists run!

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