Here's an idea - take the Robocab car design, strip out all the FSD/autopilot stuff, put in a steering wheel and dash and sell it starting at the end of the year for ~$25k.
It would sell +++
It would sell +++
They are also doing a $25k car, they just aren't revealing it today.
Announce and do the far stuff, but at the same time ship the near things that people want.
A pragmatic auto CEO would have had that $25k car moving already. A pragmatic industry CEO also wouldn't have such a large event without a call-to-action.
If they had a "reserve now for Feb 2025 delivery" button under todays announcement it would have gone offff
[0] edit: ok Gwynne is COO - let Elon keep the title, but we know what matters.
The same thing that Google (ironically) did with X - which led to Waymo, which now already has autonomous taxis[0]
You can't keep perpetually hyping tomorrow when the next Q is due.
I have an affinity for Tesla since it's named after someone from a village my mums family is from (and who I'm named after), and I like environmentalist, decarbonise, and electrify Elon.. but sometimes he makes it hard.
[0] on that note - not only have I seen better taxi demos than today, also seen better robot demos from Boston Dynamics.
Optimus has improved quickly. Gen 3 should be better. They showed Gen 3 hands today that looked pretty good.
You can't win on manufacturing - this is, after all, a nation that is now building Volvo's better than the Swedes did.
Tesla fell into the China partnership trap, where the gov subsidises you and you open a "partnership" there, meanwhile they take your IP and knowledge for the benefit of the state (I was in that situation in '07 with Tencent and turned it down).
Hence now $10k Chinese cars - and Biden introducing tariffs to protect local industry (including Tesla - which Elon doesn't seem to appreciate)
On AI at Elon's recent recruitment event he put X.ai in Tier 1 with OpenAI and Anthropic and didn't even mention Meta. To me, as someone who applies these models across industries every day X.ai has never even come up.
That tells me he isn't informed on what Meta are doing (and that is - undercutting the commercial AI industry).
I'm hesitant to think it but there's a ton of hand waving and investor pumping happening here. Which is a shame, because a company with that market cap can do _a lot_ better.
I wasn't impressed by a single thing I saw today. I've seen the same autonomous car demo in a closed environment at my own uni 25+ years ago. I've seen better robots from Boston. I've also seen much better presentations than someone who looked like they are reading the text for the first time.
They have the capital, the mindshare, and the means and they're wasting it.
It's hardly new news that Elon is an awkward presenter and it isn't relevant to future performance of Tesla. You have to look at the pace of improvement of what Tesla is doing. Among humanoid companies that started in 2021 or later Tesla is the furthest along and improving much faster than the likes of Boston Dynamics. While they are still far behind, they have the time and the funding to catch up.
The Cybercab demo was an amusement park ride (and Elon explicitly billed it as such), however Tesla's FSD is released to the public and can be directly evaluated. While it is not yet near Waymo it is impressively good as of this month and the rate of improvement is very fast now. It just drove me across town for 20 minutes and I didn't have to touch the steering wheel a single time. It was incapable of that on that specific drive just two months ago. And I have the less powerful older variant of the Autopilot computer.
While a $25k EV seems to be what we all want and is almost guaranteed to be a massive hit, there is no evidence such a thing can be done yet without losing money on every sale.
Why isn’t any other car company doing it?
Rivian are losing money on every car sold at 4 times the price.
No other car company offers it, or promises it's coming next year, or ...
Similarly, who actually believes a $39,000 CyberTruck will EVER appear?
Crickets?
> who actually believes a $39,000 CyberTruck will EVER appear?
That was the estimated pricing announced before COVID and the associated inflation wasn't it?
Since then the released prices are significantly different.
> Why isn’t any other car company doing it?
You mean except all the chinese companys doing it right now?
Or all the european carmakers releasing theirs as we speak?
Do those meet US vehicle regulations? How can I buy one for $25k
> Or all the european carmakers releasing theirs as we speak
I have not seen mention of those, can you share links please?
Cheap car for when interest rates hit would’ve been perfect too.
Musk makes the primary choices at SpaceX, he decides the company strategy, he decides where the money goes, he decides what future projects to take on.
If its so clear what a 'pragmatic auto CEO' would do, why do other car companies not have those cheap cars?
And the data shows pretty clearly that 2 person cars, even cheap ones don't sell very well.
They do! The chinese for a while (hence tariffs), the europeans are releasing theirs right now.
I believe the reason was it adds strength that let's you have higher wider glass roof above passengers heads.
And the rear view mirror replacement uses cameras.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/cars/china-tesla-byd-competit...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/03/chinas-byd-is-set-to-beat-te...
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/bev-sales-10-m...
Tariffs aren’t going to keep the EV printer at bay. They only delay the inevitable.
https://electrek.co/2024/10/09/byd-to-sell-100000-evs-north-...
https://electrek.co/2024/08/16/byd-plots-another-ev-plant-wh...
https://electrek.co/2024/03/12/byd-triple-ev-market-share-eu...
https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/china-ev-driving-seat-us-a...
US EV demand is simply not at the point where this is economically rational (imho), yet. And so, you’re stuck with a legacy auto EV, a Tesla, or a BYD with 100% tariff markup for now. Even with the tariff, the BYD is still cheaper than a Tesla.
Policy in support of existing capital that is a heavy hitter politically can absolutely move faster than capital of new entrants.
And with both political parties explicitly being anti-chinese capital currently, it's not clear that a chinese factory would even be allowed to open domestically.
Not if Trump wins and I mean that without cynicism.
EU is imposing tariffs depending on the manufacturer's co-operation with cost investigations.
Also their cars are build like modern consumer electronics, welded/glued together at every opportunity.
Take a look at this video where a guy tries to pry apart a BYD battery pack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPTefsqNGI4
I guess BYD's strategy of world domination involves a high degree of automation, so they can make their cars in countries without a large pool of free workers/high wages, that's why they're made like this.
And here in Europe, they're not even that much cheaper, before tariffs. A Seal costs almost as much as a Model 3.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41841960 ("HN: VW, BMW and Mercedes Are Getting Left in the Dust by China's EVs")
But the problem with comparing "features" is that tesla fanboys/haters get to assign arbitrary values to the features the cars have. It would be so much easier to just meet your promised price point. In that regard my point still stands.
what makes you think the mazda 3 is the main competition?
This is probably the most untrue statement you've made all evening and you have made plenty.
>The 2024 model 3 interior is beautiful to the point that all the pointless plastic widgets present on other OEMs are kinda hilarious to look at.
The market seems to disagree given that the gasoline competition is still the overwhelming majority of new sales. There are many reason for that but if this interior was so good they should have swept the market after 7 years of this cost cutti I mean minimalism?
>what makes you think the mazda 3 is the main competition?
The mazda 3 is a non luxury sedan that competes in that segment. You can substitute the corolla the civic or any of those cars on the non luxury side. If you instead consider the Tesla to be a competitor to luxury cars (which is difficult to argue again because you cannot compare feature to feature) then you'd obviously go with the german/japanese luxury brands(as I also mentioned but you ignored).
Again going back to my point, Tesla has a history of never meeting their promised price point when they release their car. Not one model has ever hit their primosed price point. Not even the 12 year old Model S with its sub 50k price point. After 12 years of lies and false promises, there is no credibility that they will get to this magical 30k price point so it becomes moot when the market (which cannot afford their damn cars today gien their sales slump) will not be buying this contraption when it comes out years past its announced release window.
indeed interiors of most other brands have morphed into a large screen instead of the 2010 circus of buttons. Model 3/Y is very competitive with premium german/japanese brands like bmw/audi etc.
I don’t disagree their pricing goals are usually not really met unless given the discount of inflation.
fyi EVs are 25% of the global car market and growing.
There is a good reason why it was all presented in a Hollywood studio, without any specifics. The car we've seen yesterday is a prototype at best, a prototype that's crucially missing a small but important part for a robotaxi - the ability to drive autonomously...
Cybetruck was supposed to cost 40k (1/3 of the initial price) and have twice the range or something like that.
Filled it back up as much as I could with the included inflator kit, took it a big box store, they patched it up and was on my way.
Took maybe an hour total out of my day? No $ cost to me (under tire warranty)
(and if you get one + slime stuff, you will kill the TPMS and have to buy a new one)