Comment by BeefWellington | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BeefWellington | Hacker News Reader

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For a number of years, a friend of mine has had a '99 Plymouth Prowler. If I were to base car popularity based solely on people coming up to ask about the car, his would win hands down and you'd assume (naturally) that Plymouth just couldn't manufacture enough to keep up with demand. There's a huge difference between attention-grabbing looks to a vehicle that will have people stop you and ask about it and what people will actually buy when it comes time to buy their next car. It's tempting to point to its position as #3 overall as an overwhelming success but the EV market is comparatively small still so I'm not sure it's useful to put much stock in it.

In terms of the negativity, I'd say that unlike other cars of similar design (like the Aztek) -- a way higher percentage of the panning I see online is about it not living up to its promised capabilities. There's loads of videos of Cybertrucks needing to be towed out of bad spots by other trucks, problems even when it isn't stuck because of how little its frame flexes, the additional torque wearing away tread on the tires much faster, etc. Some of those things can be engineered around and I'm sure Tesla engineers are working on it.

I'd hazard a guess that the market share the Cybertruck is taking isn't any existing trucks but rather more "luxury-class" SUVs like Mercedes, Land Rover, and BMW.

> For a number of years, a friend of mine has had a '99 Plymouth Prowler. If I were to base car popularity based solely on people coming up to ask about the car, his would win hands down and you'd assume (naturally) that Plymouth just couldn't manufacture enough to keep up with demand. There's a huge difference between attention-grabbing looks to a vehicle that will have people stop you and ask about it and what people will actually buy when it comes time to buy their next car.

You should give sashank_1509 enough credit to be able to distinguish between the jokey/mocking questions your friend's Prowler gets, and the enthusiastic ones he reports receiving.

>It's tempting to point to its position as #3 overall as an overwhelming success

There is no other way to spin a $100K car being the #3 overall EV vehicle of any type other than a success, especially given that a) #1 and #2 are also Tesla vehicles, and b) one of them was the world's best-selling car of any kind, EV or not, in 2023.

> There is no other way to spin a $100K car being the #3 overall EV vehicle of any type other than a success, especially given that

they have the US government block competition

Only from China. Non-communist non-dumping, friendly states are welcome to compete.

50% of Telsas are made in China. China built Teslas are noticeably better built, too.

Welcome to reality.

>they have the US government block competition

>Only from China. Non-communist non-dumping, friendly states are welcome to compete.

>50% of Telsas are made in China. China built Teslas are noticeably better built, too.

Please explain how your comment relates to mine, because I see no connection.

People keep assuming China is only successful because they're dumping, and miss the elephant in the room: China went all-in on EVs over a decade ago, while we were fucking about with hybrids and maybe-just-stick-with-ICE. They have world-class batteries and insatiable domestic demand and it's been that way since before Tesla, what if China is undercutting us because their cars are just better?

In that case our tarrifs are just protectionism, is what.

100℅

>They have world-class batteries and insatiable domestic demand

Excellent, then they won't have an issue with losing their export markets to tariffs, because they can just sell their EVs to the "insatiable demand" of the local consumers.

>what if China is undercutting us because their cars are just better

Price/performance they ARE better, China can produce cheaper because of their years of (government aided) investments and economies of scale. Of course, we aren't obligated to buy from belligerent states engaging in strategic mercantilism producing the goods of the future. We aren't obligated to prop up the Chinese export-oriented economic model in pursuit of one generation of cheap EV cars.

> excellent, then they won't have an issue with losing their export markets to tariffs, because they can just sell their EVs to the "insatiable demand" of the local consumers.

that’s what happened but the point in discussion here is why Tesla does not have competition in the US and the answer is simple

The answer above was apparently 'protectionism'. If we're only putting tariffs on EV cars from one country, then how is protectionism the simple answer?

Boy do I have news for you if you think China is the only country that pours money into domestic R&D for strategic commercial development…

Indeed, plenty of countries engage in a bit of strategic development. Plenty of countries aren't belligerent communists though. Communism brings the state direction of industry to another level and with Xi as the new leader for life means they'll be extra implacable.

They're communists but they're capitalisting better than the actual capitalists, and you're advocating for out-communisting the communists.

Protectionism doesn't work, because you can block them from selling in your country's market, but you can't block them from selling to every other country in the planet. Meanwhile, tarrifing their cars will be as effective in helping domestic industry drop prices as it was for Harley Davidson since the 1970s (who received "temporary" protectionism).

This isn't a result of some evil communist plot, China just had their shit together 10-20 years ago and are reaping the rewards.

Protectionism built Japan, Korea and China's economies. Protectionism is good, actually.

Protectionism let Harley Davidson make their motorbikes cheap enough to compete on the world stage in the 1970s. Except, they never bothered because they didn't need to compete - protectionism kept them nice and profitable, regardless of what they did.

Protectionism can be done well, but blindly applying it is dangerous and stupid.

I doubt the prowler was getting mocking comments… they are a cool looking unique vehicle. People didn’t buy many for the same reason most people don’t buy an actual 1930s roadster they’re based on: they’re expensive and impractical- even as a sports car you can get a Porsche for much less money that will outperform it and can still fit a bag of groceries.

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