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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

> Let's Hope [the Self-Destruction of] Elon Musk Doesn't Take EVs with Him

I'm not too worried, the market-demand has been proven, if Tesla implodes other companies will be motivated to fill the gap.

> As Niedermeyer said, this is kind of an unprecedented act, mixing caustic social issues and vehicle manufacturing together in ways we’ve not seen, likely ever.

What about the famous Henry Ford? Criticized as antisemitic, segregated black employees into certain roles (TBF, he did pay the same by role) and he also conditioned a portion of employee compensation on satisfying his private morality-police who would do home inspections.

I'm sure Musk wanted his legacy to be compared with Ford's, but probably not in this particular way. :P

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> What about the famous Henry Ford? Criticized as ...

That's not really an apt comparison, as most such criticisms of Ford are post hoc rather than contemporary. While it's a given that some people were or would have been uncomfortable or even enraged by these things at the time, nome of them were widely controversial at the time, nor was Ford himself.

It's more in looking back that we can see how he expressed his power in ways that were deeply illiberal and unmodern. At the time though, it wasn't the kind of thing that would earn big news cycles.

What we see with Musk is very different. He specifically crafts his public image to be as controversial as he can get away with, and operates a major media enterprise largely for the purpose of drawing attention to it.

Indeed, regardless of what happens to Elon and Tesla, EVs are here to stay so long as BYD continues to ramp towards serving global addressable market.

Edit:

BYD Pulls Ahead of Tesla to Become Largest EV Maker - https://www.statista.com/chart/33709/tesla-byd-electric-vehi... - Jan 2025

The size of BYD's factory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228138 - Nov 2024

Bloomberg: BYD Is Winning the Global Race to Make Cheaper EVs - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-16/electric-... | https://archive.today/uJLa4 - Oct 2024

Mapped: Where Tesla and BYD Make Their Cars - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-tesla-and-byd-... - June 2024

Hyundai has some pretty awesome EVs and battery tech. My Ioniq 6 is on the 800V architecture already, and the system is a platform they use in multiple vehicles.

They have solid state batteries on the way too

https://electrek.co/2024/12/26/hyundais-all-solid-state-ev-b...

I share your sentiment! however, I think hyundai has a problem I can sum up with words of my best friend when I recommended it to him - “I am not buying a fucking hyundai!”

to put it in tech terms, hyundai needs a killer app (car). I think part of tesla’s success (besides the fact that cars are great) is that years ago tesla was a bit of status symbol. people used to point to tesla s when it first came out like tbey do at cybertruck these days (for different reasons :) ). then affordable models 3/y came out and people that were previously pointing their fingers can now drive that same brand. hyundai has I believe a steep climb even with lesser competition and I think they need a killer car to start that climb

The ioniq in my market is well regarded. As an i30 owner I can say value-for-money signal is strong. If they offer an i30 form factor value EV (the ioniq is priced to take on the Tesla, and sells well) I'd buy it. BYD and MG are competing in the value price slot here.

The ioniq 6 is a direct competitor for the model 3, very comparable cars with each having a few pros on the other

I would by ioniq6 in a heartbeat and was recommending it, I think it is an awesome car. just think a lot more people will choose 3 over it just because of the brand and not on the merits

There are a lot of people who will not even consider the Tesla brand anymore

Tesla US sales were YoY lower in 2024 while other brands grew

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-electric-vehicle-sales-hit...

> Tesla continued to lead the way in unit sales with 633,762 units sold for the full year. The bad news is this figure was down 5.6% year-over-year.

> Tesla led the way in EV market share hitting 48.7% for the full 2024 year and was at 44.4% in the fourth quarter. In 2023, Tesla's EV market share was 55%, dropping from 65% in 2022.

Tesla US sales were YoY lower in 2024 while other brands grew

other brands had nowhere else to go but up :) and this “a lot of people will not even consider the Tesla brand…” is basically same people who said they would move out of the USA if Trump won and yet they are still chillin here…

if we all made large purchased based on some moral ground there wouldn’t be any iPhones sold in the USA.

I saw the Ioniq 5 before release in 2022 at an auto show and thought it looked incredible, and that there was no way they would actually make it…I honestly think it’s as good-looking as a DeLorean

The Ioniq 5/6 have a love it or hate it thing going on

I really like my i6 but would never get the i5

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