Everyone has become cynical and no one is willing to invest in the future and build new things.
If I wanted, I could have gotten a Hyundai or a Chevy equally well. Tesla just isn't the only or even best game in town, and hasn't been for years.
I'm yet to find an EV with the same range, acceleration and price point as the model 3 LR. Many seem to beat it on two but not three points. The Polstar is close. The ID.4 has less range, double the time 0-100 and (prices not confirmed yet in Australia but) expected to be $10-20k more expensive.
I say this as a driver of a Polestar. It's just silly.
In fact it's mostly dangerous. I won't pay for the upgrade to the "performance" package because 4.5 seconds is already crazy enough.
Also consider we non-Tesla owners get luxuries like an actual dashboard, turn stalk... and body panels that fit together properly.
My biggest dislike in Teslas. I won't entertain buying one until they decide that an iPad is not in fact an appropriate way to handle user interface in a car...
On the track? Go crazy. Long stretches of road by yourself? It’s your life, just don’t crash and don’t get caught. Around other people, though?
Personally speaking I have an indicator stalk, I like the minimal cockpit and my panels fit fine.
Actual range is matched by Hyundai/Kia EVs, and pricing is quite good as well (especially used). Also these vehicles support V2L, charge faster, and
Don't get me wrong - Tesla has some amazing tech, but they blew their lead in the past few years on that useless Cybertruck instead of iterating their most popular models.
"Fun", is my reasoning, the same reason (I assume) why most people buy fast cars.
> Also these vehicles support V2L, charge faster
V2L doesn't interest me. My understanding is in North America charging is an issue, but in Australia mine charges at 250KW.
> Don't get me wrong - Tesla has some amazing tech, but they blew their lead in the past few years on that useless Cybertruck instead of iterating their most popular models.
Completely agree RE the cybetruvk - a small "model 2" would be a market changer, cybertruck is weird Elon wank. But every other electric I've driven so far I find inferior, I'm not sure they've lost their lead yet.
I'd give them a ton of credit for their initial success though. Starting a car company is clearly very difficult.
... Wait, where are you getting that? BYD saw substantial percentage year on year growth for Jan 2025, but from a very low base. Growth seems to largely be accruing to VW AG, BMW, and, oddly, Toyota (for all that reviewers panned the bZ4X, _consumers_ seem to like it).
> In January, according to the ACEA data, Tesla clocked the largest — by far — decrease in sales of any auto manufacturer in Europe. The largest increase, at 36.8%, was for SAIC Motor, a Chinese automaker whose brands include MG.
> In January, SAIC Motor sold more than twice as many vehicles in Europe as Tesla did, according to the ACEA data.
So if SAIC only made BEVs, then it would indeed be one of the bigger sellers of electric cars. However, SAIC makes lots of things. SAIC/MG is not in the top ten BEV brands for Jan 2025.
(This seems to have been a common mistake made in reporting, and people often do think of MG as a BEV brand, but it actually sells a lot of hybrids, too.)
Are you also disagreeing that car sales are shifting mostly to cheap Chinese vehicles not European or American brands? To me it still looks like if people are moving away from Tesla for political reasons, they apparently align with the CCP. Which doesn’t make sense to me since China is a dictatorship.
MG is basically just noise in the broader market. Like, a whole 2.3%!
One piece of context that you may be missing is that hybrids are the single biggest chunk of the European market, about 40% (I gather they’re way smaller in the US), so MG’s 2.3% isn’t hugely impressive.
Revenue estimated in the 7-8bn range last year. That's pretty tiny for a telecom, especially one with global scope; it's about the size, say, of France's fourth largest telecom. Profitability would be almost impossible to estimate (to what extent should rocket development costs be laid upon it, say?) but realistically you wouldn't expect it to be profitable.
Like, it is not necessarily a business you'd want to be in.
But it is still not a business you would want to be in, because it is enabled by super cheap rockets, which no one else has.
This talking point is 5 years old. As of 2022, legacy auto has matched Tesla in enough respects to be worthy competitors. Sure Tesla's electronics are a bit better, but in terms of being a good car, other manufacturers have Tesla beat.
The markets have been so warped by the power of existing monopolies that most investors are only interested in trying to find the next golden goose (as we can see in the crypto, AI, metaverse and countless other bubbles).