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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Musk would love to be selling several billion dollars per year of model S/X sales, the issue is they aren’t that competitive with other cars in the luxury segment thus the falling sales numbers.

Tesla’s doesn’t really have a complex strategy at this point, they are getting squeezed out of the high end by legacy automakers where their lower cost batteries don’t matter as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end as soon as Chinese cars enter the picture.

So self driving is really the only option to sell any long term upside to keep the stock from tanking. It’s not a very convincing argument, but you play the hand your dealt.

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> getting squeezed out of the high end by legacy automakers where their lower cost batteries don’t matter as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end as soon as Chinese cars enter the picture.

The deep irony here is that after ~15 years of trying ti differentiate from the legacy American automakers, they land in a very similar competitive position. Chinese EVs are in the process of running the table outside the protectionist markets of the EU + US/Canada.

Eventually those protective barriers will fall as they protect a relatively small number of citizens by taxing the majority. It remains to be seen whether the US and European domestic producers will survive.

You may have to play the hand you have, but Musk was the dealer and he is still losing.

What's their competition on the high end? Porsche, Cadillac? Do Rivian or Genesis count?

If they are eating into model X or S sales it obviously counts here.

Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Genesis, and Cadillac are all competitive in different ways. Stat wise someone buying the electric G-Wagon is making a poor decision, but swagger is a selling point which very much costs Tesla sales.

Cadillac’s approach of a huge dumb battery powering a huge heavy vehicle may not be ideal for the average use case, but customers are going to prioritize different things. One SUV just can’t be the best solution to every lifestyle.

Audi and Mercedes? (Well in Europe where the highend Teslas barely had any sales anywya, at least). Porsche is probably a tier or so above

Lucid runs circles around the S when it comes to build quality and features.

They're very cool in theory. My impression from the EngineeringExplained guy's experience isn't great. And Lucid does something similar to Tesla where too much (IMO) is controlled through the touchscreen.

A significant fraction of his issues were both him and his wife using their phones as key’s. He obviously it should still work, but it’s something of an edge case.

What about sales, though?

They outsold the model S last year which was their primary competition.

They successfully launched their second model, the gravity, which would have competed with the X but will now likely just outright replace it.

Their mass produced $50k SUV is expected to launch this year.

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