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I don't get Tesla. What is so special about them? Why does everyone want one? If the demand for electric vehicles is so high, why hasn't all the big makers alre

by smegel 10y ago

I don't get Tesla. What is so special about them? Why does everyone want one? If the demand for electric vehicles is so high, why hasn't all the big makers already started offering electric versions of their little hot hatches? That way you get an electric vehicle AND a build quality based on decades and decades of quality control engineering. Autopilot seems to be a curio rather than a drawcard, but again, surely the big makers, with access to billions of metric readouts from existing cars would be best place to develop AI to control them. Is it the Elon Musk factor? Seems to be a strange reason to buy a car. The fan factor might be justified for an Apple car...but I just don't get the buzz and hype around Tesla.

jasonlingx 10y ago
You said it, they are the Apple of cars. Musk is the new Jobs. They make the best cars.
__david__ 10y ago
Have you ever driven one? They are nice cars that don't burn fossil fuels. The super-car level acceleration is a huge draw for some. The range is also more or less unmatched, as far as I know. Their software upgrade policy makes it feel like the car is always up-to-date with the latest stuff—something that I can't ever picture other car makers ever doing. Also you don't have to deal with car dealerships (and almost every encounter I've had with a car dealership has been negative). Are they perfect cars? No. But the company operates in a fundamentally different manner than the rest of the auto industry, and that is exciting to some.
- evgen 10y ago
  They are nice cars that burn fossil fuels somewhere else, preferably places where rich people and SV types do not live. As their PR spin after the recent "autopilot" fatality shows, they are just another car company with much better marketing.
  - ferbivore 10y ago
    Power plants are vastly more efficient than car engines.
    - mohaine 10y ago
      And many don't burn fossil fuels
    - evgen 10y ago
      I never said they were less efficient, but they do pollute. As to the ones that do not use fossil fuels, they are few and far between at the moment. The bulk of our electicity production is still gas a coal. Toronto may get a lot of green electricity from Quebec hydro, but please do not claim that this is anything but an outlier at the moment. Electric cars are more efficient than ICE vehicles and they pollute less, but they are not powered by rainbows and dreams of utopia. Zero emmisions at the tailpipe is nice, but don't try to make the claim that these cars are not following that grand SV tradition of moving the negative externalities somewhere else so that someone else can pay the cost.
  - aianus 10y ago
    We hardly burn any fossil fuels for electricity where I'm from (Toronto). And even if we did, it's more efficient to burn them at industrial scale than in individual cars.
jowiar 10y ago
The biggest thing Tesla has done is design cars to be electric first. A ton of compromises have to be made to stick a gas engine (and a gas tank) in a car. A purpose-built electric car is, in several ways, capable of surpassing a gas-powered car (performance, crash safety) at the expense of having a fixed range. There's nothing in the hot hatch segment, because nobody has really been able to make a product at scale. FWIw, when I owned cars, they were VWs. I loved driving them, and I never had mechanical problems, but the electrical components were a flaky mess.
tajen 10y ago
They've made electric cars sexy and manly. Before that, CEOs, managers, fathers and tradespeople who had an electric car appeared weak because they looked like caring for others. Corporates tend to promote people who are best at being selfish. You may think it's off-topic, but I think Tesla is successful at targeting rich people who care for ecology. It's really sad, but in today's society, if you really care a lot for equality, justice, fairness, inclusion, compassion, then you have much fewer chances of being promoted (unless you create your company) - which is altogether a big problem for ecology, for women equality and for men who don't exhibit traits of manliness. Now you can switch from fossils to electricity without appearing weak.
codeulike 10y ago
The Model S has won many awards. And it's built (in automotive terms) by a very young startup. Their approach is very software savvy whereas all the other automakers treat software as an afterthought. Its a completely different approach and the recent Model 3 unveil (400,000+ reservations) pretty much confirms that petrol cars have a decade left at most. Other manufacturers may catch up, but at the moment they are miles behind. We'll see whether the chevvy bolt works out or not soon.
- bgarbiak 10y ago
  Do other manufacturers really miles behind? Or just on a different roadmap? All BMWs are going to be hybrids/EVs by 2022, Volvo is skipping a few iterations of semi-AI on purpose, VW puts automatic controls even in their budgets makes (Skoda and Seat), Nissan has a Model 3 rival already on the market, a new Chevy Bolt is almost there, Toyota/Lexus is so deep in this stuff that they may introduce a hyrdogen powered Lexus even tomorrow, and so on, so on. Sure, nothing there is on par with Model S, but is it because of RnD deficit? Or because nobody is that much interested in going after that market (> $85k EVs) while they could milk their "old" tech for a few years more and keep the profits? This ugly Nissan Leaf has about one third of Model S range, but also one third of batteries. Once they up that number and put it into Qashqai Tesla won't look that good no more. I'm not against Tesla, I'd gladly drive one. But they're running out of the time. Model 3 is a great promise today, by 2020 it could be just an exotic option for those not willing to drive an electric VW Passat.
  - codeulike 10y ago
    Maybe. Putting a bigger capacity battery in a car is easy. Doing it without making the car too heavy or expensive is very difficult. Tesla are currently building the biggest factory in the world in order to make cheaper batteries. Will anyone else be able to match their $/kWh ratio? Maybe. Let's see how the chevvy bolt goes. It sounds brilliant at the moment but let's see if they can actually deliver it in volume.

by smegel 10y ago

jasonlingx 10y ago

You said it, they are the Apple of cars. Musk is the new Jobs. They make the best cars.

__david__ 10y ago

Have you ever driven one? They are nice cars that don't burn fossil fuels. The super-car level acceleration is a huge draw for some. The range is also more or less unmatched, as far as I know. Their software upgrade policy makes it feel like the car is always up-to-date with the latest stuff—something that I can't ever picture other car makers ever doing. Also you don't have to deal with car dealerships (and almost every encounter I've had with a car dealership has been negative). Are they perfect cars? No. But the company operates in a fundamentally different manner than the rest of the auto industry, and that is exciting to some.

evgen 10y ago
They are nice cars that burn fossil fuels somewhere else, preferably places where rich people and SV types do not live. As their PR spin after the recent "autopilot" fatality shows, they are just another car company with much better marketing.
- ferbivore 10y ago
  Power plants are vastly more efficient than car engines.
  - mohaine 10y ago
    And many don't burn fossil fuels
  - evgen 10y ago
    I never said they were less efficient, but they do pollute. As to the ones that do not use fossil fuels, they are few and far between at the moment. The bulk of our electicity production is still gas a coal. Toronto may get a lot of green electricity from Quebec hydro, but please do not claim that this is anything but an outlier at the moment. Electric cars are more efficient than ICE vehicles and they pollute less, but they are not powered by rainbows and dreams of utopia. Zero emmisions at the tailpipe is nice, but don't try to make the claim that these cars are not following that grand SV tradition of moving the negative externalities somewhere else so that someone else can pay the cost.
- aianus 10y ago
  We hardly burn any fossil fuels for electricity where I'm from (Toronto). And even if we did, it's more efficient to burn them at industrial scale than in individual cars.

jowiar 10y ago

The biggest thing Tesla has done is design cars to be electric first. A ton of compromises have to be made to stick a gas engine (and a gas tank) in a car. A purpose-built electric car is, in several ways, capable of surpassing a gas-powered car (performance, crash safety) at the expense of having a fixed range. There's nothing in the hot hatch segment, because nobody has really been able to make a product at scale. FWIw, when I owned cars, they were VWs. I loved driving them, and I never had mechanical problems, but the electrical components were a flaky mess.

tajen 10y ago

They've made electric cars sexy and manly. Before that, CEOs, managers, fathers and tradespeople who had an electric car appeared weak because they looked like caring for others. Corporates tend to promote people who are best at being selfish. You may think it's off-topic, but I think Tesla is successful at targeting rich people who care for ecology. It's really sad, but in today's society, if you really care a lot for equality, justice, fairness, inclusion, compassion, then you have much fewer chances of being promoted (unless you create your company) - which is altogether a big problem for ecology, for women equality and for men who don't exhibit traits of manliness. Now you can switch from fossils to electricity without appearing weak.

codeulike 10y ago

The Model S has won many awards. And it's built (in automotive terms) by a very young startup. Their approach is very software savvy whereas all the other automakers treat software as an afterthought. Its a completely different approach and the recent Model 3 unveil (400,000+ reservations) pretty much confirms that petrol cars have a decade left at most. Other manufacturers may catch up, but at the moment they are miles behind. We'll see whether the chevvy bolt works out or not soon.

bgarbiak 10y ago
Do other manufacturers really miles behind? Or just on a different roadmap? All BMWs are going to be hybrids/EVs by 2022, Volvo is skipping a few iterations of semi-AI on purpose, VW puts automatic controls even in their budgets makes (Skoda and Seat), Nissan has a Model 3 rival already on the market, a new Chevy Bolt is almost there, Toyota/Lexus is so deep in this stuff that they may introduce a hyrdogen powered Lexus even tomorrow, and so on, so on. Sure, nothing there is on par with Model S, but is it because of RnD deficit? Or because nobody is that much interested in going after that market (> $85k EVs) while they could milk their "old" tech for a few years more and keep the profits? This ugly Nissan Leaf has about one third of Model S range, but also one third of batteries. Once they up that number and put it into Qashqai Tesla won't look that good no more. I'm not against Tesla, I'd gladly drive one. But they're running out of the time. Model 3 is a great promise today, by 2020 it could be just an exotic option for those not willing to drive an electric VW Passat.
- codeulike 10y ago
  Maybe. Putting a bigger capacity battery in a car is easy. Doing it without making the car too heavy or expensive is very difficult. Tesla are currently building the biggest factory in the world in order to make cheaper batteries. Will anyone else be able to match their $/kWh ratio? Maybe. Let's see how the chevvy bolt goes. It sounds brilliant at the moment but let's see if they can actually deliver it in volume.