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Author seems a bit biased against Tesla, and pro-GM. First off, no mention of the fact that Elon Musk has said that he wants competitors for Tesla. He wants the

by Aqueous 10y ago

Author seems a bit biased against Tesla, and pro-GM. First off, no mention of the fact that Elon Musk has said that he wants competitors for Tesla. He wants the entire market for electric cars to expand (more potential customers for them, right?), and they have said that they can't do that all by themselves. This is why he has open-sourced Tesla's patents [1]. Second, the author says Tesla is reaching the limits of its potential. His evidence is that they are unlikely to meet Elon Musk's lofty production goals. If Musk gets to half of his production goals, that will be a huge success. This is how he constantly drives his company forward - by making huge promises that he knows Tesla will not meet, but will still be greeted as a giant leap forward. It's the market's short-termism that has led to this epidemic of 'If you don't meet our arbitrarily-set profit goals designed to enrich us at the expense of almost every long-term goal, you are dead to us.' Musk is playing the long game, not Wall Street's game. [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

csours 10y ago
Bob Lutz (GM Vice Chairman Global Product Development - Retired) credits Tesla with the existence of the Volt Plugin Hybrid. I don't know if he's made the same comments about the Bolt EV, but I think he would if asked. Personally, I think competition is great. Now that the Bolt EV is entering the market and the EPA range has been announced, you can be dang sure the Tesla Model 3 will beat it. Disclaimer, I work for GM, but not on this program. Any opinions are solely my own.
dogma1138 10y ago
I haven't seen anything biased against Tesla, GM did pull out a "wonder" a 30,000$ car with 200+ miles range (reportedly longer than the Model 3) which is fully electric. The overall sentiment of the article isn't different than other coverage of the Bolt like from Wired for example: https://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-electric-car-chevy-bolt-mary-barra/ https://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-electric-car-chevy-bolt-mar... https://www.wired.com/2016/09/chevrolet-bolt-range-epa-rating/ https://www.wired.com/2016/09/chevrolet-bolt-range-epa-ratin... Effectively GM "beat" Tesla to the punch, while the Model 3 might have some additional features and luxuries over the Bolt they also won't be available for the base 30,000$ model. Without Tesla neither the Bolt nor it's predecessor the Volt would've existed but it doesn't diminish the accomplishment that GM has pulled off. Also while it's very nice that Musk has published the Patents it's not exactly "open-sourcing" them, they were released for "in good faith use" which is actually a pretty clever strategy that can be used against competition if the need arises, don't get me wrong this is still a huge deal but this isn't a pure altruistic move on Tesla's part either.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- eridius 10y ago
  I dunno, when the article said "Tesla fanboys" that seems like a good indicator that the author is a bit biased against Tesla.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    No, it's a good indicator that there are "Tesla Fanboys" out there, and they exist and some of them like any other fanboy are pretty fanatical and not all the time logical.
    - eridius 10y ago
      That makes no sense. Declaring that there are "Tesla fanboys" is not proof of their existence. Sure, I'll grant you they do exist, but they exist for a lot of different companies/products and are usually a much tinier base of people than the speaker believes, and almost certainly when someone accuses someone else of being a "fanboy" they're wrong and are just using that to try and discredit the other speaker instead of addressing their points. In this particular case, the author didn't even cite any behavior that indicates being a fanboy, they're just claiming that anyone who points out that Tesla's car has more luxury options, can upgrade to the autopilot, has access to the supercharger network, has brand cachet, and will be more profitable at scale is a fanboy. All of these are legitimate things to say about Tesla and do not require some sort of blind devotion to Tesla in order to point out.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        I've seen them on HN on more than one occasion. I once dared to make the comment that one day a Tesla battery pack would catch fire or explode and out of the woods they came with their pitchforks and downvotes explaining in length like why it can never happen and how safe are 18650's and the Tesla power bank, and the car, and how smooth Elon Musk's skin is. About 3 weeks later just that thing happened, a Tesla caught fire due to the power pack malfunctioning, since then there were 2-3 more similar cases. There are Tesla and more Elon Musk in general fanboys out there. And I don't really understand why you are taking offense, no one made those claims here, no one even argued that there are no advantages to the Tesla. However those advantages come at a cost, a Model 3 won't be a 30,000 car, it would be close to it after the rebate, you will have to pay extra for luxuries, as well as potentially access to the supercharger network. And I'm not sure about the rest of your arguments, profitability is in question here, it's doubtful that the Model 3 will be as profitable, infact it won't be by design, the question would then be how many Model S/X's Tesla can sale because that would be the limiting factor in it's ability actually ship Model 3's as those partially fund it. As for the brand strength, the brand is considerably more limited than what you think, sure on HN and in a few other circles it has a huge presence but if you think that in the middle of nowhere America, or the rest of the world Tesla has a brand presence you are going to be disappointed, most people do not know what Tesla is. If you ask the average person to name car companies Tesla is about as likely to be named as Alpina, heck i would be that more people are aware of Aplina world wide than Tesla.
adambmedia 10y ago
Totally agree. The article was de-railed by the time it used Musk's personality as part of some tweet-fishing closing one-liner. If this is really about evolving competitive landscape, Musk as a cult of personality is really far from the point. More constructive is pointing to 2013, where Tesla's public regard for competition was from a position of superiority. http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-response-to-bmw-i3-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-response-to-bmw-i3-...

by Aqueous 10y ago

csours 10y ago

Bob Lutz (GM Vice Chairman Global Product Development - Retired) credits Tesla with the existence of the Volt Plugin Hybrid. I don't know if he's made the same comments about the Bolt EV, but I think he would if asked. Personally, I think competition is great. Now that the Bolt EV is entering the market and the EPA range has been announced, you can be dang sure the Tesla Model 3 will beat it. Disclaimer, I work for GM, but not on this program. Any opinions are solely my own.

dogma1138 10y ago

I haven't seen anything biased against Tesla, GM did pull out a "wonder" a 30,000$ car with 200+ miles range (reportedly longer than the Model 3) which is fully electric. The overall sentiment of the article isn't different than other coverage of the Bolt like from Wired for example: https://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-electric-car-chevy-bolt-mary-barra/ https://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-electric-car-chevy-bolt-mar... https://www.wired.com/2016/09/chevrolet-bolt-range-epa-rating/ https://www.wired.com/2016/09/chevrolet-bolt-range-epa-ratin... Effectively GM "beat" Tesla to the punch, while the Model 3 might have some additional features and luxuries over the Bolt they also won't be available for the base 30,000$ model. Without Tesla neither the Bolt nor it's predecessor the Volt would've existed but it doesn't diminish the accomplishment that GM has pulled off. Also while it's very nice that Musk has published the Patents it's not exactly "open-sourcing" them, they were released for "in good faith use" which is actually a pretty clever strategy that can be used against competition if the need arises, don't get me wrong this is still a huge deal but this isn't a pure altruistic move on Tesla's part either.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
eridius 10y ago
I dunno, when the article said "Tesla fanboys" that seems like a good indicator that the author is a bit biased against Tesla.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  No, it's a good indicator that there are "Tesla Fanboys" out there, and they exist and some of them like any other fanboy are pretty fanatical and not all the time logical.
  - eridius 10y ago
    That makes no sense. Declaring that there are "Tesla fanboys" is not proof of their existence. Sure, I'll grant you they do exist, but they exist for a lot of different companies/products and are usually a much tinier base of people than the speaker believes, and almost certainly when someone accuses someone else of being a "fanboy" they're wrong and are just using that to try and discredit the other speaker instead of addressing their points. In this particular case, the author didn't even cite any behavior that indicates being a fanboy, they're just claiming that anyone who points out that Tesla's car has more luxury options, can upgrade to the autopilot, has access to the supercharger network, has brand cachet, and will be more profitable at scale is a fanboy. All of these are legitimate things to say about Tesla and do not require some sort of blind devotion to Tesla in order to point out.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      I've seen them on HN on more than one occasion. I once dared to make the comment that one day a Tesla battery pack would catch fire or explode and out of the woods they came with their pitchforks and downvotes explaining in length like why it can never happen and how safe are 18650's and the Tesla power bank, and the car, and how smooth Elon Musk's skin is. About 3 weeks later just that thing happened, a Tesla caught fire due to the power pack malfunctioning, since then there were 2-3 more similar cases. There are Tesla and more Elon Musk in general fanboys out there. And I don't really understand why you are taking offense, no one made those claims here, no one even argued that there are no advantages to the Tesla. However those advantages come at a cost, a Model 3 won't be a 30,000 car, it would be close to it after the rebate, you will have to pay extra for luxuries, as well as potentially access to the supercharger network. And I'm not sure about the rest of your arguments, profitability is in question here, it's doubtful that the Model 3 will be as profitable, infact it won't be by design, the question would then be how many Model S/X's Tesla can sale because that would be the limiting factor in it's ability actually ship Model 3's as those partially fund it. As for the brand strength, the brand is considerably more limited than what you think, sure on HN and in a few other circles it has a huge presence but if you think that in the middle of nowhere America, or the rest of the world Tesla has a brand presence you are going to be disappointed, most people do not know what Tesla is. If you ask the average person to name car companies Tesla is about as likely to be named as Alpina, heck i would be that more people are aware of Aplina world wide than Tesla.

adambmedia 10y ago

Totally agree. The article was de-railed by the time it used Musk's personality as part of some tweet-fishing closing one-liner. If this is really about evolving competitive landscape, Musk as a cult of personality is really far from the point. More constructive is pointing to 2013, where Tesla's public regard for competition was from a position of superiority. http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-response-to-bmw-i3-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-response-to-bmw-i3-...