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The AMZN model won't work b/c no matter how good Tesla's products are, he won't be allowed to create a monopoly. The zeitgeist has shifted, and VC's and invest
by jgalt212 9y ago
The AMZN model won't work b/c no matter how good Tesla's products are, he won't be allowed to create a monopoly. The zeitgeist has shifted, and VC's and investors who are betting on future market domination or monopolies are going to be disappointed.
- feld 9y agoThey're not going to be a monopoly. They will be the only company on the planet that can produce the motors and batteries(!!) that are required for high quality and reliable EVs. Tesla will make some cars for Tesla fans. Tesla will make billions selling key parts to everyone else. So they'll be the new Bosch of EVs, really.
- jgalt212 9y agoFair enough, but Bosch only trades at a 44 PE, which is about double the market's PE, but not crazy high.
- mxschumacher 9y agothe reference is to Germany's privately held Robert Bosch GmbH: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH
- bekaus 9y agoRobert Bosch GmbH, the - amongst other things - automotive supplier is not a publicly traded company, but the German equivalent of a LLC. (Some subsidiaries are traded on the stockmarket, though)
- meddlepal 9y agoI really doubt the other car companies will let that happen. Either they'll work out the battery and motor tech themselves OR they'll push for hydrogen. The automotive industry isn't going to let a company like Tesla bully them around.
- ramphastidae 9y agoJust like how BlackBerry, Palm and Nokia held off Apple, right?
- sremani 9y agoTesla has been around for a while and GM actually has a car that directly competes with Tesla Model 3, and many are coming. Sure Model 3 will be marquee model, but it did not have surprise element of iPhone nor people buy Cars every two years. Even to this day, building EVs with big batteries is not economical or profitable, that may change now, but building EV is not a rocket science. Every major Auto manufacturer has the know-how, they may be constrained by the supply-chain in the future. With low gas prices, people want SUVs not Sedans, if Model 3 was economic SUV, Tesla would have voraciously eaten couple of Car companies, its a Car and so the rest of the ICE world, will survive them!
- heygrady 9y agoGas prices and EV sales are, perhaps counter-intuitively, unrelated [1]. It has been widely reported that low gas prices do not affect EV sales [2]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/17/demand-for-electric-vehicles-bucks-low-gas-prices-says-aaa.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/17/demand-for-electric-vehicles... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-car-sales-up-despite-low-gasoline-prices/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-car-sale...
- clock_tower 9y agoMore like how IBM held off Sun Microsystems.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago> The automotive industry isn't going to let a company like Tesla bully them around. They already have. Its too late. Who else is going to be producing 500k EVs a year in the next 3-5 years? No one.
- 9y ago
- rohit2412 9y agoMotors aren't a secret technology. And Panasonic makes the batteries and sells to Tesla. The only thing Tesla can sell as technology is Autopilot, which is just hyped up driver assistance. Have you even heard of electric cars like Renault Zoe, Chevy Bolt, BYD ev300? All with range from 180-230 miles, selling since 2016.
- wott 9y agoEr... you cannot use future tense to claim that. It can be your fantasy, your dream, your oprinion, that's all very fine. But you cannot say that is what is going to happen, that's just one bet, one possibility (and not the most likely IMO) amongst several possibilities.
- Shivetya 9y agoI am not convinced they have the best battery technology or even EV technology. They are certainly best at touting their technology. They make choices and when questioned on it they talk over the subject. I do hope they succeed this is a major market; automobiles and such; that needs new infusions to move forward both in technology and design. However they are at a very dangerous point in their history and how they execute over the next six months is most important.
- welcomecomrade 9y agoThis is exactly the kind of junk that makes HN the cesspool that it has become. Do you really think that only Tesla can make electric motors, despite it being a mature, 150-year-old industry in which Tesla ships only about 15% of the electric cars? Where Nissan ships product at a dramatically lower price? Did you know that trains and elevators and blenders are also electric, and companies like Alstom and Kawasaki and Bosch make them? By the way Tesla hasn't made a battery, ever. They are made by Panasonic. Tesla packs them into little metal boxes.
- bflesch 9y agoMost people will be driving either a Tesla or a Chinese-made electric car in a couple of years, and like with the iPhone vs. cheap Androids there is a good chance that people will prefer Teslas for their familiar UI, American design, or some other reason we currently don't even have on our radar.
- dkrich 9y agoWhy are people so sure of this, especially given the recent plummet in oil prices? Car sales are at all time highs. Why do people assume that there's going to be a mass exodus to Tesla and EV's in the next few years?
- bflesch 9y agoBecause many think they will be more comfortable to use, have better entertainment systems and everyone can experience sportscar-like acceleration for spending less money than a gas-powered car.
- lttlrck 9y agoWhat about environmental factors? Or is new-shiny-fast the only way to coerce people to be more eco-friendly?
- jessaustin 9y agoThe plummet in oil prices might be anticipating that future?
- partingshots 9y agoElectricity will be cheaper than oil in 5-10 years. For many applications, it already is now actually.
- lttlrck 9y agoThe lost gas-tax revenue streams will be replaced. It’s highly likely the TCO will reach parity with gas in short order - same happened with diesel.
- emodendroket 9y agoWhy do you say that? When's the last big American antitrust action you can remember?
- balance_factor 9y agoThe zeitgeist has shifted? The zeitgeist hasn't changed since 1847, when Marx wrote about the character of monopoly in The Poverty of Philosophy. It hasn't changed since President Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890. It hasn't changed since Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, over a century ago (with Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York recombining in 1999, the broken up monopoly come back to life). It hasn't changed since the breakup of Ma Bell in 1982, the Baby Bells having re-formed into two companies: Verizon and AT&T, who control the last mile of wire and wireless, the network neutrality of which they have been fighting against. It hasn't changed since the big eight accounting firms became the big four accounting firms. It hasn't changed as Google and Facebook swallowed up all online advertising, search, social networks etc. The idea that the zeitgeist has shifted from monopoly is absurd. Billionaires from Warren Buffett to Peter Thiel seem to think otherwise. In every industry, mergers and acquisitions leave an increasingly fewer companies with control of more and more of their markets. The data is out there and quite obvious, you really have to put on some kind of ideological fantasy land kool-aid trip to see otherwise.