10 ms·

Tesla's Asymmetric War Against the Auto Industry

105 points by te 9y ago

devnonymous 9y ago
As much as I love Musk for bringing the sorely needed disruption to market, I personally believe this article is a fan piece that is underestimating what the big companies are capable of. I (of course, that's anecdotal) am aware that the big German companies are working with governments in the EU to bring around large scale infrastructure changes (think traffic lights, signs and roads themselves) to usher their idea of what automotive future would look like. In the end, IMHO, there isn't going to be a winner- (according to the articles hope - tesla) -take-all. It's going to be a middle ground. You're not going to get your openmoko/n900. You're going to get your Android.
mikestew 9y ago
IMO, this isn’t a person who should be writing anything about electric cars. I clicked this link (http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/1944/the-chevy-bolt-will-fail http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/1944/the-chevy-bolt-will-fai...) that was in the article. Anyone that owns an electric car should find the objections laughable. In summary, it’s every objection you’d hear from the person that wants to rationalize driving their Suburban by themselves to work every day. So I’d take the “rah, rah, Tesla” with a grain of salt, as the author is speaking from what they’ve read and heard about, not from their ownership of an EV.
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  But his prediction was right, the Bolt is failing. Sales are way below anything that would really count.
ajmarsh 9y ago
Business ≠ War. That said I think Tesla's strategy is a good one.
rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
Although this article has a bit too much cheerleading for me to consider it an objective analysis, the emphasis on PR reminds me that Tesla currently has the best PR game in the auto industry since Henry Ford raised his workers' pay to $5 an hour. Surely this thread will come to possess the very army of Tesla fans that the writer talks about, which will serve his very point: when was the last time any car company got the public at large to be downright elated about their product?
- IncRnd 9y ago
  > Tesla currently has the best PR game in the auto industry since Henry Ford raised his workers' pay to $5 an hour. $5 per day not hour :)
dvcc 9y ago
Sure Tesla is in a 'war' against the existing auto-industry but I wouldn't say it is one that they won yet. From a canceled-reservation holder, I'm not quite sure if they will. They did a pseudo-release to employees only, as the article mentioned, that never even gave the final specs out to customers with existing orders. Not a single order has been delivered to a real customer nor have they even accepted orders yet. Sure reservations can continue to climb but we're still waiting around for an actual delivered car. If you are adding more orders in a week than you expect to produce in a week at the end of next year, those reservations are pointless. Reading through Tesla forums, you'll quickly find out that Tesla has a service problem. A lack of centers, parts and awfully slow turnaround times. It doesn't appear that they really figured this one out yet. Sure they may be doubling stores, but they will be more than doubling cars in that same period. How will they manage all their new cars, with new customers who aren't as welcoming as the early S/X owners? I feel like I just sound like one of the doubters mentioned in the article now, just slightly longer term. Oh well, I guess we'll see if Tesla can actually manage it soon.
- forsaken 9y ago
  Are they behind the schedule they quoted you when you reserved it?
  - dvcc 9y ago
    I was probably in the last quarter or so reservations before the event which left me at a mid-2018 release date. After the event I think it was moved to a late 2018 release date, so right on track for the most part. That of course, is if they can actually produce at their estimated rate.
    - mikeyouse 9y ago
      Yep, as of June 2016, they were planning on shipping 100,000 Model 3s in 2017. Per Musk's tweets this week, they're going to deliver 100 in August, and 1,500 in September, and they're aiming for a monthly rate of 20,000 by December. If you give them the benefit of the doubt and say they'll ship 10,000 in October and 15,000 in November, you're only looking at ~45,000 in total this year. The plant capacity is allegedly 35,000/month, so it'll take several years to work through their backlog.
brightball 9y ago
Easy to cite the Chevy Bolt as a failure. The Volt, on the other hand, is fantastic.
- praveenster 9y ago
  Yes, the Volt is really fantastic. I bought it December 2016 and haven't filled gas since then. I have about 5500 miles on it so far. I drive about 25 miles each way to/from work and couple of stretches are downhill on the way to work and hence the battery drain is minimal, usually 50% at the end of the day. The drive is very smooth and there is hardly any road noise. The buying (or rather leasing) experience with the GM dealer was also really smooth and impressive, unlike working with other high pressure dealer sales staff.
  - DenisM 9y ago
    Gasoline doesn't store well over a length of time, you might want to look into that before it clogs up your engine.
    - brightball 9y ago
      The engine will actually crank up and run for that exact reason if it sits for a while.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        And it has a sealed gas tank to keep the volatiles from evaporating away.
    - outworlder 9y ago
      That's already handled by the Volt.
- nradov 9y ago
  The Volt is a fantastic car, a real engineering achievement. But actual sales have been low and declining. And sales would be even lower if not for government subsidies and other incentives such as HOV lane access. http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/chevrolet-volt-sales-figures.html?m=1 http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/chevrolet-volt-sales-fi...
ChuckMcM 9y ago
[In full disclosure mode I've made money buying out of the money calls on Tesla stock, so everytime he "succeeds against all odds" I get a few pennies.] That said, the fundamental message is a good one, which is "Don't look at what a mature market does, look at what it could be." My first experience with this was the iPhone introduction by Apple. Like others, I scoffed at the "Jesus phone" where Apple PR claimed to have invented phones. And I thought, really just a glittery phone that you can run some games on or listen to your music? What I completely missed was that Steve Jobs didn't see it as a phone so much as an entirely new nexus of interaction in our lives. Where before that might have been the television set, this was changing the rules at a very fundamental level about how people would think about a phone going forward. I could not see that at the time. Looking back I can see it, but at the time I could not. When the first Tesla Roadsters started showing up at Google[1] I started looking at what Elon was trying to achieve and I got the same feeling of "really? this is just a car with batteries and a Lotus body, sort of the rich person's version of the Bradley GT[2]" But as I looked at what he was trying to achieve I recognized that he, like Steve Jobs, was thinking about cars in a way that wasn't even in the same ballpark as I was. Knowing that, and knowing people who don't understand things bet against them, made it pretty straight forward to arbitrage that disconnect into money. [1] I have a photo of four parked in a row in the Google colors and tagged, "yes you are working among the crazy wealthy types." [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Automotive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Automotive
- MBCook 9y ago
  That's why I voted the article up: the discussion about how Dertroit/Japan/et al are fighting the wrong war and still handicapped by the dealer system and old ways of thinking. An electric Honda is just a Honda without gas. I'm sure I'd be a great car. But you still have to go through the dealer system to buy it. And it won't get software updates without dealer involvement (so basically never outside safety recalls).
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Why did you not disclose in this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921274
sgt101 9y ago
If they run out of cash they are bust. I wonder how much the big car companies will pay for them if they get close to the edge?
- beambot 9y ago
  Yes, that is how most businesses work: no cash => bankrupt. Though it seems that automotive companies don't have that problem... Something about government loans?
- sabertoothed 9y ago
  > I wonder how much the big car companies will pay for them if they get close to the edge? Why only car companies? Any party with enough cash is a potential buyer. Google, Apple, Facebook, any large VC consortium, super rich individuals, ...
am1988 9y ago
> That’s why public relations and communications — propaganda by another time you mean like getting sycophants from thedrive.com to write articles that far longer than I'm willing to read to get to the point. I am so sick of the cult of Elon.
- lawrenceyan 9y ago
  Why not use your main account to post this? You take credibility away from yourself by posting from an alt.
  - am1988 9y ago
    I am using this account now. Lets be realistic, negative feelings about Musk aren't going to gain me much credibility on HN no matter where I post it from.
- sabertoothed 9y ago
  > I am so sick of the cult of Elon. I failed to see any arguments.
heyitskevin 9y ago
If you're interested in autonomous driving the author here Alex Roy is on the Autonocast podcast: http://www.autonocast.com/ http://www.autonocast.com/
heygrady 9y ago
Tesla's big advantage is that most other car makers have publicly ridiculed electric cars [1] and heavily promoted the roar of gasoline engines [2]. Electric car sales are widely expected overtake gasoline cars in the next 30 years [3]. Recently, car makers have had to eat their words in the wake of dieselgate [4]. Old school car makers will have to retrain their audience to embrace electric cars [5]. Meanwhile, Tesla benefits from being an early adopter. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs-idUSL1N0O71MS20140521 http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs-idUSL1N0O71M... [2] https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AWs5/2016-dodge-charger-when-it-rains-october-cash-allowance https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AWs5/2016-dodge-charger-when-it-rain... [3] http://futurefuelstrategies.com/2017/07/20/ev-sales-projections-trending-upward/ http://futurefuelstrategies.com/2017/07/20/ev-sales-projecti... [4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/17/volkswagen-bets-on-electric-cars-after-dieselgate-scandal/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/17/volkswagen-be... [5] https://electrek.co/2017/06/26/porsche-electric-vehicles-mission-e/ https://electrek.co/2017/06/26/porsche-electric-vehicles-mis...
- pavement 9y ago
  Also, don't forget, regarding that thing about the "roar" of gasoline engines, that some car makers have opted to fake the sound of the engine's noise with audio systems. [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-best-selling-cars-and-trucks-are-built-on-lies-the-rise-of-fake-engine-noise/2015/01/21/6db09a10-a0ba-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-bes...
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    People and car manufacturers have been doing this forever, by playing with the exhaust. Wanna make your shitty Honda Civic sound fast? Just put a big bore exhaust on it. It's just that they've decided to be considerate (and probably cheaper) and use speakers in the car.
    - pavement 9y ago
      Yeah, it's a trade between experience and authenticity. If you value the experience for its own novelty and stimulation, the fakery isn't a problem. Those who seek authenticity derive pleasure from a completely different source and rationale.
Lramseyer 9y ago
While I think that what Tesla is doing is very exciting, I think the statements in this piece are way overblown. A war? How about healthy free market competition. I too am happy that Tesla has a very different take on the way we buy and use our cars, and ultimately think the customer will be better off as a result. But I remain unconvinced that Tesla will somehow dominate the auto industry while the incumbent brands will just sit around and cry themselves to irrelevance. Tesla is pretty much the first successful electric car brand in modern times, and there were many others that have failed. While they are here to stay, they aren't out of the woods yet. The Model 3 is pretty basic, and is selling for $35K at minimum. They didn't even put a speedometer on the driver side dashboard, it's just a touch screen in the middle that displays/controls pretty much everything. It's not bad by any means, but it's a far cry from the perfect affordable every man's car. Meanwhile, Ford, GM, and VW also have very good self driving car systems in the pipeline. Pretty much every major car manufacturer is working on EV technology, and to claim the Chevy Bolt as a failure this year also does not somehow curse General Motors to some sort of permanent failure of an electric car manufacturer.
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  Tesla 3 critics say it will fail because it is full of flaws, so people won't buy them. And they also say that it will fail because Tesla won't be able manufacture them fast enough to keep up with demand. I think there is a bit of a contradiction here.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    (1) If different critics criticize with different, and incompatible, complaints, so what? (2) AFAICT, the actual complaints are not what you state, but rather that Tesla won't be able to timely deliver on the flow of orders they are receiving before the cars become widely available, and that once the cars are in the hands of users, they will be disappointing, making further demand weak. These are not incompatible views.
- grecy 9y ago
  >The Model 3 is pretty basic, and is selling for $35K at minimum. They didn't even put a speedometer on the driver side dashboard, it's just a touch screen in the middle that displays/controls pretty much everything No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
ekianjo 9y ago
> Ready for the last war, France lost in Indochina in 1954, and was brought to a standstill in Algeria in 1962. Terrible historical references. France did not lose in Algeria, it was winning militarily with no contest at all, but lost the political side and mindshare in the international community. Nothing to do with the situation in Indochina at all.
- nradov 9y ago
  In war there is no difference between the military and political sides. It's all the same thing.
mavhc 9y ago
If they can get the robot company they bought working fast enough (Elon says they'll make the production line 20 times faster), they win, as they don't have 19 pointless factories to lose money on compared to the other car companies.
vgchh 9y ago
War or not, the reality is that Tesla is executing passionately and furiously. As if they are possessed by the the idea that EVs are the ONLY future of transportation. And they are putting their money where there mouth is - Gigafactory, Supercharger Network and S3XY. Not to mention the cross-pollination from SpaceX. Other car manufacturers are still bystanders with mostly hobby projects.
- adventured 9y ago
  Not to mention Tesla is being powered forward by its genius, aggressive, forward-thinking founder (insert inevitable straw debate about whether Musk is actually a founder). The other car makers are led by elder statesperson types. They're all slow moving, they've come up through the old car industry, and they have no vision for the future that looks different from the past. Tesla is the only major car company on earth with its founder at the helm.
RestlessMind 9y ago
If this is true (and a big if), it is a great opportunity for Google / Alphabet: - Offer "self-driving OS" for cars, via Waymo - Introduce "open-battery" standards for various manufacturers. Then also offer supercharger stations for batteries confirming to those standards. Other players can join the pool of superchargers by adhering to the same standard. Basically, offer "Android for cars" to counter "iPhone of cars" (which is Tesla).

105 points by te 9y ago

As much as I love Musk for bringing the sorely needed disruption to market, I personally believe this article is a fan piece that is underestimating what the big companies are capable of. I (of course, that's anecdotal) am aware that the big German companies are working with governments in the EU to bring around large scale infrastructure changes (think traffic lights, signs and roads themselves) to usher their idea of what automotive future would look like. In the end, IMHO, there isn't going to be a winner- (according to the articles hope - tesla) -take-all. It's going to be a middle ground. You're not going to get your openmoko/n900. You're going to get your Android.

mikestew 9y ago

IMO, this isn’t a person who should be writing anything about electric cars. I clicked this link (http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/1944/the-chevy-bolt-will-fail http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/1944/the-chevy-bolt-will-fai...) that was in the article. Anyone that owns an electric car should find the objections laughable. In summary, it’s every objection you’d hear from the person that wants to rationalize driving their Suburban by themselves to work every day. So I’d take the “rah, rah, Tesla” with a grain of salt, as the author is speaking from what they’ve read and heard about, not from their ownership of an EV.

woodandsteel 9y ago
But his prediction was right, the Bolt is failing. Sales are way below anything that would really count.

ajmarsh 9y ago

Business ≠ War. That said I think Tesla's strategy is a good one.

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago

Although this article has a bit too much cheerleading for me to consider it an objective analysis, the emphasis on PR reminds me that Tesla currently has the best PR game in the auto industry since Henry Ford raised his workers' pay to $5 an hour. Surely this thread will come to possess the very army of Tesla fans that the writer talks about, which will serve his very point: when was the last time any car company got the public at large to be downright elated about their product?

IncRnd 9y ago
> Tesla currently has the best PR game in the auto industry since Henry Ford raised his workers' pay to $5 an hour. $5 per day not hour :)

dvcc 9y ago

Sure Tesla is in a 'war' against the existing auto-industry but I wouldn't say it is one that they won yet. From a canceled-reservation holder, I'm not quite sure if they will. They did a pseudo-release to employees only, as the article mentioned, that never even gave the final specs out to customers with existing orders. Not a single order has been delivered to a real customer nor have they even accepted orders yet. Sure reservations can continue to climb but we're still waiting around for an actual delivered car. If you are adding more orders in a week than you expect to produce in a week at the end of next year, those reservations are pointless. Reading through Tesla forums, you'll quickly find out that Tesla has a service problem. A lack of centers, parts and awfully slow turnaround times. It doesn't appear that they really figured this one out yet. Sure they may be doubling stores, but they will be more than doubling cars in that same period. How will they manage all their new cars, with new customers who aren't as welcoming as the early S/X owners? I feel like I just sound like one of the doubters mentioned in the article now, just slightly longer term. Oh well, I guess we'll see if Tesla can actually manage it soon.

forsaken 9y ago
Are they behind the schedule they quoted you when you reserved it?
- dvcc 9y ago
  I was probably in the last quarter or so reservations before the event which left me at a mid-2018 release date. After the event I think it was moved to a late 2018 release date, so right on track for the most part. That of course, is if they can actually produce at their estimated rate.
  - mikeyouse 9y ago
    Yep, as of June 2016, they were planning on shipping 100,000 Model 3s in 2017. Per Musk's tweets this week, they're going to deliver 100 in August, and 1,500 in September, and they're aiming for a monthly rate of 20,000 by December. If you give them the benefit of the doubt and say they'll ship 10,000 in October and 15,000 in November, you're only looking at ~45,000 in total this year. The plant capacity is allegedly 35,000/month, so it'll take several years to work through their backlog.

brightball 9y ago

Easy to cite the Chevy Bolt as a failure. The Volt, on the other hand, is fantastic.

praveenster 9y ago
Yes, the Volt is really fantastic. I bought it December 2016 and haven't filled gas since then. I have about 5500 miles on it so far. I drive about 25 miles each way to/from work and couple of stretches are downhill on the way to work and hence the battery drain is minimal, usually 50% at the end of the day. The drive is very smooth and there is hardly any road noise. The buying (or rather leasing) experience with the GM dealer was also really smooth and impressive, unlike working with other high pressure dealer sales staff.
- DenisM 9y ago
  Gasoline doesn't store well over a length of time, you might want to look into that before it clogs up your engine.
  - brightball 9y ago
    The engine will actually crank up and run for that exact reason if it sits for a while.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      And it has a sealed gas tank to keep the volatiles from evaporating away.
  - outworlder 9y ago
    That's already handled by the Volt.
nradov 9y ago
The Volt is a fantastic car, a real engineering achievement. But actual sales have been low and declining. And sales would be even lower if not for government subsidies and other incentives such as HOV lane access. http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/chevrolet-volt-sales-figures.html?m=1 http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/chevrolet-volt-sales-fi...

ChuckMcM 9y ago

[In full disclosure mode I've made money buying out of the money calls on Tesla stock, so everytime he "succeeds against all odds" I get a few pennies.] That said, the fundamental message is a good one, which is "Don't look at what a mature market does, look at what it could be." My first experience with this was the iPhone introduction by Apple. Like others, I scoffed at the "Jesus phone" where Apple PR claimed to have invented phones. And I thought, really just a glittery phone that you can run some games on or listen to your music? What I completely missed was that Steve Jobs didn't see it as a phone so much as an entirely new nexus of interaction in our lives. Where before that might have been the television set, this was changing the rules at a very fundamental level about how people would think about a phone going forward. I could not see that at the time. Looking back I can see it, but at the time I could not. When the first Tesla Roadsters started showing up at Google[1] I started looking at what Elon was trying to achieve and I got the same feeling of "really? this is just a car with batteries and a Lotus body, sort of the rich person's version of the Bradley GT[2]" But as I looked at what he was trying to achieve I recognized that he, like Steve Jobs, was thinking about cars in a way that wasn't even in the same ballpark as I was. Knowing that, and knowing people who don't understand things bet against them, made it pretty straight forward to arbitrage that disconnect into money. [1] I have a photo of four parked in a row in the Google colors and tagged, "yes you are working among the crazy wealthy types." [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Automotive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Automotive

MBCook 9y ago
That's why I voted the article up: the discussion about how Dertroit/Japan/et al are fighting the wrong war and still handicapped by the dealer system and old ways of thinking. An electric Honda is just a Honda without gas. I'm sure I'd be a great car. But you still have to go through the dealer system to buy it. And it won't get software updates without dealer involvement (so basically never outside safety recalls).
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Why did you not disclose in this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921274

sgt101 9y ago

If they run out of cash they are bust. I wonder how much the big car companies will pay for them if they get close to the edge?

beambot 9y ago
Yes, that is how most businesses work: no cash => bankrupt. Though it seems that automotive companies don't have that problem... Something about government loans?
sabertoothed 9y ago
> I wonder how much the big car companies will pay for them if they get close to the edge? Why only car companies? Any party with enough cash is a potential buyer. Google, Apple, Facebook, any large VC consortium, super rich individuals, ...

am1988 9y ago

> That’s why public relations and communications — propaganda by another time you mean like getting sycophants from thedrive.com to write articles that far longer than I'm willing to read to get to the point. I am so sick of the cult of Elon.

lawrenceyan 9y ago
Why not use your main account to post this? You take credibility away from yourself by posting from an alt.
- am1988 9y ago
  I am using this account now. Lets be realistic, negative feelings about Musk aren't going to gain me much credibility on HN no matter where I post it from.
sabertoothed 9y ago
> I am so sick of the cult of Elon. I failed to see any arguments.

heyitskevin 9y ago

If you're interested in autonomous driving the author here Alex Roy is on the Autonocast podcast: http://www.autonocast.com/ http://www.autonocast.com/

heygrady 9y ago

Tesla's big advantage is that most other car makers have publicly ridiculed electric cars [1] and heavily promoted the roar of gasoline engines [2]. Electric car sales are widely expected overtake gasoline cars in the next 30 years [3]. Recently, car makers have had to eat their words in the wake of dieselgate [4]. Old school car makers will have to retrain their audience to embrace electric cars [5]. Meanwhile, Tesla benefits from being an early adopter. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs-idUSL1N0O71MS20140521 http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs-idUSL1N0O71M... [2] https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AWs5/2016-dodge-charger-when-it-rains-october-cash-allowance https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AWs5/2016-dodge-charger-when-it-rain... [3] http://futurefuelstrategies.com/2017/07/20/ev-sales-projections-trending-upward/ http://futurefuelstrategies.com/2017/07/20/ev-sales-projecti... [4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/17/volkswagen-bets-on-electric-cars-after-dieselgate-scandal/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/17/volkswagen-be... [5] https://electrek.co/2017/06/26/porsche-electric-vehicles-mission-e/ https://electrek.co/2017/06/26/porsche-electric-vehicles-mis...

pavement 9y ago
Also, don't forget, regarding that thing about the "roar" of gasoline engines, that some car makers have opted to fake the sound of the engine's noise with audio systems. [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-best-selling-cars-and-trucks-are-built-on-lies-the-rise-of-fake-engine-noise/2015/01/21/6db09a10-a0ba-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/americas-bes...
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  People and car manufacturers have been doing this forever, by playing with the exhaust. Wanna make your shitty Honda Civic sound fast? Just put a big bore exhaust on it. It's just that they've decided to be considerate (and probably cheaper) and use speakers in the car.
  - pavement 9y ago
    Yeah, it's a trade between experience and authenticity. If you value the experience for its own novelty and stimulation, the fakery isn't a problem. Those who seek authenticity derive pleasure from a completely different source and rationale.

Lramseyer 9y ago

While I think that what Tesla is doing is very exciting, I think the statements in this piece are way overblown. A war? How about healthy free market competition. I too am happy that Tesla has a very different take on the way we buy and use our cars, and ultimately think the customer will be better off as a result. But I remain unconvinced that Tesla will somehow dominate the auto industry while the incumbent brands will just sit around and cry themselves to irrelevance. Tesla is pretty much the first successful electric car brand in modern times, and there were many others that have failed. While they are here to stay, they aren't out of the woods yet. The Model 3 is pretty basic, and is selling for $35K at minimum. They didn't even put a speedometer on the driver side dashboard, it's just a touch screen in the middle that displays/controls pretty much everything. It's not bad by any means, but it's a far cry from the perfect affordable every man's car. Meanwhile, Ford, GM, and VW also have very good self driving car systems in the pipeline. Pretty much every major car manufacturer is working on EV technology, and to claim the Chevy Bolt as a failure this year also does not somehow curse General Motors to some sort of permanent failure of an electric car manufacturer.

woodandsteel 9y ago
Tesla 3 critics say it will fail because it is full of flaws, so people won't buy them. And they also say that it will fail because Tesla won't be able manufacture them fast enough to keep up with demand. I think there is a bit of a contradiction here.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  (1) If different critics criticize with different, and incompatible, complaints, so what? (2) AFAICT, the actual complaints are not what you state, but rather that Tesla won't be able to timely deliver on the flow of orders they are receiving before the cars become widely available, and that once the cars are in the hands of users, they will be disappointing, making further demand weak. These are not incompatible views.
grecy 9y ago
>The Model 3 is pretty basic, and is selling for $35K at minimum. They didn't even put a speedometer on the driver side dashboard, it's just a touch screen in the middle that displays/controls pretty much everything No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

ekianjo 9y ago

> Ready for the last war, France lost in Indochina in 1954, and was brought to a standstill in Algeria in 1962. Terrible historical references. France did not lose in Algeria, it was winning militarily with no contest at all, but lost the political side and mindshare in the international community. Nothing to do with the situation in Indochina at all.

nradov 9y ago
In war there is no difference between the military and political sides. It's all the same thing.

mavhc 9y ago

If they can get the robot company they bought working fast enough (Elon says they'll make the production line 20 times faster), they win, as they don't have 19 pointless factories to lose money on compared to the other car companies.

vgchh 9y ago

War or not, the reality is that Tesla is executing passionately and furiously. As if they are possessed by the the idea that EVs are the ONLY future of transportation. And they are putting their money where there mouth is - Gigafactory, Supercharger Network and S3XY. Not to mention the cross-pollination from SpaceX. Other car manufacturers are still bystanders with mostly hobby projects.

adventured 9y ago
Not to mention Tesla is being powered forward by its genius, aggressive, forward-thinking founder (insert inevitable straw debate about whether Musk is actually a founder). The other car makers are led by elder statesperson types. They're all slow moving, they've come up through the old car industry, and they have no vision for the future that looks different from the past. Tesla is the only major car company on earth with its founder at the helm.

RestlessMind 9y ago

If this is true (and a big if), it is a great opportunity for Google / Alphabet: - Offer "self-driving OS" for cars, via Waymo - Introduce "open-battery" standards for various manufacturers. Then also offer supercharger stations for batteries confirming to those standards. Other players can join the pool of superchargers by adhering to the same standard. Basically, offer "Android for cars" to counter "iPhone of cars" (which is Tesla).