11 ms·

Tesla Looked Like the Future, Now Some Ask If It Has One

103 points by tysone 9y ago

ucaetano 9y ago
It is clear that Tesla is failing to deliver any competitive advantage besides its early start. It has failed to achieve what is the standard baseline for mass production of cars today, a sustained production rate within controlled quality parameters, and failed to differentiate in other areas, falling behind most other automakers (and non-automakers) in innovation (especially autonomous driving). There is still hope that it will solve the Model 3 problems, but at this point (including the desperate "volunteers to prove the haters wrong" email) it seems more and more unlikely.
- tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
  > and failed to differentiate in other areas, falling behind most other automakers (and non-automakers) in innovation (especially autonomous driving). What other car has better autonomous driving?
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    Compared to the current, non-MobilEye Teslas, the Leaf, the A6, the CT6. Even the old Model S has better autonomous driving than the current one. Oh, and Google. By very, very far. Tesla hasn't even caught up to its original Mobileye-powered Autopilot.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Do any other autopilot systems from legacy automakers improve with over the air software updates? Do they revise their algorithms with fleet data? I can't get Waymo/Google autopilot in a vehicle I can buy. I can get Tesla's autopilot. The latest Tesla autopilot software update (2018.10.4) has shown drastic improvements (30+ Youtube videos from owners in thread): https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/84xt43/collection_of_ap2_2018104_videos/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/84xt43/collect...
      - ucaetano 9y ago
        Being a "leap forward" still puts it behind others. But if your criteria for quality is being able to hope that one day you'll get an update, well, that still puts you behind Cadillac and possibly others. You can continue to hope and wait for Tesla to deliver. So far, it hasn't.
      - jackvalentine 9y ago
        > Do any other autopilot systems from legacy automakers improve with over the air software updates? Who cares? I'm not buying a luxury vehicle on promises of what it might do given enough time.
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        To each their own of course. I'd have no qualms about buying my Model S again. I'm unwilling to buy a car stuck in time in it's model year, or that must wait years for a software upgrade. Then again, I'm happy with my iPhone, bugs and all; it'll get updates too, and works just fine between iOS updates.
        jackvalentine 9y ago
        > I'm unwilling to buy a car stuck in time in it's model year You know I used to think this way, then all my computing devices started changing often for the worse with every update. For me a stable device that doesn't change month-to-month is a feature, not a disadvantage. Give me the LTS branch of the car world.
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        I can appreciate that perspective. I want to live at the bleeding edge, and don't mind the inconveniences or regressions. I can't take my money with me when I die, so after savings and basic needs are met, I want to live in the future (even if the products are still in beta!). I can't get that sort of experience from stodgy, risk adverse legacy enterprises. I want to support enterprises that want to succeed or die. EDIT: Edit after your edit, keep the LTS builds, give me nightly! Tests pass? Ship it!
  - DanCarvajal 9y ago
    Given the accidents, you might as well drive a regular car and take your hands off the wheels and you'd roughly replicate the quality of their "autonomous diving".
  - otalp 9y ago
    Ironically Autopilot 2 is better than Autopilot 3, so older Teslas would be one car.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - linsomniac 9y ago
    As someone who spent $8K on Enhanced Autopilot 15 months ago, I'd say that pretty much everyone has better autonamous driving. My brother-in-law got a new Honda Accord a few months ago, and says on the highway he can just take his hands off the wheel and let it do it's thing. My fancy-schmancy Tesla Models S meanwhile can do an ok job of following lanes as long as you keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention to ensure that whenever it doesn't detect your hands on the wheel that you give it a little tug. I love my Model S, but they really bit off more than they can chew in the "writing our own software" department.
    - dkoston 9y ago
      Do you have 2018.10.4 or above? It drove me through 220 miles of rain including torrential downpours yesterday with ease. Up until that update, I’d agree that AP2 was sub par but the new update has dramatically improved EAP.
      - smt88 9y ago
        > It drove me through 220 miles of rain including torrential downpours yesterday This sounds terrifying. Why did you trust it enough to experiment with your life?
        jacquesm 9y ago
        And the lives of everybody else on that road.
      - linsomniac 9y ago
        I just got 2018.10.4 a week or less ago. I haven't put many miles on it yet, but it does seem like a big improvement in the small testing I've done, as far as the driving.
    - bdcravens 9y ago
      > My brother-in-law got a new Honda Accord a few months ago, and says on the highway he can just take his hands off the wheel and let it do it's thing. I have the new Accord. It's not really autonomous. Adaptive cruise control and auto-braking aren't bad, but the lane keep mostly just jiggles the steering wheel to notify me when I depart the lines, and all the time it mistakes construction and seams in the pavement as lane lines.
  - matte_black 9y ago
    I tried the Audi A6's self driving feature and it was fantastic.
- bsder 9y ago
  > It has failed to achieve what is the standard baseline for mass production of cars today, a sustained production rate within controlled quality parameters Which is ironic given that Tesla is in the old Fremont facility where Toyota schooled GM on how to do exactly that ...
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    Exactly, with industry-standard infrastructure and plenty of highly-qualified and experienced professionals up for grabs, it is puzzling how they are failing so hard. My guess is a mentality of "everything is wrong, let's rebuild it from scratch internally and it will be better", ignoring decades of practice and experience.
  - ebikelaw 9y ago
    It turns out that buildings don't know how to build cars. People do.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Which is kind of amazing because their issues of just trying to get cars down the line and trying to fix them after they are built before delivery sounds exactly like the kind of stuff GM used to do that Toyota amazed them by avoiding.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  I don’t see evidence of the failure. As far as I’ve seen, Tesla has met and then exceeded every single production target they’ve set, including Model 3 production start (which was on time even, last summer). Some were delayed by _years_ but they hit them. The most recent goal they have set is 5000/week. It was originally slated for Q4 2017. So that date has slipped now by at least 3 months. I doubt they’ll hit it in Q2. Maybe they won’t hit it until 2019. But all available evidence suggests the will hit it. Every previous goal was met, why would this be the first one that isn’t?
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Don't the goals and targets include doing it by a stated date?
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    Have you been living under a rock? https://www.nasdaq.com/article/tesla-tsla-fails-to-meet-production-target-of-model-3-cm854445 https://www.nasdaq.com/article/tesla-tsla-fails-to-meet-prod... > It was originally slated for Q4 2017. So that date has slipped now by 3 months. Wait, that doesn't qualify as failing to meet a target?
    - dang 9y ago
      We ban accounts that post uncivilly. We've warned you repeatedly in the past. If you keep doing it we're going to have to ban you. Would you please fix this? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - king_magic 9y ago
    > As far as I’ve seen, Tesla has met and then exceeded every single production target they’ve set. > The next goal they set was 5000/week. It was originally slated for Q4 2017. So that date has slipped now by 3 months. Those feel like unambiguously contradictory statements. > Every previous goal was met, why would this be the first one they can’t hit? Because... they quite literally did not hit the goal?
- mikeash 9y ago
  If they’re failing to deliver any competitive advantages, why are there still no competitive cars available from any other company, or even just announced? So far the closest thing is the Bolt, and it’s not all that close.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    1) EVs are really not what many people want in a car 2) Other companies like to sell cars at a profit. That hasn't yet been achieved with EVs.
    - esarbe 9y ago
      Tesla is actually turning a profit on their cars. It's just the massive investments in manufacturing production eat up everything.
  - 013a 9y ago
    Momentum. Tesla got an early start. A decade means nothing. Ford was founded 115 years ago. Here's the problem. Tesla's cars have two key things that make them competitively interesting: Autopilot and their electric drivetrain. Take those away and their cars are a special kind of "offensively uninteresting". The interiors are horrible, deserving of a car half the price. The build quality is inconsistent. The tech is pretty cool. Parts are unavailable. So, start with autonomous. Which is easier: for another company to achieve autonomous on-par with Tesla, or for Tesla to fix the design and engineering problems they've been having? 3 years ago, people might have said the latter. But today, we can name 3 companies who arguably have on-par or better driverless tech than Tesla (Google, GM, Uber). There are cars you can literally go buy today that get 90% to what the Model S does (2018 Audi A8, 2018 Accord, 2018 Cadillac CT-6). In some cases, they do better. Where's the competitive advantage? Electric drivetrain. Tesla is still leading here. For how long? BMW will have an electric mini out in 2019, an electric X3 out in 2020, and 25 all-electric models by 2025. Audi will have an all electric Q6 by 2019, you can put a pre-order in today, 310 mile range. Toyota is planning 10 EVs by early 2020s. Ford is releasing an EV performance car in 2020 (huge missed opportunity to resurrect the Thunderbird brand, as they went with "Mach-1"). Volvo just spun off Polestar into a performance EV brand. The list goes on. Tesla's massive investment in energy development will be the single thing that might save them; if they fail at making cars in 6 years, at least they can sell batteries to the companies who, well, know how to make cars. But, oh guess what, VW is sourcing their batteries from LG Chem and Samsung. Toyota is making them in-house, and they've said publicly they've achieved a "research breakthrough" on solid state batteries they aren't sharing [1]. I want Tesla to succeed. But, frankly, they have about a year to get it together. That means fix their QA issues, up the interior quality, get autopilot working, drop prices across the line. Possible? Honestly, it doesn't seem likely. But I'm holding out hope. [1] http://www.autonews.com/article/20171026/COPY01/310269958/toyota-keeps-game-changing-ev-battery-tech-inhouse http://www.autonews.com/article/20171026/COPY01/310269958/to...
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
I think they will be okay. It's crunch time for sure, but I think they will deliver on Model 3. I am getting mine within a few weeks, and buying TSLA.
- adventured 9y ago
  A year has hardly gone by over the last seven or eight, where the crowd hasn't largely proclaimed Tesla would die, and die very soon. Analysts were overwhelmingly bearish at every step. Competitors said none of what Tesla has accomplished could be done, including the Model S period. I keep seeing people say that Tesla is dead in three months. They have ~$3 billion in cash with the ability to dilute at will. The irrational, negative emotionalism that's being directed at Tesla right now is incredible. I can't imagine where it's coming from or why. There's almost a lust for them to fail. Nobody cheered for the death of Fiat or Jaguar like this.
  - omarforgotpwd 9y ago
    Irrational negative emotionalism is all the rage right now. A product of the clickbait driven digital media economy.
otalp 9y ago
Tesla has Apple-like brand value without the Apple-like manufacturing efficiency or profit margin. For Tesla's stock price to be worth the current value they need to at some point be making industry-high profit on every car sold - so far they're barely breaking even on the model 3s. They've _always_ fought against the odds and always looked like a bad bet if you only looked at numbers. The thing is nobody knows how far that brand value - which maybe only 2 or 3 other companies have, can take you: it's the confounding factor when it comes to 'Tesla predictions'. Fans probably buy into the Musk brand while skeptics underestimate just how far brand can take a company. Funding shouldn't be problem for Tesla for the next couple of years, and neither should selling cars that they've made. But the so called production ramp up has been postponed for a year now. If they face two or three more 'unexpected hurdles' in manufacturing and have an autopilot scandal or two, they are in trouble once Merc/BMW/Lexus/Audi start coming up with electric cars by 2020ish. That's the real danger. If they can mass produce model 3s by 2020, they should be fine.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  >They've _always_ fought against the odds and always looked like a bad bet if you only looked at numbers. To quote Peter Thiel, "Never bet against Elon Musk."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    I’d buy that index fund.
  - buvanshak 9y ago
    >"Never bet against Elon Musk." You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. - Abraham Lincoln Elon musk is on phase 2...and it can go on for a while..it seems..
    - 9y ago
Analemma_ 9y ago
To everyone saying “they’re just about to ramp up production, then they’ll be fine”, keep in mind that might be “out of the frying pan and into the fire”. There are already some serious questions about quality control at Tesla, and a lot of suggestions that they are cutting corners to meet these production deadlines, which will come back to hurt.
- curtis 9y ago
  > There are already some serious questions about quality control at Tesla, Quality control specifically for the Model 3 or quality control for the Model S? Clearly the Model 3 quality isn't good enough right now, but it seems quite likely that given time they should be able to bring it up to Model S levels. I don't know if that's good enough, but I think it might be. Will Tesla have time to reach that quality level? I think they probably will, but they may have to raise more money to pull it off. And they may have to raise that money at a less than favorable valuation. However, the idea that they won't be able to raise money at all seems unfounded to me, just like the implied notion that they can't fix the quality problems. There's a big difference between "Tesla is struggling" (yes they are, and it's not even the first time) and "Tesla is going to fail".
  - MBCook 9y ago
    I still seem to see reports of problems with brand new model S cars off the line, so while moving up to S quality would be an improvement for the three it’s still a pretty low bar. Why aren’t they where Ford/Toyota/GM/Honda/Kia/anyone else is? I thought one of the big ideas behind the model S was that they would use it to learn higher volume manufacturing (relative to the roadster) so that when the model three came they be ready. We are not seeing that at all.
  - Fins 9y ago
    No opinion whether Tesla will or won't fail, but driving behind a Model S you can see that it was assembled by people who would not get a job at a Yugo factory. Model S levels of quality is... not impressive.
- systemBuilder 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
danielfoster 9y ago
When does the NYT have something positive to say about a tech company?
- wpasc 9y ago
  "If it bleeds, it leads." News media will rarely say something positive about any tech company, probably even worse so than the general bias towards negativity
  - smt88 9y ago
    If you think that's true, you should check out all the glowing write-ups of Theranos, Amazon (specifically Bezos), and Microsoft (specifically Nadella). The coverage isn't/wasn't universally good, but I think we do get a pretty good picture of most tech companies from mainstream media.
- freehunter 9y ago
  If major (non-tech) publications are saying good things about a tech company, it's probably a submarine article.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Looking at the last week, I count at least five positive articles about tech companies, including Apple's new iPad, Waymo's expansion, an AI VFX startup, Dropbox's IPO, and Safari's picture-in-picture mode.
- yorby 9y ago
  Most reported news appears to be negative for some reason... at least in the mass-media
Zigurd 9y ago
Obits for Tesla are premature. The model 3 won't have any direct competition for two or three years. Other EVs on the market are a generation behind, and have production numbers that are a fraction of today's Model 3 numbers. On the other hand, to be worth its valuation, Tesla probably needs more than a year of uncontested dominance. So even if Tesla retains all the pre-sold Model 3 customers and is on track to fulfill those orders, "too late" could come sometime later this year.
- opencl 9y ago
  The Bolt isn't a Model 3 competitor and the 652K EVs sold in China in 2017 are a fraction of today's Model 3 numbers? https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114853_china-plug-in-electric-vehicle-sales-in-2017-almost-four-times-those-in-the-u-s https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114853_china-plug-in-e...
  - bobsil1 9y ago
    The Bolt isn’t a sporty entry luxury sedan, Model 3 is pitched against BMW 3-Series.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    The Bolt doesn’t have a decent long distance charging network.
  - Zigurd 9y ago
    The Bolt is exactly what I mean by a generation behind and with low production. China EVs interesting, and potentially much more disruptive if they turn out to demonstrate that entering the EV business is cheap and easy.
- carlivar 9y ago
  Two things are the biggest problem for Tesla: $900m in bonds due in early 2019 Loss of full $7500 federal tax credit probably in Q2 2018 but definitely Q3.
mattsfrey 9y ago
I think at the end of the day they are solving a really hard problem and being one of the few players in the space actually innovating. There is a lot of appreciation and I think customers and fans of Musk and the brand will HODL. They need to get through the hiccups and learn as they go, but ultimately it's a space that has a future.
- avs733 9y ago
  It's a space that has a future, sure. But the thing that kills more companies than anything else is failure to execute effectively. Tesla is failing at manufacturing. They have been for a while but they got away with it because their innovation was perceived as far enough ahead. With Nissan, GM, Jaguar, BMW, Porsche, etc. now in the EV space and Uber, GM, Waymo, etc. in the SDC space they have meaningful competition. They have survived on innovative products for a while...they are trying to continue that with the Semi and with the power wall, time will tell if they can actually build them - which is a precursor to just about everything else.
  - smt88 9y ago
    > Tesla is failing at manufacturing This is especially confusing because, of all industries, the general public knows the most about manufacturing excellence when it comes to cars. There have been tons of books written about Toyota, and we've even seen the birthplace of auto manufacturing crushed by that manufacturing prowess. It's practically a religion. Why didn't Musk learn from all that history?
    - avs733 9y ago
      The drive to disrupt is strong, it's a religion too. Sometimes that is good, sometimes all you are doing is tilting at windmills.
    - fma 9y ago
      Hell...then even bought a Toyota factory to build their cars!
linsomniac 9y ago
I don't know about Tesla, so many people are saying how it's going to fall apart, but I'm fairly optimistic. But, maybe that's because I'm both a Tesla owner and stock holder? I feel like Tesla is spending money like it's going out of style, because it's building a new industry. They have a great network of charging stations and are expanding it extensively. A year ago when I got a Model S I drove it 2K miles each way to the family's place (CO to NC). And honestly it went fairly smoothly. Since then the charging network has expanded dramatically. When I first got the Model S, my fiance thought about taking a road trip from CO to Nebraska, but because I got the cheap model, I could make it to Nebraska because it was downhill, but I couldn't make it back uphill. But, they've dramatically enhanced the I-80 superchargers. Ok, so if you are building a new infrastructure, how much money spend is too much? How do you know if spending money like it's going out of style isn't going to end up in returns later? Tesla is building out a great infrastructure for charging, nationwide. One of Tesla's products, and one of it's determiners for success, is the charging network. When I got my car, Dec 2016, we started on a trip cross country with the kids, and I was like "I only give us a 50% chance of success". Between not knowing how charging was going to work, and not knowing if the kids were going to get into a fight because of being cramped in the back. I expected we wouldn't event make it out of Colorado before something turned us back. But, we made it there and back fairly smoothly. Had to learn some things about electric cars, but it worked great. I'm really a car guy, and I love the sound of a V8. But, the Tesla is amazing. Could I have gotten something better from Audi for $75K (about my spend after incentives)? Probably. Do they have better self driving? Probably. But, with the maintenance on my A8 that the Tesla replaced, it's cheaper to run the Tesla than it was my Audi. Which, honestly, isn't a high bar to reach. My 2008 Audi A8 was a better car in many ways, as far as toys. But, the Tesla I've put over 20K miles on, with $0 for maintenance. I think Tesla is building the infrastructure of the future, and they are spending money now to make something of huge value in the future. How much is too much to build the future?
- meddlepal 9y ago
  Exactly what "new industry" are they building? They're just selling people movers that get you from A to B. They're an EV Mercedes of the 21st century... The implementation is interesting, but the idea is old and tired.
kwelstr 9y ago
Tesla high valuation is the only thing that has prevented it getting bought by one of the big car companies, and that's a good thing. GM used to buy smaller competitors to take them off the market and just keep the name as a token of the brand. Hundreds of players from the first half of the 20th century got swallowed into a few brands. Tesla has pushed the car industry forward decades in a few years. The big players were just competing in price and size of vehicles and never taking risks. Elon Musk has the vision and charisma to execute and move Tesla to the forefront of innovation, keeping everybody else in its toes trying to catch up. I don't think the market cap will fall anytime soon for this company.
- Mononokay 9y ago
  > Tesla high valuation is the only thing that has prevented it getting bought by one of the big car companies I don't think so. Musk doesn't seem like the type of person to compromise on a vision for a (relatively) small buyout. He'd have probably declined if given an offer.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - femidav 9y ago
    It's not like he can decide that alone, he has ca. 20% of Tesla's shares.
- twblalock 9y ago
  > I don't think the market cap will fall anytime soon for this company. Really? The stock is down about 20% since the beginning of this month. It already happened. I want Tesla to succeed. I think the company has done a lot to make electric cars mainstream, at least in people's minds if not in their driveways. But I see no justification for Tesla having a market cap in the same range as GM, which sells 10 million cars per year, or Ford, which sells about 7 million cars per year. Tesla sells about 100k cars per year and is burning through money pretty fast. It might have made a positive contribution to society, but at the end of the day it's a money-losing company and the stock price is going to reflect that.
jaimex2 9y ago
Interesting that the Tesla doom and gloom article isn't pay walled.
- carlivar 9y ago
  NYTimes doesn't truly paywall anything. You get a finite number of articles each month but easy to get around that with incognito mode. That being said, I'll probably subscribe soon.
jaimex2 9y ago
- Make a great affordable electric car - Mass produce it without flaws - Dont run out of cash. Pick two.
arthurofbabylon 9y ago
A big issue around Tesla is hype. Don’t get me wrong - FOR Tesla it’s great (boosts demand, brings in investment money) - but for those of us watching, it makes it hard to see what’s going on. To be honest with y’all, I have no clue how amazing or horrible Tesla is doing. Headline after headline just pumps the hype and makes connecting the dots and fitting real performance into a context harder and harder. I do get value from others’ speculation as it helps me see things from new perspectives, however each new hyped story seems to obfuscate what’s really happening.
smt88 9y ago
It's a lot harder for a company to die than people think. Aol is still around. Bankruptcy is, by design, not a death sentence, and Tesla can always use that escape route if they need to. For now it seems that investors will continue to pour money into them and they won't need to.
- carlivar 9y ago
  Bankruptcy is a death sentence if you rely on suppliers that won't sell you the supplies you need because they fear they won't get paid for them. This is what happened to Toys R Us. You're right that it's not a death sentence because the brand/trademarks have value and are part of the bankruptcy process. But many companies that still exist in name aren't "really" the original companies. Such as Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Blockbuster Video, or Atari, to name a few.
qaq 9y ago
The mood on this site is funny you never worked on software project that delivered late? Did it mean that your company with multi-billion market cap was immediately doomed? The challenge they face now is big but on this road they already faced many challenges.
- avs733 9y ago
  Glib answer: You can't hot patch paint More serious answer: I think its fair to say the concern isn't the miss of an individual deadline or even multiple deadlines. Its the attitude and the process and the communication that surround those misses. There is no seemingly justifiable cause for continued misses beyond Tesla not having the internal knowledge or controls to make this happen. That, the process concern, is more of what you are seeing than a concern over a late project. When the response to missing a project deadline seems rooted in CEO ego I get concerned.
  - qaq 9y ago
    "There is no seemingly justifiable cause for continued misses beyond Tesla not having the internal knowledge or controls to make this happen". Thats again a fairly strong statement setting a bar high enough that very few if any software companies can clear.
    - frankchn 9y ago
      It depends on whether you see Tesla as a software company or a car company. Car companies seem to launch and deliver new models of cars profitably and on schedule with regularity.
      - qaq 9y ago
        I see Tesla as a tech company and looking at the market cap it looks like the market is valuing it as a tech company it's market cap is about that of Ford and that's with over 30% of Tesla's stock float being shorted.
- Nokinside 9y ago
imh 9y ago
>And it was Autopilot that set off a race to develop advanced driver-assistance systems that can guide cars under certain circumstances and actively prevent collisions — though Tesla’s technology appears to have been surpassed by the self-driving systems from other companies, including G.M. and the Google spinoff Waymo. Is this in any way true? My understanding was that Waymo, or even the DARPA grand challenges, were what kicked self driving cars off, and the driver assist features were picking up steam before Tesla.
- BariumBlue 9y ago
  A bit of both; there were self-driving cars before Tesla, but Tesla was the first to commercially field any kind of "autopilot" feature, spurring on the existing competition
  - imh 9y ago
    What was new about their autopilot? My googling is uninformative :-\
    - BariumBlue 9y ago
      Just that it was actually commercially fielded, rather than in some test environment somewhere
      - imh 9y ago
        Sorry, I was unclear. I meant, new relative to the other things commercially fielded. That's the part I had thought others had.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kisstheblade 9y ago
Seriously. I bought a Renault Zoe (in europe). What the F has Tesla to offer to maintain that kind of valuation? I can find zero compelling reasons to by a Tesla compared to the Renault. Oh and also, I can't buy a Tesla at this date at that price.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
  I drive an Autolib. What does Ferrari have to offer to justify their valuation?

103 points by tysone 9y ago

It is clear that Tesla is failing to deliver any competitive advantage besides its early start. It has failed to achieve what is the standard baseline for mass production of cars today, a sustained production rate within controlled quality parameters, and failed to differentiate in other areas, falling behind most other automakers (and non-automakers) in innovation (especially autonomous driving). There is still hope that it will solve the Model 3 problems, but at this point (including the desperate "volunteers to prove the haters wrong" email) it seems more and more unlikely.

tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
> and failed to differentiate in other areas, falling behind most other automakers (and non-automakers) in innovation (especially autonomous driving). What other car has better autonomous driving?
- ucaetano 9y ago
  Compared to the current, non-MobilEye Teslas, the Leaf, the A6, the CT6. Even the old Model S has better autonomous driving than the current one. Oh, and Google. By very, very far. Tesla hasn't even caught up to its original Mobileye-powered Autopilot.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Do any other autopilot systems from legacy automakers improve with over the air software updates? Do they revise their algorithms with fleet data? I can't get Waymo/Google autopilot in a vehicle I can buy. I can get Tesla's autopilot. The latest Tesla autopilot software update (2018.10.4) has shown drastic improvements (30+ Youtube videos from owners in thread): https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/84xt43/collection_of_ap2_2018104_videos/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/84xt43/collect...
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      Being a "leap forward" still puts it behind others. But if your criteria for quality is being able to hope that one day you'll get an update, well, that still puts you behind Cadillac and possibly others. You can continue to hope and wait for Tesla to deliver. So far, it hasn't.
    - jackvalentine 9y ago
      > Do any other autopilot systems from legacy automakers improve with over the air software updates? Who cares? I'm not buying a luxury vehicle on promises of what it might do given enough time.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        To each their own of course. I'd have no qualms about buying my Model S again. I'm unwilling to buy a car stuck in time in it's model year, or that must wait years for a software upgrade. Then again, I'm happy with my iPhone, bugs and all; it'll get updates too, and works just fine between iOS updates.
        jackvalentine 9y ago
        > I'm unwilling to buy a car stuck in time in it's model year You know I used to think this way, then all my computing devices started changing often for the worse with every update. For me a stable device that doesn't change month-to-month is a feature, not a disadvantage. Give me the LTS branch of the car world.
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        I can appreciate that perspective. I want to live at the bleeding edge, and don't mind the inconveniences or regressions. I can't take my money with me when I die, so after savings and basic needs are met, I want to live in the future (even if the products are still in beta!). I can't get that sort of experience from stodgy, risk adverse legacy enterprises. I want to support enterprises that want to succeed or die. EDIT: Edit after your edit, keep the LTS builds, give me nightly! Tests pass? Ship it!
- DanCarvajal 9y ago
  Given the accidents, you might as well drive a regular car and take your hands off the wheels and you'd roughly replicate the quality of their "autonomous diving".
- otalp 9y ago
  Ironically Autopilot 2 is better than Autopilot 3, so older Teslas would be one car.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- linsomniac 9y ago
  As someone who spent $8K on Enhanced Autopilot 15 months ago, I'd say that pretty much everyone has better autonamous driving. My brother-in-law got a new Honda Accord a few months ago, and says on the highway he can just take his hands off the wheel and let it do it's thing. My fancy-schmancy Tesla Models S meanwhile can do an ok job of following lanes as long as you keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention to ensure that whenever it doesn't detect your hands on the wheel that you give it a little tug. I love my Model S, but they really bit off more than they can chew in the "writing our own software" department.
  - dkoston 9y ago
    Do you have 2018.10.4 or above? It drove me through 220 miles of rain including torrential downpours yesterday with ease. Up until that update, I’d agree that AP2 was sub par but the new update has dramatically improved EAP.
    - smt88 9y ago
      > It drove me through 220 miles of rain including torrential downpours yesterday This sounds terrifying. Why did you trust it enough to experiment with your life?
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        And the lives of everybody else on that road.
    - linsomniac 9y ago
      I just got 2018.10.4 a week or less ago. I haven't put many miles on it yet, but it does seem like a big improvement in the small testing I've done, as far as the driving.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    > My brother-in-law got a new Honda Accord a few months ago, and says on the highway he can just take his hands off the wheel and let it do it's thing. I have the new Accord. It's not really autonomous. Adaptive cruise control and auto-braking aren't bad, but the lane keep mostly just jiggles the steering wheel to notify me when I depart the lines, and all the time it mistakes construction and seams in the pavement as lane lines.
- matte_black 9y ago
  I tried the Audi A6's self driving feature and it was fantastic.
bsder 9y ago
> It has failed to achieve what is the standard baseline for mass production of cars today, a sustained production rate within controlled quality parameters Which is ironic given that Tesla is in the old Fremont facility where Toyota schooled GM on how to do exactly that ...
- ucaetano 9y ago
  Exactly, with industry-standard infrastructure and plenty of highly-qualified and experienced professionals up for grabs, it is puzzling how they are failing so hard. My guess is a mentality of "everything is wrong, let's rebuild it from scratch internally and it will be better", ignoring decades of practice and experience.
- ebikelaw 9y ago
  It turns out that buildings don't know how to build cars. People do.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Which is kind of amazing because their issues of just trying to get cars down the line and trying to fix them after they are built before delivery sounds exactly like the kind of stuff GM used to do that Toyota amazed them by avoiding.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
I don’t see evidence of the failure. As far as I’ve seen, Tesla has met and then exceeded every single production target they’ve set, including Model 3 production start (which was on time even, last summer). Some were delayed by _years_ but they hit them. The most recent goal they have set is 5000/week. It was originally slated for Q4 2017. So that date has slipped now by at least 3 months. I doubt they’ll hit it in Q2. Maybe they won’t hit it until 2019. But all available evidence suggests the will hit it. Every previous goal was met, why would this be the first one that isn’t?
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Don't the goals and targets include doing it by a stated date?
- ucaetano 9y ago
  Have you been living under a rock? https://www.nasdaq.com/article/tesla-tsla-fails-to-meet-production-target-of-model-3-cm854445 https://www.nasdaq.com/article/tesla-tsla-fails-to-meet-prod... > It was originally slated for Q4 2017. So that date has slipped now by 3 months. Wait, that doesn't qualify as failing to meet a target?
  - dang 9y ago
    We ban accounts that post uncivilly. We've warned you repeatedly in the past. If you keep doing it we're going to have to ban you. Would you please fix this? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- king_magic 9y ago
  > As far as I’ve seen, Tesla has met and then exceeded every single production target they’ve set. > The next goal they set was 5000/week. It was originally slated for Q4 2017. So that date has slipped now by 3 months. Those feel like unambiguously contradictory statements. > Every previous goal was met, why would this be the first one they can’t hit? Because... they quite literally did not hit the goal?
mikeash 9y ago
If they’re failing to deliver any competitive advantages, why are there still no competitive cars available from any other company, or even just announced? So far the closest thing is the Bolt, and it’s not all that close.
- ams6110 9y ago
  1) EVs are really not what many people want in a car 2) Other companies like to sell cars at a profit. That hasn't yet been achieved with EVs.
  - esarbe 9y ago
    Tesla is actually turning a profit on their cars. It's just the massive investments in manufacturing production eat up everything.
- 013a 9y ago
  Momentum. Tesla got an early start. A decade means nothing. Ford was founded 115 years ago. Here's the problem. Tesla's cars have two key things that make them competitively interesting: Autopilot and their electric drivetrain. Take those away and their cars are a special kind of "offensively uninteresting". The interiors are horrible, deserving of a car half the price. The build quality is inconsistent. The tech is pretty cool. Parts are unavailable. So, start with autonomous. Which is easier: for another company to achieve autonomous on-par with Tesla, or for Tesla to fix the design and engineering problems they've been having? 3 years ago, people might have said the latter. But today, we can name 3 companies who arguably have on-par or better driverless tech than Tesla (Google, GM, Uber). There are cars you can literally go buy today that get 90% to what the Model S does (2018 Audi A8, 2018 Accord, 2018 Cadillac CT-6). In some cases, they do better. Where's the competitive advantage? Electric drivetrain. Tesla is still leading here. For how long? BMW will have an electric mini out in 2019, an electric X3 out in 2020, and 25 all-electric models by 2025. Audi will have an all electric Q6 by 2019, you can put a pre-order in today, 310 mile range. Toyota is planning 10 EVs by early 2020s. Ford is releasing an EV performance car in 2020 (huge missed opportunity to resurrect the Thunderbird brand, as they went with "Mach-1"). Volvo just spun off Polestar into a performance EV brand. The list goes on. Tesla's massive investment in energy development will be the single thing that might save them; if they fail at making cars in 6 years, at least they can sell batteries to the companies who, well, know how to make cars. But, oh guess what, VW is sourcing their batteries from LG Chem and Samsung. Toyota is making them in-house, and they've said publicly they've achieved a "research breakthrough" on solid state batteries they aren't sharing [1]. I want Tesla to succeed. But, frankly, they have about a year to get it together. That means fix their QA issues, up the interior quality, get autopilot working, drop prices across the line. Possible? Honestly, it doesn't seem likely. But I'm holding out hope. [1] http://www.autonews.com/article/20171026/COPY01/310269958/toyota-keeps-game-changing-ev-battery-tech-inhouse http://www.autonews.com/article/20171026/COPY01/310269958/to...

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

I think they will be okay. It's crunch time for sure, but I think they will deliver on Model 3. I am getting mine within a few weeks, and buying TSLA.

adventured 9y ago
A year has hardly gone by over the last seven or eight, where the crowd hasn't largely proclaimed Tesla would die, and die very soon. Analysts were overwhelmingly bearish at every step. Competitors said none of what Tesla has accomplished could be done, including the Model S period. I keep seeing people say that Tesla is dead in three months. They have ~$3 billion in cash with the ability to dilute at will. The irrational, negative emotionalism that's being directed at Tesla right now is incredible. I can't imagine where it's coming from or why. There's almost a lust for them to fail. Nobody cheered for the death of Fiat or Jaguar like this.
- omarforgotpwd 9y ago
  Irrational negative emotionalism is all the rage right now. A product of the clickbait driven digital media economy.

otalp 9y ago

Tesla has Apple-like brand value without the Apple-like manufacturing efficiency or profit margin. For Tesla's stock price to be worth the current value they need to at some point be making industry-high profit on every car sold - so far they're barely breaking even on the model 3s. They've _always_ fought against the odds and always looked like a bad bet if you only looked at numbers. The thing is nobody knows how far that brand value - which maybe only 2 or 3 other companies have, can take you: it's the confounding factor when it comes to 'Tesla predictions'. Fans probably buy into the Musk brand while skeptics underestimate just how far brand can take a company. Funding shouldn't be problem for Tesla for the next couple of years, and neither should selling cars that they've made. But the so called production ramp up has been postponed for a year now. If they face two or three more 'unexpected hurdles' in manufacturing and have an autopilot scandal or two, they are in trouble once Merc/BMW/Lexus/Audi start coming up with electric cars by 2020ish. That's the real danger. If they can mass produce model 3s by 2020, they should be fine.

Consultant32452 9y ago
>They've _always_ fought against the odds and always looked like a bad bet if you only looked at numbers. To quote Peter Thiel, "Never bet against Elon Musk."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  I’d buy that index fund.
- buvanshak 9y ago
  >"Never bet against Elon Musk." You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. - Abraham Lincoln Elon musk is on phase 2...and it can go on for a while..it seems..
  - 9y ago

Analemma_ 9y ago

To everyone saying “they’re just about to ramp up production, then they’ll be fine”, keep in mind that might be “out of the frying pan and into the fire”. There are already some serious questions about quality control at Tesla, and a lot of suggestions that they are cutting corners to meet these production deadlines, which will come back to hurt.

curtis 9y ago
> There are already some serious questions about quality control at Tesla, Quality control specifically for the Model 3 or quality control for the Model S? Clearly the Model 3 quality isn't good enough right now, but it seems quite likely that given time they should be able to bring it up to Model S levels. I don't know if that's good enough, but I think it might be. Will Tesla have time to reach that quality level? I think they probably will, but they may have to raise more money to pull it off. And they may have to raise that money at a less than favorable valuation. However, the idea that they won't be able to raise money at all seems unfounded to me, just like the implied notion that they can't fix the quality problems. There's a big difference between "Tesla is struggling" (yes they are, and it's not even the first time) and "Tesla is going to fail".
- MBCook 9y ago
  I still seem to see reports of problems with brand new model S cars off the line, so while moving up to S quality would be an improvement for the three it’s still a pretty low bar. Why aren’t they where Ford/Toyota/GM/Honda/Kia/anyone else is? I thought one of the big ideas behind the model S was that they would use it to learn higher volume manufacturing (relative to the roadster) so that when the model three came they be ready. We are not seeing that at all.
- Fins 9y ago
  No opinion whether Tesla will or won't fail, but driving behind a Model S you can see that it was assembled by people who would not get a job at a Yugo factory. Model S levels of quality is... not impressive.
systemBuilder 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

danielfoster 9y ago

When does the NYT have something positive to say about a tech company?

wpasc 9y ago
"If it bleeds, it leads." News media will rarely say something positive about any tech company, probably even worse so than the general bias towards negativity
- smt88 9y ago
  If you think that's true, you should check out all the glowing write-ups of Theranos, Amazon (specifically Bezos), and Microsoft (specifically Nadella). The coverage isn't/wasn't universally good, but I think we do get a pretty good picture of most tech companies from mainstream media.
freehunter 9y ago
If major (non-tech) publications are saying good things about a tech company, it's probably a submarine article.
wpietri 9y ago
Looking at the last week, I count at least five positive articles about tech companies, including Apple's new iPad, Waymo's expansion, an AI VFX startup, Dropbox's IPO, and Safari's picture-in-picture mode.
yorby 9y ago
Most reported news appears to be negative for some reason... at least in the mass-media

Zigurd 9y ago

Obits for Tesla are premature. The model 3 won't have any direct competition for two or three years. Other EVs on the market are a generation behind, and have production numbers that are a fraction of today's Model 3 numbers. On the other hand, to be worth its valuation, Tesla probably needs more than a year of uncontested dominance. So even if Tesla retains all the pre-sold Model 3 customers and is on track to fulfill those orders, "too late" could come sometime later this year.

opencl 9y ago
The Bolt isn't a Model 3 competitor and the 652K EVs sold in China in 2017 are a fraction of today's Model 3 numbers? https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114853_china-plug-in-electric-vehicle-sales-in-2017-almost-four-times-those-in-the-u-s https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1114853_china-plug-in-e...
- bobsil1 9y ago
  The Bolt isn’t a sporty entry luxury sedan, Model 3 is pitched against BMW 3-Series.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The Bolt doesn’t have a decent long distance charging network.
- Zigurd 9y ago
  The Bolt is exactly what I mean by a generation behind and with low production. China EVs interesting, and potentially much more disruptive if they turn out to demonstrate that entering the EV business is cheap and easy.
carlivar 9y ago
Two things are the biggest problem for Tesla: $900m in bonds due in early 2019 Loss of full $7500 federal tax credit probably in Q2 2018 but definitely Q3.

mattsfrey 9y ago

I think at the end of the day they are solving a really hard problem and being one of the few players in the space actually innovating. There is a lot of appreciation and I think customers and fans of Musk and the brand will HODL. They need to get through the hiccups and learn as they go, but ultimately it's a space that has a future.

avs733 9y ago
It's a space that has a future, sure. But the thing that kills more companies than anything else is failure to execute effectively. Tesla is failing at manufacturing. They have been for a while but they got away with it because their innovation was perceived as far enough ahead. With Nissan, GM, Jaguar, BMW, Porsche, etc. now in the EV space and Uber, GM, Waymo, etc. in the SDC space they have meaningful competition. They have survived on innovative products for a while...they are trying to continue that with the Semi and with the power wall, time will tell if they can actually build them - which is a precursor to just about everything else.
- smt88 9y ago
  > Tesla is failing at manufacturing This is especially confusing because, of all industries, the general public knows the most about manufacturing excellence when it comes to cars. There have been tons of books written about Toyota, and we've even seen the birthplace of auto manufacturing crushed by that manufacturing prowess. It's practically a religion. Why didn't Musk learn from all that history?
  - avs733 9y ago
    The drive to disrupt is strong, it's a religion too. Sometimes that is good, sometimes all you are doing is tilting at windmills.
  - fma 9y ago
    Hell...then even bought a Toyota factory to build their cars!

linsomniac 9y ago

I don't know about Tesla, so many people are saying how it's going to fall apart, but I'm fairly optimistic. But, maybe that's because I'm both a Tesla owner and stock holder? I feel like Tesla is spending money like it's going out of style, because it's building a new industry. They have a great network of charging stations and are expanding it extensively. A year ago when I got a Model S I drove it 2K miles each way to the family's place (CO to NC). And honestly it went fairly smoothly. Since then the charging network has expanded dramatically. When I first got the Model S, my fiance thought about taking a road trip from CO to Nebraska, but because I got the cheap model, I could make it to Nebraska because it was downhill, but I couldn't make it back uphill. But, they've dramatically enhanced the I-80 superchargers. Ok, so if you are building a new infrastructure, how much money spend is too much? How do you know if spending money like it's going out of style isn't going to end up in returns later? Tesla is building out a great infrastructure for charging, nationwide. One of Tesla's products, and one of it's determiners for success, is the charging network. When I got my car, Dec 2016, we started on a trip cross country with the kids, and I was like "I only give us a 50% chance of success". Between not knowing how charging was going to work, and not knowing if the kids were going to get into a fight because of being cramped in the back. I expected we wouldn't event make it out of Colorado before something turned us back. But, we made it there and back fairly smoothly. Had to learn some things about electric cars, but it worked great. I'm really a car guy, and I love the sound of a V8. But, the Tesla is amazing. Could I have gotten something better from Audi for $75K (about my spend after incentives)? Probably. Do they have better self driving? Probably. But, with the maintenance on my A8 that the Tesla replaced, it's cheaper to run the Tesla than it was my Audi. Which, honestly, isn't a high bar to reach. My 2008 Audi A8 was a better car in many ways, as far as toys. But, the Tesla I've put over 20K miles on, with $0 for maintenance. I think Tesla is building the infrastructure of the future, and they are spending money now to make something of huge value in the future. How much is too much to build the future?

meddlepal 9y ago
Exactly what "new industry" are they building? They're just selling people movers that get you from A to B. They're an EV Mercedes of the 21st century... The implementation is interesting, but the idea is old and tired.

kwelstr 9y ago

Tesla high valuation is the only thing that has prevented it getting bought by one of the big car companies, and that's a good thing. GM used to buy smaller competitors to take them off the market and just keep the name as a token of the brand. Hundreds of players from the first half of the 20th century got swallowed into a few brands. Tesla has pushed the car industry forward decades in a few years. The big players were just competing in price and size of vehicles and never taking risks. Elon Musk has the vision and charisma to execute and move Tesla to the forefront of innovation, keeping everybody else in its toes trying to catch up. I don't think the market cap will fall anytime soon for this company.

Mononokay 9y ago
> Tesla high valuation is the only thing that has prevented it getting bought by one of the big car companies I don't think so. Musk doesn't seem like the type of person to compromise on a vision for a (relatively) small buyout. He'd have probably declined if given an offer.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- femidav 9y ago
  It's not like he can decide that alone, he has ca. 20% of Tesla's shares.
twblalock 9y ago
> I don't think the market cap will fall anytime soon for this company. Really? The stock is down about 20% since the beginning of this month. It already happened. I want Tesla to succeed. I think the company has done a lot to make electric cars mainstream, at least in people's minds if not in their driveways. But I see no justification for Tesla having a market cap in the same range as GM, which sells 10 million cars per year, or Ford, which sells about 7 million cars per year. Tesla sells about 100k cars per year and is burning through money pretty fast. It might have made a positive contribution to society, but at the end of the day it's a money-losing company and the stock price is going to reflect that.

jaimex2 9y ago

Interesting that the Tesla doom and gloom article isn't pay walled.

carlivar 9y ago
NYTimes doesn't truly paywall anything. You get a finite number of articles each month but easy to get around that with incognito mode. That being said, I'll probably subscribe soon.

jaimex2 9y ago

- Make a great affordable electric car - Mass produce it without flaws - Dont run out of cash. Pick two.

arthurofbabylon 9y ago

A big issue around Tesla is hype. Don’t get me wrong - FOR Tesla it’s great (boosts demand, brings in investment money) - but for those of us watching, it makes it hard to see what’s going on. To be honest with y’all, I have no clue how amazing or horrible Tesla is doing. Headline after headline just pumps the hype and makes connecting the dots and fitting real performance into a context harder and harder. I do get value from others’ speculation as it helps me see things from new perspectives, however each new hyped story seems to obfuscate what’s really happening.

smt88 9y ago

It's a lot harder for a company to die than people think. Aol is still around. Bankruptcy is, by design, not a death sentence, and Tesla can always use that escape route if they need to. For now it seems that investors will continue to pour money into them and they won't need to.

carlivar 9y ago
Bankruptcy is a death sentence if you rely on suppliers that won't sell you the supplies you need because they fear they won't get paid for them. This is what happened to Toys R Us. You're right that it's not a death sentence because the brand/trademarks have value and are part of the bankruptcy process. But many companies that still exist in name aren't "really" the original companies. Such as Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Blockbuster Video, or Atari, to name a few.

qaq 9y ago

The mood on this site is funny you never worked on software project that delivered late? Did it mean that your company with multi-billion market cap was immediately doomed? The challenge they face now is big but on this road they already faced many challenges.

avs733 9y ago
Glib answer: You can't hot patch paint More serious answer: I think its fair to say the concern isn't the miss of an individual deadline or even multiple deadlines. Its the attitude and the process and the communication that surround those misses. There is no seemingly justifiable cause for continued misses beyond Tesla not having the internal knowledge or controls to make this happen. That, the process concern, is more of what you are seeing than a concern over a late project. When the response to missing a project deadline seems rooted in CEO ego I get concerned.
- qaq 9y ago
  "There is no seemingly justifiable cause for continued misses beyond Tesla not having the internal knowledge or controls to make this happen". Thats again a fairly strong statement setting a bar high enough that very few if any software companies can clear.
  - frankchn 9y ago
    It depends on whether you see Tesla as a software company or a car company. Car companies seem to launch and deliver new models of cars profitably and on schedule with regularity.
    - qaq 9y ago
      I see Tesla as a tech company and looking at the market cap it looks like the market is valuing it as a tech company it's market cap is about that of Ford and that's with over 30% of Tesla's stock float being shorted.
Nokinside 9y ago

imh 9y ago

>And it was Autopilot that set off a race to develop advanced driver-assistance systems that can guide cars under certain circumstances and actively prevent collisions — though Tesla’s technology appears to have been surpassed by the self-driving systems from other companies, including G.M. and the Google spinoff Waymo. Is this in any way true? My understanding was that Waymo, or even the DARPA grand challenges, were what kicked self driving cars off, and the driver assist features were picking up steam before Tesla.

BariumBlue 9y ago
A bit of both; there were self-driving cars before Tesla, but Tesla was the first to commercially field any kind of "autopilot" feature, spurring on the existing competition
- imh 9y ago
  What was new about their autopilot? My googling is uninformative :-\
  - BariumBlue 9y ago
    Just that it was actually commercially fielded, rather than in some test environment somewhere
    - imh 9y ago
      Sorry, I was unclear. I meant, new relative to the other things commercially fielded. That's the part I had thought others had.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kisstheblade 9y ago

Seriously. I bought a Renault Zoe (in europe). What the F has Tesla to offer to maintain that kind of valuation? I can find zero compelling reasons to by a Tesla compared to the Renault. Oh and also, I can't buy a Tesla at this date at that price.

rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
I drive an Autolib. What does Ferrari have to offer to justify their valuation?