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More than 70M cars are produced worldwide every year. The 3 large German producers, Mercedes, Audi and BMW, are producing around 6M cars, of which many are pric
by flexie 8y ago
More than 70M cars are produced worldwide every year. The 3 large German producers, Mercedes, Audi and BMW, are producing around 6M cars, of which many are priced similarly or more expensive than Model 3. That's just to mention some of the larger ones.
There is easily a demand for millions of cars within the upper end of the mid price segment like Model 3, and once the price of batteries goes down just a bit, EVs can reach the lower end of the mid segment.
We are not at the cheap segment yet, but it's just a matter of battery prices going down (through economy of scale; we actually don't need any breakthroughs in technology).
Then factor in charging networks. Right now, I don't have any supercharger near me. Next year I will. In 4-5 years I will have plenty.
As for not trusting the traditional manufacturers, I stopped buying Nokia and Ericsson and never came back, ones Apple marketed the iPhone. Not because they had had bad products or weren't trustworthy anymore. Just because it was obvious they produced the old tech and were behind on the new. People stopped buying horses and carriages when Ford produced his cars. Horses served us well for millennia.
And the hundreds of thousands of Teslas already driving billions of miles on the road are still driving well without the engines and expertise of BMW, right? People trust Tesla's tech now.
- cjrp 8y ago> Mercedes, Audi and BMW, are producing around 6M cars, of which many are priced similarly or more expensive than Model 3 ~$55k USD would be roughly equivalent to a 5 Series/E Class/A6. Combined, about 300,000 of these cars are sold per year in Europe. So to sell 800,000 Model 3s worldwide you've got to replace every single one of those BMW/Merc/Audi sales, and then some.
- flexie 8y agoThose are just European figures, just 3 brands, and just the existing numbers. In 2006, the market for smart phones was tiny. A couple of years later, people paid 3 times more for a phone than they ever thought they would. Yes, $500 for a phone is not the same as $50,000 for a car. But who would have thought that people would readily shed out $599 for a cell phone before Apple made that market? The amount of people able to pay $50,000 for a car is increasing every year due to the economic growth in Asia and elsewhere and Tesla expands the market of people interested in expensive cars in Europe and America beyond the usual motor enthusiasts to people like me.
- joshuamorton 8y agoThe palm pilot had been around and popular for 10 years when the iPhone came out, at a 300+ dollar price point. That and most people don't actually pay anything for their phones, they get them on contract (in the us). As far as I know in Europe, smart phones are less common among poorer communities. And an iPhone provides more reason utility over a palm pilot than a model three does over a used Toyota that costs 1/5 as much.
- flexie 8y agoI live in the poorest country in Europe (Bulgaria) and virtually everyone below 50 has a smartphone. The original iPhone was priced at $499 for 4GB, $599 for 8GB.
- qaq 8y agoWhy are you comparing to 5 Series/E Class/A6 ? it's in A4, 3 series, C class price range and size.
- philwelch 8y agoTesla has a history of build quality issues that are forgivable by early adopters but still represent significant barriers to wide-scale adoption. I think the incumbent automakers can match what Tesla’s doing before Tesla can develop the manufacturing chops to fully compete. Remember that before iPhone launched, Apple was already a leader in handheld consumer electronics with the iPod, with a level of operational expertise that more than matched any competitor. Not to mention lots and lots and lots of cash and time to spend on solving the hard problems before they had to launch. All luxuries that Tesla lacks.