5 ms·

Seems a market that is ripe for Tesla's entry into it with the Model 3. That might be why they're getting so much Chinese government sponsorship.

sandworm101 8y ago
No. Teslas, all of them, are exponentially more expensive than the average EV in china. These aren't what we would even call cars. The average Chinese electric car is more akin to a really fast three-wheeled golf cart. I'm talking about the sub-$5000 market, price points that wouldn't cover the doors on a tesla.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Teslas don’t spontaneously burst into flames as often as cheap Chinese EVs. Wealthy Chinese consumers will drive down the cost for poor Chinese consumers.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    By western standards they do. They probably still do it a lot less often than the Chinese EVs but it's not like the average Chinese buyer is rich enough to care about an edge case like that.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      By western standards? This is an outright fabrication with no basis in fact. EVs rarely spontaneous combust compared to ICE vehicles.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    > Teslas don’t spontaneously burst into flames as often as cheap Chinese EVs. It is either my calculator is bad or yours. 23 / 300000 = ~0.00001 40 / more than 1000000 = 0.000004
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  > exponentially more expensive Just a pet peeve, but is it a trend that people like to use “exponentially” to just mean “way more”? Exponentially doesn’t mean what you just wrote here.. Exponential implies a rate of growth, the cost of tesla’s isn’t doubling every N years compared to other EVs..
  - misterprime 8y ago
    I'm guessing they meant "an order of magnitude higher".
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    A suitable interpretation would be to say that "exponentially more" means a bigger number in the floating point/scientific notation exponent, so that it's a synonym of "order of magnitude."
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exponential https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exponent... exponential definition: 1. An exponential rate of increase becomes quicker and quicker as the thing that increases becomes larger: So, ya. Tesla's product line is exponentially more expensive. Graph them together according to range/size etc, and you will see the exponential rise in the delta between the prices, the line representing chinese product line will diverge from that of the tesla product line exponentially.
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    It's a rhetorical device like using "literal" even when something is meant in figurative terms. Specifically, it's hyperbole or exaggeration. It's one of the strengths of human language that we can infer meaning from context -- from connotation -- rather than purely relying on denotative meaning. By exaggerating factual reality of our statements, we imply the strength of our belief or emphasize the degree of the description we're making. Further, it's important to recognize that jargon does not supercede the vernacular meaning of a word. Just because you know what "exponential" is and how it differs from, say, "geometric" when referring to mathematics, this doesn't mean that the vernacular meanings of these words don't apply any longer. No, it doesn't matter that mathematics is the origin of the terms. There are still valid, accepted, vernacular meanings. Understanding jargon means you need to understand the context that the speaker is using to determine what meaning they're using. Here, since "exponential" in the mathematic sense is clearly nonsense, you should conclude that that meaning is not the intended literal meaning. Human communication is about conveying the overall meaning in spite of the meaning of individual words. Language is imprecise because thoughts, opinions, and arguments are more complex and nuanced than the individual words we're forced to express them in can ever be. After all, think of diversity of the range of devices that can accurately be described as a "computer". Or how many different types of objects you could describe as a "cup" or a "table". These are common nouns for real, physical objects, and their meaning is fuzzy enough to cover dissimilar objects made of dissimilar materials that serve dissimilar purposes. And yet if I say to you "I put the cup on the table" you have sufficient information to know what has happened even though you and I have never met in person, we've never shared a conversation, and you've never seen my cup or my table (and, indeed, the cup and table you're imagining in your head almost certainly look nothing like my actual cup and table). So, yeah, that isn't what "exponential" means, but that sentence is not meaningless because of it.
- nikofeyn 8y ago
  > The average Chinese electric car is more akin to a really fast three-wheeled golf cart. that is simply not true. have you ever been to china? there are tons of electric sedans and SUVs on the road, and i would guess that greater than 80% of my didi (the chinese uber) rides while there for two weeks were electric vehicles. these vehicles were very nice (as good interior fit and finish and external design as a tesla) but obviously much cheaper, and there were multiple models from multiple manufacturers. sure, china also sells electric scooters and other types of vehicles, but china demolishes tesla's numbers for actual electric vehicles made and sold.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    Are we talking about EVs or cars? An EV is anything that moves. A car is something that abides are the normal safety standards that a company like tesla must follow (airbags, crumple zones, ABS, firewalls etc). Lots of the stuff in china that looks like a "car" really isn't, just as how an SUV or pickup isn't a car. In most countries, anything on three wheels isn't ever a car. They are basically classed as motorcycles and so don't have to abide any car-related safety rules. But they are still EVs.
    - nikofeyn 8y ago
      in general, i don't know what you're talking about. i don't see how anyone could mistake one of these three-wheeled things for a car. it's clear i was talking about fully electric cars, and when i say car, i include SUVs. i don't know what the numbers are for electric vehicles that include these three-wheeled things and electric scooters. it's possible that the numbers add up to the majority of electric vehicles in china because there are a ton of electric scooters. in fact, while i was there, i would say 98% of the scooters were electric, and there were a lot of scooters. however, your comment is misleading in terms of implying there aren't any electric cars in china. there are, and there are lots of them. and i personally found them rather nice. it was a case of "wait, what car is this?!" nearly every time we got in a didi ride.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    The BYD EVs used normally as taxis are basically Hyundai Genesis bodies with an electric drive train. I’ve never seen an SUV EV in China but I left in late 2016. In richer Beijing, many private EVs (not taxis or didi rentals) were Tesla Model S’s.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Teslas, all of them, are exponentially more expensive than the average EV in china. These aren't what we would even call cars. The average Chinese electric car is more akin to a really fast three-wheeled golf cart. What's the name of that golf cart lead-acid battery car that Top Gear used to trash all the time? Found it. The G-Wiz. So these things are a bit of a step down from the G-Wiz?
witcherchaos 8y ago
Most of Chinese electric cars are badly built electric golf carts, around $1000, that is driven around traffic with disregard for traffic rules, that is driven by people with monthly income of $800 or less ( majority of urban population).

sandworm101 8y ago

No. Teslas, all of them, are exponentially more expensive than the average EV in china. These aren't what we would even call cars. The average Chinese electric car is more akin to a really fast three-wheeled golf cart. I'm talking about the sub-$5000 market, price points that wouldn't cover the doors on a tesla.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Teslas don’t spontaneously burst into flames as often as cheap Chinese EVs. Wealthy Chinese consumers will drive down the cost for poor Chinese consumers.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  By western standards they do. They probably still do it a lot less often than the Chinese EVs but it's not like the average Chinese buyer is rich enough to care about an edge case like that.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    By western standards? This is an outright fabrication with no basis in fact. EVs rarely spontaneous combust compared to ICE vehicles.
- baybal2 8y ago
  > Teslas don’t spontaneously burst into flames as often as cheap Chinese EVs. It is either my calculator is bad or yours. 23 / 300000 = ~0.00001 40 / more than 1000000 = 0.000004
landryraccoon 8y ago
> exponentially more expensive Just a pet peeve, but is it a trend that people like to use “exponentially” to just mean “way more”? Exponentially doesn’t mean what you just wrote here.. Exponential implies a rate of growth, the cost of tesla’s isn’t doubling every N years compared to other EVs..
- misterprime 8y ago
  I'm guessing they meant "an order of magnitude higher".
- whatshisface 8y ago
  A suitable interpretation would be to say that "exponentially more" means a bigger number in the floating point/scientific notation exponent, so that it's a synonym of "order of magnitude."
- sandworm101 8y ago
  https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exponential https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exponent... exponential definition: 1. An exponential rate of increase becomes quicker and quicker as the thing that increases becomes larger: So, ya. Tesla's product line is exponentially more expensive. Graph them together according to range/size etc, and you will see the exponential rise in the delta between the prices, the line representing chinese product line will diverge from that of the tesla product line exponentially.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  It's a rhetorical device like using "literal" even when something is meant in figurative terms. Specifically, it's hyperbole or exaggeration. It's one of the strengths of human language that we can infer meaning from context -- from connotation -- rather than purely relying on denotative meaning. By exaggerating factual reality of our statements, we imply the strength of our belief or emphasize the degree of the description we're making. Further, it's important to recognize that jargon does not supercede the vernacular meaning of a word. Just because you know what "exponential" is and how it differs from, say, "geometric" when referring to mathematics, this doesn't mean that the vernacular meanings of these words don't apply any longer. No, it doesn't matter that mathematics is the origin of the terms. There are still valid, accepted, vernacular meanings. Understanding jargon means you need to understand the context that the speaker is using to determine what meaning they're using. Here, since "exponential" in the mathematic sense is clearly nonsense, you should conclude that that meaning is not the intended literal meaning. Human communication is about conveying the overall meaning in spite of the meaning of individual words. Language is imprecise because thoughts, opinions, and arguments are more complex and nuanced than the individual words we're forced to express them in can ever be. After all, think of diversity of the range of devices that can accurately be described as a "computer". Or how many different types of objects you could describe as a "cup" or a "table". These are common nouns for real, physical objects, and their meaning is fuzzy enough to cover dissimilar objects made of dissimilar materials that serve dissimilar purposes. And yet if I say to you "I put the cup on the table" you have sufficient information to know what has happened even though you and I have never met in person, we've never shared a conversation, and you've never seen my cup or my table (and, indeed, the cup and table you're imagining in your head almost certainly look nothing like my actual cup and table). So, yeah, that isn't what "exponential" means, but that sentence is not meaningless because of it.
nikofeyn 8y ago
> The average Chinese electric car is more akin to a really fast three-wheeled golf cart. that is simply not true. have you ever been to china? there are tons of electric sedans and SUVs on the road, and i would guess that greater than 80% of my didi (the chinese uber) rides while there for two weeks were electric vehicles. these vehicles were very nice (as good interior fit and finish and external design as a tesla) but obviously much cheaper, and there were multiple models from multiple manufacturers. sure, china also sells electric scooters and other types of vehicles, but china demolishes tesla's numbers for actual electric vehicles made and sold.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  Are we talking about EVs or cars? An EV is anything that moves. A car is something that abides are the normal safety standards that a company like tesla must follow (airbags, crumple zones, ABS, firewalls etc). Lots of the stuff in china that looks like a "car" really isn't, just as how an SUV or pickup isn't a car. In most countries, anything on three wheels isn't ever a car. They are basically classed as motorcycles and so don't have to abide any car-related safety rules. But they are still EVs.
  - nikofeyn 8y ago
    in general, i don't know what you're talking about. i don't see how anyone could mistake one of these three-wheeled things for a car. it's clear i was talking about fully electric cars, and when i say car, i include SUVs. i don't know what the numbers are for electric vehicles that include these three-wheeled things and electric scooters. it's possible that the numbers add up to the majority of electric vehicles in china because there are a ton of electric scooters. in fact, while i was there, i would say 98% of the scooters were electric, and there were a lot of scooters. however, your comment is misleading in terms of implying there aren't any electric cars in china. there are, and there are lots of them. and i personally found them rather nice. it was a case of "wait, what car is this?!" nearly every time we got in a didi ride.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  The BYD EVs used normally as taxis are basically Hyundai Genesis bodies with an electric drive train. I’ve never seen an SUV EV in China but I left in late 2016. In richer Beijing, many private EVs (not taxis or didi rentals) were Tesla Model S’s.
stcredzero 8y ago
Teslas, all of them, are exponentially more expensive than the average EV in china. These aren't what we would even call cars. The average Chinese electric car is more akin to a really fast three-wheeled golf cart. What's the name of that golf cart lead-acid battery car that Top Gear used to trash all the time? Found it. The G-Wiz. So these things are a bit of a step down from the G-Wiz?

witcherchaos 8y ago

Most of Chinese electric cars are badly built electric golf carts, around $1000, that is driven around traffic with disregard for traffic rules, that is driven by people with monthly income of $800 or less ( majority of urban population).