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The profit margin is a lot thicker in the luxury car market. It's a lot harder for Tesla to compete with economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota si
by danappelxx 7y ago
The profit margin is a lot thicker in the luxury car market. It's a lot harder for Tesla to compete with economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota since they have established production lines and can out-produce and out-price Tesla.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago> economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota since they have established production lines and can out-produce and out-price Tesla. Who do not pay for the lifetime externalities of each of their vehicles burning petroleum for hundreds of thousands of miles. If you accept climate change is man made, and that combustion vehicles contribute to it, it is insane we don’t make internal combustion vehicles pay for their externalities as part of their cost to level the playing field, and force electric vehicle manufacturers to compete against them without such a handicap in place.
- logicx24 7y agoIn one sense, electric vehicle manufacturers are getting a bonus via the tax credit.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoA woefully inadequate subsidy, which phases out entirely too soon.
- maxerickson 7y agoAre vehicles subsidies the best way to drive progress on battery density and cost? They need to be if you are going to use them to reward wealthy Tesla investors and vehicle buyers.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoYes. Increase them, and tax SUVs and pickup trucks to fund the subsidy. Regressive taxes are bad, but you aren’t entitled to drive a gas guzzler, merely access to wheels (hybrids, subcompacts, sedans, etc). Internalize the externalities.
- bumby 7y agoI'm not necessarily against that approach, but the penalties should be for externalities beyond just the tailpipe. Anything else is just short sighted. This means counting counting environmental impacts for manufacturing, including batteries
- ajmurmann 7y agoLet's not forget building the massive amount of roads we built for any type of car.
- maxerickson 7y agoLincoln/Cadillac/Acura/Lexus...
- pasiaj 7y agoThe trade-in value of Tesla is very low in Finland. If you want to upgrade your model, Tesla has been offering 70-80k € trade-in value for a 6 month old 135k€ Model S. This means that those who upgrade their vehicles often will not even consider a Tesla. In Finland, at least, they are forefeiting one of the biggest groups of luxury car buyers.
- ajmurmann 7y agoThe most surprising thing about your post to me is the price of a new Model S. That's $150k. Is the price so high because it includes VAT?
- selectodude 7y agoYou can option up a Tesla Model S in the US to $150k.
- goshx 7y agoNot anymore. It’s $131k fully loaded.
- kylecordes 7y agoAlthough the price point is still quite high, Tesla seems to be thinking of a car as a consumer electronic item: Price generally falls (more value per dollar) every year. This may have significant consequences to the industry, if Tesla doesn’t fail.
- arebop 7y agoA fully-loaded S in the U.S. is $131k so $150k could possibly even be a little low to include Finnish VAT.
- astrodust 7y agoIt's even harder to compete when their production line is such a shambles. They tried to automate everything, which cost a fortune, and utterly failed at it because it turns out it's both stupidly hard and ridiculously expensive. They were the first mover, and as is the case with racing, being first means others can draft and pass you.