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People have been saying this for years. 2017 was supposed to be the year that legacy automakers crushed Tesla to dust. Why should 2021 be different from 2017,

People have been saying this for years. 2017 was supposed to be the year that legacy automakers crushed Tesla to dust. Why should 2021 be different from 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020? If you lurk on the Tesla-killer forums, most buyers are apparently people who either dislike Tesla or only buy European cars. And the used-car market is telling, too: Used 2019 i-Paces and e-Trons with less than 1,000 miles on the odometer (basically a brand new car) are trading for about the same price as today's cheapest Model Y. Even if you assume the owners originally negotiated a fantastic deal(and if you lurk on the forums for long, it's clear that most of these cars come with trunk money) and that the owners took the tax credits, they're still apparently willing to take a bath to get rid of the car. That should tell you something (i.e., there's something so bad about the ownership experience with these cars that owners can't wait to offload the misery onto someone else). There are only two companies today that sell EVs at MSRP and have good resale values: Tesla and Hyundai-Kia.

matthewdgreen 6y ago
I too have been surprised at the slow pace (and poor quality) of EV deployment by traditional manufacturers. That's why I bought a Model 3. However. It's pretty much inevitable that the traditional manufacturers will have to make significant inroads into the EV market in the next ten years, if only to deal with increasingly stringent EU regulations (and not to handle the market demand that Tesla has created.) It may take competitors five or eight years to begin making serious inroads into the EV market, but let's say it does happen on that timescale. What is Tesla's moat that is going to allow it to compete with manufacturers who have almost infinitely more production capacity and a much larger customer base than Tesla? Better battery tech? Superchargers? Rapid year-over-year growth that makes Tesla too big and successful to compete with [note: there is no evidence of that growth in the Tesla earnings report]? I'm pretty skeptical right now.
- labcomputer 6y ago
  > What is Tesla's moat that is going to allow it to compete with manufacturers who have almost infinitely more production capacity and a much larger customer base than Tesla? Well, you listed a couple. I hear that Ionity is better in Europe, but the Electrify America network is a hot mess here in the US. The forums for all non-Tesla EVs are filled with complaints about unreliable and inoperative chargers. I'm sure this will get sorted out in time, but these experiences color peoples' future perceptions. Just as everyone today "knows" that Teslas have poor build quality, everyone will "know", for the next 10 years, that it's not wise to take a road trip when relying on a different charging network. Battery tech: Maybe, if you're open to including "charging tech patents" in "battery tech". Look at the charge curve of Tesla vs any of their competitors. Everyone else uses some variant of "constant current until voltage threshold" (often with 2-4 current steps). Tesla continuously adjusts the charging current during a charging session. Those patents will continue to be a moat for another 10 years. I'm not optimistic about the battery longevity in VW products like the e-Tron, Taycan, and ID.3, which hammer the battery with high current and no regard to sensor feedback. It gives a good charging spec for advertising, but I think VW is going to have a battery reputation problem in 2-3 years (like Nissan currently does, thanks to the 2011-2014 Leaf).

matthewdgreen 6y ago

I too have been surprised at the slow pace (and poor quality) of EV deployment by traditional manufacturers. That's why I bought a Model 3. However. It's pretty much inevitable that the traditional manufacturers will have to make significant inroads into the EV market in the next ten years, if only to deal with increasingly stringent EU regulations (and not to handle the market demand that Tesla has created.) It may take competitors five or eight years to begin making serious inroads into the EV market, but let's say it does happen on that timescale. What is Tesla's moat that is going to allow it to compete with manufacturers who have almost infinitely more production capacity and a much larger customer base than Tesla? Better battery tech? Superchargers? Rapid year-over-year growth that makes Tesla too big and successful to compete with [note: there is no evidence of that growth in the Tesla earnings report]? I'm pretty skeptical right now.

labcomputer 6y ago
> What is Tesla's moat that is going to allow it to compete with manufacturers who have almost infinitely more production capacity and a much larger customer base than Tesla? Well, you listed a couple. I hear that Ionity is better in Europe, but the Electrify America network is a hot mess here in the US. The forums for all non-Tesla EVs are filled with complaints about unreliable and inoperative chargers. I'm sure this will get sorted out in time, but these experiences color peoples' future perceptions. Just as everyone today "knows" that Teslas have poor build quality, everyone will "know", for the next 10 years, that it's not wise to take a road trip when relying on a different charging network. Battery tech: Maybe, if you're open to including "charging tech patents" in "battery tech". Look at the charge curve of Tesla vs any of their competitors. Everyone else uses some variant of "constant current until voltage threshold" (often with 2-4 current steps). Tesla continuously adjusts the charging current during a charging session. Those patents will continue to be a moat for another 10 years. I'm not optimistic about the battery longevity in VW products like the e-Tron, Taycan, and ID.3, which hammer the battery with high current and no regard to sensor feedback. It gives a good charging spec for advertising, but I think VW is going to have a battery reputation problem in 2-3 years (like Nissan currently does, thanks to the 2011-2014 Leaf).