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They're certainly working on it. At Battery day elon confirmed a smaller, mass-market affordable car. He has also said many times a vehicle will be designed in

by grecy 6y ago

They're certainly working on it. At Battery day elon confirmed a smaller, mass-market affordable car. He has also said many times a vehicle will be designed in China for the Chinese market, and a vehicle will be designed in Germany for the European market. It's coming, but it all takes time, and they needed to focus on the high dollar products with high(er) margins so they could finance the lower ones.

sfblah 6y ago
Serious question regarding your 3rd paragraph: Why? Doesn't Tesla have essentially unlimited access to capital? Why don't they just raise some massive amount of money, borrow more, and do everything right now?
- pjc50 6y ago
  Nobody can do everything at once. At some point staffing and training becomes a bottleneck.
  - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
    They should probably buy a struggling automaker (Nissan, etc) for access to supply chains and raw amounts of automotive engineers. Nissan should have substantive numbers of EV engineers too. At a minimum that would enable working on a minivan, smaller cars, and other form factors, especially if it is under a different badge. But that assumes that car design is the bottleneck, it may still be battery supply, and nothing matters until that is solved. Given their apparent quality problems, I'd guess it's not all battery issues.
    - chmod775 6y ago
      Nissan is effectively owned by Renault (43%) and is also multiple times larger than Tesla. The price of acquisition would likely exceed anything Tesla could scrape together right now. Then there's also the problem that Nissan is fundamentally a Japanese company. You can't just "acquire-hire" people halfway around the globe and expect that to work out. They might be able to buy part (maybe whatever they own in the west, if there's anything worthwhile) of Nissan though, assuming someone was selling.
      - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
        "is also multiple times larger than Tesla" Um, have you seen Tesla's valuations? Renault et al could be bought out just with Tesla stock swaps. And you don't think Renault wants to cut loose that albatross? "Then there's also the problem that Nissan is fundamentally a Japanese company." Wouldn't the Japanese, at least at the government policy level, want tech exposure to cutting edge EV technology?

by grecy 6y ago

sfblah 6y ago

Serious question regarding your 3rd paragraph: Why? Doesn't Tesla have essentially unlimited access to capital? Why don't they just raise some massive amount of money, borrow more, and do everything right now?

pjc50 6y ago
Nobody can do everything at once. At some point staffing and training becomes a bottleneck.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  They should probably buy a struggling automaker (Nissan, etc) for access to supply chains and raw amounts of automotive engineers. Nissan should have substantive numbers of EV engineers too. At a minimum that would enable working on a minivan, smaller cars, and other form factors, especially if it is under a different badge. But that assumes that car design is the bottleneck, it may still be battery supply, and nothing matters until that is solved. Given their apparent quality problems, I'd guess it's not all battery issues.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    Nissan is effectively owned by Renault (43%) and is also multiple times larger than Tesla. The price of acquisition would likely exceed anything Tesla could scrape together right now. Then there's also the problem that Nissan is fundamentally a Japanese company. You can't just "acquire-hire" people halfway around the globe and expect that to work out. They might be able to buy part (maybe whatever they own in the west, if there's anything worthwhile) of Nissan though, assuming someone was selling.
    - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
      "is also multiple times larger than Tesla" Um, have you seen Tesla's valuations? Renault et al could be bought out just with Tesla stock swaps. And you don't think Renault wants to cut loose that albatross? "Then there's also the problem that Nissan is fundamentally a Japanese company." Wouldn't the Japanese, at least at the government policy level, want tech exposure to cutting edge EV technology?