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Tesla was all the rage for a couple of years, especially due to their exceptional (and free) charging infrastructure and weak competition. The government has do

by messo 6y ago

Tesla was all the rage for a couple of years, especially due to their exceptional (and free) charging infrastructure and weak competition. The government has done a lot to facilitate the expansion of the public charging infrastructure and this makes it more attractive to buy electric cars from other brands. Teslas are so common here know that it has lost much of its novelty. There are so many cars to choose from now.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Sounds like Tesla did what they were attempting to: dragging everyone to EVs faster. Edit: Would governments be starting to implement new combustion vehicle sales bans without robust charging infra and large quantities of EV deliveries quarter after quarter? Unlikely.
- vjuvvadi123 6y ago
  This just sums up how tax payers subsidise EVs and some meme company takes the credit
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Sour grapes. No one was racing to buy Leafs and Bolts, nor EVs with no DC fast charging network. People wanted a great car that happened to be electric, not anemic golf carts.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      What's wrong with the Leaf? Some people just want a car that goes from A to B rather than a to flex on the plebs in a musk-mobile, good as they are.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Range, battery longevity (older versions), lack of fast charge network and charge experience, no OTA software updates, no lane keeping (“autopilot”) on older versions. One can appreciate Tesla and not like Musk. Even as a Tesla investor, not a huge fan. I see him as a necessary evil. The cars sells, and that’s all that’s important.
        jackson1442 6y ago
        Also, Leaf uses CHAdeMO to charge, which is neither as fast nor as common as CCS.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        Now find me a tesla for £7k like I can buy a leaf for used.
        Consultant32452 6y ago
        The low price is an indicator of the low desirability.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        It's sold 500k units which is more than most Tesla's have, it's a different product for a different market. Think again.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Who is more likely to be right? You and your cheap used car use case or sophisticated capital markets and the valuation they’ve assigned to Tesla based on future expectations? Tesla can’t build 3s and Ys fast enough to keep up with demand, and they’re $40k-$50k (roughly) vehicles.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        Have I touched a nerve? All I was saying is that Tesla's are very good but they're also expensive for a European market which is why the Leaf is a perfectly good EV for driving to the shops.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Not at all. I’m simply pointing out that the market for new Tesla vehicles is enormous versus that for cheap used EVs of other brands.
      - codecamper 6y ago
        nothing. And if you want to get some autopilot features you can install comma.ai.
      - decafninja 6y ago
        They look like cheap dwarf mutant hatchback economobiles similar to other (ICE) cars far lower in MSRP. One of Tesla's biggest achievements was that they produced an EV that actually looks like a cool, desireable, premium car. There are other EVs now that fit that description, but they are significantly more expensive than the Model3 and ModelY.
      - lallysingh 6y ago
        Up until 2015 the leaf's max range was 84 miles. Teslas were never nearly that low: 220 (3 v1), 244 (roadster v1). 249 (S v1). The leaf now has 107 with it's biggest battery. Tesla's big bet on the supercharger network was the game changer. Before that, EVs we're only a 'second car' for commuting. With the SC network, an EV was parity with ICs, not a set of green/cost tradeoffs.
    - ForHackernews 6y ago
      By all accounts the Leaf and Bolt are great cars (to say nothing of the Toyota Prius & friends), they just don't have the cachet as a status symbol that Tesla does. I think it's similar to how the iPhone is the sexy mobile, but there's actually far more cheapo Android devices and feature-phones out there in use.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      Leafs and Bolts were sold out (or leased out) almost everywhere they were available before the Model 3 was released. The problem was that they never made enough of them because their respective manufacturers didn't believe the market was very large, largely because battery technology when they were first released simply wasn't as good as it is now.
      - epistasis 6y ago
        These awful manufacturers have also actively sandbagged their designs, making them less desirable and less normal, in an attempt to limit their appeal. Car manufacturers are masters of marketing. Their choices in how they market these cars are very intentional.
        gamblor956 6y ago
        They were following the Prius strategy: the (original) Prius models were deliberately designed to be ugly to stand out and make a statement.
        CountSessine 6y ago
        I'm not even sure that it was an attempt to limit their appeal. There's a whole generation of old car executives who still think that anyone who would want an electric car is some sort of hippie-moonbat and you need to make the car look like a plastic sex-toy space capsule to appeal to that moonbat market. And then Tesla comes along with great engineering and a more conservative body design and eats their lunches.
      - kjksf 6y ago
        US sales of Nissan Leaf in 2016 was 14k. In 2019 it was 12k. If Nissan Leaf was sold out in U.S. it's only because Nissan decided not to make enough of them. Or they made exactly the very small amount that people were willing to buy. Bolt was even worse. They did 23k in 2017 and dropped to 16k in 2019. GM dealers were so desperate to get rid of them that at some point they offered up to $10k cash rebate. At that despite the fact that GM admitted they are loosing money on Bolt even when sold at full price. 20k a year in U.S. market of ~10 million cars is a rounding error. Whatever the reason, no one except Tesla was selling EV cars in US at non-laughable numbers. In contrast, Tesla sales went from 50k in 2017 to 195k in 2019.
  - anthony_r 6y ago
    To be honest most of the "credit" comes from Wall Street. Yes, Tesla wouldn't have been profitable if you subtracted the credits but it is absolutely not worth as much as the market says with the credits or even with 3x the credits it got. And the $TSLA price it's not just some random number mostly irrelevant to daily operations of the company, they sold/issued many shares at such valuations.
    - epistasis 6y ago
      I've never looked, but I had always assumed that Tesla's valuation comes from lots of rabid-fans from the retail market. Are there many large investors or Wall Street players that are driving the share price?
      - anthony_r 6y ago
        I did not distinguish between large and small investors, but pretty sure there are enough institutions on board.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    As awful as Tesla is, all the other car manufacturing companies are far far worse. Even with massive government incentives, even with their massive war chests, even with their massive production capacity, even with their access to capital markets for big investments, even then, they didn't make the smart move and had to be shown the path by an annoying megalomaniac who gets way too much attention. So yes, I regret giving money to Tesla, but it is the least bad option out there as far as giving money to these car companies. The only winning move is to not play the game, but unfortunately that same government that is paying for the EV transition is the system that, by law, is denying my ability to live a car-free daily life. There are no heroes here, nobody is doing exactly the right thing, but Tesla and the government are doing things partially right.
    - UnpossibleJim 6y ago
      I think you've hit on something that a lot of the detractors of Tesla have seemed to have forgotten. The alternatives are Ford, Chevy, Honda and Toyota. While I fully understand that Tesla is no titan of the little man and Musk is a very flawed man, compared to the titans of industry and the sins of the past that these companies are responsible for, it's a little odd that so much vitriol gets thrown toward Tesla and not these companies who are, ever so slowly, switching from diesel and gas powered automobiles. I haven't even mentioned how Tesla is the only company that doesn't sponsor at least one (I think they all sponsor multiple) traditionally powered racing teams, whose development goes into premium powered, traditional gas powered automobiles. Plus the advertisement of said vehicles.
      - clouddrover 6y ago
        > I haven't even mentioned how Tesla is the only company that doesn't sponsor at least one (I think they all sponsor multiple) traditionally powered racing teams, whose development goes into premium powered, traditional gas powered automobiles. Not exclusively. Formula 1 and Le Mans use hybrid engines. Formula E and Extreme E are battery electric racing series. Why doesn't Tesla have a Formula E team?
        6y ago
- cat199 6y ago
  > Sounds like Tesla did what they were attempting to: dragging everyone to EVs faster. didn't realise Tesla is behind norwegian gov't support for EVs..
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    The Norwegian government has been in support of EVs going as far back as the 90s but Tesla demonstrated that EVs could supplant ICE entirely for a large percentage of the population. Prior to Tesla the market options were lacking and couldn't meet the majority of consumer demands. Now that Tesla has broken through, the incumbent ICE manufacturers are following suit.
eitland 6y ago
> Teslas are so common here know that it has lost much of its novelty. Also there's been some widely known problems where Tesla has failed big time wrt service.

by messo 6y ago

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Sounds like Tesla did what they were attempting to: dragging everyone to EVs faster. Edit: Would governments be starting to implement new combustion vehicle sales bans without robust charging infra and large quantities of EV deliveries quarter after quarter? Unlikely.

vjuvvadi123 6y ago
This just sums up how tax payers subsidise EVs and some meme company takes the credit
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Sour grapes. No one was racing to buy Leafs and Bolts, nor EVs with no DC fast charging network. People wanted a great car that happened to be electric, not anemic golf carts.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    What's wrong with the Leaf? Some people just want a car that goes from A to B rather than a to flex on the plebs in a musk-mobile, good as they are.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Range, battery longevity (older versions), lack of fast charge network and charge experience, no OTA software updates, no lane keeping (“autopilot”) on older versions. One can appreciate Tesla and not like Musk. Even as a Tesla investor, not a huge fan. I see him as a necessary evil. The cars sells, and that’s all that’s important.
      - jackson1442 6y ago
        Also, Leaf uses CHAdeMO to charge, which is neither as fast nor as common as CCS.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
        Now find me a tesla for £7k like I can buy a leaf for used.
        Consultant32452 6y ago
        The low price is an indicator of the low desirability.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        It's sold 500k units which is more than most Tesla's have, it's a different product for a different market. Think again.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Who is more likely to be right? You and your cheap used car use case or sophisticated capital markets and the valuation they’ve assigned to Tesla based on future expectations? Tesla can’t build 3s and Ys fast enough to keep up with demand, and they’re $40k-$50k (roughly) vehicles.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        Have I touched a nerve? All I was saying is that Tesla's are very good but they're also expensive for a European market which is why the Leaf is a perfectly good EV for driving to the shops.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Not at all. I’m simply pointing out that the market for new Tesla vehicles is enormous versus that for cheap used EVs of other brands.
    - codecamper 6y ago
      nothing. And if you want to get some autopilot features you can install comma.ai.
    - decafninja 6y ago
      They look like cheap dwarf mutant hatchback economobiles similar to other (ICE) cars far lower in MSRP. One of Tesla's biggest achievements was that they produced an EV that actually looks like a cool, desireable, premium car. There are other EVs now that fit that description, but they are significantly more expensive than the Model3 and ModelY.
    - lallysingh 6y ago
      Up until 2015 the leaf's max range was 84 miles. Teslas were never nearly that low: 220 (3 v1), 244 (roadster v1). 249 (S v1). The leaf now has 107 with it's biggest battery. Tesla's big bet on the supercharger network was the game changer. Before that, EVs we're only a 'second car' for commuting. With the SC network, an EV was parity with ICs, not a set of green/cost tradeoffs.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    By all accounts the Leaf and Bolt are great cars (to say nothing of the Toyota Prius & friends), they just don't have the cachet as a status symbol that Tesla does. I think it's similar to how the iPhone is the sexy mobile, but there's actually far more cheapo Android devices and feature-phones out there in use.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Leafs and Bolts were sold out (or leased out) almost everywhere they were available before the Model 3 was released. The problem was that they never made enough of them because their respective manufacturers didn't believe the market was very large, largely because battery technology when they were first released simply wasn't as good as it is now.
    - epistasis 6y ago
      These awful manufacturers have also actively sandbagged their designs, making them less desirable and less normal, in an attempt to limit their appeal. Car manufacturers are masters of marketing. Their choices in how they market these cars are very intentional.
      - gamblor956 6y ago
        They were following the Prius strategy: the (original) Prius models were deliberately designed to be ugly to stand out and make a statement.
      - CountSessine 6y ago
        I'm not even sure that it was an attempt to limit their appeal. There's a whole generation of old car executives who still think that anyone who would want an electric car is some sort of hippie-moonbat and you need to make the car look like a plastic sex-toy space capsule to appeal to that moonbat market. And then Tesla comes along with great engineering and a more conservative body design and eats their lunches.
    - kjksf 6y ago
      US sales of Nissan Leaf in 2016 was 14k. In 2019 it was 12k. If Nissan Leaf was sold out in U.S. it's only because Nissan decided not to make enough of them. Or they made exactly the very small amount that people were willing to buy. Bolt was even worse. They did 23k in 2017 and dropped to 16k in 2019. GM dealers were so desperate to get rid of them that at some point they offered up to $10k cash rebate. At that despite the fact that GM admitted they are loosing money on Bolt even when sold at full price. 20k a year in U.S. market of ~10 million cars is a rounding error. Whatever the reason, no one except Tesla was selling EV cars in US at non-laughable numbers. In contrast, Tesla sales went from 50k in 2017 to 195k in 2019.
- anthony_r 6y ago
  To be honest most of the "credit" comes from Wall Street. Yes, Tesla wouldn't have been profitable if you subtracted the credits but it is absolutely not worth as much as the market says with the credits or even with 3x the credits it got. And the $TSLA price it's not just some random number mostly irrelevant to daily operations of the company, they sold/issued many shares at such valuations.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    I've never looked, but I had always assumed that Tesla's valuation comes from lots of rabid-fans from the retail market. Are there many large investors or Wall Street players that are driving the share price?
    - anthony_r 6y ago
      I did not distinguish between large and small investors, but pretty sure there are enough institutions on board.
- epistasis 6y ago
  As awful as Tesla is, all the other car manufacturing companies are far far worse. Even with massive government incentives, even with their massive war chests, even with their massive production capacity, even with their access to capital markets for big investments, even then, they didn't make the smart move and had to be shown the path by an annoying megalomaniac who gets way too much attention. So yes, I regret giving money to Tesla, but it is the least bad option out there as far as giving money to these car companies. The only winning move is to not play the game, but unfortunately that same government that is paying for the EV transition is the system that, by law, is denying my ability to live a car-free daily life. There are no heroes here, nobody is doing exactly the right thing, but Tesla and the government are doing things partially right.
  - UnpossibleJim 6y ago
    I think you've hit on something that a lot of the detractors of Tesla have seemed to have forgotten. The alternatives are Ford, Chevy, Honda and Toyota. While I fully understand that Tesla is no titan of the little man and Musk is a very flawed man, compared to the titans of industry and the sins of the past that these companies are responsible for, it's a little odd that so much vitriol gets thrown toward Tesla and not these companies who are, ever so slowly, switching from diesel and gas powered automobiles. I haven't even mentioned how Tesla is the only company that doesn't sponsor at least one (I think they all sponsor multiple) traditionally powered racing teams, whose development goes into premium powered, traditional gas powered automobiles. Plus the advertisement of said vehicles.
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      > I haven't even mentioned how Tesla is the only company that doesn't sponsor at least one (I think they all sponsor multiple) traditionally powered racing teams, whose development goes into premium powered, traditional gas powered automobiles. Not exclusively. Formula 1 and Le Mans use hybrid engines. Formula E and Extreme E are battery electric racing series. Why doesn't Tesla have a Formula E team?
      - 6y ago
cat199 6y ago
> Sounds like Tesla did what they were attempting to: dragging everyone to EVs faster. didn't realise Tesla is behind norwegian gov't support for EVs..
- cptskippy 6y ago
  The Norwegian government has been in support of EVs going as far back as the 90s but Tesla demonstrated that EVs could supplant ICE entirely for a large percentage of the population. Prior to Tesla the market options were lacking and couldn't meet the majority of consumer demands. Now that Tesla has broken through, the incumbent ICE manufacturers are following suit.

eitland 6y ago

> Teslas are so common here know that it has lost much of its novelty. Also there's been some widely known problems where Tesla has failed big time wrt service.