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Traditional automakers move in 10 year cycles largely due to safety, support, and the huge volumes they will incur. TSLA can't touch the volume of the top 3. Fu

Traditional automakers move in 10 year cycles largely due to safety, support, and the huge volumes they will incur. TSLA can't touch the volume of the top 3. Funny how people forget that. I believe the top 3 are letting TSLA spend all the money and make all mistakes working on the infrastructure before they swoop in and make EVs a commodity instead of a luxury product. TSLA absolutely deserves credit for making this happen, but like the namesake Nikolai Tesla did the hard work and Edison swooped in a took all the credit.

reportingsjr 5y ago
> TSLA can't touch the volume of the top 3 What an odd thing to say. They are at around 1 million cars/year versus Ford's 6 million/year, GM's 6-8 million/year, and Chrysler's 2 million/year. So Tesla is in the same ballpark of volume as the US big 3 already. Unless you mean the top 3 worldwide auto manufacturers Toyota, VW, and Hyundai, which aren't /that/ much higher in volume (10.4mio, 10.4mio, and 7.2mio respectively).
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  I think 7.2x-10.4x is the opposite of "not that much higher". That's the difference between making $100,000 a year or $720,000 a year (or $1,040,000 a year). Yeah, that's a big difference.
panick21_ 5y ago
Tesla has not yet scaled to their volume but equally those manufactures are not even remotely close to producing the same amount of EV as Tesla does. If you look at their timeline for EV scaling, its laughable. And sooner or later the ICE market will collapse and expose the terrible economics on their EVs. Turns out mass manufacturing ICE engines doesn't actually magically make you good at batteries. Tesla growth will have them overtake companies like BMW and Geely within 2 years. 1-2 years after that they will overtake Ford and friends. By then GM might have lost another million of so in sales as well. By 2025 Tesla will be one of the bigger car makers on the market and will be 100% electric with their own batteries, while most current EV makers will not even be at 40% electric sales. You are totally misguided on how easy it is to make batteries and EV a commodity. And you assuming that other manufactures can magically do it better then Tesla despite a huge amount of evidence that they simply can't.
- specialist 5y ago
  Yes and: > will be 100% electric with their own batteries And their own mines. From my casual reading, only the Chinese manufacturers will have comparable integration, economies of scale, efficiencies. Even so, I think you are still understating Tesla's many competitive advantages. The biggest one, IMHO, is Tesla insurance. As Warren Buffet has shown with Geico, this is among the lowest cost capital available. Meaning Tesla will have even better financials than their competitors. It's such an obvious idea. It still baffles me why GM chose loans over insurance, GMAC, all those years ago.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Their lithium mine will take a couple years and it will never be the majority of their lithium supply. But I agree, they have lots other potential income streams.

reportingsjr 5y ago

> TSLA can't touch the volume of the top 3 What an odd thing to say. They are at around 1 million cars/year versus Ford's 6 million/year, GM's 6-8 million/year, and Chrysler's 2 million/year. So Tesla is in the same ballpark of volume as the US big 3 already. Unless you mean the top 3 worldwide auto manufacturers Toyota, VW, and Hyundai, which aren't /that/ much higher in volume (10.4mio, 10.4mio, and 7.2mio respectively).

SavantIdiot 5y ago
I think 7.2x-10.4x is the opposite of "not that much higher". That's the difference between making $100,000 a year or $720,000 a year (or $1,040,000 a year). Yeah, that's a big difference.

panick21_ 5y ago

Tesla has not yet scaled to their volume but equally those manufactures are not even remotely close to producing the same amount of EV as Tesla does. If you look at their timeline for EV scaling, its laughable. And sooner or later the ICE market will collapse and expose the terrible economics on their EVs. Turns out mass manufacturing ICE engines doesn't actually magically make you good at batteries. Tesla growth will have them overtake companies like BMW and Geely within 2 years. 1-2 years after that they will overtake Ford and friends. By then GM might have lost another million of so in sales as well. By 2025 Tesla will be one of the bigger car makers on the market and will be 100% electric with their own batteries, while most current EV makers will not even be at 40% electric sales. You are totally misguided on how easy it is to make batteries and EV a commodity. And you assuming that other manufactures can magically do it better then Tesla despite a huge amount of evidence that they simply can't.

specialist 5y ago
Yes and: > will be 100% electric with their own batteries And their own mines. From my casual reading, only the Chinese manufacturers will have comparable integration, economies of scale, efficiencies. Even so, I think you are still understating Tesla's many competitive advantages. The biggest one, IMHO, is Tesla insurance. As Warren Buffet has shown with Geico, this is among the lowest cost capital available. Meaning Tesla will have even better financials than their competitors. It's such an obvious idea. It still baffles me why GM chose loans over insurance, GMAC, all those years ago.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Their lithium mine will take a couple years and it will never be the majority of their lithium supply. But I agree, they have lots other potential income streams.