6 ms·
I can't speak about SpaceX, but there is really nothing superior about Tesla's engineering.
by BerislavLopac 4y ago
I can't speak about SpaceX, but there is really nothing superior about Tesla's engineering.
- varjag 4y agoSome of this is due to hindsight. Tesla S absolutely rocked when the pinnacle of competition was Nissan Leaf.
- root_axis 4y agoIt still absolutely rocks if acceleration speed is your most important metric (which I personally find quite compelling), but in pretty much every other aspect they're janky cars compared to similar vehicles in the same price range and even some cheaper ones. Very fun to drive though.
- bell-cot 4y agoTHIS. "Extremely powerful & fast, fun to drive, and the company making 'em is run by an alpha macho guy who also builds space rockets"...yeah, that has huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males - who would not want to be seen in a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, etc.
- eastendguy 4y agoSo, what other car (that I can buy now) gives me the same range?
- cjrp 4y agoTesla Model 3 - 374 miles BMW i4 - 365 miles Ford Mustang Mach-E - 379 miles BMW iX - 380 miles Mercedes EQE - 384 miles
- bell-cot 4y agoFirst impression: those ranges are well within manufacturing tolerances / testing quirks / etc. of each other.
- polygamous_bat 4y agoApologies in advance because I don't know much about cars, but how can there be a 100km difference just from testing quirks?
- bell-cot 4y ago(My reply was to cjrp's comment - where the largest difference was only 19 miles.)
- Symbiote 4y agoThat's interesting. I don't own a car and I'm not looking for one, but I still had the impression Tesla was leading on range. However, they're beaten at both price levels, potentially with a significant price discount. Mercedes EQS 450+, 640km, €106,307 Tesla Model S Plaid, 540km, €140,995 Mercedes EQE 350+, 525km, € 79,850 Tesla Model 3 LR DM, 485km, € 60,995 BMW i4 eDrive40, 470km, € 60,630 VW ID.3 Pro S 5Seats 450km, € 43,720 https://ev-database.org/#sort:path~type~order=.erange_real~number~desc|availability-checkbox-dropdown:pathGroup=.current https://ev-database.org/#sort:path~type~order=.erange_real~n...
- fallingknife 4y agoThere's a third issue besides price and range in the EV market right now. Wait time. e.g. that VW ID.3 has a wait time of over a year for delivery. That crosses it off my shopping list, unfortunately.
- raspberry1337 4y agoIn Europe where I live - VW, BMW and Mercedes do not have a reliable system of recharging for longer trips. Why they are not working to create that is beyond me.
- MrMan 4y agomake sure to researched tested vs claimed range, Teslas have good range but fall short from claimed range by large %, there are cars that end up having the same or better range like the Taycan even though the claimed range from Porsche is less! do your own research, correlation is not your coin, etc
- _ea1k 4y agoYes, its complicated. Most people are more concerned with highway miles in the real world, but the big number that gets printed is combined milage.
- ulfw 4y agoA Mercedes EQS has more range than even the best Tesla S Dual Motor. A Lucid Air too.
- listenallyall 4y ago> huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males and yet I know more female Tesla owners than male
- saiya-jin 4y agoSounds more like cargo-culting boys rather than adult males... I've personally know noone who decides car buys based on this, and this counts also 2 tesla owners. Car sale tax discounts, free charging, plenty of charging spots were the actual reasons for those 2 (myself I am still happily on petrol for next decade at least, thank you)
- dbfx 4y ago[dead]
- _ea1k 4y agoI can't agree with that. They are certainly not janky compared to the Leaf or Bolt and up until fairly recently the 3 was price competitive with the Bolt. Beyond that, comparisons get more complicated, but there are still perks to the 3/Y. For example, the Ioniq 5 and EV6 charge faster but have less real world range at highway speeds. In practice, this negates most of their charging advantage. If you want the best EV sedan for road tripping in the US right now, there is nothing lower price and also better than the 3 LR.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoOnly if we look at the only competition of Tesla being other electric cars, which has never been the case. It was just its most distinguishing feature, but ultimately it's an implementation detail.
- Strom 4y ago> ultimately it's an implementation detail Impressive engineering is always about details. If you want to argue that there is really nothing superior about Tesla's engineering that's fine, but you can't shove implementation details under the rug when it suits you. For there to be nothing superior in their engineering there must also be no implementation detail that is superior.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoMy "implementation detail" comment above does not refer to the quality of engineering overall, but specifically in the context of competition. Yes, when comparing electric cars, the quality of the electric engine is a very large element; but it is much smaller if we're comparing all the elements that matter to someone buying a car (quality of body construction, interior finishing, steering etc).
- varjag 4y agoThe gap was worse with fossil vehicles. None of the competition in that price class had a chance racing model S off a traffic light.
- benj111 4y agoNot compared to manufacturers with decades of experience no. But making cars is hard. Starting Tesla from a clean sheet is impressive. Think about all the Chinese manufacturers, that for years were churning out the butts of jokes. How many of those would have survived in an actual competitive market?
- talideon 4y agoExcept Musk didn't start Tesla, he bought it. Yes, he gets referred to as a "founder", but that's a whole other sordid story.
- benj111 4y agoNo. But he took it from the proverbial garden shed to a global company. I'm not a musk fan boy, but what he did with Tesla is impressive. Compared to the company they were buying chassis from (lotus). If someone took lotus to the size of Tesla in less than 2 decades, would you not say that's impressive? Starting a boutique sports car manufacturer is 'relatively' easy. Making a global car company, not so much.
- talideon 4y agoYeah, his skill is in hucksterism. That can be used for good (Tesla), but it can also be used for ill (all the hyperloop nonsense). But he's still a huckster.
- davidrm 4y agoThat may be true for its fit and finish (panel alignments etc.), but the fact that they mastered vertical integration and supply chain management in less than 10 years is beyond amazing. Their powertrain (battery, motors, other hv components like charger etc) are first class and unparalleled in performance (and cost). We’ll see what Lucid will achieve in the next couple of years, their claimed (and validated) numbers such as range are very impressive, but for now, but Tesla has proven that it is a hardcore engineering company in a few important areas, there are others that need to catch up.
- mseidl 4y agoTesla is the WORSE manufacturer. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-mercedes-evs-ranked-worst-annual-reliability-survey-by-consumer-reports-2022-11-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
- davidrm 4y agohave you read the article you linked? this literally repeats the same points I made, I don’t understand what you were trying to say.
- Adrox 4y agoNot sure about engineering. But they build a electric-car factory from scratch in Berlin in 2 years during the pandemic. Check how many years other companies take to build ICE or electric car factories…
- martin8412 4y agoYou mean the Brandenburg factory that still isn't completed and by EMs own words is a money furnace?
- Adrox 4y agoNot sure how “completed” it is, but it already produced Model Y, right? Compare that with VW, how many electric cars they are making, and how long did the biggest auto-manufacter in Germany (not a bad country for Engineering standards) took to get factories ready for EVs?
- nikisweeting 4y agoTesla's manufacturing process engineering is unparalleled in the automotive space, but the final products are often buggy because when you reinvent manufacturing overnight and don't nail it 100% all people see are the bugs. I personally don't like Teslas that much, I think they got a lot of things wrong, but the manufacturing process engineering really is leading the whole car industry by quite a ways. Check out MunroLive's teardown videos on YouTube where they talk about the changes to part counts, castings, fasteners, and all the internal details that consumers don't notice.
- bamboozled 4y agoSo they’re leading the industry by building “buggy” products ? I’d prefer to buy a Toyota
- brookst 4y agoAre you familiar with the innovation diffusion curve[0]? It is very normal for industry leaders to build buggy products, because early adopters value innovation more than perfection. That’s how the whole tech industry works. Tesla may or may not succeed in appealing to the late majority and laggards, but if they don’t, the Toyota you buy in 15 years will still have benefitted from the industry changes Tesla is leading today. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
- prmoustache 4y agoThat do not make the tesla better products though.
- tmn 4y agoThe object in question is the engineering process
- Kye 4y agoWhat is Tesla doing in 2022 that every other car maker hasn't started doing? It seems like they're still building buggy products long after this excuse could work.
- ekianjo 4y agoOh you can speak about SpaceX because even a layman can see that nobody else has reusable rockets.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cbm-vic-20 4y agoTesla showed that there is a viable market for electric cars if the look and work like "regular" cars, not tiny spaceships, and if the supporting infrastructure is in place (Superchargers). Tesla was not the first EV sold in the US. Earlier attempts by the established manufacturers were curiosities at best. And now that Tesla proved that EVs can actually be good, and can be made profitable, those established manufacturers are willing to move into that market. So, no, it's not about engineering, it's about taking the risk and committing to expanding the market.
- prmoustache 4y agoOnly in the USA. The iMiev preceded the Tesla and sold better in many part of the world because it was a more decent proposal. What Tesla did was making greenwashing and wasting energy with electricity dfast and cool. It is probably better than wasting with ICE in nuclear powered countries but that is not what the world need right now or ever.
- _ea1k 4y agoExactly, Tesla also pushed the envelope with charging speeds, at a time when a lot of people in the industry were limiting things to 50kw and treating EVs as little purely city cars.