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You hear this all the time. There is no such thing as a huge lead in automaking. It’s an incredibly clonable product, and each company has huge teams taking a

• cassac 4y ago
  I thought that until Tesla wrecked everyone.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • majormajor 4y ago
    Tesla was famously close to failing. So on one hand, post-Tesla, there's more public readiness for EVs. On the other hand, there's a huge established EV-native incumbent PLUS far more legacy brand competition in the market. So it's still a really risky playbook.
    • cassac 4y ago
      I agree it was risky, and close to failing, but that’s what usually happens with great things. I don’t think any other car company that makes electric cars would say they aren’t playing catch up with Tesla. They seem to perpetually be a few years behind. I was just making my comment based on the parent comment saying it couldn’t be done. It’s done all the time in every segment. Never underestimate the bean counters from ruining the incumbents.
    • panick21_ 4y ago
      Tesla was close to failing in 2008. After that its 'Musk level' close to failing. Even in 2017 when they were losing billions, they still had lots of option to raise money and their margins were already clearly moving in the right direction.
  • alexb_ 4y ago
    "wrecked"... Tesla didn't even come close to wrecking anybody. They came in as a new competitor, and are still massively overvalued because of investor delusion.
    • cassac 4y ago
      They may be over valued but everybody is absolutely playing catch-up and are quite a bit away from their profit margins. What’s even worse for the legacy companies is Tesla is the Kleenex/Coke of electric cars to a lot of young minds.
      • V__ 4y ago
        Tesla makes better software right now. But the profit-margins argument seems to be a misconception [1]. Until Tesla distances itself from Musk, I also don't think the brand will stay 'cool' for that long. [1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins-not-impressive-as-seem https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins...
        • cassac 4y ago
          I don’t think those are fully like to like comparisons though. You have to run those numbers just for electric. Nobody I know would cross shop a Tesla and a Rav 4. They can have their margins on their ICE catalog but they don’t have it on their electric yet even with the dealer network numbers added in.
          • V__ 4y ago
            This we can agree on, but just as an example VW will have those margins within this year and electric sales are about a third of Teslas: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagens-ev-business-profitable-combustion-engines-sooner-than-planned-ceo-2022-05-12/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...
    • LanceJones 4y ago
      Toyota engineers just acknowledged that their teardown of a Model Y "revealed a work of art". Toyota. If my 17,000 shares make me delusional, so be it, friend.
  • night862 4y ago
    I dunno about that, from the top of my head I recall Daewoo to be the last auto make to withdraw from the states at least. Tesla has so far to go to “wreck” anybody who didn’t already pay for “full self-driving”.
  • basch 4y ago
    Wrecked them how? It’s 22Q4 sales numbers are a quarter of GM. They currently rank in 9th place in production. It’s taken them a decade to get a dealer network built. Their repairs timeline sound just as horrifying as their competitors. https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2023-us-auto-sales-figures-by-manufacturer/ https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2023-us-auto-sales-figures-by-...
    • cassac 4y ago
      But their owners love them and the kids love them. If you adjust the market to be just for what they do, electric cars and not all cars, they are indeed wrecking them. It was a segment the ICE car manufacturers mostly ignored and now they have profitable competition where it didn’t exist before. Maybe not wrecked but definitely lold.
      • basch 4y ago
        Lightly dented? Like I said, their lead means almost nothing. I don’t know what being loved really has to do with production. It won’t take long for a bunch of companies to have equally loved products, and in 30 years, Tesla’s “lead” will be a footnote. Unless they do, future tense, wreck everybody. It’s a weird response to to my claim that everything but the product matters just as much, if not more. I’m not at all saying Teslas product is or isn’t the best at the moment.
        • cassac 4y ago
          I guess I could agree to disagree? For the market as a whole maybe it is dented. But that quarter panel that got dented is straight wrecked. Nobody likes car dealerships anyway so nobody misses that. The new trend amongst the kids these days is buying cars without even test driving them. My point is that Rivian could easily find a crack that would allow them to be profitable and it wouldn’t even need to be as big as Teslas.
          • basch 4y ago
            Wrecked to me would be ICE car companies declaring bankruptcy and being sold off for parts.
  • amluto 4y ago
    Tesla is really nothing special. It has one massive advantage: the supercharger network. Other than that, it has an excellent powertrain (eminently clonable), a pretty good nav system, a pretty good adaptive cruise control, no CarPlay or Android Auto, and no interior amenities worth mentioning. And they have absolutely terrible parasitic power consumption, a property that every other manufacturer has nailed for decades, because a car with a single lead-acid battery that parasitically discharges like a Tesla would be utterly useless. Tesla would like you to think they make the world’s best batteries, but they really don’t. They do have mindshare, though, and everyone else has been sitting on their butts and failing to compete effectively.
    • rconti 4y ago
      Do other EV makers have better parasitic drain? I'm honestly not sure. My Tesla's isn't that bad, but it's not 0. Might be a couple miles a day, which isn't a ton of miles, but it's a lot of energy. It also seems they have a pretty significant efficiency advantage per kWh. Whenever I see EVs compared, the general consensus seems to be Tesla has a lead above everyone else.
    • guiltygods 4y ago
      Not just mindshare, ability to crank out volume, captive battery production and vertical integration
      • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Ford in 1930s used to have this too and more (except the battery production). See Fordlandia.
  • rconti 4y ago
    It feels to me like the F150 Lightning is closer to a Rivian than, say, an electric BMW is to a Tesla, in terms of tech. If I were shopping for a new pickup, it would be hard to choose between the Ford and the Rivian because Ford has the incumbent automaker advantages while Rivian has the "cool startup" advantages. But in passenger cars, Tesla still has the Supercharger moat, which the Rivian doesn't enjoy.
• chickenpotpie 4y ago
  I strongly disagree. Companies are having a very very hard time getting into the electric vehicle business. Toyota actively spent money trying to slow down the advancements in EVs to give themselves time to catch up (https://electrek.co/2021/09/22/toyota-facing-boycotts-over-fight-slow-electric-vehicle-progress/ https://electrek.co/2021/09/22/toyota-facing-boycotts-over-f...). If only centers, parts, repairs, and manufacturing capacity matter, then Toyota should have nothing to fear. They have all of that in spades compared to rivian or Tesla.
  • guiltygods 4y ago
    Toyota bet heavily on hydrogen. They are still convinced that is the future.
    • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      And after my experience with BEV, I am more likely to believe that hydrogen or synthetic fuels are future, than a battery joke.
      • slaw 4y ago
        Give BEV 10 or 20 years and it will be as good as ICE.
        • somewhat_drunk 4y ago
          Battery tech is advancing rapidly. BEVs will be 95% of automotive sales by the end of the decade.
          • 7e 4y ago
            Battery tech hasn’t changed at all since the Model S in 2012.
            • somewhat_drunk 4y ago
• gwbas1c 4y ago
  Think of it from the perspective of disruption. Large, incumbent businesses get disrupted all the time. A major indicator of a David beating a Goliath is when the rules of the business change. And, with EVs, the rules of the business have changed, pretty much overnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma IMO: Rivian is ripe for a major investment from an outsider with a lot of cash, (like Amazon,) or for acquisition from a major automaker. An acquisition will only work if they are generally allowed to be independent and run with little interference. Given how direct sales without independent dealers are major part of the rule changes, it's very hard for Rivian to leverage an acquiring company's dealer network.
  • hajile 4y ago
    If I recall correctly, Rivian is hugely invested into by Cox (specifically Cox Automotive started with a 350M investment), Amazon (750M in 2019 alone), and even Ford (around 500M investment in 2019).
  • basch 4y ago
    Did Slack beat Teams? Xerox or Apple?
  • taylodl 4y ago
    Automotive companies have vast R&D budgets and they've been researching (and improving) EV's for decades. Many auto manufacturers have been involved in Formula E racing, keeping up the tradition of developing technology on the race track and then moving it into production for the consumer market. Now that there's been a spike in consumer interest in EV's these companies would like to recoup that R&D, not to mention they want to be recognized as leaders in the automotive world. I wouldn't want to start a business to take on Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, Lexus - no way. Those guys will crush you. The SUV and truck market is a different story, however and I think it's smart for Rivian to focus on that segment. They still have stiff competition from the likes of Ford, GM, Toyota and Honda but Toyota and Honda haven't been as active in EV's as the other world-class automotive manufacturers so you stand a better chance competing with them. GM and Ford have a history of failures in responding to rapidly shifting market demands (think of their disasters in the 70's and even into the 80's with producing cars achieving good fuel economy and lower emissions). Now is the time to compete against Ford and GM. Of all the upstart EV makers I think Rivian is best positioned to really stand out and make a name for themselves. As long as they stay away from cars.
• mgadams3 4y ago
  I'm an R1T owner and I can't even put into words why the truck is just so much better and differentiated. It's not just that it's an EV Truck... my friend has a Lightning and it has none of the magic of my Rivian. Magic in a vehicle.
  • latchkey 4y ago
    The fact that you can't put it into words is probably part of the problem.
  • basch 4y ago
    How much better it is, is not a measure of time. It may be a hugely improved product, and it may also be replicated in a few years. They also are not making many of them yet. Let's see it scale. (which maybe it will, but they dont deserve credit for something they have not done yet.)
• joshspankit 4y ago
  What they do have a huge lead on, and which is not clonable, and which is under+appreciated since the lack of it takes a while to affect profits is attention to detail. They not only put a lot of thought in to their trucks to make them some of the best EV trucks in the world, but if they stay focused they can continue to bring that level of care and attention to all their future vehicles. At that point the cloned features look cheap and are already behind by the time they hit the market. You see this kind of pattern play out all over the place.
• dogma1138 4y ago
  I disagree there are two primary leads in the automotive industry manufacturing and supply chain. These are both hard to build, and require not only a monumental capital investment but also a lot of organizational experience to get right especially around QA and also can easily be a handicap for example established automakers often base their design choices on their existing supply chain and part availability as they often want to maximize part commonality between various models. That said I do agree that as far as design goes it’s far easier for an established automaker to catch up to a contender than the other way around. At least if they are willing to give up on some of the optimizations they squeezed out of the process over decades.
  • basch 4y ago
    We agree. I should have been more precise in my words. I meant there is no huge lead in the product itself.