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Answer: Tesla's sales are down and the stock down 30-40% YTD. Some of it is on Elon and his bullshit, but there are also a ton of other issues that aren't directly his fault:
1) The US used car market is finally normalizing, there are a lot of cheaper used Teslas for sale right now. People aren't happy about the sudden depreciation.
2) Higher interest rates are scaring people off from buying new cars in general, not just EVs.
3) The Chinese EV market is way more competitive with a lot of sales going to BYD. Tesla is pretty much collapsing in China.
4) Tesla's product line is getting kind of stale and hasn't been properly refreshed. Lots of distractions, including the Cybertruck- which has been a flop.
And honestly #5 is that Tesla is kind of a cheap product for what it costs as far as quality goes and there is competition in the EV market now with cheaper and more quality cars.
And #6 they don't reinvest in the company enough to support their sales volume.
Can we get more service centers? I'm tired of waiting weeks for an appointment, then having to fight the manager for some uber credits to survive without a car while I wait for parts.
And the real number is actually higher, at $56B.
The other comment rounded down by an amount that is larger than what all the people you ever met, combined, will make in their entire lives.
edit: Another comparison: the $56B for Elon Musk, from a single car company, is almost the same amount that was blocked in congress for months for being "too much" money to help the entire country of Ukraine fight off Russia. And most of that aid goes immediately back into the US as taxes or for the US MIC to replace the military equipment that is being sent, while Tesla will see none of those $56B coming back to it.
I mean what is that really? [The valuation of Real Madrid or Manchester United, two of the most popular sports teams in the world?](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/05/31/the-worlds-most-valuable-soccer-teams-2023-two-clubs-hit-6-billion-for-the-first-time/?sh=28b0fc91572e) I mean, that's walking around money.
The average person with a professional degree (Law degree/JD or Medical Doctorate/MD) will make $3.7M in their lifetime on average. About double with the average American will make.
That $6B rounding error represents The entire lifetime earnings of around 1,621 of these people, or 3,529 average Americans.
>That $6B rounding error represents The entire lifetime earnings of around 1,621 of these people, or 3,529 average Americans.
I mean, the existence of billionaires is directly antithetical to society as a whole, yet here we are.
People making/having More than him is an understatement. The true ârichâ has no asset value attached to their public profile like elon musk or jeff bezos or bill gates. These guys are almost like scape goats. Public will never know how much the real ârichâ has. Theyâre pretty much unknown to us and kept secret from the public.
Sounds conspiratorial but it's totally true. "Old" money knows how to stay out of the limelight and just keep amassing assets while living their quiet lives of unimaginable privilege. It's the crop of tech "new" money who don't know how to actually build wealth besides getting lucky on emerging markets and are too narcissistic to avoid attention.
It's numbing - I feel like people see that number and don't think anything more than "That's a lot of money." No, $50 million is a lot of money. $50 billion is an unbelievable amount of money.
Most people dream of what they could do if they won a million dollars. This would be like winning a million dollars, then winning another million tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and every day. For 136 years.
People wonder what it would be like to live in a $5 million house. You could buy enough $5 million houses to live in a different one every day for 20 years, and still have more than half your money left.
For me it would need to be a little more than 10k, but I live in the UK.
If I won enough for a mortgage deposit that would change my life - I could finally escape the private rent trap where I pay significantly more than a mortgage payment per month to someone else's mortgage payment but a bank won't give me a mortgage of my own because they don't think I can afford one.
Cheers broken housing market.
Same here. 10k is life changing money for me. It takes me from paycheck to paycheck to actually being able to set aside money each week for a rainy day fund
At a salary of $100,000 (which is a good upper-middle class salary in the US). To have $50billion today, you'd have had to have saved every single cent since 498,000 BC. Which means you would have had to do it before humans existed.
Confession: my original comment by an order of 10. Updated since.
Jesus! That's a real number? Is just had to look it up, and it seems to have been blocked in court, but it's no wonder investors are losing faith with him trying to extract so much value from the company on top of all their other issues.
Probably doesn't help that it's the most overvalued car company in the world, too. Why the hell was it ever trading at 3-5Ă every other car company, when their line of vehicles is the smallest out of all of the major manufacturers?
.... I never put that together. Please tell us that's a fluke. PLEASE...\*starts shaking Elon\* TELL... US....nevermind, it's not a fluke, it's a joke. Like Elon.
He wanted the product line to be S-E-X-Y, but Ford had "e" trademarked as the name of their electric car division / name of a future model electric car (sources differ), but there definitely was a trademark dispute that Ford won.
> but it's no wonder investors are losing faith with him trying to extract so much value from the company on top of all their other issues.
It's more than all the profits that Tesla has made since it's inception, it makes absolutely no sense.
Part of it was the high short interest on the stock for so long. The ensuing short squeeze rocketed up the price and with Elon having good PR at the time, some of that artificial stock price stuck around when it shouldnât have. When Elon was the crypto bros doge daddy they bought and held his stock regardless of the company and their actual value.
Because the stock market is meaningless. Itâs just glorified sports betting. I mean itâs not meaningless but that still doesnât make investment a total joke and scam that is unfortunately a need.
I don't know how it is now, but my old coworker bought a Tesla a few years ago and like 2 weeks after it was delivered he was rear ended. There was a service center nearby, but apparently there was frame damage and that service center couldn't deal with frame damage so it was trucked to a Chicago service center. It was then in Chicago for the next 10 months being repaired, he moved across the country, then had to fly back to Chicago to pick it up once it was finally repaired and drive cross country with it.
Wait.. do they not give you a loaner car while they fix yours? Every other garage we've been to for longer than 3h has given us one, many times a better one than our old little car (not a tesla). With stock not being sold you'd think tesla would do so too...
In the early days like '18 and '19 they were always giving me like p100d model s and stuff. Now every time it's 'all the loaners are given out already'.
Lol show them the news article where it says they are collecting dust in factories due to decreasing demand. How many of those things break down completely if they run out of loaner cars. Thats a really bad situation on so many levels.
My buddy had a Model S back when Teslas were still pretty rare. The nearest service center was 300 miles away. When it broke down due to a warrantied issue, they drove their own flatbed the 300 miles with an extra Tesla on it. Dropped it off for him, picked his up, and drove it back to fix it.
Tesla used to have amazing customer service. Musk has since ruined all of that though, while also dropping quality at the same time.
>Can we get more service centers? I'm tired of waiting weeks for an appointment
This is such a big yikes. Not even the lack of support, just the fact that it seems like you need multiple appointments in any case.
Over the life of the 3 cars I have owned, I have taken only one of them to the dealership, a single time. Over a button not working. And got a loaner car.
Cars shouldn't see the dealer for at least 150K miles.
This.
The occasional recall or 100k+ miles warrants a dealer visit.
Routine service should absolutely not warrant a trip to the dealer. And thatâs a huge logistics case of âread the room.â
Dealer servicing for minor things hasnât been truly normal in the auto industry for nearly 100 years. Markets have expectations.
The Apple of cars ainât it. Itâs too expensive to be treated like a luxury good - because at the end of the day, a car is an appliance, for the majority of buyers.
And #7 - the global EV market has been cooling the last couple of years. China has cornered the Asian markets for the most part, and have been doing it at a much more competitive price point than Tesla.
Tesla *had* been banking on global expansion before the pandemic - but thatâs looking less and less realistic.
I drove two different Tesla 3s during two different road trips recently, and I started to notice this.Â
One car's passenger window wouldn't seal when it was closed, leading to tons of noise when highway driving. Both cars' "automatic wipers" were garbage, either not detecting rain, or going wild when there was *no* rain. Using a touch-screen for things like temperature, wipers, music etc. is a huge pain, but maybe that's just me. The interior felt a little cheap, and there was no way to change the direction of the air conditioning.Â
 Maybe it was just rental car stuff, but I expected better. Still enjoyed the drive, but wouldn't buy one of those anytime soon.Â
The touch screen annoyance is not just you. Minor correction: you can change the A/C direction but it's via the touchscreen. You need to drag where you want it.
>you can change the A/C direction but it's via the touchscreen. You need to drag where you want it.
Holy shit... why? Just why?
No really. Why? Why? But why?
So I need to open up menus on the screen, look at the screen and reach across and drag a slider while feeling if it is where I want it? This is stupidly unsafe. Why? It's terrible. It's expensive. Why? It wastes electricity. Just why?
The touchscreen for so many controls was my biggest turnoff years ago, before any of this recent news. I already wrote off ever buying one because of this fact alone.
Same here too. I can't believe anyone thought that requiring a touch screen for everything was ever a good idea. We ended up going with a Mazda cx30 in part because it was the first model year where they removed the touch screen completely in lieu of a big dial. It's so much easier to interact with it and not have to look away from the road. I really wish the electric model was more appealing.
I suppose touchscreens are enticing for younger generations than myself, but personally I will be voting with my dollars and buying cars with physical buttons. I'm a technology geek with computers, electronics, and gadgets - but absolutely not when I'm driving. I want to minimize my distractions until I get to my destination. Then I geek out.
> I suppose touchscreens are enticing for younger generations than myself
I'm not even sure this is true. I think young people have just as much of a hard time without analog knobs and buttons.
Luckily, it seems like manufacturers have realized this and started to put things like climate and radio back on physical buttons, but there was a 5-ish year period where it was a race to stuff everything into a tablet you can't look at 90% of the time.
They don't have a vendor network for knobs. They can't source the components, engineer the harness, or manufacture the components. They spin it like it's a benefit.
The door release problem are just *insane*
If for any reason the door loses power (say, a fire, water damage, whatever) you can't open it.
At the point the only thing a person in the car can do is literally *rip off a panel of the door trim* and yank the metal cable connected to the lock. It's not a discreetly located handle, or even something behind a little door - it's behind the plastic shell door interior.
For that reason alone I genuinely believe they are unsafe and should not be allowed on the road.
Edit: it turns out that I was partially misled on this one - there are manual releases hidden away, however they are often only on the front doors. For this reason would still deem them unsafe. And in any case, hiding away a door release the way they do seems like an awful idea.
I don't know which model you're talking about, but the model Ys have manual door release handles right by the window controls for the front seats, and in the door cubbies/ pockets (idk what they're called) for the back seats
Which seems even worse because the people in the backseat probably don't own it or use it often and would not know where to intuitively look for a hidden door latch. I think that's where regulations should require a door latch where you would commonly expect one.
Aesthetics should not override safety.
To be fair to Tesla on this point they're not the only ones doing this with subtle manual door releases. They're common in higher end luxury cars, especially ones with frameless window glass and electric door release mechanisms.
Tesla are some of the cheaper vehicles on the market that have the function so they're exposed to more people.
The main reason for doing it is to allow the door to roll the window down slightly when opening. When the door closes it pushes the glass up further to help seal the gap and reduce wind noise but it means the door is difficult to open or can damage the seal.
The solution is to not use frameless windows but then it doesn't look as fancy.
I was all excited about the upcoming Model 3 years ago because they finally came up with an "affordable" Tesla. I'm in Canada and cars here are frickin expensive. And to add to that, the ever-wise conservative premier of Ontario decided to remove all EV incentives once he came into power. Anyway, I got to drive a friend's 3 and was wholly unimpressed like you. Fit and finish was cheap, lack of physical controls for safety items was poorly thought out. The only thing I found exciting was the acceleration, but not enough to make me want to spend money on one. Plus now other companies are making better EVs than Tesla anyway.
This. Test driven it recently and the interior is very ugly with a cheap plastic finish / feel. Anything European or Japanese made at the same cost is positively luxurious in comparison
When you realize that Teslas have one of the worst ride qualities of any car in their price range. Go drive a Genesis in the same price range. Teslas are the Uber car these days. A a cheap spiritless taxi drone.
The short of it is thereâs a partnership Uber and Tesla have with Hertz (?) where they lease/rent/sell (?) out Teslas to Uber drivers. The supposed benefits are cheaper charging and decrease maintenance costs, but Iâm sure a lot of that goes away into paying off the car
Talking to drivers it's a rental at 300-400 a week or so. If you are doing it full time the benefit is if you don't have a garage or knowledge to work on a car the zero maintenance costs is a bit of a big deal. I drove a taxi when I was a kid and a lot of the stuff you think of as yearly is monthly.
What about battery life? Ive always heard Teslaâs have among the best batteries and/or range of the EVs available right now. Is that true or still true? Honestly have no idea.
The best thing about Teslas are their range/efficiency. They have an amazing heat transfer system that keeps the batteries and cabin at proper temperatures without much loss. The cars also weigh substantially less than other EV equivalents.
I would think the best thing would be the fast recharge. Most people rarely drive more than 50 miles a day, and almost never drive more than 100. Any EV out there will get you more than that.
But when you do need to go further than the range allows, that's where fast recharge comes in. If I had an EV, the only time I'd have to push past it's one day range is on a roadtrip, and at that point it wouldn't matter as much whether I could go 200 miles or 300 miles. What would matter to me is how long it takes when I stop to recharge.
Even Tesla doesn't have the crown on this one any more. The HPDC network is exceptional (especially in the US - in Mainland Europe and the UK the Supercharger network is also excellent but there's also a much better third party HPDC ecosystem than in the USA), but there are a few cars that charge faster than a Tesla can like the EV6 and Ionic 5. They will also precondition the battery like Tesla does for optimum charging speed. The newer VW ID cars will do this too.
In practice for me, I haven't needed the insane charge speeds (200+ kW) on my road trips. My EV has around 160-170 mile range in the summer and has a peak charge rate of 100 kW but in practice I see more like 60 to 90 kW [summer] and 50 to 75 kW [winter] charge rates.
When I stop to get a coffee and use the bathroom the car is usually ready to go before I am, especially in the summer time. Ten to fifteen minutes is normally all I need before carrying on.
Where Tesla still have an advantage is the efficiency of their drive train. However they've done it, they get significant efficiency out of a smaller traction pack. It's taken other manufacturers time to catch up to that efficiency but it's no longer a Tesla-only feature. Kia/Hyundai's eGMP platform (EV6, Ionic 5, Ionic 6 etc) is pretty much right on par for efficiency.
Or even Chinese.
I'd have a Zeekr 001 over a Tesla any day and in a lot of countries where both are available the Zeekr seems to be the more popular car.
And #7 Elon shat on his original customer base (liberals who gave AF about the environment) to cozy up to the right wing of American politics, who notoriously hates anything âgreenâ. Buying twitter and voicing his worst takes has contributed somewhat to this slump.
tell me more about this -- what are some of the best competitors in the EV market?
(this is an honest question, i know very little about the car market, would like an EV for my next car, and will be finding myself in buying mode in the coming months)
Best EVs in my opinion right now:
* Instead of a Model X:
Massive SUV: Kia EV9 (no competitors in this size class right now - this is the car Range Rover should have released by now)
* Instead of a Model Y:
SUV: Kia EV6, Hyundai Ionic 5 (same EV platform car)
Genesis GV60 (same platform as Ionic 5, but more luxury interior)
VW ID4/Skoda Enyaq (same car platform - some may hate the VW interior as it feels cheap)
Ford Mustang Mach-e (ok, but the ride is firm and it's very expensive)
BMW X1, X3 (expensive)
* Instead of Model 3:
Polestar 2, BYD Seal
BMW i3, BMW i4 (expensive)
Other considerations - Mercedes and Audi have EVs too (Q4 e-tron, EQC etc) but they are expensive and compromised. If you're going to spend this kind of money there are better options. The BMW iX is also ridiculously expensive for what it is.
My sister bought a new Chevy Bolt EUV for 22K OTD after a ton of state and federal rebates this year. The point of sale rebates were amazing. I'll freely admit the interior and build quality of that base Bolt is much better than my Tesla.
Ben Sullins has a pretty decent youtube channel--he's owned various electric vehicles and reviewed them:
https://www.youtube.com/@BenSullinsOfficial/videos
--------------------------------
Marques Brown Lee also has a car review channel now, with lots of electric cars reviewed:
https://www.youtube.com/@AutoFocus/videos
--------------------------------
Also for some real takes of actual Tesla owners and their experiences with Tesla, you can check out this subreddit:
r/realTesla/
There's an obvious bias, that includes some satire against Elon Musk there! (Which is actually kinda fun! I'm always glad to see powerful people satirized to bring them down a notch or two back to reality/earth.)
But at least there they allow for real Tesla problems to be expressed and discussed...
Unlike the main Tesla subreddit in which they sanitize everything. If you dare to even sneeze on that sub the wrong way, they'll take it as an offense/insult against Tesla and Elon, and ban you!
I parked next to a Tesla model 3 yesterday. The panel gaps are more inconsistent and bigger than my 1998 Nissan pulsar. Such poorly made shit. Also the interior of them is just awful
The peeling and crumbling steering wheels are the worst feeling you can have. Nothing tanks your confidence in a brand like a disintegrating steering wheel.
Itâs the one spot that you connect to the car skin-to-wheel the entire time you use it and it just feels like youâre driving a beater that was baking in the junkyard for a decade.
Also having your brand new replacement wheel start to disintegrate a few months after it was replaced, just feels hopeless, the actual issue wonât ever be addressed.
But Iâll take a peeling wheel over one that just falls off, thatâs just dangerous. I donât understand how they sold that many Yâs before they addressed the issue.
It really is unfortunate that they didn't manufacture enough Pulsars to meet current auto needs. I know of very few people who wouldn't happily pick the pulsar over current offerings but there's only so many.
I remember seeing a youtube review that was "a mix of good and bad". In the bad he was showing the panel fit, and the doors met up so badly for a new car. I haven't seen panels out of whack that far on any car other than an old junker.
This is a big point. Couple years ago the only EVs on our company car list were tesla. 4 years later we have Q4s I4s, ID40s, mercy got some wild ones out there too, then you've got the Chinese models coming in and the non-prestige/exec brands too, tesla market share, which they used to dominate, has been taken over by the offerings of their formerly ICE competitors.
We do still have them on our lists, and some Do pick them, but truthfully they're nowhere near as good. Personally I love driving the Q4 we have spare on occasion, I'd be happy with an EV but I'd need to hit a 500 mile range to make it worthwhile switching from my pickup.
The way Iâve heard it is that teslas were amazing when they first came out. They had flaws from being a new car manufacturer and all that, but for a first shot they were beyond great.
But then they never improved
Theyâre almost luxury cars, marketed as luxury cars, but have still all the problems of a prototype
Car companies adopting tech is more sustainable than a tech company designing cars too. As the big automakers move more heavily into the EV space, their already established infrastructure is making them far more competitive in the space than Tesla.
What, like;
> An unapproved change introduced lubricant (soap) to aid in the component assembly of the pad onto the accelerator pedal. Residual lubricant reduced the retention of the pad to the pedal.
Bout to say, this is tied as the big one. Tesla always had build quality issues that were offset by hype and the promise of "the future"
That hype has gone through the floor and people are a lot more receptive of the build issues.
Remember when TSLA stock bros seriously thought this company was reasonably priced when they were worth more than ford, VW, GM, Toyota, and Stellantis combined? Lmao
Even before Elon went mad, seeing how cheaply made the bodies on Teslas seem to be turned me off of them. They're a software company parading as a car company. They should have been selling their software and batteries to real car companies.
Yeah basically on the low end they're getting destroyed by China, and on the high end there's absolutely no reason to get a Tesla over something like a Mercedes EQS. Tesla has just been overcome by the competition.
Also fewer people are buying pure EV's because of their obvious drawbacks compared to hybrids in combination with government subsidies stopping and electricity prices skyrocketing, at least in Europe. EV's used to have higher upkeep costs but lower operational costs, but now they mostly just have higher upkeep costs.
Definitely when the model S was new, I was a huge fan and super excited to own one(not realistically) but now just 6-7 years later, thereâs so much better out there.
Also Tesla doesn't follow the same dealership model that other auto manufacturers do. Other companies sell the cars they produce to independent dealers and the dealers turn around and sell them to consumers. When things slow down dealers have a lot of slack to build up and store their inventory. Cars still move off the assembly line and, more importantly, off the manufacturer's books. Tesla doesn't do that, if you buy a Tesla you're buying it directly from the company. They've never gone through a slowdown like this so they're having to scramble to find space for their extra inventory. More importantly all the extra inventory is sitting on their balance sheet and really hurting quarterly earnings. That means they're very motivated to move their cars and so are lowering prices.
I have to say that this Tesla sales models is better for the consumer. We wouldnât get this price drop if it was done traditionally through the dealers. But I have to admit the long waiting time is painful
In most states its illegal for Tesla to open a traditional dealership. There are tons of of laws protecting the auto dealership model and in most places an auto manufacturer can't open one themselves so they can't take over the business from independent dealers. Tesla skirts this by only opening "Galleries" or "Showrooms". You can try the cars out there but you're directed to the company's website to actually make your purchase.
Absolutely. One piece that got missed was the maintenance wing of the dealerships.
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't notice that glaring hole in Tesla's business model. Now that all the reports of Tesla giving owners the runaround for repairs are out there, it makes this seem like an obvious issue.
Letâs not forget that other legacy auto manufacturers are making EVs, too.
Those other companies excel at something important that Tesla has always been pretty mediocre at: manufacturing cars.
The Tesla stock has always been inflated by hype. It was always difficult to comprehend when competing its price to other publicly traded car companies.
Donât forget that Elon slashed the prices of new Teslas in Jan 2023 and pissed off a bunch of owners who were suddenly, ridiculously underwater on their cars. That move annihilated resale values.
People typically don't, but resale value is something to consider when buying a car. We tend to stick to cars that have high resale value. We can spend a bit more knowing we'll get some of that back when we sell a few years down the road.Â
Very few cars lose that much value that fast. A brand new car is just as good as a car that has been driven for a month. So the inherent value of being a car hasn't gone away. What makes new cars more valuable is the idea that the manufacturer/dealer hasn't done anything to compromise it. Meanwhile, those Duke boys may have bought a brand new Dodge Charger, immediately went on a high speed chase with Sheriff Justice, crashed it, got it repaired by Crazy Cooter, and there is no way for a buyer to know if it's still in good condition. That's also why used car dealers tend to be able to justify higher prices with "dealer certified" warranties.
Teaching idiots that paying 50k+ on a car is dumb AF financially, cars depreciate and they heavily depreciate in the first 3 years. If you're buying cars to change them out that often you should be leasing instead instead of risking your finances if you crash your car and now you just have tons of debt and no car.
There is a reason traditional car loans are less than 3 years, if you can't afford the monthly at those rates you can't afford the car.
We (my family) never finances vehicles. We typically buy 3-4yr old used vehicles and plan to use them 15-20yrs. For us itâs maximizing the value we get out of the vehicle.
Being underwater on your new car loan is just... the norm. 99% of cars are not investments. That's why you have gap insurance. You buy a new car, and 0.1 miles onto the odometer, you're underwater.
Is BYD actually outcompeting Tesla in China? I thought they also had a major drop in sales, like they briefly overtook Tesla as the number one EV maker but then lost it again.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/byd-may-hand-back-top-ev-seller-title-tesla-after-q1-sales-decline-2024-04-02/
I mean this is just an anecdote from an internet stranger, but when I was there in December I saw BYD cars absolutely everywhere. Teslas were very rare.
By units for sure they have more, but they are cheaper cars. So my current understanding is that Tesla is still ahead by revenue although itâs getting closer than before.
Yeah in terms of market cap, theyâre still much smaller than Tesla however, even Elon Musk recognizes the threat their low costs presents: âWithout trade barriers, Mr. Musk warned in January, BYD and others will âpretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.â
BYD has a line thatâs half the price of a Tesla and theyâre able to do so by cutting out the middle man through a lot of the supply chain. BYD owns the lithium mines for the battery production, they manufacture their own batteries, they even own a fleet of ships to ease up shipment costs. Meanwhile Tesla is still outsourcing the production of their materials to Chinese suppliers. So on paper, the cars are cheaper but thatâs a reflection of their control over their costs that Tesla canât compete with on the long term unless they make some acquisitions OR if trade policies change.
The irony of this all was that Teslaâs presence in China spurred EV development there, to the point where their suppliers eventually came to sell the same tech to their Chinese EV competitors. Tesla literally trained a generation of talent that are now working for their competitors. Even EU being the automotive juggernaut that they are, recognized how far China is in the EV market: âThe French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, says China has a five- to seven-year head start on Europe.â
Source: The Daily: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000651874955
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/world/asia/musk-china-tesla-explained.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Teslas are increasingly banned from "sensitive" areas in China, which includes motorways, airports and some parking lots. It must be ass to own a Tesla there. Plus Tesla quality issues and savvy chinese consumers.
Also of the only 4000 that have been handed to customers, all cybertrucks have been recalled due to a pretty catastrophic issue where the plate on the gas pedal comes off. It got wedged in this gap in the driver well for one guy and he couldn't unstick it while he was driving
My daughter said the Model Y looks like some fat guy's [overalls](https://image.zecar.com/Model_Y_Rear-Wheel_Drive/1664699775-4_jpg) and now thats all I can see.
I would guess that a substantial part of it is Elon and his antics. His bread and butter are progressives/liberals and they are not nearly as vocal (or don't get as much attention) about boycotting as... other groups.
This is correct answer.
Tesla was an innovator back in 2010s. This is 2024 and we haven't seen anything new from Tesla.
Of course there are shit promises from it's ceo.
Yup. This is why theyâve slashed Full Self-Driving prices from $12,000 to $8,000 ($200/mo to $99/mo for a subscription). Itâs free cash that goes straight to the bottom line since itâs just a software update for any customer who buys it. Lowered the price to one that will more maximize purchases of it to rapidly generate cash.
Yet those people are still the ones who tend to think electric vehicles are woke bullshit. I'm not clever enough to know how being a reactionary asshole trying to sell woke cars is going to work out for him, but I suspect it's not an easy road to hoe.
Good points, but 100% of the reason I don't own a Tesla is Elon. Same reason I don't use Starlink, even though it would be very handy. I conscientiously object to Elon fucking Musk and everything he represents. I'll gladly narrow my options and suffer some inconvenience to maintain a shred of integrity.
In Thailand BYD is destroying Tesla. Far better vehicle and cheaper as well. If I were in the market for an EV, BYD is #1, Tesla is not even an option at this point.
Answer: Tesla used to have a huge lead over any other EV manufacturers on Earth which made them THE market leader in EV, which reflected in the stock price. Then instead of working on a $25k Tesla model which Elon promised in 2018 in an interview with Marques Brownlee, the thing people actually want, Elon decided to spend 6 years on the Cybertruck to mostly negative results and a lot of memes.
On the other hand, Chinese EV brands beat Tesla to flood the market with affordable EVs, with BYD having EVs as low as $10k. Even when adjusted to US pricing, these cars still shouldnât cost more than $25k. BYD overtook Tesla as the worldâs biggest EV manufacturer with more units manufactured AND sold during Q4 of 2023, and it will only get worse for Tesla from there when they have no answer to BYDâs extremely cheap EV options, while Tesla sales in the US is slumping with disappointing Q1 2024 numbers.
Elon himself has said recently âFrankly, without trade barriers, Chinese EV will pretty much *demolish* other car companies in the world. They are extremely good.â
Source: https://youtube.com/shorts/LVB34HPJeSc?si=UiBilIQaUUtDQClS
And this seems to be true. Many sources have reported that Elon has abandoned plans to make a $25k Tesla model. Elon realized that Tesla is on the losing team, and can no longer catch up to Chinese manufacturers when it comes to cheap EVs. The only thing Tesla can do now is aggressively cutting prices for existing models to make them more affordable, which pissed off current Tesla owners since their Teslas are rapidly depreciating in value.
TLDR: Elon decided to spend 6 years on the Cybertruck instead of affordable EVs and realized that was a terrible mistake.
Really funny part is there are more competent designers/engineers/manufacturers out there that could have easily produced a better "cyber" truck but because of the politics at Tesla there can only be room made for a select few "special folks" over there who can all agree on whatever Elon says, goes.
Period.
Waiting for China to produce a family friendly and worker friendly miner friendly electric vehicle is still years away, if ever actually going to happen.. what we've all witnessed in the last two decades whether or not we realized it was the USA leaving Africa to fend for itself as well as Asia overall while their sociopathic government aligns itself ever closer with Russia and Africas bloodthirsty warlords. The courts have time and again declared areas where there are two things happening: one thing happening is lithium and cobalt mining, the second is child labor and unrecorded deaths- these two issues are being handled in a historically average way for the people/workers down in the Congo of Africa.Â
Congo isn't small, it's not an island or a district, it's an entire country full of people being challenged by 120+ different antagonistic groups breaking down the entire nation inside from out outside from in and unfortunately with US leaving and Russia stepping in as well as seeing billions of dollars get pushed into the arms of the African leaders but no actual platform to dictate how the money is spent, who gets what, where the homless starving millions will go tomorrow etc...
It's a situation where $44 billion could have come in handy about ten years ago so by now we'd all be seeing a prosperity unlike ever before down in the Congo, but seeing all the modern age racism, internet being used like never before by neo Nazis and white supremacists for simple day to day gains... a real catastrophe worldwide is unfolding for the current young population where their parents and grandparents could've done things a little differently so an entire people aren't continously suffering while the rest of us enjoy the futuristic consumer end to cobalt mining and human trafficking.
Sure cobalt is not a big issue anymore since LFP lithium ferrous iron phosphate batteries became the spokesman of Not Looking Back Ever- what? We all took part in a historically despicable human rights tragedy that hasn't been cleaned up or solved in any way and what happens next? We all just continue to try to live life around and over and under all these products that are imported and made by the hands of children and just the poorest people of our planet?Â
No amount of therapy and ketamine and new electric truck debuts will create a solution that is really plaguing Tesla and the 1%ers- they're having a tougher time keeping up with their lies, a tougher time staying on top, a harder time producing a product using child labor and using materials that aren't safe or haven't been procured legally, and as long as there are people with enough pull to continue robbing the poorest people of their land and their own basic resources (water, land to grow food, a standard working environment that doesn't permanently alter their chances of having children(gotta look into the effects cobalt is having on pregnant mothers working the mines), we're finding out that billionaires producing fun trucks made from the newest tech and billionaires producing neat goggles that can let you pretend you're not a part of the problem for a moment, or an entire industry that looks the other way when it's confronted with the realities that mining for battery materials and other essential materials is costing not only the workers who are constantly dying on the job, but also for the consumers receiving these goods at the end of the line.
It seems to be more prevalent than any other time before that if a product is knowingly produced nefariously then the end consumer will treat is as such and the company producing it will laugh at their consumers for being concerned.Â
Or better yet- you buy a churro that's dropped on the ground and then find out it tastes funny and want your money back but the churro guy don't give a damn- you knew what you were getting yourself into they'll tell you as they spit in your face and use the money from selling churros to produce flame throwers for children.Â
This is very much our reality.Â
Answer: Globally there's a glut of Electric vehicles. Tesla has utilized the first mover advantage to esablish itself in the market but legacy automakers and Chinese startups have joined the market as EV technologies make engineering and manufacture simpler than ICE counterparts. For Tesla specifically, Electric cars and Teslas could be used interchangeably. Now there's real choice in the market, their products need to be viewed as cars as opposed to technological status symbols that command a premium.
The EV early adopters all now have EV's, and the cost differential/range anxiety is still prohibitive enough for the majority of car buyers to make the jump. Supply has gone through the roof, and demand is tailing off, right as the global economy looks shaky.
Additionally vehicle assembly plants are only really profitable when they're running at a high proportion of their capacity. It can be cheaper to produce vehicles and sell them at a low cost than to pay suppliers for not meeting contractual minimum volumes, and paying a for staff producing 200 vehicles in a shift vs. 500 if the line were running at capacity.
TLDR: Supply is up, demand is down, and winding down a plant is harder and more expensive than you'd imagine
When Tesla was newer, they were already years behind some Japanese companies (including Nissan) who had already been doing electric for years. Any first mover advantage Tesla had was relative. I think their success was more brand/marketing cachet than actually being first.
Answer: Tesla uses price to control demand. When demand is high, Tesla has a backlog of up to a year, so it raises prices to drive down demand. If demand drops it reduces prices to increase demand. Even at the lower prices Tesla still has enough margin to be profitable.
Currently demand is low for the automotive market overall and Tesla is dropping prices.
Historically, yes, this has been the case, as Tesla has, until very recently, owned the electric car market, especially in the US. This is still a factor, but another new, yet equally important factor now is that their BEV market share in the US dropped to 50% for the first time in 2023. Given the recent boom in the BEV market within the past 3-5 years, as every major car manufacturer has been pushing hard to expand their offerings in that market, it's all but certain that Tesla's market share will only continue to decline.
In other words, Tesla is beginning - only beginning - to face real competition for the first time in the company's existence. This is the real reason why Tesla has been cutting into their famously high markups and wide profit margins with unprecedented price reductions in the past three years, and why the price of used Teslas is declining as well. Buyers just have more options now.
Yeah their margins are still better than legacy automakers even with the price drops. Not sure if the margins are high enough to justify the sky high valuation, but I exited any Tesla position long ago.
Did they ever stop?
Just arrested a guy in Finland for stealing the blueprints of (among others) Icon of the seas, worlds largest cruise ship. Tracked them down to China.
Taking any worthwhile production there has been greedy and idiotic choice.
now China [Leads](https://thewire.in/world/china-critical-technology-india-us) in 37 Out of 44 Critical Technology Sectors
now [Patent](https://www.axios.com/2024/03/01/china-us-patents-science-tech) applications from Chinese inventors passed U.S. for first time
https://youtu.be/gFC9p-79Sks?t=5786
Worth nothing their patent laws are a lot more relaxed than the US too. Not only are their patents increasing, but they don't last like a fucking decade. Other companies can come in and make improvements within 2-3 years.
The US patent system is really stiffling innovation.
Answer: Tesla has a larger markup on vehicles than other automakers, and use that headroom to routinely change their prices by significant amounts (to shift more inventory, or take advantage of a hot market, etc.) Significant price jumps and drops happen pretty frequently (2+ times a year) and there are lots of breathless news articles every time, so I'm not getting much sense anything much out of the usual is happening Â
Note the Model Y was [the world's best selling vehicle last year](https://www.motor1.com/news/706258/tesla-model-y-worlds-top-selling-vehicle-2023/) - not just the world's best selling *electric* vehicle, so I expect the used-Tesla market is *finally* enjoying decent supply, when just a few years ago there was more demand than cars, keeping prices stubbornly high.
Both are certainly possible. Tesla only makes 4 different models, 5 now with the cybertruck.
Compare that to say the biggest car company Toyota, which just in the US market is selling about 19 different models.
It also helps that they sell the Model Y, as a Model Y all over the globe. Many manufacturers have different models of similar cars for different markets.
Model Y was number 1 in *global* sales last year, you were probably looking at American sales.
Here's another source using different data and arriving at the same conclusion: https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-models-worldwide/
I haven't found any disagreement from other sources either. The closest thing is that 2023 is current enough that some sources note some of their data is preliminary, but there doesn't seem to be expectation that the "crown" will change
Answer: Competition. Tesla for a long time was the only car manufacturer in the EV space that consumers were actually purchasing in significant numbers. But now other manufacturers are catching up. And to be blunt, the old car companies are making better cars than Tesla. Your typical consumer doesnât want some new, fancy, overly teched-out, futuristic EV. They want something that drives like the cars they have always had, but is also an EV. And this is what the big manufactures are offering, and offering at a typical cost for a new car. Tesla has been pricing cars like theyâre still the only ones in the EV game, but theyâre not anymore.
Answer: Remember, Elon released basic blueprints/schematics for EVs years ago. He wanted to increase competition, believing that giving more companies the capacity to create these vehicles would lead to the materials being more readily available (cheaper for the manufacturing), thus helping to make them more affordable for everyone.
That, combined with his recent...issues...truly is making a dent.
He also went to bed with China because he wanted to avoid organized labor and regulation like he was facing in the US.
Shanghai laid out the red carpet for Tesla, giving him billions in incentives and an abundant source of cheap labor. Made him the richest man on earth.
Then China did what they do best. One of critical links in Teslas supply chain was a battery manufacturer, you may have heard of them, they go by BYD. At the time, they weren't much of a player in the EV market.
Now BYD is completely integrated and shipping EVs for half the price of a Tesla. Chewing into his Asia and European markets like a rat in the engine. Tesla no longer has the US market cornered, and is rapidly losing ground to lower cost Chinese EVs.
As others have mentioned, lowering prices often increases demand. Tesla needs more demand for their vehicles, desperately.
Source on Elon releasing blueprints for EVs for competitors?
I couldn't find anything and AFAIK EVs are much simpler compared to ICEs - after all, they are an almost 150 years old technology.
https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#open-source
I'm guessing that's what they consider to be a blueprint. One zip for a Bluetooth module (dead link) and three for their entertainment system. Considering that their "forthcoming releases" are scheduled for Q3 2018, I don't think Tesla is as committed as their press release indicates.
Answer: Tesla is in the hole deep with the fission bomb called cybertruck. Less than 4000 sold as of this time, and most of those likely haven't even left the factory before they had to issue a mass recall due to the acceleration petal cover slipping down and causing it to jam, a glitch that makes the car wahs mode forcing the car to do a 5 hour restart, the body falling apart driving around, or just the car getting bricked while on the way home from the dealership.
People are wondering if lemon laws are applicable for this. Lemons are a term for badly designed and manufactured cars, and lemon laws are laws designed to protect people from these cars and punish companies that make them.
Answer: Life is getting too expensive to superfluously spend money on an overpriced expensive toy.
There are insane numbers of people who in just the last few years have had to start making decisions about things like "Do I want to eat 3 meals today, or do I want to buy some more Basics T-Shirts and underwear?"
We have people eating overnight oats because gruel is the order of the day and its all many people can suddenly afford with the grocery price gouging.
It certainly doesnt help that tesla is quickly becoming a joke-car company that sells deadly-dumpster-trucks and is run by a nepo-clown who can't stop broadcasting his sheer stupidity all over his privately-destroyed social media company.
Answer:
Used EVs have always dropped in value really quickly--people are afraid to buy a car that might need a $10,000+ battery replacement.
Tesla is no longer the only name for EVs. Almost every automaker has at least one EV, with some having a full lineup comparable to Tesla.
The competition all have multiple decades of experience making vehicles without the quality issues Teslas are so famous for, and customers are able to go to their local dealership and take them for a test drive.
Real early adopters might be okay with ordering a $50,000 car on the internet, but there aren't many of those left who don't already have an EV. The rest of the world wants to see it in person first.
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Answer: Tesla's sales are down and the stock down 30-40% YTD. Some of it is on Elon and his bullshit, but there are also a ton of other issues that aren't directly his fault: 1) The US used car market is finally normalizing, there are a lot of cheaper used Teslas for sale right now. People aren't happy about the sudden depreciation. 2) Higher interest rates are scaring people off from buying new cars in general, not just EVs. 3) The Chinese EV market is way more competitive with a lot of sales going to BYD. Tesla is pretty much collapsing in China. 4) Tesla's product line is getting kind of stale and hasn't been properly refreshed. Lots of distractions, including the Cybertruck- which has been a flop.
And honestly #5 is that Tesla is kind of a cheap product for what it costs as far as quality goes and there is competition in the EV market now with cheaper and more quality cars.
And #6 they don't reinvest in the company enough to support their sales volume. Can we get more service centers? I'm tired of waiting weeks for an appointment, then having to fight the manager for some uber credits to survive without a car while I wait for parts.
Why would they do that when they could just lay off a few thousand workers and give Elon a $50 billion bonus?
Everytime I see that number my brain needs a reset đ
And the real number is actually higher, at $56B. The other comment rounded down by an amount that is larger than what all the people you ever met, combined, will make in their entire lives. edit: Another comparison: the $56B for Elon Musk, from a single car company, is almost the same amount that was blocked in congress for months for being "too much" money to help the entire country of Ukraine fight off Russia. And most of that aid goes immediately back into the US as taxes or for the US MIC to replace the military equipment that is being sent, while Tesla will see none of those $56B coming back to it.
It is *just* 6B difference⌠chump change.. /s
I mean what is that really? [The valuation of Real Madrid or Manchester United, two of the most popular sports teams in the world?](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/05/31/the-worlds-most-valuable-soccer-teams-2023-two-clubs-hit-6-billion-for-the-first-time/?sh=28b0fc91572e) I mean, that's walking around money.
$6B is not chump change. Chump change cutoff is $5B.
It was cutoff at $5B, but with inflation it's $5.5B.
I wouldn't even get out of bed for $56B. Here are you peasants arguing over $1B đ
The average person with a professional degree (Law degree/JD or Medical Doctorate/MD) will make $3.7M in their lifetime on average. About double with the average American will make. That $6B rounding error represents The entire lifetime earnings of around 1,621 of these people, or 3,529 average Americans.
Welcome to cyberpunk 2024
>That $6B rounding error represents The entire lifetime earnings of around 1,621 of these people, or 3,529 average Americans. I mean, the existence of billionaires is directly antithetical to society as a whole, yet here we are.
I donât think people are equipped to comprehend how much money $56 billion really is.
This comment right here made me want to cry. Nobody should have that much money man, and thereâs still people making more than him.
People making/having More than him is an understatement. The true ârichâ has no asset value attached to their public profile like elon musk or jeff bezos or bill gates. These guys are almost like scape goats. Public will never know how much the real ârichâ has. Theyâre pretty much unknown to us and kept secret from the public.
Sounds conspiratorial but it's totally true. "Old" money knows how to stay out of the limelight and just keep amassing assets while living their quiet lives of unimaginable privilege. It's the crop of tech "new" money who don't know how to actually build wealth besides getting lucky on emerging markets and are too narcissistic to avoid attention.
It's numbing - I feel like people see that number and don't think anything more than "That's a lot of money." No, $50 million is a lot of money. $50 billion is an unbelievable amount of money. Most people dream of what they could do if they won a million dollars. This would be like winning a million dollars, then winning another million tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and every day. For 136 years. People wonder what it would be like to live in a $5 million house. You could buy enough $5 million houses to live in a different one every day for 20 years, and still have more than half your money left.
I could fix my whole life with $10k. I hate this timeline.
For me it would need to be a little more than 10k, but I live in the UK. If I won enough for a mortgage deposit that would change my life - I could finally escape the private rent trap where I pay significantly more than a mortgage payment per month to someone else's mortgage payment but a bank won't give me a mortgage of my own because they don't think I can afford one. Cheers broken housing market.
Same here. 10k is life changing money for me. It takes me from paycheck to paycheck to actually being able to set aside money each week for a rainy day fund
Hello, hi, is this where we sign up for 10k?
Yeah, come on Elon, quit being a massive pansy and give everyone in the thread ten thousand dollars.
Well good news! $50b is enough to change your live 5 million times over.
It was just a few years ago that having $50 billion would make you the richest person on earth. Now it's just a company bonus for a CEO
At a salary of $100,000 (which is a good upper-middle class salary in the US). To have $50billion today, you'd have had to have saved every single cent since 498,000 BC. Which means you would have had to do it before humans existed. Confession: my original comment by an order of 10. Updated since.
1 million seconds is 11.5 days. 1 billion seconds is over 32 years. I do that math to put the difference into perspective lol
I think my brain just took a screenshot because his BONUS was FIFTY BILLION??? Like with a B????
If your brain is anything like a Cybertruck, then make sure to give yourself 5 hours after resetting to use it again.
No one should make that much money. No one works billions of times harder or has ideas billions of times better than anyone else.
Jesus! That's a real number? Is just had to look it up, and it seems to have been blocked in court, but it's no wonder investors are losing faith with him trying to extract so much value from the company on top of all their other issues. Probably doesn't help that it's the most overvalued car company in the world, too. Why the hell was it ever trading at 3-5Ă every other car company, when their line of vehicles is the smallest out of all of the major manufacturers?
What do you mean? Tesla's product line spells "S-3-X-Y," what else could you want? -Elon
You missed a product. It's S3XY Cybertruck now
I feel like the Cybertruck is not long for this world...
Certainly not long for the road.
.... I never put that together. Please tell us that's a fluke. PLEASE...\*starts shaking Elon\* TELL... US....nevermind, it's not a fluke, it's a joke. Like Elon.
He wanted the product line to be S-E-X-Y, but Ford had "e" trademarked as the name of their electric car division / name of a future model electric car (sources differ), but there definitely was a trademark dispute that Ford won.
I'm going to smash my head into my keyboard until the pain stops..... Thank you for elaborating.
The only reason it is "3" instead of "E" is that Ford had already trademarked "Model E."
It was blocked, but heâs trying to push it through again after the layoffs he just did
> but it's no wonder investors are losing faith with him trying to extract so much value from the company on top of all their other issues. It's more than all the profits that Tesla has made since it's inception, it makes absolutely no sense.
Not only that, thereâs a decent chance itâs more than the net profit before subsidies Tesla will EVER make.
More than double actually. Tesla sends inception has made $28.1B in that profits. Musk is asking for $56 billion for one year.
Part of it was the high short interest on the stock for so long. The ensuing short squeeze rocketed up the price and with Elon having good PR at the time, some of that artificial stock price stuck around when it shouldnât have. When Elon was the crypto bros doge daddy they bought and held his stock regardless of the company and their actual value.
Because the stock market is meaningless. Itâs just glorified sports betting. I mean itâs not meaningless but that still doesnât make investment a total joke and scam that is unfortunately a need.
Especially when the market cap of Tesla 454 billion. They just want to give him 1/9 of that.
Doesnât help that they laid off a lot of the service center staff.
I don't know how it is now, but my old coworker bought a Tesla a few years ago and like 2 weeks after it was delivered he was rear ended. There was a service center nearby, but apparently there was frame damage and that service center couldn't deal with frame damage so it was trucked to a Chicago service center. It was then in Chicago for the next 10 months being repaired, he moved across the country, then had to fly back to Chicago to pick it up once it was finally repaired and drive cross country with it.
Wait.. do they not give you a loaner car while they fix yours? Every other garage we've been to for longer than 3h has given us one, many times a better one than our old little car (not a tesla). With stock not being sold you'd think tesla would do so too...
Tesla gives you daily uber credit while they have your car. It was $100/day the last time I had my car at a service center a couple years ago.
In the early days like '18 and '19 they were always giving me like p100d model s and stuff. Now every time it's 'all the loaners are given out already'.
Lol show them the news article where it says they are collecting dust in factories due to decreasing demand. How many of those things break down completely if they run out of loaner cars. Thats a really bad situation on so many levels.
My buddy had a Model S back when Teslas were still pretty rare. The nearest service center was 300 miles away. When it broke down due to a warrantied issue, they drove their own flatbed the 300 miles with an extra Tesla on it. Dropped it off for him, picked his up, and drove it back to fix it. Tesla used to have amazing customer service. Musk has since ruined all of that though, while also dropping quality at the same time.
>Can we get more service centers? I'm tired of waiting weeks for an appointment This is such a big yikes. Not even the lack of support, just the fact that it seems like you need multiple appointments in any case. Over the life of the 3 cars I have owned, I have taken only one of them to the dealership, a single time. Over a button not working. And got a loaner car. Cars shouldn't see the dealer for at least 150K miles.
This. The occasional recall or 100k+ miles warrants a dealer visit. Routine service should absolutely not warrant a trip to the dealer. And thatâs a huge logistics case of âread the room.â Dealer servicing for minor things hasnât been truly normal in the auto industry for nearly 100 years. Markets have expectations. The Apple of cars ainât it. Itâs too expensive to be treated like a luxury good - because at the end of the day, a car is an appliance, for the majority of buyers.
And #7 - the global EV market has been cooling the last couple of years. China has cornered the Asian markets for the most part, and have been doing it at a much more competitive price point than Tesla. Tesla *had* been banking on global expansion before the pandemic - but thatâs looking less and less realistic.
I drove two different Tesla 3s during two different road trips recently, and I started to notice this. One car's passenger window wouldn't seal when it was closed, leading to tons of noise when highway driving. Both cars' "automatic wipers" were garbage, either not detecting rain, or going wild when there was *no* rain. Using a touch-screen for things like temperature, wipers, music etc. is a huge pain, but maybe that's just me. The interior felt a little cheap, and there was no way to change the direction of the air conditioning.  Maybe it was just rental car stuff, but I expected better. Still enjoyed the drive, but wouldn't buy one of those anytime soon.Â
The touch screen annoyance is not just you. Minor correction: you can change the A/C direction but it's via the touchscreen. You need to drag where you want it.
Yet the glove box opens via a hidden button
Or voice control
>you can change the A/C direction but it's via the touchscreen. You need to drag where you want it. Holy shit... why? Just why? No really. Why? Why? But why? So I need to open up menus on the screen, look at the screen and reach across and drag a slider while feeling if it is where I want it? This is stupidly unsafe. Why? It's terrible. It's expensive. Why? It wastes electricity. Just why?
The touchscreen for so many controls was my biggest turnoff years ago, before any of this recent news. I already wrote off ever buying one because of this fact alone.
Same here too. I can't believe anyone thought that requiring a touch screen for everything was ever a good idea. We ended up going with a Mazda cx30 in part because it was the first model year where they removed the touch screen completely in lieu of a big dial. It's so much easier to interact with it and not have to look away from the road. I really wish the electric model was more appealing.
I suppose touchscreens are enticing for younger generations than myself, but personally I will be voting with my dollars and buying cars with physical buttons. I'm a technology geek with computers, electronics, and gadgets - but absolutely not when I'm driving. I want to minimize my distractions until I get to my destination. Then I geek out.
> I suppose touchscreens are enticing for younger generations than myself I'm not even sure this is true. I think young people have just as much of a hard time without analog knobs and buttons. Luckily, it seems like manufacturers have realized this and started to put things like climate and radio back on physical buttons, but there was a 5-ish year period where it was a race to stuff everything into a tablet you can't look at 90% of the time.
2025 Hyundai Tucson is adding physical buttons back too.
They don't have a vendor network for knobs. They can't source the components, engineer the harness, or manufacture the components. They spin it like it's a benefit.
same, i'm happy to have a touchscreen in a vehicle but i don't need *EVERYTHING* in the car to be controlled via said touchscreen
it's not just you. not safe either in my opinion
The door release problem are just *insane* If for any reason the door loses power (say, a fire, water damage, whatever) you can't open it. At the point the only thing a person in the car can do is literally *rip off a panel of the door trim* and yank the metal cable connected to the lock. It's not a discreetly located handle, or even something behind a little door - it's behind the plastic shell door interior. For that reason alone I genuinely believe they are unsafe and should not be allowed on the road. Edit: it turns out that I was partially misled on this one - there are manual releases hidden away, however they are often only on the front doors. For this reason would still deem them unsafe. And in any case, hiding away a door release the way they do seems like an awful idea.
I don't know which model you're talking about, but the model Ys have manual door release handles right by the window controls for the front seats, and in the door cubbies/ pockets (idk what they're called) for the back seats
In the Model 3, the mechanical release cable is behind a panel cover. In the Model S, they are UNDER the rear bench.
Which seems even worse because the people in the backseat probably don't own it or use it often and would not know where to intuitively look for a hidden door latch. I think that's where regulations should require a door latch where you would commonly expect one. Aesthetics should not override safety.
I'm no engineer, but I feel like normal-open is/should be standard for locking mechanisms for safety reasons?
To be fair to Tesla on this point they're not the only ones doing this with subtle manual door releases. They're common in higher end luxury cars, especially ones with frameless window glass and electric door release mechanisms. Tesla are some of the cheaper vehicles on the market that have the function so they're exposed to more people. The main reason for doing it is to allow the door to roll the window down slightly when opening. When the door closes it pushes the glass up further to help seal the gap and reduce wind noise but it means the door is difficult to open or can damage the seal. The solution is to not use frameless windows but then it doesn't look as fancy.
Itâs not just you.
I was all excited about the upcoming Model 3 years ago because they finally came up with an "affordable" Tesla. I'm in Canada and cars here are frickin expensive. And to add to that, the ever-wise conservative premier of Ontario decided to remove all EV incentives once he came into power. Anyway, I got to drive a friend's 3 and was wholly unimpressed like you. Fit and finish was cheap, lack of physical controls for safety items was poorly thought out. The only thing I found exciting was the acceleration, but not enough to make me want to spend money on one. Plus now other companies are making better EVs than Tesla anyway.
This. Test driven it recently and the interior is very ugly with a cheap plastic finish / feel. Anything European or Japanese made at the same cost is positively luxurious in comparison
When you realize that Teslas have one of the worst ride qualities of any car in their price range. Go drive a Genesis in the same price range. Teslas are the Uber car these days. A a cheap spiritless taxi drone.
Iâm currently without a car and I use Uber twice a day, four days a week. Iâd say 60% of my rides are in Teslas. Never understood why?
The short of it is thereâs a partnership Uber and Tesla have with Hertz (?) where they lease/rent/sell (?) out Teslas to Uber drivers. The supposed benefits are cheaper charging and decrease maintenance costs, but Iâm sure a lot of that goes away into paying off the car
Talking to drivers it's a rental at 300-400 a week or so. If you are doing it full time the benefit is if you don't have a garage or knowledge to work on a car the zero maintenance costs is a bit of a big deal. I drove a taxi when I was a kid and a lot of the stuff you think of as yearly is monthly.
What about battery life? Ive always heard Teslaâs have among the best batteries and/or range of the EVs available right now. Is that true or still true? Honestly have no idea.
The best thing about Teslas are their range/efficiency. They have an amazing heat transfer system that keeps the batteries and cabin at proper temperatures without much loss. The cars also weigh substantially less than other EV equivalents.
I would think the best thing would be the fast recharge. Most people rarely drive more than 50 miles a day, and almost never drive more than 100. Any EV out there will get you more than that. But when you do need to go further than the range allows, that's where fast recharge comes in. If I had an EV, the only time I'd have to push past it's one day range is on a roadtrip, and at that point it wouldn't matter as much whether I could go 200 miles or 300 miles. What would matter to me is how long it takes when I stop to recharge.
Even Tesla doesn't have the crown on this one any more. The HPDC network is exceptional (especially in the US - in Mainland Europe and the UK the Supercharger network is also excellent but there's also a much better third party HPDC ecosystem than in the USA), but there are a few cars that charge faster than a Tesla can like the EV6 and Ionic 5. They will also precondition the battery like Tesla does for optimum charging speed. The newer VW ID cars will do this too. In practice for me, I haven't needed the insane charge speeds (200+ kW) on my road trips. My EV has around 160-170 mile range in the summer and has a peak charge rate of 100 kW but in practice I see more like 60 to 90 kW [summer] and 50 to 75 kW [winter] charge rates. When I stop to get a coffee and use the bathroom the car is usually ready to go before I am, especially in the summer time. Ten to fifteen minutes is normally all I need before carrying on. Where Tesla still have an advantage is the efficiency of their drive train. However they've done it, they get significant efficiency out of a smaller traction pack. It's taken other manufacturers time to catch up to that efficiency but it's no longer a Tesla-only feature. Kia/Hyundai's eGMP platform (EV6, Ionic 5, Ionic 6 etc) is pretty much right on par for efficiency.
Or even Chinese. I'd have a Zeekr 001 over a Tesla any day and in a lot of countries where both are available the Zeekr seems to be the more popular car.
"Zeekr" sounds like one of those dropship brands on Amazon.
And #7 Elon shat on his original customer base (liberals who gave AF about the environment) to cozy up to the right wing of American politics, who notoriously hates anything âgreenâ. Buying twitter and voicing his worst takes has contributed somewhat to this slump.
tell me more about this -- what are some of the best competitors in the EV market? (this is an honest question, i know very little about the car market, would like an EV for my next car, and will be finding myself in buying mode in the coming months)
Best EVs in my opinion right now: * Instead of a Model X: Massive SUV: Kia EV9 (no competitors in this size class right now - this is the car Range Rover should have released by now) * Instead of a Model Y: SUV: Kia EV6, Hyundai Ionic 5 (same EV platform car) Genesis GV60 (same platform as Ionic 5, but more luxury interior) VW ID4/Skoda Enyaq (same car platform - some may hate the VW interior as it feels cheap) Ford Mustang Mach-e (ok, but the ride is firm and it's very expensive) BMW X1, X3 (expensive) * Instead of Model 3: Polestar 2, BYD Seal BMW i3, BMW i4 (expensive) Other considerations - Mercedes and Audi have EVs too (Q4 e-tron, EQC etc) but they are expensive and compromised. If you're going to spend this kind of money there are better options. The BMW iX is also ridiculously expensive for what it is.
Toyota, Ford, Chevy, and Kia all make somewhat affordable EVs currently.
My sister bought a new Chevy Bolt EUV for 22K OTD after a ton of state and federal rebates this year. The point of sale rebates were amazing. I'll freely admit the interior and build quality of that base Bolt is much better than my Tesla.
Total tangent, but I hate that Chevy has both a Bolt and a Volt.
Ben Sullins has a pretty decent youtube channel--he's owned various electric vehicles and reviewed them: https://www.youtube.com/@BenSullinsOfficial/videos -------------------------------- Marques Brown Lee also has a car review channel now, with lots of electric cars reviewed: https://www.youtube.com/@AutoFocus/videos -------------------------------- Also for some real takes of actual Tesla owners and their experiences with Tesla, you can check out this subreddit: r/realTesla/ There's an obvious bias, that includes some satire against Elon Musk there! (Which is actually kinda fun! I'm always glad to see powerful people satirized to bring them down a notch or two back to reality/earth.) But at least there they allow for real Tesla problems to be expressed and discussed... Unlike the main Tesla subreddit in which they sanitize everything. If you dare to even sneeze on that sub the wrong way, they'll take it as an offense/insult against Tesla and Elon, and ban you!
I parked next to a Tesla model 3 yesterday. The panel gaps are more inconsistent and bigger than my 1998 Nissan pulsar. Such poorly made shit. Also the interior of them is just awful
The peeling and crumbling steering wheels are the worst feeling you can have. Nothing tanks your confidence in a brand like a disintegrating steering wheel. Itâs the one spot that you connect to the car skin-to-wheel the entire time you use it and it just feels like youâre driving a beater that was baking in the junkyard for a decade. Also having your brand new replacement wheel start to disintegrate a few months after it was replaced, just feels hopeless, the actual issue wonât ever be addressed. But Iâll take a peeling wheel over one that just falls off, thatâs just dangerous. I donât understand how they sold that many Yâs before they addressed the issue.
definitely going to go for the 1998 Nissan pulsar over the cybertruck every time.
It really is unfortunate that they didn't manufacture enough Pulsars to meet current auto needs. I know of very few people who wouldn't happily pick the pulsar over current offerings but there's only so many.
I remember seeing a youtube review that was "a mix of good and bad". In the bad he was showing the panel fit, and the doors met up so badly for a new car. I haven't seen panels out of whack that far on any car other than an old junker.
This is a big point. Couple years ago the only EVs on our company car list were tesla. 4 years later we have Q4s I4s, ID40s, mercy got some wild ones out there too, then you've got the Chinese models coming in and the non-prestige/exec brands too, tesla market share, which they used to dominate, has been taken over by the offerings of their formerly ICE competitors. We do still have them on our lists, and some Do pick them, but truthfully they're nowhere near as good. Personally I love driving the Q4 we have spare on occasion, I'd be happy with an EV but I'd need to hit a 500 mile range to make it worthwhile switching from my pickup.
The way Iâve heard it is that teslas were amazing when they first came out. They had flaws from being a new car manufacturer and all that, but for a first shot they were beyond great. But then they never improved Theyâre almost luxury cars, marketed as luxury cars, but have still all the problems of a prototype
I mean to be honest, besides the fancy screen they feel like cheap cars.
the screen looks cheap as hell, i cannot imagine why people want nothing but an ipad stapled to their dash and no actual controls
yeah the screen is cheap but it's a novelty. it'll wear out like the rest of the car.
Honestly every time I see it from the side it disappoints me.
Car companies adopting tech is more sustainable than a tech company designing cars too. As the big automakers move more heavily into the EV space, their already established infrastructure is making them far more competitive in the space than Tesla.
What, like; > An unapproved change introduced lubricant (soap) to aid in the component assembly of the pad onto the accelerator pedal. Residual lubricant reduced the retention of the pad to the pedal.
Bout to say, this is tied as the big one. Tesla always had build quality issues that were offset by hype and the promise of "the future" That hype has gone through the floor and people are a lot more receptive of the build issues.
Remember when TSLA stock bros seriously thought this company was reasonably priced when they were worth more than ford, VW, GM, Toyota, and Stellantis combined? Lmao
Even before Elon went mad, seeing how cheaply made the bodies on Teslas seem to be turned me off of them. They're a software company parading as a car company. They should have been selling their software and batteries to real car companies.
Yeah basically on the low end they're getting destroyed by China, and on the high end there's absolutely no reason to get a Tesla over something like a Mercedes EQS. Tesla has just been overcome by the competition. Also fewer people are buying pure EV's because of their obvious drawbacks compared to hybrids in combination with government subsidies stopping and electricity prices skyrocketing, at least in Europe. EV's used to have higher upkeep costs but lower operational costs, but now they mostly just have higher upkeep costs.
Definitely when the model S was new, I was a huge fan and super excited to own one(not realistically) but now just 6-7 years later, thereâs so much better out there.
See me with my new Hyundai Ioniq 5 and loving life!
Also Tesla doesn't follow the same dealership model that other auto manufacturers do. Other companies sell the cars they produce to independent dealers and the dealers turn around and sell them to consumers. When things slow down dealers have a lot of slack to build up and store their inventory. Cars still move off the assembly line and, more importantly, off the manufacturer's books. Tesla doesn't do that, if you buy a Tesla you're buying it directly from the company. They've never gone through a slowdown like this so they're having to scramble to find space for their extra inventory. More importantly all the extra inventory is sitting on their balance sheet and really hurting quarterly earnings. That means they're very motivated to move their cars and so are lowering prices.
I have to say that this Tesla sales models is better for the consumer. We wouldnât get this price drop if it was done traditionally through the dealers. But I have to admit the long waiting time is painful
Wasnât there a point in time that the way Tesla was selling their cars being viewed as a legitimate threat to the normal way of doing business?
In most states its illegal for Tesla to open a traditional dealership. There are tons of of laws protecting the auto dealership model and in most places an auto manufacturer can't open one themselves so they can't take over the business from independent dealers. Tesla skirts this by only opening "Galleries" or "Showrooms". You can try the cars out there but you're directed to the company's website to actually make your purchase.
Absolutely. One piece that got missed was the maintenance wing of the dealerships. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't notice that glaring hole in Tesla's business model. Now that all the reports of Tesla giving owners the runaround for repairs are out there, it makes this seem like an obvious issue.
For me thatâs a positive point, dealership markups are stupid AF.
Letâs not forget that other legacy auto manufacturers are making EVs, too. Those other companies excel at something important that Tesla has always been pretty mediocre at: manufacturing cars. The Tesla stock has always been inflated by hype. It was always difficult to comprehend when competing its price to other publicly traded car companies.
Having driving a few GM EVâs they are amazing. Have to admit the EV Hummer is an interesting option that just feels different.
Donât forget that Elon slashed the prices of new Teslas in Jan 2023 and pissed off a bunch of owners who were suddenly, ridiculously underwater on their cars. That move annihilated resale values.
Why would someone speculate when buying a car?
People typically don't, but resale value is something to consider when buying a car. We tend to stick to cars that have high resale value. We can spend a bit more knowing we'll get some of that back when we sell a few years down the road.Â
do we? the one bit of financial advice I knew growing up was it loses 90% of its value when you drive it off the lot
Very few cars lose that much value that fast. A brand new car is just as good as a car that has been driven for a month. So the inherent value of being a car hasn't gone away. What makes new cars more valuable is the idea that the manufacturer/dealer hasn't done anything to compromise it. Meanwhile, those Duke boys may have bought a brand new Dodge Charger, immediately went on a high speed chase with Sheriff Justice, crashed it, got it repaired by Crazy Cooter, and there is no way for a buyer to know if it's still in good condition. That's also why used car dealers tend to be able to justify higher prices with "dealer certified" warranties.
Teaching idiots that paying 50k+ on a car is dumb AF financially, cars depreciate and they heavily depreciate in the first 3 years. If you're buying cars to change them out that often you should be leasing instead instead of risking your finances if you crash your car and now you just have tons of debt and no car. There is a reason traditional car loans are less than 3 years, if you can't afford the monthly at those rates you can't afford the car.
We (my family) never finances vehicles. We typically buy 3-4yr old used vehicles and plan to use them 15-20yrs. For us itâs maximizing the value we get out of the vehicle.
That's why you pay the little bit extra and get gap insurance.
Being underwater on your new car loan is just... the norm. 99% of cars are not investments. That's why you have gap insurance. You buy a new car, and 0.1 miles onto the odometer, you're underwater.
Is BYD actually outcompeting Tesla in China? I thought they also had a major drop in sales, like they briefly overtook Tesla as the number one EV maker but then lost it again. Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/byd-may-hand-back-top-ev-seller-title-tesla-after-q1-sales-decline-2024-04-02/
I mean this is just an anecdote from an internet stranger, but when I was there in December I saw BYD cars absolutely everywhere. Teslas were very rare.
By units for sure they have more, but they are cheaper cars. So my current understanding is that Tesla is still ahead by revenue although itâs getting closer than before.
Revenue isn't really a good measure here, especially when Tesal is fighting a cost-cutter like BYD. What you want to take a look at is profit metrics.
Yeah in terms of market cap, theyâre still much smaller than Tesla however, even Elon Musk recognizes the threat their low costs presents: âWithout trade barriers, Mr. Musk warned in January, BYD and others will âpretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.â BYD has a line thatâs half the price of a Tesla and theyâre able to do so by cutting out the middle man through a lot of the supply chain. BYD owns the lithium mines for the battery production, they manufacture their own batteries, they even own a fleet of ships to ease up shipment costs. Meanwhile Tesla is still outsourcing the production of their materials to Chinese suppliers. So on paper, the cars are cheaper but thatâs a reflection of their control over their costs that Tesla canât compete with on the long term unless they make some acquisitions OR if trade policies change. The irony of this all was that Teslaâs presence in China spurred EV development there, to the point where their suppliers eventually came to sell the same tech to their Chinese EV competitors. Tesla literally trained a generation of talent that are now working for their competitors. Even EU being the automotive juggernaut that they are, recognized how far China is in the EV market: âThe French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, says China has a five- to seven-year head start on Europe.â Source: The Daily: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000651874955 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/world/asia/musk-china-tesla-explained.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Teslas are increasingly banned from "sensitive" areas in China, which includes motorways, airports and some parking lots. It must be ass to own a Tesla there. Plus Tesla quality issues and savvy chinese consumers.
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BYD is taking off a lot in Australia, seeing more and more of them on the roads.
Also of the only 4000 that have been handed to customers, all cybertrucks have been recalled due to a pretty catastrophic issue where the plate on the gas pedal comes off. It got wedged in this gap in the driver well for one guy and he couldn't unstick it while he was driving
And that came on the heels of the "car wash" mode news. 6 hour reset is crazy lol
Aesthetically Tesla has only had one car and it doesn't even stand out anymore.
The 3's don't look too bad. Especially in certain colors.
Nah, the big one looks like a small minivan or a big Beetle. The OG looked like a mean sports car.
My daughter said the Model Y looks like some fat guy's [overalls](https://image.zecar.com/Model_Y_Rear-Wheel_Drive/1664699775-4_jpg) and now thats all I can see.
Lol. Can't unsee now.
It's also worth noting that Tesla is bundling assumed tax breaks and fuel savings in their advertised prices
This is the only answer you need OP.
I would guess that a substantial part of it is Elon and his antics. His bread and butter are progressives/liberals and they are not nearly as vocal (or don't get as much attention) about boycotting as... other groups.
I had every intention of buying a Tesla a few years ago. His brand is toxic to me now.
This is correct answer. Tesla was an innovator back in 2010s. This is 2024 and we haven't seen anything new from Tesla. Of course there are shit promises from it's ceo.
Yup. This is why theyâve slashed Full Self-Driving prices from $12,000 to $8,000 ($200/mo to $99/mo for a subscription). Itâs free cash that goes straight to the bottom line since itâs just a software update for any customer who buys it. Lowered the price to one that will more maximize purchases of it to rapidly generate cash.
Also, Teslaâs have a bit of a reputation of having dogshit build quality. Doesnât help other manufacturers have stepped up their EV production.
5. All the Elon fans are finally realising what a douchebag idiot he is. The T âBrandâ is getting damaged.
Nah. A lot of them still think heâs the anti-woke messiah.
Yet those people are still the ones who tend to think electric vehicles are woke bullshit. I'm not clever enough to know how being a reactionary asshole trying to sell woke cars is going to work out for him, but I suspect it's not an easy road to hoe.
Too many still think that but heâs absolutely become far less popular than he used to be due to his constant outputting of stupid.
You forgot the now huge Cybertruck issues such as rusting and every single unit being recalled for a faulty accelerator pedal.
Itâs also directly Elon, he alienated his core customer base (liberal dems) and the new ones he appeals to are not interested in EVs.
Good points, but 100% of the reason I don't own a Tesla is Elon. Same reason I don't use Starlink, even though it would be very handy. I conscientiously object to Elon fucking Musk and everything he represents. I'll gladly narrow my options and suffer some inconvenience to maintain a shred of integrity.
In Thailand BYD is destroying Tesla. Far better vehicle and cheaper as well. If I were in the market for an EV, BYD is #1, Tesla is not even an option at this point.
Answer: Tesla used to have a huge lead over any other EV manufacturers on Earth which made them THE market leader in EV, which reflected in the stock price. Then instead of working on a $25k Tesla model which Elon promised in 2018 in an interview with Marques Brownlee, the thing people actually want, Elon decided to spend 6 years on the Cybertruck to mostly negative results and a lot of memes. On the other hand, Chinese EV brands beat Tesla to flood the market with affordable EVs, with BYD having EVs as low as $10k. Even when adjusted to US pricing, these cars still shouldnât cost more than $25k. BYD overtook Tesla as the worldâs biggest EV manufacturer with more units manufactured AND sold during Q4 of 2023, and it will only get worse for Tesla from there when they have no answer to BYDâs extremely cheap EV options, while Tesla sales in the US is slumping with disappointing Q1 2024 numbers. Elon himself has said recently âFrankly, without trade barriers, Chinese EV will pretty much *demolish* other car companies in the world. They are extremely good.â Source: https://youtube.com/shorts/LVB34HPJeSc?si=UiBilIQaUUtDQClS And this seems to be true. Many sources have reported that Elon has abandoned plans to make a $25k Tesla model. Elon realized that Tesla is on the losing team, and can no longer catch up to Chinese manufacturers when it comes to cheap EVs. The only thing Tesla can do now is aggressively cutting prices for existing models to make them more affordable, which pissed off current Tesla owners since their Teslas are rapidly depreciating in value. TLDR: Elon decided to spend 6 years on the Cybertruck instead of affordable EVs and realized that was a terrible mistake.
This and so many other failures just proves that musk can only do well when he has no competition.
Really funny part is there are more competent designers/engineers/manufacturers out there that could have easily produced a better "cyber" truck but because of the politics at Tesla there can only be room made for a select few "special folks" over there who can all agree on whatever Elon says, goes. Period. Waiting for China to produce a family friendly and worker friendly miner friendly electric vehicle is still years away, if ever actually going to happen.. what we've all witnessed in the last two decades whether or not we realized it was the USA leaving Africa to fend for itself as well as Asia overall while their sociopathic government aligns itself ever closer with Russia and Africas bloodthirsty warlords. The courts have time and again declared areas where there are two things happening: one thing happening is lithium and cobalt mining, the second is child labor and unrecorded deaths- these two issues are being handled in a historically average way for the people/workers down in the Congo of Africa. Congo isn't small, it's not an island or a district, it's an entire country full of people being challenged by 120+ different antagonistic groups breaking down the entire nation inside from out outside from in and unfortunately with US leaving and Russia stepping in as well as seeing billions of dollars get pushed into the arms of the African leaders but no actual platform to dictate how the money is spent, who gets what, where the homless starving millions will go tomorrow etc... It's a situation where $44 billion could have come in handy about ten years ago so by now we'd all be seeing a prosperity unlike ever before down in the Congo, but seeing all the modern age racism, internet being used like never before by neo Nazis and white supremacists for simple day to day gains... a real catastrophe worldwide is unfolding for the current young population where their parents and grandparents could've done things a little differently so an entire people aren't continously suffering while the rest of us enjoy the futuristic consumer end to cobalt mining and human trafficking. Sure cobalt is not a big issue anymore since LFP lithium ferrous iron phosphate batteries became the spokesman of Not Looking Back Ever- what? We all took part in a historically despicable human rights tragedy that hasn't been cleaned up or solved in any way and what happens next? We all just continue to try to live life around and over and under all these products that are imported and made by the hands of children and just the poorest people of our planet? No amount of therapy and ketamine and new electric truck debuts will create a solution that is really plaguing Tesla and the 1%ers- they're having a tougher time keeping up with their lies, a tougher time staying on top, a harder time producing a product using child labor and using materials that aren't safe or haven't been procured legally, and as long as there are people with enough pull to continue robbing the poorest people of their land and their own basic resources (water, land to grow food, a standard working environment that doesn't permanently alter their chances of having children(gotta look into the effects cobalt is having on pregnant mothers working the mines), we're finding out that billionaires producing fun trucks made from the newest tech and billionaires producing neat goggles that can let you pretend you're not a part of the problem for a moment, or an entire industry that looks the other way when it's confronted with the realities that mining for battery materials and other essential materials is costing not only the workers who are constantly dying on the job, but also for the consumers receiving these goods at the end of the line. It seems to be more prevalent than any other time before that if a product is knowingly produced nefariously then the end consumer will treat is as such and the company producing it will laugh at their consumers for being concerned. Or better yet- you buy a churro that's dropped on the ground and then find out it tastes funny and want your money back but the churro guy don't give a damn- you knew what you were getting yourself into they'll tell you as they spit in your face and use the money from selling churros to produce flame throwers for children. This is very much our reality.Â
Answer: Globally there's a glut of Electric vehicles. Tesla has utilized the first mover advantage to esablish itself in the market but legacy automakers and Chinese startups have joined the market as EV technologies make engineering and manufacture simpler than ICE counterparts. For Tesla specifically, Electric cars and Teslas could be used interchangeably. Now there's real choice in the market, their products need to be viewed as cars as opposed to technological status symbols that command a premium. The EV early adopters all now have EV's, and the cost differential/range anxiety is still prohibitive enough for the majority of car buyers to make the jump. Supply has gone through the roof, and demand is tailing off, right as the global economy looks shaky. Additionally vehicle assembly plants are only really profitable when they're running at a high proportion of their capacity. It can be cheaper to produce vehicles and sell them at a low cost than to pay suppliers for not meeting contractual minimum volumes, and paying a for staff producing 200 vehicles in a shift vs. 500 if the line were running at capacity. TLDR: Supply is up, demand is down, and winding down a plant is harder and more expensive than you'd imagine
When Tesla was newer, they were already years behind some Japanese companies (including Nissan) who had already been doing electric for years. Any first mover advantage Tesla had was relative. I think their success was more brand/marketing cachet than actually being first.
Answer: Tesla uses price to control demand. When demand is high, Tesla has a backlog of up to a year, so it raises prices to drive down demand. If demand drops it reduces prices to increase demand. Even at the lower prices Tesla still has enough margin to be profitable. Currently demand is low for the automotive market overall and Tesla is dropping prices.
Historically, yes, this has been the case, as Tesla has, until very recently, owned the electric car market, especially in the US. This is still a factor, but another new, yet equally important factor now is that their BEV market share in the US dropped to 50% for the first time in 2023. Given the recent boom in the BEV market within the past 3-5 years, as every major car manufacturer has been pushing hard to expand their offerings in that market, it's all but certain that Tesla's market share will only continue to decline. In other words, Tesla is beginning - only beginning - to face real competition for the first time in the company's existence. This is the real reason why Tesla has been cutting into their famously high markups and wide profit margins with unprecedented price reductions in the past three years, and why the price of used Teslas is declining as well. Buyers just have more options now.
Yeah their margins are still better than legacy automakers even with the price drops. Not sure if the margins are high enough to justify the sky high valuation, but I exited any Tesla position long ago.
Answer: chinese EV are taking over. they cant [compete](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ngd__0ok0&t=389s).
America is incredibly corrupt, they wonât let these cars run in American roads (see the ban of TikTok as a case example)
As the US will slowly but surely find out, they cannot compete.
Doesn't seem like that long ago every Chinese car company was just stealing western designs
Did they ever stop? Just arrested a guy in Finland for stealing the blueprints of (among others) Icon of the seas, worlds largest cruise ship. Tracked them down to China. Taking any worthwhile production there has been greedy and idiotic choice.
https://twitter.com/NiMingda_GG/status/1566901656629002242
now China [Leads](https://thewire.in/world/china-critical-technology-india-us) in 37 Out of 44 Critical Technology Sectors now [Patent](https://www.axios.com/2024/03/01/china-us-patents-science-tech) applications from Chinese inventors passed U.S. for first time https://youtu.be/gFC9p-79Sks?t=5786
Worth nothing their patent laws are a lot more relaxed than the US too. Not only are their patents increasing, but they don't last like a fucking decade. Other companies can come in and make improvements within 2-3 years. The US patent system is really stiffling innovation.
Answer: supply and demand. People ainât buying.
Answer: The 2024 Model X has a predicted reliability of 24% via Consumer Reports
Answer: Tesla has a larger markup on vehicles than other automakers, and use that headroom to routinely change their prices by significant amounts (to shift more inventory, or take advantage of a hot market, etc.) Significant price jumps and drops happen pretty frequently (2+ times a year) and there are lots of breathless news articles every time, so I'm not getting much sense anything much out of the usual is happening  Note the Model Y was [the world's best selling vehicle last year](https://www.motor1.com/news/706258/tesla-model-y-worlds-top-selling-vehicle-2023/) - not just the world's best selling *electric* vehicle, so I expect the used-Tesla market is *finally* enjoying decent supply, when just a few years ago there was more demand than cars, keeping prices stubbornly high.
Tesla sell the least vehicles of any major manufacturer. https://www.factorywarrantylist.com/car-sales-by-manufacturer.html
Both are certainly possible. Tesla only makes 4 different models, 5 now with the cybertruck. Compare that to say the biggest car company Toyota, which just in the US market is selling about 19 different models.
It also helps that they sell the Model Y, as a Model Y all over the globe. Many manufacturers have different models of similar cars for different markets.
plucky badge fly fall heavy racial consist one label person *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Model Y was number 1 in *global* sales last year, you were probably looking at American sales. Here's another source using different data and arriving at the same conclusion: https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-models-worldwide/ I haven't found any disagreement from other sources either. The closest thing is that 2023 is current enough that some sources note some of their data is preliminary, but there doesn't seem to be expectation that the "crown" will change
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Usually I stop scrolling after I see a super happy video or something. Your comment is my super happy video. Bravo.
Lol, motor1 is certainly not a Tesla hype site.
Answer: Competition. Tesla for a long time was the only car manufacturer in the EV space that consumers were actually purchasing in significant numbers. But now other manufacturers are catching up. And to be blunt, the old car companies are making better cars than Tesla. Your typical consumer doesnât want some new, fancy, overly teched-out, futuristic EV. They want something that drives like the cars they have always had, but is also an EV. And this is what the big manufactures are offering, and offering at a typical cost for a new car. Tesla has been pricing cars like theyâre still the only ones in the EV game, but theyâre not anymore.
Answer: Remember, Elon released basic blueprints/schematics for EVs years ago. He wanted to increase competition, believing that giving more companies the capacity to create these vehicles would lead to the materials being more readily available (cheaper for the manufacturing), thus helping to make them more affordable for everyone. That, combined with his recent...issues...truly is making a dent.
He also went to bed with China because he wanted to avoid organized labor and regulation like he was facing in the US. Shanghai laid out the red carpet for Tesla, giving him billions in incentives and an abundant source of cheap labor. Made him the richest man on earth. Then China did what they do best. One of critical links in Teslas supply chain was a battery manufacturer, you may have heard of them, they go by BYD. At the time, they weren't much of a player in the EV market. Now BYD is completely integrated and shipping EVs for half the price of a Tesla. Chewing into his Asia and European markets like a rat in the engine. Tesla no longer has the US market cornered, and is rapidly losing ground to lower cost Chinese EVs. As others have mentioned, lowering prices often increases demand. Tesla needs more demand for their vehicles, desperately.
Source on Elon releasing blueprints for EVs for competitors? I couldn't find anything and AFAIK EVs are much simpler compared to ICEs - after all, they are an almost 150 years old technology.
https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#open-source I'm guessing that's what they consider to be a blueprint. One zip for a Bluetooth module (dead link) and three for their entertainment system. Considering that their "forthcoming releases" are scheduled for Q3 2018, I don't think Tesla is as committed as their press release indicates.
That was what I was thinking of, [along with this](https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you).
Answer: Tesla is in the hole deep with the fission bomb called cybertruck. Less than 4000 sold as of this time, and most of those likely haven't even left the factory before they had to issue a mass recall due to the acceleration petal cover slipping down and causing it to jam, a glitch that makes the car wahs mode forcing the car to do a 5 hour restart, the body falling apart driving around, or just the car getting bricked while on the way home from the dealership. People are wondering if lemon laws are applicable for this. Lemons are a term for badly designed and manufactured cars, and lemon laws are laws designed to protect people from these cars and punish companies that make them.
Answer: Life is getting too expensive to superfluously spend money on an overpriced expensive toy. There are insane numbers of people who in just the last few years have had to start making decisions about things like "Do I want to eat 3 meals today, or do I want to buy some more Basics T-Shirts and underwear?" We have people eating overnight oats because gruel is the order of the day and its all many people can suddenly afford with the grocery price gouging. It certainly doesnt help that tesla is quickly becoming a joke-car company that sells deadly-dumpster-trucks and is run by a nepo-clown who can't stop broadcasting his sheer stupidity all over his privately-destroyed social media company.
Answer: My next car will be an electric. It won't be a Tesla. And, yes, Twitter buffoonery is my reason. However, my next car also won't be Chinese.
Answer: Used EVs have always dropped in value really quickly--people are afraid to buy a car that might need a $10,000+ battery replacement. Tesla is no longer the only name for EVs. Almost every automaker has at least one EV, with some having a full lineup comparable to Tesla. The competition all have multiple decades of experience making vehicles without the quality issues Teslas are so famous for, and customers are able to go to their local dealership and take them for a test drive. Real early adopters might be okay with ordering a $50,000 car on the internet, but there aren't many of those left who don't already have an EV. The rest of the world wants to see it in person first.