I’m glad there finally seems to be a push to a better standard in North America.
I’m really curious how this affects Teslas market share though going forward.
Their supercharger network is why we continue with them despite countless other issues. It’s their biggest moat as far as I’m concerned.
Now I have significantly more options, and my next car will not be a Tesla. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
Is the brand name of being effectively the gas station of EVs worth it to them? I assume there’ll be a surcharge , so is it better for them to have the biggest slice of much smaller pies?
The thing about how this is affects Tesla is "compared to what?"
Compared to the historic status quo where there were no other chargers, and Tesla had exclusive access to a large-ish proprietary charging network, it looks like Tesla giving up their advantage, and seems bad.
But the forward-looking status quo was going to be a gigantic network of CCS chargers that makes Tesla's proprietary network look small, with every other car maker using CCS. In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere.
Compared to _that_ status quo, this is a huge win for Tesla (and one that back-foots every other carmaker, which -- if NACS does take off -- need to do their own migration to a new charging port and strand their existing customers with the adapter life, making their earliest adopters angry and frustrated). So yeah, this is a great move for Tesla, and GM and Ford in enabling it are total idiots. (Rivian is just going along with the semi-inevitable at this point.)
Also one other detail: There's a hell of a lot more money in the car 'fuel' industry than the car making business. R&D costs are way lower, you don't need that many employees, and you can always charge these third party automakers more. Tesla is going to make bank off these adopters.
Most EVs charge at home most of the time, so there isn't that much money in the "fuel" industry, they are mostly needed for long distance trips (and so crowd up on holiday weekends), not daily driving.
Umm, there's a significant chunk of the world's population who will likely never be able to charge at home, because they live in apartments and park on-street.
"EV owners who live in apartment buildings and park on the street will rely heavily on public chargers—in 2021, 42 percent of European EV owners living in cities had no access to home charging points."
Public chargers =/= DC fast chargers (like Tesla superchargers).
I've already seen level 2 chargers that drop down from light posts in my city. Roll those out to every light post near apartment buildings and throw in some curb-side stalls if you need more capacity. Most people won't need to charge every night with 200/300mi+ range, so you won't need a 1:1 mapping of chargers to cars. This way, people charge passively overnight at stations that are cheaper to build than DC fast chargers.
Apparently LED can use less than 100W, and before LEDs streetlights would use 250-400W . The really bright sodium ones were 1000W, but those probably weren't over your neighborhood sidewalk.
I wouldn't make investment decisions on that kind of prediction. Slower (cheaper) chargers will take much of the load, and unless outlawed, are going to heavily bite into fuel station margins. The best they can do is charge more for DC fast charging when it is needed (during holiday weekends).
In the US, most apartment dwellers park in a garage, which can and will be retrofitted with chargers. Street parking is the major challenge. In Park Slope Brooklyn, I often see a lone cable coming out of a brownstone out to a Tesla on the street. :-)
What is your stats for most apartment people Park in a garage? Where I live garages cost a hefty amount extra and the apartment complex doesn't even have enough for more than a quarter of the residents anyway
On street parking is very much allowed only in some countries, the biggest one being the USA, but much of western Europe it is disallowed (or at least, you pay for it by the hour). Many countries require proof of parking spot before they will let you even buy a car.
Even in that case, it isn't hard for cities to put out L2 charging pylons at each on-street parking space. They can just combine it with street light infrastructure or whatever (they would also be able to monetize street parking at that point, which is inevitable anyways).
> Even in that case, it isn't hard for cities to put out L2 charging pylons at each on-street parking space.
How does this work for physical logistics? e.g. I’m a two-car household that can’t practically reduce to a single car, with a driveway that only fits one car. (That my partner uses.) I street park in front of my house, and there’s street/sidewalk/lawn. The only place I can think of to put a charging station is in my lawn with some kind of arch over the sidewalk to reach my car. Also becomes problematic as street parking spots aren’t reserved. (I could potentially remove a tree from my front yard and pave over it to provide another parking space, but that’s not a very appealing solution.)
Are your electric lines all buried? I guess if they are that would make it much more difficult. Otherwise, you have poles or something to keep the lines in the air.
I'm just amazed America has so much free parking still. People buy houses, even if they have garages, they use the garage as storage and park their car on the street. Having lived in other countries where that simply can't happen, its like this country practically gives away parking spaces for free.
Yes, utilities are all buried. Electrical doesn’t even come from the street side of the house, it comes in from a utility corridor behind my house.
Also have a garage, but isn’t practical to park in it for various reasons, some more fixable than others. (It’s set up as a home gym which I view as essential for my health, it’s single car and parking in the driveway would block in the garage, it doesn’t have a floor drain or appropriate slope for draining which is fairly important for winter snowmelt, and it doesn’t have an automatic door opener.)
Seattle has lots of garages like that, so much so that they no longer dig basements for new housing (lots of old garages are basically a decline to a basement with a garage door). Seattle is one of those cities that doesn't enforce parking minimums, so street parking is otherwise over prescribed by new dense housing projects going up (unlike say LA).
I don't think street parking is sustainable. We build denser, and without parking, it is eventually going to fall apart where too many people are going to be fighting it out for too few street parking.
Depends. In Japan you're only allowed to buy a car if you have a free parking space on your property. A police office will come by your home to verify that the number of parking spots on your property is enough to house all the cars you plan on having. So in this case you would just have to deal with only having one car, or pave over the lawn to fit another parking spot.
At least in Germany, most city areas where people live are "Anwohnerparken", so people who live on the street are allowed to park on the street, nobody else.
I offered to pay for a charger to be installed in my spot, and the hoa board flat out refused. Granted, they're old, and are probably still upset about the switch to unleaded gasoline...
The latest rounds of gas convenience stores have gotten more square footage than earlier generations. I suspect they are anticipating indoor seating for charging customers at some point.
I’ve also started seeing joint ventures where it’s a proper coffee stand or in one case I can think of an A&W root beer.
Gas stations tend to be physically separated from pastimes (what Burger King owner wants diesel fumes in their store?), and someone at least is hedging their bets that won’t always be the case. I don’t know if they’ll see the fruits but their kids absolutely will.
I've been seeing some of these as well in recent years.
The most memorable one was down in Louisville, where there was a gas station/bait shop/bar. The bartender sold me some whole-hog pork sausage at $2/lb. which he kept in a duffel bag in the ice box. Totally on the up-and-up.
Another is a well-known BBQ joint / convenience store out by Kansas City (I forget the name).
Most common, I think, is having a Subway inside the convenience store. I've seen Burger Kings as well.
That is a very astute observation! Thank you. I have wondered why more and more convenience stores are getting into not just quick, pick-up snacks, but full blown fast-food style sit down environment.
Recently when I drove around in the USA, I saw Sheetz, Wawa, Royal Farms, Rutter's, and High's. These are substantially larger with lots of amenities compared to the standard gas stations. Nothing compared to Buc-ee's, but still getting up there.
Not sure about the others, but at least for Wawa and Royal Farms: many locations have offered fast-food style options for a very long time, like 25+ years, maybe more.
Wawa has always been known for quality. I remember years back when there was a romaine lettuce shortage, they put up deeply apologetic signs about how they're temporarily substituting iceberg lettuce in their sandwiches.
Meanwhile Royal Farms is known for their fried chicken. Although, the one near my college in Baltimore was more known for being a frequent target of robberies :/
On a road trip, I recently ate at a Sheetz in central PA that had Electrify America chargers. Good food selection, similar to Wawa. Not the best overall experience though -- an unhinged lunatic flipped out at me for leaving a single unused napkin on my table (which lacked a napkin dispenser, and the place had no recycling can). I avoided that charging location for my return trip...
Sheetz, Wawa and Royal Farms all already have Tesla chargers. Wawa has a location in Virginia with no gas pumps but Tesla chargers. So yes they are already planning for this future.
In poking around with PlugShare in the Seattle area, I'm seeing Arco gas/convenience stores with chargers. "EV Connect" is what is marked on the map. One is near the office that I don't go to anymore, but next time I'm that way to pick up hardware, I'll check it out. IIRC, there's no real room to build out the lot, but maybe the store could expand.
Gas station stores are moving in on grocery stores.
There's a huge war brewing that most people don't even know about, but once grocery stores started imitating Costco and offering gas, the convenience stores have been firing back by undercutting grocery stores on staples.
Around here they'll even undercut Walmart on dairy and select produce.
I think this alternate future of a gigantic CCS network is a really long ways off. Have you ever tried to use non-Tesla DC fast charging? It's a mess! There aren't a lot of stalls, one of them is usually broken, and the payment processing is a mess! I thought people were exaggerating until I experienced it first hand. While I think they will eventually get their act together, I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that the terrible DC fast charging experience is a huge deterrent to non-tesla EV buyers right now. This ultimately creates a chicken and egg problem that results in such slow progress in the EV charging world (outside of Tesla.) It's why Tesla's US EV market share is around 60%.
I actually think this is great for Tesla in other ways in the nearer term. With other automakers switching to NACS, this removes a huge concern for would be non-Tesla EV buyers. Now you may think this would erode Tesla's market share, but I think it will convert far more ICE customers than Tesla customers. The net effect is a faster EV adoption, faster cultural acceptance of EVs, and more people considering Tesla in the near-mid term.
I fail to see how this negatively affects Ford, GM, and Rivian. They can retrofit the charge port relatively cheaply or deal with an adapter. Yes, it affects resale value of early customers. But that's how it goes with new technology, and buyers are naive to think otherwise. Besides, when compared to their ICE counterparts, they're probably still coming out ahead on maintenance.
> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere.
They've switched to CCS in Europe and as far as I can tell it's going just fine for them. Not sure what would motivate them to pull this risky move besides an insane love for their customers' UX (which ... I doubt).
> In that world, Tesla would have had to switch their cars over to CCS eventually and retrofit their existing chargers to CCS, and people who bought Teslas with the proprietary plug have a terrible UX of needing adapters everywhere.
It should be noted that in any case Tesla will have to support CCS, though in its CCS2 version. It is the de facto standard in Europe and is in the process of making their chargers in Europe fully compatible since the M3 comes with CCS2 by default here. And it is unlikely to change any time soon, CHAdeMO is dying here and all the other networks are using CCS2 (which seems to be much better than CCS1 if I trust the complaints about CCS1 I read on HN).
In fact Type 2 or Combo2 (CCS2) is an EU requirement for the charging stations so while you can offer alternatives, all new charging stations must offer of those two.
Yes. CCS2 has not technically won yet as being the default port for all EVs in Europe, but any other option would have to have significant advantages over CCS2 to win, features that a potential CCS3 version would not be able to support.
My friend who is not an EV driver got stuck with an EV rental (Bolt) for a semi-rural trip and boy was that a ton of drama.
I’ve been thinking hard about an EV myself and now I’m looking at PHEVs instead. I’ve gotten a crash course in EV charging around here and it’s not good. Level 2 chargers are not for spontaneous trips and level 1 chargers are fucking pointless. It estimated two and a half days to charge from 40-80% at my house. My house was wired for level 2 charging by the previous owners but the plug is 220 3 prong rather than the NEMA 14-50 plug that seems to be de rigeur lately. At least I could probably get an electrician to fix that cheap.
If anything the non CCS chargers are made by idiots.
What they say is dead on -- EVs are great, but getting an EV in a rental situation that's not optimal for an EV without notice and without planning for it is a terrible, terrible situation.
Level 2 chargers are great in your garage, or in a place you're going to park for a long time anyway (hotels, say), but for quick top-offs on a road trip, yeah, not good.
I have a hybrid, basically get 30 miles on a charge. It’s frankly perfect!
To put it simply, there are two types of modes I drive - short & in town or long (100+ mile round trip).
There is absolutely zero chance I’ll be using an EV to drive over 100 miles as there’s a risk I get stuck for hours or even need a tow.
For in town trips, 20-30 miles is more than fine and I never even switch to gas. There’s very little trips in between.
Tesla holds a decent spot for suburban regions where you drive 10-120 miles round trip. Arguably that’s probably fine for half of America. Particularly, if you have two cars (one gas, one electric) as most households with EVs do.
Dumb you're getting downvoted, because the charging infrastructure is bad. I was "EV curious" and recently rented a Kia EV with a 250 mile range for a trip to Northern California. I had two purposes - drive to/from San Francisco and Sacramento. Drive all around the Sacramento metro area. I figured California, probably having the best EV infrastructure, would make the experience a good one. I was wrong.
1) Half the stations we attempted to charge at were broken for various reasons. Sometimes it was the payment system. Sometimes it was charging as a whole. sometimes the CCS side was broken, sometimes the Tesla side was broken. Sometimes the screen was broken. The point is these are not-simple machines with massive amounts of electricity going through them. Many things break.
1/1 Davis
2/4 Davis
1/2 El Dorado Hills
0/3 Palo Alto
1/1 Palo Alto
2) Vendors. All terrible. All except one municipal L2 required you to download their app. Thankfully all allowed guest charging, but if I was evil, I'd require users to register. Good chance they're desperate, and good chance you're the only charger in the area.
The experience didn't put me off on EVs, and I'm still considering getting one because I can charge at home. Relying on infrastructure, though, is a terrible idea.
You just need a good EV. PHEV is like buying a typewriter with a screen when everyone is already buying computers. I have had a pure EV since 2019 and never had charging problems like that and I drive a lot. I have the 14-50 at home and it charges quickly, every morning I’m at 80% charge. Spend $100 to get an electrician to fix that for you.
Different people have different driving patterns and different needs.
Some parts of the country have less (and crappier) charging infrastructure. Those parts of the country coincide with areas where places are further apart and you need more range. For some of us who happily live in flyover states, a PHEV is an awesome in between.
I'm glad that an EV works out for you. Hopefully charging times (and charging infrastructure) will improve so that an EV works out for me as well. Until then, a PHEV works well for me and is far more efficient than a pure ICE.
I lived in a rural location and now in suburbs and still never had any issues, even 4 years ago when there were far fewer chargers. Here is a map of the level 2+ chargers in the country:
With 300 miles of range all you have to do is get to the next charger and if you're willing to spend 5 minutes in advance to plan your road trip it really doesn't add any extra time if you stop to charge while eating, using the restroom, etc. I like the extra cargo space not having an internal combustion engine gives me.
I've done 300 actual miles with my model 3 (long range) and now with my X as well. I've heard the Ioniq has good range as well and I'm sure more models are being released every few months from other brands with actual ranges over 300
> I lived in a rural location and now in suburbs and still never had any issues, even 4 years ago when there were far fewer chargers. Here is a map of the level 2+ chargers in the country:
As he said, different circumstances can shift the solution point. What you have someone that doesn't have a data plan on their phone, or doesn't carry a smartphone and thus doesn't have access to a mapping app? Or the charge point requires a smartphone app that I don't connectivity to use with?
For me as well an EV is questionable. My gas burning SUV is $1100 a year to insure, tax included. A Tesla Model 3 at the same level insurance would could me $6014 a year before taxes. I don't drive enough to save $5000 in gas and maintenance a year.
Then there's my garage. Long story short, the best it can do right now is 120V 6A charge speed. To properly upgrade my garage to support a full EV would cost an additional $2500. Assuming if I also have to upgrade the electrical mains from 100A to 200A, it's $15,000 to $25,000. And my electricity costs 20 cents a kilowatt hour.
Does buying an EV it still make sense after all that if you were in my circumstances?
You need fast charging at home, end of story. If you can only get 120V at home, forget it. That being said once you do get it, it's so nice never having to stop at a gas station again.
As for insurance, you should shop around. Not sure what's on your driving record, but it was $90/mo for me to insure my brand new model 3 when I had that vehicle. But I don't have any tickets/accidents or large claims.
I just got on Intact’s website and got a quote for one John Smith, 18 year old male from Branford, Ontario. John wanted a quote on a Tesla Model 3 Performance. Their quote was $3200/year.
You want to try and explain why it is that you are getting quotes that are twice that of the highest risk drivers?
You are right. I mistakenly failed to pay the parking meter on time 7 or 8 years and was issued a ticket. Of course I threw myself at the mercy of the courts; a simple mix up of days I pleaded. It was not the statutory holiday I thought it had been that would have waived the parking fees. And I paid my ticket immediately. But they would have none of it. So unforgivable was my crime, so heinous, so far murder or rape, that there could only be one punishment that could be appropriate for my sin; to be executed.
I await on death row now. The chosen method of execution is to be killed by old age 60 or 70 years from now, being withered and worn by the ravages of time. Most cruelly in the interim, I am expected to work a 37 hour work for 48 weeks out of the year in grueling conditions. A climate controlled office with an ergonomic chair in front of a computer with Visual Studio Code open.
Sometimes it seems like if it would not have been kinder to simply kill me there and then. Those days I ask myself why they keep me here. Just to suffer?
tl;dr
No accidents, no claims, no criminal activity on record except the one parking ticket. I don't pretend to comprehend why the quotes are that way for me.
In comparison my current SUV is $1100 a year same level of coverage as that quote. Just for fun I got a quote for an 2022 Acura NSX a while ago and it was $1500 a year, and the NSX is quite a bit more expensive then a Model 3.
For a 33 year old driver, single, male, unmarried, with no tickets/accidents/etc., living in Sudbury, ON:
Intact Insurance:
2022 Tesla Model S LR 4DR: $178.17/mo [1]
2022 Acura NSX Hybrid 2DR AWD: $535.08/mo [2]
TD Insurance:
2022 Tesla Model S LR 4DR: $232.42 [3]
2022 Acura NSX Hybrid 2DR AWD: "CALL" [4]
Rather than calling I went to BrokerLink, which lets you get quotes from different sources. The average quotes given by BrokerLink for each vehicle were:
2022 Tesla Model S LR 4DR: $360/mo [5]
2022 Acura NSX Hybrid 2DR AWD: $520/mo [6]
So no, I do not believe you are being honest. There is no reason to believe that.
You must have a terrible record or something. No one is getting quoted $6k/year unless they have a felony hit and run on their record or something equally as egregious. Not even in Canada.
I don’t have either, but it seems to me a PHEV is a great EV alternative for people who do a lot of local (city) driving and also occasionally need a vehicle to do weekend trips for camping, etc, where charging is not available or an inconvenience.
The part of my brain that doesn’t understand how photovoltaics work really wants solar panels on EVs but aside from keeping the cabin at ambient, which does in fact have some mileage value, all they would really achieve is keeping self discharge at bay.
If you parked it with a 50 mile range and came back a week later, it might still have 50 miles of range.
My household has an EV, a home level 2 charger, and I still wouldn't mind getting an PHEV. Not even for the weekend trips, but just because it's cheaper than another full EV, and I don't really drive enough to need the range beyond the battery on a PHEV.
As for your plug, that's cheap and easy to replace (literally the homeowner can do it in most jurisdictions, be safe) - the question is the size of the breaker/wire routed to the plug.
If your breaker is fifty amps, then changing for NEMA 14-50 shouldn't be more than $100-200 even if you hire a master electrician.
If the breaker is NOT fifty amps, then you have to carefully check that the wire is the sized correctly all the way from the box to the outlet (it can LOOK right coming out of the breaker box, and look right going into the outlet box, but somewhere hidden in the walls it changes to an incorrect size).
What do you mean by this? Do you mean "public L2 chargers" or private in-home L2 chargers? If public, I agree--it would take 4 hours to charge your car on a road trip, but if private then just keep your car charged to 80-90%.
> My house was wired for level 2 charging by the previous owners but the plug is 220 3 prong rather than the NEMA 14-50 plug that seems to be de rigeur lately. At least I could probably get an electrician to fix that cheap.
There are multiple NEMA 3-prong 220V standards, at least one of which is 50V and at least Tesla sells charger adapters for all of them. If you're buying an EV though you may as well shell out the extra $500 + labor and have an electrician install the dedicated charger (so you can keep your portable charger in the car for traveling).
> If anything the non CCS chargers are made by idiots.
I'm not sure what this means either. The Tesla charger isn't CCS and I haven't had any problems with it. Also, plenty of CCS chargers suck (at least one of the CCS standards is exclusively L2).
For the large majority of driving PHEVs are superior. They offer identical efficiency for short (<50 mile) trips at a large cost savings. They can handle longish trips where a BEV would wind up dead on the side of the road. Even in the rare circumstances where BEVs are better the advantages are slight.
There are downsides: extra weight of a gas engine, more mechanical complexity, and weird maintenance, especially if its an gas engine your not using very often. The person I know who has one went a couple months without using much gas. Does gas go bad?
Eh, it's not great but it's totally doable as long as it isn't winter. My understanding is that a Nissan Leaf is much much worse than a Bolt for road trips...
I just did an NYC to Cleveland trip in my Bolt EUV, along a route with only a few DC charging locations, and never once had to wait for an available charger -- even on Memorial Day.
That said, if you need to use the heater, then yeah it's not viable for a road trip. No heat pump, so major battery drain.
The other key to a Bolt road trip is to avoid speeding too much. There's an absolutely tremendous difference in range when going 65 mph vs 80 mph.
> My understanding is that a Nissan Leaf is much much worse than a Bolt for road trips...
As a Nissan Leaf owner, yes. Because of CHADeMO (that is going to be a big problem in a few years, as existing stations fail and don't get replaced) and because of the passively cooled battery pack. I can do one DC fast charging no problem without much change in battery temps (CA weather). 2 or 3 in the same day? Might get toasty.
That said, all EVs have issues during winter(Tesla included, their EPA ranges are way overstated). It's just that, for a Tesla, it's easier to find a supercharger.
The consumption difference due to speed affects all cars, no matter their drivetrain. For ICE, that burns a hole in your pocket as it causes you to stop at gas stations more often.
re: winter range, my understanding is that EVs with heat pumps (including Teslas) tend to have much more efficient heaters than ones without heat pumps (e.g. Bolts).
re: speed and consumption, for sure. But because the Bolt's DC fast charging rate maxes out at a fairly lame 50-55 kW, and speeding => reduced range => more charging time required, so on a long Bolt road trip there's diminishing returns from speeding a ton. I suppose it depends a lot on terrain and climate though, since e.g. speeding can be more beneficial if it means you're running the heater for less time.
Oh it was terrible even by proxy. It would drop estimated range at about 2 miles per mile. Took all day to get between two metropolitan areas. Spent several hours at a level 2 to ensure they didn’t get stuck in the woods with crap cell coverage.
If your commute is less than 100 miles, you have nothing to worry, if you get a proper charger at home. Owned Tesla for 3.5 years with 60 mile commute, it has been very nice.
For fun, I just looked up my route tomorrow using public transportation.
I typically leave around 6:30am, drive 45 miles and arrive at work about 7:15am.
Using Google and a host of websites to plan, I could walk a mile to catch a regional bus, ride and arrive there 1 hour after I began. I can then walk to another bus station, ride a local bus to a the main bus station, connect to another bus that drops me off pretty much at my workplace. I'd arrive 2.5 hours after I began this journey. The earliest I can get to work by this route is 9:30am. The regional bus system doesn't run any earlier.
Alternatively, if I take our non-ev, it's the same time, but costs 5x as much as our Model Y. The ICE car cost about the same as the EV.
Plenty of people drive a car for short trips and those in rural areas will likely continue to do so. Also, consider company vehicles for workers transporting heavy equipment or delivery vehicles. All within the range of current EVs for a full day. EVs won't fix car traffic issues in cities, but public transit won't cover 100% of cases effectively.
Assuming Ford and GM are not inept and their adoption of NACS is driven by necessity rather than choice. This implies a significant lead by Tesla in charging technology. Essentially like Android adopting lightning connectors. Huge, long term positive impact to Tesla as market leader.
Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. But I think Tesla is really banking on winning the automotive AI race. They currently don't seem to be winning, but that does appear to be their main gamble. If they can be the first to achieve level 4+ self-driving then they would definitely dominate regardless of charging infrastructure.
Only idiots buy black-box based car insurance (whether Tesla or any other).
I mean, come on, insurance companies are already renowned for slippery policy wordings and the desire to get out of paying-out.
Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ?
I would be willing to bet its so that Mr Risk Adjustor at the insurance company can say "computer AI algorithm says it thinks you were driving 'aggressively' that morning".
And once "computer says no" you'll have a hell of a time trying to fight it.
> And once "computer says no" you'll have a hell of a time trying to fight it.
Cars have been equipped with event data recorders that capture information moments before the crash for at least 20 years. It is part of the air bag controller. Insurance companies have equipment to read that data and use it against customers all the time.
You don't need a Tesla or other black box insurance to get cheated.
Having a little accelerometer data that is probably a mild hassle to extract is far different than an always-on, internet-enabled, sensor-filled computer that literally has a camera pointing at your face.
Why would a source of signal that has aligned incentives for all three major parties (individual, manufacturer, and insurance company) not be selected for by the market?
It's not as if people are buying meteor insurance here. Automotive accidents are frequent enough to where if a policy provider fails to cover damage that really is in-policy they'll be sued, regulated, and shamed.
Even more so, since Tesla has a financial incentive to ensure that these benefits really do accrue to the driver.
Monitored policies are almost always significantly cheaper. That's why people buy them. I won't engage on who the "idiot" is in that analysis except to say that Adam Smith probably has an opinion.
The reason this works is that it forces the consumers to self-partition into those who think they drive safely and those who know they don't. That doesn't correlate perfectly with actual safety, but it's clear that it's a good proxy signal. Insurance companies may be renowned for "slippery policy wordings", but they're even better known for doing good statistics.
> Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ?
Well yes, there's marginal value for both you and Tesla in excluding aggressive drivers from the program. Some company with worse telemetry eats the cost of the accidents from those drivers.
It's fine to argue that this is a privacy tradeoff you don't think should be legal but there's pretty obviously value to be had for both insurance and customer.
Just like how Samsung beat Apple to face scanning technology.
Mercedes version is extremely limited and is only available on $100k+ cars with tons of additional hardware.
I have Tesla FSD. It is certainly overpriced, but it has genuinely been getting a lot better in the last year. When I first got it I was disappointed because it was so useless, now I use it probably 70%+ of my drives.
IMO Tesla is the closest to a mass-market version of the technology.
Fanboys sometimes talk about a favoured corporation with rose coloured glasses. Hateboys (or whatever you might call an inverse fanboy) often talk in reductive and/or derogatory terms about both corporations and anyone who defends them. Both groups are occasionally a bit sad and naive, but it's usually only the latter which become corrosive and openly hateful.
Unfortunately the bulk of the internet seems incapable of recognising this and all too often gives hateboys a free pass.
Fanboys also annoy me. The other side of the coin is that there are people who worship companies no matter what they do.
I personally prefer more of a “let’s judge each product on its own” sort of person. I love my iPhone and AirPods, but I don’t personally have any desire to own a Mac or the new Vision Pro.
The self-driving car level system is stupid because it is implies linearity but it is absolutely not.
It also implies that higher level == better, which is certainly not a given. Is a system that can drive well on 10% of roads 99% of the time better than a system that can drive on 90% of roads 80% of the time? Not objectively. The former is "level 3" and the latter is "level 2".
A solution that can get you to 3 quickly might never get you to 4. And just because you beat someone else to market with "level 3" doesn't mean their solution won't skip over yours straight to 4/5.
This is a tired argument. Level 3 driving in extremely strict conditions in a very small area using technology and software that doesn't scale isn't "beating" Tesla.
Level 3 is the lowest level of self-driving. Level 2 and below are driver assistance features. Tesla makes very nice driver assistance features, but they have not released any features which operate the vehicle safely by itself under any circumstance.
MB is beating Tesla in the self driving game because they've released a car that is >0% self driving. Tesla is beating everyone at the driver assistance game.
This is semantics. Firstly because this difference is largely because Tesla chooses to not deploy it as level 3 in some tiny highly-mapped market with sensors (LIDAR) and software that don't scale (MB's level 3 breaks at the first change in roads like construction). Secondly because Tesla is 90%+ of the way to building level 3 driving in 99% of places. MB is 99% of the way to level 3 driving in 0.1% of places and it would take them years and billions of dollars to get that to 5%. I'll let you do the math and see which is further ahead.
It's not semantics at all. They're both currently focused on solving very different problems under the broad category of "driving automation". While MBs approach has obvious coverage limitations, the advantage to that approach is that the solution is a more clearly scoped problem with a more obvious answer: expand the coverage. Tesla's approach doesn't have nearly as clear of a path to advancement. They need technology that doesn't yet exist to get there. Some have posed some serious concerns about whether Tesla's feature-first maturity-second approach is an engineering dead end and will ever be able to mature to the point of being able to operate unsupervised. They may be close, but the Pareto principle is a bitch.
Time will tell, but I suspect we'll see Tesla adopt some of the same strategies that other automakers are taking before this race is over.
> clearly scoped problem with a more obvious answer: expand the coverage
That's the problem, though. The scope is always changing. Roads change, barriers get put up, roads are closed, potholes form, detours signs go up. As soon as any of this happens, the extremely accuracy mapping that systems like MB rely on stops working. This has been proven when this sort of tech caused literally a dozen self-driving cars to just randomly stop and block a single intersection a year ago.
> Tesla's approach doesn't have nearly as clear of a path to advancement.
The path is very clear and they're doing it.
> They need technology that doesn't yet exist to get there.
This isn't really the case. Self driving can be done with cameras and sufficiently advanced software alone. The software isn't 100% there yet, which is why they're still requiring human supervision. But the technology is definitely there.
> Some have posed some serious concerns about whether Tesla's feature-first maturity-second approach is an engineering dead end and will ever be able to mature to the point of being able to operate unsupervised
Sure, possibly, but MB's approach is by far the more certain dead-end due to my first point.
> Time will tell, but I suspect we'll see Tesla adopt some of the same strategies that other automakers are taking before this race is over.
I doubt it. The other automakers are using dated methods that have been attempted for decades. Tesla is the first to go balls-out on camera-only automation.
MB's approach will work when cars literally drive on rails.
> currently focused on solving very different problems
MB is focused on highlines and providing little value for a very high price.
MB is simply no a software company I would trust. Company like Waymo have spend billions and billions to get to where they are and their software engineers are a hell of a lot better then those at MB if I know anything about German software engineering.
Tesla has deployed end to end neural networks that can handle a huge amount of situation and is getting better far faster then MB is improving its system. With MB approach it would take decades to get there and that if you assume really good execution.
MB's system accomplishes the levels of quality defined in the SAE standard. Tesla is taking a different strategy by focusing on quantity of features, although many of them fail to meet the reliability standards of the higher SAE specs.
Tesla is stuck at level 2 because the level of reliability required at level 3 would mean they'd have to remove features to meet it.
Tesla generates plenty of headlines every time one decapitates a driver or crashes full speed into large pretty much visible from space police/fire truck blinking all of its lights.
At some point there will be a research breakthrough in ML with models that can extrapolate physics which is the current thing that is missing from self driving being actually good.
At that point Tesla is going to be the winner without a doubt because they have the hardware and data to train en masse and deploy to cars.
As a current Tesla model 3 owner, when I bought it - there was nothing remotely similar on the market. Today, I see the SC network, AutoPilot and general-'fun' factor as the Tesla differentiators.
When I need to buy a new car in a few years (I honestly have no idea what kind of lifespan to expect), I'm looking forward to more options.
The long term future of Tesla is a battery manufacturer and a charging network. Those are the two things they are good at. The cars themselves are quickly being beaten out by the larger players.
My wife drives a Tesla and I drive newish rental cars on a reasonably frequent basis. So I have a basis for comparison. They are definitely not being beaten by larger players. At least not at this stage.
Their software is top notch compared to the mish-mash of home grown and Car Play on other vehicles. And the implementation of AutoSteer (free cut down version of self driving) is far superior to what I've seen in other cars.
I can see other automakers catching up in 2-3 years, but that is not the case right now.
I've never seen "software" (by which I assume you mean the consumer facing stuff in the cabin) that made me want to buy a car. Yes, I've seen Tesla's. It looks fine. So does a radio with 6 buttons.
If I want anything, I have a cellphone. It's impossible to compete with "put that UX through better speakers/mic/screen"
So much this. I was ecstatic to hear the articles a few months ago saying that car manufacturers are going back to buttons. I prefer my car to have essentially no software. It needs to have a modestly sized screen and then whatever is necessary to display my navigation app and media app from my phone. Climate control and media control should both be physical buttons.
I recently bought an EV and a secondary concern (as in, not one of the primary concerns of size, range, charging speed, and price), was the control interface. I went with a model that has nearly all physical controls. Had the choice between otherwise equivalent vehicles been available, I'd have paid a non-trivial sum to get a button interface option.
From my Tesla-owning friends, I hear that their software is the "best", which seems to be like being the tallest dwarf. I literally can't imagine a pure software/touch interface being better than a physical button interface for the most important driving controls.
I’ve personally enjoyed auto steer on every car I’ve driven not a Tesla. Some let you keep your hands off the wheel, and none of them phantom break every couple hundred miles, which is the ultimate deal breaker.
> I’ve personally enjoyed auto steer on every car I’ve driven not a Tesla. Some let you keep your hands off the wheel, and none of them phantom break every couple hundred miles, which is the ultimate deal breaker.
I'm actually curious what systems you're using. I have very limited experience, I have a M3 and a 21 Corolla with Toyota's version.
My M3 has never once just given up on the lanes and stopped steering, but it's a very common occurrence on the Toyota. It just gives up and suddenly you're back to controlling it with no real rhyme or reason to it that I can find.
I don't mind it happening, after all they are just assistants like you said, it's just the zero warning "I give up" that it seems to have. At least with Tesla's version it attempts to keep going while screaming at you to take over. The Toyota version just gives a small beep and by the time you figure out what the beep was it's given up completely and if you were unprepared (having your hands off the wheel[bad thing to do anyways, but a lot of people do it], only slightly following the road) you may be sliding into an adjacent lane.
I've used Hyundai's adaptive cruse control on an older model. It doesn't do anything with the steering wheel, but it beeps when you leave the lane without using a turn signal. As far as tracking the speed of the cars in front of you and coming to a complete stop in traffic, it works great. I've never had a phantom braking incident with many thousands of miles driven on that mode. But that's not auto-steering at all.
I've used Blue Cruise a good bit which supports hands-off modes. This system works very well on highways hands-free. It seems to want me to put my hands back on the wheel when approaching the toll gantries and goes back to hands-free a few seconds after the toll gantry, but otherwise I've been able to go well over 100 miles at a time without touching the wheel or brakes. I've never had any kind of phantom braking situation or slow downs, it works well in stop and go traffic, and has overall been a great experience.
i only ever want CarPlay. i want my own apps that i already have, my own settings, integration into my calendar without leaking data to some random third party.
on my smart tv i use apple tv, and never their own ui. i trust apple for privacy and dont want to log in or configure 20 apps on my car. i want my iPhone and its features, period.
I'm happy to consider a non-Tesla (mostly because I'd really prefer a more traditional gauge cluster and more physical controls), but have struggled to find anything that beats the price for performance of the Model 3 Performance. And yes, I realize I'm a niche buyer.
> "A few years ago there was no good option besides tesla, but in another couple years tesla will have fallen behind the competition"
Much of the competition still struggles with software. Sure you can use Apple CarPlay or whatever for the basics, but as far as the full software suite goes, there isn't yet much that comes close to Tesla's performance, ease-of-use, UX, functionality, hardware integration, automatic over-the-air updates, etc...
This is my point. Tesla is good at a small handful of things, and making cars is not one of them.
They could sell batteries, charging infra, software, and whatever else to the companies that are competent at building (and fixing!!) cars. They aren't going to remain competitive on the cars themselves
> "Tesla is good at a small handful of things, and making cars is not one of them."
Tesla is manufacturing EVs at much greater volumes than almost anyone else, and doing so very profitably. They also score consistently high on customer satisfaction. Seems like making cars is exactly what Tesla has become very good at in recent years?
Sure, Tesla may not make the most luxurious, nor the cheapest cars on the market. But right now they seem to be very successfully hitting a sweet spot in the middle.
I still cannot figure out what Car People mean when they say Tesla is bad at making cars. What are you looking at that normal people don't see? The one thing I agree about is the yoke steering wheel, but that's on a high-end car nobody seems to actually buy.
I'm not a Car Person (I hate cars, electric ones included), but what I often hear said is that they feel very cheaply made, in terms of fit and finish, both interior and exterior. Panel gaps, water leaking into the trunk, squeaks and rattles. Mostly not very serious (not powertrain issues or anything), but nevertheless, not something you want to see on a car you're paying as much for as a Tesla.
I had heard the same things. And then I actually rented a Model 3 for a week (twice actually). Aside from panel gaps (the Trunk lid was slightly misaligned on one of the cars I rented), I think the whole “Tesla is bad at cars” is promulgated by people who have never actually sat in a Tesla.
Everyone loves to complain about panel gaps and that's usually what drives them mad. lol. I've never cared for panel gaps or minimalists interiors though.
BMW in my circles has the reputation as being a brand you buy when you can afford to have a car in the shop most of the time. Most American brands have reputation as just being really poorly built and bad value props. Not sure how either of those two options overcomes that view.
Outrageously expensive to repair sure (though which car isn’t these days, my corrolla got into a fender bender and fixing the bumper was north of $1000), but I’m talking about always in the shop due to shoddy construction. Afaik that doesn’t really apply to teslas.
>a brand you buy when you can afford to have a car in the shop most of the time
TBF, unless you are in a Niche market (off roading a land rover) - it's generally hard to buy a bad car today.
Is a Camry more reliable than a 3 series? Yes. But you're talking 4 9s vs 5 under warranty; being near a good dealership with good service is markedly more important than brand reputation. If my Audi/BMW/Volvo are in the shop for a week every other year and they easily give a loaner to cover, does it really matter? At that point, the cup holder being 5% better placed for convenient access matters more.
Once you’re out of warranty BMW tend to “implode” like everything breaks at once. But even in warranty dealing with going to the dealership and getting the repair is a huge hassle vs just having a car that stays out of your way.
Time is our most valuable asset and giving it up to stupid things like waiting in dealership waiting rooms, regardless of how much free coffee and popcorn they have just isn’t my idea of time well spent.
We had a first-year X1. Starter went after ~10,000 miles. Dealership was garbage (hence my comments above), but still towed us home and dropped off a loaner-car for the ~week it took to fix. Annoying, wasted ~hour waiting for toe truck to pick us up; but overall not a horrendous experience (despite piling 3 adults and 2 dogs into toe truck).
I had a 2010 Impreza, ~first month or two of ownership - dashboard went nuts and i pulled over. Car got towed to dealership - they found nothing wrong. Lost an evening and no loaner car in the ~48h it took them to determine 'nothing wrong'. Two 'new' cars - vastly better experience with one than the other.
Anecdotal of course; but
> even in warranty dealing with going to the dealership and getting the repair is a huge
You get that with any car - my Tacoma was indestructible and still had multiple recalls I had to drop it off for.
You are correct if you're talking driving a car into the ground though - I'd vastly rather have a 10 y/o v6 Taco than an 8 y/o supercharged Dakota.
> The cars themselves are quickly being beaten out by the larger players
Based on what exactly?
Tesla cars are wildly popular in their segments. They have elite efficiency, high margin, they lead in costumer loyalty and costumer satisfaction ratings. Model Y is literally the most sold car in the world.
What actual evidence are you basing these claims on?
Tesla is making a huge amount of money because of vertical integration, why would they give that up to be a contract manufacturer or sell batteries.
Keep in mind it was extremely common on HN to proclaim Tesla was going to go bankrupt, that the Model S would never be manufactured at any scale, that the Model 3 would fail and would also never be manufactured at great scale.
Sure Tesla has plenty of flaws and always have, and yet they remain ahead of the competition in what's going to be a multi-trillion dollar market (EVs) segment.
Tesla's primary business problem is that they only have one killer product, the Model 3 (meaning they're too easy to cripple if sales fall out from under that one thing). They massively screwed up on the truck, when they should have just made a normal EV truck with some Tesla touches (Elon's ego on Cybertruck cost them hundreds of billions of dollars in sales over the next decade; it will go down as one of the dumbest business mistakes in recorded history). The truck should have been their key diversification, especially in the huge US market for trucks. The truck segment should have been mainstream and borderline boring, yielding tens of billions of dollars in annual global sales. Instead it's going to be a mocked niche product that trails off rapidly in sales after the initial splash (assuming they actually bring the Cybertruck to market).
But if Tesla knew what they were doing, they would have bought a large chunk of Ford while the valuations were at peak mismatch (or all of it, via their hyper overvalued stock; de facto bribe the Ford family with a huge number to take the acquisition offer), electrified Ford's truck lineup in a long-term partnership, and yielded epic scale profit from it for decades to come.
> Tesla's primary business problem is that they only have one killer product, the Model 3
Their killer product is the Model Y.
> meaning they're too easy to cripple if sales fall out from under that one thing
Common car platforms like Civic or F150 stay pretty can stay pretty consistant for decades.
And Tesla is actively working on other things.
Also remember, they make money from car service, that will increase over the years. They also do grid storage both large and small and that business is already big and growing fast.
They have other products already developed, like the Semi. And are currently building a factory for a 'Model 2' in Mexico.
> They massively screwed up on the truck
I would disagree. People now just assert that Cybertruck is bad. But the reason they went with that are still valid and it still has a lot of preorders and a lot of interest. In the long run that architecture could save them lots of money and be very profitable.
> Elon's ego on Cybertruck cost them hundreds of billions of dollars in sales
That's just an opinion. And if the really need to they could just design a normal truck and put it on the Cybertruck platform. They would cost a few billion but it wouldn't be that bad.
> it will go down as one of the dumbest business mistakes in recorded history
Or it will go down as one of the best. You clearly don't like the vehicle, but its numbers in terms of interest, people searching for it, preorders and so on are very good.
Remember when nobody was gone follow threw on their Model 3 preorders?
> But if Tesla knew what they were doing
Growing 50% over almost 20 decades and being one of the most profitable car companies in the world while still growing fast for the next couple years but they are apparently idiots.
> they would have bought a large chunk of Ford while the valuations were at peak mismatch
That's a terrible idea for so many reason. That like Compaq buying DEC.
> electrified Ford's truck lineup in a long-term partnership, and yielded epic scale profit from it for decades to come.
They can have epic sales profit without Ford. They can make something called the E150 and make it look like the F150 and sell just as well without taking on all the legacy.
I remember when everybody said 'Tesla should just let a contract manufacture build their cars' and that just as bad an idea.
Not a big fan of Tesla myself, but surely if they figure out self driving that’ll make their cars relevant for the forseeable future? On top of that they seem to be able to make cars cheaper and more quickly than most of the incumbents.
Musk absolutely underestimated the difficulty of full self driving. He's still doing it today. FSD is one of those techs that makes for awesome demos but it has thousands of edge cases that are hard to test for even with millions of vehicle miles recorded in their big AI datacenter.
The tell for me is Hyperloop. That is an optimal environment for FSD, a closed and contained track that has only identical vehicles on it, and yet they still use a human driver.
I only wonder how long it will take before Elon becomes disillusioned, maybe it will never happen. Maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of their hat and actually get it to work. I'm still skeptical.
However I wouldn't d pay attention to the hyperloop thing. It would be trivial to "hardcode" a car to drive at least the tunnel part. It's almost certainly that the FSD team doesn't want to waste time with that.
Musk said, in 2015: "Self-piloting cars are a solved problem." "I view it as a solved problem. We know exactly what we need to do and we will be there in a few years."
Last year, though, he was backpedaling: "Our focus is on solving the problem."
My driveway is windy and gravel. I live at the end of a windy, gravel road with a steep drop off on one side. The road it connects to is a back country road with NO lane markings at all. Deer are prone to watching you approach, then jumping out at the last minute. You need to slow down when you first see them, not when they start moving.
I doubt FSD will get to the point I would ever fully trust it outside of a freeway or city, and almost certainly never for the 2-3 miles closest to my house.
Now, if they can get the cars cheap enough that I can actually afford one, I might be interested. There are 4-6 trips I take a year in the 250-400 mile range, with zero public transport available inbetween (rural-ish to rural-ish areas), and not paying for the gas would be nice.
Just look up the margins on Tesla’s cars vs EVs from other manufacturers. For example, Tesla’s net profit margin in Q1 2023 was 13%, meanwhile Ford is hoping that their electric vehicle division can get to 8% net profit by 2026 (they currently lose money on them)
For sure. But that’s an absolutely massive “if”. Almost guaranteed we’ll be transitioning to EVs (I mean, we already are at a small scale) before full self driving is reliable.
The big players are just late to the game, but have been making cars for decades. They will easily overtake Tesla on number of EVs built as they transition.
Tesla isn’t good at making cars. And every year my confidence in full self driving goes down. They are good at charging though and will print money doing that.
Tesla is now closing in on run rates of 1.5-2 million. They are on bath to overtake companies like BMW in total sales. They are already far more profitable.
You seem to still think of Tesla as some small fish. Tesla is the biggest BEV producer in the world by a large margin. They produce more EV then all of the major German producers put together and at better margins.
Volkswagen is the 2nd largest car company in the world and they have been all in on EV for many years now, and Tesla is highly competitive with them and actually makes far higher profits.
A high level Toyota engineer said of the Model Y 'its a piece of art' (and that was not even the newest generation). Volkswagen CEO said that Tesla is beating them on production efficiency.
If you want a reality check, go look at Toyota first EV and compare it to Model Y. They are not even in the same class, Tesla beats it on literally every metric.
If you still think large car companies can just easily spin up millions of EV per year, you are deluding yourself. You are even more optimistic then the car companies own incredibly optimistic predictions. Ford and GM have even stopped saying they will catch Tesla, its now a race for Nr.2.
> Tesla isn’t good at making cars.
Based on what? Your subjective insights?
Tesla cars have very high margin and are cheaper then competitors in the same class. But they suck at building cars?
Tesla cars have high costumer loyalty and high consumer satisfaction in every survey? But they suck at making cars?
Are you sure your not mixing up your personal feeling with the real world.
> And every year my confidence in full self driving goes down.
They don't need self driving to be highly profitable.
> They are good at charging though and will print money doing that.
Actually charging doesn't make much money, its a terrible business.
If you include PHEV, Tesla is second behind BYD. Even if you look at EV only, the margin is not insurmountably large. When the big automakers (Ford, GM) truly change over they will dwarf Tesla.
But I'm not including PHEV as those are a very different supply chain.
> the margin is not insurmountably large
Mhh sorry what?
Look at how tiny Ford is. And you have to understand that Ford was very, very late at doing battery partnership. Their battery factories are very late. So they will not scale very fast the next 3-5 years because of battery constraints.
At the same time, GM on this diagram looks way larger then it is in reality. The reason GM looks big is because of one tiny China only micro-car that yields almost no profit and will never be exported (and sales have gone down this year already). Their actual Ultium sales are barley existing.
You keep thinking these companies are so much bigger then Tesla, they are not. Ford and GM have less then 2x the revenue of Tesla. Tesla has faster growth and less debt and less aging infrastructure (they have brand new factories) and now legacy business. In terms of available capital Tesla can actually deploy far more, and raise money far more then Ford or GM.
Let me give you an example, Volkswagen. The ID.3 is comparable to the Model 3 and it came out in 2019. It was part of their MEB platform, something they had majority invested years before that. In 2018 they said they would invest 50 billion $ and have since increased that. Clearly they matched Tesla in spending for the last 8 years or so. And yet look at the chart, they have half the BEV sales of Tesla. And Volkswagen is consider very successful in the EV world.
You vastly underestimate how hard it is to transition to EV. Just because Ford, GM, Honda and so on are bigger then Tesla, does not magically mean they can just start mass producing EV. Go at actually look at how hard it is to scale, even for large companies with huge ability to invest.
> (Ford, GM) truly change
Have you looked at Ford and GM own predictions. Because you seem to have a higher opinion on these companies then they themselves have.
Ford just talked about how they would be losing money for many more years and then only just match what Tesla is doing just now.
Large companies often over promise what they can do. But you actually go beyond that and claim that they under promised and will do significantly better then they themselves believe.
Of course GM just learn a hard lessen with their initial battery factory, scaling is hard and that why Ultium had almost no sales in Q1.
Sometimes I feel like people live in a different universe than me. Do you know how many electric vehicles Tesla is likely to deliver in 2023? 2 million.
Do you know how many GM is hoping to deliver? 150,000. Do you know how many they have delivered YTD? 40,000. And they're ahead of Ford, Rivian, and all other US EV manufacturers. Only cheap Chinese only EV brands have a similar volume.
"Easily overtaking" Tesla is not happening at this point. It will be a real fight to ramp production up to Tesla numbers. Did you know that the Tesla model Y was the best selling car in the world thus far in 2023? Not EV, car. It beat out the gas powered Toyota Corolla.
The big incumbents (US, EU, Japanese) have high cost bases and may struggle to compete on price with Tesla, as well as emerging Chinese competition.
The real "secret sauce" behind Tesla right now is that they've figured out how to produce affordable, desirable EVs at scale while maintaining industry-leading margins.
I wouldn't call the established players "late to the game" vis-a-vis self-driving. They've been dumping plenty into research and acquisition and are probably near parity with Telsa.
The perception of the larger players as laggards comes from the fact that they aren't as keen to lie consumers and investors. Their leadership doesn't enjoy the same privileges as Musk does.
I think the vast vast majority of people (non HN techies) at this stage don't care that nearly as much about self driving as they do about having an electric/Hybrid/PHEV car that's just a great total package of a car - something that the existing car manufacturers are far, far better at than Tesla.
Even manufacturers like Chevy and Ford can run circles around Tesla in terms of overall quality.
Anecdotally in LA which has tons of electric cars, people that originally had interest in the status symbolism of Tesla jumped back to Mercedes, BMW, and Volvo(Polestar) the instant those manufacturers had viable electric options.
People are banging down Toyota's doors for the plugin hybrids. Those people are not buying a Tesla in the meantime. People are just waiting for their existing trusted manufacturers to produce enough capacity.
it would be amazing if more people realized that keeping the car you have is still the most environmentally friendly solution.
I'm going to keep my ICE car until it is unreasonably old or impractical for me, which is probably at least 8 more years.
At that point who knows what the electric car landscape will look like, but certainly production will be massively more ramped up.
PHEVs will be the perfect car for most people. It will do 99.9% of people's trips on pure electric, and not have any compromises on long road trips either.
> The long term future of Tesla is a battery manufacturer and a charging network. Those are the two things they are good at.
Agree 100%.
At present, Tesla really feels like a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" job.
I'm certainly no Elon fanboi, but I will happily state that there are clearly a number of things they do well (certain core components and the charging network).
But the cars themselves as a whole. They feel like what they are. Cheaply built, but sold at a premium price.
Tesla would do well if they became the OEM's OEM.
You know, a bit like how Dell, HP and everyone else ship servers with Seagate drives. Tesla should become the Seagate and leave the outer shell bit to others.
> At present, Tesla really feels like a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" job.
That's an odd take. Model Y is the best selling vehicle in the world, and the second best selling vehicle in the US after the Ford F-150. It outsells the Corolla, Camry, Rav4, Civic, etc. Look at Mercedes, BMW and Audi sales, they've been plummeting because everyone is buying a Tesla instead.
They're also the leading battery storage company and their battery storage business has been growing like crazy.
> But the cars themselves as a whole. They feel like what they are. Cheaply built, but sold at a premium price.
This has become such a meme that I think anyone who says it has never driven a Tesla for more than a few hours. The interior quality is not on par with Mercedes/BMW and maybe there's a few panel gaps, but every other part of the car is significantly better. The handling, infotainment system, performance, efficiency, autopilot, maintenance, etc. A $50k Model Y competes with $70-80k cars, but has the interior of a $35k car. Most people are more than happy with that trade off and that's why it sells so well.
According to the 2022 numbers I was able to find, the Model Y was number 9 in the US, behind the Tacoma, CR-7, Sierra, Camry, Rav4, Ram, Silverado, F-150.
And the numbers on most non-Teslas seemed down because of chip supply.
I don't think it's controversial to say that cars have been supply constrained in the past few years.
I guess I should have been specific that I'm referring to the last quarter. Tesla's sales growth has been ~50% YoY so comparing to 2022 numbers won't be so accurate going forwards.
I wasn't referring to the cells, but the products themselves. CATL produces cells, and yes Tesla uses cells from many of those companies. But a battery storage system is more than just the cells. I was specifically referring to Tesla's PowerWall & PowerPack/Megapack products, which has been growing at a fast rate. Just in the last ~3 weeks there were two several hundred million dollar battery storage projects announced that use Tesla Megapack[1][2].
In terms of cell technology, it's really hard to say whether those press releases announcing major break throughs actually matter or not. Tesla is also producing its own cells, but they'll happily buy whatever cells are available since at this point they're constrained by cells.
I've had a Tesla (Model S) since early 2020 and once the initial allure wore offI've missed driving a BMW and once the i5 is here I'll be backing to driving BMW. The supercharger network is by far the reason I've stuck with the Tesla this long, but there's enough options now. The build quality, the drive quality, service quality, all of it is subpar. The Model 3 is a zippy car but the lack of an instrument cluster is a deal breaker for me.
Tesla deserve all the credit for getting everyone else to wake up. But they are so so at making a car I actually want to drive.
That means they have no future of consequence. Charging networks will be a mediocre low margin business and they'll be hyper plentiful with little to no serious moat. It'll be like owning gas pumps as a convenience store (yielding pennies on the dollar; the money will be in generation there, as it's in oil/gasoline in gas pumps). Batteries are and always will be a horrific business with low margins (just ask eg Panasonic and all the other players what their battery businesses are worth, especially compared to what Tesla has been making from automobiles).
I sometimes suspect what's really going on with Tesla is that they want to become the world's manufacturer of EVs of all sorts, utility-scale energy storage systems, and software for EVs including ADAS.
Musk has said it: "the factory is the product." I kinda wonder if the real goal is, as the legacy OEMs quake, rattle, flail around begging for government handouts, and start to fail, Tesla knocks on their door and says "hey we can build your cars for you, with your brand on them, using our charging standard, our batteries, and our software. Just sign here."
Tesla is working with those companies. But Tesla also has its own batteries, their own battery IP, their own manufacturing lines and so on. They even manufacture some of their own manufacturing equipment.
The have factories in Germany and Canada building dedicated battery manufacturing equipment.
They have their own battery factory in California, in Texas and in Berlin. Model Y are already being sold with these batteries in it.
And Tesla own batteries are very innovative specially in terms of their manufacturing.
> I assume there’ll be a surcharge , so is it better for them to have the biggest slice of much smaller pies?
Tesla will be getting billions of Federal dollars[1] for their network. IIRC, the law doesn't explicitly state that the network has to be CCS, only that it has to be "interoperable". If the government insists on CCS as a precondition, I predict Tesla taking them to court (and likely winning). As an outsider, it appears American manufacturers (NACS) are trying to squeeze out foreign manufactures (CCS) from Federal dollars for charging networks. I will change my mind if Hyundai, VW, Mercedes or BMW sign up for NACS.
If you thinking about buying an EV between now and 2025 in North America, you need to be a very very big enthusiast of any other brand but not Tesla.
You have a non zero risk of your non tesla car turn into a pumpkin few years after a purchase.
Basically any non tesla EV sold in North America before 2025 will depend on a proper work of that adapter with a particular network. And I explore lots of them the other direction, they are all ugly and make your experience horrible. Compare to just plug and go grab a coffee, with find a converter, plug it, make sure it work, get to the tesla app, make sure that part works...
Your traveling will be a charade of opportunity to charge in a particular network.
On the opposite side of it, if you buy a new or a used Tesla made in 2015, it will still charge you 5 years away from now with no issues in basically any network in North America. Not only tesla.
First of all, the mission of Tesla is to transition the world to sustainable energy. If you believe them, that should be enough.
But, second of all, this also makes business sense. Everyone will have to use the Tesla app, where they can get targeted offers and become a kind of "Tesla Light" customers. People wonder why Tesla doesn't advertise. Well, with these deals, the need for advertising is a lot less than without them. Also, Tesla is essentially becoming a platform for EVs. How long before some OEM license Tesla software?
And, remember that there are over 17000 superchargers in the US alone and the deal with Ford and GM only allows access to 12000 of them in the US and Canada together. To get the full Supercharger experience, you still need a Tesla.
An app isn't going to make me buy a car or Tesla equipment. Aesthetics, utility, and cost are my main purchasing decision dimensions, and Tesla isn't winning those for me. I'm not buying something shaped like a prune that can't haul gear and equipment.
The ads on Uber and other delivery apps are irrelevant to my daily life. Uber claims advertising has generating $500M in ARR, but that's co-mingled with restaurants seeking placement on Uber Eats. Ads for movies and McDonalds on Uber is probably generating a small pittance of that sum.
Furthermore, lots of businesses will get into EV charging when it takes off. Existing gas stations, restaurants, and shopping will undoubtedly join when they believe the timing is right.
FWIW, I'm dreading having to buy an EV. Gasoline works better for my use cases. I don't have a place to charge at home, and I don't want to wait for on-demand fill ups.
I think the push to EVs has been a function of worldwide market and regulation, not necessarily consumer choice.
> FWIW, I'm dreading having to buy an EV. Gasoline works better for my use cases. I don't have a place to charge at home, and I don't want to wait for on-demand fill ups.
Yeah, if you don't have home or workplace charging, EVs really don't have significant advantages at the moment.
> An app isn't going to make me buy a car or Tesla equipment. Aesthetics, utility, and cost are my main purchasing decision dimensions
The interesting thing is: There's confirmation bias in this, but every single person I've talked to who owns a Tesla might have said this before owning one, but would now never say it afterward. It does things you never know you needed, until you have it, and then you're shopping for cars afterward and your standards go up. Wait, the infotainment still has a resistive touch-screen which runs at 45fps? The maps won't automatically route me to nearby chargers and give me a battery charge prediction for arrival that learns from my driving habits?
Oh, here's an interesting one: Teslas have (configurable) cabin overheat protection. Maybe some other brands have this as well, I don't know, but: the cabin never gets above 100F, if you have more-than 20% battery, and it doesn't cause that much drain (maybe ~3%/day, maybe more in Arizona or Texas). In other words; you never have a hot car, and you don't fuddle with remote start / "turn the AC on 10 minutes before I leave" / whatever. Its just... never all that hot; and you don't notice it until you get in a traditional car that's been sitting in the parking lot all day, sticky leather seats and its 120F inside.
All I can say is: Your mindset is probably more a reflection of your environment than any more foundational principals; and if you want to keep it that way, I'd recommend that you don't spend any significant length of time driving a Tesla.
Couldn't disagree more. We really wanted an ev. Even bought it when there were no incentives available. Nothing to do with the global market or regulation.
It's a superior experience in every way. From the performance, to the software, to the charging. I just plug it in and never think about charging. On long drives it needs a topup when our family does.
I live in place where the parking is super weird. Historical building with historical grounds. We're literally not allowed to resurface the parking because it's all historic. Part of an old steam power plant between cotton mill buildings from the 1800s.
How am I going to fuel my vehicle? We won't be able to install power at limited distribution sites for everyone. 300 residents with their own EVs is going to make shared charging stations a nightmare, and everyone will fight. I know this because we installed a few charging stations and it has already became an issue for the six Teslas on campus. Multiply that by 60.
It's easy to spend five minutes at a gas pump on my way somewhere. No impact to my day. Having to schedule time slots with neighbors is a nightmare.
You can still buy a new ICE well into 2030s in the US, if you truly need one, meaning you can keep driving it until 2050s. By that time window the majority of cars on the road will be EVs, and the charging infrastructure will have changed substantially. I doubt it'll take that long for it to be upgraded though. I bet many people in your building will drive an EV by 2030. Most of them even.
> I live in place where the parking is super weird. Historical building with historical grounds. We're literally not allowed to resurface the parking because it's all historic. How am I going to fuel my vehicle?
They don't advertise because their word of mouth and media presence is incredibly strong. It's also the same reason I basically had to strong arm the sales center into selling me one of their cars -- the demand is incredibly high.
> Everyone will have to use the Tesla app, where they can get targeted offers
Sounds like a nightmare. Want to go on a road trip? Either subject yourself to target advertising on your phone or pay a monthly fee. Hard pass!
I don't want to have to use an app at all if I want to charge. And yes, plug and charge is still using an app, you need to use some kind of app somewhere to manage the payment. I'd much rather have the option to just choose what payment I'd like to use before I start charging. Sure, optionally support plug and charge as well, but at least give me the option to not need to go to an app to choose this this card or that card and what not.
> remember that there are over 17000 superchargers in the US alone and the deal with Ford and GM only allows access to 12000 of them in the US and Canada together.
From what I understand, the ~5k chargers that aren't included are the older ones which don't speak CCS and they're usually the lower power ones. Those will probably be replaced over the next few years. Meanwhile all their newer ones will work with all the other compatible cars, so this percentage (~29% currently) will shrink over time, probably pretty rapidly given they're increasing the rate of new charger installation.
And in the end, for a lot of people it probably won't even actually matter. I've spent 2 years so far with a non-Tesla EV and it hasn't been any kind of difficulty for me in the slightest. Will it be nice to get access to another 1,500ish charging locations with a basic adapter? Sure, there's a few more charging locations on the road trip routes I take which will be open to me. Will it actually impact me day to day? Not in the slightest.
Oh no, there's a few thousand old chargers which charge at slower speeds than the new ones a several hundred miles away that my car can't charge at? Guess my car is worthless :'(
Also worth noting: I don't hear people talking about this. Tesla allows non-Teslas to access a very small portion of the supercharger network already. They offer a two-tiered plan; pay-as-you-go, or a $13/mo subscription which activates the lower charging rates Teslas already get. I don't know if its been announced yet how this applies to the deal Tesla has signed with Ford (and GM/Rivian?); will it look more like how EA/evGo operate, where there's a plan you sign up for to get the more market-rate charging prices? Or are they doing away with that?
I think they don't use ads because they already get a ton of money with green credits. I recall all the Tesla doomsayer a few years back saying Tesla was going broke then Tesla sold these credits to other companies for millions. If Tesla loses these edges, which will happen if other car companies go 100% green, then we'll see a more hate-able Tesla with ad-ware.
Just to clarify, in business terminology, that's not a moat.
A moat is something difficult/impossible for other competitors to cross, something strategically defensive.
Being cool isn't a moat because anyone else can become cool. In contrast, network effects are a classic example of a moat, because no matter how much cooler/better your product is, people won't switch until the majority of the rest of their network switches. So nobody moves, hence a defensive moat.
That's not strictly correct. It's (very!) hard for someone to replicate the brand of Apple or Coca-Cola. Moats are all on a scale, and branding is one of the generally harder ones to compete with.
I believe these studies to be problematic for many reasons. The first is because they measure owner satisfaction, but they make zero effort to measure owner expectations. Are the expectations for people buying Teslas much higher than people who buy from other manufacturers? Are they more sophisticated of a buyer and think more deeply about their car?
The second issue is they also do things like compare the Rivian R1T to the Model 3, which is half the retail price and less than a quarter of the manufacturing cost (Rivian takes huge losses on their sales).
The final issue I'll mention is that JD Power makes almost all of its money from traditional car manufacturers. This is a huge conflict of interest and there is zero legal accountability.
Most people don’t need Tesla range. The MINI Cooper does 114 miles for under $30K, and Hyundai, Kia and Ford all offer 240 mile + ranges for under $40K.
Tesla Model 3 has 270 miles on the base model but you’re paying over $40k for that.
For me, it's hard to find anyone else that matches Tesla on price, range, and performance. It seems like with the other EVs you get to pick two of those.
JD Power is also a marketing arm for the auto industry. Their numbers have been a joke since at least the 80s. "#1 in initial quality" is such a laughable claim yet car companies pay JD Power to award it every year.
Market share isn't a good metric for a company that started out with 100% market share and therefore has nowhere to go but down. I think Tesla will continue to be successful selling cars and grow the number of cars they sell at a high rate.
Also, it sounds like this move is a really good incentive from a product perspective. If there really are a significant of people who only chose Tesla because of Superchargers, then they'll be forced to fix those problems. Though, personally, I really like my Model Y and someone would have to come up with a WAY superior car to get me to switch. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to one of these legacy car company's cars with their poor software, bad UX, and ugly and overwrought design aesthetic. Also, a lot of their competition is still on paper. Rivian is probably the nicest option for a non-Tesla EV right now.
Tesla did not have 100% market share. Nissan Leaf came out before the Model S. (And if you want to count the Roadster, you should count the EV1, etc.)
But I think the point is that electric cars will take over the whole market, and so if Tesla’s US market share falls to like 20-30% from the current 60% or whatever it is but that market is 10-30 times larger, that’s a huge win.
Yes, in theory the GM's EV-1 beat them to market by a lot. But in real terms Tesla had the EV market cornered for years. The only real competition was the Leaf and Bolt, and even those were low volume vehicles. It remains to be seen if the legacy automakers can successfully ramp production this year. They have made a lot of promises, but actual deliveries are still lagging.
I legit believe that many people in these threads haven't learned that the Model Y is the best selling vehicle in North America during 2023-Q1 [1]. Not just best selling EV, or best selling crossover; best selling vehicle. It outsold the Corrola, at half the price.
This is not a situation of "oh Tesla will continue to do well, they'll sell cars" or "what's their moat? they're finished": They are #1. Dozens of competitors have hit the market over the past five years. They are outselling all of them, at substantially higher price points (fed tax credit has something to do with it versus gas cars for Q1 here, but it impacts all EVs reasonably equally).
If there's something on the horizon which will change that, I need that explained to me because I'm not seeing it. That Fords and GMs will also get supercharging? Anyone who says "the supercharger network significantly influences purchases toward Tesla" doesn't own an EV; armchair commentators. To some small degree; sure. But the biggest influence, bar none, is: "My friend has one." That's it. Few spend significant time driving a Mach-E and think "everything about this screams I need it". But that is a not a-typical experience for Tesla vehicles, because so much about it is so far ahead of traditional cars, and even modern competing EVs.
So much about it is also pretty far behind, like quality control. But that doesn't come through when you're driving a friend's perfectly functional car. And it certainly hasn't hurt Tesla up to this point.
Definitely not alone. I'm on my second Tesla, and from what I can see of Tesla's plans for the future, I think it is likely I will not buy another for my next car. I'm very happy that everyone else is jumping on board with NACS.
> Is the brand name of being effectively the gas station of EVs worth it to them?
Yes, because it's becoming more and more clear that Tesla's future potential is way more in their role as an energy company than as a carmaker.
- Global charging network for cars + trucks => Tesla as an energy distributor
- Residential + utility scale solar + utility scale battery storage => Tesla as a maker of energy production infrastructure
- Tesla smart grid software => Tesla as a global electric utility
In other words, they're working towards becoming the clean energy combination of ExxonMobil + General Electric + Your local power company.
The cars are an important business that happen to also incubate and drive forward all the other technologies I mentioned.
> It’s their biggest moat as far as I’m concerned.
It’s their biggest moat IFF it’s limited to Tesla’s and their charging stations.
If every car adopts their charging port/socket and every charging station (Tesla and non-Tesla) supports Tesla’s port/socket then the most diminishes and ultimately disappears.
> I’m glad there finally seems to be a push to a better standard in North America.
"Better standard"?
It may be more widely available, the plug is a bit smaller, but it's not objectively 'better'. It does not support 800V, something CCS does even today.
They could sell charge circuitry and battery packs to the big three. They’ve been wanting to sell batteries to people for ages. Given how much of the cost of a car they are, maybe that’s a reasonably profitable market.
I mean, the range/$ seems to be a pretty good moat. Last I checked, the only cars with a decent amount of range per dollar were at the very low end (Chevy Bolt) and had very little range (200 miles vs 300 miles for Tesla M3).
I shipped my car several times back and forth between USA, Europe, and Australia because the rental cost would have been more than the shipping cost.
RoRo shipping my car cost round trip $1,600 last year USA/Europe plus $300 insurance rider.
Three month rental, plus rental insurance versus rider on my insurance? Rental would be approximately $3,100 car and about another $1,800 for insurance.
There's no registration headaches about the car not meeting the differing safety/emissions regulations in the different markets? It seems like its a massive hassle for people to even bring kei cars from JP to US, I routinely hear about how expensive it is to import cars across markets.
As a business it seems smarter to grow the pie and increase your revenues even if Tesla's marketshare decreases.
Even through the lens of hating Elon Musk and wanting alternatives, most people have no strong feelings at all. Price and availability largely dictates what Tesla will sell. I have not seen any data Elon's antics change sales volumes.
Smart or not, it's definitely Tesla's strategy. They have an explicit goal of 20% of the vehicle market. They don't care what their share of the EV market is, they want 20% of the combined market.
Tesla’s gross margins are down quite a bit since the Twitter deal. It’s hard to correlate consumer sentiment with the price drop vs other factors, but gross margins dropped from 27% to 23% which represent a lot of money.
How much this impacts the company going forward is hard to say, but my guess is we’re talking 10’s of billions. Which makes it much harder to keep up with the expanding EV market, their super charger network for example needs to dramatically increase capacity just to keep up with the current rate of new Tesla production. Aka 25 year old EV’s will still need a place to recharge.
Tesla’s gross margins were much higher in 2011 than 2022. But yea, this is why I said it’s hard to separate how much of this was Tesla specific vs industry wide. However, the need to cut prices despite high inflation was unusual in the car industry and suggests a Tesla specific issue.
There is no telling how much money is involved in falling margins if you don't also look at revenues. A quick Google search shows their gross profits look fine.
Also, you would have to compare them to other manufacturers. If profits were down an average of 20% and Tesla's were down 10% then they would be over performing their competitors during a down market.
Gross profits need to pay back capital expenses for equipment or land, R&D, etc which is why moderate drop in gross profits represents a much larger drop on long term profits.
#2 ; PROVIDE A RECEIPT OF WHERE THAT POWER CAME FROM. FULL FN STOP
Where is that energy produced, what are the inputs? How much FN fuel was consumed to deliver that energy to the energy-plant which fed the port to which my e-car hooked up to, WHO TH HECK IS CALCULATING THIS DATA?
> Where is that energy produced, what are the inputs?
You'd pretty much just have to look up the averages for the grid in your area. The pixies on the wires get all mixed up in the big pipes, its not like the wires from the car just go straight to a single power plant.
> WHO TH HECK IS CALCULATING THIS DATA?
In the US, the EIA along with local state agencies and grid operators.
I’m really curious how this affects Teslas market share though going forward.
Their supercharger network is why we continue with them despite countless other issues. It’s their biggest moat as far as I’m concerned.
Now I have significantly more options, and my next car will not be a Tesla. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
Is the brand name of being effectively the gas station of EVs worth it to them? I assume there’ll be a surcharge , so is it better for them to have the biggest slice of much smaller pies?