[KennyBlanken]

Here is Tesla's problem, in a nutshell: https://youtu.be/xwHu9xPsE3U?t=302

Telsa used to be the cool kid because their cars were fast-charging, neck-snapping fast, had autopilot, and were very efficient per-mile.

It was enough to make up for the assembly/initial quality, material quality and NVH issues in the interior, poor reliability, and for some models, very dated design.

Now they're being beaten in almost every category. GM has one of the best fully automatic cruise control systems now; Mercedes has full self driving on the autobahn. Many cars are as or more efficient per-mile, out-accelerate all but the most expensive Teslas, have as fast or faster DC charging systems. The Audi e-tron and Porsche match or out-accelerate them while having top-of-the-market build quality and design; stepping into any modern Porsche is a like stepping into a swiss watch. Lucid's car out-accelerates and screams "FUTURE!"

There are a ton of good EVs out or coming out in the next year or two. All of those cars are assembled better, are more reliable, have nicer interiors, less dated designs, are backed by much more extensive dealer/service/parts networks, etc.

Ultimately Musk's problem is that he thought he could to better at building cars than companies which have been building cars for a century.

The problem wasn't that car companies couldn't do better than Tesla; it's that they didn't want to. Now that EVs are a Thing, they want to. They have more cash, more manufacturing capacity, more R&D, more dealers, better supply chains, and much better relations with the media and automotive press.

Tesla is fucked long-term. I suspect Musk's plan is to pivot to being an energy/charging company - that Tesla cars were just a vehicle to get him a worldwide charger network and accompanying infrastructure (it's the one thing that Tesla does just about flawlessly.)

[Sohcahtoa82]

> GM has one of the best fully automatic cruise control systems now; Mercedes has full self driving on the autobahn.

Compare either of these to Tesla's Autopilot (Which is NOT the same as FSD!). I'd be surprised if there were significant differences.

> Many cars are as or more efficient per-mile,

Are they, though? I dunno about other cars, but the Taycan is extremely inefficient. The Taycan 4S Performance Battery Plus has a 93 kwh battery, but only 227 mile EPA estimated range. Meanwhile, my Model 3 Performance is 75 kwh, but EPA rated 300 miles.

> out-accelerate all but the most expensive Teslas

And significantly more expensive.

> have as fast or faster DC charging systems

That are fewer and farther between, not to mention expensive, and also I'm not sure about the faster part. The latest gen superchargers are up to 250 kW. I can drive on any Interstate highway in the continental USA and not have to worry about where to charge. Even the I-90 corridor across over 1,500 miles of rural highway has enough Superchargers on it to make a road trip viable.

That all said...

In the long term, you may be right. But we're still 5+ years away from their downfall. The other manufacturers have REALLY been dragging their feet on making good EVs. Honda could be selling tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of fully electric Civics and CRVs, but don't because ????.

[MBCook]

You should look up the new Mercedes system. If you haven’t heard about it it only functions up to like 37 mph, but it’s level three self driving. The kind where the driver doesn’t have to monitor it. So where it can work (map freeways) it can completely take over in slow traffic. Pretty impressive.

I agree with you about the 5+ years thing. Ford released an EV that they basically never advertised and got swamped with orders. They announced the next one and got even MORE swamped because it was the F150. They’ve had to delay the introduction of at least two more EV models just to try and keep up with demand for the first two.

My understanding is VW has been doing extremely well with the ID.4. I know there is heavy interest in the Kia Niro and the Cadillac Lyriq and of course the new Hummer.

Other newcomers like Rivian and Lucid are pulling a lot of eyes/orders.

Tesla owned the EV segment because outside the Volt/Bolt/Leaf there was nothing else. Certainly those aren’t equivalent to the S/X/Y or even 3.

But the question is, can Tesla improve faster than the rest of the entire automotive industry can move to EVs. I doubt it.

In some ways this feels like a double disruption. Tesla came along and disrupted car manufacturing I proving that EVs could work and were even popular/desirable. They also proved online car buying could be quite successful.

But I think they will now be disrupted by the companies they tried to replace. I just don’t see how they can hold off every single major car company in the world. They may have the most efficient cars (from my understanding) and they’ve obviously got the whole over the air update thing figured out. But they don’t make enough models to cover everyone’s taste and they still have some real manufacturing/customer service issues that they could have grown a out of by now if they had wanted to. I feel like they may have spread themselves much too thin, and lost their chance at king of the hill because of it.

In my mind they’ll never be a VW or Toyota sized car manufacturer in the long term. But will they be as big as Audi? Or just a Jaguar? Or gone like Pontiac?

Don’t know. Bankruptcy? Merger? Acquisition? Exit the consumer market? Will be interesting to watch.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> You should look up the new Mercedes system. If you haven’t heard about it it only functions up to like 37 mph, but it’s level three self driving. The kind where the driver doesn’t have to monitor it. So where it can work (map freeways) it can completely take over in slow traffic. Pretty impressive.

Tesla's Autopilot works perfectly on the highways, in my experience. I've done a few thousand miles on the highway, and I think the only times I've had to manually take control are when my one lane is becoming two lanes, and it gets confused.

I do agree that eventually, the other manufacturers will surpass Tesla, but it's going to be a long timeframe (I think ~10 years), and it will hinge on being compatible with Tesla chargers, since the other networks are either too slow (Seriously, whoever decided that 7.2 kW J-1772 chargers should exist did a major disservice to EV adoption), too expensive, and too spread out.

[MBCook]

I’m not arguing against autopilot. But it’s level 2. You still have to monitor it. I find the Mercedes system interesting because it’s level 3, even if only in limited circumstances.

Also level 2 charging? Preach. Public charging (except at like hotels) seems like it should be minimum 50kw.

[Sohcahtoa82]

You only "have" to monitor Tesla's AP for liability purposes.

If the only difference between Level 2 and Level 3 is whether or not you have to monitor it, then I think its just market buzz, and Mercedes will kill someone because they'll claim that their system didn't need to be monitored, so someone won't, and it will make a mistake and someone will die.

Limited to 37 mph with the claim you don't need to monitor it means someone is going to be in heavy traffic, activate it, then fall asleep. When traffic clears up and they're still sleeping, they're going to get rear-ended when the car is putting along at 37 mph while everyone else is going 60+.

[nieve]

There's a non-zero chance that one of those OTA updates will end up killing someone (most likely a pedestrian). I absolutely would not trust a company with Tesla's track record on inability to deliver reliable, mature software to never ship an update that'd cause FSD to suddenly decide a pedestrian was empty air.

[renzo88]

>Tesla is fucked long-term. I suspect Musk's plan is to pivot to being an energy/charging company - that Tesla cars were just a vehicle to get him a worldwide charger network and accompanying infrastructure (it's the one thing that Tesla does just about flawlessly.)

This was always my take as well. He wants to make cars (they're a halo product), but the real value of tesla is in skateboards, batteries, charging. I suspect that things like the roadster/cybertruck are tesla preparing to transition to a business model where car sales are not the largest part of their business.