[misiti3780]

drive a tesla then drive a competitor's car (if you can find one), and then you will understand.

tesla is the iphone of cars. minimalist, performant, fun to drive. not to mention the no other car company is building or has a supercharging network. GM and Ford are the blackberry of EVs

[lillecarl]

It's not an apples to apples comparison, mass producing cars is very hard (your man Elon has said this). So scaling out to the level where they outcompete other manufacturers is going to take enough time that I believe their USP is long gone, therefore I think the stock is overpriced.

Their battery tech isn't unique (and not theirs entirely either). Everything except the infotainment system is "simple" (in relative terms).

I'm not saying they're not great, but that the stock is expensive

[ceeplusplus]

> Their battery tech isn't unique (and not theirs entirely either). Everything except the infotainment system is "simple" (in relative terms).

The differentiating factor for Tesla has never been their battery tech or physical car quality. It's somewhat like Apple in that the combination of decent (but not the best) hardware and software brought together in a cohesive way creates something better than the individual parts. You're buying an "experience", which people often make fun of but ultimately I feel is more representative of what customers are looking for than looking at pure specs of the car. And a lot of the "experience" is powered by software or by custom silicon or other non-car things.

Android still can't compete with Apple in terms of the polish and cohesiveness of the product despite Google and Samsung being juggernauts, and I think Tesla vs. Ford/GM/etc. is much the same. Just pick up a Galaxy S22 and use it for a bit. The apps feel like a patchwork of different UX's, different ways of using the phone, and different modules that don't talk to each other.

[lillecarl]

I'm not saying your experience isn't true, but is this experience so unique people will only buy Teslas in the future? If you think 50% of cars will be Tesla badged in 20 years then I'd say the stock price is justified, I doubt it. Apple is selling a device designed to scale, they just yell louder at Foxconn and they poop out more iPhones ready for consumption, with cars there are more constrains that, as mentioned makes me think the stock is overpriced. I'm not saying the apple experience isn't great, if I wasn't a nerd who likes to customize things I'd be on Apple gear, I'm forced to drive an apple at work where I'd like to drive Linux, so I get the thing. I guess with electric cars the customization part is less significant, but being able to put cars in people's hands is a problem on a completely different level to devices that weigh less than 200g.

[vmladenov]

Why mention Apple and then pull a 50% figure out of thin air? Apple market share for global smartphones is 23.4%. Tesla is 13.8% of global EVs. Not as dominant but still respectable.

[lillecarl]

So that'd make Tesla account for 13.8% of ~9% of global vehicle sales. The 50% number comes from Tesla being worth as much as every other car manufacturer combined. Definitely respectable, but 0.13*0.09 = 0.012. If my numbers are correct that'd mean 1.2% of worldwide cars are Tesla but they're valued as if 50% of all cars were Teslas.

Correct me if I'm wrong somewhere, but having 20% of a market vs 1% is a significant difference.

It's also quite more approachable for people to spend on a premium phone than a premium car, since a premium car costs more than what many "westerners" make in a year while an iPhone is less than a "westerners" monthly salary.

[jjeaff]

Ya, at some point, technical superiority has diminishing returns. Tesla may very well beat out all rivals for performance and miles per charge. But when your competitor can get 300 miles to a charge and 0 to 60 in 3 seconds, there just isn't that much difference to your 350 miles per charge and 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. There are a lot of other factors to compete on.

[DamnYuppie]

Lol, this has been disproven time and time again across all markets including autos. People pay for brands and status. If your reasoning were true why would BMW’s be so much more desirable than a Honda Civic? A product does not have to superior to command a higher price, marketing and branding can be terrifyingly powerful things.

[jjeaff]

You seem to agree with My point. A civic and a BMW are not the same class of car. Once the other makers start making similar electrics, they will have an offering in the same class.

My point was that people don't buy BMW over Mercedes because they have 20 more horsepower. And if it does come down to brand, as you said, there are a lot of very powerful brands, like BMW or Mercedes that have been playing the brand game longer than the founder of Tesla has been alive. I don't think I would put my money on Tesla if winning will come down to brand.

[robertlagrant]

I sort of agree, but it's also true that BMWs drive better in a lot of people's opinions (including mine), and a lot of the knowledge needed to make all the thousands of mechanical interactions work well in an ICE is not necessary in an electric car, which has a much simpler time moving torque to wheels. So the amount of finesse that can be applied to an electric car may be less than what can be applied to an ICE car.

[lillecarl]

There's also usually the thing where a more expensive car is of better "quality" than cheaper ones. If you're a road warrior you'll own a BMW or a Mercedes because of the QOL improvement when you're killing your billionth mile.

[misiti3780]

I think the the giga press technology gives them an advantage of 5 years at least (a lot less moving parts, less mistakes made, etc). I have a lot of friends that work for ICE manufacturers (GM) in a variety of positions and every one of the claims there is zero chance GM will convert their fleet from ICE to EV in this decade.

Time will tell, I have a lot more faith in Tesla that the legacy automakers at this point, if that changes, I will sell. If my 5 year lead is correct, I think we will see level-5 FSD by then anyways.