[slg]

>What’s impressive about Tesla?

There is this weird revisionist history now that Musk is hated to dismiss all Tesla's accomplishments as meaningless. The traditional auto industry would have never embraced EVs to the extent they have if someone did not disrupt the market in a way like Tesla did. That is both impressive and huge net positive for humanity in a way that is an extremely rare achievement for any startup.

[boringg]

I completely agree with you and will add that it super interesting to watch everyone completely rewrite his accomplishments because they don't like him and his politics now.

The amount of people who try and discredit the insane things he's managed to pull off is fascinating.

I can fully understand peoples hatred of him, but to write off the literal things he has accomplished is such completely revisionist and post truth. Noone in here will like this but he probably qualifies as schumpeters definition of entrepreneur of our century unless he destroys everything in the next time period which isnt zero but a low probability.

[scarface_74]

There is no “disruption”. In either the common vernacular or especially not in the “innovator’s Dilemna” definition. EVs still make a small percent of the market in the US and the rest of the industry in the US are backing away from their EV investments.

You don’t see in the auto industry the type of “disruption” you saw from Apple and the iPhone where everyone jumped on the bandwagon, abandoned their old phones and most of the previous smart phone makers went out of business. While Apple’s market share worldwide isn’t that great, they take most of the profits. Tesla is doing neither.

[yodsanklai]

> The traditional auto industry would have never embraced EVs to the extent they have if someone did not disrupt the market in a way like Tesla did.

This isn't clear to me. Maybe in the US? but in Europe, there should be no new CO2-emitting cars by 2035. There's a global trend to move to EV due to climate change that has little to do with Tesla.

[slg]

You are pointing to a disrupted market as evidence that the market didn't need to be disrupted. A quick search suggest that EU ban on CO2-emitting cars was from 2022, 5 years after Tesla started selling the Model 3. The global trend toward EVs was largely started by Tesla showing that EVs were a viable product with real demand.

[yodsanklai]

I don't think this is correct. See this article from July 2017 [1] Banning petrol cars was already discussed, it mentioned many car constructors, but not mention of Tesla. At that time, 27,903 Tesla cars were sold in Europe [2], so the market wasn't disrupted at all.

> France will end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040 as part of an ambitious plan to meet its targets under the Paris climate accord, Emmanuel Macron’s government has announced.

> The Netherlands has mooted a 2025 ban for diesel and petrol cars, and some federal states in Germany are keen on a 2030 phase-out.

> India, where scores of cities are blighted by dangerous air pollution, is mulling the idea of no longer selling petrol or diesel cars by 2030, and said it wants to introduce electric cars in “a very big way”.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/france-ban-...

[2] https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/tesla-europe-sales-figures/

[slg]

That July 2017 article you linked cites Volvo committing to switch their fleet to all electrics and hybrids. If you click on that hyperlink you will find this paragraph:

>Of Elon Musk’s Tesla, whose ‘mass market’ Model 3 is expected to roll off the production line later this week, Samuelsson [Volvo's chief executive] said: “It’s a tough competitor. But with this decision we are really becoming the second premium car maker in the world which will also be all-electrified.”

The EU followed France. France followed Volvo. Volvo followed Tesla. Tesla was the spark.

[inerte]

I would say US government and more specifically California was the spark, and the hundreds of millions of dollars given to start this industry.

I am all for it, he took advantage of a program specifically created to be taken advantage of. But I am not sure if it wasn't for the the tax related benefits, carbon emission credits, and the damn HOV lane access Tesla would be here.

But again, amazing! The goal was achieved.

[yodsanklai]

The spark was the Paris agreement and Europe pledging to reduce their CO2 emissions. EVs were already a common sight in France way before Tesla.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_F...

I think your narrative is correct in the US, but not in the rest of the world.

[boringg]

No France didn’t have meaningful ev traction. California and Tesla pushed out the market for EVs. Paris agreement helped Im sure but Tesla really did bring the EV market muscle - its undeniable.

EVs have been around since the 90s but there was a collective effort to restrict their growth and production.

[slg]

>EVs were already a common sight in France way before Tesla.

I can't say I'm an expert on French automotive sales. It is possible they have always had a small market for EVs going back years, but there clearly was an inflection point that occurred after Tesla had proved there was widespread demand for EVs with 2020 being the first year that EVs made up more than 2% of new car sales in France.[1]

[1] - https://autovista24.autovistagroup.com/news/france-keeping-p...

[scarface_74]

Okay and the GUI was started by Apple as far as PCs. Where did that leave Apple as far as the PC market compared to Microsoft?

And “disruption” doesn’t mean whet you think it means. Were any of the existing car manufacturers ever threatened by Tesla as far as market share and revenue like what happened to RIM and Nokia in the smart phone space?

[slg]

>Were any of the existing car manufacturers ever threatened by Tesla

Yes, that is why almost all of them started heavily investing in EVs after Tesla proved they were a viable product. You seem to believe that "disruption" can only come from wild financial success. All it means in this context is that they blazed a new trail for others established players to follow.

[scarface_74]

Actually they are backing off from EVs

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/03/13/ev-euphoria-is-dead-auto...

> You seem to believe that "disruption" can only come from wild financial success. All it means in this context is that they blazed a new trail for others established players to follow.

That’s not at all what “disruption” means according to “The Innovator’s Dilemma”.

https://duartem.medium.com/summary-of-the-innovators-dilemma...

Also look at “low end disruption” a “sustaining innovation”, “over serving the market”.

Most people who talk about disruption have never read Clay’s books.

[scarface_74]

Yes and Microsoft would never have embraced the GUI if it weren’t for Apple and other AI companies would never have embraced LLMs if it weren’t for OpenAI.

But that doesn’t justify Teslas value. In the words of the AI industry - “there is no moat” around EVs

[slg]

Genuinely can't tell if you are trying to be sarcastic with the first sentence, but I'll just point out that Tesla can both have accomplished a lot as a company, been a net benefit for humanity, be wildly overvalued as a company, and have no real moat. They were the first automaker to put substantial money into selling EVs as a business and that gave them a first mover advantage that has now largely disappeared (but still exists in certain areas such as still having the best charging network).

[scarface_74]

I’m saying simply it no more matters in nerd circles than Mac geeks arguing about Apple bringing the GUI to personal computers when it was almost dead in the late 90s.

It is just as meaningless now on HN as it was then on comp.sys.mac.advocacy back then

[slg]

You seem to want to argue against a point I'm not making, so this is me ducking out of our conversation.

[scarface_74]

I’m saying it’s pointless to who was first.

[protocolture]

They arent meaningless, Tesla did some pretty cool shit. And then they shipped a very small quantity of cars that have poor maintenance and the kind of vendor lockin that we get shitty at John Deere for.

The issue isnt that Tesla did stuff. Its that its all historical stuff that doesnt justify its current market price.

If I was to invest in a car company I would want them shipping millions of cars, not a "net positive for humanity" and a couple hundred thousand janky cars.

[ghc]

> If I was to invest in a car company I would want them shipping millions of cars

Tesla shipped 1.2 million of the Model Y alone in 2023, making it the best selling car worldwide. They sell about half as many cars as Ford, at 9x the profit margin.

[protocolture]

Yep as the other commenter said, millions of janky cars.

Nissan sold 3.4 million cars in 2023.

Tesla sold 1.81 million that year.

China, who are the big fish in the EV pond, sold 30 million cars in 2023. 4.9 million went overseas.

The Chinese plan? Build your existing car for cheaper and with an EV option.

SAIC\GWM sold 4.6 million cars in 2023. And their EV Ute is shockingly awesome compared to the Cybertruck.

[scarface_74]

You realize that’s not the argument you think it is to justify Tesla’s market cap?

[ghc]

I was merely correcting someone who was wrong on the internet, because Tesla does not in fact ship "a couple hundred thousand janky cars", as OP claimed.

I wouldn't touch Tesla stock with a 10 foot pole.

[scarface_74]

They ship millions of janky cars.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-placed-bottom-consumer-repor...

> Consumer Reports‘ annual reliability rankings have been released, and with data from 24 brands and over 300,000 vehicles, Tesla fell near the bottom (19/24) along with Mercedes-Benz, Jeep, Volkswagen, GMC, and Chevrolet. Electric vehicles overall also placed poorly, being the second least reliable category of vehicles. Hybrids/plugin hybrids, especially those from Toyota, were found to be the most reliable.

Also the idea of the “best selling car” is meaningless. That’s like when Apple has “the best selling phone” when other manufacturers like Samsung sell a dozen types of phones.

[ben_w]

I remember when the original iMac was the best selling model of computer among all brands. A title Apple retained until, IIRC, they offered multiple colour options.

MacOS was still something like 5% or so of the overall market.

[slg]

It is probably telling that multiple people here think that the only relevant framing of "impressive" is as an investment. And that is only made stranger by the fact that Tesla has been objectively a hugely successful investment in terms of performance, no matter how many people dislike their cars, Musk, and the company's fundamentals or they think there is some hypothetical crash that is right around the corner.

And to make it explicit, I dislike Musk as much as the next guy and I absolutely would not invest in Tesla at this point, but we shouldn't let that bias our view of history.

[protocolture]

I know hundreds of people are trying to codify musks legacy at this point.

>Tesla has been objectively a hugely successful investment in terms of performance

But the only thing he cant dance out of is that he is an absolutely impressive showman. I mean even in the emails OpenAI released, he very talked his way into a controlling interest in OpenAI.

I just feel like, heaps of Tesla investors are going to be left holding the bags when the shine wears off.

That said, if I saw a story about Musk wising up a little bit and hiring someone to rejuvenate his PR I would probably spread some money amongst all of his businesses.

[llm_nerd]

>The traditional auto industry would have never embraced EVs to the extent they have if someone did not disrupt the market in a way like Tesla did.

Unless you have some sort of way to investigate alternate timelines, there is zero evidence of this claim, including the absurd "never" claim. Many of the innovations that made EVs possible -- for instance rapid advances in battery tech along with the computational improvements to go with them -- came from outside the auto industry. And for that matter the automotive industry had been iterating on EV tech for decades before Elon started dumping money to buy himself credibility. The first lithium-ion EV came out in 1998.

The auto industry was getting there. The blip of Tesla had little impact on the overall timeline, and it certainly isn't a "huge net positive" for humanity. It's a barely noticeable nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Elon, in his absolutely desperate need to constantly be The Subject, has a brilliance in choose the inflection point for buying into something. If it's the emerging hot new thing, Elon will appear with big bags of cash demanding that he be acknolwedged as the leader that made it all happen.

[scarface_74]

That doesn’t explain Twitter or the fact that Tesla sells are decreasing and that its market share is declining. Its profits are a nothingburger.

Contrast that with Apple, outside of the US and a few other high income countries that is market share may be neglible. But at least it’s taking most of the profit and by far is the most profitable phone maker

[bdangubic]

facts! except did not disrupt the market in a way like Tesla did. I am not sure this really counts as distruption - not sure 8.1% of the market qualifies as distruption… perhaps it does if the trend continues like it did outside of the US