[salimmadjd]

On the flip side what these car companies manufacture in 2 weeks will take Tesla two years to manufacture.

On the other hand, Tesla is not doing the kind of innovation on the automotive side that would create a meaningful barrier to entry. The big players are all catching up (already caught up) and are going to chisel marketshare away from Tesla. IMHO, Tesla will close or sell within two years!

[CapitalistCartr]

GM makes about 345 thousand cars in two weeks. At 400 cars per week, that would take Tesla about sixteen and a half years to make. The scale difference at present between Tesla and the major manufacturers is huge.

[VLM]

Ah but GM is not one plant. Its not even really a car company, its a financing company that happens to own all the shares of stock in numerous sub-corporations, some of which happen to make cars, just like Tesla.

A reasonably fair comparison would be GM's Bowling Green Corvette plant which makes, on long term average, about 200 to 300 cars per week for a grand total around 10K to 15K per year. About the same as Tesla, more or less.

[masklinn]

That does not even remotely make sense. The point was to compare companies, as they are compared on their turnaround they are compared on their output.

[AdamTReineke]

Is there an equal to the Model S? Seems unlikely they'll be closing since they're profitable and their flagship model has no equal.

[salimmadjd]

That's not really a fair point. I think it's better to look at their market segment. The people who want a nice-looking (luxury) car, roomy with 4 doors who are environmentally aware. That being said, there are/will be numerous established players (American, German, Japanese) who will provide a vehicle that could fulfill this market segment in one way or another.

Keep in mind consumers with certain existing brand loyalty are more likely to buy from your trusted brand before buying from a relatively unknown car maker. Especially, one that doesn't have as many dealership footprints around the country, which further reduce the probability of a sale.

You can make the argument of Ferrari who have a niche market and who have stayed in the business despite all the competition. However, Ferraris had/have a long history of racing history and certain brand around handling and driving. They are targeted to that audience. Tesla sedan is marketed to a whole different segment that could as easily buy a BWM, GM, MB, VW or Lexus before they would buy a Tesla.

Tesla is innovative, but their innovation is not something that can hold everyone else back. I've seen the car and how beautiful the interior and the center console is, but it's not enough to hold the competition back.

Lastly, Tesla is yet to offer a leasing plan. Nissan is offering an amazing deal on their Leaf. I looked at it and my projected fuel cost saving was roughly the same as my lease rate. Meaning I could drive a car for FREE for 3 years.

So now Tesla is going to move to a saturated market and they need to start adding marketing costs, dealership expansion costs and other unseen expenses to maintain their sales and suddenly they are not going to have the same profit margins and are going gradually get squeezed out. Their only hope is to sell to Toyota or MB who already buy components from tesla.

[DiabloD3]

There really isn't many.

Although this isn't the kind of car you compare to the Lincoln Town Car, Cadillac DTS, Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7-series and Lexus LS, you would compare it against the Cadillac CTS, Mercedes E-class, BMW 5-series, and Lexus GS.

Price and feature wise, it doesn't seem to fit in the mid-sized luxury/executive class of cars, but its not quite into the full-sized luxury class either, its sort of stuck between.