> And in sales they're crushing competition that have been building cars for literally a hundred years.
I don't think that's a realistic assessment of where Tesla is at as a car company. Tesla is still not very good at the actual making of cars. For example, in the last five years Tesla has had more health and safety violations in their factory than the top ten automakers in the US combined:
Volkswagen is starting its push into EVs. They'll be releasing multiple electric models across multiple brands every year from now on. Porsche, Audi, VW, Skoda, and SEAT to start. I'm sure there'll be electric Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and Bugattis eventually (if you're in the market for those):
I think Tesla's main problems are that they are a small car company with an erratic CEO, inefficient and unreliable manufacturing, and they're about to face a lot of electric car competition from one of the biggest car companies in the world.
>For example, in the last five years Tesla has had more health and safety violations in their factory than the top ten automakers in the US combined
Because Tesla manufactures all its car in California, which has far stricter rules than other states. If other manufacturers moved their production there, Tesla would rank better than the competition
>Tesla cars have among the worst reliability of any car brand
And yet, Tesla owners keep recommending their cars more than anyone else, because the car is that good. There are many things that might no be "highly reliable" (even important things, like cars) that are so great to use that you'd buy them again against the current alternatives (like a Tesla vs noisy, polluting, gas-guzzling vehicles).
>In 2018, Toyota and Volkswagen each sold over 10 million cars
So what? How many of them are EVs? One could wonder how Nokia's sales were going when the iPhone started becoming mainstream…
>The Porsche and Audi engineers have to change [the Premium Platform Electric program] because Tesla’s Model 3 has gotten better than they thought.
>The e-tron as the first electric Audi is not only late. It does not reach some target values and has become far too expensive with more than two billion euros in development costs. The approximately 600,000 cars sold for the break-even are now regarded as an illusion.
>Volkswagen also wants to license its MEB electric car platform to other manufacturers. They already have one licensee
Oh, you mean the MEB platform that is being holding up until they can come up with something that is on par with Tesla tech and cost? Ah!
> Because Tesla manufactures all its car in California, which has far stricter rules than other states. If other manufacturers moved their production there, Tesla would rank better than the competition
> And yet, Tesla owners keep recommending their cars more than anyone else, because the car is that good.
How does that make the original statement false? If anything, it establishes a pattern where Tesla owners are far more likely to overlook these issues because of how much they like their car.
> So what? How many of them are EVs? One could wonder how Nokia's sales were going when the iPhone started becoming mainstream…
The OP was pointing out that some people are looking through a subjective lens when they claim that Tesla is crushing it. In a broader picture when you look into the sale of all cars, it's really not as significant. Ok, so these cars are not EVs. So what? It's not enough to say you're dominant in a niche, albeit a growing one. When you're not on equal footing as some of the bigger name car companies, you're much more susceptible to being crushed competitively if those companies make a play in the same space. I'm not at all saying that will happen, just that looking at this point requires a bigger, broader perspective.
> It's not enough to say you're dominant in a niche, albeit a growing one.
When you're facing technology transitions, looking at it as a niche is exactly the wrong perspective. Tesla is dominant in a field which is the future of automotive transportation. It is a small market not because it is a niche but because it is nascent. The difference is, strategically, very relevant.
ICE automakers are just realizing how far behind Tesla they are. I'd wager at least ten years. The model S was launched in 2012, VW et al won't be able to launch a similar offer before 2022.
I'm all for more EVs, but anyone who's followed the EV space for the past decade knows that most of these models are DOA.
Take the Audi e-tron for instance: the director of the Paris showroom (the only place in Europe where the car was displayed in public) himself told me late last year that they don't intend to sell the car in volume, that it can't compete with the competition, and that EV sales are mostly PR for a company like Audi (at least until ICE don't make most of the company's profits).
NB: this is not a regular dealership, but a fully owned and controlled store by Audi. Good luck with that!
And there have been many models launched before today. None are even close to model S levels of production volume, performance, range and battery durability.
If your reference is the Porsche Taycan, it is the equivalent to the Tesla Roadster: a low volume proof of concept. It is already more than ten years late (the Roadster launched in '08). If your reference is anything based on VW's MEB (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda), add two years to publicized launch dates, as the MEB went back to the drawing board, deemed under-specced for what the market expects from EVs. This means production plants have not yet started to get designed, much less built, and are waiting on platform redesign and approval.
You really should read and view the links. Both the Porsche Taycan and the Audi e-tron GT are in the Model S's category, and they're both much nicer cars.
The Porsche Taycan will charge faster than any Tesla and won't suffer the Model S's overheating issues:
I think you mean: you speculate that the GT and Taycan will be in same category as the Model S and will be nicer than the roadster. Since literally nobody outside of VAG has sat in one.
You may also want to walk back the claims about overheating. In one of the press videos, a Porsche engineer explicitly says that the number of hard accelerations over a short time will be limited to 10, or so.
That article is from 2009, a full decade ago. It's a prime example why people are very weary when it comes to VAG announcing concept EVs. It's not a contender until I can actually purchase one.
Any car manufacturer can create a concept EV with relative ease. That's the easy part. Taking it to production (especially at scale) is the hardest part.
>Because Tesla manufactures all its car in California, which has far stricter rules than other states. If other manufacturers moved their production there, Tesla would rank better than the competition
I just want to point out that Tesla's California plant is Just the old GM/Toyota NUMMI plant. The article insinuates the safety violations are greater than any US based plant operated by other manufacturers over the past 10 years, a time period which includes the era in which GM/Toyota ran the very same plant.
NUMMI was sold to Tesla in 2010, and Toyota/GM had basically stopped operations by mid 2009. I’m not sure how one year of super low production is comparable to Tesla’s operation.
So I'm dishonest, Forbes is dishonest, Consumer Reports is dishonest, TrueDelta is dishonest, Autoblog is dishonest, Reuters is dishonest, Wikipedia is dishonest, and CleanTechnica is dishonest. We're all dishonest together.
> So what?
So they operate on a larger scale and they're better at making and selling cars than Tesla is. There's no point crying about it. These are simply the basic realities.
>So they operate on a larger scale and they're better at making and selling cars than Tesla is
You don't get it. They're better at making and selling ICE cars. Not EVs. No one is discussing the fact that established manufacturers are established, the issue here is the disruption.
Remember that Tesla is eating up market shares fast and at an increasing pace, and they already produce more than 50% of the entire battery market (including smartphones, stationary storage, EV, etc).
If you're forward looking, you could say Tesla "operates on a larger scale and is better at making and selling EVs". This reality may not be easy to recognize.
>Tesla cars have among the worst reliability of any car brand
And yet, Tesla owners keep recommending their cars more than anyone else, because the car is that good.
You know what that exchange reminds me of? Harley-Davidson motorcycles, back in the AMF days. Those bikes were known for being unreliable pieces of crap that would shake their own bolts loose. Wear comfortable boots if you own one. And yet their owners wouldn't be caught dead riding anything else.
I argue that when you spend nearly $100 on a car (or big bucks on a bike), what else are you going to say? "I'm an idiot and shouldn't be trusted with large sums of money."?
>Owners appear to like, even love, the Model 3. It received top marks in CR’s recent owner satisfaction survey and also earned a positive road-test score. It’s a weird duality — and one the even CR acknowledges — that other aspirational, lifestyle and luxury vehicles share. Owners love the vehicles, despite persistent issues with the components inside them.
I don't think that's a realistic assessment of where Tesla is at as a car company. Tesla is still not very good at the actual making of cars. For example, in the last five years Tesla has had more health and safety violations in their factory than the top ten automakers in the US combined:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-sa...
Tesla cars have among the worst reliability of any car brand:
https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20...
https://www.truedelta.com/car-reliability-by-brand
Consumer Reports no longer recommends the Model 3 due to its lack of reliability:
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
In 2018, Toyota and Volkswagen each sold over 10 million cars:
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/01/11/vw-group-2018-total-sale...
Whereas Tesla has sold about 550,000 cars in 11 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Sales
Volkswagen is starting its push into EVs. They'll be releasing multiple electric models across multiple brands every year from now on. Porsche, Audi, VW, Skoda, and SEAT to start. I'm sure there'll be electric Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and Bugattis eventually (if you're in the market for those):
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insig...
Volkswagen also wants to license its MEB electric car platform to other manufacturers. They already have one licensee:
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/05/volkswagen-wants-to-sha...
I think Tesla's main problems are that they are a small car company with an erratic CEO, inefficient and unreliable manufacturing, and they're about to face a lot of electric car competition from one of the biggest car companies in the world.