Tesla’s success in Europe catches industry off guard

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/tesla-europe-success.html

by lxm • 6 years ago

404 475 6 years ago

Leaving aside (and I know this hard) the controversy of Tesla's valuation, Elon Musk and the environmental virtues of electric cars, think what a historic success Tesla is as a car company. There have been dozen(s) of car companies started in the US since WW2 and you could argue that not one of them has been a success. The biggest Kaiser Motors, has probably been surpassed.

For decades American and Japanese manufacturers have tried to compete with European luxury brands. American companies had almost no success and Japanese very little. Lexus does well, but it never displaced German car sales the way Tesla is now. I am not a Tesla fanboy, but I do like cars. You have to respect the product.

jessriedel3• 6 years ago

In a recent podcast interview, Musk claims there have been thousands of new (EDIT: American) consumer car companies and that every single one has failed besides Tesla (if I recall correctly). Presumably this counts every incorporated team that made a rudimentary prototype.

aantix• 6 years ago

Do you remember the podcast?

baybal22• 6 years ago

BYD - been around for an eternity by silicon valley standards, few other genuinely new Chinese brands (ones which are not subsidiaries of BAIC or FAW,) Vinfast, Peroda

cjhopman5• 6 years ago

Tesla has burned through more money than all of them combined.

rconti5• 6 years ago

As a sidenote, it's easy to get lost among the "how many hundreds of thousands of model 3s can tesla produce in a year", but I just saw an overall production stat and noticed they're over 900,000 cars lifetime, and hadn't heard it mentioned elsewhere. 1 million vehicles sold will be a real milestone.

I stumbled upon a comment online, recently, from a guy who went on and on about peak oil for years. In 2008, he made a joke about "Tesla will have surpassed the US car industry". I don't remember the time horizon, but the first Roadster was delivered to Elon in February 2008. It just made me reflect on what we'd think of that prediction/joke and how it turned out, if we were to go back in time.

latortuga• 6 years ago

Musk tweeted about how they reached 1M just yesterday.

rtsil• 6 years ago

1 million vehicles sold will be a real milestone.

They've just passed 1 million vehicles manufactured so that shouldn't take long.

tardo994• 6 years ago

Tesla's 10-K shows an accumulated shareholder deficit of $6B. That's over and above money spent to buy factories which are still operating. That's $6k a car at 1M cars sold. Add to that the $7500 rebate the US was providing until recently. That's $13.5k, on average, they lost per car they sold through the end of 2019.

Saying nothing about Tesla cars versus other companies, that's a huge financial advantage against other car companies. This is particularly true given that most of those car sales happened post-Q1-2018, when Tesla had already established a strong brand.

I'm not sure any established player could, at that point, compete with a company that gets to lose $13.5k per car they sell. That would be like if Nissan started building base-model Sentras and selling them for $4500. Yes, they would sell a lot of them.

As markets normalize and Tesla has to compete on a level playing field, my guess is their product is viewed more and more as what it is: a luxury car. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to see them owning more than a few percent of the market, especially considering established companies have gone all in on electric at this point.

And, nothing can justify a price-sales multiplier of 20 for the company. Nothing.

d1zzy2• 6 years ago

AFAIK when I was in Europe I would have loved to be able to buy Japanese cars but they were the top taxed cars, some crazy >20% amount or so. So there was no choice but to buy "local". With Tesla it seems a lot of countries are giving out serious tax breaks so I wonder how much of that will continue once those incentives stop.

nordsieck• 6 years ago

With Tesla it seems a lot of countries are giving out serious tax breaks so I wonder how much of that will continue once those incentives stop.

My understanding is that gas is quite expensive in many European countries compared to the US, so even if there are purchase incentives that expire, I think there is probably still strong economic pressure to buy electric.

Until someone else comes out with a strong electric vehicle offering, that means Tesla.

hibikir• 6 years ago

Just like a big percentage of Japanese cars destined to the US market are assembled in the US or Mexico, Tesla will probably build their highest volume cars in the EU the moment it makes sense. They've broken ground for a large factory in Berlin already.

baud147258• 6 years ago

From what I've heard, if you buy Toyota in France, your car is more likely to have been assembled locally vs any of the local brands (Peugeot, Renault, Citroën). So buying a Japanese car in Europe can mean buying a local car.

dd36• 6 years ago

And that’s to say nothing of what they’re doing to drive down battery costs through economies of scale and basically creating the energy storage mass market. $100kWh is revolutionary. Every home in sunbelt America can have decent backup or go off grid with solar for mere thousands of dollars. I still think few people grasp the paradigm shift that’s on the horizon.

The bottleneck is no longer fuel costs and delivery. It’s technology cost and it’s declining rapidly. Look at Enphase’s IQ8X grid forming micros. The future is coming fast.

adventured• 6 years ago

Just getting people to think differently about these things is extraordinary. Making the Powerwall an accessible consumer good, is an important step forward. Tesla single-handedly changed the public's perception of electric vehicles.

Some people obsessively, maniacally try to deny Tesla the credit they deserve for changing the auto market (for the exact same reason some people try to deny Apple the credit it deserves for entirely changing the phone market). Nobody else did it, which is also why they're so far ahead of their peers. The giants of the industry handed them a decade headstart.

djehh3r7d• 6 years ago

That didn't leave the controversy behind at all, most of the controversy is far past their valuation. Tesla is only interesting as a car company to people who are willing to lower their expectations below those placed on the actual car companies.

They market themselves as environmentally friendly while representing a comedically small percent of global emissions reduction. And within the auto industry itself the increasing efficiency of ICE vehicles has reduced emissions by far more than Tesla and their electric car hype.

At the same time, they advocate infrastructure expansions to accomodate their vehicle's needs while handwaving away the emissions and environmental consequences this process would create. And every time this is mentioned people just blubber some line about the long term while covering their ears to the tide of environmentalists saying that we need change /now/.

They might conquer Europe through legislation but the only reason that's practical is because European countries are tiny so the range issue is less relevant to them. Tesla hasn't actually cleared their hurdles, they've surrendered to them.

Meanwhile, they drum up this idea that Tesla's can be more than toys for rich people even though no one blue collar who isn't already a hard fan chooses a Tesla. In fact, speaking of legislation, they're so uncompetitive that Europe has to ban ICE engines for them to gain ground.

Even you framed this as Tesla competing against luxury brands, key word being luxury. This world where they've paved the way for cheap mainstream electric vehicles is a fantasy. They've paved the way for novelty in the luxury market and since doing so have shown little aptitude beyond their ability to wield that accomplishment as a shield to deflect criticisms.

random314• 6 years ago

You should self reflect about how incredibly bitter you sound.

Tesla is a new successful electric car company that is helping with CO2 emission reduction. Nothing in your rant challenges this.

frandroid• 6 years ago

They market themselves as environmentally friendly while representing a comedically small percent of global emissions reduction. And within the auto industry itself the increasing efficiency of ICE vehicles has reduced emissions by far more than Tesla and their electric car hype.

The emissions reductions attained by manufacturers have been done while fighting tooth and nail against them; also, it's good that they're reducing emissions, but you just eliminate them completely by driving a Tesla.

vgchh• 6 years ago

Tesla is no longer a novelty. They just manufactured the millionth car. I own a model 3 and people ask me how do I like it. My usual answer is that I have "no compelling reason" to buy an ICE car - ever. Despite all the free marketing that Tesla gets, I don't think people grok how good the car actually drives in real. You really need to experience living with it to appreciate why it's a game changer.

elihu• 6 years ago

They market themselves as environmentally friendly while representing a comedically small percent of global emissions reduction. And within the auto industry itself the increasing efficiency of ICE vehicles has reduced emissions by far more than Tesla and their electric car hype.

You have to start somewhere. Tesla is increasing their manufacturing capacity about as fast as you can reasonably expect any company to do it. Just because high-volume manufacturers like Ford or Honda or Volkswagen can have more impact on CO2 emissions by reducing fuel consumption slightly on many more vehicles is no reason to disdain what Tesla is doing on a smaller scale.

alasdair_• 6 years ago

no one blue collar who isn't already a hard fan chooses a Tesla

My friend is a Master electrician in the IBEW union. He is in no way a “hard fan” of Tesla. He put down a deposit on the new truck that they are making because he thought it was better than his other options.

Dumblydorr5• 6 years ago

With this logic, you would've expected Steve Jobs to introduce a non-luxury iPhone and expect it to compete mass market from day 1. Tesla's plan was always to start at the high end with early adopters, show an EV can be great, and slowly scale down prices, which they have done. I can't envision them doing it a different way successfully.

new_realist3• 6 years ago

Tesla has lost $6.5B over 17 years. It’s cheap money which has allowed it to persist despite these losses.

foota• 6 years ago

Seems pretty cheap?

bjelkeman-again2• 6 years ago

You say losses, i say investments. I expect they will be recouped now.

m4633• 6 years ago

I've sort of wondered about that. Governments should foster entreprenuers, the most important source of economic growth, and cheap money might be more successful and egalitarian than fingers-in-the-pie subsidies or other methods.

Dumblydorr5• 6 years ago

Cheap money is great for new companies. Whether it be Amazon, netflix, uber, lyft, Airbnb, lets face it: they all get a ton of cheap money to finance their technical coding and R&D. This is not a bad thing inherently, what we are describing is how you get hard technology to scale much faster.

Barrin922• 6 years ago

Elon Musk and the environmental virtues of electric cars

this is arguably a pretty big red herring and despite good intentions the focus on electric cars will probably be a disaster by prolonging the broken American car-centric development.

Mind you an electric vehicle is only as clean as its primary source of energy (at the moment its lifetime emissions are about 70% of a traditional car), and the production of particular the batteries is ecologically problematic to say the least.

breakyerself2• 6 years ago

How are electric cars prolonging the car centric system? Were we on the verge of overhauling our transportation infrastructure and I just didnt hear about it?

Dumblydorr5• 6 years ago

You're forgetting spewing emissions into cities which worsen childhood asthma and worsen development of dementia. Local emissions matter and EVs are much much better than ICE for urban air quality; this point matters if you care about kids with asthma and grandparents with dementia.

Further, you're totally ignoring how much greening of the grid will occur. Some places like Scotland, Iowa, Texas, california, Iceland, etc. Have very clean grids due to ample renewable power generation. Sure an EV in west virginia or Wyoming will be charging with dirtier electrons, but most EVs in the US are in California which has a ton of solar and more all the time.

neonate• 6 years ago

https://archive.md/TULea

w-m3• 6 years ago

Tesla seems to be somewhat ahead in technology - their range is currently higher than in the Porsches/Audis/... and the software seems quite a bit more advanced.

Tesla can use this to their advantage to sell more cars while the traditional automakers play catchup. But eventually they will get closer.

And Volkswagen alone can introduce dozens of new models every year, based on their building blocks (MEB) and numerous brands. There will be cars this year from 15.000€ (VW e.Up and friends) to 150.000€ (Porsche Taycan), and a few others in between. VW alone plans to introduce 70 electric models in the coming years.

How will Tesla, who did 4 models in ten years, compete with the sheer breadth of this market? Looking at what’s parked in the street, people choose lots of different types of cars, there’s no one-fits-all.

magicalhippo• 6 years ago

From what I read, Audi and Jaguar could have made a lot more cars but can't get enough batteries. The new e-Tron has been a big hit in Norway so far, but they can't deliver enough.

How is the situation for Volkswagen?

icelancer• 6 years ago

> Audi and Jaguar could have made a lot more cars but can't get enough batteries.

This is exactly what Elon said was going to happen years ago: Car manufacturers do not have the capacity to build batteries in sufficient quantity and quality and will not for many years.

gibolt2• 6 years ago

Tesla is the only company that has a Gigafactory producing batteries, and starting to build more.

A few others finally get it, and are starting to invest billions just like Tesla's Panasonic arrangement. However, Tesla will soon be moving to their next iteration, producing far more batteries faster, cheaper, and in much less space.

bildung• 6 years ago

Actually Teslas vertical integration will be a disadvantage, I think. There are many independent battery manufacturers, and many new plants already in construction for a few years. China alone will produce in excess of 500GWh in 5 years, and Europe about 400GWh [0]. Batteries will be a commodity in the very near future, and the current supply crunches seem more to be about the metals needed, not the actual battery production.

[0] https://insideevs.com/news/397955/10-chinese-battery-makers-...

Infinitesimus2• 6 years ago

How will Tesla, who did 4 models in ten years, compete with the sheer breadth of this market? Looking at what’s parked in the street, people choose lots of different types of cars, there’s no one-fits-all.

Imagine this argument:

"How will Apple, who only has one phone model, compete with the sheer breadth of this market? Looking at what’s in people's hands, people choose lots of different types of phones, there’s no one-fits-all."

Yet here we are. Having so many car models is frankly exhausting.

One of my silly little hobbies is trying to spec out cars online I dream of buying and everything becomes a chore after the first 10 seconds. Options that I don't want to think about being nickel-and-dimed for, features that should come standard but require an upgrade 'package' I dont want etc.

Until they change how they think about cars, Tesla will keep beating them in the market in the price ranges Tesla competes in. And shit will hit the fan if Tesla ever figures out a way to make a much cheaper car for the mass market

veggieburglar• 6 years ago

Apple is currently selling six different iPhone models on its website.

whatarethembits3• 6 years ago

This. Cognitive load is largely ignored when it comes to these arguments on HN, which is ironic given the demographic's profession. Traditional manufacturers have made it so unnecessarily difficult to feel good about your purchase. They offer "choices" rather than choices. No matter what configuration I choose, I just know I'm being screwed over somehow, just not sure how exactly. You make a decision based on reviews of a particular model only to find there are 300 sub models and everything good you read is dependent on very specific trim choices. Choose the wrong suspension configuration and the car is far from what it could be.

You can't expect normal people to keep up with the minutae of every combination of trim levels to make the best decision. And we can't rely on dealerships for their expertise to get correct info because they have proven themselves to be scam artists over the decades. I have a hard time believing that companies could be this bad at organising and categorising their offerings unintentionally. This experience has to be intentional.

Tesla makes this process much simpler. I'm a motorcycle enthusiast, I don't care to keep up with boring car minutae. I need something that works, and is simple to deal with so I can focus on other aspects of life with its utility. Virtually every other big manufacturer lags behind Tesla in this department.

btian• 6 years ago

How about VW make one model that is competitive in terms of specs and price with Tesla, then we can talk about 70 or 700 models.

imtringued3• 6 years ago

I'm not in the market for a Tesla and I will probably never be even though I am very interested in EVs.

ericd3• 6 years ago

Most manufacturers with interesting EV models out aren’t able to make them in any appreciable volume, because they don’t have the battery supply. So they just basically do lots of paper launches, while Tesla competes by actually making a ton of the cars that they announce, extending their lead in supply and battery tech, and expanding one by one into their competitors’ popular segments. Model Y is coming for the enormous crossover SUV market, supposedly first deliveries on the 15th.

Which is hugely ironic given their old reputation for paper launches.

tonyedgecombe6• 6 years ago

Given that is the case I don't know why they don't focus on plugin hybrids right now.

slaw2• 6 years ago

I don't see Tesla being ahead in technology. Range at 75mph:

2020 Tesla Model S performance: 222 miles

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo: 204 miles

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30874032/porsche-tayca...

s_y_n_t_a_x• 6 years ago

The Porsche is $185,000. The Tesla is $79,990.

Whatever that one test says, the Porsche is still rated 100 miles under the Tesla in range and is twice as much in cost. That's not exactly tied in tech.

And that's just the Model S. Where is the competitor to the Model 3?

The Taycan is closer to the Tesla Roadster, except for the 3x range the roadster has. Similar price though.

The Model S has no competition.

The Model 3 has no competition.

koffiezet4• 6 years ago

Where Tesla is ahead is mostly battery production capacity and tech. This is what pretty much every manufacturer is struggling with. For Porsche this is not really that big of an issue since they're relatively low-volume (which is also how Tesla bootstrapped itself) - but for others this is a much bigger problem. Tesla can right now produce a lot more electric cars than Porsche could.

jillesvangurp4• 6 years ago

The problem everyone has is producing enough batteries. Tesla secured supply early when people thought they were crazy for wanting so much capacity. As it turns out, they need much more and they are building their own cells and factories. VW recently announced they have enough batteries to build ~1 million cars until 2023. Tesla might be hitting that as the annual production before that time. Other manufacturers are struggling to secure access to batteries and are supply limited even if they have interesting models that people want to buy (like some Honda or Hyundai models).

IMHO, most manufacturers need another five years to straighten out their supplies and then another five to scale down their legacy business. That's why you see the likes of Toyota talking about hybrids a lot because they simply can't scale up EV production right now even if they wanted to. Because they lack access to enough batteries.

Some manufacturers have wisened up. It looks like VW and GM have pretty solid plans and are expanding production as fast as they can. But they are talking about keeping up with and not overtaking Tesla. At least VWs CEO is.

w-m3• 6 years ago

Battery supply was mentioned several times in the replies, but I have a hard time following the argument.

Building batteries seems to be a simple process, at least compared to building the rest of the car: https://youtu.be/PZBQzLfCKpw

As there is more demand, it seems straightforward to bring up Gigafactory-sized new assembly lines quickly.

raphaelj• 6 years ago

Aside luxury cars, it seems like German manufacturers are also losing against French manufacturers in the electric compact car market.

Peugeot and Renault are having a decent success with their latest cars: https://uk.motor1.com/news/401562/europe-ev-sales-january-20...

tonyedgecombe6• 6 years ago

VW are on the verge of launching the ID.3, it will be interesting to see the figures in a years time.

baybal22• 6 years ago

Competition is gooood!

What I don't conflate with "Iphone moment" is that European car companies are not Nokias and there are no Elop style saboteurs in them. All of them are used to "fight to bitter end" mentality, even though they haven't had such a moment when they really needed to for a very long time.

richardknop• 6 years ago

Personally, I don’t think the major move happening right now is from gasoline cars to EVs. The major move is from cars to no cars. Tesla will not be a great trillion dollar company in this scenario. It will be just another car manufacturer.

mdorazio2• 6 years ago

Not really. The trend is to not owning cars if you’re a yuppie. People still need to get around in cars of some kind and Tesla is fairly well positioned for electric fleet sales of ride share or rental vehicles.

CydeWeys13• 6 years ago

A lot of people, in fact, do not need to get around in cars. And rich people are more likely to own cars than poor people.

sgillen• 6 years ago

what would cars be replaced with then? Driverless cars that you rent on demand?

Scarblac2• 6 years ago

Depends on where you are, but in the Netherlands it'd be bicycle within the city, and trains between cities.

For me it's only the camping holidays in summer that I really need a car for, and renting one for that costs close to what owning an old car costs, so I still have one. But I'm constantly considering getting rid of it.

scythe• 6 years ago

Moving away from cars sounds nice, but we have billions of km of roads and millions of houses already built to support a car-centric economy. It's not going to be a quick fix; you can't just "git co" new transportation and housing layouts. I wouldn't expect this to become a serious problem for Tesla for a couple decades, although the car market will start to cool off. But EVs are already more suitable for city driving thanks to regenerative braking, simpler transmissions and reduced air pollution.

lucasmullens2• 6 years ago

No cars? How do you leave a city? I could imagine a world filled with an automated uber-like service of self-driving cars, but what would replace cars for going to work in a small town?

wilg• 6 years ago

those self driving cars are still cars

tonyedgecombe6• 6 years ago

No cars? How do you leave a city?

Bikes, buses, trains.

pochamago• 6 years ago

This just doesn't work outside of urban areas. Both rural and suburban need cars and America is built around that concept

rootusrootus11• 6 years ago

And panning over Europe with Google satellite view suggests that Europe is also populated with plenty of people living a suburban lifestyle. Cars are going to be the predominant mode of transportation indefinitely.

sumedh2• 6 years ago

The major move is from cars to no cars.

Let me guess, you dont have kids.

christiansakai• 6 years ago

Or live in Japan.

throwsprtsdy• 6 years ago

But, while technically innovative, with a carbon-fiber body, the i3 is essentially a very expensive hatchback.

Yep. When people buy high performance or luxury cars, part of the mystique is that it is the latest evolution of some sort of classic. It's going to be hard for BMW et al to position electric vehicles as belonging to any existing lineage. This puts their brand at risk unless they can figure out how to make a remarkable electric car. But nobody really knows what that would be.

jacobush2• 6 years ago

Porsche already tries hard with "Turbo":

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/04/cars/porsche-taycan-elect...

bch• 6 years ago

This is storytelling on the part of the automakers, so let me propose 2:

1) Porsche’s got 120 years of work since their first electric car [0]

2) I remember pulling the leg of some Tesla fans a long while ago (maybe when the first roadster came out) about how the “no radiator, front trunk, smooth underbody” sounded a lot like the air-cooled VWs we’ve all been enjoying since the 1930s.

The manufacturers will find a way...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche

tonyedgecombe6• 6 years ago

They will just put a badge on it. I remember there was a survey of BMW owners a few years ago, most of the respondents didn't know their car was rear wheel drive.

jupp0r• 6 years ago

I don't know if it's just me, but I find most non Tesla electric cars to be incredibly ugly. If BMW made an electric 3 class sedan with > 350 miles of range for a reasonable price, I think that would be hugely successful. Instead they made the i3.

The VW ID.3 looks like it would have the same problem. I know this is very subjective, but why not make a car that looks more like their already successful models?

ricardobeat• 6 years ago

Have you seen the Ioniq / Kona duo? They look quite traditional with a little flat-grille twist.

d1zzy2• 6 years ago

I'm the opposite, I find Teslas to be (externally) ugly. In general I find any large sedan to be ugly. I don't get the sedan form factor, it seems to waste a lot of space. I've always owned hatchbacks because I like the way they look and they seem much more practical to me how I can bend the seats and carry a ton of stuff in the back (which I take advantage of at least once a month).

pmh• 6 years ago

how I can bend the seats and carry a ton of stuff in the back

I don't think I've ever been in a sedan that doesn't have this feature, but you usually get a little more space out of a hatchback if the roof-line doesn't taper down.

jdhn• 6 years ago

I'm the opposite, I find Teslas to be (externally) ugly.

I'm 100% with you. The X is one of the most awkward looking SUV's ever made, and the 3 looks awkward past the C pillar. In my opinion their best looking vehicle is the S because it looks correctly proportioned, and also because it has the semblance of a grille, even though it's just black plastic and doesn't actually function as a ICE car's grille.

adrr• 6 years ago

I used to love small cars till I had kids. Strollers are large and rear facing car seats don’t work if front seat people are tall.

mmmmmbop• 6 years ago

All upcoming electric cars seem to follow that route. It just took them a while to catch up. The Audi e-tron and Mercedes EQC are recently released SUVs that are hardly distinguishable from their combustion engine counterparts. The upcoming BMW i4 is essentially an electric 4 class sedan with >350 miles of range.

johnghanks2• 6 years ago

I wanted my next car to be electric and found the same thing. The good options at the time (Leaf and Bolt) are ugly, so I purchased a Model 3.

That being said, if Honda releases their little wagon thing in NA, that might be my next EV. If not, a Y is in my future.

rootusrootus11• 6 years ago

I want to get a closer look at the Mach-E before I settle for a Y (already have a 3 as well). Saw the Mach-E in person at the auto show a couple weeks ago and it's quite good looking.

cjhopman5• 6 years ago

why not make a car that looks more like their already successful models?

Most auto manufacturers are limited to making things that are profitable. I'm sure any one of them could have easily sold a million electric cars if they were willing to sell them at cost-$10,000 and burn up a couple 10s of billions of dollars.

henrikschroder• 6 years ago

The ID.3 still looks a bit too funky compared to regular VW models, but BMW, Audi, and Mercedes are just launching models that look a lot more like their regular lineup:

https://www.caranddriver.com/bmw/i4 https://www.caranddriver.com/audi/e-tron https://www.caranddriver.com/mercedes-benz/eqc

And if you want something similar to a Model S, Porsche has got you covered with the Taycan:

https://www.caranddriver.com/porsche/taycan

Traditional carmakers are obviously capable of making electric cars that look like any other of their cars, it's annoying that it took them this long to get on that train...

CriticalCathed• 6 years ago

The ID.3 looks like a hot hatchback. What's the problem?

Hamuko3• 6 years ago

ID.3 looks like a minivan rather than a hot hatch.

sebasmurphy• 6 years ago

Pretty sure it's a conscious decision not to cannibalize sales and to sell just enough to meet manufacturer emissions standards.

Yhippa2• 6 years ago

If BMW made an electric 3 class sedan with > 350 miles of range for a reasonable price

Would they do this internationally? They are a luxury brand in America and moving downmarket doesn't seem to be their strategy or good for their brand.

p1mrx• 6 years ago

The Hyundai Kona Electric looks decent, and has an actual instrument panel instead of a weird iPad thing. You can't buy a Tesla with a standard charging port in the US, though I think Europe managed to solve that problem.

freeone3000• 6 years ago

Have you seen the BMW i4? It's pretty much exactly that.

jillesvangurp4• 6 years ago

Most cars are ugly these days; Tesla is not an exception. Cars used to be beautiful and peak car design was in the 1950's and 1960's. I find it interesting that people are retrofitting a lot of old cars from that era with electric; looks like a lot of fun to drive in those things.

I'd love to see some old designs from that era reproduced with electric. I'm not talking about monstrosities like BMWs mini (anything but mini) or VWs attempt to revive the beetle. They basically lost the essence of both designs and turned them into pompous monstrosities with a lot of plastic, leds, and ugly loud colors. The current mini especially is offensive to me compared to the original. Completely misses the point of the original in every possible way.

For the North American market; what about some old school muscle cars, Cadillacs, etc. Those were awesome design classics. Their modern descendants are not even worth mentioning. It's not like a modern SUV is in any way efficient or practical. With EVs, aerodynamics matter a lot less because the fuel (i.e. electricity) is cheap.

But it seems like designers these days insist on rubbing out all the little details in the original that made them so nice.

toephu2• 6 years ago

Most cars are ugly these days;

What makes you think you can speak for the entire car driving population?

This is just your opinion, no? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

speedgoose• 6 years ago

When BMW designed the i3 about 10 years ago, one couldn't make a 3 class sedan with > 560 km at a reasonable price. So instead they took their low fuel consumption city car concept with a futuristic look and made it electric. They never planned to sell it a lot, it's a carbon fiber body on an aluminium frame with a rear-wheel engine block. It's not designed to be mass produced at a cheap cost, it's designed to make money from low numbers as a premium EV.

They should have made more electric models since, but their different CEOs that succeeded were only looking at the current numbers. Hopefully for them, they will catch up.

Many people dislike the look of the i3 but that's just a matter of tastes. Personally I think the tesla model S and model 3 are very boring looking cars. They look okay, but I much prefer the i3.

In current cars models, The Renault Zoé looks very normal, the Volswagen Golf is a Golf, the Peugeot 208 looks exactly the same as a BEV or ICE, the Jaguar I-Pace looks like a ICE car too, the Audi Etron cannot look more normal, same for the Mercedes EQC.

de_watcher2• 6 years ago

Tesla is ugly too.

The only non-ugly electric car is Ioniq. New Audi/Mercedes are going to be sane too.

sgt• 6 years ago

Ioniq is non-ugly? What are you smoking?

Theodores2• 6 years ago

Good design can take a while to be accepted, particularly in automotive. Some Ford of Europe cars were radical enough to be deemed ugly when they were new, for example the Sierra and the Focus. In time people got used to them and the rest of the market borrowed the design principles.

Some of the excesses of the trend setting designs got dropped, for example the huge double spoiler on the sport version of the Sierra, however, the aero shape gave fuel efficiencies important to the fleet buyer so that stayed. Nowadays all saloon cars have a little bit of Sierra 'jelly mould' in their design.

With EV design the fake grille that Tesla started out with has been dropped. Tesla also don't do the funny blue lights 'because it is electric' styling that other marques sucker themselves for.

Some people do not want an EV car that has retro, e.g. the grill, or the inane, e.g. the funny blue lights. A different future is sought, more along the lines of the second generation Nissan Leaf that is 'conventional' rather than the first, which had the silly blue lights styling in abundance.

Now your suggestion of a BMW 3 series with the ICE replaced with batteries is a non-starter. Sure you can do what MINI have done and just shove batteries where the ICE bits would go, but it always feels retro-fitted. It would not be the 'ultimate driving machine' or offer the passenger luxury that EV is best at (3 series BMW's have miserable rear legroom because it is a driver's car). There would be this stupidly large bonnet for an ICE that did not exist. And you would not get your 350 miles range with ICE grade aero and weighty steel.

rsync• 6 years ago

"If BMW made an electric 3 class sedan with > 350 miles of range for a reasonable price, I think that would be hugely successful. Instead they made the i3."

This.

"I know this is very subjective, but why not make a car that looks more like their already successful models?"

Carmakers: We don't want your electric car. We want your car, electric.

I don't want to buy your iMobile or your eCar. I want a Volvo v90, but electric. I want a BMW 7-series, but electric. I don't want your Tron-mobile.

tvararu• 6 years ago

The VW E-Golf (since 2017) is exactly that, but doesn't have the best range.

adaisadais• 6 years ago

I often wonder what would have happened to the American auto industry if the US Gov’t had not bailed them out. Would we have multiple Tesla-like electric powered automobile companies today? Probably not. But just a thought.

hristov2• 6 years ago

Keep in mind that the government bailed Tesla out too. Tesla took a hefty government loan before the model S roll-out. (It has been repaid now). So we might have had exactly zero Tesla like electric powered car companies today.

CydeWeys13• 6 years ago

Needless to say, as a taxpayer, I'm very happy with how that loan to Tesla turned out. Talk about a return on investment.

grecy3• 6 years ago

The government did not "bail out Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus interest, ten years before it was due. [1]

The government DID paid out GM, Chrysler and Ford. I.e. it lent $80.5 billion dollars and $10 billion will never be repaid. [2] Taxpayers paid for that so those companies can keep making private profits.

I wish this kind of misinformation would die, because it's so easy to google and it's factual.

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan-repayment/...

[2] https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford-chr...

xedeon2• 6 years ago

That was a loan, NOT a handout as someone already mentioned.

aSplash0fDerp• 6 years ago

IMO, Tesla needs to branch into 80% complete coachbuilder models and in a roundabout way, have a dealership in any town (or country) and shakeup the industry a little more for sh!TS and giggles.

Once their production hits its stride and has a surplus of models, they can bring oldworld craftsmanship to a modern canvas.

With the limited model lineup, who wouldn`t want a bespoke Tesla personalized just for them.

I would still pick the 7-speed dogleg manual in the Vantage S, but a personalized Tesla would be a close second.

CydeWeys13• 6 years ago

The same thing is happening to traditional automobile manufacturers now as what happened to the likes of Kodak and Xerox when the digital revolution came. They'll deny that the change is happening until it's way too late, and then become obsolete. Even when any outsider can look at the industry and say it's obvious that the future is electric and any manufacturer that hasn't already seriously dived into making EVs is being stupid.

And yet, here we are ...

esturk• 6 years ago

The tragic part is there were probably employees pushing for change but management must've smothered them like a dying patient with a pillow.

quickthrower2• 6 years ago

Why take risks where you can fail when you are getting paid a fat check every month. It’s a “no one was fired for keeping the company running” kind of thing.

rootusrootus11• 6 years ago

GM has announced what, 22 EVs in the next couple years? I don't think they're in any danger of becoming obsolete due to Tesla. If anything, Tesla should be getting worried. When competition heats up people will start caring more about reliability, features, and looks.

intopieces2• 6 years ago

Did GM announce a charging network? Most people may be able to charge at home, but they also want peace of mind the 1 time a year they travel on a road trip.

I picked Tesla for my next EV because of the charging stations. Level 2 and even CHAdeMO and CCS are just too slow, and there’s not enough of the latter two.

pmorici2• 6 years ago

I would be surprised if GM has more models available than Tesla in the US at any point in the next 5 years. Tesla will have 7 once all the currently announced models are in production.

virgilp• 6 years ago

Lots of companies rushed smartphones after the iPhone; like GM with EVs, Nokia also was the inventor/original smartphone producer.. in fact, it was more advanced in the field than GM is with the EV. Yet here we are, with Nokia being a shadow of its former self.

I wouldn't be so quick to claim "Tesla should be worried" - Tesla should only be worried about its own execution, and should be ignoring competition altogether (which I think they do).

Dumblydorr5• 6 years ago

Everything you mentioned is dependent on them rolling out EVs in volume reliably, which is probably going to take another 5 years. Meanwhile, Tesla's vehicles have a massive lead on efficiency, range, brand, and performance. GM simply makes lackluster vehicles and I dont see their quality improving to rival Tesla or its huge tech lead.

koffiezet4• 6 years ago

Tesla should be getting worried

I'm not exactly a Tesla fan, I think their cars are pretty bland, certainly the interior is pretty spartan for the price you're paying, and I'm not convinced of the entire infotainment system/massive screen in the middle.

But... Other manufacturers allowed Tesla to become an established brand, and right now if you tell someone you have an electric car, their response will be "oh a Tesla?" 9 out of 10.

On top of that, Tesla is learning quality/finish faster than other manufacturers are learning how to mass produce electric cars properly. The newer model 3 from one colleague is miles ahead build-quality-wise of the one from another, who got one of the first to arrive in Europe.

And lastly, Tesla has a massive head-start in battery production capacity, and I would not be surprised if they'd start selling batteries to other manufacturers soon. Battery supply chains are currently the limiting factors for many car models (the Hyundai Ioniq has a massive waiting list for this exact reason for example).

Most classic car brands also give priority to direct battery supply towards their more mass-market lineup where they're now offering hybrid solutions. They can make what - 10 hybrid cars with the same amount of batteries it takes to make a single-electric-one? Choosing between selling 1 or 10 cars limited by a strained supply chain is an easy choice. Sure they'll offer electric versions for a premium, but the hybrid-ones are the ones they're really producing and driving sales.

ggm9• 6 years ago

Car purchase includes a huge amount of 'non rational actor' decision making. I like old jaguars. Walnut burr, doors that go "thunk" -in every sense (fuel economy, NCAP, reliability) they are irrational purchase: I still love them. And the Citroen DS19.

EVs are in a segment with high discretionary spend. Choices in discretionary spending are notoriously bound up in non-rational choices: I could invest in diamonds, or snort it as coke, or fly to the bahamas in a helicopter is totally different lifestyle choices to "I need to get to Walmart at 3am for diapers, and I cannot afford to pay for more than basic AirConditioning"

When EVs are in the segment of rational-decision bound purchases, when they are "boring" I will deem them to have succeeded.

As long as the competition is Fiskar, not VW, and Not the Ioniq, or other Japanese low-end EV, its not baked yet.

The low-end EV have to get about 50% more efficiency and drop price about 30%. There really is a sweet spot in most people's disposable income and on-road costs and range anxiety (also a highly irrational place btw) which is just around the corner:

under $20,000 in any local economy over 300km range in real-life chargeable for usable amounts (10%? 20%?) in under 15min

imglorp• 6 years ago

I think a lot of Tesla is simply that they're not the other guys. They're giving people what they want. The dinosaurs have been refusing to innovate in many areas, screwing customers with exploitive dealer networks, dragging their feet on features when it's demanded of them, or just plain making everything miserable about cars for decades. The dinosars deserve to get their ass handed to them until they wake up and serve customers.

Areading314• 6 years ago

Don't forget deliberately faking their emissions performance

clouddrover3• 6 years ago

The dinosars deserve to get their ass handed to them until they wake up and serve customers.

Who are the dinosaurs? Volkswagen sells 10 million vehicles a year. Toyota sells 10 million vehicles a year. Are you claiming that Volkswagen and Toyota are somehow not serving customers? If they're not serving customers then why are they selling so many cars?

hilbertseries• 6 years ago

I don’t think traditional car manufacturers benefit from dealerships. That’s just some classic US regulatory capture, where car manufacturers can’t sell directly to the consumer to help protect the consumer. Because when you think of someone trying to protect you, you think a car salesman.

Ididntdothis2• 6 years ago

As far as I know Tesla is not so nice if you ever need parts to repair something. I agree that car dealership suck but I wouldn’t call Tesla the good guys.

delfinom2• 6 years ago

screwing customers with exploitive dealer networks

Haha. My buddy just waited for Tesla to finish repairs on his Model 3 for 4 months and in the mean time had to have a rental. The reason? They couldn't acquire certain bolts.

Give me "exploitative dealer networks" that can source parts properly to Tesla's outrageous incompetence of a service network.

moooo992• 6 years ago

screwing customers with exploitive dealer networks,

Not sure if Tesla's approach to that is more customer friendly. Their cars are basically iPhones on wheels, they are locked down to the same extent. iirc you cannot even get replacements for the most car parts. With traditional cars however, you can basically go everywhere and get your car fixed. No matter if it is a brand dealer or third party repair shop.

edit: fixed typos

fxtentacle11• 6 years ago

I think a big part of Tesla is plain old dishonesty, or American bragging, if you want to call it that way.

Consumers want autonomous self-driving cars. So Tesla creates marketing videos and then calls their glorified lane assistance and distance keeping assistant an "autopilot".

And now, Tesla buyers are frustrated that the software isn't ready yet, or dying due to bugs in said software.

But Tesla gets to dodge legal responsibility by writing into the fine print of their EULA that the so-called "autopilot" isn't actually meant to be used like what autopilot means to most people.

If anything, Tesla has amazing marketing.

Hamuko3• 6 years ago

screwing customers with exploitive dealer networks

Having watched Rich Rebuilds' attempt at buying a second-hand Tesla Model X directly from Tesla, I'm not convinced that a) dealerships are bad b) Tesla are the good guys.

growlist3• 6 years ago

making everything miserable about cars for decades

well at least we used to have some diversity in design - these days it's mostly variations on the shapeless blob theme. Yes I know, safety regulations etc etc...

aguyfromnb2• 6 years ago

The dinosaurs have been refusing to innovate in many areas, screwing customers with exploitive dealer networks

Yeah, cars have had no innovation over time...wait, when's the last time you've been in one?

And for the most part dealers are independently owned, not some scandalous way to rip off customers. I have owned many new cars in my life (I like tech, so I lease). I've never had an issue with the dealer that wasn't pleasantly resolved. I realize that isn't the case for every person, but dealers are not universally bad, or any worse than any other business. In fact, my wife likes the brand dealer so much that she continues to purchase her cars from them based on that alone.

The dinosars deserve to get their ass handed to them until they wake up and serve customers.

You should look around the Tesla forums and Twitter at the complaints. The 'dinosaurs' may be bad, but the idea that Tesla service is somehow better is laughable.

spindle• 6 years ago

I WANT to say that a Citroen DS's adjustable suspension could be genuinely useful in some situations. But presumably nowadays DSs are so old that they break down all the time, and the fact that I want to forgive them nicely illustrates your point!

ggm9• 6 years ago

I rode in a DS19 as a child, the owner doing adjustments in time to us singing. I also rode in the steel finish new model as a small child puked over the outside: Citroen wouldn't replace the door and he drove his luxury vehicle around for years with a rather nice blemish in the finish..

A friend had an ex-diplomatic corps DS19 which had a glass barrier between the driver and the PAX. Now that is stylish.

The best I had was the Lesney toys "safari" DS19 model car in zebra stripes.

Sideways open rear door on the wagon.. Death trap for non LH side parking.

Svip5• 6 years ago

If the DS has been taken well care of, they don't break down. My 1974 Citroën DS 23 has been running several years now without issue. While the engine isn't great, it's a sturdy one. And the hydraulics system, while complex, isn't that difficult to maintain. Just don't park it on the street during winter.

dublinben• 6 years ago

How many <$20,000 new cars do you think are sold every year? Only the very insignificant subcompact segment even has an average selling price in that range. The average selling price of new vehicles is nearly $40,000. There's a lot of room for today's "boring" EVs in the $40,000 segment.

https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2020-01-03-Average-New-Vehicle-Pri...

jandrese• 6 years ago

Depends if you include used car sales in that figure.

NikolaNovak2• 6 years ago

Right, but... how many $1,000,000 dollar cars get sold with how many $20,000 cars, for "Industry Average" to be $40,000? :D

I notice average for Honda, Kia, Nissan etc in your linked article is $30,000... and that's explicitly exclusive of incentives and whatnots. AND inclusive of their luxury brands (Lexus, Infiniti, etc). That leaves room for lots of $20k cars, given that each of the brands has luxury models skewing the average as well.

It would be interesting to see either median, or # of cars in some representative brackets.

nl4• 6 years ago

The Chinese and EU car markets sell vast numbers of <$20k cars

PopeDotNinja• 6 years ago

I've been in Europe since early December. There are a ton of cars here, and very few of them are flashy. Small, practical cars everywhere. Very popular models: Citrooen C3, Skoda Fabia, VW Polo, Renault Cool, Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, Honda Jazz, Seat Ibiza, Ford Fiesta, etc. In the USA we have companies like Ford saying they are going to stop making cars for the USA market. It wouldn't surprise me to here a European company say they'd only make a small range of practical cars. One big reason is a lot of the roads are too darn small for anything big & their isn't as much money sloshing around here. Smaller is how they roll (pun intended) here.

fxtentacle11• 6 years ago

This article was about Tesla in the EU, and more specifically in Germany, where cheap SUVs start at €12,000. And where you can buy a family-friendly combi car for as low as €10k in new.

So Tesla is exclusively in the top 5% premium segment here. Most normal people won't even consider a car for half that price.

argonaut• 6 years ago

If you spend any amount of time perusing new car prices in the United States, it should be pretty clear that typical prices for economy sedan cars are around $22k-$30k, with $30k and more typically being the higher tier trims of economy sedan car models.

So $40k is clearly not the right comparison. And it should be pretty obvious why that average is misleadingly high: it includes pickup trucks, minivans, vans, SUVs, and sports cars.

pengaru• 6 years ago

There really is a sweet spot in most people's disposable income and on-road costs and range anxiety (also a highly irrational place btw) which is just around the corner

I often jump at the opportunity to talk EVs with common folks who aren't car enthusiasts but do own/operate automobiles.

What I've come to appreciate is that range anxiety isn't even the primary anxiety anymore. There's enough EVs out in the wild and just general evidence of their being usable as daily drivers that it seems to be a thing of the past.

What does seem to be a major source of anxiety is battery lifetime and serviceability/cost.

And I think that's a perfectly rational thing. Consider what most people experience with laptops and smartphones when it comes to modern rechargeable battery technology. They swell up, they catch fire, they lose capacity, they're not even standardized on EVs so you're locked into a specific vendor, it might not even be made by the OEM anymore so you're stuck with shoddy reverse-engineered replacements (classic thinkpad owners know this experience all to well). With volatile companies like Tesla you can't even be confident they'll still be around to service the electrics/battery in 5-10 years.

What I wish companies like Tesla would do is define some standard form factors for things like batteries, motors, motor controllers, and charge systems. If they'd just get things to where EVs are very much like oversized electric RC vehicles, where we can buy the vehicles potentially without any battery at all with a competitive market of battery vendors to choose from fulfilling requirements of an open standard, a lot of these sources of anxiety completely vanish.

Imagine a world where you could have a Tesla delivered to your local mechanic without a motor, motor controller, or battery. It's a roller conforming to a set of standards for those components. Then you buy those to your liking from whatever vendors you prefer in the size/capacities/costs you prefer.

I'm pretty confident such a situation would have EV adoption explode everywhere, nobody would be worried about having an unmaintainable rube goldberg machine of proprietary electronics collecting dust on their driveway in 10 years.

sk0g• 6 years ago

Maybe standards would be good too for degradation. Might make the batteries more expensive as they would be a guarantee of sorts.

So say silver tier - 70% max range after 7 years. gold tier - 80% max range after 7 years, etc.

nradov3• 6 years ago

The battery pack kind of has to be an integral part of the structure of modern passenger EVs. So I doubt we will see a standard form factor anytime soon.

Leasing is probably a better approach for customers concerned over battery life.

clouddrover3• 6 years ago

What I wish companies like Tesla would do is define some standard form factors for things like batteries

The Fiat Centoventi (aka the electric Panda) is closest to what you want for batteries. It has a battery system with modules which are easy to install and remove. The idea is you can buy the battery capacity that suits your needs and then you can buy or rent extra capacity as needed:

https://www.drivingelectric.com/fiat/933/fiat-centoventi-con...

Being able to rent some extra battery capacity for the occasional road trip is an interesting idea. And the modular system makes it easy to replace modules that fail over time.

Retric• 6 years ago

With increasing range battery replacement is no longer a significant issue. Averaging about 250 mile range and 800 charge cycles you get 200,000 miles. That range may go up or down a little, but cars are with such a small fraction of their initial value at 150+k makes that it makes little difference for a new car buyer.

A much larger issue is the loss of range as a car ages. Used cars are more noticeably degraded which is going to seriously impact the used car market over time. That may eventually be a non issue if range keeps increasing, but it’s a real consideration.

ggm9• 6 years ago

Why didn't we design to standard format swappable battery? if nothing else, it would have made for faster "charging".

_ea1k6• 6 years ago

I just wish they'd offer a decent battery warranty. The current battery warranties are very weak, especially on the Tesla.

m4633• 6 years ago

What does seem to be a major source of anxiety is battery lifetime and serviceability/cost.

Battery lifetime is way more of a concern for cars with small batteries.

For an original leaf with a 20kwh battery pack, you have to charge it to higher levels and discharge to lower levels just to get your daily range. For a tesla model 3 you can charge for battery health and still have convenience and longevity.

Basically, to predict car lifetime calculate battery cycles * range for one cycle.

If a battery will survive 2000 cycles, a leaf @ 50 miles range will get 100k miles, a tesla model 3 @250 miles range will get 500k.

And service seems to be working out to significantly less than gasoline cars.

I do dislike that teslas are not "open" cars, tesla carefully hoarding service procedures unless the law requires it.

solatic• 6 years ago

It's really ironic that you bring this up because Better Place burned through $850 million in capital building out the infrastructure and intellectual property for hot-swappable batteries before they gave up the ghost. Their model was based on car owners not owning the batteries, instead paying Better Place per distance driven, and in return getting free battery swaps at special stations that would swap out depleted batteries for fresh ones in two minutes, plus "free" charging at branded charging points that were built into parking spaces. Under such a model, Better Place was on the hook for battery health - not the car owner.

They failed because Renault didn't deliver in the quantities needed and they tried to make up the cash shortfall by over-pricing the distance fees (more expensive than gasoline costs unless you regularly drove huge distances). Too many ducks needed to line up and investors stopped ponying up. It's fair to say that they were before their time - they probably could have gotten SoftBank to throw them another ten figures, but the Vision Fund didn't exist back then.

Tesla looked at battery swapping after Better Place proved feasibility and passed, probably due to the cost of retrofitting to the existing design and various engineering compromises (specifically related to speed and acceleration, which Musk prizes) that would be needed.

monadic2• 6 years ago

When EVs are in the segment of rational-decision bound purchases, when they are "boring" I will deem them to have succeeded.

Do you see something preventing or slowing this from happening? Why would society not adopt EV?

Unless you’re discussing degree or rate of adoption, which I don’t care about, but your comment seems to imply doubt that EVs will ever succeed... which seems extremely short sighted and naive.

zulln• 6 years ago

There really is a sweet spot in most people's disposable income [..] which is just around the corner:

I interpret it totally different. I the parent like they think we are close to it.

ggm9• 6 years ago

Absolutely not! I think EV's will succeed. The real signal to me will be effective competition across all segments of the car market. At the moment, the non-tesla cheap alternatives are drastically range limited in many cases, and also undersold and under-available. I've been reading blogs for 2 years waiting for the AU market to bust open, to no avail.

My dream is an ioniq, or for Nissan to wise up and fix the problems with their battery model (rental?) or for a european manufacturer like VW to make good on the promise of their common-design chassis and break open the market. They aren't doing this yet for very good reasons, not dissimilar to why oil companies include a small number diversifying into Solar and Wind, and a lot who are selling as much oil as they can before it becomes a stranded asset: Most of the car production line is sunk cost around ICE. re-making ito EV implies a huge re-fabrication of the plant around EV not ICE and lots of sunk costs go up in smoke. If I was a BMW or VW or Toyota or Mazda exec, and my annual bonus depended on volume profit sales, standing up to propose a giant hole of capital be dug now, to save 15 years hence is .. well.. sensible but also not in my gene pool.

The current generation of auto execs have no motivation to compete right now. They'd rather buy off the Californian clean air taxes by investing in Tesla shares to green-wash their needs, believing they can rush in at the end and steal the market.

There is a tension between first mover advantage and second-system effect.

georgeecollins2• 6 years ago

If they aren’t already “boring” after 1 million sold, when do you think they will be?

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-production-1-million-electri...

ggm9• 6 years ago

When they don't cost $AU70,000 or more. its likely a Tesla will always be "cool" but so was a VW beetle.

In truth, no car is boring. they're amazing machines. But something which takes more than the median wage ($AU50,000) to acquire, when substitutable vehicles are $AU30,000 or less (excluding luxe from the equation) puts them into a different category than a boring car.

tlb• 6 years ago

Why shouldn't more people have enjoyable cars? If they can afford an enjoyable house, and they drive regularly, they should treat themselves to an enjoyable car too.

The idea of buying a nice car fell into some disrepute starting in the late 70s, when the major manufacturers stopped making actual nice cars and just added some extra plastic to their economy cars to sell as the premium brand. So people buying Cadillacs in the 90s seemed like, well, chumps. But that shouldn't be a permanent indictment of nice cars! The nice cars of a former era sucked, but now we have nice cars that are actually pretty sweet.

As more people realize that well-designed cars can actually make you and your family happier while driving, there'll be a lot of demand for those cars even at high price points.

ggm9• 6 years ago

'nice' cars and 'well designed' cars are dis-joint sets.

flattone2• 6 years ago

Why shouldn't more people have enjoyable cars?

To my eyes (auto mech first job/into car/driving experience more than i can afford): There has not been an interesting new car (on my sub 6 figure radar) in around 15 years.

In Washington state subaru are pretty popular seeming (all wheel drive due to rare snowfall in the city). I hopped on the band wagon with an 04' wrx, with a sti conversion, suspension/bushings/motor/turbo etc changes). I'm having more fun with a deeper connection for 1/4 of the money than any porsche i've ever entertained on the freeway. I get that labels are cool, but at the mechanical level it's just a word for OEM perception.

SO yes enjoyable cars. But sadly no nothing to buy. I would love to be a 'normal person' with a car payment and something that is 'new' and fresh. I dont want to knock any newer popular cars but good lord. . i could.

Someone mentioned to me yesterday that the Tesla Cybertruck is a bit odd looking. To me everything is an ugly marshmallow these days (including my 04 i guess but it has a pleasantly stout looking rear). So dear Tesla, thanks for making new car life potentially interesting.

the8472• 6 years ago

Another concern for many people is charging. There are a lot of renters and apartment complexes in Europe. So the big question mark in people's heads is whether they can charge at home and have to negotiate with their landlord.

This needs government regulation that guarantees tenants can get charging infrastructure installed with some reasonable cost-sharing setup.

ggm9• 6 years ago

As an apartment owner, we missed mandatory charging in the basement by two years (its off-the-plan, the change came after we were built. Across the road have it.). The retro-fit cost of high power is going to come. Its a lot more than build-in during construction and goes to if there are sufficient transmission infrastructure investments in the local supply path to your apt. We expect to get 32 amp circuits to every 3rd, 4th parking spot which in principle will share with a long pigtail but the advantage of a park with power will now disadvantage some owners. It requires separate billing. It means having to move the entire apt complex (460 units) to separate billing models, smart meters.

It's likely we'll install the ring, the circuit, but not fit outlets unless the owner pays some quotient of the cost, and we will have to inform everyone there is a process, but not everyone can get one. It will be very unequal.

Retrofit is going to be a very painful topic for years, for apartments, which is also why their lovely high, un-obstructed roof line is not covered in Solar Cells: it makes perfect sense, but its like herding kittens to get the body corporate or condo committee to agree to spend money.

Or pool heating: the retrofit cost is $150,000 for something which could have been planned in for under $50,000. Insanely short sighted design decisions echo down the years.

tdhz772• 6 years ago

Pretty easy to figure out. I had no issues. It's so common these days that we really are hitting exponential growth.

m4633• 6 years ago

two common scenarios when you can't charge at home: charge at work, supercharge

breakyerself2• 6 years ago

I think it's rational to want to reduce ones co2 footprint. Thats why I bought the first EV that I could afford that had enough range to cover my commute + an errand or two. Which was a model 3.

fulafel• 6 years ago

Most car purchas are a fundamentally non-rational decisions in the current climate crisis, if you have humane values and place some weight in the common good.

timwaagh• 6 years ago

the competition is KIA as they are the cheapest. but VW also has a few models. Their ID.3 which will come out soon even has the range issue fixed.

hamilyon2• 6 years ago

Is there a research to back your statement? I always thought that car purchases are highly rational, and even read some compelling research about it (cannot find it right now).

Yes, decision to buy particularly expensive car is very rational, with lot of time, choices and your personal preferences are of course part of it. Old cars do have their merits, and cost premium associated with them is real, economical fact.

Very very little of price of car cannot be explained by market forces at work.

nicoburns2• 6 years ago

Most Europeans are highly concerned about the climate. If you have the money, then buying a Tesla is not so irrational in that context: they still have the best EVs.

Agree that they're still too expensive for the average consumer to afford, and that the specs on the low-end EV models aren't yet competitive with traditional ICE cars.

martin_bech• 6 years ago

The Model 3 has won Car of the Year in most of Europe. Simply for beeing the best car you can buy right now.

raxxorrax• 6 years ago

The range issue isn't necessary irrational if you look at fuel logistics. Current gas stations just lack the infrastructure to support as many EV-vehicles.

A modern (non-Tesla) EV-Vehicle can be recharged to 80% within half an hour or so. That works without issues as long as very few people have electric vehicles. If everyone had one, we would get into problems with recharging. You can assume the infrastructure to scale with sold vehicles, but there are other requirements that suddenly become an issue. Many gas stations just don't have enough electrical power for example.

You cannot look at one trip and call it irrational since it isn't applicable for your commute or short trips. I think these issues will be solved, but there are still changes needed.

JulianMorrison• 6 years ago

Putting chargers in gas stations may end up being the casualty. They would make more sense in diners, for example, so you can charge-and-coffee. And that distributes the load much more evenly.

jacquesm5• 6 years ago

And the Citroen DS19.

I've long dreamed about a project: rebuild a DS from the ground up but with a modern engine (or even electric), run the hydraulics using electronics rather than the system in use based on Mercedes S class parts. Use an original Chassis, make all the panels out of fibreglass. But that requires a lot of space and time to complete. Still, by far the most beautiful car ever made, I always felt that if Citroen had really caught the retro wave that gave us the New Beetle and the Fiat 500 that it would have been a best seller.

michaelt• 6 years ago

If you like seeing 1960s cars fitted with modern engines, you might enjoy Project Binky [1] where you can watch some mechanics fit (or at least, attempt to fit) a 200-horsepower rally car engine and drivetrain into a 1960s-era Austin Mini

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGSOZAHg1yQHU1tc_3Y5M...

Svip5• 6 years ago

run the hydraulics using electronics rather than the system in use based on Mercedes S class parts

Why not just use the original hydraulics system? Its only downside is the old pipes, that can corrode. If you replace them with modern coated copper ones, leaks won't be a problem. I think you'd be introducing more problems than necessary if you replaced it with an electronic pump and height adjuster.

(Speaking as someone with a DS 23. And only to be slightly pedantic, I believe the DS19 is an ID19.)

Personally, I would love to buy a series 1 CX and replace its engine with an electric one. That will be my project, once I get to buy my house in the country and get my workshop. (I already have two cars that I need space for.)

olivermarks• 6 years ago

I wonder whether Tesla will survive the current global economic contagion. They are essentially a luxury novelty vehicle manufacturer that relies heavily on subsidies and virtue signaling consumers of which there are a finite amount. They are the WeWork of the car industry and have interesting financials. Despite all this they have been a terrific r&d and mvp creator for potential future electric vehicle production, although there is much work to be done scaling electrical grids and vehicle recycling IMO

johnghanks2• 6 years ago

Now _this_ is a hot take.

dhosek• 6 years ago

Pet peeve from the first line: bemusement means confusion, not amusement.

I remember when newspapers had editors who cared about what words meant.

landtuna• 6 years ago

Bemused and nonplussed seem to have changed in meaning.

Animats• 6 years ago

I wonder what will happen in Japan. Toyota is still pushing hydrogen fuel cells as the future and hybrids as the present.

reustle• 6 years ago

My 2 cents, I don't know of any hydrogen fuel stations in Tokyo except for one in Odaiba which seems shut down now.

Yhippa2• 6 years ago

How much of a head start does Tesla have over traditional ICE-based auto manufacturers? It feels like a 10-year head start from my uninformed opinion. It will take a lot of work to change engineering ops, supply chains, and deal with pensions.

foepys• 6 years ago

Not really. German car companies buy most of the parts from suppliers. Those suppliers often have decades of experience with electric motors and batteries, see Bosch. If a supplier only does ICE components, they are out and the car company will find a new supplier.

growlist3• 6 years ago

There's a technology race on, and Tesla are clearly pretty aggressive in pursuit of innovation. I don't think the possibility of them having a lead over German companies as regards batteries is far-fetched at all.

dillonmckay• 6 years ago

“ I talk here about Tesla as an existential thread for the German automotive industry, and why that is real and backed up with facts.”

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/25/tesla-an-uncomfortable-...

Wohlf• 6 years ago

Nissan-Renault sells more EVs than Tesla, so none.

shookness• 6 years ago

Wrong: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/04/tesla-model-3-sales-4x-...

tyfon6• 6 years ago

The biggest advantage of Tesla in EU compared to the other is the streamlined and cheap charging network.

If you don't have a Tesla you need like 10 apps for charging to travel through EU and you'll be paying through your nose for fast charging.

de_watcher2• 6 years ago

For the UK it's maybe 10 apps (or it was some time ago). On the continent you'll be fine with one RFID card.

SideburnsOfDoom• 6 years ago

Tesla has ... like a 10-year head start from my uninformed opinion.

In some ways yes, in other ways the incumbents are a decade ahead. Both sides are racing to replicate the other's competence.

Tesla has just shipped their 1 millionth vehicle ever, after 17 years. (1)

VW ships around 11 million vehicles per year. Every year. (2)

Tesla needs the scale with reliable high build quality that VW has. VW needs to make more of them electric vehicles, and to that end make them comparable to Teslas.

1) https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2020/03/10/tesla-el...

2) https://www.statista.com/topics/1574/volkswagen/

integricho• 6 years ago

If Tesla went bankrupt, would all the other manufacturers just stop producing / developing electric cars? Are they doing it now just out of fear of losing the market to Tesla?

If that were the case, for the sake of humanity and the environment, we should be obliged to support Tesla exclusively, otherwise we will never free ourselves from diesel / gas based pollution machines.

tenpies• 6 years ago

Sort of depends on demand. Extremely cheap petrol - which we just got courtesy of OPEC+ - and a recession - courtesy of COVID-19 - are not exactly a hot market for new vehicles, much less luxury EV vehicles.

On the bright side, this might be excellent for the environment because the best car for the environment is not a new car, it's to continue using the car you already have.

akvadrako• 6 years ago

EVs still don’t make profits at the prices people are willing to pay.

They are building them because of government requirements. Some of them are instead buying credits from Tesla, so if Tesla stopped producing they would have to make more.

tus88• 6 years ago

Sounds like "industry" is as stupid as the short sellers.

JackPoach• 6 years ago

This title is highly misleading. Tesla isn't incredibly successful 'in Europe'. It's very successful in VERY few European countries (Netherlands, Norway). And it's due to local incentives mostly. You aren't going to be blown away by a number of Teslas in Italy or Greece or Poland or France. But when you walk through Amsterdam - yes, there are a ton of Teslas parked everywhere.

Doctor_Fegg2• 6 years ago

Very much this. I think I’ve seen a single-figure number of Teslas here in the UK, ever. (I presume there are more in London but I don’t live there...)

mpswardle• 6 years ago

There are tons of Teslas around my area in London. One every Street i would say, about the same level of Porsche.

growlist3• 6 years ago

More and more in Brighton (i.e. London-on-sea).

rkangel• 6 years ago

I live in Cambridge (the high tech engineering capital of the UK), and unsurprisingly I see quite a few.

auiya• 6 years ago

I was just in London for a week not too long ago. I saw about the same number of Teslas as I did pick up trucks, which is to say hardly any at all.

ptah• 6 years ago

you see about as many teslas as porsches in my experience

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 6 years ago

This title is highly misleading. Tesla isn't incredibly successful 'in Europe'. It's very successful in VERY few European countries (Netherlands, Norway). And it's due to local incentives mostly.

That's just because Tesla remains production constrained. All the car delivered to Netherlands or Norway couldn't be delivered to any other European country.

Just watch the UK deliveries for the 1rst quarter of 2020.

It makes sense for Tesla to prioritize by markets with big EV incentive, but this shouldn't be interpreted as a lack of demand.

pja2• 6 years ago

Tesla is having their worst Quarter since records began in Q1 2020 so far in NL/NO/Spain.

You can see the figures here: https://eu-evs.com/

Click on NL+No+Sp on the left, then click Specific Brand -> Brand QoQ with Tesla selected for a nice graph of Tesla registrations in those countries.

This is before any Coronovirus impact hits as well, since I presume these registrations have a certain amount of lag.

thdrdt2• 6 years ago

In the Netherlands Tesla sales dropped from ~12000 in December 2019 to ~36 in January 2020 because those 'incentives' where dropped in 2020. So the article is a kind of old news.

And what also is a kind of misleading is that overall cars sales went up in Europe.

Personally I think Tesla is going to have a hard time in the near future now all big brands start producing EVs. The Porsche Taycan for example made a lot of Tesla owners switch to Porsche. I believe the same will happen when the new BMW i4 launches next year.

And most European people don't care much about range. Distances are very different here. In the Netherlands you can cross the country with a 400km battery.

Theodores2• 6 years ago

The Porsche Taycan for example made a lot of Tesla owners switch to Porsche.

They must be walking then.

The Taycan has had a lot of deposits put down, but we are way off significant numbers of deliveries. The factory isn't debugged yet. I would be surprised to see a Taycan in the wild on the streets any time this year, even in Knightsbridge or the Silverstone car park.

Tesla cars are quite common (if still unusual and therefore noteworthy) even in provincial towns.

bkor2• 6 years ago

In the Netherlands Tesla sales dropped from ~12000 in December 2019 to ~36 in January 2020 because those 'incentives' where dropped in 2020.

October 2019 also had almost no deliveries due to no vessels delivering Tesla's to Europe (think they arrive in Zeebrugge Belgium). One car carrier has 4000+ cars on it. They're then delivered quickly after that.

The incentives is just part of this.

Edit: For a tracker of these car carries, see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10Uh_GSkShwPPlrE5mOJc...

koffiezet4• 6 years ago

Here in Belgium you also see a lot of Tesla's. 4 colleagues own a model 3 and 2 friends own a model S... I live in a quiet neighbourhood, where most people have at least 2 cars, and you see quite a few driveways with the model3/S + luxury SUV combo (BMW/Merc/Audi/...). Very few model X's though...

You have to take into account that Tesla's are relatively expensive cars, and you see them mostly where there's quite a bit of money and you see a lot of luxury vehicles in general. Cars with a 100k+ price tag are pretty damn common here (Porsches and high-end BMW/Audi/Merc SUV's), and cars in the 50-60k range are even more common. The Model S was for a long time competing in the latter segment due to fiscal benefits, which are now disappearing, but now Tesla has the Model 3 to compete in this segment...

rini17• 6 years ago

I told my dealer 2years ago that I'm going to postpone replacing my kia cee'd diesel till electric become available in that class. We aren't there yet, but it's promising, now Kia/Hyundai do have couple of BEV models.

Doctor_Fegg2• 6 years ago

ITT: lots of Americans responding to an article about the European car/mobility market with their exclusively American experience.

TulliusCicero• 6 years ago

I'm an American, but I live in Germany, specifically Munich, the home of BMW. Been seeing more and more Teslas around lately for sure.

While Musk has said and done some dumb things, I'm still rooting for Tesla. Beyond the fact that electric cars are cool and good, I like the fact that Tesla is shaking the industry up, especially that they don't use dealerships, which are frequently scummy and often outright predatory. That we've tolerated them exploiting the ignorant or unwise for so long is a black mark against us as a society.

GrumpyNl• 6 years ago

I dont know whats going on with those numbers but sales in Norway and Holland are 80-90% down. They stopped with the tax benefits.

gryzzly• 6 years ago

Like iPhone took Nokia "off guard" in 2009, after 2 years it was a thing. These wise executives definitely deserve their big pay!

jamisteven• 6 years ago

Doesnt catch me off guard, europeans love modern, they love high tech, they love american brands as status symbols and they are very, very environmentally aware. Even if the Tesla isnt all that better than the really small engine's already in most cars here, it is perceived as a social statement and lifestyle. Not to mention it is unique compared to all the AUDI/VW/BMW's on the road here.

fmajid2• 6 years ago

The German car makers' arrogance and complacency cannot be overstated.

lloeki2• 6 years ago

I find it a very strange coincidence that the recent law in France to update the tax incentives against CO2 emitters and towards EV placed a new, previously nonexistent limit precisely right below the base Tesla price, excluding everything above (and thus every Tesla car) from the incentive.

As it turns out, local EV cars such as the Renault Zoe are below the threshold, not the least because you buy the car but rent the battery, so the price appears much lower to the consumer, and the price of the battery is magically not factored in against the threshold.

johannes1234321• 6 years ago

In Germany there was (is?) a rule that for receiving a government incentive the "base model" of a car without "extras" had to below 60k. Tesla quickly offered a model on that price point ... people bought this in the version with extras (as one always does ...) later they had to repay the incentive as it was rruled that the base model didn't exist, as Tesla wouldn't sell.

mgoetzke3• 6 years ago

This time it seems different. The BAFA explicitly lists even the long range and performance models as base price of less than 40k. Listed under Model 3 2020.

Reason0773• 6 years ago

"I find it a very strange coincidence that the recent law in France to update the tax incentives against CO2 emitters and towards EV placed a new, previously nonexistent limit precisely right below the base Tesla price"

This isn't necessarily a bad or evil thing to do. A price threshold increases the incentive for manufacturers to reduce their costs and bring their pricing under the threshold. Subsidy or not, EV prices must come down before they can fully displace combustion as the mainstream technology.

(In Tesla's case, EU import tariffs are included in their prices. Once the Berlin factory is up and running, they'll be more competitive in Europe)

slowmotarget• 6 years ago

It's a non-issue for most French people like myself. In France, the Tesla cars are in the luxury price segment. There's no need to incentive the car that only wealthy people can afford.

esotericn5• 6 years ago

Realistically, only wealthy people can afford new cars in general. It's not clear that an incentive is any less valuable to someone who can pay 40k for a car instead of 20k, money is money, saving it is going to skew decisions for anyone.

RareSoft• 6 years ago

The french state holds a 15% stake in Renault according to Wikipedia so I doubt it's any coincidence.

The government likely wants to give local manufacturers an advantage even if it means not playing fair. I don't know if it's right but I understand why they do it (jobs & tax revenue).

nraynaud2• 6 years ago

I wouldn't read too much into their stake into Renault, they give a lot of money to PSA also.

On the subject matter, Tesla cars are a problem, they are too big and heavy for Europe. And European car makers should stop increasing their car sizes too.

Tepix• 6 years ago

It was the same thing with the previous bonus in Germany that was limited to cars costing 60.000€ or less, blocking out the Tesla Model S.

There also was a delay in the increase of the "Umweltbonus". Some people said it was on purpose to get closer to the release date of the Volkswagen ID.3 electric vehicle which will be slightly cheaper than Teslas Model 3.

The increased Umweltbonus of 8000€ (4000€ of which are paid by the car companies) will be interesting to see in the context of the upcoming Dacia K-ZE low cost electric car. If they offer it for, say, 13000€ the price after Umweltbonus will be 5000€.

mgoetzke3• 6 years ago

6000 EUR with 3000 EUR deducted

londons_explore3• 6 years ago

France is well known for lawmaking to help companies with french values outcompete rivals.

Airbus wanted to build a new freeway through a protected forest to deliver planes on, but EU rules prevented it. Instead they built the road and put a thin surface of gravel on top so they could claim it was a "forest track", and it became legal.

xutopia• 6 years ago

Do you think any other countries are different?

iknowstuff• 6 years ago

Can we have a source please? Google shows nothing.

benhurmarcel• 6 years ago

Airbus wanted to build a new freeway through a protected forest to deliver planes on

Do you have a source or more details on this, because I fail to see what Airbus “freeway” or gravel road this could be referring to.

TorKlingberg• 6 years ago

It is very common for car regulations to favor local manufacturers. It's one kind of those "non-tariff barriers" that are a big issue in trade talks.

esotericn5• 6 years ago

The UK charges zero vehicle emissions duty for electric cars.

Unless they cost more than 40,000 at first sale, and then it's a few hundred quid a year after the first few years.

Only the 'worst' model of the Model 3 is below that bar, pretty much all Tesla vehicles are subject to that tax.

mprev2• 6 years ago

Can you expand on this? How is this charge collected? VED (Road tax) is £0 on all Teslas.

est312• 6 years ago

And the US state of California is the first government to discover cheat devices in German cars, and the FAA is last to ban Boeing 737 MAX from flying. That's no coincidence. Countries are often very biased towards helping their own industries.

SilasX• 6 years ago

Nitpick but, I think you mean, first government to take action against the cheat devices; it was West Virginia researchers who discovered it:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/the-three-stud...

sunstone• 6 years ago

The Canadian government did a similar thing about 2 years ago and Tesla then tweaked their cost structure so that they qualified.

DrScientist• 6 years ago

Note luxury car market. It's all about brand, and quick acceleration times so you can show off on the road.

New is cool & electric cars have acceleration.

Also German cars companies have had their reputation tarnished with the emissions cheating scandal.

I wouldn't see the 'autopilot' feature as a big draw - you'd be mad to use that on most European roads, and you buy cars like that to drive

anentropic• 6 years ago

One of the Model 3’s big selling points is its autonomous driving software

Is it really though?

It's not something I would ever want to use in its current form (which I understand is not safe enough to leave 'unattended', as it were, so so it seems to fall into a dangerous valley where it's autonomous enough that I don't have to pay full attention but also inadvisable not to)

I'm pretty sure the main selling points are all around the electrification - superior range to other electric competitors plus the running cost benefit of electric vehicles in urban areas with pollution taxation.

classified• 6 years ago

Is this some kind of bloody joke? In how much of a deep sleep do you have to be to be caught "off guard" by Tesla?

Tesla’s success in Europe catches industry off guard

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