If I were shopping for a new pickup, it would be hard to choose between the Ford and the Rivian because Ford has the incumbent automaker advantages while Rivian has the "cool startup" advantages. But in passenger cars, Tesla still has the Supercharger moat, which the Rivian doesn't enjoy.
So on one hand, post-Tesla, there's more public readiness for EVs.
On the other hand, there's a huge established EV-native incumbent PLUS far more legacy brand competition in the market.
So it's still a really risky playbook.
I was just making my comment based on the parent comment saying it couldn’t be done. It’s done all the time in every segment.
Never underestimate the bean counters from ruining the incumbents.
Tesla has so far to go to “wreck” anybody who didn’t already pay for “full self-driving”.
https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2023-us-auto-sales-figures-by-...
It was a segment the ICE car manufacturers mostly ignored and now they have profitable competition where it didn’t exist before. Maybe not wrecked but definitely lold.
I don’t know what being loved really has to do with production. It won’t take long for a bunch of companies to have equally loved products, and in 30 years, Tesla’s “lead” will be a footnote. Unless they do, future tense, wreck everybody.
It’s a weird response to to my claim that everything but the product matters just as much, if not more. I’m not at all saying Teslas product is or isn’t the best at the moment.
100% anecdotal, but between service woes, initial quality complaints, and Musk's latest antics, several early adopters I know have sworn off the brand. And I know several people ICE-owners looking for an EV, but not considering Tesla at all for the above reasons.
Seems to me Tesla's only real edge at this point is the SuperCharger network. But, that lead will diminish over time, especially if they open the network to all EVs.
Tesla is still growing fast, has extensive self owned infrastructure in charging and service that will be very profitable and is a huge, huge asset. Tesla is competitive with European car makers in Europe, a market GM has dropped, and Ford mostly so relaying on VW MEB to stay in it at all. Tesla is competitive with car makers in China as well. GM and Ford have very little chance of even establishing their EVs seriously there. In fact the opposite, cars from China will compete with them in the US.
In the meantime the car industry has historically high level of access production capacity. Lots of old ICE and engine plants running below capacity, closing them is hard and costly. At the same time they have to do 10s of billions of new investments in new facilities.
At the same time the ICE sales are going down, lower economics of scale, access manufacturing means seriously negative margin. And that right around the time when anybody with half a brain will realize that buying and ICE car will be a bad investment and resell value will be low. This will collapse resale value of ICE cars and that impacts their financials.
Battery materials are a limiting factor already, and there is no physical way all the announced car makers plans can actually happen. Yes, mining is expanding, but not as fast as battery manufacturing and EV demand. Those companies that did not planned for this for the last 5 years will run into massive issues.
> It’s taken them a decade to get a dealer network built.
Meanwhile Ford and GM and co are literally in a war with dealerships over service. VW is literally suing its dealers and the auto lobby are launching a large scale lobbying effort to prevent the dealers lobbying effort. This could potentially cut 100s of millions away from the already thin profits of the car makers.
Literally every other car maker would kill to be in Tesla position.
> Their repairs timeline sound just as horrifying as their competitors.
Maybe be true or not, but on service, current car makers only maybe 20% of the money, the rest goes to dealers. Tesla will earn 100% of the money.
Its not well understood, but parts are a huge reason why traditional OEMs are profitable at all. Tesla meanwhile has very few old cars on the road, and many new cars under warranty. Despite that, Tesla service business is already profitable, and that is before millions of cars will go off warranty in a few years.
Again, literally every single car maker would love to be in Teslas situation.
One last point, if you insist on comparing how many cars they make. Look at the trendlines, not just a single year.
It also seems they have a pretty significant efficiency advantage per kWh. Whenever I see EVs compared, the general consensus seems to be Tesla has a lead above everyone else.
What’s even worse for the legacy companies is Tesla is the Kleenex/Coke of electric cars to a lot of young minds.
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins...
The car industry is consolidating. Chrysler is one example, they simply had no chance in hell to have any EV strategy. Now they have at least something thanks to their merger resulting in PSA. More such things will happen in the next 5 years.
Go look at how many cars companies like GM used to sell, and how many they are selling now.
Tesla is more profitable then GM and Ford combined, something that people would have not believed just a few years ago (not even mention debt, growth and other things).
They are not "wrecked" but everybody in the car industry knows that Tesla together with the rise of China auto is gone be a huge hammer to the rest of the industry. But with business like this, it takes years for these things to unfold.
Truly a work of art.
