Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive (Vol. 2)

[Tuna]

I guess the open questions are whether either company will deliver autonomous driving, how Tesla will do in China, whether Tesla can find more growth in the US market, can they continue to service their enormous debt and will Musk manage to do something sufficiently off the wall to get pushed aside by investors?

They're certainly not into 'business as usual' territory, and I think 2020 will be just as critical a year for their survival as 2019 and 2018 were. That's a long time to maintain a juggling act. I'm not one of those who thinks they 'deserve to fail' or someone who 'hates Musk' - I'm just not seeing the solid foundations that others appear to believe exist. There is still a strong whiff of smoke and mirrors about the whole operation, no matter how much Tesla owners love their cars.

[hyphen]

Sambucket said:

Haven't done enough for what? This is why I'm curious about your delivery projections. It's not very clear what you are sceptical about. What is this 'it' that Tesla won't be able to do, when competition 'arrives'.

If you send 18 years (18*365days) and spend billions in a new area, you want to be so far ahead in technology or another USP, that when the competition comes along they are a decade+ behind.

Tesla last year release an auto summons that wouldn't let it's car come straight out of a garage...

The best Tesla may have is a a few percentages more range, which in the grand scheme of buying a car isn't the leading buying decision when the difference to everyone else isn't massive (and probably rest will be cheaper).

They have pissed the money away buying solar panel companies in dodgy deals, trying to run before they can walk (fully automated manufacturing failure) and so on and so on.

Staff turnover at Tesla has been ridiculous, a revolving door of senior talent.

Edited by hyphen on Wednesday 18th December 18:51

[anonymous-user]

hyphen said:

If you send 18 years (18*365days) and spend billions in a new area, you want to be so far ahead in technology or another USP, that when the competition comes along they are a decade+ behind.

Tesla last year release an auto summons that wouldn't let it's car come straight out of a garage...

The best Tesla may have is a a few percentages more range, which in the grand scheme of buying a car isn't the leading buying decision when the difference to everyone else isn't massive (and probably rest will be cheaper).

They have pissed the money away buying solar panel companies in dodgy deals, trying to run before they can walk (fully automated manufacturing failure) and so on and so on.

Staff turnover at Tesla has been ridiculous, a revolving door of senior talent.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 18th December 18:51

So what do you think will happen to Tesla's sales when it 'gets real' and other EV makers start getting serious? Will Tesla sales drop off a cliff, or just flatline? Or what?

[hyphen]

Sambucket said:

So what do you think will happen to Tesla's sales when it 'gets real' and other EV makers start getting serious? Will Tesla sales drop off a cliff, or just flatline? Or what?

The other manufacturers already know how to do marketing, not Tesla via fake news version (bullet proof, ring record etc) but paid marketing media, print, radio and digital.

They have customer databases and existing relationships, dealer shop locations everywhere. Incentivised franchises and salespeople. Finance arms.

And bigger r&d budgets, and long relationships with the big parts manufacturers with their big r&d budgets.

They are also comfortable making a profit at low margins (PSA operates at 4% I think).

They can, with ease, overpay and steal most of Tesla's staff.

All things being equal, you imagine in 5 years time, Tesla cars will be struggling to match the bigger boys on tech and range and will move down the top 10 EV lists and perhaps drop out.

The fact is if you say to a customer do you want X amount more range, X seconds faster 0-60 and so on, they will say yes. But if you say will you pay more for it compared to peers, then it's another conversation. (Tesla were shocked at how many people went for the base version of the Model 3 remember, they were expecting to make money from options and sales of higher models).

Tesla are lovely cars, exterior design isn't too bad neither, if a little bland. But I don't think that for the mainstream 80% of people, it holds any more desirability than an EV German or Volvo.

Lots of companies have tried their best to smash the status quo, Kia for example really went for it, 7 years warranty, stole Audi's designer and upped their game, must have spent a ton, but still a niche player.

Tesla need to be Dyson, continually changing it up. Instead they are currently focusing valuable resources on shipping a EV Quad bike and laser windscreen wipers.

Edited by hyphen on Wednesday 18th December 19:32

[anonymous-user]

That's all very nice. But you didn't answer the question.

What do you think will happen to Tesla's sales once the big boys start producing and selling EVs ? 50% drop in sales? Will nobody want to buy a Tesla anymore?

[hyphen]

Sambucket said:

That's all very nice. But you didn't answer the question.

What do you think will happen to Tesla's sales once the big boys start producing and selling EVs in earnest? Will nobody want to buy a Tesla anymore?

Ofcourse they will, just like people still buy Lotus. But they don't sell a lot of Lotus's compared to 911s, Boxters and Caymans.

[jjwilde]

hyphen said:

Ofcourse they will, just like people still buy Lotus. But they don't sell a lot of Lotus's compared to 911s, Boxters and Caymans.

Right so are you going to answer the question? Will Teslas sales fall off a cliff and finally go bankwupt?

[hyphen]

jjwilde said:

Right so are you going to answer the question? Will Teslas sales fall off a cliff and finally go bankwupt?

I believe that VAG group will thrash Tesla, Geely group too if Polestar EV are good..

The rest I think remain to be seen, but if they do then yes, Tesla at some point will be an also ran. (If as per earlier they stay as they are).

[anonymous-user]

In preparation for it's demise (as predicted here), BMW nods to Musk's twitter marketing

https://twitter.com/BMW

[hyphen]

Nod to Elon's twitter style... Have BMW accused Mary Berry of being a Pedo????

[Gojira]

Gojira said:

Sambucket said:

Gojira said:

Tesla and Uber don't annoy me, just the rabid Fanbois who think St Elon will ever be the only guy running a car manufacturer....

I honestly don't get this. A bullish view would be 2 million cars a year by 2025 which would be roughly 2% of new car sales.

Can you quote a single poster or fanbois on this site, ever, to have claimed tesla will be even in the top 3 of car makers in next 5 years, let alone the 'only' car maker.

I understand this site thrives on conflict, which is fine, but it does seem like folk make stuff up in order to have something to shout against. Most telsa fans are petrol heads too, and have above average education, and big wallets. Not the XR type to be blind cultists.

Tesla make niche premium EVs with aspirations to be at roughly BMW level of production. They want to push other OEMs into making EVs too. The quicker other companies invest in EV, the more likely will Tesla survive.

I can't recall who it was, but someone posted a couple of days ago that BMW are doomed or a very similar phrase (I did try to serch for it, but the search on here is not good, to put it mildly).

I agree with your assessment of the future for Tesla, and I totally agree that most of the Tesla fans here are reasonable, but there do seem to be a few on here who seem much more dedicated to St Elon and his products than almost all the Macolytes back in the days of rabid Mac vs PC or iProduct vs Android arguments ever managed with their support for Steve Jobs.

If I had to name names, I'd say that Jamoor has probably done more than anyone else on the planet to put me off Tesla, but I'd admit there are folks on the other side of the argument who are almost as good at foot-shooting!

I've found the quote I was thinking of, in the "The cloudy future of the German Car industry gets worse.." thread in Motoring News last Sunday - as I suspected, it was Jamoor spouting rubbish

jamoor said:

I also like going on steam trains, but only for fun. If every day I had a choice of commuting on a steam train or a 350km/h Shinkansen I know which I would take, I also happen to know which 99.9% of people would take.


My points address why the German car industry will die very quickly.

[hyphen]

Tesla looking for more upsell.

$2000 to upgrade your Tesla model 3 Long Range's 0-60 times by 0.5seconds. Via other the air update.

So goes from theoritocal 4.4 to 3.9

Model 3 performance is 3.4 so unless you really want a tiny bit more, long range seems the better buy now?

https://electrek.co/2019/12/19/tesla-acceleration-...

Edited by hyphen on Thursday 19th December 08:40

[hyphen]

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/12/18/bmw-i3-renaul...

Tesla boys just can't see past Tesla...

[SWoll]

hyphen said:

Tesla looking for more upsell.

$2000 to upgrade your Tesla model 3 Long Range's 0-60 times by 0.5seconds. Via other the air update.

So goes from theoritocal 4.4 to 3.9

Model 3 performance is 3.2 so unless you really want a tiny bit more, long range seems the better buy now?

https://electrek.co/2019/12/19/tesla-acceleration-...

You really are on a roll aren't you?

LR is £47k or £49k with the acceleration boost

P is £52k, does 0-60 <3 seconds after the recent free update and still comes with 20" wheels, sports suspension, upgraded brakes, carbon spoiler, track mode, alloy pedals etc. Not bad for another £3k as far as I'm concerned, especially if they're charging £2k for a software update nowadays..

[hyphen]

SWoll said:

, does 0-60 <3 seconds

Huh? Just checked and Tesla site says fastest 0-60 for 3 is 3.2, as I said


https://www.tesla.com/en_gb/model3?redirect=no

Edited by hyphen on Thursday 19th December 08:45

[SWoll]

hyphen said:

SWoll said:

, does 0-60 <3 seconds

Huh? Just checked and Tesla site says fastest 0-60 for 3 is 3.4??

https://www.tesla.com/en_jo/model3

Manufacturers figures, which all grown ups take with a pinch of salt.

Independent testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8hdGCunJso&t

[hyphen]

SWoll said:

Manufacturers figures, which all grown ups take with a pinch of salt.

Independent testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8hdGCunJso&t

Wtf? To compare models in a range by same manufacturer, as we are doing here, surely using Tesla figures across the board is sufficient...

And independent? It's a blimmin drag racing YouTube channel hunting for viewers and subscribers.

[SWoll]

hyphen said:

SWoll said:

Manufacturers figures, which all grown ups take with a pinch of salt.

Independent testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8hdGCunJso&t

Wtf? To compare models in a range by same manufacturer, as we are doing here, surely using Tesla figures across the board is sufficient...

And independent? It's a blimmin drag racing YouTube channel hunting for viewers and subscribers.

Can I ask, do you really never get bored of this?

Appreciate that every discussion needs balance but over the past few pages a lot of the stuff you've been posting has been shown to be embarrassingly inaccurate and instead of addressing this you just barrel on into the next sh*t post without seemingly thinking anything through?

At the end of the day Tesla is just a car manufacturer and therefore of very little importance. Perhaps your ire would be better served targeted at something that actually matters, especially if you would take the time to formulate an argument that can't be picked apart immediately?

[hyphen]

SWoll said:

a lot of the stuff you've been posting has been shown to be embarrassingly inaccurate

I earlier said the manufacturer stated 0-60 time. You stated it was wrong, and when i asked why, you said because some random Youtube channel told you so.

[jamoor]

JPJPJP said:

In preparation for it's demise (as predicted here), BMW nods to Musk's twitter marketing

https://twitter.com/BMW

I think Toyota will have a chuckle at their HQ when they see BMW boasting about selling 500,000 Hybrids.

Edited by jamoor on Thursday 19th December 09:50