One thing that EV's have an advantage of is the reduced footprint of their drivetrain. The primary bulk of an EV is the massive battery that usually spans the bottom of the car opening up space in the interior or the ubiquitous EV "frunk" this makes for a more spacious interior and the Y takes advantage of this well.
That being said it seems that 2023 is the year of the EV, my family is currently in the market for a new car and have been pleasantly surprised at the breadth of offerings.
I can't really make up my mind on whether the fact that the model Y is the "best selling model of car" is something to hang your hat on these days. It's a great metric, sure, but it's been in a somewhat limited market. On it's face I can see it's appeal - size, space, EV, extra seating - its NOT A MINIVAN. But it seems like a fairly easy moat to breach. One thing about the Corolla was it's build quality was top notch it was a solid, reliable car and it seems more and more lately this isn't a hallmark of Tesla. I wouldn't be surprised for the model Y to keep the mantle of "best selling model" - particularly because of Tesla's lead in its ability to manufacture electric cars and the surface appeal of the model Y - but I wouldn't be surprised if it lost this lead as well.
If you're in the market, go for a couple of test drives. The competition is mostly regular ICE cars with a battery bolted on, while Teslas are designed from ground up as EVs and it shows throughout in ways big and small. We were originally leaning towards getting a Polestar, but the difference between driving one and a Tesla is night and day.
I drive an ID4 after looking at the Model Y. It's a ground up EV and a solid competitor. As a family crossover it's great. The software is pretty dumb but that's mostly avoided thanks to wireless Android Auto and CarPlay.
What won me over: Rear window was easier to see through, the above mentioned Carplay/AA support, not a fan of Tesla's extreme minimalism extending to things like air vents, brand tainted by Musk.
I test drove a Polestar 2, what are these car designers thinking with rear view visibility!
The between the rear headrests and huge slanted C-pillars you had a tiny sheet of paper sized opening to see out. I honestly thought the mirrors were adjusted wrong and were looking at the roof. Couple that with a half-baked 360 reversing camera that turned every obstacle into a trapezoidal blur, reversing parking that car between two other cars at the end of the drive was terrifying experience.
You only need the rear view for keeping an eye on traffic behind while on the road, so basically the window should be the size of the FoV in your rear view mirror.
For parking, I don't think I have looked at anything but cameras for the last 15 years. The camera is so much better than both looking backwards and using the center mirror. The rear window doesn't show the most important thing you want to see when parking: the area of ground closest to your car.
Especially with 360 cameras because you can then "look" backwards without missing anything happening elsewhere. I definitely bought my last car without 360 cameras several years ago.
And kids running behind the car when reversing. Honestly, visibility is in the top five criteria for me (others include driver's seat, sound proofing and big boot lid). Parking sensors and cameras of course help but are they a total substitute?
The kids case is one where camera has a clear benefit I'd say. Even if you have clear visibility to the rear window, you just can't see anything below the window height. And anyone coming from the sides you'd not see through the rear window either - but a very open vehicle might be a tad better through the side windows? Although with cameras being added to side mirrors or vehicle corners (and large screens!), that can also be expanded.
Total substitute. And they have to be, because once you have them you ONLY look at the screen. There is no chance I'm even glancing in the useless top mirror, nor over my shoulder. I do switch between rear camera and 360 camera though, but it varies between car brands if that's necessary. In the best implementations you see both at the same time.
My campervan (Promaster 2500) has rear windows, but it isn't like I can see anything out of them when I'm driving. Usually just leave them covered anyway.
Varies by state in the us. Some require two mirrors and one must be outside on the left. Some are similar but on the right. Some states you need two outside if the one inside is blocked.
The eGMP platform options from Hyundai (Hyundia Ioniq 5 and 6, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60) were also built in a dedicated manner.
While I have an EV6 (and my wife an ID.4), if I was on the market now, there's a ton of low-mileage Model 3 and Y out there, and the prices have come down significantly.
At least in North America I don't think this is true. GM can't reliably produce the Lyriq or Hummer and is ending the Bolt. Ford has stagnate sales on the MachE and Lighting porduction was stopped during Q1. Toyota and Honda are MIA.
The supercharger access is only a factor in the US. Some people really enjoy the vehicle-to-load capabilities of the EV-6. Aesthetics both internally and externally I think are bit nicer on the EV-6, but that's subjective.
- Cockpit -- EV6 has a panoramic (horizontal) display, plentiful buttons, and a heads-up display. I found this much more ergonomic for my eyes and hands than Tesla's all-in-one center-mounted display.
- Availability of Android Auto/CarPlay -- Tesla's software is more polished than Kia's but I'd rather project my phone. All my stuff's on it.
- EV6 is the #1 recommendation for its class in Consumer Reports as well as #1 in projected dependability for same.
I cancelled a Model 3 order and went with an EV6. My reasons:
- quality concerns (which possibly are overstated for the average purchase)
- worries over phantom braking
- V2L
- CarPlay
- I was swayed by Elon's politics, but that likely wouldn't have mattered if it had been a slam dunk decision for me.
- Supercharger network is a lesser concern for me, as I own my home. I did do a road trip from Houston to San Diego and back. As far as I could tell, between major cities, EA vs Supercharger coverage was equivalent along the relatively unpopulated stretches of I-10 and I-8
However, given the price differential now vs then, I would likely go for a low mileage used Model 3 now.
Off topic, but Musk v2.0 after the pandemic has been acting as a madman, and making pricing changes all over the board. We booked a Y, but the problem is they removed the $100 per month EAP subscription which could be a real beater for using it in an on-demand basis. Hopefully it comes back.
Yeah, it's the enhanced autopilot. It's not self- driving though, the only thing it does on its own is change lanes automatically and park itself and come out of a parking spot to get you
Sadly, in countries where no Tesla dealerships exist, it's next to impossible to buy unless you have truly unlimited budget. Model Y is in the same effective price range as Bentley: pay $100K in cash then pay $20K for each service or repair (because car has to be shipped 500 miles away on a boat and serviced there, takes 2 months and $20K). And you keep driving your Bentley in the meantime :)
That's situation here in Cyprus, thus in spite of a lot of people with money willing to buy, only 0.8% of cars sold are electric vs ~20% in poorer countries that do have Tesla dealerships. Because when Tesla is there, everyone else tries hard to sell their electrics too.
There are third parties who can do most servicing.... Obviously you don't get the benefits of the warranty though, so you're probably better off buying a Tesla where the warranty has already expired.
And there are plenty of car ferries to/from Cyprus, so you can get one there for under €100.
>The competition is mostly regular ICE cars with a battery bolted on, while Teslas are designed from ground up as EVs and it shows throughout in ways big and small.
This is not true, it's not 2017 anymore. Everyone is designing their EVs from "the ground up".
How is it that people can both think that Tesla will dominate because building EVs is simpler, but also that the legacy auto world can't figure out how to do it?
Because its been over a decade now, and somehow, they're still behind? If I'm honest though, to me it feels like a Kodak situation - the legacy companies could do it, but they like their existing product lines - the ones that bring in revenue today, that they know how to build, that only need small design adjustments each year, that work with their current structure of suppliers and dealers. Why worry about this new-fangled thing you'd have to spend a bunch of time and money to get right when its only going to be X% of your sales for years?
On the other hand, Tesla (and the other new electric companies) have nothing else. It's electric or die. It's carve a space out in the market now, while the legacy players are still dragging their feet, still figuring out battery issues or production issues Tesla dealt with 5-10 years ago, still figuring out how to make good software for the last 20 years, still trudging along as if things haven't much changed. Kodak didn't lose because digital cameras were harder, they lost because they didn't want to cannibalize their existing products with something easier and cheaper.
> The competition is mostly regular ICE cars with a battery bolted on,
Most automakers have long since stopped basing their electric cars on platforms designed for ICE cars that have have EV components badly squeezed into whatever space they can 'find'.
They've been making platforms designed specifically to include EV drivetrain components for a while, and many have shifted to EV-specific platforms.
There's also literally nothing wrong with platform-sharing, by the way; it's more efficient use of design, manufacturing, and service/support networks. The "it must be PURELY designed from the GROUND UP to be a EV" is largely marketing who-haa that hasn't been relevant for a while.
The Ford Lightning? It's largely based off the F150. Who cares? It's still a brilliant car that has been selling like hotcakes and will convert a TON of good-ol-boy types to driving an electric vehicle.
But here's a list of cars with EV-specific platforms:
* Audi e-tron
* BMW i-series
* Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV, as well as their entire Ultium platform of cars, which I believe includes the HUMMER)
* Porsche Taycan
* Ford Mach-E
* Hyundai Ioniq 5 (and Kia equivalent)
* Lucid Air
* Rivian
* Mercedes EQS
* VW ID series
* Polestar
I'm probably forgetting some?
All have things Tesla doesn't: an extensive dealer network for sales and service, a healthy parts distribution channel, the build quality and reliability people expect from such an expensive car, no worries about bullshit like being banned from getting parts because the company thinks your vehicle shouldn't be on the road, transmission/motor units that are properly sealed so they can be driven in heavy rain and through puddles without issue, windows that spontaneously shatter, their cars randomly braking on the highway, self-driving systems that like to slam into the back of emergency vehicles on the shoulder...
The Ford Mach-E is a modified C2 platform with lots of modifications but definitely not a fresh design. The comparable C2 combustion platform would be the Third gen Kuga/ Fourth gen Escape/Focus.
Two things that seem in contention can be true at the same time. They made a sled for the EV, like ie common for EVs. They built the top of it to match the F150. Both true. I’d say it’s a full fledged EV design and an F150.
Just wish we had the battery breakthrough needed to give these vehicles some real range.
> ... windows that spontaneously shatter, their cars randomly braking on the highway, self-driving systems that like to slam into the back of emergency vehicles on the shoulder...
The 2024 ID.4 will likely have an option for their new APP550 motor which will produce 282 hp and a maximum torque of 406 lb-ft. This should help bring it in line with the Y, but probably at a higher cost initially until they can scale production.
I watched Doug DeMuro latest video on the ID.4 and he says it's not fast. On one hand performance might not be needed for a people mover. On the other hand people expect EV's to have superior performance.
The minimalist cabin is the obvious one: it's more spacious and feels much more spacious thanks to the glass roof. I did have severe doubts about the touchscreen and lack of controls, but in practice this has been a non-issue, there are tactile controls for everything you need to actually drive and voice controls for everything you don't (climate, music, etc). The glove box is just stupid though.
Meh, my wife was grooving for a Polestar so I rented a Polestar 1 for a weekend and we both came away feeling like it was good to rent because we definitely didn’t want to buy it. It was like the Swedes put all their effort into the material design and gave no shits about the UX. The UX was something Ford would have been proud of in 2009.
It really does though.. the model Y storage area folds flat completely and my 6'5 self can lay flat with extra leg room and sit up straight with plenty of headroom.
There is no body designed around the constraints of routing exhaust or transmission elements. It is just an empty box.
It was optional in pre-2020 models but recent models have removed the option. This is one reason we didn't buy one a couple years ago. (If they've added the option back since then, please let me know!) https://insideevs.com/news/451393/tesla-removes-regenerative...
I found the EV6 dark and claustrophobic on the inside, and uglier than the Model Y from the rear. Really dislike those weird droopy/saggy lines on the EV6 rear end.
Aside from that, if you want range, the Y beats the EV6, although the EV6 charges faster (theoretically - if you can find a 350 kW charger, and if the rate can be sustained)
Exactly that. When the power goes out you use an extension cord between your car and the refrigerator in the summer or the car and the furnace fan in the winter.
Ah. I'm lucky to live somewhere where that's not really an issue (in 15 years living here we've had a total of 40 minutes of power outages, according to my UPS logs), so I forget that IS an issue for a lot of people.
I've also driven my Nissan Leaf since 2013 with zero shop visits outside of tire shops.
Wah. That is crazy. The total cost of ownership for that car must be incredibly low. Think about what that means for the future of all auto mechanics. Will there be far fewer?
Anecdote about a Nissan Leaf: I'll never forget being on holiday in Sri Lanka, walking through a tiny, countryside village. I was on my way to see a Buddhist temple. I was surprised to see an all-electric Nissan Leaf. It blew me away. I guess she is still driving it today!
> Think about what that means for the future of all auto mechanics. Will there be far fewer?
Definitely. This is one of the reasons why dealerships are reluctant with EVs: apparently a big chunk of their profits come from servicing the cars they sell.
The original "subscription model" meatspace. Sell a self destructing product there needs chronic ambiguous repairs that cost "how important is it for you to have a car?" .
> Think about what that means for the future of all auto mechanics. Will there be far fewer?
In the long run, yes.
If EV conversion becomes a major thing (which could happen if tax credits applied to conversions and if simple, cheap bolt-in kits ever hit the market) then auto mechanics might be quite busy for the next decade or two converting part of the existing ICE fleet to EV.
There was some recent stats released on this from a German org now that the cars have been out for long enough to get good data. EVs did really well.
One surprise finding was that a major part of the EV faults were due to the 12v lead acid battery that some EVs (like Tesla) are now shipping lithium replacements for.
Well, that you need a dedicated EV plattform is such old news, all OEMs knew that since day -10. Tgat they didn't invest in one for a long had a lot of reasons, being unable to do so was none of those.
German here. Cars are one hallmark of our economy. We are behind as well. The Chinese are absolutely crushing it in Asia and Middle East now.
Volkswagen had a market share of ICE cars of ~20%, for EVs it's now closer to 1%. EVs are way easier to build and a lot of Chinese companies are doing it successfully. They are offering cheaper EVs. They are selling in Mideast/Asia and now start to enter Europe as well.
None of these cars is particularly bad - while I'd still take the Korean EVs before anything else today, the Chinese are coming. German manufacturers only produce premium level cars few people can afford and they produce them badly. ID.3 is too expensive for its segment and too much of the car just doesnt work well.
(EU customer here - this colors my impressions also due to different models availability compared to the US or other markets)
The specs and price gap between a Renault Zoe (Inexpensive, with consequently low acceleration, top speed, handling and range, but absolutely a joy to use in a city or on short trips - perfect balance of price/specs) and a Tesla M3/MY is quite wide and should allow some other manufacturers to wedge themselves into a rather popular segment, with profit.
And yet... there's hardly anything better than a Zoe, they immediately approach or pass the price of a Tesla (looking at you Volkswagen, Cupra, Audi, Mercedes, etc) while being worse by an impressive margin (paltry top speeds, uncomfortable ranges, rather primitive features, etc). You start getting cars something favorably comparable with a baseline Tesla M3 RWD when you add a good 20k to its price, it's ridiculous. And apparently they're hardly breaking even on those, while Tesla has a decent profit margin, what's wrong with them?
I'm also hoping China and Korea will upend this market because established EU/US manufacturers surely won't.
I honestly don't get the obsession with top speed and power, and I live in Germany. I do know the top speed of every single car I ever drove (I had a time I travelled a lot for work, and thus ended up with a nice list of rentals). First, the only place top speed has any, theoretical, relevance in Germany. Everywhere else anything above 150 km/h is wasted, I'll ignore track days here. Acceleration is nice, but again everything below, say, 8-9 sec. for 0-100 km/h is plenty enough.
And practically, even on the German Autobahn, a top speed difference of 220 to the rare 250 km/h plus doesn't show. One traffic jam, or even just enougj traffic, and everybody ends up next to each other anyways.
Power is nice, because cars simply a nicer to drive. Plus you can pull better, which is also important. Going back in time so, 150-180 bhp was considered top knotch performance, the Audi A3 gained a lot of his reputation in the early 2000s due to two models, just below the S3, having that power output.
I din't know, all the engine size, top speed, power and acceleration discussions feel like me playing top trump (the card game for children were you compare numbers for e.g. cars), and less than an adult objevtively evaluating cars. Not that car evaluations and buying decissions need to be objevtive so, mine aren't. But up talking one model / brand by down talking others, based on purely subjective criteria, is childish. It does allow for great marketing campaigns so.
> I honestly don't get the obsession with top speed and power, and I live in Germany.
I do live in Germany too and routinely drive above 140 where allowed on the autobahn - it's a pleasure. So yes it does actually impact me, in a very real way.
Additionally:
- Top speed of 220+ means you accelerate from 130 to 160 easily, so you can safely pass the slowpoke ahead while not becoming an obstacle to faster traffic. A top speed of 160 means it'll take you a whole lot longer.
- A car with a top speed of 150 is at its limit at 150. Brakes are sized for that, wheels are chosen with that in mind, you better be going in a straight line, it's gonna be uncomfortably noisy, etc. You have very little margin for anything. One designed to reach 220 or 250 is basically in the middle of its comfort zone at 150, with ample safety margins on every metric and a more comfortable ride.
--Edit: I'd like to add a reference to the lower tier cars to my reply. I quoted the Zoe because my partner has it, so I'm quite familiar using it and it's really really fun in the city, it's perfect.
I'm lamenting the big gap between Zoe and Tesla with nothing worth buying in between and the fact that I'm being asked 15-25k EUR extra compared to the Zoe, with hardly more car, which is an awful bargain as you reach the Tesla price with half assed specs. I may not care so much about speed and power (I do, that's another story) but I do care to get something worth my money, and all these other cars aren't.
Until recently I commuted on lengthy stretches of unlimited, mostly, roads. On good days I avergaed out north of 160. Bad for fuel economy, but fun.
Top speed has nothing to do with acceleration, a car can be limited at, say, 180 and still accelerate and be speced for 250. Heck, all German premium brands are, for the most part, limited at 250. Theoretically they can all go faster. Sure, there is a floor, but in practical terms it is much less relevant than people think. Also, it only matters in Germamy on select roads, everywhere else speed limits are much, much lower than car top speeds anyway.
And breaksbare sized fornmore than speed, they are sized relative to engine power and car weight. Speed is simply a function engine power, transmission and weight.
While loving to go fast, going fast in a staight line on a road made to do so is the opposite of dangerous or risky. Saying that, I am in total favor of a speed limit, 130 propably won't work in Germany, so. In general, we need one. And we have them any way most of the time, the percentage of unlimited km of roads is way smaller than people think. Once we have them, maybe we can have more realistic discussion about cars and mobility, at the moment everybody drols over their 300+ bhp "race cars". And brands sell on that image. That doesn't help switching to EVs, nor does it help cutting emissions.
Indeed, even premium German cars suck at basic stuff. For example, their HMI is super slow to boot and Porsche still won't allow more than 3 region updates per year over WiFi, because reasons. Even Porsche dealers don't know why.[1]
Porsche can afford to give their customers Dacia levels of digitalization because they're premium sports cars that sell anyway, but the Asians are coming after the other German brands and will steamroll them if they don't start getting their act together.
>What stands out most is Tesla's integrated central control unit, or "full self-driving computer." Also known as Hardware 3, this little piece of tech is the company's biggest weapon in the burgeoning EV market. It could end the auto industry supply chain as we know it. One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer and declared, "We cannot do it."
Might very well turn out that premium OEMs big failure wasn't being late to the EV game, but failing to switch their behind the scenes marketing game from traditional print journalism, and the online versions of it, to online only, blog-like car journalism.
Still digitalisation so, sure. And still linked to EVs, traditional car journalism still caters to a crowd of ICE fanatics, but overall much more a thing of marketing than engineering. For Tesla, the risk still is Musk. But they seem to be doing a good job of distancing themselves enough from his recent antics to not be hurt by them, while staying close enough to benefit from his personal brand.
but failing to switch their behind the scenes marketing game from traditional print journalism, and the online versions of it, to online only, blog-like car journalism.
Yea, I can't help to notice that my 13 year old, who on the whole knows and cares nothing about cars, thinks that Teslas are the coolest cars ever, has already decided that their first car will be a Tesla and wants our next car to be a Tesla. Brands like Merceds, BMW, Porsche etc. mean very little to them.
If you have proplem with 2012 computing controlling a car, you should never get even close to a modern airliner... What do you need 2023 computing for, running LLMs or mining bitcoin while driving?
There's a difference between technology for the sake of comfort/entertainment and technology for critical elements of a product able to kill you and others.
If I need to get an eye-surgery and the equipment runs on Android, I'd rather go for the one running on Android 4 for 10 years already, than the one running on Android 13 for 6 months now...
Like that story about a Tesla driver driving off a cliff in California and everyone surviving the crash? A story that even ended up in french and German newspapers
The source seems to be a February article from Automotive News interviewing several Toyota execs off-the-record: https://archive.is/0LZYf. The relevant quotes are midway through
Toyota is first and foremost a manufacturing company; they go to absurd lengths to ensure their supply chain is as robust as can be and that the product they deliver is reliable. It just happens to be cars. (And forklifts. And probably lots of other stuff, too)
The downside, of course, being that most of their offerings appear quite, uh, boring.
Upside? Anecdotally, my 26 year old Toyota Land Cruiser (With 300k miles on it!) has cost me less in workshop visits and parts over the 140k miles I've owned it than the missus' 2016 VW Passat has over 30k miles of ownership. And the Passat isn't a bad car at all. Has the Land Cruiser beat on fuel economy, though.
The subsidies the government introduced over a decade ago to incentive sales
were pretty cray. They even exempted electric cars from road tolls.
(This has been removed) has boosted the sale of electric cars enormously-
Norway has the most e-cars per capita in the world.
At least last time I checked.
As a result, I have a lot of friends and coworkers that own Telas.
Nearly all love them and would not trade.
However, the build quality is subpar.
Nearly all have had their car in the shop at least once.
The rather extreme lack of spare parts has been a big problem
for the owners.
I think this has been improved for a while but I am not certain.
Some had to wait months for a spare part needed to fix their problems.
Primarily it has been water leaks, parts that are not "fitting together"
right in interior and exterior.
The second is the touchpad control system.
I have wondered if this could in part be due to the extreme cold we have
every now and again.
But like I said the owers are still in love with their cars and would not
trade it.
The newer Supras and now GR Corolla also seem pretty exciting to me. Toyota is also (one of) the last manufacturer still making mid-sized trucks with manual transmissions.
So, cars are not technology? What about, I don't know, aircraft, power plants, ships, medical devices, laptops and phones (the hardware portion of those?
And which "tech" is top notch with Tesla, self driving? Their marketing is more than just incredibly good so.
Cars haven't changed in any fundamental manner for the better part of a century at the very least, so no cars are not so-called "technology" at this point. Not even the EV fad, because electric vehicles predate cars powered by combustion engines.
What has changed is the technology behind controlling those cars. On that front, it surprises me in absolutely no way that Tesla, an information technology company, does business in ways that the car industry can't even dream of.
Seriously? Try driving a car from, say, the late 80s and one from 2020.
But ok, only software is tech, got it. So when exactly is mechanical engineering no longer a STEM discipline? Seriously, that take is simple hybris of the software crowd, and totally ignoring all the hardware tech all of us use all the time. But ok, a while ago the only measure of car quality was chassis panel fitting (if there ever was a truely German over engineering nonsense, that is it), now it is the feel of the car entertainment system. To each generation their own marketing abuse of technology I guess.
A car has wheels, an engine/motor(s), and a mechanism to make the engine/motor(s) turn those wheels. This hasn't changed more or less since the invention of cars, regardless electric or combustion.
What has changed is the way the car is controlled. No longer are cars controlled by physically connected cables and wires that move to user input, cars are now controlled digitally by computers that respond to user and environmental input. This is where the technology is, and this is where tech companies like Tesla naturally and obviously have an edge on car companies like Toyota.
> Cars haven't changed in any fundamental manner for the better part of a century at the very least, so no cars are not so-called "technology" at this point.
So only new technology is technology? What a daft definition.
You're validating the opposing argument with those examples.
Windows 3.11 and 8086 are no-longer in active development. But the Windows operating system and the Intel x86 chipset are still being developed, and are relevant topics of current conversation.
Similarly, "cars" aren't new as a concept. But recent news developments regarding recently developed cars counts as tech relevant to Hacker News.
> That being said it seems that 2023 is the year of the EV, my family is currently in the market for a new car and have been pleasantly surprised at the breadth of offerings.
My wife and I are in the market for a second car, after buying an ICE SUV at the beginning of the pandemic and having no car for 10 years before that (living in San Francisco).
There’s a lot of options for a $40,000+ primary family car, but my impression is that there is a notable lack of options in the “second car” or “economy car” categories. We already have the ICE SUV for road trips, camping trips, IKEA trips, etc. We will probably need a second car very soon (moving from the Bay Area to LA and less WFH schedules).
Am I just supposed to get a Leaf or a Bolt? Plug in hybrids seem very cool to me but barely exist in the US (is this really too much cognitive load to figure out how fuel economy works?). Where’s the $25,000 electric Corolla with 100 mile range?
Of all tue existing OEMs, Toyota propably botched the EV transition the most. Which actually is quite a surprise for me, to be honest.
Regarding cheap (-ish) EVs, you have Stelantis (Peugeot, Opel, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Chrysler). They sell a small hatchback, VW Polo sized, as an EV with, if memory serves well, a range of 300 km, for about 25k € in Germany. It is available as a Peugeot 208e, a Opel Corsa e and, more expensive and a cross-over SUV thingy, a Peugeot 2008e.
So it sure is possible. And a prime choice for a second car, in our case an EV for four, decent range and luggage space is simply out of budget for now. A smaller one, the classic second car, totally possible. But hey, you only replace cars if you have to, and now that is the big one. So no EV yet...
I always considered our Model 3 as a second car because we mostly just drove it for local errands and commuting, and I assumed it just didn't have the range to do more.
We recently decided to use for a 2000+ mile road trip instead of using our ICE minivan, and I was blown away with how well the Tesla did as a long road trip vehicle.
We had no range anxiety because of the Super Charger network, and stopping to charge for 45 minutes after driving for 3 hours was far more enjoyable than anticipated.
Where it really did well was also surprising. Have you ever been going up a slight grade on a long highway stretch and find yourself needing to pass a slower vehicle? Most cars I've owned, when already going 65+, take a bit of time to pass a truck going up a hill. Even my 400HP+ modified Subaru STI takes its time as it needs to build turbo pressure and RPMs before it'll get fast enough to comfortably pass up hill.
The Model 3 doesn't even know there's a hill. It'll go from 60 to 120 as fast as it goes from 0-60 like the hill doesn't exist. Fully loaded with 4 adults and their stuff too.
Combine the raw power the car has with the climate control, good sound, full glass roof, ample cargo space and legroom, and it's the best car I've ever used on a long trip, no question. It's just not sub-$40k (at least for most people - I bought mine for $35k from a family member).
On local trips in the cold (where it's frequently below 0F) I've not noticed any difference in power. It may very well have reduced specs but I'd never no. I've not been motivated to test it with snow, ice, and other cars on the road.
If I were driving 280+ miles per day in the dead of winter I'm sure I'd notice since the range does seem to shrink in the cold. Then again, I've never been impacted by that since I only drive about 40-80 miles a day at most on a typical day.
I have read dozens of articles, buying guides, and reviews of electric and hybrid cars, and I’ve never even heard of that make, so I’m guessing it’s not available in the US.
Toyota took a big bet on hydrogen power, so we’re not going to see an electric Corolla until they finally give in. As for the price point, electric production is still scaling out. And consumers don’t think they want vehicles with shorter range, even if that’s all they need. First, the car has to sell.
I’m not convinced by the common wisdom that “consumers demand longer battery range.” That’s especially irrelevant to the “second car” market which surely must be pretty big. I think it comes down more to how ridiculously cheap gas is (despite incessant complaints) and how long it would take most people to come out ahead even just buying a hybrid instead of a pure EV. It sure would be nice if gas were more expensive!
It seems that EVs are stuck in the range wars, the headline spec for an EV above all else is its kWh and range. It’s ridiculous, no ICE car gets marketed by range, and if they did you’d find that EVs are about on par range wise, they are just less convenient to refuel.
The value proposition of a hybrid makes EVs difficult to stomach, why get one EV when you can get two hybrids for the same price? Toyota will 100% jump on EVs once they become economical, but until then they are still making the car for the masses.
> It’s ridiculous, no ICE car gets marketed by range,
That's because every ICE car gets 400-600 miles per tank, and there are filling stations essentially everywhere.
For EVs, more range compensates for all concerns about charging availability.
All the chargers at work were busy? No problem if you've got several days of range.
Loved ones live in the middle of nowhere, with limited options for charging en route? Friend living in a flat who can't help you charge over night? Not a problem if you've got plenty of range.
Changed jobs and got a longer commute, or lost access to charging at work? Not a problem with 300 miles of range.
En route chargers along your route only charge at a meagre 40 miles per hour? Competing charger networks mean you only have access to some chargers? 300 miles of range means you can just go to a better one.
Worried about battery degradation with age, or lower battery performance due to your area's weather? Want to use the fastest charging, which only charges to 80% capacity? If you've got range to spare, no problem.
The situation will probably be different in a decade or two, when every gas station gets equipped to charge EVs at 300+ miles per hour.
Yeah, I’m also looking for something I can actually buy through normal channels (granted in in the last few years it has been difficult just buying any car has been difficult from a party who isn’t clearly a scalper) and expect to have some level of support availability. Not really looking to buy a car the same way I buy Raspberry Pi clones from AliExpress.
An electric motorcycle might suit you well as a second vehicle. There’s tons of them in that price range. It would help with horrible LA traffic as well.
Yes, that's why it was a failure. Most news outlets theorized that it was a compliance vehicle for California but that was never confirmed by Mazda. If it was a compliance vehicle, Mazda spent way too much money on R&D to sell it for that price. At $20k, it might have had a better shot.
Agreed. I would love a good electric minivan (e.g. an electric Honda Odyssey). There are supposed to be a few coming down the pike but I had to buy a cheap used internal combustion one for now.
The Pacifica seems interesting as the only PHEV around. 32 miles on electric will take you a lot of places while still having a motor means you can haul heavy stuff or even tow without range dropping to nothing.
I have one and it has been great. We had to buy the most expensive trim to get one - not sure that is true anymore. We mostly use the battery as we live in a small city. Most of our commute and errands are within range or it swaps to gas. I fill up every other month if that. If we go on the road of course it’s basically an ICEbox but still gets better mileage than my older toyotas did. It charges the battery from our home charger in a couple of hours so on weekends we end up using the battery twice a day.
My next-door neighbor (single dad with three kids) has one and it's a goddamn delight. He just got a Tesla to replace it because he took a new job that's outside of the battery-only range of the minivan and his eldest is big enough to sit in front now. Not nearly as nice of a car, but he wants to be all-electric, and was stuck on his commute. Alas.
If the middle seats on the hybrid were stow and go like the rear ones I’d already own one of these. Sadly that’s where the batteries are.
I like the simplicity of an all electric drivetrain but I’m a single car household so range anxiety and charger time/availability is a real consideration still.
My plug-in Prius gets about the same range. If that range is sufficient for most of your driving, I think PHEV is a fantastic compromise between driving electric most of the time and switching to ICE when you need the additional range.
Minivan seems like a great form factor for an EV. Unfortunately, the small number of companies that still make minivans are also the companies that are slowest to adopt EVs.
They aren't the most aerodynamic and had surprisingly bad fuel economy the last time I looked, but after those concerns it's hard to beat a minivan. I was shocked just how little cargo capacity my father in law's big fancy Mercedes SUV has - I was able to fit more in a Honda Fit (which explains the name!)
The talking point about Tesla reliability is outdated.
Model 3 was one of the most reliable cars in Germany in 2022.
"Germany’s ADAC, which is the largest automobile club in Europe, published the results of its latest reliability study, which analyzes vehicle breakdowns and their causes in 2022, and the Tesla Model 3 ranked at the top of the chart."
Tesla reliability is also often conflated with "build quality", and the sources for Tesla's poor build quality differ vastly, but a not-insignificant source of it wasn't objective information but rather surveys. Surveys that specifically ask "How does build quality compare to expectations". Which isn't a fair question because people hold different expectations for Teslas than other cars.
I'd be interested in how many times each car had to be seen by the manufacturer, rather than full breakdowns (i.e. at the side of the road, can't continue the journey). EVs should be much more reliable in terms of full breakdowns, but with all of the complex systems I've seen more small things go wrong.
I own a Model 3, and one thing I didn't fully appreciate until a recent 2000+ mile roadtrip is how good the Tesla Super Charger network is. Even in remote parts of Nevada we were always within range of a Super Charger. Using the onboard nav system made that even better, since it's aware of how busy a station is, or if the station is even functional, and would route accordingly.
I don't know much about other charging networks, but I've used non-Tesla chargers a handful of times over the past two years, and every time, it was a poor experience. They've been slow, some have stopped working a few minutes into a charge, or don't work at all. In two separate cases the chargers I drove to didn't actually exist, despite being directed to them by those networks' apps. In one case, they weren't built yet, and in another, the chargers weren't even properly mounted to the ground and getting blown around by the wind and leaning over as far as the underground cables would allow.
Prior to my roadtrip the charging network wouldn't have been much of a selling point for me since I usually charge at home. But after? I think it's far more important than I realized.
This is reasonable. OTOH a really mass-produced car means that its production becomes optimized, quirks eventually fixed, rough edges polished, etc. With model Y, Tesla has a chance to polish the design and the production process and make the car reliable and of stable quality.
They of course can squander that chance, but they never had such a chance before at all, to my mind.
It's not a huge difference to other manufacturers - the idea of putting different things on a common chassis and iterating that one slowly was happening for a while. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform
From what I understood on a previous thread that talked about EV owners wanting to go back to gas cars, the main reason Tesla owners like their EVs more than other brand owners is not based on the actual vehicle, but due to ease of charging because of the supercharger network and other Tesla features to dispel range anxiety.
That in itself is a good reason to buy a Tesla right now (it may evolve in just a few years in the future): it's the one with the best charging experience. Considering how much hassle a bad charging experience can be, I imagine this has an influence on sales figures.
Really loved the idea of an electric car / plug in hybrid but it feels like EVs are just not adequately designed for Canada.
The main issues are (A) not enough charging infrastructure (fixable) and (B) poor battery performance in cold weather.
I think the cold weather thing could be fixable but from my perspective it seems like EVs are designed with California in mind so there seems to be little incentive to fix those issues.
Additionally Canada wants all new cars to be EVs by somewhere around 2030 but it seems like a not very well thought out plan.
Personally I ended up going with a standard hybrid.
- Fantastic mileage in the city.
- Good cold weather performance.
- Highest reliability by consumers reports and other publications.
- No range anxiety.
- Battery lasts a very long time since it is used less and stays at a medium charge.
We went for a Model Y. The heat pump is way more efficient in the winter than resistive heating. Combine that with starting out at room temperature because it's garaged, and we see little winter range loss.
We never have charging issues, and we've gone to rural Saskatchewan, tourist Quebec and all parts in between. The trans-Canada has great supercharger coverage, rural Saskatchewan has welders you can unplug and tourist Quebec has chargers at the hotels.
I bet our battery lasts longer than yours. 99% of driving is local, we plug in at 50% and charge to 80%, which is a lot easier on a big battery like ours than the small battery you have. Even on road trips it basically stays between 20 and 80.
Not really going to argue your points (they seem well researched!), however I think for most consumers there's still that last level of "thinking" required to feel comfortable having an EV as a primary vehicle.
Including as you mentioned having a heated garage compared to people such as myself who have to rely on street parking which can comprise both the battery distance and the ability to consistently charge.
Lastly I do think there's a catagory of people who take pride in figuring out how to make systems work for them specifically (in this case EVs in Canada). I myself am that way about many things in my life but when it comes to my vehicle i just want it to work.
It's good to know that your experience is working though and hope for EV coverage to expand in the future.
I think the Supercharger network was a significant competitive advantage. With the news today that Ford will be adopting NACS in the near future for North American vehicles, I do think their EV options will start to become more compelling.
My dream car is a minivan -- it is literally the most practical kind of vehicle I can think of, so that is what I fantasize about getting. Why are you so impressed that the model Y is not a minivan?
Wouldn't any car just be better if it were a minivan?
In case you weren't aware already, the next-gen VW "bus" will start sales in the US next summer/fall. I expect other car manufacturers will begin sales of their minivan EV replacements around that time as well.
Unfortunately for VW, they are trying to cash in on the "cool" factor and nostalgia for the vintages buses and the vehicle is outrageously expensive. For $60k, I don't features in addition to gimmicks and the backseat is pretty tight. Not to mention the interior tech and controls for this first generation of VW ev's is comically bad.
I think I might give a try for MY (if its suspension got any better), but where I live there is no real place for servicing it and insurance costs 7x the price of a new leaf for example which is insand.
I think one of the reason is most non uber wealthy people are putting a hold on car purchases right now until EV prices go down.
We are in a huge transition phase, with lots of inflation everywhere. For most people EV are still too expensive or inconvenient [1] and they don't want to buy a new ICE car or start a 5y leasing on a car they may soon not be allowed to use wherever they want.[2] Also they fear they won't be able to resell it. It makes more sense to keep that old, already well depreciated old car or buy a fairly recent second hand ICE, hybrid or EV that has already depreciated a lot.
My only non muscular vehicle right now is an ICE motorbike. There is no way I can afford an EV car and I don't want to deal with an ICE car I won't be able to sell for more than scrap value when EV prices will go down.
[1] if don't have parking space at home.
[2] many big cities have started banning diesel cars in center, will probably do the same for gasoline soon. ICE cars will soon become unsellable.
> most non uber wealthy people are putting a hold on car purchases right now until EV prices go down
I've been wondering how many others are frustrated like I am.
I've hit the 10 year mark on my current ICE vehicle, and I sorta assumed EVs would be a lot more common and cheaper now. Even the small vehicles are being sold for luxury prices, and the 7-seaters (which I'm looking at) are priced in the high-end-yesteryear-sports-car tier.
I'm seriously considering just buying a Tahoe or Telluride and waiting another 10 years for an EV.
>Translation: luxury vehicles are the future of car sales.
Not in Europe, I was surprised to read that Dacia Sandero a model designed to be cheap was the best seller this year(in Europe), they also hit record sales last year. There are lot of people that do not have the moneyor do not want to spend it on luxury. (and btw before someone points the bad safety rating of Dacia, most of the bad score is because of missing of modern active safety stuff)
I believe it is true in Europe too, it just happens with economic growth.
I.e. where people would buy a lot more utility cars before, they now buy more expensive bigger cars even if they don't need them. Those buying bigger cars are now buying SUVs.
Dacia ate the market of economy cars of FIAT, SEAT, and Pegeot, while those tried to move up market.
That's also why Dacia has the Duster ("SUV for poors") in their line up.
I am not sure where to check this, but I was talking about Luxury cars, not size. In my definition a luxury car is a car that is probably double or more in price then a non luxury car, because of branding and luxury features like luxury interior features, chrome and other shiny stuff on exterior, super fancy design that changes each year. Decent EVs are still expensive and an unknown here in Romania.
I bought a used Tesla Model 3. The person I bought it from bought it used as well. I'm the third owner. The battery capacity after 65k miles is 97% of original.
If we naively assume that every 21k miles driven drops 1% of capacity, then after another 1 million miles I'll be at 50% capacity. That'd still give me 4x the range I need on a daily basis.
Even if the rate of degradation were 2-3x my estimates, the battery in my car is more likely to allow my car to drive further than even the most babied, well taken care of, internal combustion engine ever could.
As far as we know, the original battery pack had an issue after 290,000 km (180,000 miles) and was replaced under warranty. However, Tesla was initially figuring out the issue and installed a loaner battery, which was used for half a year or 150,000 km (93,000 miles). Then, Tesla installed a new, final battery. We don't have any info about any further replacements, so it might be the first 1 million km battery?
In terms of drive units. The Tesla Model S P85 is a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive car. High power and torque was an issue in the early Teslas, which caused a few motor replacements. Three units were replaced by 680,000 km and the fourth one was running up to 1,000,000 km. We don't have any info on whether anything happened after that.
IIRC, one of the big reasons Teslas are comparatively expensive is because their batteries are gigantic relative to their range. They're basically using a lot of energy from the battery to power cooling systems to keep the battery cool, which means they degrade much more slowly.
You can look up user-generated plots of average battery degradation and see that most Teslas still have 90% of their range after 100k miles.
Other cheaper EVs manage this equation differently and their batteries do degrade more quickly.
> Apartments generally have a lack of EV chargers.
That's the trick, people living in apartments are not supposed to own and operate their own cars going forward.
As a live in an apartment myself I wasn't aware of that fact at the beginning, I kept asking myself: "how am I supposed to charge my car if I'm living on the 8th floor?". Turns out I was looking at the whole thing through the wrong lenses.
What's really perverse about it (there's no better word to describe it) is that us, people living in apartments, do currently have a smaller carbon footprint compared to people living in actual houses, and yet we are the ones being punished as a result of measures which are meant to improve our global carbon footprint. So the solution for me, if I'd still want to own a personal car, would be to increase my carbon footprint by moving to an actual house on the ground, preferably in suburbia because cheaper (where there's also no proper public transportation to speak of).
Small caveat: as an apartment dweller, the way to own and operate my own car is to rent an underground parking space, which will, in time, be retrofitted with a charging plug.
On the other hand, that's definitely more expensive than street parking and not everyone will be able to afford it, so your statement is overall correct for the majority of people.
Where I live there are no available parking spaces, and parking garages are all fully booked, but even if they weren't, you can't install your own charger.
There are a few properties on sale, but the starting price is around 40 thousand euros for 16 square meters.
I don't think you can really generalize that easily. Where I live, street parking with a residential permit is way cheaper than renting a spot in a garage, and I know other big cities have similar schemes.
>>people living in apartments are not supposed to own and operate their own cars going forward.
That's such a weird thing to say. What do you mean not supposed to own? For healthy young people - ok, fine, fair enough. How about the disabled? The old and frail? People with kids? People who drive for work? Where are the above meant to park and charge? And please don't say these usecases are going to be replaced with autonomous cars, that's complete nonsense, especially for specific usecases like disabled people who need specially adapted cars.
> That's such a weird thing to say. What do you mean not supposed to own?
disincentives work the same way of incentives, but in the opposite direction.
EVs are an hassle to own if you live in a dense urban area, like those you can find in many European cities. I predict many people will give up on owning a car when confronted with the drawbacks.
> like disabled people who need specially adapted cars
disabled people have reserved parking spots, that will eventually be equipped with an EV charger
>The second problem is charging. Apartments generally have a lack of EV chargers.
Intuitively, I guess most people would certainly be fine charging once a week for half an hour when going out (restaurant, shopping or else), given the average distance driven per week.
And the Model Y is cheaper than the Toyota Rav4 which is in the same category. So cheaper purchase price, and no annual oil changes, cheap miles (at least over in Finland where gas is 2e/liter, 8.14usd/gallon and electricity is around 10euro cents/kwh).
Seem very country dependent. I just checked and a rav4 with awd and lane assist (to try to match it to the LR AWD model y) cost ~3k more over here (58k vs 55k euros)
These are Finland prices. I just checked now the cheapest new awd rav4, and it's 55k (to compare to the LR AWD Moldel Y). But then it you want lane assist, you need another trim level and it'll go up to closer 59k. The model y is 55k.
It might be "2 times as expensive" up front, but not for the TCO.
People really need to remember maintenance costs over the ownership period.
In a Tesla all you're really paying for is tyre rotation / alignment / rubber replacements, and air filters. Plus the electricity, in place of fuel. The savings add up significantly.
Is this myth still lingering on? You have to pay a lot more on maintenace for Teslas: brake pads, shattered roofs, fogging taillights, broken control arms, drive units, worn out seats, MCUs, tail bumpers lost in the rain, ... that list goes on.
Provided Tesla can deliver spare parts, which they frequently can't for months, which is a story in itself (hint: having to support x iterations may work for SW, but not for cars that are on the road for 10+ years)
EVs are cheaper to maintain, generally. But the Tesla is a premium vehicle for which no after market parts are available, so there's a significant gap there.
I have two ICE vehicles and I change the oil for each myself according to the manufacturers' recommended maintenance schedules. Changing the oil for one car, once, costs $42 for oil and $16 for the filter. The yearly cost for one car with a 7500 mile recommendation is about $116 (two total changes a year typically, though it looks like I did it three times last year for that vehicle).
I've had a Model 3 for 2 years now. Total cost of ownership (excluding insurance and registration fees): $1578. That's ALL costs, including electricity used to charge the battery. The majority of those costs: a set of new tires at $1050.
As far as a lack of after market parts go: what parts would you expect to see on the after market? The things one needs to buy for a Tesla are represented quite well in the after market. Tires, brake pads, cabin air filters - plenty to choose from, and widely available at any auto parts store. Tell me more about this "significant gap" of after market parts.
People who care about price don't pay $3k/year on car servicing at a car dealer... They buy some reliable model and pay $50 for an oil change every other year.
I assume you're not in the US since your pricing is totally out of place with most US consumer spending on vehicle maintenance. $50 for an oil change is about right, but every other year? Even Americans who don't drive that often will generally change it about every 6 months.
Not to mention things like tires have a lifespan. Even if they aren't worn out, most tires are not meant to be used for longer than around 5 years. As the rubber ages, its composition changes and it does not perform to the rated specifications. Even cheap tires are $100/ea for everything larger than a subcompact economy car. $400 for tires, divided by 5 years; you get the idea.
Car ownership in America does not need to be expensive, but it's nothing like the European mentality.
I took my car to a mechanic for an unrelated issue and asked them to change the oil and check fluids while they had it in the shop (I bought it about 6 months earlier) and they called to tell me they weren't going to change it because it wasn't necessary and had paperwork to prove it. This was in the Netherlands in a small town. But here I drive my car 50km a week vs 50km a day when I lived in the US.
> Even Americans who don't drive that often will generally change it about every 6 months.
What? Back when I drove a Corolla (in the U.S.) I never changed my oil more than once a year, and no one ever pestered me about it. Where did you get that?
From what I can tell, the average American drives somewhere between 12,000-15,000 miles a year. The average oil change interval for modern cars is 7,500-10,000 miles, so using the higher interval you would expect to change your oil roughly twice a year.
I believe these published averages are arithmetic mean and may be skewed by long-distance drivers and multi-car households. As reported, it seems to be just total fleet mileage divided by number of drivers.
For this kind of question about maintenance, I wish I could find a histogram or at least quartile summaries of per-vehicle distances per year.
Most manufacturers suggest 12,000 mile oil changes. By the time your vehicle is old and less valuable, 25,000 miles makes more sense as long as the oil from the last change didn't show signs of contamination by water/soot/particulates (since the cost of the oil change is fixed, but the additional devaluation of the vehicle by not changing the oil is much less). For a typical driver, that makes it once per 2 years.
Things like tyres are normally bought part-worn. My last set was $25/tyre, inc fitting, with 5mm tread left. Degradation can be determined by visual inspection - rubber does degrade, but it isn't a safety hazard until there are cracks allowing light to get to the cords in the tyre (light degrades the cords, which is a safety hazard).
Your tire advice is pretty scary. Unless you are very certain of the sourcing of these used tires, and you live somewhere that doesn't see any precipitation or inclement weather, you are taking a serious chance.
> In a Tesla all you're really paying for is tyre rotation
I change my tires every 20,000-25,000 kms
for me it means every 3 years
my car runs on LPG, which is half the price of gas
Never ever done any particular kind of maintenance in over 10 years.
You can buy 6-7 brand new "my cars" with the money spent on a Tesla.
Yes, it's a cheap car, I chose it exactly because it's cheap and robust, I use it in a city, I park it on the road, there's no need for a >45k car, I would argue it's borderline stupid to buy a very expensive EV to drive it in a city.
EVs are expensive by default, their TCO might be lower in perfect ideal scenarios, until you run into an issue, most of the cost is due the complexity, non-EV cars are much much much dumber and simpler.
You can't independently fix an EV, there's no way.
>People really need to remember maintenance costs over the ownership period.
What people really need to do is the actual calculation, instead of saying things like "the Tesla will make it up over its lifespan". Will it, really?
The difference between a model Y and Corolla is, what, $10k-15k? That is a huge difference to make up. Most of the maintenance requirements a ICE has are required by an EV, too (less oil changes). Parts are way more expensive on the Tesla than the Toyota.
Oh, and do you think that governments are going to just let EVs operate on subsidized electricity forever? No, they will directly tax it in the future. Meanwhile, gasoline prices could decrease over time as the world transitions to greener sources. After all, have to pump the oil (increase supply) while it has value.
TL;DR People who buy a Tesla to "save money" are likely in for a shock.
> Most of the maintenance requirements a ICE has are required by an EV, too (less oil changes). Parts are way more expensive on the Tesla than the Toyota.
You've expressed this idea about parts a few times in this thread, yet haven't actually proven that.
How about some comparisons of what some parts, common to both a Model Y and a Corolla, cost?
I'll give it a shot:
A control arm for a 2022 Model Y: about $150.
A control arm for a 2022 Corolla: about $150.
Rear door window glass for a 2022 Model Y: about $190.
Rear door window glass for a 2022 Corolla: about $190.
Hood for a 2022 Model Y: about $500.
Hood for a 2022 Corolla: about $477.
I'm not even cherry picking - literally just thinking of a part and searching for prices. Without a doubt, there are parts on a Tesla that cost a lot more than the same part on a Corolla, but I haven't found them.
Point is: you're incorrect when you repeat the myth that Tesla parts are any more expensive than any other vehicle of the same model year. Most parts cost the same.
Bigger point: of the parts most frequently replaced on a ICE vehicle, the Tesla typically doesn't have those same parts. Fan belts, fuel injectors, timing belts, clutches, valves, alternators, and so on.
TL;DR People who buy a Tesla to "save money" are likely saving money.
I’ve been waiting 10 years for this, gave up a while ago.
Nobody wants to sell electric cars for cheap, why throw away the margins you can get by selling them for more?
I don’t see a great opportunity for them to lower costs more on a cheaper model. Tesla already went through the exercise of making the cheaper version and people are paying premium prices for it anyway.
I don’t have data on this, but my subjective impression is that over the last several years, the number of manufacturers selling EVs and the price of EVs have both increased at the same time.
Of course, additional supply should normally decrease prices, but maybe there’s something weird going on. Here are some possible mechanisms I dreamed up:
1. Could the various manufacturers (collectively bringing lots of cash to break into the business) be bidding up the cost of some inputs? If high demand allows the market to bear higher prices, maybe everyone just ends up paying more?
2. As EV moves from “government environmental policy compliance program” to “luxury essential”, the types of cars on the market change. Just because it’s technically possible to make a cheap EV, doesn’t mean they will be readily available. By analogy, air-conditioned seats are no engineering marvel, but are usually only offered in upmarket vehicles, probably as a type of price discrimination.
I think the constraint here is battery manufacturing capacity. If there was enough batteries available cheaply you would see budget electric cars. Meanwhile if there is a constraint it makes sense to allocate capacity to highest margin lines.
I've heard some auto analysts suggesting that Tesla's trick to drop their car prices was not necessarily an act of desperation, as much as an action of opportunity. While all other car manufacturers are upping prices and increasing lead times, Tesla is taking advantage of this by having vehicles available and lowering prices in order to gain market-share in a time when other manufacturers are expecting and preparing for slower sales.
If that was the strategy, then it looks like it is working exactly as planned.
My gf wanted to buy a hybrid Toyota RAV4. Hard to find, little choice of incoming units, and they want $5k over MSRP.
She was very hesitant to get a full EV.
But now seeing how dealers want over MSRP on the RAV4... She's 95% sold on the Model 3.
Its not even a comparison when it comes to driving experience. I dislike how minimalist the interiors of Teslas are, but they are so fun to drive. The Model 3 especially!
When my Kia went tits up I called every dealer I could (except Tesla) to try to get a car immediately. They all had months-long lead times. Tesla? I downloaded the app and bought the car as an in app purchase; 7 days later I picked up the car from the lot & left. If I'd been willing to settle for a white 7-seater, I'd've been able to pick it up same day.
What's the point of being a car dealer if you can't sell me a car!?
Tesla raised prices in order to reduce the time between order and delivery when customer demand got too hot. Raising prices also improved profit margins during a time of rapid capital spending. Now customer demand has cooled with the international economic slowdown, and lowering prices increases the time between order and delivery as more customers are enticed to order.
Also to add, Elon/Tesla is 100% transparent about pricing strategies, and it's exactly this. Other manufacturers obscure this behind dealership models, Tesla does it out in the open.
Does anybody sell more than 2 million >$70,000 vehicles a year? Tesla wants to sell 2 million cars this year and 3 million next year. The total market size for premium vehicles is only so big.
>While all other car manufacturers are upping prices and increasing lead times, Tesla is taking advantage of this by having vehicles available and lowering prices in order to gain market-share in a time when other manufacturers are expecting and preparing for slower sales.
Why does everyone think that everything Elon does is 4D chess?
Read the above back to yourself: The legacy autos are choosing to raise prices and lengthen lead times, while Tesla is choosing to lower prices and shorten lead times. It's that simple!
Do you think there's more to it than "choosing" to do these things?
I'm not quite ready to commit yet, but I've been looking into leasing an EV on and off for a while and availability is spotty for the more interesting models, and that's to say nothing of dealer markup.
Competing EVs have several things that depending on the driver make them more compelling than the options offered by Tesla, but I'd bet that a lot of people are willing to compromise if it means getting a car with the price and specs closer to what they're looking for now instead of weeks or months out.
To the extent that EVs last longer with very low maintenance costs, people will likely keep them even longer than they would keep other cars. And if Tesla can accelerate purchases of people who are considering getting an EV, they can drain the pool of potential EV buyers before other manufacturers are fully up and running.
As a result, other manufacturers will have to anticipate lower sales numbers, which means they would set higher prices (because much of the cost is in tooling and other fixed costs of production). It could create a nasty situation for other manufacturers, especially those that are not large enough spread the costs of EV manufacturing across other successful product lines.
Whether EVs last longer is yet to be seen. The batteries are a huge flaw in their ability to last long term. Replacing the batteries are likely a $10k+ cost, meaning that as cars get older it may not be worth doing. Imagine having a car worth $8k because it is 10 years old and needing to spend $10k on it to update the batteries. Would it make sense? Or would you just buy a car worth $18k instead?
People willing to drop that on a "repair" would probably rather buy upmarket instead. Which leaves a lot of older EVs driving around with potentially really poor ranges and clogging up charger networks.
We will have to see how it plays out. But they are lower maintenance.
There are now Tesla's driving around with 300,000 miles on their original battery. You should be fairly confident of getting 200,000 miles out of a Tesla battery, which is about as much as you can expect from any car. You can hope for more, but you can't expect more.
If you are really concerned about battery life, get a vehicle with an LFP battery. Those are estimated to have a 750,000 mile life.
That’s not exactly a fair comparison. My car can have 200K miles, but when I fill it up, I still get the same mileage. A worn down battery loses capacity with each charge and I’d be curious to see the milage per charge past a certain amount of cycles.
> but when I fill it up, I still get the same mileage.
Really? I've never seen a 200,000 mile car with the same power or mileage as a brand new car -- the tolerances are not as tight. The loss might not be as dramatic as seen on a battery, but it's usually >5%.
I imagine people will use cars with lower range as second vehicles. You’re not going to take it on a road trip, but it’s still good enough for driving around town.
People would keep them longer if they don't have to do fairly expensive preventative maintenance on belts, transmission, etc. There is of course the battery to worry about, and it remains to be seen how this will play out over decades.
Expensive maintenance in belts and transmissions? As in changing a belt and fluid? That should cost $300 tops for both. One done every 100k miles the other 50-100(Toyota recommends changing the fluid at that 90k intervals but it's preventative for me).
Depending on the car(my Toyota) you can do both yourself on a Saturday evening for about $100
That's because you drive a nice, sensible car. Volkswagen (particularly diesel) timing belts are a royal pain and run closer to $1500 at a dealer. More if you do the water pump while you're in there (and it's typically the reason you're doing the job in the first place).
Maybe the people are just too lazy to maintenance their vehicles. I'm going to be honest, I know maybe 500 people that I see regularly and know by name, and I bet about 9 of them have ever changed or thought about changing their transmission fluid.
Before Covid, one could buy Toyota vehicles 6% under MSRP. Today, Toyota dealers want $5K mark up fees, on top of MSRP, then all extra garbage, with 3 months wait time. If your family already owns an ICE vehicle, just buy Tesla Model Y as a second vehicle. These car companies and their dealers just try to screw customers with all hidden garbage.
Conversely, we just ordered a Tesla Model Y yesterday for delivery within a month. Today they reached out to us to see if we'd like to take one from inventory this week. I literally paid the deposit using Apple Pay with TouchID on my MacBook. It was scary how easy it was.
I don’t get this to be honest. Had a couple of experiences as a passenger and now I actively avoid them (on Uber). The ride is absolutely awful. So rigid. Every bump on the road is felt, to the point I felt nauseated. They’re spacious, and maybe they’re nice to drive? But if I bought this without test driving it first, I would return it.
They're really fun to drive. I own one and don't regret it. Obviously no car will appeal to everyone but clearly Tesla has a market despite the nay-sayers.
edit: The purchase experience beats traditional car makers hands down. No high pressure sales tactics or scams like rust preventer.
Nay-sayers also under-rate Tesla's mobile service. Go into the app, create a ticket, attach pictures. Get an estimate within hours (sometimes minutes). Accept, schedule. Tech comes to your house with all the parts and tools. Super easy.
Not much to maintain... motor coolant (ATF), coolant system, etc are lifetime sealed. Brakes last forever thanks to regen. Basically replace air filters every 3-4 years and tires per normal... which can also be done by mobile service.
I love when people say this. Because it tells me that they have never actually driven a sports car before.
When tesla owners say "sporty" they mean acceleration. Yes Teslas have mad acceleration. Not disputing that. But thats not a sporty drive. If anything thats more what you would get from a muscle car, which offers pure torque at the cost of basically everything else, which is what Tesla offers. Tesla isn't a sports car, it is a muscle car trapped in a sports car body.
Drive a Porsche, or Mercedes (C or S classes, the A classes are a joke), or BMW. These give you a sports drive. Smooth suspension, finely tuned transmission shifts, snappy steering, etc. These traits make up sporty drives. While power plays a component in that, it's not pure torque.
I realize that Tesla doesn't have a transmission before someone spits that out to me. But look at the electric Porsches and BMWs who mimick a transmission range to give you that, it isn't just a linear line like a Tesla. That's the difference between a mechanical drive and an emotional one. This is also why neither of these company's current offerings can beat out Tesla in 0-60 time. They could come close or beat it if they wanted to, but their clientele isn't looking for that, they want a traditional shift and acceleration so they offer that instead.
> That's the difference between a mechanical drive and an emotional one.
I'm sorry, what? Who's to say a linear acceleration can't be an "emotional drive"? This is pure personal preference. You're extrapolating based on your own opinions, and I guarantee isn't a universal sentiment.
Personally, I'd want a electric car that behaves like an electric car, not trying to simulate a transmission that doesn't exist. This has the same vibe as "mount a speaker to play fake engine sounds on a near-silent EV, because that's what people who grew up with muscle cars expect to hear".
>This has the same vibe as "mount a speaker to play fake engine sounds on a near-silent EV, because that's what people who grew up with muscle cars expect to hear".
To be fair, a significant chunk of normal cars have this too.
>Who's to say a linear acceleration can't be an "emotional drive"?
Sometimes, you want to turn corners too (electric cars have a disadvantage in this area because they're a lot heavier) but in a typical city you don't really have to do that very much so the straight-pull power gets you 90% of the sports car experience.
Not that that's inherently a bad thing- Mustangs are the only car Ford still sells for a good reason (and the base Tesla wouldn't sell if it had economy-car horsepower)- but if you want a car like that capable of turning corners with that speed then you need to spend a little (or a lot) more.
> When tesla owners say "sporty" they mean acceleration.
When you live in a city, this is the only sporty thing you can experience. You aren't going to speed down the freeway at 90 MPH, if ever, you aren't going to practice drifting or anything fun like that.
It is a "sporty" sedan experience that is limited to leaving other cars in the dust as you quickly speed up to the 30 MPH speed limit. Oh, and it is still a sedan, so I can do that while taking my kid to his Chinese class.
Tesla made and will make an actual sports car (the Tesla Roadster and its successor), so it is not like that segment has been forgotten for EVs. BUT there just isn't a huge market for those, or maybe it is better served by the cheaper WRX or BRZ (a $30k small sport EV roadster? Ya, I could buy that).
Not really! As a customer, I could care less about how shifts work. With automatic transmission, whether it's CVT, Electronic, etc. is all gravy. Just give me an experience that makes me smile.
For me personally, Teslas are some of the most fun cars I've ever driven. I've driven Mercedes C class and BMW 3 series. Teslas have way better acceleration, and the responsiveness of the steering is awesome for me.
Off topic: you mean "I couldn't care less". As David Mitchell once said: "If you could care less about something then all you're telling us is that you do care at least a little bit because you could care less.
I was with you on the suspension and steering but artificially limiting acceleration to mimic a shift is just dumb. "Sporty" should mean high-performance.
You're not going to get a sporty ride from a model Y. Or any SUV really, as much as Tesla, BMW, and every other luxury SUV maker would have you believe. These vehicles are simply too tall for that. It's a tradeoff for which you get practical benefits in return.
That said car enthusiast types were never Tesla's target market post-Roadster and they've excelled at building a product the public likes for other reasons as you've mentioned.
They’ve got some work to do in the suspension tuning department. They should take notes from BMW and the 3-series. That’s how you do a sport ride that’s still comfortable.
FWIW they have revised the Model Y suspension for 2023. Reports say it is more comfortable without affecting handling. Some owners have reportedly ordered the parts from the 2023 vintage and had them installed on prior year models - but I haven't verified that so YMMV.
If reports continue to be positive that it doesn't negatively affect handling I may give it a try (depending on the cost). Of course another great Tesla feature is mobile service... I'm curious if they'd be able to do a suspension swap. They can already do tire replacement and rotate/balance. You schedule it in the app and they show up at your house to do the work. It is extremely convenient.
I had the chance to test drive a C8 and was a little unimpressed (I was planning to buy one but didn’t).
A good car but not a great one as I had been led to believe.
On paper and all the glowing reviews had me believing it was something very special. Maybe on a track it is (I just drove it spiritedly on public roads)
I tried a few other cars that week and found the C8 to be lacking in comparison. (Mclaren GT, M3/5/8 competitions, Aston Martin Vantage, a few others).
Granted many of the other cars were more expensive. But the M3/M4 comps arent much more and I thought they were a clear level above in every way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, of the 3 C8s I sat in one of them had laughably crooked stitching on the dash. I get that it’s a Chevy, but that to me shows the quality control is not there.
The quality of Tesla vehicles are objectively terrible. I had looked at purchasing one 4-5 years ago when they were all the hype and I walked away from the test drive dissapointed.
Yes you push the pedal and it go fast. Everyone with a Tesla loves to show that off that and I can't dispute it. But the actual ride quality is (or at least was) truly horrible. Terrible road noise and suspension that bottoms out and rebounds aggressively. This doesn't even address the countless concerns people have raised of build quality (like badly placed body panels, weatherstripping coming loose, bad locks, etc..
It really shocks me that people were buying Mercedes level prices for a car that was built worse than budget brands. Yes you got a sexy big screen (before that was common) and it had all the cool 360 cameras (before those were common), and it had the promise (more like an "IoU") for self-driving.
It is funny because I bought a new BMW and saved money. The beamer was a budget choice by comparison (by tens of thousands of dollars). Really happy I went that route after watching the next 5 years play out.
If the global auto market outcome doesn’t send strong signal, I don’t know what does. Consumers are willing to overlook what you mention for status and experience. This should be no surprise, as a vehicle purchase is highly emotional. If you build a sexy brand, people will buy your brand. “S3XY”. Tesla spent two decades ramping manufacturing, a global fast DC charge networks, and the mentioned brand. It’s simply paying dividends now.
Disclosure: Early TSLA investor, no current exposure
I agree with you. That's why my comment talked about objective quality, not subjective value. You are debating subjective value to my argument about objective quality.
If we are talking subjective value, then yes Tesla definitely wins. They have built so much subjective value that it overcomes their numerous faults.
Tesla pundits predict big sales of Cybertruck wraps and accessories as customers seek the status of customization for an truck that many, many will end up having.
And my E46 M3 had interior door trim with glue that melted in the sun and fell off. Oh and the crankshaft bearings ate themselves and grenaded the engine at highway speed (the dealer charged BMW $14k just for the engine on that warranty repair).
Or my wife's Audi where the black coating on all the interior plastic scrunched up and peeled off. And that same car had a CVT transmission with so many failures Audi actually paid off repairs via a class action lawsuit (I got a check for around $4k! first and only time a class action actually benefitted me and not the lawyers). Oh and the defective Bosch ignition coils that caused misfires.
For what it is worth my Model Y (Dec 21) doesn't have odd panel gaps or other problems. It has extremely minimal maintenance requirements. I don't care about the price of gas or even electricity because my solar panels charge it for free. And it is fun to drive.
Not everyone will like the ride, the features, or whatever else... but they are selling every single one that rolls off the fully-booked production line.
It's a big seller and it's impossible to argue with that. But I also fail to see their niche. You're a big spender and you want everyone to know it? Lucid. You want the ultimate in efficiency? Hyundai Ioniq is as good as the Y. Don't have much money? Fiat 500e.
Just picked up our Model Y yesterday. For us, it was the only EV with these properties:
1. Small enough to reasonable park in a dense city
2. Has 7 seats, so we can drive with 2 kids, Grandma, and some of the kids friends
3. Has 300+ miles per charge
The many extra charging locations were also a huge plus.
If you cross shop the Model Y with any other EV right now spec for spec, price for price, it's the clear winner. That's not to mention it takes a click online and a few weeks to get one in comparison to having to deal with a vipers nest of scammers and upsellers.
My wife feels the same way about our new i4. I love it, she says the acceleration and regenerative breaking leads to a less comfortable ride. No bumps though, it is a BMW at least with a quiet interior. Not sure what kind of suspension tuning Teslas have.
I bought one and it's the most fun I've had in a vehicle in my almost four decades of driving. Not going to tell you what to like, but your opinions are definitely an outlier.
For people buying new cars, yeah I guess I understand that being true. America prefers SUVs, but it's an interesting statistic.
The Corolla is purchased by those who want an affordable sedan, as well as the affluent who don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car or a Tesla and are putting their money in other things like their home and marketable securities.
The Ford F-150 is a vehicle used widely by commercial organizations as well as American retail consumers who can afford one.
All of this leads me to think if you want to know what popular vehicle sales really are, I suspect you have to look at the used car market and normalize by model, removing years or generations to understand what the average consumer is really buying.
> don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car or a Tesla
I truly beg you to talk to an actual Tesla owner to refine your opinions.
EVs are practically 0-maintenance machines. Unless you need to change your tires... you just don't think about oil changes or motor belts breaking or engine filters clogging and all the other nonsense that breaks in an ICE car.
If you hate Tesla that's a completely valid opinion, but don't pretend that people are buying Teslas just to spite themselves... the user experience is, for the vast majority of people, simply great.
> I truly beg you to talk to an actual Tesla owner to refine your opinions.
Hi! I'm an actual Tesla owner. My Model X is approaching 3 years old.
It is the worst car I have ever owned. Almost everything that can break on it, has broken. I would care much less if Tesla would actually try to fix it when you take it in for service (as mine has been for a total of weeks), instead they lie and say things like "that's normal" when it clearly isn't.
I hate the car, I hate the service experience, and now, for a fun bonus extra, I hate Elon.
What are you getting next? I’m looking for a large electric SUV/van/truck to complement my model Y (wife keeps taking it instead of using her own car) but the only ones I like are Teslas and Rivians.
- "Tesla was both the least reliable but most popular EV brand in a survey of owners that found one in three of all EVs had major issues in the past year" [1]
- "Electric vehicles are less reliable than gas cars, according to a survey of UK drivers." [1]
- "Kia was the most reliable EV maker in the study, while Tesla was the least reliable." [1]
- "Consumer Reports Still Ranks Tesla Reliability 27th Out Of 28" [2]
- "The Model Y still has body hardware issues with the tailgate and door alignment, paint defects, and multiple other problems." [2]
This is one of those things where it's quite clear to me there's news and there's immutable fact. My friends have Teslas and they have never brought it into the shop. Everyone I know with one says they don't trust FSD entirely but love the car and use AP all the time.
It's like the iPhone. When it was released to years afterwards, enthusiasts breathlessly posted about how it was nothing like the Nokia whatever or the Windows Mobile whatever.
They posted about the factories and who was first and established companies and articles about how the iPhone had no copy and paste or this or that.
Meanwhile, the iPhone surged ahead. Everyone I knew who had one raved. It was apparent that the enthusiasts were blindsided. People without an opinion were buying this device. It was going to rule!
Same with Teslas. Rave reviews from my network of early buyers of their non-sports-car. Online all sorts of warnings and complaints. Years later, rave reviews from my friends. Turns out it works out. People online can find 400 sources for their stuff. The factories are in tents. There are gaps in the panels. FSD isn't fully self driving.
But people love it. And now we find ourselves at immutable fact: best selling car in the world.
Can confirm that it’s an iPad on wheels. I love my old suv, really great car but the Model Y is like getting off a horse and into a space ship.
There are features on this car that should be standard on every car in the planet, and one thing Tesla will accomplish over the next few years is force car manufacturers to implement those features. And not nickel and dime you for premium audio in two trims out of 12 and list 160 features on an about this car page. It’s bananas. Anyone that’s ever bought a Tesla will never step a foot into a dealership to be talked down by some kid about how they need to check with the manager about the price of a some mid fit bs suv, while trying to sell you a tire warranty.
I am not sure to understand this dissonance... I owned a model 3 since April 2019, and also I had zero issue. The only time I went to the Tesla center it was to receive the car.
It is so nice to not have to see a car dealer or gas station since April 2019. There is no way I could go back to another car. Even an EV, most of them are ICE cars with electric powertrain, with way too many buttons or dials, and no integration. The iPhone comparison is pretty good. You have to experience it to realize the gap. The software/hardware integration makes the difference, but you have to experience it to fully appreciate it.
Meanwhile, a coworker got a Model S and after 2 service visits ended up having to change his entire wiring harness. On a vehicle with less than 100 miles.
Okay then, our anecdotes then explain this dissonance.
I can understand that someone who had to bring twice his car feels like it is unreliable, and someone who never had to visit once nor feels like it is the most reliable car.
It’s true. Luxury cars using brand new technology are less reliable that cheap and simple cars with old fashioned technologies.
The first Tesla model S were particularly not very reliable. Lot of equipments, new vertical integration from Tesla on many parts, unreliable premium technology such as air suspension…
The model 3 and y are a bit better. The electric (not hybrid) BMW i3 from the same period has been one of the most reliable BMW, a more experienced brand with ICE cars having similar equipment.
If you wanted reliability in 2013, a base Dacia was probably a better choice.
I've a 20 year old BMW that's never given me any grief with the air suspension. Air suspension is not new technology and it wasn't new when my car was built.
Well, I have a relative that bought an x5 used. The vehicle was about 10 years old at the time and in good condition. In the precessing months the airbags fail(both rear I think).
He lives in a country where parts are easy to come by for BMW's it's a mostly Japanese car market there.
I had to ship him the airbags. He sold the thing right after installing them.
I expected the airbags to be more expensive though.
Depending on the climate you'll start to see steel (coil and leaf) springs start to rust away by ten years. Meanwhile the Tesla S was introduced in 2012 which puts the majority of the problems in cars younger than your relative's X5.
The previous owner replaced the air bags (springs) on my car so I couldn't say if they actually failed or if he did as part of a refresh when he lowered the car. They're not super expensive, but the aftermarket ones are that much cheaper. Of course the X5 (especially the first generation) is one of the least reliable vehicles BMW's brought to market. It's the electronics and pump that get real pricey, but on the E39 they pretty much never fail.
In twenty years the air bags (and potentially the pump side fittings) have been replaced once. That's about on par with a conventional coil spring suspension and pretty typical for an E39. Coil springs sag, rust, and break over time (especially in areas where the roads are salted). If Tesla can't make a reliable air suspension that seems more like a Tesla problem.
Aside from Tesla=good, BMW=bad, how do you figure? Replacing a spring, whether steel or air, is normal for older cars especially those that come from harsh environments. My car in particular was older than any Tesla S is today when the air bags were replaced. The pump and electronics are still original.
Any Tesla that's had problems with its air suspension got a shorter service life than I (and plenty of other E39 owners) did. Besides Tesla's struggles with their conventional suspension components are well documented in a series of non-OTA recalls.
I have a hard time to believe those articles, from my anecdotal experience of owning a model 3 since April 2019, I had zero (0) issue, no recall, no oil change, nothing. Feels like cheating. I did change a tire (well 2 because they come in pairs) because I drove on a piece of metal poking one tire. Nothing due to Tesla.
I do not even brake, so those brake pads would last a very long time...
You really have to try it, it is quite impressive.
> EVs are practically 0-maintenance machines. Unless you need to change your tires... you just don't think about oil changes or motor belts breaking or engine filters clogging and all the other nonsense that breaks in an ICE car.
Until your AC fails in your s/x outside of warranty, or you get unlucky enough to have your Y's heat pump fall apart like thousands of people in cold climates have over the last few years. Both repairs are $5000+ and seem to happen much faster than similar issues in conventional vehicles with belt driven AC compressors.
FWIW I've been driving German cars my whole life and never had one break. Never had to think about motor belts or engine filters - just visit a garage for planned maintenance every year or whatever miles the manual states.
Tesla are an amazing company, that made EVs mainstream, but I'm never going to buy one. They don't know what the word "privacy" means.
Counter point, I drove a new German car and had the turbo blow up (this was an "economy" car) within 4,000 miles. I still loved that car, but ICE engines have an order of magnitude more points of failure.
I had my first two engines on my current car (2007, current engine 2013) replaced before finally having a reliable car (manufacturer paid for both replacements after noting there were defects and not anything I had done).
some times stuff is just borked up until a certain point and some of us get unlucky with the quicker to die versions.
sucks, but we need to look at the averages, not the outliers.
* editing to add that I would still recommend my car make and model, because it's just so damned awesome, but I would hate for others to go through what I went through.
This thought just came to me, but industrial electric motors have been around a loooong time.
I think the growing pains we are seeing is that new companies are trying to build cars, and don’t have the experience of traditional automakers.
There’s a heck of a lot of institutional knowledge that goes into integrating all the components of a car. The newcomers have simplified a lot of it, but are definitely hitting some of the stumbling blocks of old.
I think it is the goal for all EV companies.
But for instance some had some mechanical issues that required recalls.
And since most car manufacturers used 3rd party parts (Bosch, etc.) they cannot guarantee that there would be no recall (e.g. airbags, etc.).
But so far my model 3 (April 2019) did not get a single recall. And during those 4 years I did not have to change anything but a flat tire. It is a peace of mind to know that there are so fewer ways to break the car, than with a ICE.
That's not what an Oxford comma is, FYI. I think GGPs interpretation is grammatically correct but I agree that the phrasing is ambiguous. But given Tesla's documented unreliability one can assume what they meant...
A relative of mine has owned a Tesla for about three years which has spent more time inoperable than all of the ice cars I have owned combined. Teslas break in all sorts of ways and it can take months to get parts.
Maybe EVs will be longer lasting and lower maintenence on average in the long run, but we won't really know until the average EV age catches up with ICE cars.
Tesla's in particular are inordinately dependent on a single company for parts and repairs. That increases the risk of being able to easily maintain an older car in the future.
Yeah, I’ve spent about five or six times as much servicing my Honda Odyssey over the last three years as my Tesla. And, my Tesla isn’t zero-maintenance but most of the service has involve me parking my car on my driveway and waiting for the mobile tech to show up.
It's encouraging to note that most model Y cars ("standard range") use lithium iron phosphate batteries, which have far fewer problem with fires than lithium iron. Energy density per kilogram of lithium iron phosphate batteries is lower, but has been improving slowly. Tesla had to buy the technology from BYD.
I suspect that in a few years, batteries capable of thermal runaway will be prohibited. They're becoming unnecessary.
We've been using liquid hydrocarbons capable of thermal runaway (petrol/gasoline) for a century despite the existence of liquid hydrocarbons which are more resistant to ignition (diesel).
LFP chemistry will certainly become increasingly dominant over the next few years, particularly now that key patents have expired. But it doesn't supplant all usages of NMC yet, and isn't likely to for some time.
Iron ion and phosphate are the same LiFePO4.
Compared to cobalt ones it has lower nominal voltage, and higher recharge cycles, less energy density as well.
I'd be terrified of driving a car with byd battery tech. There are countless videos of their cars just spontaneously combusting while driving on a road, sitting on a parking lot without charging etc...
As a cyclist, there isn't any car on the road that scares me more than these. The drivers are worse than aggressive truck drivers.
Given that it's the best selling car, maybe it's just that people are generally horrible at driving? At least in my area the drivers of these seem an order of magnitude more clueless than any others.
Purely anecdata but I spend a lot of time walking and cycling, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Tesla Y/3 drivers are up there with BMW (higher end newer model) drivers as the most arrogant and oblivious drivers on the road. It’s actually kind of impressive how those cars have so many driver aids, yet they still manage to drive like drunk 16yr old learners.
It's interesting because there used to be a similar cliche about Prius drivers being terrible when they were a new sensation.
Maybe there's something about people who are first adopters of "environmentally friendly" cars feeling a sense of moral license, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing, and end up being less conscientious on the road as a result.
Or maybe the rest of us just notice these bad drivers more because the cars stick out on the road as new and unusual.
Or maybe the drivers tend to just be rich, distracted assholes.
It’s definitely related to the moral license thing in my opinion. As a cyclist there are a lot of bad drivers out there, but I’ve learned to treat every Tesla like I do lifted trucks. I think they feel that they are at the top of the moral hierarchy and forget about pedestrians and cyclists completely.
Or maybe drivers are like that exist in similar amounts across brands and models, but human nature means we only think to attach a driver's behaviour to the brand/class of vehicle when we're primed to do so.
I've noticed that with taxis. In my city, taxi drivers have a reputation for driving like arseholes. I thought this too, but I started paying more attention and I realised that the vast majority of taxi drivers were driving entirely unremarkably. Before when I saw something which confirmed a prejudice, I thought it was more evidence in favour of that prejudice; now I realise that it was the Texas sharpshooter fallacy all along.
It seems to be true for just about every prejudice I've ever been told about. BMW drivers use their indicators just as often as anyone else. Owners of cheap Toyotas are just as likely to drive unreasonably fast as owners of high powered sports cars.
Big fast car with an automatic transmission is a recipe for you getting forced out of your lane by someone in over 5000lbs of metal who thinks their time is more important than considering your life by changing lanes to pass. O-60 entirely silently in 3 seconds, you won't even realize you are going fast enough to kill someone instantly.
> Honestly, as someone who bikes all the time, there's very little difference at 50km/h from the amount of sound coming from an EV vs an ICE.
This is about the acceleration from 0-60 in 3 seconds.
Because of how quietly a fast EV can perform this feat, the argument is that it's encouraging bad/antisocial driving behavior in general.
When an ICE does that sort of 0-60 time the whole neighborhood hears about it. That alone has a moderating effect on most drivers behavior even if their ICE vehicle is capable of it.
I have noticed this too and I feel it's because of the higher acceleration. It may give the drivers the feeling that they can insert themselves in even closer encounters because the car is more responsive.
Ever notice how some minivan drivers go way too fast for the size of their vehicle? Some think it is because the good forward visibility gives the drivers too much confidence. 3 and Y may have the same good visibility "problem" due to the sloping hood and the non existing dashboard.
I have a GoPro 360 and ride every day to work and back in SF. I curate my video afterwards for interesting scenes. Nothing notable about car makes. "Keep Tahoe Blue" Ancient Subaru? Signal free lane change into bike lane. G Wagon with no licence plate on the front? Signal free lane change into bike lane.
When I used to ride my motorcycle the vehicle that put me in the hospital was a Prius. Tesla Model S cars are wide and annoying to lane split against but the drivers are just drivers.
Ultimately, this appears to be purely a cultural thing. People want to say that someone else is not better than them. So they will find some way to attach some unlikeable attribute to them.
I cycle a lot in Berlin. My observation is that EVs are far safer to be around because the car will hit the breaks before the driver gets into any trouble. Big ICE cars on the other hand are the worst. SUVs are the worst. I constantly get cut off by obnoxious drivers aggressively driving from traffic light to traffic light, cutting off people, breaking the speed limit, running red lights, double parking, or slamming their door in your face because they can't bothered to look around then. German traffic rule enforcement is very hands off so there is a lot of this going on. I deal with this on a daily basis.
I stopped cycling a few years ago. It just isn't fun or safe any more. It's been getting worse and worse. I would go out and literally every single ride would involve a near-death experience.
People are generally horrible at driving. But then giving them a big, fast SUV with absurd levels of acceleration available is a horrible choice, and so hearing that this is the best seller should definitely strike fear into our hearts.
Corollas are tiny and like a relic of a bygone era. These new vehicles shouldn’t be more agile on top of being way bigger.
No need, the cars already see cyclists and pedestrians and have emergency braking. A transponder system is just a worse version of the existing solution.
There's plenty of people driving like it's GTA in their dog-slow base model nissan altimas and ram 2500s, more BEVs isn't gonna change the fact that a large chunk of society are selfish and antisocial.
Having a fast car like that also makes road diets less effective, if a car can get up to 60mph in an instant after a speed bump. The altima would take say 10 seconds of the engine sounding like its very angry with you, there wouldn't be time to get up to 60mph before the next speed bump perhaps, and if you drove like that everywhere you went you'd get like 10mpg maybe.
It truly makes no sense why the NHTSA seemingly works so hard with crash testing, yet they see no problems with a 5000lb family sedan that goes faster than a Ferrari F40.
From what I've heard, most crash testing focuses on car-on-car crashes, instead of car-on-pedestrian. The inevitable result is big and fast cars efficient at killing pedestrians.
As a cyclist, I haven't noticed anything like that. I suspect some internal bias towards EVs or against Elon or something is making you notice a pattern that isn't there.
If you're being cut off or they are not using their indicators or if they park in your lane or they drive really close behind you or they use too much space when turning a corner or they simply don't see you because they're looking left rather than right or they are using their mobile device or they take your right of way or they change lanes without looking...
they are bad drivers without accidents because everyone else is watching out for them.
It may be just a UK thing but I find Tesla drivers the least aggressive of all expensive car drivers.
If I see a Range Rover, Mercedes, Audi, BMW or any large pick-up in my rear view mirror I expect to be aggressively tailgated and I'm generally correct. This has not happened to me with a Tesla, that I can recall.
I have heard second hand accounts from friends who have been hit by Teslas whose drivers tried to claim innocence because they were convinced their car would definitely have told them if they hit something and it didn't.
Maybe watch less sensational news and go outside more. I wouldn't feel so immune in your combustion car. You know what combustion means? You'd be surprised to know they also combust unexpectedly and on impact
Much of this reflects the chip shortage that Toyota is facing, and how difficult new Corollas are to actually come by. The typical wait time for a Corolla is now 1 year+ in major urban centers of Canada.
From what I remember, basically everything that isn't a phone or computer is on older process nodes that once were cutting edge. Some of these are so old that it doesn't make economic sense anymore to scale up capacity, or it might not even be possible anymore to easily do so.
As a result you have production lines that were reasonably well suited for demand pre-covid, now having to deal with everyone stocking up on way more parts than they need because they don't want to deal with shortages again.
Tesla rewrote their software to use newer chips as soon as the crisis hit.
Toyota could have done that a long time ago (they know a thing or two about supply chain, don't they?) but they prefer to keep the shortage as an excuse for their poor sales performance.
Considering the hackers news post about Toyota firmware having 10,000 global variables, I'm not so sure they can rewrite their software. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551
100%. Automakers go on about the "dealership experience", but I have never hated my life more than when trying to by a car at a local dealership.
- Had a confirmed appointment but when I showed up I still had to wait 45 minutes.
- Salespeople were clueless about the features of the car they were trying to sell. I knew more after 30 minutes of online research and had to constantly call out their bullshit.
- The car I had reserved was somehow no longer available, and then they tried to upsell me on extras I didn't want.
- I wanted manufacturer financing but they told me that wouldn't be possible and I had to get theirs at a much higher rate. I again had to threaten to walk out to get the advertised rate.
- All the dealerships in the area had priced their vehicles at $10K over MSRP, and the extra was pure profit for them. Heck they were making significantly more money on the car than the manufacturer themselves, all because of a government mandated monopoly.
And all this was for a >$50K luxury vehicle.
Meanwhile a friend configured a Tesla online and it showed up at his doorstep a couple weeks later, with the exact advertised price, financing and selections.
I've heard it's even worse if you want to buy an EV.
Dealerships make half their money from the service department. EV's require very little service. So they don't want to sell and EV, and it shows.
Go to a Ford dealer and try to buy a Mustang Mach-E and they'll try really hard to convince you to buy an ICE Mustang.
The worst dealership experience I ever had was when I was buying my first car back in 2003. I was 21 at the time, and I just wanted something reliable and efficient that I could carry friends in. I told sales people that it must have 4 doors, A/C, and under $10K. And one of them tries to sell me a Pontiac Sunfire convertible for $12K. I re-iterated what I was looking for. Reliable, efficient, 4-door, A/C, under $10K. He showed me an $13K Mustang. I thanked him for wasting my time and left.
Tesla makes is so damn easy. I had a similar experience as your friend. I spent 30 seconds minutes choosing the configuration (Model 3 Performance, blue, no FSD, black interior), filled out the online credit application, and a week later, picked up the car from the service center downtown. The delivery experience was just as simple. Just had to sign some final delivery paperwork and some DMV paperwork that was already printed and just needed a quick scan and signature. Less than 5 minutes, and the car was mine. I was blown away how fast it was. I literally said to the guy there, "That's it? The car is mine and I can drive away now?". I was incredulous.
Dealerships could easily make the experience this easy if they wanted, but no, they want to play games with you to fuck you over.
I test drove the BMW ix, Mercedes EQS and Model Y last year and ended up with the Y which is my second Tesla.
The BMW and Mercedes experiences were a frustrating combo of the usual dealership tactics, large price markups and many of the options being unavailable in the US. The Y was also superior on features like storage. The BMW has neither a frunk or a sub trunk like the Tesla. Both the BMW and the Mercedes don’t allow the end user to open the hood at all.
> Go to a Ford dealer and try to buy a Mustang Mach-E and they'll try really hard to convince you to buy an ICE Mustang.
At least in EV-forward markets, this isn't much of a thing anymore, simply because they can't fight the fact that EVs have become the new aspirational cars.
You're being downvoted but I'm not sure you're entirely wrong.
I'm currently buying a Rivian Truck, pricing is straightforward and I could be buying a T-Shirt on a Shopify site. Simple, I know the price and the experience, while not always easy, has been straightforward.
My wife has suddenly needed a new car and leans towards a Mercedes or Audi EV and we're suddenly slammed back into going onto a lot and dealing with the normal car sales bullshit and it's a nuisance. Just test driving a car (which is a fairly significant thing for someone who's not driven an EV) is a high pressure situation.
I was in the EV market recently and managed to test drive an Audi E-Tron. I'll probably never forget how casually the salesman told me that they were marking them up $5K over MRSP and still had a 10 month waitlist. I walked out of there pretty quick. Who's putting up with this?!
For sure, so you just gotta be that tree that bends but doesn't break with the wind. Always keep a mental and emotional distance and be ready to walk at any moment.
I ended up looking at some cars late last year, and the worst part was one of the dealer salespeople trying to pull that ridiculous "my boss won't like the deal I'm about to offer so why don't we talk outside" bullshit on me.
worlds best selling car. Remember that the Tesla buying process is known as the "car buying process" since forever, outside the US, at least in the kind of countries where people buy expensive cars.
This is wrong. I grew up in Australia and the dealership model is the same there as the US. I don't know what countries specifically you are talking about, but the idea that you could easily buy a car online in the configuration you want for a standard price since forever is clearly wrong.
I don't understand what you wrote. Are you saying that outside the US, every manufacturer offers low-friction online sales, with no need to visit a dealer?
My understanding is that outside the US there's not the whole dealership model with it's associated markup as we have here in the US. You still have dealers but buying a car is just picking off a menu of options, pay the same price at every dealership and wait a few weeks for your car.
I got a 2015 Volvo with their "European Pickup" option and even though you went through a US based dealership that was how it worked. Also they didn't "package" options. You didn't need to get some "Cold Weather Package" to just get heated seats for example every option was ala-carte at a fixed price.
Seems a big part of this is Tesla's minimal and globally available product line (which I commend them for). Other automakers produce a huge number of variants within and between markets. That dilutes the sales of any single model.
For other car-makers they are bundling multiple SKU's. For example, the second place finisher is the Toyota Corolla/Levin/Allion/Lingshang which are all basically but not quite the same car.
Yes this I think is the key difference - perhaps its a strategic move or perhaps some other reason (i.e. low relative volume) but the fact that most other automakers have upwards of 25+ SKUs versus 4 SKUs for Tesla.
In fact for Toyota there are some 15+ Toyota SKUs and 15+ Lexus SKUs - ranging in price from the Corolla (compact) to the Sienna (minivan) to the BRZ (youth sports car) to the BZ4X (CUV EV) to the LS500 (executive sedan) to the Landcruiser (guerrilla infantry vehicle).
I’m really surprised about this. I live in the capital city of an European country (~50M people) and I don’t think I’ve seen even one, maybe it’s not sold here? I see a fair number of model 3 and a few S, though.
It's because Tesla has so few models. Every other manufacturer has an order of magnitude (or two orders) more models you can buy. Some brands have more EV models than Tesla does.
Just counting them, sure, but do they really? Most Auto makers cover reach segment, sub-compact, compact, full-size, and SUV, and just vary the offering within that class. Eg the Honda Civic sub-compact comes in EX, EX-L, LX, Type-R, Sport, Touring, and more. But meanwhile the Model S comes in a plethora of combinations of battery sizes and motor configs. Tesla covers 4 segments, full-size, compact, SUV (X) and SUV (Y). Other automakers do cover more eg sports and truck, but there's the roadster and the Cybertruck to contend with. Point being, if you just consider segments and configuration s per-segment, I'm not convinced Tesla is that far behind.
Does this include pre-sale statements or finalized deliveries only? It is one thing to have a high number of corporate pre-order it is quite another to have cars on the road.
I bought one of these and love it - it’s the best vehicle I have ever owned. The supercharger network eliminates any range anxiety or dealing with slow or barely functional chargers. Yes, the spartan interior leaves a bit to be desired, but where it lacks in physical qualities it makes up for in continuously improving software & UX.
The experience of using it is a joy daily, simply put (and I’ve owned other EV’s previously).
Even worse is they had multiple generations of a RAV4 EV, which they stopped manufacturing in 2014. They made it along side Tesla in the same plant that now makes Model Ys.
How much does this really matter? I feel like Tesla is strong in the market because they figured out how to market an EV as a sports car. Toyota was never going to do that.
It probably doesn’t matter. There are plenty of people who want simpler cars, but still want an electric drive train. There must be loads of us holding out for a Corolla or Camry like EV.
I don’t understand why Toyota has not produced a model like this and is doubling down on their Hybrids and hydrogen engines.
In the US it was the experience I think. Just like Uber in some markets where taxis were a shitty experience before, buying a car was (apparently) a crappy experience in the US before Tesla. But that's a very local phenomenon. Not sure about the sports car thing though. It's not much difference between a Model Y and a Mach-E or Polestar2 when it comes to this. Tesla did have the performance angle because they were early movers and compared to an ICE car their entire lineup is obviously looking pretty snappy.
Most buyers though just want a boring reliable car. If a known and Trusted brand made a car that was just 10% more expensive and 10% less attractive on specs than a Tesla, then Toyota would eat their lunch I think.
Toyota's sports cars actually show pretty well at how adverse they are to making them.
The Supra has a BMW engine, a BMW gearbox and a BMW interior with a BMW infotainment system, while the Toyota 86 is a joint project between Toyota and Subaru, with a Subaru engine and built in Subaru's plant.
They’re definitely Toyota cars but not really sports cars. They’re just hot versions of the Corolla and Yaris, which are definitely not sports cars. Unless we also define the Tesla Model S Plaid, BMW M3 and the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG as sports cars.
The Yaris GR is not a hot version of the Yaris. It's designed as a homologation special with a new chasis (there's no regular 3 door Yaris) and engine. Calling it a hot yaris is a bit like calling the Renault 5 Turbo a hot Renault 5.
The Corolla is closer to a hot Corolla as it uses the same chasis.
An electric Toyota Supra would easily outsell most Tesla's. It's a much nicer looking car than anything I've seen come from Tesla, the interior is so well done too.
The Toyota Supra looks nice but it only holds 2 people and has no cargo capacity. Sports cars like that will always be low-volume niche products regardless of whether they're electric or not.
Turbos aren't very simple. The 'toyota synergy' style hybrid transaxle is a whole lot less complicated than most transaxles too. ICE cars already had an electric starter motor, so it's just adding a second electric motor and some batteries and a charging circuit.
The benefits are clear. Immense range, lower fuel consumption, longer maintenance intervals vs an ICE only, etc.
turbos are cheap and reliable, its very rare to see blown turbos on maintained non-modified cars with the exception of BMW putting them in the valley of the V8 engine and other idiotic designs.
Most turbo failures are from not doing oil changes on time or crappy modified ECU tunes.
ICE engines are incredible feats of engineering. Meanwhile, you need 2, maybe 3 parts to make an electric motor. They are dead simple. Even the control is just an inverter drive.
A turbo has about as many parts as the entire electric drivetrain. There's just a lot less to go wrong and you don't need lubrication or maintenance for solid-state non-moving parts.
I think maybe you are understating the complexity as "just an inverter drive" - highlighted by the fact so many telsas have had drive unit replacements.
right, but so are batteries and electric motors. hybrids give you a modest engine simplification and better efficiency at the cost of a second simpler type of engine.
The ability to go fast does not make it a good cars. In fact, this is mistake that many US carmakers made. As Toyota focused on reliability, their faster competitors ultimately ended up being abandoned since nothing turns away customers like a dead car.
You can compare Tesla to Hyundai. I was leaning towards Hyundai or a Kia last month, mainly because of Tesla stigma here.
After comparing price (Hyundai/Kia 10% more) and features (lol) Tesla is easily a winner. Sure it's not for everyone, but driving traditional car feels weird now. Car without an app or phone key just feels unbelievable.
Because there is very little point in making a battery powered car. Toyota was told the same thing but with diesel cars. In reality, all those went too far with diesel cars made a mistake. The story will repeat itself with battery cars.
but Toyota sells more cars in a year than Tesla has in the past decade? And no, if they made an EV it probably wouldn't be selling like hotcakes, because an EV is largely an irrational choice for most people (looking at you, guys chilling in your cars on top of the Target in Laurel Heights in SF, waiting for that 80% in 30 minutes) and Toyota isn't good at making something super desirable. All that aside, most workhorses running around today, shuttling passengers and food delivery seem to be old, clapped out Priuses. Can't argue with 45mpg and ultra low running costs, barring the occasional stolen catalytic converter.
> There were 400 NTHSA recalls issued in 2022, impacting more than 25 million vehicles. Of those vehicles, Teslas scored four of the top five spots on the list, according to the price-tracking car search engine iSeeCars.com
teslas are also expected to have the highest number of recalls over a 30 year lifetime
Probably Norway and other places where government subsidies make it an easy decision to get a Tesla because it's affordable. The majority of US automotive buyers can't afford a basic model 3.
Then why the hell are they so expensive? I'd like to be all in on electric, but my car budget is 30k, why do they pile so much fancy crap on them? I want a go pedal, a stop pedal and a window crank. You can keep all the rest of the crap for the luxury cars.
I am not considering them because they keep taking away more and more (hardware) features over the years. No parking sensors is an instant no buy for me. Already had horrible experiences with their vision based wiper automation.
Agree that vision based wipers are meh. I think it has something to do with the position of the front facing cameras behind the windshield; water seems to just hit that spot differently vs where you look out.
My experience with the vision based parking system so far has been great though. The experience is pretty much the same in the vehicle as it was with ultrasonic sensors. There is also a pile of YouTube videos where you can see people testing weird scenarios and checking the on-screen distance from objects with a tape measure. It’s pretty solid.
ICE makers now face a huge risk of unsold inventory.
Imagine Toyota with even 2-3% unsold due to people wanting electric or keeping their old Toyota's that last forever.
Thus, they're stuck in a pattern of under-building that reduces demand due to the many alternatives - it could be a vicious cycle.
Couple that with access to China: Toyota not so much, but Tesla is allowed to sell there because it put a factory there and uses BYD batteries. That's another vicious cycle: dealing with the devil to access that market only empowers the devil.
So it has little to do with EV's or with the Tesla model Y.
A SUV is the best selling car of the year till now instead of a sedan and this is all done in order to fight "climate change". How can normal people can take this discourse as being serious anymore?
I bought a used Mercury Grand Marquis 2009 in perfect condition one year ago and I don't see why would I want to part with it in the next 20 years or so. Grain leather interior that is not making any sounds on road bumps, no touchscreen bs, super smooth ride thanks to rear air suspension. Sure it can't accelerate as fast as an EV, but I just want have a relaxed pleasing experience, not accelerations. It's V8 also makes pleasing sounds when going uphill.
And I paid just 6k for it. I'd rather double the normal maintenance for it than buy a Tesla.
Because the market for a sedan is drying up. People are looking for SUVs and people like me who we’re looking for an SUV in 2023, found themselves staring at 40-44k price tag for the same thing we got 4 years ago, for 31-33k. So after EV tax credit a model y is literally a no brainer.
It’s so ridiculous that I didn’t bother looking at Tesla at all in 2022. You are going to get out of your CRV, CX5, RAV4, Highlander, and straight into a model Y and it will feel like you went from a flip phone to an iPhone.
Because Tesla is pushing the Model Y with their pricing (presumably because margins are better). The Model Y Long Range is $500 cheaper than the Model 3 Long Range after tax credits. The base Model Y is only $3.5k more expensive than the Model 3, after tax credits.
For many months you couldn't even order a Model 3 Long Range, your only option was a Model Y Long Range.
The moment you own both a 3 and one of those enormous SUV-like baby strollers, you get rid of the 3 and get something else. A Y if you liked your 3, or probably a van if not.
Since other car makers are trying to cover the market by diversifying their model lineup, this is hardly surprising. I mean, just take BMW, despite seemingly not taking EVs seriously at first, they already have more different EV models to choose from than Tesla. So even if BMW would overtake Tesla in total EV sales, the Model Y would probably still get to keep the "best selling car" title...
Even if you total up all the models from other manufacturers, it still doesn't touch the model Y or model 3 for sheer volume. Add all 4 Tesla models up and it's a bloodbath. (This is in the markets people on HN probably care about, North America and Europe. China is another matter.)
Norway is the most mature EV market in the world, and looking at 2022 numbers Tesla sold the most cars, but VW is not far behind. 21300 for Tesla (most model Y) vs 20183 for VW (most Id.4), of which the vast majority (like 90% or more) were EVs.
So Tesla is strong, but they are not crushing the market.
Figures that I have for Q1 2023 for BMW Group (which includes Mini) are: 588,138 total, including 64,647 BEV. So that's 11% BEV. IN Q1 2022, figures were: 596,907 total, including about 25,940 BEV. So it was 4.3% BEV.
Going from 4.3% BEV to 11% BEV may not sound so impressive, but little by little non Tesla BEVs are adding up, and I think many car makers are investing very seriously into it.
Historically the car market has not been one of monopoly, I don't think it's going to change with Tesla. Market shares will change, some car makers will fail to adapt, but I don't think German carmakers are the ones that will suffer the most. Japanese carmakers I have more doubt: they are moving very slowly, but on the other hand Japan knows how to manufacture batteries at scale (Panasonic), so once Toyota decides to move seriously into BEV, they might be able to move very fast.
I'm a lot more worried about my own country carmakers (Renault and Peugeot). Not only they move slowly and erratically, they are going to compete head on, on price, with Chinese carmakers...
“Tesla not only beat all US luxury automakers on car sales for 2022 as a whole, but also beat them by a ridiculous margin. BMW was the former champ, and while its sales dropped by over 5% year over year, Tesla's sales grew by more than a whopping 40%.”
There’s strong disagreement around that the model S and X might qualify as luxury cars but are missing many common characteristics like the degree of sound isolation. Some people talk about pricing, but you can spend 6 figures on a ford 150 which isn’t a Luxury brand.
Everyone carries one with them all the time now because the technology became miniaturized while quality shot way up? Man, I'd love for George Jetson's briefcase car to be a reality!
Because they live in an alternate dimension with a peculiar market that's kinda bubbled off. China is also like a decade ahead in electrification.
All scooters in large cities have been electric for over a decade (its a weird time warp coming to taiwan and experiencing the stench of scooter on your morning commute)
They had a fully electric taxi service about 7 years ago. Inside the city medium size trucks (for delivering merchandise to stores) are all electric. They have tons of local brands that produce electric consumer cars
However the domestic market is ginormous and they only make weak attempts at going global. The international market is fragmentary and you can be arbitrarily extrajudicially curb stomped with tariffs or outright bands due to anti China hysteria
> All scooters in large cities have been electric for over a decade
A lot longer than a decade. But it depends on the city. Beijing electrified earlier (like 2004 or so), Shanghai followed, then you have smaller cities where gas was allowed for much longer.
> They had a fully electric taxi service about 7 years ago.
What city? Surely not Beijing. Maybe Shenzhen?
> Inside the city medium size trucks (for delivering merchandise to stores) are all electric.
I'm beginning to doubt you here. The delivery trikes are electric. But the small trucks that deliver merchandise to stores? Definitely not the blue trucks that are only allowed inside the 5th ring at night and cause air quality to tank after midnight.
> The international market is fragmentary and you can be arbitrarily extrajudicially curb stomped with tariffs or outright bands due to anti China hysteria
China's market is limited by their own protectionism. It is hard to tell someone to "open up" when you aren't willing to do the same yourself.
As you've caught on, I'm a bit fuzzy on the dates.. But I feel I was riding Caocao taxis in Chengdu around then?
"Definitely not the blue trucks that are only allowed inside the 5th ring at night and cause air quality to tank after midnight"
Yeah you're right! I was off the mark there. There are smog monsters at night thats for sure. Forgot about those haha. During the day the smaller refrigerated trucks were electric though
As to your last point.. It's not a simple topic, but protectionism in theory only hurts your own market and your own consumers. Reciprocity is kinda irrelevant
Is Hackernews just getting overrun by pro-Xi commentators that make up whatever they want now? Chinese air pollution is ridiculous, and it's primarily because of their massive amount of vehicle emissions:
HN's community is large and therefore divided on divisive topics. That's more than enough to explain why there's diversity of opinion on, for example, geopolitical topics. Everyone needs to abide by the rules in the presence of such topics so that this place does not end up burning itself to a crisp. Therefore, please don't post to HN like you did here—instead, please make your substantive points respectfully and thoughtfully.
That link points out that air pollution isn’t “primarily” due to vehicle emissions except in some cities.
On both regional and national scales, vehicle emission has been identified as one of the most important contributors to air pollution in most cities in China (Gong et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2016), and has even surpassed other contamination sources in some cities.
* EVs are not a solution to air pollution, most air pollution from modern cars is from brakes and tyres.
* OTOH, China is really ahead in battery-powered 2-wheelers, that replace the old scooter fleet, and that ought to do something.
* Still, China's air pollution is for the main part due to massive use of coal power, incinerators, and desertification bringing sand from Gobi desert. The linked study from grand-parent doesn't even mention any of these.
The Chinese car market is full of brands that don't even try to sell their cars outside China. But it's noteworthy that Tesla is a top seller there as well, second only to local juggernaut BYD in EVs.
What sets Tesla apart right now is their manufacturing capability. They are out-competing everyone else right now on cost and scale. That's the difference between having really juicy margins on their cars produced large volume and the likes of BMW, Ford, and others actually selling EVs at a loss in comparatively tiny volumes. Every time Tesla lowers their pricing, everybody else takes a big hit.
And while Tesla takes the crown here, they aren't the only new kid on the block that is extremely successful in the EV market. The likes of BYD and other Chinese manufacturers aren't far behind and are following a similar strategy to Tesla. Cheap Chinese exports are going to do similar things to the car industry that the Japanese car industry did in the eighties. The likes of Toyota of course were part of that move and it decimated the rest of the industry. That looks like it might happen again. Except this time it's Chinese manufacturers leading here; and Tesla of course.
The game right now isn't producing more concept cars, quick and dirty ICE conversions, or yet another over priced premium SUV ev but actually tackling the less premium mass market segment. This is only possible after companies nail cost and efficiency. And most of them are nowhere close to doing that. Tesla is ramping up to start selling millions of more modestly priced cars. BYD is already shipping loads of those in China. They are ready now.
Toyota particularly is far behind. The only EVs they have in the market are actually made by BYD. These are Toyota in name only. It's a BYD with a Toyota sticker slapped on. Reason: until they replaced their CEO recently, they were stubbornly pursuing things like hybrids and hydrogen cars and miscalculating how long they had to make that work. EVs priced around 20-30K$ are going to be a big problem for Toyota. Most of their remaining ICE market is at or above that price point and EVs with lower cost of ownership and a lower price tag can do some serious damage to that market. That's why they are partnering with BYD while they are figuring that out.
Is Toyota BYD’s JV partner in China? I think the BYD taxi I rode in was based off a Camry body, but it seems their JV partner is GAC, so it isn’t clear how that came to be.
No, a lot of them are made with tooling and designs directly used to make the models they are based on. This is all over the table and part of the JV deal, though I think these days it doesn’t happen as much as 10 years ago.
The models that aren’t out yet don’t count in this discussion about brands selling fewer of an individual model because the brand has more models available.
It depends on the market. BMW doesn’t sell much ICE cars anymore in Norway, a western market considered a few years ahead the other north European markets.
Because Norway heavily subsidized EV with exemption from the 25% VAT tax as well as perks like free parking. Which is ironic given they are basically the Nordic Saudi Arabia.
You have it the wrong way. ICE cars has always been heavily taxed, especially more powerful ICE cars are 2x more expensive in Norway than in EU. EV's just have no tax and only VAT added above 45k USD
Norway would much rather leverage their abundant hydro for domestic personal transport needs and just export their oil instead. That really isn’t ironic, just practical.
Not quite. Fuel is overtaxed there and very expensive, that's a bit different from Saudis,but combined with other factors mentioned by you and the fact most of their energy is green hydro, it makes sense to them to ditch ice when there's option to buy a new car
Free parking isn’t a thing anymore in Oslo. It usually costs about 25% of the ICE cars price, but anyway most of the street parking have been removed. Which is good.
I was wondering how HN was going to spin this. The problem with this argument is that the Model Y by itself outsold the entire BMW electric lineup combined. In fact, 4 times the entire combined amount.
It's better to just compare brand-to-brand EV sales, rather than per model. Only Tesla can sell same model so much. I wonder will people finally bored with too many same Tesla running on the road, and Tesla start expanding their lineup like Volkswagen, or people accept it like iPhone (have a dressing case like iPhone?).
The Y looks like an over inflated balloon (BMW, Mercedes, Mini and others have the same issue with some of their models)
And the 3 just doesn’t look like anyone designed the front end — the angle of the junction between the bonnet (hood) and the windscreen is wrong, and the front grill just looks like someone forgot it needed designing
Electric cars don't need a front grill — there's no radiator. Putting a big grill on an electric car is as stupid as putting a fake horse head on a horseless carriage.
(and I quite like the look of the Tesla 3 front end.)
I know they don’t need a grille for cooling in the same way ice cars do but compare the ‘grille’ area of the ID3 with the Model 3 and it just looks like the Tesla designers didn’t know what to do with the space
Sure, but electric cars are 90% efficient, and ICE only 40%. An ICE car is emitting roughly 6 times as much waste heat. BEVs do not need a big-arse radiator and grill.
Tesla is about to overtake BMW by car sales, not just EV
But you are quite right. Given Tesla's mission and recent discontinuation of X and S and in RHD markets it wouldn't be surprised if they eventually killed them altogether. Let the premium makers like BMW, MB, Lucid focus on a niche luxury markets; use Tesla's time to make cheaper EVs.
How depressing. The world's best-selling car is now a 2 tonne behemoth. 20 years ago I dreamed of us progressing and correcting some of the mistakes of the past. Since then we've only regressed further down the exact same paths as previous generations. I hold no hope for humanity going forward.
Interesting statistics. In Ireland, VW just knocked Toyota off the top spot. I think Toyota being late to market with a full BEV might have something to do with it (yes, I know they now have the alphabet soup one whose name would score a lot in Scrabble but is, otherwise, utterly forgettable).
Genuine Question: when I was in the US last year (NYC and New Orleans) I was surprised to see almost no electric cars at all (even in NYC it was like 5 Teslas in 1 week).. where are they? All in Californi?
The biggest quality concern isn't that something will break but the quality of the support I get when it does. If the closest dealership+brand repair shop is two hours drive away and all the major brands have repairs 5 minutes drive away, then it's not competitive. The moat of the established brands is pretty big when it comes to the service network.
True on parts availability - a friend bought a hot hatch from Peugeot - it was one of those performance models with a tweaked engine (higher rpm/camshafts) instead of the run of the mill ones.
So engine imploded and he waited months for a part that was on a ship somewhere - they eventually bought the car back from him.
What is this article even talking about. I don't have to know a single thing about cars or their economics to know clearly some Chinese or Indian brand I have never heard of and could not pronounce if I had is outselling the Tesla by 1000 fold. I cannot even imagine how cheap you could make a car without all of our regulations, its probably like $250.
The Wuling Mini is the best selling car in China in 2022, selling a half million cars to the model Y's 300,000. In Q1 2023, the model Y outsold the Wuling Mini.
BYD handily outsells Tesla in China, but it is split among something like 40 different models vs Tesla's 4.
Whoa. The Wuling mini is like 4,800 USD to 4,400 USD, while the Model Y is $48,447. That Tesla is selling only 300k Model Y's vs 500k Wuling Minis is actually pretty good.
I've ridden in a BYD EV taxi before back in 2016, I haven't lived in China since then. It was OK. BYD should have a larger market share than Tesla in China, it would be weird otherwise.
While the motorcycle brand probably outsells the car brand by 1000x, the Indian/chineses market is big enough to also have a car model that sells millions upon millions of units.
And just how much tax incentives and government handouts have gone into making this headline happen? Seems like a lot of upward transfer of wealth for what is arguably marginal (if any) improvement to the environment or driver experience.
There's no away around it since we really have to move pollution out of the cities. Because that's what this is, not an overall environment benefit but managing pollution zones. Yes, all the people are paying for what few can afford, but again, there's no other alternative. The era of affordable driving in big cities is over. Only the rich will be able to, in the future. And the poor will be crammed in horrible public transport.
Especially interesting that the company started succeeding during the time period that he was off playing with Twitter and running that toy into the ground.
No shortage of companies with terrible employees that do well via a good executive team (Walmart?). Very few companies with good employees could survive terrible direction from leadership.
I mean, I think the Model Y is ugly, but I don't think this is anything specific to Tesla. All crossover SUVs are ass-ugly and I don't think it's possible to make one which isn't, but that hasn't stopped them from selling like hotcakes.
No, white Tesla Model Y/3 (the paint color that doesn’t cost extra) seem to occupy the same jerk driver niche that the BMW 3-series used to own. Lots of young, single men stretching their wallets for one.
Totally agreed, in the last 5 years or so it feels like mediocre drivers have switched from white entry-level BMW drivers to white Teslas. It's definitely hit the mass market of somewhat-well-off people rather than just tech bros who like the technology.
I own a white model 3, I am not young or single, but I see how it could be judged that way. Well, I wish you could try one and enjoy the ride, because it is a well made vehicle, regardless of the clichés attached to the car.
I didn’t drive a 3, but I have done so for a Y. Didn’t like the lack of buttons that’s dressed up as futuristic but is really a UX hostile cost savings choice. Ended up buying a new CRV hybrid for 2/3 of the price, with actual AC and radio buttons (this year is redesigned and is a bit larger than the previous generation)
Okay, I am not a heavy button user. I do use the radio, and actually it has an hardware button on the steering wheel, so I can change station to avoid ads. For the AC it is set, and I rarely need to adjust, but it is right on the screen to adjust when needed.
I realize how relaxing the lack of buttons is, when I rent a modern car with buttons everywhere. I have to pause to and identify each button, feels like a pilot doing his check in the cockpit, making sure I will push the right button in the right sequence. I do not miss it in a model 3, just set the direction and press the pedal, feels refreshing to me.
One thing that EV's have an advantage of is the reduced footprint of their drivetrain. The primary bulk of an EV is the massive battery that usually spans the bottom of the car opening up space in the interior or the ubiquitous EV "frunk" this makes for a more spacious interior and the Y takes advantage of this well.
That being said it seems that 2023 is the year of the EV, my family is currently in the market for a new car and have been pleasantly surprised at the breadth of offerings.
I can't really make up my mind on whether the fact that the model Y is the "best selling model of car" is something to hang your hat on these days. It's a great metric, sure, but it's been in a somewhat limited market. On it's face I can see it's appeal - size, space, EV, extra seating - its NOT A MINIVAN. But it seems like a fairly easy moat to breach. One thing about the Corolla was it's build quality was top notch it was a solid, reliable car and it seems more and more lately this isn't a hallmark of Tesla. I wouldn't be surprised for the model Y to keep the mantle of "best selling model" - particularly because of Tesla's lead in its ability to manufacture electric cars and the surface appeal of the model Y - but I wouldn't be surprised if it lost this lead as well.
If you're in the market, go for a couple of test drives. The competition is mostly regular ICE cars with a battery bolted on, while Teslas are designed from ground up as EVs and it shows throughout in ways big and small. We were originally leaning towards getting a Polestar, but the difference between driving one and a Tesla is night and day.
I drive an ID4 after looking at the Model Y. It's a ground up EV and a solid competitor. As a family crossover it's great. The software is pretty dumb but that's mostly avoided thanks to wireless Android Auto and CarPlay.
What won me over: Rear window was easier to see through, the above mentioned Carplay/AA support, not a fan of Tesla's extreme minimalism extending to things like air vents, brand tainted by Musk.
I test drove a Polestar 2, what are these car designers thinking with rear view visibility!
The between the rear headrests and huge slanted C-pillars you had a tiny sheet of paper sized opening to see out. I honestly thought the mirrors were adjusted wrong and were looking at the roof. Couple that with a half-baked 360 reversing camera that turned every obstacle into a trapezoidal blur, reversing parking that car between two other cars at the end of the drive was terrifying experience.
Nice car though.
You only need the rear view for keeping an eye on traffic behind while on the road, so basically the window should be the size of the FoV in your rear view mirror.
For parking, I don't think I have looked at anything but cameras for the last 15 years. The camera is so much better than both looking backwards and using the center mirror. The rear window doesn't show the most important thing you want to see when parking: the area of ground closest to your car. Especially with 360 cameras because you can then "look" backwards without missing anything happening elsewhere. I definitely bought my last car without 360 cameras several years ago.
And kids running behind the car when reversing. Honestly, visibility is in the top five criteria for me (others include driver's seat, sound proofing and big boot lid). Parking sensors and cameras of course help but are they a total substitute?
The kids case is one where camera has a clear benefit I'd say. Even if you have clear visibility to the rear window, you just can't see anything below the window height. And anyone coming from the sides you'd not see through the rear window either - but a very open vehicle might be a tad better through the side windows? Although with cameras being added to side mirrors or vehicle corners (and large screens!), that can also be expanded.
A good reason to have the windows down when reversing - at least then you have the benefit of hearing any kids behind you as well.
Total substitute. And they have to be, because once you have them you ONLY look at the screen. There is no chance I'm even glancing in the useless top mirror, nor over my shoulder. I do switch between rear camera and 360 camera though, but it varies between car brands if that's necessary. In the best implementations you see both at the same time.
Well the new Polestar solved the problem… by removing the rear window altogether and slapping a camera in its place. Not joking, look it up!
This is the Polestar 4 without the actual rear window https://uk.motor1.com/news/663436/why-polestar-4-has-no-rear...
Aside, IDK if the Polestar 4 is "the new Polestar".
The Polestar 2 is on the roads - I've seen them, and the 3 hasn't even shipped yet, now due in 2024: https://electrek.co/2023/05/11/polestar-delays-polestar-3-pr...
What does that make the 4? The one after the new one? The vapourware?
How the fuck is that even road legal?
There's plenty of vans that don't have any rear windows
My campervan (Promaster 2500) has rear windows, but it isn't like I can see anything out of them when I'm driving. Usually just leave them covered anyway.
I've only ever heard of a requirement for 2 mirrors. Those can be on the outside.
Varies by state in the us. Some require two mirrors and one must be outside on the left. Some are similar but on the right. Some states you need two outside if the one inside is blocked.
because you can see what's behind you? Via the camera, but that's just a detail.
It's possible to get _better_ visibility from a camera than a mirror. e.g. good placement, adapting to low light.
I've had plenty of car cameras glitch out or stop working.
To say nothing of getting crusted with road salt anytime you drive in winter.
I said that it's possible to get better. Not inevitable.
I have a Y, and yeah the back window is a slit. Especially noticeable driving at night. It’s frustrating.
The eGMP platform options from Hyundai (Hyundia Ioniq 5 and 6, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60) were also built in a dedicated manner.
While I have an EV6 (and my wife an ID.4), if I was on the market now, there's a ton of low-mileage Model 3 and Y out there, and the prices have come down significantly.
I test drove a Tesla and an EV6 and wound up with the EV6. Tesla's got a lot going for them but their lead is quickly evaporating.
At least in North America I don't think this is true. GM can't reliably produce the Lyriq or Hummer and is ending the Bolt. Ford has stagnate sales on the MachE and Lighting porduction was stopped during Q1. Toyota and Honda are MIA.
I looked at both too, and bought a model Y. What were the deciding factors for you?
I liked the Tesla software and easy supercharger access. The model Y also felt more spacious, especially in the trunk.
I would summarise it as a much better UX in the model Y.
The supercharger access is only a factor in the US. Some people really enjoy the vehicle-to-load capabilities of the EV-6. Aesthetics both internally and externally I think are bit nicer on the EV-6, but that's subjective.
For me, deciding factors:
- Cockpit -- EV6 has a panoramic (horizontal) display, plentiful buttons, and a heads-up display. I found this much more ergonomic for my eyes and hands than Tesla's all-in-one center-mounted display.
- Availability of Android Auto/CarPlay -- Tesla's software is more polished than Kia's but I'd rather project my phone. All my stuff's on it.
- EV6 is the #1 recommendation for its class in Consumer Reports as well as #1 in projected dependability for same.
I cancelled a Model 3 order and went with an EV6. My reasons:
- quality concerns (which possibly are overstated for the average purchase)
- worries over phantom braking
- V2L
- CarPlay
- I was swayed by Elon's politics, but that likely wouldn't have mattered if it had been a slam dunk decision for me.
- Supercharger network is a lesser concern for me, as I own my home. I did do a road trip from Houston to San Diego and back. As far as I could tell, between major cities, EA vs Supercharger coverage was equivalent along the relatively unpopulated stretches of I-10 and I-8
However, given the price differential now vs then, I would likely go for a low mileage used Model 3 now.
Off topic, but Musk v2.0 after the pandemic has been acting as a madman, and making pricing changes all over the board. We booked a Y, but the problem is they removed the $100 per month EAP subscription which could be a real beater for using it in an on-demand basis. Hopefully it comes back.
Is EAP "Enhanced Auto-Pilot" (self-driving)?
Yeah, it's the enhanced autopilot. It's not self- driving though, the only thing it does on its own is change lanes automatically and park itself and come out of a parking spot to get you
Sadly, in countries where no Tesla dealerships exist, it's next to impossible to buy unless you have truly unlimited budget. Model Y is in the same effective price range as Bentley: pay $100K in cash then pay $20K for each service or repair (because car has to be shipped 500 miles away on a boat and serviced there, takes 2 months and $20K). And you keep driving your Bentley in the meantime :)
That's situation here in Cyprus, thus in spite of a lot of people with money willing to buy, only 0.8% of cars sold are electric vs ~20% in poorer countries that do have Tesla dealerships. Because when Tesla is there, everyone else tries hard to sell their electrics too.
There are third parties who can do most servicing.... Obviously you don't get the benefits of the warranty though, so you're probably better off buying a Tesla where the warranty has already expired.
And there are plenty of car ferries to/from Cyprus, so you can get one there for under €100.
>The competition is mostly regular ICE cars with a battery bolted on, while Teslas are designed from ground up as EVs and it shows throughout in ways big and small.
This is not true, it's not 2017 anymore. Everyone is designing their EVs from "the ground up".
How is it that people can both think that Tesla will dominate because building EVs is simpler, but also that the legacy auto world can't figure out how to do it?
Because its been over a decade now, and somehow, they're still behind? If I'm honest though, to me it feels like a Kodak situation - the legacy companies could do it, but they like their existing product lines - the ones that bring in revenue today, that they know how to build, that only need small design adjustments each year, that work with their current structure of suppliers and dealers. Why worry about this new-fangled thing you'd have to spend a bunch of time and money to get right when its only going to be X% of your sales for years?
On the other hand, Tesla (and the other new electric companies) have nothing else. It's electric or die. It's carve a space out in the market now, while the legacy players are still dragging their feet, still figuring out battery issues or production issues Tesla dealt with 5-10 years ago, still figuring out how to make good software for the last 20 years, still trudging along as if things haven't much changed. Kodak didn't lose because digital cameras were harder, they lost because they didn't want to cannibalize their existing products with something easier and cheaper.
> The competition is mostly regular ICE cars with a battery bolted on,
Most automakers have long since stopped basing their electric cars on platforms designed for ICE cars that have have EV components badly squeezed into whatever space they can 'find'.
They've been making platforms designed specifically to include EV drivetrain components for a while, and many have shifted to EV-specific platforms.
There's also literally nothing wrong with platform-sharing, by the way; it's more efficient use of design, manufacturing, and service/support networks. The "it must be PURELY designed from the GROUND UP to be a EV" is largely marketing who-haa that hasn't been relevant for a while.
The Ford Lightning? It's largely based off the F150. Who cares? It's still a brilliant car that has been selling like hotcakes and will convert a TON of good-ol-boy types to driving an electric vehicle.
But here's a list of cars with EV-specific platforms:
* Audi e-tron * BMW i-series * Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV, as well as their entire Ultium platform of cars, which I believe includes the HUMMER) * Porsche Taycan * Ford Mach-E * Hyundai Ioniq 5 (and Kia equivalent) * Lucid Air * Rivian * Mercedes EQS * VW ID series * Polestar
I'm probably forgetting some?
All have things Tesla doesn't: an extensive dealer network for sales and service, a healthy parts distribution channel, the build quality and reliability people expect from such an expensive car, no worries about bullshit like being banned from getting parts because the company thinks your vehicle shouldn't be on the road, transmission/motor units that are properly sealed so they can be driven in heavy rain and through puddles without issue, windows that spontaneously shatter, their cars randomly braking on the highway, self-driving systems that like to slam into the back of emergency vehicles on the shoulder...
The Ford Mach-E is a modified C2 platform with lots of modifications but definitely not a fresh design. The comparable C2 combustion platform would be the Third gen Kuga/ Fourth gen Escape/Focus.
> The Ford Lightning? It's largely based off the F150.
Is it? Feels like it was designed to be an EV, considering it has a massive frunk.
Two things that seem in contention can be true at the same time. They made a sled for the EV, like ie common for EVs. They built the top of it to match the F150. Both true. I’d say it’s a full fledged EV design and an F150.
Just wish we had the battery breakthrough needed to give these vehicles some real range.
>All have things Tesla doesn't:
> ... windows that spontaneously shatter, their cars randomly braking on the highway, self-driving systems that like to slam into the back of emergency vehicles on the shoulder...
Scary! :)
Have you driven an id4? Similar to Tesla the id platform was built for EVs.
I'm a huge fan of VW, but the ID.4 is pretty gutless compared to any Tesla model. That may appeal to some people, but I like speeding; a lot.
The 2024 ID.4 will likely have an option for their new APP550 motor which will produce 282 hp and a maximum torque of 406 lb-ft. This should help bring it in line with the Y, but probably at a higher cost initially until they can scale production.
I watched Doug DeMuro latest video on the ID.4 and he says it's not fast. On one hand performance might not be needed for a people mover. On the other hand people expect EV's to have superior performance.
Faster than a CRV, RAV4 etc. market for id4 isn’t looking for 0-60 that’s 3 secs. It’s plenty fast for what it is.
Out of curiosity, what did you prefer about the Tesla over the Polestar?
The minimalist cabin is the obvious one: it's more spacious and feels much more spacious thanks to the glass roof. I did have severe doubts about the touchscreen and lack of controls, but in practice this has been a non-issue, there are tactile controls for everything you need to actually drive and voice controls for everything you don't (climate, music, etc). The glove box is just stupid though.
You do realize this has nothing to do with it being built from the start as an electric vehicle right?
And as far as I know, the polestar is designed as an EV too.
Meh, my wife was grooving for a Polestar so I rented a Polestar 1 for a weekend and we both came away feeling like it was good to rent because we definitely didn’t want to buy it. It was like the Swedes put all their effort into the material design and gave no shits about the UX. The UX was something Ford would have been proud of in 2009.
PS1 was a low volume car, almost concept level. The UX of PS2, a large volume car, is much better and generally very well received.
Also the PS1 isn't an EV, it's a hybrid.
The Polestar 2 is built on Volvo/Geely's CMA platform and is very similar to the ICE Volvo XC40.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Modular_Architecture_p...
It really does though.. the model Y storage area folds flat completely and my 6'5 self can lay flat with extra leg room and sit up straight with plenty of headroom.
There is no body designed around the constraints of routing exhaust or transmission elements. It is just an empty box.
The polestar 2 is built off of an ICE platform.
The first polestar built off of a dedicated EV platform will be the polestar 3.
feels much more spacious thanks to the glass roof.
My Polestar 2 has a glass roof too. I think it's part of the "plus" pack?
The Polestar 2 glass roof is a little glass pane cut into the roof that costs $5000 extra. On the Model 3/Y, the entire roof is glass.
Looks pretty big https://www.polestar.com/au/polestar-2/panoramic-roof/
I went with a Tesla over a Polestar because the Tesla has more range, is a lot more efficient, and has more power than the Polestar.
> the difference between driving one and a Tesla is night and day.
The one thing I absolutely hated about driving a Tesla was regenerative breaking. They should’ve made it optional.
I loved the Ford Mach-e GT.
Consumer Reports had it as the best EV for reliability.
Regen braking is optional. You can change it in the settings at any time while parked
It was optional in pre-2020 models but recent models have removed the option. This is one reason we didn't buy one a couple years ago. (If they've added the option back since then, please let me know!) https://insideevs.com/news/451393/tesla-removes-regenerative...
Its back: https://electrek.co/2023/04/24/tesla-brings-back-regenerativ...
It appears that Chinese regulators forced them to put it back.
Not any more
Few other brands winning EV car of the year these days. Tesla isn't the only good choice as ground up EV any longer.
The Kia EV6 is a ground up EV and is better in every way than the Model Y
I found the EV6 dark and claustrophobic on the inside, and uglier than the Model Y from the rear. Really dislike those weird droopy/saggy lines on the EV6 rear end.
Aside from that, if you want range, the Y beats the EV6, although the EV6 charges faster (theoretically - if you can find a 350 kW charger, and if the rate can be sustained)
EV6 has V2L while Model Y has no V2L... (V2L = Vehicle-to-Load = connect any electric appliance to your car with standard 110V/230V socket...)
For all those times I'm sitting out in the driveway and want to plug in a refrigerator? I honestly cannot figure out what to do with that feature.
Exactly that. When the power goes out you use an extension cord between your car and the refrigerator in the summer or the car and the furnace fan in the winter.
Ah. I'm lucky to live somewhere where that's not really an issue (in 15 years living here we've had a total of 40 minutes of power outages, according to my UPS logs), so I forget that IS an issue for a lot of people.
What makes you think the model Y isn't solid or reliable? I'm super happy with my 2021.
I've also driven my Nissan Leaf since 2013 with zero shop visits outside of tire shops.
A negative comparison on reliability with ICE just does not compute to me.
Anecdote about a Nissan Leaf: I'll never forget being on holiday in Sri Lanka, walking through a tiny, countryside village. I was on my way to see a Buddhist temple. I was surprised to see an all-electric Nissan Leaf. It blew me away. I guess she is still driving it today!
> Think about what that means for the future of all auto mechanics. Will there be far fewer?
Definitely. This is one of the reasons why dealerships are reluctant with EVs: apparently a big chunk of their profits come from servicing the cars they sell.
The original "subscription model" meatspace. Sell a self destructing product there needs chronic ambiguous repairs that cost "how important is it for you to have a car?" .
> Think about what that means for the future of all auto mechanics. Will there be far fewer?
In the long run, yes.
If EV conversion becomes a major thing (which could happen if tax credits applied to conversions and if simple, cheap bolt-in kits ever hit the market) then auto mechanics might be quite busy for the next decade or two converting part of the existing ICE fleet to EV.
> I guess she is still driving it today!
Why do some people refer to cars with female gender?
The driver was a woman. Was my English incorrect?
Could be a lot of reasons, likely came from naming ships though
Cars don't drive cars; people drive cars.
There was some recent stats released on this from a German org now that the cars have been out for long enough to get good data. EVs did really well.
One surprise finding was that a major part of the EV faults were due to the 12v lead acid battery that some EVs (like Tesla) are now shipping lithium replacements for.
https://insideevs.com/news/667690/tesla-model-3-reliability-...
My in-laws also have a Nissan Leaf from 2013. It lost some amount of capacity but there has never been a problem with it. It is crazy.
> I've also driven my Nissan Leaf since 2013 with zero shop visits outside of tire shops.
How many miles/kilometers have you driven?
it is at 75k miles including sitting off charger for 8 months while i was traveling. battery still at 82-85% of original capacity.
Tesla is first and foremost a technology company. Top notch tech, second-rate car.
Toyota is first and foremost a car company. Top notch car, fifth-rate tech.
Toyota recently disassembled a model Y to study it and this is what their executives said:
"Taking the skin off the Model Y, it was truly a work of art. It's unbelievable,"
"It's a whole different manufacturing philosophy," while another added, “We need a new platform designed as a blank-sheet EV."
Well, that you need a dedicated EV plattform is such old news, all OEMs knew that since day -10. Tgat they didn't invest in one for a long had a lot of reasons, being unable to do so was none of those.
I googled for this but couldn’t find a source. Any sources you can share would be great
https://insideevs.com/news/655087/toyota-engineers-after-tes...
https://archive.is/PE0AZ
1. Source?
2. Toyota is behind. Check what the Chinese and Germans are doing. Though you can't really do that since most of those cars aren't sold in the US.
German here. Cars are one hallmark of our economy. We are behind as well. The Chinese are absolutely crushing it in Asia and Middle East now.
Volkswagen had a market share of ICE cars of ~20%, for EVs it's now closer to 1%. EVs are way easier to build and a lot of Chinese companies are doing it successfully. They are offering cheaper EVs. They are selling in Mideast/Asia and now start to enter Europe as well.
None of these cars is particularly bad - while I'd still take the Korean EVs before anything else today, the Chinese are coming. German manufacturers only produce premium level cars few people can afford and they produce them badly. ID.3 is too expensive for its segment and too much of the car just doesnt work well.
(EU customer here - this colors my impressions also due to different models availability compared to the US or other markets)
The specs and price gap between a Renault Zoe (Inexpensive, with consequently low acceleration, top speed, handling and range, but absolutely a joy to use in a city or on short trips - perfect balance of price/specs) and a Tesla M3/MY is quite wide and should allow some other manufacturers to wedge themselves into a rather popular segment, with profit.
And yet... there's hardly anything better than a Zoe, they immediately approach or pass the price of a Tesla (looking at you Volkswagen, Cupra, Audi, Mercedes, etc) while being worse by an impressive margin (paltry top speeds, uncomfortable ranges, rather primitive features, etc). You start getting cars something favorably comparable with a baseline Tesla M3 RWD when you add a good 20k to its price, it's ridiculous. And apparently they're hardly breaking even on those, while Tesla has a decent profit margin, what's wrong with them?
I'm also hoping China and Korea will upend this market because established EU/US manufacturers surely won't.
I honestly don't get the obsession with top speed and power, and I live in Germany. I do know the top speed of every single car I ever drove (I had a time I travelled a lot for work, and thus ended up with a nice list of rentals). First, the only place top speed has any, theoretical, relevance in Germany. Everywhere else anything above 150 km/h is wasted, I'll ignore track days here. Acceleration is nice, but again everything below, say, 8-9 sec. for 0-100 km/h is plenty enough.
And practically, even on the German Autobahn, a top speed difference of 220 to the rare 250 km/h plus doesn't show. One traffic jam, or even just enougj traffic, and everybody ends up next to each other anyways.
Power is nice, because cars simply a nicer to drive. Plus you can pull better, which is also important. Going back in time so, 150-180 bhp was considered top knotch performance, the Audi A3 gained a lot of his reputation in the early 2000s due to two models, just below the S3, having that power output.
I din't know, all the engine size, top speed, power and acceleration discussions feel like me playing top trump (the card game for children were you compare numbers for e.g. cars), and less than an adult objevtively evaluating cars. Not that car evaluations and buying decissions need to be objevtive so, mine aren't. But up talking one model / brand by down talking others, based on purely subjective criteria, is childish. It does allow for great marketing campaigns so.
> I honestly don't get the obsession with top speed and power, and I live in Germany.
I do live in Germany too and routinely drive above 140 where allowed on the autobahn - it's a pleasure. So yes it does actually impact me, in a very real way.
Additionally:
- Top speed of 220+ means you accelerate from 130 to 160 easily, so you can safely pass the slowpoke ahead while not becoming an obstacle to faster traffic. A top speed of 160 means it'll take you a whole lot longer.
- A car with a top speed of 150 is at its limit at 150. Brakes are sized for that, wheels are chosen with that in mind, you better be going in a straight line, it's gonna be uncomfortably noisy, etc. You have very little margin for anything. One designed to reach 220 or 250 is basically in the middle of its comfort zone at 150, with ample safety margins on every metric and a more comfortable ride.
--Edit: I'd like to add a reference to the lower tier cars to my reply. I quoted the Zoe because my partner has it, so I'm quite familiar using it and it's really really fun in the city, it's perfect. I'm lamenting the big gap between Zoe and Tesla with nothing worth buying in between and the fact that I'm being asked 15-25k EUR extra compared to the Zoe, with hardly more car, which is an awful bargain as you reach the Tesla price with half assed specs. I may not care so much about speed and power (I do, that's another story) but I do care to get something worth my money, and all these other cars aren't.
Until recently I commuted on lengthy stretches of unlimited, mostly, roads. On good days I avergaed out north of 160. Bad for fuel economy, but fun.
Top speed has nothing to do with acceleration, a car can be limited at, say, 180 and still accelerate and be speced for 250. Heck, all German premium brands are, for the most part, limited at 250. Theoretically they can all go faster. Sure, there is a floor, but in practical terms it is much less relevant than people think. Also, it only matters in Germamy on select roads, everywhere else speed limits are much, much lower than car top speeds anyway.
And breaksbare sized fornmore than speed, they are sized relative to engine power and car weight. Speed is simply a function engine power, transmission and weight.
While loving to go fast, going fast in a staight line on a road made to do so is the opposite of dangerous or risky. Saying that, I am in total favor of a speed limit, 130 propably won't work in Germany, so. In general, we need one. And we have them any way most of the time, the percentage of unlimited km of roads is way smaller than people think. Once we have them, maybe we can have more realistic discussion about cars and mobility, at the moment everybody drols over their 300+ bhp "race cars". And brands sell on that image. That doesn't help switching to EVs, nor does it help cutting emissions.
Indeed, even premium German cars suck at basic stuff. For example, their HMI is super slow to boot and Porsche still won't allow more than 3 region updates per year over WiFi, because reasons. Even Porsche dealers don't know why.[1]
Porsche can afford to give their customers Dacia levels of digitalization because they're premium sports cars that sell anyway, but the Asians are coming after the other German brands and will steamroll them if they don't start getting their act together.
[1] https://youtu.be/yHuJysr5hk4?t=415
https://insideevs.com/news/655087/toyota-engineers-after-tes...
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/02/17/1725220/tesla-teard...
>What stands out most is Tesla's integrated central control unit, or "full self-driving computer." Also known as Hardware 3, this little piece of tech is the company's biggest weapon in the burgeoning EV market. It could end the auto industry supply chain as we know it. One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer and declared, "We cannot do it."
The thing is, these PR puff pieces aka submarine articles: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
are all everywhere for Tesla, like they are for Apple. I've seen entire sites dissect the Apple Watch or Apple mobile cameras, or Teslas.
Their competitors are very comparable yet you have to hand it to Tesla, their behind the scenes PR game is through the roof.
Might very well turn out that premium OEMs big failure wasn't being late to the EV game, but failing to switch their behind the scenes marketing game from traditional print journalism, and the online versions of it, to online only, blog-like car journalism.
Still digitalisation so, sure. And still linked to EVs, traditional car journalism still caters to a crowd of ICE fanatics, but overall much more a thing of marketing than engineering. For Tesla, the risk still is Musk. But they seem to be doing a good job of distancing themselves enough from his recent antics to not be hurt by them, while staying close enough to benefit from his personal brand.
but failing to switch their behind the scenes marketing game from traditional print journalism, and the online versions of it, to online only, blog-like car journalism.
Yea, I can't help to notice that my 13 year old, who on the whole knows and cares nothing about cars, thinks that Teslas are the coolest cars ever, has already decided that their first car will be a Tesla and wants our next car to be a Tesla. Brands like Merceds, BMW, Porsche etc. mean very little to them.
You say that, meanwhile just yesterday we had someone drive-by to tell us a 2021 Honda uses computing technology from 2012[1].
So pardon me if I lend more credence to the notion that tech companies outstrip car companies when it comes to technology.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36052753
If you have proplem with 2012 computing controlling a car, you should never get even close to a modern airliner... What do you need 2023 computing for, running LLMs or mining bitcoin while driving?
There's a difference between technology for the sake of comfort/entertainment and technology for critical elements of a product able to kill you and others.
If I need to get an eye-surgery and the equipment runs on Android, I'd rather go for the one running on Android 4 for 10 years already, than the one running on Android 13 for 6 months now...
Like that story about a Tesla driver driving off a cliff in California and everyone surviving the crash? A story that even ended up in french and German newspapers
Did people follow the aftermath? Ie it seems the person was trying to kill their entire family?
Got any source for these statements?
Would love to read the source for this, do you have any links?
The source seems to be a February article from Automotive News interviewing several Toyota execs off-the-record: https://archive.is/0LZYf. The relevant quotes are midway through
And yet they seem to have massive issues
https://www.thedrive.com/news/44068/over-10-percent-of-tesla...
How does a link about a totally different car than the one being discussed prove your point?
Toyota is first and foremost a manufacturing company; they go to absurd lengths to ensure their supply chain is as robust as can be and that the product they deliver is reliable. It just happens to be cars. (And forklifts. And probably lots of other stuff, too)
The downside, of course, being that most of their offerings appear quite, uh, boring.
Upside? Anecdotally, my 26 year old Toyota Land Cruiser (With 300k miles on it!) has cost me less in workshop visits and parts over the 140k miles I've owned it than the missus' 2016 VW Passat has over 30k miles of ownership. And the Passat isn't a bad car at all. Has the Land Cruiser beat on fuel economy, though.
I live in Norway now.
The subsidies the government introduced over a decade ago to incentive sales were pretty cray. They even exempted electric cars from road tolls. (This has been removed) has boosted the sale of electric cars enormously- Norway has the most e-cars per capita in the world. At least last time I checked.
As a result, I have a lot of friends and coworkers that own Telas. Nearly all love them and would not trade.
However, the build quality is subpar. Nearly all have had their car in the shop at least once. The rather extreme lack of spare parts has been a big problem for the owners. I think this has been improved for a while but I am not certain. Some had to wait months for a spare part needed to fix their problems.
Primarily it has been water leaks, parts that are not "fitting together" right in interior and exterior. The second is the touchpad control system. I have wondered if this could in part be due to the extreme cold we have every now and again.
But like I said the owers are still in love with their cars and would not trade it.
Boring?? My MR2 Spyder is anything but!
The newer Supras and now GR Corolla also seem pretty exciting to me. Toyota is also (one of) the last manufacturer still making mid-sized trucks with manual transmissions.
So, cars are not technology? What about, I don't know, aircraft, power plants, ships, medical devices, laptops and phones (the hardware portion of those?
And which "tech" is top notch with Tesla, self driving? Their marketing is more than just incredibly good so.
Cars haven't changed in any fundamental manner for the better part of a century at the very least, so no cars are not so-called "technology" at this point. Not even the EV fad, because electric vehicles predate cars powered by combustion engines.
What has changed is the technology behind controlling those cars. On that front, it surprises me in absolutely no way that Tesla, an information technology company, does business in ways that the car industry can't even dream of.
Seriously? Try driving a car from, say, the late 80s and one from 2020.
But ok, only software is tech, got it. So when exactly is mechanical engineering no longer a STEM discipline? Seriously, that take is simple hybris of the software crowd, and totally ignoring all the hardware tech all of us use all the time. But ok, a while ago the only measure of car quality was chassis panel fitting (if there ever was a truely German over engineering nonsense, that is it), now it is the feel of the car entertainment system. To each generation their own marketing abuse of technology I guess.
A car has wheels, an engine/motor(s), and a mechanism to make the engine/motor(s) turn those wheels. This hasn't changed more or less since the invention of cars, regardless electric or combustion.
What has changed is the way the car is controlled. No longer are cars controlled by physically connected cables and wires that move to user input, cars are now controlled digitally by computers that respond to user and environmental input. This is where the technology is, and this is where tech companies like Tesla naturally and obviously have an edge on car companies like Toyota.
So, no improvements in crash protection, suspension, sound isolation, tires compounds, break technology?
While I think this take on "tech" is just ignorant, it shoes why Teslas market cap still is were it is. Good for them I guess...
> Cars haven't changed in any fundamental manner for the better part of a century at the very least, so no cars are not so-called "technology" at this point.
So only new technology is technology? What a daft definition.
>So only new technology is technology?
"Technology" in the sense as Hacker News uses it? Yes.
Unless you want to argue that Windows 3.11 and Blackberry and 8086 today are tech as in the tech industry.
You're validating the opposing argument with those examples.
Windows 3.11 and 8086 are no-longer in active development. But the Windows operating system and the Intel x86 chipset are still being developed, and are relevant topics of current conversation.
Similarly, "cars" aren't new as a concept. But recent news developments regarding recently developed cars counts as tech relevant to Hacker News.
Obviously not, they didn't spy on their users to show ads.
It’s funny because when a Tesla is given to a spouse it has lots of issues, but tech bros never seem to notice.
Which, honestly, can be said for lots of things.
> That being said it seems that 2023 is the year of the EV, my family is currently in the market for a new car and have been pleasantly surprised at the breadth of offerings.
My wife and I are in the market for a second car, after buying an ICE SUV at the beginning of the pandemic and having no car for 10 years before that (living in San Francisco).
There’s a lot of options for a $40,000+ primary family car, but my impression is that there is a notable lack of options in the “second car” or “economy car” categories. We already have the ICE SUV for road trips, camping trips, IKEA trips, etc. We will probably need a second car very soon (moving from the Bay Area to LA and less WFH schedules).
Am I just supposed to get a Leaf or a Bolt? Plug in hybrids seem very cool to me but barely exist in the US (is this really too much cognitive load to figure out how fuel economy works?). Where’s the $25,000 electric Corolla with 100 mile range?
Of all tue existing OEMs, Toyota propably botched the EV transition the most. Which actually is quite a surprise for me, to be honest.
Regarding cheap (-ish) EVs, you have Stelantis (Peugeot, Opel, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Chrysler). They sell a small hatchback, VW Polo sized, as an EV with, if memory serves well, a range of 300 km, for about 25k € in Germany. It is available as a Peugeot 208e, a Opel Corsa e and, more expensive and a cross-over SUV thingy, a Peugeot 2008e.
So it sure is possible. And a prime choice for a second car, in our case an EV for four, decent range and luggage space is simply out of budget for now. A smaller one, the classic second car, totally possible. But hey, you only replace cars if you have to, and now that is the big one. So no EV yet...
I always considered our Model 3 as a second car because we mostly just drove it for local errands and commuting, and I assumed it just didn't have the range to do more.
We recently decided to use for a 2000+ mile road trip instead of using our ICE minivan, and I was blown away with how well the Tesla did as a long road trip vehicle.
We had no range anxiety because of the Super Charger network, and stopping to charge for 45 minutes after driving for 3 hours was far more enjoyable than anticipated.
Where it really did well was also surprising. Have you ever been going up a slight grade on a long highway stretch and find yourself needing to pass a slower vehicle? Most cars I've owned, when already going 65+, take a bit of time to pass a truck going up a hill. Even my 400HP+ modified Subaru STI takes its time as it needs to build turbo pressure and RPMs before it'll get fast enough to comfortably pass up hill.
The Model 3 doesn't even know there's a hill. It'll go from 60 to 120 as fast as it goes from 0-60 like the hill doesn't exist. Fully loaded with 4 adults and their stuff too.
Combine the raw power the car has with the climate control, good sound, full glass roof, ample cargo space and legroom, and it's the best car I've ever used on a long trip, no question. It's just not sub-$40k (at least for most people - I bought mine for $35k from a family member).
Does this work in the cold as well?
I've not done a similar trip in the cold.
On local trips in the cold (where it's frequently below 0F) I've not noticed any difference in power. It may very well have reduced specs but I'd never no. I've not been motivated to test it with snow, ice, and other cars on the road.
If I were driving 280+ miles per day in the dead of winter I'm sure I'd notice since the range does seem to shrink in the cold. Then again, I've never been impacted by that since I only drive about 40-80 miles a day at most on a typical day.
Don’t know if it’s available in the US, but we’re similar to you in wanting a lower priced second car and we’re buying an MG4.
They’re pretty reasonably priced here in the UK.
I have read dozens of articles, buying guides, and reviews of electric and hybrid cars, and I’ve never even heard of that make, so I’m guessing it’s not available in the US.
MG is a Chinese brand reusing the branding of the old British version of MG.
Over the last half a decade they've become the fifth biggest brand in Australia ahead of Mitsubishi and Hyundai.
Toyota took a big bet on hydrogen power, so we’re not going to see an electric Corolla until they finally give in. As for the price point, electric production is still scaling out. And consumers don’t think they want vehicles with shorter range, even if that’s all they need. First, the car has to sell.
I’m not convinced by the common wisdom that “consumers demand longer battery range.” That’s especially irrelevant to the “second car” market which surely must be pretty big. I think it comes down more to how ridiculously cheap gas is (despite incessant complaints) and how long it would take most people to come out ahead even just buying a hybrid instead of a pure EV. It sure would be nice if gas were more expensive!
It seems that EVs are stuck in the range wars, the headline spec for an EV above all else is its kWh and range. It’s ridiculous, no ICE car gets marketed by range, and if they did you’d find that EVs are about on par range wise, they are just less convenient to refuel.
The value proposition of a hybrid makes EVs difficult to stomach, why get one EV when you can get two hybrids for the same price? Toyota will 100% jump on EVs once they become economical, but until then they are still making the car for the masses.
> It’s ridiculous, no ICE car gets marketed by range,
That's because every ICE car gets 400-600 miles per tank, and there are filling stations essentially everywhere.
For EVs, more range compensates for all concerns about charging availability.
All the chargers at work were busy? No problem if you've got several days of range.
Loved ones live in the middle of nowhere, with limited options for charging en route? Friend living in a flat who can't help you charge over night? Not a problem if you've got plenty of range.
Changed jobs and got a longer commute, or lost access to charging at work? Not a problem with 300 miles of range.
En route chargers along your route only charge at a meagre 40 miles per hour? Competing charger networks mean you only have access to some chargers? 300 miles of range means you can just go to a better one.
Worried about battery degradation with age, or lower battery performance due to your area's weather? Want to use the fastest charging, which only charges to 80% capacity? If you've got range to spare, no problem.
The situation will probably be different in a decade or two, when every gas station gets equipped to charge EVs at 300+ miles per hour.
EV's range wars matter to consumers because charging at home can be a quarter of the cost of charging at a supercharger.
If your ICE car gasoline cost 4x the price at any gas station except your home one, then you too would want a tank as big as possible.
> you’d find that EVs are about on par range wise.
Practical sedans in the same category as the Model 3 like Nissan Altima and Chevy Malibu get more than 550 miles of range.
If ICEs really wanted to compete on range, they could easily extend this to a thousand miles and be still lighter than current EVs.
Dacia Spring come to my mind, but I am not sure is exported to US
Yeah, I’m also looking for something I can actually buy through normal channels (granted in in the last few years it has been difficult just buying any car has been difficult from a party who isn’t clearly a scalper) and expect to have some level of support availability. Not really looking to buy a car the same way I buy Raspberry Pi clones from AliExpress.
I guess they can rebrand it Renault Spring and have it serviced by Nissan ( they are all under the same alliance )
It's not. They barely have any cars under 4m there.
An electric motorcycle might suit you well as a second vehicle. There’s tons of them in that price range. It would help with horrible LA traffic as well.
This is my dilemma as well. New LEAF is 40+K CAD. I think I’ll try and find a used 2018 or newer for $20K and convince myself the battery will last.
Mazda tried and failed, and decided to release it anyway -- see the MX-30 EV. 100 mile estimated range for $34k.
Isn’t that very expensive?
Yes, that's why it was a failure. Most news outlets theorized that it was a compliance vehicle for California but that was never confirmed by Mazda. If it was a compliance vehicle, Mazda spent way too much money on R&D to sell it for that price. At $20k, it might have had a better shot.
What's wrong with minivans? I always loved having the ability to haul tons of stuff or people depending on the need.
Agreed. I would love a good electric minivan (e.g. an electric Honda Odyssey). There are supposed to be a few coming down the pike but I had to buy a cheap used internal combustion one for now.
The Pacifica seems interesting as the only PHEV around. 32 miles on electric will take you a lot of places while still having a motor means you can haul heavy stuff or even tow without range dropping to nothing.
I have one and it has been great. We had to buy the most expensive trim to get one - not sure that is true anymore. We mostly use the battery as we live in a small city. Most of our commute and errands are within range or it swaps to gas. I fill up every other month if that. If we go on the road of course it’s basically an ICEbox but still gets better mileage than my older toyotas did. It charges the battery from our home charger in a couple of hours so on weekends we end up using the battery twice a day.
My next-door neighbor (single dad with three kids) has one and it's a goddamn delight. He just got a Tesla to replace it because he took a new job that's outside of the battery-only range of the minivan and his eldest is big enough to sit in front now. Not nearly as nice of a car, but he wants to be all-electric, and was stuck on his commute. Alas.
If the middle seats on the hybrid were stow and go like the rear ones I’d already own one of these. Sadly that’s where the batteries are.
I like the simplicity of an all electric drivetrain but I’m a single car household so range anxiety and charger time/availability is a real consideration still.
My plug-in Prius gets about the same range. If that range is sufficient for most of your driving, I think PHEV is a fantastic compromise between driving electric most of the time and switching to ICE when you need the additional range.
Can't tow with the Pacifica PHEV though
Minivan seems like a great form factor for an EV. Unfortunately, the small number of companies that still make minivans are also the companies that are slowest to adopt EVs.
It is the ideal form factor for anyone with a little bit of sense. It has the best room/capacity per footprint.
They aren't the most aerodynamic and had surprisingly bad fuel economy the last time I looked, but after those concerns it's hard to beat a minivan. I was shocked just how little cargo capacity my father in law's big fancy Mercedes SUV has - I was able to fit more in a Honda Fit (which explains the name!)
Don't think fuel economy is a real concern if you compare them to most SUVs.
What use case does a minivan solve that a VW ID BUZZ does not?
I guess it's technically not a minivan(?), but it's not very far from it!
Are the middle and rear seats in the ID Buzz storable or removable? That was the only thing I remember.
I would probably be ok with the abuzz, but you can't but it in the US yet.
I saw a VW id Buzz in the road the other day
The talking point about Tesla reliability is outdated.
Model 3 was one of the most reliable cars in Germany in 2022.
"Germany’s ADAC, which is the largest automobile club in Europe, published the results of its latest reliability study, which analyzes vehicle breakdowns and their causes in 2022, and the Tesla Model 3 ranked at the top of the chart."
https://insideevs.com/news/667690/tesla-model-3-reliability-...
Tesla reliability is also often conflated with "build quality", and the sources for Tesla's poor build quality differ vastly, but a not-insignificant source of it wasn't objective information but rather surveys. Surveys that specifically ask "How does build quality compare to expectations". Which isn't a fair question because people hold different expectations for Teslas than other cars.
I'd be interested in how many times each car had to be seen by the manufacturer, rather than full breakdowns (i.e. at the side of the road, can't continue the journey). EVs should be much more reliable in terms of full breakdowns, but with all of the complex systems I've seen more small things go wrong.
I own a Model 3, and one thing I didn't fully appreciate until a recent 2000+ mile roadtrip is how good the Tesla Super Charger network is. Even in remote parts of Nevada we were always within range of a Super Charger. Using the onboard nav system made that even better, since it's aware of how busy a station is, or if the station is even functional, and would route accordingly.
I don't know much about other charging networks, but I've used non-Tesla chargers a handful of times over the past two years, and every time, it was a poor experience. They've been slow, some have stopped working a few minutes into a charge, or don't work at all. In two separate cases the chargers I drove to didn't actually exist, despite being directed to them by those networks' apps. In one case, they weren't built yet, and in another, the chargers weren't even properly mounted to the ground and getting blown around by the wind and leaning over as far as the underground cables would allow.
Prior to my roadtrip the charging network wouldn't have been much of a selling point for me since I usually charge at home. But after? I think it's far more important than I realized.
I recently bought a Polestar 2. For people who aren't familiar with the brand, I describe it as "Volvo makes a Model 3".
Is it less high tech than a Tesla? Absolutely: Volvo is a car company. Is it better constructed than a Tesla? Absolutely: Volvo is a car company.
Glad to hear those picodollars won’t get converted to petrodollars ;-)
Never going back to a gas car. We've been driving a Kona EV since 2019 but decided that we need two cars now.
This is reasonable. OTOH a really mass-produced car means that its production becomes optimized, quirks eventually fixed, rough edges polished, etc. With model Y, Tesla has a chance to polish the design and the production process and make the car reliable and of stable quality.
They of course can squander that chance, but they never had such a chance before at all, to my mind.
It's not a huge difference to other manufacturers - the idea of putting different things on a common chassis and iterating that one slowly was happening for a while. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform
From what I understood on a previous thread that talked about EV owners wanting to go back to gas cars, the main reason Tesla owners like their EVs more than other brand owners is not based on the actual vehicle, but due to ease of charging because of the supercharger network and other Tesla features to dispel range anxiety.
That in itself is a good reason to buy a Tesla right now (it may evolve in just a few years in the future): it's the one with the best charging experience. Considering how much hassle a bad charging experience can be, I imagine this has an influence on sales figures.
In the market for a car here in Canada.
Really loved the idea of an electric car / plug in hybrid but it feels like EVs are just not adequately designed for Canada.
The main issues are (A) not enough charging infrastructure (fixable) and (B) poor battery performance in cold weather.
I think the cold weather thing could be fixable but from my perspective it seems like EVs are designed with California in mind so there seems to be little incentive to fix those issues.
Additionally Canada wants all new cars to be EVs by somewhere around 2030 but it seems like a not very well thought out plan.
Personally I ended up going with a standard hybrid.
- Fantastic mileage in the city.
- Good cold weather performance.
- Highest reliability by consumers reports and other publications.
- No range anxiety.
- Battery lasts a very long time since it is used less and stays at a medium charge.
We went for a Model Y. The heat pump is way more efficient in the winter than resistive heating. Combine that with starting out at room temperature because it's garaged, and we see little winter range loss.
We never have charging issues, and we've gone to rural Saskatchewan, tourist Quebec and all parts in between. The trans-Canada has great supercharger coverage, rural Saskatchewan has welders you can unplug and tourist Quebec has chargers at the hotels.
I bet our battery lasts longer than yours. 99% of driving is local, we plug in at 50% and charge to 80%, which is a lot easier on a big battery like ours than the small battery you have. Even on road trips it basically stays between 20 and 80.
Not really going to argue your points (they seem well researched!), however I think for most consumers there's still that last level of "thinking" required to feel comfortable having an EV as a primary vehicle.
Including as you mentioned having a heated garage compared to people such as myself who have to rely on street parking which can comprise both the battery distance and the ability to consistently charge.
Lastly I do think there's a catagory of people who take pride in figuring out how to make systems work for them specifically (in this case EVs in Canada). I myself am that way about many things in my life but when it comes to my vehicle i just want it to work.
It's good to know that your experience is working though and hope for EV coverage to expand in the future.
I will never buy a T$LA product. Garbage products, turd of a CEO.
I think the Supercharger network was a significant competitive advantage. With the news today that Ford will be adopting NACS in the near future for North American vehicles, I do think their EV options will start to become more compelling.
My dream car is a minivan -- it is literally the most practical kind of vehicle I can think of, so that is what I fantasize about getting. Why are you so impressed that the model Y is not a minivan?
Wouldn't any car just be better if it were a minivan?
In case you weren't aware already, the next-gen VW "bus" will start sales in the US next summer/fall. I expect other car manufacturers will begin sales of their minivan EV replacements around that time as well.
Unfortunately for VW, they are trying to cash in on the "cool" factor and nostalgia for the vintages buses and the vehicle is outrageously expensive. For $60k, I don't features in addition to gimmicks and the backseat is pretty tight. Not to mention the interior tech and controls for this first generation of VW ev's is comically bad.
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I think I might give a try for MY (if its suspension got any better), but where I live there is no real place for servicing it and insurance costs 7x the price of a new leaf for example which is insand.
as an alternative to Tesla, I recommend a Polestar 2. Somewhere between a 3 and a Y. Way better build quality (it's basically a Volvo, after all).
Translation: luxury vehicles are the future of car sales.
Model Y is 2 times as expensive as a Corolla.
Plus you can go and find an older Corolla with 100k+ miles on it and pay perhaps $5k cash for it, then drive it for another 50-100k.
I don't see people in the service industry picking up a used Tesla, now or in the foreseeable future.
I think one of the reason is most non uber wealthy people are putting a hold on car purchases right now until EV prices go down.
We are in a huge transition phase, with lots of inflation everywhere. For most people EV are still too expensive or inconvenient [1] and they don't want to buy a new ICE car or start a 5y leasing on a car they may soon not be allowed to use wherever they want.[2] Also they fear they won't be able to resell it. It makes more sense to keep that old, already well depreciated old car or buy a fairly recent second hand ICE, hybrid or EV that has already depreciated a lot.
My only non muscular vehicle right now is an ICE motorbike. There is no way I can afford an EV car and I don't want to deal with an ICE car I won't be able to sell for more than scrap value when EV prices will go down.
[1] if don't have parking space at home.
[2] many big cities have started banning diesel cars in center, will probably do the same for gasoline soon. ICE cars will soon become unsellable.
> most non uber wealthy people are putting a hold on car purchases right now until EV prices go down
I've been wondering how many others are frustrated like I am.
I've hit the 10 year mark on my current ICE vehicle, and I sorta assumed EVs would be a lot more common and cheaper now. Even the small vehicles are being sold for luxury prices, and the 7-seaters (which I'm looking at) are priced in the high-end-yesteryear-sports-car tier.
I'm seriously considering just buying a Tahoe or Telluride and waiting another 10 years for an EV.
>Translation: luxury vehicles are the future of car sales.
Not in Europe, I was surprised to read that Dacia Sandero a model designed to be cheap was the best seller this year(in Europe), they also hit record sales last year. There are lot of people that do not have the moneyor do not want to spend it on luxury. (and btw before someone points the bad safety rating of Dacia, most of the bad score is because of missing of modern active safety stuff)
https://www.romania-insider.com/dacia-sandero-best-sold-euro...
I believe it is true in Europe too, it just happens with economic growth.
I.e. where people would buy a lot more utility cars before, they now buy more expensive bigger cars even if they don't need them. Those buying bigger cars are now buying SUVs.
Dacia ate the market of economy cars of FIAT, SEAT, and Pegeot, while those tried to move up market.
That's also why Dacia has the Duster ("SUV for poors") in their line up.
I am not sure where to check this, but I was talking about Luxury cars, not size. In my definition a luxury car is a car that is probably double or more in price then a non luxury car, because of branding and luxury features like luxury interior features, chrome and other shiny stuff on exterior, super fancy design that changes each year. Decent EVs are still expensive and an unknown here in Romania.
> I don't see people in the service industry picking up a used Tesla, now or in the foreseeable future.
Purchase price, you've already touched on. You can't even get a USED Tesla for under $20K.
The second problem is charging. Apartments generally have a lack of EV chargers.
You can't even get a USED Tesla for under $20K.
And who wants to buy a used Tesla (or any EV) even if the price was competitive?
The range degrades with the battery and replacing it costs more than the car is worth.
I bought a used Tesla Model 3. The person I bought it from bought it used as well. I'm the third owner. The battery capacity after 65k miles is 97% of original.
If we naively assume that every 21k miles driven drops 1% of capacity, then after another 1 million miles I'll be at 50% capacity. That'd still give me 4x the range I need on a daily basis.
Even if the rate of degradation were 2-3x my estimates, the battery in my car is more likely to allow my car to drive further than even the most babied, well taken care of, internal combustion engine ever could.
You generally don’t need to replace the battery of an EV during it’s life time.
Yes, like the almost million mile tesla model S:
As far as we know, the original battery pack had an issue after 290,000 km (180,000 miles) and was replaced under warranty. However, Tesla was initially figuring out the issue and installed a loaner battery, which was used for half a year or 150,000 km (93,000 miles). Then, Tesla installed a new, final battery. We don't have any info about any further replacements, so it might be the first 1 million km battery?
In terms of drive units. The Tesla Model S P85 is a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive car. High power and torque was an issue in the early Teslas, which caused a few motor replacements. Three units were replaced by 680,000 km and the fourth one was running up to 1,000,000 km. We don't have any info on whether anything happened after that.
Yes, because life of battery effectively equals life of vehicle due to eventual depreciation.
For reference, that famous million mile Tesla went through three batteries and eight motors [1].
[1]: https://thedriven.io/2022/06/15/tesla-model-s-owner-passes-i...
That depends on how you’re defining lifetime. I doubt the batteries of today will last 12 years, which is the average age of cars on US roads.
What data are you basing this on? From what I've seen Teslas still typically have 80%+ capacity after 200k miles.
EVs with smaller batteries degrade faster.
IIRC, one of the big reasons Teslas are comparatively expensive is because their batteries are gigantic relative to their range. They're basically using a lot of energy from the battery to power cooling systems to keep the battery cool, which means they degrade much more slowly.
You can look up user-generated plots of average battery degradation and see that most Teslas still have 90% of their range after 100k miles.
Other cheaper EVs manage this equation differently and their batteries do degrade more quickly.
> Apartments generally have a lack of EV chargers.
That's the trick, people living in apartments are not supposed to own and operate their own cars going forward.
As a live in an apartment myself I wasn't aware of that fact at the beginning, I kept asking myself: "how am I supposed to charge my car if I'm living on the 8th floor?". Turns out I was looking at the whole thing through the wrong lenses.
What's really perverse about it (there's no better word to describe it) is that us, people living in apartments, do currently have a smaller carbon footprint compared to people living in actual houses, and yet we are the ones being punished as a result of measures which are meant to improve our global carbon footprint. So the solution for me, if I'd still want to own a personal car, would be to increase my carbon footprint by moving to an actual house on the ground, preferably in suburbia because cheaper (where there's also no proper public transportation to speak of).
Small caveat: as an apartment dweller, the way to own and operate my own car is to rent an underground parking space, which will, in time, be retrofitted with a charging plug.
On the other hand, that's definitely more expensive than street parking and not everyone will be able to afford it, so your statement is overall correct for the majority of people.
> is to rent an underground parking space
assuming you find one at an affordable rate.
Where I live there are no available parking spaces, and parking garages are all fully booked, but even if they weren't, you can't install your own charger.
There are a few properties on sale, but the starting price is around 40 thousand euros for 16 square meters.
In Europe, street parking is usually more expensive than buying/renting a spot in a garage.
I don't think you can really generalize that easily. Where I live, street parking with a residential permit is way cheaper than renting a spot in a garage, and I know other big cities have similar schemes.
You’re right, it’s not even the case where I live, had the wrong figures in mind. No delete action now I’m afraid!
Where specifically in Europe did you see this to be the case?
>>people living in apartments are not supposed to own and operate their own cars going forward.
That's such a weird thing to say. What do you mean not supposed to own? For healthy young people - ok, fine, fair enough. How about the disabled? The old and frail? People with kids? People who drive for work? Where are the above meant to park and charge? And please don't say these usecases are going to be replaced with autonomous cars, that's complete nonsense, especially for specific usecases like disabled people who need specially adapted cars.
Public transport should be better than driving if you're old or frail.
Or have sight problems, or are currently drinking, or have inner ear issues, or epilepsy, or are very tired, or want to read a good book, or...
> That's such a weird thing to say. What do you mean not supposed to own?
disincentives work the same way of incentives, but in the opposite direction.
EVs are an hassle to own if you live in a dense urban area, like those you can find in many European cities. I predict many people will give up on owning a car when confronted with the drawbacks.
> like disabled people who need specially adapted cars
disabled people have reserved parking spots, that will eventually be equipped with an EV charger
Let them eat cake.
*carbon-neutral, cruelty-free, insect-based protein bars.
>The second problem is charging. Apartments generally have a lack of EV chargers.
Intuitively, I guess most people would certainly be fine charging once a week for half an hour when going out (restaurant, shopping or else), given the average distance driven per week.
Although the purchase price is higher, lifetime is not much different.
https://thedriven.io/2023/04/27/tesla-model-3-total-cost-of-...
And the Model Y is cheaper than the Toyota Rav4 which is in the same category. So cheaper purchase price, and no annual oil changes, cheap miles (at least over in Finland where gas is 2e/liter, 8.14usd/gallon and electricity is around 10euro cents/kwh).
RAV4s are approx 40k where I come from, while Tesla is 70k+. Are you teslas cheap or RaVs overpriced?
Seem very country dependent. I just checked and a rav4 with awd and lane assist (to try to match it to the LR AWD model y) cost ~3k more over here (58k vs 55k euros)
Where are you getting these prices ? RAV4 is a lower end of price for the category here, even Model 3 is more expensive.
These are Finland prices. I just checked now the cheapest new awd rav4, and it's 55k (to compare to the LR AWD Moldel Y). But then it you want lane assist, you need another trim level and it'll go up to closer 59k. The model y is 55k.
It might be "2 times as expensive" up front, but not for the TCO.
People really need to remember maintenance costs over the ownership period.
In a Tesla all you're really paying for is tyre rotation / alignment / rubber replacements, and air filters. Plus the electricity, in place of fuel. The savings add up significantly.
Is this myth still lingering on? You have to pay a lot more on maintenace for Teslas: brake pads, shattered roofs, fogging taillights, broken control arms, drive units, worn out seats, MCUs, tail bumpers lost in the rain, ... that list goes on.
Provided Tesla can deliver spare parts, which they frequently can't for months, which is a story in itself (hint: having to support x iterations may work for SW, but not for cars that are on the road for 10+ years)
I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla starts car buybacks for vehicles older than 15 years to offset their parts-inventory management overhead.
I didn't know Toyota had introduced a model where the glass cannot break and the seats don't take wear and tear. What model is that?
Does that model also not require oil changes?
>Does that model also not require oil changes?
Ah yes, the $100 annual cost of oil changes.
EVs are cheaper to maintain, generally. But the Tesla is a premium vehicle for which no after market parts are available, so there's a significant gap there.
How are you maintaining your oil at $100 a year?
I have two ICE vehicles and I change the oil for each myself according to the manufacturers' recommended maintenance schedules. Changing the oil for one car, once, costs $42 for oil and $16 for the filter. The yearly cost for one car with a 7500 mile recommendation is about $116 (two total changes a year typically, though it looks like I did it three times last year for that vehicle).
I've had a Model 3 for 2 years now. Total cost of ownership (excluding insurance and registration fees): $1578. That's ALL costs, including electricity used to charge the battery. The majority of those costs: a set of new tires at $1050.
As far as a lack of after market parts go: what parts would you expect to see on the after market? The things one needs to buy for a Tesla are represented quite well in the after market. Tires, brake pads, cabin air filters - plenty to choose from, and widely available at any auto parts store. Tell me more about this "significant gap" of after market parts.
Wear parts like brake calipers and tie rods generally seem to be available on third party aftermarket for Tesla's.
People who care about price don't pay $3k/year on car servicing at a car dealer... They buy some reliable model and pay $50 for an oil change every other year.
I assume you're not in the US since your pricing is totally out of place with most US consumer spending on vehicle maintenance. $50 for an oil change is about right, but every other year? Even Americans who don't drive that often will generally change it about every 6 months.
Not to mention things like tires have a lifespan. Even if they aren't worn out, most tires are not meant to be used for longer than around 5 years. As the rubber ages, its composition changes and it does not perform to the rated specifications. Even cheap tires are $100/ea for everything larger than a subcompact economy car. $400 for tires, divided by 5 years; you get the idea.
Car ownership in America does not need to be expensive, but it's nothing like the European mentality.
I took my car to a mechanic for an unrelated issue and asked them to change the oil and check fluids while they had it in the shop (I bought it about 6 months earlier) and they called to tell me they weren't going to change it because it wasn't necessary and had paperwork to prove it. This was in the Netherlands in a small town. But here I drive my car 50km a week vs 50km a day when I lived in the US.
> Even Americans who don't drive that often will generally change it about every 6 months.
What? Back when I drove a Corolla (in the U.S.) I never changed my oil more than once a year, and no one ever pestered me about it. Where did you get that?
From what I can tell, the average American drives somewhere between 12,000-15,000 miles a year. The average oil change interval for modern cars is 7,500-10,000 miles, so using the higher interval you would expect to change your oil roughly twice a year.
I believe these published averages are arithmetic mean and may be skewed by long-distance drivers and multi-car households. As reported, it seems to be just total fleet mileage divided by number of drivers.
For this kind of question about maintenance, I wish I could find a histogram or at least quartile summaries of per-vehicle distances per year.
Most manufacturers suggest 12,000 mile oil changes. By the time your vehicle is old and less valuable, 25,000 miles makes more sense as long as the oil from the last change didn't show signs of contamination by water/soot/particulates (since the cost of the oil change is fixed, but the additional devaluation of the vehicle by not changing the oil is much less). For a typical driver, that makes it once per 2 years.
Things like tyres are normally bought part-worn. My last set was $25/tyre, inc fitting, with 5mm tread left. Degradation can be determined by visual inspection - rubber does degrade, but it isn't a safety hazard until there are cracks allowing light to get to the cords in the tyre (light degrades the cords, which is a safety hazard).
Your tire advice is pretty scary. Unless you are very certain of the sourcing of these used tires, and you live somewhere that doesn't see any precipitation or inclement weather, you are taking a serious chance.
> In a Tesla all you're really paying for is tyre rotation
I change my tires every 20,000-25,000 kms
for me it means every 3 years
my car runs on LPG, which is half the price of gas
Never ever done any particular kind of maintenance in over 10 years.
You can buy 6-7 brand new "my cars" with the money spent on a Tesla.
Yes, it's a cheap car, I chose it exactly because it's cheap and robust, I use it in a city, I park it on the road, there's no need for a >45k car, I would argue it's borderline stupid to buy a very expensive EV to drive it in a city.
EVs are expensive by default, their TCO might be lower in perfect ideal scenarios, until you run into an issue, most of the cost is due the complexity, non-EV cars are much much much dumber and simpler.
You can't independently fix an EV, there's no way.
What car do you have that costs 1/7th the price of a tesla and has no maintenance required whatsoever (including oil changes)?
Suzuki Alto
You can buy it new for 7,300 euros taxes included in Italy.
Full optional.
I change oil more or less every 20,000 kms, which is more than two years driving for me.
I change it myself, I only need to buy the oil that costs about 20-25 euros for a full change.
Other than that, the car is basically maintenance free.
Suzuki's are the best. Reliable, cheap and maintenance free.
>People really need to remember maintenance costs over the ownership period.
What people really need to do is the actual calculation, instead of saying things like "the Tesla will make it up over its lifespan". Will it, really?
The difference between a model Y and Corolla is, what, $10k-15k? That is a huge difference to make up. Most of the maintenance requirements a ICE has are required by an EV, too (less oil changes). Parts are way more expensive on the Tesla than the Toyota.
Oh, and do you think that governments are going to just let EVs operate on subsidized electricity forever? No, they will directly tax it in the future. Meanwhile, gasoline prices could decrease over time as the world transitions to greener sources. After all, have to pump the oil (increase supply) while it has value.
TL;DR People who buy a Tesla to "save money" are likely in for a shock.
> Most of the maintenance requirements a ICE has are required by an EV, too (less oil changes). Parts are way more expensive on the Tesla than the Toyota.
You've expressed this idea about parts a few times in this thread, yet haven't actually proven that.
How about some comparisons of what some parts, common to both a Model Y and a Corolla, cost?
I'll give it a shot:
A control arm for a 2022 Model Y: about $150. A control arm for a 2022 Corolla: about $150.
Rear door window glass for a 2022 Model Y: about $190. Rear door window glass for a 2022 Corolla: about $190.
Hood for a 2022 Model Y: about $500. Hood for a 2022 Corolla: about $477.
I'm not even cherry picking - literally just thinking of a part and searching for prices. Without a doubt, there are parts on a Tesla that cost a lot more than the same part on a Corolla, but I haven't found them.
Point is: you're incorrect when you repeat the myth that Tesla parts are any more expensive than any other vehicle of the same model year. Most parts cost the same.
Bigger point: of the parts most frequently replaced on a ICE vehicle, the Tesla typically doesn't have those same parts. Fan belts, fuel injectors, timing belts, clutches, valves, alternators, and so on.
TL;DR People who buy a Tesla to "save money" are likely saving money.
Teslas aren’t luxury vehicles, even if they’re sold at a luxury price point.
The base Model Y is not even at a luxury price point after tax credits.
But yeah, Tesla’s interior build quality is not really comparable with other luxury cars.
> Model Y is 2 times as expensive as a Corolla.
Which only makes this even more remarkable. What's going to happen when the Tesla 2 comes out and sells for the same price as a Corolla?
I’ve been waiting 10 years for this, gave up a while ago.
Nobody wants to sell electric cars for cheap, why throw away the margins you can get by selling them for more?
I don’t see a great opportunity for them to lower costs more on a cheaper model. Tesla already went through the exercise of making the cheaper version and people are paying premium prices for it anyway.
They will, soon. About 30 car manufacturers are entering the EV arena by 2026 and there isn't enough room for all of them at the top.
I don’t have data on this, but my subjective impression is that over the last several years, the number of manufacturers selling EVs and the price of EVs have both increased at the same time.
Of course, additional supply should normally decrease prices, but maybe there’s something weird going on. Here are some possible mechanisms I dreamed up:
1. Could the various manufacturers (collectively bringing lots of cash to break into the business) be bidding up the cost of some inputs? If high demand allows the market to bear higher prices, maybe everyone just ends up paying more?
2. As EV moves from “government environmental policy compliance program” to “luxury essential”, the types of cars on the market change. Just because it’s technically possible to make a cheap EV, doesn’t mean they will be readily available. By analogy, air-conditioned seats are no engineering marvel, but are usually only offered in upmarket vehicles, probably as a type of price discrimination.
I think the constraint here is battery manufacturing capacity. If there was enough batteries available cheaply you would see budget electric cars. Meanwhile if there is a constraint it makes sense to allocate capacity to highest margin lines.
>> Model Y is 2 times as expensive as a Corolla.
Which makes it that much more impressive that the Model Y outsells the Corolla...
Model y can get 10k in rebates depending on income. California would wave sales tax, give local rebates, and federal 7.5k rebate.
there are no State issued EV bonuses/tax rebates for the Corolla.
if there were, Corolla would outsell Tesla Y by a large margin.
The article seemed to be about worldwide sales. There's no tax rebate on a Model Y (or Corolla) around here.
Yep, point was there are State incentives to buy EVs Worldwide.
For example:
https://elbil.no/english/norwegian-ev-policy/
https://www.transportstyrelsen.se/en/road/Vehicles/bonus-mal...
https://europe.autonews.com/environmentemissions/france-rese...
https://www.idealista.it/en/news/financial-advice-italy/2022...
Where I live, $5k for a used Corolla gets you something with over 200k miles and which needs another $5k (at least) to address deferred maintenance.
And leaves you with a car now with $7k.
I've heard some auto analysts suggesting that Tesla's trick to drop their car prices was not necessarily an act of desperation, as much as an action of opportunity. While all other car manufacturers are upping prices and increasing lead times, Tesla is taking advantage of this by having vehicles available and lowering prices in order to gain market-share in a time when other manufacturers are expecting and preparing for slower sales.
If that was the strategy, then it looks like it is working exactly as planned.
My gf wanted to buy a hybrid Toyota RAV4. Hard to find, little choice of incoming units, and they want $5k over MSRP. She was very hesitant to get a full EV. But now seeing how dealers want over MSRP on the RAV4... She's 95% sold on the Model 3.
Its not even a comparison when it comes to driving experience. I dislike how minimalist the interiors of Teslas are, but they are so fun to drive. The Model 3 especially!
She just wants a decent commuter that's safe and looks upmarket enough for her.
When my Kia went tits up I called every dealer I could (except Tesla) to try to get a car immediately. They all had months-long lead times. Tesla? I downloaded the app and bought the car as an in app purchase; 7 days later I picked up the car from the lot & left. If I'd been willing to settle for a white 7-seater, I'd've been able to pick it up same day.
What's the point of being a car dealer if you can't sell me a car!?
I hate dealers as much as anyone else, but isn't that a supply problem, not a dealers problem? Also varying with time depending on supply and demand?
Interesting anecdote, but, uh, there were points where people were waiting for months to get their Tesla.
Interesting observation, but, uh, now they don't. Not to mention that you still have to wait months for the majority of other car dealers.
Then why did Tesla jack up prices so much over the last few years? All part of the plan to gain market share?
Tesla inventory is at an all-time high. This seems a demand issue.
Tesla raised prices in order to reduce the time between order and delivery when customer demand got too hot. Raising prices also improved profit margins during a time of rapid capital spending. Now customer demand has cooled with the international economic slowdown, and lowering prices increases the time between order and delivery as more customers are enticed to order.
Also to add, Elon/Tesla is 100% transparent about pricing strategies, and it's exactly this. Other manufacturers obscure this behind dealership models, Tesla does it out in the open.
Does anybody sell more than 2 million >$70,000 vehicles a year? Tesla wants to sell 2 million cars this year and 3 million next year. The total market size for premium vehicles is only so big.
>While all other car manufacturers are upping prices and increasing lead times, Tesla is taking advantage of this by having vehicles available and lowering prices in order to gain market-share in a time when other manufacturers are expecting and preparing for slower sales.
Why does everyone think that everything Elon does is 4D chess?
Read the above back to yourself: The legacy autos are choosing to raise prices and lengthen lead times, while Tesla is choosing to lower prices and shorten lead times. It's that simple!
Do you think there's more to it than "choosing" to do these things?
That would make a lot of sense to me.
I'm not quite ready to commit yet, but I've been looking into leasing an EV on and off for a while and availability is spotty for the more interesting models, and that's to say nothing of dealer markup.
Competing EVs have several things that depending on the driver make them more compelling than the options offered by Tesla, but I'd bet that a lot of people are willing to compromise if it means getting a car with the price and specs closer to what they're looking for now instead of weeks or months out.
Also Ford, And likely others, are selling their EVs for loss
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/ford-loses-nearly-60000...
Of course this may change with the economics of scale, but looks like the scale is not there yet.
To the extent that EVs last longer with very low maintenance costs, people will likely keep them even longer than they would keep other cars. And if Tesla can accelerate purchases of people who are considering getting an EV, they can drain the pool of potential EV buyers before other manufacturers are fully up and running.
As a result, other manufacturers will have to anticipate lower sales numbers, which means they would set higher prices (because much of the cost is in tooling and other fixed costs of production). It could create a nasty situation for other manufacturers, especially those that are not large enough spread the costs of EV manufacturing across other successful product lines.
Whether EVs last longer is yet to be seen. The batteries are a huge flaw in their ability to last long term. Replacing the batteries are likely a $10k+ cost, meaning that as cars get older it may not be worth doing. Imagine having a car worth $8k because it is 10 years old and needing to spend $10k on it to update the batteries. Would it make sense? Or would you just buy a car worth $18k instead?
People willing to drop that on a "repair" would probably rather buy upmarket instead. Which leaves a lot of older EVs driving around with potentially really poor ranges and clogging up charger networks.
We will have to see how it plays out. But they are lower maintenance.
There are now Tesla's driving around with 300,000 miles on their original battery. You should be fairly confident of getting 200,000 miles out of a Tesla battery, which is about as much as you can expect from any car. You can hope for more, but you can't expect more.
If you are really concerned about battery life, get a vehicle with an LFP battery. Those are estimated to have a 750,000 mile life.
That’s not exactly a fair comparison. My car can have 200K miles, but when I fill it up, I still get the same mileage. A worn down battery loses capacity with each charge and I’d be curious to see the milage per charge past a certain amount of cycles.
> but when I fill it up, I still get the same mileage.
Really? I've never seen a 200,000 mile car with the same power or mileage as a brand new car -- the tolerances are not as tight. The loss might not be as dramatic as seen on a battery, but it's usually >5%.
Replacing the battery is still too labor intensive. They need to simplify it and speed it up. Ideally, a machine does most of the work.
In which you’re mostly left with the cost of the battery itself, which today is about $7k. But in 5 years will be $4k
I imagine people will use cars with lower range as second vehicles. You’re not going to take it on a road trip, but it’s still good enough for driving around town.
Why would EVs last longer?
People would keep them longer if they don't have to do fairly expensive preventative maintenance on belts, transmission, etc. There is of course the battery to worry about, and it remains to be seen how this will play out over decades.
Expensive maintenance in belts and transmissions? As in changing a belt and fluid? That should cost $300 tops for both. One done every 100k miles the other 50-100(Toyota recommends changing the fluid at that 90k intervals but it's preventative for me). Depending on the car(my Toyota) you can do both yourself on a Saturday evening for about $100
That's because you drive a nice, sensible car. Volkswagen (particularly diesel) timing belts are a royal pain and run closer to $1500 at a dealer. More if you do the water pump while you're in there (and it's typically the reason you're doing the job in the first place).
Maybe the people are just too lazy to maintenance their vehicles. I'm going to be honest, I know maybe 500 people that I see regularly and know by name, and I bet about 9 of them have ever changed or thought about changing their transmission fluid.
I know ~6 mechanics.
Before Covid, one could buy Toyota vehicles 6% under MSRP. Today, Toyota dealers want $5K mark up fees, on top of MSRP, then all extra garbage, with 3 months wait time. If your family already owns an ICE vehicle, just buy Tesla Model Y as a second vehicle. These car companies and their dealers just try to screw customers with all hidden garbage.
The wait time for a Sienna in Canada reached 5 years at one point this year. I've never been so flabbergasted in my life.
I am driving a 2016 minivan and no one I trust is offering an electric model yet. I hope Toyota wakes up, they have completely lost the plot.
Conversely, we just ordered a Tesla Model Y yesterday for delivery within a month. Today they reached out to us to see if we'd like to take one from inventory this week. I literally paid the deposit using Apple Pay with TouchID on my MacBook. It was scary how easy it was.
I don’t get this to be honest. Had a couple of experiences as a passenger and now I actively avoid them (on Uber). The ride is absolutely awful. So rigid. Every bump on the road is felt, to the point I felt nauseated. They’re spacious, and maybe they’re nice to drive? But if I bought this without test driving it first, I would return it.
Some people (like myself) prefer a sporty ride.
They're really fun to drive. I own one and don't regret it. Obviously no car will appeal to everyone but clearly Tesla has a market despite the nay-sayers.
edit: The purchase experience beats traditional car makers hands down. No high pressure sales tactics or scams like rust preventer.
Nay-sayers also under-rate Tesla's mobile service. Go into the app, create a ticket, attach pictures. Get an estimate within hours (sometimes minutes). Accept, schedule. Tech comes to your house with all the parts and tools. Super easy.
Not much to maintain... motor coolant (ATF), coolant system, etc are lifetime sealed. Brakes last forever thanks to regen. Basically replace air filters every 3-4 years and tires per normal... which can also be done by mobile service.
I love when people say this. Because it tells me that they have never actually driven a sports car before.
When tesla owners say "sporty" they mean acceleration. Yes Teslas have mad acceleration. Not disputing that. But thats not a sporty drive. If anything thats more what you would get from a muscle car, which offers pure torque at the cost of basically everything else, which is what Tesla offers. Tesla isn't a sports car, it is a muscle car trapped in a sports car body.
Drive a Porsche, or Mercedes (C or S classes, the A classes are a joke), or BMW. These give you a sports drive. Smooth suspension, finely tuned transmission shifts, snappy steering, etc. These traits make up sporty drives. While power plays a component in that, it's not pure torque.
I realize that Tesla doesn't have a transmission before someone spits that out to me. But look at the electric Porsches and BMWs who mimick a transmission range to give you that, it isn't just a linear line like a Tesla. That's the difference between a mechanical drive and an emotional one. This is also why neither of these company's current offerings can beat out Tesla in 0-60 time. They could come close or beat it if they wanted to, but their clientele isn't looking for that, they want a traditional shift and acceleration so they offer that instead.
> That's the difference between a mechanical drive and an emotional one.
I'm sorry, what? Who's to say a linear acceleration can't be an "emotional drive"? This is pure personal preference. You're extrapolating based on your own opinions, and I guarantee isn't a universal sentiment.
Personally, I'd want a electric car that behaves like an electric car, not trying to simulate a transmission that doesn't exist. This has the same vibe as "mount a speaker to play fake engine sounds on a near-silent EV, because that's what people who grew up with muscle cars expect to hear".
>This has the same vibe as "mount a speaker to play fake engine sounds on a near-silent EV, because that's what people who grew up with muscle cars expect to hear".
To be fair, a significant chunk of normal cars have this too.
>Who's to say a linear acceleration can't be an "emotional drive"?
Sometimes, you want to turn corners too (electric cars have a disadvantage in this area because they're a lot heavier) but in a typical city you don't really have to do that very much so the straight-pull power gets you 90% of the sports car experience.
Not that that's inherently a bad thing- Mustangs are the only car Ford still sells for a good reason (and the base Tesla wouldn't sell if it had economy-car horsepower)- but if you want a car like that capable of turning corners with that speed then you need to spend a little (or a lot) more.
After 2024, Mustang will probably just be a crossover EV.
> When tesla owners say "sporty" they mean acceleration.
When you live in a city, this is the only sporty thing you can experience. You aren't going to speed down the freeway at 90 MPH, if ever, you aren't going to practice drifting or anything fun like that.
It is a "sporty" sedan experience that is limited to leaving other cars in the dust as you quickly speed up to the 30 MPH speed limit. Oh, and it is still a sedan, so I can do that while taking my kid to his Chinese class.
Tesla made and will make an actual sports car (the Tesla Roadster and its successor), so it is not like that segment has been forgotten for EVs. BUT there just isn't a huge market for those, or maybe it is better served by the cheaper WRX or BRZ (a $30k small sport EV roadster? Ya, I could buy that).
Not really! As a customer, I could care less about how shifts work. With automatic transmission, whether it's CVT, Electronic, etc. is all gravy. Just give me an experience that makes me smile.
For me personally, Teslas are some of the most fun cars I've ever driven. I've driven Mercedes C class and BMW 3 series. Teslas have way better acceleration, and the responsiveness of the steering is awesome for me.
Off topic: you mean "I couldn't care less". As David Mitchell once said: "If you could care less about something then all you're telling us is that you do care at least a little bit because you could care less.
For the record I drove a 2001 E46 M3 for years. My follow-on was an Infinity G37-S.
I am very familiar with what sporty handling means.
I was with you on the suspension and steering but artificially limiting acceleration to mimic a shift is just dumb. "Sporty" should mean high-performance.
You're not going to get a sporty ride from a model Y. Or any SUV really, as much as Tesla, BMW, and every other luxury SUV maker would have you believe. These vehicles are simply too tall for that. It's a tradeoff for which you get practical benefits in return.
That said car enthusiast types were never Tesla's target market post-Roadster and they've excelled at building a product the public likes for other reasons as you've mentioned.
They’ve got some work to do in the suspension tuning department. They should take notes from BMW and the 3-series. That’s how you do a sport ride that’s still comfortable.
FWIW they have revised the Model Y suspension for 2023. Reports say it is more comfortable without affecting handling. Some owners have reportedly ordered the parts from the 2023 vintage and had them installed on prior year models - but I haven't verified that so YMMV.
If reports continue to be positive that it doesn't negatively affect handling I may give it a try (depending on the cost). Of course another great Tesla feature is mobile service... I'm curious if they'd be able to do a suspension swap. They can already do tire replacement and rotate/balance. You schedule it in the app and they show up at your house to do the work. It is extremely convenient.
corvette C8 for those who cant afford a Ferrari
I had the chance to test drive a C8 and was a little unimpressed (I was planning to buy one but didn’t).
A good car but not a great one as I had been led to believe.
On paper and all the glowing reviews had me believing it was something very special. Maybe on a track it is (I just drove it spiritedly on public roads)
I tried a few other cars that week and found the C8 to be lacking in comparison. (Mclaren GT, M3/5/8 competitions, Aston Martin Vantage, a few others).
Granted many of the other cars were more expensive. But the M3/M4 comps arent much more and I thought they were a clear level above in every way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, of the 3 C8s I sat in one of them had laughably crooked stitching on the dash. I get that it’s a Chevy, but that to me shows the quality control is not there.
The quality of Tesla vehicles are objectively terrible. I had looked at purchasing one 4-5 years ago when they were all the hype and I walked away from the test drive dissapointed.
Yes you push the pedal and it go fast. Everyone with a Tesla loves to show that off that and I can't dispute it. But the actual ride quality is (or at least was) truly horrible. Terrible road noise and suspension that bottoms out and rebounds aggressively. This doesn't even address the countless concerns people have raised of build quality (like badly placed body panels, weatherstripping coming loose, bad locks, etc..
It really shocks me that people were buying Mercedes level prices for a car that was built worse than budget brands. Yes you got a sexy big screen (before that was common) and it had all the cool 360 cameras (before those were common), and it had the promise (more like an "IoU") for self-driving.
It is funny because I bought a new BMW and saved money. The beamer was a budget choice by comparison (by tens of thousands of dollars). Really happy I went that route after watching the next 5 years play out.
If the global auto market outcome doesn’t send strong signal, I don’t know what does. Consumers are willing to overlook what you mention for status and experience. This should be no surprise, as a vehicle purchase is highly emotional. If you build a sexy brand, people will buy your brand. “S3XY”. Tesla spent two decades ramping manufacturing, a global fast DC charge networks, and the mentioned brand. It’s simply paying dividends now.
Disclosure: Early TSLA investor, no current exposure
I agree with you. That's why my comment talked about objective quality, not subjective value. You are debating subjective value to my argument about objective quality.
If we are talking subjective value, then yes Tesla definitely wins. They have built so much subjective value that it overcomes their numerous faults.
That status only lasts until many people have one. Then the more subtle experience dynamics start weighing heavier on consumer decisions.
I also think being environmentally conscious and the desire for durability is a much stronger incentive than the points mentioned.
Your logic is sound.
Tesla pundits predict big sales of Cybertruck wraps and accessories as customers seek the status of customization for an truck that many, many will end up having.
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And my E46 M3 had interior door trim with glue that melted in the sun and fell off. Oh and the crankshaft bearings ate themselves and grenaded the engine at highway speed (the dealer charged BMW $14k just for the engine on that warranty repair).
Or my wife's Audi where the black coating on all the interior plastic scrunched up and peeled off. And that same car had a CVT transmission with so many failures Audi actually paid off repairs via a class action lawsuit (I got a check for around $4k! first and only time a class action actually benefitted me and not the lawyers). Oh and the defective Bosch ignition coils that caused misfires.
For what it is worth my Model Y (Dec 21) doesn't have odd panel gaps or other problems. It has extremely minimal maintenance requirements. I don't care about the price of gas or even electricity because my solar panels charge it for free. And it is fun to drive.
Not everyone will like the ride, the features, or whatever else... but they are selling every single one that rolls off the fully-booked production line.
It's a big seller and it's impossible to argue with that. But I also fail to see their niche. You're a big spender and you want everyone to know it? Lucid. You want the ultimate in efficiency? Hyundai Ioniq is as good as the Y. Don't have much money? Fiat 500e.
Just picked up our Model Y yesterday. For us, it was the only EV with these properties:
The many extra charging locations were also a huge plus.If you cross shop the Model Y with any other EV right now spec for spec, price for price, it's the clear winner. That's not to mention it takes a click online and a few weeks to get one in comparison to having to deal with a vipers nest of scammers and upsellers.
Latest suspension is really good. We have one, would never sell it. Upgraded the suspension myself from 2021 build to the latest rev for $600.
Edit: Ref: https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/12c49ir/_/jf2k...
Have Tesla Service confirm parts to your VIN/vehicle model (LR vs Performance).
How'd you do that if you don't mind me asking? Is there a kit?
Big fan of my Y, but you aren't kidding, the suspension is truly awful when you compare it to something in the same price category like an X3.
Tesla's have a BMW-like ride, with significant road feel. Drivers love it, passengers hate it. There's a reason that limo's use Mercedes', not BMW's.
Maybe a BMW from 1995. Current BMW are very well sorted while still offering great handling.
My BMW experience is mostly in well used ones. Perhaps new ones are better.
Seats are soft but uncomfortable at the same time, almost impressive.
People buy stuff because of the brand. Literally nothing else matters for a large section of the market.
My wife feels the same way about our new i4. I love it, she says the acceleration and regenerative breaking leads to a less comfortable ride. No bumps though, it is a BMW at least with a quiet interior. Not sure what kind of suspension tuning Teslas have.
I bought one and it's the most fun I've had in a vehicle in my almost four decades of driving. Not going to tell you what to like, but your opinions are definitely an outlier.
Call me weird but what I want is a Corolla EV. No dashboard overhaul. No autonomy. No other “rethinks.”
Also make it look like the GR Corolla. It’s a great looking car.
For people buying new cars, yeah I guess I understand that being true. America prefers SUVs, but it's an interesting statistic.
The Corolla is purchased by those who want an affordable sedan, as well as the affluent who don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car or a Tesla and are putting their money in other things like their home and marketable securities.
The Ford F-150 is a vehicle used widely by commercial organizations as well as American retail consumers who can afford one.
All of this leads me to think if you want to know what popular vehicle sales really are, I suspect you have to look at the used car market and normalize by model, removing years or generations to understand what the average consumer is really buying.
> don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car or a Tesla
I truly beg you to talk to an actual Tesla owner to refine your opinions.
EVs are practically 0-maintenance machines. Unless you need to change your tires... you just don't think about oil changes or motor belts breaking or engine filters clogging and all the other nonsense that breaks in an ICE car.
If you hate Tesla that's a completely valid opinion, but don't pretend that people are buying Teslas just to spite themselves... the user experience is, for the vast majority of people, simply great.
> I truly beg you to talk to an actual Tesla owner to refine your opinions.
Hi! I'm an actual Tesla owner. My Model X is approaching 3 years old.
It is the worst car I have ever owned. Almost everything that can break on it, has broken. I would care much less if Tesla would actually try to fix it when you take it in for service (as mine has been for a total of weeks), instead they lie and say things like "that's normal" when it clearly isn't.
I hate the car, I hate the service experience, and now, for a fun bonus extra, I hate Elon.
I will never buy another Tesla.
I have interior bodywork that makes creaking sounds when I go over any bump. Was also told by service that’s expected for the model
It isn't, but what they actually mean is that they will refuse to fix it, and "it's normal" is the fastest way to get you to go away.
What are you getting next? I’m looking for a large electric SUV/van/truck to complement my model Y (wife keeps taking it instead of using her own car) but the only ones I like are Teslas and Rivians.
Given the other announcement today, an F-150 Lightning, if you can get your hands on one.
I have pre-ordered a Polestar 3.
A very happy customer. Thank you for your testimonial.
- "Tesla was both the least reliable but most popular EV brand in a survey of owners that found one in three of all EVs had major issues in the past year" [1]
- "Electric vehicles are less reliable than gas cars, according to a survey of UK drivers." [1]
- "Kia was the most reliable EV maker in the study, while Tesla was the least reliable." [1]
- "Consumer Reports Still Ranks Tesla Reliability 27th Out Of 28" [2]
- "The Model Y still has body hardware issues with the tailgate and door alignment, paint defects, and multiple other problems." [2]
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-least-reliable-ev-bran...
[2]: https://insideevs.com/news/549130/consumerreports-tesla-reli...
This is one of those things where it's quite clear to me there's news and there's immutable fact. My friends have Teslas and they have never brought it into the shop. Everyone I know with one says they don't trust FSD entirely but love the car and use AP all the time.
It's like the iPhone. When it was released to years afterwards, enthusiasts breathlessly posted about how it was nothing like the Nokia whatever or the Windows Mobile whatever.
They posted about the factories and who was first and established companies and articles about how the iPhone had no copy and paste or this or that.
Meanwhile, the iPhone surged ahead. Everyone I knew who had one raved. It was apparent that the enthusiasts were blindsided. People without an opinion were buying this device. It was going to rule!
Same with Teslas. Rave reviews from my network of early buyers of their non-sports-car. Online all sorts of warnings and complaints. Years later, rave reviews from my friends. Turns out it works out. People online can find 400 sources for their stuff. The factories are in tents. There are gaps in the panels. FSD isn't fully self driving.
But people love it. And now we find ourselves at immutable fact: best selling car in the world.
Can confirm that it’s an iPad on wheels. I love my old suv, really great car but the Model Y is like getting off a horse and into a space ship.
There are features on this car that should be standard on every car in the planet, and one thing Tesla will accomplish over the next few years is force car manufacturers to implement those features. And not nickel and dime you for premium audio in two trims out of 12 and list 160 features on an about this car page. It’s bananas. Anyone that’s ever bought a Tesla will never step a foot into a dealership to be talked down by some kid about how they need to check with the manager about the price of a some mid fit bs suv, while trying to sell you a tire warranty.
I am not sure to understand this dissonance... I owned a model 3 since April 2019, and also I had zero issue. The only time I went to the Tesla center it was to receive the car. It is so nice to not have to see a car dealer or gas station since April 2019. There is no way I could go back to another car. Even an EV, most of them are ICE cars with electric powertrain, with way too many buttons or dials, and no integration. The iPhone comparison is pretty good. You have to experience it to realize the gap. The software/hardware integration makes the difference, but you have to experience it to fully appreciate it.
Meanwhile, a coworker got a Model S and after 2 service visits ended up having to change his entire wiring harness. On a vehicle with less than 100 miles.
Okay then, our anecdotes then explain this dissonance.
I can understand that someone who had to bring twice his car feels like it is unreliable, and someone who never had to visit once nor feels like it is the most reliable car.
It’s true. Luxury cars using brand new technology are less reliable that cheap and simple cars with old fashioned technologies.
The first Tesla model S were particularly not very reliable. Lot of equipments, new vertical integration from Tesla on many parts, unreliable premium technology such as air suspension…
The model 3 and y are a bit better. The electric (not hybrid) BMW i3 from the same period has been one of the most reliable BMW, a more experienced brand with ICE cars having similar equipment.
If you wanted reliability in 2013, a base Dacia was probably a better choice.
I've a 20 year old BMW that's never given me any grief with the air suspension. Air suspension is not new technology and it wasn't new when my car was built.
Well, I have a relative that bought an x5 used. The vehicle was about 10 years old at the time and in good condition. In the precessing months the airbags fail(both rear I think). He lives in a country where parts are easy to come by for BMW's it's a mostly Japanese car market there. I had to ship him the airbags. He sold the thing right after installing them. I expected the airbags to be more expensive though.
Depending on the climate you'll start to see steel (coil and leaf) springs start to rust away by ten years. Meanwhile the Tesla S was introduced in 2012 which puts the majority of the problems in cars younger than your relative's X5.
The previous owner replaced the air bags (springs) on my car so I couldn't say if they actually failed or if he did as part of a refresh when he lowered the car. They're not super expensive, but the aftermarket ones are that much cheaper. Of course the X5 (especially the first generation) is one of the least reliable vehicles BMW's brought to market. It's the electronics and pump that get real pricey, but on the E39 they pretty much never fail.
No but air suspensions are a lot more unreliable. It’s a big sign that the car is more about comfort than reliability.
In twenty years the air bags (and potentially the pump side fittings) have been replaced once. That's about on par with a conventional coil spring suspension and pretty typical for an E39. Coil springs sag, rust, and break over time (especially in areas where the roads are salted). If Tesla can't make a reliable air suspension that seems more like a Tesla problem.
From your sample size of N=1, it seems that BMW cannot either.
Aside from Tesla=good, BMW=bad, how do you figure? Replacing a spring, whether steel or air, is normal for older cars especially those that come from harsh environments. My car in particular was older than any Tesla S is today when the air bags were replaced. The pump and electronics are still original.
Any Tesla that's had problems with its air suspension got a shorter service life than I (and plenty of other E39 owners) did. Besides Tesla's struggles with their conventional suspension components are well documented in a series of non-OTA recalls.
I have a hard time to believe those articles, from my anecdotal experience of owning a model 3 since April 2019, I had zero (0) issue, no recall, no oil change, nothing. Feels like cheating. I did change a tire (well 2 because they come in pairs) because I drove on a piece of metal poking one tire. Nothing due to Tesla. I do not even brake, so those brake pads would last a very long time... You really have to try it, it is quite impressive.
> EVs are practically 0-maintenance machines. Unless you need to change your tires... you just don't think about oil changes or motor belts breaking or engine filters clogging and all the other nonsense that breaks in an ICE car.
Until your AC fails in your s/x outside of warranty, or you get unlucky enough to have your Y's heat pump fall apart like thousands of people in cold climates have over the last few years. Both repairs are $5000+ and seem to happen much faster than similar issues in conventional vehicles with belt driven AC compressors.
FWIW I've been driving German cars my whole life and never had one break. Never had to think about motor belts or engine filters - just visit a garage for planned maintenance every year or whatever miles the manual states.
Tesla are an amazing company, that made EVs mainstream, but I'm never going to buy one. They don't know what the word "privacy" means.
Counter point, I drove a new German car and had the turbo blow up (this was an "economy" car) within 4,000 miles. I still loved that car, but ICE engines have an order of magnitude more points of failure.
I had my first two engines on my current car (2007, current engine 2013) replaced before finally having a reliable car (manufacturer paid for both replacements after noting there were defects and not anything I had done).
some times stuff is just borked up until a certain point and some of us get unlucky with the quicker to die versions.
sucks, but we need to look at the averages, not the outliers.
* editing to add that I would still recommend my car make and model, because it's just so damned awesome, but I would hate for others to go through what I went through.
True, but car industry has an order of magnitude more experience making ICE engines and turbo blow up on a new car is extremely rare.
Doesn't really matter, obviously EVs are the future.
This thought just came to me, but industrial electric motors have been around a loooong time.
I think the growing pains we are seeing is that new companies are trying to build cars, and don’t have the experience of traditional automakers.
There’s a heck of a lot of institutional knowledge that goes into integrating all the components of a car. The newcomers have simplified a lot of it, but are definitely hitting some of the stumbling blocks of old.
For comparison, here's the Tesla maintenance schedule: none.
That's how they achieved the "least reliable" award.
Yet their Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty only extends for four years or 50,000 miles.
EVs don't have mechanical drivetrains but they still have chassis and suspension which can cause many problems.
Is that magic Tesla schedule or any EV schedule?
I think it is the goal for all EV companies. But for instance some had some mechanical issues that required recalls. And since most car manufacturers used 3rd party parts (Bosch, etc.) they cannot guarantee that there would be no recall (e.g. airbags, etc.). But so far my model 3 (April 2019) did not get a single recall. And during those 4 years I did not have to change anything but a flat tire. It is a peace of mind to know that there are so fewer ways to break the car, than with a ICE.
huh, I read that in a completely different way than you. my brain inserted an Oxford comma:
> don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car or a Tesla
became
> don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car, or a Tesla
since the addition of the article "a" seemed to change the meaning. had it been
> don't want the unreliability of a German luxury car or Tesla
it would have conveyed even different meaning to me.
I'm kind of curious what the GP's post actually meant at this point.
That's not what an Oxford comma is, FYI. I think GGPs interpretation is grammatically correct but I agree that the phrasing is ambiguous. But given Tesla's documented unreliability one can assume what they meant...
A relative of mine has owned a Tesla for about three years which has spent more time inoperable than all of the ice cars I have owned combined. Teslas break in all sorts of ways and it can take months to get parts.
Maybe EVs will be longer lasting and lower maintenence on average in the long run, but we won't really know until the average EV age catches up with ICE cars.
Tesla's in particular are inordinately dependent on a single company for parts and repairs. That increases the risk of being able to easily maintain an older car in the future.
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You're the one that sounds like a bot. Owned a Tesla for the past 5 years, zero issues.
Yeah, I’ve spent about five or six times as much servicing my Honda Odyssey over the last three years as my Tesla. And, my Tesla isn’t zero-maintenance but most of the service has involve me parking my car on my driveway and waiting for the mobile tech to show up.
It's encouraging to note that most model Y cars ("standard range") use lithium iron phosphate batteries, which have far fewer problem with fires than lithium iron. Energy density per kilogram of lithium iron phosphate batteries is lower, but has been improving slowly. Tesla had to buy the technology from BYD.
I suspect that in a few years, batteries capable of thermal runaway will be prohibited. They're becoming unnecessary.
We've been using liquid hydrocarbons capable of thermal runaway (petrol/gasoline) for a century despite the existence of liquid hydrocarbons which are more resistant to ignition (diesel).
LFP chemistry will certainly become increasingly dominant over the next few years, particularly now that key patents have expired. But it doesn't supplant all usages of NMC yet, and isn't likely to for some time.
You're mixing up LFP (LiFePo4 aka Lithium Ferrum(Iron) Phosphate) with NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt). NMC are lighter and more firey.
LFP can have similar density since you don't need the same amount of protection in the pack. It's a system level win.
Iron ion and phosphate are the same LiFePO4. Compared to cobalt ones it has lower nominal voltage, and higher recharge cycles, less energy density as well.
> Tesla had to buy the technology from BYD.
I'd be terrified of driving a car with byd battery tech. There are countless videos of their cars just spontaneously combusting while driving on a road, sitting on a parking lot without charging etc...
I'd imagine most Model Ys are LRs. The standard range wasn't even listed normally until like a month ago.
As a cyclist, there isn't any car on the road that scares me more than these. The drivers are worse than aggressive truck drivers.
Given that it's the best selling car, maybe it's just that people are generally horrible at driving? At least in my area the drivers of these seem an order of magnitude more clueless than any others.
Purely anecdata but I spend a lot of time walking and cycling, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Tesla Y/3 drivers are up there with BMW (higher end newer model) drivers as the most arrogant and oblivious drivers on the road. It’s actually kind of impressive how those cars have so many driver aids, yet they still manage to drive like drunk 16yr old learners.
It's interesting because there used to be a similar cliche about Prius drivers being terrible when they were a new sensation.
Maybe there's something about people who are first adopters of "environmentally friendly" cars feeling a sense of moral license, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing, and end up being less conscientious on the road as a result.
Or maybe the rest of us just notice these bad drivers more because the cars stick out on the road as new and unusual.
Or maybe the drivers tend to just be rich, distracted assholes.
It’s definitely related to the moral license thing in my opinion. As a cyclist there are a lot of bad drivers out there, but I’ve learned to treat every Tesla like I do lifted trucks. I think they feel that they are at the top of the moral hierarchy and forget about pedestrians and cyclists completely.
Not all of them, obviously, but enough.
Or maybe drivers are like that exist in similar amounts across brands and models, but human nature means we only think to attach a driver's behaviour to the brand/class of vehicle when we're primed to do so.
I've noticed that with taxis. In my city, taxi drivers have a reputation for driving like arseholes. I thought this too, but I started paying more attention and I realised that the vast majority of taxi drivers were driving entirely unremarkably. Before when I saw something which confirmed a prejudice, I thought it was more evidence in favour of that prejudice; now I realise that it was the Texas sharpshooter fallacy all along.
It seems to be true for just about every prejudice I've ever been told about. BMW drivers use their indicators just as often as anyone else. Owners of cheap Toyotas are just as likely to drive unreasonably fast as owners of high powered sports cars.
The main irritant about initial Prius drivers was that they were a pain in the ass for going so goddamn slow--a LOT of them were "hypermiling".
This is different from the Tesla drivers who think that their acceleration always lets them cut in front of people.
Big fast car with an automatic transmission is a recipe for you getting forced out of your lane by someone in over 5000lbs of metal who thinks their time is more important than considering your life by changing lanes to pass. O-60 entirely silently in 3 seconds, you won't even realize you are going fast enough to kill someone instantly.
They're definitely not silent at 60.
Relatively speaking an EVs 3s 0-60 is ~silent compared to any ICE doing the same 0-60 time.
That level of acceleration generally requires a pretty rowdy ICE with the taps wide open.
Honestly, as someone who bikes all the time, there's very little difference at 50km/h from the amount of sound coming from an EV vs an ICE.
> Honestly, as someone who bikes all the time, there's very little difference at 50km/h from the amount of sound coming from an EV vs an ICE.
This is about the acceleration from 0-60 in 3 seconds.
Because of how quietly a fast EV can perform this feat, the argument is that it's encouraging bad/antisocial driving behavior in general.
When an ICE does that sort of 0-60 time the whole neighborhood hears about it. That alone has a moderating effect on most drivers behavior even if their ICE vehicle is capable of it.
you're not silent by the time you hit 60 even if it feels that way in the car. It makes a significant amount of noise at 30mph
> you're not silent by the time you hit 60 even if it feels that way in the car. It makes a significant amount of noise at 30mph
Everything's relative, and relative to an ICE automobile executing a 3-second 0-60 time, an EV doing the same is silent.
Silent enough to make the driver far more likely to do it and convince themselves they're doing it without being antisocial.
But at this point you're just willfully ignoring the correctness of that statement and I'm basically talking to a piece of sheetrock.
and relative to actual silence, it's not silent.
Yup, an Audi RS3 for example, is not quite when doing that at all...
https://youtu.be/ZTrfpahATpc?t=82
Seems pretty quiet in the cabin getting to 60 in under 2 seconds with the plaid.
Outside the car the tires make quite a lot noise.
You realize the cabin audio is background audio in that video -- edited to be much lower volume than the foreground narrator, right?
Like, how about I share a video of a hellcat 0-60 but turn down the audio to 1% and call it quiet?
I have noticed this too and I feel it's because of the higher acceleration. It may give the drivers the feeling that they can insert themselves in even closer encounters because the car is more responsive.
Ever notice how some minivan drivers go way too fast for the size of their vehicle? Some think it is because the good forward visibility gives the drivers too much confidence. 3 and Y may have the same good visibility "problem" due to the sloping hood and the non existing dashboard.
I have a GoPro 360 and ride every day to work and back in SF. I curate my video afterwards for interesting scenes. Nothing notable about car makes. "Keep Tahoe Blue" Ancient Subaru? Signal free lane change into bike lane. G Wagon with no licence plate on the front? Signal free lane change into bike lane.
When I used to ride my motorcycle the vehicle that put me in the hospital was a Prius. Tesla Model S cars are wide and annoying to lane split against but the drivers are just drivers.
Ultimately, this appears to be purely a cultural thing. People want to say that someone else is not better than them. So they will find some way to attach some unlikeable attribute to them.
Imho it's just culturally taken the place of the Beamer for the same kind of drivers.
You know, the old "despite its good brakes, the BMW will usually stop with a jerk".
The car is a giant smartphone with a distracted driver
I cycle a lot in Berlin. My observation is that EVs are far safer to be around because the car will hit the breaks before the driver gets into any trouble. Big ICE cars on the other hand are the worst. SUVs are the worst. I constantly get cut off by obnoxious drivers aggressively driving from traffic light to traffic light, cutting off people, breaking the speed limit, running red lights, double parking, or slamming their door in your face because they can't bothered to look around then. German traffic rule enforcement is very hands off so there is a lot of this going on. I deal with this on a daily basis.
I stopped cycling a few years ago. It just isn't fun or safe any more. It's been getting worse and worse. I would go out and literally every single ride would involve a near-death experience.
Cars were a huge mistake.
People are generally horrible at driving. But then giving them a big, fast SUV with absurd levels of acceleration available is a horrible choice, and so hearing that this is the best seller should definitely strike fear into our hearts.
Corollas are tiny and like a relic of a bygone era. These new vehicles shouldn’t be more agile on top of being way bigger.
Given Tesla and truck hate Cybertruck is going to be ultimate. Lucky they are making it from a solid steel.
I've often wished there was some kind of tiny beacon cyclists and pedestrians could carry to electronically alert those kinds of cars/drivers.
Yeah it's incorrectly shifting the responsibility to the victim but at this point whatever prevents injury/death/stress.
The problem is it would be abused to trick drivers.
No need, the cars already see cyclists and pedestrians and have emergency braking. A transponder system is just a worse version of the existing solution.
The cars don't see cyclists and pedestrians consistently or in time or interpret them correctly.
All Tesla sensors have been reduced to just cameras which can fail in weather, fog, rain, snow.
Remember Musk outsources safety for savings/profit as someone else's expensive problem.
A beacon could save lives for those who are active and willing to carry it as one extra level of protection.
But like I said the problem is spoofing for those that want to be an irritant.
People said the same thing about the Prius when it was the most popular car.
Except that prius took 10 seconds to go to 60mph and this tesla takes 3. Lead foot + silent car + crazy fast 0-60 = people driving like a GTA game.
There's plenty of people driving like it's GTA in their dog-slow base model nissan altimas and ram 2500s, more BEVs isn't gonna change the fact that a large chunk of society are selfish and antisocial.
Having a fast car like that also makes road diets less effective, if a car can get up to 60mph in an instant after a speed bump. The altima would take say 10 seconds of the engine sounding like its very angry with you, there wouldn't be time to get up to 60mph before the next speed bump perhaps, and if you drove like that everywhere you went you'd get like 10mpg maybe.
It truly makes no sense why the NHTSA seemingly works so hard with crash testing, yet they see no problems with a 5000lb family sedan that goes faster than a Ferrari F40.
From what I've heard, most crash testing focuses on car-on-car crashes, instead of car-on-pedestrian. The inevitable result is big and fast cars efficient at killing pedestrians.
And don't forget the lack of control knobs. The stupid touch interface takes drivers attention away from the road.
As a cyclist, I haven't noticed anything like that. I suspect some internal bias towards EVs or against Elon or something is making you notice a pattern that isn't there.
Tesla drivers statistically have significantly less accidents than other vehicles. So, by the data, they can't be worse than other drivers.
How are the cars compared?
yeah of course. because as we all know, accidents are the only indicator of bad driving
It seems like they would be a reliable indicator of bad driving, and moreover, the primary one.
If you're being cut off or they are not using their indicators or if they park in your lane or they drive really close behind you or they use too much space when turning a corner or they simply don't see you because they're looking left rather than right or they are using their mobile device or they take your right of way or they change lanes without looking...
they are bad drivers without accidents because everyone else is watching out for them.
It may be just a UK thing but I find Tesla drivers the least aggressive of all expensive car drivers.
If I see a Range Rover, Mercedes, Audi, BMW or any large pick-up in my rear view mirror I expect to be aggressively tailgated and I'm generally correct. This has not happened to me with a Tesla, that I can recall.
Yeah. I assume teslas are using the lane following thing most of the time.
it’s because Tesla drivers know the AI will save them from making any mistakes /s
I have heard second hand accounts from friends who have been hit by Teslas whose drivers tried to claim innocence because they were convinced their car would definitely have told them if they hit something and it didn't.
I have also heard urban legends.
Yeah, but the spontaneous battery fires really help light the way at night in areas where the streetlights are poor.
Maybe watch less sensational news and go outside more. I wouldn't feel so immune in your combustion car. You know what combustion means? You'd be surprised to know they also combust unexpectedly and on impact
Much of this reflects the chip shortage that Toyota is facing, and how difficult new Corollas are to actually come by. The typical wait time for a Corolla is now 1 year+ in major urban centers of Canada.
How chip shortage still a thing? It’s not that car chips are 5nm even. Toyota should be able to put its weight just like Tesla does.
From what I remember, basically everything that isn't a phone or computer is on older process nodes that once were cutting edge. Some of these are so old that it doesn't make economic sense anymore to scale up capacity, or it might not even be possible anymore to easily do so.
As a result you have production lines that were reasonably well suited for demand pre-covid, now having to deal with everyone stocking up on way more parts than they need because they don't want to deal with shortages again.
Tesla rewrote their software to use newer chips as soon as the crisis hit.
Toyota could have done that a long time ago (they know a thing or two about supply chain, don't they?) but they prefer to keep the shortage as an excuse for their poor sales performance.
Considering the hackers news post about Toyota firmware having 10,000 global variables, I'm not so sure they can rewrite their software. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643551
This isn't just about microcontrollers that run software. There's shortages in MOSFETs, motor drivers, power regulation chips, you name it.
Half of it is the buying process.
100%. Automakers go on about the "dealership experience", but I have never hated my life more than when trying to by a car at a local dealership.
- Had a confirmed appointment but when I showed up I still had to wait 45 minutes.
- Salespeople were clueless about the features of the car they were trying to sell. I knew more after 30 minutes of online research and had to constantly call out their bullshit.
- The car I had reserved was somehow no longer available, and then they tried to upsell me on extras I didn't want.
- I wanted manufacturer financing but they told me that wouldn't be possible and I had to get theirs at a much higher rate. I again had to threaten to walk out to get the advertised rate.
- All the dealerships in the area had priced their vehicles at $10K over MSRP, and the extra was pure profit for them. Heck they were making significantly more money on the car than the manufacturer themselves, all because of a government mandated monopoly.
And all this was for a >$50K luxury vehicle.
Meanwhile a friend configured a Tesla online and it showed up at his doorstep a couple weeks later, with the exact advertised price, financing and selections.
I've heard it's even worse if you want to buy an EV.
Dealerships make half their money from the service department. EV's require very little service. So they don't want to sell and EV, and it shows.
Go to a Ford dealer and try to buy a Mustang Mach-E and they'll try really hard to convince you to buy an ICE Mustang.
The worst dealership experience I ever had was when I was buying my first car back in 2003. I was 21 at the time, and I just wanted something reliable and efficient that I could carry friends in. I told sales people that it must have 4 doors, A/C, and under $10K. And one of them tries to sell me a Pontiac Sunfire convertible for $12K. I re-iterated what I was looking for. Reliable, efficient, 4-door, A/C, under $10K. He showed me an $13K Mustang. I thanked him for wasting my time and left.
Tesla makes is so damn easy. I had a similar experience as your friend. I spent 30 seconds minutes choosing the configuration (Model 3 Performance, blue, no FSD, black interior), filled out the online credit application, and a week later, picked up the car from the service center downtown. The delivery experience was just as simple. Just had to sign some final delivery paperwork and some DMV paperwork that was already printed and just needed a quick scan and signature. Less than 5 minutes, and the car was mine. I was blown away how fast it was. I literally said to the guy there, "That's it? The car is mine and I can drive away now?". I was incredulous.
Dealerships could easily make the experience this easy if they wanted, but no, they want to play games with you to fuck you over.
I test drove the BMW ix, Mercedes EQS and Model Y last year and ended up with the Y which is my second Tesla.
The BMW and Mercedes experiences were a frustrating combo of the usual dealership tactics, large price markups and many of the options being unavailable in the US. The Y was also superior on features like storage. The BMW has neither a frunk or a sub trunk like the Tesla. Both the BMW and the Mercedes don’t allow the end user to open the hood at all.
> Go to a Ford dealer and try to buy a Mustang Mach-E and they'll try really hard to convince you to buy an ICE Mustang.
At least in EV-forward markets, this isn't much of a thing anymore, simply because they can't fight the fact that EVs have become the new aspirational cars.
You're being downvoted but I'm not sure you're entirely wrong.
I'm currently buying a Rivian Truck, pricing is straightforward and I could be buying a T-Shirt on a Shopify site. Simple, I know the price and the experience, while not always easy, has been straightforward.
My wife has suddenly needed a new car and leans towards a Mercedes or Audi EV and we're suddenly slammed back into going onto a lot and dealing with the normal car sales bullshit and it's a nuisance. Just test driving a car (which is a fairly significant thing for someone who's not driven an EV) is a high pressure situation.
I was in the EV market recently and managed to test drive an Audi E-Tron. I'll probably never forget how casually the salesman told me that they were marking them up $5K over MRSP and still had a 10 month waitlist. I walked out of there pretty quick. Who's putting up with this?!
Car dealers really have no leverage. You can walk out at any time up until signing the paperwork, and just go to another dealer.
Yes but their job is literally to manipulate you into buying a car then and there. They play all sorts of dirty tricks to get there.
For sure, so you just gotta be that tree that bends but doesn't break with the wind. Always keep a mental and emotional distance and be ready to walk at any moment.
I ended up looking at some cars late last year, and the worst part was one of the dealer salespeople trying to pull that ridiculous "my boss won't like the deal I'm about to offer so why don't we talk outside" bullshit on me.
* In the US
worlds best selling car. Remember that the Tesla buying process is known as the "car buying process" since forever, outside the US, at least in the kind of countries where people buy expensive cars.
This is wrong. I grew up in Australia and the dealership model is the same there as the US. I don't know what countries specifically you are talking about, but the idea that you could easily buy a car online in the configuration you want for a standard price since forever is clearly wrong.
I don't understand what you wrote. Are you saying that outside the US, every manufacturer offers low-friction online sales, with no need to visit a dealer?
Because I don't think that's entirely true...
My understanding is that outside the US there's not the whole dealership model with it's associated markup as we have here in the US. You still have dealers but buying a car is just picking off a menu of options, pay the same price at every dealership and wait a few weeks for your car.
I got a 2015 Volvo with their "European Pickup" option and even though you went through a US based dealership that was how it worked. Also they didn't "package" options. You didn't need to get some "Cold Weather Package" to just get heated seats for example every option was ala-carte at a fixed price.
Seems a big part of this is Tesla's minimal and globally available product line (which I commend them for). Other automakers produce a huge number of variants within and between markets. That dilutes the sales of any single model.
For other car-makers they are bundling multiple SKU's. For example, the second place finisher is the Toyota Corolla/Levin/Allion/Lingshang which are all basically but not quite the same car.
Yes this I think is the key difference - perhaps its a strategic move or perhaps some other reason (i.e. low relative volume) but the fact that most other automakers have upwards of 25+ SKUs versus 4 SKUs for Tesla.
In fact for Toyota there are some 15+ Toyota SKUs and 15+ Lexus SKUs - ranging in price from the Corolla (compact) to the Sienna (minivan) to the BRZ (youth sports car) to the BZ4X (CUV EV) to the LS500 (executive sedan) to the Landcruiser (guerrilla infantry vehicle).
I’m really surprised about this. I live in the capital city of an European country (~50M people) and I don’t think I’ve seen even one, maybe it’s not sold here? I see a fair number of model 3 and a few S, though.
It's because Tesla has so few models. Every other manufacturer has an order of magnitude (or two orders) more models you can buy. Some brands have more EV models than Tesla does.
Just counting them, sure, but do they really? Most Auto makers cover reach segment, sub-compact, compact, full-size, and SUV, and just vary the offering within that class. Eg the Honda Civic sub-compact comes in EX, EX-L, LX, Type-R, Sport, Touring, and more. But meanwhile the Model S comes in a plethora of combinations of battery sizes and motor configs. Tesla covers 4 segments, full-size, compact, SUV (X) and SUV (Y). Other automakers do cover more eg sports and truck, but there's the roadster and the Cybertruck to contend with. Point being, if you just consider segments and configuration s per-segment, I'm not convinced Tesla is that far behind.
The Model Y looks a lot like the Model 3.
Took me maybe 50 cars of training to learn to recognise the difference when passing Teslas on the streets.. but now I finally do! :)
This might be it! I didn’t know they were so similar. I’ll pay more attention.
i live in amsterdam and i see teslas literally every day.
hell, a guy parks his tesla in front of my house daily to use the public charger.
I was talking specifically about the model Y, I do see teslas around.
There are a fair few of them in London, mainly model 3s I think.
Part of this is because cars are losing out to trucks.
https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/light-trucks-now-outselli....
https://www.statista.com/statistics/204212/north-america-car...
Reading comments here about Tesla Y. And my impression is that the build quality and everything got substantially better over the years.
This. I bought an early model 3, and a a slightly later MY. The Y is far better quality wise (but even the 3 is still a great car)
Does this include pre-sale statements or finalized deliveries only? It is one thing to have a high number of corporate pre-order it is quite another to have cars on the road.
Sales are only accounted on delivery, that is when title is transferred.
I bought one of these and love it - it’s the best vehicle I have ever owned. The supercharger network eliminates any range anxiety or dealing with slow or barely functional chargers. Yes, the spartan interior leaves a bit to be desired, but where it lacks in physical qualities it makes up for in continuously improving software & UX.
The experience of using it is a joy daily, simply put (and I’ve owned other EV’s previously).
I will be getting a Model X next.
Imagine if Toyota would've just made a simple, but nicely build electric car 3-5 years ago. Pretty foolish mistake.
They had a 10 year head start on EVs (well, Hybrids), with the Prius and blew it.
Worse: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs...
Even worse is they had multiple generations of a RAV4 EV, which they stopped manufacturing in 2014. They made it along side Tesla in the same plant that now makes Model Ys.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
Funny that now they have the Rav4 Prime, which by some metrics is a top contender in the plugin-hybrid space.
How much does this really matter? I feel like Tesla is strong in the market because they figured out how to market an EV as a sports car. Toyota was never going to do that.
It probably doesn’t matter. There are plenty of people who want simpler cars, but still want an electric drive train. There must be loads of us holding out for a Corolla or Camry like EV.
I don’t understand why Toyota has not produced a model like this and is doubling down on their Hybrids and hydrogen engines.
In the US it was the experience I think. Just like Uber in some markets where taxis were a shitty experience before, buying a car was (apparently) a crappy experience in the US before Tesla. But that's a very local phenomenon. Not sure about the sports car thing though. It's not much difference between a Model Y and a Mach-E or Polestar2 when it comes to this. Tesla did have the performance angle because they were early movers and compared to an ICE car their entire lineup is obviously looking pretty snappy.
Most buyers though just want a boring reliable car. If a known and Trusted brand made a car that was just 10% more expensive and 10% less attractive on specs than a Tesla, then Toyota would eat their lunch I think.
Why not? Toyota sells sports cars.
Toyota's sports cars actually show pretty well at how adverse they are to making them.
The Supra has a BMW engine, a BMW gearbox and a BMW interior with a BMW infotainment system, while the Toyota 86 is a joint project between Toyota and Subaru, with a Subaru engine and built in Subaru's plant.
What about the Corolla GR and Yaris GR, though?
They’re definitely Toyota cars but not really sports cars. They’re just hot versions of the Corolla and Yaris, which are definitely not sports cars. Unless we also define the Tesla Model S Plaid, BMW M3 and the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG as sports cars.
The Yaris GR is not a hot version of the Yaris. It's designed as a homologation special with a new chasis (there's no regular 3 door Yaris) and engine. Calling it a hot yaris is a bit like calling the Renault 5 Turbo a hot Renault 5.
The Corolla is closer to a hot Corolla as it uses the same chasis.
An electric Toyota Supra would easily outsell most Tesla's. It's a much nicer looking car than anything I've seen come from Tesla, the interior is so well done too.
It's a shame they've lost it.
The Toyota Supra looks nice but it only holds 2 people and has no cargo capacity. Sports cars like that will always be low-volume niche products regardless of whether they're electric or not.
I meant to say in the sports car category.
Tesla currently sells zero cars in the sports car category. I guess it could be possible for Toyota to outsell zero with an electric BMW Supra.
They don’t sell a sports car but they also kind of sell sports cars.
Everything they sell seems to be a bit if everything. I find their cars really ugly.
the Prius prime is a legitimately pretty great hybrid, but it took them a shocking long time to get there.
A hybrid car is a very complicated machine - more so than an EV, a turbo petrol or a diesel.
Turbos aren't very simple. The 'toyota synergy' style hybrid transaxle is a whole lot less complicated than most transaxles too. ICE cars already had an electric starter motor, so it's just adding a second electric motor and some batteries and a charging circuit.
The benefits are clear. Immense range, lower fuel consumption, longer maintenance intervals vs an ICE only, etc.
turbos are cheap and reliable, its very rare to see blown turbos on maintained non-modified cars with the exception of BMW putting them in the valley of the V8 engine and other idiotic designs.
Most turbo failures are from not doing oil changes on time or crappy modified ECU tunes.
ICE engines are incredible feats of engineering. Meanwhile, you need 2, maybe 3 parts to make an electric motor. They are dead simple. Even the control is just an inverter drive.
A turbo has about as many parts as the entire electric drivetrain. There's just a lot less to go wrong and you don't need lubrication or maintenance for solid-state non-moving parts.
I think maybe you are understating the complexity as "just an inverter drive" - highlighted by the fact so many telsas have had drive unit replacements.
right, but so are batteries and electric motors. hybrids give you a modest engine simplification and better efficiency at the cost of a second simpler type of engine.
The Prius has been around for over 20 years. They've had PLENTY of time to figure out how to make it not suck.
It's advantage for Toyota. They really should pushed PHEVs earlier like 2015, before Tesla M3 was sold.
The ability to go fast does not make it a good cars. In fact, this is mistake that many US carmakers made. As Toyota focused on reliability, their faster competitors ultimately ended up being abandoned since nothing turns away customers like a dead car.
You can compare Tesla to Hyundai. I was leaning towards Hyundai or a Kia last month, mainly because of Tesla stigma here.
After comparing price (Hyundai/Kia 10% more) and features (lol) Tesla is easily a winner. Sure it's not for everyone, but driving traditional car feels weird now. Car without an app or phone key just feels unbelievable.
Prius prime and rav4 prime are a thing.
Because there is very little point in making a battery powered car. Toyota was told the same thing but with diesel cars. In reality, all those went too far with diesel cars made a mistake. The story will repeat itself with battery cars.
but Toyota sells more cars in a year than Tesla has in the past decade? And no, if they made an EV it probably wouldn't be selling like hotcakes, because an EV is largely an irrational choice for most people (looking at you, guys chilling in your cars on top of the Target in Laurel Heights in SF, waiting for that 80% in 30 minutes) and Toyota isn't good at making something super desirable. All that aside, most workhorses running around today, shuttling passengers and food delivery seem to be old, clapped out Priuses. Can't argue with 45mpg and ultra low running costs, barring the occasional stolen catalytic converter.
Toyota sells more cars in a year than Tesla has in the past decade?
Well they'd just be even more dominate if they sold a fully EV corolla without all the "tech" BS every Tesla comes with.
But hydrogen cars are the future! /s
Hydrogen cars are the future. This is just another fad green movement in the car industry.
> There were 400 NTHSA recalls issued in 2022, impacting more than 25 million vehicles. Of those vehicles, Teslas scored four of the top five spots on the list, according to the price-tracking car search engine iSeeCars.com
teslas are also expected to have the highest number of recalls over a 30 year lifetime
https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a43625242/tesla-...
Most Tesla recalls are applied in owner driveways, while the owners are asleep, because they're software.
Article talks about sales in Australia, but there was also a lot sold in China in 2023.
So new market sales numbers, will they hold up in coming years?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/tesla-sal...
This is largely due to China, right? It doesn't appear that Tesla is even close to this title in the US market.
Probably Norway and other places where government subsidies make it an easy decision to get a Tesla because it's affordable. The majority of US automotive buyers can't afford a basic model 3.
> The majority of US automotive buyers can't afford a basic model 3.
You say that in a country where three at least $40k+ full size pickups are the best selling models.
Model 3 is available new for less than the average US vehicle price https://fortune.com/2023/02/21/tesla-model-3-sells-5000-less...
Then why the hell are they so expensive? I'd like to be all in on electric, but my car budget is 30k, why do they pile so much fancy crap on them? I want a go pedal, a stop pedal and a window crank. You can keep all the rest of the crap for the luxury cars.
This. I'd happily buy a minimalist electric car (bonus if they can use/create off the shelf parts) but I'm not going to pay extra.
Then again my two cars and yacht are all used beaters.
I am not considering them because they keep taking away more and more (hardware) features over the years. No parking sensors is an instant no buy for me. Already had horrible experiences with their vision based wiper automation.
Agree that vision based wipers are meh. I think it has something to do with the position of the front facing cameras behind the windshield; water seems to just hit that spot differently vs where you look out.
My experience with the vision based parking system so far has been great though. The experience is pretty much the same in the vehicle as it was with ultrasonic sensors. There is also a pile of YouTube videos where you can see people testing weird scenarios and checking the on-screen distance from objects with a tape measure. It’s pretty solid.
ICE makers now face a huge risk of unsold inventory.
Imagine Toyota with even 2-3% unsold due to people wanting electric or keeping their old Toyota's that last forever.
Thus, they're stuck in a pattern of under-building that reduces demand due to the many alternatives - it could be a vicious cycle.
Couple that with access to China: Toyota not so much, but Tesla is allowed to sell there because it put a factory there and uses BYD batteries. That's another vicious cycle: dealing with the devil to access that market only empowers the devil.
So it has little to do with EV's or with the Tesla model Y.
A SUV is the best selling car of the year till now instead of a sedan and this is all done in order to fight "climate change". How can normal people can take this discourse as being serious anymore?
I bought a used Mercury Grand Marquis 2009 in perfect condition one year ago and I don't see why would I want to part with it in the next 20 years or so. Grain leather interior that is not making any sounds on road bumps, no touchscreen bs, super smooth ride thanks to rear air suspension. Sure it can't accelerate as fast as an EV, but I just want have a relaxed pleasing experience, not accelerations. It's V8 also makes pleasing sounds when going uphill.
And I paid just 6k for it. I'd rather double the normal maintenance for it than buy a Tesla.
I'm not a fan of the S because it's too big.
The gull doors on the X are awkward.
The 3 is quite nice.
The problem I have with Teslas is R2R DRM. They're also still unaffordable in the US, which doesn't advance the elimination of ICEs.
Any speculation why model Y is selling better than model 3?
Because the market for a sedan is drying up. People are looking for SUVs and people like me who we’re looking for an SUV in 2023, found themselves staring at 40-44k price tag for the same thing we got 4 years ago, for 31-33k. So after EV tax credit a model y is literally a no brainer.
It’s so ridiculous that I didn’t bother looking at Tesla at all in 2022. You are going to get out of your CRV, CX5, RAV4, Highlander, and straight into a model Y and it will feel like you went from a flip phone to an iPhone.
Easy, crossovers are just more popular. Slightly bigger and a hatchback. Much more practical.
Also, ubiquitous rear cameras make the longstanding rear visibility issues of hatchbacks basically nonexistent.
The Model Y has the tiniest rear window in human history, presumably for this reason.
People typically want to be able to peek behind the car while driving though.
Because Tesla is pushing the Model Y with their pricing (presumably because margins are better). The Model Y Long Range is $500 cheaper than the Model 3 Long Range after tax credits. The base Model Y is only $3.5k more expensive than the Model 3, after tax credits.
For many months you couldn't even order a Model 3 Long Range, your only option was a Model Y Long Range.
The trunk opening on the 3 is very small compared to Y
The moment you own both a 3 and one of those enormous SUV-like baby strollers, you get rid of the 3 and get something else. A Y if you liked your 3, or probably a van if not.
Model 3 interior is very small.
Since other car makers are trying to cover the market by diversifying their model lineup, this is hardly surprising. I mean, just take BMW, despite seemingly not taking EVs seriously at first, they already have more different EV models to choose from than Tesla. So even if BMW would overtake Tesla in total EV sales, the Model Y would probably still get to keep the "best selling car" title...
Even if you total up all the models from other manufacturers, it still doesn't touch the model Y or model 3 for sheer volume. Add all 4 Tesla models up and it's a bloodbath. (This is in the markets people on HN probably care about, North America and Europe. China is another matter.)
Norway is the most mature EV market in the world, and looking at 2022 numbers Tesla sold the most cars, but VW is not far behind. 21300 for Tesla (most model Y) vs 20183 for VW (most Id.4), of which the vast majority (like 90% or more) were EVs.
So Tesla is strong, but they are not crushing the market.
The BMW group sold 588,138 cars in 2023. Where is that a bloodbath?
of which how many were electric?
Figures that I have for Q1 2023 for BMW Group (which includes Mini) are: 588,138 total, including 64,647 BEV. So that's 11% BEV. IN Q1 2022, figures were: 596,907 total, including about 25,940 BEV. So it was 4.3% BEV.
Going from 4.3% BEV to 11% BEV may not sound so impressive, but little by little non Tesla BEVs are adding up, and I think many car makers are investing very seriously into it.
Historically the car market has not been one of monopoly, I don't think it's going to change with Tesla. Market shares will change, some car makers will fail to adapt, but I don't think German carmakers are the ones that will suffer the most. Japanese carmakers I have more doubt: they are moving very slowly, but on the other hand Japan knows how to manufacture batteries at scale (Panasonic), so once Toyota decides to move seriously into BEV, they might be able to move very fast.
I'm a lot more worried about my own country carmakers (Renault and Peugeot). Not only they move slowly and erratically, they are going to compete head on, on price, with Chinese carmakers...
Does it matter to BMW?
“Tesla not only beat all US luxury automakers on car sales for 2022 as a whole, but also beat them by a ridiculous margin. BMW was the former champ, and while its sales dropped by over 5% year over year, Tesla's sales grew by more than a whopping 40%.”
https://insideevs.com/news/652873/tesla-tops-bmw-us-luxury-c...
If you’re pummeling Toyota with a luxy model, the rest are just fluff.
Tesla isn’t a luxury brand.
EV batteries introduce a price premium but the Model 3 is targeting Hyundai buyers not BMW buyers. Just look at the Ionic 5 price point.
The industry disagrees with you
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42938734/tesla-best-selli... https://www.kbb.com/car-news/tesla-is-americas-best-selling-... https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-y/
I don’t see Hyundais in Palo Alto. I see Teslas. Perhaps you consider valley middle class.
There’s strong disagreement around that the model S and X might qualify as luxury cars but are missing many common characteristics like the degree of sound isolation. Some people talk about pricing, but you can spend 6 figures on a ford 150 which isn’t a Luxury brand.
https://carbuzz.com/news/lucid-delays-production-says-tesla-...
I think the point is that electric cars the digital cameras of today.
Consumers are shifting to EVs faster than expected, and it is catching some car makers (e.g. Toyota) flat footed.
> I think the point is that electric cars the digital cameras of today.
Enjoyed a brief heyday but rapidly faded as people moved on to a more convenient device?
Everyone carries one with them all the time now because the technology became miniaturized while quality shot way up? Man, I'd love for George Jetson's briefcase car to be a reality!
precisely, with waymo partnering with uber you know that personal car ownership with all the headaches that entails is drawing to a close
If everyone wants to rent the vehicle at the same time? How is renting more convenient than ownership of an autonomous vehicle?
it's not, it's more efficient and thus cheaper
BMW is fine. They already have a purely EV platform and are selling something like 10 BEV models...
Who sold the most horses in 1908?
A very rich person...
A real automotive neighsayer
it will as gas car as time goes on. BMW could be okay for a while with his customers that are looking for that vintage gas smell, sound and feel.
Why would HN people not care about sales in China?
Because they live in an alternate dimension with a peculiar market that's kinda bubbled off. China is also like a decade ahead in electrification.
All scooters in large cities have been electric for over a decade (its a weird time warp coming to taiwan and experiencing the stench of scooter on your morning commute)
They had a fully electric taxi service about 7 years ago. Inside the city medium size trucks (for delivering merchandise to stores) are all electric. They have tons of local brands that produce electric consumer cars
However the domestic market is ginormous and they only make weak attempts at going global. The international market is fragmentary and you can be arbitrarily extrajudicially curb stomped with tariffs or outright bands due to anti China hysteria
> All scooters in large cities have been electric for over a decade
A lot longer than a decade. But it depends on the city. Beijing electrified earlier (like 2004 or so), Shanghai followed, then you have smaller cities where gas was allowed for much longer.
> They had a fully electric taxi service about 7 years ago.
What city? Surely not Beijing. Maybe Shenzhen?
> Inside the city medium size trucks (for delivering merchandise to stores) are all electric.
I'm beginning to doubt you here. The delivery trikes are electric. But the small trucks that deliver merchandise to stores? Definitely not the blue trucks that are only allowed inside the 5th ring at night and cause air quality to tank after midnight.
> The international market is fragmentary and you can be arbitrarily extrajudicially curb stomped with tariffs or outright bands due to anti China hysteria
China's market is limited by their own protectionism. It is hard to tell someone to "open up" when you aren't willing to do the same yourself.
"What city? Surely not Beijing. Maybe Shenzhen?"
As you've caught on, I'm a bit fuzzy on the dates.. But I feel I was riding Caocao taxis in Chengdu around then?
"Definitely not the blue trucks that are only allowed inside the 5th ring at night and cause air quality to tank after midnight"
Yeah you're right! I was off the mark there. There are smog monsters at night thats for sure. Forgot about those haha. During the day the smaller refrigerated trucks were electric though
As to your last point.. It's not a simple topic, but protectionism in theory only hurts your own market and your own consumers. Reciprocity is kinda irrelevant
I haven’t been to chengdu since 2005 so you might be right.
Is Hackernews just getting overrun by pro-Xi commentators that make up whatever they want now? Chinese air pollution is ridiculous, and it's primarily because of their massive amount of vehicle emissions:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526014/
HN's community is large and therefore divided on divisive topics. That's more than enough to explain why there's diversity of opinion on, for example, geopolitical topics. Everyone needs to abide by the rules in the presence of such topics so that this place does not end up burning itself to a crisp. Therefore, please don't post to HN like you did here—instead, please make your substantive points respectfully and thoughtfully.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
That link points out that air pollution isn’t “primarily” due to vehicle emissions except in some cities.
"Lots of air pollution" and "lots of electric vehicles" can be true in the same sentence.
Vehicles are not the only source of severe air pollution.
* EVs are not a solution to air pollution, most air pollution from modern cars is from brakes and tyres.
* OTOH, China is really ahead in battery-powered 2-wheelers, that replace the old scooter fleet, and that ought to do something.
* Still, China's air pollution is for the main part due to massive use of coal power, incinerators, and desertification bringing sand from Gobi desert. The linked study from grand-parent doesn't even mention any of these.
The Chinese car market is full of brands that don't even try to sell their cars outside China. But it's noteworthy that Tesla is a top seller there as well, second only to local juggernaut BYD in EVs.
https://carnewschina.com/2023/02/13/ranking-of-china-market-...
It's easy to say "it's hardly surprising" now, but if you'd predicted this 4 or 5 years ago, plenty of people would have been surprised.
What sets Tesla apart right now is their manufacturing capability. They are out-competing everyone else right now on cost and scale. That's the difference between having really juicy margins on their cars produced large volume and the likes of BMW, Ford, and others actually selling EVs at a loss in comparatively tiny volumes. Every time Tesla lowers their pricing, everybody else takes a big hit.
And while Tesla takes the crown here, they aren't the only new kid on the block that is extremely successful in the EV market. The likes of BYD and other Chinese manufacturers aren't far behind and are following a similar strategy to Tesla. Cheap Chinese exports are going to do similar things to the car industry that the Japanese car industry did in the eighties. The likes of Toyota of course were part of that move and it decimated the rest of the industry. That looks like it might happen again. Except this time it's Chinese manufacturers leading here; and Tesla of course.
The game right now isn't producing more concept cars, quick and dirty ICE conversions, or yet another over priced premium SUV ev but actually tackling the less premium mass market segment. This is only possible after companies nail cost and efficiency. And most of them are nowhere close to doing that. Tesla is ramping up to start selling millions of more modestly priced cars. BYD is already shipping loads of those in China. They are ready now.
Toyota particularly is far behind. The only EVs they have in the market are actually made by BYD. These are Toyota in name only. It's a BYD with a Toyota sticker slapped on. Reason: until they replaced their CEO recently, they were stubbornly pursuing things like hybrids and hydrogen cars and miscalculating how long they had to make that work. EVs priced around 20-30K$ are going to be a big problem for Toyota. Most of their remaining ICE market is at or above that price point and EVs with lower cost of ownership and a lower price tag can do some serious damage to that market. That's why they are partnering with BYD while they are figuring that out.
Is Toyota BYD’s JV partner in China? I think the BYD taxi I rode in was based off a Camry body, but it seems their JV partner is GAC, so it isn’t clear how that came to be.
Plenty of China-only car models are more than "inspired" from existing vehicle models.
No, a lot of them are made with tooling and designs directly used to make the models they are based on. This is all over the table and part of the JV deal, though I think these days it doesn’t happen as much as 10 years ago.
But if I take BMW, I see they currently have three all electric models on offer: iX, i7, i4.
…and the i5, iX3 and iX1.
Hmm ok. But one of those isn’t out yet and the other two are not available in the US. I don’t think that fits the narrative I’m responding to.
And I think about 5 more models, at least, on the way until 2025.
The models that aren’t out yet don’t count in this discussion about brands selling fewer of an individual model because the brand has more models available.
Maybe because BMW customers still prefer combustion engines.
It depends on the market. BMW doesn’t sell much ICE cars anymore in Norway, a western market considered a few years ahead the other north European markets.
Because Norway heavily subsidized EV with exemption from the 25% VAT tax as well as perks like free parking. Which is ironic given they are basically the Nordic Saudi Arabia.
You have it the wrong way. ICE cars has always been heavily taxed, especially more powerful ICE cars are 2x more expensive in Norway than in EU. EV's just have no tax and only VAT added above 45k USD
Norway would much rather leverage their abundant hydro for domestic personal transport needs and just export their oil instead. That really isn’t ironic, just practical.
Not quite. Fuel is overtaxed there and very expensive, that's a bit different from Saudis,but combined with other factors mentioned by you and the fact most of their energy is green hydro, it makes sense to them to ditch ice when there's option to buy a new car
Free parking isn’t a thing anymore in Oslo. It usually costs about 25% of the ICE cars price, but anyway most of the street parking have been removed. Which is good.
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I was wondering how HN was going to spin this. The problem with this argument is that the Model Y by itself outsold the entire BMW electric lineup combined. In fact, 4 times the entire combined amount.
It's better to just compare brand-to-brand EV sales, rather than per model. Only Tesla can sell same model so much. I wonder will people finally bored with too many same Tesla running on the road, and Tesla start expanding their lineup like Volkswagen, or people accept it like iPhone (have a dressing case like iPhone?).
IMV, apart from the Model S Tesla’s are ugly cars
The Y looks like an over inflated balloon (BMW, Mercedes, Mini and others have the same issue with some of their models)
And the 3 just doesn’t look like anyone designed the front end — the angle of the junction between the bonnet (hood) and the windscreen is wrong, and the front grill just looks like someone forgot it needed designing
Electric cars don't need a front grill — there's no radiator. Putting a big grill on an electric car is as stupid as putting a fake horse head on a horseless carriage.
(and I quite like the look of the Tesla 3 front end.)
I know they don’t need a grille for cooling in the same way ice cars do but compare the ‘grille’ area of the ID3 with the Model 3 and it just looks like the Tesla designers didn’t know what to do with the space
Batteries do need temperature control.
Sure, but electric cars are 90% efficient, and ICE only 40%. An ICE car is emitting roughly 6 times as much waste heat. BEVs do not need a big-arse radiator and grill.
Maybe because the typical BMW customer prefers combustion engines. Look at the overall sales not just EV
Tesla sold 1,247,146 cars in 2022. This year somewhere between 1.6M - 2.0M.
Last year BMW sold about 2.4M cars, so Tesla is quickly catching up in terms of numbers.
This is goalpost-shifting from the title, which doesn’t limit the comparison to electric cars.
I'm only counting the BMW i4, iX, i7, and i5, vs the Tesla S, 3, X, and Y.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the lineups seem comparable.
You are missing the combustion engine models. There many people that still prefer them over EV.
BMW group sold 588,138 units in 2023 and most weren't EV.
Tesla is about to overtake BMW by car sales, not just EV
But you are quite right. Given Tesla's mission and recent discontinuation of X and S and in RHD markets it wouldn't be surprised if they eventually killed them altogether. Let the premium makers like BMW, MB, Lucid focus on a niche luxury markets; use Tesla's time to make cheaper EVs.
Would be a mistake. The luxury brand pulls in the economy car buyers. The plaid & x is a great marketing tool.
Until it becomes part of base package :)
X? Ugliest car on the road.
If you spent 5 mins looking at the data, you’d realize you’re completely wrong lol.
So it's not a true scotsman?
How depressing. The world's best-selling car is now a 2 tonne behemoth. 20 years ago I dreamed of us progressing and correcting some of the mistakes of the past. Since then we've only regressed further down the exact same paths as previous generations. I hold no hope for humanity going forward.
see this article 'This Is Why Toyota Isn't Rushing to Sell You an Electric Vehicle': https://jalopnik.com/toyota-focusing-on-hybrids-not-electric...
Interesting statistics. In Ireland, VW just knocked Toyota off the top spot. I think Toyota being late to market with a full BEV might have something to do with it (yes, I know they now have the alphabet soup one whose name would score a lot in Scrabble but is, otherwise, utterly forgettable).
Congratulations to the Tesla team!
Genuine Question: when I was in the US last year (NYC and New Orleans) I was surprised to see almost no electric cars at all (even in NYC it was like 5 Teslas in 1 week).. where are they? All in Californi?
Truly stunning.
I remember a number of months back when people were discussing short-selling Tesla. I'm soooooo glad I don't play those kinds of games.
Chinese cars like Korean cars used to be joke - the new Haval SUV is cheaper and quality wise from the looks on par with my Hyundai SUV.
The biggest quality concern isn't that something will break but the quality of the support I get when it does. If the closest dealership+brand repair shop is two hours drive away and all the major brands have repairs 5 minutes drive away, then it's not competitive. The moat of the established brands is pretty big when it comes to the service network.
True on parts availability - a friend bought a hot hatch from Peugeot - it was one of those performance models with a tweaked engine (higher rpm/camshafts) instead of the run of the mill ones.
So engine imploded and he waited months for a part that was on a ship somewhere - they eventually bought the car back from him.
Needless to say I never bought a French car.
Interesting ... the d0uche-mobile wins out in the end ...
Impressive technology but wouldn't be caught dead in it. It's a brand thing. Don't want to be associated with the E-kn0b.
If I was buying now, it would be from Hyundai.
However, living in the city, I can't justify either so I'll keep rolling in my 69 Beetle every couple of weeks.
Tip: save yourself a tonne of money and ... just don't buy a car if you don't need it.
What is this article even talking about. I don't have to know a single thing about cars or their economics to know clearly some Chinese or Indian brand I have never heard of and could not pronounce if I had is outselling the Tesla by 1000 fold. I cannot even imagine how cheap you could make a car without all of our regulations, its probably like $250.
The Wuling Mini is the best selling car in China in 2022, selling a half million cars to the model Y's 300,000. In Q1 2023, the model Y outsold the Wuling Mini.
BYD handily outsells Tesla in China, but it is split among something like 40 different models vs Tesla's 4.
Whoa. The Wuling mini is like 4,800 USD to 4,400 USD, while the Model Y is $48,447. That Tesla is selling only 300k Model Y's vs 500k Wuling Minis is actually pretty good.
I've ridden in a BYD EV taxi before back in 2016, I haven't lived in China since then. It was OK. BYD should have a larger market share than Tesla in China, it would be weird otherwise.
I think your cheapo Chinese/Indian EV is most likely classed as motorcycle.
While the motorcycle brand probably outsells the car brand by 1000x, the Indian/chineses market is big enough to also have a car model that sells millions upon millions of units.
What happens when you need to change the battery? Isn’t it extremely expensive?
These days the batteries outlast the body with hundreds of thousands of miles.
And just how much tax incentives and government handouts have gone into making this headline happen? Seems like a lot of upward transfer of wealth for what is arguably marginal (if any) improvement to the environment or driver experience.
There's no away around it since we really have to move pollution out of the cities. Because that's what this is, not an overall environment benefit but managing pollution zones. Yes, all the people are paying for what few can afford, but again, there's no other alternative. The era of affordable driving in big cities is over. Only the rich will be able to, in the future. And the poor will be crammed in horrible public transport.
Given that they're so much more expensive than a Corolla, I'd expect the interiors to be less naff and plasticky.
Are all American cars that bad?
I'd still much more gladly prefer the Toyota.
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Especially interesting that the company started succeeding during the time period that he was off playing with Twitter and running that toy into the ground.
That's obviously not true if you look at the deliveries per quarter chart.
Yes, as everyone knows only the CEO contributes to a company's success!
No shortage of companies with terrible employees that do well via a good executive team (Walmart?). Very few companies with good employees could survive terrible direction from leadership.
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I mean, I think the Model Y is ugly, but I don't think this is anything specific to Tesla. All crossover SUVs are ass-ugly and I don't think it's possible to make one which isn't, but that hasn't stopped them from selling like hotcakes.
I don’t know, I really enjoy the body style on my 2017 Tiguan.
The exact same thing that brought Prius to popularity.
The more popular 2nd gen Priuses aren't THAT ugly :). Alright, thats a fair point.
They were very intentionally weird, not ugly.
I think the true "intentionally weird" design crowns go to the "compliance cars" that automakers came out with.
I think of the honda insight and all fuel-cell cars.
My theory is that it was to limit sales. Also it was so that any sales go to "true believers" with breathless enthusiasm for the tech.
Chevy Volt v1
They were intentionally brutally economic, aero over design where design would have cut into functionality.
This translated into a car with the aesthetics of a pregnant whale that someone smashed into the ground. In fairness.
The only glaringly ugly tesla thing I've seen are the plastic wheel covers on the base model 3.
I think the y base wheels are better, and the 20" wheels are nice.
looks like a 15 year old boy designed it in 2006
The more drivers you get in a particular model, the more clueless drivers you'll see in that model.
It's a form of survivor bias.
No, white Tesla Model Y/3 (the paint color that doesn’t cost extra) seem to occupy the same jerk driver niche that the BMW 3-series used to own. Lots of young, single men stretching their wallets for one.
Totally agreed, in the last 5 years or so it feels like mediocre drivers have switched from white entry-level BMW drivers to white Teslas. It's definitely hit the mass market of somewhat-well-off people rather than just tech bros who like the technology.
We must be a few years behind you in the UK since the white Audi reigns supreme with these kind of people.
I own a white model 3, I am not young or single, but I see how it could be judged that way. Well, I wish you could try one and enjoy the ride, because it is a well made vehicle, regardless of the clichés attached to the car.
I didn’t drive a 3, but I have done so for a Y. Didn’t like the lack of buttons that’s dressed up as futuristic but is really a UX hostile cost savings choice. Ended up buying a new CRV hybrid for 2/3 of the price, with actual AC and radio buttons (this year is redesigned and is a bit larger than the previous generation)
Okay, I am not a heavy button user. I do use the radio, and actually it has an hardware button on the steering wheel, so I can change station to avoid ads. For the AC it is set, and I rarely need to adjust, but it is right on the screen to adjust when needed. I realize how relaxing the lack of buttons is, when I rent a modern car with buttons everywhere. I have to pause to and identify each button, feels like a pilot doing his check in the cockpit, making sure I will push the right button in the right sequence. I do not miss it in a model 3, just set the direction and press the pedal, feels refreshing to me.
I’m here to point out white is the safest color for a car.