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A comment on Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag. Parent comment

Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by danappelxx on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @08:48PM (#19743952)
The profit margin is a lot thicker in the luxury car market. It's a lot harder for Tesla to compete with economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota since they have established production lines and can out-produce and out-price Tesla.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by pasiaj on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:00PM (#19744024)
The trade-in value of Tesla is very low in Finland. If you want to upgrade your model, Tesla has been offering 70-80k € trade-in value for a 6 month old 135k€ Model S.

This means that those who upgrade their vehicles often will not even consider a Tesla.

In Finland, at least, they are forefeiting one of the biggest groups of luxury car buyers.

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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by ajmurmann on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:08PM (#19744066)
The most surprising thing about your post to me is the price of a new Model S. That's $150k. Is the price so high because it includes VAT?
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by arebop on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:18PM (#19744127)
A fully-loaded S in the U.S. is $131k so $150k could possibly even be a little low to include Finnish VAT.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by selectodude on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:18PM (#19744125)
You can option up a Tesla Model S in the US to $150k.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by goshx on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @10:01PM (#19744373)
Not anymore. It’s $131k fully loaded.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by kylecordes on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @10:56PM (#19744624)
Although the price point is still quite high, Tesla seems to be thinking of a car as a consumer electronic item: Price generally falls (more value per dollar) every year.

This may have significant consequences to the industry, if Tesla doesn’t fail.

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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by toomuchtodo on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @08:51PM (#19743966)
> economy vehicles produced by Ford/Chevy/Honda/Toyota since they have established production lines and can out-produce and out-price Tesla.

Who do not pay for the lifetime externalities of each of their vehicles burning petroleum for hundreds of thousands of miles.

If you accept climate change is man made, and that combustion vehicles contribute to it, it is insane we don’t make internal combustion vehicles pay for their externalities as part of their cost to level the playing field, and force electric vehicle manufacturers to compete against them without such a handicap in place.

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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by bumby on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:15PM (#19744100)
I'm not necessarily against that approach, but the penalties should be for externalities beyond just the tailpipe. Anything else is just short sighted. This means counting counting environmental impacts for manufacturing, including batteries
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by ajmurmann on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @10:03PM (#19744387)
Let's not forget building the massive amount of roads we built for any type of car.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by logicx24 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:11PM (#19744087)
In one sense, electric vehicle manufacturers are getting a bonus via the tax credit.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by toomuchtodo on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:12PM (#19744093)
A woefully inadequate subsidy, which phases out entirely too soon.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by maxerickson on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @10:32PM (#19744529)
Are vehicles subsidies the best way to drive progress on battery density and cost?

They need to be if you are going to use them to reward wealthy Tesla investors and vehicle buyers.

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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by toomuchtodo on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @11:06PM (#19744644)
Yes. Increase them, and tax SUVs and pickup trucks to fund the subsidy. Regressive taxes are bad, but you aren’t entitled to drive a gas guzzler, merely access to wheels (hybrids, subcompacts, sedans, etc). Internalize the externalities.
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by maxerickson on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @08:57PM (#19744002)
Lincoln/Cadillac/Acura/Lexus...
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Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag by astrodust on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:02PM (#19744032)
It's even harder to compete when their production line is such a shambles. They tried to automate everything, which cost a fortune, and utterly failed at it because it turns out it's both stupidly hard and ridiculously expensive.

They were the first mover, and as is the case with racing, being first means others can draft and pass you.

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