I believe Tesla holds - or, held - a similar position. They had a head start in many areas, but they could not keep it up.
One big difference is quality; Apple phones have great build quality, always have - although they had issues with bending and holding the phone a certain way iirc. Nothing like that in recent years though. But Teslas are known for poor build quality, mainly in the bodywork - expensive construction methods, poor and inconsistent spacings, etc.
Tesla hasn't innovated in recent years. Their last 'big' one was announcing the semi, cybertruck and a new Roadster, but it went radio silent for all of those for years after the announcement until recently when they finally started delivering the first semis.
Apple on the other hand has consistently released a new phone every year since the iphone 1, and more models and innovation to boot.
Tesla had so much money but they don't seem to have invested it efficiently. They also failed to advance their self-driving much further, which seemed to be the USP they were pushing for for a while.
Its owner messing around with the stock price by announcing a privatization, then buying Twitter on what seemed like a whim was another big issue of course. He lost a lot of credibility over the years.
I think Tesla will pivot from a car manufacturer to a battery manufacturer, and that its long-term strategy is its Turbocharger network. Electric cars are here to stay, and whoever owns the charger network now will benefit for a long, long time - like the oil industry has for a hundred years on fuel.
I think this counts for more than people realize. Similar with Facebook/Zuckerberg and Amazon/Bezos. The most effective founder CEO, in my opinion, for a large company is one that stays generally unknown to the public.
Tesla went from cool (I personally thought a Tesla was much more desirable than a traditional luxury car like a lambo) to kinda cringe, in large part because Elon Musk is broadcasting cringe on the daily to anybody who will listen.
Pocket PC was a thing and it was great.
We have come so far in human progress that nobody invents something that is ‘miles ahead’ of everyone else.
What people do is they manufacture a narrative which purports such claims and shove it down people’s throats.
That is even more true in a sector which is almost 200 years old such as automotive.
Tesla buys their batteries, though. They could/should sell the motors perhaps?
* when in full-auto on a single lane road, when there's an exit on the right the Tesla 3 almost always slightly swerve towards the exit before coming back in its lane. None of the Megane, the EQE or the BMW i4 do that.
* To overtake a slower vehicle, the Megane and i4 are better : simply push the left blinker, then the car switch lanes and accelerates BEFORE having entirely switched lane, like a human driver would do.
* The mapping and charge planning on the BMW and particularly the EQE/EQS are arguably slightly superior now to Tesla (though Tesla is still a bit easier). Renault is very close, and Kia/Hyundai isn't far behind either.
Teslas do this in FSD mode.
No need to buy a $x FSD Tesla to get some extra.
A minor nuisance. Unless you happen to be at the ready attentively double-checking whatever the assistance is doing - then it must be infuriatingly annoying! Guess what you're supposed to be doing, all the time...
It wasn't a great first user experience to have the car immediately drift right towards the guardrail crusher.
For example, motorcyclists depend on inferring behaviour more than the average driver. Someone swerving towards an exit is far more reliable an indicator of them taking it than a signal - many drivers don't bother using them.
Many bikers I know avoid Teslas like the plague, as they're deeply difficult to read at best, and lethal at worst.
Any traffic participant (of any type) behaving sufficiently differently than the fat part of the bell curve for the situation (traffic, weather, location, vehicle type, time of day, etc) they are in is dangerous because they violate the expectations of all other road participants have for them. Other road participants need to be able to make reliable enough and accurate enough predictions of future state for things to work properly. This holds regardless of human or computer.
It is critical to be aware of the surrounding traffic, and recognizing the driving style — the wheel angle and the current balance/attitude of the cars — is critical to understanding what they'll do next.
Just one example a while ago in traffic on a highway, I slowed a bit and moved to the other side of my lane, barely thinking about it. Seconds later the car on my left suddenly drifted into my lane, right where we would have been and only feet off my front bumper. My wife exclaimed "How did you know that was going to happen?!?", and I said I'd just noticed in the corner of my vision an odd wiggle in their front wheel, like the driver's attention or direction was off.
Sussing out what a driver is doing with any intersection, regardless of their signals, is key. Are they actually setting up to turn or stop, or just going along ignorantly?
So far, I haven't yet noticed anything big from Teslas, but although I've done a lot less driving since COVID, I still have noticed that their road positions and attitudes are, ummm unique. But really good to know about this fake-move towards the exit lane — very helpful — Thanks!
And honestly it's less inference and more "I assume this person is going to try to kill me. How would they do so and how do I avoid that?"
I haven't ridden in years, but even in my car I'm allergic to being in someone's blind spot.
It's entirely possible that is an unsafe-at-any-speed configuration.
Really? One of the main selling points for me is that the center screen in Teslas are actually usable, non-laggy POS like most cars these days.
VW is the only one still shipping a piece of crock.
But here's how the current Mercedes navigation looks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgy3askMcM The AR stuff works really well and is arguably way ahead of anything Tesla offers.
* Tesla maps has a much better zoom/scroll feature (faster, more detail, smoother). The Toyota map requires you to hit the "zoom" button and then click zoom-in/out
* The calendar tool built into the Tesla allows me to easily navigate to the appointment location.
* Tesla maps have way-point selection (set an additional stop between start and end)
* The Toyota Infotainment system does not appear to have a "night mode". Thus, the display puts out a ton of light during night-time driving (even with the brightness level set to minimum)
* Waze is way too "chatty" for my taste
> * Waze is way too "chatty" for my taste
You can adjust that.
- re: waze - huh? Google Maps is just fine. The differences are such a personal preference that they are moot.
- The touch controls on Carplay are not great. Try pinching and zooming on Google Maps in Carplay and its awful. (note - I do think Tesla misses the boat on having more physical controls as they almost rely entirely on touch...which is unsafe and not great)
> But here's how the current Mercedes navigation looks
Looks awesome, but that appears to be on a €185k ICE car.
Waze tells you where cameras and cops are, Google Maps usually does not.
>- The touch controls on Carplay are not great. Try pinching and zooming on Google Maps in Carplay and its awful. (note - I do think Tesla misses the boat on having more physical controls as they almost rely entirely on touch...which is unsafe and not great)
I don't think I've ever needed to do this, it always automatically positions the map correctly.
>Looks awesome, but that appears to be on a €185k ICE car.
Pretty sure the pricing starts at €94,540. They also have an EV at around the same price, but it's an all-around worse car.
Cameras are only really relevant in Europe. We don't really have these in the US. I do get the cops angle - google maps doesn't really do this.
> I don't think I've ever needed to do this
Tesla uses google maps under the hood and its auto adjustments are incredible (as good as Waze). However, every once in an awhile you want to "look ahead" and the Carplay simply sucks for this feature.
> Pretty sure the pricing starts at €94,540
It literally says in the description:
PRICE OF THE MODEL IN THE VIDEO: 185.269 EUR
Well yeah, in Europe we don't have cops on the roads. In the US you don't have cameras, but have cops everywhere. You still want Waze in either case, probably more so for the cops.
>PRICE OF THE MODEL IN THE VIDEO: 185.269 EUR
This has to be including local taxes, which in some EU countries can double the price of a car.
None of that is why Tesla was ahead of everyone for so long.
It's because their cars have better range, and Tesla is still the range leader. They held four of the top six spots in 2022, and the number one is the Lucid Air (only 3k of them have actually been sold):
https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-advice/g32634624/ev-lo...
Also, I just want to say I am categorically not an Elon or Tesla fanboi and I am rooting for other brands to meet and exceed their range performance.
I say this as someone who owns an electric car by a different manufacturer.
In the US.
And the US drives these crazy valuations.
This isn't a defensible position though for Tesla. New charging networks are coming online at a furious rate. I'm not sure maintaining their own network makes sense unless everything becomes compatible and they use it as an additional revenue stream. But for them to compete when every other auto manufacturer is subsidizing shared networks is risky.
The competitors also charge much less quickly, so there's some optimization there that they lack. Like, on paper they can do 250 kW but you never get more than 100 when actually charging it etc
Yeah this is one area where there's a lot of deceptive marketing. For example the Kia EV6 specs list a max fast charging rate of 350 kW but what that actually means is that you need a 350 kW charging station to reach the car's actual max charging speed of 240 kW (or 180 kW, depending on the battery options).
Granted, that is still nice and fast, and the EV6 is a great car, but it's really frustrating how hard it is to compare charge speed from different manufacturers.
Wow that is the scummiest thing
The car simply states the fastest DC connection it supports - 350kw. It works with any charger up to this wattage, just like my laptop charges from any USB-C source up to 100w - was I missold my laptop too because if I use a 50w charger it only charges at 50w?
DC Fast Charge Time (10-80% @ 350 kW via Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) Level 3 Charger: Approx. 18 min.
and
Drive Battery Energy: 77.4 kWh
The battery is 77.4 kWh. This implies the battery is charging at 180kW.
If it were taking in the full 350kW and losing 170kW as heat that would be one (inefficient and dangerous) thing, but it doesn't sound like it actually draws 350kW?
For comparison, they say 73min for charging at 50kW, which implies the battery is charging at 45kW. If we figure that same 10% loss, then to charge at 180kW it's probably drawing 200kW from the charger.
[1] https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev6/specs
[2] 70% * 77.4 kWh * (60min / 1h) / 18 min = 181 kW
I'd thought they were advertising a 10% to 80% charge because that's the period over which they can charge at max speed? Looking now, it seems like they start tapering at 50%, and it's peak draw is 235kW? https://www.arenaev.com/kia_ev6_crowned_the_best_charging_ev...
(I agree this is very good, but it's still wrong to quote 350kW if they never draw this much.)
I assure you that my mother has no idea what a watt is.
> it's really frustrating how hard it is to compare charge speed from different manufacturers
Is the discrepancy just the inefficiency (i.e. waste heat) of the charging circuitry and/or battery chemistry? And if so, do different EV battery+charger systems have significantly different efficiencies?
I would have expected that the consumer-facing spec is always the power taken from the grid, that there is always some inefficiency (you can draw less energy from the batteries than came out of the grid), and that the level of efficiency would be roughly similar across all cars.
If that were the case, it wouldn't be much of a problem to compare charging rates across cars. But perhaps one or more of my expectations are wrong.
Oh, and EVs presumably vary wildly in their "fuel economy" (miles per kilowatt-hour or whatever unit EV folks use), so even a "fair" comparison of charging rate presumably wouldn't paint the entire picture.
I'm not positive on the specifics but I believe it has more to do with the combination of supported voltages/amperages offered by different chargers. i.e. a "350 kW capable" charger in practice means it can do 800V charging, which other chargers of lower kW ratings typically can't do, and the EV6 requires 800V to reach its max charge speed but can't actually handle a high enough amperage to get to 350 kW.
Like I said though, I might be confused on some of the details there, but I'm fairly positive it's not just waste heat...dissipating 110kW of waste heat would require some pretty insane cooling hardware.
Oh, and EVs presumably vary wildly in their "fuel economy" (miles per kilowatt-hour or whatever unit EV folks use), so even a "fair" comparison of charging rate presumably wouldn't paint the entire picture.
This is indeed a good point. A more relevant measure of charging speed would be something like "miles per hour at EPA rated efficiency", though even that gets messy since most cars don't charge at a linear speed. And I haven't seen any car manufacturers use this metric other than Tesla, who like to brag about their supercharger stations exceeding 1,000 MPH of charging speed (though only the newest stations can just barely do that, for very short durations, and only on certain car models). "Time from 20%-80% charge" would also be a better metric, due to non-linear charging speed curves, but I haven't seen that one used much either.
Pretty much the only time charging speed even matters is the "road trip" mode, where you are driving further than a single battery charge in one day and you want to stop as little as possible. In that mode, all I really want to know is what my duty cycle will be, e.g. "every 5 hours of driving you'll need to stop to charge for 30 minutes."
If I'm not in road trip mode, then as long as I can Level 2 charge overnight and/or all day at work, I would barely care what the peak charge rate is. It would still be nice to have something quick for the rare pickle (and of course road trips), but it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. I guess it's so prominent in marketing because range anxiety is still so deep in our mindset?
Counterintuitively, it can be cheaper timewise (and money-wise) to spec and build a new factory than to re-tool one that was custom-built to manufacture cars with a large set of core assumptions about power plant and drive train.
A trivial example (in unnecessary complexity, physical properties not really involved): on the German website, when you pretend to be ordering an Audi A6 you get twelve different sets of wheels to choose from at five price points. And that's before you add winter wheels to the mix. And tire options, and different approaches to the pressure gauge problem and theft preventing bolts. The Tesla S offers a choice between baseline and expensive an optional winter wheel. Now this isn't an example that directly relates to range, but it's organisational cruft. They need to have boatloads of people employed only for solving various aspects of their solution to the made-up problem of not enough wheel choice (all the way from design to spare parts logistics..) and that robs focus. Those people might actually have better careers than their peers dealing with batteries and they do compete for intraorganizational attention. It's all rooted in customer expectations built over decades of inventing car problems to solve better than the competition, after the ICE was basically done. New, BEV-specific lines can help (apparently the e-tron gets by with only eight sets of wheels at two price points, yay!), but they are far from being as much of a fresh start as that blank slate as Tesla has been.
Tesla is in no position to do so. They have a strong position in battery assembly, but zero direct presence in extraction or refining.
The ,,false advertising'' that others say come from the fact that when you drive fast it doesn't matter how energy efficient you are, so it works out only with low speeds.
I don’t know if people have heard, but China is one of the bigger market. Heh.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/south-korea-fines-tesla-for-...
As a Tesla owner: range and ambient air temperature are significantly correlated (i.e., your 300 miles of range plummets to ~120 when below freezing).
But, on a good, sunny, warm day, their range claims are correct.
My Model S is certainly better at handling the winter than a Nissan Leaf of the same vintage.
Personally, I prefer an open window. Fresh air is almost always better than warm/cold stale air. But I think that'll kill a car's aerodynamics anyway, maybe worse for efficiency than running the heater/AC.
Battery longevity will also soon include depth-of-discharge and temp limits as well.
Just like FSD works, vaguely, on a good clear day (not too sunny, though, in case you blind the vision sensors!) on good roads.
Totally ready "this year".
I don't think Tesla is as far ahead on range as everyone thinks. Highway miles are what matters and Tesla tends to be optimistic on their numbers.
The only cars that get the 'A' rating on that spreadsheet are the two Model 3 cars (316 mile version, and 200ish mile one), the 62kWh Nissan Leaf (216mi), and a bunch of super low range cars where efficiency is easy, since weight is way lower.
Competitors are catching up, yes, but they're still pretty far behind in the efficiency game... which means that Tesla can produce quite a few more cars for the same amount of raw battery pack. Which drives better margins and more production capacity.
I wish the EPA would clamp down on manufacturer's range estimates, as those ranges are theoretical (perfect driving with no real acceleration, no climate control, etc). We need practical city/highway range like we get for ICE cars. My EV6 is rated at 310, but driving as conservatively as possible in Houston I get more like 285. On a road trip where it was mostly exposed freeway and cruise control, my range was closer to 220.
Should also probably disclose range in freezing temps as well (I'm in Houston so I don't consider that as much as others). The first manufacturer to solve that problem well would possibly be a better car than one with a larger theoretical range.
"Every Tesla we've tested has failed to hit its EPA range estimate"
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-range-and-cons...
Is this something you see as a benefit? For me Tesla's overall aesthetic, including both their exterior looks and interior design, along with the absence of physical controls that go long with that represent their biggest downsides (outside of build quality).
I wonder how long Tesla can get away with not offering CarPlay/Android Auto functionality. The lack of that basic, cheap, and often used feature disqualifies any car from consideration in my view.
I find Saab's solution to be extremely elegant - on some, if not all models, there's a night mode button - what happens is that all non-essential instruments are simply dimmed to black (leaving only the speedo lit), until something happens which warrants your attention; the instrument in question will then come on.
Simultaneously, it dims all button backlights &c to just about off, so that you only get some assistance in locating the control you're after, not losing your night vision the moment you let your eyes stray from the road.
What's REALLY bad though is that other manufacturers rushed after Tesla and turned their brains off. Now we have a bunch of electric cars with crappy plastic interiors (light weight for range) and shitty tablets as user interface. Some are recognizing these horrifying mistakes that will cost lives but it will take years to recover because a lot of projects are too far ahead already to be changed or canceled.
I mainly speak from extensive experience with Volkswagen - the crappy capacitative touch buttons on the steering wheel will finally go. The new CEO Blume is not as blind as Herbert Diess - he doesn't view Tesla as the second coming of the iPhone, especially since Teslas continue to stagnate in quality and other manufacturers are quickly catching up.
Good luck outproducing Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, BMW, Audi... time was Teslas ally especially because Toyota kept insisting on Hydrogen cars for so long and VW fucked up software development so bad with CARIAD that Konrad Zuse is spinning in his grave ready to produce energy for all EVs sold.
I credit Tesla with 2 things:
- Opening the EV market and pushing other manufacturers to invest
- Great engineering regarding battery and range (in the past)
The list of issues is longer nowadays and I am not willing to forgive quite as much as in 2014 with great alternatives on the market.
The interiors though are pure trash. They look unfinished and designed by Rule of Cool, instead of practicality.
> Is this something you see as a benefit?
Yes. It's a distraction free operating environment. Tesla's aesthetic choices are semi-scandinavian/Ikea. Minimal doesn't have to be that style specifically. The early New Beetle did a passable job. The typical car is like MS Word with every ribbon open at once. A minimalist interior is focus mode.
I cannot activate most controls on a Tesla without taking my eyes off the road.
They also seemingly refuse to keep the GUI stable for more than three or four months at a time.
Multi-touch capacitance with tuned solid state haptic feedback and fused OLED display technology with very thin tempered glass is a wonderful thing, especially considering how far it has gotten since 2007) but it has remained resounding and disappointingly flat.
While manufacturers are working with different display dimensions and gentle curves or even folds, I agree there is a need for topologically shaped glass to bring the tactile affordances of traditional buttons to software enhanced user interfaces. I'm not a display engineer but I suspect that different glass thicknesses result in poor visuals so we will have to wait for organic magneto-laser displays.
It really doesn't help when the leadership of said car company is erratic and eroding the goodwill of the brand while people generally feel comfortable with more established carmakers. I feel pretty confident that major automakers are going to be around in 10 years. Buying a Tesla already feels like a bit of a gamble to me just because of its newness.
With an economy that's already slowing it could really hurt them when it's likely fewer people are buying cars and will be more cautious about it when they do. "Maybe I'll hold off another year and see how the new crop of cars compares with the Tesla."
[0] https://www.torquenews.com/14335/tesla-sweetens-deal-discoun...
https://twitter.com/TroyTeslike/status/1609346097733828609?s... (This is the most recent data made public, the Patreon data goes through Dec 31 with the numbers quoted)
Which are all gimmicks.
The vast majority of people don't want that from a car. I've been in Telsas plenty of time and absolutely hate it. Yeah it looks cool for a moment, but I would never want that.
The “cockpit” button-obsession on HN is really cute sometimes. As if most drivers with button-filled “cockpits” actually feel around for them while still looking at the road.
Everything timing critical for driving is either fully automated or on the wheel in a Tesla, by the way.
It's also starting to creep into the mainstream consciousness that EVs aren't a good long-term solution to our poor transportation system.
I agree. That's why it doesn't make sense that Tesla is approaching it as "bespoke or bust".
> Bluetooth audio is a thing, and you can stream whatever audio you want from your phone to your car audio using that.
Yes, but "streaming a single audio track (with low audio quality)" is pretty much all BlueTooth is fit for, and the problem is much larger than that--a luxury car should be able to stream higher quality audio and it should also be able to stream video (e.g., HBO, Paramount Plus, etc). Moreover, it should facilitate a media browsing experience through the touch screen. First of all, it's limited to audio--it doesn't help me stream HBO or Paramount or any other video service.
Apple and I believe Google are very strict about which apps can be used for CarPlay/Android Auto. There would be major repercussions if they weren’t.
Tesla has apps for a bunch of video streaming services. And for those it doesn't have, you can just use the built-in web browser. It works just fine (assuming you are in a parked mode, they won't work while you are driving for obvious safety reasons).
Tesla are 5-10 years ahead on profit, due to adopting cost savings such as no buttons, more miles per kwh, thus smaller batteries, casting most of the body in 2 or 3 pieces.
And then there's in house software creation, vs everyone else. Software makes their use of their motors more efficient.
That's before you have the problem with how to get rid of your non EV business.
Then you have battery tech, opening lithium refining facilities, owning more of the supply chain. Everyone else will be paying extra for batteries for decades.
You think automakers don't know about software? You do realize that what the ECU has to do to keep internal combustion engines running as efficiently as they do today is at least an order of magnitude more complex that electric motor management
> That's before you have the problem with how to get rid of your non EV business.
That's an asset, not a liability. Some places in the world are unlikely to have the infrastructure to support a conversion to EVs in the next decade or two. It doesn't mean we stop trying but having mature technology that you don't need to invest a lot in to support a niche use case is a good thing, not a bad thing.
> Then you have battery tech, opening lithium refining facilities, owning more of the supply chain. Everyone else will be paying extra for batteries for decades.
There's no reason to believe that Tesla's suppliers will remain exclusively theirs unless they've signed massive longterm deals that the public is unaware of.
Judging from my experience with cars' integrated sat-nav, speech recognition and bluetooth hands-free I would say most automakers do not consider good software to be a priority.
https://www.teslarati.com/volkswagen-herbert-diess-third-par...
Tesla will be Tesla's supplier https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-19/tesla-con...
Many Chinese companies are multifaceted or have co-ownership with suppliers. For example, look at a company like BYD, which appears to be out producing Tesla and has yet to fully enter many markets. They also build their own batteries. The Chinese motor industry is a formidable competitor.
They want everything in the same darn place that 99% of cars have it, with physical switches to be able to change things so you can just feel what you are doing without taking your eyes off the road.
Most people see the interior of a Tesla as a complete gimmick.
That is the insane minority.
btw I have the same preference, just letting you know you are in for a disappointment.
[1] https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/fiat/panda [2] https://www.parkers.co.uk/nissan/leaf/review/interior/ [3] https://www.kymco.co.uk/scooters-and-motorcycles-range/125cc...
But by the way, you don’t have to hunt thru a menu for it, the lock status icon is pressable and it’s always on the home screen.
Lock and unlock is like start and stop buttons. Almost totally extraneous and easily inferred 99% of the time.
Conveniently accessible manual door lock/unlock mechanisms become non-negotiable the moment your software-based power-dependent interface becomes inoperable, especially if that's during some emergent crisis like say a giant lithium battery letting the smoke out.
This isn't just some hypothetical:
https://stealthoptional.com/news/tesla-driver-trapped-in-bur...
From your own linked article:
> Juhta criticized the emergency protocol for Tesla’s electric cars, saying that it isn’t intuitive enough.
Which is kinda ironic to me considering anytime a new rider is in my car I make sure to tell them about pressing the small button to open the door because they seem to find that escape latch on their own and often think it's just a regular open door latch.
Is it the same in the Model Y from the article as your Model 3?
This is pretty much the definition of a great tech product: it's ahead of anything else by N years. What makes a great technology company is that they manage to consistently maintain that lead with product after product.
We'll see if Tesla can maintain its lead. It's not looking good and it probably depends mostly on whether or not Elon Musk can regain his grip on reality.
They do have one major advantage, which is why I still drive a Model S, and that's the Supercharger network. It's a big deal for anyone who regularly drives a few hundred miles in their EV.
I still don't get the 'look good' part, why do non-ICE cars always need to have a different look that what is already popular/proven in the market. The traditional automakers are still doing this today with their first big pushes in EV. If they don't sell they'll blame 'the market' for not wanting EV, but in reality it could be folks just aren't interested in the design / don't what to make the fashion statement.
"We have tens of billions and tens of decades invested in 'perfecting' ICE. This is a huge upheaval" is an attitude I'd expect any of them to take (while still recognizing they need to see where the market is heading and planning for that).
This shouldn't have to be a position that requires any kind of defense or explanation. There's nothing contradictory about believing that:
1) A company makes a great product 2) The quality of that product and its total addressable market justifies the company's value at $X 3) The market cap of that company is far, far higher than $X
Apparently GM's Supercruise is better, and cheaper.
I got enhanced autopilot in my first Tesla. Except for changing lanes, things like summon and autopark are just toys. The auto lane chance is so glitchy I decided I was better off saving seven grand on my second Tesla.
But if Enhanced Autopilot was 1-2 grand, I'd have bought it without regrets.
But, in general, Supercruise is hands-free and doesn't require jiggling the steering wheel every 30 seconds.
From what I understand, Supercruise is a lot more limited in where it'll work, compared to Autopilot.
But, EV market options are so limited that the differences really don't matter, unless that kind of functionality is top on your list. In my case, I bought a second Tesla because of the charging network, and because I needed a 3rd row.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/test-driving-gm-ford-and-tes...
Seven grand for a software update sounds like a ripoff. Especially just for lane change.
If that's the case and any manufacturer could just license Waymo's tech I'd think that relying on Telsa to win at autopilot is suspect.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a42268159/general-m...
Paying a premium for Apple smartphones hardware and software is a thing, paying same percentage premium for a car is a lot different, it's a lot more money.
Whether Apple can make a car better than Tesla is a moot point - Tesla isn't able to make cars as well as the other global automakers. Their whole schtick was the EV drivetrain. That's what set them apart from everybody else. It was never build quality. Now that governments around the world are essentially mandating EV's the global automakers are now entering the market. They have the know-how and experience in all the other areas of automotive manufacture that Tesla does not.
Bottom line: Tesla has had to come up-to-speed with the entirety of automotive manufacture and still aren't there. The global automotive manufacturers only have to come up to speed with an EV drivetrain, a drivetrain they've been experimenting with for years. Want to bet money on who's most likely to win the market?
Apple would be fools to enter this market and their investors should howl if they were foolish enough to do so.
can you please point to where you found this data?
> experience in all the other areas of automotive manufacture that Tesla does not
I believe Tesla is still overvalued, but in 2022 they made 1.3 million cars, so dismissing them as amateurs is simply nonsensical. In 2023, they are a major car manufacturer with tons of experience with the entire process by now.
Another aspect of being an automaker for which Tesla is woefully behind on is service and repair. They've gotten away with it during their first few years because their sales were low and were to enthusiasts. Now things are going to be different because they're selling into the general market at a price point where the customers expectations have been set by the likes of Lexus, Audi, Mercedes, etc. They're going to have an interesting time should they get into an accident and need repairs. It's not uncommon for Tesla customers to have to wait weeks or even months for repairs.
While 1.3 million cars is a decent amount, it pales to Toyota's 8 million cars - which they've been doing now for decades. That's a lot of experience Tesla doesn't have under their belt.
GM has been dealing with global supply chains for decades.
GM has been dealing with auto unions for decades.
GM has been dealing with service centers for decades.
Who do you think can more quickly adapt to whom? GM to Tesla, or Tesla to GM?
The real question is whether the high-end car market is large enough for Apple to bother with.
Openpilot by comma is very equivalent to autopilot (not FSD) and can be added on to a boring cheap car (depending on that car's compatibility) like a prius, corolla, or sonata, all for just about $2,000 dollars. Granted, it's a "dev-kit", requires a bit of research to install, but if you can pass the barrier it's really equivalent to autopilot and available to consumers at a price point that Tesla is not.
And if you don't want the latest and greatest (comma 3) you can get a used comma 2 or a comma knock-off "Mr One" for a few hundred dollars and still have an excellent experience for basic level 2 functionality (automated highway navigation, essentially)
Edit: yes meant FSD
To dorks who believed the hype, yeah.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_cn/GUID-F907200...
[1] To those about to say "they're not reliable", I'm yet to find one that can't be tweaked with the sensitivity controller. If anything the only flaw I have had is when my wiper _blades_ are near the end of their life and they leave a 'streak' of water droplets over the sensor, and increase the false positive.
They also removed the ultrasonic parking sensors from October to use the cameras for it to save cost. Good luck for all who happen to back into stuff at night or into glass windows or something..
I'm not sure outsourcing manufacturing and focusing on design works in auto industry - but could be wrong.
https://www.foxconn.com/en-us/products-and-services/event-hi...
We'll see if it works out. Seeing as how they're Apple's biggest partner I'd be surprised if Apple one day doesn't design a car. EV's are simpler, eventually they'll all be fast and have 500 mile ranges. The platform won't matter, so what sells the car? Design.
1) manage supply chain (hardest part) 2) spec parts (establish quality metrics, change small aspects of design) 3) come up with car concepts 4) assemble parts certain components (e.g. weld the frame, install all the premade parts)
They are not building or designing every component in a car - not even close.
Final assembly, fit and finish - those are very important things on high end cars - and as Tesla demonstrated - not that easy to do even when you're flush with cash.
Apple outsources all of it's production - I'd be surprised if they can get premium car assembly from Foxconn model when Tesla is still having issues.
Is it that hard though? The initial build problems came from ignoring industry experience about trying to automate final assembly — a step that very manufacture had tried and failed to do before.
No shame in trying it, maybe industrial robotic control have improved since then, but you usually don’t test such a thing in your assembly lines.
After Tesla ripped out the robots, I don’t know what their problem was beyond poor training and line management. Putting doors on straight — let alone with matching colors — for over a hundred years.
If it’s really hard to physically build a car, we’d see similar massive faults from Rivian and Lucid, but I’m unaware of any.
Engines were monuments of engineering. A new engine design could dig a decades-long moat around a company. This combination of proprietary zeal and complexity dictated the market structure.
EVs are different. They’re simpler. And their differentiation is on soft points like style and software. (The tech driver is the battery, but nobody is vertically integrated to a differentiated extent anymore.) This, theoretically, permits a small(er) design team to arrange supply chains and command factories from afar. It also permits mix-and-match manufacturing, with specialisation and competition at the component level.
They outsource their manufacturing to Magna Steyr.
carbon credit: EU law fines ICE car makers for making cars. they inturn purchase carbon credits to have the right to keep polluting. further more tesla made 53 B$ in rev for 2021. 1.5B is not nothing but not > 5% of revenue for the year. ie bulk of it came from actually making and selling cars.
tax credit: the US federal govt had a tax credit program which was lobbied by GM in the 2010's that gave car buyers 7.5K as a tax write off . this was only eligible for less than 100k cars sold (tesla sold 405,300 in q4 2022) and was only useful if you made enough income where a tax writeoff made sense. 2023 new laws are in place with more rules which makes them almost useless (or only useful for those who lobbied for it).
I'm still young, but hearing about this kind of feature makes me feel like a luddite. I just don't get it. Is it so passengers can play while you're driving, or just to play while the car is charging/you're waiting somewhere?
It's pretty neat. It's really cool to go car camping and effectively have a portable mini-theater come with you.
Still... that doesn't mean the stock is infinitely valuable. Presumably the market will shake out and TSLA will end up with a valuation kinda high for a car company, but not in tech-company range.
Look at all their other efforts to enter areas with a dominant player. People were saying Spotify was doomed when Apple Music launched, yet it has barely has an impact (even though Apple had a massive amount of expertise and industry connections in music). Their social network (Ping) was an instant failure. Hopepod couldn't compete with Echo and Sonos. They tried multiple times to get into video gaming and went nowhere (Pippin, Arcade). iAd was dead in the water when it tried to compete with Google and Facebook. Same with Maps, MobileMe. Heck they are even having trouble with a wireless charging pad, and have basically conceded the market to Qi.
Dominance in one sector rarely extends to an unrelated one regardless of how many billions you throw at the problem.
Do you own any Magsafe devices? Their Magsafe implementation is like magic and its extremely practical. It (among many other things) has essentially locked me into iPhone ecosystem for good.
Meanwhile AirPower was in announced in 2017 and has still failed to materialize.
I once had a similar solution with the Nexus 5(the last Android phone I bought new before I tried an iPhone and subsequently never looked back). This phone had some sort of magnetic charging system that combined with a third party car mount. Unfortunately the implementation sucked as many times it would fail to begin charging and once in a while some freak accident would happen where it would charge but the phone would get scary burning hot and then overheat. When this happened, the stupid phone starts to throttle and nothing is responsive anymore, not even the damn ability to power down the phone. Real great having to correct this issue when im supposed to be driving the damn car. The Nexus5 was the poster child for all that was wrong with Android.
>Meanwhile AirPower was in announced in 2017 and has still failed to materialize.
Why would this matter to me? I'm pleased with the solutions Apple has already provided. If they can't deliver something then I'm not going to call that particular thing magical but the magsafe in the phones is shipping and it is in fact magical.
OK but we don't even officially know if Apple is trying to make a car?
>The idea that Autopilot has some magic sauce that nobody else can replicate is laughable.
The idea that a very difficult, innovative software problem can't be just replicated by legacy auto manufacturers who lack software engineering expertise is not laughable at all. The legacy auto manufacturers will really have to prove themselves here and so far they have not.
The idea that Autopilot has some magic sauce that nobody else can replicate is laughable.