Tesla is still doing thing in a novel way, things that others follow on. Take e.g. the battery design or gigapresses.
I'm not claiming they will keep that edge.
The battery cells and system in the new Cybertruck has been widely panned.
The industry is now on par and often exceeding Tesla.
And when Toyota releases solid-state batteries it won't even be close.
However, more people are making EVs, so Tesla is using its biggest advantage (supercharger network) to essentially force every other EV buyer to witness what competence looks like. Great move.
Instead they are worse than what we have today and there is no evidence that the costs are lower.
And the supercharger network is no longer an advantage as almost all EVs will now be using them.
[1] https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-model-y-cost-to-reduce-4...
Tesla is becoming a commodity and you don't see an advantage?
The Cybertruck was supposed to be a vehicle costing 40k with a range of 500 miles. It's a vehicle costing 100k with a range of 300 miles.
Reality distortion field in effect.
I feel like Apple as a company is great at coming up with those novel things that tend to blow right past the competition. (I don't like the locked-down, walled-garden result of many of those products, but I can't deny they have that special sauce.)
But a car? Computer -> laptop -> music player -> smartphone -> tablet -> smart watch... -> ... car? Not sure I buy it.
If the competition forces them to, they have buffer to lower their prices.
You made me look this up and this is slightly misleading. I couldn't find the full numbers for 2023, but I did find H1 2023.
Yes, Model Y is the best selling car in the EU, but for H1 2023 Tesla is barely the 16th best selling car brand in the EU. The other brands just sell a lot more models, on average.
> at the same time while Tesla maintains rather high margins compared to the industry standard.
I looked this up yesterday, Tesla has similar margins to BMW and Mercedes, because they sell upscale models, just like those. Tesla margins will drop once Tesla starts making cheaper models. For reference, cheaper models in Europe = cars costing 20k€. Not 40k€+ like the cars Tesla is selling right now.
Apple kills it at those things. All the stuff you don’t see will be outsourced. All the stuff you do see could be amazing. I am no Apple fanboy but get in a Tesla and think how good it could be if fancy stylists and designers made it.
I am a car guy but really, now you can’t differentiate on power trains the EV market is ripe for an Apple style product.
I'm thinking about how bad it would be, actually. That's the kind of thing that brings you the infamous steering yoke because it "looks cool". Or touch controls everywhere instead of physical knobs, because the latter are "ugly".
When it comes to cars, I want function over form, especially when it comes to UX.
I have not idea what leads you to that conclusion.
At their last investor day every single department head gave a very detailed presentation about how they're going to 10x their manufacturing from 2M vehicles in 2023 to 20 million in 2030.
I have no doubt they'll do it.
At first, Musk's stated goal was to make EV's viable. I feel like that Tesla is well on the way to that, in ways nobody thought possible.
Assuming he hasn't changed his mind, there may come a day he just calls it quits.
But to your point, I would agree - Tesla has no particular special sauce. I am waiting until Waymo FSD finds its way into consumer cars you can drive all over the country before I buy one of them.