Chasing Tesla - How Did Everyone Get So Far Behind In The First Place?

009: Your bias is showing. As a car mfg, I would never have released Auto Pilot. Does that put Tesla with their Pot Smoking On TV leader in first place?

It's easy for an upstart to get way ahead but staying way ahead is essential to their business case and Tesla simply doesn't have that.

As an upstart, they also need to court "new" and the Model S is ancient and the Model X ungainly. Both need full replacements with totally new looks. The Model Y just looks like a model 3 made taller.

It's not all wine and roses for Tesla. They have some massive impediments in the way.

Elon should find a merger partner. Merge with GM and take Mary Dumbass' job.

Twiddling one's thumbs for a decade, or two, or even three would do that.

What an utterly ignorant statement. It would only be true is Tesla started engineering EVs 30 years ago and GM didn't.

One of the hardest thing for a big company is to get out of its own way and compete with itself. The auto manufactures have over one hundred years of thinking, strategizing, investing in buildings, machinery and equipment, research and development, marketing and advertising, human resources and culture behind manufacturing and selling internal combustion engines. It takes 30 miles to stop the momentum of a super tanker. Imagine trying to stop and redirect the momentum of 100 years. Kodak for example invented the digital camera and still couldn't turn itself toward the future.

The other auto companies never took EV serious and now may never catch-up. Not easy to copy nor reverse engineer electronics and software.

"The other auto companies never took EV serious and now may never catch-up."

Catch up to what?

Tesla sold 367,500 vehicles in 2019 worldwide.

Statista.com = "In 2019, around 91.3 million motor vehicles were sold globally, representing a four percent decrease over the previous year. Demand has begun to slow down in China, the world's largest vehicle market.May 5, 2020"

367,500/91,300,000 = 0.4% (i.e. much less than 1%).

I think the major manufacturers are doing just fine. EV is clearly NOT prime time right now - it is still a novelty. ICE will be around for a long time and who knows if EV ever replaces ICE.

By the way, there is not enough data to prove that EV is better than ICE. We do not fully understand the 'life-cycle' including how all the batteries and other toxic parts are dismantled and disposed of once the vehicles die. In contrast there is an entire, environmentally friendly disposal business for ICE vehicles that has been improved over decades.

As far as I know, Tesla's proprietary architecture will not allow and 'salvage' Tesla parts to be installed in other Teslas, to preserve the Tesla parts monopoly. As such (unlike other vehicles) Tesla parts will just end up in landfills (can't even 'crush' them due to all the toxic battery parts.

Can any of the Tesla fan boys layout out a plan how EV's get to, say, 10% of the global market (which would be 9,000,000 vehicles a year)? For example, there are 900,000 Ford F150 sales per year. How does Tesla scale up? I'm all ears.

MrEE said: Not easy to copy nor reverse engineer electronics and software.

I would not want to copy Auto Pilot sofware. I would toss the code if it fell into my hands.

Tesla got so far ahead with EVs because no other shareholder-owned firm had management reckless enough to invest in cars it would have to sell below cost of manufacture.

Its worth repeating...

Catch up to what?

Tesla sold 367,500 vehicles in 2019 worldwide.

-mre30