The fact that Tesla has been even remotely successful is kind of a side benefit. The biggest thing they've done is transform the electric car market in the popular consciousness from being a joke. Ultimately that means that a lot more consumers are going to start considering electric vehicles when they are looking to buy a new automobile. Also it means that there are likely to be a lot more new entrants into the electric car market (both existing automotive manufacturers and new companies), because it's becoming a place where companies can make money. All of which will put the electric car market into the same sort of profit -> R&D -> better vehicles -> profit feedback loop that the internal combustion car has benefited from for over a century. One way or the other we'll find out whether the potential of electric vehicles matches the promise.
"Electric car maker Tesla Motors helped Mercedes develop and is manufacturing parts of the new car's electric drive system, including the lithium ion battery pack, electric motors, on-board charger and other electronics. Besides producing its own car, the Tesla Model S sedan, Tesla already produces electric drive components for the battery-powered Toyota Rav4 EV."
very very interesting. Top Gear is scathing of Tesla cars, and yet they raved about the new electric version of the Mercedes. (Admittedly, they did still take the piss out of its range...)
Top Gear are only scathing of Tesla due to being sued by them over a joke. Prior to that, they were actually being quite fair and reasonable from what I could see.
So in exchange for a failed lawsuit, Tesla lost the backing of the largest motoring TV show in the world. Probably the biggest mis-step they've made so far.
I love Top Gear, but you're getting your timeline mixed up. It went like this:
1) Tesla loans Top Gear a Roadster'
2) Top Gear does a show showing it running out of power and being pushed back into the garage at the track and they state that its range is comically low.
3) Tesla claims it was all staged
Whether or not you believe Tesla or Top Gear (and it seems relatively clear that Top Gear probably did stage it) the timeline does not show a shift in attitude from Top Gear regarding Tesla. They've always made fun of it.
>2) Top Gear does a show showing it running out of power and being pushed back into the garage at the track and they state that its range is comically low.
Comically low on the track, going full out. Which seems to be a pretty reasonable claim.
Also consider that Tesla didn't sue for over 2 years after the episode first aired. The episode was in late 2008, and Tesla sued in March 2011.
> Comically low on the track, going full out. Which seems to be a pretty reasonable claim.
Well, except for the part where apparently they didn't actually manage to run it dry on the track.
This said, it's fucking Top Gear. Their idea of a "serious" car review of the Renault Twingo is seeing if a car (undoubtedly not stock) can do a flip in a sewer tunnel. Their review of the Reliant Robin was only about how the car (again, modified), only flips. Somebody should have clued Tesla in.
Oh absolutely, I don't deny that Top Gear almost certainly staged it for comic effect. But I thought it was a decent review of the car upto and including that point.
The one major concern that almost everyone has about electric cars is to do with the range anxiety and I thought they demonstrated that well. Sure, it was staged; but staged to demonstrate the point in an entertaining way (well, the amount of entertainment is personal preference I guess).
All this was before the Model S, too. It's interesting that their series 20 just finished up and they didn't include a whisper about the Model S, either. Too bad, because I think if Tesla had ignored the joke, they'd have had some good press from TG.
Your right: Top Gear is quite literally is a joke. They make absurd claims about cars all the time in the interest of humor, because at the end of the day, they are a comedy show that occasionally talks about cars.
Tesla should have realized their car was going to be the butt of some joke: it's what the show does. If Tesla can't handle being made fun of, then they shouldn't have given Top Gear a car to test.
It depends what the joke is. The joke about the DB9 and the Veyron is that they are ridiculously cool. The joke about Teslas is that the battery runs out.
I agree here. Anyone who has ever seen more than 15min of Top Gear knows that it is not what you would call "journalism", but more "entertainment". What's more, they are not like those American car shows, which get their revenue from ads, and thus never have anything bad to say about any car review ever, and thus the programming is just drab and droll...
edit: I also enjoy the fact that top gear is much more opinionated and un-PC than anything else out there. It's keeps it interesting. Yeah, so Clarkson hates EVs, hates Ford, and hates "caravans". Once you can get past this and accept you and him very well may have different viewpoints, he's hilarious.
It's a love/hate relationship. He bought a GT40 (and then had many problems with it, but loved it, from what I remember). From what I can gather from the series, Ford is fairly popular in the UK (with the Mondeo?), so it's an easy target.
You're right. I knew it was a newer re-make if the original, but forgot the name difference, and a quick google search seemed to verify I had remembered it correctly.
It was hardly a joke on Top Gear's part. They have been ridiculously antagonistic to electric cars over the years. Top Gear staff pushed a Tesla Model S during an episode, falsely insisting to their audience that it was out of juice when it still had many, many miles of range remaining. They deserved the lawsuit and it should never have failed.
I've read many complaints by EV owners that state the range really isn't nailed down... it's usually "it depends". Something as simple as temperature changes can cause the car to lose many miles range.
That being said, the problem is that EV battery technology is still young: Most manufacturers state the upper-limit instead or something realistic. For an example: smartphones nowadays usually go past their claimed battery life despite that before it was hard for them to stay on for an entire day.
Top Gear drastically misrepresented the Tesla's range. It wasn't particularly funny, comedic, or for educational effect. It was simply misleading.
I own a Nissan Leaf and am well aware that range depends upon a series of conditions like weather, excessive acceleration and braking, and climate control. THIS IS TRUE OF ALL CARS, but matters more in EVs.
That does not mean that anyone would be well-served by an automotive review that lists towns and distances traveled, but which then misrepresents the car's state of charge to pretend its battery is completely discharged when it's actually over one-third full.
The RAV4 was appealing to me, but I've watched the forums and there seems to be an ongoing spate of serious problems with Toyota and Tesla pointing fingers at each other. The forum moderator has had his RAV4 in the shop a number of times for non-trivial things.
That's defining the U.S. luxury car market very narrowly. BMW alone sold 172,000 cars in the U.S. in the first half of this year[1]. 8% of that is more than 13,000 cars, and the report is claiming Tesla sales of roughly 10,000.
Sure, not everything BMW sells is a luxury car, but the U.S. luxury car market is usually defined as much larger than 125,000 cars in a half year.
Fact of the matter is any company is mostly judged based on the market they have chosen to compete in. Tesla make $70K+ cars and they should be judged based on that market.
Porsche (before they were purchased by VW) used to make rather expensive cars and they would always have a rather small percentage of the overall market. But no-one would accuse Porsche of being a failure, because they did very well in their rather lucrative price brackets. In fact Porsche is often called the most successful car company ever due to their big profit margins.
What I mean is that I am using Porsche as an example only as it pertains to its history of an independent company. I wanted to provide an example of an independent company that is limited to making expensive cars -- i.e., something similar to Tesla.
Car classes like 'luxury', 'midrange' and 'economy' are very loosely defined, and deliberately so. There's no point arguing over what a luxury car is, as many groups will have different answers.
Car companies love this, after all how many times do you see something like "The best [insert feature here] in its class" in their marketing? Because there are so many different definitions of car classes, no-one can prove their statement wrong!
I have to disagree with you; the A8, S, and 7er are "large luxury" class cars. The A6 and 5er are "midsize luxury" and the A4 / 3 are "entry luxury." One should also consider the Lexus LS, GS, GX, and LX, an occasional Cadillac, the Toyota Land Cruiser, a variety of Jaguars and Range Rovers, and on and on. It's dishonest to assert that Tesla is taking 8.4% of the entire "luxury market" and then sneak in with the next breath that the luxury market includes only flagship sedans.
Am I understanding correctly? You are putting audi A4/3($27K MSRP) into the same class as Jaguar(starts at $47K) and Range Rovers ($83K MSRP)? I think Tesla with it's price tag should go into a separate category from audi a4,3...
Yes, the US taxonomy includes a great swath of vehicles in the "luxury" main category, even though many of them are not directly comparable. For example, the US market would consider the Audi A3/A4 to be the luxury versions of the VW Rabbit/GTI and Passat, and generally the trim levels available in the US reinforce this: it is very unusual to see in the States any Audi with cloth seats, but not uncommon in Europe.
Hardly any Americans would place a BMW 550i in the "non-luxury" group, least of all BMW USA. It isn't the largest or most feature-jammed car in the fleet, but to Americans it is absolutely a luxury car.
This is largely due to the manufacturers. "Americans" don't decide that a 5-series is luxury, it's the manufacturers. You can't buy a BMW or Mercedes without all of the bells an whistles. You can't even buy many of the cheaper cars (i.e. A-Class) from those manufacturers in the US.
I would put the RS versions of the 5 & 6 in luxury and probably all the RS sort of qualify as would some of the S models (not the S Line thats just trim)
If you call A6 and 5-series luxury cars then half of Germany / northern Europe are driving luxury cars, that is by definition not luxury. Those are called "upper midrange" or "premium".
I'd like to join in on this game. How about this for an idea:
I disagree with both of you. Your categories are all are artificial and for people with "new money". It's a concern for those who seek to differentiate themselves from the rest the middle class by burning cash on these silly toys. Those with true wealth find this mundane and even distasteful.
Given what the original report actually says, your answer might be a tad bit more lame-brained than the person you are responding to.
"PEV[1] sales, while not matching up with original sales targets laid out by some auto manufacturers, have been strong for a new entrant in a market that has been dominated by internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs) for a century. Through their first 30 months in the marketplace (2011-2013), sales of PEVs have been more than double the sales of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in their first years in the U.S. market (2000-2002) and the sales continue to grow—June 2013 saw the strongest PEV sales numbers yet, and more than 110,000 units have been sold to date. In the luxury segment, Tesla’s Model S has captured 8.4 percent of the market in the first six months of 2013."
So, the 8.4% is actually not "luxury" class cars at all. It is a subset.
In that case the Tesla isnt a luxury car either because it competes with the likes of 5 and 6 Series BMW and Audi A5/A6. It clearly is not an A8, 7 series or S Class rival.
Only the 7-series is unambiguously luxury. Which aligns with my European view that a 3-series is your bog standard "large family car" or "small executive car".
> BMWs. They're all luxury cars, from what I can tell.
BMW 5 series are the most-purchased company cars here in Austria, they certainly aren't luxury cars anywhere outside the 3rd world, although they might enjoy a certain brand image in the US ...
The difference is that in the US, neither BMW nor M-B market stripper versions of their cars. In order to buy a 5 series or E Class you will end up with at least a 528 (with significant number of interior luxury features) or an E350. Both of them start at about US$50k, and to me that is squarely luxury. Interestingly, well over half of all of them are leased, not purchased.
The way things are defined in the US, the BMW 5 series is a luxury car. It represents close to the maximum amount of amenities for a given size class and, well, the car magazines call it a luxury car. There's not much else to it...
It's certainly possible they're equipped differently here, as so many cars are. If that's not the case and Austrians simply have a different sense of "luxury car" I wonder what you guys have that trumps the 5 series in that size category, as far as "luxury" is concerned.
I bet there is an objective criteria for it, though (if not a very clear one).
A thought-experiment: say you wreck your car, and your insurance provider is going to give you a loaner.
They want this loaner car to impress you (the cost of one regular car, however nice, is not much skin off their back, especially if they get to amortize it over all the people they lend it out to; and they want to give you the impression that they've got enough money to cover any problem you might have, so that you'll keep paying your premiums--the same reason bank lobbies look so "stately.")
However, they don't want to spend too much, because there's a point where cars switch from regular goods, to being Veblen goods. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)
The optimum between impressing you the most, and avoiding spending way more than the car "should" be worth for an any marginal gain of impressiveness, should define the type of car they loan out (and it does, in my experience.) You can draw the "luxury" inflection point as being exactly the next-most-expensive models up from these, where the value proposition stops making sense to economically-rational actors.
I agree. They use a pretty bad (i.e. unreasonable) definition of luxury car market.
I live in Manhattan (so maybe Tesla is not big here), but in the last year I've only seen 2 Teslas on the road. By comparison, I see about 5-10 Audi A8's a day.
i haven't seen a good answer from tesla for apartment dwellers, or rented parking spaces. both of which are more endemic in NYC. to own your own property and own the parking spot so that you could install a charger is a lot.
Tesla has found it's groove. Not only is demand robust for the Model S, they are expanding production as well. So far it looks like they will surpass their 21,000 cars they've given guidance for 2013. They're starting rollout in Europe this month, and Asia later this year.
At the end of 2014, they will start rolling out the Model X SUV that will offer dual engines. Some are speculating that it could give a 0-60mph time in under 4 seconds. That would be truly incredible for an SUV.
Then, Tesla is readying the long-awaited GenIII vehicle due at the end of 2016 or in 2017. Elon Musk recently stated that his goal is to sell the vehicle for $35000 (w/o incentives) and for the car to have a 200 mile range. Further, Gen III is targeting the BMW 3 series and many are expecting the Gen III to handle and perform better than a BMW 3 series. It could be the hottest car on the planet when it's released.
Tesla as a company is doing very well. They're expanding like crazy. And they're managing their cash flow well. They will report Q2 earnings this Wednesday, 8/7 and they could report another quarterly profit as well.
In another area, Elon Musk has promised to achieve 25% gross margin on the Model S by the end of the year. So, it will be interesting to see how far they've come along when Q2 earnings are reported on Wednesday. Further, it could be possible Tesla is shooting for 30% gross margin on the Model S next year (which would be incredible). In the 2012 Elon Musk ceo incentive plan, reaching 4 consecutive quarters of 30% gross margin is one of the key milestones.
- Tesla has repeatedly promised to increase its gross margin, but has so far failed to do so.
- While Nissan has invested in their own battery manufacturing plants (in Japan, US, and UK), Tesla buys their batteries from Panasonic. While they design and assemble their own battery packs, they haven't made raw battery manufacture their core competency, which could hurt their ability to compete on cost, or to innovate in lithium ion battery technology.
- The BMW i3 will soon be entering production.
- Tesla recently closed another round of funding, the cash for which will be used to bring new models to market, meaning they're about to take hit to earnings for R&D. This is fine, but the stock may collapse in the short term.
Let's also not ignore the obvious conflict of interest in a group promoting electric vehicle sales trying to speak about actual statistics. As mentioned, BMW sold 172k cars, Mercedes Benz 182k, Audi 87k for total of 441k. Tesla at ~10k, 2% of above (though all ~$100k).
I believe the comparison is to similar models... You wouldn't compare a Mercees SLK to a BMW 3 series... in this case, I'm pretty sure they are comparing against large size luxury sedans alone...
Range Rover, Jaguar, Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati, Bentley... I hesitate to mention Lincoln as their designs have sucked bigtime for a really disconcertingly long while.
Lincoln knows what they need to build (a modern version of the 1963 Continental) but has failed to commit design and manufacturing resources to do so. So they end up badge-engineering Ford products.
Luxury Car: A car that offers a full array of luxury features and an outstanding level of refinement, starting at a base price over $40,000. Examples include the Bentley Brooklands, BMW 5-series, Mercedes-Benz CL-class, Jaguar XF, Lexus LS460, and Infiniti M45.
I don't know about new, but I get the sense from Tesla's buyback-and-upgrade program that they're looking to saturate the used car market with lower-cost Teslas to provide options more attractive to your typical car buyer.
If I could get a 2 year old Tesla for the cost of a functionally equivalent new car, I'd be very interested.
Assumption based on experience from laptops, phones and other devices with LiPo/LiOn/Lixxx. Maybe teslas batteries are better? In 2 years we will find out...
Why would you base your assumption on experience with laptops when you have access (through the magic of the Internet) to perfectly good data about the Tesla Roadster? They've been on the road for over four years now.
It says that the batteries have, on average, over 80 percent capacity remaining after 100,000 miles. 80% of the original 265 mile EPA range is still well over 210 miles of range.
Cars generally cycle the batteries far more gently, as their weight and size constraints are far less tight. 10-year-old Priuses have NiMH batteries chugging along just fine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Battery_life_cycle), but most 10-year-old gadgets are in pretty bad shape battery-wise.
Hybrid vehicles have a significant advantage over PEVs when it comes to battery life, which is that they don't need to utilize the full capacity of their batteries. The control system on a Prius tries to keep its main battery at an average 60% charge, which significantly lengthens its life. That's not such a big deal when you can recharge the battery at any time off of the gas engine.
Depending on heat, a fully charged Li+ battery will lose between 15-30% of its capacity per year. If you keep its charge between 40-60%, it will lose only around 4-10% per year.
Tesla estimates that after 5 years, their battery packs will still have 70% of their original capacity, which would seem to indicate that this is indeed what they're doing (70%^(1/5) = 93%, or 7% loss per year). That sucks for a car which is entirely powered by its battery, since it means that a Tesla could, at a long-term cost to total capacity, potentially have at least twice the range its control system will allow. It seems like that would be a decent feature to give for people making occasional long trips.
The base will likely be around ~35k after 7500k tax credit which I think is doable. I would guess it will be have 40 & 60 kwh offerings and a bit smaller than the S. The 40 should easily pull off 150 miles rated range. I have a 60kwh software reduced to 40. I get a rated range of 144 which has been plenty for my use.
That is the billion dollar question, and it's what Elon is paying his engineers to answer. Because of that, I don't think we'll see an answer till 2016.
the bigger question, does he have the time to wait to 2016? The established brands are moving already, he could be entering a contested market, his current market is uncontested.
First, I doubt that without incentives that there will be a 3 in first digit and second I am very doubtful he can provide the same level of service at that price point.
This article has a big flaw imo, as the Model S is not a luxury car as defined here. It competes with the likes of 5/6 Series BMW, Audi A5/A6 and Mercedes E Class. The 7 Series, S Class and Audi A8 are not among its direct rivals, in fact the Tesla only rivals them in price. That doesnt lead to the conclusion that the Model S is eating away market share from the "real" luxury cars though.
I don't think the target market (or at least the people actually buying them) are necessarily the same people who would have bought 7 series, S class, and A8s. At least for the BMW & M-B, the demographics skew toward older, more conservative buyers (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732423510457824...). Tesla, I suspect, is getting the folks who previously bought Priuses to make a statement, or who would otherwise be looking at M3/5 BMWs or AMG M-Bs.
I was very disappointed to hear that Tesla pushed the launch of the $30,000 Bluestar to 2017, from the initial 2015 date.
I guess they did it because they couldn't reach the quality they wanted at that price point in that timeframe. That's fine, but I wish they started getting more market share sooner, and get more people to use electric vehicles. 2017 is quite a lot of time from now.
I'm more concerned about the Model X, myself. An SUV that can't be used with a roof rack doesn't exactly strike me as something that will set its market sector on fire.
I think you misunderstand who the average SUV buyer is. Most people never use an SUV to it's potential. That includes the roof racks. They basically replaced minivans.
I agree with you in the general case, but the Model X isn't targeted at the "average" SUV buyer. They need to appeal to younger, more active buyers -- people who are more likely than most SUV owners to hit the bike trails or ski slopes. We'll see, I guess.
They will have a solution to the roof rack problem. No one knows what it is, but they've been asked about it enough, and are aware that they will need a solution. What that solution will be is less clear, but there are plenty of possible solutions.
Apple made products that were actually practical and useful to ordinary people. Tesla is a rich person's toy only made affordable by heavy tax credits.
Edit: I would think they are more like NeXT right now. They are making something really cool, but very expensive and not practical for most people.
Apple's were if not "a rich persons toy" then at least "solidly upper middle class persons toy" for a very long time. For most of their early existence, you could get competing products at half their price, that was still out of the acceptable cost range for most people, and soon enough you could get products at less than 20% of the cost of their main products.
Arguably a lot of their range still is still unaffordable for most people.
> Tesla is a rich person's toy only made affordable by heavy tax credits.
Apple is also a rich person's toy only made affordable by heavy carrier subsidy. Carrier subsidy is the primary reason why iphone sales are so high. Nobody would otherwise pay 600-700 USD. As opposed to android devices which are like 400 USD for no subsidy (nexus 4).
(And of course the whole point of Tesla Motors is to make an affordable EV, but let's not give credit too early. To loosely quote Elon Musk's response to criticism like this, "many people are under the mistaken impression that we made the Roadster because we thought there was a dire shortage of sports-cars for rich people.")
The important thing is that they are making money doing it, so that ordinary people can benefit down the road. Apple were seen as overpriced for the longest time and it's only recently they went from niche brand to mainstream.
No more or less affordable than a 7 series BMW. A $7500 Federal tax credit probably isn't what makes or breaks a decision to buy a $70K car. Hell, I still would have purchased our Leaf even if it didn't get the tax credit, and it was only $32K (and therefore the credit being a much larger percentage of price).
there is too much risk to just jumping into the mass-market price range, so Tesla is using these high-end vehicles as an infrastructure/know-how/money launchpad for broader mass-market cars. in other words, from a strategic point of view the Model S is a way to get investment dollars toward the pursuit of an affordable electric car.
this isn't my analysis. Elon has mentioned it in various places:
Do you think it's a better business strategy to start out competing with the Yarus? I think it makes sense to build a strong brand associated with luxury and desirability first, and then sneak in some budget-level products as BMW et al have done, rather than dive right into a race to the bottom with sub-30K commuter vehicles.
A pure electric vehicle to get myself to and from work is perfectly practical, and would save me lots of gas money. A bonus is that it's sexy looking, America made, hacker-friendly and a blast to drive. As soon as I can afford it, I'll buy one.
The Apple II says hello, too. When introduced, its retail price was around twice competing machines, and the others kept cutting price while Apple didn't. Soon enough entry level home computers sold for sub $200, while Apple kept introducing most of their new models in the $1200-$1300 price range or above.
A lot of people can't afford Apple, but look at the sense of design and pace of innovation it brought to the table. The repercussions of Telsa are going to be tremendous on the vehicle industry.
The current valuation would be very good if they sold around 60000 Model S/year:
They have a Market Cap of $16B.
Estimated longer term profit per Model S sold is around $15000 (as far as I remember); I think they are aiming for around 15% profit margin for Model S.
So at 60000 cars/year they would profit around $0.9B or trading at around 17x profit. Which wouldn't be terrible for a growth-company.
Problem is that they are currently only on target for around 20-25000 model S/2013 and they didn't have that big a profit margin last quarter.
As always, the next quarterly reports will likely tell if they are on track or not. Last quarter was just the first profitable quarter for Tesla ever, so it is hard to say anything. Nobody even knows if demand for the Model S is sustainable, as Tesla received around 20000 preorders.
It isn't an outrageous valuation compared to e.g. Amazon, but it is definitely based on the company achieving massive growth, so if the next quarterly results do not reflect that, the stock will likely take a 10-15% dive over night.
On the other hand, if the Model S is the new Prius (as some people believe), they might sell 200000 cars/year within a few years. Musk is definitely aiming for this, and the factory they have has a capacity for something in that ballpark.
They also haven't tapped into the European market yet. E.g. Scandinavia has high taxes on petrol based cars, so the Tesla S is significantly cheaper than other "luxury" cars in Scandinavia. I suspect Europeans in general have shorter commutes, so perhaps electric cars are doing better here. Then there is Asia...
It is a high-risk investment at this point, but it could go either way. The stock price currently reflects optimism.
It would be more than a 10-15% dive - the stock fell 18% in a single day a month ago after a (bullish!) analyst report from Goldman Sachs which had a lower price target than the current stock price. Tesla stock is insanely volatile.
You won't get anywhere with that argument. When Bitcoin tripled in value over the course of 1-2 weeks, if memory serves HN by and large had zero sustainability concerns.
Even further, those that were suggesting it was a bubble at 120 or 140 or 160 or higher were downvoted to oblivion. Kinda sad, given that the price right now on mtgox is 105
It's amazingly popular in the SF Bay Area; I see several each day on my 2-mile commute to work (right next to Google, but still). However, I also saw one when I was in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, so it's not just SF.
Of course, the SF Bay Area is its own special little bubble. Inferring nationwide vehicle choice based on the SF Bay would be like living in Boulder and assuming the rest of the nation is also Prius-crazed.
Hah! Before this I lived in Boulder and did indeed feel like everyone drove Priuses. (Although, my current office of 40 people has three people who drive Priuses of the same color… but point still taken.)
Yes, I believe general_failure meant, "you can't generalize 'near Google' to 'Bay Area'", so I elaborated to say that I've seen many in the Bay Area, not just near Google.
Really? I live in DC and see them fairly often. Because Tesla is installing power stations primarily between NYC and DC, I would think this is one region where you would be most likely to see them, actually.
Ours was in DC back in April. :) We took a road trip from Salem, NH to DC for school vacation. We visited the DC Tesla store and charged up there and I saw one other Model S "in the wild" valet parked while walking the town.
They are not as commonplace on the eastern side as they are in California. Back in June, there were somewhere between 300 and 400 in the New England area. Probably about the same in the states surrounding DC.
Could be. Here on the Eastside of Seattle, I parked next to one at Cougar Mt. Park on Friday, and saw one driving around today. It would be a stretch to say that I see one every day, but there are plenty around here. (And, yes, some sightings are probably repeats.)
Traveling cross-country would be pretty difficult with the Model S right now. It requires a full recharge every 200-300 miles, which takes several hours except at special Tesla-operated "supercharger" stations (which take about 35 minutes to recharge the car, v. 5 mins to refill a gas tank), which are currently quite scarce.
I'm struck by the comparison between what Tesla can be and what Apple is now within it's own industry. Who cares about market share when you're making the highest profit margin? Many comments here are regarding BMW's or Mercedes global sales numbers. I'm sure both manufacturers would trade most of those lower margin sales for the kind of cream that Apple sees on every sales of a Mac. I'm guessing Tesla isn't there yet (profit margin wise) but if I were Elon I'd rethink my goal to build an everyman car, unless he's thinking it will be Tesla's iPad moment.
Well, the reason is because auto manufacturers are notorious for chasing volume, and still are.
For example, although they're not a luxury marque, VW specifically (not the VW group) decontented their cars in what is referred to as the "beigekrieg". By decontenting -- and then drastically lowering the price -- of the Jetta and Passat, they are gaining significant volume to meet the goal of increasing U.S. unit sales from 250,000 a year to 800,000 a year. So far they've managed to increase it to > 400,000 a year.
Why is Audi bringing over the A3, BMW the 1 series (though that's not gone terribly well) and FWD cars, and Mercedes the FWD CLA? These are cars at lower price points, meant to increase volume and to get new customers into the fold of the brand. On the entry-level luxury market, buyers are price sensitive. Not as price sensitive as the mainstream compact and mid-size sedan markets (who have been decontenting cars to keep prices from moving), but still price sensitive. If the cars get too expensive, or if times get tough, these buyers abandon their plans first. Regardless, all three marques are seeing record sales in the U.S.
Even Porsche, one of the most profit-oriented marques on the planet, has the sub-Cayenne crossover being launched at the L.A. auto show. It may break the "we make at least $10K on every car we sell" informal rule for the first time in over a decade. Why? Volume, which admittedly, allows it to fund other versions (and entirely different) of existing sports cars which bring in very high margin.
The only manufacturer I can think of that's genuinely attempting to be exclusive is Ferrari, who is now trying to limit global sales to 7,000 vehicles per year, which will raise prices.
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Regardless, I think Tesla's strategy is the correct one. To say it worked for Porsche is an understatement -- hell, they used it to nearly buy VW from under the planet's nose.
