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Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla

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Dabop said:
Actually the assertion was that the Tesla was the best selling CAR, not EV- and that too is incorrect...

Toyota Corollas outsold the Tesla Y worldwide in 2022 by a considerable margin (1.12 million to 760000- approaching nearly double the sales)
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Fail.

Elon Musk believes Tesla Model Y could become world’s best-selling car
April 29, 2021

While speaking during Tesla’s 2021 Q1 press conference over sales, Musk made the call that the Model Y could become the world’s best selling car by either 2022 or 2023. He fleshed this out further on Twitter, explaining that the nameplate could become the world’s biggest “based on revenue” in 2022 and “possibly total units” in 2023.

To put this into perspective, Toyota sold 1.1 million Corollas worldwide in 2020, making it the world’s most popular passenger vehicle.
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Tesla Model Y Was The World's Best-Selling Car In Q1 2023
May 25, 2023
According to JATO data compiled for Motor1, the Model Y was the first electric car to lead global sales for a period... JATO data for 53 markets worldwide, plus information for other key markets and estimates for others, indicate that the Tesla Model Y was the world's best-selling car in the first quarter of this year.

Data collected for the first quarter shows the Tesla Model Y in the lead with 267,200 units sold. That's an increase of approximately 69 percent from the same period last year. The Model Y performed strongly in China, its core market, in the United States where it's up 68 percent, and in Europe, where it became the top-selling vehicle.

The Toyota Corolla is less despite sales figures including all available body types: sedan, wagon, and hatchback. The Corolla, which has been one of the most popular cars in the world for years, recorded downward-trending sales of 256,400 units. That includes a 29 percent drop in China and a 10 percent decline in the United States.
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I honestly don't get it. Musk makes an 'extremely bold' prediction about Model Y sales, and the skeptics are naturally skeptical. Some insist that this prediction is just more lies from the World's biggest conman.

Then the day comes and guess what, He was right! Any rational person would admit they were wrong, but not Musk haters. Instead they tie themselves in knots trying to 'prove' that the figures presented by disinterested parties are incorrect, or attempt to move the goalposts. What is their problem? Why can't they accept that in at least this one case it wasn't just hype?

Yes, Musk has made some outrageous predictions about what the future may bring, but he was also right on the money with his prediction of actual product delivered. The Model Y is one of the World's best selling cars because Tesla put the hard work into producing a vehicle worthy of the title, unlike some other EV startups whose bold claims have come to nought.

But that's no reason to stop hating. Once your mind is made up, no facts can change it. Musk is a liar and a fraud and always will be, even when you can't blink without seeing a Tesla. Guess you'll just have to keep your eyes closed!
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
Yes, it's hyperbole. Even if we include gas cars, there are plenty of other manufacturers who don't have vastly more models.

Take Mazda for example, the top selling car brand in New Zealand in 2021 with 72127 units sold (4 times more than Toyota, the next most popular). They offer a total of 11 models in New Zealand, including 1 (one) EV.

BYD has 3 models (all electric).

GWM has 6 models, including 1 (one) EV.

Mitsubishi has 8 models, including 2 PHEVs (but no pure EVs).

MG have 8 models, including 3 EVs.

Honda has 5 models (no EVs)

Subaru has 6 models (no EVs)

Renault have 6 models currently available, including 1 (one) EV.
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No, it isn't hyperbole and your list is factually wrong. I'm not going to look up them all, but I knew you were outstandingly misinformed when you listed Honda as having five models. If were are listing renamed/rebodied platforms as distinct models (your standard, not mine), Honda currently produces forty two consumer passenger vehicle models. Not counting busses and work trucks, BYD makes eight models currently. Subaru something like eighteen.

Seriously, what are you doing?


That's not misleading. Like I said you just don't understand the market.

Many car makers have developed an EV 'platform' that is shared between many models. Some are even shared between manufacturers, eg. Kia and Hyundai. Tesla doesn't do that - every model is innovative. But whether a particular model is truly unique or just a 'skin' on top of a common 'mechanism' is irrelevant to the buyer, who is looking for particular features including styling. They don't care if the 'mechanics' are largely the same (after all how different can they be?).

This reminds me of the first new car my parents bought back in the 1970's, a Vauxhall Viva Estate. In those days cars sold in New Zealand had to be 'manufactured' here, which generally meant assembled from parts made in the UK. The left hand door on our car didn't fit properly because it was from the wrong model!

Manufacturers have different model names for a reason - so customers can differentiate between them and make it easier to identify the features they want. But even quite different models often share many of the same parts, for obvious reasons.

Are Audi and Volkswagen Parts the Same?
Despite this, nobody is suggesting that most VW and Audi models should be lumped together as one in determining their popularity. Audi owners might be particularly miffed at suggestions that they are really driving a Volkswagen.
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Oh, there is an entire ecosystem of automotive parts manufacturing that shares many parts across not just models, but even companies and competing ones at that? Are there even standards created to harmonize the different assessment and certification systems worldwide in the supply chain for the automotive sector? So that suppliers to different automotive groups can reliable track who each specific part came from for various reasons such as accountability, improvement, and liability assessment? Does the industry pay people to do audits in order to stay in compliance with these standards such as IATF 16949? Sounds like a job one could do for several years.

Yeah, Audi owners might get miffed at really driving a Volkswagen because of marketing, and Pontiac Vibe drivers might ruffle at the idea they're driving a rebodied Japanese Corrolla and not an American designed vehicle.

That doesn't mean that isn't what is happening. Not to downplay the importance of things like build quality (which does change from plant to plant, the Matrix is put together better than the Vibe was) or body (contrary to what Fast Eddie B believes, I still hold that at least some of the rebodies do have great utility in that I could literally put my kayak inside my Vibe which I couldn't do to a Corolla), but when the mechanicals are the same, they are mostly the same cars. (Mechanicals, not 'mechanics', are, to oversimplify it, the moving parts.)

If what people think they like about their car, what makes them popular, are things that come from how the car works, including reliability, performance, capacity, efficiency, and all the other 'car' parts of a car besides body and interior (not that those are insignificant) then yes, the base is what is actually popular. More to the point, dividing sales between vehicles that are essentially the same does speak to the popularity of any given vehicle.

The Corolla is currently the most popular consumer vehicle on earth. It is so for many factors. Why this is so objectionable to you, I guess that's up to the reader to decide.
 
What is amusing is he is using a press release from 2021 with Musk saying he believes it 'could' become the worlds most popular car, ignoring the fact of worldwide sales numbers (actual cars sold) in 2022
(we haven't got the final figures for 2023 due to the rather obvious problem that it hasn't ended yet...)
:jaw-dropp
 
Roboramma said:
"About a week"? I think you should be more accurate with your claims if you want us to conclude anything from them. For how long did Starlink offer free service to Ukraine?
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Ok, I exaggerated, it was a week and a half before Galaxy Brain started crying penury to blackmail the US government.
 
Marcus said:
Also the charging port would have to be changed. It doesn't look like Tesla is interested in producing an EU version, it's not a big pickup market anyway. I overlooked this referring to the big European Tesla market, my bad.


As to whether this means the truck will fail, I'm not so sure. There are those 1.9 million pre-orders, so someone is interested.With an overly optimistic estimated production rate of 1/4 million per year (starting in 2025) that alone is enough to keep them busy for a while.
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With it being a $100 refundable deposit, payable when the "guaranteed price" was less than half the actual price, before Tesla tried introducing quite restrictive and possibly illegal contract terms, before anybody saw the truly horrendous build quality, and with verified cases of people putting deposits on hundreds or thousands of vehicles; how many will be genuine and how many deposits will lead to sales.

Oh yes, and that's not even taking into account previous Tesla deposit schemes scams like that for the Roadster 2 where Galaxy Brain promised you one a year later if you paid a non-refundable six figure deposit. That car is still in the initial development stages coming into 2024.
 
Ziggurat said:
Accounts would be proof. This is absolutely still evidence. Again, if you don't understand why turnaround time is VERY STRONG evidence, then you don't understand the economics of rockets. There's a reason everyone is trying to do reusable rockets now. There's no point in even designing another rocket that's not reusable. Nothing else can possibly compete.
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But everybody apart from SpaceX is being noticeably slow in getting their reusable rocket designs in service. Perhaps they are trying to figure out how to do it economically and the reason they can't is that it is not possible, or marginal at best.

Just because SpaceX is using them a lot does not mean they are economic. And actually, even SpaceX currently only has a reusable first stage, not a fully reusable rocket.

SpaceX has had external investment funding every year since it was formed, often in the billions of dollars. It could be that they are burning that to corner the market.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
With it being a $100 refundable deposit, payable when the "guaranteed price" was less than half the actual price, before Tesla tried introducing quite restrictive and possibly illegal contract terms, before anybody saw the truly horrendous build quality, and with verified cases of people putting deposits on hundreds or thousands of vehicles; how many will be genuine and how many deposits will lead to sales.
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On the one hand, I agree that a certain percentage of deposit holders will request refunds. Some already have. I have not, nor have two friends. We’ll have to wait and see.

As far as “truly horrendous build quality”, that’s far from the impression of numerous and varied reviewers to date. It certainly was not the case on our 2022 Model 3. I mention that different model because Teslas are often criticized across the board for poor build quality, but that seems to have improved markedly over time. Do you have a reliable source that gave you your impression concerning the CyberTruck?
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
With it being a $100 refundable deposit, payable when the "guaranteed price" was less than half the actual price, before Tesla tried introducing quite restrictive and possibly illegal contract terms, before anybody saw the truly horrendous build quality, and with verified cases of people putting deposits on hundreds or thousands of vehicles; how many will be genuine and how many deposits will lead to sales.

Oh yes, and that's not even taking into account previous Tesla deposit schemes scams like that for the Roadster 2 where Galaxy Brain promised you one a year later if you paid a non-refundable six figure deposit. That car is still in the initial development stages coming into 2024.
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The most egregious Tesla scam was FSD. People payed four figure sums to have it in 2016 and now they are looking to change cars and FSD hasn't even been delivered yet.

Beyond that, it's standard practice for Tesla to start taking deposits years before the car becomes available. I guess the reasoning is that, if you have a deposit down on a Tesla model 3 in 2016, you aren't going to go looking at competitors' offerings while Tesla sorts out Musk's attempts to design a production line for it.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
With it being a $100 refundable deposit, payable when the "guaranteed price" was less than half the actual price, before Tesla tried introducing quite restrictive and possibly illegal contract terms, before anybody saw the truly horrendous build quality, and with verified cases of people putting deposits on hundreds or thousands of vehicles; how many will be genuine and how many deposits will lead to sales.

Oh yes, and that's not even taking into account previous Tesla deposit schemes scams like that for the Roadster 2 where Galaxy Brain promised you one a year later if you paid a non-refundable six figure deposit. That car is still in the initial development stages coming into 2024.
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True, I'm sure there will be plenty of cancellations. On the other hand, pre-orders are increasing rapidly, currently over 2 million, in spite of all the current info like price and waiting time being public. Are you sure you don't want to sign up? It's only a 5 year wait to get one.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Ok, I exaggerated, it was a week and a half before Galaxy Brain started crying penury to blackmail the US government.
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When your argument is based on how long a length of time something took, the question of "exactly how long" is a pretty reasonable one. Your unwillingness to honestly answer that question is certainly a red flag.

Also, not offering your services free of charge is pretty clearly different from blackmail.

If your case is legitimate, you should be able to describe it accurately and still have a case. Maybe your case is legitimate. My objection is to your false portrayal. "a week and a half" is inaccurate. Is the actual length of time suspicious in some way? We can only judge that based on the actual length of time. "Blackmail" is inaccurate. Is what was done wrong in some way? We can only judge that based on an accurate portrayal of the actions undertaken.
 
jeremyp said:
Just because SpaceX is using them a lot does not mean they are economic.
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Once again: turnaround times. There is simply no plausible way that you can rack up more cost in prepping a relaunch than in making a new rocket. There isn’t enough time. Those costs are dominated by labor, and they're too short to rack up labor costs equivalent to making a new rocket, which has significant labor AND material costs.

And actually, even SpaceX currently only has a reusable first stage, not a fully reusable rocket.
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That's enough to give them a major cost advantage.

SpaceX has had external investment funding every year since it was formed, often in the billions of dollars. It could be that they are burning that to corner the market.
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That may apply to overall operations. But Falcon 9 specifically? Yeah, that's making money.
 
Both my wife and I think it’s fairly obvious that Musk is somewhere “on a spectrum”. In layman’s terms, “There’s something not quite right about that boy”.

That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it may help explain it. His tendency to “overpromise” is well known, from when Full Self Driving will live up to its name, to CyberTruck pricing, and dozens of other instances. Tesla owners are mostly aware of this, and even joke about “Elon time” when he makes forecasts. One is free to assume he’s simply lying, but it may have more to do with “boyish optimism” than intentional deception.

Four years ago the CyberTruck was unveiled, along with pricing:

53390534516_cfc17583bd_z.jpg


Should he have anticipated a 4 year delay, inflation and COVID supply chain disruptions? Maybe. And the prices now are substantially higher, even with 4 years of inflation built in. But rather than saying he just lied, those who know his history realized from the outset that the prices and timeline were “aspirational”. And we realized the middle, AWD version we ordered would be pricier than originally proposed, and likely years in the future.

For those not in the Tesla/CyberTruck “bubble”, I think the below 16 minute YouTube video shows that most Tesla fans are rightly skeptical about anything Musk promises, especially concerning prices and timelines.

https://youtu.be/477jtsgqw5U?si=f2n8B1tfCJMQ17si


But it is what it is, and there are a lot of satisfied Tesla owners out there, in spite of Musk’s “feet of clay”.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Should he have anticipated a 4 year delay, inflation and COVID supply chain disruptions? Maybe.
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You're kidding, right? The first global pandemic we have faced since 1918, with 772 million infected and 6.9 million deaths so far (1.1 million in the US alone). China locked down major cities for up to 100+ days, causing massive shortages of microchips and other parts and stretching delivery times to years. This was apocalyptic level disruption, the kind of thing you only saw in science fiction movies. You think anybody could have realistically anticipated that?

Imagine if Musk had come out in 2019 saying "We expect the Cybertruck will be delayed by 4 years because in 2020 a deadly virus will kill over 1 million Americans and force the whole world to shut down, including China who will still have factories shut down in mid 2022". Everybody (save a few 'alarmists' like me) would have thought he was nuts.

And the prices now are substantially higher, even with 4 years of inflation built in.
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Price estimates are estimates. I don't know about the US, but in New Zealand an estimate can legally vary by 15% for no reason - more if there are reasons such as increased material costs. And there is a lot more to take into account than just 'inflation', which is not a measure of costs borne by a particular industry.

Considering everything that has happened and the challenges involved in producing such an innovative product, I'm surprised they got it out so soon and managed to hold prices as low as they did.

But rather than saying he just lied, those who know his history realized from the outset that the prices and timeline were “aspirational”.
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Sure his goals were 'aspirational', and yes he is well known for being optimistic about timelines. But is this unique to Musk? Take a look at some of the other innovative EV products being developed concurrently, eg.:-

Aptera demonstrated their first prototype in 2009. 2 years later the company ran out of money and was liquidated. 10 years later, in 2019, a new company was formed, now promising delivery of production units in 2024.

Rivian also started in 2009. In 2017 they revealed 2 models, finally getting getting them into production 4 years later in 2021. In 2022 they raised prices by 17% for the R1T and 20% for the R1S, citing a shortage of semiconductors and higher costs for other components.

In 2009 again, Toyota announced that they would have an amazing solid state battery in production by 2015. In 2015 they promised it in 2020. In 2020 it was 'coming in 2025'. Now they are saying 2027-8.

Toyota's hydrogen plans are not going much better. Their fuel-cell powered Mirai car spectacularly bombed in the marketplace, so now they are developing hydrogen combustion engines. They recently filed a patent for injecting water into the cylinders, presumably for cooling (which numerous clickbait videos are calling a 'water engine' :rolleyes:). As well as that they are talking about making engines that run on ammonia, a nasty chemical that is highly toxic to aquatic life.

But why bother with all that crap when they have an amazing solid state battery coming out in just a few years? One guess...
 
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tyr_13 said:
No, it isn't hyperbole and your list is factually wrong. I'm not going to look up them all, but I knew you were outstandingly misinformed when you listed Honda as having five models. If were are listing renamed/rebodied platforms as distinct models (your standard, not mine),
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Somebody can't read. I even provided links to the manufacturers' websites which you obviously didn't look at. That was a lot of work to just be ignored - not sure I can be bothered anymore.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
As far as “truly horrendous build quality”, that’s far from the impression of numerous and varied reviewers to date. It certainly was not the case on our 2022 Model 3. I mention that different model because Teslas are often criticized across the board for poor build quality, but that seems to have improved markedly over time. Do you have a reliable source that gave you your impression concerning the CyberTruck?
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Reliable sources? Who needs them? We got our talking points from the anti-Musk echo chamber, and that's good enough for us!
 
Roger Ramjets said:
You're kidding, right?
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(Concerning my “Maybe” as to what Musk might have anticipated at the CyberTruck unveiling.)

I think I offered that “Maybe” somewhat facetiously. Obviously he could not have known a worldwide pandemic was lurking in the wings. I also don’t think he foresaw it would take 4 years to get from prototype to production, nor the level of inflation over those 4 years. Those folks I know with orders in were a little disappointed - but hardly surprised - at the size of the price increases across all 3 models.
 
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