Tesla has beaten everyone to the electric car mass market and that’s great. However, every report I see contains failures of the cars like these such that the car itself is poorly designed. What’s stopping Toyota or Isuzu from making a me-too version of the Tesla? What competitive advantage does Tesla have beyond being first to the market?
Speaking as a car nut and long-time Tesla skeptic who eventually broke down and bought a Model 3 - the car is not poorly designed, it's just not perfect, and any imperfection gets amplified by the company's high profile and the army of people that seem to want to tear them down.
Same. Bought a 3 at the beginning of August. Is it perfect? No. Is it the best driving experience I've ever had? Bar none. I sometimes take it out just to drive in the evenings. I plug it into my house and have a full tank every day. The power on demand is incredible. Is there room for improvement? Yes. Do I feel like I overpaid? Not in the slightest. My last new car was a Mazda 3 and I feel as though the 5k difference in cost is negligible to the gas savings.
There is a lot of wind and road noise on the highway - it's not as well-isolated as comparable luxury sports cars (BMW, Audi, etc.) No, this isn't an illusion due to the lack of engine noise, the car needs more acoustic insulation.
The BLE phone-as-key works about 95% of the time. Not good enough.
Some parts of the car feel cheap and insubstantial - the doors and front trunk, notably.
These are minor complaints. I agree that it is by far the best all-around everyday car available today. Unless you want a purpose-built 2-seater sports car or convertible, need the cargo capacity or ground clearance of an SUV/truck, or have some other special requirement, the Model 3/Y is a far superior car to everything else on the market.
Tesla cars are the worst-built, worst-furnished cars you can buy at their price points. If you care about comfort, ride quality, etc., go with anything but a Tesla.
But Tesla's batteries are industry-leading. If Tesla were to shed their EV-money pit, they'd easily earn their current valuation just by selling their batteries to everyone in the auto and power industries.
But by keeping their batteries limited to just their small share of the auto market, they've given their competitors reason to do their own research into battery/EV technology, and it's already starting to hurt them in Europe, where Tesla was outsold by other EV brands/models in several countries over the past few months, and that's without their major competitors having yet brought mass-market EVs to market.
The only reason Panasonic tolerates the existence of Tesla is that Tesla operates as the global marketing division of Panasonic batteries. If Tesla sheds the EV business then Panasonic will no longer deal with them.
The idea that Tesla is fundamentally a battery company is just weird. All of their battery chemistry, technology, and capacity is from Panasonic in one way or another.
All of their battery chemistry, technology, and capacity is from Panasonic in one way or another.
The battery cell technology in current batteries is all Panasonic (i.e., the chemistry, cell container, etc.), but the battery assemblage is all Tesla. That's the stuff related to assembling the cells together into a battery, adding voltage controls, cooling assemblies, etc.
As a point of comparison: Porsche's Taycan also uses Panasonic EVs, and has even an even better lap-racing performance than any Tesla, because Porsche's battery assemblage includes extra cooling assemblies that allow the car to be used for extended periods of high performance. While a Tesla can do full speed for 1 lap, a Taycan can do full speed until the battery dies.
A battery is more then just a cell, if you don't understand that you don't have a clue about how modern EV work. To hit everything that you need to do from safety, charge and so on, requires massive effort that is located on the pack level.
> Panasonic tolerates the existence of Tesla
Tesla is the biggest buyer of batteries on the planet and Panasonic should be beyond happy that they are the primary supplier.
> If Tesla sheds the EV business then Panasonic will no longer deal with them.
What? If Tesla just decided not to do cars?
> The idea that Tesla is fundamentally a battery company is just weird. All of their battery chemistry, technology, and capacity is from Panasonic in one way or another.
Tesla actually buys cells from Panasonic, LG Chem and CATL. All of these are integrated into Tesla owned and controlled packs that do the overall management.
Also, Tesla works much closer with Panasonic then you think. They are not just a costumer, they have a partnership with Panasonic and they make many decisions together.
Additionally Tesla has a large internal battery group that builds not just battery cells and packs, but actually they build battery manufacturing equipment. They bought the Canadian Hibar system that specialized in electrolyte filling and they are now Tesla exclusive. Tesla Grohmann Automation in Germany is building dedicated battery manufacturing equipment. Tesla has multiple agreements with research universities, including with Jeff Dahn's lab at Dalhousie University. They are part of the Battery 500 consortium. Plus they have a massive internal group on everything from cathode/anode manufacturing, cell design and more.
I agree that it is wrong to say that right now they are a battery company, but that it is 'all Panasonic' is totally wrong. Tesla will be a vertically integrated from cells to EVs.
I was in a friend's new-ish BMW recently and I felt the interior had a poorly-built, cheap, plasticky feel compared to Tesla. So let's just say that your opinion is not universal :)
I've been in poorly-made non-Teslas before as well. But it happens rarely, since most consumers wouldn't accept cars with the fit and finish issues that Tesla owners ignore for the first few months of ownership. After a few months, even the most die-hard Tesla owners I know constantly complain about all the "small" issues that everyone else would have rejected a car for at the lot.
I've only been in a properly made Tesla once. And they don't make Teslas that way any more (entirely by hand).
Some BMWs do look and feel like KIAs on the inside, especially their lower-end "beginner" luxury models. (That's not a knock on KIA, they deliberately target the low-end market but make up for it with relatively durable cars.)
Tesla have the highest consumer satisfaction so you are exaggerating how much people complain. General its good practice not to accept it until it is perfect, that is true.
And in initial quality surveys while Tesla is bad, other luxury cars are not that great.
Different surveying companies have different results for their surveys, especially as they measure different things.
JD Power, for example, reports that Tesla owners report the highest number of problems and complaints with their vehicles, which is supported by Consumer Reports' owner satisfaction surveys (but CR finds that Tesla owners "forgive" Tesla for these issues and have high satisfaction ratings despite the numerous problems with their vehicles).
CA investigations have found that Tesla has the highest number of cars of any brand that would be subject to lemon laws (meaning defects serious enough to require the dealership to take the car back).
> Tesla cars are the worst-built, worst-furnished cars you can buy at their price points. If you care about comfort, ride quality, etc., go with anything but a Tesla.
Ride quality? The Tesla is by far the nicest, smoothest, and most fun ride I've ever experienced.
I've ridden in every model of Tesla (owing to a now-former boss who has owned every model of Tesla, back to their first, limited edition Roadsters).
If you think Tesla is the smoothest, nicest ride you've ever experienced, then I feel sorry for you. Most luxury cars ride far smoother, and even my 10-year old Camry is a smoother, nicer ride than the Model 3.
Teslas are fun, if you have the opportunity to drive them somewhere you can go fast and safely accelerate. Otherwise, they're quite stiff with the handling.
Their in-car tech is nothing innovative, and as far as usability, it's far less usable than physical controls. I can control pretty much every function in my car blindly. You can't do that on a Tesla (or any other car with pure touchscreen controls).
> Otherwise, they're quite stiff with the handling.
Maybe we're using different ideas on "stiff handling", but I don't think the handling is stiff enough. My previous car was a Subaru BRZ, which had super tight handling.
I've considered getting a stiffer anti-roll bar installed on my Model 3 to try to bring back a bit of the stiffer handling I liked on my BRZ, but there's only so much you can do when the car weighs 4,000 lbs. Can't exactly make a mid-sized 4-door sedan handle like a 2,800 lb 2-door sports coupe.
The batteries, the supercharger network, the software.
I think you’re reacting to the media presentation. Even though 100s of thousands of people have perfectly fine operation every day, that isn’t going to make the news. The few breakages do.
Are their other charging networks? Yes, certainly. But they're either too slow for road tripping, they're spread thin, and/or they're expensive. I can drive my Model 3 from my home in Portland, OR to any anywhere in the USA and never spend more than 30 minutes charging, with most stops being 10-20 minutes every 100-200 miles.
I don't know what a typical supercharger costs as they vary on location, I just know that the one I've used is 29 cents per kWh. So to charge my Model 3's 75 kWh battery to full would cost $21.75, which would give me about 250 miles (It's rated at 299 miles, but you'll never get that unless you're going 55 mph with climate controls off), which is 8.7 cents per mile. If you assume gas is $3.50/gallon, then in terms of price per mile, it's the equivalent to a 40 mpg car.
Other charging networks are usually 40 cents/kWh or more, while charging slower. Some have a ridiculous charge per minute rather than charging per kWh.
Keep in mind that the current massive dip in gas prices is temporary and only caused by COVID causing people to drive less. Once COVID goes away (however long THAT'S gonna take) and people start going out more and taking road trips, prices will return to their $3+.
I bought my Tesla in October. I've had multiple people now ask me "Do you regret buying an EV since gas is so cheap right now?" and I think it's an incredibly short-sighted question.
Besides, if you're buying an EV to save money on gas, then you're either bad at math, or you drive over 1,000 miles per week, because the money savings isn't enough to offset the price difference between an ICE and an EV until you start to reach 200,000 miles or so, where the lower maintenance costs start to also become a factor.
Toyota doesn’t have a celebrity CEO that can push through unreasonable product tied to a promise of having a good product in the feature. Tesla’s competitive advantage is Elon Musk.
Try selling crappy and expensive product with a promise of using the money and expertise to build a better one next time.
Yesterday’s battery day was also a promise to do great things in the future.
Autopilot is something that Tesla sells with the promise of one day becoming self-driving car.
Who else can do that? The others need to put their own money to bet on that and need to deliver good value products with reasonable quality for the money asked.
Other car manufacturers are producing EVs today. Not Toyota, they did bet on hydrogen cars and lost years.
Also, I would argue that Nissan was first to release an good enough and affordable EV in 2011.
The concurrence for EVs is strong in Europe now, and Tesla is not the best selling car company anymore. See for example the Norwegian stats : https://elbilstatistikk.no/ That may change when Tesla will make smaller and more affordable vehicles in Europe.
The Model 3 is the most well designed car I've ever used. There are some rough edges, but it's a huge leap forward for car UX. I'd actually argue that Tesla has as much or more of an advantage and head start on UX as they do on battery technology.
For comparison, I have a Kia Optima SXL, and I find the fit and finish to be beyond any Tesla that I have ridden in. Kia has a strange reputation (despite now being one of the best automakers), and even with this reputation, the car gets many complements and comments. I am also a big fan of buttons, and I simply find having buttons where I know where they're at and how they feel are far superior to navigating a touchscreen. Is the touchscreen cool? Yes, I suppose. Is it better UX or functionality? No, in my opinion. At no point have I ever wished to take all the functionality my car has and have it jammed into a single large touchscreen in the middle of the dash.
I have also ridden in multiple Chinese brands like NIO, BYD, and other more affordable brands. The NIO, upon initial impression, immediately outclassed the Teslas that I have ridden in (Model S and X) in terms of design, especially on the inside. The BYD and others that you find the DiDi drivers driving are all very impressive and affordable such that they easily compete with Tesla. When I was in China, it was "wait, what car is this?!" day after day. We must have saw half a dozen fully electric car models.
Personally, I like the minimal design. You don't need all those physical controls because you don't need to keep messing with settings in a Tesla. Everything is automatic. Lights, climate, you name it. This is how it should be.
The doors unlock automatically when you approach, lock when you walk away. You only need one pedal to drive! Essentially all you need while driving this car is one pedal and the speed limit. THAT is excellent UX. Needing a ton of buttons and nobs is a distraction and unnecessary. This is why it's years ahead of everything else.
Phantom brakes did kill the dream for me. I simply can't drive a car that will randomly brake hard for no good reasons when using basic features such as adaptative cruise control. It's uncomfortable, scary, and dangerous.
