But, conversely, if they stay on top, maybe that high valuation will stick around.
They should have brought out another lower cost, smaller car by now. Why haven't they built a commercial van? Why is there no family MPV? The investment in FSD is ultimately a distraction that wastes resources and slows growth.
One day FSD will be a reality, but that shouldn't be their primary goal.
I agree, but for another reason...
There isn't much copyrightable or patentable in the self driving world. If someone makes a self driving car which is good enough to drive unsupervised, then it'll only be a year till all other manufacturers can do the same.
Being first won't buy them much.
Without any working product available on the market, I don't think potential customers know what they're missing. Having a truly working self-driving feature would be like having a 24 hour private chauffeur. It would dramatically change where people live, where they work, and how they take vacation. I'd probably by weekend home 10 hours away if I could fall asleep in the car on Friday and wake up there Saturday morning.
If L4+ self-driving is coming soon, I would doubt that Tesla is the one that finally nails it.
A few years ago, when progress toward self-driving seemed to be, well, progressing at a decent pace, I was very excited to see a self-driving future.
Now? I'm not realistically sure if I'll live to see one, and I'm only forty.
Sure, the street car revolution changed where people lived and where they worked and ultimately how cities were designed. But it has been a 100 years, and the public transit technology has gone through multiple iterations (including fully automatic [i.e. self-driving] systems and sleeper train cars). I honestly don’t see how self driving cars will change anything that public transit hasn’t changed already.
Porsche is selling a crap ton of Taycans, more than Tesla is selling Model S.
17% of Taycan buyers are trading in a Model S.
Whilst Tesla’s are still selling quite well I think they still are riding their early “we are the only ones who can do EVs right” wave and “Musk fame” and with both kinda dying down I don’t see Tesla being dominant for much longer.
There is too much competition from companies that are far more competent at making cars that are actually useful, all it took is for battery technology to become just a little bit more democratized and for car manufacturers to stop treating EVs as some concept car fab ala the i3…
The Taycan is one of the best cars I’ve ever have driven not just as far as EV’s go but period, and I’m getting to test drive the EQS SUV in about a week and from what I heard it also is a fantastic car.
And this is whilst not accounting for the mass of new EV companies and offerings coming out of China which some of them seem to be quite competitive on all fronts with Tesla too and this can really hurt Tesla especially in the Chinese market which I’m going to bet is a major growth driver for them.
Unless Tesla pulls out some magic battery tech out of their ass and I mean like truly magic as in not something that other manufacturers can compensate for by putting larger batteries or by slightly lowering the power output of their platforms I really don’t see them even remaining competitive in the long term.
Yes they still have their charging network but ironically it’s quickly becoming outdated with the new super fast charging standards coming out and most importantly it’s really only proving Tesla a huge advantage in the US as their charging network outside of it is of a much smaller scale if it exists at all.
Tesla debt 1/10 of Ford Profit on par on significantly smaller number of units sold Tesla YoY growth 55%