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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

To somewhat counter my other comment about Musk, I've seen this statistic a lot but it feels like total bullshit to me:

> There's only so far price cuts will go. Tesla has one of the oldest lineup among automakers - with the average age of its models at 9 years (ex-Cybertruck) - Where is the innovation to spur more demand?

Tesla famously doesn't release new models by "model years" but just updates them continuously. Putting the Model S release date at June 2011 (despite that vehicle being a very different car from today's Model S), and saying that is somehow comparable to the age of other carmakers' model fleets is totally disingenuous IMO.

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Teslas on the road today all look like they have a stale design compared to new offerings from other manufacturers. I think it’s a fair point even if they are continuously updating the internals.

The Porsche 911 design goes back to the 1960s.

Do you really need to change the body design if you can keep upgrading the internals?

Yes, not all customers buy into the original [external] design.

Personally I think it's a low-rent imitation of Mazda, so a refresh would have been nice.

For all the "but the insides have been upgraded/revamped!!" messaging, it's just confirming that they're too cheap to improve, or just change, the outside.

The chief designer did come from Mazda...

Also they did just update the Model 3 (looks great!) this year so they are moving in the right direction. Did you see this refreshed look on the Model 3?

It's a non-zero factor. Designs for cars, furniture, shoes, hairstyles, all evolve.

Porsche has changed the 911 body, quite radically in fact, if you side-by-side anything 1980s or before with 2012 or later.

But what Porsche does very well is introduce new platforms every few years. It's still a 911 but a new generation, that generates excitement and new sales. Then a few years into each cycle, it releases various sub-specialties and performance variants -- the RSes, GTs, Turbos, etc. Yes this often means at the very end of a platform's life sales drop (in anticipation of the next version) but overall its clear that Porsche has been extremely successful with this release model, which I think the other German carmakers emulate, like BMWs 3-series.

It's fine to argue you think they have stale design (an opinion), but that's very different from saying their average model is 9 years old, and comparing that to other carmaker's average model age.

And it's obviously not just internals. Compare a 2011 Tesla (e.g. https://www.motortrend.com/news/2011-tesla-model-s-revealed-...) to a 2024 Tesla (https://www.topspeed.com/2024-tesla-model-s-overview/). Again, I think it's fine to say you think the 2024 version looks stale, but the difference between the 2011 and 2024 versions in appearance alone is at least as different as some "new models" I've seen from other car manufacturers.

It also is kind of laughable because what matters is how it relates to the competition. Outside of china, a lot of the competition seems to be in trouble or quitting the full EV market.

Hyundai offers better specs at a cheaper price.

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