Hacker News Reader

Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

This. If you have a robotaxi for under 30k, why not just sell the car for that much?

Tesla market cap is based on AI/robotaxi/FSD. Without that, they’re just playing catchup to BYD (who quietly, yet aggressively, executes at scale; they offer EVs today between $10k-$20k and already employ more workers than Toyota [for scale]).

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/cars/china-tesla-byd-competit...

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/03/chinas-byd-is-set-to-beat-te...

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/bev-sales-10-m...

I think you're ignoring the fact that Chinese manufacturers are heavily tariffed in the west

Not at all. Global light vehicle sales are ~90M units/year. US ~17M/year. EU ~13M/year. China remains a factory to the world (and itself is the leading market). BYD can build in Mexico (NAFTA) and the EU to avoid tariffs, if desired.

Tariffs aren’t going to keep the EV printer at bay. They only delay the inevitable.

https://electrek.co/2024/10/09/byd-to-sell-100000-evs-north-...

https://electrek.co/2024/08/16/byd-plots-another-ev-plant-wh...

https://electrek.co/2024/03/12/byd-triple-ev-market-share-eu...

https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/china-ev-driving-seat-us-a...

The tariffs would most likely morph to disallow that.

I disagree this would be effective or a path to success. The evidence does not show policy moves faster than capital, and auto tariff policy gymnastics only work until foreign corporations open factories in country (as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, BMW, Mercedes, Stellantis, and Hyundai all have done [US example]).

US EV demand is simply not at the point where this is economically rational (imho), yet. And so, you’re stuck with a legacy auto EV, a Tesla, or a BYD with 100% tariff markup for now. Even with the tariff, the BYD is still cheaper than a Tesla.

It's not rational, but the current tariffs are explicitly aimed at Chinese EVs and were created faster than they could hit the US market in any sizable quantity even using China's existing manufacturing infrastructure.

Policy in support of existing capital that is a heavy hitter politically can absolutely move faster than capital of new entrants.

And with both political parties explicitly being anti-chinese capital currently, it's not clear that a chinese factory would even be allowed to open domestically.

>BYD can build in Mexico (NAFTA) and the EU to avoid tariffs, if desired.

Not if Trump wins and I mean that without cynicism.

China can easily get around that the same way they made western manufacturers get around its own tariffs. Only the Americans aren’t going to require 49/51 JVs, even though they should.

Heavily tariffed in the US, no tariffs in AU/NZ/Asia.

EU is imposing tariffs depending on the manufacturer's co-operation with cost investigations.

No special tariffs in the UK also.

You are ignoring the fact that the world doesn't end with the USA (and EU)... Even in LatAm (which is "west") there is abundance of Chinese cars... In Africa it's probably even more visible...

BYD are literally handmade. I expect QA issues worse that Tesla’s Production Hell and in long term support. Plus, they’re doped up with subsidies like an Eastern Block Olympic Athlete; China needs to prop up its books after the Real Estate bubble turned to rubble

They seem to have significant quality issues - I have multiple friends with them in Thailand, and every second social post from them is bitching about whatever randomly stopped working or fell off this time - although I have a feeling they build their Thai market models elsewhere.

This is a bit of an aside, but why does everyone assume, if not for the sanctions, BYD would eat Western manufacturers alive? I for one, don't like to engage in anti-China hysteria, but having had experience with Chinese products, their quality and reliablity is a hit and miss. How would you know, that they didn't cheap out on caps in inverters, and they won't break down after a decade/200k km?

Also their cars are build like modern consumer electronics, welded/glued together at every opportunity.

Take a look at this video where a guy tries to pry apart a BYD battery pack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPTefsqNGI4

I guess BYD's strategy of world domination involves a high degree of automation, so they can make their cars in countries without a large pool of free workers/high wages, that's why they're made like this.

And here in Europe, they're not even that much cheaper, before tariffs. A Seal costs almost as much as a Model 3.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41842394 ("HN: China's Top Carmaker BYD Dominates Foreign Rivals with $14k Plug-In Hybrid")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41841960 ("HN: VW, BMW and Mercedes Are Getting Left in the Dust by China's EVs")

Has he like ever met his promised price? If we go by almost every single other car he has released, The 30k robotaxi will be available for like 1 week on a stripped down tier (maybe like 25kwH battery?) or available off menu for like 6 months until it disappears and no one dares speak of it again.

https://skills.ai/tesla-car-prices-analysis/ 37k model 3 for a good chunk of time, especially given the inflation since initial announcement, and given the amount of features in the base version which you'd have to pay out the ass with other OEMs, is actually very good.

Ehh I disagree, the main competition like the Mazda 3 has still been very competitive price wise in that they also kept prices either low or lowered them further post COVID inflation and if you are comparing to the luxury brands then consider the fact that the car launched with a very stripped down interior compared to their competition and still remains that way while their competition have clearly continued to excel in this regard indicates that Tesla have hidden the inflation there.

But the problem with comparing "features" is that tesla fanboys/haters get to assign arbitrary values to the features the cars have. It would be so much easier to just meet your promised price point. In that regard my point still stands.

The interior is minimalist, and ever since the model 3’s release, all other brands have been slowly trending in its direction. The 2024 model 3 interior is beautiful to the point that all the pointless plastic widgets present on other OEMs are kinda hilarious to look at.

what makes you think the mazda 3 is the main competition?

>and ever since the model 3’s release, all other brands have been slowly trending in its direction.

This is probably the most untrue statement you've made all evening and you have made plenty.

>The 2024 model 3 interior is beautiful to the point that all the pointless plastic widgets present on other OEMs are kinda hilarious to look at.

The market seems to disagree given that the gasoline competition is still the overwhelming majority of new sales. There are many reason for that but if this interior was so good they should have swept the market after 7 years of this cost cutti I mean minimalism?

>what makes you think the mazda 3 is the main competition?

The mazda 3 is a non luxury sedan that competes in that segment. You can substitute the corolla the civic or any of those cars on the non luxury side. If you instead consider the Tesla to be a competitor to luxury cars (which is difficult to argue again because you cannot compare feature to feature) then you'd obviously go with the german/japanese luxury brands(as I also mentioned but you ignored).

Again going back to my point, Tesla has a history of never meeting their promised price point when they release their car. Not one model has ever hit their primosed price point. Not even the 12 year old Model S with its sub 50k price point. After 12 years of lies and false promises, there is no credibility that they will get to this magical 30k price point so it becomes moot when the market (which cannot afford their damn cars today gien their sales slump) will not be buying this contraption when it comes out years past its announced release window.

yup it’s only the world’s best selling vehicle :) they have swept the market.

indeed interiors of most other brands have morphed into a large screen instead of the 2010 circus of buttons. Model 3/Y is very competitive with premium german/japanese brands like bmw/audi etc.

I don’t disagree their pricing goals are usually not really met unless given the discount of inflation.

fyi EVs are 25% of the global car market and growing.

One reason is, and bear with me, that this robotaxi does not exist !

There is a good reason why it was all presented in a Hollywood studio, without any specifics. The car we've seen yesterday is a prototype at best, a prototype that's crucially missing a small but important part for a robotaxi - the ability to drive autonomously...

Cybetruck was supposed to cost 40k (1/3 of the initial price) and have twice the range or something like that.

I’m sure the 30k is below cost assuming Tesla makes some revenue on the taxi service over the lifetime of the vehicle.

Because people lie.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com