Hacker News Reader

Comment by leetharris | Hacker News Reader

The whole EV market is growing and everyone is racing to buy one before incentives run out. The article is framed as a hit piece and even has political statements in it. But here is an exact quote from the article:

"Sales of new EVs jumped more than 24% month over month in July to 128,268, according to the Cox data, driven by the looming end of a $7,500 tax credit for EVs and attractive deals. Tesla saw sales rise 7% to 53,816, even as its market share fell."

View on HN

If EVs in general rose 24% due to rushing to get in before the tax credit ends but Tesla—the largest seller—only saw a 7% bump, isn't that a failure? #2 GM had a 10+% bump. Ford had a 19%. Hyundai, Honda, Kia, and Toyota all rose 60+%. Volkswagen rose over 450%. Sure it's fine in a bubble, but they are doing worse than most other car makers.

Low baseline, more to gain.

Another POV is the measurement is meaningless, and the market seems to agree.

The auto industry is a good bet as long as you think Americans of means gravitate towards a car lifestyle, which is almost certainly true.

No, because Tesla has a much higher baseline

I mean, they sold 3,500 more cars out of the market's 27,400 bump. GM sold 2,000 more; Ford sold 2,400 more. Even in absolute terms, they're not exactly dominant. They're not dying currently, but they're never going to be more than just another car maker.

That is basically their goal, which is why they opened their patents and their chargers.

Tesla's revenue has been flat 3 years now. There are up and downs but it's stagnated over long term.

  2022-Q3 $21.5B revenue
  2025-Q2 $22.5b revenue

You can only cut costs so much before you're selling the equivalent of a $50k geo metro.

When they removed the center horn and the stalks from their cars, they officially jumped the shark. But I bet they saved at least $50 per car from their costs. I still can't believe the NHTSA hasn't issued a recall.

Wait, how do you honk on a Tesla?

There’s a capacitive button on the newer steering wheels.

Let me guess, you can pay a premium for the “old” style wheel and stalk?

No, the horn is in the middle, the capacitive horn only steering wheel existed on early builds of the model S refresh (when plaid was first released), but after ~6 months they added the normal horn back.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-DEB259C...

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-DEB259C...

The X has a capacitive horn.

And for anyone with an S who wanted to not have that garbage? A $2k “upgrade” - only Tesla.

I get your broader point; comparison to a Geo Metro is a bit much.

Yeah, at least the Geo Metro had an easy to use horn, turn signal stalks, and reliably functional wipers.

Also has an instrument panel the driver can easily see.

I’ve driven a Model 3 and its handling and overall feel was worse than a barebones Honda Civic. I’d say a Model 3 is on par with how a low end Chrysler feels to drive.

I daily drive a Model 3 and when I rented a Honda Civic for a trip I thought it was broken with how long it took to get any speed. You're trolling regarding the Chrysler comment lol

Why are you staring at your instrument panel and not the road? The speed is just a glance at the top corner as you should be focused on driving ;)

After driving car with HUD the Tesla's approach is laughable. Especially when you need to maintain different speed limits in the city.

Reminds me cheap Peugeot 107 where tachometer is an extra option.

And turns out that a small torquey engine in a car with very little mass is actually pretty fun to drive! Even if you’d prefer not to be seen doing it.

I loved driving my 3 cylinder convertible geo metro! It was the 'sport' version so you could actually hit 60 if you held the peddle down long enough but it rode like it was on rails because of how light it was!

My new Y still has a horn and stock? And while everyone wishes their car was cheaper it was a lot nicer than a mustang Mach e, despite being cheaper

> it was a lot nicer than a mustang Mach e

Having owned both, I’m not even sure where to begin with how laughably inaccurate that is. We can start at functioning automatic wipers, 360 degree cameras, parking assist that actually works, a knob to control stereo volume, accurate marketing numbers for range, a dealership network that actually will fix the issue, insurance that isn’t insane, headlight brights that actually dim at an appropriate distance for oncoming traffic, cruise control that doesn’t phantom brake (slam on the brakes for no reason) traveling down the highway…

Need I continue? Because I can.

> parking assist that actually works

Are you sure you owned both? You're sort of exposing yourself as never having owned a Tesla at all (at least not a new one). I've never experienced phantom braking in my Y (although I have in a ford escort), and the headlight dimming is pretty good (again in the new model Y, unsure about an old one).

Niceness is subjective, so I suppose it's inappropriate to declare it as nicer, but it is a premium car. The materials and experience are much nicer than, say, a Camry, and is on par with vehicles in its class if not better.

A base Model Y costs $18,000 more than a base Camry when the price is not being artificially lowered by the government. Different price range entirely.

Correct. That’s why the Model Y is in a different class than a Camry. The Camry is my example of a modern geo metro

> I've never experienced phantom braking in my Y

And with just that statement you’ve lost all credibility. The internet is literally full of endless people complaining about phantom braking including the Tesla forums. The “fix” is to pay for FSD which isn’t a fix at all. It’s extortion.

And whats the real growth when controlled for inflation (price increases)?

"even has political statements in it" is a wild take. It would be journalistic malpractice to not mention the political context.

If your CEO bribes voters to help elect a traitorous pedophile and then personally (and illegally) cuts aid funding directly causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and all of that hurts business, that's something you have to include for context! That's some crazy stuff!

Not to mention promoting full-on white nationalism on Twitter: https://bsky.app/profile/harikunzru.bsky.social/post/3lxrqzm...

Why are you calling this a hit piece? It's literally talking about falling market share in the title, which is absolutely accurate. Even the quote you tried to use as evidence of the hit piece says as much: "Sales rise, even as market share falls".

Wonder if the end of the subsidies against a 7% increase is sales, potentially due to end of subsidies is a canary?

You mean like the thing where Telsa magically sold a not-really-logical number of vehicles in Canada when subsidies were running out there?

If you follow up on the story, Tesla was cleared of all wrong doing after an investigation. Tesla did sell that number of vehicles, they just were very behind on filing for the incentives, but still within the program guidelines. Once the government announced that the incentives were running low, they filed all of their backlog at once.

I love to hate on Elon as much as the next person, but everything was above board.

https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/canada-clears-tesla-in-izev...

I think there's something else going on there, although yes, that was the statement.

> Tesla’s head of sales for Canada, emphasized in a March 28 letter that the filings followed program guidelines, which allowed post-delivery submissions despite recommendations for pre-delivery assessments.

but this alludes to something more:

> Despite the clearance, Tesla will still be excluded from future iZEV programs

Huh. Why, I wonder?

If you read the rest of the sentence you removed the second quote from you will see why.

It isn't a mystery, the PM of Canada and several premiers have openly stated that Tesla isn't going to be eligible because Musk is Musk, and Tesla is American.

Why would Tesla have a Head of Sales in a Fake Country (TM)?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com