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Blog A Look at Tesla's EV Competition in 2019
- Thread starter Ty_McMahan
- Start date
I think the point of the article is that there will be more EV available from a variety of manufacturers in 2019. That's a good thing. As much as I love my model 3, I think the more competition the better. And the more EV on the road the better. As far as prices go, the model three was advertised as costing $35,000. Mine costs $60,000 plus tax. And I didn't even go dual motor or performance. So slamming the other car markers for having a low introductory price is like the pot calling the kettle black.
There is a lot to like about Tesla. And they are way ahead of the curve in making EVs so I am not worried about them too much. The point is that the world is moving to a better place with EVs worldwide.
There is a lot to like about Tesla. And they are way ahead of the curve in making EVs so I am not worried about them too much. The point is that the world is moving to a better place with EVs worldwide.
Rusty1
Member
None of the companies with cars highlighted here have done anything to convince me that they’re producing EV’s only to keep curious everyday consumers away from EV’s. They advertise these vehicles (which are financially break even for them at best) but only manufacture token amounts.
What they intend to do is get customers through their doors and to steer them back to ICE.
What they intend to do is get customers through their doors and to steer them back to ICE.
Want to see how far Tesla is ahead? Simple. Look at the range / battery capacity / size of the vehicle.
Ipace is like a mini SUV with half of available storage of X, with a battery that is 90 kWh that likely will get the same range or less as an X75D.
That’s the thing... the competition is forced to use bigger batteries to make up for being far behind..
That is why they have been designing smaller vehicles, that is why they use bigger batteries. In the end you end up with a car that is far more expensive than its ICE counterpart.
this is why they won’t compete in the medium term.
Ipace is like a mini SUV with half of available storage of X, with a battery that is 90 kWh that likely will get the same range or less as an X75D.
That’s the thing... the competition is forced to use bigger batteries to make up for being far behind..
That is why they have been designing smaller vehicles, that is why they use bigger batteries. In the end you end up with a car that is far more expensive than its ICE counterpart.
this is why they won’t compete in the medium term.
Yes. Back in 2012-2014 if someone had come out with a car as compelling as the Model S, they might have killed Tesla, but at this point the competition is not going to kill them anymore than Mercedes is going to kill Subaru.
There are other EVs available, but at least in the US, Tesla is the only EV cross shopped with ICE.
To be fair, we do have new voices on the forum all the time and these sorts of topics are going to come around again. Though as time goes on predictions of Tesla's demise get more far fetched.
I have to laugh at these articles that predict auto maker X will catch up with Tesla by Y date. When you actually look at their numbers, they assume Tesla does not move the needle one iota while the competition moves faster than they ever have. Yes, some car makers might catch up to 2017 or even 2018 Tesla by 2021 or 2022, but by then Tesla is not going to be anywhere near the volumes or tech they are using today.
The Model S was introduced in 2012 and went into real production in 2013. It's been out there for 6 years. In that time the outward appearance of the car has only changed a bit (most dramatically a new nose in 2016, but some other changes too). In that time the longest range version has gained 90 miles of range, the supercharger network was born and expended to cover a fairly large portion of the developed world, AP was introduced and they are just about to introduce Gen 3, the cars got AWD, lots of software features created and given to the existing fleet for free, and two more car models have been introduced. I probably forgot some important changes too.
The Model 3 is a major improvement in cost and manufacturing over the Model S, as well as some tech improvements.
2021 is three years away. That's half the time between the introduction of the Model S and now and if anything Tesla is accelerating not slowing down in its innovation and expansion. We could easily see as big a leap ahead by 2021 as we've seen between 2012 and now. And how is any legacy auto maker with heaps of bureaucratic layers upon layers going to match Tesla's pace?
Tesla broke ground on the GigaFactory in 2015. That's the scale needed to mass produce EVs. Other car makers have talked about making their own GF, but so far nobody has broken ground. There are factories in China expanding, but they are focused mostly on the Chinese market, which is sort of a separate animal from the rest of the world. Even if other car makers could build a GF in 2/3 the time Tesla did, they might just get to the capability Tesla has today by 2021.
OTA is currently mostly unique to Tesla and no other auto maker feels safe doing it (some automakers are doing it in a limited way), but other car makers could implement it fairly quickly. It's a pretty shallow moat. I see the advantages in supercharger network and battery production as the much deeper moats. Both of those take time and concentrated effort to implement to the level Tesla is doing today and nobody else is really off step 1 yet.
I am curious whether other car brands can use the Tesla Superchargers with a proper adapter? The charging system itself is built into the car, the charging sites only supply electricity. Or are Supercharging sites only available to Teslas?
I still think it is good that other car companies are trying to build electric cars. The more the merrier.
OTA connectivity is potentially a double edged sword. I do worry that there is a potential that Tesla's can get hacked by a malicious intruder. I have heard that is a concern with all cars now who have connectivity but it would be especially true for Tesla whose cars are mostly controlled by a computer.
I still think it is good that other car companies are trying to build electric cars. The more the merrier.
OTA connectivity is potentially a double edged sword. I do worry that there is a potential that Tesla's can get hacked by a malicious intruder. I have heard that is a concern with all cars now who have connectivity but it would be especially true for Tesla whose cars are mostly controlled by a computer.
Initially there were some rumors that some people had been able to charge Leafs with a home made Chademo to Tesla adapter, but Tesla has always checked the VIN number of the car charging when it's plugged in. Originally superchargers ignored the number and it would allow charging if you faked a VIN of all 0s.
However they now use that system to determine if a car has lifetime free supercharging or if the car has paid supercharging. Someone could fake up a VIN number with an adapter, but Tesla could easily figure out if the VIN was legitimate by cross referencing the VIN received from the supercharger with the last known position of the car with that VIN. If the last known position of the car in their system was in Chicago an hour ago and someone is trying to supercharge with that VIN in Florida, they know someone is counterfeiting the VIN to get supercharging.
Tesla can't supply every car in the world, nor does everyone want what Tesla is offering. No car maker has more than a 10% market share because not everyone wants a Toyota or VW no matter how many they can make. Other car makers will offer options Tesla doesn't and that's good.
They have to quit making weird-mobiles and limited EVs first. The iPace and Bolt are a good start. They have better range and look OK.
Tesla appears to have good security. Thus far nobody has been able to crack into Tesla's systems without physically getting their hands on the MCU. But they did base the car's operating system on Linux which has pretty good security out of the box (if set up correctly). Telsa has encouraged white hat hackers to try and break into the car and let them know how they did it. People have found a few security holes, but few that didn't require having access to the interior of the car which is not a very workable hack in the real world.
And as far as cars controlled by computer, that's been the norm for many years now. I think 20 years ago the average car had many processors on board controlling many systems. That was necessary to improve the gas mileage in ICE over what they were getting in the 70s.
ToddRLockwood
Active Member
The premise of this kind of article is fundamentally flawed—the idea that there's going to be one dominate brand of electric car going forward. Tesla's competition is gasoline cars, NOT electric cars. Buyers are not choosing the Model 3 over other electric cars, not yet. If the Model 3 didn't exist, buyers would continue to buy premium midsize gasoline cars by Acura, Audi, BMW, Infinity, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. That's the Model 3's market—the Premium Midsize Sedan market, where the Model 3 had a 52% market share in July 2018, outselling the next best four gasoline cars combined. Electric Vehicles are not a market segment unto themselves, just as diesel powered cars are not a market segment.
Tesla welcomes EVs from other manufacturers because they help fulfill Tesla's mission of accelerating the transition to sustainable transport. It will take many car companies to fulfill this mission.
Tesla welcomes EVs from other manufacturers because they help fulfill Tesla's mission of accelerating the transition to sustainable transport. It will take many car companies to fulfill this mission.
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jgs
Active Member
"Will you be considering EVs from other automakers soon? Is there a particular vehicle you’re anxious to see in showrooms?"
We just went and shopped every single BEV that can actually be bought in Michigan today. It's a small field: Bolt, Leaf, i3, Model 3. Unsurprisingly to anyone here, we chose the Model 3. If the budget wouldn't have allowed it, I guess we might have chosen one of the others, but it would have been an obvious case of choosing the (distant) second-best. (As an aside, I have no idea what people are smoking, when they talk about how adequate the Bolt is. It's fine, if cheap-feeling, on city streets. On the highway, I was reminded of the handling of my 1984 Plymouth Horizon.)
A few of the cars that supposedly will be available in 2019 might have been worth our consideration. They would have to actually be available in our market, is the main thing. Since they're not, I haven't dug in farther, but they'd also have to be smallish, not SUVs. The Model 3 is already bigger than we really would have preferred, it's replacing a much-loved VW GTI. (As another aside, we tried like hell to get VW to sell us an e-Golf. They had no interest in taking that money. I will believe in their commitment to electrification when I see it.) Anyway, most of those cars -- all the higher-end ones -- are styled to look like SUVs, which I want no part of (see below) but I realize some CUVs have that styling but are actually pretty small, so maybe? Anyway, not worth following up on, for me, since we are no longer in the market as of a couple days ago.
One thing I noticed while we were shopping is how absolutely terrible the state of the industry is in selling BEVs. I mean, we've known this for years but it hasn't changed. I'm in Ann Arbor, an affluent lefty bubble. If you were going to have a sales team who could sell BEVs, this would be the place for it. But the Nissan salesman told me confidently that the Leaf was not eligible for the $7,500 tax credit. No, really, he did. The BMW salesman was OK in that he didn't say anything outright wrong, the Bolt salesman actually seemed to know something about his product (but his product didn't measure up). Interestingly, the Bolt was being sold out of the Cadillac side of the dealership, not the Chevy side. When we finally got to test drive a Model 3 (in Chicago, Michigan law being what it is) the salesman was very knowledgeable -- of course. Tesla has clearly done the right thing to avoid dealers like the plague they are.
A lot of people have been commenting on the charging network. While I absolutely agree, in the case of our recent buying decision that wouldn't have been a deal-breaker, since we already have the Model S for road trips. Do we have a word like "city car" for these large-battery, no-charging-network vehicles? "Daytrip car"? "Regional car"? Anyway, one of those would have been fine for us, and even a city car (the e-Golf) would have been acceptable if it would have ticked off the other boxes... which none did.
Anyway, the article asks what my level of brand loyalty is, to which I think the answer is that I like Tesla a lot but they have to earn the sale. They did this time, and as long as their competition keeps treating BEVs as a hobby and not the main event, I don't see that changing.
We just went and shopped every single BEV that can actually be bought in Michigan today. It's a small field: Bolt, Leaf, i3, Model 3. Unsurprisingly to anyone here, we chose the Model 3. If the budget wouldn't have allowed it, I guess we might have chosen one of the others, but it would have been an obvious case of choosing the (distant) second-best. (As an aside, I have no idea what people are smoking, when they talk about how adequate the Bolt is. It's fine, if cheap-feeling, on city streets. On the highway, I was reminded of the handling of my 1984 Plymouth Horizon.)
A few of the cars that supposedly will be available in 2019 might have been worth our consideration. They would have to actually be available in our market, is the main thing. Since they're not, I haven't dug in farther, but they'd also have to be smallish, not SUVs. The Model 3 is already bigger than we really would have preferred, it's replacing a much-loved VW GTI. (As another aside, we tried like hell to get VW to sell us an e-Golf. They had no interest in taking that money. I will believe in their commitment to electrification when I see it.) Anyway, most of those cars -- all the higher-end ones -- are styled to look like SUVs, which I want no part of (see below) but I realize some CUVs have that styling but are actually pretty small, so maybe? Anyway, not worth following up on, for me, since we are no longer in the market as of a couple days ago.
One thing I noticed while we were shopping is how absolutely terrible the state of the industry is in selling BEVs. I mean, we've known this for years but it hasn't changed. I'm in Ann Arbor, an affluent lefty bubble. If you were going to have a sales team who could sell BEVs, this would be the place for it. But the Nissan salesman told me confidently that the Leaf was not eligible for the $7,500 tax credit. No, really, he did. The BMW salesman was OK in that he didn't say anything outright wrong, the Bolt salesman actually seemed to know something about his product (but his product didn't measure up). Interestingly, the Bolt was being sold out of the Cadillac side of the dealership, not the Chevy side. When we finally got to test drive a Model 3 (in Chicago, Michigan law being what it is) the salesman was very knowledgeable -- of course. Tesla has clearly done the right thing to avoid dealers like the plague they are.
A lot of people have been commenting on the charging network. While I absolutely agree, in the case of our recent buying decision that wouldn't have been a deal-breaker, since we already have the Model S for road trips. Do we have a word like "city car" for these large-battery, no-charging-network vehicles? "Daytrip car"? "Regional car"? Anyway, one of those would have been fine for us, and even a city car (the e-Golf) would have been acceptable if it would have ticked off the other boxes... which none did.
Anyway, the article asks what my level of brand loyalty is, to which I think the answer is that I like Tesla a lot but they have to earn the sale. They did this time, and as long as their competition keeps treating BEVs as a hobby and not the main event, I don't see that changing.
The funny thing is, any manufacturer could do this, cheap. But as I pointed out in a different forum the other day, technologists tend to assume technology is the hard part. It's not. The hard part is getting the legacy companies to want to change. History shows the most reliable way of doing that is to drive them out of business and let someone with a different vision reassemble something new out of the debris. :-(
"People", maybe. Then again it's what I run screaming from. I don't know what drove Tesla's decision-making, but at this stage in their history it may still be better to own a huge chunk of a small pie than to be going after the big pie everyone's focused on competing for.
Me too. I stopped reading when I saw Toyota as one of the companies on the list to out sell Tesla on EV in 2021.
Uh does he even read the market before he writes this mess? Toyota is the next Gen GM. They hate EVs and want to sell you into Fools Cell instead... make that their legacy hybrids on NiMh batteries.
Causalien
Prime 8 ball Oracle
The taycan looks Very nice. If I didn't already have a roadster reservation, I'd probably go for it.
I mostly agree, though I assert the main competition for the Model 3 is Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys. Tesla has found that 2 of the top 5 trade ins for the Model 3 are Honda Accords and Honda Civics as well as Leafs and Priuses. The only premium car on the list is the BMW 3 series.
People are stretching their budget for the Model 3.
Too many people are thinking EVs are going to remain in the ghetto they have been in for most of their existence. They don't realize that Tesla is not selling only to the EV ghetto, they have a lot of appeal with people who would otherwise buy ICE. If other car makers can make cars that actually do compete with Tesla, they run the risk of collapsing their ICE market, which is the Catch 22 legacy automakers face.
suwaneedad
Member
Without a SC network equivalent available, every single vehicle featured in that article is tethered to its home base.
So, Nissan LEAF has a lot of competition heading its way soon.
Tesla? Not so much.
So, Nissan LEAF has a lot of competition heading its way soon.
Tesla? Not so much.
Sunlight
Member
I am pretty sure that the profitability of EVs will come from their simpler architecture and the fact that they are designed from the ground up as EVs. I believe that manufacturers who bastardise ICE models to convert to EVs will be compromised not only by the end product but by the costs of manufacture.
Therefore I am only interested in 'Pure EVs' (which is why we have an i3 for now). These are few and far between and many are not yet actually available (that even seems to include the I Pace for now).
For all the virtues of the Niro/Kona; Volvo VC40 EV; Leaf; Golf EV etc etc they are too compromised for my taste.
It'll be a long while before there are serious Tesla competitors with slimmed down profitable production and excellent EV performance. The legacy manufacturers will have slim margins while they try to ramp up EVs alongside their ICE cars (which they still cannot yet neglect and for which they will be supplying spares for decades - what a distraction!)
PS OK I know that the i3 was most probably not profitable for BMW but that is another story!
Therefore I am only interested in 'Pure EVs' (which is why we have an i3 for now). These are few and far between and many are not yet actually available (that even seems to include the I Pace for now).
For all the virtues of the Niro/Kona; Volvo VC40 EV; Leaf; Golf EV etc etc they are too compromised for my taste.
It'll be a long while before there are serious Tesla competitors with slimmed down profitable production and excellent EV performance. The legacy manufacturers will have slim margins while they try to ramp up EVs alongside their ICE cars (which they still cannot yet neglect and for which they will be supplying spares for decades - what a distraction!)
PS OK I know that the i3 was most probably not profitable for BMW but that is another story!
tonybelding
Active Member
BMW is an interesting case. To me it looks like they are trying harder than anybody else to compete head-to-head with Tesla. They really, really want this, and they've wanted it for A While. (I mean compared with Porsche and Jaguar, who are coming in much later.) The BMW i3 and i8 Coupe have been on the market for several years, and now we've got the i8 Roadster. These were not timid experiments; they're not half-baked compliance cars. They were meant to steal Tesla's thunder.
And yet, that obviously didn't happen. It's not for lack of trying or lack of commitment on BMW's part. It's more about lack of clue. Despite all their desire and ambition in this area, BMW don't get electric cars. They don't understand the market, don't understand what most of us even want from these vehicles.
The i3 was a very well engineered and well built car. (Munro said it was the best-built car they ever tore down!) And yet, the whole thing was still mired in the old "city car" concept of EVs, based on the assumption that electric cars can't go very fast or very far, batteries aren't good enough, and that their market is basically urban commuters or eco-hipsters who want more of a spunky car than a sexy one. (Also crippling the PHEV version with a teeny gas tank to appease California regulations didn't help.)
The i8 was a course correction. OK, maybe people do want fast-and-sexy after all! "So Tesla think they can do sexy, huh? Hold my weissbier and watch this!" Scissor doors! Weird vents and swoops and air channels where there never were air channels before! Fake engine noises piped through a speaker in the fake tail pipe! A pair of fake front grilles! And long range… We don't have a vast charging network, but we can double down on the PHEV thing (with a three-cylinder engine, haha!).
Neither the i3 or the i8 is a bad car, as such. Some people love them, but not enough. They were aimed at the wrong targets. Maybe the next attempt will have better aim, I dunno.
And yet, that obviously didn't happen. It's not for lack of trying or lack of commitment on BMW's part. It's more about lack of clue. Despite all their desire and ambition in this area, BMW don't get electric cars. They don't understand the market, don't understand what most of us even want from these vehicles.
The i3 was a very well engineered and well built car. (Munro said it was the best-built car they ever tore down!) And yet, the whole thing was still mired in the old "city car" concept of EVs, based on the assumption that electric cars can't go very fast or very far, batteries aren't good enough, and that their market is basically urban commuters or eco-hipsters who want more of a spunky car than a sexy one. (Also crippling the PHEV version with a teeny gas tank to appease California regulations didn't help.)
The i8 was a course correction. OK, maybe people do want fast-and-sexy after all! "So Tesla think they can do sexy, huh? Hold my weissbier and watch this!" Scissor doors! Weird vents and swoops and air channels where there never were air channels before! Fake engine noises piped through a speaker in the fake tail pipe! A pair of fake front grilles! And long range… We don't have a vast charging network, but we can double down on the PHEV thing (with a three-cylinder engine, haha!).
Neither the i3 or the i8 is a bad car, as such. Some people love them, but not enough. They were aimed at the wrong targets. Maybe the next attempt will have better aim, I dunno.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Just because you didn't bother to look, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Porsche (together with other manufacturers) has planned quiet extensively for charging. They have a multi pronged approach and their charging network:
Porsche explains its approach to charging electric cars: seamless and fast
Porsche to deploy a network of 500 EV charging stations in North America in time for Mission E next year
Porsche high powered charging will be at a much higher deployment level than Tesla was when they started selling their cars - it will probably be at ~2015 Tesla supercharger penetration, possibly higher by the time Taycans roll off the line. By mid 2020 they may catch up to Tesla's current supercharger penetration. Oh, their superchargers top out at 350KW by the way, so quicker to charge than Tesla today - even if Supercharger2 will go higher, there are over 200K vehicles on the road already which will slow supercharge. Check out one of their pillars for charging - Electrify America - they have over 2 billion dollars funding secured and are deploying already. Current deployment is more than what Tesla had when I got my first Model S.
Again, all you have to do is do some research.
Porsche updates dealer contract in preparation for upcoming all-electric Taycan and charging infrastructure
VW (owner of Porsche) is the largest auto manufacturer in the world today. They are very methodical in their planning, so they may take more time than "let's slap together some parts and tell the customer it will work one day when we write the software" silicon valley approach, but they are by no means just going though the motions. They are serious about his, and putting your head in the sand and pretending they will not be a serious competition is just silly.
jgs
Active Member
This is, of course, not impressive since Tesla has not been resting on their laurels and VWAG is not a scrappy startup. Sounds like “skating to where the puck was”.
And if they do, that “may” be impressive!
I guess that’s a nice way of saying “slow”.
From the perspective of this VWAG ex-customer that’s exactly what they’re doing. I will change my opinion only when they have product available for purchase and delivery in my market. (See upthread for more.)
Change “will” to “may” and I’ll even agree. At this point their track record says they are not entitled to a presumption that they’ll execute well.
tonybelding
Active Member
For whatever it's worth, I read somewhere that Electrify America are relying on the same contractors that Tesla have used to build out their Supercharger network. So, they already know how to do this.
I'm not sure if they have anything like Tesla's Destination Charger program planned. This has been highly successful, but it hasn't gotten much attention in the press.
I'm not sure if they have anything like Tesla's Destination Charger program planned. This has been highly successful, but it hasn't gotten much attention in the press.
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