[HN Gopher] Tesla to produce $25K car as early as 2022
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Tesla to produce $25K car as early as 2022
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 43 points
Date : 2021-01-09 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.teslarati.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.teslarati.com)
| tzm wrote:
| This post is exactly why Tesla doesn't need to spend money on
| marketing.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| That and their demand already pretty well exceeds supply, so
| there's little incentive to artificially increase demand at the
| moment.
| cs702 wrote:
| If Tesla can stick to that schedule, demand for their $25K EV is
| likely to be... ridiculously large. It would compete with many
| legacy mass-market vehicles. The main barrier to growth would be
| how fast Tesla can make the new cars. It could be a game changer.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I'd buy one on day 1 if it at minimum: had the range for my
| relatively short commute (30 miles each way), matched my
| current vehicle's safety tech (lane keep assist/automatic
| emergency breaking/traffic aware cruise control), and had a
| standard wiper stork on the steering wheel (so I don't get
| tickets for using my wipers!).
|
| A sedan at $37K+ is a tough sell for me personally. But at
| $25K~? Heck yeah, if just to enjoy the software updates/fun
| features/mechanical simplicity of electric/etc.
| [deleted]
| Priem19 wrote:
| "Buy the rumor, buy the news."
| jonplackett wrote:
| What does that mean?
| kevinastone wrote:
| It's a satirical comment on Tesla's meteoric stock price
| growth. The traditional quote is "Buy the rumor, sell the
| news"[0]. But with $TSLA, there's been nearly unbounded
| investor optimism.
|
| [0]: https://www.thebalance.com/what-does-buy-the-rumor-sell-
| the-...
| lnanek2 wrote:
| Some stock traders try to buy stocks based on news/rumors,
| other based on analyzing fundamentals about the company,
| others by looking at graphs and predicting patterns. They all
| hate each other.
| astrange wrote:
| Interestingly it seems like the best strategy is direct
| indexing - buy every stock directly (skip S&P ETFs), then
| spend your research time deciding what to exclude instead.
|
| Nobody is offering this yet at scale because of transaction
| costs.
| Priem19 wrote:
| Thank you for my loudest laugh of today.
| vasco wrote:
| There's a saying that goes "buy the rumor, sell the news"
| [1], he's making a joke about buying in both occasions
| because the Tesla stock has been on a huge increase that few
| foresaw and seems to have no end to the climb. At the same
| time it's worth more than all other car companies combined,
| and many call it a bubble.
|
| [1] https://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/buy-the-
| rumor...
| EA wrote:
| It's a joke. "Buy the rumor -- sell the news" is an old
| saying about investing in stocks.
|
| Tesla's stock has been skyrocketing, so why sell at all?
| Animats wrote:
| Made in China. Looks a lot like the XPeng P7 and the BYD Han.
| Those are a little higher in price, but Tesla always low-balls
| their pre-launch prices.
|
| Tesla may end up killing the US auto industry by importing
| Chinese cars with the Tesla nameplate.
| baskire wrote:
| Would be foolish for the US to not slap ask import tariff on
| Chinese made cars.
|
| Curious if a Biden admin will be more aggressive on that front.
| woeirua wrote:
| No way that Congress is going to allow that for a multitude of
| reasons.
| nip180 wrote:
| I hope this gets more people in electric cars. If they are able
| to hit this price point in the US too would consider purchasing.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Is the cost to manufacture a Tesla vehicle in China lower than it
| would be in the U.S? I thought these are nearly fully automated
| facilities.
| resouer wrote:
| It's a huge misunderstanding that the competitive advantage of
| China is cost of human resource, otherwise Tesla should build
| super factory in India or South Asia countries.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| So what is the competitive advantage?
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Probably decades of technical and operational manufacturing
| know-how that has been in decline in the US, plus killer
| supplier networks.
| shuckles wrote:
| "There's a confusion about China. The popular conception is
| that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I'm
| not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is
| China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years
| ago. And that is not the reason to come to China from a
| supply point of view. The reason is because of the skill,
| and the quantity of skill in one location and the type of
| skill it is...The products we do require really advanced
| tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the
| tooling and working with the materials that we do are state
| of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the
| U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm
| not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill
| multiple football fields..."
|
| - Tim Cook, Apple: https://www.inc.com/glenn-
| leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-...
| p1esk wrote:
| Wow. This quote has just changed my perception of "made
| in china" label. Not sure if this is a reality distortion
| field, if so, it's of Steve Jobs quality. Well done.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I'm not trying to be cynical but to me this is why the
| USA and Canada has economically sabotaged themselves. We
| can't possibly catch up to the skill, tooling, and pure
| ability of the Asian countries making our stuff.
|
| Tim Cook points out that many believe it's about labor
| costs, and that's largely a matter of arrogance in my
| opinion. Many of us don't even realize how few of us here
| can actually make the stuff we design. Even if we could
| afford our own labor, we couldn't find the people to pay
| to do it anyway. How will we compete?
|
| I'm actually curious if anyone knows what the solution to
| this is. It worries me quite a bit. I don't see a bright
| future for North America because we can't manufacture so
| many things and I think it's going to eventually bite us
| very hard.
| hakfoo wrote:
| I understand a lot of the appeal is being close enough to
| suppliers to run an almost JIT manufacturing model. If you
| need to bring up a new design or supplier, it's not months
| of waiting for parts to traverse the Pacific.
|
| If they're going to do an "agile" design, which seems to be
| the Tesla model (they seem to be much less about model year
| iterations than some brands), that could be a big deal.
| bumbada wrote:
| China has some advantages(and disadvantages too) over the
| rest of the world in general:
|
| - It is huge, with lots of resources inside China. China
| also controls Tibet, non populated and with lots of natural
| resources.
|
| - Population density is enormous. Some cities in the tens
| of millions of citizens, lots of cities in the millions.
|
| - Very good communications by rivers and channels and also
| the sea with the rest of the world.
|
| - Environmental laws are a joke there. Rule of law does not
| exist like in the West. In the West caring for the
| environment make things more expensive. In China you just
| trow away waste.
| SpaceRaccoon wrote:
| Business-friendly government and regulations, very
| developed logistics and infrastructure.
| orange_tee wrote:
| The way I read the article it's a car meant for the Chinese
| public.
| lazyjones wrote:
| It's around 14-30 man hours per vehicle these days (with Tesla
| probably being at the lower end), so cost of labor is hardly a
| significant factor.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Two huge challenges there: making such a car, and being able
| proeuce and service that many cars
| haunter wrote:
| Hongguang Mini EV https://www.sgmw.com.cn/E50.html (partially
| owned by GM[0])
|
| On video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GjphV4DCU
|
| $4500 USD, 120kms/74miles range
|
| This is the future imo, not Tesla
|
| 0, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM-Wuling
| orange_tee wrote:
| ...in China.
| [deleted]
| jokoon wrote:
| Yeah well good luck mining all that lithium and cobalt...
|
| I'm not discounting a cheaper EV, I'm just saying there are other
| ways to transport things than the common 4 wheeled 2 by 5 meters
| vehicle.
|
| A mini train could be more relevant, and the internet allows
| people to completely reorganize cities as we know them.
|
| So yeah, invest in EV all you want, but in my view, democratizing
| batteries is not good enough.
| edh649 wrote:
| The demand for a Tesla at $25K is going to be huge. Given
| previous manufacturing delays, I wouldn't expect them to anywhere
| near keep up. Therefore although they could sell at $25K, due to
| the insane demand they may as well sell at $30K to reduce some
| demand, and then bring it down to $25K over a year or 2 as they
| work through those willing to pay a higher price.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Not an expert, but here my 2 cents:
|
| 1) Tesla's battery day in September 2020 [0] highlighted that,
| among other things, battery cost and production was going to
| become a huge focus for Tesla in the coming years, and as a
| result, a $25,000 Tesla car could be feasible.
|
| 2) I don't know if production costs in China are substantially
| lower, but assuming a large scale of operations, they should be
| somewhat lower than in the US.
|
| 3) I have a lot of faith in Tesla's push to improve manufacturing
| by building large, unique machines that simplify dozen of
| individual steps performed by dozen of robots into a few steps
| performed by a huge machine - while saving costs and time.
|
| 4) As a result of its stock skyrocketing, Tesla secured approx.
| $10B in new cash. That's plenty to make large investments, and
| move fast.
|
| I would bet that Tesla will manage to start delivering a $25k,
| 250 miles range "cheap" sedan (model 2?) by mid 2022.
|
| [0]: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-battery-day-
| model-s...
| Retric wrote:
| A new 25,000$ 250 mile range EV would be extremely compelling.
| However, I don't think they want to dilute their brand in US
| with a Subcompact car, which would make hitting those numbers
| extremely difficult outside of China.
| gsnedders wrote:
| Would it have to dilute their brand further than the Mercedes
| A-Class or BMW 1 Series have diluted their respective brands?
| Retric wrote:
| Look for the BMW 1 or 2 series here:
| https://www.bmwusa.com/
|
| They don't sell it in the US, so my guess is they think it
| does. Which is why the cheapest US model I could find
| starts at $41,250.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| yank the machine learning and cameras out, single lower power
| motor, new cheaper lighter battery cells, leads to smaller
| cheaper tires wheels brakes suspension. maybe!
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Removing the cameras may be a good idea, but note that
| their extensive fleet of camera-equipped vehicles is an
| important part of their potentially VERY lucrative self
| driving software development.
| piyh wrote:
| Cameras are pretty cheap, the custom board is probably
| decently expensive, but if FSD is a 10-15k upgrade then it
| doesn't take much to sell that portion of the hardware at a
| loss to make it back in software options.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > I don't think they want to dilute their brand with a
| Subcompact car
|
| The affordable EV for everyone will be the making of Tesla's
| brand. It will increase Tesla's footprint on earth 100 fold,
| and realise Musk's ambition to impact society as much as
| Henry Ford did 100 years earlier.
|
| But your point about branding strategy is a different one.
|
| It used to be the case that brands would try to isolate and
| hone their identities to specific niches, particularly in the
| luxury class. In the case of automobiles, Mercedes Benz moved
| on from there to become a very large car maker, whilst
| retaining its luxury mark. It had to, because sustaining a
| lead in an expensive manufacturing and design product
| category requires scale that is commensurate with the capital
| requirements of the industry.
|
| In the case of EV, that capital requirement is huge, and
| Tesla already has it. But to achieve ROI on all of that
| capital, Tesla needs scale to monetise its technical
| leadership. If Tesla doesn't produce the mass market
| affordable EV of the future asap, one of its competitors will
| leapfrog it one way or another.
| Retric wrote:
| Traditionally the competition and thus margins on ultra
| cheap cars where so low they basically acted as loss
| leaders to get people into dealerships who could up sell
| used cars or make it back on repairs. Tesla's showroom
| model breaks the benefits of that approach which makes
| competing at the very bottom of the market less appealing
| especially as their currently constrained by manufacturing
| capacity.
|
| It's different in China where a 250 mile 25k car would
| still be aspirational for many people. Though the US market
| might look at a 200 mile range 25k EV with a 300 mile range
| option at ~30k as a slightly different story with
| significant upsell possibilities for Tesla.
| prepend wrote:
| This is really false, or was true until Toyota and Honda
| came in with high profit, low cost cars in the 70s/80s.
| Milkman128 wrote:
| Telsa rarely meets tasks on time I'd realistically assume 2025
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| It seems that for European production of Model Y, they will
| start delivering these (produced at Gigafactory Berlin)
| earlier than the expected Q3 2021.
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| Tesla is a mixed bag. The semi and roadster are nowhere to be
| found and the solar roof was pushed back and back.
|
| The Model 3 was ahead of schedule (at least in terms of
| release if not production volumes) and so was the Model Y.
|
| My guess is that projects that will make or break the company
| live under round the clock intense supervision from Musk, and
| have the company's top talent and full resources assigned.
|
| Projects simmering on the back burner more or less progress
| as they would at other companies.
|
| So - is the $25k Model 2 in the critical path for Tesla? I
| would use that as a guide to guessing whether it'll be
| vaporware or rushed through with superhuman effort.
| jedberg wrote:
| Will these be $25K the same way they have a $35K car now?
|
| If I recall Tesla promised a $35K car before the Model 3 came
| out. Right now the cheapest Tesla you can buy is $37,990, before
| any state fees.
| woeirua wrote:
| Tesla also said they'd sell a <= $35,000 Model 3. That lasted for
| only a few months in 2019 before they realized that they were
| selling the cars under cost... So, I'd take this with a huge
| grain of salt.
|
| BTW, Nissan and GM are effectively selling the Bolt and LEAF
| today for around $27,000, although it's not clear if they make
| any money by doing so.
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