[HN Gopher] Tesla's California market share tumbles despite aggr...
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Tesla's California market share tumbles despite aggressive price
cuts
Author : MilnerRoute
Score : 20 points
Date : 2023-04-22 18:14 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| mullingitover wrote:
| As the saying goes, "Concerning."
|
| It's almost as if Tesla is being managed by an executive who is
| distracted, only working the job part time, at a moment when
| competitors are deeply engaged and laser-focused.
|
| If a junior officer of the company were found to be moonlighting
| at several other jobs while drawing a full-time salary, they'd be
| fired on the spot.
| bsder wrote:
| Is it just that competitors exist?
|
| At this point, the Model 3 is competing against the Chevy Bolt
| which is at least $10,000 cheaper.
|
| To buy a Tesla, you have to genuinely want a _Tesla_ at this
| point rather than just an electric car.
| dxxvi wrote:
| Model 3 and Chevy Bolt comparison:
| https://www.motortrend.com/features/tesla-model-3-chevrolet-...
| ivraatiems wrote:
| This is the actual reason. It has nothing, or almost nothing,
| to do with Elon Musk or politics. The average person, the
| average Californian, even the average EV buyer is not doing it
| to make a political statement.
|
| There are so many more options now than Teslas out there which
| provide quality and affordability. And there are used EVs on
| the market now that are viable, when there weren't before,
| including used Teslas.
|
| Yes, there are people (like me) who would never buy a Tesla
| because they don't trust the company or don't like Musk, but
| we're a severe minority. The reality is that Tesla is becoming
| less special simply because the rest of the industry is
| catching up - as Tesla should have known, and probably does
| know, that it would. The question is what they do about it.
| MBCook wrote:
| This is _why_ they're cutting prices. You're dead on.
|
| They finally have real competition and they're having trouble
| due to weaknesses (even if only perceived) like lack of
| CarPlay/Android Auto, quality issues, service issues, simple
| brand loyalty, and being heavily associated with someone many
| consider toxic. They're losing their big advantage of being
| "the" electric car. People are now aware of other options.
|
| If Tesla was as unassailable as some fans claim, they wouldn't
| need to cut prices. They could continue to charge the same
| amount and maintain market share, using the profits to improve
| things or produce more.
|
| The price cuts signal they're in real competition. Good. That
| will improve everyone.
| slaw wrote:
| Model 3 is twice expensive as equivalent ICE car. I think market
| for small and expensive sedans is saturated. The same for model
| Y.
| electrondood wrote:
| False, it's actually slightly cheaper than a new Camry.
|
| That's base price, and doesn't even account for significantly
| lower cost of ownership.
| slaw wrote:
| Camry is in different class. You should compare Tesla model
| 3, MSRP $39.9k to Toyota Corolla, MSRP $21.5k
|
| https://www.edmunds.com/car-
| comparisons/?veh1=401884809&veh2...
| greedo wrote:
| Please don't post easily refutable lies.
|
| Camry MSRP is $26,220 Model Y is $46,990
|
| I would give you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps you're
| not using US prices and Camry's might be 76% more expensive
| where you live, but I doubt it.
| xur17 wrote:
| Shouldn't you be comparing to the model 3, which has a base
| price of 39k?
| thorncorona wrote:
| Last time I went to the dealership they were asking 27K for
| a 2020 Camry and mentioned they had no new inventory in
| stock and everything was 5K over msrp minimum.
|
| TM3 base model for me came out to about 35K w/ tax credits.
|
| If you include how much you save in gas it checks out.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Isn't model Y also 1.5 times more expensive compared to its
| equivalent competitors like the Ford EV SUV and Id4?
| HereBeBeasties wrote:
| I don't know about the US, but here in the UK an ID.4 GTX is
| PS55k if you want a heat pump and not in flat primer grey.
|
| A Model Y long range which is faster (by 1.4s to 60mph) and
| has better range is PS2k cheaper.
| electrondood wrote:
| Market share is irrelevant. Tesla makes more in margin per car
| than their next 8 competitors _combined_.
|
| Recall that Apple took 35% of the profit in the smart phone
| market with only 7% market share.
|
| Also, Tesla's target market is not EVs. Their entire mission is
| to lose market share, by encouraging competition to transition to
| sustainable energy. Tesla's target market for their vehicle
| business is all vehicles.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Are they? Since the last earnings margin went way down
| bagacrap wrote:
| Margins are crumbling and now the story is that they'll make it
| back by selling fsd.
|
| On top of that, all the insane valuations assume both of the
| things (high market share of EVs and high penetration of EVs
| across car market).
|
| Anyway you already knew that.
| malermeister wrote:
| Buying a Tesla used to be an effective way of liberal virtue
| signaling for the much-despised "coastal elites".
|
| Now that Elon has gone fully mask-off, it might as well be the
| Trumpmobile.
| CharlesW wrote:
| I also wonder if the price cuts are a reaction to market
| saturation. They as common as Camrys in mid- and higher-income
| areas in California.
| decafninja wrote:
| Aren't they literally nicknamed the California Camry?
| CharlesW wrote:
| I hadn't heard it before, but it's perfect and I'll use it
| henceforth!
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Teslas are just fun to drive, I don't think most people buy
| them to signal virtue, if they want to do that there is always
| the much cheaper Prius instead.
|
| I don't think most Tesla buyers also care much about Musk. The
| more likely answer is that Tesla went through a huge sales boom
| the last couple of years and that's sort of done now, anyone
| who wanted a Tesla over that period has one now, and now people
| are watching their money more carefully.
| beoberha wrote:
| I completely agree with you. In Southern California, you see
| people all across the political spectrum driving Teslas. As
| more options emerge, I don't think it's too crazy to see
| their market share go down.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Ya. I bought a BMW i4 instead due to the better interior.
| Although I'm missing Tesla's better software experience.
| thunky wrote:
| When I see a Prius I think the driver probably has common
| sense and value's their money over their public image. When I
| see a Tesla I think the opposite.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Are you sure you aren't just imagining things about Tesla
| vs what is really true? When I see a Tesla, I think techie,
| likely Indian or Chinese, but thats just my own local
| profile of Tesla drivers in my region.
|
| When I see Prius, I think either ecological grandma or Uber
| driver. Again, just a sample from my local region, it might
| not hold for other parts of the country.
| thunky wrote:
| Yeah I'm sure I am being unfair to Tesla owners. I see
| them as "dumb techies". Probably getting a fat paycheck
| they don't really deserve, thinking they're smarter than
| everyone else and their choice of car proves it.
|
| I know it's wrong.
| HereBeBeasties wrote:
| That's quite a lot of projection. I bought a Model 3
| because it felt objectively better / better value than
| everything else on the market at the time, having, you
| know, actually test driven pretty much everything. (Kia
| EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia e-Niro, Jaguar I-PACE, Porsche
| Taycan even).
|
| Techies might (gross generalisation warning) tend to: a)
| Have higher than average disposable income b) Be early
| adopters of new tech c) Care less what other people think
| of them than an average person d) Judge things more
| objectively than an average person.
|
| So it's hardly surprising a lot of them end up buying a
| Tesla Model 3. They are very well-packaged, fast, have
| good range, the Supercharger network, and are fairly mid-
| priced as cars these days go (similar to say a slower BMW
| 3 series diesel, at least in the UK).
|
| The BMW i4 launched recently. The Tesla Model 3 is a six
| year old design. And yet the i4 has much worse range, is
| either slower or much more expensive, and according to
| all the critics seems to be less fun to drive.
|
| Heaven forfend that anyone buy a car on its merits, as
| opposed to what other people think of the badge.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It was that way a couple years ago, now most progressives I
| know wouldn't be caught dead in a Tesla, exactly because of
| Musks right wing egomaniac behavior. You are a few years late
| with this comment
| malermeister wrote:
| I think the Twitter purchase made it impossible to ignore his
| BS.
| [deleted]
| Avshalom wrote:
| Probably not, I hate Elon more than most people, but like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Passat#Sales (U.S.
| column) a lot of cars just see demand fall off a cliff when all
| they see is small refreshes over a decade. There's talk of
| Tesla being in the process of a full updates to various lines
| and until that (does|does not) happen it's probably a bit
| premature to chalk anything up to Tesla's cultural positioning
| (after all, unless (like me) you're a terminally online twitter
| user Musk's politics are probably completely unknown to you)
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(page generated 2023-04-22 23:02 UTC)