The right jacket or Nike shoes are status symbols in some neighborhoods. The length of your yacht and number of professional crew in others.
Possibly virtue signal is part of the status as well?
ICE vehicles will be 75% of US car market in 2025
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Possibly virtue signal is part of the status as well?
Im confused by these comments. (though that might be nothing new*LOL*)
How is Tesla going to do better by charging $7,500 more for its vehicles?
I mean, we cannot ignore they have a problem and it seems like a new model is the only way out. Am I wrong on this?
What is the excuse for having its first sales drop in the USA in over a decade? Actually first sales drop since 2011
They sold more cars in 2023 than 2024 at a time when its CEO stated 2 years earlier to expect yearly sales growth of around 50%
Not only this, but even after slashing margins and incentives they still could not beat 2023 numbers which weren't all that great either.
I mean, I get you guys being defensive based on comments in here but I truly am just someone who doesnt take any side, I just look at numbers. So am I missing something here other than maybe gibberish from both sides?
It will go away like the subsidy for hybrid in the early days.
Oh not this nonsense again. I hear this enough, but I’ve never met the EV owner that cited the planet for buying the car. I remember stuff being said about that with the Prius early on, but I never met that person either.
I’m not saying that doesn’t exist. I’ve only heard it used as an insult in this sense of supposedly showing off. Just seems like another excuse to be offended by a person in an EV. It’s real though, because I get the finger from random people in traffic. It’s always a full size modified truck though which I thought was odd. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’re the bigger attention seeker in that interaction, but I’m sure as a Tesla owner I’m the problem to that person.
I don’t know. I’ve never derived status from buying a car. Obviously rare, higher priced stand out. I used to have Jaguars but I paid less than $15k for those. Maybe someone was impressed. I just never gave that a thought. Maybe some are really worried about that?
Starlink would be the cable modem for rural areas all over the world very soon.
The bank is, with 7 and even 8 year loans common now.
Yes, agree for those who will pay but wow, it is expensive for much the population. If you have a nearby cell tower you can get a locked in price from $35 to $60 almost forever. Verizon or TMobile
Starlink is $120 a month plus $349 for equipment. PLUS optional charges for masts, mounts etc that can be another couple hundred.
I just entered my address and it says there is also a "congestion charge" for my area but it doesnt say where this charge is or if it is already in the price which I dont think?
Starlink would be the most important thing that raise the real estate value in many rural area. That turns an impossible to live area into a place you can reasonably raise a family and work from home at.
You need to think your market as a bigger market. Some people will move into your area when previously it was not worth it due to the lack of broadband. When enough people are there there will be economy of scale to lay out cables and cell tower and fiber for the more traditional broadband. Going from nothing to something kick starts that.
Wasn’t the drop 1.1%? I don’t know what I said that was defensive, I was just questioning the status symbol argument when the median sales price is above a few models not even counting the tax credit.
Elon is Tesla’s biggest negative right now just because taking any political stand instantly alienates around half of your possible target audience. I really wasn’t arguing any part of the sales decline though. I only jumped into comment on the coal electrical production percentage and comment on the supposed perception of lower cost EVs still being considered a status symbol. Then again I had a guy I work with ask how I felt about daily driving an $80k car. I had to tell him I didn’t know, I’ve never had one.
It’s possible the vast majority don’t realize how expensive some cars have gotten and how much some of the EVs have come down. I’m sure most don’t keep tabs on this stuff. Most of what I watch and read is car related, so I see most of it as it happens. I know that’s not typical.
I missed the part about the tax credit in that. They just lowered prices last time to make up for losing the credit. The only position Tesla is in better than other EVs losing the credit is that they have more margin to play with if prices need to drop. Realistically they’d get hurt less than other EV only manufacturers in this regard.
This is a good point. Starlink will not be affordable for most in the developing world. Maybe on a shared basis where multiple families (or a village) share the data.
Cellular data in my wife's native Brazil is ridiculously cheap compared to the US. And the speeds are acceptable in my experience, 15-50 Mbps depending on location. I can't imagine many people going for Starlink over cellular data there, unless they live somewhere with no cell signal.
I don't have experience with other third would countries to know if it's representative of others or not. Maybe Mexico, my cell phone works about the same in Mexico as it does in the US, data seems good in tourist areas.
The biggest story is not that Tesla's sales drop, it is that the story of "Tesla is still rapidly growing its market share so the stock value will keep going up" stopped (at least in the car sales and charging network revenue part). Previously people just worry about the growth slowing down but not dropping. This triggered some people to start selling them early, and some who were thinking about buying the stock paused.
Let's say we skip the political part of Elon and jump straight to "status symbol". You cannot value EV the same way a gas car because EV's value has a lot to do with its residual range after battery aging. You can think of it more like a house with an expected roofing cost every 20 years. The roof replacement cost will affect the value of the house, except that EV's aging cost is higher than a gas car. This is the biggest cost IMO, more than the per mile electricity cost if you don't drive your car much.
So if someone ask me how it feel to drive an 80k car, I would answer it feels like I have a 60k student loan with a 20 year term.
Yes, 1.1% decline, sales stalled and they tried like heck to prevent a loss. We can agree that 1.1% drop is nowhere Elon Musks playbook of 50% growth and ok, let but lets cut him a break and slice that in half to 25% sales growth or even more to 20%. I was just commenting between the conversation between you and @JeffKeryk with Jeff implying cutting out the $7,500 tax gift might help Tesla and rightfully so you pointing out the base model is already cheap. Yet the company sales stalled. What is going to pick them up for 2025?
You do know I am NOT at all taking sides, Im just analyzing of which my brain does WAY too much of in everything of life. (but that will be another thread someday when I am ready)
You didn’t tell me we were allowed to make up scenarios. I’m going to change my argument now.
I will not invest in Tesla because I cannot predict what is Elon thinking all the time. It can go up or down but I do value sleep at night.
What I think Elon is doing is likely going to be like what he did to the supercharging network. When he started opening it up to other brands he likely saw that it being a sales enhancer for Tesla stopping. He layoff people and just let it run its course at minimum cost. Same can happen to models he see no sales growth. He may stop investing heavily and keep using what he already got, just minor update instead. I can see some sheet metal change and improvement in power train but not a lot of new casting R&D or new model that promise to change the world. He seems to focus the company more on self driving / robotaxi / AI instead of EV. I would also imagine he may open up some EV R&D service with other "big boys" so they will build other brands' EV for them eventually, so they won't be competing for the same market and oversupply / flood the market.
I don’t think there’s going to be much pick up in sales anywhere ICE, EV, or otherwise without price adjustments. I’m seeing lots of 0% financing even with Tesla and it wasn’t enough to avoid some loss. We went from shortage to abundance in a very short amount of time in the auto industry. Dealers were gouging and I think manufacturers in many spots got it wrong once they were able to flood the market.
I really don’t know how to extrapolate this to 2025 for Tesla. It’s the only company doing what they’re doing. Ford can be somewhat compared to GM, but everyone considers EVs a dividing line. Everyone I personally know hates EVs and isn’t shy to say it. I’m the only one that drives one at my location. I’ve been trying to figure out how they sold this many at this point.
EVs could be more niche and stay that way. I’d still prefer to buy another over the alternative.
Network price has a lot to do with the government. Equipment is only a small part of it (and that's the only common thing among the world whether Samsung / Erickson / Nokia / Huawei sell to Africa or Latin America or Europe or Russia). Labor cost is different, frequency licensing cost is different, customer affordability is different, etc.
If Starlink strike a deal with local carrier in 3rd world it can be cheap, as there will be less use for the satellite over the area to begin with anyways when most of the launches are for the US / Europe customers despite them needing to cover the entire world to keep the satellite close to ground (low latency). They don't need to use up the satellite to satellite communication and beam to US if they partner with the local telco for Starlink providing just the last mile connection.
You’re suggesting four major breakthroughs in energy storage capacity, battery charming rate, degradation rate and price. You left out the cost of the charging stations that can economically deliver lightening bolts of energy in 10 minutes .
These breakthroughs won’t come all at once and probably not til the end of our lives if ever. Seems easier to design cars for fast battery swapping than multi level technology breakthroughs.
I know people here that its a virtue signal. There saving the planet. There not too hoity about it - there just "I can't justify polluting the air", or " I won't give my money to big oil". Nothing wrong with saving the planet, I just don't think they really are.
As for status symbol - what percentage of Tesla's sold are the lowest price Model 3? Probably not many. Model Y is the best selling Tesla and starts at $45K (with rebate) and thats the lowest level one there. So there not comparable to Jetta / Civic / Corolla. Cheapest BMW is $38K. No one buys them either.
So Status + green + preference = 8% of the market and flat-lining. Figures about right to me.
Possibly different where you are - but reality here. It makes no financial sense to drive an EV when gas is around $2.60 a gallon here still.
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Virtue signaling is just a dumb sounding term. That and woke. They just drive me nuts. Maybe people use it differently than I perceive, but it always seems to be yelled with vitriol so often. I get tired of hearing it.
At $2.60 a gallon that’s still 60% more in fuel costs than I pay to charge at home at 35mpg which is what my GTI could do. It did need premium after I had it tuned. The other vehicle I was considering got 30mpg, required premium, and was $5k more expensive though. AWD performance vehicles with useable hatch space isn’t a cheap segment though.
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