Comment on Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as World’s Most Popular EV Maker
Buffalox@lemmy.world 10 months agoToyota has been saying a few years from now
Toyota is full of shit regarding EV, they are not competitive at all on EV, so they try to make people not by an EV now, but wait until the next car. Toyota has wasted their research on Hydrogen, and that’s going nowhere fast, that’s a point where Musk was right already 10-15 years ago. But that was before he got weird.
I read the article from the link you provided, apparently VW plans to build 40 million cars on the new “platform”, so Tesla making 20 million will not make them surpass VW and Toyota.
Apparently VW can already make a car in 14 hours, so not that far from the 10 claimed by Tesla, and apparently there are downsides to using the big body parts Tesla uses, in for instance a car is more expensive to repair, and therefore also more easily totalled. AFAIK the machines Tesla use to press those big parts are from Italy, and I bet they tried to sell it to other car makers too.
Regarding the 48V, I would still claim it’s a non issue, you could easily go to 48V, and then use voltage regulators to correct locally if necessary. Voltage regulators are dirt cheap today, and are probably already used in most places inside the electronics. So in most cases it’s merely a matter of using another regulator, at about zero cost.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Got a huge laugh from me lol. Well said.
The 30 vs 10 was specifically for EVs. They haven’t figured it out yet on their electric vehicles.
A lot of people say what you have about the castings having problems on repairs, but what actually happens is if the accident is big enough to reach the casting, the car is totaled anyway castings or not. They have replaceable crush bars for smaller accidents. It’s not as big a problem as people think. Everyone is going to switch to castings to stay competitive, and some already have.
You might think that, but legacy has been talking about it for decades now, and hasn’t. One of Tesla’s leads in the video I linked shows a circuit board which handles many things, and on it, they talk about stepping down to 24v for the audio amplifiers which are on the same board, which they also want to make 48v in the next iteration. The thing is, those are custom in house designed circuit boards. Legacy outsources most of that stuff, they aren’t as vertically integrated on the power electronics and can’t just do that easily.
That’s why it’s a chicken and egg problem for them with their suppliers.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I think the reason legacy hasn’t switched to 48V, is that the benefits are moderate, and for a period of 10 years, every manufacturer will need to stock generic spare parts as both 12 and 48V. Again I don’t think it’s a game changer, although 48V is admittedly slightly better.
When I say Tesla won’t be as big as top 10 combined, it’s in volume not just value. Tesla needs to become as big as top 10 in volume, AND maintain the current margins to justify the current market cap (Totlal value of the stock). Tesla is currently worth $ 789 B while VW is only 65 B, Tesla is valued at 80 times their profits, VW is valued at a way more reasonable 4 times their profits.
To justify the value of Tesla, it must increase profits by 20 times in about 5 years. Doubling profits every year for 5 years will “only” be 32x, so even doubling is not enough, and their own forecast is “only” 0,5x. Which although impressive, is “only” 7.6x over 5 years. Basically Tesla would need to eat all the growth of EV, and become a near monopoly. As I see it, it will be more likely the opposite that will happen. The competition will catch up and surpass Tesla, and gain market share against Tesla in the EV market. While the ICE market will dwindle.
All in all, I think Tesla will grow for a while yet, they may even become #1 although I doubt it. But they won’t grow by nearly as much as is required for the current stock value to be reasonable.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It doesn’t matter how many other cars VW sells in the future though which is what I’m trying to say about the 40mil comment.
If tesla makes a trillion dollars in profit in 2035, it doesn’t matter if VW makes 2 trillion. Both companies will be worth vastly more, and both companies prices would sky rocket well before in anticipation of that happening.
And ya, these high numbers today were due to the high margins and growth. It makes less sense if you look at the next couple of years while we wait for Gen 3, as margins are down for everyone due to interest rates and we’re between growth phases waiting on gen 3. But once we see Gen 3 that will paint a better picture on if Tesla can or can’t meet future profit expectations.
Everything hinges on Gen 3 right now. Just like the old price everyone balked at when it was 1000:1 hinged on a successful Model 3.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
True, but I don’t believe there is room for such growth in the market. AI is not a thing that will take us all by storm in a few years, it will mature, and it will start to be used in niche segments, and then later we may see a sudden breakthrough when it gets good enough. But we need level 4 AI for that, and Tesla and most developers are still just at level 2, not that much better than 5 years ago. AFAIK only Mercedes is at level 3. But even from there it’s probably at least a 10 year journey to level 4.
What is Gen 3?
OK I remember you mentioned that earlier, you may be right, for sure it must have been to increase sales, and AFAIK it did that very successfully. I’m pretty sure it gave a few headaches for the competition, that will now have to work even harder.
Just a thought. ;)
But you’d be amazed what the fight for survival can do for making a company more competitive. Tesla was basically build on that in the beginning. It was never certain Tesla would survive, but they came through extremely competitive. In part because everybody worked their butts off for the project.
Now Tesla is reasonably secure as a major player in the industry, but others are feeling the heat, and are dialing up their efforts too.