
Tesla’s First-Quarter Deliveries Plummet - kgwgk
https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-first-quarter-deliveries-plummet-11554337912
======
steelframe
Data point: I'm a current Tesla owner who during Q1 was in the market for
replacing my remaining gas-powered car with an EV. Looking at the options
available, the direction I'm seeing with respect to charging infrastructure,
and the character of the company (yes, there's a touchy-feely part to me), I
went with a Jaguar I-PACE instead of another Tesla. I feel that directly
contributed to at least one lost potential sale for Tesla.

If they wanted to sell me another EV, they'd need to do several things
differently. First, give me buttons for the common stuff I do. Stuff I do
commonly is A/C, audio on/off, audio volume, suspension height, and driving
mode (sport or comfort -- I share the car with a spouse who hates vroom
vroom). Second, adopt CCS. I don't want to take a hard dependency on a
proprietary charging infrastructure that entirely depends on a single company
to keep it on life support. Third, stop lying to me about fully self-driving
capabilities. While we're on the subject, sell me the car as it is now, rather
than as you speculate you can make the car be in the future through a software
update. Fourth, nail the fit-and-finish and the quality of the interior.

For me, Jaguar got almost everything right in what they were shipping in Q1.

~~~
twblalock
Jaguar, Audi, and BMW are all working on electric cars to compete directly
with Tesla. These are large car companies who know how to build millions of
cars per year. They have large dealer networks already in place to sell and
service their cars.

Competition is going to get a lot tougher for Tesla over the next few years.

~~~
ajross
Tesla builds more cars per quarter than Jaguar already. But yes, competition
is (finally!) coming and that's a great thing.

~~~
twblalock
Jaguar is part of Tata. If Tata gets good at manufacturing electric cars in
large quantities it would be a big deal.

~~~
ajross
The point was more that Tesla has already scaled beyond the level where "these
companies know how to build cars" is reasonable spin. Tesla's building plenty
of cars, making money doing so, scaling rapidly, and can only be expected to
be doing better still by the time those competitors arrive in the market.
That's not to say that they won't be highly competetive cars, they might (I
for one certainly hope they are). But you don't get to handwave away Tesla's
existing success on the basis of production numbers.

Honestly... your argument is a year stale. The window on "Tesla can't scale"
closed. They did.

~~~
xkjkls
They still have only 1! factory. Compared to any almost any other automotive
manufacturer that is a bespoke operation.

~~~
manicdee
They have greater capacity to build batteries than any other car manufacturer.

They have a greater propensity to build BEVs than any other car manufacturer,
since they are all dependent on dealerships who live and die on income from
servicing ICE vehicles.

There is not going to be any rapid change to BEVs from established
manufacturers. It will be all talk, no action until the last dealership closes
down.

------
yumraj
I think it's more or less generally agreed that Tesla has the best in class
battery, charger and perhaps drive train, including motors, technology.

However, they have a single car plant and struggle with production and
quality, after sales support and so on.

I wonder, as a thought experiment, if Tesla would be more successful if they
become the OEM, providing their technology to the various car manufacturers.
Something akin to Intel and computers, so that you can buy a car with _Tesla
inside_. That will allow Tesla to focus on it's core strength and innovate
while leaving the car manufacturing, QA, sales, support and such to
traditional car companies.

~~~
bksenior
You think thats bad. Tesla is about to have to head to head with all the
majors who are now starting to finally harvest about a decade of their own
research in the space (prompted by Teslas early success).

Musks ambitions and outbursts strike me as a man who suffers from the top
killer of successful entrepreneurs, The skill/talent portability fallacy. It's
this idea because you did something similar well, that your ability should
port to "things like it." Seems like Tesla is going to extend itself to death.

~~~
notfromhere
It's probably going to turn out that the guys who've been building cars for a
century can figure out battery technology faster than the battery guys
figuring out how to scale auto manufacturing

~~~
dustindiamond
All the German car manufacturers have in terms of engineerig talent and
cultural is mostly mechanical, and brilliantly so.

But, the electronics suck.

Some of the most talented chemical, physical materials and electrical
engineers work for Musk’s companies.

You can just tell that Tesla’s were not designed with teams in silos. I don’t
think car makers are currently capable of that.

~~~
sangnoir
Germany has a _lot_ of electric and chemical engineering talent - you might
have heard of Bosch and BASF. These companies are already involved in the car
manufacturing supply chain. "Working in silos" allows engineers to specialize
and get in-depth knowledge.

------
gordon_freeman
If I want to invest in Tesla or any other company (another ex: Boeing), I'd
ask myself this q: Is this something temporary problem that smart people would
easily able to overcome? Or is this something fundamental or structural issue
that's gonna be there long-term. I don't see this delivery issue for Tesla
dragging on beyond this quarter. Lately, I have seen specifically with Tesla
that short-term concerns have been dragging down the stock way too much.

~~~
jressey
And then I would just shrug my shoulders and buy more index funds. Investing
in individual companies, no matter what you think you know, is always unwise
compared to index investing.

~~~
mythz
My first foray into US shares was in a managed funds which saw me lose 25% of
my net worth and they still took their 1.5% fee for their service.

I decided I'd rather lose money due to my own decisions and loaded up on AAPL
instead which ended up being recouping my losses and then some. I basically
limit myself to major tech co's since that's where I see the consolidation of
wealth ending up which has proven to be a smart bet so far. As long as I have
good convictions about a company I'm happy to invest directly, maybe in
retirement when I stop caring enough to follow companies closely I may
consider a managed fund with a proven track record to diversify the risk.

~~~
jressey
Managed funds are a ripoff, and not index funds. There is nearly infinite data
showing that S&P 500 index funds outperform every single investment strategy.

I would be focusing on bonds indexes right now though, that's just me. Good
luck with the lifetime win/loss if you keep this up.

~~~
brianpgordon
Bond funds are the one place where active management actually does make
sense...

------
refurb
Interesting tweet shows lots of Tesla's sitting in inventory after being
rejected by customers or other problems.

[https://twitter.com/Latrilife/status/1113799586567426049](https://twitter.com/Latrilife/status/1113799586567426049)

~~~
leesec
Even worse, I was driving around the other day and saw entire parking lots
full of inventory at this weird thing called a dealership, maybe GM and Ford
are going under since they have all this inventory sitting there?

~~~
tntn
Most cars at dealerships don't have "dead" written on the windshield. I'm not
sure what that means, but it doesn't sound that great.

~~~
wyldfire
_shrug_ , someone made a poor choice when assigned the task of triaging the
product returns. Should've used a database or some other sort of private
index, this publicity looks bad.

> Tsla was always storing cars at 761 but not this many

Production is up, ergo returns are up.

The count of units returned is useless without normalizing it against the
units produced. Of course, even with that it's likely a bad score for Tesla.
There have been many public reports of poor quality product leaving the
factory because of Tesla's challenges scaling up production. These returns are
just the inevitable outcome from those earlier reports.

~~~
dragontamer
> Production is up, ergo returns are up.

Production is down actually from Q4 2018.

[http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla...](http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla-q4-2018-vehicle-production-deliveries-also-announcing-2000)

> Production in Q4 grew to 86,555 vehicles

[http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla...](http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla-q1-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries)

> In the first quarter, we produced approximately 77,100 total vehicles

~~~
dmix
Production is up year over year, no?

We don't know what timeframe the tweet author is talking about. Did he mean
there weren't many Tesla's there last _quarter_ or a long time ago?

~~~
dragontamer
> Production is up year over year, no?

I mean, that's expected for a growth company. What's unexpected for a "growth"
company is a sudden halt in growth.

Why would production drop by roughly 10% and deliveries drop by 30% in one
quarter? I think most people were expecting a drop of some kind due to the
loss of the $7500 tax credit, but 30% drop is far larger of a drop than almost
anyone ever expected.

Note that Tesla also dropped the price of all M3 by $2000. So Tesla also has
lower-margins in Q1 2019 than Q4 2018. Lower-margins AND lower-volume is a
pretty bad sign.

~~~
leesec
Unforeseen logistics issues when delivering to a multitude of countries.

It's not a bad sign, they have the best selling EV in the world and expect to
be profitable from here on out.

If they they aren't profitable the next 3 quarters then I'd be worried.

~~~
dragontamer
> Unforeseen logistics issues when delivering to a multitude of countries.

Why did PRODUCTION drop? What happened to US demand? The M3 sold 61,000 Units
Q4 2018 in the USA alone. Why would expanding to China + Europe lower both
production and deliveries?

Why would Tesla only make 51,000 M3 cars when trying to satisfy China + US +
Europe?

Note what Tesla said: > At the end of the first quarter, approximately 10,600
vehicles were in transit to customers globally.

Okay, so lets say all of those vehicles in transit were delivered in Q1. That
means Tesla "would have" delivered 70,000 cars (total, S+X+3), which is still
a 20% drop from the 90,000 (S+X+3) delivered in Q4.

------
thesimon
[http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla...](http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla-q1-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries)

>we had only delivered half of the entire quarter’s numbers by March 21, ten
days before end of quarter

~~~
hartator
Wonder of there is a way to buy these tesla with small defects.

~~~
addflip
Yes. If you go to a Tesla store they should be able to match you with these
vehicles. Plenty of datapoints on r/teslamotors

------
this_user
Apparently, they have 10,000 cars in transit to customers right now as part of
their international roll-out. Still came in worse than the worst analyst
estimates. US deliveries of the M3 also tanked in January and February after a
record December. March saw an uptick, but it's still far below the December
number. But this has likely to do with the end of the subsidies.

~~~
sschueller
Tesla appears to have huge logistical issues in Europe and else where. From
the mess with the delivery of Rich's [1] Model X or one German Youtubers[2]
Model 3. Here is a video of Tesla's pilling up in a mall parking garage [3]

At this rate the company will not exist very long even if they make the best
car. Why is Tesla so incompetent when it comes to logistics when others do not
have these issues? Who is in charge?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxSQuGeoug8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxSQuGeoug8)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS5Q6iiQRgA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS5Q6iiQRgA)

[3]
[https://twitter.com/gupamf/status/1113283728640368646](https://twitter.com/gupamf/status/1113283728640368646)

~~~
Reason077
_" Why is Tesla so incompetent when it comes to logistics when other do not
have these issues?"_

Rapid expansion? I can't think of another car company doing nearly 400% year-
on-year sales growth like Tesla has.

~~~
sschueller
But how do you not plan for that? It's not that people are waiting for non
existing cars. They are waiting for cars that have been produced and are
sitting in lots and ship yards.

~~~
leesec
Remember how the last U.S. car company to make it to mass production was over
100 years ago?

Scaling up cars is really, really hard. It is not software.

~~~
jdhn
While scaling up is hard, it's not like the expertise to scale up doesn't
exist. The auto industry is pretty established, and I'm sure that there are
companies and/or consultants that could help Tesla out.

~~~
jfoster
Had any other car company ever scaled up as rapidly as Tesla is?

~~~
SEJeff
No. The last "new" American car manufacturer was GM, which was founded
September 16, 1908 in Flint, MI.

"ha ha ha Tesla is so bad at logistics, they suck so much! Look how much
better everyone else is!"

Imagine how much better I'd be at literally anything if you gave me a > 100
year head start!

~~~
philwelch
Not only do countries other than the United States exist, but many of them are
considerably better at car manufacturing.

~~~
SEJeff
Sure, but the article is about a new American car company, and we are
discussing problems with production ramp. People often use GM or Ford for
comparison, and I'm pointing out the silliness.

Most of the EU based car manufacturers are even older than GM / Ford.

~~~
philwelch
By volume, the largest EU car manufacturer is Volkswagen, which barely existed
before WWII. The other German manufacturers also had to start from scratch.

~~~
SEJeff
Volkswagen was founded May 28, 1937, and they were the fuhrer's favorite.
That's still 66 years head start. I bet if I gave you a 66 year head start in
virtually anything you could probably do a better job than I will when I
start.

You've not disproved the underlying meaning of my statement really. I don't
see why people are downvoting it as the content is sensible.

~~~
philwelch
Volkswagen was used for war manufacturing pretty much as soon as they started
and never manufactured commercial passenger vehicles until years _after_ the
war.

If you made that point about Daimler or BMW you might have a point, because
they actually made cars before being turned into Nazi war manufacturers and
bombed into oblivion, but Volkswagen was never anything _but_ a Nazi war
manufacturer until the end of the war.

> You've not disproved the underlying meaning of my statement really.

What, that learning how to manufacture large numbers of automobiles is a lost
art from the 19th century? The underlying meaning of your statement is
absolute garbage because there's half a dozen East Asian companies that
figured it out since 1960, some of them even since the mid-1980's.

~~~
SEJeff
Ummmmm Hitler ordered the manufacturing of the Bug in April of 1934. This was
before WWII.

Civilian production was _stopped_ at the start of the war, but it was
definitely being built before the war, as evidenced by many historical
sources.

~~~
philwelch
> The construction of the new factory started in May 1938 in the new town of
> "Stadt des KdF-Wagens" (modern-day Wolfsburg), which had been purpose-built
> for the factory workers.[15] This factory had only produced a handful of
> cars by the time war started in 1939. None were actually delivered to any
> holder of the completed saving stamp books, though one Type 1 Cabriolet was
> presented to Hitler on 20 April 1944 (his 55th birthday).[15]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen#1932%E2%80%931938:_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen#1932%E2%80%931938:_People's_Car_project)

------
baby
These kind of posts are good publicity right? I don't see any other car
company we follow so closely on the market. Tesla is the only name I can see
come up again and again here, and guess what, most people on HN are the actual
population that is buying teslas.

~~~
everdev
I would love a Tesla if they were 50% cheaper.

I used to think that the big car companies weren't able to bring a competitive
EV to market because they were bigger than Tesla and bogged down in layers of
management.

Now I'm wondering if Tesla was just over marketed and overly ambitious
entering the market and if these later entry EVs from main stream car
companies in the next few years will be just as good at a fraction of the
price.

EDIT: to clarify, I'm not comparing the price of EVs, but the price of a Tesla
vs the price of a traditional gas-powered car. If I was only willing to buy an
EV, then yes Tesla looks like a great deal.

~~~
Klathmon
I'm not sure why i'm jumping into this thread, but 50% cheaper!? You want a
brand new electric car for $17.5k USD?

Even the cheapest ICE cars sold in the US have trouble hitting that number...
That just seems like a completely unreasonably high bar to hold EVs to at this
point since things like batteries are so much more expensive than an ICE
engine.

~~~
mikeash
A quick search on cars.com reveals 1,700 new cars within 50 miles of my zip
code for under $15,000.

I agree that a decent EV for that price is just not practical yet, but cheap
ICE cars have no trouble hitting it.

~~~
Klathmon
That's fair I guess, I did a cursory search and saw things from Toyota and
Nissan in the $16-18k range, and I didn't really search more.

But I was also expecting to compare MSRP, but I now realize that it's not
really a good comparison since Teslas are bought less like cars (with haggling
and discounts) and more like a new phone (you pay the price they set). Still,
I'm floored that ICE cars are that cheap!

~~~
mikeash
Yeah, you can believe the MSRP for Tesla but for other cars you need to see
what the local dealers are offering. (And even then, it’s approximate.)

The low end gets very basic, but some people just want cheap transportation
and don’t care about features.

------
bryanlarsen
Everybody knew this was coming: one month of deliveries on the boat to Europe,
the availability of the 3 outside of North America affecting demand for the S
& X outside of North America, and news of the Y Osborne'ing the X. The numbers
for S/X are worse than expected, but I'm sure it's within the bounds of
Tesla's planning scenarios.

~~~
jsight
Well, yeah, parts of it were expected. The part about accelerating the
shipping of cars to China because of soft demand was a little out of the blue,
though.

------
Animats
They had an order backlog, and they filled it. Now, like the rest of
automotive, they're sales-limited. All the big US auto companies have been
able to make more than they can sell since 1956. (In the spring of 1956,
supply caught up with pent-up WWII demand. Then came the era of chrome.)

Tesla is in a business where many customers just want to pay their money and
drive away with a car. Not "preorder" and wait for months. If they get it
right, you'll order on line and the car will show up in a few days. The loaner
should show up the day you order.

~~~
modzu
if you're in the market for a new car what makes you think being able to get
one immediately is a priority?

a car is one of the largest investments an average person will make. i love
that i'm not going to be hustled by a car salesman (the archetype of the
sleazy conman) and can make decisions independently when buying a tesla.

honestly a few months seems really reasonable given the time spent making the
decision?

~~~
vkou
> if you're in the market for a new car what makes you think being able to get
> one immediately is a priority?

Because I'm not buying a car for fun, I'm buying one because my old beater is
giving up the ghost.

> a car is one of the largest investments an average person will make.

A car is not an investment. It's an expense.

> i love that i'm not going to be hustled by a car salesman (the archetype of
> the sleazy conman) and can make decisions independently when buying a tesla.

The last time I bought a (used) car, I walked into a dealership, told the
salesman what model I wanted, and asked him to show me his inventory. I looked
at some cars, test-drove one, he told me to make an offer, I did, and paid
cash.

I had to deal with exactly zero upsell pressure, all of five minutes of
haggling, and to say 'no' twice to an offer to finance.

Be upfront about what you want, that you're ready to buy if you like what you
see, and don't take any bullshit. Your dealership experience will be much
better for it.

~~~
modzu
but this used car experience is not competing against a new tesla sales
model..

~~~
twblalock
What vkou did can easily be done with either a used car or a new car -- go to
a dealership, see the inventory, test drive the car, buy it and go home with
it all in the same day.

In fact, it is easier to do this with new cars because the dealers are more
likely to have a car with your preferred combination of option packages in
stock.

------
splattern
Official statement for reference: [http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-
release-details/tesla...](http://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-
details/tesla-q1-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries)

------
holoduke
But still, the number of Tesla's driving around here in the Netherlands is
just impressive. I do believe in a bright future for the Tesla car brand.

~~~
wokkel
You do realize that they were subsidized a lot. If you got in early and
combined it with some other subsidies the 100k model S cost about 20k. Now
that the subsidy is largely gone i'd be surprised if the sales stay that high.
You see the same with the Mitsubishi Outlander: sales dropped to nearly zero
after the hybrid subsidy was taken away.

~~~
mprev
€80k subsidy? Surely there’d be a national outcry.

~~~
wokkel
You are right, it's 70k. Source:
[https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/70-000-euro-subsidie-
vo...](https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/70-000-euro-subsidie-voor-een-
dure-tesla-helemaal-terecht~b4221307/)

------
leesec
As was expected as they re-tooled the production line and started delivering
internationally.

~~~
matt4077
This was possibly _expectable_. But it was not _expected_. Per their press
release:”Because of the lower than expected delivery volumes…”

------
zacharyautin11
What do you think is fair p/e? High share price is reflective as to the eAse
that Tesla has raised capital. The trend is still very positive on increased
revenue. Would be interested to know % of Tesla spend that didn’t go towards
current prodcucts.

Didn’t realize how agressive expansion was. Tesla seems like it has not
exceeded its ability to repay debt but is taking increasing risks despite
making electric car market viable.

Building a semi prototype I guess is different than buying supercapacitator
company for limitless recharge (prius style super capacitor battery to augment
lithium ion power source) and building factories to actually build thousands
of vehicles and now their batteries (Panasonic might lose monopoly)

Integrated battery manufacture alongside vehicles/power users could be next
step towards decreased costs.

------
iijj
Percent change in sales from Q4 2018 to Q1 2019

    
    
      Tesla -30% (90,700 to 63,000) (deliveries)
      Bolt -30%  (6212 to 4316) (sold)
      Leaf -33%  (4029 to 2685) (sold)
    
    

Source: ir.tesla.com, random news articles on quarterly automotive deliveries
from google news.

------
dgritsko
Pre-market is... not looking very understanding this morning for $TSLA, to say
the least.

~~~
robjan
If you look at the bigger picture, it's lost about one week of gains and it's
been rising and falling 10% for a while now

~~~
octorian
It does often seem that any news report about TSLA "soaring" or "plummeting"
turns out to really just be a small'ish osscilation. At this point I tend to
take most of these with a grain of salt.

~~~
jfoster
The media tends to overstate how much a single story moves a stock. Not
limited to Tesla, and I would say 10% is actually one of the larger movements
than is typically associated with a single story within a day.

------
killion
As a Tesla Model S owner I'm not at all surprised that the sales of the S and
X are down. They are pushing the Model 3 hard, so hard that they dropped the
reasonably priced S and X models from their lineup.

There is a huge price gap between the 3 and the S now and the differences
between the cars is so slight that it doesn't make sense to buy an S today.
Even worse the S and X haven't had their interior update yet so they look old
compared to the 3.

------
olivermarks
[https://www.fleetcarma.com/electric-vehicle-
outlook-2019/](https://www.fleetcarma.com/electric-vehicle-outlook-2019/)

There are 3 million EVs on the road today, of which around 2 million reside in
China

------
xedeon
Tesla vehicle deliveries in first quarter:

Q1 2019: 63,000

Q1 2018: 29,980

Q1 2017: 25,000

Q1 2016: 14,820

Q1 2015: 10,045

Q1 2014: 6,457

Q1 2013: 4,900

Q1 2012: 0

Visual chart:
[https://twitter.com/EcoHeliGuy/status/1113648662054199297](https://twitter.com/EcoHeliGuy/status/1113648662054199297)

------
genie514
This figure makes me wonder how other car manufacturers are able to generate
demand. Honda alone sells 1m+ cars per year in the US. For all the news, Tesla
will likely make 400k deliveries during entire year around the world.

~~~
frontloadpro
Tesla's market is extremely niche. Luxury car to an uneducated car buyer.

Car enthusiasts won't get a Tesla because Tesla's ARE inferior to the
competition at that price point.

You don't buy a Tesla because you want your car to work for 2 years without
breaking, you buy a Tesla to show friends.

I know luxury Ford products sold 20k/yr, and those were some seriously high
end SUVs. Same price point.

I cannot see how Teala is sustainable.

Edit, the reliability problems aren't unique to Tesla, any new car has them. I
don't understand why people straight lie about it not having reliability
issues.

~~~
Dumblydorr
Teslas are superior, not inferior. It's simple physics, BEV means higher
acceleration, lower center of gravity, better cabin volume, quieter, and most
importantly: you don't contribute nearly as much to destroying the climate or
causing asthma and emphysema in children. How do you counter these basic BEV
advantages? Are you in favor of releasing emissions for thousands of years?

~~~
frontloadpro
This is a Strawman comment, from an uneducated car buyer.

There are plenty of higher quality electric vehicles.

The acceleration is one tiny aspect of customer satisfaction.

Tesla has worst in class interiors and reliability. Not having buttons or
trays is something only Tesla can get away with.

Is it better for the environment to buy a used car? Or better for the
environment to buy a new car?

~~~
CydeWeys
Just to let you know, you've now called anyone who disagrees with your opinion
"uneducated" multiple times. This really rubs me the wrong way.

You need to realize that other people have different priorities than you do.
Not everyone cares that their car be as luxury as possible. They just want a
good electric vehicle, and there's nothing that beats the Model 3 at that
price point -- not in range and not in performance. Yeah, maybe it doesn't
have leather seats as nice as the BMW, but most people don't prioritize
surface-level luxury above all else, and especially not hardware/car nerds.

~~~
Domenic_S
FWIW i've owned 3 BMWs and a 2018 Mercedes and I _much_ prefer the seats --
both from a comfort and materials perspective -- in my Model 3 (2nd gen
seats).

------
dmode
Tesla has come a long way when 70k cars manufactured and 63k delivered is
considered a bad result. 10 years back they were making 10 cars a quarter

------
BaconJuice
is now a good time to buy? [serious]

~~~
karpodiem
Now is a good time to buy put options.

~~~
high_derivative
Is that not technically untrue as this is already priced, with options being
very expensive due to high implied volatility now?

~~~
marvin
You'll know when your options expire ^_^

------
ajross
> Tesla Inc. said new-vehicle deliveries in the first quarter fell 31% from
> the previous three months

Wait a second, so this isn't a year-over-year number? Don't shipments of
basically everything fluctuate seasonally? Is this even a meaningful metric?

Alas, the paywall prevents me from knowing. But in general "people buy 31%
more high end cars around the holidays" doesn't seem like a clearly incorrect
hypothesis.

------
mikorym
So with a click baitey title, can we get a TLDR?

------
_red
Has anyone ever calculated the total environmental impact of a Tesla?

It seems that Power Stations + Millions of Tons of mining for rare earth
minerals must make this a mega-polluter?

~~~
SEJeff
Admittedly a biased source, but their reasoning seems sensible:
[https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-greener-think-getting-
greene...](https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-greener-think-getting-greener-look-
manufacturing/)

As the cost of solar + wind + static storage drop, the more renewable energy
sources are used to power factories. The more renewable source used to power
factories, the greater the impact on the vehicle. In this, Tesla leads the
way.

~~~
_red
It is helpful that the author quantified some of the issues, however there are
many factors involved:

* Does the authors CO2 estimates for battery production actually include "mining" or just "assembly"? From reading it, it seems to just include assembly of final components into a battery.

* Moving tons of rare-earth minerals from Point A to Point B for battery production requires yet more CO2 output.

* Wind + Solar still requires massive batteries somewhere, which still requires massive mining operations.

Further, with $40 shale oil now a reality, its getting harder to make the
economic case.

~~~
brohee
Which rare earth are you talking about, and in which quantity?

~~~
_red
Those who really care about the environment, know that reuse and recycling are
the best approaches. So, you could buy a 15-yr old Toyota or Hyundai, since
that carbon footprint already exist. You shouldn't be needlessly creating more
deadly CO2.

Further, in terms of energy density: solar, wind, coal, natural gas all pack
far less joules per gram than petroleum.

These are inconvenient truths that unfortunately conflict with the slick
marketing messages of your luxury golf cart salesman.

------
gre
It feels wrong that they charge for autopilot when it's just software--they
should give it away for free. This really affects how I feel about buying a
Tesla when it's in the cart. I wonder if sales would go up if they just gave
it away for free, and if the economics still work out.

~~~
leesec
This comment made my head hurt so bad.

You pay for software all the time?

~~~
gre
Sure, it just feels wrong in this case. Who wants a Tesla without autopilot?
If they're trying to sell as many as possible, give the software away for
free.

~~~
leesec
Now that you mention it, if they're trying to sell as many as possible, why
not just give away the car for free? People love free cars.

~~~
gre
That's just bad for business.

