
Tesla California sales beat Chrysler, Volvo, Cadillac, other big names - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/tesla-california-sales-beat-chrysler-volvo-cadillac-other-big-names/
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3327
Is anyone else tired of tesla PR and seeing 2 tesla articles here everyday?
Great for you Tesla and Mr. Musk, your PR team is great.

How about posting some articles about the voltage regulation algorithm, or
leak testing of lithium batteries ?

Something actually interesting would be nice.

~~~
clicks
Absolutely. I'm of course supportive of innovation but I've been troubled to
see this community get carried a little too far away with Tesla. I submitted
this article: [http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-
sp...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-speed)
sometime ago (which is actually a series of articles that discuss possible
problems with recent EVs) and it got no attention. This seems to be a trend,
anything critical of Tesla, even if it's from reliable sources like IEEE
Spectrum gets ignored, anything that praises it is accepted with jubilation.

edit: Just to be clear I'm not attacking Tesla/Musk, I love them both. I'm
peeved by everyone pretending or thinking EVs are solutions without any
shortcomings whatsoever, and I'm peeved that we sometimes ignore/attack people
who are in good faith just pointing out potential problems.

~~~
richardjordan
Hacker news audience. We love technology. We love entrepreneurs. The audience
skews towards being more concerned than average about issues like energy
depletion.

Elon Musk - superhero entrepreneur. Tackling big ideas (how often do you see
comments in threads bitching how Silicon Valley doesn't tackle big ideas any
more?). Addressing energy crisis problems. Building real, hard, technology.

Doing so in a way that is making money and beating an industry which has
massive legislative protection, political support from all kinds of
protectionist players, known lobbying organizations with a track record of
killing innovation JUST like this.

Not sure that for this audience this is getting too carried away with Tesla.
The Tesla story is the epitome of much that many many folks on here believe
in, aspire to, and stand for.

------
sirkneeland
As a politically right-leaning person, I have an instinctive aversion to the
state intervening in the process of the market and was convinced Tesla would
end up along with Solyndra, Fisker, 123 etc in the pile of failures.

I will also say that I was clearly wrong in my prediction, and Tesla has been
a great success (I guess the virtue of having political opinions but not
political office is that one can actually admit they were wrong and change
their mind).

I will state a view that (sadly) may very well be heresy on both sides of the
political aisle: the success of Tesla is not a blanket validation of
government intervention in green industry any more than the failure of, say,
Solyndra is a blanket indictment of it.

Politics aside, I'd like to ask the question: why was the Tesla investment
successful where others were not? Was there any pre-investment indicator that
Tesla was more likely to succeed? Did it have something that others didn't?

~~~
cromwellian
There is no formula for success. You are on Y-Combinator, built on the notion
of spreading risk around through diversification.

The DoE actually has a better record than most venture capitalists and angels,
but in reality, you need a pile of failures to get a success. Failure is the
engine of success, and the demand from the right that the government not do
anything that might fail actually acts to increase government failure and
expense, by making agencies so risk-averse that they spend way way more money
on analysis and over engineering to avoid failures. That's one reason why
SpaceX can beat NASA military contractors because they design and test to try
to reduce failure to zero.

If you care about small, effective, cheap government, it would be
paradoxically better IMHO, to let the government dole out cash like a VC with
the expectation of 40 failures for every 1 mammoth success.

What I don't get is, people on the right never complain about all of the
government failures on military spending. X-Ray lasers, planes and tanks that
don't work, crazy and kooky DARPA projects. Hundreds of billions are flushed
down the toilet, trillions if you look at the disaster that is the F-35/JSF,
and here they are whining about Solyndra.

Isn't the huge military industrial complex a ginormous distortion of the
market? Why is it so much more terrible for the government to fund early stage
industry (which is relatively cheap), but perfectly ok to give huge incentives
to oil companies in taxes, regulations, military and state department support,
or to spend hundreds of billions on weapon systems that never get deployed or
used?

I wonder if it has has more to do with cultural conservatism than fiscal
conservatism. The kind of George Will "Fossil fuel Cars are American/Apple
Pie, and Trains, electric cars, are squishy European stuff" feeling. Green
energy = hippies, latte sipping coastal elites, not real 'mericans who drive
gas guzzling SUVs across the plains.

~~~
ensignavenger
The problem was the DoE gave out loans, not equity investments. If the DoE had
received an equity stake in Tesla (and the others), then it would be a more
apt comparison to VC and PE. As it stands, the DoE took on tremendous
financial risks with little financial reward.

Regarding military waste- there are many conservatives who are just as upset
about that. I don't think the media pays as much attention to it, for one
reason or another, and thus it is not part of the day to day rhetoric.

Also, defense is also generally considered by conservatives to be the Federal
Government's primary reason for existence. ("To provide for the common
defense"). Spending a large percentage of the Federal budget on Defense
initiatives therefore makes sense within this paradigm.

Lastly, there is a major problem in our society, both right and left,
conservative and liberal, that believes that throwing money at any problem
will automatically fix it. Is Education lagging? Spend more money on it! Need
a next generation airplane and it isn't getting here fast enough? Throw some
more money at it! Etc.

~~~
cromwellian
But when the government takes equity stakes, the right complains even more
loudly about interference, especially if they are voting shares.

The purpose of the DoE isn't to invest to get monetary award, it's to invest
to drive basic engineering forward. The government isn't as business and isn't
supposed to derive a profit, that's the basic fallacy of the idea that the
government's budget should reflect how CEOs run corporations.

Throwing money at research, science, and technology is pretty much how you get
breakthroughs. As a said, there's no formula, breakthroughs are often
serendipitous, unpredictable, and happen over long time scales.

I view technological advancements as exploring an infinitely large landscape
of possibility. There are mountains of opportunity, but you don't know if a
given mountain is worthwhile until you scale it, and you may fine nothing, or
a local optima, in which you see a better mountain farther away. From the
ground level, most of the mountains look the same, and the landscape is always
shifting.

What is the best strategy for finding the successful mountains? Hire as many
teams of climbers as possible and distribute them around the landscape far and
wide. That's what capitalism is, that's what the startup economy is, it's lots
and lots of people doing local hill climbing.

There are some mountains that are too big to climb, the gear is too expensive,
and the time horizon to summit, too long. That's the government's role in
basic R&D, to fund research and development at an early stage that is not
economic, has little chance for ROI in the short or near term, stuff that even
VC's won't touch.

Could any private company have built the GPS system all our phones used, if
the government hadn't funded rocketry, satellites (most for military reasons?)
You've talking from the 1950s until the 2000s when practical consumer GPS
became a viable business. What company could have stomached 50 years of
spending for ROI?

Much of the technology we have today is the result of government spending in
the military, national labs, the space program, and state funded academic
research. Often, the private companies are successful in taking the basic
advancements and figuring out how to manufacture them, but it is usually the
government that proved the basic design first.

------
throwaway_yy2Di
Are these sales to Californians, or does this include sales made in California
and delivered to another state because of the dealership issue?

~~~
nonchalance
The latter, which is why the figure is so skewed in favor of Tesla.

~~~
pbreit
In which states was Tesla unable to sell cars in 2Q13? Of those states, would
California have been the best place to import a Tesla from?

~~~
omegaham
The biggest example is Texas, as they have laws that prohibit direct
manufacturer-to-customer car sales. I think that Tesla has had some problems
in New York and New Jersey as well.

As for California being the "best place," my guess is that it has nothing to
do with being the best - it just happens to be be the spot where Musk said,
"Well, we need to sell cars in states that won't allow us to sell things.
Let's collect all of the infrastructure to serve these people in a place
that's already selling a lot of cars. Let's choose California!"

~~~
doyoulikeworms
Elon Musk was also able to pick up Tesla's Fremont, CA factory from other auto
manufacturers for pennies on the dollar, which I'm sure had something to do
with it.

------
songzme
> legislative efforts underway in Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, and
> Virginia to prevent Tesla from dealing directly with customers and instead
> conform to antiquated franchise laws requiring them to only sell cars via
> independently owned car dealerships

I really don't understand this. This is like saying... I make a product and I
can't sell the product that I've made myself. Someone else is required to sell
it for me. This law seems unfair and ridiculous. Is there a reasoning/history
behind this and how it came to be?

~~~
sliverstorm
AT one time, showroom/service center combos were a very good thing for
consumers. Consumers want to test drive many vehicles before they buy. They
want to have a range of options on hand to chose from. After they buy, they
want somewhere they can entrust their car to for repairs. In summary, the type
of role the dealership fills was and possibly still is an important role in
the automotive market.

This is where dealerships came from. Manufacturers, especially when they were
smaller, didn't want to deal with establishing such a presence in every town
in America, so they left it to private business.

This brings us to the existing franchise laws. I'm told the rationale goes
like this; if a manufacturer were to suddenly decide to sell its own vehicles
and cut out the middleman, said middleman would be completely and utterly
screwed for obvious reasons. The laws, thus, are a form of guarantee for the
prospective middleman. He knows his extremely capitol-intensive venture cannot
be toppled two years later when the manufacturer decides to sell direct. If
such protections were not in place, (so the story goes) entrepreneurs would be
hesitant to start a dealership, the absence of which would have been a
negative for everybody.

~~~
ensignavenger
Of course, a strong franchise contract with the manufacturer would have fixed
this problem just as well (probably better) as legislation. And it would have
only applied to parties who agreed to the terms.

~~~
sliverstorm
Sure, there's a bunch of ways to do it. I'm not taking a position on the
legislation, merely trying to answer my parent's question.

------
rgbrenner
0.6% market share

4714 out of 850712 cars

[http://www.cncda.org/secure/GetFile.aspx?ID=2583](http://www.cncda.org/secure/GetFile.aspx?ID=2583)

For comparison, Toyota is #1: 157,035

~~~
jljljl
Thats their share of the total car market. Given that their portfolio only
consists of one model, it's probably better to look at their specific segment:
Luxury and Sports.

In that segment, they had a 12% market share YTD.

~~~
rgbrenner
"Thats their share of the total car market."

Yes, which is what the article is about. This article is not about a specific
segment. This article is about Tesla selling more vehicles than Volvo,
Chrysler, and 8 other manufacturers.

~~~
hrjet
When Android was gaining ground 2 years back, the iOS folks used to draw
similar conclusions. "But look at the market share of iOS" which was 80% back
then.

Today it's the reverse, Android is 80% while iOS is about 13% (IIRC).

We need to realize that the trends are much more important than the current
market share. Also that markets grow (and also shrink sometimes). We also need
to realize that all products have a end-of-life, which means existing
customers can switch after their vehicles become old after a couple of years.

~~~
pbreit
Uh...the trend is that Tesla sales increased 13,000%!

~~~
consz
Wow, if they keep that up, they'll be 99% of the total car market in just a
few years!

------
mixmastamyk
Am I the only one that doesn't care for the styling? It looks good from the
back and side, but I don't like the big mouth in the front. Also not a fan of
the lines on the dash and steering wheel.

Would still take one of course. ;)

------
Patrick_Devine
Kudos to Elon. What's with some of the hate for Tesla in the red states? Tesla
is 100% American owned/operated.

~~~
jared314
During the 2012 election, before Tesla showed profitability, it was lumped in
with other companies that were given government loans for developing "green"
technologies. Many of those companies failed and most people, who did not see
electric cars as viable, felt Tesla was going to join them. So, it was held as
evidence of the Obama administration wasting tax payer money during a
recession.

Now, Tesla is trying to sell vehicles around the traditional car dealer
system. This system was setup to prevent the manufacturer from holding a
monopoly on price and protect the local car dealer's investment in both
inventory and services. So, Tesla is now seen as disrupting and depriving
local businesses of potential sales and investment.

But, in reality, most people hate the car buying process and think it needs
disruption.

------
rgubarenko
Regarding requirement to sell through dealership ... This kinda "service
proxy" (which can be easily eliminated but it's not) is a common problem in
this economy. Same thing with real estate agents. Do we really need that RE
agent for our house sale/purchase to go smooth? Why not just create one
central official website where sellers and buyers can find each other and do
all paperwork, money transfers, bidding and other stuff online according to
strictly defined procedure? I don't see any technical difficulty here.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _Same thing with real estate agents. Do we really need that RE agent for our
> house sale /purchase to go smooth?_

Huh? No. For sale by owner is a thing, and plenty of people buy without agent
help. The only reason to use an agent is to have someone else handle your
paperwork and if you're selling, market your home. There is no law requiring
you to use an agent.

In contrast, many states have franchise laws forbidding a car manufacturer
from selling its own cars to the public.

------
ballard
From a long-term cash perspective, it is likely that, due to the market
segment, saturation may be reached faster as most UHNWIs that want one will
have already purchased a unit already. But of not yet customers are at least
un-convinced, conservatives, cheapskates, brand loyalists and bad timing
quants that maybe microstrategized.

Without enough cash, what are the odds of Tesla pulling an iPhone 5C to tap
others with six-figure incomes?

------
kenshiro_o
With so many millionaire/wealthy hackers in California it is not so abnormal.
Plus Tesla being based in this region they probably benefit from the proximity
and the Silicon Valley Pride effect. Now I'd be really interested to see Tesla
being more aggressive in cities like NYC/New Jersey and Boston. There are
definitely quite a few well off people who would be charmed by the car.

------
sremani
In the quest for zero emissions - we are creating the Electric Cars - I want
to compare the environmental footprint of Electric car building vs Normal
cars, there are interesting articles pointing to the fact the electric cars
have bigger carbon footprint for manufacturing etc. I would love to have
Cradle to Grave Carbon footprint of Cars not just during the operational
phase.

~~~
ChuckMcM
If you're interested in following up on this you can start with some of the
stuff Amory Lovins[1] has done at the Rocky Mountain Institute. He was one of
the first people I am aware of to look at the entire life cycle of cars as a
way of evaluating different options. I've not always agreed with his
conclusions but I appreciate the clarity of his presentation and thinking.

[1] [http://www.rmi.org/Amory+B.+Lovins](http://www.rmi.org/Amory+B.+Lovins)

[2]
[http://blog.rmi.org/blog_the_electric_car_lighter_less_costl...](http://blog.rmi.org/blog_the_electric_car_lighter_less_costly_plugged_in)

------
rgubarenko
Many people including me were skeptical about Tesla when it just came out. I'm
surprised it became that popular at that price. On one hand it's good, because
means that people are ready to pay more for technology and innovation.

~~~
SuperChihuahua
Don't forget that they also care about the environment and the US dependence
on foreign oil. They will also save money since they don't need to buy
gasoline.

------
TallboyOne
I saw the other thread about Tesla S.... never heard of it up until now.. To
be honest it seems like my dream car. Going to test drive one soon and buy the
middle or top model of the S. So insanely sexy.

------
redcircle
They had to widen the columns in the chart to make room for Tesla's growth
numbers. What is interesting is that Tesla is right behind BMW and Daimler for
the "luxury and sports" segment.

~~~
rgbrenner
Because in 2012, they sold 14 cars (during the same period last year)

~~~
redcircle
Right, so it conveys little info, and is rather funny looking.

------
ronik
Hype.

