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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.
“Reuters is lying,” he posted, without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.
Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.
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“We can’t make an affordable Tesla unless we come up with something that would make it too expensive.”
Gotcha.
Chinese EV it is, then!
Until we tax them ridiculously (50-100%) to keep things “fair” for the american auto makers that refuse to build anything smaller than a chevorlet suburban.
Along with European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers. Nobody is building EVs this cheap because no other country’s government is dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into selling them well below their actual cost.
Aww that’s so sad. It’s a shame nobody has the economic wealth and power to absolutely dominate the market if they put a equal amount of money into EVs. I guess we’ll just have to keep spending our money on the military
So instead of healthcare or housing, you’d rather our tax dollars go to Ford and GM so that you can buy a cheap new car every year or two? At what point in history were new cars ever obtainable for most people? I make decent pay and even I have never owned a brand new car because buying used is a much better value.
You’re arguing for the Walmartification of the auto industry and all it’s workers, where locally made goods are replaced with a bunch of cheaply made goods from an overseas sweatshop and all the local businesses go under. This isn’t good for anyone but the Chinese government.
Wow, you totally misunderstood the whole issue?
The point of China subsidizing their industry and their universities isn’t so that their people can “buy a new car every year or two” because they’re cheap.
It’s because that way they progress their technology and manufacturing infrastructure so much that no one else can compete. They chase everyone else out of the market, while their companies pull in massive profits and keep the high paying jobs for their citizens.
Well paid workers can buy their own housing without government assistance, but what happened to all those tax benefits the US gov handed out for EVs? They catapulted Musk’s wealth, while the workers are nowhere closer to affording an EV, or a home, or even healthcare.
The point of China subsidizing their industry and their universities isn’t so that their people can “buy a new car every year or two” because they’re cheap.
Oh yeah?
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/
It’s because that way they progress their technology and manufacturing infrastructure so much that no one else can compete. They chase everyone else out of the market, while their companies pull in massive profits and keep the high paying jobs for their citizens.
And you want to unleash that on one of the few remaining manufacturing sectors left in the US?
Well paid workers can buy their own housing without government assistance, but what happened to all those tax benefits the US gov handed out for EVs? They catapulted Musk’s wealth, while the workers are nowhere closer to affording an EV, or a home, or even healthcare.
Auto manufacturing workers are mostly all well paid union jobs, but it sounds like you’d rather put those people out of work so that the Chinese government can grab a little more power and influence and you can buy a dirt cheap car.
Musks wealth catapulted because he owns some very successful companies that are valued at/worth a lot of money either privately (SpaceX) or publicly (Tesla) and have nothing to do with EV subsidies. I do know companies like Ford have jacked up their MSRPs to absorb much of these credits, but then it bit them in the ass because sales slowed and they had to reduce prices again. By your logic, every automotive CEO should be amongst the wealthiest people on the planet since they are grifting the government so bad.
Those automakers are at least trying to compete by building small cars. I see more ads for electric f150s than i see for compact cars in north america.
The profit margins are insane compared to sedans.
Domestic manufacturers almost entirely phased out small cars long ago before EVs were even significant because they can’t build them as well as companies like Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda. Even those companies have phased out tiny cars because nobody in the US was buying them.
Why don’t you buy a Chevy Bolt, or Nissan Leaf if you want a small, cheap EV?
It isn’t they can’t build them, it is moreso they don’t want to because of profit margins and influences from CAFE standards makes small cars hard to build and big SUVs easier due to some backwards fuel economy regulations.
The same profit margins and CAFE standards that companies like Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda have to abide by too? This makes no sense as these companies were outselling domestic maker’s cars 5 to 1 in the exact same financial and regulatory environment.
Toyota and Honda have to meet similar regulations in markets that have those regulations but aren’t as insanely car focused as the US. They aren’t going to make a radically different Accord or Corolla for the US market just because they can. The leadership for US manufacturers are just lazy and have been for the past 50 years.
Correct, because Uncle Sam is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make oil and gas as cheap as possible while automakers spend bullions every year on stock buybacks. America’s poor investments are all China’s fault.
You think European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers are American companies? That’s weird.
Do you really think BYD and other Chinese state-owned auto manufacturers have found some secret sauce that nobody else can figure out allowing them to somehow build a car cheaper than anyone else in the world, or do you think it’s more likely that the state is paying for them to have artificially low prices?
Furthermore, let’s imagine the rest of the world matches these subsidies, what is your end goal here? Are you wanting everyone in the US to dump their old car in a parking lot and go out and buy a new one every year like people used to do with smartphones? That’s not exactly good for the environment and is just consumerism on steroids.
The way you write your argument out as questions makes you sound like Tucker Carlson or one of his “I’m jUsT aSkInG qWesTioNs” deciples.
It comes off as condecending and disingenuous, even if some of your points may be correct.
Condescending, sure, but I don’t see how this makes it disengenous, and I’m only responding in-kind to this user who continues to write snarky-ass, passive-aggressive replies rather than writing an actual rebuttal.
Every country subsidized their auto industry, it’s just that all the benefit goes directly to ceos except in china apparently.
Ford received 9 billion in June.
Ford received a loan to use toward building new factories for EV production. In China, Ford would owned by the government and funded with taxpayer dollars directly.
Damn, sounds like nationalizing an industry leads to lower costs and cheaper products.
Sure, when that rationalization comes with lax environmental regulations and zero worker protections along with heavy subsidies that expire just after their last competitors close up shop. What are you left with then?
It’s better to keep private companies in charge of environmental regulations and worker protection, they will self-regulate.
God knows they won’t mouth fuck us the moment they have a monopoly at least.
This is why hes suddenly against it, theres no way Chinese EVs are coming stateside, and the US is even leveraging Mexico to keep them out of Mexico too. He doesn’t want to make the smaller profit margin thing everyone wants, because the government is just going to ban what everyone wants instead.
I so badly just want a tiny electric vehicle. I don’t travel much. Just need it to go around town and maybe a town over.
Chevy Bolt? My coworker has one and loves it.
Was looking at it but that’s like the $30k range, no? I can’t afford a 500/mo payment.
Get a couple year old one then.
If you’re on a budget why would you be looking at brand new cars?
China cars are like 3k-5k. I can afford that. Like even one of the China trucks is like 6k-7k or something. I don’t mind getting used, I just don’t want to spend 30k. Or really even above 10k.
Do you need windows? Renault has a couple of small ones, the Twizy and Zoe, in order of size. Dunno if they’re still available. Else in my country they have the BYD dolphin and Smart One Plus.
Americans aren’t allowed to buy BYD personal vehicles…
Yay for freedom
We have to take the regulation we can get, okay? Not everyone can have legal systems that “make sense” like you get in them skandinavyvian hellholes. Catch me dead in a country where you can just assume the tap water is potable…
Or import European EVs that aren’t pre-approved. No Renault Twizy.
Nissan Leaf?
A used Bolt is pretty cheap.
Smart Car? E-bike?
I use a regular bicycle. The E bikes are like 1200 and I’d rather use that as a payment towards an electric vehicle.
Fair. Mostly I bike, but my town is pretty small. Two friends have an electric smart car, so I’ve heard stories about them. I came across a couple that runs a delivery service (mostly food) using small EVs. I forget what model.
The Volvo EX30 looks promising
Sounds like a tram/light rail would be the perfect EV for you
Can you come install one near me?
Your best option is voting for people who will build transit in your local elections
Il not saying DON’T do vote in local elections but solves the problem…in a decade or two…and it requires buy-in from surrounding districts.
It unfortunately does not address the short term needs of commuters
And if we never build it it will never address the needs of commuters. Your government doesn’t think twice about a new road or expanding an existing one but will delay transit for years.
Sure, but it’s not a one-or-the-other thing. The best solution now is to get a cheap EV AND vote for public transit
Detroit in the 70s had more GDP than NYC and took that money right to congress. To this day giant automotive lobbies are the reason for not only legislation in the US but also city planning (or lack thereof) and the removal of public transport. To think getting a railroad is anywhere near as easy as a road is disregarding the influence of millions of dollars from people who would lose money if that rail was built.
“Hi boss I can’t come into work today because the guy I voted for lost and there no light rail”
Musk is a fascist bigot. I wouldn’t drive a Tesla if it was given to me for free. Just walking up to it and seeing that T would piss me off. In a way, I’m glad he refuses to build a cheap EV.
it’s easier to raise tariffs so that efficiently produced foreign electric cars are just as expensive. God bless America
Oh, Musk is way too powerful and totally nuts, he’s gone off the deep end. Also he’s gone full asshole, there’s hardly anything redeemable about him these days.
That said, I’d drive any car that was given to me for free, and I won’t pretend otherwise.
Also, despite Musk, Tesla has done amazing things for the auto industry, I’m extremely pleased to see this shift to EVs across the board.
Oh, I’d take a free car; but instead of driving it I’d turn around and sell it immediately. Then I’d buy something that wasn’t a badge of shame.
As someone who works in the industry, and done plenty of work for Tesla, I can create a far greater list of all the things they’ve fucked up in the industry, including electrification.
Not
consumingimplying you’re wrong but I’d really like to see that list.Very, very broadly, I’d say a lot of my concerns boil down to them convincing the broader industry as a whole that cutting costs and delivering a shit product is okay, so long as you’re doing it as a “technology company”
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Pushing out buggy, half-baked SW because “we’ll fix it with an OTA” and a recall has little to no direct financial impact, allowing for you to gamble lives on hopefully getting a SW update out before the bugs cause accidents or deaths, rather than spending the time/money to get it right from the start.
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Removing stuff like important, standard hard controls (buttons/stalks/etc) to make everything a touch control, purely for cost cutting, but acting like it’s because buttons are “old tech”
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Pushing that 100% BEV is the only current solution, rather than pushing for a far cheaper mass improvement of fuel economy and scaling BEVs as HEVs grow too, especially in developing markets.
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Using a proprietary charging standard for nearly a decade, solely as a sales tactic, and only cooperating with other OEMs once it allowed them to collect government subsidies
Those are just a few I can think of off the very top of my head, and the ones I’ve seen have the most impact on the broader industry. I can go into more detail on any of them as well.
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How can somebody just shout “they’re lying” to get their stock back up and get away with it?
Fuck musk.
he’s still building the car. it’s just the price will be double or more.
Leon’s a leech.
There’s at least one sure-fire way to remove leeches.
Expect shit they try to bury in the election news cycle
They still don’t have fully autonomous 100k cars!
I’m guessing that to him, the only market for the car will be for deliveries. Fleet use. He isn’t interested in consumer sales.
Well I guess he must know about some secret point to killing his own company.
