@GottaLaff that's incredibly sloppy reporting. Both model x and s had full refresh. That's the plaid version you'll see on drag racing yt beating dedicated drag cars.

Model 3 highlander is full refresh. Model y as well.

When it gets that sloppy hard to take story seriously which is problem because there are real issues. Also totally ignores new cybertruck shipping now and scaling up. And the semi in low volume production.

I'm not a musk fanboy but this missed the real stories totally.

@hakuin @GottaLaff

Model Y
2022 225,799
2023 385,897
2024 (ytd) 108,999

Model 3
2022 195,698
2023 232,702
2024 (ytd) 42,000

Model S
2022 90,473
2023 26,701
2024 (ytd) 6001

Model X
2022 24,099
2023 24,700
2024 (ytd) 499

Cybertruck
2024 (ytd) 3,878

Traditional car models get a mid cycle refresh after 2-3 years and a whole new model at 5-6 years.

The Model S is 12 years old and refreshed or not, it looks really dated. The same for their other models.

The Ford Lightning was introduced in '22, a mid cycle refresh is already scheduled and work on an all new model is already underway.

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver @GottaLaff I'm not sure I'd use the traditional car companies do x or y angle because the entire point of tesla was to not do what they do. Like outsourcing everything but engine and body in white building. Note stories without larger context of overall industry sales meaningless.

VW ID4 total flop for example Terrible software, Dietz fired, I believe pulling back from inhouse development aka toral fail. Ford loses something like 20k per ev they sell. Tesla has good margins.

@hakuin @GottaLaff

Tesla is a car company, no matter what Elongated Muskrat says. And cars are still as much fashion as anything else.

Tesla had the advantage of being prime mover and was able to secure early suppliers at favourable margins. As those contracts get renewed, other companies are now competing with them. They are losing their cost advantage.

Especially so in China where BYD, which started out as a battery supplier is absolutely decimating Tesla, their largest market.

Car manufacturers used to be vertically integrated, with the original Ford Rouge plant (among others) having raw materials going in one end, and completed cars out the other. It has some advantages, but it also had limitations, and can greatly reduce flexibility and increase design times and costs.

ID4 has had software revisions and it's solid now. They also have ID3, ID7 and a bunch of other stuff in the pipeline. Each new release has been better than the previous one.

But VW doesn't have to rely on EV sales margins at the moment. They've got decent profit in their ICE lines, and especially from Porsche, Audi, both of whom had been bringing out really solid EVs
on top of their ICE products, and have a lot more in the pipeline.

Right now, there is no replacement in the pipeline for the 6 year old Model 3, Model Y let alone the absolutely ancient Model S and X. We're going to continue to see Muskrat drop prices to maintain sales numbers, but a company can only do that for so long before they simply don't have the cashflow to do new designs.

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver @GottaLaff don't get me wrong. Much to my chagrine I didn't buy tesla when I was telling my friends to, but at this moment I just can't get my finger on where it's really going. It depends on if their cognition model in fsd 12 works. I say no. But surprise twist it's working in real robotics. Agility in market. Really hard to predict.

Byd I believe not doing as well as expected in europe and no plans to build plant in usa. Mexico yes.

Elon stupidly alienating his buyers

@hakuin @GottaLaff

FSD so far is still at Level 2 driving at best. Consumer Reports puts the Tesla systems about mid-pack with Ford Blue Cruise and GM's Super Cruise being the front runners of the ones they've tested.

At this point the Mercedes Pilot system is the only one to achieve US approval as a Level 3 automated driving system.