The next 6 months will be epic for Tesla

[slomo]

I want you to look at sales numbers from the past 7 years and tell me a single automaker that can take an additional 5% in sales losses to the chin and be A-OK.

The big sellers of pickups vary more than 5 percent YOY. Looking here at ownership here Cybertruck primarily takes from model 3/Y.

It not a good first small truck product choice for a company that should be striving to grow larger than Toyota. It was picked at a time when Tesla still had residual insecurity at their market position and Musk felt the need to differentiate.

The suspension alone is overkill for 99% of truck buyers. That feature will sell vehicles because its cool. But its not the basis of a vehicle that should be the basis for selling light trucks at a million rate.

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[Deleted member 3316]

By the 18th month of production, CTs production rate (if it matches the M3 ramp as a worst case) will approach 1 out of every 5 trucks sold on the market in the U.S. Every CT sold takes food right out of the OEMs mouth. Split evenly among OEMs, that's an additional 5%-9% per year of lost sales, right off the top.

This is what has the potential to bankrupt GM or Ford or Toyota. Removing 5%-9% from ICE market share could be quite catastrophic.

 

[S.H.Peterson]

The Ev market is growing faster than the most rabid nightmares of ICE MFRS.
They are completely caught with their pants at their ankles and they are staring at oncoming econimic disaster.

There are only 4 Ev truck contenders:
Ford, Dodge, GM, and Tesla
TOYOTA, HONDA, SUBARU, MAZDA, etc...NOTHING!

Tesla is the ONLY company with a chance in hell of having a truly mass marketable truck with a future.
The rest are in a mad scramble of terror.
Its 'WORLD WAR Z ' for them.

Ford will HAVE to raise prices or lower features to even come close to profitability. And they ARE losing money per vehicle. A LOT of money.
Dodge has an IDEA of what they are going to manufacture that will wind up being MUCH more expensive than what blue collar, trades, agriculture, are willing to pay. Its gonna be a rich boys toy.
GM is doing the same thing in the same way. The HUMMER Ev is a monstrous dinosaur of a joke that they cant build on a production line feasibly.

ALL OF THEM are using their narrow ICE profits to support Ev development. Its very nearly an internal Ponzi scheme. They are going to rely on a product that people will want less and less to finace a product developement that they cant afford. The BIGGEST critical erorr they keep making is building Ev's with the same thought and process methodology that they used to build ICE vehicles.
THEY CANT DO THAT AND WIN.

The pickup truck war is Tesla's to lose. AND they WONT.

 

[Crissa]

If Tesla wanted to replace large pickups they should have designed a vehicle that appeals to the center of the pickup market

In what way didn't they do this? They took the F150 and matched its abilities, save one, 'ability to be a flat bed' which less than a few percent do.

-Crissa

 

[S.H.Peterson]

and as far as towing any gooseneck trailers... thats a simple fix that can be done is 30 minutes at a decent trailer shop.

 

[charliemagpie]

Mary 'Pushmy' Barra was going to have 10,000000 new EV vehicles by 2021, now its 10,000000 by 2025

Legacy is going to streamline, cut its costs by 30% , make its cars 70% faster and do all of that whilst balancing a seal on its nose. And overtake Tesla.

Has anyone ever read the Pinocchio book, the one with the little red cover?

 

[cvalue13]

and as far as towing any gooseneck trailers... thats a simple fix that can be done is 30 minutes at a decent trailer shop.

I’m all ears!

The big sellers of pickups vary more than 5 percent YOY. Looking here at ownership here Cybertruck primarily takes from model 3/Y.

Quoting this portion only for a reference, not it’s substance.

I for one think you bring some good counter-balancing views to the table. Not that I agree with all of them that I understand, or have a position on the ones I don’t understand.

But just the same, the prevailing takes around here I find to also be various parts compelling or claptrap.

Between the likes of yours, and theirs, I walk away mostly only feeling like it’s complicated and will have to play out for me to have only vision in hindsight.

That said, no secret that I think a lot of the FUD leveled at legacy makers around here comes across more as fanboi chant than informed discussion. The exact critique depends on the exact chant, but many share three overarching themes:

GLASS-JAW LEGACIES

Seems a deep under-appreciation for the mass and inertia of the legacies, and the inordinate pricing power they have.

Anyone who has ever been deep inside a sizable startup knows that balance sheet inertia can carey a company through and past many storms (from the startup side, this is an observation borne of jealousy). So, while I can agree with some comments to the extent they entail that a storm is coming, I think it’s a leap to then prognosticate that the storm guarantees shipwreck.

Over the past 50 years the U.S. auto industry has faced multiple existential crises. Many far worse than a good, new, competitor slowly chipping away at sales. Other crises were the arrival of an incredible fleet of competitors - e.g., Japan.

In 1982 Ford’s sales dropped 48%. Other legacy had the same experience. The late-2000’s recession had a similar impact.

Don’t get me wrong, folks were down on the canvas, but they were up before the 10 count. To think that Tesla’s singular competition has any features that outsize these kinds of historical events - where for example a few YOY drops of 5-10% in sales - spells a type of even medium term doom, is just … unpersuasive. A storm, sure - but an immanent shipwreck? You’ll need to show your work.

Which brings me to: even more bizarre to think that even a long forum post could be accomplishing any explanation as to how that immanent shipwreck is a reasonable conclusion … is less than unpersuasive.

EXTINCTION FUD - WE WANT THAT?

On this point of the leap fromm “will be bad for legacy sales” to “legacy are moments from extinction” I have a particular bone to pick: setting aside whether it’s true, I wonder just what these champions of U.S. auto industry death are rooting for.

Something like 1 out of every 22 workers in the U.S. are employed by the U.S. auto industry. Your TSLA will mean little but minor mitigation if the U.S. economy were to realize the extinction of Tesla’s U.S. competition.

What’s more, on what planet are people living to think that they can leap from, e.g.:

• a world where Tesla becomes a comparable or leading player amongst a field of teams, to

• a world where every vehicle on the road is a Tesla

If that works comes to fruition, it’ll be because people who used to own cars now can no longer afford them, and are focusing instead on growing potatoes.


SCHIZOPHRENIC ELON

I’m not here saying Elon is schizo, but instead that certain fanboi chants make him out to be.

In the same breath of the chant that legacy are glass-jawed and their extinction is immanent, they’ll proudly remind that Elon is here to change the world for the better.

As between the fanboi and Elon, I think only the fanboi is confused about the bleakness of a future where legacy perish.

Elon’s designs are to push all car makers towards better products. Where has he said his design are to exterminate all competition at the expense of the U.S. economy? Or that he believes Tesla’s capable of that, in meaningful terms (and don’t cite a tweet, which only a rube would think substitutes for a thoughtful conversation).

In all, there’s a seeming brotherhood between a certain sect of Tesla fanboi and the parallel Dogecoin crew. I can only imagine that someone who has their future staked in TSLA could whip themselves into such a fury that they believe themselves Nostradamus of events that would not only run counter to all historical precedent, but necessarily require ruination of most anyone else in the country.

Say you “see a path and a potential future where…” not “I misunderstand how product margins work, and based on that misunderstanding have just proved that there is no alternate future except…”

And if you’re gonna say it, at the very least don’t sound so glib about assertions that entail the material collapse of the U.S. economy.

Unless you’re Australian - y’all boys are always up for a bit taking the piss.

 

[firsttruck]

......

That said, no secret that I think a lot of the FUD leveled at legacy makers around here comes across more as fanboi chant than informed discussion. The exact critique depends on the exact chant, but many share three overarching themes:

GLASS-JAW LEGACIES

Seems a deep under-appreciation for the mass and inertia of the legacies, and the inordinate pricing power they have.

......

mass and inertia can work against you when you need to change course.

How do they have "inordinate pricing power" when they did not make the product in volume to have many to sell to the customers? The compeitors that can profitably full-fill the customer demand gets the business.

GM already been in bankruptcy once not that long ago (2009). GM made a big mistake by not taking the EV transition seriously then. Will the U.S. government be allowed to bail GM out again?

Japanese auto entering U.S. market is not like what is happening today.

1. None of the major legacy ICE vehicle makers have the cash to fund their transition. They have to borrow money. Some will have trouble finding loans or investment capital and the costs of this capital will eat into profits even more.

2. In the 1970s - 2017 the global vehicle market was still growing. There was an increasing larger pie that could be sliced between competitors. Today the vehicle market is shrinking in size and will continue to do so. Customers are being priced out of the ownership market by purchase price (pollution control significantly increase costs), maintenance costs, insurance, fuel costs. Many people are finding ride hailing services (Uber, Lyft, DiDi, etc) are less expensive alternatives. Once FSD & RoboTaxis arrives and significantly reduces travel costs any legacy auto that does not have the capability will see huge drops in volume.

Several or even most of today's legacy vehicle makers now will not make it because they waited too long. The biggest window of opportunity was 4-10 years ago. Now it is too late for most western makers. Several Chinese makers became serious about BEVs years ago and a couple will probably become major global players.

Now the market is a zero sum game because the market is not growing. If some new players enter and gain significant market share in the global vehicle market ( all not just EVs) then other players will lose share (and volume).

Today's major legacy ICE vehicle makers are not the only ones in history who faced major technological disruption.

Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry when the smartphone disruption started, they initially had plenty of money and all three were dominant leaders in cell phone market. Today most people don't even know their names.

IBM used to be the largest, most profitable and most well know name in computer industry and one of top well know names in the world in general. Today most people don't even know its name.

Eastman Kodak Company over 130 years old (invented digital cameras which they did not embrace and which put them out of business). January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Polaroid cameras & instant film. Founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. Polaroid Corporation was declared bankrupt in 2001.

Xerox was so dominant that decades ago most people used the phrase "make a Xerox" to mean make a copy of a document. Xerox was dominant in document copying and computer printing but today most don't know the brand name or phrase at all. Also Xerox was leader in several computer innovations like mouse as pointer, GUIs, WYSIWYG but Xerox did not capitalize on the inventions. Today most people don't even know Xerox name.

Blockbuster video rental replaced by Netflix and other video streaming services.
At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster consisted of 9,094 stores and employed approximately 84,300 people: 58,500 in the United States and 25,800 in other countries.
Blockbuster had name, address and phone number of all the customers but did not make transition.

Over 120 year old leading mail order catalog businesses that should have transitioned to e-commerce: Sears, Spiegel, Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, Hammacher Schlemmer. Today none of these are major e-commerce players. These companies had name, address, phone number, credit card # of all the customers but did not make transition.


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The Innovator's Dilemma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, first published in 1997, is the best-known work of the Harvard professor and businessman Clayton Christensen. It expands on the concept of disruptive technologies, a term he coined in a 1995 article "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave".[1] It describes how large incumbent companies lose market share by listening to their customers and providing what appears to be the highest-value products, but new companies that serve low-value customers with poorly developed technology can improve that technology incrementally until it is good enough to quickly take market share from established business. Christensen recommends that large companies maintain small, nimble divisions that attempt to replicate this phenomenon internally to avoid being blindsided and overtaken by startup competitors.

Clayton Christensen demonstrates how successful, outstanding companies can do everything "right" and still lose their market leadership – or even fail – as new, unexpected competitors rise and take over the market.

.....

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[CyberBC]

and as far as towing any gooseneck trailers... thats a simple fix that can be done is 30 minutes at a decent trailer shop.

Please explain how that is done for horse trailers and fifth wheel RVs?

 

[cvalue13]

mass and inertia can work against you when you need to change course.

I don’t really care to argue with you, @firstruck - not the least of reasons being I find the response hard to parse through, in readability

but my quick TLDR glance over it all suggests you give reasons a storm is coming

but your posts earlier here and elsewhere jump from a list of discrete challenges to “and so shipwreck is both necessary and immanent”

Seeing from you a new list of one-sided challenges doesn’t change the thrust of my earlier post, and really it only makes it: the systems are complex, and no one-sided list of discrete challenges justifies leaping to “and so extinction is immanent”

it comes across as not just unpersuasive, but intellectually dishonest

 

[slomo]

In what way didn't they do this? They took the F150 and matched its abilities, save one, 'ability to be a flat bed' which less than a few percent do.

-Crissa

Light trucks are built with many wheelbases and capacities. A wide variety of product is created that can share many parts and processes. Tesla decided to build an F150 Raptor competitor that is reliant on its particular shell for structure.

Tesla should have designed to dominated the large and medium light truck and larger SUV market. Instead they chose a design suitable for a medium size higher end auto manufacturer where their cost advantage isn't as important.

The question I have for the launch of CT is if the structure is more conventional than originally announced. The one purported body in white photo is not what I expected. So the actual truck may be more chassis on a skateboard than expected.

The Austin Y weight reduction from structural pack is not successful so far, so it shouldn't be assumed that the original CT design survived reality. CT crush performance front and rear was always a question. So what Tesla actually delivers will be very interesting.

 

[CyberGus]

Buying opportunity?

 

[S.H.Peterson]

Please explain how that is done for horse trailers and fifth wheel RVs?

I will make a separate thread on this, if ya'll wouldn't mind. I want to be illuminative. Check in in trailering section.
BTW.. Quigley Down Under is one of myall time FAVORITE movies!!! A Sharps Falling Block and a Remington Rolling block are on my 'buy before I die' list!
That I generally like Canadians as well!

 

[S.H.Peterson]

Dont laugh now... Sig-Sauer bought General Robotics and already are developing a remote com system using STARLINK to develop AI remote controlled warfare systems... I wish I was kidding ..

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