Is there something different about South Korean cars?
The idea that a trillion dollar corporation has sufficient lobbyists/PR people in western countries to cover up bad news up to a certain level seems reasonable.
> My understanding is that most of Tesla’s vehicles sold in Korea are made at Gigafactory Shanghai in China, and that’s Tesla’s main export hub. Most of Tesla’s vehicles outside of the US are made in China. We should start seeing similar issues in other markets unless there’s a specific contributing factor in Korea.
- the cases are rare, once every several months
- the affected battery pack is usually replaced free of charge
- many of the cases are from Chinese in North America, and even one case is about imported Model 3
Considering Chinese media prefer reporting Tesla defects to gain more clicks, I would assume this is not a Shanghai-specific, broadly affecting problem.
Tesla hasn't provided statistics about cases in the Chinese market, but I have a hard time believing it's really a handful of battery issues per year (regardless what one assumes of social media). That's just too far beyond any reasonable quality level expectation for ~half a million cars over the time period.
But it needs a battery replacement under warranty, my car will truly be some modern ship of Theseus.
I'm not sure about yours, but if you do end up needing a replacement, replacing the car soon after might be a wise move.
It is weird.
“Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.”
He held undisclosed stock, made millions of dollars worth of referrals to Tesla, and was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars from those referrals all while reporting positively on Tesla while actively refusing to disclose their clear conflict of interest even when the issue was raised.
/s
Chinese companies are the only large threat on the horizon.
It probably isn’t, given Tesla has no unique lead in robotics and its recent news of setbacks didn’t move the market.
Tesla stock is a bet on Musk. It’s why the Board pays him hundreds of billions of dollars to not lose focus on a business he’s very obviously bored with.
Not correct to call advanced driver assist self driving when we have an actual self-driving fleet in Waymo.
> experience in mass produciton and vertical integraiton
This remains Tesla's sole actual advantage. If (probably when) someone else beats them up the tech tree, chances are Tesla could beat them to scale.
> a much more ambitious Optimus program than the causal headlines would have you know about
The talent bleed at Tesla (specifically, Optimus) contrasts with e.g. SpaceX's virtual monopoly on aerospace talent excellence in America, possibly broader. And it shows. SpaceX routinely does the unprecedented. It's been years since Tesla did anything first.
(If I had to look at Musk's portfolio, SpaceX is where his soul is. It, Neuralink and xAI are where his heart is. X f/k/a Twitter was a clusterfuck from the get go, but it makes sense as a data pump for Grok, and he has fun with it so whatever. Boring Company has quietly failed, and may need to be acquired into SpaceX to rescue investors. Tesla increasingly looks like it's out of touch, too. My guess is he waits for the valuation to temper and then merges it into a private xAI.)
A short Tesla position is correct. The question is at what expiration date ?
If he's correct, the fraud is working. He hasn't staked out a position on what might stop it and when.
A lot of the companies I'd have bet against in the past, like AOL, sold for huge sums of money, and the purchasing company ended up regretting their decision. The actual AOL stock never collapsed.
Timing the market is incredibly hard. Investors can be extremely irrational.
Haven't we learned anything with the GameStop bullshit from a few years ago?
As far as GME, if the SEC worked, then GME would have never been a thing.
As for the GME thing, the only reason why I sort give it a pass is because it was sort of an unprecedented thing. I am not sure if regulations have been updated to address a future similar incident.
At least it resulted in the "This Is Financial Advice" video from Folding Ideas.
Fascinating watch after following the event back in the day - and losing €1500 because I didn't reach my goal of earning €500 to buy a PS5 with the profit. If shit went up for just one more day I would have reached my goal.
Was a lesson to never try timing anything.
Today, I'm down about $300 on those shares (taken with the $500 in gains, I'm technically still up by $200), and that's fine. I believe in the leadership, I like the company's current state (flush with cash, little/no debt) and I'm just going to keep letting it ride.
When I retire in 10 years or so, we'll see where it's at. Worst case, I'm out $700 bucks. Best case, I get that new riding lawnmower, for free!
Otherwise, it's Index funds, have a nice day, because none of us can compete with Wall Street.
Watch the stock on any news. Completely disconnected from reality.
TBH, though, I also wonder why auto companies tend to be valued so lowly. Often P/E ratios are in the single digits, and frequently paired with high dividends.
Maybe both valuations are really wrong.
Instead of "P" you should use "Enterprise Value", which is Equity + Debt - Cash. (cash subtracted to prevent double counting it).
Their EV/E ratios are much more reasonable. And Tesla's used to be only a small multiple of traditional companies, when I owned shares. Now they aren't, and I don't own shares.
US total vehicle sales, historical: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA
Growth markets like China have stiff domestic competition and many barriers to entry.
Turning the impossible into late is a legitimate business strategy, because you create markets that weren't there before (like cheap satellite launches).
And he has a history of doing this, and he's trying to do it again with optimus and robotaxi. There's massive potential in humanoid robots and robotaxis, which is why people are willing to take a risk. You might think that's irrational, and that's fine. Others do not.
Compare this to other car companies, they don't offer any vision of changing the future in any major way or bringing new products to market. That is boring and predictable. Still valuable, but not as much as Tesla.
Now that our domestic grid storage market has "crossed the chasm" -- new energy with solar & battery is cheap enough and quickest to deploy -- methinks future Tesla will do fine. Surely making up for any lost vehicle revenue.
Tesla has solved the problem of unit profitably manufacturing EVs. Outside America and other petrostates, these are broadly accepted to be the future of transportation. (It’s getting its ass kicked by BYD, which didn’t distract itself with a Cybertruck or what increasingly looks like an Optimus follow-on. But being the only American challenger in a new economy is not worthless.)
Tesla’s also lead by a man who has consistently made money for his investors. Even when bets are bad, e.g. Twitter, he’s financially engineered an outcome that ensured, at the very least, nobody who backed him lost money.
Tesla being public, he can’t provide that sort of assurance to everyone who buys at any price. But he can at least credibly pretend to do that for anyone who buys in or near a primary.
Well, you can say "profitably" because Tesla drivers seem to be surprisingly willing to put up with corners being cut in order to achieve said "profitability" ... panel gaps, cheap interiors and lousy software. :)
Low-end Chinese EVs feel like cheap Teslas. But they’re under $15k. Are panel gaps really worth tens of thousands of dollars to most car buyers?
I challenge anyone to find a bad aligned one on a chinese made one - interestingly enough , those only seem to be a thing on US made vehicles, which basically are only Model X and Model S (ironically being the higher priced cars).
They solved it by borrowing from the future and gutting their R&D. That's the main cost in the car industry and Tesla basically just stopped developing new models many years ago, to the point that they struggle with a simple refresh.
> Tesla’s also lead by a man who has consistently made money for his investors. Even when bets are bad, e.g. Twitter, he’s financially engineered an outcome that ensured, at the very least, nobody who backed him lost money.
That man also walks a very thin line between engineering outcomes and fraud, let's not forget that.
Not relevant to unit profitability. Tesla’s American competitors can’t turn a profit on each car production-wise.
> man also walks a very thin line between engineering outcomes and fraud
Sure. But the point is to the degree investors were misled, they were made whole and then some. That’s why they keep backing him. He’s done well by them, regardless of the methods.
To quote a great commenter here, you can "engineer that outcome". While there are rules, details are mushy and as a result companies can fairly freely decide what do you include in cost per unit.
Is there anyone credibly claiming that Tesla loses--or has always lost--money on every car it made? (I'm including the proviso in case they fucked up their production in the last year, which I both wouldn't be surprised by and haven't looked into.)
Tesla was dreaming of dominating market. But it looks like it peaked already and its sales are falling. Having to do R&D for entire stack without growth is a very very costly proposal. It often results in just not doing R&D, and falling behind.
When I still had my reddit account, maybe 95% of battery failures showing up in r/TeslaLounge or r/TeslaModel3 were from 2021 models. If I understood correctly by reading the many threads, 2021 it's around the time that Tesla changed the manufacturing process to seal the battery, so this is likely the initial batch of batteries with the new sealing process (perhaps not so refined/polished).
For most of these cars the powertrain and battery are still under warranty (8y or 100k/120k miles). As noted in the article, Tesla normally replaces failed packs with refurbished packs of about the same capacity/degradation, which are bound to fail sooner than brand new ones of course.
I don't see a way out of this for Tesla except to recognize the manufacturing defect and waive the mileage warranty limit (and only hold to the 8y age) when a 2021 car rolls in to swap the battery pack.
josefritzishere•3mo ago
testing22321•3mo ago
It’s always interesting when the perception given by the media is so far removed from the actual facts.
kmontrose•3mo ago
lesuorac•3mo ago
> [1] Total revenue decreased 12% YoY to $22.5B. YoY, revenue was impacted by the following items:
> - decline in vehicle deliveries
[1]: Page 5 - https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/TSLA-Q2-...
stronglikedan•3mo ago
recursive•3mo ago
IncreasePosts•3mo ago
vsl•3mo ago
https://electrek.co/2025/09/25/tesla-tsla-down-22-europe-whi...
rootusrootus•3mo ago
mschuster91•3mo ago
Musk's antics and focus issues (i.e. too many resources focused on Cybertruck) aside: The thing with Tesla is, they operate completely antithetical to the classic car industry.
The classic car industry designs a model series and signs four-ish year contracts with all the suppliers for the expected amount of vehicles to sell, with a few extension clauses to cover for higher than expected demand. During these four years, the "rebrush" is designed, keeping most of the car the same but incorporating learnings during production, newly developed technologies (e.g. improved compute power) and maybe retooling to make production more efficient, and then it's another four-ish years that are used to make the next generation. That business model makes sense when operating with a shit ton of suppliers, so both the manufacturer and the suppliers can plan for the mid term.
Tesla however, just like SpaceX, takes pride in not following this business model. As much as possible is made in-house, which means less vendors to deal with, and that enables continuous improvements and iteration.
The downside is that it makes life so much harder for spare parts because any given part might just have been in production for a few weeks if not days, and for consumers and consumer protection agencies it's orders of magnitude harder to warn about construction defects because there is no such thing as a "generation" any more.
sottol•3mo ago
Even with our exorbitant energy prices, I pay about 1/3 for the cost of energy per mile (off-peak). I have to go in for service 3 times less often (and just that is worth a pot of gold to me). I no longer need to detour to gas stations once or twice a week as I can just plug in the car at night. And then EVs are also more enjoyable to drive imo.
mjamesaustin•3mo ago
I have some reservations about my EV, but on the whole it is better than an ICE vehicle in almost every way and I'll certainly never buy another car that isn't an EV.
nogridbag•3mo ago
I have a really hard time using cruise control in my Genesis EV. I usually use one of the regen breaking modes, and when you disable cruise control, the car will automatically start regen braking unless you have you have the throttle at the perfect position which is near impossible. And that's much more noticeable if you use one of the more heavy regen modes.
So I have to follow this pattern: Disable regen, engage cruise, use cruise, disable cruise, enable regen just to use it for a few minutes. And with the Genesis, every time you change between regen modes the car kind of jerks a bit. I've heard this is not really a problem in Teslas. Of course I could simply not use regenerative braking (a major feature of the car) or I can attempt to change my driving habits and not use cruise control as often. For long drives I much prefer my ICE vehicle specifically because of this.
The other thing may be related more to my driving position. The car is heavy and rides harshly over bumps which causes my foot to accidentally push harder on the throttle for < 1 sec. And because it's an EV which has quick acceleration the car occasionally will accelerate fast after I hit a bump. I've driven a ton of ICE sports cars with hard suspensions and never had this problem. Perhaps I'm just getting old and now have bad reflexes!
Astronaut3315•3mo ago
Tesla has their regen dialed in quite well. I've read Ford's is good as well, but I haven't had a chance to drive one yet.
rootusrootus•3mo ago
I have a Tesla as well as a Lightning, and in my experience the Ford's regen behavior is indeed very similar to Tesla. I don't have much experience with other brands.
rootusrootus•3mo ago
The Lightning would allow me to do it old school, it has a non-one-pedal-drive mode that has similar regen to normal engine braking on an ICE truck. But I prefer OPD so I just do the 'accelerate slightly and deactivate cruise' to get around the sudden slow down if I just turn it off abruptly.
> Perhaps I'm just getting old and now have bad reflexes!
Sounds like just a very aggressive throttle mapping. Not something I personally run into, but as with my earlier comment, this is very much going to be specific to the car. I also tend to drive with my toe at the bottom of the accelerator pedal which steadies my foot quite a bit and makes it less prone to bouncing on a bump.
nogridbag•3mo ago
That was also what I tried doing to try and remedy the problem. The problem is normally when you want to deactivate cruise, it's because there's a slower car in front. And it's a bit unnerving to accelerate towards the slower vehicle (even if ever so subtle) when the goal is to deactivate cruise. I've attempted this about 3 times on the highway and it just didn't feel comfortable so I stopped doing that. I wish there was simply some setting so that after deactivating cruise there was some smoother ramp up to the current regen setting. For example, after deactivating cruise it's max-regen should be similar to ICE vehicle deceleration, then after N milliseconds ramp up to last used regen. That would solve the problem for me.
rootusrootus•3mo ago
vel0city•3mo ago
rootusrootus•3mo ago
infecto•3mo ago
solumunus•3mo ago
Astronaut3315•3mo ago
What’s the problem you’ve been having with yours?
_fizz_buzz_•3mo ago
JumpCrisscross•3mo ago
“Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.”
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lesuorac•3mo ago
etchalon•3mo ago
But "more vehicles than ever" is factually false, according to Tesla itself. They delivered ~397,000 vehicles in Q2-2025. They delivered ~437,000 in Q4 of 2024.
So I'm not sure what you meant by that statement.
sottol•3mo ago
nkrebs13•3mo ago
YTD Sales
- Lucid: 23.4%
- Tesla: -4.3%
- Rivian: -13.2%
Lucid is the big surprise there to me (though only ~8K sold).
sottol•3mo ago
Aurornis•3mo ago
EV tax credits were only available through Q3. There was a rush to buy EVs before credits expired.
If you’re only looking at that one quarter, that’s the most biased signal you could get.
bdcravens•3mo ago
blackoil•3mo ago
LargeWu•3mo ago
deadbabe•3mo ago
olyjohn•3mo ago
deadbabe•3mo ago
kibwen•3mo ago
izzydata•3mo ago
lotsofpulp•3mo ago
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/top-safety-picks
https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings-search
There was also that guy that tried to murder-suicide his whole family by driving off a cliff and everyone survived. Crazy considering the picture of the crumpled car..
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/luck-tesla-family-plung...
Is there any evidence Teslas are not at least average, if not above average in safety?
Edit: see post below for insurance loss comparisons, which would be the most accurate data in my opinion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45582701
noboostforyou•3mo ago
Tesla gets high test scores, but real world results seem to differ - https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2025/02/11/tesla-ag...
lotsofpulp•3mo ago
The question is if driving the same way in the same conditions in the same places, would one experience more injury in a given model of Tesla versus a competing car?
Retric•3mo ago
Tesla is competing on price, but it’s providing acceleration that normally available in cars with much better handling characteristics.
lotsofpulp•3mo ago
If the statistics were seeing more collision risk, more injury risk attributable to the vehicle itself rather than the driver, then surely the actuaries would be able to suss that out.
https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/auto-insurance/insurance...
For 2021-2023, Luxury Cars, Large, Tesla Model S has lower than average personal injury, medical payment, and bodily injury losses.
For 2021-2023, Luxury Cars, Midsize, Tesla Model 3 is lower than average on personal injury and bodily payment, but slightly higher on the non 4WD model for bodily injury.
For 2021-2023, Luxury SUV, Midsize, Tesla Model Y has lower than average personal injury, medical payment, and bodily injury losses.
For 2021-2023, Luxury SUV, Large, Tesla Model X has lower than average personal injury, medical payment, and bodily injury losses
They all have lower than average property damage losses too.
Retric•3mo ago
lotsofpulp•3mo ago
Retric•3mo ago
That said 21-23, Tesla Model 3 electric 4dr was 9% higher personal injury, 26% higher medical payment, -3% lower medical injury.
Unless I read that wrong.
noboostforyou•3mo ago
izzydata•3mo ago
But besides self driving I don't agree with the softwareization of cars. Maybe if Tesla made cars in a more traditional way, but they were EVs I would consider them a real option. The single giant screen without any tactile buttons feels cheap and I'm sure is just about cost saving. The whole cybertruck teardown makes it look like the vehicle wasn't well thought out.
Basically everything about Tesla as a company from its actual cars to its CEO which is supposedly leading it does not inspire confidence. When there are so many other well established car companies that take it far more seriously I don't even take Tesla seriously enough as an option to care about their crash test results.
iknowstuff•3mo ago
I can only say your take is yours to have, but the software is the biggest selling point to me, and the plastic widgets on other cars look tacky and spurious.
hearsathought•3mo ago
I don't think tsla shareholders are complaining.
josefritzishere•3mo ago
hearsathought•3mo ago
It did double. Check the april lows.
> is that their CEOs public behavior drove the value down over 100 points in the months prior.
And yet, he is still CEO. Not only that, didn't the board just award him a new pay package?
> I think the meme stock comment above actually has some merit though.
A $1.5 trillion meme stock? Don't think so. A S&P500 company that is a meme stock. Don't think so. It is highly volatile, but it isn't gamestop.
All I'm saying is that Musk is still the CEO because enough shareholders back him. Why? Who knows. Maybe it's because he's increased the value of tsla from a few billion to $1.5 trillion in the past 15 years. Who knows.
solumunus•3mo ago
b112•3mo ago
I get more worried about all the CEOs that say effectively nothing. That seem to have PR team coaching them on everything they say. It's the quiet, plotting ones we should be exceptionally concerned about.
Because we have no idea what they're really thinking.
tobias3•3mo ago
stellar678•3mo ago
solumunus•3mo ago
tensor•3mo ago
They haven't improved the car for at least five years. Yes, autopilot is better, but that's it. And no, autopilot is not going to be doing autonomous driving globally anytime soon.
There is absolutely no justification for such a valuation. Humanoid robots? That's as short sighted as vision only self driving. There are any number of vastly more promising robotics companies.
As a previous Tesla stock holder and still car owner, I want Tesla to be a good car company first. It is not. And the CEO has gone out of his way to alienate and be hostile to his own customer base.
hearsathought•3mo ago
It's a meme stock because musk hurt your feelings? If you think the stock of company valued at $1.5 trillion is a "meme stock", it's because of your political agenda. Not reality.
> There is absolutely no justification for such a valuation.
There must be some justification. Otherwise it wouldn't be trading at $1.5 trillion.
> I want Tesla to be a good car company first.
Musk has been open about what tesla is. It surely isn't a "car company".
> And the CEO has gone out of his way to alienate and be hostile to his own customer base.
You are not his "customer base". The narcissism and sense of self-importance is off the charts.
tensor•3mo ago
GuB-42•3mo ago
I don't think that he really runs the company, and kicking him out will most likely not change anything technical, but it will affect the company image among shareholders, most likely negatively.
MBCook•3mo ago
I thought it was similar FB where Zuck owns enough voting shares to be effectively untouchable as well.
Rover222•3mo ago