Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

[TheOffice]

Saw a Ford F150 Lightening EV yesterday. If the tailgate was not different (Lettering and accent stripe are updated) I probably would not have noticed it was an EV.
It will be interesting to see who buys them. Towing a load seems to be a range-killer. It would make sense for local governments to switch to EVs. They aren't driven far and around here many have their own fuel pumps so there is room for chargers.

[H B]

I suspect the screens and dash IT are now a weak point on all new cars…

We did not buy an electric car, but with a recent SUV purchase we made (VW Atlas), we made sure it had wireless (or wired) Apple Car Play/Android Auto but NO Navigation. So when we connect our phones it uses Google Maps right off the phone and it is updated constantly. This is our first "sorta smart car", and it is nice to load up a destination on your phone/PC in the house, and then it is ready to go when you connect the phone to the car. I drove a 2008 Acura MDX around a couple years ago, and the onboard "Navigation" was comical.

[BeauV]

Shawn -- When we bought my birthday-car we got it without the Porsche navigation stuff. The only time I've ever used the Porsche radio is when I've forgotten my phone. (NO, I do NOT turn around and go back to the house to get it, as my kids all do. LOL!) Many many years ago, various ones of us tried to explain to the car manufacturers that they were going to be slaughtered by the phone manufacturers because their navigation, entertainment, and a zillion other applications were never going to be able to compete with the rapidly emerging phones. They didn't listen. Even Tesla didn't listen and continues to build a serious downgrade from what a phone will do. This is inevitable. Here are so fun facts:

Apple has shipped about 2.5 Billion iPhones since the beginning.
The shipment rate for iPhones is about 250 million per year and growing.

Autos sold in the US is estimated to be about 17 million
Autos sold worldwide is estimated to be about 74 million

Cost and functionality in tech products are always driven by volume, and the entire auto industry is a toy market compared to smartphones.

[H B]

Beau, Agree. We have a 2007 Audi A4, a 2007 Honda Civic Si, a 1991 Honda Civic (my project car), and the 2023 VW Atlas (SE trim w/ Technology Package). We'd looked at Q7's and stuff like that because Laura liked her Audi...the Atlas is basically the same vehicle as the Q7 at a $10-15K discount, and built in Tennessee. The '07 Audi was pretty trick in its day, but now is a little long in the tooth..we bought ours slightly used in 2009 and it did not even have a cell phone connection (available thru Audi back then as an option in the armrest I think), but I added an aftermarket BT unit that is usually reliable to at least let you answer your phone on the steering wheel buttons - The '07 Civic has an AUX port & an AUX button on the radio..I bought a $20 USB dohickey that sticks on my dashboard and works great for calls and BT from the phone.

This era of the world available in your car is new to us. The Adaptive Cruise Control is my favorite feature...provided I have it set to the closest distance..otherwise, I forget to change lanes early enough before I lose all momentum. I still freak out with the rearview camera...I look out at the mirrors still, while I constantly notice the rest of the world aimlessly staring at their dashboards in reverse.

[BeauV]

Shawn, I still use the outside mirrors and the center mirror. I have no idea how folks drive backward without being able to see all the stuff around them. My son-in-law's new Ford pickup has some sort of trailer hitch lineup thing that appears on the review camera. It also has a top view option that literally displaces a stitched-together view of 360 deg. around the truck. It is very cool! But, I still couldn't back it up and trust that video game console thing on the dash.

[Slick470]

Our 2020 Subaru Ascent is a huge tech step up from our previous 2007 vintage car and SUV, and light years removed from my old 2002 pickup.

To get the moonroof, it came with a full tech package including navigation. I've found it to be pretty decent and since it gets over the air updates it will update routing to avoid traffic jams, accidents, closures, etc. For whatever reason, I've found it a lot easier to use than navigation through Android Auto and will avoid plugging my phone in through the "connected" USB ports in the car, even though they are the most convenient. We just hit the 3 year mark and all the subscriptions are expiring. So need to figure out which we want to keep and which we will skip. Turns out you can spend a decent amount in subscriptions to keep the car up to date in all the stuff it came with between roadside assistance, Starlink safety, Starlink security, SiriusXM, SiriusXM Traffic, Map Update... I think that's it. I'm only really interested in keeping the map update and the traffic, but oddly those are the only ones I can't figure out how to renew, figures.

All the other tech like adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, blind spot monitoring, automatic braking is pretty nice. I tend to turn off the lane keeping though. It kills the "feel" in the steering. My wife likes it though. She's ready for self driving cars.

As far as the backup camera is concerned. We got used to it pretty quick, but I still do use the mirrors to check it. Old habits and all. Where it tends to throw me off is when I jump into my truck ad go to back it up, I now often look to the center of the dash and I don't see the screen.

[BeauV]

Andy,

I think all these subscriptions are a great example of the car companies not understanding that all this is FREE with a phone. I have never spent a dime on any of it with my iPhone. (I don't know about Android) The simple fact that other business models will give away what the car companies wish to charge for makes their business model fail.

[Panope]

If it ever gets to the point where one must pay a subscription to drive a car, I'll probably just say fuck it, and walk.

Maybe I should just walk anyway.

Steve

Curmudgeon in training

[Olaf Hart]

If it ever gets to the point where one must pay a subscription to drive a car, I'll probably just say fuck it, and walk.

Maybe I should just walk anyway.

Steve

Curmudgeon in training

Welcome to the club Steve….

[BeauV]

If it ever gets to the point where one must pay a subscription to drive a car, I'll probably just say fuck it, and walk.

Maybe I should just walk anyway.

Steve

Curmudgeon in training

Steve -- you'll want to re-think that eventually. Having your software maintained is going to be a lot like having your oil changed. You can walk away, but the consequences will be that your car/truck won't work as well as those who pay for the maintenance. That said, you can always keep old clunkers running and just have all the whizzy toy apps running on your phone -- my approach.

[Olaf Hart]

We pay the premium for Apple.
Just brought home two new ipads, Including the US based Apple protect plan.
Anything goes wrong, just post it to Denver, no dedicated Apple store in Tassie.

[SemiSalt]

Subscription are another factor to push the market from sales to leasing.

[TheOffice]

VW just announced it has sold 500,000 EVs worldwide, one year ahead of schedule.

A couple weeks ago it announced it was getting rid of haptic controls on the steering wheels, a major weak point in car reviews.

Meantime, Tesla stock is headed in the wrong direction, with a P/E of 'only' 58.

[Steele]

I wonder if Elon's recent flailing about with Twitter might be causing some problems with Tesla. I don't care about twitter, but we recently looked at a model 3 as a replacment for our sedan. My wife took that option off the table upon reading about his lack of concern about misinformation and hate speech. His chaotic decision making and treatment of employees is also concerning. Since there are now lots of options in the EV market deciding to look at alternatives is not much of hinderance to us. Some might argue that losing a few Tesla sales is not a big hit to him, but the value of the company is not really linked to sales, but rather the perception of the company stock value as a whole and that may suffer.
This is probably a very simplistic analysis based on one person's experience, but I suspect a large part of the market for his cars (and perhaps shares) are more progressive voters who may balk at his behavior.

[TheOffice]

Steele,

I don't think you are far off. I think investors are also concerned that he is focused on Twitter. Also, Tesla has had to cut prices in China to stay competitive. That could happen here as others ramp up production. If Toyota's chairman ever gets his head out of his ass and devotes proper resources to EVs, Tesla will face even more price pressure.

[Slick470]

We will buy an EV for Sarah's next car and have mostly skipped looking at Teslas. I don't see that changing much given Musk's current behavior. Us not buying a Tesla won't hurt anything in the long run, but I do feel bad for the people who work at the companies he's involved with.

[TheOffice]

Next year I'll probably buy a Starlink dish for the boat. Sue is already questioning buying a product from Musk.

[BeauV]

You all NOT alone in refusing to buy products from any company owned by Musk. As you know, we've been quite happy with our Tesla model S. We were deeply unhappy with certain weird characteristics of the model X. Interestingly, the things we disliked about the model X were the exact ones that Elon insisted be put into the product. They made it late to market and overpriced.

Then there is the simple facts that Elon is a terrible CEO. My reasons:

First, let's take product development. Remember the Cyber Truck? While he was screwing around with that, then embarrassed the hell out of himself by rolling out a butt-ugly product that had it's "bullet proof" window broken during the "product announcement". He walked away from the entire project, abandoning hundreds of millions on product development investment. My theory is that he walked away because he was motified and his ego can't deal with failure. Then there is the replacement for the sports car. His $200k "coupe" that would be faster and better than all the $1.5m super cars. He built one and walked away. It turns out that he'd guided the company to a flop, again. Then there is the long-haul semi-tractor rig. Rumors are that one or two have finally surfaced and that they are just barely able to deal with around town loads on the batteries and have less than 1/2 the advertised range. Basically, Elon/Tesla have not shipped a new product since 2017 and that was only a few units. FIVE years without a new product. If a Ford CEO did that he'd be canned.

Elon pissed away the one and only competitive advantage he had: being first to market. His utter incompetence as a CEO and bloated ego has probably destroyed the company. Here's the stock price. Musk has been selling billions of dollars of stock on the way down. There's a message there.

Screenshot 2022-11-14 at 2.33.44 PM.png

Second, folks hold out the rocket business as a success. Elon had almost nothing to do with this. Space X was built by and run by a group of people who have built rocket engines for decades. My info is that NASA told Musk if you fire this management team, we will withdraw our support. That is not a request it is a direct threat. Elan backed away. Let the adults run the company and we'll let you pretend to run it.

Finally, there's the idiotic way that Elon went after buying Twitter and the utter insanity that has been exhibited in running it for three weeks. There really isn't any good explanation for it. He's an idiot, ego-driven, and incapable of listening to anyone else. You don't have to worry about him corrupting Twitter, it'll be out of business or have a new CEO before that can happen. Elon has a LOT of stock, but not all of it. It'll be interesting to see how much of this Clown-Car-CEO the mature investors will tolerate.

[Slick470]

Beau, I'm not surprised with the SpaceX bit. I heard that when he tried to stop paying for the Starlink support for Ukraine, the Pentagon basically told him to pound sand and indicated that they didn't have to buy his stuff. After that he quietly backed down. NASA also supposedly freaked out with concerns about "company culture" and ordered a review of SpaceX's operations after Musk smoked a joint a few years back with Joe Rogan. The guy is truly a menace to his own brand.

I'm sure there are other CEOs out there who are complete and utter asses, they just don't (usually) choose to rub everyone's faces in it.

At this point I think I'm going to hold out for the EV Tacoma, still not sure what we're going to get Sarah,

[BeauV]

Beau, I'm not surprised with the SpaceX bit. I heard that when he tried to stop paying for the Starlink support for Ukraine, the Pentagon basically told him to pound sand and indicated that they didn't have to buy his stuff. After that he quietly backed down. NASA also supposedly freaked out with concerns about "company culture" and ordered a review of SpaceX's operations after Musk smoked a joint a few years back with Joe Rogan. The guy is truly a menace to his own brand.

I'm sure there are other CEOs out there who are complete and utter asses, they just don't (usually) choose to rub everyone's faces in it.

At this point I think I'm going to hold out for the EV Tacoma, still not sure what we're going to get Sarah,

Go drive a Ford Lightning. Two of our extended family members have them on order. We switched from Chevy to Ford trucks about 20 years ago and have never regretted it. The current Ford Expedition has been great.

Yes, as an investor, I ran into a lot of crazy CEOs. I don't know why investors feed the needs of these nut cases. When working for a NY firm I was tasked with looking at Tesla twice a year, we came close to investing before Elon bought in (he was nowhere near the founder, despite what he likes to imply). My report was always that I loved the product and that the management was incompetent. Clearly, I was wrong, from an investment point of view. But, ultimately, it seems I was right.

[Slick470]

Go drive a Ford Lightning.

I am interested in them, but I don't want or need a full size truck, and my wife was really not a fan of our old Explorer, so it would be a stretch to convince her to look at Ford again.

[kimbottles]

"He's an idiot, ego-driven, and incapable of listening to anyone else."

Sounds like another person in the news today.....