I really don’t think most of the buyers of TSLA stock in the last few months have been buying it on the basis of future earnings. They’ve been buying it for no other reason than “it’s hot and it’s going up.” They could continue to go up, but pretty much every other stock in history that’s done this has had equally…

I’ll only consider it if it comes with the Harvey Bailey Handling Kit.

And yet some European countries, including the UK, which has had variance in is approach but overall pretty draconian lockdown policies, mask mandates, school closures, etc., has a higher death rate per capita than the US. So do Belgium and Italy, Portugal. Many other European countries are in the same general…

It bewilders me how anyone can be “OK with it.” We’ve just had a year-long onslaught of pseudo-science dressed up as politicians “just following the science.” As usual, it’s been a cesspit of partisan bickering, which means if it’s a vote winner to have people paralyzed by irrational fear and doing utterly irrational…

Not so sure the Lexus argument works. I know it’s anecdotal, but I’ve heard many people complain a LOT about the stupid mouse / cursor controller interface in some recent Lexus products. In at least a couple of cases, it was enough for them to ditch their RX for something else.

They could probably do it with leftover first gen Bolts. That way the crappy plastic and awful seats would be a feature to be defended to the death.

Piëch was the Porsche family though, right, since he was the grandson of Ferdinand?

I think the step you are missing is that Porsche spins out a separate Porsche EV brand, ideally involving a SPAC. This entity then becomes bigger by market cap than Porsche and the rest of VAG combined.

Not that weird, but it may not be accurate to say that they are competing with the Chevy on price. It’s more that their sales are heavily dependent on price cuts, incentives and expanding into new markets, not “same store” growth.

Personally I prefer the look of the Taycan, and the resale value of the Porsche badge will always be better than Audi. With options, the Porsche will be more expensive up front, but probably the same cost or perhaps even cheaper once depreciation is factored in.

I think that Hyundai is going to do really well with a Genesis EV. They’ll have the benefit of seeing the mistakes Audi and Jaguar have made, build an equally slick product but with better range and at a more competitive price point, and it will actively help them develop the Genesis brand. Lots of people who wouldn’t…

I love the first gen 997 as a driver’s car. In a past life, I used to write car pieces for a magazine, so the local Porsche press guy would lend me pretty much everything. Had some great drives from Vancouver in early 997s. Looking on AutoTrader, there is pretty much no other 997 within $10k of this. Even $35k is what…

The reason the 3% is 100% of available sales is because there (a) isn’t enough demand to support more production and (b) battery prices and other EV manufacturing costs are too high to produce vehicles that most people can afford, particularly for EVs with a 200-mile+ range. EVs have been pretty widely available for…

I know several people who had a deposit for the Taycan and then cancelled it because the range was well under their expectations. However, none of them bought a Tesla, but instead bought a different luxury / sports ICE vehicle. People who want a Taycan generally don’t want a Tesla, because they care about different…

Until pretty recently, several dealers in Ontario had new / unsold 2019 e-trons on their lots. They only shifted them by offering a $25k incentive. I’ve never seen Audi offer so much cash on the hood for any model, so even with limited production they couldn’t sell them. I’m sure this has just killed the resale values…

I think if the regular e-tron had better range, the other issues you’ve identified wouldn’t be a big deal. It actually does feel very fast and is extremely refined and comfortable to drive. It’s also a shape and size that is very practical for most buyers, and in the right colour can look pretty good. But a friend has…

It’s a bit different in Europe, where I think Tesla may find itself on the back foot against VW, in part because the ID3 is just closer to the category of car that sells best in many European markets. But yes, I can see cars like the Taycan helping to get people excited about EVs, to the extent that they decide to…

I think it’s also because a lot of buyers really see leases as some kind of black art, in which somewhere out there it’s possible to get a $75k car for $300 / month.

You make your own advantages within the parameters / constraints of your situation. Kids who grow up in stable, middle-class homes and go to stable, middle-class schools make very different advantages from kids who grow up in chaos.

1st Gear: Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You is a brilliant evisceration of the way people in this kind of fragile employment are treated. In the movie, it’s a third party courier company treating its drivers in this kind of way, rather than an Amazon-type behemoth, but the point is the same. Highly recommend it, even…