<story><title>Tesla envy grips Germany’s giants</title><url>http://www.autonews.com/article/20160905/OEM05/309059949/tesla-envy-grips-germanys-giants</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_Codemonkeyism</author><text>If you compare a Model S to a S-class Mercedes, you have never driven a S-class or be driven around in one. Just because Tesla is overpriced for hipsters doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you can compare it to other cars in the price bracket.</text></item><item><author>codeulike</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; their sales are unchanged or even increasing since 2012 when the Model S was launched.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to look at 2014&amp;#x2F;2015 really, which is when the Model S started being produced in decent numbers.&lt;p&gt;The Model S outsold most other &amp;#x27;large luxury&amp;#x27; vehicles in the US in 2015, including the Audi A7 and A8 combined, and the BMW 6 and 7 series combined, and the Mercedez S-class.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gas2.org&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-bmw-audi-and-porsche-in-us&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gas2.org&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-b...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;edit: re: rates of change: Model S sales increased 50% during 2015, Audi A7,A8, BMW 6,7 Mercedez S all down 5% or more.</text></item><item><author>semi-extrinsic</author><text>The money quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I wish we had put that car on the road and not Tesla,&amp;quot; confided a senior engineer at Porsche. &amp;quot;We have to earn money at the end of the day though.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The article also talks about &amp;quot;how will the German brands win back customers from Tesla?&amp;quot;, but really, if you look at cars like the Mercedes S-class, BMW 7 series or the Audi A8, their sales are unchanged or even increasing since 2012 when the Model S was launched. Audi has been setting record sales numbers in the US, which is Tesla&amp;#x27;s biggest market, for five years straight. So it&amp;#x27;s a bit hard to argue Tesla has taken many of their customers.&lt;p&gt;Maybe most Tesla drivers were never petrolheads in the first place, and drove a boring station wagon before the Model S came along?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jasode</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Just because Tesla is overpriced for hipsters doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you can compare it to other cars in the price bracket.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, your prescription doesn&amp;#x27;t change the fact that magazine journalists, video bloggers, and prospective buyers &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; in fact compare them &lt;i&gt;because&lt;/i&gt; they are roughly in the same price bracket.[1]&lt;p&gt;It might be possible that most Tesla buyers are only:&lt;p&gt;1) wealthy Prius owners who want to upgrade to something bigger and more technologically advanced and would never consider Mercedes S-Class&lt;p&gt;2) eco-green consumers who would only bicycle to work or hail Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft if car travel was necessary and would never consider Mercedes S-Class&lt;p&gt;But based on forum discussions where prospective buyers test drove both and chose one or the other, it seems like there is a population of owners who seriously considered both cars.  (Same type of comparison goes for BMW&amp;#x2F;Audi.)&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=tesla+&amp;quot;model+s&amp;quot;+vs+mercedes+s550&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=tesla+&amp;quot;model+s&amp;quot;+vs+mercedes+...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Tesla envy grips Germany’s giants</title><url>http://www.autonews.com/article/20160905/OEM05/309059949/tesla-envy-grips-germanys-giants</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_Codemonkeyism</author><text>If you compare a Model S to a S-class Mercedes, you have never driven a S-class or be driven around in one. Just because Tesla is overpriced for hipsters doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you can compare it to other cars in the price bracket.</text></item><item><author>codeulike</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; their sales are unchanged or even increasing since 2012 when the Model S was launched.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;You need to look at 2014&amp;#x2F;2015 really, which is when the Model S started being produced in decent numbers.&lt;p&gt;The Model S outsold most other &amp;#x27;large luxury&amp;#x27; vehicles in the US in 2015, including the Audi A7 and A8 combined, and the BMW 6 and 7 series combined, and the Mercedez S-class.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gas2.org&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-bmw-audi-and-porsche-in-us&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gas2.org&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-b...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;edit: re: rates of change: Model S sales increased 50% during 2015, Audi A7,A8, BMW 6,7 Mercedez S all down 5% or more.</text></item><item><author>semi-extrinsic</author><text>The money quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I wish we had put that car on the road and not Tesla,&amp;quot; confided a senior engineer at Porsche. &amp;quot;We have to earn money at the end of the day though.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The article also talks about &amp;quot;how will the German brands win back customers from Tesla?&amp;quot;, but really, if you look at cars like the Mercedes S-class, BMW 7 series or the Audi A8, their sales are unchanged or even increasing since 2012 when the Model S was launched. Audi has been setting record sales numbers in the US, which is Tesla&amp;#x27;s biggest market, for five years straight. So it&amp;#x27;s a bit hard to argue Tesla has taken many of their customers.&lt;p&gt;Maybe most Tesla drivers were never petrolheads in the first place, and drove a boring station wagon before the Model S came along?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PietdeVries</author><text>There is price, and there is cost...&lt;p&gt;Living in the Netherlands, the price of a Tesla is around 100.000 euros. However, if I can lease the thing, the actual cost (due to tax benefit, etc) drops like a rock to a level that compares to a small, cheap car. For full electric cars you hardly pay taxes because the government wants to stimulate this clean way of transportation.&lt;p&gt;Now comparing to a Mercedes with a similar price is wrong, simply because the Mercedes with a similar price is costing much, much more in day to day operation: more tax (heavy car = high tax), no green car, so more taxes).&lt;p&gt;I believe that at least for the Netherlands, most hybrid or full-electric cars are driven by people that have a company car. We just love tax refunds. We hate the hassle of charging, so many hybrid cars in 2015 (Mitsubishi Outlander is a good example) were driven on petrol - not electricity.</text></comment>