<story><title>Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/tesla-s-model-3-is-becoming-one-of-america-s-best-selling-sedans</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexandros</author><text>I would like to go on the record as saying that the big car companies of today, short of a miracle, are on track to meet the big mobile phone companies of the pre-iPhone era. Remember when Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel, Sony seemed unassailable?</text></item><item><author>smaili</author><text>&amp;gt; Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And it’s doing so at a higher price than other mass-market cars. The most expensive versions of the Model 3 are currently the most popular, with an average selling price approaching $60,000.&lt;p&gt;It would be very interesting if Tesla&amp;#x27;s surge in ranking would be caused more by fleeing luxury customers (from brands like the referenced Mercedes) versus gaining new customers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kllrnohj</author><text>Both Audi &amp;amp; Jaguar are looking on track to, on their first attempts, quite soundly beat Tesla at the electric SUV game. Similar price, similar range, and vastly better quality.&lt;p&gt;And really if you think about it that shouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprising. The big car companies today don&amp;#x27;t need a miracle at all. They are in a pretty good spot. They know how to do all the really hard stuff about building a car (the actual manufacturing &amp;amp; quality control stuff - the things Tesla is really bad at and struggling hard to figure out). They just need to do the easy part of putting in an EV powertrain. And they are already used to dealing with multiple powertrains for the same car, even.&lt;p&gt;Tesla took the risk to prove it out, but there&amp;#x27;s no reason to believe the big companies will be unable to change course on this. It&amp;#x27;s not at all like the pre-iPhone vs. post-iPhone where the entire UX interaction across the entire platform changed. This is all things considered a pretty small part of the car that&amp;#x27;s changed, and in pretty straightforward ways.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/tesla-s-model-3-is-becoming-one-of-america-s-best-selling-sedans</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexandros</author><text>I would like to go on the record as saying that the big car companies of today, short of a miracle, are on track to meet the big mobile phone companies of the pre-iPhone era. Remember when Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel, Sony seemed unassailable?</text></item><item><author>smaili</author><text>&amp;gt; Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And it’s doing so at a higher price than other mass-market cars. The most expensive versions of the Model 3 are currently the most popular, with an average selling price approaching $60,000.&lt;p&gt;It would be very interesting if Tesla&amp;#x27;s surge in ranking would be caused more by fleeing luxury customers (from brands like the referenced Mercedes) versus gaining new customers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btilly</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s been obvious to me for about 20 years.  Ever since I read the case study in &lt;i&gt;The Innovator&amp;#x27;s Dilemma&lt;/i&gt; explaining that electric cars would take over around 2020.&lt;p&gt;If Elon should burn out and crash Tesla, it will still happen.  Only instead of being Tesla delivering the death blow, it will be those electric golf carts growing up, turning into full cars, and wiping out traditional automakers.&lt;p&gt;Either way the underlying dynamic is the same.  As batteries become good and cheap enough for mass cars, there is an opportunity for upstarts who only do electric to take on gas cars.</text></comment>