Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Better input supply and lower costs.

The Mach-E has similarly been going up and down in price based on (mostly) battery cost.

I don’t think Ford is scared of the Cybertruck.




https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/slow-s...

https://electrek.co/2023/07/13/tesla-most-wanted-car-brand-u...

Tesla is a lifestyle cult. It’ll never convert legacy buyers (Ford and GM loyalists, broadly speaking) in material quantities. Brand demand is young folks that will buy and stay with Tesla.


Tesla can convert me at any second by firing Elon.


They sell almost 2 million vehicles a year. Global auto market is almost 80 million units/year. No need to worry about individual purchases like that.


Imagine you are selling widgets that cost you $40 to make, and you have figured out that the price of widgets where you make the most money is $50. Any higher and you sell too few widgets to make more money. And less and you don't sell enough extra widgets to make up for the lower margins.

One day you found a supplier that is cheaper and reduces your cost to $30. Do you change your price?


If the price was a major problem I had selling my product?

Yeah, I would.


They also just got a $9.2B loan to build out battery factories, so I'd imagine they are keen to keep sales coming in.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23769966/ford-doe-loan-ev...


> I don’t think Ford is scared of the Cybertruck.

I think they don't want CT to pass them in total sales in less than 12 months. Given old pricing, that'd be a real possibility.

They also have inventor building up, due to being priced well above the market.


Musk has already warned, in the last 24 hours, that CT price will be much higher than previously expected. I don't think it's a genuine threat.


He's also warned that Lightning pricing is too high. Given Tesla's manufacturing capacity, it is a meaningful threat. They aren't installing all those casting and stamping machines with the intent to do a Lightning-esque <1k/week.


I think Ford might be scared of the cult-like culture that has been created around Tesla and/or Elon Musk.

I'm not sure it's entirely clear what the Cybertruck means for Tesla or the car industry, but it's obviously not a minor event in this landscape.

Especially after so much speculation on whether or not this truck would ever become a production car.




Consider applying for YC's W25 batch! Applications are open till Nov 12.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: