Tesla Updates Across The Lineup, Surprising 3Q Sales — Tesla News Podcast

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In this new miniseries, CleanTechnica Director Zachary Shahan and data engineer, investor, and Tesla fan Paul Fosse (that’s me) discuss cleantech news of the week and offer additional insights and analysis. In this first episode, as an introduction, I describe my life as a series of obsessions. From age 10 to 20, I was into cars. Then, for the next 3 decades, I concentrated on computers and investing. At about 50, I discovered that following Tesla I could combine all three interests. Professionally, I architect and deliver financial analytical data marts on massively parallel systems for a leading healthcare insurer. I have owned 2 electric cars, a hybrid, and 2 plug-in hybrids. Some of that is weaved into the discussion, which has the premise of ruminating on 3 top EV stories from last week.

You can listen to the conversation in the embedded player below. Below that embedded player is a brief summary of the topics covered, but tune into the podcast to follow the full discussion. Next time, we will livestream via video and include that format in the article. Also note that we had an audio/connection problem this time that will not occur again. Forgive the audio or wait till the next episode to listen to our discussions.

We started the podcast with a discussion of the recent updates to all the Tesla models, including increased range for most models, the heat pump added to the Model 3, and significant cosmetic changes to the Model 3, inside and out.

https://twitter.com/moosuraj/status/1318203887636090882

Next, our dynamic duo talked about the surprisingly strong third-quarter sales of the Model Y and Model 3. The Tesla Model Y has outsold all the luxury SUVs, for example. The Model Y has not gotten the publicity the Model 3 received for such accomplishments, and the gas competition is much stronger this time around. The Model Y has a ways to go to catch up with the non-luxury crossovers like the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CRV, though, and may never be able to.

Notably, the Model 3 not only outsells its luxury competitors, but it also matches the top 3 competitors combined (Audi, BMW, Mercedes). The auto industry has so abandoned the sedan market that the Model 3 is the 10th best selling sedan, only significantly outsold by the Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla, Honda Accord, and Honda Civic. The Model 3 is virtually tied with the Ford Fusion (being discontinued), Nissan Sentra, and Altima (decimated by Covid, since it sells a lot to rental car companies), Hyundai Elantra, and Chevy Malibu. All of those cars have a similar cost of ownership to the base Model 3 but have purchase prices about $15,000 to $20,000 lower.

We also talked about the latest Consumer Reports analysis on electric vehicles having low total cost of ownership, something both of us have done our own analyses on many times without the vast dataset Consumer Reports benefits from. That also brought us to a bit of a discussion of the pros and cons of plugin hybrids.

Listen to the podcast for much, much more. And make sure you listen to the next podcast/livestream to hear analysis and hopefully useful insights on Tesla’s third-quarter earnings report.

Disclosure: Paul and Zach are both happy shareholders in Tesla [TSLA]! But we offer no investment advice of any sort at anytime or anywhere.


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Paul Fosse

I have been a software engineer for over 30 years, first developing EDI software, then developing data warehouse systems. Along the way, I've also had the chance to help start a software consulting firm and do portfolio management. In 2010, I took an interest in electric cars because gas was getting expensive. In 2015, I started reading CleanTechnica and took an interest in solar, mainly because it was a threat to my oil and gas investments. Follow me on Twitter @atj721 Tesla investor. Tesla referral code: https://ts.la/paul92237

Paul Fosse has 231 posts and counting. See all posts by Paul Fosse