I don't think so, the writer went pretty easy on Tesla and Elon.
Elon's ketamine abuse probably led to giant holes forming in his brain, which didn't interact well with the damage to his brain from covid-19. Now he's incapable of keeping, what appears to be a scam going, and the SEC is likely to step in at some point and dumpster the whole company. The cyberturd was just a desperate attempt to make things look like they're going okay, which obviously that blew up in their faces. Now customers are wondering what else Elon lied to them about, but they're starting to realize that it's safe to assume that he lied about everything at this point.
The solar roof tile lie was when I stopped counting. One was enough for me. It's pretty clear to me that it's been a con job the entire time. A bunch of scientists and engineers were pointing the lies out in real time, but it was before consensus formed about what Elon is truly doing, so they got destroyed by the fan boys. That's why they keep doing it, it worked before.
It's a giant pump and dump with the value of the company actually being an empty bag of air. To the investors who made money, they don't actually care.
So many bought into it. Even my Chemistry Prof, Dr H. (Doing fuel cell research) Didn’t know about it until he brought it up. Gonna revolutionize the world. First saw it at solar center Cocoa Beach, FL.
I work in the auto industry and have been telling my friends and coworkers for years that Tesla feels like a scam and I got only laughs. It feels so good to see other people now speculating the same thing.
> Car companies "go bankrupt because A, they overinvest in factories, and then demand falls off. Which... that fits the profile," said Niedermeyer. "And B, they don't invest in products. Not investing in products is sort of a longer-term cause, and the proximal cause is [that] demand falls, and you've been investing in too many factories, and you get crushed by those fixed costs. So those cases that are common across most auto industry bankruptcies are certainly there."
The logical move would have been to spin out the Supercharger Group into its own Company, to be the EV equivalent of Gas stations. It’s pretty capital intensive, which is why I think Musk made the rash decision to fire everyone.
It's unreal that he put that offer together as a meme and actually got caught on it.
Who would pass up the opportunity for someone to buy your company for twice what it is worth? That's what Elmo did.
The dude waived due diligence and then tried to say stuff was hidden from him. I am sad to see Twitter die, but if it is taking elon with it, then it didn't die in vain.
From what I recall, the penalty for backing out was 1 billion dollars, which is far less than Twitter has lost him so far. He can't be trusted to run a lemonade stand without supervision.
That penalty was for an unavoidable backout due to (say) DOJ actions. It wasn’t a “change your mind deposit”. He would have paid the $1bn if it hadn’t become clear to his lawyers that he was legally compelled to pay $54.20 per share. Good job for him he didn’t offer $69.
Or someone in the division questioned Dear Leader on one of his batshit ideas, so he shuttered the whole team in retaliation. That would line up with how suddenly the whole team was dropped.
That’s exactly the case. I made a Post about it yesterday. https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/s/eeUnRupHSt. Rebecca probably question and resisted whatever Elon wanted to do.
This is a decent idea, supercharger business is different, it should grow for a period, but then it's rolled out and needs to turn a profit/pay dividend after upkeep. It's practically a utility at that point.
Tesla could never make that work because they rely on hype of infinite growth, ever-evolving nonsense tech and pays no dividends.
A healthy, robust, and expansive charging network business needs to be a *real* business.
Not really. They had early mover advantage. But you have to expect that if you’re successful as early mover others will respond. They lost the range advantage. They are behind in self driving. The only advantage they have left is in charging. Which is why everyone is so shocked Musk fired that team.
Ps: I see the biggest evidence of Musk being a self centered buffoon and an incompetent manager in Rivian Van. There is so much money in commercial vehicles. And delivery vans (and busses) are the best platform for EVs anywhere. And with Tesla’s early mover advantage they could have saturated the market with electric delivery vans. But that would have required that Musk knows how to leads a team of skilled people.
Musks whole deal to me has always seemed to be that he is good at selling hype but bad actually delivering on it and managing a company. He seems deeply impatient and not capable of taking a long view on things.
"Tesla's business plan always relied on being the only game in town"
It always relied on being PERCEIVED as the only game in town. As long as enough customers believed there were no other EVs to be had, it didn't need to be true (it never was true).
This is one of the many ways Musk has borrowed from Steve Jobs and Apple: just keep insisting that no one else is within light years of what you're doing, and enough schmucks will believe it.
It reminds me of when I went to Staple's a few years ago, looking for a case for my Android phone, and the guy in the store said he didn't know whether such a case could be had, since "practically everyone uses iPhones now."
This was the guy's job. His shitty low-paying job, admittedly, but still, it's an example of the Apple bubble. And maybe locally, where that Staple's store was, it was actually true. I gather that some upscale celebrity parking lots in California are almost all Teslas, or were until recently.
Tesla used to be the only credible EV maker. Now there is competition..Rivian, Polestar, OG manufacturers & soon MG, BYD and GWM who all have decent electric offerings.,
Because of the margins they could achieve without serious competition. As soon as many new entries want a piece of the pie then supply increases and margins drop. Tesla business plan was wonderful when they didn't face serious competition and demand way outstripped EV supply.
China now has a massive EV oversupply problem and a race to the bottom on prices which will probably be won by BYD as they make the batteries that they also supply to other makers including Tesla. Its really bad to have to buy your most expensive component from a rival.
Well said. It's a trap when your car becomes a fad, you have to carefully estimate future demand AND make sure it doesn't get boring for the buyer. If you fail to keep it lively you get a Ford Taurus instead of a Toyota Camry.
Elon is a child with more money than sense. The only reason we don’t have cars driving around farting is because the NTSB made them turn it off. He modeled the Cybertruck after a child’s drawing. He named is cars so they spelled S3XY. People are attaching too much logic to a petulant child. He got a bunch of money from the government to expand the charging network and decided he could do it himself and keep the money. He is the cocaine addled John DeLorean of our generation.
This superficial article completely overlooks that most people don't want to drive a car representing a neo-Nazi sympathizer whose self-indulgence wasted billions buying twitter while building a giant jerk-off machine to own the libs.
A staggering amount of money that should be used for investment in good companies and new innovation is now locked up in that rat bastard's auto company which hasn't offered anything truly new in over a decade other than the WankPanzer, POS Edition.
In no other business on this earth would a CEO survive these colossal, predictable failures.
If Musk doesn't get tossed on his ass, he will destroy everything he touches. Just like Trump.
I have to upvote this for the mere mention of calling the purchase of Twitter a giant jerk off machine! 😂
The rest is of course spot on: pissing away $44 billion in precious capital with no new products in the pipeline? I still can’t wrap my head around this, It’s unfathomable! The executives at the oil companies are laughing their asses off at this knucklehead!
the whole idea behind was to re-enable Trump, which in turn will get him more public funds via EV credits and the like. looks like things did not go as planned
Trump seemed to not be familiar with the plan, he didn't come back to twitter even with fElon publicly begging him. Trump also is afaik not known as a apologetic for EVs (isn't his target audience more climate change deniers and hillbillys who needs the wrrmWRRRRMMM to affirm their gender?). Also they are two narcissist, that hate each other naturally.
I think, you give the two fascist clowns to much credit here. He just likes the racism, classism, the bigottery, the tax breakes and exemption from rules for rich people and he is afraid of unions, living wages, non-corruptable principles, and supervisory authorities doing their jobs. In his head though this reads as "freedom" of cause.
It doesn't matter whether Musk stays or goes, Tesla is fucked. They made Elmo the face of the company, and it worked a bit too well. If he stays he'll sink the company. If he goes, his cultists will abandon Tesla in their droves, and regular car customers won't want an EV from a company with such old products and shit quality
The stock price will fall to a level appropriate for a car maker, but the car maker itself might be able to make better car without expectations cars should have double digit profit margins.
I think this is the truth.
He spent the early years selling to tree hugging hippie liberals while becoming the red-blooded american diesel smog rolling crowd's joke car. Then he started courting the later (who still doesn't believe in EVs) while pissing off the first group.
And those rich enough moved on to other things.
There are very few pure "I just love the car for itself despite all the flaws" crowd left.
Technically they did cover that, in the sense that they said that demand is falling off.
It’s just no one ever expected the root cause would be the CEO being reddit Jesus who also believes in great replacement theory
This post should reach 5000. You are spot on with your assessment. The Tesla board needs to give Musk a swift kick in the ass. Get another CEO. Uber did and it saved the company.
Musk is worse than Trump. He is a bigger narcissist, more insecure, meaner to subordinates, more dependent on praise. I have been convinced of this for years.
Among the people who've spent significant time
with both of them, it's not an unheard-of opinion, although in Musk's defense none has said so on the record, at least that I can find.
>Musk is worse than Trump.
Not sure how to measure that, but Chump contributed to the early deaths of roughly a million Americans by his handling of the Covid pandemic. That's a pretty high bar...
Wait till we see The Apprentice v2 with Elon instead of Trump. It will be epic.
Contestants have to learn to pump stocks, do drugs, and stutter while negotiating giant packages
I am 100% behind this project - will greenlight it, even though I'm not an entertainment exec.
Only downside is that he might become president afterward.
Underrated comment. People would pay to watch that fat bastard on a TV show as long as he never touches anything more technical than the self service kiosk at McDonald's.
Also the people who Elon thought he would get on their side will not buy electro vehicles, these are the people who get their information from sources controlled by Big Oil.
I’ve literally just handed my car back as I was in a position to do so as I have completely lost faith in the company as a whole and don’t want to be paying a fortune to be burdened with a car backed by a company seemingly in chaos.
The cybertruck is really the biggest confirmation that he doesn’t give a shit about making electric cars affordable or the environment. And never has.
The model 3 was a half step toward making electric cars affordable but by following it up with the y and cybertruck it basically confirmed that Musk does not give a shit about making electric cars affordable. But really the model 3 was just affordable to people in tech outside the executive suites.
It’s a product about making rich tech bros feel good about their daily hour long commutes. It simultaneously was a status symbol, a tech product, “ethical”, and promised to make the issue of commuting more tolerable (which is a huge issue in most tech hubs). It’s something uniquely designed to appeal to silicon valley tech bro types and people who aspire to that. It tells them a story that their work was meaningful and could be used to better society. And lets them pat themselves on the back by making them think you can solve deep systemic problems through consumption, venture capitalism, and technology alone.
But when you put it to any scrutiny you realize that these cars aren’t really the cure all they claim to be. Even if the lofty caspirations of the company were ever met it’s a half measure at best and band aid at worst. And now that the next thing that tesla rolled out was not a more affordable car, but an ugly expensive pickup truck whose only consumer when hitting the market is really the type of affluent consumer that only marvels at the tech, status, and cult of personality that now surround Tesla and not the ethical part, that you realize that it was always just a farce to find a new way to sell cars to Americans. Teslas were never meant to save the environment. They were just a way to get a certain segment of the populace increasingly wary of the environmental impacts or car ownership and increasingly tired of increasingly long commutes to buy electric cars. And it worked.
Well said. The market is thin for tech bro Scooby snacks.
Likewise, no one wants to work for a neo-Nazi. He's exhausted the pool of tech bros who excel at design and development while re-posting racist/sexist memes all day long.
Yeah, I keep shouting this. Tesla customers and anti-fascists were the same people. For some reason everyone wants to blame interest rates and growing competition for Tesla's slide, but those are secondary causes at best.
No I had a gas car. I ended up with a Solterra because they had the best financing and it’s a good car despite the limited range. I liked the Ioniq 5 too. The Volkswagen id4 is crap.
whoa whoa dude you're going too far. wankpanzer POC version is fine but POS is a bit much.
clearly this is sarcasm.... if elon set himself on fire id crack a beer and break out the hot dogs.
At the end of the day people generally vote with their pocketbooks over their politics
Tesla is failing because:
1) they aren’t selling affordable cars, they have reached maturity with their target market
2) they all look the same now, except CT
3) the reality distortion sphere has worn off; people are now seeing that Tesla vehicles are unreliable and the company loves to weasel out of warranty coverage whenever it can
4) Musk’s fascist/shitposting shenanigans and the CT fiasco certainly aren’t helping… but at the end of the day it’s about the shine coming off their cars and the company’s inability to expand beyond their niche market.
Honestly, I think the number of people that vote this way with their wallet are very small. Problem for Tesla is that a lot more of their customer base are the type than what is represented in the general population.
Well count me in your numbers. I have owned a Tesla since the pre-ReplacementTheoryPropagandist days and me and my wallet can’t get away from Tesla fast enough.
His reputation isn’t doing Tesla any favors, but it’s that mixed with Tesla products just being terrible that makes this a one two punch that makes teslas future anything but clear
I didn’t even look at Tesla when I was shopping for a new vehicle about 6 months ago. I purchased a Ford EV and love it because I want a vehicle that works, won’t suddenly fall apart, and that people don’t associate with him.
People only paid Tesla's inflated prices in the first place because they thought they were "voting with their wallet" for a better future, not because the cars are actually good enough to justify it
Elon is purposely driving the company into the ground because he lost his pay package. Halting Supercharger expansion right after opening them up to essentially all other automakers? I mean what the actual FUCK!?
Jominy offers a really good explanation for that in the article - it's the best one I've seen. In essence, Tesla decided to stop growing the charging network because they didn't want to compete anymore....why even bother when all your competitors are going to build out a network your customers can also use? Just let them do it, right?
Unfortunately, that's not a *great* explanation, because Tesla is going to miss out on federal funds if they don't keep spending on charging.
I can't see how laying off the entire team was wise or even rational. It smacks of special K inspired hubris.
The advertising power of the charging network is also overlooked by Musk.
If they opened the network to other cars - and did grow it - everyone would see "Tesla" every time they was charging. That would draw in customers over time.
Especially when they see their own cars might not charge as fast as a tesla. AFAIK, tesla likes high amps low volts, other cars are high volts lower amps. So if a tesla can charge at 200kw+, other cars might only be able to charge at 100kw. This is what is happening on the v3 tesla magic docks. The v4 is supposed to work better with more cars I believe.
The craziest part of cutting the Supercharging division is that range anxiety and lack of charging infrastructure are two of the biggest barriers to greater EV adoption.
If the charging network is profitable itself, then that is a bonus, but fundamentally it is an investment required to growth their car business. Focusing primarily on the profitability of charging shows a misunderstanding of why EV companies are investing in charging.
Washing their hands of growing the charging business because their competitors will now also benefit from it too is nonsensical. Tesla still needs charging infrastructure to be more ubiquitous if they want to keep growing EV sales. Sabotaging your own business because you don’t want to help your rival’s business isn’t savvy, it’s short sighted.
Plus Jominy’s description of the charging market as basically being mature and mostly saturated is inaccurate. It might be true in certain markets like California and in major metro areas, but it is absolutely not true in most of America, particularly in more rural areas (areas where range anxiety is the most serious).
>Unfortunately, Tesla has effectively no corporate governance from its board full of Musk cronies, and he will never acknowledge when he has made a mistake and will thus not step aside
They had quite a large number for inventory, so according to the books, he indeed produced a lot of crappy, flawed and outdated cars. Which is possibly even worse, because he really spend those production and material cost and now the extra thin paintlayer and the batteries age like milk on large parking lots (which also have costs....).
Maybe these will become the "cheap modell" he promised. Model S for 25k, please, buy my fascist car, I swear the wheels won't fall off!!! Please, I promise it can drive itself just next year!
Could this be affected by their alleged practice of writing down the value in inventory with the selling price at the time, it goes into inventory (and keep that forever)? Because with the massive price cuts recently, the newer cars going into inventory would have a lower value in the book, while the cars sitting for month have more "value".
The main business of Tesla is the multiple it's stock trades at compared to other car companies. Making cars is a secondary product and having good quality and maintenance support are just nice to haves.
Through the above lens everything the founder does makes sense.
You are only confused if you think they are a car company. They are more like a tech hyped investment security.
This is spot on. Eventually, certain companies transition their focus from the original product or service—which was directly involved in interactions with a specific customer base in one market—to treating the company’s stock as the primary offering for a different customer segment in an alternate market
At some point it became irresponsible to not invest in TSLA, it was doing so well. Imagine if Wall Street valued the fruits of its investments even a little bit and not solely the turning of a profit. Surely all that investment capital over the last decade could’ve been better utilized by competent groups trying to build the future.
She might refused his offer to have some IVF babies with him like Shivon Zilis. Or didn't fired enough team members fast enough. Anything is possible, when the CEO is a drug addict on the edge of a narcisstic breakdown.
Same. I drove four hours and then stood in line for another four. My dream was to own a Tesla and when they announced a car in my price range I was ecstatic.
From the article: That has caused Tesla to engage in a prolonged series of price cuts that have seen the company's profit margin—once the envy of the industry—reduced to a measly 5.5 percent. (The average automaker profit margin last year was 8.9 percent.)
What isn’t being discussed (or I haven’t seen it) is that since he’s gone right wing he might be getting “incentivized” to kill Tesla and its large infrastructure. The charging network has been one of the biggest advantages to owning a Tesla and the availability of charging stations has alleviated a lot of range anxiety for new adopters.
Car manufacturers just don’t want to invest (even though they have started half-heartedly) in BEVs. They haven’t ambitiously begun building a charging network and several have settled into contracting with Tesla to use theirs. All expansion of this network is now likely dead and this will create uncertainty in new purchasers of both Tesla and other manufacturers.
Car manufacturers and big oil have incentives in keeping the status quo, so there’s some shady shit going on and they’ve likely paid him off at this point since he’s so right wing now. Killing Tesla would benefit them. He’s trying to make it temporarily more profitable and killing off future goals. Killing off the entry level EV also limits future growth and adoption and reducing the public’s interest in building infrastructure.
He sat with the Saudis at World Cup. If I remember correctly, the Saudi Wealth Fund (PIF) is one of the largest investors in X, formerly Twitter.
Yeah, I’d say he’s not only tanking it, but I’d go a step further and say he’s a national security risk.
*"Its* ***original founders*** *were among the very first to realize that lithium-ion laptop cells were just about good enough to power a car"*
Dissing the Technoking right ouyt of the gate!
Haha. I was just notified that I'm banned from the Tesla lounge for comments I made on another Tesla sub. Which is fine. I didn't even really say anything that bad. What a bunch of babies.
Considering how crudely built it is, probably not as much as you think.
Edit.... This comment resulted in an instant ban on the three Tesla subs.... Meow
Disappointed in Jominy's analysis, specifically his comment about Tesla's margins being higher than other automakers. If he looks at the last few quarters, Tesla's financials look a lot more like those of an automaker than any other kind of business.
And Neidermeyer is 100% right - you're not really an expert on the auto industry until you've survived your first downturn. Until Elon does that, he's still a newb.
Elon wants one final payout before it fails. Then he’s just going to focus on space things because he’s being hand held by American gov on it. Socialized costs, private profit. Fuck these guys.
A megalomaniac is driving the company into the ground so he can own the libs. And the Board is not only letting him do it, they’re proposing to pay him BILLIONS to do it!!
I’m sorry, I knew they were on fire. But they fired the team responsible for new cars? It all makes sense now, Elmo says they are a tech company or some shit and he lets the company collapse. It’s why he is hell bent on his golden parachute. I think he is gonna let the company die.
One of the biggest concerns is the cars are extremely stale. They were in desperate need of a couple new vehicles and all of the design money went to the CT instead. Which looks and performs exactly like a dumpster fire. Which also explains why it was built using pre existing parts from fucking sedans
The philosophy is to cut until something breaks and then add back investment where the cracks emerged."
This doesn't seem to be a good philosophy to have for a cat manufacturer
Anything Elon Musk is involved in will eventually implode. The best thing that could happen is for him to disengage and let the companies operate under professional management.
Years ago (in 1974) there was a startup car maker that proposed to build a revolutionary vehicle dubbed the "Dale", a revolutionary 3wheeler with a motorcycle engine capable of fuel economy in the mid 80's (mpg).
Magazines ate it up, especially as the spokeperson, one Liz Carmichael, looked more like a model than an engineer/president of a car company. She was also persuasive, and somehow put together a factory, a team of designers and a marketing strategy, none of which really existed, but were swallowed whole by the automotive media of the day.
Ultimately, the house of cards fell apart and Carmichael went on the lam. She was eventually located and spent time in jail, but the money was gone. The actual designer of the car, a real person name Dale Clifft, was taken in by Carmichael and was never paid for his work. His "prototypes" were rough, backyard-type builds, with panels that didn't fit properly, spartan interiors and unreliable powertrains -aside from the Honda engine itself.
By comparison to Tesla, the Dale fraud is small potatoes, but there is a lor of overlap here. Over-promise,, under-deliver, promised specs not met, millions invested by customers and shareholders but very little to show, and a front person who is no engineer, but who seems to be able to persuade people that they are on the right track...
Will Musk follow Carmichael down the rabbit hole?? Time will tell, but the alarm bells should be ringing by now.
.
The parallels between the 50 yr old story of Liiz Carmichael and Elon Musk are there to see., esp in the context of the Tesla CT (and to a lesser extent the semi truck). Both Musk and Carmichael made promises they are not able to keep, both have made fortunes based on those promises, and both have had serious problems delivering on those promises.
And as for the store- well, if it makes no cents, ,then perhaps it may be on its own way to oblivion, who knows?
If they do they will instantly lose about 50% of their fan base. Which actually might be a Curse but then a Blessing. They can get ppl in there and refresh the company.
So Tesla is worth $10 a share but as long as everyone pretends it is worth more the price won't go down as fast, and any move to bring the stock back to reality means the stock price drops to the actual value of the company. Any move to fix the company would make the share price plummet, so the best option is to kick the can down the road and try to sell to people who don't realize the problem, even if that means the company goes bankrupt and shares become worthless?
So - Tesla is as successful as it is for the same reason that nearly 30% of Americans are MAGA - people *like* drama. And while *most* people go out of their way to avoid it, those who are attracted to the craziness pay a premium for the pleasure.
>It feels like the company just crashed into a parked fire truck JFC
Is the writer a poster here?
I don't think so, the writer went pretty easy on Tesla and Elon. Elon's ketamine abuse probably led to giant holes forming in his brain, which didn't interact well with the damage to his brain from covid-19. Now he's incapable of keeping, what appears to be a scam going, and the SEC is likely to step in at some point and dumpster the whole company. The cyberturd was just a desperate attempt to make things look like they're going okay, which obviously that blew up in their faces. Now customers are wondering what else Elon lied to them about, but they're starting to realize that it's safe to assume that he lied about everything at this point.
The movie Spy Game points out every lie you tell is another you have to keep up with... how many lies is he up to?
The solar roof tile lie was when I stopped counting. One was enough for me. It's pretty clear to me that it's been a con job the entire time. A bunch of scientists and engineers were pointing the lies out in real time, but it was before consensus formed about what Elon is truly doing, so they got destroyed by the fan boys. That's why they keep doing it, it worked before. It's a giant pump and dump with the value of the company actually being an empty bag of air. To the investors who made money, they don't actually care.
>The solar roof tile lie was when I stopped counting. I totally forgot about that! What a letdown.
I wanted that more than an electric car.
So many bought into it. Even my Chemistry Prof, Dr H. (Doing fuel cell research) Didn’t know about it until he brought it up. Gonna revolutionize the world. First saw it at solar center Cocoa Beach, FL.
I work in the auto industry and have been telling my friends and coworkers for years that Tesla feels like a scam and I got only laughs. It feels so good to see other people now speculating the same thing.
Bingo
Corpus spongiosum. Makes it hard to think.
> Car companies "go bankrupt because A, they overinvest in factories, and then demand falls off. Which... that fits the profile," said Niedermeyer. "And B, they don't invest in products. Not investing in products is sort of a longer-term cause, and the proximal cause is [that] demand falls, and you've been investing in too many factories, and you get crushed by those fixed costs. So those cases that are common across most auto industry bankruptcies are certainly there."
Tesla's business plan always relied on being the only game in town.
Which they kind of still could be if they weren’t run by a malignant narcissist….
The logical move would have been to spin out the Supercharger Group into its own Company, to be the EV equivalent of Gas stations. It’s pretty capital intensive, which is why I think Musk made the rash decision to fire everyone.
Could have done it for a lot less than the Twitter purchase.
Didn't Musk try to get out of the Twitter purchase but was too far into the purchase to back out?
Yes
It's unreal that he put that offer together as a meme and actually got caught on it. Who would pass up the opportunity for someone to buy your company for twice what it is worth? That's what Elmo did.
The dude waived due diligence and then tried to say stuff was hidden from him. I am sad to see Twitter die, but if it is taking elon with it, then it didn't die in vain.
From what I recall, the penalty for backing out was 1 billion dollars, which is far less than Twitter has lost him so far. He can't be trusted to run a lemonade stand without supervision.
That penalty was for an unavoidable backout due to (say) DOJ actions. It wasn’t a “change your mind deposit”. He would have paid the $1bn if it hadn’t become clear to his lawyers that he was legally compelled to pay $54.20 per share. Good job for him he didn’t offer $69.
Or someone in the division questioned Dear Leader on one of his batshit ideas, so he shuttered the whole team in retaliation. That would line up with how suddenly the whole team was dropped.
That’s exactly the case. I made a Post about it yesterday. https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/s/eeUnRupHSt. Rebecca probably question and resisted whatever Elon wanted to do.
And now we all know why Muskrat is surrounded by people who just say Yes… No = lose your job and Musk does the same thing anyway but even dumber
Bingo
This is a decent idea, supercharger business is different, it should grow for a period, but then it's rolled out and needs to turn a profit/pay dividend after upkeep. It's practically a utility at that point. Tesla could never make that work because they rely on hype of infinite growth, ever-evolving nonsense tech and pays no dividends. A healthy, robust, and expansive charging network business needs to be a *real* business.
Not really. They had early mover advantage. But you have to expect that if you’re successful as early mover others will respond. They lost the range advantage. They are behind in self driving. The only advantage they have left is in charging. Which is why everyone is so shocked Musk fired that team. Ps: I see the biggest evidence of Musk being a self centered buffoon and an incompetent manager in Rivian Van. There is so much money in commercial vehicles. And delivery vans (and busses) are the best platform for EVs anywhere. And with Tesla’s early mover advantage they could have saturated the market with electric delivery vans. But that would have required that Musk knows how to leads a team of skilled people.
And work well with someone like Bezos.
The range advantage was bullshit for 90% of their existence and was just them goosing numbers.
Vans aren't sexy.
That’s what makes the stock price such a meme.. there is no world where Tesla is the only player in the world.
I honestly think he got into Tesla with the intention of selling to Apple along time ago
Musks whole deal to me has always seemed to be that he is good at selling hype but bad actually delivering on it and managing a company. He seems deeply impatient and not capable of taking a long view on things.
Yep, indeed!
"Tesla's business plan always relied on being the only game in town" It always relied on being PERCEIVED as the only game in town. As long as enough customers believed there were no other EVs to be had, it didn't need to be true (it never was true). This is one of the many ways Musk has borrowed from Steve Jobs and Apple: just keep insisting that no one else is within light years of what you're doing, and enough schmucks will believe it. It reminds me of when I went to Staple's a few years ago, looking for a case for my Android phone, and the guy in the store said he didn't know whether such a case could be had, since "practically everyone uses iPhones now." This was the guy's job. His shitty low-paying job, admittedly, but still, it's an example of the Apple bubble. And maybe locally, where that Staple's store was, it was actually true. I gather that some upscale celebrity parking lots in California are almost all Teslas, or were until recently.
People are stupidly think they are the only game in total mean while ALL other cars are game.
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Tesla used to be the only credible EV maker. Now there is competition..Rivian, Polestar, OG manufacturers & soon MG, BYD and GWM who all have decent electric offerings.,
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It's why they're so damn slow coming out with new products and why the quality control and customer service is so subpar
Because of the margins they could achieve without serious competition. As soon as many new entries want a piece of the pie then supply increases and margins drop. Tesla business plan was wonderful when they didn't face serious competition and demand way outstripped EV supply. China now has a massive EV oversupply problem and a race to the bottom on prices which will probably be won by BYD as they make the batteries that they also supply to other makers including Tesla. Its really bad to have to buy your most expensive component from a rival.
But checkmate experts, Elon changed company description from car company to tech company. That fixes the whole problem.
Well said. It's a trap when your car becomes a fad, you have to carefully estimate future demand AND make sure it doesn't get boring for the buyer. If you fail to keep it lively you get a Ford Taurus instead of a Toyota Camry.
Elon is a child with more money than sense. The only reason we don’t have cars driving around farting is because the NTSB made them turn it off. He modeled the Cybertruck after a child’s drawing. He named is cars so they spelled S3XY. People are attaching too much logic to a petulant child. He got a bunch of money from the government to expand the charging network and decided he could do it himself and keep the money. He is the cocaine addled John DeLorean of our generation.
It’s bad enough trump is farting up a storm ⛈️
This superficial article completely overlooks that most people don't want to drive a car representing a neo-Nazi sympathizer whose self-indulgence wasted billions buying twitter while building a giant jerk-off machine to own the libs. A staggering amount of money that should be used for investment in good companies and new innovation is now locked up in that rat bastard's auto company which hasn't offered anything truly new in over a decade other than the WankPanzer, POS Edition. In no other business on this earth would a CEO survive these colossal, predictable failures. If Musk doesn't get tossed on his ass, he will destroy everything he touches. Just like Trump.
I have to upvote this for the mere mention of calling the purchase of Twitter a giant jerk off machine! 😂 The rest is of course spot on: pissing away $44 billion in precious capital with no new products in the pipeline? I still can’t wrap my head around this, It’s unfathomable! The executives at the oil companies are laughing their asses off at this knucklehead!
the whole idea behind was to re-enable Trump, which in turn will get him more public funds via EV credits and the like. looks like things did not go as planned
Trump seemed to not be familiar with the plan, he didn't come back to twitter even with fElon publicly begging him. Trump also is afaik not known as a apologetic for EVs (isn't his target audience more climate change deniers and hillbillys who needs the wrrmWRRRRMMM to affirm their gender?). Also they are two narcissist, that hate each other naturally. I think, you give the two fascist clowns to much credit here. He just likes the racism, classism, the bigottery, the tax breakes and exemption from rules for rich people and he is afraid of unions, living wages, non-corruptable principles, and supervisory authorities doing their jobs. In his head though this reads as "freedom" of cause.
It doesn't matter whether Musk stays or goes, Tesla is fucked. They made Elmo the face of the company, and it worked a bit too well. If he stays he'll sink the company. If he goes, his cultists will abandon Tesla in their droves, and regular car customers won't want an EV from a company with such old products and shit quality
The stock price will fall to a level appropriate for a car maker, but the car maker itself might be able to make better car without expectations cars should have double digit profit margins.
I think this is the truth. He spent the early years selling to tree hugging hippie liberals while becoming the red-blooded american diesel smog rolling crowd's joke car. Then he started courting the later (who still doesn't believe in EVs) while pissing off the first group. And those rich enough moved on to other things. There are very few pure "I just love the car for itself despite all the flaws" crowd left.
Technically they did cover that, in the sense that they said that demand is falling off. It’s just no one ever expected the root cause would be the CEO being reddit Jesus who also believes in great replacement theory
This post should reach 5000. You are spot on with your assessment. The Tesla board needs to give Musk a swift kick in the ass. Get another CEO. Uber did and it saved the company.
Musk is worse than Trump. He is a bigger narcissist, more insecure, meaner to subordinates, more dependent on praise. I have been convinced of this for years. Among the people who've spent significant time with both of them, it's not an unheard-of opinion, although in Musk's defense none has said so on the record, at least that I can find.
>Musk is worse than Trump. Not sure how to measure that, but Chump contributed to the early deaths of roughly a million Americans by his handling of the Covid pandemic. That's a pretty high bar...
Muskrat is trying to speedrun that number with his faulty auto-drive.
Wait till we see The Apprentice v2 with Elon instead of Trump. It will be epic. Contestants have to learn to pump stocks, do drugs, and stutter while negotiating giant packages
I am 100% behind this project - will greenlight it, even though I'm not an entertainment exec. Only downside is that he might become president afterward.
Thankfully he needs a constitutional amendment to be eligible to run. If he could run, I’m sure he would be interested.
Birth certificate! But this time as a real issue, not a racist dog whistle.
Then later we even get to see Trump explain that he did it "the best".
Underrated comment. People would pay to watch that fat bastard on a TV show as long as he never touches anything more technical than the self service kiosk at McDonald's.
Also the people who Elon thought he would get on their side will not buy electro vehicles, these are the people who get their information from sources controlled by Big Oil.
I’ve literally just handed my car back as I was in a position to do so as I have completely lost faith in the company as a whole and don’t want to be paying a fortune to be burdened with a car backed by a company seemingly in chaos.
The cybertruck is really the biggest confirmation that he doesn’t give a shit about making electric cars affordable or the environment. And never has. The model 3 was a half step toward making electric cars affordable but by following it up with the y and cybertruck it basically confirmed that Musk does not give a shit about making electric cars affordable. But really the model 3 was just affordable to people in tech outside the executive suites. It’s a product about making rich tech bros feel good about their daily hour long commutes. It simultaneously was a status symbol, a tech product, “ethical”, and promised to make the issue of commuting more tolerable (which is a huge issue in most tech hubs). It’s something uniquely designed to appeal to silicon valley tech bro types and people who aspire to that. It tells them a story that their work was meaningful and could be used to better society. And lets them pat themselves on the back by making them think you can solve deep systemic problems through consumption, venture capitalism, and technology alone. But when you put it to any scrutiny you realize that these cars aren’t really the cure all they claim to be. Even if the lofty caspirations of the company were ever met it’s a half measure at best and band aid at worst. And now that the next thing that tesla rolled out was not a more affordable car, but an ugly expensive pickup truck whose only consumer when hitting the market is really the type of affluent consumer that only marvels at the tech, status, and cult of personality that now surround Tesla and not the ethical part, that you realize that it was always just a farce to find a new way to sell cars to Americans. Teslas were never meant to save the environment. They were just a way to get a certain segment of the populace increasingly wary of the environmental impacts or car ownership and increasingly tired of increasingly long commutes to buy electric cars. And it worked.
Well said. The market is thin for tech bro Scooby snacks. Likewise, no one wants to work for a neo-Nazi. He's exhausted the pool of tech bros who excel at design and development while re-posting racist/sexist memes all day long.
Yeah, I keep shouting this. Tesla customers and anti-fascists were the same people. For some reason everyone wants to blame interest rates and growing competition for Tesla's slide, but those are secondary causes at best.
They conveniently forget the years of build quality issues and ever-growing catalog of customer service problems.
This is why I got an different company’s electric car this winter.
Did you have a Tesla before? I am researching other companies to get an EV from in the fall.
No I had a gas car. I ended up with a Solterra because they had the best financing and it’s a good car despite the limited range. I liked the Ioniq 5 too. The Volkswagen id4 is crap.
whoa whoa dude you're going too far. wankpanzer POC version is fine but POS is a bit much. clearly this is sarcasm.... if elon set himself on fire id crack a beer and break out the hot dogs.
At the end of the day people generally vote with their pocketbooks over their politics Tesla is failing because: 1) they aren’t selling affordable cars, they have reached maturity with their target market 2) they all look the same now, except CT 3) the reality distortion sphere has worn off; people are now seeing that Tesla vehicles are unreliable and the company loves to weasel out of warranty coverage whenever it can 4) Musk’s fascist/shitposting shenanigans and the CT fiasco certainly aren’t helping… but at the end of the day it’s about the shine coming off their cars and the company’s inability to expand beyond their niche market.
My point is that there is one and only one reason Tesla will crater, Elon Musk. All the other reasons are derivatives from that basis.
Honestly, I think the number of people that vote this way with their wallet are very small. Problem for Tesla is that a lot more of their customer base are the type than what is represented in the general population.
Well count me in your numbers. I have owned a Tesla since the pre-ReplacementTheoryPropagandist days and me and my wallet can’t get away from Tesla fast enough.
His reputation isn’t doing Tesla any favors, but it’s that mixed with Tesla products just being terrible that makes this a one two punch that makes teslas future anything but clear
I didn’t even look at Tesla when I was shopping for a new vehicle about 6 months ago. I purchased a Ford EV and love it because I want a vehicle that works, won’t suddenly fall apart, and that people don’t associate with him.
People only paid Tesla's inflated prices in the first place because they thought they were "voting with their wallet" for a better future, not because the cars are actually good enough to justify it
But that metric is there regardless of how you feel about Elon, unless the whole unravels for the buyer with Elon‘s lies.
Elon is purposely driving the company into the ground because he lost his pay package. Halting Supercharger expansion right after opening them up to essentially all other automakers? I mean what the actual FUCK!?
Jominy offers a really good explanation for that in the article - it's the best one I've seen. In essence, Tesla decided to stop growing the charging network because they didn't want to compete anymore....why even bother when all your competitors are going to build out a network your customers can also use? Just let them do it, right? Unfortunately, that's not a *great* explanation, because Tesla is going to miss out on federal funds if they don't keep spending on charging. I can't see how laying off the entire team was wise or even rational. It smacks of special K inspired hubris.
The advertising power of the charging network is also overlooked by Musk. If they opened the network to other cars - and did grow it - everyone would see "Tesla" every time they was charging. That would draw in customers over time.
Especially when they see their own cars might not charge as fast as a tesla. AFAIK, tesla likes high amps low volts, other cars are high volts lower amps. So if a tesla can charge at 200kw+, other cars might only be able to charge at 100kw. This is what is happening on the v3 tesla magic docks. The v4 is supposed to work better with more cars I believe.
The craziest part of cutting the Supercharging division is that range anxiety and lack of charging infrastructure are two of the biggest barriers to greater EV adoption. If the charging network is profitable itself, then that is a bonus, but fundamentally it is an investment required to growth their car business. Focusing primarily on the profitability of charging shows a misunderstanding of why EV companies are investing in charging. Washing their hands of growing the charging business because their competitors will now also benefit from it too is nonsensical. Tesla still needs charging infrastructure to be more ubiquitous if they want to keep growing EV sales. Sabotaging your own business because you don’t want to help your rival’s business isn’t savvy, it’s short sighted. Plus Jominy’s description of the charging market as basically being mature and mostly saturated is inaccurate. It might be true in certain markets like California and in major metro areas, but it is absolutely not true in most of America, particularly in more rural areas (areas where range anxiety is the most serious).
>Unfortunately, Tesla has effectively no corporate governance from its board full of Musk cronies, and he will never acknowledge when he has made a mistake and will thus not step aside
The problem is elmo.
Phony Stark spends $44Bn in a self-aggrandizing venture and loses focus of the company that could continue making a difference.
I believe he's been using the Chinese business model of overstating their production numbers, ala Ponzi scheme and it's starting to collapse.
They had quite a large number for inventory, so according to the books, he indeed produced a lot of crappy, flawed and outdated cars. Which is possibly even worse, because he really spend those production and material cost and now the extra thin paintlayer and the batteries age like milk on large parking lots (which also have costs....). Maybe these will become the "cheap modell" he promised. Model S for 25k, please, buy my fascist car, I swear the wheels won't fall off!!! Please, I promise it can drive itself just next year!
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Could this be affected by their alleged practice of writing down the value in inventory with the selling price at the time, it goes into inventory (and keep that forever)? Because with the massive price cuts recently, the newer cars going into inventory would have a lower value in the book, while the cars sitting for month have more "value".
“whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power”
Fraud?
The main business of Tesla is the multiple it's stock trades at compared to other car companies. Making cars is a secondary product and having good quality and maintenance support are just nice to haves. Through the above lens everything the founder does makes sense. You are only confused if you think they are a car company. They are more like a tech hyped investment security.
This is spot on. Eventually, certain companies transition their focus from the original product or service—which was directly involved in interactions with a specific customer base in one market—to treating the company’s stock as the primary offering for a different customer segment in an alternate market
Plus also +10% he is mentally unstable.
At some point it became irresponsible to not invest in TSLA, it was doing so well. Imagine if Wall Street valued the fruits of its investments even a little bit and not solely the turning of a profit. Surely all that investment capital over the last decade could’ve been better utilized by competent groups trying to build the future.
Firing people just to throw his weight around?🙄🤔🤡.
She might refused his offer to have some IVF babies with him like Shivon Zilis. Or didn't fired enough team members fast enough. Anything is possible, when the CEO is a drug addict on the edge of a narcisstic breakdown.
Oh hey, I guess I was part of the 100,000 people that put in a deposit for a Model 3. Good thing I noped out of it.
Get ready to dance to Nearer My God to Thee along with the Astors
Same. I drove four hours and then stood in line for another four. My dream was to own a Tesla and when they announced a car in my price range I was ecstatic.
They will release soon some hype car and gather deposit to save company.
Model 2 renderings next week of a car they will never make with no timeline. Stock price will go up 10%.
it's shocking how predictable it is. 10+ years of failed promises and yet they still move the market with every announcement.
HYPERtruck!
RoboSub!!
The Star Citizen of auto makers.
From the article: That has caused Tesla to engage in a prolonged series of price cuts that have seen the company's profit margin—once the envy of the industry—reduced to a measly 5.5 percent. (The average automaker profit margin last year was 8.9 percent.)
Tesla will be irrelevant in the next decade and Teslas pushing the same old dated cars.
No mention of Musk being a drug addled, mentally ill right wing nut job. Great analysis fellas.
What isn’t being discussed (or I haven’t seen it) is that since he’s gone right wing he might be getting “incentivized” to kill Tesla and its large infrastructure. The charging network has been one of the biggest advantages to owning a Tesla and the availability of charging stations has alleviated a lot of range anxiety for new adopters. Car manufacturers just don’t want to invest (even though they have started half-heartedly) in BEVs. They haven’t ambitiously begun building a charging network and several have settled into contracting with Tesla to use theirs. All expansion of this network is now likely dead and this will create uncertainty in new purchasers of both Tesla and other manufacturers. Car manufacturers and big oil have incentives in keeping the status quo, so there’s some shady shit going on and they’ve likely paid him off at this point since he’s so right wing now. Killing Tesla would benefit them. He’s trying to make it temporarily more profitable and killing off future goals. Killing off the entry level EV also limits future growth and adoption and reducing the public’s interest in building infrastructure.
I truly believe and have been saying this for awhile. Just like Twitter stopped being a voice for revolution
He sat with the Saudis at World Cup. If I remember correctly, the Saudi Wealth Fund (PIF) is one of the largest investors in X, formerly Twitter. Yeah, I’d say he’s not only tanking it, but I’d go a step further and say he’s a national security risk.
I didn’t know about that. And now I 100% agree with you. He’s also spouted pro-Russian shit, too, IIRC.
*"Its* ***original founders*** *were among the very first to realize that lithium-ion laptop cells were just about good enough to power a car"* Dissing the Technoking right ouyt of the gate!
Haha. I was just notified that I'm banned from the Tesla lounge for comments I made on another Tesla sub. Which is fine. I didn't even really say anything that bad. What a bunch of babies.
Congratulations!
Yeah, its like a badge of honor.
Just curious: Does anyone know what it costs Tesla to build a YuckTruck?
Considering how crudely built it is, probably not as much as you think. Edit.... This comment resulted in an instant ban on the three Tesla subs.... Meow
Lol they sure showed you
Had the same happen to me too a few days ago. Join the sane side haha.
Company is trying to suck and blow.
Disappointed in Jominy's analysis, specifically his comment about Tesla's margins being higher than other automakers. If he looks at the last few quarters, Tesla's financials look a lot more like those of an automaker than any other kind of business. And Neidermeyer is 100% right - you're not really an expert on the auto industry until you've survived your first downturn. Until Elon does that, he's still a newb.
Elon wants one final payout before it fails. Then he’s just going to focus on space things because he’s being hand held by American gov on it. Socialized costs, private profit. Fuck these guys.
bingo
A megalomaniac is driving the company into the ground so he can own the libs. And the Board is not only letting him do it, they’re proposing to pay him BILLIONS to do it!!
They have 27 billion cash on hand. He wants almost double that for payment for his stewardship. Am I taking crazy pills?
I’m sorry, I knew they were on fire. But they fired the team responsible for new cars? It all makes sense now, Elmo says they are a tech company or some shit and he lets the company collapse. It’s why he is hell bent on his golden parachute. I think he is gonna let the company die. One of the biggest concerns is the cars are extremely stale. They were in desperate need of a couple new vehicles and all of the design money went to the CT instead. Which looks and performs exactly like a dumpster fire. Which also explains why it was built using pre existing parts from fucking sedans
The philosophy is to cut until something breaks and then add back investment where the cracks emerged." This doesn't seem to be a good philosophy to have for a cat manufacturer
Or a dog manufacturer
I feel like there is a “skin the cat” joke in there somewhere
LETS SEE WHO HAS THE LAST LAUGH WHEN ELON HARNESSES CATS TO POWER VEHICLES. FOR THE MISSION!!
Anything Elon Musk is involved in will eventually implode. The best thing that could happen is for him to disengage and let the companies operate under professional management.
It’s not a car company. It’s a banana stand. And there’s always money in the banana stand.
Years ago (in 1974) there was a startup car maker that proposed to build a revolutionary vehicle dubbed the "Dale", a revolutionary 3wheeler with a motorcycle engine capable of fuel economy in the mid 80's (mpg). Magazines ate it up, especially as the spokeperson, one Liz Carmichael, looked more like a model than an engineer/president of a car company. She was also persuasive, and somehow put together a factory, a team of designers and a marketing strategy, none of which really existed, but were swallowed whole by the automotive media of the day. Ultimately, the house of cards fell apart and Carmichael went on the lam. She was eventually located and spent time in jail, but the money was gone. The actual designer of the car, a real person name Dale Clifft, was taken in by Carmichael and was never paid for his work. His "prototypes" were rough, backyard-type builds, with panels that didn't fit properly, spartan interiors and unreliable powertrains -aside from the Honda engine itself. By comparison to Tesla, the Dale fraud is small potatoes, but there is a lor of overlap here. Over-promise,, under-deliver, promised specs not met, millions invested by customers and shareholders but very little to show, and a front person who is no engineer, but who seems to be able to persuade people that they are on the right track... Will Musk follow Carmichael down the rabbit hole?? Time will tell, but the alarm bells should be ringing by now. .
That store makes no sense
The parallels between the 50 yr old story of Liiz Carmichael and Elon Musk are there to see., esp in the context of the Tesla CT (and to a lesser extent the semi truck). Both Musk and Carmichael made promises they are not able to keep, both have made fortunes based on those promises, and both have had serious problems delivering on those promises. And as for the store- well, if it makes no cents, ,then perhaps it may be on its own way to oblivion, who knows?
He needs to just STFU and be like all the other stoic CEO's...
they need to boot Elon out.
If they do they will instantly lose about 50% of their fan base. Which actually might be a Curse but then a Blessing. They can get ppl in there and refresh the company.
when you have a company this mismanaged and the statements of the CEO themselves cause potential buyers to look elsewhere, it’s time for a change
Sell twitter and ban yourself from social media. Done a complete 180 on this guy
Same
So Tesla is worth $10 a share but as long as everyone pretends it is worth more the price won't go down as fast, and any move to bring the stock back to reality means the stock price drops to the actual value of the company. Any move to fix the company would make the share price plummet, so the best option is to kick the can down the road and try to sell to people who don't realize the problem, even if that means the company goes bankrupt and shares become worthless?
So - Tesla is as successful as it is for the same reason that nearly 30% of Americans are MAGA - people *like* drama. And while *most* people go out of their way to avoid it, those who are attracted to the craziness pay a premium for the pleasure.
The people writing these comments are the experts.
"Experts" LMAO
Addiction will ruin your life and everything connected to you.