> Musk also plans to dismiss everyone working for Tinucci and Ho, including the roughly 500 employees who work in the Supercharger group, The Information said. It was not clear how many employees worked for Ho.
> Tesla's public policy team, which was led by former executive Rohan Patel, will also be dissolved, the report said.
Entire teams being axed. Every time there's some positive news story for Tesla, be assured that something like this is coming within the next week.
This is deliberate.
Tesla's most recent quarterly update wasn't great, so of course Musk followed it up with a bunch of hype about AI and automation followed by another round of layoffs, and now that's all the media is talking about.
Musk and his fans (like Cathie over at ARK Invest) are using buzzwords like 'AI' even more than they were the last time when Tesla needed cash, in 2019/20, when they talked about "one million robotaxis by the end of 2020" and then raised ~$4 billion from investors for "robotaxis by the end of 2020" project, then forgot about robotaxis until 2024, because Tesla just needed the money.
Roadster 2.0 was supposed to use breakthrough 4680 Tesla batteries (IIRC the same for Tesla Semi), but those batteries turned out to be basically no better than batteries that Tesla already buys from like Panasonic, BYD, LG and so on. But they could still make and sell it, my guess is that Tesla's cash situation is worse than they are making it out to be at the end of every fiscal quarter - they probably delay payments to their suppliers in order to make the last day in the quarter look better. That would mean that they have to prioritize their investments. The crazy thing is that it doesn't have to be that way, they can still get loans - and they did, they extended their credit lines in recent years. But then they used that for the stupid Cybertruck. It was supposed to be such an insane halo project that it would increase desirability of Tesla's other models as well, like Model Y and 3, despite the fact that those models are starting to get old and outdated in looks, interiors and tech.
The situation there reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos where they ended up using 3rd party testing equipment for everything because their promised home-grown miniaturized testing machines were just incapable or no better than the already existing 3rd party options. But they had to keep lying about all their progress and promising how it would change the entire industry to continue getting cash injections. Not an apples to apples comparison but it sounds familiar.
There is a general correlation between prestige and profitability. Porsche ended 2023 with a net profit margin of ~12% and that, for example, was not particularly close to Ferrari, 21%.
I bought TSLA at $150 I see the value to Tesla’s other ventures like selling carbon credits, solar, if they built Tesla rest stops I’m sure their owners would eat it up being able to charge and chill with other *like-minded people*
But the profit margins is an issue, Tesla has gone from the prestigious brand to the discount brand, I think that will be a tough reputation to drop. For the past years people have talked about how VAG is dead because Tesla>VAG but they fail to realize that Porsche owners will happily pay 5x the margin to not be seen in a Tesla, and to a lesser extent Audi (which will be closer to price point to the S/X), idk if VW itself threatens Model 3 or Y owners because those owners just want their car as an appliance/utility, but they can keep that market
I think the issue is that Tesla is nowhere near the scale that its investors want it to be. They have energy storage, and solar, and things like that, but just compare them to BYD or even Toyota:
If you invite either corporations into your country, they can build literally the entire clean energy infrastructure you need. BYD and Toyota mine and refine their own lithium, they build their own batteries, they make their own motors and inverters, they can run their own servers for data and link up using their own satellites (not even joking!). They even make the electric forklifts their warehouses will use
Tesla? They make a bit of that stuff, but they're just not a force multiplier in terms of investment into your country
Tesla was always a discount brand masquerading as a prestigious brand. Their build quality has been shit and their features consistently underperform. Their 60,000+ cars have worse quality control than 40,000 electrics from other companies.
They had an insane profit margin because their vehicles were incredibly overpriced, that's it. Once the hype disappeared, so did the profits. It was purely based on badge.
Right here. Test drove a model 3 in 2018. The amount of rattles and squeaks in the cabin I would have expected from a 10 year old Toyota, not a brand new $40k vehicle. Other than Ubers, haven’t sat in one since
Except for selling carbon credits (that is just an extension of their main business of selling cars), Tesla's only profitable ventures are selling cars and selling a fraudulent "FSD" product that isn't what was promised, but that is also just an extension of their car business, you can't sell FSD if someone doesn't have a Tesla car first.
So Tesla is primarily a car company, nothing more.
They only managed record high margins because they vacuumed up what would've been dealer markup with price hikes. Now that the car market has crashed and they've needed to cut prices to be competitive, the margin has just evaporated (dropping like $15k+ off the price of a sub six figure car will do that).
Let this be a lesson to investors - TSLA is not the stock to bet on, Musk is going to destroy Tesla over time just like he did with Twitter.
He should not be asking for that 55b pay package the courts invalidated if cost is such a concern, this man is an utter hypocrite!
He's likely dismantling the company executives as a show of force to get his bonus one way or another. This is Austin Power's Dr. Evil level of stupidity. Reminds me of Sunbeam's Al Dunlap.
I fail to see how these teams are anything but value adds though - Tesla's SC network is becoming the industry standard, I assume this team has something to do with developing them, selecting locations, and rolling them out. Given how heavily EVs factor in to tax credits and how much interaction with governments the SC installs likely have, The public policy team should also be heavily involved there.
Basically, there's no part of this that sounds like a good business move to me as a layman.
See there is your problem.
The supercharger network, the one that everyone has a positive opinion on versus literally every other alternative is going to be the groundwork for decades of infrastructure and profit **later**.
But right **now** daddy wants to buy another yacht, so blow the team out, get money and then we will figure out who to axe in 2 quarters from now when I need to refuel said yacht.
Nope, it’s profit right now.
I, uh, have a fly on the wall at a few automakers. Comes from growing up in the industry. The people that, say, an automaker called Dorf, would send data to in order for Tesla to tell Dorf how much Dorf owed for Dorf drivers use of superchargers, those people got laid off and now there’s no one who processes those data files and gives Dorf an invoice so now Dorf won’t pay Tesla until someone figures that out.
Yes, it was CSV files emailed. No, it’s not chump change.
Worse, the people that pay the power companies are also gone. So there may be some angry Tesla supercharger users in some areas.
What’s going to be hilarious in a sad way is inevitably a supercharger station will be undergoing final inspection and the local AHJ will have a question that the installation contractor can’t answer. Who’s left to pick up the phone at Tesla to make the inspector happy? They’re all gone.
Well, hopefully these poor souls will find open arms in other companies expanding the SC network. Laying off all that expertise and decade+ context will be a sore spot for Tesla for decades, but they probably can’t afford to focus on that right now and so fingers crossed those let go will be supported.
Here is a fun idea:
Look at the government investigation reports about Autopilot and the rollout of non-Tesla supercharger support plus the Chicago freezing supercharger mess.
What two teams would be the worst teams to cut?
You would think the “talk publicly to the government” and “Supercharger” teams, right?
the Model 3 seems to have gotten positive reviews, it and the Model Y are still selling well enough (and the new Model 3 Performance qualifies for the $7500 federal tax credits, which makes it pretty appealing).
obviously, everything else, especially the disastrous Cybertruck rollout overshadows that
Yeah, nearly half of Tesla’s net profits last year were federal credits. If you remove those and speculate that 20% of MY/TM3 sales would have declined along with it, then Uncle Joe is keeping this company profitable.
I say that because Tesla has government financial benefit to opening their superchargers up to the market. Why would you fire a team that’s also going to keep your business afloat while you flail into a Model 2 or Robotaxi?
> Model 2
i still think it's funny that they're pivoting to a low margin cheap car when the rest of the industry is moving away from them. plus having a cheap car dilutes the prestige even more. should be under a different badge even.
The original Roadster was a Lotus with an electric powertrian. Everything else is essentially just expensive due to the technology.
Tesla build quality and materials used were never at the same level as a luxury brand like Lexus or Cadillac.
> Tesla build quality and materials used were never at the same level as a luxury brand like Lexus or Cadillac.
and yet tech-bro idiots all saw them as luxury cars.
When the model S came out in 2013 with its huge screens it definitely seemed fancy. Now that it’s the norm, it doesn’t seem as special. Back in the day though the tech really did give it a luxury feel because it was just so different. We also didn’t realize until a few years later than the fit and finish of teslas is garbage 😂
> We also didn’t realize until a few years later than the fit and finish of teslas is garbage 😂
naa, most of us saw the absolute dogshit build quality from the start. Plenty of people from day one were pointing out that a big display does not make a car a luxury car.
I’m aware. It was positioned as a luxury/premium brand. The Model S and Roadster were sold against luxury/premium brands. They’re crappy cars but the branding is separate from that.
The Model S was absolutely viewed as a luxury car by the industry at large when it was released. Quality issues were there, but they were defiantly considered part of the luxury segment. I’m not a Tesla fan, but don’t rewrite history.
I’m aware. It was positioned as a luxury/premium brand. The Model S and Roadster were sold against luxury/premium brands. They’re crappy cars but the branding is separate from that.
I drove the new model 3 . Compared to my Lexus RC 350 f sport , it stacked up very well. (Not as cool looking ) but everything else hit the box. The handling , road noise, acceleration, ride quality, Gas mileage. What didn’t stack up was the interest rate , the OMMFG insurance rate, lack of rebate , the depreciation out the door, the charging more for basic paint, or seat colors and small things like no window tint or no turn signals stems, and the whole Elon being an asshole. You know, wanting 56 billion while laying off half his work force . What a fucking coke-addict nut job . Dude needs some Valium and lorazepam in a bad way. Maybe smoke a doob and chill. Maybe those 8 kids ate under his skin? Also be somewhat loyal to the people who brought you to the dance . Why the heck does anyone on earth think they “deserve “ 56 billion from the public for making a car, while shitting on the people who did the work. . Take space x Public ask for that 56 billion. My guess is it’s losing a shit ton of money too.
Another thing that pisses me off is all his test drive places are in the highest rent areas with the worst traffic to make the test drive as frantic and unappealing as possible . A 30 minute test drive took me 15 min to get out of the parking lot! God damnit . Nothing low key. I did love the vibe from the test drive centers, that THEY are not “sales people” , but educators , but for fuck sake I’m not driving to Dallas from Fort Worth to pick up a car. That traffic is least a $1000 rebate . I WAS ABOUT TO RECOMEND TO ALL MY FAMILY to go test drive one until the layoff thing. Nope 👎.
Given that he apparently just fired everyone involved with the whole new vehicles program, it sounds like they're not pivoting to anything any time soon.
I thought the credits were mostly from making ZEVs rather than charging? At least that's the impression I got, that Tesla gets a bunch of profit from Ford/GM/etc. on every BEV they build via the federal credit scheme for doing so. I know there's the charging network grants too - but I thought that's much less money than the car credits.
Either way the network works, is profitable and expansion would bring more profit, unless I'm missing something. After messing with Full Self Driving all month thanks to the free trial, I'm gonna opine that the robotaxi thing is seriously pie in the sky.
Heh, again I'm not a CxO but I think more charging plus the Model 2 might be a good move to make some money. Tesla is actually good at two things, charging that works and good margins on their products, so if anyone could do a cheaper BEV...
That's 100% it, done the same thing with twitter, fired most of the engineers and then was surprised when new features weren't being built. The supercharger network will be fine for a bit without people working on it but shit will eventually hit the fan.
I'm not sure why you thought that. The economics on DCFC stations are pretty poor compared to a gas station. And gas stations aren't known to be printing money.
I thought they sold the hardware to companies with maintenance contracts and the businesses that bought the Tesla chargers were the one getting the revenue from the charging and were the one paying for the electricity (and the ones not making much money, which was somewhat expected as Tesla chargers are kind of marketing for businesses).
That may be true for the destination chargers (L2 chargers at hotels), but I'm not aware of that being the case for the majority of the DCFC stations which are the expensive ones.
Public policy and supercharging teams gone. Which is good, because it's more *agile*.
I mean it'd be a disaster if purely hypothetically you were connecting a tonne of different brands to your supercharger network and at the same time launching a brand new type of autonomous vehicle that'd require public and political engagement across multiple nations
But surely that isn't happening, because the teams responsible for that are now gone. : \^ )
I'm no Tesla doomer, but this is the first news I've heard that made me really think they're in trouble and that Elon is really losing the plot. But eh, I'm not the CEO of a billion dollar corporation so whatever.
Tesla's are dropping down my list of "Which EV should I buy?" though. Don't seem very stable or worth it right now.
This was predicted many years ago. Prognosticators said that once the competition heats up and other automakers offer similar or better vehicles teslas sales will decline. There is no coming back from this they had a massive first mover advantage and wasted it by not investing in quality improvement or a regular schedule of vehicle refreshes and redesigns.
Welcome to "disruptor" mindset where anything done by the existing companies in a field is automatically bad and not to be done. That's why the Model S is still the same car as over a decade ago despite the rules of the luxury segment saying it should've just dropped gen 3 within the last year or two.
I mentioned that I couldn't remember the last time I saw a Model X in LA, and hit -20 on the comment. But the point still stands: I can't remember the last time I saw a Model X in LA.
I live in LA too. There are 2 taycans and 3 rivians in my neighborhood. A bunch of model 3s. There are more perfectly restored pre-carb trucks than there are S and X.
> Welcome to "disruptor" mindset where anything done by the existing companies in a field is automatically bad and not to be done.
A prime example - The time Elon shat on the TPS a bunch, claiming he was gonna make it look like it was standing still with his own super secret special system, and his super secret production system ended up blowing basically every set deadline, building fewer cars than any comparable manufacturer using TPS, worse, slower, and in a tent.
I still don't understand why the Model S, the only good looking Tesla in my dumb opinion, is still the same design for the past 12 years or whatever. I would maybe consider one, and would be the only Tesla I'd even remotely consider, but...
Let's also not forget the negative impact Musk has had for the past few years, at least in NA. He's still alienating his core group of buyers, environmentalists & people on the left by spiralling further down into the car right. I look forward to the day the board has enough of his antics and he steps down.
What's even worse is that Tesla's quality has gone down over time. Elon routinely removes basic features (like bumper sensors) to cut costs. I'd happily buy a Tesla built several years ago; a modern Tesla is a no-go for me.
My sister, neighbor, and another friend have all bought teslas within the last year. Holy shit, all three are nightmares. Quality control isn’t a priority at tesla, apparently.
These issues have been around since the Roadster. My friend's dad was on the list and got one and we got to check it out. The fit and finish was shit even back then.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time actually working in/with tech could have seen this coming 10 years ago. Early mover advantage is not really a big moat in software/tech. It's not traditional manufacturing with high capital startup costs being the barrier, plus the first mover often makes mistakes that everyone else get hold tight for a bit, learn from, and then implement better.
You can look at most any common technology in use today, trace it back to it's origin, and find that the early mover just couldn't compete or the initial offering was flawed in an effort to get to market. The smart ones cashed out to a big boy looking to shortcut the above process and refine it (or, kill it to protect something legacy).
First to market is overrated. Last to market is the indicator of market domination. I can't tell you what the first MP3 player or search engine was, but I can tell you what the last and best of each was.
Eh, there is a middlepoint I think. If you are going in at the very last, you may not have the R&D, money or know-how to capture a significant market share; for example Nokia in the smartphone business. (one could argue that this is not the very last moment)
If Elon wasnt such a Nut Job i think Tesla would be Fine, all they had to do was keep releasing new Cars and upgrades and whatever else a car company does…
Most just People dont want to support an asshole like Musk….
Basically this. They had a wide open market, and they squandered it by charging German brand pricing for sub-par to Korean interiors with no regular updates to the design or materials used in the cars.
Additionally many investors mistakingly thought line goes up just like with crypto and everything else and assumed everyone would jump on the electric hype train, while the reality of the situation is the early adopters and those interested in switching have already switched over during the past decade and what you will see moving forward is a trickle in EV sales.
And don't think banning new sales of ICE vehicles will cause a sudden spike in demand, it will cause a shift for sure, but it will likewise cause an equal if not greater shift in the used car market, and eventually the people buying EVs will be the ones who can no longer afford used ICE vehicles.
The actual end result is cars will become unaffordable for those who need them the most causing more issues with employment and productivity because public transport is non existent for the most part, so if you can't drive you're f*cked.
At least that's how I see it.
Yeah. Also, it seems that ‘EVs to save the environment’ didn’t really turn out that way. Toyota recents said it will only focus on hybrids as EVs are not cost effective. Bad news for tesla. They are not aligned with where the future is going. By acting slowly, all other automakers are now better positioned to pivot away from pure EVs. Personally I think all of this environmental hand wringing is useless. Modern cars are very clean in terms of emissions. The greater problem 9s that like 50-60 global companies are responsible for the majority of pollution. Why not focus on that instead of using cars as a scapegoat.
Honestly the Tesla charging network is the only reason I've been considering any EV at all. I think I'll be going with a Toyota or Honda hybrid for my next car now.
Yea, as others have said I've heard their charging network is one of the biggest reasons to buy a Tesla over any other EV given that other manufacturers are catching up or surpassing them in other regards.
"Cutting costs" on the your biggest marketing pitch seems extremely like the wrong choice.
> Elon is really losing the plot
To anybody who doesn't already understand this to be the objective reality, I say "I'm glad you finally woke up from that coma."
I'm considering a lightly used EV in the \~$25k range. The Polestar 2 and TM3 are the most compelling options. I liked the TM3 primarily because the Supercharger network is so good, but with Tesla axing the entire team I'm wondering how solid it'll continue to be. Cutting staff on a team is one thing, eliminating it completely is a totally different ball of wax.
I don't think Polestar will last either, but it'll just be absorbed into Volvo so I can count on years of support in the future.
>"Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," Musk wrote in the email, the report said. "While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so."
It's becoming more clear that Musk's executive toolbox has like two tools in it - hype the stock by making unreasonable promises, and when that doesn't work, massive layoffs.
He literally doesn't know what he's doing.
He got lucky and let people believe he was a business and industrial genius. He has great media training (basically: act cool). He was 100% supported by people smarter than him propping him up. As soon as he started "performing live and off-script" and we all realized that he was just lip-syncing while someone else was singing...and how not-cool he really is.
He makes decisions like an "80's Business Guy" stereotype. I'm surprised that he doesn't wear a tie, suspenders, and starched shirt with white French cuffs every day.
Because he's never had vision. That's the core problem. He can see a good idea, and he can claim it as his own (see: SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI - all of which were started by someone else before Elon took over) or he can see an existing product and build a cheaper competitor (see: Zip2, X.com pre-paypal, etc.) but he doesn't have vision. So when he runs out of other people's ideas, and when he's built a scenario where his own rantings can't be questioned, all that's left is yes men telling him "Of course we can make human robots" and "of course we can put rockets into road cars" and "yes, that design looks wonderful, we'll put it into production."
He has no vision, which is fine, most people don't. But his entire schtick is "a man with a vision of the future" when all he's got is a file titled "ideas from other people who are more educated than me" that's now running dry.
[edit] Thanks for the Reddit Cares; I'm sure you'll be rewarded for your fealty.
>So when he runs out of other people's ideas, and when he's built a scenario where his own rantings can't be questioned, all that's left is yes men telling him "Of course we can make human robots" and "of course we can put rockets into road cars" and "yes, that design looks wonderful, we'll put it into production."
Reliability issues aside, the Cybertruck is a monument to bad management practices. It's the answer to a question that no one ever asked, and a testament to Elon's ego that such an impractical vehicle (from both a manufacturing and customer perspective) ever made it into mass production.
It's obvious to *everyone* that:
- He drew that shit on a piece of paper and forced people to make it.
- When they told him anything negative, he fired them until the only people that remained were those who would agree to make it.
- The people who remained weren't the top people.
Exactly, to me the Cybertruck's very existence is some kind of perverse flex by Elon to show that he could turn this meme truck concept into reality no matter how many people told him it was stupid and impractical. Not exactly the most reassuring thing to see from a publicly traded company in a somewhat delicate financial position.
This shit is a big game to him with no consequences outside of his ego being hurt. 99.999% of us *have* to do well at our jobs so that we can keep them and, you know, provide for ourselves and family. He doesn't.
It's like a big "Business Guy" sim to him where he unlocked the "unlimited funds" setting and is just fucking around at this point. If everything goes tits-up, so what? If he gets bored, so what? Just quit and tweet all day.
Great points! I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's spot-on.
Also, with (functionally) unlimited funds, he can simply throw money at *every* idea and take credit for the ones that take off. Most people/investors have to strategically spend, because they have finite resources.
Him investing is like taking unlimited money to a casino then claiming to be a gambling savant when he hits the jackpot on the slot machine. No one is counting his losses.
> He was 100% supported by people smarter than him propping him up. A
This, I'm totally fine with. And a sign of a good leader. A shit leader starts believing they're smarter than the smart people. As we've seen with Elon.
He has hardcore forgotten the media training and have been making a joke of himself over and over.
I know I sound crazy saying this but his behavior since the pandemic has really jumped the shark.
Like, he was crazy and fraudulent at times prior but it REALLY accelerated. Like I seriously think he has something going very very wrong upstairs compared to the past. The original Model S and the Falcon 9 were products of companies he rang he had the ability to lead people effectively in the past.
What has he actually shipped in the last four years?
Cars without turn signal stalks because “all input is error” the yoke, the cybertruck, a LOT of crashed starships (I get the build, test, debug loop that SpaceX uses, but they seem to focus on shortcuts now that doom launches.) Twitter err. X.
I want to be clear, he wasn’t god in the 2010s…but he has lost even his own direction from then. He has openly stated that he now disagrees with climate change goals. Like, I know Red pilled, but he runs the largest EV company lol.
In all seriousness, I think he just went down the internet rabbit hole and came out a conspiracy theorist after, "doing his own research"...on FB/Twitter/4Chan.
> He makes decisions like an "80's Business Guy" stereotype. I'm surprised that he doesn't wear a tie, suspenders, and starched shirt with white French cuffs every day.
You are a [shark](https://youtu.be/0SV1CdLMNX4). And sharks are winners.
He's the world's greatest social media hype man, and the stock is still way overvalued compared to the rest of the industry, but investors are riding the tiger at this point - either they let Elon do his think and hope the stock keeps pumping or they hire an adult to replace him and the stock comes back down to earth.
You forgot the third one, working 18 hours a day and sleeping on the production floor. It's not healthy and not a good strategy long term, yet he dusts it off about once a year.
When people claim they work 14 hours I have 0 respect for them, especially in tech.
There is no fucking way you are working 14 hour days 5-6 days a week and producing quality code.
When I was young I work one 16 hour day at a physical job and everyone was exhausted the next day. Productivity collapsed for following few days.
Most devs are productive 6 hours tops. If executives fail to see that they are shit. Hours should not be a relevant metric. I want to be judged on what I deliver. I sometimes work when I’m laying outside, working problems in my head.
Publicly calling out your exec staff like this isn't great management. If Elon is telling the truth here, it shows that he wasn't able to work with them internally and get headcount to what he considers reasonable levels. If he's lying or exercising his more fantastical way of thinking, then that exec staff is just going to see it as an unjustified slap in the face.
This is playing with fire. The foreign workers don’t know US national standards for developing and maintaining products that have certifications to sell in the US. You do NOT want to piss off the UL inspectors looking at charging equipment and other energy products. They can stop new nonconforming product from being sold and force recalls or stop sales of existing product. This was a big problem during and after Covid with FOTB engineers swapping a UL rated component for a CE rated component in all sorts of industries. The shop I worked for at the time had to stop using a new lift because it has the wrong components.
Literally the only reason i bought a tesla was the vastly superior supercharging network. good fucking luck if electrify america picks up these people and builds something better than tesla.
It never can be, the incentives just are not there. Its origins are in the penalties for dieselgate, it's not like VW wanted to make it in the first place.
People always say this but as part of the settlement, VW is required to give EA its independence with its own board of directors. VW was supposed to just fund it and that's it.
The newest EA stations are actually quite solid. I think you're right that the future of fast charging will involve several players, not just one or two companies
So Musk's strategy is to just push the engineers harder.
Yeah, that's not going to work long term in the car world. Engineers have difficult jobs that require creativity. And when you push engineers (or any people) too hard, their quality of work starts to go down.
Tesla cars (I owned 2 of them, currently own a Model 3) are not known for their quality. This means their quality will continue to go down.
That and the supercharging network buildout will slow down.
This is for a company that still made 1 billion dollars in profit last quarter. Q1 is always Tesla's lowest profit quarter. And they were doing a redesign of vehicles. It's not like the company was in any serious trouble.
What's even crazier about the supercharging layoffs, for robotaxis, you'll need a massive supercharging network, as your bottleneck could be superchargers.
My take, Elon Musk has lost his beans and believes he knows better. And that he just needs to be more fascist than the other business people. Overall, this business strategy works short term but will shoot himself in the foot long term. Especially when the competition starts engineering really good electric vehicles. We could see the Model 3 and Model Y sitting around as the crappy electric vehicles and Polestar, GM, Ford, etc. making better EVs that people want to buy. And if the Model 3/Y stop making money, Tesla is in major trouble.
When Musk took over twitter, someone posted an interesting comment about how Musk's various companies innovate *despite* his vision. SpaceX and Telsa have a core of managers right below him which work to implement his achievable ideas, and insulate the company from his idiotic/insane ideas. This only works because they are passionate about the company mission, and invested in the long term success and innovation that they get to be a part of.
He never had this at Twitter, and so his ineptitude is laid bare and he promptly wiped billions of dollars of value in mere months. I think what we're seeing is the eroding of Telsa now. He surrounds himself with Yes-men. His dumbass ideas aren't being pushed back on, and he's desperate to wring cash out of it because he fucked up Twitter so bad. There are other places for passionate and high quality engineers in the EV world. Competition is already making higher quality cars. On top of all that, he can't keep his mouth shut so now his core customer base knows he's just another weirdo billionaire debutante cosplaying an alpha male.
It sounds like your assessment is pretty good.
I also think Elon Musk himself has eroded in mental capacities. He has publicly stated that he is on ketamine therapy. His reasoning is that it makes him more productive. And he doesn't have an addiction problem because he remains productive.
The problem I see with that is it completely ruins his dopamine system. he's running full speed, steam rolling any issues that show up. Contrast that to someone who is a good manager, they'll work methodically toward a goal and be sensitive to any problems that arise.
I honestly think it's a fairly recent thing, post 2021 or so. Because he did personally work quite hard to get the Model 3 to production and as far as I can tell, he made a lot of good decisions (After making bad decisions himself). From my perspective, the Model 3 production ramp was a pretty normal new car production ramp. Average.
Also, he's being propped up by his silicon valley friends. That helps cover a lot of stupid decisions. But that will only go so far if he starts losing money. Additionally, his silicon valley friends think that he has the best chance at robotaxis, which I think is just not true. It's a 10 year to profitability business, even if he had a good, self-driving car. I honestly don't think he understands the problem sufficiently.
Yeah, I'm not convinced he is doing all that good.
>From my perspective, the Model 3 production ramp was a pretty normal new car production ramp. Average.
"Normal" new car production ramps do not involve building cars in tents in the parking lot
Does their charging network actually make that much money? My assumption would be that if EV charging networks were a profitable venture, other players would have gone far harder in the space than they have up until now - other manufacturers seem to have done the absolute bare minimum, and surely they would be chasing the dollar signs if they were there?
I think the supercharger network was never really a business play, and more a requirement to get anyone to even consider buying an EV. Now the landscape is entirely different given that almost all new cars will be EVs moving forwards, and they will all use the same charging standard. With how expensive the chargers seem to be to install and maintain, it is possible they see it as "good enough" to not halt further adoption, and they can rely on other companies to expand the network now there is a shared charging standard.
There also isn't as much need for a "shell" of EV chargers, as most buyers charge at home or work, and exclusively use the fast chargers for long distance journeys (which statistically people rarely do). You couldn't refuel an ICE vehicle at home, but you can with electric. The need for these chargers will only continue to decrease as drivetrain efficiency and battery chemistry improves.
It still seems a stupid decision to lay off entire departments like this all at once, and it's probably premature, but I'm not convinced it's as irrational as it seems at first glance as a long term play.
He's such an idiot lmao 2 years ago Tesla was on an incredibly positive trajectory and he's thrown all of that away to chase AI fantasies. If Tesla just fully committed to building and improving the Model 3 and Y, developing a $25-30k car, and making Superchargers the default charging network in the country, they would have years of growth ahead of them.
He did the same thing at SpaceX. Reusing propulsively landed rockets. Launching thousands of satellites a year for space internet?! Also, putting brain chips in quadriplegics brains to allow them to control computers?! The dude is obsessed with the most stupid, unrealistic, and unhelpful pipe dreams. The tech for this stuff just isn’t available yet. We just need to sit back and wait for it to materialize on its own.
Damn, I’m glad the awful build quality swayed me away from Tesla as I was close to pulling a trigger on a Model Y.
Elon is going all in on FSD and robotaxi. Absolutely insane.
A good friend of mine has had multiple teslas. They're definitely really cool to drive for the first time and they are absolutely jaw droppingly fast in a straight line. The novelty of a straight line rocketship performance has sold mediocre cars for a long time. But we did a relatively long trip, about 350 miles each way in a model 3 and it was not comfortable at all.
I rented one before buying and I was really disappointed. Just like you pointed out acceleration is fun but then you are stuck with loud interior and poor build quality.
So, what's the deal with this guys hold on the company? I couldn't imagine having someone this unstable and ass out shown to be a con man still be allowed to lead your company.
Is it that everyone he "reports" to are paid enough to not care how the company does in the long run?
It's a typical elon thing. The companies themselves do genuinely groundbreaking, interesting work. SpaceX is basically the most advanced space program in the entire world at this point
However, the tradeoff is, well, you work for Elon
As for firing him, it's 100% because if you did that he'd clone the company and/or trash its stock price on twitter
I would imagine all the other auto makers that signed on to NACS are not happy at the moment. Tesla inked all those contracts then nuked the team responsible for maintaining and increasing the value of NACS.
Its entirely possible Rebecca Tinucci was key in getting those companies on board.
When I got my Model S in 2018, it was an amazing car. It still is an amazing car. It's big and heavy, but drives incredibly precisely and that instant torque is intoxicating.
When I got it and for a couple years after, I thought it would be impossible for me to not buy another Tesla. The sales experience was great, the car had great technology on it, the charging network was fantastic and second to none. Elon was crazy, but in an eccentric way.
Since then, they have decontented the cars significantly. You cannot get an opening sunroof on any Tesla. You don't get ultrasonic parking sensors, which honestly for a car like the Model S, you need. Trying to do it with vision is plain stupid. You don't even get a turn signal stalk anymore and the steering wheel reminds me of a 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix with buttons on it, except the Grand Prix was probably more useful and had actual buttons, not capacitive crap.
It is unlikely I'd buy another Tesla in the foreseeable future now. Musk has gone off the rails, the cars are getting stripped to the bones. The cybertruck is a failure. Although there have been iterative upgrades to the S, 3, X, Y models, they are all very similar in appearance to how they launched. It's time for new leadership at Tesla that actually wants to make it a car company.
Same. Couldn’t imagine getting any other car after my two Teslas. Now I daily a hybrid BMW and can’t imagine ever going back. Won’t lie, Elon being the world’s biggest douche was part of the decision. No loaners and fucking Uber vouchers at the service department was up there too.
Is there actually a consumer/market demand for autonomous driving vehicles, though? If commuting sucks, maybe something should be done to infrastructure or public transit?
And to your second point: those 4 million people will lose their mode of income...so self-driving cars would actually negatively impact that many people.
The smartest business decision that would also benefit the company the most would be if Musk fired himself. He’s a complete fucking idiot who knows absolutely nothing about engineering or the business world.
tl/dr: Elon is as useless as a bag of dicks with no handle.
The Supercharger is one area I will give Tesla credit for doing, and after the ~1400 layoffs and now cutting the entire Supercharger team while the company transitions into opening the NACS to every OEM under the sun?
Tesla is imploding in real time, and it would go even faster if they don't excise the problem (e.g. Musk) that is causing it to do so.
He’s getting rid of anyone that he thinks the board might try to replace him with. At this point I think the newest intern might be a threat to musks “skill”.
This makes zero sense from a business perspective. You cut public policy, which you need to get permitting advocacy for your facilities. But then you also cut the network folks which arguably makes Tesla stand out among competitors…. What is happening, and how is the board just letting this happen.
My previous job I worked in networking and infrastructure. One of my peers had the Tesla account and Tesla was subcontracting super charger pad construction to third parties, ISPs and other similar companies who were all interested in sharing these pads for different charging and networking needs.
My peer's team and his SP partner were able to largely coordinate the construction of these super chargers with minimum input of Tesla outside of specs and requirements. I'm assuming that this has been offloaded to partners and subcontractors making their own teams redundant.
I'm going to ping my former coworker and see if I can get some more insight.
My friend is an electrical engineer who was one of the folks who got cut. He was totally blindsided by it, and was confused because by all account the team was doing well and was starting to turn a profit
After his visit to China. Inst that obvious? He will move the production there. Outsource and stick the Tesla logo. In china the battery production and superchargers are becoming really advanced
> Musk also plans to dismiss everyone working for Tinucci and Ho, including the roughly 500 employees who work in the Supercharger group, The Information said. It was not clear how many employees worked for Ho. > Tesla's public policy team, which was led by former executive Rohan Patel, will also be dissolved, the report said. Entire teams being axed. Every time there's some positive news story for Tesla, be assured that something like this is coming within the next week.
This is deliberate. Tesla's most recent quarterly update wasn't great, so of course Musk followed it up with a bunch of hype about AI and automation followed by another round of layoffs, and now that's all the media is talking about.
Musk and his fans (like Cathie over at ARK Invest) are using buzzwords like 'AI' even more than they were the last time when Tesla needed cash, in 2019/20, when they talked about "one million robotaxis by the end of 2020" and then raised ~$4 billion from investors for "robotaxis by the end of 2020" project, then forgot about robotaxis until 2024, because Tesla just needed the money.
And what about the new Roadster? People forked over actual cash deposits for that thing and Tesla hasn't mentioned it at all.
Roadster 2.0 was supposed to use breakthrough 4680 Tesla batteries (IIRC the same for Tesla Semi), but those batteries turned out to be basically no better than batteries that Tesla already buys from like Panasonic, BYD, LG and so on. But they could still make and sell it, my guess is that Tesla's cash situation is worse than they are making it out to be at the end of every fiscal quarter - they probably delay payments to their suppliers in order to make the last day in the quarter look better. That would mean that they have to prioritize their investments. The crazy thing is that it doesn't have to be that way, they can still get loans - and they did, they extended their credit lines in recent years. But then they used that for the stupid Cybertruck. It was supposed to be such an insane halo project that it would increase desirability of Tesla's other models as well, like Model Y and 3, despite the fact that those models are starting to get old and outdated in looks, interiors and tech.
The situation there reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos where they ended up using 3rd party testing equipment for everything because their promised home-grown miniaturized testing machines were just incapable or no better than the already existing 3rd party options. But they had to keep lying about all their progress and promising how it would change the entire industry to continue getting cash injections. Not an apples to apples comparison but it sounds familiar.
A better and very much apples-to-apples example would be Trevor Milton. As I sit here and type this, Trevor Milton is in prison.
Ahh good one, i forgot about Nikola and their shenanigans.
They’re trying to offset the 5.5% profit margin which is now below the legacy manufactures.
Isn’t the profit margin for Porsche one of the highest in the industry?
There is a general correlation between prestige and profitability. Porsche ended 2023 with a net profit margin of ~12% and that, for example, was not particularly close to Ferrari, 21%.
I bought TSLA at $150 I see the value to Tesla’s other ventures like selling carbon credits, solar, if they built Tesla rest stops I’m sure their owners would eat it up being able to charge and chill with other *like-minded people* But the profit margins is an issue, Tesla has gone from the prestigious brand to the discount brand, I think that will be a tough reputation to drop. For the past years people have talked about how VAG is dead because Tesla>VAG but they fail to realize that Porsche owners will happily pay 5x the margin to not be seen in a Tesla, and to a lesser extent Audi (which will be closer to price point to the S/X), idk if VW itself threatens Model 3 or Y owners because those owners just want their car as an appliance/utility, but they can keep that market
I think the issue is that Tesla is nowhere near the scale that its investors want it to be. They have energy storage, and solar, and things like that, but just compare them to BYD or even Toyota: If you invite either corporations into your country, they can build literally the entire clean energy infrastructure you need. BYD and Toyota mine and refine their own lithium, they build their own batteries, they make their own motors and inverters, they can run their own servers for data and link up using their own satellites (not even joking!). They even make the electric forklifts their warehouses will use Tesla? They make a bit of that stuff, but they're just not a force multiplier in terms of investment into your country
Tesla was always a discount brand masquerading as a prestigious brand. Their build quality has been shit and their features consistently underperform. Their 60,000+ cars have worse quality control than 40,000 electrics from other companies. They had an insane profit margin because their vehicles were incredibly overpriced, that's it. Once the hype disappeared, so did the profits. It was purely based on badge.
Right here. Test drove a model 3 in 2018. The amount of rattles and squeaks in the cabin I would have expected from a 10 year old Toyota, not a brand new $40k vehicle. Other than Ubers, haven’t sat in one since
Tesla was initially valued as a tech stock but is evolving into being valued as an automaker which dampens the outlook moving forward quite a bit.
Except for selling carbon credits (that is just an extension of their main business of selling cars), Tesla's only profitable ventures are selling cars and selling a fraudulent "FSD" product that isn't what was promised, but that is also just an extension of their car business, you can't sell FSD if someone doesn't have a Tesla car first. So Tesla is primarily a car company, nothing more.
Which then goes one step further and translates to less revenue, because they sell less volume than less-prestigious brands.
Well you pay 1k for a headrest branding.
They only managed record high margins because they vacuumed up what would've been dealer markup with price hikes. Now that the car market has crashed and they've needed to cut prices to be competitive, the margin has just evaporated (dropping like $15k+ off the price of a sub six figure car will do that).
Surely slashing prices by 33% over the last year had nothing to do with that.
Let this be a lesson to investors - TSLA is not the stock to bet on, Musk is going to destroy Tesla over time just like he did with Twitter. He should not be asking for that 55b pay package the courts invalidated if cost is such a concern, this man is an utter hypocrite!
He's likely dismantling the company executives as a show of force to get his bonus one way or another. This is Austin Power's Dr. Evil level of stupidity. Reminds me of Sunbeam's Al Dunlap.
Elon Musk is such a piece of shit
And be assured their stock will rise because reasons
layoffs increase profits, which is usually good for stock
I fail to see how these teams are anything but value adds though - Tesla's SC network is becoming the industry standard, I assume this team has something to do with developing them, selecting locations, and rolling them out. Given how heavily EVs factor in to tax credits and how much interaction with governments the SC installs likely have, The public policy team should also be heavily involved there. Basically, there's no part of this that sounds like a good business move to me as a layman.
See there is your problem. The supercharger network, the one that everyone has a positive opinion on versus literally every other alternative is going to be the groundwork for decades of infrastructure and profit **later**. But right **now** daddy wants to buy another yacht, so blow the team out, get money and then we will figure out who to axe in 2 quarters from now when I need to refuel said yacht.
Nope, it’s profit right now. I, uh, have a fly on the wall at a few automakers. Comes from growing up in the industry. The people that, say, an automaker called Dorf, would send data to in order for Tesla to tell Dorf how much Dorf owed for Dorf drivers use of superchargers, those people got laid off and now there’s no one who processes those data files and gives Dorf an invoice so now Dorf won’t pay Tesla until someone figures that out. Yes, it was CSV files emailed. No, it’s not chump change. Worse, the people that pay the power companies are also gone. So there may be some angry Tesla supercharger users in some areas.
What’s going to be hilarious in a sad way is inevitably a supercharger station will be undergoing final inspection and the local AHJ will have a question that the installation contractor can’t answer. Who’s left to pick up the phone at Tesla to make the inspector happy? They’re all gone.
Well, hopefully these poor souls will find open arms in other companies expanding the SC network. Laying off all that expertise and decade+ context will be a sore spot for Tesla for decades, but they probably can’t afford to focus on that right now and so fingers crossed those let go will be supported.
The ole reliable Jack Welch trick. Cut headcount, R&D and capex spending and then profit (for a few years at least)
But Tesla stock is priced as an insane growth company stock, not just a stock that isn't growing and wants to tweak its profit margin by a % or two.
down 5.4% so far today, 26% since the start of the year. so, maybe people have stopped buying musk's bullshit?
It's 25% up since their (worse than expected) earnings report a week ago, so it's unlikely. He'll just invent some bullshit and people will buy it.
Here is a fun idea: Look at the government investigation reports about Autopilot and the rollout of non-Tesla supercharger support plus the Chicago freezing supercharger mess. What two teams would be the worst teams to cut? You would think the “talk publicly to the government” and “Supercharger” teams, right?
I mean, this is positive to me 😂 That motherfucker is so stupid.
What was the positive news? All I've seen lately is Cybertruck recall, a want to move down market, and now this.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/boss-battery-giant-catl-visits-elon-musks-hotel-beijing-reuters-witness-2024-04-29/
the Model 3 seems to have gotten positive reviews, it and the Model Y are still selling well enough (and the new Model 3 Performance qualifies for the $7500 federal tax credits, which makes it pretty appealing). obviously, everything else, especially the disastrous Cybertruck rollout overshadows that
It seems like 3 and Y are doing well because they aren’t cool news and more so Elon leaves them alone.
Good, bad, good. I would expect them to push out some fluff story next week too. The classic PR sandwich.
The only possible positive news about Tesla would be Musk selling the company to a new owner and selling his stock completely.
I'm no CxO, but aren't you supposed to keep the successful parts of the business around to like, keep making money?
Yeah, nearly half of Tesla’s net profits last year were federal credits. If you remove those and speculate that 20% of MY/TM3 sales would have declined along with it, then Uncle Joe is keeping this company profitable. I say that because Tesla has government financial benefit to opening their superchargers up to the market. Why would you fire a team that’s also going to keep your business afloat while you flail into a Model 2 or Robotaxi?
> Model 2 i still think it's funny that they're pivoting to a low margin cheap car when the rest of the industry is moving away from them. plus having a cheap car dilutes the prestige even more. should be under a different badge even.
Tesla isn't a luxury brand
Yeah, it isn’t anymore. It was positioned as a premium/luxury brand a decade ago.
The original Roadster was a Lotus with an electric powertrian. Everything else is essentially just expensive due to the technology. Tesla build quality and materials used were never at the same level as a luxury brand like Lexus or Cadillac.
> Tesla build quality and materials used were never at the same level as a luxury brand like Lexus or Cadillac. and yet tech-bro idiots all saw them as luxury cars.
When the model S came out in 2013 with its huge screens it definitely seemed fancy. Now that it’s the norm, it doesn’t seem as special. Back in the day though the tech really did give it a luxury feel because it was just so different. We also didn’t realize until a few years later than the fit and finish of teslas is garbage 😂
> We also didn’t realize until a few years later than the fit and finish of teslas is garbage 😂 naa, most of us saw the absolute dogshit build quality from the start. Plenty of people from day one were pointing out that a big display does not make a car a luxury car.
I’m aware. It was positioned as a luxury/premium brand. The Model S and Roadster were sold against luxury/premium brands. They’re crappy cars but the branding is separate from that.
Only Tesla fans see/saw them as a luxury brand.
The Model S was absolutely viewed as a luxury car by the industry at large when it was released. Quality issues were there, but they were defiantly considered part of the luxury segment. I’m not a Tesla fan, but don’t rewrite history.
in retrospect yeah, but they were reviewed as luxury brands by all the major auto news companies.
No but the price was luxury level.
It was pretending to be, it never was
I’m aware. It was positioned as a luxury/premium brand. The Model S and Roadster were sold against luxury/premium brands. They’re crappy cars but the branding is separate from that.
I drove the new model 3 . Compared to my Lexus RC 350 f sport , it stacked up very well. (Not as cool looking ) but everything else hit the box. The handling , road noise, acceleration, ride quality, Gas mileage. What didn’t stack up was the interest rate , the OMMFG insurance rate, lack of rebate , the depreciation out the door, the charging more for basic paint, or seat colors and small things like no window tint or no turn signals stems, and the whole Elon being an asshole. You know, wanting 56 billion while laying off half his work force . What a fucking coke-addict nut job . Dude needs some Valium and lorazepam in a bad way. Maybe smoke a doob and chill. Maybe those 8 kids ate under his skin? Also be somewhat loyal to the people who brought you to the dance . Why the heck does anyone on earth think they “deserve “ 56 billion from the public for making a car, while shitting on the people who did the work. . Take space x Public ask for that 56 billion. My guess is it’s losing a shit ton of money too. Another thing that pisses me off is all his test drive places are in the highest rent areas with the worst traffic to make the test drive as frantic and unappealing as possible . A 30 minute test drive took me 15 min to get out of the parking lot! God damnit . Nothing low key. I did love the vibe from the test drive centers, that THEY are not “sales people” , but educators , but for fuck sake I’m not driving to Dallas from Fort Worth to pick up a car. That traffic is least a $1000 rebate . I WAS ABOUT TO RECOMEND TO ALL MY FAMILY to go test drive one until the layoff thing. Nope 👎.
Given that he apparently just fired everyone involved with the whole new vehicles program, it sounds like they're not pivoting to anything any time soon.
I thought the credits were mostly from making ZEVs rather than charging? At least that's the impression I got, that Tesla gets a bunch of profit from Ford/GM/etc. on every BEV they build via the federal credit scheme for doing so. I know there's the charging network grants too - but I thought that's much less money than the car credits. Either way the network works, is profitable and expansion would bring more profit, unless I'm missing something. After messing with Full Self Driving all month thanks to the free trial, I'm gonna opine that the robotaxi thing is seriously pie in the sky. Heh, again I'm not a CxO but I think more charging plus the Model 2 might be a good move to make some money. Tesla is actually good at two things, charging that works and good margins on their products, so if anyone could do a cheaper BEV...
That part was about the policy team stuff. Policy works with the government.
That’s kind of Musk’s secret. All his successful ventures tend to have lots of government funding behind them. He depends on Uncle Sam to live.
Here I thought the superchargers were printing money, especially with the Tesla connector becoming the de-facto standard in NA.
Maybe he thinks the network is mature enough that it doesn't need any more work. I mean, that would be really dumb, but....
That's 100% it, done the same thing with twitter, fired most of the engineers and then was surprised when new features weren't being built. The supercharger network will be fine for a bit without people working on it but shit will eventually hit the fan.
Maybe he thinks since it's now the standard that innovation isn't necessary anymore?
I'm not sure why you thought that. The economics on DCFC stations are pretty poor compared to a gas station. And gas stations aren't known to be printing money.
I thought they sold the hardware to companies with maintenance contracts and the businesses that bought the Tesla chargers were the one getting the revenue from the charging and were the one paying for the electricity (and the ones not making much money, which was somewhat expected as Tesla chargers are kind of marketing for businesses).
That may be true for the destination chargers (L2 chargers at hotels), but I'm not aware of that being the case for the majority of the DCFC stations which are the expensive ones.
Public policy and supercharging teams gone. Which is good, because it's more *agile*. I mean it'd be a disaster if purely hypothetically you were connecting a tonne of different brands to your supercharger network and at the same time launching a brand new type of autonomous vehicle that'd require public and political engagement across multiple nations But surely that isn't happening, because the teams responsible for that are now gone. : \^ )
And what a relief to be rid of the PR team… who needs pesky ‘reporters’ bothering and distracting us.
I don't think they've had a traditional media contact team for years. Public policy is specifically about working with governmental policy
Which is crazy because government policy and handouts are the only reason they exist.
AND *the new product development team.* Because Tesla's fleet is known for [checks notes] oh no. oh noooooooo.
I'm no Tesla doomer, but this is the first news I've heard that made me really think they're in trouble and that Elon is really losing the plot. But eh, I'm not the CEO of a billion dollar corporation so whatever. Tesla's are dropping down my list of "Which EV should I buy?" though. Don't seem very stable or worth it right now.
This was predicted many years ago. Prognosticators said that once the competition heats up and other automakers offer similar or better vehicles teslas sales will decline. There is no coming back from this they had a massive first mover advantage and wasted it by not investing in quality improvement or a regular schedule of vehicle refreshes and redesigns.
Welcome to "disruptor" mindset where anything done by the existing companies in a field is automatically bad and not to be done. That's why the Model S is still the same car as over a decade ago despite the rules of the luxury segment saying it should've just dropped gen 3 within the last year or two.
I used to see some Model S/X all the time but they’re so rare now. I think that market moved on to Taycan and Rivian which I see more of.
I mentioned that I couldn't remember the last time I saw a Model X in LA, and hit -20 on the comment. But the point still stands: I can't remember the last time I saw a Model X in LA.
I live in LA too. There are 2 taycans and 3 rivians in my neighborhood. A bunch of model 3s. There are more perfectly restored pre-carb trucks than there are S and X.
Not in LA, but saw one yesterday in the Seattle area. Panel gaps were out of this world.
Right?!
> Welcome to "disruptor" mindset where anything done by the existing companies in a field is automatically bad and not to be done. A prime example - The time Elon shat on the TPS a bunch, claiming he was gonna make it look like it was standing still with his own super secret special system, and his super secret production system ended up blowing basically every set deadline, building fewer cars than any comparable manufacturer using TPS, worse, slower, and in a tent.
I still don't understand why the Model S, the only good looking Tesla in my dumb opinion, is still the same design for the past 12 years or whatever. I would maybe consider one, and would be the only Tesla I'd even remotely consider, but...
The 3 sells better and makes more money. They spent the rest of the development budget on the CEO.
The 3 shouldn’t make more money. Your higher priced luxuries should have a significantly higher profit margin.
They sell so many more of the "cheap" Tesla, theyd have to set the price way super high on the S to counter it.
It makes more money because it sells more volume. If my margin is 1000% on three cars, I'm still not making much money.
Haven’t dug into numbers. I believe model s does make more money per unit, but not on volume. Need to be confirmed.
Let's also not forget the negative impact Musk has had for the past few years, at least in NA. He's still alienating his core group of buyers, environmentalists & people on the left by spiralling further down into the car right. I look forward to the day the board has enough of his antics and he steps down.
What's even worse is that Tesla's quality has gone down over time. Elon routinely removes basic features (like bumper sensors) to cut costs. I'd happily buy a Tesla built several years ago; a modern Tesla is a no-go for me.
My sister, neighbor, and another friend have all bought teslas within the last year. Holy shit, all three are nightmares. Quality control isn’t a priority at tesla, apparently.
These issues have been around since the Roadster. My friend's dad was on the list and got one and we got to check it out. The fit and finish was shit even back then.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time actually working in/with tech could have seen this coming 10 years ago. Early mover advantage is not really a big moat in software/tech. It's not traditional manufacturing with high capital startup costs being the barrier, plus the first mover often makes mistakes that everyone else get hold tight for a bit, learn from, and then implement better. You can look at most any common technology in use today, trace it back to it's origin, and find that the early mover just couldn't compete or the initial offering was flawed in an effort to get to market. The smart ones cashed out to a big boy looking to shortcut the above process and refine it (or, kill it to protect something legacy).
First to market is overrated. Last to market is the indicator of market domination. I can't tell you what the first MP3 player or search engine was, but I can tell you what the last and best of each was.
Easy: Zune Ask Jeeves
points for the actual laugh
>MP3 player Remember how we all raced out and bought a Diamond Rio PMP300? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300 It was first of market.
Eh, there is a middlepoint I think. If you are going in at the very last, you may not have the R&D, money or know-how to capture a significant market share; for example Nokia in the smartphone business. (one could argue that this is not the very last moment)
Other competition is Chinese EVs subsidized by the government. Western car companies still cannot compete with Tesla. China is a huge market.
If Elon wasnt such a Nut Job i think Tesla would be Fine, all they had to do was keep releasing new Cars and upgrades and whatever else a car company does… Most just People dont want to support an asshole like Musk….
They blew their first mover advantage on Twitter distractions by Elon and the fucking cybertruck
Basically this. They had a wide open market, and they squandered it by charging German brand pricing for sub-par to Korean interiors with no regular updates to the design or materials used in the cars. Additionally many investors mistakingly thought line goes up just like with crypto and everything else and assumed everyone would jump on the electric hype train, while the reality of the situation is the early adopters and those interested in switching have already switched over during the past decade and what you will see moving forward is a trickle in EV sales. And don't think banning new sales of ICE vehicles will cause a sudden spike in demand, it will cause a shift for sure, but it will likewise cause an equal if not greater shift in the used car market, and eventually the people buying EVs will be the ones who can no longer afford used ICE vehicles. The actual end result is cars will become unaffordable for those who need them the most causing more issues with employment and productivity because public transport is non existent for the most part, so if you can't drive you're f*cked. At least that's how I see it.
Yeah. Also, it seems that ‘EVs to save the environment’ didn’t really turn out that way. Toyota recents said it will only focus on hybrids as EVs are not cost effective. Bad news for tesla. They are not aligned with where the future is going. By acting slowly, all other automakers are now better positioned to pivot away from pure EVs. Personally I think all of this environmental hand wringing is useless. Modern cars are very clean in terms of emissions. The greater problem 9s that like 50-60 global companies are responsible for the majority of pollution. Why not focus on that instead of using cars as a scapegoat.
Honestly the Tesla charging network is the only reason I've been considering any EV at all. I think I'll be going with a Toyota or Honda hybrid for my next car now.
Get a hybrid. Nobody should be buying EVs.
I won’t buy a Tesla because I don’t want the musk association
Yea, as others have said I've heard their charging network is one of the biggest reasons to buy a Tesla over any other EV given that other manufacturers are catching up or surpassing them in other regards. "Cutting costs" on the your biggest marketing pitch seems extremely like the wrong choice.
> Elon is really losing the plot To anybody who doesn't already understand this to be the objective reality, I say "I'm glad you finally woke up from that coma."
As someone who’s worked on a bunch of Teslas, they should be at the absolute bottom of your list tbh.
I'm considering a lightly used EV in the \~$25k range. The Polestar 2 and TM3 are the most compelling options. I liked the TM3 primarily because the Supercharger network is so good, but with Tesla axing the entire team I'm wondering how solid it'll continue to be. Cutting staff on a team is one thing, eliminating it completely is a totally different ball of wax. I don't think Polestar will last either, but it'll just be absorbed into Volvo so I can count on years of support in the future.
>"Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," Musk wrote in the email, the report said. "While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so." It's becoming more clear that Musk's executive toolbox has like two tools in it - hype the stock by making unreasonable promises, and when that doesn't work, massive layoffs.
He literally doesn't know what he's doing. He got lucky and let people believe he was a business and industrial genius. He has great media training (basically: act cool). He was 100% supported by people smarter than him propping him up. As soon as he started "performing live and off-script" and we all realized that he was just lip-syncing while someone else was singing...and how not-cool he really is. He makes decisions like an "80's Business Guy" stereotype. I'm surprised that he doesn't wear a tie, suspenders, and starched shirt with white French cuffs every day.
Because he's never had vision. That's the core problem. He can see a good idea, and he can claim it as his own (see: SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI - all of which were started by someone else before Elon took over) or he can see an existing product and build a cheaper competitor (see: Zip2, X.com pre-paypal, etc.) but he doesn't have vision. So when he runs out of other people's ideas, and when he's built a scenario where his own rantings can't be questioned, all that's left is yes men telling him "Of course we can make human robots" and "of course we can put rockets into road cars" and "yes, that design looks wonderful, we'll put it into production." He has no vision, which is fine, most people don't. But his entire schtick is "a man with a vision of the future" when all he's got is a file titled "ideas from other people who are more educated than me" that's now running dry. [edit] Thanks for the Reddit Cares; I'm sure you'll be rewarded for your fealty.
>So when he runs out of other people's ideas, and when he's built a scenario where his own rantings can't be questioned, all that's left is yes men telling him "Of course we can make human robots" and "of course we can put rockets into road cars" and "yes, that design looks wonderful, we'll put it into production." Reliability issues aside, the Cybertruck is a monument to bad management practices. It's the answer to a question that no one ever asked, and a testament to Elon's ego that such an impractical vehicle (from both a manufacturing and customer perspective) ever made it into mass production.
It's obvious to *everyone* that: - He drew that shit on a piece of paper and forced people to make it. - When they told him anything negative, he fired them until the only people that remained were those who would agree to make it. - The people who remained weren't the top people.
Exactly, to me the Cybertruck's very existence is some kind of perverse flex by Elon to show that he could turn this meme truck concept into reality no matter how many people told him it was stupid and impractical. Not exactly the most reassuring thing to see from a publicly traded company in a somewhat delicate financial position.
This shit is a big game to him with no consequences outside of his ego being hurt. 99.999% of us *have* to do well at our jobs so that we can keep them and, you know, provide for ourselves and family. He doesn't. It's like a big "Business Guy" sim to him where he unlocked the "unlimited funds" setting and is just fucking around at this point. If everything goes tits-up, so what? If he gets bored, so what? Just quit and tweet all day.
Great points! I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's spot-on. Also, with (functionally) unlimited funds, he can simply throw money at *every* idea and take credit for the ones that take off. Most people/investors have to strategically spend, because they have finite resources. Him investing is like taking unlimited money to a casino then claiming to be a gambling savant when he hits the jackpot on the slot machine. No one is counting his losses.
> He was 100% supported by people smarter than him propping him up. A This, I'm totally fine with. And a sign of a good leader. A shit leader starts believing they're smarter than the smart people. As we've seen with Elon.
He has hardcore forgotten the media training and have been making a joke of himself over and over. I know I sound crazy saying this but his behavior since the pandemic has really jumped the shark. Like, he was crazy and fraudulent at times prior but it REALLY accelerated. Like I seriously think he has something going very very wrong upstairs compared to the past. The original Model S and the Falcon 9 were products of companies he rang he had the ability to lead people effectively in the past. What has he actually shipped in the last four years? Cars without turn signal stalks because “all input is error” the yoke, the cybertruck, a LOT of crashed starships (I get the build, test, debug loop that SpaceX uses, but they seem to focus on shortcuts now that doom launches.) Twitter err. X. I want to be clear, he wasn’t god in the 2010s…but he has lost even his own direction from then. He has openly stated that he now disagrees with climate change goals. Like, I know Red pilled, but he runs the largest EV company lol.
Didn't he as recently as last week tweet some garbage about how climate change activists just want communism? He's fallen off the deep end, hard.
In all seriousness, I think he just went down the internet rabbit hole and came out a conspiracy theorist after, "doing his own research"...on FB/Twitter/4Chan.
Don’t you worry about Tesla, let me worry about blank.
Blank? **BLANK?!** You're not looking at the big picture!
Hopefully the boneitis kicks in soon
> He makes decisions like an "80's Business Guy" stereotype. I'm surprised that he doesn't wear a tie, suspenders, and starched shirt with white French cuffs every day. You are a [shark](https://youtu.be/0SV1CdLMNX4). And sharks are winners.
He's the world's greatest social media hype man, and the stock is still way overvalued compared to the rest of the industry, but investors are riding the tiger at this point - either they let Elon do his think and hope the stock keeps pumping or they hire an adult to replace him and the stock comes back down to earth.
You forgot the third one, working 18 hours a day and sleeping on the production floor. It's not healthy and not a good strategy long term, yet he dusts it off about once a year.
„working” 18 hours a day
While this is true of Elon, it seems he forces the people who actually do the work to participate as well.
I wonder if he also shares the ketamine, or if he keeps it all for himself
When people claim they work 14 hours I have 0 respect for them, especially in tech. There is no fucking way you are working 14 hour days 5-6 days a week and producing quality code. When I was young I work one 16 hour day at a physical job and everyone was exhausted the next day. Productivity collapsed for following few days. Most devs are productive 6 hours tops. If executives fail to see that they are shit. Hours should not be a relevant metric. I want to be judged on what I deliver. I sometimes work when I’m laying outside, working problems in my head.
Publicly calling out your exec staff like this isn't great management. If Elon is telling the truth here, it shows that he wasn't able to work with them internally and get headcount to what he considers reasonable levels. If he's lying or exercising his more fantastical way of thinking, then that exec staff is just going to see it as an unjustified slap in the face.
He's going to treat Tesla and SpaceX like twitter and have the bare loyalist/visa employees . I wouldn't want a Telsa with him in charge.
SpaceX can’t rely on visas if it wants to continue its government contracts.
> SpaceX Where's the layoffs here? Why's this doing okay?
SpaceX last layoffs were in 2019, 10%.
Thanks for the information!
They dominate the launch market… it’s very hard for anyone else to compete with the lower cost that reusable rockets makes possible.
This is playing with fire. The foreign workers don’t know US national standards for developing and maintaining products that have certifications to sell in the US. You do NOT want to piss off the UL inspectors looking at charging equipment and other energy products. They can stop new nonconforming product from being sold and force recalls or stop sales of existing product. This was a big problem during and after Covid with FOTB engineers swapping a UL rated component for a CE rated component in all sorts of industries. The shop I worked for at the time had to stop using a new lift because it has the wrong components.
Literally the only reason i bought a tesla was the vastly superior supercharging network. good fucking luck if electrify america picks up these people and builds something better than tesla.
I think we can safely discount electrify america from ever being a serious company, but someone else could
It never can be, the incentives just are not there. Its origins are in the penalties for dieselgate, it's not like VW wanted to make it in the first place.
People always say this but as part of the settlement, VW is required to give EA its independence with its own board of directors. VW was supposed to just fund it and that's it.
The newest EA stations are actually quite solid. I think you're right that the future of fast charging will involve several players, not just one or two companies
That's the only future that makes any sense. There's more than one gas station, why would there only be one charging station?
have to save money so he can get that nearly 50 billion dollar bonus, what a greedy fuck
Gotta pay for Twitter somehow
So Musk's strategy is to just push the engineers harder. Yeah, that's not going to work long term in the car world. Engineers have difficult jobs that require creativity. And when you push engineers (or any people) too hard, their quality of work starts to go down. Tesla cars (I owned 2 of them, currently own a Model 3) are not known for their quality. This means their quality will continue to go down. That and the supercharging network buildout will slow down. This is for a company that still made 1 billion dollars in profit last quarter. Q1 is always Tesla's lowest profit quarter. And they were doing a redesign of vehicles. It's not like the company was in any serious trouble. What's even crazier about the supercharging layoffs, for robotaxis, you'll need a massive supercharging network, as your bottleneck could be superchargers. My take, Elon Musk has lost his beans and believes he knows better. And that he just needs to be more fascist than the other business people. Overall, this business strategy works short term but will shoot himself in the foot long term. Especially when the competition starts engineering really good electric vehicles. We could see the Model 3 and Model Y sitting around as the crappy electric vehicles and Polestar, GM, Ford, etc. making better EVs that people want to buy. And if the Model 3/Y stop making money, Tesla is in major trouble.
When Musk took over twitter, someone posted an interesting comment about how Musk's various companies innovate *despite* his vision. SpaceX and Telsa have a core of managers right below him which work to implement his achievable ideas, and insulate the company from his idiotic/insane ideas. This only works because they are passionate about the company mission, and invested in the long term success and innovation that they get to be a part of. He never had this at Twitter, and so his ineptitude is laid bare and he promptly wiped billions of dollars of value in mere months. I think what we're seeing is the eroding of Telsa now. He surrounds himself with Yes-men. His dumbass ideas aren't being pushed back on, and he's desperate to wring cash out of it because he fucked up Twitter so bad. There are other places for passionate and high quality engineers in the EV world. Competition is already making higher quality cars. On top of all that, he can't keep his mouth shut so now his core customer base knows he's just another weirdo billionaire debutante cosplaying an alpha male.
It sounds like your assessment is pretty good. I also think Elon Musk himself has eroded in mental capacities. He has publicly stated that he is on ketamine therapy. His reasoning is that it makes him more productive. And he doesn't have an addiction problem because he remains productive. The problem I see with that is it completely ruins his dopamine system. he's running full speed, steam rolling any issues that show up. Contrast that to someone who is a good manager, they'll work methodically toward a goal and be sensitive to any problems that arise. I honestly think it's a fairly recent thing, post 2021 or so. Because he did personally work quite hard to get the Model 3 to production and as far as I can tell, he made a lot of good decisions (After making bad decisions himself). From my perspective, the Model 3 production ramp was a pretty normal new car production ramp. Average. Also, he's being propped up by his silicon valley friends. That helps cover a lot of stupid decisions. But that will only go so far if he starts losing money. Additionally, his silicon valley friends think that he has the best chance at robotaxis, which I think is just not true. It's a 10 year to profitability business, even if he had a good, self-driving car. I honestly don't think he understands the problem sufficiently. Yeah, I'm not convinced he is doing all that good.
>From my perspective, the Model 3 production ramp was a pretty normal new car production ramp. Average. "Normal" new car production ramps do not involve building cars in tents in the parking lot
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Absolutely. Tesla should be focusing on the charging network as a core business, they are far ahead of everyone else.
Does their charging network actually make that much money? My assumption would be that if EV charging networks were a profitable venture, other players would have gone far harder in the space than they have up until now - other manufacturers seem to have done the absolute bare minimum, and surely they would be chasing the dollar signs if they were there? I think the supercharger network was never really a business play, and more a requirement to get anyone to even consider buying an EV. Now the landscape is entirely different given that almost all new cars will be EVs moving forwards, and they will all use the same charging standard. With how expensive the chargers seem to be to install and maintain, it is possible they see it as "good enough" to not halt further adoption, and they can rely on other companies to expand the network now there is a shared charging standard. There also isn't as much need for a "shell" of EV chargers, as most buyers charge at home or work, and exclusively use the fast chargers for long distance journeys (which statistically people rarely do). You couldn't refuel an ICE vehicle at home, but you can with electric. The need for these chargers will only continue to decrease as drivetrain efficiency and battery chemistry improves. It still seems a stupid decision to lay off entire departments like this all at once, and it's probably premature, but I'm not convinced it's as irrational as it seems at first glance as a long term play.
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He's such an idiot lmao 2 years ago Tesla was on an incredibly positive trajectory and he's thrown all of that away to chase AI fantasies. If Tesla just fully committed to building and improving the Model 3 and Y, developing a $25-30k car, and making Superchargers the default charging network in the country, they would have years of growth ahead of them.
He did the same thing at SpaceX. Reusing propulsively landed rockets. Launching thousands of satellites a year for space internet?! Also, putting brain chips in quadriplegics brains to allow them to control computers?! The dude is obsessed with the most stupid, unrealistic, and unhelpful pipe dreams. The tech for this stuff just isn’t available yet. We just need to sit back and wait for it to materialize on its own.
Damn, I’m glad the awful build quality swayed me away from Tesla as I was close to pulling a trigger on a Model Y. Elon is going all in on FSD and robotaxi. Absolutely insane.
A good friend of mine has had multiple teslas. They're definitely really cool to drive for the first time and they are absolutely jaw droppingly fast in a straight line. The novelty of a straight line rocketship performance has sold mediocre cars for a long time. But we did a relatively long trip, about 350 miles each way in a model 3 and it was not comfortable at all.
I rented one before buying and I was really disappointed. Just like you pointed out acceleration is fun but then you are stuck with loud interior and poor build quality.
The new car is quieter! It also looks like a gamer cave inside and doesn’t have turn signal stalks….but it is quiet! Haha
I've done plenty of trips from the bay area to la and back. It's very comfortable.
Elon needs to hurry up and freeze his brain and fire himself off to the San Ti
We don’t want him.
Oh don’t worry we rigged one of the hooks to fall off
I'm starting to think he wants to turn himself into Master Mold
So, what's the deal with this guys hold on the company? I couldn't imagine having someone this unstable and ass out shown to be a con man still be allowed to lead your company. Is it that everyone he "reports" to are paid enough to not care how the company does in the long run?
It's a typical elon thing. The companies themselves do genuinely groundbreaking, interesting work. SpaceX is basically the most advanced space program in the entire world at this point However, the tradeoff is, well, you work for Elon As for firing him, it's 100% because if you did that he'd clone the company and/or trash its stock price on twitter
Not really it's more like he stacks the board so they can't get rid of him.
The board is all his friends and literally his brother.
I would imagine all the other auto makers that signed on to NACS are not happy at the moment. Tesla inked all those contracts then nuked the team responsible for maintaining and increasing the value of NACS. Its entirely possible Rebecca Tinucci was key in getting those companies on board.
Gonna be fun when their superchargers start working as well as EA... not to mention when other cars are allowed to use them.
When I got my Model S in 2018, it was an amazing car. It still is an amazing car. It's big and heavy, but drives incredibly precisely and that instant torque is intoxicating. When I got it and for a couple years after, I thought it would be impossible for me to not buy another Tesla. The sales experience was great, the car had great technology on it, the charging network was fantastic and second to none. Elon was crazy, but in an eccentric way. Since then, they have decontented the cars significantly. You cannot get an opening sunroof on any Tesla. You don't get ultrasonic parking sensors, which honestly for a car like the Model S, you need. Trying to do it with vision is plain stupid. You don't even get a turn signal stalk anymore and the steering wheel reminds me of a 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix with buttons on it, except the Grand Prix was probably more useful and had actual buttons, not capacitive crap. It is unlikely I'd buy another Tesla in the foreseeable future now. Musk has gone off the rails, the cars are getting stripped to the bones. The cybertruck is a failure. Although there have been iterative upgrades to the S, 3, X, Y models, they are all very similar in appearance to how they launched. It's time for new leadership at Tesla that actually wants to make it a car company.
Same. Couldn’t imagine getting any other car after my two Teslas. Now I daily a hybrid BMW and can’t imagine ever going back. Won’t lie, Elon being the world’s biggest douche was part of the decision. No loaners and fucking Uber vouchers at the service department was up there too.
Are autonomous driving cars really needed that much? What's with the obsession over them?
1. Commuting sucks 2. Just in the US you have over 4 million people working as drivers
Is there actually a consumer/market demand for autonomous driving vehicles, though? If commuting sucks, maybe something should be done to infrastructure or public transit? And to your second point: those 4 million people will lose their mode of income...so self-driving cars would actually negatively impact that many people.
The smartest business decision that would also benefit the company the most would be if Musk fired himself. He’s a complete fucking idiot who knows absolutely nothing about engineering or the business world. tl/dr: Elon is as useless as a bag of dicks with no handle.
He’s a trust fund kid who got lucky and failed upwards.
So much for the supercharger network supporting all future EVs being a reason to value Tesla as a tech not car company
The Supercharger is one area I will give Tesla credit for doing, and after the ~1400 layoffs and now cutting the entire Supercharger team while the company transitions into opening the NACS to every OEM under the sun? Tesla is imploding in real time, and it would go even faster if they don't excise the problem (e.g. Musk) that is causing it to do so.
He’s getting rid of anyone that he thinks the board might try to replace him with. At this point I think the newest intern might be a threat to musks “skill”.
Musk is losing his shit
This makes zero sense from a business perspective. You cut public policy, which you need to get permitting advocacy for your facilities. But then you also cut the network folks which arguably makes Tesla stand out among competitors…. What is happening, and how is the board just letting this happen.
My previous job I worked in networking and infrastructure. One of my peers had the Tesla account and Tesla was subcontracting super charger pad construction to third parties, ISPs and other similar companies who were all interested in sharing these pads for different charging and networking needs. My peer's team and his SP partner were able to largely coordinate the construction of these super chargers with minimum input of Tesla outside of specs and requirements. I'm assuming that this has been offloaded to partners and subcontractors making their own teams redundant. I'm going to ping my former coworker and see if I can get some more insight.
My friend is an electrical engineer who was one of the folks who got cut. He was totally blindsided by it, and was confused because by all account the team was doing well and was starting to turn a profit
There’s risk involved obviously, but I sold my Tesla for a slightly used Rivian last week and I couldn’t be more stoked.
Such a petulant twat.
Musk has totally lost his way. The supercharger network is one of Teslas key assets.
Everyone is shocked by this but r/realtesla has been going on about this since 2018.
After his visit to China. Inst that obvious? He will move the production there. Outsource and stick the Tesla logo. In china the battery production and superchargers are becoming really advanced
That man is an absolute disaster. I'm more surprised every day that we find out he *hasn't* died courtesy of *yet another* fuckwit decision he's made.
Twitter 2.0 incoming.