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rgmerk 1 days ago [-]
Look, I get that Elon wants to chase AI, but why not do relatively simple, low-cost things like build a proper 7-seat SUV that uses the Cybertruck platform - or even a properly stretched Model Y platform (rather than the six-seater L)? Or how about a delivery van on a stretched Y platform?
Tesla's product line is narrow and aging rapidly.
fooker 1 days ago [-]
This will get TSLA valued as a car company.
They want to be valued as a ~~scifi~~ tech company.
Which is fair, given that the market (and by extension we) chose to brutally punish boring car companies that make reliable high volume cars.
Gud 24 hours ago [-]
And by punish you mean fairly value?
Zigurd 17 hours ago [-]
Yes, that would be the punishment. It's also why Elon is irreplaceable. You might think the long-term health of Tesla would be well served by leadership that would build on the remarkable initial success of creating a viable mass market electric car company. As many on the thread pointed out, there are many plausible ways to formulate a product that would do exactly that.
But that would be a massacre of shareholder value. One more quarter of a ridonculous valuation is worth more than having a product that will keep Tesla viable as a car company. The idea that Grok could become a first tier AI product is more valuable than a mass market SUV, because that untested idea keeps the share price up.
Until it doesn't. If you can predict the day that happens, I want to subscribe to your newsletter.
danny_codes 16 hours ago [-]
Grok isn’t part of Tesla.
sshine 12 hours ago [-]
Right, it's part of SpaceX.
cainxinth 18 hours ago [-]
There was an HN post recently about “startup anti-patterns” [0]. And the broad takeaway was that most failures stem from preventing facts on the ground from reaching you, i.e., the company plows ahead with a strategy that misses or actively ignores countervailing data.
I'm arguing that the fair value of boring companies making reliable things should be much higher. We don't do that, you have to promise hot air based growth to prevent your valuation from crashing.
The behavior we incentivize is the one we'll get.
jjav 22 hours ago [-]
> I'm arguing that the fair value of boring companies making reliable things should be much higher.
In theory (occasionally in practice) when you purchase a stock you are purchasing a piece of the future cash flow of that company. For a company which operates in a known environment and we can roughly predict how their revenue will grow (i.e. boring companies), the correct fair value of the stock can be easily computed.
So, no, those predictable companies should not be valued much higher, they are already valued correctly because the are no big surprises in their future, the profits and revenue are predictable.
This logic breaks down with companies where the growth can't be predicted to any reasonable accuracy. So in those you're just buying the hype, which sometimes turns out to be real, sometimes not.
Unfortunately this also incentivizes some companies to pump themselves purely on hype so they never get valued on actual revenue and profit. Tesla is a prime example of this. If you value them as a car company we can easily compute a fair value, but that number is very low. So, instead, robots! AI! self-driving! Space! That keeps the fair value an unknown, so it can ride the wave of hype for a long time.
jasomill 19 hours ago [-]
Did I miss something? Tesla is developing spacecraft?
bryanlarsen 15 hours ago [-]
Rumors of a merger with SpaceX is one of the things pushing up TSLA.
ASalazarMX 11 hours ago [-]
SPCX is the teat from where all other Elon's side projects feed (or will feed), it seems. I hope he doesn't ruin it.
bryanlarsen 9 hours ago [-]
Starship and Starlink are prerequisites for the silly Starmind, so I don't think they'll quite as badly destroy their core competency as they are doing at Tesla.
cyanydeez 19 hours ago [-]
yes, you've discovered the plight of the bigot: equality feels like punishment.
fooker 14 hours ago [-]
Of course equality is a punishment when you have more to lose than others.
If the world's wealth was equally distributed, it would be pretty punishing for everyone who is commenting on this platform.
cyanydeez 12 hours ago [-]
which is the philsophical/moral point of view which asks: If you had to randomly be born in anywhere in the world, how would you prefer the world work?
Very few people would choose the one where there's a slight chance they're in the wealth classes currently.
Not moving towards equality is just a selfish choicel.
fooker 12 hours ago [-]
> Not moving towards equality is just a selfish choicel.
It is. People are selfish.
Companies even more so.
ryandvm 16 hours ago [-]
What's funny is that nobody even believes the SpaceX/Tesla fever dream stuff - not even the fanboys. Data centers in space that violate the laws of logistics+thermodynamics? 30 trillion dollars worth of revenue?
No, they only believe that somebody else believes this shit. The entire valuation of Elon's companies is based on greater fool theory. But it notably is called greater fool, not infinite fool; we are going to run out of fools at some point...
fooker 14 hours ago [-]
> Data centers in space that violate the laws of logistics+thermodynamics?
Are you convinced enough that you are correct to short the stock though?
rainsford 7 hours ago [-]
Shorting it would only make sense if you believe the stock value is at all correlated to the technical feasibility of the long term vision. I think the entire point of the person you're responding to is that it's fairly obviously not.
roryirvine 16 hours ago [-]
I'd love to know what their actual plan is, the one they hope will allow them to manage a soft landing rather than a sudden crash when the music stops.
I mean, they must have one and it must be at least minimally plausible - otherwise the regulatory authorities would have stepped in long before things got to this stage... right?
fooker 14 hours ago [-]
The plan, as always, is monopoly.
Push out competitors and get the market, bet the market is large enough.
yodsanklai 1 days ago [-]
Do they still care about cars though or they're chasing some new things after losing to the Chinese.
fooker 24 hours ago [-]
>after losing to the Chinese
The total market cap of all the Chinese car companies combined is about 300B.
Tesla alone is worth ~5x that, because the market rewards this behavior of chasing new things.
If Tesla suddenly pivoted to 'caring about cars' and tried their best to produce low cost reliable EVs, the market is going to punish them by valuing them at less than 300B. That is, if they succeed at that. If they fail, which would be more plausible, they go bankrupt.
Why would they voluntarily do that?
We could do that by changing public opinion or regulating what public companies must do/report, but that seems somewhat unlikely. It's so much easier to claim that autonomous driving will be solved in six months :)
jjav 22 hours ago [-]
> The total market cap
Market cap is not a useful comparison because it can (as here) be driven by hype.
A better comparison is revenue and profit, that tells us a lot more about the business each is operating.
Zigurd 17 hours ago [-]
The whole idea is to build a cult that can transcend comparisons of revenue and profit.
ryanmerket 10 hours ago [-]
r/LateStageCapitalism ?
alphabeta3r56 22 hours ago [-]
BYD had revenue of 110B while tesla had 96B and both have around 4B dollar of profits. BYD also has better credit line (from Chinese govt), which is the whole point of market cap. I dont think official market cap value reflrct this reality.
22 hours ago [-]
schiffern 22 hours ago [-]
Did BYD stop losing money on EVs yet?
Last I checked they (still) never release their EV profit alone, always bundling the numbers with plug-in hybrids and high-margin battery sales to other companies. If BYD made money on EVs there'd be no need for shenanigans.
surgical_fire 22 hours ago [-]
Wasn't Tesla unprofitable until as late as 2020? And I mean, fully unprofitable, with no shenanigans to save it.
Why for US companies is it okay to be unprofitable while they grow, but for Chinese companies it is shenanigans?
Also, if they actually sell things such as high-margin batteries, is it even shenanigans? Using a profitable division to finance the growth of another division sounds like excellent business strategy to me. Better than promising bullshit FSD to artificially inflate the stock price.
schiffern 4 hours ago [-]
>Why for US companies is it okay to be unprofitable while they grow, but for Chinese companies it is shenanigans
If the narrative is "China won EVs" then "they didn't do the R&D to make EVs a net economic win, and it's been a predatory loss-leader the whole time" is a pretty big caveat.
Predatory pricing is nothing new. Walmart did the same thing, but (of course) they raised prices as soon as the local competition was dead. China is merely doing the same, so their "winning" in the economic market is a temporary illusion.
"Turns out communists make great capitalists" is still true.
TheScaryOne 16 hours ago [-]
Nope, just like SpaceX can't stop losing money when you take out xAI.
6510 4 hours ago [-]
It doesn't work like that overthere. It's just like there is no need to make profit from trains. We have road tax, it isn't enough to cover road maintenance. They are just investing in driving their economy all kinds of places... almost literally.
I got a new job once, the boss asked me what I thought after a few days. I told him I wouldn't be around for very long. "why?" It took me 2 hours to figure out you don't get it. "how?" Well, you have a coin operated coffee machine in the lunch room. It tells me everything I need to know. "But it's just 50 cents?" I laugh and point at him, EXACTLY! Now tell me how it tastes. "I don't know, I have my own machine upstairs" I dig in my pocket and pull out a shiny 50 cent coin. HERE! "what is that for?" I say, it's uhhh just 50 cents? "Why are you giving me 50 cents?", well technically you should explain to me why I would have to give you 50 cents but okay, you are selling a product in the lunch room, I suggest you go and test if it lives up to your standards. He actually walked off to the lunch room, I could see though the window that he put my 50 cents in the machine, then he waited... the cup filled up slowly... he took a sip then spit it into the sink. He came back but I was unable to continue the conversations, I couldn't stop laughing so he walked away. I wanted to say it tasted like: I need to get away from this place as fast as possible.
4 hours ago [-]
blooalien 24 hours ago [-]
> It's so much easier to claim that autonomous driving will be solved in six months
Why so long? Six months? According to God-King Trump who apparently knows everything better than anyone, we're already well past "AI" into Super-Intelligence. Just ask the Machine-God to bestow autonomous driving upon us and we're good to go, yeah? Time to bring on those flying cars in every garage we was all promised decades ago!
fooker 23 hours ago [-]
Six months is the ideal time for people to forget about what you claimed.
Opposite seasons, new wars, at least one new thing to be outraged about.
kersplody 1 days ago [-]
Why not a Cyberbus based on the cybertruck platform? I’d kill for 8–12 passenger minibuses in the LVCC tunnels during CES instead of the 3 passenger Teslas.
bryanlarsen 14 hours ago [-]
They've already "announced" a 14-20 passenger Cyberbus. Is that not better than an 8-12?
rgmerk 5 hours ago [-]
They’re two different products and market classes. In many markets you can drive up to a 12-seater on a regular car license.
bryanlarsen 5 hours ago [-]
Driver requirements aren't much of a concern for a vehicle without a steering wheel.
cosmicgadget 14 hours ago [-]
This is a strangly specific thing to want so badly.
tehlike 1 days ago [-]
I would also like a 7 seater, but that might be uniquely american concept.
Svip 1 days ago [-]
In Europe, they are usually known as MPVs or "people carriers"; Renault has made their Espace since 1984 (though, it looks like they abandoned that format in 2012); there was also the Renault Grand Scénic, which ended in 2022. So not a uniquely American concept, but it seems like the market in Europe for them is thinning significantly. A shame though, I really like the look of that Espace mk1.
zh3 1 days ago [-]
Also the Citroen Grand C4 [1], which is a 7-seater where the back row fold down to get a completely flat foor - great family car. It's been replaced by the Space Tourer now I believe, which goes up to a 9-seater.
It's not really a vehicle that many people need. Our VW Caddy seats 7 with the third row of seats, but that was installed for a week before we took it out and it's been in the garage since then. I've had the car full of stuff more often than I had it full of people. And even then it's mostly air in a car that's shaped like a brick wall that's been driven around most of the time. I can drive it at around 6.5 l/100 km of gas, but 7.1 is more typical. So a more sensible choice would have been a smaller and more efficient car.
drcongo 23 hours ago [-]
Full size MPVs are status symbols in Japan and China, they're making a little bit of a comeback in Europe at the moment with various copies of the Toyota Alphard like the Lexus LM and about 50 different Chinese clones arriving soon like the Denza D9, Xpeng X9, Zeekr 009 etc. I have an imported Vellfire, so I'm quite exited for all the clones coming.
fjlunky 23 hours ago [-]
I feel like the opposite is true, Americans seem oddly opposed to vans, minivans, and people movers. Toyota alone make something like 20 different models with three rows of seats as standard, and school event parking where I am is packed with 7 seaters.
Wasn’t Tesla Model X a 7 seater?
IsTom 23 hours ago [-]
I've seen taxi drivers use them in Europe multiple times basically every time you want to transport more people. Beats using 2 cars.
Hamuko 1 days ago [-]
Any more than the four-door full-size pickup truck that is the Cybertruck?
eddythompson80 1 days ago [-]
Not really. Peugeot has been making 7 seaters for over half a century now.
qwerpy 1 days ago [-]
Yeah I’d love a cybervan or model XL. Pretty much every family I know would get one. In lieu of that we all got model Ys / cybertrucks instead, and then we grumble about it when the in-laws come to visit and we need to drive two cars to take the family out. YL is fine but they needed to go further. Need 3 proper rows and storage space!
fearmerchant 8 hours ago [-]
An electric truck the size (and look for that matter) of the Hyundai Santa Cruz would be a lot more practical for most folks imo.
Betelbuddy 24 hours ago [-]
Its not a car company, according to the CEO...
KellyCriterion 23 hours ago [-]
yeah, its a .com == AI company :-D
KellyCriterion 17 hours ago [-]
For the downvoters:
The market hype is quite similar, so even if its a metaphoric commparison, it makes sense :-))
roosterIllusi0n 5 hours ago [-]
He already transferred the AI technology to X. Tesla already shares information and employees between them and spacex. All he has to do now is let the company die so he can buy it cheap under spacex. That is how he merged solar city into tesla.
gfrecvh 1 days ago [-]
If they start doing that, everybody will finally see that they're just a car company and their stock will be priced like one.
UltraSane 22 hours ago [-]
Honestly it seems like Musk is just plain bored with cars.
cosmicgadget 14 hours ago [-]
Which might have been a good thing except that he decided instead of delegating the car company he'd use it to make robots.
dzhiurgis 19 hours ago [-]
> aging rapidly.
Visually yes, but technology still vastly mogs all but zeekr maybe.
But that doesn’t matter - most people seem to buy cars entirely by how it looks.
jmalicki 1 days ago [-]
Because tesla has always been selling dollars for $0.50. Investing in their product lines doesn't help them, it's always been a grift and a shell game. Some great products have come out of it, but the valuation has never been one where selling more products helps the business, unless it can lead to the hype train.
rgmerk 1 days ago [-]
Sure, but if they're losing money, you go looking for ways to make a bit more money without having to spend too much. My contention is at least some of these things could be done relatively cheaply and would generate additional sales.
Tesla may be getting belted from pillar to post elsewhere in the world by the Chinese but they a) still have a near-monopoly in EVs in the US, and b) have a cost-competitive EV manufacturing operation in China from which they can supply other parts of the world.
That still doesn't help their image problem, which is still very real for many left-leaning affluent consumers around the world, but that's less of a problem for commercial vehicles.
1 days ago [-]
MisterMunchkin 22 hours ago [-]
And why don’t they have a HUD? Every other car does. Teslas were cool in the 2010s, but now they’re just old and sad.
rgmerk 19 hours ago [-]
Just like an instrument panel and an indicator stalk.
It’s a shame, because even after all these years Teslas are still state of
the art in quite a few aspects (their packaging and drivetrain efficiency, among others). But here in Oz where we have a smorgasbord of cheap and excellent Chinese EVs, there are better options unless you want FSD above all else.
benhurmarcel 19 hours ago [-]
They skimp on plastic buttons, you think they'll include a HUD?
speedgoose 1 days ago [-]
Sorry TSLA holders, it's partly my fault as I got my 5 years old Model Y checked by a third party garage for everything that should be fixed by Tesla before the end of the main warranty period.
sippingabonedry 1 days ago [-]
I'm reminded nearly every other day that EVs need no maintenance and should never see the inside of a mechanic's garage.
speedgoose 1 days ago [-]
I can't really complain about the maintenance of the EV parts of my cars. I know some EVs fail there too, but my two EVs have been flawless when it comes to the electric drivetrains and the batteries.
But having an electric car doesn't make salt and potholes magically disappear, unfortunately.
drnick1 1 days ago [-]
What maintenance do they actually need? Tires, brakes, wiper blades, air filter, washer fluid? All fairly trivial to DIY. One thing that I would do is disable the cellular modem, to prevent unwanted "upgrades."
onedognight 1 days ago [-]
Brakes! They sometimes rust on Teslas due to lack of use.
drnick1 13 hours ago [-]
Rotors, especially cheap ones, rust almost instantly, on any car.
k4rli 1 days ago [-]
Do you swap out the rotors anytime there's rust on them?
scheme271 23 hours ago [-]
If it's just surface rust, some hard braking should clean up the surface as the brake pads will remove the rust when applied.
speedgoose 1 days ago [-]
You forgot suspensions.
sippingabonedry 1 days ago [-]
> One thing that I would do is disable the cellular modem
Is that even possible in modern EVs? Without breaking critical functions like maps, etc.
2III7 1 days ago [-]
That's what Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are for.
shalmanese 12 hours ago [-]
Tesla does not have CarPlay/AA support.
ozlikethewizard 24 hours ago [-]
When did my car being able to navigate become a critical function?
NetMageSCW 16 hours ago [-]
When you bought a BEV and need to recharge on a road trip. And have the car prepare the battery for charging. And make sure the charging station will be working and available when you arrive.
ethbr1 23 hours ago [-]
When Tesla convinced people to outsource their ability to drive for ARR.
aembleton 21 hours ago [-]
Coolant - at least in the Hyundai Kona ev
collabs 1 days ago [-]
You still need things like brakes though, right?
sippingabonedry 1 days ago [-]
Of course. It's a ridiculous notion yet that hasn't stopped anyone from repeating it constantly.
More than a few times my mechanic has found something pending failure (like a leak) during regularly scheduled ICE maintenance and alerted me to keep an eye on it.
jackdoe 1 days ago [-]
when I say EVs need less maintenance I mean things like cylinder honing or clutch slipping.
do people actually think you buy a tesla and just drive?
andwur 1 days ago [-]
Their marketing worked well here, most Tesla drivers I know have commented that they will never need to service their car. At least, they do until they wear their tyres to the point they disintegrate while driving. A mechanically illiterate public coupled with effective marketing is a dangerous combo when they're flying around in 2 tonne boxes still filled with wear parts.
rlt 1 days ago [-]
> At least, they do until they wear their tyres to the point they disintegrate while driving
I don't think anyone who knows tires wear out thinks Teslas have special tires that don't wear.
> A mechanically illiterate public coupled with effective marketing is a dangerous combo when they're flying around in 2 tonne boxes still filled with wear parts.
Good news: Teslas will tell you when you do need to do the little maintenance that is required, including worn tires.
I believe it's the only, or at least first, car that measures tire wear by comparing GPS distance traveled to wheel rotations, accounting for tire pressure.
JumpCrisscross 23 hours ago [-]
> I don't think anyone who knows tires wear out thinks Teslas have special tires that don't wear
I've started taking my Dad's Tesla in to get tires rotated when I'm in town because he flat refuses to do it because of this nonsense.
NetMageSCW 16 hours ago [-]
Perhaps you should be taking his keys instead. Though tire rotation is just an economic decision (I haven’t had a car that could have its tires rotated in decades) not a safety decision. Just means tire will need replacing sooner.
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
No, this is a long-term thing. In high school the minivan I drove to violin practice crapped its engine onto the freeway because it apparently hadn’t had an oil change in years.
dd8601fn 1 days ago [-]
They do that with ice vehicles anyway. They’re just not ignoring oil changes, fuel and oil filters, transmission, belts, etc. with an ev.
lostlogin 1 days ago [-]
I do that with a Leaf. I did have to change a tyre after 4 years, and last week I filled the wiper fluid.
oez 1 days ago [-]
People do this with ICE cars, so yes.
sippingabonedry 1 days ago [-]
> do people actually think you buy a tesla and just drive
Unfortunately these people exist by the thousands.
rlt 1 days ago [-]
They need brakes changed far less often due to regenerative braking.
scheme271 23 hours ago [-]
Yeah, but the brake fluid still needs to be regularly changed. The fluid is hygroscopic and if the fluid absorbs too much moisture from the air, the brake system can fail under hard braking. Basically hard braking heats up the brake fluid and the water inside can boil and turn to steam which is compressible and your brake pedal goes to the floor without actually making the brake calipers close. Regenerative braking should still work but in an emergency you probably want more.
lelanthran 1 days ago [-]
> I'm reminded nearly every other day that EVs need no maintenance and should never see the inside of a mechanic's garage.
Are you being sarcastic, perhaps?
sdcfgy 1 days ago [-]
EV ownership is mostly about lying to yourself and saving face.
From direct experience.
Also worth noting that the fuel on a second hand petrol car cost less than the depreciation on the EV for me.
speedgoose 23 hours ago [-]
Just wondering whether you considered second hand EV in your maths.
But yes, if you don't drive much at all, an EV might be more expensive for now. Assuming stable fossil fuels prices.
sdcfgy 21 hours ago [-]
That was a second hand EV.
jjav 1 days ago [-]
Have not owned a tesla, but have had three EVs in the family. All three new cars. All of the EVs have spent way more days at the dealership than any of my ICE cars of the last 30+ years.
plqbfbv 23 hours ago [-]
Have had ICEs all my life, have one M3 2019. Been to the dealership exactly once in 7 years.
For all the heat they got in the beginning when they were figuring out production (esp. panel alignment), 2019s were already very good performance and maintenance-wise.
kasperni 1 days ago [-]
It's okay, we're an AI company now.
MiroslavPokorny 1 days ago [-]
A taxi company powered by AI auto drivers with ZERO taxis!
collabs 1 days ago [-]
I understand not wanting to pay the cost of LiDAR like twelve years ago but the price has come down since then. At this point does it even make sense to stick to cameras? What possible reason is there other than an aging Elmo's ego?
Even if it prevents like ten deaths, the LiDAR will have paid for itself.
MiroslavPokorny 2 hours ago [-]
Some people dont value other peoples lives, so why would they "pay" for something like Lidar ?
eru 1 days ago [-]
> Even if it prevents like ten deaths, the LiDAR will have paid for itself.
The statistical value of a human life (for US government purposes) is between 7 to 14 million USD depending on department etc. (Unless there's anything to do with nuclear, then it's pretty much infinity.)
I'm not quite sure how much LiDAR would cost extra?
Of course, in addition to lives saved, you have other benefits. Eg you can conceivably drive more aggressively and faster, when you have more scanners, because you can exploit more situations where a lesser system has to act conservative when it can't be quite sure.
autuni 24 hours ago [-]
It would also just be good PR at this point. They could easily spin it as "We could make it work like the others with only cameras, now we add back more sensors to improve even further!". Camera-only has been criticized prominently for so long too, it would undermine a lot of the negative arguments people make too. It would honestly just be an easy win for them, even if there is no real improvement at first, they can even take their time to update the software over time.
eru 21 hours ago [-]
It would be funny to also add ultra-sound bat sense.
tencentshill 16 hours ago [-]
The statistical value of a human life was recently reduced to $0 for environmental purposes.
eru 16 hours ago [-]
Please elaborate.
archagon 1 days ago [-]
Narcissists can't admit they're wrong.
And if Musk cared at all about deaths, he would not have taken a chainsaw to USAID.
zobzu 1 days ago [-]
I take them regularly in SF, twice cheaper than lyft, 4x cheaper than waymo and works fine... it's literally the cheapest other than zoox (free if on tester list, which I am), but it's as fast as Lyft/Uber.
MiroslavPokorny 6 hours ago [-]
Heres a secret nobody will tell you.
Most of your trips such as commuting to the office are unnecessary becaus eyou already have a computer at home.
This could be probably rectified with an ongoing dono in their GitHub Sponsonships.
zelphirkalt 1 days ago [-]
Statements about the about items in the empty set are always true!
culi 1 days ago [-]
Someone sits in the front though and drives you around manually. That's just a simple taxi except its highly subsidized so Tesla can run its grift
fragmede 22 hours ago [-]
The safety driver isn't manually driving the car in normal conditions. Like, it's not that much of a scam.
culi 14 hours ago [-]
I personally like human interaction, but most people I see raving about Waymos like them because they don't have to interact with a human. What's the point if there's someone in the driver's seat? The only difference between a regular taxi is that it's currently heavily subsidized by Tesla so they can prop up their ridership statistics
UltraSane 22 hours ago [-]
Do they have a safety driver?
boyka 1 days ago [-]
Invest the $30B into AI build-out with a company called SpaceX, nice. SpaceX invests some more Cybertrucks, nice.
LaSombra 21 hours ago [-]
A friend of mine who's all in on Musk told me a few months ago that Tesla's business hasn't been cars for a while. It's all Optimus and Cybertaxi, where demand will be infinite and we'll all be paid by our governments to stop working since Optimus will do everything and Cybertaxi will take us anywhere. Not today, of course, but in the future. Future being explained in the exact same elastic terms as Musk does.
The fact that he was serious and thinks that Musk is the only tech CEO not in this for his own benefit and enrichment is what makes me believe that this is more of a cult than anything else.
harrouet 1 days ago [-]
Beyond the long track record of unmet Musk's announcements, Tesla is strategically in a very difficult situation: it went from being the sole option for an electric car, to being a small mid-market player with quality issues.
- chinese companies are now exporting with 25% discount for similar quality
- premium brands occupy the $80'000+ car segment with better comfort and quality
- Tesla sells as many as Renault, a local European player, except the later built a strong alliance network to get scale economics.
I won't even mention the failure of the Cybertruck, which cannot even be exported to Europe due to its dangerous design.
In short: they'd rather merge now with a traditional car company while they have a high valuation, much like US West did with QWest at the end of the Internet bubble. Or else...
JKCalhoun 5 hours ago [-]
Worst, a luxury brand.
I'm still saving up for my first mega yacht. I hope then to get a Tesla as well. (Or maybe Range Rover instead.)
bpodgursky 1 days ago [-]
I'm not convinced Tesla's schizophrenic strategy is any worse than the strategy of the legacy American automakers, which is to sleepwalk directly into a volcano (when Chinese EV manufactures break into the market with $10k SUVs)
lnsru 1 days ago [-]
Elon gambled with cybertruck and didn’t won. The winning strategy was to outcompete Chinese with smaller affordable vehicle. I would call it common sense strategy after all.
riffraff 1 days ago [-]
The cybertruck was a disaster but I think the main issue is they didn't do any new model after that for almost a decade.
Also, Musk getting into politics and alienating most of its consumer base, of course.
calgoo 1 days ago [-]
That last part is a big thing, especially in Europe where a lot of their sales have almost stopped as no one wants to drive a nazi car.
DaSHacka 1 days ago [-]
AfD seems to be doing a little too well across the sea for me to believe that
culi 1 days ago [-]
They might see a rebound from last year which was a bad year for them but that's likely driven by some pretty aggressive price cuts.
China is actually nearly 3x bigger market for them than Europe and we have clearer numbers on how that's going:
2026 so far has been shaping up to be a huge contraction. Only 316,251 were shipped in the first 8 months. (BYD sold 440k units in August alone)
05hundred 1 days ago [-]
Problem is, AfD voters also don't want to drive Teslas (not because they disagree with Elon's politics, but because "only hippies drive EVs, patriots drive real cars".)
24 hours ago [-]
skissane 1 days ago [-]
Musk’s problem is that the intersection of “votes AfD” and “willing and able to buy premium electric vehicle” is relatively small
wodenokoto 17 hours ago [-]
Tesla has managed to alienate the entire left wing while not enticing the right wing.
mbushey 13 hours ago [-]
> no one wants to drive a nazi car.
That explains why VW, Audi, Porsche, Mercedes, and BMW are doing so poorly. You know, those companies actually founded by Hitler. First rule of advertising is claim your week points are your strong points, and the first rule of politicizing is blame everyone else for what you are guilty of.
sippingabonedry 1 days ago [-]
> as no one wants to drive a nazi car
Volkswagen had €322 billion in revenue last year and was literally in every way founded by the Nazi party.
The requirement for the air-cooled engine in the Beetle came from none other than Mr. Stubby Mustache himself.
__m 1 days ago [-]
the nazi party doesn't exist anymore and their ceo doesn't do nazi salutes
zelphirkalt 1 days ago [-]
With a small difference of some 90y or whenever VW was founded between that and now, while Musk is doing Hitler salutes in recent years. Other than that, your argument would make sense.
zobzu 1 days ago [-]
the only mistake was politics.
danny_codes 15 hours ago [-]
Their original strategy to make a mass market Model 2 after Model 3 was good. 8 years ago I was eagerly awaiting its release.
Then sometime around when the Ketamine began flowing the plan seems to have changed.
So I would add ketamine to politics.
What’s weird about all this is that the democrats were pretty pro-Tesla / pro-SpaceX before Elon Ketamized the Fed. And the democratic platform would have improved industrial policy via-a-vis renewables.
We can only conclude that the Ketamine haze addled his brain and he simply ignores the advice of those around him.
That a common failure mode
nialse 1 days ago [-]
The interesting part is that small affordable EVs was Teslas initial goal IIRC. Changing horses in the middle of the stream just did not workout? I’m sure Tesla will be fine in the end though. There is always someone coming to the rescue.
miohtama 1 days ago [-]
Cybertruck technology ended up in cybercab and semi, so whether the vehicle itself won might not be relevant in long run.
Hamuko 1 days ago [-]
Two other vehicles that barely exist?
drnick1 1 days ago [-]
No, the winning strategy was to release a conventional-looking truck, say something that very much looks like an F150 or a Silverado.
The Cybertruck, or what it should have been, was never meant to be an entry-level truck like the Slate, and the market for trucks clearly shows people are wanting to spent money on big trucks.
NetMageSCW 16 hours ago [-]
They (Elon) gambled they could reduce the price of the rest of the truck enough to make an “affordable” BEV by radical changing how it was built - turns out that wasn’t possible.
Ford gambled they could build a BEV truck like an F150 and make it affordable enough to attract their normal buyers. Turns out that wasn’t possible.
I’m not sure I see why one failure was better than the other.
yencabulator 15 hours ago [-]
> No, the winning strategy was to release a conventional-looking truck, say something that very much looks like an F150 or a Silverado.
Turns out F150 Lightning was not the winning strategy.
drnick1 13 hours ago [-]
> Turns out F150 Lightning was not the winning strategy.
Keep in mind that this wasn't a truck designed to be an EV from the ground up, it's merely an adaptation of the gas-powered F150. What Tesla could have brought to the table was an EV-native truck. The Cybertruck is more or less that, but the goofy design is probably what killed it.
kelseyfrog 1 days ago [-]
Buying a Tesla vehicle (or not) became a referendum on Elon himself. It became a small personal action one could take to feel like you could actually do something that had an effect. Whether or not it accomplished the goal is precisely the center of debate, but regardless, the feeling was real.
eru 1 days ago [-]
Won't the US government just keep raising tariffs to 'protect' America from those evil Chinese manufacturers?
In any case, just because the legacy incumbents might also be incompetent, doesn't excuse Tesla.
bpodgursky 1 days ago [-]
I'm not going to defend the Cybertruck execution, clearly they misjudged the demand.
But Optimus is a fair play. Don't grub for scraps in an efficient competitive market. Make a new market, go big or go home.
danny_codes 15 hours ago [-]
Works until you run out of money. I work in AI robotics. Yes, it’s promising. No, nobody is deploying anything remotely useful for a while.
senordevnyc 5 hours ago [-]
It would be so lame to work in non-AI robotics…
autuni 23 hours ago [-]
The problem I see there is that apart from the sci-fi aspect, what's the market for humanoid robots really?
fragmede 22 hours ago [-]
Really? The sci-fi aspect is it. A humanoid robot with enough intelligence to compete with the average human is going to be something like cars or electricity or the wheel or the Internet. The market then is all labor. Companies paid $13T to employees in the US in 2025, so some component of that.
autuni 22 hours ago [-]
I just doubt that a generalized form (in this case humanoid) will actually be better for most applications. We can build specialized robots to perform tasks, which can be optimized to perform what they need to do. If I want to deploy a robot in my factory to do some blacksmithing (I don't know why this example came to mind), I don't need it to be a robot that is built to also be suitable to be a bartender. Why not have specialized robots for the applications (which become easier to develop too)?
We have built professions to work around our own form because that's what we're stuck with. Robots can take many forms, so why make them average at all things instead of making robots perfect for one (or a few).
notrustincloud 22 hours ago [-]
most industrial use robotics is actually this. from the pick and place in electronics and pharmaceuticals to weld and assembly for mechanical. the 'humanoid' robotics ideals are part of the same grift idealogy that pushes replacement of people in all kinds of roles. We are also not going to colonise the moon in the next decade either. Same reason, it a billionare pipe dream that doesnt conform to practical physics.
fragmede 21 hours ago [-]
When do you want to colonize the moon then?
fragmede 21 hours ago [-]
Cost. Manufacturing efficiency. It's easier to make 1,000,000 of the same thing than it is to make a million different variations. I'm sure we'll see specialization, and two arms isn't enough, and we don't need heads if there's a 360 degree camera, but bipedal is probably the base. But going back to your question, there's enough usefulness in average for it to be a huge market.
LarsDu88 1 days ago [-]
Honestly Ford is doing something right with the new Fathom truck, but mostly their catching up to Tesla in terms of manufacturing. The Chinese companies caught up and passed up Tesla in that game about a year ago.
At some point, the reality of being in a highly competitive market must set in and valuations need to come down to Earth.
dyauspitr 1 days ago [-]
The lightning was fantastic as well.
LarsDu88 1 days ago [-]
The fact that Ford in the 2020s took a look at the lightning (which is not a bad vehicle by any means) and thought "this really isn't cutting it" is a good sign.
Henry Ford was the original Elon Musk. He was obsessed with efficiency, minimalism, and just a smidge of Nazism. They only offered the Model T in one color. Tesla doesn't paint the damn Cybertruck at all. A Ford Motors that goes back to its roots (without all the weird white supremacist stuff), would be a strong auto maker indeed.
theturtletalks 1 days ago [-]
If they follow what they did with AI and make it open-source, I’m first in line to buy. The Spider-Man ads on BMW is just the beginning and even if you would never buy an open-source car, doesn’t mean it won’t keep the competition honest.
culi 1 days ago [-]
What makes you think you'd ever be allowed to buy a Chinese EV in the US?
theturtletalks 1 days ago [-]
You can’t even buy a car in Texas unless it’s from a dealership. Dealerships and Car Manufacturers use regulatory capture to make sure their moat stays. I’m sure they will try to block Chinese EVs and buying one is a long ways out.
culi 14 hours ago [-]
You can't buy a Chinese EV anywhere in the US. They are banned. Even if you wanted to pay the 100% tariff, you can't buy one because they ban any cars with any software made in China and certain Chinese made hardware
noncoml 1 days ago [-]
The difference is in the valuation of those vs TSLA
redanddead 1 days ago [-]
The tariffs will save us
nialse 1 days ago [-]
Tariffs in the US will be just effective as the EU EV tariffs. It will protect the industry for some time, and at the same time make it go stale and irrelevant.
Animats 1 days ago [-]
It's disappointing. They were the leading electric car company, and then they blew it. No new good models. The robotaxi that never quite works. The Cybertruck.
The humanoid robot army. The out-to-lunch CEO off being a political.
Tesla should be building something like the Slate pickup. Or like BYD's midrange models. Things that would actually sell.
One of the lessons of the electric car industry is that when gas car companies build electric vehicles, the vehicles suck. They're usually adapted versions of gas cars, which means too much structure and cost in the wrong places. This usually comes out as a $5000 price penalty for the electric model. Tesla was well placed to avoid that.
But they blew it.
bzzzt 23 hours ago [-]
"Gas car" companies like Volkswagen or Volvo also have EVs built from the ground up, and have models cheaper than Tesla, most of the time with slightly lesser range or other specs but price/performance wise in the same ballpark.
If anything makes it more expensive it's the habit of certain manufacturers to nickel and dime buyers over every option.
danny_codes 16 hours ago [-]
Tesla isn’t interested in being a car company. That’s pretty clear from the fact they only sell 2 cars and some sort of dump truck. Though I don’t see people using the truck’s trash capacity too fully, generally only the driver’s seat is filled with detritus.
JKCalhoun 5 hours ago [-]
Ha ha, and here I thought it was a life-size R/C car/truck/thing.
dcj4 21 hours ago [-]
Curious of them to report on a topic they obviously have absolutely no clue about with such strong opinions.
fragmede 22 hours ago [-]
So Elon's making humanoid robots, and he's, well, Elon. Those bots are going to get given guns. And then where are we?
cosmicgadget 14 hours ago [-]
Some other robotics company will have competent killbots while Elon's are continually "only two years away".
ulfw 1 days ago [-]
Time to become SpAIceXTeslAI
Valuation +420%. Easily.
Ekaros 1 days ago [-]
Sadly solar roofs was dumped. So can't include boring company there. Just imagine what could have been. Under ground solar roadways.
ulfw 1 days ago [-]
+69,000% in that case. Like with his S3XY cars. Oh well.
nialse 1 days ago [-]
SpacetAxI? (Sorry, not sorry)
eru 1 days ago [-]
Well, the other company should already be called SpaceXXXai (as a concatenation of the three pre-merger companies).
tosti 1 days ago [-]
Large shiney rock pile awaits!
tistoon 16 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Rvadapally 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
josefritzishere 17 hours ago [-]
[dead]
xrd 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
frankacter 1 days ago [-]
Can we update the URL and title for a publication that has less bias:
"Tesla lines up $30 billion credit lines as capex, AI push accelerate"
Electrek's full time job is to dunk on anything Elon Musk touches.
wallst07 21 hours ago [-]
So is HN, you're in the wrong placed for nuanced balanced discussions.
landdate 1 days ago [-]
I drive a shitbox but if I was gonna buy a new car and I had the money to buy one it would probably be tesla considering their realistically the only American car companies that make their cars in the US. Rooting for them to do well, because I live in the midwest and have seen what happens when these trash can companies overshore manufacturing.
Seeing it happen now too with college jobs is funny, because all those same people making fun of your community for complaining about lack of jobs after the factory they built their city around leaves, now are complainjng abiut the same thing. H1B yourself. Love those Indians. Anyway, everyone loses no class solidarity, the poors fighting amongst themselves like animals.
CharlieDigital 1 days ago [-]
> ...considering their realistically the only American car companies that make their cars in the US
Rivian says "Hi"
haspok 22 hours ago [-]
Lucid is also American made, no?
CharlieDigital 18 hours ago [-]
It is, but I view it as more of a niche company and product still whereas Rivian has commercial products (Amazon) as well as mainstream consumer products like the R2 (shipping) and R3 (in pipeline). Still on the high end, but clearly moving mass market as their production capacity ramps up. Not sure about Lucid.
Fairburn 13 hours ago [-]
Shh dont stop the fanbois from eating feet.
landdate 5 hours ago [-]
both of them are too expensive for my taste. tesla is the only one i could afford. its a shame.
landdate 1 days ago [-]
Never heard of them. But if they are made in America I will keep them in my mind when/if I buy a new car.
CharlieDigital 24 hours ago [-]
RJ Scaringe (CEO) is who everyone thought Elon was in the early days.
Surprised you haven't heard of Rivian. I've been seeing them for a few years now. Caught my eye with first with the "Now I don't recognize that! What is it?"
sidcool 1 days ago [-]
Electrek has gone completely biased with Tesla. They have done so bad, that even if this is true, I'd take it with a fistful of salt.
3eb7988a1663 1 days ago [-]
The entire post is that Tesla setup $30B in loans that it could potentially use. What salt should I be taking?
sidcool 1 days ago [-]
Read their prior Tesla posts. They are all negative.
1 days ago [-]
3eb7988a1663 1 days ago [-]
Ok. Are they lying?
sidcool 15 hours ago [-]
Yes. But not in a direct way. The title is a lie, then the article body softens the lie to prevent litigation.
wallst07 21 hours ago [-]
The whole truth and nothing but the truth...
Being biased isn't lying, withholding truth isn't lying (maybe). What is your point? You can be biased and not lie.
sidcool 15 hours ago [-]
It's a pernicious kind of bias. Just like your statement. It's not possible to be biased and not lie. And hiding truth is a form of lie.
LunicLynx 1 days ago [-]
As the headline is the only thing presented here. And the headline not being representative of the truth. I would argue that classifying this as lying is acceptable to the same degree as the headline is.
You (the general you) can’t have it both ways
lazzlazzlazz 1 days ago [-]
Did you read the post? It's all framed as "worrying". It's a very biased, thoughtless piece.
1 days ago [-]
zobzu 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
DaSHacka 1 days ago [-]
The funniest thing is how they used to eschew the complete opposite when elon was "funny memer man who's tony stark IRL"
23 hours ago [-]
happymellon 1 days ago [-]
I don't know anyone who thought he was a funny memer man. And definitely cos-play Tony Stark was inside his head.
It was always the other way around, he was okay because he pursued improving road technology doing the things we want but car manufacturers refused. He stopped doing that and was only a Nazi waving, drug addled, idiot and is treated as such.
DaSHacka 16 hours ago [-]
> I don't know anyone who thought he was a funny memer man. And definitely cos-play Tony Stark was inside his head.
I mean, do you think his Iron Man 2 cameo was random? He was absolutely seen as the "IRL Tony Stark" by a decent number of people back in the day. I don't know what circles you have/had been around, but he was generally liked across the board (or at the very least, not widely hated) pre-twitter acquisition.
Marazan 1 days ago [-]
Elon being crushingly unfunny and being unable to accept that is about 40% of the reason we are in this mess.
franciscop 1 days ago [-]
I was going to comment exactly the same. They used to be all about Tesla, and now they're basically all against Tesla. It's very shocking to see this turn of the editorial approach for a company that did change the full industry. It is true and well known that hate DOES bring more eyeballs than reporting the good news though, and this seems to be a well known bias against Tesla.
computably 1 days ago [-]
> It's very shocking to see this turn of the editorial approach for a company that did change the full industry.
Is it? Regardless of how revolutionary a company was, they don't get a free pass on criticism.
I had a positive sentiment towards Tesla when the mission was basically "make EVs sexy" and "promote clean electricity." Although they didn't have a perfect record (QC, proprietary charging, RtR), at least they were disrupting a stagnant industry, with a noble enough goal.
Now when I think of Tesla, I think of their deployment of "Full Self Driving (Beta) [keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road]", "Robotaxi (with human driver)," "Humanoid robot (why?)," and of course the glorious leader who bought Twitter so he could "protect free speech" by banning people he disagrees with.
otherme123 1 days ago [-]
Google used to be the "good company" not that long ago. They changed the whole industry. But today, and very deserved, a lot of people that liked or even loved them, turned against. And that can happen when a company changes, but also when the user changes its point of view: you could be a voter for Trump a couple years ago, but today and after watching the results of his politics (that are not that surprising, is not like the president made an U-turn) you might have a different opinion.
If you hold the same opinion forever, even when things obviously changed, you are just a fanatic.
blooalien 23 hours ago [-]
> If you hold the same opinion forever, even when things obviously changed, you are just a fanatic.
I was a huge fan of Google when "Don't be evil" was still their motto. That opinion changed the moment that motto went the way of the dinosaur.
franciscop 24 hours ago [-]
That is true, and I HAVE personally changed my opinion on Tesla, but Electrek IS about moving from Fossil Fuels to Electric vehicles. I guess I expected them to focus on the tech side of things and not on the politics side of it a bit more, when I read a technical magazine is mainly for the tech, not for the US political fight of the day.
bergen 1 days ago [-]
When was the last release of a new car from Tesla? When did they do anything exciting? Tesla is going in 5 directions at once, none of it with conviction, bleeding money with the CEO addicted and focused mainly on pity battles online most of the time besides managing 5 companies at this point.
Tesla itself made a turn for the worse over the years and there are a lot of things to criticize honestly
Tesla's product line is narrow and aging rapidly.
They want to be valued as a ~~scifi~~ tech company.
Which is fair, given that the market (and by extension we) chose to brutally punish boring car companies that make reliable high volume cars.
But that would be a massacre of shareholder value. One more quarter of a ridonculous valuation is worth more than having a product that will keep Tesla viable as a car company. The idea that Grok could become a first tier AI product is more valuable than a mass market SUV, because that untested idea keeps the share price up.
Until it doesn't. If you can predict the day that happens, I want to subscribe to your newsletter.
[0] https://www.itamarnovick.com/intro-to-startup-anti-pattern-s...
I'm arguing that the fair value of boring companies making reliable things should be much higher. We don't do that, you have to promise hot air based growth to prevent your valuation from crashing.
The behavior we incentivize is the one we'll get.
In theory (occasionally in practice) when you purchase a stock you are purchasing a piece of the future cash flow of that company. For a company which operates in a known environment and we can roughly predict how their revenue will grow (i.e. boring companies), the correct fair value of the stock can be easily computed.
So, no, those predictable companies should not be valued much higher, they are already valued correctly because the are no big surprises in their future, the profits and revenue are predictable.
This logic breaks down with companies where the growth can't be predicted to any reasonable accuracy. So in those you're just buying the hype, which sometimes turns out to be real, sometimes not.
Unfortunately this also incentivizes some companies to pump themselves purely on hype so they never get valued on actual revenue and profit. Tesla is a prime example of this. If you value them as a car company we can easily compute a fair value, but that number is very low. So, instead, robots! AI! self-driving! Space! That keeps the fair value an unknown, so it can ride the wave of hype for a long time.
If the world's wealth was equally distributed, it would be pretty punishing for everyone who is commenting on this platform.
Very few people would choose the one where there's a slight chance they're in the wealth classes currently.
Not moving towards equality is just a selfish choicel.
It is. People are selfish.
Companies even more so.
No, they only believe that somebody else believes this shit. The entire valuation of Elon's companies is based on greater fool theory. But it notably is called greater fool, not infinite fool; we are going to run out of fools at some point...
Are you convinced enough that you are correct to short the stock though?
I mean, they must have one and it must be at least minimally plausible - otherwise the regulatory authorities would have stepped in long before things got to this stage... right?
Push out competitors and get the market, bet the market is large enough.
The total market cap of all the Chinese car companies combined is about 300B.
Tesla alone is worth ~5x that, because the market rewards this behavior of chasing new things.
If Tesla suddenly pivoted to 'caring about cars' and tried their best to produce low cost reliable EVs, the market is going to punish them by valuing them at less than 300B. That is, if they succeed at that. If they fail, which would be more plausible, they go bankrupt.
Why would they voluntarily do that?
We could do that by changing public opinion or regulating what public companies must do/report, but that seems somewhat unlikely. It's so much easier to claim that autonomous driving will be solved in six months :)
Market cap is not a useful comparison because it can (as here) be driven by hype.
A better comparison is revenue and profit, that tells us a lot more about the business each is operating.
Last I checked they (still) never release their EV profit alone, always bundling the numbers with plug-in hybrids and high-margin battery sales to other companies. If BYD made money on EVs there'd be no need for shenanigans.
Why for US companies is it okay to be unprofitable while they grow, but for Chinese companies it is shenanigans?
Also, if they actually sell things such as high-margin batteries, is it even shenanigans? Using a profitable division to finance the growth of another division sounds like excellent business strategy to me. Better than promising bullshit FSD to artificially inflate the stock price.
Predatory pricing is nothing new. Walmart did the same thing, but (of course) they raised prices as soon as the local competition was dead. China is merely doing the same, so their "winning" in the economic market is a temporary illusion.
"Turns out communists make great capitalists" is still true.
I got a new job once, the boss asked me what I thought after a few days. I told him I wouldn't be around for very long. "why?" It took me 2 hours to figure out you don't get it. "how?" Well, you have a coin operated coffee machine in the lunch room. It tells me everything I need to know. "But it's just 50 cents?" I laugh and point at him, EXACTLY! Now tell me how it tastes. "I don't know, I have my own machine upstairs" I dig in my pocket and pull out a shiny 50 cent coin. HERE! "what is that for?" I say, it's uhhh just 50 cents? "Why are you giving me 50 cents?", well technically you should explain to me why I would have to give you 50 cents but okay, you are selling a product in the lunch room, I suggest you go and test if it lives up to your standards. He actually walked off to the lunch room, I could see though the window that he put my 50 cents in the machine, then he waited... the cup filled up slowly... he took a sip then spit it into the sink. He came back but I was unable to continue the conversations, I couldn't stop laughing so he walked away. I wanted to say it tasted like: I need to get away from this place as fast as possible.
Why so long? Six months? According to God-King Trump who apparently knows everything better than anyone, we're already well past "AI" into Super-Intelligence. Just ask the Machine-God to bestow autonomous driving upon us and we're good to go, yeah? Time to bring on those flying cars in every garage we was all promised decades ago!
Opposite seasons, new wars, at least one new thing to be outraged about.
[1] https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/used/citroen/grand-c4-pica...
The market hype is quite similar, so even if its a metaphoric commparison, it makes sense :-))
Visually yes, but technology still vastly mogs all but zeekr maybe.
But that doesn’t matter - most people seem to buy cars entirely by how it looks.
Tesla may be getting belted from pillar to post elsewhere in the world by the Chinese but they a) still have a near-monopoly in EVs in the US, and b) have a cost-competitive EV manufacturing operation in China from which they can supply other parts of the world.
That still doesn't help their image problem, which is still very real for many left-leaning affluent consumers around the world, but that's less of a problem for commercial vehicles.
It’s a shame, because even after all these years Teslas are still state of the art in quite a few aspects (their packaging and drivetrain efficiency, among others). But here in Oz where we have a smorgasbord of cheap and excellent Chinese EVs, there are better options unless you want FSD above all else.
But having an electric car doesn't make salt and potholes magically disappear, unfortunately.
Is that even possible in modern EVs? Without breaking critical functions like maps, etc.
More than a few times my mechanic has found something pending failure (like a leak) during regularly scheduled ICE maintenance and alerted me to keep an eye on it.
do people actually think you buy a tesla and just drive?
I don't think anyone who knows tires wear out thinks Teslas have special tires that don't wear.
> A mechanically illiterate public coupled with effective marketing is a dangerous combo when they're flying around in 2 tonne boxes still filled with wear parts.
Good news: Teslas will tell you when you do need to do the little maintenance that is required, including worn tires.
I believe it's the only, or at least first, car that measures tire wear by comparing GPS distance traveled to wheel rotations, accounting for tire pressure.
I've started taking my Dad's Tesla in to get tires rotated when I'm in town because he flat refuses to do it because of this nonsense.
Unfortunately these people exist by the thousands.
Are you being sarcastic, perhaps?
From direct experience.
Also worth noting that the fuel on a second hand petrol car cost less than the depreciation on the EV for me.
But yes, if you don't drive much at all, an EV might be more expensive for now. Assuming stable fossil fuels prices.
For all the heat they got in the beginning when they were figuring out production (esp. panel alignment), 2019s were already very good performance and maintenance-wise.
Even if it prevents like ten deaths, the LiDAR will have paid for itself.
The statistical value of a human life (for US government purposes) is between 7 to 14 million USD depending on department etc. (Unless there's anything to do with nuclear, then it's pretty much infinity.)
I'm not quite sure how much LiDAR would cost extra?
Of course, in addition to lives saved, you have other benefits. Eg you can conceivably drive more aggressively and faster, when you have more scanners, because you can exploit more situations where a lesser system has to act conservative when it can't be quite sure.
And if Musk cared at all about deaths, he would not have taken a chainsaw to USAID.
Most of your trips such as commuting to the office are unnecessary becaus eyou already have a computer at home.
Dont tell anyone...
The fact that he was serious and thinks that Musk is the only tech CEO not in this for his own benefit and enrichment is what makes me believe that this is more of a cult than anything else.
- chinese companies are now exporting with 25% discount for similar quality - premium brands occupy the $80'000+ car segment with better comfort and quality - Tesla sells as many as Renault, a local European player, except the later built a strong alliance network to get scale economics.
I won't even mention the failure of the Cybertruck, which cannot even be exported to Europe due to its dangerous design.
In short: they'd rather merge now with a traditional car company while they have a high valuation, much like US West did with QWest at the end of the Internet bubble. Or else...
I'm still saving up for my first mega yacht. I hope then to get a Tesla as well. (Or maybe Range Rover instead.)
Also, Musk getting into politics and alienating most of its consumer base, of course.
China is actually nearly 3x bigger market for them than Europe and we have clearer numbers on how that's going:
2026 so far has been shaping up to be a huge contraction. Only 316,251 were shipped in the first 8 months. (BYD sold 440k units in August alone)Volkswagen had €322 billion in revenue last year and was literally in every way founded by the Nazi party.
The requirement for the air-cooled engine in the Beetle came from none other than Mr. Stubby Mustache himself.
Then sometime around when the Ketamine began flowing the plan seems to have changed.
So I would add ketamine to politics.
What’s weird about all this is that the democrats were pretty pro-Tesla / pro-SpaceX before Elon Ketamized the Fed. And the democratic platform would have improved industrial policy via-a-vis renewables.
We can only conclude that the Ketamine haze addled his brain and he simply ignores the advice of those around him.
That a common failure mode
The Cybertruck, or what it should have been, was never meant to be an entry-level truck like the Slate, and the market for trucks clearly shows people are wanting to spent money on big trucks.
Ford gambled they could build a BEV truck like an F150 and make it affordable enough to attract their normal buyers. Turns out that wasn’t possible.
I’m not sure I see why one failure was better than the other.
Turns out F150 Lightning was not the winning strategy.
Keep in mind that this wasn't a truck designed to be an EV from the ground up, it's merely an adaptation of the gas-powered F150. What Tesla could have brought to the table was an EV-native truck. The Cybertruck is more or less that, but the goofy design is probably what killed it.
In any case, just because the legacy incumbents might also be incompetent, doesn't excuse Tesla.
But Optimus is a fair play. Don't grub for scraps in an efficient competitive market. Make a new market, go big or go home.
We have built professions to work around our own form because that's what we're stuck with. Robots can take many forms, so why make them average at all things instead of making robots perfect for one (or a few).
At some point, the reality of being in a highly competitive market must set in and valuations need to come down to Earth.
Henry Ford was the original Elon Musk. He was obsessed with efficiency, minimalism, and just a smidge of Nazism. They only offered the Model T in one color. Tesla doesn't paint the damn Cybertruck at all. A Ford Motors that goes back to its roots (without all the weird white supremacist stuff), would be a strong auto maker indeed.
Tesla should be building something like the Slate pickup. Or like BYD's midrange models. Things that would actually sell.
One of the lessons of the electric car industry is that when gas car companies build electric vehicles, the vehicles suck. They're usually adapted versions of gas cars, which means too much structure and cost in the wrong places. This usually comes out as a $5000 price penalty for the electric model. Tesla was well placed to avoid that.
But they blew it.
If anything makes it more expensive it's the habit of certain manufacturers to nickel and dime buyers over every option.
Valuation +420%. Easily.
"Tesla lines up $30 billion credit lines as capex, AI push accelerate"
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
Electrek's full time job is to dunk on anything Elon Musk touches.
Seeing it happen now too with college jobs is funny, because all those same people making fun of your community for complaining about lack of jobs after the factory they built their city around leaves, now are complainjng abiut the same thing. H1B yourself. Love those Indians. Anyway, everyone loses no class solidarity, the poors fighting amongst themselves like animals.
Really good listen:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rivian-rj-scaringe/id1...
Being biased isn't lying, withholding truth isn't lying (maybe). What is your point? You can be biased and not lie.
It was always the other way around, he was okay because he pursued improving road technology doing the things we want but car manufacturers refused. He stopped doing that and was only a Nazi waving, drug addled, idiot and is treated as such.
I mean, do you think his Iron Man 2 cameo was random? He was absolutely seen as the "IRL Tony Stark" by a decent number of people back in the day. I don't know what circles you have/had been around, but he was generally liked across the board (or at the very least, not widely hated) pre-twitter acquisition.
Is it? Regardless of how revolutionary a company was, they don't get a free pass on criticism.
I had a positive sentiment towards Tesla when the mission was basically "make EVs sexy" and "promote clean electricity." Although they didn't have a perfect record (QC, proprietary charging, RtR), at least they were disrupting a stagnant industry, with a noble enough goal.
Now when I think of Tesla, I think of their deployment of "Full Self Driving (Beta) [keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road]", "Robotaxi (with human driver)," "Humanoid robot (why?)," and of course the glorious leader who bought Twitter so he could "protect free speech" by banning people he disagrees with.
If you hold the same opinion forever, even when things obviously changed, you are just a fanatic.
I was a huge fan of Google when "Don't be evil" was still their motto. That opinion changed the moment that motto went the way of the dinosaur.
Tesla itself made a turn for the worse over the years and there are a lot of things to criticize honestly