This is all so frustrating. Tesla could have easily been an American auto maker generational success story. Instead they’re working hard to undermine their own success, turn their brand toxic, and even design vehicles that are unappealing to key purchasing demographics (Cybertruck).
What changed is he took the mask off. He was always the sleaze that he is today, but a lot of us were fooled into believing he wanted to do something good.
He brought good things due to high-conviction bold moves though, like democratizing EVs, reusable rockets, and most of all, actual internet in airplanes.
Is it accurate to say Tesla democratized EVs? The Roadster came out in 2008 but was over $100k. Over its lifetime they only sold around 2500. It was always a rich person's car.
The first 21st century EV in the US that was aimed at a more mainstream mass market was the Nissan Leaf which launched in late 2010, and in the first year sold 4x as many units Tesla Roadster's lifetime sales.
Tesla took a significant step toward an EV for the less rich with the Model S in 2012. It was still a lot more expensive than a Leaf (about 80%ish more for a base Model S) but way less than the Roadster.
The Leaf was the world's best selling EV in 2011-2014 and 2016, and in 2020 was the first to reach 500k sales.
It wasn't until 2017 with the model 3 that Tesla had a car that, like the Leaf, was priced in the range typical middle class families could afford. That's when they took off, and they caught up and passed Leaf in cumulative sales in early 2021.
- he most certainly did not democratize EVs, although he said the plan all along was to make cheap EVs it wasn’t until other car companies started “democratizing” EVs that his had was forced (and delayed)
- we had internet (and still do) in planes that have nothing to do with starlink
I don't agree after reading Walter Isaacson's excellent biography of Elon. It's deeply unfortunate that the book is already a few years old, I'd love and buy the hell out of a 2nd edition that is updated with the last few years.
Obviously it's always been latent in Elon, but he was a pretty bog standard lightly-if-apolitical silicon valley startup guy for most of his adult life. The free speech erosion under the Biden admin is what really started to "red pill" him and eventually led him off the cliff. It's a sad story really, but an important one because I think there are a lot of people in the same boat, and understandign them is important if we want to correct the trajectory of our country's ship. It's a damn hard problem though.
>Having reportedly voted for Joe Biden in 2020, Musk even voiced his pro-Dems alignment in 2022 when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, that he had “strongly supported Obama for President” in 2007.
I think he turned after Tesla was snubbed at Biden's 2021 EV summit because although it was the US's largest EV maker it wasn't unionized and Biden was in with the unions.
There are a lot of people who are unhappy with the steps the government took to crack down on COVID misinformation, and some people are still upset about Twitter's decision to limit spread of the Hunter Biden laptop story (which was entirely unilateral, and reversed within 24 hours).
Both of these took place in 2020, when Trump was president, but of course Trump's greatest coup was to make everybody think Biden was president in 2020.
2018 (tham luang cave rescue) is when the cracks really started showing up, so the trajectory was probably set a while earlier.
The tendency was probably always there given the serial lying about self driving started circa 2015, or the weird ego trip of ousting the founders and getting himself called co-founder, but if we’re looking for a point event the removal of his long time PA in 2014 still stands out to me.
What did he do specifically to crater his reputation?
Is it his politics? He seems to have reasonable beliefs there. It's not like he's been supporting Trump unconditionally. He doesn't always agree with Trump. Is it because of his stance in favor of free speech? How is that a bad thing? As someone who doesn't like any side of politics, I don't get it.
No. For all practical purposes, Chinese cars are perfectly fine for most consumers. Since you cannot beat China on manufacturing costs, this war is already lost. Musk or no Musk.
I think Tesla as a company is doing the right moves. The management (excluding Elon) seems solid and smart.
The problem is that we often attach a company or a larger idea to a single person, even when it is much much bigger than that individual. People started boycotting Tesla because of Elon Musk, without considering that Tesla is actually thousands of engineers, workers, and managers. And majority of decisions are not done by Elons.
But people tend to think in terms of heroes and anti heroes. Cesar Chavez is another example of how this dynamic plays out.
The Cybertruck, while unappealing to some, is the only vehicle on the road that doesn't look the same as every other one.
For all of Elon Musk's objectionable-eccentricities, at least this legacy will remain: He dared to make a vehicle (the Cybertruck) that looks like it's actually from the future; not designed by another salaryman-engineering-graduate with a copy of AutoCAD and a wind-tunnel (which is what everything else on the road looks like).
Power the next-generation of Cybertruck with hydrogen, and bundle a solar-electrolysis charging-station with it, and I'd buy one before breakfast.
Tesla has an P/E Ratio of 332 (in comparison, Apple has 31.3) - the stock price is not based on measurable numbers so I don't think that the unsold EVs will have any consequences for the valuation.
When reality finally sets in it will not be pretty.
The figures quoted here are old, since EV sales have gotten a massive boost from spiking oil prices. The actual figures aren't out yet but anecdotal evidence at least in Australia suggests sales in March (across all brands, not just Tesla) doubled from February.
That said, for Tesla this is only a bandaid, since they have absolutely nothing in the consumer pipeline beyond the current increasingly uncompetitive offerings. Chinese brands like BYD, on the other hand, are laughing all the way to the bank.
So according to the article, it had 48k extra cars during a quarter in 2024 and now the new record of 50k in Q1 2026, after they sold 358,023 out of 408,386.
Great things to have on balance sheets. With inflation their value can only go up. And as they are level 6 self-driving capable as is soon they can be sold for massively more money. Really they should stock pile hundreds of thousands more.
Tesla's FSD problem isn't the technology, it's the positioning. It's genuinely good at what it does but selling it as "Full Self-Driving" set an expectation it can't meet. If they had framed it as the best safety feature, always aware co-driver watching out for you, people would trust it far more and adoption would be much higher.
The article mentioned the tax incentive, and I’ve seen many do the same. I’ve rarely ever heard anyone talk seriously about how much the USA spends on oil subsidies.
What do you have to do to get people to realize that SOB is basically a Nazi? Nobody seems to care that he’s a racist POS supporting extreme right-wing causes.
I think q1 is a weak quarter for sales so it might be that inventory build is normal in this quarter. Economic weakness and high energy prices will not help sales though.
One would be in my driveway but we cancelled it right when it was about to be delivered when Elon began his decline into madness. Know your audience and your buyers man. Maybe hide your alt right nonsense when your buyers love the earth and the environment.
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What caused Elon to lose his ability to manage it is subject for debate, I personally believe he discovered drugs in 2019 and the rest is history.
The first 21st century EV in the US that was aimed at a more mainstream mass market was the Nissan Leaf which launched in late 2010, and in the first year sold 4x as many units Tesla Roadster's lifetime sales.
Tesla took a significant step toward an EV for the less rich with the Model S in 2012. It was still a lot more expensive than a Leaf (about 80%ish more for a base Model S) but way less than the Roadster.
The Leaf was the world's best selling EV in 2011-2014 and 2016, and in 2020 was the first to reach 500k sales.
It wasn't until 2017 with the model 3 that Tesla had a car that, like the Leaf, was priced in the range typical middle class families could afford. That's when they took off, and they caught up and passed Leaf in cumulative sales in early 2021.
He just took a wrong turn and seems hell bent on staying on it.
- we had internet (and still do) in planes that have nothing to do with starlink
> What changed is he took the mask off.
I think long-term drug use changed his brain and turned him bad.
Obviously it's always been latent in Elon, but he was a pretty bog standard lightly-if-apolitical silicon valley startup guy for most of his adult life. The free speech erosion under the Biden admin is what really started to "red pill" him and eventually led him off the cliff. It's a sad story really, but an important one because I think there are a lot of people in the same boat, and understandign them is important if we want to correct the trajectory of our country's ship. It's a damn hard problem though.
>Having reportedly voted for Joe Biden in 2020, Musk even voiced his pro-Dems alignment in 2022 when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, that he had “strongly supported Obama for President” in 2007.
I think he turned after Tesla was snubbed at Biden's 2021 EV summit because although it was the US's largest EV maker it wasn't unionized and Biden was in with the unions.
I can sort of see that being annoying.
Both of these took place in 2020, when Trump was president, but of course Trump's greatest coup was to make everybody think Biden was president in 2020.
There really isn’t a good excuse.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerbe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...
The tendency was probably always there given the serial lying about self driving started circa 2015, or the weird ego trip of ousting the founders and getting himself called co-founder, but if we’re looking for a point event the removal of his long time PA in 2014 still stands out to me.
https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/
Is it his politics? He seems to have reasonable beliefs there. It's not like he's been supporting Trump unconditionally. He doesn't always agree with Trump. Is it because of his stance in favor of free speech? How is that a bad thing? As someone who doesn't like any side of politics, I don't get it.
The problem is that we often attach a company or a larger idea to a single person, even when it is much much bigger than that individual. People started boycotting Tesla because of Elon Musk, without considering that Tesla is actually thousands of engineers, workers, and managers. And majority of decisions are not done by Elons.
But people tend to think in terms of heroes and anti heroes. Cesar Chavez is another example of how this dynamic plays out.
For all of Elon Musk's objectionable-eccentricities, at least this legacy will remain: He dared to make a vehicle (the Cybertruck) that looks like it's actually from the future; not designed by another salaryman-engineering-graduate with a copy of AutoCAD and a wind-tunnel (which is what everything else on the road looks like).
Power the next-generation of Cybertruck with hydrogen, and bundle a solar-electrolysis charging-station with it, and I'd buy one before breakfast.
When reality finally sets in it will not be pretty.
Source: At the End of https://asymco.com/2026/03/31/melius-highlights-fcf-while-re...
Edit: typos
That said, for Tesla this is only a bandaid, since they have absolutely nothing in the consumer pipeline beyond the current increasingly uncompetitive offerings. Chinese brands like BYD, on the other hand, are laughing all the way to the bank.
if he'd make peace with Vivian
his fear keeps him holding in tears
I guess I'll just buy a Rivian
The rest of will just buy Xiaomi SU 7's....