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Comment by DustinBrett | Hacker News Reader

The company is so far ahead that it doesn't matter as long as they can keep executing on their plans. Not a popular opinion right now because of the Musk hate, but Tesla is not like other companies and Elon is not like other CEO's.

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So Tesla is not like other companies…that survived secular changes. Tesla demographics changed quite a bit in the past five years.

Well I don't know what you mean by secular changes. I can't speak to what has changed in the last 5 years as far as staff. But they still seem to be planning big and thinking the same way. They are the slow giant.

It starts being less likely though. The plan was to make the expensive models fund the mass production. The cheap versions of 3 already happened, meanwhile other expensive brands got higher level driver assist, and other cheap brands got both lower cost and better quality of low end. They're months away from not being ahead at this point and there's nothing announced yet that could change it. What do you think they can keep executing on?

They still have the charging network, but that's due to everyone else failing more than them succeeding. At some point someone else will overtake them too.

It's that time of the day again where the doubting begins. I could list things they've said about their plans but it's easier to hate and na-say than believe. We are talking about a company that was nothing a decade or so ago and people are still saying the same tired doubts.

They are not far ahead. We’ve seen peak Tesla, competitors are catching up fast.

Tesla has no competition. Cars is a small part of what they do.

Tesla's most recent 10-K (numbers in millions of $):

"""

Automotive sales: 78,509

Automotive regulatory credits: 1,790

Automotive leasing: 2,120

Services and other: 8,319

Energy generation and storage segment revenue: 6,035

"""

Which part are you referring to when you say cars is a small part?

Robots, self driving, solar, just engineering excellence alone is enough.

What about Tesla says “engineering excellence”? Every time I get into one, it feels cheap and outdated compared to other modern cars.

> Tesla has no competition.

Didnt Elon himself say that Chinese EVs are their biggest competition right now.

For cheap cars. Not against Tesla building the future.

What does even mean?

Are you saying Elon is wrong about those Chinese EVs?

Their only significant business is cars; beyond that they have a small solar business and homeopathic quantities of semi trucks. But they are clearly a car manufacturer, albeit with some weird hobbies.

They have massive competitors selling more cars for a lot longer.

Far ahead in what?

Building the future.

Sheez. And brainwashing, apparently.

Every time I hear one of you haters, I think the same thing, fyi. The difference is I think about things when they come out and you have your mind set on hating.

People will continue to call you out in this way because when asked "what do you think they do better" you replied with some handwaving nonsense. If you replied with some specific points, ideally quantifiable and backed by data, you would get quite a different response.

This. "Building the future" is just asking for a similarly lazy retort.

I desire no retort from doubters or haters. Positive comments are welcome.

That's a very bad technique for living in reality. I respectfully suggest that you challenge your opinions from time to time instead of seeking out constant validation.

I can't seem to respond to arcticbull, the person who responded to me about this not being a good way to live.

When I say I don't desire a retort, it's because a retort is a failure to think. I have many good discussions with people who aren't trying to retort or dunk on people. There is little of that here and to suggest any of the people I've replied to wanted a real conversation is what's disingenuous.

What do you think of other people who make the same claims over and over but never give any evidence of their claim and dismiss all the people giving counter evidence as "haters and doubters".

I know you're actually asking him what he thinks of himself, but you're not going to get a coherent or rational answer. I personally think he's acting like an irrational star-struck fan-boy who imagines conspiracy theories and organized persecution against his poor helpless billionaire idol, when it's actually justifiable disgust at Musk's pathologically disingenuous self-promotion and provably false lies and fraud, blatant racism and Apartheid ideology, mentatious and bullying transphobia, his neglectful failure as a parent and divorced deadbeat dad, his off-the-rails sociopathic attention-starved narcissistic misbehavior, his promotion of hate speech and Nazis and right wing trolls and ridiculous racist conspiracy theories on Twitter, and Musk's sycophantic Trump worship and political meddling and populist pandering, all of which DustinBrett apparently has absolutely no problem with even though he's fully aware of it all, and which actually seems to appeal to him at a deep personal level that he would sacrifice his own credibility by gullibly carrying Musk's water in public, because that's just the kind of dystopian "future" he wants Musk to build. But that's all pretty obvious, and goes without saying.

I've played that game. They will move the goal post. These people don't give a shit about a logical discussion.

Always reflexively thinking the same thing is a sure sign of brainwashing.

™

All companies and all individuals are part of building our single future and our future is hardly a Tesla dominated one.

I have no interest in them dominating and neither does Elon. It's about building a future.

Last time I checked there is basically zero revolutionary things with Teslas cars, their battery tech, or manufacturing processes. Whatever advantage they had in range, charger network, manufacturing, side-businesses etc at least superficially seems to be pretty marginal. Sure, a marginal advantage can be huge in a competitive market, but building the future sees to be a bit hyperbolic.

Oh, in the US they started off with revolutionizing the buying experience. But that of course only worked because the US dealer model was there to be disrupted. Elsewhere that advantage didn't exist either.

I don't believe you have the ability to "check". The Cybertruck is their latest move but they always have more. Robots, solar, charging, fsd. This stuff isn't going away.

I know only what they have publicly announced. And none of what I have seen, not their past record, indicates they have a future that will be any brighter than that of their competitors.

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