No surprise. The car salesman has gone mad.
In addition, people are finding out that an EV is not a high-tech product (except for maybe the battery), and can be made just as well and cheaper in low-wage countries.
In addition, people are finding out that an EV is not a high-tech product (except for maybe the battery), and can be made just as well and cheaper in low-wage countries.
So he's in the process of trying to pivot Tesla to a self-driving taxi, humanoid, energy company. In addition, he's trying to buy as much time as possible by lobbying for huge Chinese tariffs in the US.
FSD is not in the strategy to frame it as a tech company, but to make use of software margins. If you can sell a car that cost 30k to manufacture for 40k instead of 35k because it has software on it, that greatly improves your margins because the software doesn't have manufacturing cost beyond the initial R&D.
There's a lot about Elon to dislike, but his business ideas are sound. At the same time I fully believe his behavior is going to run Tesla into the ground which will be a real shame. He really took the incredible amount of goodwill they got for being the first to make a car that could be both cheaper and better for the environment in the face of both established car companies and the oil industry, and he just flushed all that goodwill down the shitter.
Tesla's saving grace would be to produce cars at a competitive price point, I think money always trumps politics, and with tariffs on Chinese imports that might be achieved, but they'd still be losing the European market and any extra margin they might have gotten from their previously good reputation.
Yes -- given who Musk is, it's naive to construct an argument of what Tesla is doing that doesn't include malicious intent.
> There's a lot about Elon to dislike, but his business ideas are sound.
If his ideas were sound, the valuations wouldn't be sky high. His ideas are anything but sound, so the valuations are sky high because he has such a small chance of pulling them off.
No it seems he really wants to pivot tesla away from cars to services like Apple. Sell the hardware but have the massive profits on services. Remains to be seen if the strategy will work out, it is a very risky bet.
If he just wanted tariffs on China he could have just imitated Miriam Adelson: give the Trump campaign $200M & state your demands without mincing words. Or, split the amount between both parties and ride whichever horse that comes out on top.
EV doesn't have to be a high-tech product, although you need some fairly high tech stuff in the charger and BMS; the problem with modern cars is (1) protectionist questionable tech mandates like backup cameras and tyre pressure sensors and "phone home in event of crash" which inflate the BOM and (2) the need to add "features" to inflate the margin, like complicated dashboard computers and subscription heated seats.
This is why average Chinese drivers are picking up huge numbers of moderately priced EVs that the West is preventing from being sold.
There's very little cold logical thought involved in most new car purchases.
Ultimately it doesn't matter whether Musk truly believes some of the lunacy he says, his actions speak for him. I disagree with his actions and don't want to support him. He could make the best car in the world for all I care.
People can change, as can ownership of companies. If Musk divested himself completely of Tesla, I'd be happy to buy one. I have no bias against Tesla or it's employees, I have a bias against the owner currently hard at work trying to destroy democracy in the US and across the globe.
More to the point, are you deliberately trolling or you genuinely do not see the point being made?
Slight deviation from the topic - i am very keen to know how the owner “trying to destroy democracy in US and across the globe”. Especially curious about the “across the globe” part.
mot trolling, genuinely curious.
In the case of Tesla, you have a very public figure embodying the figure of the company. If Tesla has the best EVs it's not really Tesla that has them but _Elon Musk's Tesla_ (whether that's true or not in terms of his stocks doesn't matter to the general public).
Same with SpaceX. It's not SpaceX's great engineering team launching rockets that people remember, it's "did you see Elon's latest rocket launch? amazing!"
The fact we don't remember who VW's CEO is speaks volumes about this (in the opposite way).
I have not bought that kitchen by that weird sales guy who ignored my wives kitchen 3d model (ah we don't need that, we will start from scratch)
I will not buy a Tesla either.
If I have multiple choices that are equivalent then I will use other criterias like "Am I giving money to nazis?"