Tesla is in worse shape than you think
cnn.com
cnn.com
Just having to talk about that seems bad...
> It was only able to post a $409 million profit in the quarter thanks to the sale of $595 million worth of regulatory credits to other automakers.
This last part should be alarming to Tesla "fans". In every Tesla post here, there are those who tout the "Tesla is making huge profits, they have nothing to worry about".
There’s just no reason for an administration that already produced a state-run ad for the company to stop cutting them breaks.
SEC came in and got a settlement from tesla because it was a crime.
This in late 2018 however changed the situation greatly at tesla. Shortly after this, yes the model Y and Cybertruck eventually happened but tesla really slowed down. Not well known, but essentially the usa government took control of tesla after this. The government even voided his compensation as being ceo. Essentially forcing him to work for free.
If I look at Tesla's financials right now.
12.87% % of Shares Held by All Insider
But "all insider" isn't just Elon himself. That's all the peoples at the top.
You might imagine that Tesla is basically on autopilot now. Elon doesnt even own that much of tesla anymore. Doesnt really direct it much anymore. Far more interest in other private interests like spacex.
Then you have political movements of domestic terrorists firebombing and vandalizing teslas that have nothing at all to do with elon or tesla.
Tesla is in bad shape.
Can you elaborate on this? AFAIK it's entirely to do with Elon & his politics.
Elon and his financial interests are not involved at all. 0$ impact to elon.
Moreover, if you're looking at politics. Republicans dont own teslas... it was democrats who pushed electric cars and tended to buy teslas. So it's democrats destroying other democrat's cars.
What's very suspicious to me is that because of the firebombings, now republicans are buying teslas? lol what? did tesla realize they were politically walled in sales and have staged this to sell more? perhaps too conspiracy.
This would only be true if Elon did not own any TSLA stock.
> Moreover, if you're looking at politics. Republicans dont own teslas... it was democrats who pushed electric cars and tended to buy teslas. So it's democrats destroying other democrat's cars.
From https://x.com/i/grok/share/vqgQXxcDQZN99MYy69UYCZKxz
"However, by late 2023 (the start of the 2024 model year), that shifted dramatically—only 15% of Tesla buyers were Democrats, while Republicans rose slightly to 32%, and Independents jumped to 44%."
I guess technically I havent seen trump nor musk say this. It was the FBI who labelled it such.
Domestic terrorism to me is ideologically or in this case politically motivated violence with an intent to influence or coerce the victims into changing something they dont want to change.
That's totally what's happening here.
You won't convince me of that, either.
When I was twelve I got caught tagging an abandoned building, I was prosecuted for this and had to pay a fine and attend diversion. Sounds like you think a more appropriate punishment would have been for me to be branded as a terrorist and shipped out of country.
Like it or not, Tesla as a company is still years ahead of other US competitors and has a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Tesla is not "in bad shape" relative to the competition. IF you are going to talk about auto companies in "bad shape", Tesla doesn't even make the top 10
just can't stomache ignorance
They wouldn't have done any of this last year.
I really hopped they wouldn't just do 'a truck' but would quickly build a single line to build a trucks, a large SUV and a van on one platform. But the Cybertruck hard-locks you into a very limited and unique construction. The fundamental technology of the Cybertruck seems pretty good to me, but I would want them to build multiple vehicles on that kind of platform. Between Pickups, Vans and large SUV, you would be hitting 3 huge markets.
Another issue is that they used their good efficiency numbers to put smaller batteries into the car. This worked while other were not very efficient. But the competitors were willing to put a bit more battery into the car and thus ended up with sometimes better range.
There were a bunch of other issues stacking up that I think they never really fully figured out.
The biggest sin of all is Robotaxi. I just never fucking worked. Going all in into Robotaxi instead of, cars that can actually be sold is crazy. They somehow believe that Robotaxi will collapse the car market by 80%, and then of those left over 20% the Model 3 and Model Y can dominate that. Completely idiotic analysis in my opinion, from many different perspectives.
I already pulled out most of it before Musk went full politics. And then I eliminated the position when Musk went all in on Trump. It was a good investment as it lasted.
When Tesla was working on 3/Y they had that. And it really worked.
But as a car company after you have a car like that, you need to move into many niches large and small. And you can't have the overall company focus on any one project. You need a pipeline of new cars, new upgrades and so on.
And then the thing they did seem to primarily focus on, FSD, didn't work nearly as well as Musk thought. He got obsessed with thinking AI was on an S-Curve upwards and it would just be solved fast.
It said that what tesla was doing was creating a prestige brand known for advanced yet not affordable features.
If they made affordable versions, people would assume it would be like the high-end tesla and better than a comparable car from another manufacturer.
However, the high-end tesla vehicles were not really validating the musk "master plan" of affordable cars with the same characteristics.
A similar affordable car would have to have reduced features and capabilities, and it might not be profitable (because tesla is not cost efficient).
Nissan took the affordable ev route long before tesla and wasn't very successful.
And now other brands and the supply chains are catching up, making ev versions of their cars, with the desirable features and established manufacturing.
Tesla were affordable in a car market where the avg new car was the cost of a Model Y/3. And they sold really well.
I don't think we can imply anything about what people would have assumed if they had released a cheaper car. That all depends on positioning and market.
On the high end, they didn't provide enough differentiation with the X/S. Not upgrading them quickly enough and not pushing more into luxury to compete with more expensive German cars and Lexus. But that's not a huge part of the market.
> because tesla is not cost efficient
Tesla is plenty cost efficient, the reality is, nobody can make a huge profit on a cheap car. And most can't get even close.
Tesla with their integrated strategy could have made a compelling 25k car, it would just need more options then the normal Tesla approach.
But its worth doing just to get to scale and capture that large market. Because once you establish yourself their, its gone be harder for others to move in. And then bring cost down over-time.
> Nissan took the affordable ev route long before tesla and wasn't very successful.
I mean not really. They dipped their toe into it and never moved beyond the initial generation. So I don't think its a fair comparison.
> And now other brands and the supply chains are catching up, making ev versions of their cars, with the desirable features and established manufacturing.
The established manufacturing doesn't totally hold up. Because building EV is so different that upgrade cost are huge and some of the best competitors use new factories as well.
I do agree that Tesla failed to provide some features that they really could and should have provided. Like a 360 view around the car for example.
Nissan's on its third production generation of EVs (the 3rd-gen Leaf isn't out til later this year, but its platform has already been used in another car).
Also, I mean, the Leaf was the world's best-selling EV for _10 years_ (2010-2020).
However, I've read countless Bloomberg articles on Tesla, and the company has significant competitive advantage over every automaker (Including BYD) when it comes to manufacturing and selling EV's in the US and elsewhere.
If you are inclined to drive an EV, or own stock in an EV company, Tesla is still the gold standard.
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