[jacquesm]

Tesla is attempting to change too much at once. New model, new (highly automated) production line and adding a degree of self driving over and beyond what is currently present in other cars, probably will run out of cash somewhere this year.

Any one of those would be a major challenge and a major achievement to lick. While I totally admire Elon Musk for challenging all these things at once you have to wonder about the wisdom of it all, especially when taking into account that he has another major project (SpaceX) that would normally be enough to tax any CEO.

Furthermore they decided to roll Solar City into Tesla which makes Tesla even more encumbered with debt. I get why he did it but I firmly believe that cross-tying losing businesses and winning businesses at that level is a failure prone strategy, it is gambling rather than managing.

[WhompingWindows]

I don't think any of it is too much for Elon to handle. I think the problem is that he over-hypes the potential output of his companies, leading to constant "delays" and "setbacks". If he just kept his numeric predictions to himself and said "we will perform an exponential ramp over the first few years on par with the Model T", he wouldn't see so much flak for not hitting Model 3 production claims.

[jacquesm]

Agreed, but that's the problem with going public. Once you do that you have to show numbers.