[hnbad]

By what measure is Tesla "the best car company"? According to every metric I could find the company is clearly overvalued and stock price is the only measure it seems to truly excel in.

Elon Musk is listed as the CEO of Neuralink, SpaceX and Tesla. Do you genuinely think Elon Musk is so good at being a CEO that he can run three vastly different companies (4 including X Corp which he formally ceded his position as CEO) at the same time? Or do you think that his primary function was founding/buying the companies? Most of his interference in his companies (especially Tesla) seems to have been detrimental: from an atrocious workplace accident rate in Tesla factories because he "doesn't like yellow" to laying off most of Twitter before establishing any persistence/transfer of knowledge.

If you listen to him talk about any subject you're professionally familiar with, it's evident he knows how to mix in buzzwords but doesn't understand the underlying technology or how any of it actually works. His Twitter Spaces interview was a perfect example for software developers, his recent interview about Twitter/X as an "everything app" was an example for anyone working in (or remotely informed about) fintech.

His wealth is almost entirely tied to Tesla's share price and Tesla's share price is tied to his public perception as "real-life Tony Stark". SpaceX mostly runs on government contracts - incidentally most of Tesla's actual revenue also stems from public funds in the form of emissions trading.

[mavhc]

Makes the most EVs, makes the most profit per EV, has the best charging, self driving, efficiency, software.

But if it's so easy, why hasn't anyone else bothered?

All space programs run on government contracts, what's new? He's providing the only reusable rocket, and 10 years later no one else has done that, why?

[dragonwriter]

> But if it's so easy, why hasn't anyone else bothered?

Because to most other automakers, EVs are a side business that competes with their core business, not their core business, and the rest of it because its not true, e.g., Tesla doesn't offer the best self-driving, they just spend more effort trying to sell the idea of self-driving to individual buyers.

[mavhc]

Everyone else's rockets don't land after putting things in orbit.

You can't buy another car that can do even 10% of what FSD beta does

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> You can't buy another car that can do even 10% of what FSD beta does

That's an odd statement, as "the first self-driving system to be approved for European public roads" and "the first automaker to receive government approval in the US for a Level 3 driving feature" is from Mercedes-Benz.

Tested and approved >> beta hype.

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/mercedes-opens-sales-...

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-p...

[mavhc]

"This geofenced Level 3 system works at up to 40 miles per hour on select highways"

It's just worse cruise control, can't even go at highway speeds, there's about 1% chance you could use it.

Meanwhile FSD Beta is driving around cities the same as Waymo/Cruise are, except every city in North America.

We know a few things about AI, it needs lots of data, and lots of CPU. Tesla has 2 million cars with 8 cameras gathering data, and a top 10 in the world supercomputer.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Meanwhile FSD Beta is driving around cities

Beta.

We know a few things about Musk: it needs hype, smoke-and-mirrors overpromising. Get back to us when it's out of beta.`

Tested and approved >> beta hype.

[dragonwriter]

> You can't buy another car that can do even 10% of what FSD beta does

Right, because Tesla is the only company that sees individual car owners as the target market for self-driving, everyone else in the business sees institutionally-owned robotaxi fleets as the target market. Actually, so does Tesla, fairly overtly—though they are behind at actually having auch a thing—they just see individual vehicle owners as a way to defray costs, especially development costs.

They aren't ahead at self-driving, they are just more creative at how they are financing it.