| > Man the critics here about deadlines is astounding.
> I wonder how many deadlines that people miss here, and that's usually just pure software, no materials. Look... I'm an investor in the Tesla IPO ($4k -> $200k+). I own a Tesla vehicle. Current Elon has run off the deep end into conspiracy theories and utter nonsense. Buying Twitter because he was butt-hurt over some of his tweets being punished is just asinine. It is also a massive distraction on something utterly trivial. There was absolutely a massive whisper campaign to say that EVs would never work. Elon did a lot of great things in the beginning. Some of those things include making lofty promises even though delivering on those promises took a lot longer than he thought. The most important thing in the beginning was proving EVs could work to the early adopters, ensuring Tesla could survive long enough to reach volume ramp-up. Volume means parts suppliers start returning your calls and economies of scale improve everything. Doing things differently got them noticed. Making cars fun was a brilliant marketing strategy... does anyone really need the Toy Box stuff Teslas can do? No... but it makes a lot of people (me included) smile. (My kids think Emissions mode is hilarious on our drive to school drop-off and now consider all other cars to be inferior because those cars can't make fart sounds. That's mind share you can't fucking buy even with unlimited money.) Passing into the volume phase has killed a lot of companies. There are many more opportunities for things to go wrong and mistakes cost you a lot more. Your company also transitions from "we need exposure at any cost" to "we are a brand leader who has set expectations". During this critical time Elon has failed to change his messaging. He is still in "we need exposure" mode, making outlandish promises and starting too many projects at once. In the end it is all a self-own. There was no need to get into semi-trucks. They have enough trouble scaling up Model Y and even shipping the Cyber Truck. They still haven't really delivered on FSD, despite charging for it and continuously increasing the price. It was 100% unnecessary. Focus on execution, leave the semi-truck idea for a few years down the road. You have enough irons in the fire. Your #1 focus should be a Model Y refresh since it is by far your top seller and is what is generating all that cash making Tesla an ongoing concern. tl;dr: Tesla is no longer in survival mode but it is in a critical phase of its growth. Elon should have stopped making outlandish promises some time ago and focused on execution. His thin-skin about Twitter, resulting in trying to get a board seat, on a whim turning into buying the company has been a massive distraction that hurts Tesla at a time when it needs strong leadership and the traditional automakers are still fumbling on EVs. |