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by throwaway5752 498 days ago
Tesla is fucked.

On 12/17/24 they hit a 52 week high around $490 per share. Since then, in less than two months, they have lost one third of their value. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/

Musk has single-handedly alienated his core domestic buying demographic in favor of a group that, when polled, says they would not consider an EV at rates of around 70%.

EU markets in which TSLA was viable but contested are even worse.

This while Tesla's strongest international competitor is passing on units sold, executing better, and underpricing them.

As someone who has followed Tesla since the Model S, previously held Musk in some regard, and test drove a Model 3 I find this such an abject travesty of an outcome for what should have been a great US based global car maker and someone who had the potential to accomplish such good for the world with their incredible wealth and privilege.

2 comments

To my understanding, the ridiculous stock price and valuation have absolutely nothing to do with the car business. It's basically the potential hopes and dreams of what the leadership can do with direct access to US government.
Yup. And don't buy the line that Elon made Tesla a success. They had the core tech and talent to build an EV (without all the other bullshit he added) before he came along. Given enough time they could have been something on their own too.
This is most definitely not true. Tesla was barely more than an electric powertrain and battery combo when Musk took over. The first production Roadsters even reused the chassis from Porsche 911s (IIRC).

Other US competitors aren't at parity with Tesla or BYD. Nikola went bust. Legacy automakers turned out mediocre EVs. Rivian is the only true competitor, but they are a luxury brand and don't have Tesla's crown jewel (the Supercharger network).

> Tesla was barely more than an electric powertrain and battery combo when Musk took over.

Musk also had zero experience or track record making cars when Musk took over, nor any hardware products of any kind, for that matter, or running a manufacturing org.

Occam's razor would indicate it's very improbably to credit success all to him.

It was a Lotus. I don't see how you can get that so badly wrong (they aren't even remotely similar) and claim to know the state of Tesla at that time very well.
> Given enough time they could have been something on their own too.

This is based off what? Couldn’t this be argued for literally any company?