[duxup]

Is there a "normal" amount of inventory to sit on?

>Used Cybertruck prices are down 55% year over year

It's wild to me folks lined up to buy this thing ... like I can understand enthusiasm for new things and all that but that's a big hit there. And even I think the prices are still high for the used ones in my area.

[TheAlchemist]

There is a massive overlap between Tesla 'cult' members who hold Tesla shares and Cybertruck buyers - hence the 'best-selling EV truck' for the first few months. It sounds wild, but it's a thing. Many claim to have bought several cars already 'for the mission' (one has to explain me, how buying several cars in a span of 5 years helps to fight climate change).

Once this pool was exhausted however, there is literally 0 demand. Tesla don't publish the number of Cybertruck sold, they mix them with model S / X, for a reason (the most transparent company on earth !).

Given the cratering demand, one has to ask how much money Tesla will bleed this year - despite all the hype around Optimus and other pipe dreams, at the end of the day, it's a car manufacturer employing 100k people, with installed production capacity that's now 2x the number of cars they were selling recently and the ratio is very quickly increasing. If history is any guide here, they are on a fast track to bankruptcy.

EDIT: Do not attempt to trade this ! It's become a meme stock at this point, and as we learned with GME, AMC, Hertz - even in case of real or virtual bankruptcy a stock can stay quite high.

[Nathanba]

I actually think that the design is something people could get behind. People are painting and coating it with various cool color schemes, some of them look great. The problem is that the car itself just doesn't seem good enough and has far too many quality issues and problems. The windshield wiper itself is like a flagpole for all that is wrong with that car. Of course - who knows, I'm only repeating things I saw on social media in this case. In a german reddit post I saw about Tesla cars I read that Teslas are supposedly actually fairly good quality by now ... compared to the even worse german EVs which simply declare your car's software obsolete after 3 years and never update it again.

[dashundchen]

A counterpoint as someone who owns a Volkswagen EV, I'm absolutely fine with my car not updating and changing every few months.

I bought it knowing the features it had at the time, I don't need the icons rearranged in a yearly UI redesign, or the adaptive cruise control algorithm changing from one week to the next, or needing to fork out for some subscription every month. If there's a bug or two? I will have the car for years, it's something I'll figure out.

It's a tool to get from A to B, not another IoT gadget I want to have to worry about updating and babying all the time.

[floren]

Hey, my model year 21 German EV is still getting updates... mainly because they keep having recalls which get fixed in software.

[cratermoon]

Tesla, the DeLorean of the 21st century. Or maybe Edsel. Or Tucker.

[frognumber]

The DeLorean was a beautiful car, though!

And they've actually gone up in value, by quite a bit. $90k-$190k used, $25k new. Which is curious, since a decade ago, they were quite cheap.

[acdha]

> Which is curious, since a decade ago, they were quite cheap.

The 80s kids who grew up watching Back to the Future are entering the age where some of them have money and mid-life crises.

[ttyprintk]

The electric conversion kit came out last year.

[duxup]

DeLorean was / is cool tho… failed for good reason but there’s one in my area and even non car people gather round it when it is around.

[TheCleric]

The Cybertruck is nothing like the Delorean. One was the vision of a man with admitted drug use to create a stainless steel vehicle that turned out to be very unreliable. Oh wait. Nevermind.

[DFHippie]

Here's hoping the business world learns from this experience: trolls make terrible CEOs. It's one thing to be a narcissist or a sociopath. It's another to set out to sell a product while bending all your effort to taunting and dominating the customers who trusted you. People remember being betrayed.

It turns out no one is an NPC.

[TheAlchemist]

I don't think it's that simple.

Tesla sales were already slowing way before Musk turned full MAGA and he knew that. Competition showed up, states started cutting EV subisdes, especially in Europe etc. Tesla was never going to achieve the 50% / year growth that hey announced, and hit 20M car sales by 2030.

I actually think that may be one reason he did turn to Trump. It's a last ditch attempt at trying to save his empire.

People will point out that he is the richest person on earth etc etc. This is all based on valuation levels making pets.com like something Buffett could buy. The only liquid asset he has is Tesla. It's the only one on which he cashed in tens of billions of $, and it's the one he used as collateral to fund his other ventures. If it goes back down to earth, he's done.

[DFHippie]

Perhaps. I don't see how he thought this was going to save his empire, though. Trump's crowd hates electric cars. Environmental concerns are to them what pork is to pious Jews and Muslims, beef to Hindus. Rolling coal is their sacrament. The refrain at Trump's rallies was "drill, baby, drill". And this has been the case -- not the refrain, but the attitude -- since the 60s. So how was Trump ever going to save "Tesler"? It makes as much sense as sacrificing your children to Moloch to save your family line: the only thing that is sure in that bargain is the death of your children.

[dzhiurgis]

Technically Tesla's mission newer was about "the environment" but rather "Accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy". Slight difference.

Plus they mostly achieved that (accelerated the world) and pivoting to AI now.

[jqpabc123]

Does Musk's thinking make as much sense as people intentionally voting for massive new taxes?

Peter Navarro said that he expects Trump’s tariffs to bring in $6 trillion in revenue over the next decade.

The MAGA economic miracle is actually the largest tax hike in US history --- to be paid entirely by US voters/consumers.

Nothing about MAGA (or Musk) economics makes any sense. In the words of Warren Buffet, the tooth fairy isn't going to pay these tariffs.

[ttyprintk]

A -2% effect on GDP would make that a wash. So, for Trump to satisfy Navarro, he needs to beat 2% GDP growth, which he routinely could in his first term. Biden was often double Trump’s GDP growth rate.