[jaccola]

I mostly agree, but I would have agreed with a similar article 10 years ago, and that would have been a fairly widely held opinion (e.g. Bill Gates was famously short Tesla).

So I wouldn’t be so sure as this piece is in Tesla’s downfall, and the emotive language doesn’t help this look like an objective analysis.

I also don’t like articles that take the industry consensus or expert opinion as a priori the correct opinion. Tesla wasn’t built by consensus; even the door handle example that is here touted as a negative almost certainly helped Tesla more than its harmed by being one of many unique features.

[esseph]

What about the people that were killed because they couldn't figure out how to get out of the fucking car when it caught fire with them in the back?

[PolygonSheep]

They could have easily avoided the accident if they ponied up for FSD?

[cr125rider]

The “cool” and unique factor of those door handles help sell more cars and increase brand valuation. Increasing it more than the cost of those lives.

At least that’s what American capitalism has shown us.

[comfysocks]

I’ve considered Elon to be a bit of a bullshitter for almost as long as I’ve followed him. Back when he was an opportunistic Democrat, and now that he’s an ideological MAGA, his public statements always seemed to set off my bullshit detector. It seemed clear to me that his intention was more to manipulate perception rather than to disseminate factual information. While most business leaders are guilty of this to some degree, with Elon it seemed more cynically and nakedly so.

I’ve also come to consider him to be a skilled business person. He negotiated a ridiculous low price for the Fremont ex-NUMMI plant. He secured funding to enable Tesla to survive the GFC. The list goes on. I’d argue that Elon’s biggest wins were business related, not technical. Not that there weren’t technical accomplishments, it’s just that the technological accomplishments were more incremental SV type stuff whereas the business accomplishments were more heroic. I also give Tesla credit for the success of model S. But I consider that to be a function of good execution, not of technology. If that would have flopped it would have been the end. But there were many possible ways for Tesla to die back then.

One of Elon’s key business skills is his ability to sell a narrative. I guess that goes hand in hand with the “bullshitter” thing. He seems to have a magical ability to hypnotize fanboys and investors into believing that Tesla is more than it actually is.

The auto industry is not very sexy from an investor point of view. It’s a mature market, very capital intensive, high risk, low margin. Yet somehow Tesla achieves an outsized market cap.

As humorously noted in the HBO Silicon Valley “no revenue” scene, investors reward you for future promises and punish you on actual delivery. But what if you could promise a future that remains perpetually in the future? And every delivery is not an end, but only a step along the way to this utopian/distopian vision? What if you “promise the moon”, er, I mean Mars? If you did this, then maybe you could have a perpetual pure play that never expires.

So back to the article. Is this the demise of Tesla? I don’t know if Tesla necessarily has “no path forward” as “just a car company”. But I think Elon’s ability to sell the “sci-fi future” is wearing out. Tesla has delivered on some difficult business cases with incremental technology, but the track record on the “impossible future“ stuff isn’t good. Also, the mainstream EV industry will become increasingly commoditized with new Chinese entrants, eroding margins. Tariffs keep you in saturated markets and don’t help you in growing markets. So maybe a bit of a demise for all?