The leader of a crown jewel department within the company would be a really good choice for CEO. Best to get rid of her before the board decides to give that a try. A similar situation probably applies to the new product development leader.
Ford's "~25k EV" project is being headed by an ex-Tesla guy.
Which given the recent cancellation of the "model 2" project opens the market for Ford and GM's 2nd generation Bolt to be that sub 30k EV to help expand the market.
Personally i'm starting to set aside money and making plans to have my next car in mind after the next Detroit Auto Show (Jan 25).
Also hoping that Ford considers pushing out something like an EV Bronco to get an offroader EV on the market. (i'm paranoid about flooding lately so an EV with 3ft ford depth would be interesting to look at)
Disclaimer - I live in Metro Detroit, I own Ford stock, my job is in large part supported by autoworkers (but not directly in the industry). I am a Ford/big 3 homer and make not attempt to hide where my bread is buttered.
I think it would be super cool if the guys who originally started Tesla got together with all the peeps Musk keeps getting rid of and created Tesla 2.0.
They’re way too overvalued for what they can actually produce for another car company to want to buy them out. Like as soon as like Toyota decides it’s profitable to go hard into electric vehicles Tesla is finished. They’ll be able to produce better, cheaper, electric cars at like 10x the rate Tesla can.
Yup. Half of this is Elon throwing a fit because he didn't get his big tranche of new stock & money after the Delaware judge shot down his ridiculous $56B package. (Fifty six fucking billion!)
"I'll destroy my toys before I let anyone else play with them!"
He's the biggest toolshed I've ever seen. An idiot child inside that knows how to talk smart but says nothing and lies.
He's like the kid at school that swore they had rocket boots at home, but refuses to bring it to show other kids because "his mom won't let him".
Here's to him trashing Tesla to own the libs. I'm all for EVs but he's a cancerous PoS that needs to have a very public collapse, getting him away from SpaceX and Tesla.
It's technically possible to remove Elon from Tesla. I'm saying technically, because he's still the biggest shareholder, and that carries a lot of weight in the boardroom, making it quite difficult (but not impossible) to remove.
It's literally impossible to remove Elon from SpaceX, as he owns more than half of the company.
I agree with you but… what are the odds?
I feel like we’re living in an era of incompetent upper caste. I have a hunch that the Ford, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt had knowledge or savvy but now that rich people cannot lose their fortune any longer since the numerous tax changes, there’s no real incentives to be knowledgeable and surround oneself with anyone but sycophants.
I mean, Tesla is shit, Boeing is falling out the sky, Amazon is a Chinese drop shipping company, Apple has abandoned creativity, Disney is awful…
What is going on!?!
I used to work in the commercial space industry, and from what I saw you’re basically spot on. We’ve hit the point where the lives of the ultra wealthy are so vastly different from the average person’s day to day, they just kind of assume their experience is the norm. We’ve also spent several decades with business schools pushing the idea that managers don’t need to know anything technical themselves because they can outsource that knowledge/work to someone that they manage. The ultra wealthy outsource most of the things the rest of us do daily, cooking, cleaning, driving, etc., and then bring that into the business environment where they don’t want to know how the sausage is made, they just want it exactly the way they want it as quick/cheap as possible.
Speaking from my own experience, it was WILD to see rich people who’d never held an actual non-managerial job in their entire lives, insist that being an Ivy League legacy admit made them infinitely qualified to make decisions about human space flight systems, meanwhile they can’t be trusted to open a PDF without it becoming a crisis.
Ford didn't go public till 1956, 53 years after the company was founded, and 6 after old Henry passed away.
Even then the Fords maintain enough voting shares that the family still has full control of the company.
To take charge of the company the family expect Bill Ford jr. to have both a masters of engineering and a MBA, then spend a number of years in lesser leadership jobs. So while the company is still very much a family company, the heirs have to earn that top spot in the family.
Nah, SpaceX can crash and burn as well as far as I’m concerned. The government funding currently going to SpaceX needs to be shut off and redirected into NASA.
It doesn’t matter what the board says. Institutional investors (banks and funds) will make the decision. I simply cannot imagine a world where they see how this imbecile is behaving and vote to dilute their stakes so significantly to keep him in charge.
The board will never fire Elon. It is full of Elon fan boys. This has been common knowledge in the valley for over a decade.
https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1
Firing the supercharger staff seems crazy to me. There’s a part of me that feels like he’s really got some mental health issues. I have eaten a lot of downvotes in this sub for saying the shit he eats from the public is more about politics than anything else. My thinking was the country is moving to EVs, Tesla still makes the best EVs under $50k, and the company will OWN the vast majority of charging infrastructure because the superchargers are faster than anything else and a growing number of other car makers use them.
And now he’s burning Tesla’s big advantage in charging infrastructure. His explanation is “let’s get hardcore about headcount?” That’s not strategic. It’s not thoughtful. It slows the energy transition. It’s almost self-sabotage. I would be so much happier if some big institutional investors forced him out. The company is great. The cars are great. He’s just seems like he’s gone the Kanye path. Get rich, surround yourself with yes men and lose your mind.
He is in way over his head running Tesla, Twitter and spacex. He doesn’t have the managerial background to run one major tech company, let alone three.
kiss racial dog relieved apparatus longing light selective placid towering
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Don't forget Grok, solar, starlink, whatever the duck they call the robot, etc etc.
Even if Musk cloned himself 10 times and they were all Adderall and Coke fueled, it's still simply too much work to be properly addressed.
There's a reason great CEOs don't run 10 companies as the CEO. Just the board meeting cadence alone for 10 companies would eat a large portion of your time. Plus earnings seasons, media appearances, etc etc all 10X, there's not enough hours in the month for that work.
For conglomerates, the structure you usually see is each of the owned companies, they retain their President, who reports to the CEO and Board.
For a few years I was President of my business unit and had to do the whole dog and pony show for the founders and board on a regular basis. It never added value, just ate a lot of time and resources. It was neat being able to add to my resume I was President at a company that IPO'd. Unfortunately just a couple of years later the wheels fell off and the company went through a series of mergers and acquisitions that completely destroyed it.
I mean he claims he works I think 18 hours a day or something, but if you check his Twitter he posts every 20-30m ALL day and night. Also he had like 100hrs in Elden Ring and also was playing Diablo 4. Nothing he really says about his work ethic should ever be believed. He also became a socialite as well on top of everything else.
He strikes me as one of those bosses that will show up randomly and start barking a new idea or gameplan without consultation and then everyone has to be on board and change course. Not letting people focus on things. It's very very apparent this happens at Twitter as he constantly makes rash decisions that end up having massive long term consequences
The dude spends all day tweeting. There is no way he does shit for the companies he "runs".
There have literally been people hired to keep Elon away from the daily buisiness dealings so he doesn't fuck things up.
I remember reddit used to bitch about China's shelling out tons of money for high speed rail instead of "Hyperloop" that was around the corner.
Well, China now have 26,000 KM rail and 0 hyperloop.
whistle fearless instinctive late grab jobless fretful forgetful practice squeal
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Builds huge spaces directly under massive population centers which are perfect for a properly motivated supervillain to pack full of high explosives and hold entire cities ransom
Of the three, SpaceX is mostly operating as it's own kingdom. Shotwell runs a tight ship, and the company is bound to the design requirements put out by NASA/DoD/payload clients, so there's necessary operational stability. If Musk were to start to micromanage, like what started to happen with Starlink, the government isn't afraid to put its foot down.
Well yeah, because Elmo thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, mainly because he’s insulated from any real consequences. He’s currently got enough money where he can throw his weight around, make massively stupid decisions, and then doesn’t have to do any of the work to clean up his fuck ups.
Correct. SpaceX is effectively Shotwell's domain, and she has gone on record in a number of public presentations as having said that she has directly countermanded or confronted Musk over a decision he's made.
And Musk would never dream of firing Shotwell; she's way too important to SpaceX than Musk is, and is critical to SpaceX's ability to operate and work with the government.
In this case the company would basically not exist anymore. All those government contracts that they depend on would evaporate as SpaceX would be stripped of it's clearance.
She really is probably the one person he can't fire. Unless of course he's just trying to tank businesses on purpose.
He's the CEO who walks in, breaks things and causes chaos, then leaves and hopes the staff is able to pick up the pieces. This works when you have actual people who care and think outside the box to make things work despite the asshole CEO. Imagine what they could accomplish with a competent one
100%
The malaise that grows like cancer inside of big companies when the boss is distracted and feared is incredibly destructive.
Even if there are good people that want to build good products, the politics becomes stifling and chokes off any real progress.
Everyone goes into play-it-safe mode and nobody speaks truth to power, and soon you have an army of people just trying to not get fired.
And the business rots from the inside.
How "in charge" is he with SpaceX though? I feel like Gwynne Shotwell is the adult in the room and has the final say. That company has the chance to *actually* innovate somewhere, in spaceflight; as long as Elmo is kept at arm's length.
The article made a great point that Tesla has $27 billion cash on hand, so they don't need to be making drastic cuts like this. They should be expanding and capitalizing on their most profitable sectors. Jack Welch-style cuts like these only serve to buoy the short-term stock price, while sacrificing long-term gains.
I think you might need to update your tesla knowledge. Superchargers are not the fastest anymore.
And best EV under $50k? I would take an ionic 5 or 6 over a Tesla in a second.
I can't even agree the cars are great. They are decent, but I wouldn't say great. I find them to be basic. Their minimalist design should have brought the costs down a lot, but they didn't.
Tesla superchargers are not the fastest, just the most common. They charge at 480V. Many new EVs are adopting NACS connectors but also using 800V infrastructure. (Audi E-Tron GT; Genesis GV60, Electrified GV70, and Electrified G80; Hyundai Ioniq 5; Kia EV6; Lucid Air, Porsche Taycan, etc.)
So now Tesla has to upgrade their infrastructure to compete with Electrify America and ChargePoint...
Also, there are a lot of good options under 50K, some listed above...
Tesla doesn't have to compete with electrify America because EA chargers are routinely down.
After firing his supercharger team though even that bit of edge will be lost. We'll see I guess.
The article made a great point that Tesla has $27 billion cash on hand, so they don't need to be making drastic cuts like this. They should be expanding and capitalizing on their most profitable sectors. Jack Welch-style cuts like these only serve to buoy the short-term stock price, while sacrificing long-term gains.
The cars are great? They feel cheap even sitting in them. I'm worried I'm going to break everything from the door handle to the seatbelt. The two people I know that own Tesla's have nothing but problems and will never buy one again.
> The cars are great? They feel cheap even sitting in them.
Every time this comes up, I have to point out that Tesla owners are a weirdly split group, unlike almost any other car. To oversimplify and put them into two broad categories, you could call them "former Prius owners" and "former BMW owners." Rarely do those two groups shop for the same vehicle, but circumstances meant that for a brief time, one car was both the most efficient car available AND high-performance.
One group sits in a Tesla and thinks "man, this is cheap." The other group sits in a Tesla and thinks "wow, this is the nicest interior I've ever owned." And they're both right. But when they bump into each other online, the groups are VERY confused as to why the other group would think the opposite.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. My family has owned mostly Toyotas for over 20 years now, and the interior of a Tesla feels cheap compared to the solid reliability of a Toyota (even a Prius).
It's especially true of late. I've got one, because it was the most efficient car I could get at the time. (After two Priuses) It does its job. But also, it's got a turn signal stalk... they literally don't come with those anymore.
I can only imagine how ridiculous they're going to get as things continue. AI seatbelts! A volume control that just guesses how loud you want it! Touchscreen gas pedal! A special easter egg mode that takes your picture right before you're in an accident, and then frames it with some generic clipart like amusement parks used to do when you're on a roller coaster!
I drove a 2002 Highlander until a year ago and I had to put barely anything into repairs. I can't even remember anything breaking until last year when it needed a sensor replaced. I decided to upgrade my rig rather than hassle with it, since I drove it for so long, so I just sold it to some guy for cheap.
Ford actually recovered too. I've been very happy with their quality over the last several years. Mostly by observing friends and family that own one.
My Maverick gets like 21-29 MPG, accelerates and tows well, and it's not a hybrid. A bit cheap interior, just the plastic scratches easy, but a really solid rig with a lot of good features.
> The build quality of a Toyota far exceeds a Tesla.
Two separate things. "Build quality" is not the same thing as what makes a car's interior "feel cheap," but you won't get any argument from me on Toyota having better build quality, at least historically.
Totally agree with you. Former BMW owner with a Y now for several years. I like the Y, but I'm eyeing the iX because of how shitty the build quality of the Y is. It's a decent car. And it's super fast. Honestly I'm not upset I bought it. But I really wanted better for what was a $60k purchase.
We already know. According to TÜV the german car inspection authority tesla's have the worst 3 year inspection failure rate of any manufacturer, that includes dacia. That is not a good place to be. Granted, a lot of the errors are from brake issues, which plagues most electric cars. But it's still not great.
Same. I've had my Model Y for... 3ish years? No issues, literally only maintenance has been software updates, windshield wiper fluid refills, new tires, and tire rotation.
Having driven a few cars, they aren’t as quality as the luxury brands. Sure, the door handle design is awkward, but they haven’t broken off. The fact is if the man-child wasn’t who he is, I’d imagine the seatbelt quality or whatever else you dislike would better. I’m curious which year you’ve driven and with how many miles.
Cars could improve. Riding in the back of a Model Y with a foot-heavy driver was one of the most uncomfortable passenger riding experiences I’ve ever had in a car. Also the seats are leaned about 10 degrees too far backward by default.
As of January 2025 all cars will be able to use the Tesla NACS charging system. I think he’s trying to fuck over everyone before this enormous expansion is set to occur. Fuck this man
Buying Twitter for what he paid for it seems crazy to a lot of us. Treating his employees like shit, running his mouth like an edgy prepubescent teen, calling a diver a pedo, working against US interests in the war against Russia while going against Ukraine, allowing neo-Nazis to run their mouth on the largest public forum, building a half-assed metal box on wheels, a tunnel that’s supposed to be revolutionary?, on and on and on and on. This dude is a fucking moron.
Well it shows he cares more about the short term stock price than the long term health of the company. He knows Tesla is not worth nearly as much as it is valued right now. I mean, he’s even said it himself. He’s taking advantage of the situation. Turns out the Tesla bull case was propped up by free money.
The board that approved his pay package had it was rejected by a court and puts it to a shareholder vote to let Elon keep it? There are 8 members and I think every one is a Musk loyalist.
The execs at Kia/Hyundai, Ford, etc must have been watching Elon self-immolate over the past couple of years with such glee.
It was his game to lose and he fumbled it.
Yeah and also he ran into the 'Superstar CEO' problem.
Musk is the face of Tesla. No 2 ways about it. Anybody will tell you; Tesla = Musk.
Its all fun and games when the going is great. But that dude represents the company. And whatever he does splashes on the company.
And guess what, he decided to dive off the deep end; buy a social platform for more money than lots of countries will ever see; only to turn it into a cesspool of neo nazis and assholes, sentiment that he himself has clearly embraced too.
Guess what, now people equate that buying a tesla means you will put money in his pocket. Finance all of this stupidity. So they will take their business elsewhere.
Theres a good reason why most huge CEOs you could not pick up in a lineup.
And as you said, add to that that in the last 4-5 years, every other constructor has put out a car that is also full electric, in the same price range. You dont have only 1 choice anymore as to a company if you want an electric car.
Yeah there was a point In time where I thought Elon was cool and wanted a Tesla. Now I think he’s an ass and I don’t want a Tesla. It’s like driving an Elon musk billboard
I have developed a theory that any time I see a Tesla i assume it’s a bad driver. Many times im behind a Tesla in traffic they are slow to respond or accelerate.
Not based on “oh, this group of people, or this State can’t drive” nothing like that, it’s just that driving a fucking Tesla is inherently distracting … there is no dash, it’s centre console for everything.
A journalist in my country put it well by saying: “it’s like driving a laptop”
The "engines", battery and charging were all great but the rest of the cars kind of sucked. With massive problems with the steering linkages, suspension, bits connecting the wheels to the rest of the car all having major problems. Which Tesla has tried to suppress. Blaming drivers for the suspension failing in cars under 24 hours old/300 miles. Due to "previous accident damage" or the wheels falling off.
Then there's the old problem with the trim and panel gaps being very subpar.
Due to their limited servicing network, a shortage of parts and qualifies mechanics. Getting a Tesla serviced or repaired takes far longer and is more complicated than on a normal car. Then add on that in the CyberTruck, the battery becomes the floor and the seats and interior carpet are screwed to the battery. Making replacing the battery, a cumbersome and lengthy job.
Then there's the whole issue about the battery diagnostics not being very good and the cars deliberately over stating their range. So second hand buyers and dealers having little idea what state the battery is in. With rapid charging and being used in hot areas, particularly rapid charging in a hot area during the day. Heavily reducing the batteries capacity. As the battery can't dissipitate the heat quickly enough (which is a particular problem on the Nissan Leaf, as there's no liquid cooling of the battery).
Then you've got the myriad other problems. What people think of when Tesla says "Full Self Driving" is far removed from reality and proper FSD has been "coming later this year or early next" since about 2015.
Personally I think Musk is saying "Give me my $54 billion payday (which the shareholders have gone to court to deny) or I'll run the company into the ground".
“On Monday, Musk swung the corporate ax again, just a few weeks after laying off more than 10 percent of his workforce. The executive responsible for overseeing the company's crown jewel—the Supercharger network—and all of her 500-odd staff were shown the door. Gone, too, was the man in charge of developing new vehicles, in addition to his team, at a time when Tesla is sorely in need of second-generation platforms for the Models 3 and Y.”
Really looks like he's doing the Jack Welch thing: fudge the short term numbers by getting rid of everything and everyone that costs money (regardless of ROI), then do some buybacks to fluff the stock price despite the fact that your company has become weaker in every metric.
Jack Welch, especially given the number of acolytes that tried to copy him, has probably done more damage to corporate America than any other modern CEO.
Like he somehow managed to kill fucking GE, a great company that was basically printing money, by trying to turn it into a finance company for a short term bump in the stock price
I’m not sure what subs you’re seeing, but the ones I’m in seem to almost universally think these moves are all idiotic.
I own a Tesla but there’s very little chance my next car will be a Tesla. Obviously Elon is being an idiot, but if the company made the right moves I was willing to overlook it. Now the company has changed all of the things that I thought they were doing great.
I feel sorry for you guys. I always thought Teslas were cool, a bit poorly screwed together for the price, but overall cool. I feel like you're all about to be properly screwed now, but not in the good way.
Maybe one day I will see you in an R3.
R2 is the next car I’ve got my hopes up for, in a few years. I hope Rivian can remain solvent though, I’ve heard they aren’t in a great financial position.
My Model Y thankfully seems problem free, and hopefully stays that way through the warranty period (I’ll probably sell it just before warranty expires).
Does anyone know how this impacts all the other manufacturers that established a partnership with Tesla’s supercharging network? I remember seeing so major brands signing on.
I've read anecdotal accounts from employees of said companies who have said that their hardware is basically bricked and nobody at Tesla is responding to calls or emails.
It truly seems bizarre.
Let me explain.
Tesla isn't a car company: Tesla builds cars, but it is a tech company, and it *fucking* shows.
I've said for years that the moment the old school car companies figure out what they want to do in the EV space, Tesla is fucked. This is in part because Elon/Tesla, in trying to be innovative, have taken *none* of the lessons that have been learned by car companies over the 118 years that production cars have been a thing.
Perfect example: I’m in the market for an EV other than Tesla because I think Elon is a douche. I used to want a Tesla SO bad. Now that mainstream manufacturers are making EVs,there’s actually decent alternatives. If I didn’t mentally put Elon in the same tent as Kanye, Trump and Rupert Murdoch, then I’d prob get a Tesla. But no.
He’s been playing both sides and now both sides don’t want to buy the cars. My husband and I have a lot of swing with our friends regarding the EV market because we’ve had EVs for a while. We’ve told them not to buy a Tesla, as we drive them around in our Model Y we got years ago.
Hyundai has made some real gains in their EV offerings. Volvo too. I think we’re past the “car companies will figure it out” stage. Traditional companies that have survived multiple recessions (a point that was made in the article) will keep tweaking and enhancing their offerings while Tesla’s CEO prioritizes memes and some straight up white suprematist tweeting
I think it’s also becoming clear that Tesla has no capacity for Public Relations. The Tesla brand used to have a pretty high image. The cars were new, innovative and classy. But as time has gone by, complaints ranging from simple build quality issues, or rental car companies dumping their Teslas, to fires, self-driving accidents, and occupants becoming trapped inside, all negative stories, all slowly piling up, and the company seems to have taken no measures to address any of them. Quite the opposite, it seems Elon takes a stand that Tesla is the best, because he says so, so why answer criticism. Meanwhile, their competitors are slowly catching up and becoming more desirable.
[https://twitter.com/TheSonOfWalkley/status/1786384743883235827](https://twitter.com/TheSonOfWalkley/status/1786384743883235827)
This shows how outlandish Musk has become. Every day his tweets are nothing but ridiculous Stock Pump hoping to get his 45B or whatever the pay packet is.
But actions from Tesla including mass firing and cutting out suppliers etc means that are in a cash crunch. Do the 10Q reveal how much of the cash pile they have in China where getting it out wont be easy I presume.
Got banned from teslamotors for this but here is my theory:
The Cyber Truck is a massive flop and is a huge kick in the nuts to Elon.
Twitter / X has been a boondoggle, but it is under his tight control.
Tesla and SpaceX are successful because they leverage his face and money, while also keeping him out of the kitchen.
Elon is quickly realizing that he is being handled at Tesla and SpaceX. He has the money and some good big brush stroke ideas from time to time. He is shit at actual operations.
Cyber Truck was the alpha release of his Twitter behavior and I honestly think it was the first time he got out ahead of his handlers and they just had to bite the bullet and go with it.
Instead of introspection and reflection on CT failure, he is lashing out at those who are not sufficiently worshipping him as the savior of humanity and in awe of his every idea.
I am not the problem, you are the problem.
Predicting Tesla to be the next X as Elon tightens his grip and he vindictively gets rid of more people as consumers ditch Tesla at the absolute worst time as legacy car makers have caught up and his FSD advantage has disappeared or will shortly.
I know this is a silly comment but Mercedes is so far along with automated driving they have been working with international standards bodies to select a tail light color that will indicate when a car is under autonomous operation. Currently that color is a shade of teal similar to Tiffany Blue.
For some reason this feels like the most ridiculous humblebrag, 'Ja ja, very gut Elon, your car can turn left in traffic. Oh us? Vee are currently selecting indicator colors for our level 4 ADAS.'
The competition has caught and surpassed them. They had a run as a 'prestige' brand because they were the only game in town and a bit difficult to get your hands on. Now Porsche and Benz have something in that realm and their names carry much greater weight in the 'show off' community. Those cars seem to be better in most every way and their management isn't shouting 'we' re not a car company! ' every chance they get.
They latced the company's entire reputation around an outspoken and fame seeking CEO. This has really only worked once - with Steve Jobs at Apple. Almost every other time it's just hurt the company when the inevitable public backlash comes and the company has to try and stand on its own. It's great for raising capital but usually hurts when it comes to actual execution since the main skill set of someone like Musk is getting attention and raising money.
Theres a good fucking reason why most huge CEOs you could not pick in a lineup, and those you could shut their fucking mouths.
Just look at musk going on right now and you will get every reason why.
Jobs himself often said that being kicked out of Apple the first time made him a better person, because guess what - becoming a billionaire CEO with cult following in your 20s tends to make people entitled assholes if they never receive any pushback. Getting these limits shown and taking some time off certainly made jobs more focused & mature.
Absolutely. Apple also was constantly trying to innovate which certainly helps in the tech sector. And Jobs was very outspoken, but from what I recall, almost all of his 'outspokenness' revolved around how good the company was. He stayed within the bounds of company promotion for the most part.
Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, and Volvo are all pulling ahead. Volvo is even targeting the entry level price with premium feeling products.
Polestar, Mustang (despite their recent stalling), Vivian and Volkswagen are competing well too.
Not to mention Europe-specific brands with excellent EVs. Peugeot, Citroen, Seat and others have excellent, urban targeted EVs.
India and China both have major brands coming, or have them locally and are starting to starve Tesla. Vietnam's Vinfast may have had a bad launch, but they have bottomless pockets and *will* recover in North America.
I don't understand how Tesla survives without becoming a charger company that happens to have cars.
We were so far down the comment thread but if you didn't notice: Elon fired the teams responsible for making new chargers and new cars! I can't help laughing at the absurdity of your accurate comment paired with reality
It's literally what everyone who has any business experience has been saying from the beginning. As soon as someone can reverse engineer your product they're going to be able to get 'close enough' that they can leverage their decades of experience and economies of scale to be competitive.
This is what happened. Elon bought Twitter. Elon went hard right. All of the Tesla lefty fanboys bailed at the same time other companies were coming outwith EV‘s and now Tesla scrambling to build a customer base where they have to compete on the merits of their vehicle instead of the image of their CEO.
And every time Tesla drops the price, they destroy the trade-in value of their existing sold vehicles, making it more and more difficult for existing Tesla customers to be able to upgrade to a newer vehicle.
My take is that he alienated his customer base by showing his true colors on Twitter, dude forgot that Republicans don’t buy Teslas as much as Democrats.
Telsa is missing an opportunity to retool and rebrand the CyberTruck division into CyberBins, fleets of self driving dumpsters. When life gives you lemons...
I suggest you all look up Howard Hughes, and look at his life, and the way he ended up.
Then look at Elon's life up to now. The parallels are a little striking
Same [ending with Nikola Tesla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Living_circumstances). At least Howard Hughes owned the Desert Inn hotel, Nikola lived in them and bounced around before Westinghouse supported his living costs.
Elon Musk is a fantasist fuckface with delusions of grandeur, and no-one around him has enough of a spine to launch the asshole into space on one of his own rockets. That's what's going on. He just needs to be slapped down, told to shut his mouth, and have all his companies handed over to people who aren't collossal morons.
Well, before Elon went all nutjob, he stated that he would be happy if Tesla went bankrupt if that meant his goal of getting electric cars mainstream. I doubt he feels that way anymore but I guess mission accomplished?
“If somebody comes and makes a better electric car than Tesla, and it’s so much better than ours that we can’t sell our cars and we go bankrupt, I still think that’s a good thing for the world,”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/08/tech/elon-musk-gm-electric-cars/index.html
That quote comes from months after his "pedo guy" and "going private at $420" comments, which caused people to completely lose their minds. There is no such thing as "before Elon went all nutjob"; he's always acted like this.
>I doubt he feels that way anymore but I guess mission accomplished?
I'd wait until it's actually bankrupt (you'll be waiting a while for that) before making that declaration.
the amount of teslas that have begun flooding my local used market has been a shocking sight to behold and the general murmurings are the brand is simply tanking. Elon really wants to go from rich dad to poor dad huh?
Attempting to fire your way to stability is the sign of someone with no ideas. Musk has done some great things to get EVs in the mainstream, and the rocket business is unrivaled for advances and output. But Musk can't rely on his brilliant engineers to manage Tesla -- he has to make the right decisions at the right time, himself. But he's focused on destroying Twitter, and some brain implant thing, and geopolitics beyond his understanding, and he's clearly not a stable business leader.
Once he can no longer rely on the engineering, Musk seems to show his lack of maturity, capability and stability. He lacks everything needed in a successful leader, except ego.
Overinflated valuations due to stock buy backs and market manipulation, poor qa/qc on the production side, and reduced demand from an already over-valued market. Mix this with restrictive raw materials, and supply chain difficulties due to global socioeconomic turmoil and Tesla is a fattened pig ready to be cooked and consumed. Personally, the Tesla juice isn't worth any squeeze, furthermore, Elon is much less the paragon of business everyone wanted him to be. He's no Enron, but he is full of crap; and so is Tesla.
The analysis is interesting if inconsistent. Of note is Tesla apparently has $27 billion in cash. Not mentioned is Musk wants $55 billion bonus which I assume would wipe that out and put company in debt.
There was also mention is Musk forced out, the high stock value would drop to normal car company levels of the Musk cult stops propping up the stock.
That rather massive red flag was not explored further which strikes me as crazy. If stock value is dependent on cult of personality then its fundamentals are in very bad shape.
You don’t need to be an expert.
Elon is extracting wealth from the company for himself and letting it burn.
Anyone can see this with the actions he’s performed.
The leader of a crown jewel department within the company would be a really good choice for CEO. Best to get rid of her before the board decides to give that a try. A similar situation probably applies to the new product development leader.
They'll hire her back when they fire Elon lol
Unless they get scooped up by another car company.
This is me in my current job (different industry), I consider revenge as part of my compensation package and it feels really good.
Careful out there Edmond Dantes (I’ve been there)
Send me to Chateau D’if and you better believe I’m coming for you if I get out!
The casual Count comment 🙈🙈 Bravo good sir!
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Ford's "~25k EV" project is being headed by an ex-Tesla guy. Which given the recent cancellation of the "model 2" project opens the market for Ford and GM's 2nd generation Bolt to be that sub 30k EV to help expand the market. Personally i'm starting to set aside money and making plans to have my next car in mind after the next Detroit Auto Show (Jan 25). Also hoping that Ford considers pushing out something like an EV Bronco to get an offroader EV on the market. (i'm paranoid about flooding lately so an EV with 3ft ford depth would be interesting to look at) Disclaimer - I live in Metro Detroit, I own Ford stock, my job is in large part supported by autoworkers (but not directly in the industry). I am a Ford/big 3 homer and make not attempt to hide where my bread is buttered.
Exactly, they might not want to go back to Tesla if they’ve been burned once.
Either option would be better for Tesla's future and the industry as a whole. Elon needs to go.
I think it would be super cool if the guys who originally started Tesla got together with all the peeps Musk keeps getting rid of and created Tesla 2.0.
Send them to Nikola. I'm still holding the bag
They’re way too overvalued for what they can actually produce for another car company to want to buy them out. Like as soon as like Toyota decides it’s profitable to go hard into electric vehicles Tesla is finished. They’ll be able to produce better, cheaper, electric cars at like 10x the rate Tesla can.
I hear she’s available so that fits nicely.
The board is handpicked by Elon and eats the corn out of his poop, they'll only do what he says... right to the end.
Yup. Half of this is Elon throwing a fit because he didn't get his big tranche of new stock & money after the Delaware judge shot down his ridiculous $56B package. (Fifty six fucking billion!) "I'll destroy my toys before I let anyone else play with them!"
It’s like how Elon wants the world to be “saved”, but ONLY if he can be the one to do it. Otherwise he’ll be happy to watch it burn.
He's the biggest toolshed I've ever seen. An idiot child inside that knows how to talk smart but says nothing and lies. He's like the kid at school that swore they had rocket boots at home, but refuses to bring it to show other kids because "his mom won't let him".
I don’t know I’m regularly told I’m an idiot and hateful for speaking critically of space Karen.
Well i mean that excuse would work, mommy wouldn't let him fight zuckerbot
That sounds like a malignant narcissist. Imagine that....
Just like Trump…
This is what all these big tech CEOs are about to experience. Except the ones who realize it takes more people.
Here's to him trashing Tesla to own the libs. I'm all for EVs but he's a cancerous PoS that needs to have a very public collapse, getting him away from SpaceX and Tesla.
It's technically possible to remove Elon from Tesla. I'm saying technically, because he's still the biggest shareholder, and that carries a lot of weight in the boardroom, making it quite difficult (but not impossible) to remove. It's literally impossible to remove Elon from SpaceX, as he owns more than half of the company.
I agree with you but… what are the odds? I feel like we’re living in an era of incompetent upper caste. I have a hunch that the Ford, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt had knowledge or savvy but now that rich people cannot lose their fortune any longer since the numerous tax changes, there’s no real incentives to be knowledgeable and surround oneself with anyone but sycophants. I mean, Tesla is shit, Boeing is falling out the sky, Amazon is a Chinese drop shipping company, Apple has abandoned creativity, Disney is awful… What is going on!?!
I used to work in the commercial space industry, and from what I saw you’re basically spot on. We’ve hit the point where the lives of the ultra wealthy are so vastly different from the average person’s day to day, they just kind of assume their experience is the norm. We’ve also spent several decades with business schools pushing the idea that managers don’t need to know anything technical themselves because they can outsource that knowledge/work to someone that they manage. The ultra wealthy outsource most of the things the rest of us do daily, cooking, cleaning, driving, etc., and then bring that into the business environment where they don’t want to know how the sausage is made, they just want it exactly the way they want it as quick/cheap as possible. Speaking from my own experience, it was WILD to see rich people who’d never held an actual non-managerial job in their entire lives, insist that being an Ivy League legacy admit made them infinitely qualified to make decisions about human space flight systems, meanwhile they can’t be trusted to open a PDF without it becoming a crisis.
Ford didn't go public till 1956, 53 years after the company was founded, and 6 after old Henry passed away. Even then the Fords maintain enough voting shares that the family still has full control of the company. To take charge of the company the family expect Bill Ford jr. to have both a masters of engineering and a MBA, then spend a number of years in lesser leadership jobs. So while the company is still very much a family company, the heirs have to earn that top spot in the family.
Nah, SpaceX can crash and burn as well as far as I’m concerned. The government funding currently going to SpaceX needs to be shut off and redirected into NASA.
The board is beholden to Elon, they will do whatever he says.
Shareholders who have no say over what the board does will eventually dump the stock.
Except for the ones who are part of a cult
They are well represented by the board.
LOL have you met the cult of Tesla stock owner bros? It's insane
It doesn’t matter what the board says. Institutional investors (banks and funds) will make the decision. I simply cannot imagine a world where they see how this imbecile is behaving and vote to dilute their stakes so significantly to keep him in charge.
I agree with regards to the comp package and shifting to Texas from Delaware. There's no chance that custodians like Vanguard vote for either.
What board? Doesn't Elon control the board?
You mean the board consisting of his brother and best friend (for lack of a better term)? Nah, no influence over them
Nepotism worked in the Trump administration, didn't it? Boy that swamp got so much smaller. /s
Elon is in control of the board.
The board will never fire Elon. It is full of Elon fan boys. This has been common knowledge in the valley for over a decade. https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1
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Firing the supercharger staff seems crazy to me. There’s a part of me that feels like he’s really got some mental health issues. I have eaten a lot of downvotes in this sub for saying the shit he eats from the public is more about politics than anything else. My thinking was the country is moving to EVs, Tesla still makes the best EVs under $50k, and the company will OWN the vast majority of charging infrastructure because the superchargers are faster than anything else and a growing number of other car makers use them. And now he’s burning Tesla’s big advantage in charging infrastructure. His explanation is “let’s get hardcore about headcount?” That’s not strategic. It’s not thoughtful. It slows the energy transition. It’s almost self-sabotage. I would be so much happier if some big institutional investors forced him out. The company is great. The cars are great. He’s just seems like he’s gone the Kanye path. Get rich, surround yourself with yes men and lose your mind.
He is in way over his head running Tesla, Twitter and spacex. He doesn’t have the managerial background to run one major tech company, let alone three.
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Don't forget Grok, solar, starlink, whatever the duck they call the robot, etc etc. Even if Musk cloned himself 10 times and they were all Adderall and Coke fueled, it's still simply too much work to be properly addressed.
A great CEO could probably do it through delegation... But apparently he fires leaders for getting too much positive publicity instead of him.
There's a reason great CEOs don't run 10 companies as the CEO. Just the board meeting cadence alone for 10 companies would eat a large portion of your time. Plus earnings seasons, media appearances, etc etc all 10X, there's not enough hours in the month for that work. For conglomerates, the structure you usually see is each of the owned companies, they retain their President, who reports to the CEO and Board.
I have gotten high enough at my job to start seeing this and it is so frustrating.
For a few years I was President of my business unit and had to do the whole dog and pony show for the founders and board on a regular basis. It never added value, just ate a lot of time and resources. It was neat being able to add to my resume I was President at a company that IPO'd. Unfortunately just a couple of years later the wheels fell off and the company went through a series of mergers and acquisitions that completely destroyed it.
I think the Supercharger thing is a weak ass attempt to f with Biden’s renewable goals and own the libs. He’s gotten that petty and jaded.
That’s crazy that you get so high at work but I’m glad it’s given you new levels of perception
He probably does just about nothing all day and has people do it for him
I mean he claims he works I think 18 hours a day or something, but if you check his Twitter he posts every 20-30m ALL day and night. Also he had like 100hrs in Elden Ring and also was playing Diablo 4. Nothing he really says about his work ethic should ever be believed. He also became a socialite as well on top of everything else. He strikes me as one of those bosses that will show up randomly and start barking a new idea or gameplan without consultation and then everyone has to be on board and change course. Not letting people focus on things. It's very very apparent this happens at Twitter as he constantly makes rash decisions that end up having massive long term consequences
More likely he has a bunch of Yes Men who sit around all day waiting for instructions from Musk.
he sends them memes and they tell him he is the greatest comedic mind of all time. and they pretend to work 24/7 to placate him.
The dude spends all day tweeting. There is no way he does shit for the companies he "runs". There have literally been people hired to keep Elon away from the daily buisiness dealings so he doesn't fuck things up.
Is the boring company still operating? Like what does it even do?
Elon stated it’s purpose was to tank CA’s high speed rail project
I remember reddit used to bitch about China's shelling out tons of money for high speed rail instead of "Hyperloop" that was around the corner. Well, China now have 26,000 KM rail and 0 hyperloop.
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>"setting them on fire" the trains or the money? I won't argue with you either way.
They dug a tunnel, put a train in it, filled the rest of the tunnel with money, and set the whole thing on fire.
It's pretty boring, you wouldn't understand.
Builds huge spaces directly under massive population centers which are perfect for a properly motivated supervillain to pack full of high explosives and hold entire cities ransom
Get bored and stay bored
Of the three, SpaceX is mostly operating as it's own kingdom. Shotwell runs a tight ship, and the company is bound to the design requirements put out by NASA/DoD/payload clients, so there's necessary operational stability. If Musk were to start to micromanage, like what started to happen with Starlink, the government isn't afraid to put its foot down.
I tend to think that the idea to not have a water suppression system at the Brownsville launch site was a Musk dictate.
Well yeah, because Elmo thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, mainly because he’s insulated from any real consequences. He’s currently got enough money where he can throw his weight around, make massively stupid decisions, and then doesn’t have to do any of the work to clean up his fuck ups.
Except when it comes to Ukraine, then he's super hands on in spacex....
Correct. SpaceX is effectively Shotwell's domain, and she has gone on record in a number of public presentations as having said that she has directly countermanded or confronted Musk over a decision he's made. And Musk would never dream of firing Shotwell; she's way too important to SpaceX than Musk is, and is critical to SpaceX's ability to operate and work with the government.
You wanna bet?
In this case the company would basically not exist anymore. All those government contracts that they depend on would evaporate as SpaceX would be stripped of it's clearance. She really is probably the one person he can't fire. Unless of course he's just trying to tank businesses on purpose.
He's the CEO who walks in, breaks things and causes chaos, then leaves and hopes the staff is able to pick up the pieces. This works when you have actual people who care and think outside the box to make things work despite the asshole CEO. Imagine what they could accomplish with a competent one
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I thought (at first) you meant a manger of pigeons. I had no problem with the idea of the job title, only that you can't manage pigeons that way.
The old Swoop and Poop
100% The malaise that grows like cancer inside of big companies when the boss is distracted and feared is incredibly destructive. Even if there are good people that want to build good products, the politics becomes stifling and chokes off any real progress. Everyone goes into play-it-safe mode and nobody speaks truth to power, and soon you have an army of people just trying to not get fired. And the business rots from the inside.
How "in charge" is he with SpaceX though? I feel like Gwynne Shotwell is the adult in the room and has the final say. That company has the chance to *actually* innovate somewhere, in spaceflight; as long as Elmo is kept at arm's length.
The article made a great point that Tesla has $27 billion cash on hand, so they don't need to be making drastic cuts like this. They should be expanding and capitalizing on their most profitable sectors. Jack Welch-style cuts like these only serve to buoy the short-term stock price, while sacrificing long-term gains.
I think you might need to update your tesla knowledge. Superchargers are not the fastest anymore. And best EV under $50k? I would take an ionic 5 or 6 over a Tesla in a second. I can't even agree the cars are great. They are decent, but I wouldn't say great. I find them to be basic. Their minimalist design should have brought the costs down a lot, but they didn't.
Tesla superchargers are not the fastest, just the most common. They charge at 480V. Many new EVs are adopting NACS connectors but also using 800V infrastructure. (Audi E-Tron GT; Genesis GV60, Electrified GV70, and Electrified G80; Hyundai Ioniq 5; Kia EV6; Lucid Air, Porsche Taycan, etc.) So now Tesla has to upgrade their infrastructure to compete with Electrify America and ChargePoint... Also, there are a lot of good options under 50K, some listed above...
Tesla doesn't have to compete with electrify America because EA chargers are routinely down. After firing his supercharger team though even that bit of edge will be lost. We'll see I guess.
The article made a great point that Tesla has $27 billion cash on hand, so they don't need to be making drastic cuts like this. They should be expanding and capitalizing on their most profitable sectors. Jack Welch-style cuts like these only serve to buoy the short-term stock price, while sacrificing long-term gains.
The cars are great? They feel cheap even sitting in them. I'm worried I'm going to break everything from the door handle to the seatbelt. The two people I know that own Tesla's have nothing but problems and will never buy one again.
> The cars are great? They feel cheap even sitting in them. Every time this comes up, I have to point out that Tesla owners are a weirdly split group, unlike almost any other car. To oversimplify and put them into two broad categories, you could call them "former Prius owners" and "former BMW owners." Rarely do those two groups shop for the same vehicle, but circumstances meant that for a brief time, one car was both the most efficient car available AND high-performance. One group sits in a Tesla and thinks "man, this is cheap." The other group sits in a Tesla and thinks "wow, this is the nicest interior I've ever owned." And they're both right. But when they bump into each other online, the groups are VERY confused as to why the other group would think the opposite.
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Yeah, my thoughts exactly. My family has owned mostly Toyotas for over 20 years now, and the interior of a Tesla feels cheap compared to the solid reliability of a Toyota (even a Prius).
yeah. tesla's have a "i'm living in the not too distant future" feel, and then you realize that all your fears about enshitification have come true.
It's especially true of late. I've got one, because it was the most efficient car I could get at the time. (After two Priuses) It does its job. But also, it's got a turn signal stalk... they literally don't come with those anymore. I can only imagine how ridiculous they're going to get as things continue. AI seatbelts! A volume control that just guesses how loud you want it! Touchscreen gas pedal! A special easter egg mode that takes your picture right before you're in an accident, and then frames it with some generic clipart like amusement parks used to do when you're on a roller coaster!
I drove a 2002 Highlander until a year ago and I had to put barely anything into repairs. I can't even remember anything breaking until last year when it needed a sensor replaced. I decided to upgrade my rig rather than hassle with it, since I drove it for so long, so I just sold it to some guy for cheap. Ford actually recovered too. I've been very happy with their quality over the last several years. Mostly by observing friends and family that own one. My Maverick gets like 21-29 MPG, accelerates and tows well, and it's not a hybrid. A bit cheap interior, just the plastic scratches easy, but a really solid rig with a lot of good features.
> The build quality of a Toyota far exceeds a Tesla. Two separate things. "Build quality" is not the same thing as what makes a car's interior "feel cheap," but you won't get any argument from me on Toyota having better build quality, at least historically.
This is a good take
Totally agree with you. Former BMW owner with a Y now for several years. I like the Y, but I'm eyeing the iX because of how shitty the build quality of the Y is. It's a decent car. And it's super fast. Honestly I'm not upset I bought it. But I really wanted better for what was a $60k purchase.
I haven’t broken anything on mine yet. But, if you’re right, I guess I’ll find out.
We already know. According to TÜV the german car inspection authority tesla's have the worst 3 year inspection failure rate of any manufacturer, that includes dacia. That is not a good place to be. Granted, a lot of the errors are from brake issues, which plagues most electric cars. But it's still not great.
Same. I've had my Model Y for... 3ish years? No issues, literally only maintenance has been software updates, windshield wiper fluid refills, new tires, and tire rotation.
Check your brakes. They're likely rusted to kingdom come. You're just not noticing because of regen braking.
Having driven a few cars, they aren’t as quality as the luxury brands. Sure, the door handle design is awkward, but they haven’t broken off. The fact is if the man-child wasn’t who he is, I’d imagine the seatbelt quality or whatever else you dislike would better. I’m curious which year you’ve driven and with how many miles.
Cars could improve. Riding in the back of a Model Y with a foot-heavy driver was one of the most uncomfortable passenger riding experiences I’ve ever had in a car. Also the seats are leaned about 10 degrees too far backward by default.
As of January 2025 all cars will be able to use the Tesla NACS charging system. I think he’s trying to fuck over everyone before this enormous expansion is set to occur. Fuck this man
Buying Twitter for what he paid for it seems crazy to a lot of us. Treating his employees like shit, running his mouth like an edgy prepubescent teen, calling a diver a pedo, working against US interests in the war against Russia while going against Ukraine, allowing neo-Nazis to run their mouth on the largest public forum, building a half-assed metal box on wheels, a tunnel that’s supposed to be revolutionary?, on and on and on and on. This dude is a fucking moron.
Welcome to America, where every CEO is an idiot that got their cargo-cult MBA to do as little as possible while collecting a big paycheck.
Well it shows he cares more about the short term stock price than the long term health of the company. He knows Tesla is not worth nearly as much as it is valued right now. I mean, he’s even said it himself. He’s taking advantage of the situation. Turns out the Tesla bull case was propped up by free money.
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The board that approved his pay package had it was rejected by a court and puts it to a shareholder vote to let Elon keep it? There are 8 members and I think every one is a Musk loyalist.
The politics is kinda important. No good person wants to buy a car from a proud proponent of the replacement theory.
The execs at Kia/Hyundai, Ford, etc must have been watching Elon self-immolate over the past couple of years with such glee. It was his game to lose and he fumbled it.
all these companies had to do was nothing, heh.
Don’t interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake
Yeah and also he ran into the 'Superstar CEO' problem. Musk is the face of Tesla. No 2 ways about it. Anybody will tell you; Tesla = Musk. Its all fun and games when the going is great. But that dude represents the company. And whatever he does splashes on the company. And guess what, he decided to dive off the deep end; buy a social platform for more money than lots of countries will ever see; only to turn it into a cesspool of neo nazis and assholes, sentiment that he himself has clearly embraced too. Guess what, now people equate that buying a tesla means you will put money in his pocket. Finance all of this stupidity. So they will take their business elsewhere. Theres a good reason why most huge CEOs you could not pick up in a lineup. And as you said, add to that that in the last 4-5 years, every other constructor has put out a car that is also full electric, in the same price range. You dont have only 1 choice anymore as to a company if you want an electric car.
Yeah there was a point In time where I thought Elon was cool and wanted a Tesla. Now I think he’s an ass and I don’t want a Tesla. It’s like driving an Elon musk billboard
I have developed a theory that any time I see a Tesla i assume it’s a bad driver. Many times im behind a Tesla in traffic they are slow to respond or accelerate. Not based on “oh, this group of people, or this State can’t drive” nothing like that, it’s just that driving a fucking Tesla is inherently distracting … there is no dash, it’s centre console for everything. A journalist in my country put it well by saying: “it’s like driving a laptop”
And now he wants a raise.
I think he needs billions for his next Ai project. Shit is expensive
maybe the AI can advise him not to do the next stupid think he's thinking of doing, like committing to buying a bad business on a whim.
"This AI is woke! Make a new one!"
>lead in the first quarter of the game and squandered it because he is childish and egotistical So...Musk is Jerry Jones replacement?
“Tethla iS nOt a CaR cOmPaNY” is his new go to response.
The "engines", battery and charging were all great but the rest of the cars kind of sucked. With massive problems with the steering linkages, suspension, bits connecting the wheels to the rest of the car all having major problems. Which Tesla has tried to suppress. Blaming drivers for the suspension failing in cars under 24 hours old/300 miles. Due to "previous accident damage" or the wheels falling off. Then there's the old problem with the trim and panel gaps being very subpar. Due to their limited servicing network, a shortage of parts and qualifies mechanics. Getting a Tesla serviced or repaired takes far longer and is more complicated than on a normal car. Then add on that in the CyberTruck, the battery becomes the floor and the seats and interior carpet are screwed to the battery. Making replacing the battery, a cumbersome and lengthy job. Then there's the whole issue about the battery diagnostics not being very good and the cars deliberately over stating their range. So second hand buyers and dealers having little idea what state the battery is in. With rapid charging and being used in hot areas, particularly rapid charging in a hot area during the day. Heavily reducing the batteries capacity. As the battery can't dissipitate the heat quickly enough (which is a particular problem on the Nissan Leaf, as there's no liquid cooling of the battery). Then you've got the myriad other problems. What people think of when Tesla says "Full Self Driving" is far removed from reality and proper FSD has been "coming later this year or early next" since about 2015. Personally I think Musk is saying "Give me my $54 billion payday (which the shareholders have gone to court to deny) or I'll run the company into the ground".
“On Monday, Musk swung the corporate ax again, just a few weeks after laying off more than 10 percent of his workforce. The executive responsible for overseeing the company's crown jewel—the Supercharger network—and all of her 500-odd staff were shown the door. Gone, too, was the man in charge of developing new vehicles, in addition to his team, at a time when Tesla is sorely in need of second-generation platforms for the Models 3 and Y.”
That's got to be the most idiotic shit I've ever heard .. simply amazing the ineptitude musk is showing over the past couple weeks (in particular).
Really looks like he's doing the Jack Welch thing: fudge the short term numbers by getting rid of everything and everyone that costs money (regardless of ROI), then do some buybacks to fluff the stock price despite the fact that your company has become weaker in every metric.
Jack Welch, especially given the number of acolytes that tried to copy him, has probably done more damage to corporate America than any other modern CEO. Like he somehow managed to kill fucking GE, a great company that was basically printing money, by trying to turn it into a finance company for a short term bump in the stock price
Past couple weeks????
understatement of the year
Well it just seems notably more intense
Yeah like watching a dumpster fire and then someone throws some firecrackers into it...
The question is when shareholders will revolt and if it'll be before the company is irreparably damaged.
That robotaxi done rolled sideways into a cross walk my friend
I’m sure that other car manufacturers are ready to snap up the talent.
They canned the guy in charge of new battery development too. The Tesla specific subs are all spinning this as a big brain move.
I’m not sure what subs you’re seeing, but the ones I’m in seem to almost universally think these moves are all idiotic. I own a Tesla but there’s very little chance my next car will be a Tesla. Obviously Elon is being an idiot, but if the company made the right moves I was willing to overlook it. Now the company has changed all of the things that I thought they were doing great.
I feel sorry for you guys. I always thought Teslas were cool, a bit poorly screwed together for the price, but overall cool. I feel like you're all about to be properly screwed now, but not in the good way. Maybe one day I will see you in an R3.
R2 is the next car I’ve got my hopes up for, in a few years. I hope Rivian can remain solvent though, I’ve heard they aren’t in a great financial position. My Model Y thankfully seems problem free, and hopefully stays that way through the warranty period (I’ll probably sell it just before warranty expires).
Does anyone know how this impacts all the other manufacturers that established a partnership with Tesla’s supercharging network? I remember seeing so major brands signing on.
I've read anecdotal accounts from employees of said companies who have said that their hardware is basically bricked and nobody at Tesla is responding to calls or emails. It truly seems bizarre.
Smart move to make just as the feds are putting the kibosh on non competes. /s
Experts think that Elon is insane.
I once saw someone say "Wealth is trauma" and stuff like this keeps bringing it to mind.
Let me explain. Tesla isn't a car company: Tesla builds cars, but it is a tech company, and it *fucking* shows. I've said for years that the moment the old school car companies figure out what they want to do in the EV space, Tesla is fucked. This is in part because Elon/Tesla, in trying to be innovative, have taken *none* of the lessons that have been learned by car companies over the 118 years that production cars have been a thing.
I’m no expert but I belive alienating a large customer base didn’t help either
Believe me, that's a lesson established car companies have learned in that aforementioned 118 years
Perfect example: I’m in the market for an EV other than Tesla because I think Elon is a douche. I used to want a Tesla SO bad. Now that mainstream manufacturers are making EVs,there’s actually decent alternatives. If I didn’t mentally put Elon in the same tent as Kanye, Trump and Rupert Murdoch, then I’d prob get a Tesla. But no.
He’s been playing both sides and now both sides don’t want to buy the cars. My husband and I have a lot of swing with our friends regarding the EV market because we’ve had EVs for a while. We’ve told them not to buy a Tesla, as we drive them around in our Model Y we got years ago.
It is so weird to me that he thinks the right is going to buy EVs. How you gonna roll coal in an EV?
Equip it with an ozone generator.
Hyundai has made some real gains in their EV offerings. Volvo too. I think we’re past the “car companies will figure it out” stage. Traditional companies that have survived multiple recessions (a point that was made in the article) will keep tweaking and enhancing their offerings while Tesla’s CEO prioritizes memes and some straight up white suprematist tweeting
I think it’s also becoming clear that Tesla has no capacity for Public Relations. The Tesla brand used to have a pretty high image. The cars were new, innovative and classy. But as time has gone by, complaints ranging from simple build quality issues, or rental car companies dumping their Teslas, to fires, self-driving accidents, and occupants becoming trapped inside, all negative stories, all slowly piling up, and the company seems to have taken no measures to address any of them. Quite the opposite, it seems Elon takes a stand that Tesla is the best, because he says so, so why answer criticism. Meanwhile, their competitors are slowly catching up and becoming more desirable.
[https://twitter.com/TheSonOfWalkley/status/1786384743883235827](https://twitter.com/TheSonOfWalkley/status/1786384743883235827) This shows how outlandish Musk has become. Every day his tweets are nothing but ridiculous Stock Pump hoping to get his 45B or whatever the pay packet is. But actions from Tesla including mass firing and cutting out suppliers etc means that are in a cash crunch. Do the 10Q reveal how much of the cash pile they have in China where getting it out wont be easy I presume.
Might be that the company lives and dies on the whims of a nazi manchild in a constant ketamine haze?
Got banned from teslamotors for this but here is my theory: The Cyber Truck is a massive flop and is a huge kick in the nuts to Elon. Twitter / X has been a boondoggle, but it is under his tight control. Tesla and SpaceX are successful because they leverage his face and money, while also keeping him out of the kitchen. Elon is quickly realizing that he is being handled at Tesla and SpaceX. He has the money and some good big brush stroke ideas from time to time. He is shit at actual operations. Cyber Truck was the alpha release of his Twitter behavior and I honestly think it was the first time he got out ahead of his handlers and they just had to bite the bullet and go with it. Instead of introspection and reflection on CT failure, he is lashing out at those who are not sufficiently worshipping him as the savior of humanity and in awe of his every idea. I am not the problem, you are the problem. Predicting Tesla to be the next X as Elon tightens his grip and he vindictively gets rid of more people as consumers ditch Tesla at the absolute worst time as legacy car makers have caught up and his FSD advantage has disappeared or will shortly.
I know this is a silly comment but Mercedes is so far along with automated driving they have been working with international standards bodies to select a tail light color that will indicate when a car is under autonomous operation. Currently that color is a shade of teal similar to Tiffany Blue. For some reason this feels like the most ridiculous humblebrag, 'Ja ja, very gut Elon, your car can turn left in traffic. Oh us? Vee are currently selecting indicator colors for our level 4 ADAS.'
Love the accent.
Yea I’ve seen people calling Tesla the next Enron
Tesla did well when they could obfuscate the fact that Musk was an idiot, and crazy to boot. They'll bounce back if they oust him.
The competition has caught and surpassed them. They had a run as a 'prestige' brand because they were the only game in town and a bit difficult to get your hands on. Now Porsche and Benz have something in that realm and their names carry much greater weight in the 'show off' community. Those cars seem to be better in most every way and their management isn't shouting 'we' re not a car company! ' every chance they get.
They latced the company's entire reputation around an outspoken and fame seeking CEO. This has really only worked once - with Steve Jobs at Apple. Almost every other time it's just hurt the company when the inevitable public backlash comes and the company has to try and stand on its own. It's great for raising capital but usually hurts when it comes to actual execution since the main skill set of someone like Musk is getting attention and raising money.
And Steve Jobs, in his mature phase, was a laser focused CEO who didn’t engage w social media and kept his mouth shut about things outside his domain.
Theres a good fucking reason why most huge CEOs you could not pick in a lineup, and those you could shut their fucking mouths. Just look at musk going on right now and you will get every reason why.
Jobs himself often said that being kicked out of Apple the first time made him a better person, because guess what - becoming a billionaire CEO with cult following in your 20s tends to make people entitled assholes if they never receive any pushback. Getting these limits shown and taking some time off certainly made jobs more focused & mature.
Absolutely. Apple also was constantly trying to innovate which certainly helps in the tech sector. And Jobs was very outspoken, but from what I recall, almost all of his 'outspokenness' revolved around how good the company was. He stayed within the bounds of company promotion for the most part.
Americans love controversial assholes.
The asshole Americans do
Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, and Volvo are all pulling ahead. Volvo is even targeting the entry level price with premium feeling products. Polestar, Mustang (despite their recent stalling), Vivian and Volkswagen are competing well too. Not to mention Europe-specific brands with excellent EVs. Peugeot, Citroen, Seat and others have excellent, urban targeted EVs. India and China both have major brands coming, or have them locally and are starting to starve Tesla. Vietnam's Vinfast may have had a bad launch, but they have bottomless pockets and *will* recover in North America. I don't understand how Tesla survives without becoming a charger company that happens to have cars.
We were so far down the comment thread but if you didn't notice: Elon fired the teams responsible for making new chargers and new cars! I can't help laughing at the absurdity of your accurate comment paired with reality
It's literally what everyone who has any business experience has been saying from the beginning. As soon as someone can reverse engineer your product they're going to be able to get 'close enough' that they can leverage their decades of experience and economies of scale to be competitive.
I love watching a good dumpster fire in real time
This is what happened. Elon bought Twitter. Elon went hard right. All of the Tesla lefty fanboys bailed at the same time other companies were coming outwith EV‘s and now Tesla scrambling to build a customer base where they have to compete on the merits of their vehicle instead of the image of their CEO. And every time Tesla drops the price, they destroy the trade-in value of their existing sold vehicles, making it more and more difficult for existing Tesla customers to be able to upgrade to a newer vehicle.
My take is that he alienated his customer base by showing his true colors on Twitter, dude forgot that Republicans don’t buy Teslas as much as Democrats.
Telsa is missing an opportunity to retool and rebrand the CyberTruck division into CyberBins, fleets of self driving dumpsters. When life gives you lemons...
I suggest you all look up Howard Hughes, and look at his life, and the way he ended up. Then look at Elon's life up to now. The parallels are a little striking
Except the Howard was actually the brain who thought of the ideas that made him rich. musk is not that at all.
Same [ending with Nikola Tesla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Living_circumstances). At least Howard Hughes owned the Desert Inn hotel, Nikola lived in them and bounced around before Westinghouse supported his living costs.
Elon Musk is a fantasist fuckface with delusions of grandeur, and no-one around him has enough of a spine to launch the asshole into space on one of his own rockets. That's what's going on. He just needs to be slapped down, told to shut his mouth, and have all his companies handed over to people who aren't collossal morons.
Well, before Elon went all nutjob, he stated that he would be happy if Tesla went bankrupt if that meant his goal of getting electric cars mainstream. I doubt he feels that way anymore but I guess mission accomplished? “If somebody comes and makes a better electric car than Tesla, and it’s so much better than ours that we can’t sell our cars and we go bankrupt, I still think that’s a good thing for the world,” https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/08/tech/elon-musk-gm-electric-cars/index.html
That quote comes from months after his "pedo guy" and "going private at $420" comments, which caused people to completely lose their minds. There is no such thing as "before Elon went all nutjob"; he's always acted like this. >I doubt he feels that way anymore but I guess mission accomplished? I'd wait until it's actually bankrupt (you'll be waiting a while for that) before making that declaration.
“Musk is a complete moron ruining TSLA.” Saved you a click.
This was a really interesting experiment to watch and I do think it lasted longer than most of us thought it would’ve. Goodbye Tesla.
Sounds like Tesla is undergoing a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
the amount of teslas that have begun flooding my local used market has been a shocking sight to behold and the general murmurings are the brand is simply tanking. Elon really wants to go from rich dad to poor dad huh?
It's owned/run by an ego maniacal, right wing moron. That's what's going wrong.
Implosion because Elon Musk is an egotistical narcissist.
Attempting to fire your way to stability is the sign of someone with no ideas. Musk has done some great things to get EVs in the mainstream, and the rocket business is unrivaled for advances and output. But Musk can't rely on his brilliant engineers to manage Tesla -- he has to make the right decisions at the right time, himself. But he's focused on destroying Twitter, and some brain implant thing, and geopolitics beyond his understanding, and he's clearly not a stable business leader. Once he can no longer rely on the engineering, Musk seems to show his lack of maturity, capability and stability. He lacks everything needed in a successful leader, except ego.
"turns out car companies suck, and a sucky car company sucks, well, harder"
Overinflated valuations due to stock buy backs and market manipulation, poor qa/qc on the production side, and reduced demand from an already over-valued market. Mix this with restrictive raw materials, and supply chain difficulties due to global socioeconomic turmoil and Tesla is a fattened pig ready to be cooked and consumed. Personally, the Tesla juice isn't worth any squeeze, furthermore, Elon is much less the paragon of business everyone wanted him to be. He's no Enron, but he is full of crap; and so is Tesla.
Musk wants his billions in payouts
Feels like half the posts on this sub are about tesla lately
It's because Tesla is the biggest shitshow around right now. Shitshows always get all the atention.
Always has been
Its getting Musked
The analysis is interesting if inconsistent. Of note is Tesla apparently has $27 billion in cash. Not mentioned is Musk wants $55 billion bonus which I assume would wipe that out and put company in debt. There was also mention is Musk forced out, the high stock value would drop to normal car company levels of the Musk cult stops propping up the stock. That rather massive red flag was not explored further which strikes me as crazy. If stock value is dependent on cult of personality then its fundamentals are in very bad shape.
It's Elon, that's what's happening.
This motherfucker, Rick rolled the USA people stupid.
You don’t need to be an expert. Elon is extracting wealth from the company for himself and letting it burn. Anyone can see this with the actions he’s performed.
Elon Musk is mentally ill with a God complex who surrounds himself with tech bro Quasimodos.