There has not, to be clear, been a slump in EV demand, unless you assume that the US is the only market (it is in fact the smallest of the big three, and the other two are growing).

There has been a slump in EV demand in 1 country. Everywhere else, it's growing.

“TSLA is not a car company” :)

I don't think Musk or Tesla had a strategy in this regard, Musk was just being impulsive and didn't really think about his brand, I think he isn't really self aware even if he must be smart in some other regard (unless his success is an accident, which I doubt).

There’s no need to go 4d chess on this, tbh. Sometimes a crazy person who rants about woke mind viruses at four in the morning is just a crazy person.

When Howard Hughes started insisting that all his peas be the same size, no-one thought he was courting a market; he was just crazy.

Bloom Energy is a growing company which is just shifting towards profitability and positive free cash flow and earnings. Those stocks are expected to have silly P/E ratios. They haven't had 2 years of declining sales.

I’d have agreed with you in 2024 but there’s enough of a difference in active support to be significant. Not many of those CEOs have direct personal involvement killing millions of people, for example, but DOGE appears to have managed that without really even understanding what they were cutting.

There is an enormous difference between holding unpleasant views in private and actively, publicly, working to dismantle the country and take away the rights of its citizens and celebrating it.

> I imagine many of their privately held beliefs are just as horrible but they’re not dumb enough to say them publicly.

That's correct. And therefore I don't boycott their companies.

Yes when possible and feasible to know. And it's super easy to avoid everything Musk touches. Nothing he helms is without easy alternatives.

I used to ask the same questions, but then I've realized: this line of argument tries to justify non-action on known known because there are also known unknowns and maybe even unknown unknowns. Now what? Smoke a cigarette because we know that unknown carcinogens exist that are not included in cigarette smoke?

> I imagine many of their privately held beliefs are just as horrible but they’re not dumb enough to say them publicly.

Why would you support a company run by someone stupid enough to say their polarising beliefs publicly? It doesn't inspire confidence in their judgment. Even if you personally agree with their polarising beliefs, you have to question their decision making process in why they chose to deliberately make them public, damaging the company. If they're stupid like that, maybe they've made stupid decisions with their products (which in Elon's case, yes, he has, and not just at Tesla).

https://youtu.be/N_ympM1TPBw?si=7fnfN3RPZdF0wVv7&t=31

Hard to think of other CEOs who took time off from running the company to play in DC for a while. I'm sure there are some, but none come to mind.

I didn’t plan on examining Elon’s ideology. He shoved it in my face. If other CEOs want to to be coy with Nazi salutes and post the types of things he does on X then let me know. I’ll happily treat them the same way.

Any of them would run me over to make the line go up, but some of them are loudly putting their foot on the accelerator.

Publicly signalling that you support awful shit is more likely to make that world a reality than quiet private support.

Yes, at least for the CEOs going out of their way to get into politics like Musk and Larry Ellison. The way Ellison is using Bari Weiss to censor 60 Minutes is evil.

Hiding abhorrent beliefs is a good thing and we should heavily encourage it.

Why financially support an ardent, unabashed white nationalist who eagerly funnels money to a party that *he himself claims* protects pedophiles?

What other CEOs are this level of pure garbage? I can't think of a single one. (And that's before we even bring up the people his policies have directly killed: https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-f...)

What compelled you to buy FSD?

It was mentioned on the Tesla earning's call in Q2 or Q3 2025 that HW3 FSD customers will likely be moved to a version of HW5 that accommodated the older camera sensors.

How often does it happen in Chevys or Toyotas? Getting trapped in a car after a crash is common enough that there’s a cutesy nickname for the machine used by rescuers to get people out.

> It's not really that great of a car. I mean it's driving an iPad, basically. Also, they've been plagued with reliability issues eg limiting how much you can adjust your seat because they're so prone to breaking [1].

Do you own one? I've had one for 6 years and I've never had issues with it, it's the best car I've ever owned. I've driven lots of other EVs, and none are close.

> Things would be very different if we could buy BYD cars.

We've had BYDs and other EVs for many years in Australia, and EVs are still a luxury item.

> Each to their own but IMHO leasing is the smartest way to currently "own" an EV, given the depreciation.

I've never understood Americans and leasing. Aside from specific styles of novated/chattel leases (where there is a tax benefit), leasing a car seems to almost always be a worse deal.

[1] You say it like it is a bad thing? Next you will say car manufacturers are monitoring engine temperature...

120 sec of usage in 300 sec is plenty. If they did 599 sec in 600 sec, you'll still complain because you are here to complain; you are not a user.

Car letting me know I'm stressing the motor is a good thing.

Would you prefer if your phone required a trip to a dedicated refilling station once a week, even if it only took 5 minutes?

Because that's the kind of logic you're implying about your car – that it's more convenient driving somewhere once a week rather than just plugging it in at night before bed.

> I oil change once a year. I fill in gas once every like 7-10 days, half the time someone pumps it for me. It takes five minutes, maybe. I don't need to fuss about range, chargers or connect my car as it were a phone when I'm home every day. I find EVs an inconvenience.

I suspect I spend less time plugging in my car when I get home than you do filling up with petrol per annum. Having to stop at a service station is objectively less convenient than plugging in when you get home.

Congrats on only needing to do an oil change once per year. I need to do 3-4. I’ve done stuff to make it less annoying but I would still love to get an EV as my next car and not need to.

How many miles does your car/oil filter support

Im not a bot. I also don't believe I was praising Tesla. I won't buy another one even if I haven't had any issues with the one I currently have. My Model 3 has honestly been a great car for me. If it was any other manufacturer I would have absolutely bought another one. I will only consider an EV but I won't buy another Tesla. It's pretty unfortunate TBH.

> I also wouldn't consider a Tesla at this point

How does the above fit into your "bot" hypothesis?

Huh? This guy just declared he'll never buy another Tesla again. How is that giving it praise?

There’s also Rivian. My R1S is my favorite car I’ve ever owned and this is going to be their “Model 3 year” when the R2 comes out. There’s also Lucid and Zoox.

And the Chinese manufacturers, of course. If you haven’t been outside the US lately you don’t realize just how popular BYD is everywhere but here. I’m in Thailand at the moment and they are everywhere. Mexico too.

Why? They're an energy errr robotics err AI company now. Seems to me like they're all but calling it quits on cars.

> prioritizing and long term updating their EVs

Is that a euphemism for having an aging lineup? Not releasing anything new -- ??? --> must be prioritizing (huh?) and long term updating old ones?

The optimus will save the day!

At least that seems the current story. And I mean if it lives up to it's promises, it might. I surely would have a need for a robot servant. But I won't preorder as I a) don't trust it will work as promised b) if it actually works out, I still don't trust Elon enough to put a robot in my home that he controls.

> This is the $1T question. What happens when Tesla finally gets valued as a car manufacturer, with side businesses in cheap but unreliable solar, and over-priced grid storage?

They are the 14th largest car maker in the world by annual units sold, and almost in the top 10 by annual revenue from cars.

Surely that is good enough to maintain a market cap that is 50% higher than the combined market caps of the top 10 (Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai-Kia, Renault-Nissan, General Motors, Stellantis, Honda, Ford, BYD, and Suzuki)?

It appears to have become a meme stock.

I would love to short it but have avoided doing so because I didn't feel like I could outlast the fanatics, which seems to have been a wise decision in hindsight.

I don't. YouGov's data suggests 77% of the UK populace has a negative view of the brand. Musk has destroyed its credibility.

Obviously we're just dueling anecdotes here, but FWIW, I'm a US tech worker who bought a Tesla in 2022 and certainly never will again. I have four friends with Teslas in tech and all of them say the same thing: never again. Replacement cycles for cars are so long that this will take a while to fully show up in the data, but I don't see growth anywhere in their future, especially when BYD is eating their lunch in seemingly every non-US market.

Tech workers weren't their core market, upper-middle to upper class liberals in major metro areas were.

Sales to that demographic are approximately zero and will remain there until every shred of Elon is removed from the company's fabric.

It isn't within 15% of Tesla in price. Not even close. BYD models start at like $10K, and the cheapest BYD Sedan is $15K. The cheapest Model 3 meanwhile will be around $35-40K depending on the inventory around you.

Better

This has been true until recently w/BYD growth. It's definitely more than the top legacy ones combined, including those selling many times more cars, and unlike most of them it's shrinking

Yeah a company that makes 95%+ of its revenue from selling cars is totally not a car company..

Many (most?) F-150 buyers do not tow anything. This is a distraction. It would obviously be possible to make something electric that's better than a bottom of the line F-150, that's what Tesla should have done.

USA has 340 million people. "Outside the US" has ~8 billion. So Tesla selling more cars outside the US isn't by itself a crazy achievement. China was supposed to be Tesla's next big market after US and Europe but sales there have already cooled off due to competition from domestic manufacturers. Tesla used to be #1 in the Chinese EV market when it launched and has now fallen outside the top 5.

Invest in batteries

Edit: I mean focus solely on. It's a boring technology prone to disruption, used everywhere