And by punish you mean fairly value?

>after losing to the Chinese

The total market cap of all the Chinese car companies combined is about 300B.

Tesla alone is worth ~5x that, because the market rewards this behavior of chasing new things.

If Tesla suddenly pivoted to 'caring about cars' and tried their best to produce low cost reliable EVs, the market is going to punish them by valuing them at less than 300B. That is, if they succeed at that. If they fail, which would be more plausible, they go bankrupt.

Why would they voluntarily do that?

We could do that by changing public opinion or regulating what public companies must do/report, but that seems somewhat unlikely. It's so much easier to claim that autonomous driving will be solved in six months :)

Just like an instrument panel and an indicator stalk.

It’s a shame, because even after all these years Teslas are still state of the art in quite a few aspects (their packaging and drivetrain efficiency, among others). But here in Oz where we have a smorgasbord of cheap and excellent Chinese EVs, there are better options unless you want FSD above all else.

They skimp on plastic buttons, you think they'll include a HUD?

yeah, its a .com == AI company :-D

In Europe, they are usually known as MPVs or "people carriers"; Renault has made their Espace since 1984 (though, it looks like they abandoned that format in 2012); there was also the Renault Grand Scénic, which ended in 2022. So not a uniquely American concept, but it seems like the market in Europe for them is thinning significantly. A shame though, I really like the look of that Espace mk1.

I feel like the opposite is true, Americans seem oddly opposed to vans, minivans, and people movers. Toyota alone make something like 20 different models with three rows of seats as standard, and school event parking where I am is packed with 7 seaters. Wasn’t Tesla Model X a 7 seater?

I've seen taxi drivers use them in Europe multiple times basically every time you want to transport more people. Beats using 2 cars.

Any more than the four-door full-size pickup truck that is the Cybertruck?

Not really. Peugeot has been making 7 seaters for over half a century now.

Sure, but if they're losing money, you go looking for ways to make a bit more money without having to spend too much. My contention is at least some of these things could be done relatively cheaply and would generate additional sales.

Tesla may be getting belted from pillar to post elsewhere in the world by the Chinese but they a) still have a near-monopoly in EVs in the US, and b) have a cost-competitive EV manufacturing operation in China from which they can supply other parts of the world.

That still doesn't help their image problem, which is still very real for many left-leaning affluent consumers around the world, but that's less of a problem for commercial vehicles.

I can't really complain about the maintenance of the EV parts of my cars. I know some EVs fail there too, but my two EVs have been flawless when it comes to the electric drivetrains and the batteries.

But having an electric car doesn't make salt and potholes magically disappear, unfortunately.

What maintenance do they actually need? Tires, brakes, wiper blades, air filter, washer fluid? All fairly trivial to DIY. One thing that I would do is disable the cellular modem, to prevent unwanted "upgrades."

You still need things like brakes though, right?

> I'm reminded nearly every other day that EVs need no maintenance and should never see the inside of a mechanic's garage.

Are you being sarcastic, perhaps?

EV ownership is mostly about lying to yourself and saving face.

From direct experience.

Also worth noting that the fuel on a second hand petrol car cost less than the depreciation on the EV for me.

Have not owned a tesla, but have had three EVs in the family. All three new cars. All of the EVs have spent way more days at the dealership than any of my ICE cars of the last 30+ years.

I understand not wanting to pay the cost of LiDAR like twelve years ago but the price has come down since then. At this point does it even make sense to stick to cameras? What possible reason is there other than an aging Elmo's ego?

Even if it prevents like ten deaths, the LiDAR will have paid for itself.

I take them regularly in SF, twice cheaper than lyft, 4x cheaper than waymo and works fine... it's literally the cheapest other than zoox (free if on tester list, which I am), but it's as fast as Lyft/Uber.

The cybertruck was a disaster but I think the main issue is they didn't do any new model after that for almost a decade.

Also, Musk getting into politics and alienating most of its consumer base, of course.

The interesting part is that small affordable EVs was Teslas initial goal IIRC. Changing horses in the middle of the stream just did not workout? I’m sure Tesla will be fine in the end though. There is always someone coming to the rescue.

Cybertruck technology ended up in cybercab and semi, so whether the vehicle itself won might not be relevant in long run.

No, the winning strategy was to release a conventional-looking truck, say something that very much looks like an F150 or a Silverado.

The Cybertruck, or what it should have been, was never meant to be an entry-level truck like the Slate, and the market for trucks clearly shows people are wanting to spent money on big trucks.

Buying a Tesla vehicle (or not) became a referendum on Elon himself. It became a small personal action one could take to feel like you could actually do something that had an effect. Whether or not it accomplished the goal is precisely the center of debate, but regardless, the feeling was real.

I'm not going to defend the Cybertruck execution, clearly they misjudged the demand.

But Optimus is a fair play. Don't grub for scraps in an efficient competitive market. Make a new market, go big or go home.

What makes you think you'd ever be allowed to buy a Chinese EV in the US?

The lightning was fantastic as well.

Tariffs in the US will be just effective as the EU EV tariffs. It will protect the industry for some time, and at the same time make it go stale and irrelevant.

Never heard of them. But if they are made in America I will keep them in my mind when/if I buy a new car.

Lucid is also American made, no?

+69,000% in that case. Like with his S3XY cars. Oh well.

Well, the other company should already be called SpaceXXXai (as a concatenation of the three pre-merger companies).

Read their prior Tesla posts. They are all negative.

Did you read the post? It's all framed as "worrying". It's a very biased, thoughtless piece.

The funniest thing is how they used to eschew the complete opposite when elon was "funny memer man who's tony stark IRL"

> It's very shocking to see this turn of the editorial approach for a company that did change the full industry.

Is it? Regardless of how revolutionary a company was, they don't get a free pass on criticism.

I had a positive sentiment towards Tesla when the mission was basically "make EVs sexy" and "promote clean electricity." Although they didn't have a perfect record (QC, proprietary charging, RtR), at least they were disrupting a stagnant industry, with a noble enough goal.

Now when I think of Tesla, I think of their deployment of "Full Self Driving (Beta) [keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road]", "Robotaxi (with human driver)," "Humanoid robot (why?)," and of course the glorious leader who bought Twitter so he could "protect free speech" by banning people he disagrees with.

When was the last release of a new car from Tesla? When did they do anything exciting? Tesla is going in 5 directions at once, none of it with conviction, bleeding money with the CEO addicted and focused mainly on pity battles online most of the time besides managing 5 companies at this point.

Tesla itself made a turn for the worse over the years and there are a lot of things to criticize honestly

Google used to be the "good company" not that long ago. They changed the whole industry. But today, and very deserved, a lot of people that liked or even loved them, turned against. And that can happen when a company changes, but also when the user changes its point of view: you could be a voter for Trump a couple years ago, but today and after watching the results of his politics (that are not that surprising, is not like the president made an U-turn) you might have a different opinion.

If you hold the same opinion forever, even when things obviously changed, you are just a fanatic.