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> Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? My feeling is that the overwhelming majority of Tesla critics do not hate Tesla, and do not want T

by Lazare 7y ago

> Why do some many people hate Tesla and want them to fail? My feeling is that the overwhelming majority of Tesla critics do not hate Tesla, and do not want Tesla to fail. Rather, they see Tesla as a small, unimportant, poorly run company that gets far more press (positive and negative) than it deserves, and who respond by needling Tesla super-fans. The super fans, in turn, react by treating this as shocking, but it's not really. Tesla critics are treating Tesla like a normal company, and most companies are not particularly well-liked. Nobody cares if Amalgamated Widgets rises and falls except it's investors and competitors. > Do they also want SpaceX to fail? No. But also, Tesla critics, I believe, view SpaceX as a VERY different company. Tesla is just another car company making just another car. SpaceX is something else entirely. If your mental model is "Tesla is like SpaceX", this probably feels weird to you, and the way Tesla gets covered in the press - as if it was merely a car company! - must be maddening. If your mental model is "Tesla is like Saab", this seems pretty obvious. > Most tech giants of recent times have done things I would consider to have made the world a much worse place. I would never dream of calling Tesla a "tech giant". It's a car company, it's not making very good cars, it's not making them very well, it's not making very many of them, and it's not making a lot of money off them. I am incredibly tired of hearing about Tesla. Even if it wins, the Tesla end-game is to be another big successful car company, and I don't care about big successful car companies.

FrojoS 7y ago
Tesla has advanced the advent of BEV by something like 10y. There are multiple statements by old car CEOs who admit that Tesla forced their hand to finally take electric cars seriously. So no, Tesla is not unimportant. At all.
- sangnoir 7y ago
  Dieselgate did more in forcing companies to take electric cars than Tesl ever did.
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    It's obviously hard to debate counterfactuals but I disagree. I think having a publicly successful alternative available made the impact of deiselgate much worse (for EV alternatives/better for the planet). Just like Nuclear can get away with being "better than coal" but in the face of plummeting wind, solar and storage costs its drawbacks get looked at with new eyes. Or in some parallel dimension where deiselgate led to trillions being wasted on hydrogen fuel celled vehicles which never replaced ICE.
  - FrojoS 7y ago
    What would these companies invest into if Tesla hadn’t proven long range BEVs to be viable? What could the public and policy makers point to when the old car companies keep stating that there are no current alternatives, that we have to wait another decade or two for their R&D projects to pan out? Besides, I was replying to a post that said Tesla was unimportant. Well, I personally doubt it, but yeah maybe what VW did -braking the law and harming the health of millions- was even more important.
    - sangnoir 7y ago
      I think Tesla 'proved' the viability of long range BEVs the same way Newton proved calculus to Liebniz (and I'm only being slightly hyperbolic). Some ideas/discoveries/technologies are more or less inevitable as the newly-existing but disparate building-blocks are there, waiting for a receptive mind to piece everything together and usually with a surprising level or synchrony. Tesla didn't have any ground-breaking research on battery chemistry, or motor efficiency; they are among the first to packaged everything together after the underlying technology became mature enough, and managed to suck the air away from the other early competitors. If Tesla never existed, the car companies would still invest in electric vehicles. Edit: I've just discovered that the founding of Tesla itself was inspired by the General Motors EV1 which was in production from 1996[1] and recalled in 2003. 1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/873116351316938753 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/873116351316938753
      - Lazare 7y ago
sergiosgc 7y ago
> Rather, they see Tesla as a small, unimportant, poorly run company (...) > (...) > Tesla is just another car company making just another car. Definitely false. Q2 revenue was 25% of Nissan's (which crossed my radar recently due to layoffs). That may be small, for some definition of small, but it's definitely not "small, unimportant". I won't comment on poorly run -- a qualitative assessment that does not lead to a definitive conclusion. I'd challenge with a comparison to a well run startup in the automotive space, but there is none to compare it with. As for another car company making just another car, I don't understand how can you even write those words together. A Tesla may be a good car, a poor car, depending on who you ask. What it is definitely not is your average Volkswagen.
- ethbro 7y ago
  > [Tesla] Q2 revenue was 25% of Nissan's And a bit less than 10% of Volkswagen or Toyota's. With about 25% of their individual market caps.
  - sergiosgc 7y ago
    I don't get the message you are trying to convey. It's natural that Tesla is smaller than the largest automakers. It's smaller than medium automakers. That much is expectable. If you are referring to the disconnect between revenue and market cap, it may point to a valuation error by the market. Or not. The market is clearly incorporating expected growth into the current value. Is the valuation correct? I have no idea. I'd not infer too much from this fact alone, though.
- Lazare 7y ago
  What you're not following, I think, is how little I care about cars and car companies. :) I don't care about Nissan, and I certainly don't care about a company a quarter their size. I care a little about Toyota because they're huge, but yes, small companies in industries that don't directly impact me are unimportant to me. If I worked for a car company, I'd probably care, but I work for a tech company, so I don't. > A Tesla may be a good car, a poor car, depending on who you ask. What it is definitely not is your average Volkswagen. Okay, sure, it's twice that car a Volkswagen is, I trust you. But it's still a car. Again, I think there is a significant faction of Tesla fans that don't see Tesla as a car company, and instead see it more like SpaceX. I don't.

by Lazare 7y ago

FrojoS 7y ago

Tesla has advanced the advent of BEV by something like 10y. There are multiple statements by old car CEOs who admit that Tesla forced their hand to finally take electric cars seriously. So no, Tesla is not unimportant. At all.

sangnoir 7y ago
Dieselgate did more in forcing companies to take electric cars than Tesl ever did.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  It's obviously hard to debate counterfactuals but I disagree. I think having a publicly successful alternative available made the impact of deiselgate much worse (for EV alternatives/better for the planet). Just like Nuclear can get away with being "better than coal" but in the face of plummeting wind, solar and storage costs its drawbacks get looked at with new eyes. Or in some parallel dimension where deiselgate led to trillions being wasted on hydrogen fuel celled vehicles which never replaced ICE.
- FrojoS 7y ago
  What would these companies invest into if Tesla hadn’t proven long range BEVs to be viable? What could the public and policy makers point to when the old car companies keep stating that there are no current alternatives, that we have to wait another decade or two for their R&D projects to pan out? Besides, I was replying to a post that said Tesla was unimportant. Well, I personally doubt it, but yeah maybe what VW did -braking the law and harming the health of millions- was even more important.
  - sangnoir 7y ago
    I think Tesla 'proved' the viability of long range BEVs the same way Newton proved calculus to Liebniz (and I'm only being slightly hyperbolic). Some ideas/discoveries/technologies are more or less inevitable as the newly-existing but disparate building-blocks are there, waiting for a receptive mind to piece everything together and usually with a surprising level or synchrony. Tesla didn't have any ground-breaking research on battery chemistry, or motor efficiency; they are among the first to packaged everything together after the underlying technology became mature enough, and managed to suck the air away from the other early competitors. If Tesla never existed, the car companies would still invest in electric vehicles. Edit: I've just discovered that the founding of Tesla itself was inspired by the General Motors EV1 which was in production from 1996[1] and recalled in 2003. 1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/873116351316938753 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/873116351316938753
    - Lazare 7y ago

sergiosgc 7y ago

> Rather, they see Tesla as a small, unimportant, poorly run company (...) > (...) > Tesla is just another car company making just another car. Definitely false. Q2 revenue was 25% of Nissan's (which crossed my radar recently due to layoffs). That may be small, for some definition of small, but it's definitely not "small, unimportant". I won't comment on poorly run -- a qualitative assessment that does not lead to a definitive conclusion. I'd challenge with a comparison to a well run startup in the automotive space, but there is none to compare it with. As for another car company making just another car, I don't understand how can you even write those words together. A Tesla may be a good car, a poor car, depending on who you ask. What it is definitely not is your average Volkswagen.

ethbro 7y ago
> [Tesla] Q2 revenue was 25% of Nissan's And a bit less than 10% of Volkswagen or Toyota's. With about 25% of their individual market caps.
- sergiosgc 7y ago
  I don't get the message you are trying to convey. It's natural that Tesla is smaller than the largest automakers. It's smaller than medium automakers. That much is expectable. If you are referring to the disconnect between revenue and market cap, it may point to a valuation error by the market. Or not. The market is clearly incorporating expected growth into the current value. Is the valuation correct? I have no idea. I'd not infer too much from this fact alone, though.
Lazare 7y ago
What you're not following, I think, is how little I care about cars and car companies. :) I don't care about Nissan, and I certainly don't care about a company a quarter their size. I care a little about Toyota because they're huge, but yes, small companies in industries that don't directly impact me are unimportant to me. If I worked for a car company, I'd probably care, but I work for a tech company, so I don't. > A Tesla may be a good car, a poor car, depending on who you ask. What it is definitely not is your average Volkswagen. Okay, sure, it's twice that car a Volkswagen is, I trust you. But it's still a car. Again, I think there is a significant faction of Tesla fans that don't see Tesla as a car company, and instead see it more like SpaceX. I don't.