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Tesla's bad decisions: (1) Cybertruck sales projections were ridiculously overestimated. A mid-level exec at Toyota who did something similar would likely hav
by photochemsyn 1y ago
Tesla's bad decisions:
(1) Cybertruck sales projections were ridiculously overestimated. A mid-level exec at Toyota who did something similar would likely have been fired, but since this was apparently the decision of the Great Leader, there were no consequences.
(2) Full self-driving claims were overhyped and the technological decision to remove LIDAR was a big mistake, if we look at Waymo in comparison, and the long record of Tesla's failed claims on this one.
(3) The Great Leader dove into politics and thus alienated a large fraction of the customer base, while also not generating a new customer base. I see some similarities here to the Bud Light marketing debacle, in general.
Conclusion: companies selling products should really focus on creating good designs that meet people's needs above all else, and should implement internal democratic systems that can remove wild-eyed Great Leaders from decision-making positions before they take everything off the rails.
P.S. Why can't we just have a simple 1990s-style Toyata truck with an electric drive train and a robust battery with well-designed and tested firmware that doesn't need OTA updates and smart phone app and telemetry? I don't need an 'infotainment center' if I have a phone or tablet, either.
- tocs3 1y agoP.S. Why can't we just have a simple 1990s-style Toyata truck with an electric drive train and a robust battery with well-designed and tested firmware that doesn't need OTA updates and smart phone app and telemetry? I don't need an 'infotainment center' if I have a phone or tablet, either. I would like to second this. A very very simple vehicle would be welcome. I have some small hope with the Slate truck[1], but will wait and see. For now my 2006 Toyota Rave4 is fine and might be my last car. [1]: https://www.motortrend.com/cars/slate/truck https://www.motortrend.com/cars/slate/truck
- ofcourseyoudo 1y agomore info here https://www.motortrend.com/news/2027-slate-truck-electric-first-look-review https://www.motortrend.com/news/2027-slate-truck-electric-fi... I kind of love how barebones it is.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoSome argue that the bent-stainless unibody design of the original Cybertruck prototype was a design for efficient low volume production. Then 1M pre-orders flooded in and they were forced to design for high volume production. Which is hard, and takes a lot of time. Those sales projections were based on pre-orders and deposits taken. Normally that's a fairly robust projection method, and perhaps would have been if the Cybertruck would have arrived on market in a timely fashion at the promised price. The big mistake with the Cybertruck was that promised $40K price tag. Without that the pre-orders likely would have much more closely matched sales.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoSo they got more orders, then increased the cost and made production quality worse? How does that make any sense in the world of economy of scale? The project was a mess from the start and, to this very day, constantly teeters on outright fraud in it's many marketing claims and warranty handling.