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Personally I think the strategy of starting with luxury cars and getting cheaper was a good one. The bigger profit margin of luxury cars could be fed back into

by benwad 1y ago

Personally I think the strategy of starting with luxury cars and getting cheaper was a good one. The bigger profit margin of luxury cars could be fed back into R&D to make cheaper electric cars viable. Of course, that's the ideal situation. Tesla in 2025 is very different from what they were talking about in 2014.

_aavaa_ 1y ago
It’s a shame they chose to seriously pursue the ridiculous cybertruck and vapourware rather than cheaper cars.
- Yeul 1y ago
  A pickup truck wasn't a bad idea but they should have made a normal looking one.
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    No, a regular pickup truck would make boatloads of money. Instead they made a rusty tin can that chops off fingers and falls apart. Meanwhile their competitors are moving downmarket and releasing cheaper cars
sorenjan 1y ago
Yes, but Tesla has made several weird strategic errors IMO. The first one I remember reacting to where the falcon doors on the model X. They had issues which delayed the launch, and I remember thinking it was strange to put those kind of specialty doors on a SUV instead of focusing on delivering a functional car as quick and easy as possible. The next was of course the massive focus on self driving, and then the cyber truck. The company has had the same CEO during all of these decisions. But what do I know, I assume their self driving AI hype is what drives their hugely inflated stock price, so it has made a lot of people very rich, which is a goal in itself. It's hard to point at the richest man in the world and say he made strategic errors.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  > It's hard to point at the richest man in the world and say he made strategic errors. It should be done carefully, but it should be done. More than one company has been imploded by a leader who's been successful in the past and no longer has anyone to tell them "No." Honestly, the best thing for Tesla would be to evict Musk as a leader, install someone who can focus on excellent delivery (like SpaceX), and create a separate R&D org for Musk to lead.
  - falcor84 1y ago
    > and create a separate R&D org for Musk to lead. He already has Neuralink - he should put his efforts into that; perhaps as a test subject.
  - sheepscreek 1y ago
    > install someone who can focus on excellent delivery (like SpaceX) You know, I’ve thought about this too. What makes us think he hasn’t done this already? He could have an org structure where someone else is in charge of everything and still be this “veto guy”. Personally, I don’t think he’s very excited about electric cars anymore. Tesla has mostly achieved what it set out to do. Electric cars are undeniably mainstream now. His next passion is possibly Optimus (which would also help with Tesla manufacturing and Mars settlement) and AI (same - would help with everything, make Optimus smarter). Maybe the only thing he might still be excited about, related to cars, is the self-driving taxi service. That could become a highly profitable business with a massive entry barrier for anyone that wants to compete with them. I believe in this thesis even more after the success of Starlink. As for competition - Waymo had been too cautious and slow in its rollout to a fault. Much like Google’s AI policy before ChatGPT. Tesla can still beat them to a punch. Being a fully vertically integrated car company, they can churn out robo-taxis faster than anyone else.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      > As for competition - Waymo had been too cautious and slow in its rollout to a fault. Much like Google’s AI policy before ChatGPT. Tesla can still beat them to a punch. Being a fully vertically integrated car company, they can churn out robo-taxis faster than anyone else. Only if they're actually better, because Waymo is currently 5.5-6.5 years* ahead of where Tesla wants to be with this month's launch. Also, BYD has their own one; don't rule them out as a viable competitor fo anything Tesla does: https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/12/byd-gods-eye-more-advanced-than-tesla-full-self-driving-fsd/ https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/12/byd-gods-eye-more-advan... * depending on how the safety drivers part goes
aaronbaugher 1y ago
Yeah, that's just how developing new technologies works. Home PCs, VCRs, CD players, cell phones: every one was hundreds or thousands of dollars at first, a plaything for wealthy people. Then as volume increased, prices came down to where most people could afford them and they became mass-market consumer items. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes another technology or a competitor gets over that hump first, and the other (LaserDisc, Betamax) never gets the volume it takes to become an affordable commodity. And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with which one was better. But that's the path to selling a new tech to the masses: sell with a high price tag to the wealthy first.

by benwad 1y ago

_aavaa_ 1y ago

It’s a shame they chose to seriously pursue the ridiculous cybertruck and vapourware rather than cheaper cars.

Yeul 1y ago
A pickup truck wasn't a bad idea but they should have made a normal looking one.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  No, a regular pickup truck would make boatloads of money. Instead they made a rusty tin can that chops off fingers and falls apart. Meanwhile their competitors are moving downmarket and releasing cheaper cars

sorenjan 1y ago

Yes, but Tesla has made several weird strategic errors IMO. The first one I remember reacting to where the falcon doors on the model X. They had issues which delayed the launch, and I remember thinking it was strange to put those kind of specialty doors on a SUV instead of focusing on delivering a functional car as quick and easy as possible. The next was of course the massive focus on self driving, and then the cyber truck. The company has had the same CEO during all of these decisions. But what do I know, I assume their self driving AI hype is what drives their hugely inflated stock price, so it has made a lot of people very rich, which is a goal in itself. It's hard to point at the richest man in the world and say he made strategic errors.

ethbr1 1y ago
> It's hard to point at the richest man in the world and say he made strategic errors. It should be done carefully, but it should be done. More than one company has been imploded by a leader who's been successful in the past and no longer has anyone to tell them "No." Honestly, the best thing for Tesla would be to evict Musk as a leader, install someone who can focus on excellent delivery (like SpaceX), and create a separate R&D org for Musk to lead.
- falcor84 1y ago
  > and create a separate R&D org for Musk to lead. He already has Neuralink - he should put his efforts into that; perhaps as a test subject.
- sheepscreek 1y ago
  > install someone who can focus on excellent delivery (like SpaceX) You know, I’ve thought about this too. What makes us think he hasn’t done this already? He could have an org structure where someone else is in charge of everything and still be this “veto guy”. Personally, I don’t think he’s very excited about electric cars anymore. Tesla has mostly achieved what it set out to do. Electric cars are undeniably mainstream now. His next passion is possibly Optimus (which would also help with Tesla manufacturing and Mars settlement) and AI (same - would help with everything, make Optimus smarter). Maybe the only thing he might still be excited about, related to cars, is the self-driving taxi service. That could become a highly profitable business with a massive entry barrier for anyone that wants to compete with them. I believe in this thesis even more after the success of Starlink. As for competition - Waymo had been too cautious and slow in its rollout to a fault. Much like Google’s AI policy before ChatGPT. Tesla can still beat them to a punch. Being a fully vertically integrated car company, they can churn out robo-taxis faster than anyone else.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    > As for competition - Waymo had been too cautious and slow in its rollout to a fault. Much like Google’s AI policy before ChatGPT. Tesla can still beat them to a punch. Being a fully vertically integrated car company, they can churn out robo-taxis faster than anyone else. Only if they're actually better, because Waymo is currently 5.5-6.5 years* ahead of where Tesla wants to be with this month's launch. Also, BYD has their own one; don't rule them out as a viable competitor fo anything Tesla does: https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/12/byd-gods-eye-more-advanced-than-tesla-full-self-driving-fsd/ https://cleantechnica.com/2025/02/12/byd-gods-eye-more-advan... * depending on how the safety drivers part goes

aaronbaugher 1y ago

Yeah, that's just how developing new technologies works. Home PCs, VCRs, CD players, cell phones: every one was hundreds or thousands of dollars at first, a plaything for wealthy people. Then as volume increased, prices came down to where most people could afford them and they became mass-market consumer items. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes another technology or a competitor gets over that hump first, and the other (LaserDisc, Betamax) never gets the volume it takes to become an affordable commodity. And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with which one was better. But that's the path to selling a new tech to the masses: sell with a high price tag to the wealthy first.