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AI and focus on Self-Driving has been the biggest failure and blindspot for Tesla (Musk). So much of the strategy evolved around that, its a big reason why I pu

AI and focus on Self-Driving has been the biggest failure and blindspot for Tesla (Musk). So much of the strategy evolved around that, its a big reason why I pulled my investment. I invested because they were growing fast, had a pretty good product and had very high marin despite massive investment charging, service and verticial integration. And their next generation product should have been a reusable platform that could delvier a basic van, basic suv and basic pickup, all from the same assembly line. After that focus on a cheaper smaller electric car. I thought it made a lot of sense to focus on a well functioning Level 2 System that they owned themselves. Make highway driving, start-stop traffic and such easy as possible. Make the car helpful and easy to use. But then Tesla started focusing on making complex navigation and remote summening a feature when tons of basic stuff didn't work very well yet. For example, automated parking, 360 view, detection of features like shadows and such. Why not focus specifically on the actual dangrous problem looking around blind corners and installing a sensor suit that can help humans with the problem. Promsing Full Self Driving with existing hardware and selling that when they had not proven that it could work was idioitc and I always felt like it was a liability. They should have been sued over this a while ago. Initially Tesla messaging was save, nice software, fun to drive and green, and it then became half baked software, don't drive it and risky. When it came out that Musk said they should build a cheaper next generation car, because Self-Driving would collapse the car market by 80% I knew the company had completely lost its way.

throwaway984393 1y ago
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riffraff 1y ago
but the whole self driving shtick is what gave it the insane valuation, isn't it? "we're general motors, but better" is not the same as "we'll have self driving taxis that make money to our customers while they sleep". Musk's 2018 Pay Package had a lot of market cap-based targets[0]. [0] https://www.equilar.com/elon-musk-2018-tesla-pay-package-analysis https://www.equilar.com/elon-musk-2018-tesla-pay-package-ana...
- panick21 1y ago
  Well people always assert that, but I don't think evidnece totally backs this up. Tesla stock went to around 200-250$ when they showed substained profit, growth and margin. And since then it has hovered around that number. I don't believe this initial surge was primarly FSD inspired. FSD was part of it, because from a financial perspective its really pure margin. I believed if they developed a good level 2 system they could improve their per-car profitability by a significant number. I don't think 20-30% uptake was a crazy suggestion, and that would have been fincially significant. I didn't need FSD and all the fancy promises to think it was good financially. So I think that 200$ mark was optimistic but not totally crazy. People had been saying the stock was overvalued at 50$ when I bought in. So I wanted to hold around that value and just wanted to see what would happen (I had already pulled out enough to cover my investment). But then the strategy became worse in all aspect and they didn't make progress as fast as possible. The stock did reflect that, not going up anymore. Where it became truely irrational is in 2024, where it was clear that company was perfomring worse, and many of its strategies hand not worked as well as expected but somehow the stock massively rallied since then and is now at peak. I'm not sure FSD explains this pattern very well. I think the political angle might matter more. But I really can't explain it at all. So I have long since liquidiated.
- tim333 1y ago
  I think it was always part of the differentiation between Tesla and other car makers.
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
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shoulderfake 1y ago
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consumer451 1y ago
> I knew the company had completely lost its way. For me, the biggest signal was when Tesla was suddenly all-in on BTC, and promised to build their own full node. It made no sense.
- olalonde 1y ago
  Do you have a source for "promised to build their own full node"? As far as I recall, they just added BTC to the list of currencies they accept.
  - consumer451 1y ago
    I used to spend an unhealthy amount of time watching TSLA back then, it was just my recollection. Here is a tweet from Musk on the topic: > Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. ... https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034 https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034 https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034
    - Geee 1y ago
      That's the proper way to accept BTC payments, with your own node, instead of using some third-party service.
      - consumer451 1y ago
        That may be so, however: 1. Up to that sudden 180, Musk had been a cryptocurrency skeptic. What changed? 2. It had nothing to do with Tesla's mission, in-fact it seemed to go against it. At best it was a distraction when there were real problems to deal with. 3. When reality caught up, Tesla reversed course. I am not stating some grand thing here, this is just my recollection of events.
        Geee 1y ago
        The first claim isn't true, because Elon has been a bitcoiner for a long time. There was a huge Bitcoin hype / hubris at that time. Specifically, Saylor happened, and he convinced Elon and others that Bitcoin is the best reserve asset, and Tesla had a lot of cash, which was melting like an ice cube due to inflation. There was a lot of inflation talk / protecting against inflation. And in the end it actually worked out for them pretty well, given that BTC has about tripled since then (they bough at $34k). After they had bought the bitcoin, adding it as a payment option was a way to add hype to increase its value. They quickly found out that it's too volatile for payments to be practical, and the hype cycle was ending anyway and they sold half of their reserve.

throwaway984393 1y ago

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riffraff 1y ago

but the whole self driving shtick is what gave it the insane valuation, isn't it? "we're general motors, but better" is not the same as "we'll have self driving taxis that make money to our customers while they sleep". Musk's 2018 Pay Package had a lot of market cap-based targets[0]. [0] https://www.equilar.com/elon-musk-2018-tesla-pay-package-analysis https://www.equilar.com/elon-musk-2018-tesla-pay-package-ana...

panick21 1y ago
Well people always assert that, but I don't think evidnece totally backs this up. Tesla stock went to around 200-250$ when they showed substained profit, growth and margin. And since then it has hovered around that number. I don't believe this initial surge was primarly FSD inspired. FSD was part of it, because from a financial perspective its really pure margin. I believed if they developed a good level 2 system they could improve their per-car profitability by a significant number. I don't think 20-30% uptake was a crazy suggestion, and that would have been fincially significant. I didn't need FSD and all the fancy promises to think it was good financially. So I think that 200$ mark was optimistic but not totally crazy. People had been saying the stock was overvalued at 50$ when I bought in. So I wanted to hold around that value and just wanted to see what would happen (I had already pulled out enough to cover my investment). But then the strategy became worse in all aspect and they didn't make progress as fast as possible. The stock did reflect that, not going up anymore. Where it became truely irrational is in 2024, where it was clear that company was perfomring worse, and many of its strategies hand not worked as well as expected but somehow the stock massively rallied since then and is now at peak. I'm not sure FSD explains this pattern very well. I think the political angle might matter more. But I really can't explain it at all. So I have long since liquidiated.
tim333 1y ago
I think it was always part of the differentiation between Tesla and other car makers.

oldpersonintx2 1y ago

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shoulderfake 1y ago

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consumer451 1y ago

> I knew the company had completely lost its way. For me, the biggest signal was when Tesla was suddenly all-in on BTC, and promised to build their own full node. It made no sense.

olalonde 1y ago
Do you have a source for "promised to build their own full node"? As far as I recall, they just added BTC to the list of currencies they accept.
- consumer451 1y ago
  I used to spend an unhealthy amount of time watching TSLA back then, it was just my recollection. Here is a tweet from Musk on the topic: > Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. ... https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034 https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034 https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1374619379929772034
  - Geee 1y ago
    That's the proper way to accept BTC payments, with your own node, instead of using some third-party service.
    - consumer451 1y ago
      That may be so, however: 1. Up to that sudden 180, Musk had been a cryptocurrency skeptic. What changed? 2. It had nothing to do with Tesla's mission, in-fact it seemed to go against it. At best it was a distraction when there were real problems to deal with. 3. When reality caught up, Tesla reversed course. I am not stating some grand thing here, this is just my recollection of events.
      - Geee 1y ago
        The first claim isn't true, because Elon has been a bitcoiner for a long time. There was a huge Bitcoin hype / hubris at that time. Specifically, Saylor happened, and he convinced Elon and others that Bitcoin is the best reserve asset, and Tesla had a lot of cash, which was melting like an ice cube due to inflation. There was a lot of inflation talk / protecting against inflation. And in the end it actually worked out for them pretty well, given that BTC has about tripled since then (they bough at $34k). After they had bought the bitcoin, adding it as a payment option was a way to add hype to increase its value. They quickly found out that it's too volatile for payments to be practical, and the hype cycle was ending anyway and they sold half of their reserve.