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This is all so frustrating. Tesla could have easily been an American auto maker generational success story. Instead they’re working hard to undermine their own

This is all so frustrating. Tesla could have easily been an American auto maker generational success story. Instead they’re working hard to undermine their own success, turn their brand toxic, and even design vehicles that are unappealing to key purchasing demographics (Cybertruck).

throwaway290 7mo ago
no worries, when things go hard and stock goes down they can count on Trump for a convenient war and oil crisis.
- rvnx 7mo ago
  This war is going to push oil prices up, which means more EV sales. On top of that, make sure to sprinkle a bit of tariffs in order to block BYD. Mhhh, makes sense.
  - freedomben 7mo ago
    The oil prices is a short term thing, and Trump is all about "Drill baby drill" so no, it doesn't make sense. The tariffs though is a great point. Definitely a boon for Tesla from good old Papa Trump. It's grotesque.
    - throwaway290 7mo ago
      Well, I didn't say it's intentional... just that they can count on it... but yeah it was sarcasm.
MPSimmons 7mo ago
Yes, Elon's trajectory has been absolutely unbelievable since 2019 or so. Talk about a guy who cratered his whole reputation. It's a shame.
- jm4 7mo ago
  What changed is he took the mask off. He was always the sleaze that he is today, but a lot of us were fooled into believing he wanted to do something good.
  - freedomben 7mo ago
    I don't agree after reading Walter Isaacson's excellent biography of Elon. It's deeply unfortunate that the book is already a few years old, I'd love and buy the hell out of a 2nd edition that is updated with the last few years. Obviously it's always been latent in Elon, but he was a pretty bog standard lightly-if-apolitical silicon valley startup guy for most of his adult life. The free speech erosion under the Biden admin is what really started to "red pill" him and eventually led him off the cliff. It's a sad story really, but an important one because I think there are a lot of people in the same boat, and understandign them is important if we want to correct the trajectory of our country's ship. It's a damn hard problem though.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    - rjtavares 7mo ago
      He supports Trump now, so I really doubt free speech is important to him.
    - blastro 7mo ago
      Free speech erosion under Biden... can you elaborate?
      - hkpack 7mo ago
        Nothing productive will come out of this conversation.
      - freedomben 7mo ago
        The administration put pressure on tech companies to make them censor people for "disinformation". For example: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-biden-officials-scream-curse-facebook-rcna187199 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerbe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...
DonHopkins 7mo ago
"They" is the wrong pronoun. Elon's pronoun is "he". HE's working hard to undermine HIS own success, turn HIS brand toxic, ...
- cowmix 7mo ago
  The best pronoun joke, ever.
  - freedomben 7mo ago
    It could be, except it's not factually correct (and an element of truth is necesssary for good humor). GP was talking about Tesla, not about Elon. The correct pronoun for a company is surely "they"
    - bombcar 7mo ago
      It could be, or you could consider it to be like a ship, in which case it is she!
      - freedomben 7mo ago
        ha! I stand corrected :-)
        bombcar 7mo ago
        The most amusing to me is that British English considers a company a collective noun, and says "Apple are going to make an iPod" whereas the US considers it a singular entity and says "Apple is going to make an iPod".
        freedomben 7mo ago
        heh, great point, I never noticed that, but now I don't think I can unsee it. Consistency ftw
    - 7mo ago
amelius 7mo ago
No. For all practical purposes, Chinese cars are perfectly fine for most consumers. Since you cannot beat China on manufacturing costs, this war is already lost. Musk or no Musk.
- adjejmxbdjdn 7mo ago
  There is no reason Chinese EVs couldn’t have been beaten on cost. The labor/environmental costs of car manufacturing is relatively low and more than made up in the cost of shipping cars. One example of this was the number of foreign car manufacturers that were relocating manufacturing to the NAFTA region to serve the U.S. car market even before the tariff nonsense. The area where China might have an edge is batteries cost. I’m not convinced that’s the case but even if we assume it is, it’s irrelevant because Chinese battery companies are largely not vertically integrated with the automakers and have been selling those batteries to non Chinese automakers at the same rates in an open market. The reason Chinese EVs are cheaper is plain and simple competition. Some of those price advantages will disappear as Chinese companies need to start showing profits, but a lot of those won’t because they were the result of genuine innovation driven by the tremendously competitive market and the economies of scale that were rapidly created. Keeping that in mind, while a lot of Tesla’s missed opportunities are self owns, the larger problem ultimately was the lack of govt support in developing a competitive ecosystem in the US.
  - jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
    I like your pretty optimistic take. I'm not convinced but I want to believe, and that's an interesting take. One critical correction though: BYD makes 16% of the world's batteries. And makes cars. So there is vertical integration in play. https://cnevpost.com/2026/02/04/global-ev-battery-market-share-2025/ https://cnevpost.com/2026/02/04/global-ev-battery-market-sha... Ford and Stellantis are meanwhile busy trying to partner with Chinese companies, to make their own battery factories. Even though it seems like maybe they'll end up making more batteries for stationary power than for vehicles.
  - xnx 7mo ago
    > The labor/environmental costs of car manufacturing is relatively low Not for union manufacturers. $1500 of the cost of every GM car is healthcare.
The_Goonies1985 7mo ago
The Cybertruck, while unappealing to some, is the only vehicle on the road that doesn't look the same as every other one. For all of Elon Musk's objectionable-eccentricities, at least this legacy will remain: He dared to make a vehicle (the Cybertruck) that looks like it's actually from the future; not designed by another salaryman-engineering-graduate with a copy of AutoCAD and a wind-tunnel (which is what everything else on the road looks like). Power the next-generation of Cybertruck with hydrogen, and bundle a solar-electrolysis charging-station with it, and I'd buy one before breakfast.
tlogan 7mo ago
I think Tesla as a company is doing the right moves. The management (excluding Elon) seems solid and smart. The problem is that we often attach a company or a larger idea to a single person, even when it is much much bigger than that individual. People started boycotting Tesla because of Elon Musk, without considering that Tesla is actually thousands of engineers, workers, and managers. And majority of decisions are not done by Elons. But people tend to think in terms of heroes and anti heroes. Cesar Chavez is another example of how this dynamic plays out.
- midnitewarrior 7mo ago
  Elon has always been the face of Tesla since he acquired it from the founders. Early he was a brand asset, but tying one's identity so strongly to a company is a brand risk when that person's image is tarnished. Just look at Martha Stewart Living during her incarceration. Celebrities are great at building brands, but they need to back away from their personal successes have bootstrapped the new brand before something they do becomes a liability. Subway made their own celebrity spokesperson (Jared) and hitched their wagon to him for far too long. One or two years is understandable, but Subway had him so long it merged its identity with Jared until the truth about Jared was revealed.
- helsinkiandrew 7mo ago
  > I think Tesla as a company is doing the right moves. The management (excluding Elon) seems solid and smart. How can (generally) dropping sales and having 50,000 unsold cars on stock be the right move?
  - mingus88 7mo ago
    Perhaps OP is referring to the pivot away from cars and toward automation But seeing as how they haven’t launched a decent car in a decade, and have utterly failed to launch true FSD as promised, I have no confidence that they can succeed in a new market given they are demonstrably shit at their core competency
- bigtex 7mo ago
  The Model Y is going on 8 years old, S and X are being shutdown. That leaves you with the 3 and Y. Cybertruck will be shutdown soon. What new models have they announced?

throwaway290 7mo ago

no worries, when things go hard and stock goes down they can count on Trump for a convenient war and oil crisis.

rvnx 7mo ago
This war is going to push oil prices up, which means more EV sales. On top of that, make sure to sprinkle a bit of tariffs in order to block BYD. Mhhh, makes sense.
- freedomben 7mo ago
  The oil prices is a short term thing, and Trump is all about "Drill baby drill" so no, it doesn't make sense. The tariffs though is a great point. Definitely a boon for Tesla from good old Papa Trump. It's grotesque.
  - throwaway290 7mo ago
    Well, I didn't say it's intentional... just that they can count on it... but yeah it was sarcasm.

MPSimmons 7mo ago

Yes, Elon's trajectory has been absolutely unbelievable since 2019 or so. Talk about a guy who cratered his whole reputation. It's a shame.

jm4 7mo ago
What changed is he took the mask off. He was always the sleaze that he is today, but a lot of us were fooled into believing he wanted to do something good.
- freedomben 7mo ago
  I don't agree after reading Walter Isaacson's excellent biography of Elon. It's deeply unfortunate that the book is already a few years old, I'd love and buy the hell out of a 2nd edition that is updated with the last few years. Obviously it's always been latent in Elon, but he was a pretty bog standard lightly-if-apolitical silicon valley startup guy for most of his adult life. The free speech erosion under the Biden admin is what really started to "red pill" him and eventually led him off the cliff. It's a sad story really, but an important one because I think there are a lot of people in the same boat, and understandign them is important if we want to correct the trajectory of our country's ship. It's a damn hard problem though.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - rjtavares 7mo ago
    He supports Trump now, so I really doubt free speech is important to him.
  - blastro 7mo ago
    Free speech erosion under Biden... can you elaborate?
    - hkpack 7mo ago
      Nothing productive will come out of this conversation.
    - freedomben 7mo ago
      The administration put pressure on tech companies to make them censor people for "disinformation". For example: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-biden-officials-scream-curse-facebook-rcna187199 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerbe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...

DonHopkins 7mo ago

"They" is the wrong pronoun. Elon's pronoun is "he". HE's working hard to undermine HIS own success, turn HIS brand toxic, ...

cowmix 7mo ago
The best pronoun joke, ever.
- freedomben 7mo ago
  It could be, except it's not factually correct (and an element of truth is necesssary for good humor). GP was talking about Tesla, not about Elon. The correct pronoun for a company is surely "they"
  - bombcar 7mo ago
    It could be, or you could consider it to be like a ship, in which case it is she!
    - freedomben 7mo ago
      ha! I stand corrected :-)
      - bombcar 7mo ago
        The most amusing to me is that British English considers a company a collective noun, and says "Apple are going to make an iPod" whereas the US considers it a singular entity and says "Apple is going to make an iPod".
        freedomben 7mo ago
        heh, great point, I never noticed that, but now I don't think I can unsee it. Consistency ftw
  - 7mo ago

amelius 7mo ago

No. For all practical purposes, Chinese cars are perfectly fine for most consumers. Since you cannot beat China on manufacturing costs, this war is already lost. Musk or no Musk.

adjejmxbdjdn 7mo ago
There is no reason Chinese EVs couldn’t have been beaten on cost. The labor/environmental costs of car manufacturing is relatively low and more than made up in the cost of shipping cars. One example of this was the number of foreign car manufacturers that were relocating manufacturing to the NAFTA region to serve the U.S. car market even before the tariff nonsense. The area where China might have an edge is batteries cost. I’m not convinced that’s the case but even if we assume it is, it’s irrelevant because Chinese battery companies are largely not vertically integrated with the automakers and have been selling those batteries to non Chinese automakers at the same rates in an open market. The reason Chinese EVs are cheaper is plain and simple competition. Some of those price advantages will disappear as Chinese companies need to start showing profits, but a lot of those won’t because they were the result of genuine innovation driven by the tremendously competitive market and the economies of scale that were rapidly created. Keeping that in mind, while a lot of Tesla’s missed opportunities are self owns, the larger problem ultimately was the lack of govt support in developing a competitive ecosystem in the US.
- jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
  I like your pretty optimistic take. I'm not convinced but I want to believe, and that's an interesting take. One critical correction though: BYD makes 16% of the world's batteries. And makes cars. So there is vertical integration in play. https://cnevpost.com/2026/02/04/global-ev-battery-market-share-2025/ https://cnevpost.com/2026/02/04/global-ev-battery-market-sha... Ford and Stellantis are meanwhile busy trying to partner with Chinese companies, to make their own battery factories. Even though it seems like maybe they'll end up making more batteries for stationary power than for vehicles.
- xnx 7mo ago
  > The labor/environmental costs of car manufacturing is relatively low Not for union manufacturers. $1500 of the cost of every GM car is healthcare.

The_Goonies1985 7mo ago

The Cybertruck, while unappealing to some, is the only vehicle on the road that doesn't look the same as every other one. For all of Elon Musk's objectionable-eccentricities, at least this legacy will remain: He dared to make a vehicle (the Cybertruck) that looks like it's actually from the future; not designed by another salaryman-engineering-graduate with a copy of AutoCAD and a wind-tunnel (which is what everything else on the road looks like). Power the next-generation of Cybertruck with hydrogen, and bundle a solar-electrolysis charging-station with it, and I'd buy one before breakfast.

tlogan 7mo ago

I think Tesla as a company is doing the right moves. The management (excluding Elon) seems solid and smart. The problem is that we often attach a company or a larger idea to a single person, even when it is much much bigger than that individual. People started boycotting Tesla because of Elon Musk, without considering that Tesla is actually thousands of engineers, workers, and managers. And majority of decisions are not done by Elons. But people tend to think in terms of heroes and anti heroes. Cesar Chavez is another example of how this dynamic plays out.

midnitewarrior 7mo ago
Elon has always been the face of Tesla since he acquired it from the founders. Early he was a brand asset, but tying one's identity so strongly to a company is a brand risk when that person's image is tarnished. Just look at Martha Stewart Living during her incarceration. Celebrities are great at building brands, but they need to back away from their personal successes have bootstrapped the new brand before something they do becomes a liability. Subway made their own celebrity spokesperson (Jared) and hitched their wagon to him for far too long. One or two years is understandable, but Subway had him so long it merged its identity with Jared until the truth about Jared was revealed.
helsinkiandrew 7mo ago
> I think Tesla as a company is doing the right moves. The management (excluding Elon) seems solid and smart. How can (generally) dropping sales and having 50,000 unsold cars on stock be the right move?
- mingus88 7mo ago
  Perhaps OP is referring to the pivot away from cars and toward automation But seeing as how they haven’t launched a decent car in a decade, and have utterly failed to launch true FSD as promised, I have no confidence that they can succeed in a new market given they are demonstrably shit at their core competency
bigtex 7mo ago
The Model Y is going on 8 years old, S and X are being shutdown. That leaves you with the 3 and Y. Cybertruck will be shutdown soon. What new models have they announced?