Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered?(electrek.co) |
Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered?(electrek.co) |
I will never understand two things:
1. Why Musk made such a hard-right turn politically, alienating most of his customers. People on the left were always far more likely to buy an EV than those on the right.
2. Why traders continue to buy Tesla stock even as sales nose-dive. Because of the promise of Robotaxis? Tesla's P/E is so high that the Tesla Robotaxi would have to sell more rides than Uber, Lyft, and traditional taxi services combined in order to get anywhere NEAR justifying it.
What really saddens me is the side effects of Tesla beginning to fail. EVs are so synonymous with "Tesla" that I would sometimes see people criticize EVs in general when they mean to criticize just Tesla. And with Tesla sales falling, some people are interpreting that to mean "Nobody wants to buy an EV" rather than "Nobody wants to buy a Tesla" and other car makes are slowing down or cancelling EV developments.
I'm bummed that Chevy has effectively cancelled the Corvette EV.
https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-ev-leapfrog-how...
Same reason people play musical chairs or gamble. In both cases they know there has to be a loser holding the bag, they're just hoping it won't be them.
The sales didn't materialize plus they were forced to do so by governments and short term investors that saw Tesla's stock shoot up. Now GM is writing off ~7 billion dollars. Whats worse is when Dems take back the white house, they will force the automakers to go back to green again. This back and forth is going to lead to disaster.
Only to US automakers are doing that, and that’s thanks to Trump gutting the EPA emissions regulations (I.e. V8s are back in everything!!!!)
All the US automakers are dead in 5-10 years anyway, it’s just prolonging the inevitable.
Yeah, makes no sense. Also anecdotally, I bought their EV out of concern for the environment and the thought that oil should be consumed as little as possible for geopolitical reasons.
Philip Low, a long-time peer and friend of Elon Musk offered one theory shortly after the nazi salutes: https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1ibajmf/philip_l... (sorry about the format, couldn't find a better source)
He claims that Musk is just attracted to power and trolling, and will do both cynically instead of from any kind of principles. He guesses that Musk was worried at the time of losing the support of some actual nazis in the actual US government and wanted to signal them publically.
I'm not sure if a cynical nazi supporter is better or worse than an actual nazi. Could be worse, because those are the people who could and should be making better choices.
I believe a couple of things happened over the last few years that basically broke him. One factor may have been his daughter coming out as trans, and I have a feeling that another factor was a realization that his ambition to start a Mars colony wasn't going to be possible in his lifetime. Being forced to give up a major life goal hurts deeply no matter how much money or influence you have.
He started engaging in irrational, erratic behavior circa 2019-2020, such as getting into the pissing match with Unsworth, offering and then being being forced to overpay for Twitter, and pivoting towards full-blown Trumpism and neo-Nazi-adjacent politics. Before then he was just known as a hard-driving Bill Gates-style nerd CEO. By now, I don't think he cares about any role except that of cult leader.
2. Why traders continue to buy Tesla stock even as sales nose-dive.
See above. It's not a car company. It's a robot company^W^WAI company^W^Wenergy company^W^Wtaxi company^W^W personality cult.
Additionally, I think, social-darwinistic libertarianism is not exactly the best ideological foundation for a Mars colony :D
None of them can compete with BYD.
BYD are huge in _China_, and in some other parts of the world, and they are growing in Europe, but the media focus on them is slightly excessive.
I've gone past it a few times on train (nearly said "driven" past, which at least shows my grasp of the German language is improving), and development there has very obviously stalled at the half-way point.
Maybe that will be the lasting impact of Millenials and Gen Z: being a transition generation that finally kills this "unchecked capitalism" virus for enough time for humans to enter the next era successfully.
China may be a giant but those demographic issues will catch up to them so its really just the US thats the issue.
By the actual numbers, social spending and so on, the US isn't that incredibly different from Europe. And Europe is by any definition capitalist.
And the US has plenty of regulation, so its not really unchecked, its just differently checked.
> finally kills this "unchecked capitalism" virus for enough time for humans to enter the next era successfully.
This is just incredibly simplistics marxist 'stages of history' thinking and almost completely useless. If the US adopt European regulation we wouldn't 'enter a new era'.
USA is on the path to oligarch run fiefdoms and not capitalism in its original sense.
It means those people will not have access to better, cheaper vehicles, and it will all be for nothing in the end.
Musk cosied up with Trump because he saw a way boost revenue with lucrative government contracts and a prez that is buyable wrt whatever other projects he has planned (Orion/Starship, Robotaxi etc)
He had a falling out with Trump when he realized that the winds were blowing in the opposite direction than anticipated.
Their only ideology is money, nothing else.
Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, they want to rule the world. I think Musk is just the least competent, most impulsive of them. Thiel is probably the most dangerous, who, besides being completely insane, is able to pull off the long con and can moderate his ego best.
>By the actual numbers, social spending and so on, the US isn't that incredibly different from Europe. And Europe is by any definition capitalist.
Do you live in the US? The US is the worst of all worlds, spending (ie taxes) similar to Europe in many respects but the value is extracted at many layers along the way so the results are nowhere near what Europe can produce. Just look at the outcomes from healthcare, education, infrastructure etc.
>And the US has plenty of regulation, so its not really unchecked, its just differently checked.
You are just describing a symptom of the overall problem. Regulation is a tool that can be used incorrectly to further the goal of unchecked capitalism. Example: NYC elected a Democratic Socialist recently and he talks about corner store small business owners having to deal with extra permitting and regulation that affects them more than bix box stores because every little expense hurts them more than the big guys, this naturally leads to the small business more likelihood of failing when competing with the big guys. Its regulation weaponized due to corruption.
>This is just incredibly simplistics marxist 'stages of history' thinking and almost completely useless. If the US adopt European regulation we wouldn't 'enter a new era'.
ok. We've tried everything else and its failing. So there are really only two directions. We either try to check unrestricted capitalism or we just accept that the old way of living that we all went through will not be coming back ever and it was just a footnote of history.
Take the ketamine, wealth, and sycophants away, he will still be this person. But without the power. Human condition is tricky.
I often think of Tony Hsieh (Zappos founder/CEO), who was a much more grounded and humble person before he became extremely wealthy. Perhaps he had the tendencies/propensities (that ended his life) dormant all along, and his wealth suddenly boosted those deadly habits.
He went from this:
https://youtu.be/jJ5k_Byd9Fs?si=XeYpu-rUNos_dwgI
...to this:
https://straightforwardinteractive.com/2020/12/08/tony-hsieh...
I wish everyone understood this.
Unfortunately, the rich and billionaire class are convinced they got where they did just because of sheer personal effort. This of course is delusional. Effort is important, but luck is essential.
Ah yes, the terrible force of getting EV subsidies, which the Republicans have now cancelled causing the writeoff. How dare the Dems force the Republicans to do that?
From the outside, it looks like classic Innovators’ Dilemma. Traditional automakers failing to adapt to a radically different drivetrain is practically guaranteed under Christensen’s hypothesis.
The problem is the traditional companies fell all over-themselves making grand promises without having any understanding, and putting in huge amounts of money while having not enough understanding of the market and supply chain dynamics.
Announcing like 4 gigantic battery factories when you have never built a battery and you barley understand the supply chain for most of the components isn't a great plan.
Even if you are unloved, digging for gold with your bare hands, you were spared by people stronger, had people grow your food, teach you, build the streets, make your meds, literally deal with your shit all your life. And let's not forget the people who endured cruelty, suffered and died for your jeans and coffee...
(There are some great scenes in Pluribus, which illustrate this ignorance very well.)
Sometimes I think if Tony had given all the wealth away, he'd still be here. A cautionary tale.
Hrm, not sure about that. Remember the cave diver thing? He's been fairly unhinged for a while.
"Still, there were warning signs. As we danced at our wedding reception, Elon told me, "I am the alpha in this relationship." I shrugged it off, just as I would later shrug off signing the postnuptial agreement, but as time went on, I learned that he was serious. He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa, and the will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically shut off when he came home. This, and the vast economic imbalance between us, meant that in the months following our wedding, a certain dynamic began to take hold. Elon's judgment overruled mine, and he was constantly remarking on the ways he found me lacking. "I am your wife," I told him repeatedly, "not your employee."
"If you were my employee," he said just as often, "I would fire you.""
https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...
I was at /r/RealTesla when it began as an offshoot of /r/Teslamotors. A well known frequent critic of Tesla got banned and him and a bunch of other frustrated skeptics went off on their own.
The people in the auto and space industry were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. The Elon loving crowd were software techies who had no understanding and respect of the history of the auto and space industries totally ignored them.
I'm reminded from a quote from Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of GM (during the bankruptcy era): https://youtu.be/GXJnS9RgKsg?t=2686
Now to be fair to Tesla, they managed to attract tons of amazing talent that screwed up in some ways but produced absolute brilliance in many other ways.
Will Lutz ultimately be proven right just due to chance?(ie. Elon dropping the ball after everything that has transpired) I don't know really. In the end both pro and anti Tesla sides were right and wrong on many things.
The way he behaves now is actively self-destructive. That part is new.