By all accounts - as in their published financial statements - they don’t make money without the credits. This isn’t to say the credits are somehow intrinsically bad or not a valid source of revenue, but it shows how battery costs really have to fall significantly and manufacturing volumes have to scale up.

Tesla seems to be shoring up demand in established markets by cutting prices, and their gross margin fell commensurately (from 23% to 19%) in the last quarter. I agree that they will make it, but I don’t think it’s the case that they would have an easy time showing positive earnings without the credits.

This is also what I don’t get. Tesla owners love the actual features of their cars, and the actual products Tesla sells, but Musk is obsessed with the imaginary ones.

Yes, this. Musk is going full-blown Trump with his cult now. Amazingly, the steering wheel and flying car speculation wasn’t even the craziest thing he said in the last few days. He reiterated his belief in robotaxis to justify TSLA’s valuation last week, and said that Tesla cars will have level 5 autonomy by the end…

This is what I don’t get, the no reason part. No one is going to decide to buy a Model S because of this idiotic steering wheel. Plenty of people will be put off by it. Without Musk’s irrational / delusional optimism, Tesla would never have come this far, but the narcissism and egomania seem to be getting really out…

America, the country where an actual criminal grifter can be President, and use the office to enable all of his criminal grifter friends and family, but an automotive writer can’t own stock in a car company.

And their sales figures have been absolutely dismal as well, pretty much throughout their history. I don’t know the 2020 numbers, but they only sold 19,000 cars worldwide in 2019, down from 35,000 in 2018. Keeping them around because they’re an allegedly strong brand makes no sense when they’re losing 200 million…

Yes, you’d really have to hate SUVs to pick this, or maybe just prefer the lower, sleeker look. Given that basically zero buyers will ever take one to a track, the theoretical benefits of the lower centre of gravity are pretty meaningless.

It is amazing that people can think there are more haters. By any measure, Tesla is valued by many multiples of what is normal in its industry. If the haters were somehow “winning” or the more dominant voices, this wouldn’t be the case. The market is pretty much the best arbiter of this. Somehow though the people who…

I’m not sure if the Tesla zealots came before the Tesla haters. I think it’s more that extreme positions on both sides tend to form at the same time. Either way, the problem is you have people invested in a narrative much more than they are invested in the facts that support or interfere with that narrative.

That seems like a pretty militant position. I think a more reasonable take is that conflicts are OK, but they should be disclosed.

The Polestar 2 looks interesting, but somehow went from 475 km of estimated range to more like 360 km. I do think this would be workable, but then we don’t do many longer journeys in our EV. The interior is light years better than the Tesla.

I haven’t driven a Y, but I’ve read that the ride is very uncomfortable even on the non-Performance model. If that’s the case, given the state of most North American roads, that would be a strong argument for staying with the base model.

Yes, Peugeots of that era (405) were actually excellent to drive. The 205 GTI was one of the best hot hatchbacks ever made, and the 309 GTI was great also. Since then they seem to have just shifted to making blander and less interesting cars. Some of their current range, such as the 508 SW, looks great, but from what…

I wonder if it is possible to import a Soul EV from Canada? Not sure if there are model-specific crash test requirements for the EV or other barriers to making this happen?

They released it in Canada in 2019 so it’s weird that they now seem to have cancelled US launch plans.

Amazon’s stock fell by 90% from peak to trough when the dot-com bubble burst. This is what people just don’t get about whether Tesla is “good” or “bad” vs how the market currently values the stock. Tesla could easily be “the” EV company that makes it and dominates, but it could also see 90%+ of its equity value wiped…

It’s crazy how people become so militant about never allowing one topic to encroach upon another on the Internet. As if in the real world we don’t all constantly mix our political, social, personal and business interests all day long. Obviously what they really are expressing is a fragility so great they can’t cope…

I also want them to stick around, but they are one of those brands where the brand far exceeds the reality of the cars they make. Pretty much all of their cars have always been not nearly as good as the equivalent Ferrari or Porsche, and have poorer resale, and are less innovative. They trade on the aspirational…

If that really was Tesla’s strategy, they would have picked something other than a product that costs more to make than the market will pay. As of today, there really is no money to be made in EVs since the batteries are just too expensive to produce a car at a price point competitive with ICE vehicles of a similar…