I’d agree with ready access to guns making the problem worse, but statistics and metrics are tricky here. Gun sales rise and fall, but it isn’t clear who is buying them, or of more of the population owns them. The little data that is available suggests that the same people are just getting more guns, not that more…

Lol. There’s a reason Panasonic and Tesla have contracts. Because actually they are pretty much the only game in town that can manufacture to that scale. And it’s taken years. Other battery suppliers can get there - but it will also take years. That’s sort of the point you seem to keep missing. Time to market matters.…

I’m not sure you know the difference between tactics and strategy. Panasonic supplies Tesla. But they won’t always. Current tactics. Future strategy.

What are you even talking about? So you know that owning the factory provides a benefit you just don’t think OEMs will buy because what, battery demand is decreasing? GTFO. They’ll buy wherever they can get the best deal. If Tesla gives them the price they want, (and Tesla making batteries in the USA for cars sold in…

If they have the gigafactory they won’t be a middlemen, will they? Also, Panasonic is in on the deal. Are you saying you can’t understand the competitive advantage in owning a factory that builds your most expensive component vs. buying it?

“On the average” - you need to work on your reading comprehension.

Hey - do you think Tesla buys batteries from Panasonic as-is? They made huge changes to packaging and structure, for safety and efficiency. Panasonic has been supplying them, but the purpose of the gigafactory is so they can diversify and because they see a future in it. You can believe in it or not believe in it, up…

The reason I used a new home as the analogy was specifically because it’s a similar scenario. A gamble is always a gamble. If you invested your money in a house in 200X and had any kind of issue from 2008 - 2010 you were in a shit-ton of trouble. But if you bought in 1995, you were fine in 2008, and you’re better than…

If their only issue is setting and scaling up something where they can (and do) hire a ton of consultants to figure out for them because it’s such a ubiquitous ( but not easy) process. Then they’re fine. It’s not exactly a molehill - but it’s less of a problem than you’re making it out to be.

Don’t be simple. The company isn’t profitable. The car has a healthy profit margin. Investors know the difference. If Tesla were losing money just keeping up that would be one thing, but they’re losing money because they’re constantly making MASSIVE investment in the company. That’s like saying I’m losing money…

You’ve made some valid points but you’re looking at this from the perspective of too few variables.

The manufacturing scaling problems would be a bigger issue if they hadn’t already learned some lessons during the Model S launch. They probably feel fairly confident on their technological lead and the times needed to scale to volume. Bear in mind at this point that the Model S 6 years old and even the mass market…

A lot of waiters don’t make minimum wage with tips averaged through the whole week.

ACR is a much bigger, heavier car. Not to say it isn’t fantastic on a track, but I feel like it would be a significantly different experience.

Someone needs to explain to politicians and people as a whole the concept of “penny wise and pound foolish”. Indeed, stockholders, boards of directors, etc etc etc etc could use the same lesson.

I’m still not on the fence with whether the GOP has midterm fires that need to be put out. A year and a half ago we were pretty sure this guy had no chance to be President. Polling was so fucked.

Yeah I agree - to me that lip service led to the next thing and the next and here we are.

Haha. I’d also keep the old one. But the new one does have some old man features that I wouldn’t mind having. Looking forward to seeing the review!

Where’s the 4Runner review. I want a new one. I have a 1998 that won’t die. Ever.

If you didn’t eat in Lima you missed out. It has some of the best restaurants in Latin America.