GMC exists partly so that stand-alone Buick dealers can get some of those sweet, high margin truck sales along with Chevrolet and Cadillac.

If Buick had died, GMC probably would’ve died along with it (at least the non-heavy duty versions).

Mostly due to nostalgia, I was crushed when they killed Oldsmobile. But I was never quite able to understand  how GMC has kept trucking along all these years (pun intended). Yeah yeah yeah, “professional grade”, but it’s a friggin’ Chevy. How are they not able to translate those profit margins into just one line of…

Absolutely baffling that GM wanted Pontic dead, but wanted to keep Saab. Pontiac actually had an identity until the day it died, unlike Saab which hit its low point as a rebranded Subaru.

Most rockets can make it to mars... carrying a live crew that lives through the trip is another story.

“Who else is going to give you rear wheel steering? Who else is going to give you steer-by-wire?”

Slow clap for this long response.

Thanks for breaking it down so I don’t have to watch it. I used to appreciate Munro’s insights, but as it became more and more obvious he was so far up the ass of “integrate everything until it’s a single piece car”, that’s when I tuned out.

Who else is going to give you rear wheel steering?

In this video, Sandy Munro, an openly huge supporter, passive friend, and investor in Musk’s ventures (we’ll get into that later), tries to make the argument that firing a 500+ person team due to a management disagreement on the crown jewel of Tesla that is its charging services division, makes sense and that not only…

My guess is they decided that having everything have the same battery saved more in production (probably in assembly simplification) than it saved by having a smaller pack. So they put a different voltage-percentage lookup table in software. Adding more range later likely makes it basically the same as a long range.

PR cost, maybe. But you, the car buyer, will be paying for it whether you subscribe to those services or not.

3rd Gear - Last week Marketplace did a week’s long series with The Washington Post about training and hiring of people as a result of the CHIPS ACT. Arizona had setup training programs and had identified hundreds of people to form a pipeline and continued bench strength.

Dodge is planning the same thing for the Charger EV’s Stage 1 and Stage 2 kits for (smirk!) “adding” more horsepower to the vehicle.

The Supercharger business has always been the best hope for them, particularly as a spin-off unit.  Unless they are leasing the land, that group has a nifty little real estate portfolio tied to it, something investors are always interested in.

I typed essentially the same comment. It is truly baffling and aside from ultimately hurting the financials of the company, it will also deter talented people from wanting to work for such an unpredictable and illogical CEO.

That was my first thought. The Supercharger network is one of Tesla’s few and (mostly) unqualified successes. So definitely start gutting that department. That’s some hardcore big business ketamine adderall brain thinking going on there.

“Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction,” Musk wrote in the email, the report said. “While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.”

If I lay off everyone, I won’t have to pay any salaries at all.

Ha! Let’s kneecap the one thing (Superchargers) that set Tesla apart from anyone else at this point. 

1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Sentinel