Tesla Is in Immense Trouble and Musk Knows It
wlockett.medium.comI disagree. Tesla is way ahead of the competition in the unit cost of making their vehicles. Further more they are being pro active in making sure they have the necessary inputs in their own hands, right down to lithium, to keep growing their manufacturing end.
Remember Tesla's intent is not to maximize profit but to catalyze the world's shift from fossil fuels to EV's to as quickly as possible. The trick here is to avoid bankruptcy while putting as many EV's in customer's hands as possible and scaling the production side as high as possible to get the lowest unit cost.
It's pretty clear that Tesla has been executing very effectively on this plan and the competition are in for a rough ride. And whoever wrote this article is ... confused at best.
Tesla is a public company with shareholders which expect the best possible return on invest. Obviously "to catalyze the world's shift from fossil fuels to EV's to as quickly as possible" cannot be the intent, but only a welcome byproduct of the actual intent, which is to maximize profit and thus RoI for their shareholders.
I think it is called competition.
Tesla was initially being sold at luxury car prices. But from the time I've spent in one, they seem a little plain --- not really all that luxurious. Lots of opportunity for others to exceed it.
I think Musk made a mistake by investing so much in China. It is easy to be squeezed out of the Chinese market if the Chinese government decides to do it --- after they feel comfortable with their ability to produce their own.
Tesla is in trouble? I think every other auto company other than BYD are on the verge of going out of business. Tesla makes every traditional auto company look incompetent. It's now cheaper, over a period of 8 years, to buy and "fuel" a Model 3 than a Toyota Camry. My Model Y saved my wife's life by literally preventing her from completing a left hand turn when the light turned red because it saw a car (that she did not) doing 80-90MPH that 2 seconds later ran the red light. I could go on for hours about how amazing the car and their tech is.
Musk is/was distracted by the ongoing Twitter fiasco. How a single person can run 3 massive companies simultaneously without things going sideways is beyond me. He needs to decide where his focus is best spent.