Re: The Elon Musk Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:15 pm
I don't want to say his wealth all comes from fraud. A lot of his wealth right now is going to be temporary as I only see Tesla stock value going down in the coming years as it's price is way detached from reality. Elon definitely helped put Tesla on the map, but he is not responsible for most of the technologies or this "grand visionary" many of the Cult of Elon want to portray him as. He is simply good at selling ideas, and even that is becoming increasingly less convincing as he is becoming more erratic as time goes (probably a combination of ego, drugs, etc...)
However, Tesla was certainly benefited from things that were not really fair. A lot of the way early adopters of Tesla got to be able to afford Tesla's cars were from EV credits given by governments (mostly left-leaning) as a way to encourage EV adoption. -- Full disclosure, I'm a right-wing leaning member of this board before I tear into the Libs. -- The problem here is that by giving these EV credits it really disincentivizes companies from investing and keeping sight on what they need to do to be profitable. It makes it so the vehicles become profitable (as they can sell more units than they really should) at higher prices than would be needed to have mass adoption. This is partially why Tesla went down the luxury/performance vehicle route and why it is has had flush cash to throw at AI ventures (which to be honest with Tesla have not been THAT impressive compared to what people have been able to put together by crowdsourcing). Some of us futurists may like the gimmicks but that isn't ultimately the main reason why people have been wanting to go electric.
Going forward Tesla is really going to be about brand and prestige (if it survives Elon's management) so it is time to drop the idea that Tesla will fulfill some lofty social goal for humanity, because it wont. They may have nice cars, but the market seriously has them overvalued as they aren't even trying to go for lower cost EV vehicles to be competitive which I think the market thinks is going to happen and everyone is going to own a Tesla. In fact, EV subsidies at this point are probably hurting getting us switched over to EVs as it is making higher cost EV vehicles more profitable than they should be, and EV subsidies right now are only subsidizing richer people like the assholes of the "Cult of Elon". I don't know which company is going to be the herald of low-cost EVs - maybe an existing brand or maybe a new one... but it certainly isn't going to be Tesla. Left-wing policy is right now getting in the way of allowing the market to generate products we need. Will the left-wingers change on this. Probably not, because they are also ego driven douche bags as well.
Tl;dr: Tesla is an argument against EV subsidies.
However, Tesla was certainly benefited from things that were not really fair. A lot of the way early adopters of Tesla got to be able to afford Tesla's cars were from EV credits given by governments (mostly left-leaning) as a way to encourage EV adoption. -- Full disclosure, I'm a right-wing leaning member of this board before I tear into the Libs. -- The problem here is that by giving these EV credits it really disincentivizes companies from investing and keeping sight on what they need to do to be profitable. It makes it so the vehicles become profitable (as they can sell more units than they really should) at higher prices than would be needed to have mass adoption. This is partially why Tesla went down the luxury/performance vehicle route and why it is has had flush cash to throw at AI ventures (which to be honest with Tesla have not been THAT impressive compared to what people have been able to put together by crowdsourcing). Some of us futurists may like the gimmicks but that isn't ultimately the main reason why people have been wanting to go electric.
Going forward Tesla is really going to be about brand and prestige (if it survives Elon's management) so it is time to drop the idea that Tesla will fulfill some lofty social goal for humanity, because it wont. They may have nice cars, but the market seriously has them overvalued as they aren't even trying to go for lower cost EV vehicles to be competitive which I think the market thinks is going to happen and everyone is going to own a Tesla. In fact, EV subsidies at this point are probably hurting getting us switched over to EVs as it is making higher cost EV vehicles more profitable than they should be, and EV subsidies right now are only subsidizing richer people like the assholes of the "Cult of Elon". I don't know which company is going to be the herald of low-cost EVs - maybe an existing brand or maybe a new one... but it certainly isn't going to be Tesla. Left-wing policy is right now getting in the way of allowing the market to generate products we need. Will the left-wingers change on this. Probably not, because they are also ego driven douche bags as well.
Tl;dr: Tesla is an argument against EV subsidies.