▲ | AtlasBarfed 13 hours ago | |
Nah, you just have to double-down on what Musk himself has started: Complete the poisoning of the Tesla brand. Musk committed CEO malpractice. Utter malpractice. One of the cornerstone pillars of Tesla is environmentalist progressivism. There is no way any democrat or environmentalist or liberal can look at this election and stomach buying a Tesla in the future. At LEAST 50% of Tesla's existing customer base is identified democrats. Every time Trump speaks in the next four years, identified democrats will viscerally feel that, and remember Musk, and blame Tesla. A car company's MOST IMPORTANT customers are recurring customers. Brand loyalty is paramount to a car brand. Tesla does not have enough right wing converts, especially since they are generally in rural areas underserved or not served by charging infrastructure, to make up for the customer loss. IMO Musk's stewardship of Tesla has shown huge amounts of failed opportunities: Primarily, is that after 17 years, Tesla basically sells two cars: a crossover and a sedan, with two sizes. Medium sized and slightly bigger. No delivery trucks, minivans, real pickups, city cars, kei cars, station wagons, sports cars, convertibles, large SUVs, large pickups/commercial vehicle platforms. No heavy machinery, heavy equipment. To that end, Tesla likely had ample opportunity to push its battery tech, drivetrains, and expertise into far more markets and segments by simply acquiring or partnering with a struggling ICE company (pick any one of a half-dozen that Geely or China have acquired in the last decade). Tesla could have pushed for advanced/capable PHEVs of high quality (think the Chevy Volt but better) with that cross-partnership and achieved electrification and profits and education of mass market buyers into EV advantages much more quickly and at scale Tesla could have used the acquired company for downmarket branding and cheaper EVs. It could allow the use of conventional OEM design to more rapidly bring vehicle types to market. Tesla has not scaled production sufficiently in the last couple years in my opinion. A lot of that is lack of diversification of models, an inability/resistance to use OEM suppliers, and no longer being interested in "gigafactory" construction with the same aggression. Home solar and home storage is basically a joke and forgotten in Tesla, again, a waste of their once-great brand. Repairability, quality, customer service, parts availability is pathetically bad, again because of resistance to OEM usage. Finally, Tesla is likely the least favorite company of the three major ones he heads. He is AWOL from leadership essentially, and it shows. | ||
▲ | ivewonyoung 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | |
All that and you didn't mention how all that started. Musk voted for Biden in 2021. Biden had an official govt EV summit in 2021 in his first year where Tesla wasn't invited, and he praised GM's CEO as the pioneer and leader of EVs when it produced 25 EVs that quarter and Tesla produced ~200K. A ridiculous thing to do stand there and just lie. Why? Because the auto union that heavily donates to Dem campaigns didn't want Tesla there. It shows Dems don't care about the environment as much as you think if they just decide to throw a company that was doing a lot for the environment under the bus for purely political reasons. Musk got the message. |