Tesla has become a meme stock. The stock's performance is disconnected from the company's performance.

I agree that Tesla has clear strengths, like the vast amount of data they've collected from their cars, and their charging network, but it's also obvious that something is going very, very wrong with that company. The stock value is not reflecting that.

Fun fact - recently it was declared that both Tesla and CCP EVs are to be treated as completely untrusted and not accepted in any semi-secure facilities in Poland (so including pretty much any military location)

> like nobody trusts Huawei or Xiaomi phones.

Loads of people trusted Huawei, even after all the hyperbole about backdoors for the government. It needed regulators banning Huawei to knock their share of the market and protect the homegrown spyware.

>Tesla is leading and succeeding. People have faith in Musk as a leader. Nobody trusts CCP EVs, just like nobody trusts Huawei or Xiaomi phones.

That sounds literally like a religious mantra. Do rational investors have 'faith' in the Costco CEO? Do they even know his name on top of their head?

Most of the world is buying chinese EVs and likes them.

Also, fun fact, I do own a Xiaomi 13T and I'm absolutely happy with my phone.

Faith and trust is something nobody uses to describe Musk. Maybe you should pop your own bubble you seem to live in? Using faith and trust while completely ignoring twitter?

The completed original line up was

S 3 X Y

The C didn’t fit that, nor would a 2. Unless he’s aiming for a lineup of products that has you seeing someone next Tuesday.

> the exact people who would buy such a car are now avoiding Teslas

The traditional fix for this is to license the technology and do manufacturing for another carmaker to brand.

It's super common for brand X of car to actually be a rebadged Y with slightly different shaped body panels.

However, it only works if your product is good and you have decent margins. That means you have to compete with china cars, since the obvious thing for a western brand to do is to rebadge a chinese designed car and split the margins with the chinese designer/manufacturer.

There are people like me who still buy teslas. Buddy picked up his new Model Y couple weeks ago. The price and the whole package is fine. Zero interest financing is absolutely nice. Elon showed his real face during children rescue drama in Asia. With this defamation story it was well known who he is for years. Political involvement was the visible tip of an iceberg for everyone.

Now if you ask me if the German car managers are better I doubt it. Gassing apes by Volkswagen in US is on the same level as Elon. Mercedes guy was complaining about lazy workers too much. Only BMW guy was able to keep acceptable silence. Overall German equivalent of model Y is at least 20000€ more expensive than Elon‘s car.

Personally I don’t buy anything from China if I can. I am not brave and as the Ayways story showed clearly, that great Chinese car can quickly be without any service. Maybe it’s ok to lease such car for couple years, but I don’t want to have car after small accident for what no replacement parts are available.

I spent a month in Spain driving a BYD daily and it was fine. I just don’t like the tackiness of the interior and not in love with the exterior either. The handling is also ok, nothing exciting. There’s something still very Chinese about these cars. Not saying that matters if you just want an affordable and reliable EV that takes you from point A to B. BYD can do that perfectly fine. I personally like the design of the Model Y (own one) very much, it also feels much more “alive” particularly the dual motor. There’s no comparison with the BYD I drove. Also never had any issues with build quality other than the charging port malfunctioning, and it was fixed outside my house, all I had to do was touch a button in the app to call service. FSD is pretty damn amazing. The tech is great and the updates do make the car better in many ways. I hope Tesla finds its way because apart from all the controversy they can make good cars.

> Teslas I've been in didn't seem to have great design or build quality

Design is subjective (I like it), and build quality. Not sure, I don't have issues with mine except one where after 2 years frunk latch started failing. It was replaced in an hour when I went to service center.

Teslas are the cheapest EV for the features offered in Europe. I would gladly buy another car, but they are either more pricey, or lack features. (I did market research 2 years ago when I was buying Model Y, the closest one was ICE - RAV4 for similar price, but I didn't want ICE).

Today probably not but there was a time where Tesla doing a rush to electric car market dominance was not totally far fetched. This would have required them to have cars filling the important segments.

because there is still 2012-era belief hanging around many people that Tesla's EV tech is superior to anything else

Even without Musk's public persona, the Tesla build quality is infamous. I would never.

What I've seen so far from Chinese car makers (BYD and MG, to be precise) is, to put it bluntly, the bare minimum. Build quality so-so, design is… unconventional and software is just bad. It drives, but only just.

Maybe the more recent models, like the Xiaomi thing, are better. But at the moment, Tesla is at least on par, if not better. The brand being tainted is very relevant though.

Don't forget Renault 5!

All the big European car manufacturers also have EV cars too.

Plus there are plenty of popular options for high-end EVs that are far more glamorous as well as practical than the Cybertruck.

Is there any indication that they're going to "defeat common sense" again? They're cancelling products, making marginal improvements to old models, alienating their customers, etc.

Tesla as a car company seems dead-set on a continuous downward spiral.

Maybe the switch to robots will pay off and you'll be right. Somehow, I'm skeptical.

Everyone knew that was the future and that the big auto manufacturers were deliberately dragging.

No-one (serious) thought there was a market for the cybertruck.

The stock price is pure madness, it's like it's priced in robotaxis, but that's clearly not going to happen for Tesla. And if it did, it would be a small-ish market, their brand has become toxic in so many big markets.

Elon Musk said he estimated 250k to 500k yearly sales

Idk, his twitter account was enough to sort out he had lost control over himself.

It failed based on the sales projections that Tesla set. Also, several reviews have not exactly been kind, along with lots of comments from owners about annoying issues and malfunctions.

If Tesla needed beta testers for things they hadn't figured out yet there would have been better ways to go about that.

I think the real issue was that Cybertruck required way more structural parts (body) than Tesla originally thought. It was originally supposed to have a load bearing exoskeleton.

> it was intended a low-volume product for next-gen Tesla tech

If this is true that's not what Musk was saying beforehand.

That is the opposite story that Musk told when hyping the Cybertruck, though.

Musk projected that the Cybertruck would sell 250k annually. It's selling around 20k. Even for Musk, that isn't normal exaggeration; that's a huge difference.

That's weird too, maybe they just have some preorders they need to fulfill. They did stop its production for a while last year and reduced the number of models available.

Tesla has a factor in Germany.

To be "for the masses", it would need to:

- be smaller

- have an actually usuable truck bed

- be painted (so rust isn't an issue)

- have a body that's not literally duck taped together in some places and can easily snap in others

- use steel (which bends) for body construction

- be suitable for towing hauls

- not be ridiculously overpowered (...to the extent where engine can overpower the breaks)

- have good visibility with a windshield that isn't at a sharp angle to the ground and body geometry which doesn't maximize blind spots

- not have sharp corners that the cut you or doors that can decapitate your dog

- have door handles that make doors openable in case of emergencies/no power situations/electric shorts

- not have bulletproof glass (WTF, "for the masses"?) which makes makes it harder to rescue people when accidents happen

- be easily repairable, or at least amenable to repairs in local non-Tesla shops, with customers being confident it their warranty won't go poof (as the law requires)

- be easily customizeable for different applications (particularly when it comes to the bed)

- not look so different from other trucks without any reason other than "Elon Musk wants to be edgy": ugly is subjective, being a billionaire's fashion statement isn't

...to start. That's off the top of my head.

And, of course, being priced for the masses, which doesn't just happen. It's a design requirement.

As it stands, the Cybertruck is, and has always been, a rich boy's luxury toy — and it was designed as one.

It really seems like something got to Musk's head that he thought the world has so many edgy rich boys.

You want to see a modern truck "for the masses"? That's Toyota IMV 0, aka Hilux Champ [1]. Ticks all the above boxes.

And hits the $10,000 price point [2]. A literal order of magnitude cheaper than the Cybertruck.

Speaking of which: a car "for the masses" isn't a truck. It's a minivan (gets the entire family from one place to another), it's a small sedan/hatchback (commuter vehicle), a crossover/small SUV to throw things, kids, and dogs into without having to play 3D Tetris in hard mode.

But not a pickup truck, which is a specialized work vehicle.

The masses aren't farmers and construction workers (most people live in the cities, and only a small number needs such a work vehicle).

The popularity of The Truck in the US is, in a large part, a byproduct of regulation which gives certain exemptions to specialized work vehicles.[3]

That's not even getting to the infrastructure part: trucks shine in remote, rural areas. And while one can always have a canister of gas in the truck bed, power stations can be hard to find in the middle of the field or a remote desert highway.

But again, it's not impossible to make a truck for the masses (at least for certain markets). That's the $10K Hilux Champ.

For all the luxury aspects of the Tesla sedan, it's been one of the most (if not the most) practical electric vehicles on account of range alone. It also looked like a normal car at a time when EVs screamed "look at me, I'm so greeeeeen!" from a mile away (remember 1st gen Nissan Leaf or BMW i3?). It was conformal and utilitarian, while also being futuristic and luxurious enough for the high price point was fair for what was offered.

The public image of having a Tesla was good: you are affluent, future-forward, and caring for the environment.

The Cybertruck went back on everything that made Tesla a success: it's conspicuous, impractical, overpriced, and currently having publicity rivaling that of the recent Melania documentary.

It was not a risky bet. It was an a-priori losing bet. The world simply never needed as many edgy toys as Musk wanted to sell.

And driving a car shaped as an "I'm a Musk fanboy" banner really lost its appeal after a few Roman salutes and the dear leader's DOGE stint.

Overly optimistic engineering assessments? Perhaps, but they are much further down on the list of reasons of Cybertruck's failure.

[1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-10000...

[2] https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2025-toyota-imv-0-pickup-...

[3] https://reason.com/2024/02/02/why-are-pickup-trucks-ridiculo...

Yes. It's a flop:

https://insideevs.com/news/784715/tesla-cybertruck-ev-sales-...

Probably because it’s a segment they think they can grow and is a new vehicle type, rather than redundant.

Regardless, it's probably better to have one flashy car that doesn't sell big numbers than 3. They might treat it as their high end test car or something or plan to figure out a new top tier model.

Probably the same reason Ford makes one, too.

I think it was the FT that observed about a year ago that even as institutional investors were pulling away from US equities, retail investors (redditors, if you will) were filling in the gap quite enthusiastically. (You know, "Buy the dip!! " and brethren.)

I don't know to what extent that's still the case. But someone always ends up with the hot potato no matter what.

Its not bizzare. Retail investors can no longer compete with big banks, who pretty much set the stock price. Elon solidified this with DOGE by removing oversight of such things.

At this point, investing is exacly like playing slots at casino.

It’s being valued on the hope that they will crack full self driving. People still believe they will crack it.

Once they actually start bleeding money they will go down.

> would have never expected to see a cult of personality being run on the top of S&P 500 market caps,

Steve Jobs had a cult of personality as well. Of course Apple had financial reasons to support its valuation when he was leading it in the 2000s

The most successful meme stock in history, all driven by - "coming soon"

I've got a 2025 Model 3 and was blown away by what a great vehicle it is for the price point. I'd be curious how much of a difference there is between and S and a Model 3 Performance.

Took one for a test drive - it was fun. The only downside is compared to some other compact/city EV's the legroom in the back is REALLY bad (and I'm not exactly tall).

The legroom in my son's VW e-Up! is markedly better, despite it being a smaller car.

3rd place for most F1 wins as a car motor builder.

It still is, albeit they use the Alpine branding.

It was but I'm not sure how that's relevant.

Also not sure what the point of the "old state" part of the parent comment was. Renault is just another big carmaker.

I think range only really matters in the context of highway drives, I kinda dislike these composite estimates like WLTP (as you can never be sure of what exactly they measure)

This is the first year that I personally think that it will come this year...

Actions speak louder than words, and the fact that a 'cybercab' production line is firing up this year is also a strong indicator - the fact they didn't do that 5 years ago means tesla leadership didn't think it was going to work back then. 'cybercab' wouldn't sell well as a 2 seater if it couldn't self drive. (although the actual mass production will be delayed till next year is my guess, but we'll see model 3 or y being used for a taxi service in the meantime)

Cameras also fail when weather conditions cake your car in snow and/or mud while you're driving. Actually, from what I just looked up, this is an issue with LiDAR as well. So it seems to me like we don't even have the sensors we need to do this properly yet, unless we can somehow make them all self-cleaning.

It always goes back to my long standing belief that we need dedicated lanes with roadside RFID tags to really make this self driving thing work well enough.

So far, end to end seems to be the only way to train complex AI systems that actually works.

Every time you pit the sheer violent force of end to end backpropagation against compartmentalization and lines drawn by humans, at a sufficient scale, backpropagation gets its win.

[flagged]

Will humans?

TUV inspection failures are not a good indication of reliability. The lack of Tesla dealers and no need for yearly servicing means issues get caught at the inspection step for Tesla where for others they are caught at the pre-inspection step.

Also, you need a breakdown of the failures as wear and consumables (washer fluid low, splits in wipers, headlight alignment, mobile phone holder in wrong location) can be a failure but would not be a good indicator for lack of quality.

That is bad. One issue seems to be that brakes of electric cars can get issues over time as they are not used enough (because instead of true braking the regenerative recuperation is used).

Good though: If you are in an accident Teslas are the safest car one can buy

https://www.ancap.com.au/media-and-gallery/media-releases/22...

> The Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed by ANCAP in 2025, recording strong performance across all areas of occupant protection and active safety technology.

They still are, the Danish statistics report ~45% of tesla having issues compared to ~7% of the whole plethora of electric vehicles, that's a lot

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/nearly-half-of-tesla-mo...

"Most of the issues involve critical components like brakes, lights, and suspension. Many cars fail because of play in the steering or faulty axles. These are problems rarely seen at the same level in competitors like Volkswagen or Hyundai."

> When Mom can dispatch the family car to pick up the kids from school.

Tech level, I agree--that's FSD.

But even if we had that tech today, Mom ain't sending the car without getting a police visit.

You can't even let your kids go to the local playground alone anymore. They're not going to be captain and first mate alone in a vehicle if the Karens have anything to say about it.

the main metric is fsd subs, the other stuff you mention is not as important

But it is still (unfortunately) the most competent publicly available ADAS.

That just indicates that the other models were allready being wound down.

ADAS levels are not only about technical capability, but also about who takes responsibility.

There's not really NEV oversupply, the EV adoption curve will keep shooting up from 50% to 100%, many PRC EV companies will die from competition/pricewar consolidation not broader oversupply, since EV industrial base is still undersupply relative to 100% adoption curve.

Oversupply is in legacy ICE displacement due to rapid domestic EV penetration. "Zero-milage used car" accounting trick is primarily to export excess capacity of gasoline cars (now that EV has taken over) that aren't moving domestically anymore. MOST of PRC exports are ICE, IIRC 60-80%, there's plenty of global demand for ICE still. Pushing domestic sku new car with crushed domestic demand as "used" exports where there's plenty of demand = meet sales target, but less through discounts but import fees engineering - used cars circumvent import duties, certifications, warranty requirements etc. It's a lifehack to unload domestic ICE inventory, not EV. This also likely transient effect because NEV transition in PRC happened so fast ICE manufacturer that target domestic market caught flat footed. They need a few years to either retool to EV or shift primarily to target export markets that still has appetite for affordable gasoline cars.

Right. I can imagine seeing lots full of unsold cars might be interpreted as "there is no demand", especially if they are trying to push a particular narrative.

I like the comparison, but with aviation on a fundamental level we made it simpler (removing actuation), not added more (senses we dont need)

> easiest

This is the keyword here, just because the other approach is harder does not mean it is impossible.

It's a decent gamble to try and do things the hard way if it is possible to be deployed on cheaper/smaller hardware (eg: no lidars, just cameras).

Actually, that's the standard we're all talking about. Nearly everyone is totally fine with human-caused traffic deaths. Nobody wants to ban human drivers at that rate of death.

But if FSD had the same rate, people would be losing it.

Yeah, but even if the safety level was 10% better, let's say--nobody would accept that rate. It wouldn't get adopted, we wouldn't be happy to save those lives. People would be outraged.

I think it's got something to do with an innate belief to self-determination. It's fine if I make a mistake to kill myself, and it's not fine if someone else does. It's super not fine if someone dies at the hands of a rich person's technology. Outrage, lawsuits, "justice."

While I am in the camp that believes camera-only FSD won't succeed, your comment isn't entirely accurate.

CCD and CMOS sensors can easily work in sub-freezing temperatures with various kinds of heating. There are 10's of millions of surveillance cameras installed outdoors in sub-freezing climates that work fine.

Cameras also have moveable IR cut filters, which is analogous to your sunglasses example.

Human eyes do have greater dynamic range in the visible light spectrum, but solid state sensors can commonly interpret light above 1000nm, and of course you can do thermal/IR imagers to provide optical sensing of wavelengths outside of what a human can see.

Sensor technology relative to the human eye isn't what is holding FSD back.

Deaf people drive.

I knew a guy with no arms who drove with his prosthetic hooks. Of course he can feel vibrations and things through his ass, but so could the car if they wanted. Do they use accelerometer data? (I don't know the answer to that) Do they have ABS sensors that can detect wheel lockup/speed status? Because I don't.

I believe I can drive a car to the legal standard, remotely, with a good enough camera array.