Elon Musk says Los Angeles is open to using his traffic tunnels

[mustang_sallad]

All car companies have to fund ongoing R&D and capital improvements.

 

#excuses

#heroworship

 

 

Yes, but none of them have attempted to increase production by 1000% over a few years. My point is that what they're trying to do is exceptional. And I don't mean exceptional in the sense of praising them, I mean it literally, as in "unusual; not typical".

[mustang_sallad]

 

The Model S is profitable according to a guy who says a million people will be ordering pizza on Mars before 2067.

 

So, you know.

 

And Henry Ford did more than Musk will ever do, and he was a deeply flawed person who--after the "peace ship" failure--turned into a rabid anti-Semite, empowered the guy who brought the Mafia into Detroit and more or less killed his own kid.

 

So yeah, lots of fawning over guys named Ford here--likewise his grandson who almost destroyed Ford by spending the 70s feuding with Lee Iacocca instead of just firing that twerp (serious: Ford had like two of everything by the end of the decade: Lee's car & Hank the Deuce's car).

 

Those are hilarious stories. My point was that if Tesla was actually the result of some hotshot at Ford who had turned Lincoln into an all-electric lineup, with cars that are as fast and nice to look at as Tesla, built entirely in US plants, that was getting as much positive press and brand equity as Tesla, performing the same as Tesla (meaning not making any money yet, but Ford's stock was up significantly) and was on the verge of scaling that up into a more affordable model that has 300,000 deposits... I can imagine that this forum would think pretty highly of the guy.

[akirby]

I get what you're saying, but you know who has attempted to increase production by 1000% over a few years? Every new car company ever created. Because 1000% is not hard when you start with one low volume vehicle.

 

Granted, they have unique problems and circumstances like the charging stations. But if all of that is required to support building electric cars and they still can't make money then the conclusion should be that it was never a viable business model in the first place.

[akirby]

 

Those are hilarious stories. My point was that if Tesla was actually the result of some hotshot at Ford who had turned Lincoln into an all-electric lineup, with cars that are as fast and nice to look at as Tesla, built entirely in US plants, that was getting as much positive press and brand equity as Tesla, performing the same as Tesla (meaning not making any money yet, but Ford's stock was up significantly) and was on the verge of scaling that up into a more affordable model that has 300,000 deposits... I can imagine that this forum would think pretty highly of the guy.

 

If they did it using their own money as opposed to venture capital and energy credits then sure. It's not about the technology, it's the business model.

[RichardJensen]

 

I can imagine that this forum would think pretty highly of the guy.

 

Not if the company had sunk billions of dollars into the project with no profits to show for it in the past, present or on the horizon.

 

We'd call that 'the second coming of JLR'

 

And ask anyone on the forum what they think of JLR.

[RichardJensen]

 

Those are hilarious stories

 

Probably not the adjective I would've chosen, but vive la difference.

[jpd80]

 

Those are hilarious stories. My point was that if Tesla was actually the result of some hotshot at Ford who had turned Lincoln into an all-electric lineup, with cars that are as fast and nice to look at as Tesla, built entirely in US plants, that was getting as much positive press and brand equity as Tesla, performing the same as Tesla (meaning not making any money yet, but Ford's stock was up significantly) and was on the verge of scaling that up into a more affordable model that has 300,000 deposits... I can imagine that this forum would think pretty highly of the guy.

 

 

If they did it using their own money as opposed to venture capital and energy credits then sure. It's not about the technology, it's the business model.

Spot on.

 

The glaring difference between the Ford hypotheses with EV Lincolns versus the reality of Tesla is

that Ford would have used its own funding combined with whatever the government would have

chipped in with DOE lending. Tesla's model is based basically on venture capital where selling

stock to true believers in Musk and his charismatic doctrines is the only thing keeping Tesla afloat.

 

As RJ suggests, there's a strong lemming effect in play here where normally sensible people are

caught up iand invested in the idea of Tesla being the break through company that ushers in a

new era in technological advance...all without seeing / understanding the companies results,

data published n front of investors every quarter warning that there's no money at the bottom

of this dry well - and here we are, on the cusp of Model 3 launch with people / investors not

really understanding the implication of an anti-climax result on their investments...