Tesla’s in its flop era

Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 350 points – Tesla’s in its flop era
theverge.com

When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company’s CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers. But Musk will also face increasingly urgent questions about its current state of affairs — and why everything seems to be going to shit. 

Earlier this month, the company reported its first year-over-year sales drop in four years, a sign of rougher waters ahead. Tesla’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, including a 13 percent drop in the last week. The company laid off over 14,000 employees last week, 10 percent of its global workforce — which could end up being closer to 20 percent when all’s said and done, according to Bloomberg. Today’s earnings report is expected to include Tesla’s lowest profit margins in six years, a sign that rampant price-cutting continues to exact a toll.

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Honestly, if another CEO steps in and Elon retires, the company might actually recover. Right now the image of Tesla is tied too closely to Elon who we know is an asshat.

They might finally develop the affordable, mass market car that Musk has been claiming is in the works for years, instead of idiotic and expensive passion projects like the cybertruck.

Musk thinks he already did that with the model 3, right? Billionaires have no concept of “affordable” after all.

It's the Model 2, which he has being talking about for years but it's not clear if it will ever happen.

Idk, I think the idea of selling trucks want bad. Americans love trucks. That being said, the execution seems very poor.

The idea of a truck EV isn't bad market wise, look at Rivian for example. It was purely poor execution, no doubt attributed to Musk.

The execution is very poor, and I'd rather these dangerous monstrosities go away and be replaced by smaller, less dangerous, and more practical vehicles. And ideally, car ownership will decline over the long term with viable alternatives to driving hopefully being developed across the world (but that's a whole other discussion).

Musk instead is now going all in with AI and Robotaxis.

Probably realised that "full" self-driving the way people think of it is not likely to happen in our lifetimes. And Tesla's existing system is an out and out scam.

But I expect he'll try and combine it with his stupid tunnel idea, instead of, I don't know, a train?

But I expect he’ll try and combine it with his stupid tunnel idea

That was the original idea. It was supposed to be self-driving buses to get a higher throughput. Then the buses went away and were replaced by normal cars, and then self driving was replaced with human drivers. The convenient lift to get to the tunnels was replaced by normal escalators and what was left from all those lofty plans was the underground taxi farce, with rgb lighting.

There’s no way in fucking hell ever that I would go into one of Muck’s underground death traps. It’s such an insanely dumb idea.

It’s funny how so many were confident FSD really was safer than human drivers 10 years ago. Some even said it’s irresponsible not to let these self driving cars drive on the street.

I've got coworkers who literally think Elon is humanity's savior. This came up today (shared a pic of a tesla w/ a bumper sticker that said "I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy..." and they IMMEDIATELY started gargling his metaphorical balls).

There's a tiny sliver of market that represents the overlapped portion of 1) hopeless rednecks, and 2) people interested in owning an electric vehicle... that's Tesla's target customer. It's gonna saturate in a hurry, but it's also a cult-like following of cash cows eager to be milked. My money's on Tesla's performance steadying out and maintaining a not-great but not-bad-enough-to-tank-the-company level of financial success.

Depends on what you mean by "recover". It might recover in the sense that the entire company won't go bankrupt and will find a sustainable way to continue existing, but it will never recover to the current stock worth. Tesla has been grossly overvalued as whatever huge potential it had has been squandered. The stock will drop regardless of what Tesla does and it's highly unlikely it will ever reach such worth ever again.

It’s not just his image. He’s an awful manager and has made some atrocious decision in the last few years affecting Tesla employees, customers and shareholders… even people who don’t buy teslas due to the unsafe FSD. He’s made Tesla a financial and physical danger to the public.

It seems like it would be a good move to have him step down.

I'm not sure they will though, I think the board is probably still stuck in the mindset that their company is valued highly because of Musk.

Musk also owns the board, and they all know if he goes down, they're going with him. They know he's an idiot, but he's wormed his way into every facet of the company.

It's why they allowed him to buy a company that was weeks away from bankruptcy (Solar City) for a huge premium using Tesla funds despite it being very likely to bankrupt Tesla itself.

It's why they allowed him to stay in his position, despite being sanctioned by the SEC for lying about taking the company private (at $420 because lol weed number) to pump the stock.

It's why they're pushing for his absurd $58bn pay package to be retroactively instated, even though the company just had an absolutely abysmal financial quarter.

Make no mistake looking at the official org chart. The board consists of Elon Musk, E. Musk, E. R. Musk, and Musk, Elon R. Any other names are merely a formality and entirely beholden to his whims. The only way Elon leaves Tesla is either in handcuffs or on a stretcher.

Turns out business is easy when running a virtual monopoly while receiving truckloads of government welfare. Shit gets harder when actual car manufacturers get in on the game, competing with an i-phone you put wheels on and called a car.

Unfortunately this is gonna bite NASA due to them handing the lander mission to Musk and his bogus claims, and in that case there won't be many competitors ready to pick up the slack

So far, SpaceX has been run with much less Musk involvement. That could change on a whim, but so far it seems to be a pretty well run government-supplier under Gwynne Shotwell.

The problem is starship, Musk's mars-shot brain child, seems to be increasingly behind schedule for the Artemis missions.

Not to mention using starship is apparently forcing any moon landings to launch between 8-12 rockets to get one SpaceX lander on the moon?

Overall it seems like SpaceX is getting fucked by Musk's involvement as well.

Since Musk outed himself as pro-right-wing idiot with his X fiasco, the mostly left leaning electric vehicle crowd is looking for untainted brands.

looking for untainted brands.

I wish them good luck for the hunt

Let's be honest, they are looking for brands where it is not everyone's first association that the CEO is in the news every week for being in the wrong side of the culture war. They don't mind if the company they buy from does some union busting and buys raw materials mined by slaves, as long as it's drowned out by the marketing of said brand.

This probably is true for some people, which is why I hope he steps down.

Me, I'm waiting for the prices to come down (more than the recent price cuts) on the Model 3, or for a more affordable AWD EV with similar range to become available.

I order online from Amazon and Walmart too, it doesn't mean I agree with their CEOs, board, or business practices. The shit those companies get away with is arguably worse than Musk's right wing BS on X, with union busting and employees depending on benefits to survive.

If you're able to make a statement and buy something else, great! I support that. My requirements for a vehicle are: full EV, AWD, 300+ mile range, final cost under 40k. The access to supercharging also seems nearly essential, but I'm willing to explore my options if they meet the other requirements. I also never want to buy from a scumbag car dealer again. That really doesn't leave me any other options that I'm aware of.

If not, I guess I could stick it to Elon and just buy another ICE vehicle...

I wouldn't set one foot in those cars.

The employee training the company offers is “woefully inadequate,” Reveal reported in its investigation. Turley told me she was never taught how to do her job and only shown videos that included a history of the plant and information about Tesla, but nothing about the work she would be doing. “You pretty much have to learn from the people that’s in there,” she said. Cleon Waters also said in his filing that he was never given any training for his job assembling parts of car motors. California safety regulators cited Tesla eight times for deficient training between 2013 and 2018.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/tesla-racism-sexual-harassment/

(Warning: this whole article is awful and infuriating.)

Cars and car companies suck. If I could lug all my sports shit around in an e-bike I would.

I imagine the conditions aren't great at all these "American" car plants which are conveniently located in Mexico for maximum abuse of labor.

I'm not saying you're wrong, there just needs to be alternatives in order for consumers to vote with their wallet on these issues.

For something like a car which is not optional for me, it's either an ICE from a scummy car dealer with a scummy company behind them that uses questionable labor practices, or an EV from a scummy car dealer with a scummy company behind them that uses questionable labor practices, or an EV from a company with a scummy CEO that uses questionable labor practices. At least with a Tesla you can cut out some of the scumbags? I'd be interested in Rivian too if I could afford one but they start at 70k.

I'm sorry, the response to 'these people are making cars without being trained' should not be 'cars and car companies suck' because that would not be the case in any other car company.

Teslas are rolling deathtraps.

You seem to be missing the point. Show me a car company that's not screwing over the consumers and the workforce, and I'll buy from them. Not every consumer has the luxury of maximizing altruism with their car purchase. At least those supposedly untrained employees are US citizens getting paid a US wage. Do you honestly think that things are better at the Mexican plants?

Maybe Honda and Toyota or Subaru? But they've been too busy sucking off the oil industry with their hydrogen push, and now their EV offerings can't compete.

Tells someone they are missing the point while missing the point themselves.

Replies to a thread with lots of well-thought out comments with some BS and doesn't even elaborate.

I think you make a valid point that it’s extremely difficult to avoid buying from companies or CEOs you disagree with on political or moral grounds.

However, in the case of Tesla, I’ve lost faith in the product. If I bought a Tesla, I don’t know if I will discover that corners were cut, that features will be removed over the air, or that the company has suddenly crashed and burned.

So, the erratic, narcissistic CEO is the reason I won’t buy a Tesla anymore, but it’s not a sacrifice because I consider it to be the pragmatic choice as well.

Chevy Bolt is full EV, and only $12,000 after some rebates that may only apply in California. It doesn't have 300 mile range, only 250-280. I haven't actually checked, but I think it has a motor on each wheel, so that would be 4WD. Unfortunately, they have decided to discontinue the Bolt after this year.

Edit: I just checked and, nope it's a FWD.

As far as the dealer is concerned, you can go to the manufacturer and buy directly. They cannot advertise to you that this is an option, in the US.

It was also UAW made. Which is one of the most important things for me when it comes to buying a new vehicle

This is a good point, I'm more inclined to support a unionized company. Still... my understanding is that GM and Ford (and others) all circumvent unionization by manufacturing (to some extent) in Mexico. I guess it depends on the individual car. I'm supportive of Federal and State EV incentives that prioritize made in the US, unionized manufacturing.

Very true. The unfortunate reality is no vehicle manufacturer is friendly to the UAW (to my knowledge, though Volkswagen claims to be apathetic, but when I was a union member of a company they own it certainly felt like they had a problem with us). I don’t support these companies because they’re good companies I support them because I want the industry to face financial pressure towards unionized labor. And my alternative isn’t nonunion vehicles, it’s used vehicles.

Yeah, this is my dilemma. I have heard positive things about Ford and GM in regards to them making it easier to skip the dealership, so that at least addresses the convenience factor. Another factor in wanting to avoid the dealership is that I don't trust their business model where they sell you a car that they want you to bring in regularly for maintenance. I'd rather buy from a company that doesn't see vehicle service as a revenue opportunity. Does that apply to Tesla? I'm not sure, but I know that's how the traditional dealership model works so it's hard to trust those companies.

I really like my Bolt, it perfectly suits my needs and I love driving it. I think the biggest compromise that makes it unattractive for long distance travel is the relatively slow charging speed. I very rarely do that, however, and if I did I might rent a different vehicle.

It's really not that difficult to not buy from Walmart and Amazon. I'm not saying any retailer is ideologically pure and chill across the board but mom and pop shops sell 95% of what they do and the money stays in your community

Tesla's biggest market is China, not America. Elon's antics are not the cause of this drop. Selling Teslas in China getting harder due to American policies against China. How many Teslas do you think they will let Elon sell if the US bans Tiktok?

I thought you nailed it, but then I read past the first sentence. Tesla is failing in China because they can't compete with price. Even a lot of the luxury models are now cheaper than a Tesla.

Exactly BYD is their biggest problem. Also they can't claim higher build quality so you'd really pay more for just the brand.

He shot down his cult of personality in favor of the base that shits on electric cars and bombed his brand by releasing an all-purpose truck that can't even survive a car wash. Tesla will get what it deserves with a CEO like him.

Yet another CEO of a luxury item company that thought fame made him untouchable finds out that running your mouth off will turn people off from buying something they don’t actually need. If you sell a product favored by progressive and left leaning individuals and go on right wing rants you’re gonna have problems. That, and massively under-delivering on promised car features.

*I figure at the price point Tesla cars are they are indeed a luxury item. It’s a luxury to be able to afford them and afford the statement an owner makes by buying one (early adopter, environmental, whatever) There’s plenty of ICE cars, hybrids, or PHEV that are cheaper, more reliable, and have better service availability.

also moving all the controls to a touch screen? stupid. A car isn't a smart phone

I figure at the price point Tesla cars are they are indeed a luxury item

Tesla has luxury models and trim levels, but I'd say several variants of the Model 3 and Model Y are fairly price competitive with its competition, especially if accounting for government tax subsidies.

The average new car transaction is about $47,000, and several Tesla options fall well under that average.

It's weird, because in many ways he could've been viewed as a champion of the left. He owns one of the largest brands in "sustainable" travel, owns a space company, and has money to burn.

I think he probably had a mental breakdown a few years ago, and that what we've seen is from him is basically untreated mental illness, exacerbated by being pals with the likes of Rogan and Chappelle, two guys that can handle fame and not give a fuck.

But things could've been very different if he weren't such a cunt.

He comes from a South African Apartheid family that got rich with blood diamonds. Can't expect much more from that than a white nationalist.

We have different ideas of what the left is, I guess

I'm sure it's anyone else's fault but Elon, just ask him he'll say so.

I think people just realized that Tesla's aren't that great. They're not build well, simple repairs cost a fortune and for the same price you get better vehicles from other manufacturers, especially from ones in China.

Also, the resale values are…not good.

Really? I looked at prices of used EVs recently and was dissappointed at how expensive they were. I would have liked to be able to afford one as a first car.

Used prices have plummeted in part because new prices have dropped a lot. If new prices stabilize (big if), the resale value should retain itself a bit better going forward.

It's normal for a 1-year-old car to lose 20% of its value compared to a brand new model. But if you bought a $60,000 model a year ago, and that model dropped to $50,000 new, then your one-year-old car might only be worth $40,000 or so (20% less than a new car, but 33% less than what you paid for it).

You can't get the Chinese ones in the U.S., so options are more limited. But there are still alternatives.

I love mine. Which BEV lets me have seamless phone key and instant bootup, letting me walk up and get into the car and drive away immediately? I also have my heat/cooling and heated seats on auto and love not having to fiddle with knobs. If another car maker can catch up to them I'd switch but I don't see it happening soon.

My hood isn't perfectly flush with the front on one half of the front though, and the FM radio reception is pretty bad, so I do have some complaints.

Every other EV I know has instant boot up, Volvo/polestar, Hyundai, rivian etc. I was under the impression this was pretty Universal for EVs. A huge amount of current model year cars in a similar price range also have remote keyless control functionality, even ICE cars.

Instant bootup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nABtTMVq8ow&t=46 That is not instant, and all other EVs have that stupid start button taking an extra step.

remote keyless control

I'm not talking about controlling remotely via a fob or app, I'm saying if I can have nothing in my pockets besides my phone, have the car unlock automatically, and I can get in and instantly drive, all that happening in less than 3 seconds.

Skipping on an entry level model will be a mistake that will cost them greatly.

I wonder if there was ever an entry-level model to begin with. It's been on the cards for about a decade, and many people have looked at Tesla saying "wow, a good electric car, I'll definitely get one once they're affordable".

Yeah. Especially considering EVs were generally going to be more appealing to younger people as new technology that demonstrates care for the environment and future

This is all because they failed to award Elmo with those billions. Quick, there is still time to save the company. /s

I guess... Now's the time to short?

No, never short Tesla. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

I would have thought the same thing but the after hours ticker has the stock up damn near $20 which is just insane to me.

I guess they were expecting even worse?

He made a lot more promises, and uncancelled the reportedly canceled Model 2. Investors in Tesla feed on his investor call grandstanding lies.

That people still trust what Musk says is mind boggling...

Shorting is designed to only be used by the ultra rich and is therefore too dangerous for average mofos like us imo

Always remember: when you invest in a stock, you can only lose what you’re putting in. When you short a stock, there’s no limit in how much you can lose. Yes, that means you can go in debt.

Well you lose the amount you shorted. You can't go into debt for money you haven't invested.

Shorting is when you borrow stocks and then immediately sell it. At some point you have to buy those stocks back so you can return the stocks to the lender.

Say you short 1 stock at $1000. The stock later drops to $100. You have made a good $900 profit when you return the stock.

Say the stock instead goes to $10,000. You have made a devastating $9000 loss. You have lost more than you initially shorted.

Yes I know but I meant that you don't have to do any of that yourself. You buy a bear or a mini and it's taken care of automatically when you buy or sell.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company’s CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers.

Today’s earnings report is expected to include Tesla’s lowest profit margins in six years, a sign that rampant price-cutting continues to exact a toll.

Musk reportedly canceled the low-cost Model 2 in favor of the upcoming robotaxi — despite repeatedly failing to make good on his promise for a fully driverless vehicle.

Tesla has been forced to recall its two main driver-assist systems, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, in the face of increased government scrutiny over the company’s autonomy claims.

And Musk’s tenure as head of X, formerly Twitter, has alienated many of Tesla’s progressive-leaning customers, who have watched in horror as he promotes right-wing conspiracy theories on the platform.

While other companies are pursuing important innovations like lighter, more powerful batteries and recycling techniques that can shrink the auto industry’s carbon footprint, Tesla is putting it all on the line for an “apocalypse-proof truck” and a full suite of vaporware robots.

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Tesla should pay the CEO that 56 billion bonus. It would immediately improve the situation

No it won't. Yall never be successful with this kind of thinking.

Incantation works only AFTER blood offering of 1k of employees. Fire first, bonus later.
Then and only then Mamona will be happy to improve stock.

What's amazing is he immediately announced a new car and the stock rebounded. ISTG, its like there nothing to be gained being honest, smart, and lawful when dumb criminals get rewarded openly for their scams.

He wants the board to pay him for his mistakes outside of Tesla. I say its time to reign in his conflicts of interests.

It's a flip-flop, spring head... Fliiiip floooop??

How do you know it's a first year-over-year sales drop without first having a second year of drops? Isn't that what year-over-year means?

It means it's the first time ever the company made less sales this year than the year before

Before this, they always had growth in their sales

Infinite growth bad but a drop in quarterly sales also bad.