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Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

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Re: Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

#4

Post by tway2888888 »

thisisit wrote: post #2

This was discussed earlier on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891651

From that discussion:

>If they can just execute on this, the world is theirs

People in these parts seem to fail to understand that:

a) the 300k - 400k of refundable reservations is a minuscule fraction of auto market share.

b) That the demand for $35,000 automobiles is not endless, let alone the $50,000+ that the Model 3 is selling for currently. Most people can't or shouldn't be making $1000 per month payments on a car.

Tesla has a ways to go before the "world is theirs".

Re: Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

#5

Post by amarant »

it's often said that if a headline is posited as a question, the answer to that question is "no".

if that question begins with "how" or "why" however, the answer is better phrased as "it doesn't".

/rant

not very inspired analysis of Tesla's challenges, with a comparison to a just barely similar historical case.

Re: Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

#6

Post by testudovictoria »

amarant wrote: post #5

it's often said that if a headline is posited as a question, the answer to that question is "no". if that question begins with "how" or "why" however, the answer is better phrased as "it doesn't". /rant not very inspired analysis of Tesla's challenges, with a comparison to a just barely similar historical case.

This first portion is known as Betteridge's law of headlines[0]. I don't have a source for the corollary.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%

Re: Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

#7

Post by stephengillie »

This line of thought might be a "natural inception[0]" from Tesla using the very same auto plant[1] where Toyota taught GM some of their trade secrets. After hearing this and knowing both are American automakers, many humans would continue the comparison, and some would find similar events somewhere in GM's long history. Because of the length of GM's history, it's probable that you'll find a similar event - somewhat reminiscent of "Bible codes" showing encoded prophecy, except long works such as Moby Dick accidentally have the same encodings. [2]

Though it would be "symmetrical" if Toyota formed a similar partnership with Tesla for a similar purpose.

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/ (Inception (2010))

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI

[2] http://www.awitness.org/essays/bibcode.html

Re: Why the Future of Tesla May Depend on Knowing What Happened to Billy Durant

#8

Post by talltimtom »

A good read, but I really wish the author would stop the constant equation of visionary and founder and remove the couple of factually wrong insinuations that Musk was the founder of Tesla. Elon Musk did not found the company he did definitely help it survive its infancy and grew it to what it is today (which either market leading or nearly bancrupt depending of who you ask), but he didn’t found it.
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