Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

I don't believe that personally.

I am a huge Apple fan so this is not meant to be an insult, but to me Tesla is the Apple of EVs.

They made a product that people view above the sum of it's parts.

The fact is the Model S, and the Model 3, are cars that make people stretch beyond their means because they're held in a higher regard simply for coming from the brands they come from, the way the iPhone is, or a MacBook does.

It's what annoys some detractors of both "Why get a Model S, it's insulting to call it a luxury car next to an S Class that costs as much (which is true in my opinion)" "Why get an iPhone when an Android phone has 4x the RAM and a trick display and more apps! (which might be true)".

If another incumbent only did as much as either, they'd fail. GM couldn't make a Model 3 even if they made a Model 3. Reviewers wouldn't be charitable and say the tablet is "Forward facing". They'd call it what is honestly is, cost cutting.

They wouldn't argue Autopilot is improving, they'd be appalled an incumbent made a driving assistant willing to merge into lane shoulders and released it with nothing more than a "keep your hands on that wheel!"

Tesla has charisma, and that charisma imbues anything they make with a halo. That's why they can ask for 1k for a car coming out in 2+ years (or in even more years for the 35k version). That's why they can release AP without more safety guards than Super Cruise for example and not get skewered. Just like Apple can release a phone with a poor antenna and tell you you're holding it wrong, or a keyboard that gets clogged with normal use and tell you to pull out the compressed air.

And that charisma affects investors too. You can tell a TSLA investor from miles away just by how they speak. It's always about "the ride". It's almost always "Elon is saving humanity". It's why the CEO can call people pedos and not be removed, it's why shorting TSLA is probably the worst idea ever, but I digress...

You’re right. It was a random comment by a friend of his gf who claimed to have visited his house during the crisis.

As someone who doesn’t own a Tesla, but did purchase a very crappy jacket they sold in 2012. I can say without Elon I put the whole company in “meh” mode. The truck, the roadster, the 3. All great products. The sense of its technology advancements. These stem from what Elon and the chief designer want. You can sense it. It’s like a heartbeat on the design.

Take Elon away. I’ll buy whatever dumb electric rolls off the lot. I’d only buy a Tesla car because I know that insanely dedicated, incredibly driven, “nutter” is still in charge of what happens. And the Easter eggs make the whole thing interesting. A normal CEO will never ok the things Elon does.

> For example, BMW i3 has sold around 100k units now, about a third of Teslas

Reminds me of the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." wrap-up the Slashdot editors gave[1] to iPod upon release.[2]

Any Tesla model is an exciting car, due to performance and handling, the sheen of EV greenness, and the otherness of experience[3], while still being a no-compromise daily driver. Even the range anxiety on longer trips is a strong emotion, count it as a long-term advantage, and yet another spark for endless discussions mentioning the brand. Contrast that with the i3 being mid-to-lower-end model among BMW offerings, and excites close to nobody.

There's no trick in bringing a boring, incremental car to the market; any large company can do it. Nor is it a springboard from rags to riches; it can only work in a slow-moving, low-innovation market, which new car market used to be for decades, but apparently got hot again.

The trick is to bring something that has appearance of new&fresh, that will set an industry-wide trend, will appear to push the envelope, and will make customers into excited fanboys queueing up for the goods, or preordering a year in advance. This is much harder for an established player, due to Innovator's Dilemma, and the inertia of any large organization.

BMW i3 is "yeah, I save a bunch of $$$ on gas, and I can usually fit the groceries in the trunk"; Tesla is, "I GOT 10k LIKES ON MY LUDICROUS MODE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE AND MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER WAS SCREAMING ALL THE WAY ALSO SUNROOF Tesla is like the (early) fast and exciting X.com/PayPal among boring old banks with their wire transfers, rather than like umpteenth "also-ran" online payment processor we get every few months.

> Many of the major car manufacturers (...) will overtake Tesla soon if not already there

The IBM overtook Apple for several decades, in no small part thanks to the duopoly with Microsoft and their EEE tactics. And yet here we are, Apple > IBM. However IBM PC was effectively an open platform, while the modern passenger car is at best half-way such. In this race of Tesla against the proverbial Detroit, I bet on Tesla; and I put Elon's antics in the assets column rather than liabilities, with a "any PR is good PR" note.

[1] https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

[2] and then there's the response Dropbox got early on on HN

[3] granted it's not for everybody. Just like Mercedes and BMW fans deride each others' ergonomic&stylistic choices.

Comparing Elon to Jobs is a bit insulting to Elon. Elons achievementts are huge.His former wife also had same view expressed in his biogry.