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Tesla ending Models S and X production

cnbc.com

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Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#31
post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

EVs are becoming commoditized. Tesla doesn’t have the scale ( or experience ) to play that angle.

literally what are the gigafactories for then?

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#32
Tesla has no moat - but one thing I will give to Elon is his incredible strategy in building Tesla

1. Build sports car

2. Use that money to build an affordable car

3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car

4. While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

he got distracted by side-missions, his personal shitty side

however if you separate the ideas from the person you can see how such a simple strategy was executed successfully

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs are becoming commoditized. Tesla doesn’t have the scale ( or experience ) to play that angle.

literally what are the gigafactories for then?

Batteries - lots of uses beyond EVs, but lots of EVs are making use of the batteries they can produce, as well.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#35
post #15

I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck). reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear. Do they not want to be a car company?

The problem with being a car company is that they'd have to compete with China. It's possible, but they'd have to make additional capital investments to keep up. They've just wasted a ton of money on a failed Musk vanity project (Cybertruck) and squandered a ton of goodwill in their home market via the DOGE fiasco. Cash flow is not what it once was, and if they're going to make a big capital investment, they're probably right in looking at robots. But that strategy puts them back where they were 20 years ago, just getting started in EVs, and their cash flow will depend on cars for many years to come.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#36
post #19

Nobody here seems to remember that this was always the plan: release expensive cars to bootstrap the company which allows them to release progressively cheaper cars until everyone can afford one. Not a fanboy, but this seems like it went exactly according to plan.

Where exactly are those cheaper cars? Still waiting for a 30k model 3 like promised.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#38
post #27

Dropping the S and X is going to kill the market for them. Who is going to buy a car that they know is getting discontinued?

It's not like they aren't going to support any new purchases.

S launched in 2012.

X launched in 2016.

Both launched with slow rollouts.

Meanwhile, the average car in use today is 13 years old and getting older. (I currently drive a 22 year old car)

It definitely turns me off buying a used model S to know it's being discontinued. And if I extrapolate that to the 3/Y, a new purchase.

Given my desire for a midsize family sedan, it makes it feel like BMW i4 or Porsche Taycan just won me over in the future.

Re: Tesla ending Models S and X production

#40
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk says something absolutely insane on the weekly. Almost none of it actually happens.

That’s just nonsense, of course. Almost everything he says happens. It rarely happens on time.

A few of the things he says will happen, happen. Many of them happen late.

Most of what he says will happen never happens, but people point to the few things that did happen, but were late, and say, "This too will happen."

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