Elon Musk’s reputation is falling — and it’s taking Tesla with it

Well . . . yeah

Points out the obvious

Journalism.
- That has literally always been journalism. Finding the obvious and talking about it is how details are given. And sometimes, in the course of talking about obvious things, small details are discovered that help make the obvious more predictable. Talking about the obvious shit is how things get done.

I think another issue is that Tesla isn't seen as an innovator in the EV market or even the automotive industry as a whole anymore. There's also the production quality issues. Musk doesn't seem to be spending enough attention on solving even these issues over the years.

If the Tesla Semi-Trucks fail (and I think that they probably will fail after the initial orders are met) Tesla is going to have a serious problem if Musk remains at the helm and at least the big investors are probably thinking the same thing. It'll just be another Cybertruck fiasco.

I suppose it could also be argued that Musk tends to say things that may alienate his demographic while embracing those that are more likely to want to drive rolling coal modded trucks but I think that's just a smaller piece to the bigger problem. Another piece is probably that people are starting to see that he isn't some genius.

tldr;
The big problem, I think, is that people just don't trust Tesla and they don't want to pay a premium for shit quality EVs that have nothing to really write home about versus the competition and Musk just doesn't seem to be trying to put a lot of energy into solving that.

You're paying Mercedes prices for Lada tier QA.

And with every brand in Europe and Asia now having quality EV models going the whole spectrum of sizes, Teslas just don't compete by anything other than its name anymore. And with better long term respected brands being available as EVs and Musk taking Teslas reputation down with him, only die hard Musk simps will still buy Tesla.
- I'll soon be in the market for an EV, and I wish what you're saying we're true.
  
  Other brands are more expensive, and their base price can barely compete with a tesla, but their options pricing is ridiculous.
  
  There's LOTS of teslas where I live because it's the best bang for your buck right now as far as EV comes.
  
  I dislike Musk as much as anyone else around here, but the companies he fronts have met lots of success, I guess because there are lots of very competent people actually running them (i.e. Gwynne Shotwell for SpaceX)
If I want to buy an EV that might have reliability and QC issues Ill buy a chinese one for 1/3 of the price.
- Look up "tofu dregs" and see what issues Chinese EVs are having. I wouldn't wanna park near one.
- From what I hear, the Chinese now build EV cars with far fewer QC issues than Tesla...
They certainly have plenty of lofty ambitions but have spectacularly failed to deliver on any of them ever since the Model Y launch. It's fair to assume that a lot of that is due to the CEO piddling away his time in idiotic culture wars rather than do his actual job. Having said that, I think at this point Musk's brain has completely turned to mush from all the drugs, so even if he tried, he wouldn't be much use.
- I don’t think it’s the drugs. I don’t think they help, but I know intelligent and wise drug users. I think the problem is much more social. He wasn’t good at people before becoming rich and became so wealthy he doesn’t need to if he shuts up, but he like most members of our species does have a psychological need to be liked by others, add in social media addiction and confirmation bias and you’ve got him going the way of notch.
Almoat every car maker out there makes constant changes to their products, releasing new editions or overhauls of existing cars year over year. Some smaller car companies, like luxury or hyper car makers, may take a few years between new models. Tesla is the only car company that is using the same hardware and designs from over a decade ago. Phones have evolved more than Tesla designs, and that shit hasn't significantly changed since touchscreens emerged.

And that's just their cars. Electrical systems like solar tiles and on-site battery systems are the same as when they were released, with the exception of Power Wall getting a lateral update between Power wall 2 and 3.

Tesla is devoid of innovation and has given up on QA to sell as much as they can before the company is considered obsolete and irrelevant.
Most people are tribal, and some don't want to be associated with an overgrown 15 year old edgelord Nazi.

He might've been able to get away with the behavior 10 years ago when Tesla ruled the EV market. Now they have growing competition with better build quality and (subjectively) better styling.

Damn that rivian looks nice.
- Yeah I think the front end is a little goofy, a bit too 90s Macintosh. The back end is a work of boxy art. It's giving MkII GTi and every EV company should be bringing back 70s, 80s, and 90s glory like this.

I know an ex-tesla engineer, they said to never buy one, and they bought a BMW themselves

I wouldn't buy a BMW either.
- Do you have to take lessons on how to park like an asshole before you're allowed to drive one?
- Yeah that's fair, but I guess their willingness to go with a finiky German car over a Tesla was an interesting indicator of just how much they didn't think of the Tesla
I know that same ex Tesla engineer he said that the Earth is flat too
- Cant be the same person, my friend isnt an idiot, but good luck to your intellectually challenged acquaintance
Eh. The car is actually really really good. Probably the most solid (all around) EV out there.

The problem is Elon. Surround yourself with good people and this is what happens.
- I would pay to watch you have this conversation with the Tesla Engineer in question.

Tesla used to be my dream car.

Now I wouldn't drive one even if it was given for free.

I'd drive one for free, but I'd have to put a bunch of lefty bumper stickers on to make it clear I don't support Musk.

Thanks Internet Explorer. We realized this about the same time he started nuking Twitter. Nobody wants to be associated with a megalomaniac besides aspiring ones.

Hey now, as an aspiring megalomaniac even I don't want to be associated with him.

I was EV shopping five years ago and I chose not to buy a Tesla because the company was too new, wanted to go with a more established company. Now I wouldn't buy one because of him. So as far as this individual potential consumer goes, yep.

Tesla used to be a status symbol now it's just a joke. I wouldn't be caught dead in one.

It's still a status symbol, it's the meaning of that symbol that's changed. Used to be cool, now it means you support a man-child that dead names his own trans kid.
- Yeah, but also support green (ish) transportation. The intersection of people who believe in global warming and are anti LGBTQ+ rights is a small ass market for Tesla.

Hey, I love having my priors confirmed as much as the next guy but there's plenty of reasons why Tesla Sales have slowed more than expected last month

Elon's conduct might have had something to do with it but, unless sentiment towards him has changed drastically in the last month, since that's when we saw fewer sales than unusual, it doesn't seem likely that consumer sentiment had a lot to do with this

Consumer behavior is complicated and most people who aren't very online (ie. Most people) aren't constantly consuming Elon Musk rage bait and so don't care much

This and all the other articles like it are ignoring those two facts because it Feels True™️ and they know Elon Musk rage bait gets clicks

I'm not following this stuff too closely but didn't some other manufacturer just come out with electric sales numbers that are way better?
- They're being outsold by at least one of the Chinese companies now. Ford has a lot of those mustang abominations that they're going to have to dump soon since they haven't been able to sell them, so they may overtake them for a quarter when that happens.
  
  Edit: BYD is the Chinese company, who actually have a higher market cap than Tesla now as well (590b vs. 527b).
Absolutely. I think a big factor in the drop of demand last quarter was the end of the full $7,500 tax credit.

Since August last year there has been this doom and gloom coverage of electric car sales in the media. That may be making potential buyers get concerned about purchasing an EV at this moment. Self fulfilling prophecy.

Elon’s behavior is definitely playing a role as well. I think that at the end of the day he is just trying to cater to conservatives to expand the consumer base. But the plan is backfiring by alienating progressives and not converting conservatives into consumers.
There are plenty of external factors but Musk's behavior certainly plays a part. The target audience of EVs (at least in the West) ist still predominately "liberal" (whatever that means) people who will not be very impressed by his amplifying some of the most vile people on earth.
- First sentence of the second paragraph conceded that but it's hard to measure in isolation and, I suspect, being given a higher weight of importance in our mind because it confirms our priors
I agree, tsla fandom was never really tied to musk. Not a real.fan of his, and still suprised the rest of the world let one man have that much power over it.

I reason that some of the delays and plant closing have more to do with it. Plus viable options didn't help either

I mean we all know that car company CEOs are assholes so why, as a liberal, buy a car from a CEO who's an asshole among with being a openly racist, openly white supremacist, openly conspirator theorist and whose tech isn't cutting edge anymore?

Is this surprising? Aren’t the fundamentals for the stock completely insane? Asking as a layman who isn’t much of an investor to begin with.

They're not insane, just speculative. Tesla has a lot of potentially very lucrative new technologies in development, that could completely disrupt a lot of markets if brought to fruition. For instance, if they actually crack full self driving, today's valuation will look very conservative. But those are all big ifs, so it depends on how much you believe any of that stuff will actually happen. And Musk's behavior has certainly not inspired confidence in recent years.
- I'll be highly suspect of self driving for anything but say rural highways for a very long time even under the best of circumstances.
  
  Given Musk's disastrous takeover of Twitter which highlighted how little impulse control or forethought he has, I'd sooner eat my own stool than get in one of his self driving cars. Even if Tesla engineers delivered a viable product I have no doubt musk would somehow fundamentally fuck it up before releasing it to market
- I'm not convinced the guy who repeatedly lied about full self driving and recently said "lol LIDAR is useless" without expanding on why, save for trying to peddle some AI bullshit along the way, is to be trusted.

They are using present tense...they should be using past tense

He used to. He still does, but he used to, too.

Good

Good. Maybe he'll take his toys and go to Mars.

Dude used to hold near-hero status on my head, for years. He was saving us from ourselves while delivering humanity access to the solar system. I was living at the cutting edge of history, and we were on the path to making things right.

Then he ruined it. That motherfucker used all that goodwill to scam us. Fuck him. He literally cannot go any lower in my eyes. No revelation is gonna shock me now.

We will do it ourselves. With unions and socialism.

It's the Hummer of the 20s.