Tesla were a fantastic company. The original Roadster was a piece of art built to turn heads and disprove naysayers. The Model S was the culmination of so much work to finally produce a roadworthy electric luxury sedan, with the Model X building on that platform for a luxury SUV. The Model 3 took that platform and iterated again, to make what more people wanted, a compact and more affordable sedan, and the Model Y again built on that platform with minor alterations to make the even more desirable hatchback.
Elon, however, has always been the Peter Molyneux of the car world, massively overpromising based on nothing more than whim and speculation (Dancer wrapped in spandex with a fake head mask as the "Tesla Robot" anyone?), and under-delivering when his ideas run into the cold hard truth of reality. Tesla always seemed to have a thick ablative layer of management to come between Elon and the actual running and development of the company, to ensure Elon's press statements and demands get tempered into usable products and services. The same thing happened with SpaceX, with levels of experts and oversight (especially from NASA and the like) making it a lot harder for Elon's flights of fancy to get too outlandish.
The CyberTruck, then, is a Model X skateboard, with a goofy-looking body strapped to it. Elon's insistence on copying the Delorean's striking stainless steel look and scaling it up to a truck-sized chassis is an absolute failure in terms of aesthetic and style, with compromises made at every point to try and fit his laundry list of wants. While the Delorean and Ferrari F40 had an 80's vaporwave aesthetic, the CyberTruck misses the mark and ends up being "Baby's First Low-Poly 3D Truck". The reason S, X, 3 and Y work so well is that they fundamentally look like cars. Pretty much all attempts before them were poorly converted ICE vehicles, or weird looking and unappealing designs that looked little like the cars they were trying to be. Or both.
It appears that Elon's fast takeover of Twitter has shown him he can be in charge and dictate how things go, as they didn't have time to insulate him from the running of the company. And now he's had that taste of absolute power, he is both lashing out at those who denied him it at Tesla, and stripping away all he can to raise money to pay for his current boondoggle.
That Tesla hasn't been working on new revisions of its existing lineup is worrying in and of itself, but canning the new vehicle development team has worrying implications going forward - Whither the New Roadster, and what of the people who put down deposits or even paid up-front for it? Canning the Supercharger team just as NACS is adopted by all carmakers has to be one of the biggest foot-guns so far, and we have heard little about Powerwall and SolarCity developments, if there are any.
Tesla had a great head-start in the market, they innovated and cemented themselves as The EV brand. Then they squandered all that goodwill and allowed their competitors and the sleeping giants that were the Big 3 automakers to wake up and catch up. It is entirely possible we are witnessing Tesla's fall from grace, all at the hands of one man, whose chickens are finally coming home to roost. I hope they can prove me wrong, but I have my doubts.
1 comment:
Perfect blog post, no notes.
I do enjoy that I'm not the only one who uses the term "Elongated Muskrat" to refer to him. I will often shorten it further, removing his actual name, leaving just "Gated Rat".
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