To clarify they’ve said each step was impossible and that Musk was basically a fraud or a liar and each step has been executed so far.
I place the people predicting failure with those predicting a stock market crash - given a long enough time horizon you’ll eventually be right, but otherwise it seems to have mostly been nonsense so far. I suspect people outside Tesla are either just bad at predicting their ability to execute or have other reasons to want them to fail.
>To clarify they’ve said each step was impossible and that Musk was basically a fraud or a liar and each step has been executed so far.
This is a nonsense narrative that some people tell themselves to justify hanging on for dear life.
Sure, there was some skepticism about EVs, but it was mainly around whether there was demand and whether they could be built profitably at that level of demand. Who Killed The Electric Car? came out in 2006 and the entire premise was the feasibility of EVs.
So what has Tesla done? They've demonstrated that EVs can work, and that there is some demand there. They've burned through almost $20BB in subsidies and shareholder equity to get there. They are certainly not near profitability. In fact, they are changing their entire business model as of a week ago, apparently. Why, if they've proven that EVs can be so successful?
It's hilarious that the fanatics claim to think "long term", but then in the same breath claim Tesla has has nothing to fear because they haven't gone bankrupt yet, therefore they never will. Enron was the 7th biggest company in the US at one point, and won multiple awards for The Best Company to Work For. It doubled revenues between 1999 and 2000, and was set to do it again in 2001. Then it disappeared. "Nothing to fear!" right until the end...
>given a long enough time horizon you’ll eventually be right, but otherwise it seems to have mostly been nonsense so far.
By what metric? Most owners haven't owned the car for a year yet. If you bought the stock in the past 5 years, you're underwater. Do you consider that some ridiculous time frame for an investor or business? I certainly don't.
I'm not sure what to tell you, basically nothing you've said is true.
There wasn't 'some skepticism' about EVs, very few took them seriously back then.
During the roadster the main narrative was it couldn't be done and if they could do it nobody would buy them.
For the Model S there were constant reports of Tesla not having the money to build them etc. the same thing was said repeatedly about the Model 3 (they would never be able to manufacture enough, they didn't have the money, they were going to fail).
Tesla pulled EVs from the future to now in spite of it being a very hard market to enter with massive up front costs. Along the way they also built out a charging network and made huge improvements in car software and getting rid of the dealership model.
The next shift is autonomous driving and the pivot to it is because any car without the tech when it happens will have negative value.
I'm not claiming that there's nothing to fear because they haven't gone bankrupt yet, they could still fail - but you're not arguing in good faith and people have been saying the same thing for years even though Tesla has proved them wrong at each previous stage.
I place the people predicting failure with those predicting a stock market crash - given a long enough time horizon you’ll eventually be right, but otherwise it seems to have mostly been nonsense so far. I suspect people outside Tesla are either just bad at predicting their ability to execute or have other reasons to want them to fail.