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Zorral
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Other good news for Musk - on trial for lying in tweets and intentionally misleading investors:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/musk-on-trial-for-funding-secured-tweet-experts-predict-hes-going-to-lose/
 

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The class-action lawsuit alleges Musk harmed investors with this tweet from August 7, 2018: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." Additional statements by Musk and Tesla reinforced the false impression given by Musk's going-private claim, the lead plaintiff says.

"As a result of the turmoil in the prices for Tesla stock, options, and bonds caused by Musk and Tesla's statements, investors lost billions of dollars from August 7, 2018 to August 17, 2018," lead plaintiff Glen Littleton's trial brief in October said. "These damages include losses resulting from the effect on the prices of Tesla securities immediately following the August 7, 2018 tweets, that was then corrected from August 8, 2018 to August 17, 2018 as the falsity of the tweets was realized by investors... Absent Musk and Tesla's fraudulent statements, these losses would not have been suffered by Tesla investors."

 

 

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3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Tesla Cuts Prices Sharply as It Moves to Bolster Demand
The price reductions in the United States will make more of the company’s electric vehicles eligible for a federal tax credit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/business/tesla-price-cut.html?

 

So, you're saying they have trouble selling cars without the tax credit? Fascinating. 

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19 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

So, you're saying they have trouble selling cars without the tax credit? Fascinating. 

The quality gap between Tesla and non-Tesla EVs is much narrower than it was 3-5 years ago.  And while Tesla/ Must often talked about making EVs gradually cheaper so they can be for the masses, they have made no progress on that since the Model 3 came out in late 2017.  Model 3s have gone up in price since then, and all of the new vehicles are more expensive than that. This really shouldn't shock anybody, but if your cheapest vehicle starts at 44k, the vast majority of people aren't going to be buying your brand. 

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1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

The quality gap between Tesla and non-Tesla EVs is much narrower than it was 3-5 years ago.

I'd say it's non-existent. Tesla might still have a few tricks up their sleeve when it comes to electric powertrains (maybe), but I promise you there's nothing Elon can teach any of the automotive OEM's about building a car. Consumer Reports bears this out. 

Also, has no one ever heard of "benchmarking"? It's a practice that's as old as product development itself. You buy your competitors product, you test it, you beat the crap out of it, you strip it down, you weigh everything, etc. When Ford of Europe was thinking about building a Mini Copper competitor in the 1960's they were able to confidently determine that BMC was losing something like £30 on every car. This is math and those guys are very good at it. 

'Point is, no one has an edge for long in this business.

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And while Tesla/ Must often talked about making EVs gradually cheaper so they can be for the masses, they have made no progress on that since the Model 3 came out in late 2017.  Model 3s have gone up in price since then, and all of the new vehicles are more expensive than that.

The thing is that the single biggest way to reduce the cost of an EV is to go after the biggest value-added components. That's the powertrain and the battery. And anything Tesla does there will not be exclusive to Tesla. So they can't gain any advantage there.

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This really shouldn't shock anybody, but if your cheapest vehicle starts at 44k, the vast majority of people aren't going to be buying your brand. 

I fairness, they don't need "the vast majority of people" to buy their cars. Not yet anyway. Tesla is actually still a pretty small car company in terms of volume and there are plenty of companies that do good business selling low-volume, premium cars. That doesn't justify Tesla's valuation though. 

The biggest catastrophe for them IMO was that they let Ford and GMC hit the market with electric pick up trucks first. Trucks tends to be very high content, high margin vehicles and they are extremely popular in North America. It's also an extremely competitive market with very rapid model turnover. By the time the Cyber Truck hits the market Ford might already be working on their 3rd generation F-150 lighting.

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3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

So, you're saying they have trouble selling cars without the tax credit? Fascinating. 

>I< say nothing -- I merely quote those who do say!  :ph34r:

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4 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

So, you're saying they have trouble selling cars without the tax credit? Fascinating. 

Tesla hadn't qualified for the previous $7500 US tax credit since early 2020 having exhausted their allocation.

This move makes them incredibly cheap as oppposed to 6 months ago. The other manufacturers will certainly have to respond, though ones without a North American manufacturing base right now will really struggle as they won't comply with the IRAs (still a stupid acronym) requirements for the tax credit (notably the Korean brands).

Still a bit of a price war can only be a good thing for people wanting an EV.

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18 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

Tesla hadn't qualified for the previous $7500 US tax credit since early 2020 having exhausted their allocation.

This move makes them incredibly cheap as oppposed to 6 months ago. The other manufacturers will certainly have to respond, though ones without a North American manufacturing base right now will really struggle as they won't comply with the IRAs (still a stupid acronym) requirements for the tax credit (notably the Korean brands).

Still a bit of a price war can only be a good thing for people wanting an EV.

Why? It seems to me that Tesla is dealing with excess inventory and an overstuffed pipeline. OTOH, F-150 Lightining has waiting lists. No way they're cutting prices on that. 

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4 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Why? It seems to me that Tesla is dealing with excess inventory and an overstuffed pipeline. OTOH, F-150 Lightining has waiting lists. No way they're cutting prices on that. 

I'd imagine the people cross shopping an F150 and Model Y are so tiny as to be insignificant.

But people cross shopping say an EV6, Ioniq 5 (neither are now eligible for the credit), Mach E etc.

If I were sitting on a waitlist for one of those and I could get a cheaper Model Y which has actual availibility, is larger, more range for the spec, vertically integrated charging network, far better app / OTA support. Would be hard to go past despite Elon's antics. I would be surprised if there isn't a lot of cancellations on this news.

People were cross shopping those options when the Model Y was literally $20k more expensive a couple months ago. Sure Elon has done his best to destoy his branding, but that's a lot of money to anyone.

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On 1/10/2023 at 3:34 PM, JGP said:

 

That is just, so god damned funny to me. And I wonder how many will actually consider signing it. Elon might be trying to change the narrative like he did at Tesla when he finagled in the Founder title.

As a severance agreement lol

Got to wonder if the terms on the monetary part of the proposed transaction were more generous than anticipated.  

I can't tell you how much this pisses me off. 

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1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Is that because you signed the agreement?

I don't work for twitter.

I'm pissed off that these people are forced to fight for what their entitled to. I'm pissed off that billionaire douchbags can be so nakedly authoritarian. A lifetime agreement to never say anything bad about someone? Is he fucking serious? Who the hell does that? 

The thing is, they know that an agreement like this is impossible to enforce. But they also know that, for anyone who signs it, they can make their lives hell because they can litigate them to death. 

Unbelievable. I hope they sue the ever loving shit out of them. 

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7 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I'm pissed off that these people are forced to fight for what their entitled to. I'm pissed off that billionaire douchbags can be so nakedly authoritarian. A lifetime agreement to never say anything bad about someone? Is he fucking serious? Who the hell does that? 

Using NDAs to silence whistleblowers and keep harassment and other bad behaviours secret is commonplace. Even when legally doubtful they are often still effective in scaring people into compliance. Musk is merely ramping things up a notch here.

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On 1/12/2023 at 8:27 AM, Spockydog said:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....

Elon Musk breaks world record for largest loss of personal fortune in history

Elon Musk has broken the world record for the largest loss of personal fortune in history, according to a Guinness World Records report.

The tech billionaire has lost approximately $182bn (£150bn) since November 2021, although other sources suggest that it could actually be closer to $200bn, the report said.

Eh.  That's a nothing burger entirely.  How many people who are on the largest loss of personal fortune list, if there was such a thing before Musk became an insurrectionist reactionary, weren't already in the top 10 to 50 or so total net worth list?  Or put another way, how many people in the last 50 years ever had more than 200b at any point.  

We're not saying Musk is bankrupt, right?  That would be a story at least.

With great net worth comes great fluctuations.

 

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Extremely Hardcore Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the platform against impulsive ranting billionaires — then one made himself the CEO.

 “At least 50% of my tweets were made on a porcelain throne,” he tweeted one evening in late 2021. “It gives me solace.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/elon-musk-twitter-takeover.html

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... Two days after the January 6 insurrection, the platform banned Trump; the company had seen the toll of unfettered speech and decided it wasn’t worth it.

This was the Twitter that irked Elon Musk so much that he became convinced he had to buy it. In his view, by 2022 the company had been corrupted — beholden to the whims of governments and the liberal media elite. It shadow-banned conservatives, suppressed legitimate discourse about COVID, and selectively kicked elected officials off the platform. Who better to restore Twitter to its former glory than its wealthiest poster?

Like Trump, Musk knew how to use Twitter to make himself the center of the conversation. His incessant, irreverent tweeting violated every norm of corporate America, endearing his fans, pissing off his haters, and making him the second-most-followed active account on the site. “At least 50% of my tweets were made on a porcelain throne,” he tweeted one evening in late 2021. “It gives me solace.”

 

Basically what we all know; a round-up of what went down among those who worked at twitter after it was learned bullet dumdum was aimed at them, until now when attrition from bullet dumdum is, what? 75%?  

Edited by Zorral
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https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/01/elon-musk-supergenius-improves-appeal-of-tesla-brand-among-people-who-will-never-buy-an-electric-car

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ELON MUSK, SUPERGENIUS, IMPROVES APPEAL OF TESLA BRAND AMONG PEOPLE WHO WILL NEVER BUY AN ELECTRIC CAR

Elon’s crusade to bring more Nazis and anti-vaxxers to Twitter is helping him with some people, although the bad news for him is than very few of them are potential customers for his core product:

Elon Musk’s recent takeover of Twitter Inc. has spurred a more favorable view among Republicans of his other companies, including Tesla Inc. But according to an analysis of Morning Consult’s Taking the Temperature data, conservative backing for the infamous chief executive’s brands has not been enough to drive an increase in purchasing consideration of electric vehicles in the short or long term.

[…]

Though Republicans were more likely to consider purchasing an EV within the next 10 years than in 12 months, the share of the former (34%) remained unchanged from December 2021 to December 2022. Meanwhile, the likelihood of purchasing a gas-powered vehicle within the same time frame fell 5 percentage points year over year.

 I hope that interest in electric cars will not only continue to climb among Democrats but migrate to real auto manufacturers.

 

 

 


 

Edited by Zorral
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I have noted a slight shift among conservatives regarding EV's. The more rational ones concede that EV's are fine in urban areas, including short haul delivery routes. However, this is usually followed with some variant of 'well, they're not true Americans anyhow.'

 

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