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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

What's fishy? I've been following Tesla since 2010 and the main changes since then isn't what appears to be fishy but what the media are making of it.

Do you realize that Tesla sold more cars in the US that Mercedes and BMW this summer? How many media reported that?

Do you know that the most trusted car analysts who tear-down the car said it's expected to be the most profitable car produced in high volume?

Do you know that all data analyses about turnover in top positions at Tesla indicated that they are average? How many reports about such moves (at legacy automakers) make headlines?

They've only increased their coverage of the company and try their best to make every thing more clickbait. It's worked great so far, for sure.

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"We think Tesla is worth zero" -Jim Chanos

You haven't been reading the same news I have. While there were plenty of red flags prior, Musk began digging Tesla's grave in earnest in fall 2016. He Started with the Alien Dreadnought, which was bonkers. He sold shareholders on buying Solar City using fake solar shingles which don't exist, that was $5b+ flushed down the toilet. Also he implemented HW2, which is thousands of dollars of hardware going into every new car regardless of whether customers pay for it. When Solar experts, finance people, Vehicle manufacturing experts and Autonomous vehicle experts get together and compare notes there's only one conclusion to arrive at: Tesla is fucked.

Alien Dreadnought, Solar City, HW2. I call it the ASH doctrine: Musk's 3 point plan to reduce Tesla to ashes. Post chapter 11 Tesla may have a life ahead of it, but it's been a slow motion trainwreck for years. The Shorts, the Media, the Koch brothers, they didn't destroy Tesla. Musk did. He's incompetent, and nuts. It's pretty obvious now, but if you were paying attention, it was obvious before too.

>he implemented HW2, which is thousands of dollars of hardware going into every new car regardless of whether customers pay for it

Seriously? Do you know the take rate of the option? It's been widely considered to increase margin, but if you have other sources, I'm interested.

>He sold shareholders on buying Solar City using fake solar shingles which don't exist, that was $5b+ flushed down the toilet.

That's false. The solar roof thing was accessory to the acquisition. More than a hundred have been installed and are being used as beta tests to improve it further. Since the beginning, Musk said the v1 should be considered like the Roadster 1, i.e not intended to be mass produced until v3 (remember "BlueStar"?)

As for Alien Dreadnought, he did say that wouldn't be possible with Model 3. So OK, that was one failed promise, but the Model 3 production and assembly lines remains one of the most automated one in the industry.

So for this one little think (which is more a name than a project), you conclude that Tesla is fucked. Okay.

>Tesla sold more cars in the US that Mercedes and BMW this summer? How many media reported that?

Please, that was one month of backlog deliveries (July, 16,000 deliveries) and only in the US. 16, Nobody expects that Tesla manufactures 16,000 Model 3's per month.

Meanwhile Mercedes sells 30,000 C-Class Saloon and Estate models per month globally. In the US Mercedes and BMW each keep delivering 12,000 or so vehicles per month in the same category as Tesla models are.

You're right, because August is the month during which Tesla surpassed both BMW and Mercedes. We're in September so how can there be more than a month? Both BMW and Mercedes US car sales are falling hard: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180904005710/en/Mer..., https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180904005748/en/BMW...

Is there something going on with tariffs?

It was well publicized that the President doesn't want people buying Mercedes.

>Nobody expects that Tesla manufactures 16,000 Model 3's per month.

What are you talking about? They are sustainably producing 5000/week now, and have backlog for the next 1.5 years at least.

You know that you are literally falling for all the PR moves tesla made in the last year? The whole tent thing to get the quota up or delaying deliveries so they can ship a lot of cars in one month or the going privat stunt. I don't mind if some little startup wants to pull shit like this but Elon really thinks he can outsmart everyone with stuff like this and it gets annoying real fast.

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