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>What a sensationalist title. Technically correct, yes, but misleading in spirit. Most people will see the title and not read the rest of the article, which results in the sentiment: "the only reason why Tesla is still afloat is because of XYZ." Would you want to invest in a company like that?

I wouldn't invest in Tesla because it's valued at a price/market capitalization worth more than all other car companies combined. This is before we get into the crypto currency hijinks or Elon's market manipulating tweets.

The valuation is insane and not supported by the current or future business.

The party may or may not be over. We'll see. WSJ's sentiment on the company has been so negative for such a long time, that at some point between now and 100 years from now, they might finally be proven right. Once they finally get it, they will be looking back at 100s of billions worth of wrong financial advice that they've signaled with their negative titles.

The point I would drive home here is why trust a paper to give future guidance if their past guidance has been so spectacularly wrong? Again, the brand of the company alone was a strong signal that you never saw people write about.

Tesla isn't special. Tesla and all other growth companies benefited from the macro landscape of the 2010's. Zero interest rates drove capital out of (low) interest bearing treasuries and bonds and into tech. Look at foreign purchases of each over the last 10 years. I don't think we'll see this trend continue into the 2020's.

That's a fair argument. That said, I think it's still worth acknowledging that there are other macro forces out there, and the push for renewable energy is one of the stronger ones. Tesla managed to find itself at the intersection of at least those two strong tailwinds, and even if the zero interest tailwind goes away, the renewable energy one is only going to continue to gain momentum.

> The experience of driving a Tesla is unlike anything else in its price class

True, it’s more akin to driving a prius than a comparably priced german car. Especially when looking at the higher end Tesla models.

> When someone says "I drive a BMW" and someone else says "I drive a Tesla," which one stands out more?

At least in Europe “I drive a Tesla” makes you sound like a taxi driver. It’s just not a cool brand anymore. (Maybe Cybertrucks and Roadsters will change this?)

> True, it’s more akin to driving a prius than a comparably priced german car. Especially when looking at the higher end Tesla models.

I don't know the performance of the Prius you have driven, but a Model 3 is not on the same league with any Prius I've driven, and will leave any similarly priced BMW in the dust, performance-wise.

Performance is good yeah, everything else is comparable to (and often worse than) the prius. From the exterior finish to the horrible plastics all over the interior. Teslas aren’t nice daily drivers.

I love the performance, but it’s hard to enjoy it very much as a weekend car when the batteries can only take a couple of hours of aggressive driving. I had a taycan turbo s for a few months too, it was a blast (much more fun than any Tesla) for a few weeks until I got sick of the consistently disappointing battery life.

You're not the target audience. My wife drives her Tesla to work every day and wouldn't change it for a 10x more expensive car. She also has the performance model, although she would never go above 60mph. She couldn't care less about the interior not meeting your standards, because the interior looks like a spaceship and as far as she's concerned, it's the coolest thing ever. I personally drive an ICE car, but I recognize that I am not the target audience and can tell that the Teslas are resonating with a huge segment of our population.

> She couldn't care less about the interior not meeting your standards, because the interior looks like a spaceship and as far as she's concerned, it's the coolest thing ever

The same could be said about any new car in this segment if you disregard the competition. The Mercedes E-class interior looks like a nice spaceship, Audi and BMW deliver slightly different takes on the same.

What is it about the Tesla that resonates with her? The feel of a fully electric car? If so, can we expect to see Tesla decimated by German EVs coming out in the next couple of years? VWAG is clearly capable of pushing out a very polished product, and Mercedes is getting there too.

We're splitting hairs. You prefer the traditional German interior design, she doesn't and she's not alone.

I’d argue that the new German interior designs are anything but traditional.

New e-class https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Me...

Tesla model 3 https://i.insider.com/5a86ea3ad0307219008b46c1?width=1136&fo...

I think it’s really hard to argue in favor of the Tesla no matter your tastes. Well, unless you are a vegan.

It's important to state which part of Europe you're referring to, because sentiments can be quite different from one country to another. I have family in two European countries, one Western and one Eastern, and in both of those societies Teslas are even more prestigious than in the US because the charger infrastructure is not quite as developed - which means that if you have a Tesla, you likely also have an ICE car for longer trips. As you know, having two cars in Europe is quite unusual, so saying I drive a Tesla carries even more significance than in the US.

In Western Europe (at least Spain, France, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Czechia and even Hungary) Teslas are taxis.

In Eastern Europe they are still significantly less cool than similarly priced ICE cars (at least among the segment of people who can actually afford to buy these cars). Teslas aren’t cheap cars, with the same money you could buy a status symbol used Mercedes G- or S-class that looks far more expensive than it actually is.

The design of the Model 3 doesn’t really make for much of a status symbol, the more expensive Teslas have either been driven for hundreds of thousands of kilometers or are priced almost in line with a decent S-class.

Your second argument, that Tesla is cooler than other car manufacturers, is even more subjective than your first. There can at least be some kind of metrics showing which car drives better.

I know what you mean, but there are ways to estimate the brand value. Eg: In 2020, Coca-Cola's brand was valued at 84 billion U.S. dollars. While I couldn't find any reliable values for Tesla, the same methodology should apply here as well. It just comes to show to what extent the market has a blind spot for what certainly is a huge asset.