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yaseer

What makes you say the brand is in crisis?

Asking because I am curious to see this take, not to dispute it.

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Because Tesla is a brand that relied entirely on the CEO for PR/Marketing.

And it's indisputable that Twitter is in serious trouble.

By Musk's own admission the company is worth less than half what he paid for it. Revenue has plummeted, toxicity is rampant, lawsuits are increasing and Twitter Blue has been a disaster that will likely be researched for years.

And so all of this chaos has dragged Musk's reputation down which in turn is affecting Tesla.

To add to the comments already made - IMO it's because the customer base is generally left leaning environmentally aware types, and Musk's public behaviour recently is not well aligned with that. Electric cars are still not fully mainstream, but there are many more options from other manufacturers now. He's basically alienated a lot of the consumers that were "brand champions".

So what I have seen him say and do seems genuine and I don’t really think this is happening, but what if the environmentally aware types market is saturated and he is trying to push the brand into a new demographic— pickup truck buyers, I suppose, and interestingly they have a pickup truck planned as well…

That's an interesting take on the situation. I find it hard to believe though - for one thing it would be a huge risk to reorientate your brand like that, and also the designs for their pickups are not exactly conservative. (Incidentally I have a pre-order for the cybertruck - it was only 100EUR, and refundable, so kind of a casual decision. No news on when they will be available still though!).

It depends on whether it impacts “repeat purchases” or “first time test drives”. I could see the political stuff impacting the latter significantly more than the former, assuming the product is good. But again I don’t think it’s actually happening, it would be too Machiavellian for reality.

I think it will impact both - surely a lot of the potential repeat purchases are from people that had ethical motivations to buy an electric car - they probably wont give up on electric, but there are a number of good alternative options now on the market.

I think it basically boils down to whether the political stuff can cause a significant portion of the existing user base to start boycotting the brand. That sounds kind of extreme given the situation but I am not completely in touch with mainstream media driven perception.

Most competent businesspeople can manage to expand their offerings into other markets without alienating the existing ones. Emphasis on "competent."

If hubris were to creep up on anyone, I'd say the richest man on Earth is a good candidate for it.

Formerly richest man.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/12/elon-musk-is-no-longer-the-r...

/pedant

I think you are assuming the hubris arrived only recently...

No, no, I'm merely being pedantic and correcting your inaccurate characterization of him.

I have no doubt that hubris is a longstanding character defect in his case.

There were people claiming his Twitter fiasco is part of some "5D chess" plan, and the only plan I've been able to identify that could make his behaviour somewhat rational, is this all being part of a big gambit where he alienates liberals to the point that conservatives start to love him so much that they will buy his electric cars out of team loyalty.

It sounds like a very long shot, though.

Tesla has two problems right now: fewer cars sold despite price cuts and quality issues are finally reaching courts which may also affect their brand image.

Is this a crisis? Too early to say, but nevertheless this all happend while competitors are catching up and latest offerings from German manufacturers looks very promising. There is a very real chance Tesla can loose the luxury EV segment.

I don't know. I have a 2014 Model S that I'd like to replace. The list of EVs that are actually _available now_ at list price as opposed to an order/wait list or an upcharge over list from dealer is pretty small (another Tesla, Chevy Bolt, Porsche Tacan/Audi eTron GT).

I agree there will soon be more choices, but that's going to be a problem in 2 years, especially in the luxury segment.

Hyundai Ioniq?

That is a really small selection.

This year everyone from Mini to Royce Rolls are selling EVs. Some such as BMW and Polestar are on their 3rd generation.

I don't think Tesla is necessarily in crisis, but Musk's behaviour definitely has some impact on the trust people have in his company. It's still a big car brand obviously, but to a lot of people, Tesla isn't as cool anymore. Backpedaling on promises isn't going to help.

Well it’s that + they’ve never had a big exterior design overhaul for their vehicles. So they’ve been pretty much selling the same cars for 10 years now.

Eventually it gets old when everyone has the same looking car.

To be perfectly honest, I think most cars these days look the same. It seems like there's only a handful of designs that most car makers tend to stick to, with only minor variations.

Was going to say this too. Compared to 40 years ago, car designs are not very diverse. I suppose because there is an optimal aerodynamic shape for each class of car, and we are converging on that.

Hyundai and Rivian both have really interesting and atypical design. There are also some very interesting designs in the microcar segment where aerodynamics don't matter as much.

That's true. The Ioniq for example looks so different in each iteration.

I agree in general, but what about the cybertruck? Probably the most radical design of a production car in a long time.

This is true, but have any buyers taken delivery? Do they know when they'll be able to?

Right, there has been no production yet. Last I heard they will start shipping Q3 this year (but I doubt it).

Which is good environmentally - cheaper to produce, less bugs, cheaper maintenance.

I was talking to a friend this weekend who just bought a Tesla. He really didn’t want to if he could find an alternative, purely because of Musk and Twitter.

Seems like a brand in crisis to me.

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