I don’t think he ever had it. In fact automobiles seem to draw a lot of lost souls. Uber, Lyft and Tesla have spent millions and never made a profit . Are the owners of those corporations planning on running for the White House?
Amazon had years of losses prior to becoming one of the largest, most successful companies in the world.
Then there is Malcom Bricklin and John Delorean
Malcolm bricklin did very well. He founded Subaru of America. Delorean was an arrogant know it all going back to his days at Packard.
Personally, I think Elon Musk should focus more on Space X . . . and less on Tesla
Middle aged man appearing a little foolish about the sex topic? I think most of us went through that phase, thankfully we had no tweeting capability to make it worse. And not under so much public scrutiny as Musk gets.
I accidentally met him one time. I didn’t know who it was at the time, but he was standing next to one of those early Tesla roadsters parked along the road as I was walking by, and I asked if I could see the engine compartment. He said there was nothing to see but batteries, so I said nice-car, g’day & left it at that.
Yugo the rise and fall of the worst car in history by Jason Vuic gos into Bricklin’s whole career selling cars, including Subaru and the Bricklin. The first Subaru’s were very similar to the VW bug and were chosen because at under 1,000lbs they diidn’t need to pass crash standards at the time.
Maybe that’s why they have that horizontally opposed engine, similar to the configuration of the air cooled Beetle.
Tesla made a profit for 4 quarters in a row.
I think Musk is nuts, but he’s started something cool in Tesla, not to mention SpaceX. I think, however, Tesla would be much better off if someone would duct tape his mouth shut and ban him from Twitter.
And then he sold it to make the Bricklin SV-1, which busted the company because it sucked. Then he decided to import Fiats, and lost a fortune because they sucked. Then he founded the American branch of Yugo, and ended up losing his shirt because Yugos sucked. Only he didn’t lose personally because he tends to spend other people’s money on his bad business ventures. Guy’s a scam artist.
That’s true but I wonder how many years it will take to see a ROI. He’s blazing a trail for sure. That’s costly to the one in front burning all the calories hacking down dense brush. The ones following have it easy by comparison. I don’t believe he will ever see a positive ROI on that business…
Just last week, I finally saw one of those early Tesla roadsters–which was actually a Lotus with batteries and electric motor substituting for the original engine and transmission. It was parked in a municipal parking lot in downtown Princeton, was in immaculate condition, and looked like it had just rolled out of the showroom. I wish that I had been able to chat with the owner, but the little electric blue Tesla was gone by the time that I returned to my car.
His intent was not to make a profit. His intent was to make a vehicle that made people regard electric cars as viable, desirable transportation and spark further EV development in the auto industry. And with Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, VW, Jaguar, BMW, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai/Kia, and others either already selling EVs or about to start, I’d say his ROI is stellar.
watched a video on tesla/china. they really like EV cars in the big cities. the govt is forcing owners to switch to EV cars. huge license fees for new gas cars. too bad musk is so erratic. will china have 100’s of new coal power plants to feed them?
Eccentric, not erratic. Rich people get a special title for acting in a way we don’t understand.
I’m not sure he’s eccentric, but maybe a jokester. Sometimes the jokes backfire, like the SEC debacle. Another jokester is Al Gore. He is apparently known in private life as a very funny guy. He never seemed that way to me in public. BTW, this has nothing to do with politics, so don’t go there. It’s just a comment about someone’s real personality.
Yup!
The exact same behaviors that are described as “eccentric” when exhibited by a wealthy person would earn the label of “crazy” if a poor or middle-class person acted in the same way.
@Cavell The Chinese are very worried about urban air pollution, and electric cars largely solve the bad air problem. Since most of China’s electricity comes from coal, the amount of carbon reduction by going electric is minimal. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, not a pollutant.
The side benefit is rapid technology development of electric cars and a potential for major exports.
Their rapid development in solar energy is also focused on producing reliable products that will also meet export quality standards.
Where I live most electricity comes from coal and we have many well heeled and misguided greens who think they are reducing CO2 by buying those expensive electric cars.
I personally like the lack of noise from those vehicles.
I’m not sure if that classifies as losing it. It certainly is tone-deaf. I’m not famous, but if I were, I think I’d have a “public” account for the bland or promotional posts/tweets and a pretty restricted private account meant for my trustworthy friends that I “might” post those kind of messages.
I just don’t get why some business owners/executives take more care about posting stuff. With this particular message, I don’t see how it benefits his reputation or business more than the potential pitfalls.
I believe it was inevitable. The time is right. Electric cars are not a recent invention. He may have led this pack but the rest would be doing it now even if he never did. Nice to have altruistic goals but he’s tanked a lot of other people’s money along with it. As a business venture, it’s a complete failure so far…