For Musk, IMHO his biggie problem is the US Federal Government. Yup, the Feds.

And how could that be, with the Feds long so nice to Elon? How many billions did the Feds give Elon? Uh, to “save the planet”. I mean, who wants to destroy the planet? Isn’t saving the planet worth it?

But now the Feds are about to tell Elon either “Time to grow up, make your own way.” or “We don’t love you anymore.”. Cruel. SO cruel. How could the Feds be so CRUEL?

So, Elon flies around in, what, I’m guessing here, a private jet screaming “Tesla is saving the world!”.

Some of this is really old stuff. There’s a line in Lawrence of Arabia about newsies: “You want your story told, and I desperately want a story to tell!”.

So, right, just now Bezos is the old news, and Musk is the new news. “And this, too, shall pass.”

Then Elon, like Bezos before him, will be given a black hat, become a media villain, and pass his white hat to the next media hero (or heroine as the case may be).

.
In the land of the blind, the one eyes jack reigns supreme.

Problem is that Mercedes (and others) are not blind.

MB knows the luxury car market, has a bunch of customers, has brand loyalty, has a dealer network, has a maintenance network, has an after market parts following, has an “out of warranty” maintenance network — about to get real for Tesla.

MB can afford to put an “Amazon price margin” war on Tesla. Tesla is fragile financially and has to find a way to absorb meaningful losses until it can become profitable.

Going to be a tough row. Tesla may be the best short on the planet.

Just saying.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

Great points! Yes, he did get really lucky and was smart enough to exploit every bit of edge from any servings of luck. Back in the day pretty much everyone thought Bezos nuts. Now, everyone thinks Musk is a God who can do no wrong. All of the deficit spending by TSLA makes “perfect sense”. TSLA is a tulip bubble and so few can see it. He still may get really lucky and pull it off to profitability, but the odds are that he won’t. Personally, I don’t want a 17″ monitor in my car either. lol. Fad.

> I was overly bearish about Bezos

Maybe not: When Amazon was just a book and CD music store, there was no chance Amazon could be anything like it is now.

Why? Internet data rate! Moore’s Law. Similar drop in the price per GB of disk space.

Did you forget or were you born in this century? Naw, neither: You remember those days when Web sites cut way back on images because the Internet data rate — server side, backbone, last mile — was too darned slow to send lots of pictures.

So, now what does Amazon do? Sure — they send more pictures than Hollywood, Kodak, and Nikon all combined! Secret: Super big growth — explosion really — in Internet data rate. Now I get 60 Mbps download, and JLM down there in TX gets GbE.

And, for Moore’s law, etc., fill that in, too.

When Bezos was just books and CDs, I don’t believe that anyone with big bucks to invest really believed in the current Internet data rates.

Or, really, the current results of Moore’s law: My current computer I plugged together about 10 years ago has a single core, 32 bit processor with a 1.8 GHz clock that sold for $100+. Now can get an 8 core, 64 bit processor with a 4.0 GHz clock for $125. Let’s get the ratio on that (assume my old processor went for $125, too):

(4.0 / 1.8) * (64 / 32 ) * ( 8 / 1 ) * (125 / 125 ) = 35.55

Disk space prices likely fell even more.

Of course, my (64 / 32 ) smell worse than week old fish on the ground in Austin because it really should be something more like

(2^64 / 2^32) = 2^32 = 4,294,967,296

Bezos got really lucky! But he did really well with his luck!

Conversely, OTA updates could create a more personalized car by being able to self-update. In other words, Tesla could use its software to be the ultimate version of BMW’s i-drive. i-drive is meant to allow the owner to customer every part of the car, but it was mostly executed poorly and most people ignored it.

Good point. What just might be gone with the TSLA experience is hanging onto the car for a long time! Humans bond with cars. They are not cell phones.

Also, I think that mainstream consumers want to buy a car from a car company, not a technology company. This feeling occurs in other industries as well. The bias is that a technology company will ignore the core competencies that we take for granted with regular cars such as large network of branded and off-brand repair shops (i.e. dealerships and indies). I am concerned that Tesla’s are built planned obsolescence. I have no evidence to back this up but my only points of comparison are with all of the other software that I use (don’t forget how important OTA updates are for Tesla) that operate with hardware that feels like it is meant to expire (cell phones, laptops, smart watches).

Yes.

Yet, TSLA’s main products are low volume production automobiles that lose a shitload of money. And the technology is still not magical yet either, as the range is still too low and charge times still too high.

Germans are smart as hell and can build things like no other. Yet, they have a storied history of putting out legions of over-priced and under engineered cars with a lot of problems. And they still lead the pack in depreciation and maintenance costs.

Maybe I’m an old fart now, but why the hell out think matters with high priced status cars when the jap 25k class of automobile is pretty much on par with what the Germans offer for 60k. Has anyone seen the 2018 Honda Accord?

Once the world is truly ready to buy electric cars, so that the manufactures can make good money, the “car companies” will pile in and destroy TSLA. Toyota will seek and destroy!

I was overly bearish about Bezos and admit that. But Musk better pull some more (profitable) rabbits out of his magical hat soon, or else.