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I_Kauser_I t1_ivfh7ur wrote

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TheCandyManisHere t1_ivft0tx wrote

I mean…he is woefully late and too optimistic about execution more often than not but “no follow through”?

Master plan part 1 is done.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me

Master plan part 2 is halfway there (autonomy still has a looong way to go despite what Musk says):

https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

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I_Kauser_I t1_ivfys3r wrote

Yes. No follow-through

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TheCandyManisHere t1_ivg1flj wrote

Damn good point backed up with quality evidence. Never thought about it that way.

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I_Kauser_I t1_ivg20mo wrote

Affordable EV commuter vehicles

Affordable EV tractors

Mainstream solar

Neuralink

Mars mission?

Commercialized robotics?

Basically all of Tesla's mini projects.

Tesla would generate 20x the return to shareholders if it split off all of these projects into their own standalone publicly traded companies, while Musk and Tesla bag holders retain equity in the spin-offs. It would also allow for these projects to be under more scrutiny from shareholders with more precise deadlines to reach. As it stands right now, Musk is just using shareholders wealth for his own fantasy projects.

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TheCandyManisHere t1_ivg8798 wrote

Sincerely appreciate the response. Your conclusion raises some interesting points. I hadn't thought of that...an interesting proposal but I'm not sure it would actually create more value at this point.

Specific responses to your response below:

> Affordable EV commuter vehicles

This definitely hasn't moved as fast as anyone would have liked. But year-over-year vehicle ASP (average sales price) has decreased significantly year over year. Keep in mind that building a manufacturing juggernaut that an auto manufacturer has to be to scale down costs to build affordable cars is extremely difficult and takes an incredibly long time...especially with COVID supply chain issues. Case-in-point, all vehicle prices have gone up over the past two years...and let's not forget that before Tesla came on the scene, there were virtually no EVs.

Now that Tesla arrived and took the market by storm, you're seeing a lot of great low-cost options from other companies. Not saying that Tesla should take the credit of other companies' hard work but it should be recognized that often times costs come down when competition gets spurred by the OG. Same thing happened in the smartphone market with Apple.

Also, how long did other auto companies take to get to mass manufacturing cheap vehicles with relatively new tech? Guarantee it has been more than 20 years (approx. the same time length that Tesla has been manufacturing cars).

> Affordable EV tractors

Do you mean EV semis? Tesla has never mentioned tractors lol. First batch of EV semis will be delivered to PepsiCo in December.

> Mainstream solar

Tesla, at least in California, by far offers the cheapest rooftop solar installation service at ~$2.25 per watt before incentives. I'd be willing to bet this is the case across the US. Their customer service needs (a lot of) improvement though...

> Neuralink

Not associated with Tesla. But they did just get started.

> Mars mission

Same here.

> Commercialized robotics

This program is...what...1 year old? Pretty impressive how far they've come.

Back to Master plan part 1 and 2 that has been delivered on: Build sports car, build high-end consumer car and scale, build high-end SUV and scale, build premium mass market car and scale, build premium SUV mass market car and scale, scale rooftop solar.

Next up is cybertruck and Semi. If you've been truly following what they're doing you'll know that cybertruck is in production in '23. Super delayed for sure, but still headed towards production. Semi is being delivered in a few weeks.

As for the return to shareholders, given the stock's meteoric rise, I'm not sure what Musk needs to do. Do we know how many "bagholders" there are vs. % of those who held the stock before its rise in 2020?

The only project you listed that's actually considered a side project and not part of Tesla's core mission is the humanoid robots. The rest are considered Musk's separate startups. And if he's right on robots, then it makes sense to leverage Tesla's burgeoning AI chops to build out that technology and commercialize it as this article suggests.

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wgp3 t1_ivg7wsh wrote

They have a vehicle that costs the average price of a new car. That was their goal with the model 3 when it released for 35k. Now the average new car price is 48k and a model 3 is 47.5k. The model 3 also sells hundreds of thousands per year and keeps increasing. They achieved their goal of an affordable mass produced car. So they followed through.

By tractor I assume you mean semi truck? Pepsi is taking deliveries in a few weeks. No one said anything about affordable since these are commercial products. So they followed through.

Solar is probably one of teslas least great offerings. But they have been providing solar roofs to people so again they achieved their goal. So they followed through.

Neuralink hasn't promised anything other than to continue to do research so there's nothing to have not followed through with.

Mars mission? Back in 2010 musk said it would take 10 to 20 years before they could send cargo to mars. We still have 7 years to see how that goes. As for spacex, since then here's a list of things they followed through on: reusable rockets, resupply missions to the ISS, carrying humans to the ISS, launch weekly, building falcon heavy (which nasa administrator Bolden called a paper rocket vs their real sls. Yet falcon heavy has been launching for 4 years and sls not once despite starting development first), private customer spaceflight, and they're currently working on that Mars rocket. So yeah I'd say that's a follow through.

Commercialized robotics is a relatively new thing they've started so can't say they haven't followed through yet. It'll take time. Could go like falcon 9 or could be like full self driving (which tesla has not followed through on).

Most of teslas mini projects have been followed through on. Solar? Yep. Battery storage? Yep. Supercharger network? Yep. Full self driving is really the only thing they haven't followed through on and has had enough time to say they haven't done so.

You say tesla would generate 20x to shareholders if they split all these projects yet neuralink and Mars missions aren't part of tesla. The rest of the things make sense to stay under tesla and not be separate entities.

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