I criticize Elon often and harshly, but putting off a low cost car might be the rational and realistic part of this set of decisions: The opportunity cost of cybertruck and other side quests Tesla has been on make doing a low-cost car something that should have been started 4 years ago, using the money that's been spent on a second rate robot or a semi truck that's good for hauling potato chips.
Agreed, and it shows that planning that takes into account project risk is very valuable. While Apple was spending what probably amounts to tens of billions on a car project, they never let that be a threat to their business or even to their valuation. So burning all that money was nearly a non-event, and didn't ding Tim Cook's reputation at all.
Tesla meanwhile is left short of the resources it will take to retain a leading position in EVs. The robotaxi announcement just adds risk.
> Margins eaten away at the premium level - with no hope of clawing them back at the lower cost mass level.
I'm somewhat surprised they don't try to make a car in the luxury segment. There'd be a learning curve -- expectations for comfort, build quality, and functionality are definitely several steps beyond what they've tried before -- but that's where the margins are, and some low-volume high-margin sales can pay for a lot of see-what-sticks-to-the-wall in the econobox market.
