I expect this news to have a positive effect. I wonder if an individual might own so much stock that they can overwhelm the short market for small durations. The price jump yesterday made no sense to me.
Vendors missing deadlines on contracts is a valid reason for contracts being terminated, renewals being cancelled, and even litigation over breach of contract or even misrepresentation (depending on how angry the customer is).
There's a reason why PepsiCo partners are moving to Daimler now.
The argument that it's just "missing deadlines" which as true as it is, is also a strawman.
Musk hasn't just "missed deadlines". He's outright lied.
For example, in 2016 he claimed Tesla already had self driving capabilities it hasn't shown today, 8 years later.
He lied about bulletproof windows on the CyberTruck. His own demo disproved this.
He lied about the solar roofs. The entire demo was false and staged and the tiles on the roofs were not solar tiles as the demo strongly implied. And testimony showed that he personally knew that it was a lie.
Musk doesn't just miss deadlines. He blatantly lies. And that raises the legitimate concern that a lot of "missed deadlines" weren't just deadlines that were missed, but deadlines that were never feasible and he just lied about.
I do think it's amusing what the other guy says. Forums like this will be full of "Why software estimates are so hard and we shouldn't be forced to stick to deadlines" and the explanation will be "because each React form is like brand new R&D - more akin to Marie Curie's discoveries than a surgeon's work" and then suddenly a brand new kind of vehicle that has never been mass produced before has to hit deadlines or it's sign of obvious incompetence.
I think this is a pretty clear misrepresentation. The entire point of those forum posts is that software engineers are angry at managers promising timelines that aren't connected to reality: they want the unpredictability of the task to be transparent. That is actually entirely consistent, and arguably the exact same frustration, that they have with Musk -- a manager-type promising outrageous deadlines, repeatedly, with apparently zero ability to learn from past misses. The anger is with continuing to promise these outrageous deadlines, and furthermore the frustration of being called out if you are skeptical of them, not with the fact that he misses them. It's a one-to-one, 100%, absolutely identical complaint.
Software estimates also need to be hit, but Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership will fight to prevent the brunt of that from hitting ICs, but at some point if a large contract does churn, plenty of IC engineers will have their head on the chopping board.
I've been on both sides so I get it, and the only solution is to have blunt and honest communication from all sides - Field Facing teams need to not overcommit, and Internal teams actually need to execute and COMMUNICATE why they cannot.
As an employee, we are all working to make the company more money. That's the only goal.
That doesn't absolve them of the fact that they underdelivered on a 8-9 figure deal by 66% over 7 years.
The fact that PepsiCo leaked this to Reuters itself means they are on the warpath right now (eg. probably trying to strong-arm a significant refund and cost reduction, or setting up the paper trail needed to begin litigation over breach of contract).
> doesn't absolve them of the fact that they underdelivered on a 8-9 figure deal by 66% over 7 years
I mean, it almost might. The problem isn't the underdelivery. It's Musk's loss of credibility. When he says it's about battery production, it might be about battery production, or it might be that he randomly changed the design at the last minute.
That's a good point, but leaking this tidbit to Reuters seems like a nuclear option (like Tesla's customer retention program failed and PepsiCo is trying to break out of the contract now).
Like I've had customers pissed off about missed deadlines, but they didn't leak or churn because we tried to keep them happy.
As is usually the case with these things, I think the key to reading them is buried at the end of the article:
> PepsiCo investor Green Century Capital Management has reservations about the company's time table for rolling out the Semis.
>
> "The fact they're running behind schedule is concerning," said Andrea Ranger, a shareholder advocate at Green Century. The investment firm has followed PepsiCo's use of electric vehicles and is pushing the company to consider its impacts on biodiversity at its annual meeting in May.
Green Century (as its name implies) has a "three-pronged approach combines a fossil fuel free sustainable investing strategy with award-winning shareholder advocacy and support of environmental nonprofits to deliver impact in a way other mutual fund families can't" (quote is from their homepage). My guess is that Green Century are the ones feeling the heat here -- they need to have their fund's emmission figures come out right yesterday, and Pepsi can't make them right unless they get their EV fleet, whether via Tesla or someone else.
If you read between the lines, you'll notice that no one at PepsiCo says anything bad about Tesla per se, only that they're committed to deploying more EVs and a bunch of other green systems. The rest of the article is other supply & logistics companies pointing out that they're having good results with trucks from other manufacturers and/or that they're also unhappy with Tesla's timeline, then someone from GC saying they don't think Tesla can hit their schedule. With the review coming up in May ("the investment firm has followed PepsiCo's use of electric vehicles and is pushing the company to consider its impacts on biodiversity at its annual meeting in May.") this is probably GC trying to convince Pepsi to stop waiting for the bloody Teslas and just get whatever EVs will get their fleet going this year.
> I keep hearing about competitors, but I never see any of their EVs, new or used. I see Teslas everywhere.
Around these parts, we see a lot of non-Tesla electrics. Many of them are not obvious at all, until you realize that an SUV has a Clean Pass sticker, and no tailpipes.
But there are also many 3s and Ys. I think, for a time, Tesla was the biggest-selling brand in the US.
Ford lost money because they went all in too fast for how late they were to the game.
And frankly it seems to be greed. They have proven hybrid and PHEV tech yet deny the US market the hybrid ranger, 'because US buyers can get the maverick'.
> I wonder how many deadlines that people miss here, and that's usually just pure software
That's not the flex you think it is. Software is pretty unique in delivering products that the companies don't want to stand behind--think of every software license that basically says "if this software doesn't work, it's YOUR FAULT".
In most industries, missing deadlines is generally grounds for your customers to get very cross with you, especially when your customers are businesses and not consumers.
> Man the critics here about deadlines is astounding.
> I wonder how many deadlines that people miss here, and that's usually just pure software, no materials.
Look... I'm an investor in the Tesla IPO ($4k -> $200k+). I own a Tesla vehicle.
Current Elon has run off the deep end into conspiracy theories and utter nonsense. Buying Twitter because he was butt-hurt over some of his tweets being punished is just asinine. It is also a massive distraction on something utterly trivial.
There was absolutely a massive whisper campaign to say that EVs would never work. Elon did a lot of great things in the beginning. Some of those things include making lofty promises even though delivering on those promises took a lot longer than he thought. The most important thing in the beginning was proving EVs could work to the early adopters, ensuring Tesla could survive long enough to reach volume ramp-up. Volume means parts suppliers start returning your calls and economies of scale improve everything. Doing things differently got them noticed. Making cars fun was a brilliant marketing strategy... does anyone really need the Toy Box stuff Teslas can do? No... but it makes a lot of people (me included) smile. (My kids think Emissions mode is hilarious on our drive to school drop-off and now consider all other cars to be inferior because those cars can't make fart sounds. That's mind share you can't fucking buy even with unlimited money.)
Passing into the volume phase has killed a lot of companies. There are many more opportunities for things to go wrong and mistakes cost you a lot more. Your company also transitions from "we need exposure at any cost" to "we are a brand leader who has set expectations".
During this critical time Elon has failed to change his messaging. He is still in "we need exposure" mode, making outlandish promises and starting too many projects at once. In the end it is all a self-own. There was no need to get into semi-trucks. They have enough trouble scaling up Model Y and even shipping the Cyber Truck. They still haven't really delivered on FSD, despite charging for it and continuously increasing the price. It was 100% unnecessary. Focus on execution, leave the semi-truck idea for a few years down the road. You have enough irons in the fire. Your #1 focus should be a Model Y refresh since it is by far your top seller and is what is generating all that cash making Tesla an ongoing concern.
tl;dr: Tesla is no longer in survival mode but it is in a critical phase of its growth. Elon should have stopped making outlandish promises some time ago and focused on execution. His thin-skin about Twitter, resulting in trying to get a board seat, on a whim turning into buying the company has been a massive distraction that hurts Tesla at a time when it needs strong leadership and the traditional automakers are still fumbling on EVs.
The craziest thing is, regardless how people feel about politics, Musk has achieved a lot for technology yet people in technology forums disparage him. I guess politics trumps technology.
I wouldn't call it crazy to point to someone with a documented history of lying and say that their word can't be trusted. Rather, that's called basic pattern recognition.
He successfully marketed and monetized an industry that already existed and would continue to exist without him, then reinvested in that industry to make himself more money. The way you and some others talk about him you would think he invented batteries and was the first one to discover you can use electricity to make a car move.
The parroted introduction has me reading this comment in bad faith, but I'll bite anyway. What are some of his personal tech achievements? Emphasis on personal.
both are true. he's achieved amazing things, seriously pushing technology forwards
he also makes outlandish public claims which are ridiculous at the time and get worse with age. you can appreciate what he's done while simultaneously believing 0% of what leaves his mouth
He has a notorious habit of overpromising and underdelivering. I thought that habit of his was well established even before he became so vocally political.
You have to wonder if working for four or five different companies while, allegedly, being on _all the drugs_ has an impact on his performance.
If Musk ran Apple we'd still be waiting on the iPhone XS, though he'd insist it'll be ready by "end of year", a phone that launched around the time Musk was crowing about these trucks.
It was, but it was the politics that swung the opinion pendulum from pathological "admire wins, ignore losses" to pathological "ignore wins, disparage losses."
But Musk himself has said that American EV makers can't compete against Chinese EVs without trade barriers. Barriers that western governments have been more than happy to establish.
> "If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world," he said. "They're extremely good."
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that the dude spews whatever out of his mouth and the broader public and media take him at his word when time again its been seen that his word doesn’t mean shit.
I agree it makes sense that battery production is the limiting factor, but my ability to trust what Musk says is close to zero.