Tesla has the worst build quality of any major car company year after year. If not for tax credits and crypto, Telsa would STILL never have made a profit in any quarter since they opened their doors.

As with the never-delivered “auto-pilot” and never-delivered “$35k Model 3” Tesla is learning what new car companies have been learning for 100 years. It is very hard to scale up and make a profit.

Tesla had a huge advantage in getting to market first nearly 10 years ago with the Model S. They still have a halo effect that is helping them with Model 3 sales. But the big car companies are finally getting into the game. They are going to provide much better build quality and service at the same or better price point than the Model 3/Y, while eating into Tesla’s cash cow halo car the Model S.

Bob Lutz, car guru for about 50 years, said about 10 years ago (I paraphrase — he said it much better) that it is much easier for an established car company electrify cars than for Tesla to learn to build cars that are electric.

Tesla is constantly overpromising and underdelivering. That only works when you have virtually no competition. Lucid will take a slice off the top. Audi and Porsche a bigger slice from the upper third. BMW and Mercedes a big slice from the upper half. Smaller slices in that top half from Genesis, Volvo, Polestar and others. VW, Hyundai, Kia, GM, Ford, BMW, Honda, Toyota, and Subaru are swarming the bottom half.

Particular to the US is the pick-up market. There Tesla is late (again) with their cybertruck. By the time they get to market, Ford and GM will have retained their dominant market shares there.

IMO Tesla should have sold themselves to Ford when Ford stopped producing cars (except the Mustang) in the US a few years ago. I think history will show that they were in talks, but Tesla’s unrealistic stock price and Musk’s ego tanked the deal (again — this is total speculation). Musk missed his chance to cash out before everyone else got in the game.