Many traditional automaker executives are playing catch-up with Tesla with regards to electrification of transport. They're moving second, copying Elon Musk. There is some truth to the idea that Tesla can benefit from the experience of legacy automakers. It is why they have hired people who have such experience. Replacing the founder that the other executives are still in the process of copying though? Kind of crazy.
Especially since Tesla is not just a car company. They are making headway into utility scale energy markets, planning to get into roofing, and have a relationship which will likely help them in the disrupting-the-use-of-roads-as-primary-means-of-transport-by-the-elimination-of-traffic industry that Elon Musk is trying to get set up. It's very safe to say that the status-quo certified executives could still need to continue playing a game of following-the-leader.
While Elon Musk is saying that the only thing that matters is pace of innovation, legacy automaker executives are advocated for on the basis of their relationship with status quo. Tesla doesn't exist in a world with status quo. In a world with status quo, regulators force the automakers to acknowledge the impact of their work on climate change and they grudgingly change course. This has been happening over time. We've seen them faking emission test results. We've seen them producing compliance vehicles so that they have access to markets that are trying to convince them to actually do the right thing.
Not to mention Tesla is being powered forward by its genius, aggressive, forward-thinking founder (insert inevitable straw debate about whether Musk is actually a founder).
The other car makers are led by elder statesperson types. They're all slow moving, they've come up through the old car industry, and they have no vision for the future that looks different from the past. Tesla is the only major car company on earth with its founder at the helm.
There is nothing a traditional car company CEO would bring to the table that Tesla would need.
All initiatives that Tesla is aiming for needs a visionary workaholic like Elon.
Tesla needs Elon. He is irreplaceable.
They need a serious executive from a former car company who has experience in quiet, deliberate execution. Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare.
It's about time they start reigning in the chaos that is Elon Musk. Musk was integral, and even critical, to Tesla getting where they are today, but it's become apparent he's too chaotic to take Tesla much further.
I would say this is par for the course for a startup CEO, and Tesla has now grown out of the startup phase. They've become a full-fledged automaker and need the appropriate leadership to guide them through the next phase.
I disagree. Musk as CEO drove Tesla, against every estimate I've seen or heard of, to be profitable. Prior to musk, the cars didn't exist... So they were unavailable to buy. And I don't see how changing him out will fix quality issues, other than having a future CEO halt innovation in favor of bug hunting... Which would be the start of a quick end for Tesla. They are built on innovation.
Perhaps, perhaps not. The market innovation of Tesla--selling electric vehicles based on sportiness and performance rather than eco-friendliness--pre-dates musk's involvement with the company.
A counter argument is that tesla is a conventional business that is packaged by Elon musks masterful salesmanship as a one of a kind company where normal rules don't apply. At my old company Martin shkreli pitched to us a few times, and Elon uses some similar reality distortion tricks to excite investors.
For tesla, that is necessary, because no rational investor would invest in an electric car startup. But if you can get investors excited enough about some vague but very promising future, they will overlook short term failures and be guided less by fact than belief
I don't think Tesla is a car company, they are a sustainable energy company. That was their plan all along, as I understand their Secret Plan Part Deux.
Tesla is pretty legit though, SpaceX too. Whatever I might think about him as a person I don't see how can someone deny that Tesla is running circles around all traditional car manufacturers.
How often does the CEO of one company address management of its biggest competitor? How often can you even get said CEOs to public acknowledge the name of their competitors?
Elon started Tesla to bring about the EV revolution. He's not throwing dust in the face of the competition, but rather telling them how to catch up, because he wants their joint goal to be realized: ubiquitous EVs.
Edison and Ford had the small detail that the product they sold became widespread among the population very quickly.
They represented the last effort after standing on the shoulders of giants, basically being the person who got to sign off the quality of life improvement and reap the financial reward. It happens, could have been somebody else but in the end it was them.
mr.Musk has been at the helm of Tesla for 20 years and his product his nor widespread (only 1% of total number of global vehicles sold in FY21) nor revolutionary from a quality of life standpoint (at the end of the day it's a car and you can hardly tell the difference between Tesla EVs and MercedesEQS, iBMW, Toyota EVs etc....if anything the QOL gap is towards the other automakers)
I couldn't name another current car company CEO off the top of my head, but in my head the Tesla brand = Elon Musk the person. Which now means "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci" or whatever the last thing he was going on about was.
I'm not in the market for a car so it's hard to say how much this would sway my decision. Probably not zero though. At the very least the future of Tesla feels more erratic.
Not necessarily. Tesla was originally founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003 before Musk joined as chairman and major shareholder in 2004. Musk became CEO out of necessity since he was already CEO of SpaceX.
Being like Musk is not the norm. In fact, he has publicly admitted in an interview he did with Bill Gates about China, that combining two CEO roles makes for a terrible work-life balance -- he wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Tesla are the Apple of cars. Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs. The other car companies will have non-tech retards as ceo's and will always be playing catch-up. Tesla only has to fear techie's like google or apple itself entering the space.
Tesla is the preeminent electric vehicle and is pushing the entire industry forward as every manufacturer races towards producing their own luxury electric vehicle to compete with Tesla. It's a very similar dynamic to how the iPhone revolutionized mobile phones.
With that stated, I don't attribute this success to Elon Musk beyond his ability to lie his way into sustaining the company's valuation so that the engineers could do the hard work.
Especially since Tesla is not just a car company. They are making headway into utility scale energy markets, planning to get into roofing, and have a relationship which will likely help them in the disrupting-the-use-of-roads-as-primary-means-of-transport-by-the-elimination-of-traffic industry that Elon Musk is trying to get set up. It's very safe to say that the status-quo certified executives could still need to continue playing a game of following-the-leader.
While Elon Musk is saying that the only thing that matters is pace of innovation, legacy automaker executives are advocated for on the basis of their relationship with status quo. Tesla doesn't exist in a world with status quo. In a world with status quo, regulators force the automakers to acknowledge the impact of their work on climate change and they grudgingly change course. This has been happening over time. We've seen them faking emission test results. We've seen them producing compliance vehicles so that they have access to markets that are trying to convince them to actually do the right thing.
So yeah, I'm in total agreement with you.
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