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1/ Framing the narrative, choosing the words used, is a powerful tool. $TSLA uses it brilliantly in its endless confidence game. Let's explore a few examples.
2/ "Gigafactory" $TSLA "Gigafactories" everywhere. We have Gigafactory 1 (Nevada) and Gigafactory 2 (Buffalo) and Gigafactory 3 (Shanghai mudflat) and now one reads as well of Gigafactory 4, somewhere in Europe at some future date.
3/ What makes any of these factories "giga"? They are all of average size for manufacturing plants. Even $TSLA's Nevada factory is only one-third the size shown in the original rendering, and highly unlikely to get any larger.
4/ Is it because the $TSLA Nevada factory produces cells that, when cumulated, can store gigawatts of energy? Well, then, every battery factory in the world is a gigafactory.
5/ The Riverbend factory, paid for by New York State taxpayers in one of the greatest crony capitalism scams ever, produces no battery cells. And the tenant, legally, is not even $TSLA. It is an insolvent subsidiary of SolarCity called Silevo.
6/ (Governor Andrew Cuomo and Economic Development Czar Howard Zemsky will learn that the hard way next year when they try to collect the $41.2 million penalty that will be due because of the massive shortfall in $TSLA jobs.)
7/ The Shanghai factory will not produce cells either. $TSLA will purchase the cells from CATL or some other Chinese cell manufacturer. Indeed, the Shanghai factory will not even be, at the outset, an auto manufacturing plant. It will be a place where subassemblies come together.
8/ Next up: the "Seven-Seater Model Y". Here's one of $TSLA's propaganda outlets describing the car that way. (There are endless other examples. Just google "Tesla seven seat SUV"): teslarati.com/tesla-model-y-…
9/ But the seven-seater is not promised, even by $TSLA, until 2021. Why not? Because it doesn't exist. The prototype you saw last week will need to be completely redesigned and re-engineered to accommodate seven seats.
10/ Check out the view of the prototype's third row in this video. The seven-seat nonsense was purely for marketing. That's why you never saw the hatch opened last week. Or anyone sitting back there.
11/ Another example: "Supercharger". Not so super in cold weather. reddit.com/r/teslamotors/…
12/ Not so super with other $TSLA's charging nearby: reddit.com/r/teslamotors/…
13/ Not so super compared to what Porsche & Electrify America are about to make possible: cnet.com/roadshow/news/…
14/ Sure, $TSLA can upgrade its Supercharger network. All it takes is time and money. Tesla is running out of both.
15/ Another magic word: "Founder". Elon Musk was the "founder" of $TSLA. How often have you read that? Or, at least, "Co-Founder". But he was neither.
16/ The company was founded in 2002 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk came aboard in 2004 and, in a series of Machiavellian maneuvers, forced Eberhard out in 2007. Tarpenning departed with Eberhard.
17/ Eberhard sued and was making excellent progress when the parties settled. Some details here. wired.com/2009/06/eberha…
18/ Bet you a signed dollar Musk paid Eberhard a tidy sum to settle that suit. And received in exchange the right to call himself a "Co-Founder". It's like getting a Harvard diploma without attending Harvard. Or using Rick Singer to help you get admitted in the first place.
20/ While we're on the topic of Elon Musk, how often does one read the words "entrepreneur" and "genius" and "visionary" in any profile? Invariably, right?
21/ Let's start with "genius" and "visionary". The brilliant Thunderf00t has repeatedly disassembled those myths with his wickedly funny youtube videos. A recent example here:
22/ Now, about the successful entrepreneur, whose track record supposedly includes brilliance at PayPal. That company thrived only after Musk was forced out. Some illuminating information from Peter Thiel here: qz.com/1463422/elon-m…
23/ At $TSLA, Musk's strategic decisions are one catastrophe after another, even if it takes years for that to become clear. For instance, how brilliant does the decision to have company-owned Service Centers instead of independent dealerships look now?
24/ How about the decision to offer free Supercharging (Musk once famously said, Supercharging "is and always will be free.") Terrible decision, completely unnecessary, had to be walked back, and still hurting $TSLA.
25/ Worst decision of all? Taking a high-end luxury product that was intensely desired as a status symbol and undermining it with an attempt to go mass market. And then doing further brand destruction by rushing that mass market product into production.
26/ So, with $TSLA, pay attention to the words Musk uses. To the words his propaganda outlets and cultists use. We'll know the narrative has truly started to change when he gets some pushback on these. The "seven-seater" SUV would be an excellent place to begin. <fin>
