Patrick S. Tomlinson Profile picture
Nov 26, 2022 18 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Thread time. Here's the thing about @Tesla. It's not a car company. Tesla is a company that has to make cars in order to sell its real product: Emissions Credits.

Let me explain. Back in 2012, the EPA put out new, strident emissions standards for new vehicles fleetwide. 1/
Carmakers here in the US who wanted to either build or sell new cars in US soil needed their fleets of mostly ICE vehicles to meet these new standards. Most couldn't, because their engines weren't nearly efficient enough. Some like Toyota and Honda were in better shape... 2/
...because they didn't sell huge SUVs and trucks as their core product line, and were already pushing hard into Hybrid vehicles, if not pure electrics just yet.

Manufacturers who exceeded their fleetwide emissions targets were given "credits" which they could either bank... 3/
...or sell on the open market.

Manufacturers who didn't meet their emissions targets would need to buy these credits in order to remain compliant with the new EPA standards.

Enter Tesla.

Being the only largish all-electric auto manufacturer, Tesla's fleet is emissions free. 4/
So Tesla doesn't ever need to worry about banking their carbon credits to spend in future years if emissions standards become even more strident again. They can take all of the credits they generate and sell 100% of them on the open market to other builders. 5/
And they do. In Q1 of last year, Tesla's entire profit came from selling half a billion dollars of carbon credits to other carmakers.

Which hey, good for them, but in reality it means driving and owning a Tesla hasn't actually reduced global emissions at all. 6/
Because Tesla is basically selling indulgences to other manufacturers so they can continue building and selling fleets of ICE vehicles that don't meet standards, delaying the day the rest of the industry commits to investing in decarbonization. 7/
Stellantis alone, (the European parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram) has bought more than $2.5 billion in carbon credits from Tesla. All those gas guzzling SUVs, trucks, and 800hp musclecars? Thank a Tesla buyer. They literally couldn't exist otherwise. 8/
This is why I say Tesla isn't a car company.

When you buy a Tesla, you're not the only, or even the primary customer. Actual car companies are. Which would help explain why Teslas are notorious for poor build quality. Their fit and finish is abysmal, and there's so little... 9/
...attention or resources paid to service infrastructure when things do go wrong (which is often) that @GM has been quietly servicing and repairing more than 10,000 Teslas at their own service centers over the last year.

You, the buyer, simply aren't a priority for Tesla. 10/10
So hey, buy a car that hasn't actually helped the environment, might catch fire, can't open the rear doors if it does, and funds a cut-rate Bond villain trying to turn Twitter into a Nazi toilet if you want.

Just know what it is you're actually buying. 11/11
Extra innings...

It's entirely possible the plan in Elon's mind was to use the emissions credits to get the legacy manufacturers to pay him for their own extinction. I assume he guessed Tesla would ramp up EV production quickly enough to build an insurmountable lead. 12/
He wanted to corner the EV market and own the future of cars, blocking out the dinosaurs. The ultimate disruption.

But... he couldn't pull it off. His early lead never grew large enough due to production delays and constraints. Now, better EVs are coming from everywhere. 13/
He had one last advantage to play, which was the Tesla charging network. This advantage remains, but he lobbied hard to get the government to fund a nationwide charging network based on Tesla's proprietary plugs and chargers.

Biden refused in favor of universal designs. 14/
Now legacy manufacturers are drastically ramping up newer, better, cheaper EVs in more types and models than Tesla offers, on platforms that aren't already a decade old. Those manufacturers will rely less and less on buying Tesla's credits to remain compliant. Death spiral. 15/15
"But in Q3 of 2022, Tesla's profits..."

Listen, weird nerds and $8 blue checks, I don't care about the 3rd Quarter of this year. I'm talking about the history of the company, its foundations and how it arrived where it is now. Which is a story most people clearly didn't know.
Well, this is still going like stink and my publisher would be mad if I don't take the opportunity to promote something so if you appreciate what I'm doing here, treat us both to a book: amazon.com/gp/product/125…
OMG, this is just too precious.

At no point in the thread am I talking about revenue. I'm talking about profits.

My first "Added context" on any tweet is of course from Elon stans. Image

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More from @stealthygeek

Aug 26
Learned more about the story of this photo and now I'm mad.

This was taken today at Arlington National Cemetery. The grave belongs to Sgt Nicole Leeann Gee, USMC. She was among the 13 US service members killed in a suicide bombing during the Afghan withdrawal 3 yrs ago. 1/ Image
Donald Trump is directly responsible for her death.

When negotiating the Afghanistan withdrawal, he deliberately cut out the Afghan government in Kabul we had been supporting for 20 years.

Instead, he negotiated exclusively with the Taliban. The enemy. 2/
Without any input from Kabul or our other partners in the theater, he released 5,000 Taliban, al Qaida, and affiliated fighters, criminals, and terrorists from prison because the Taliban told him to, swelling their combat force in the months before the withdrawal. 3/
Read 11 tweets
Jul 9
What the last week and a half has taught everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear is a press beholden to profit can never be free or objective.

Biden is bad for the business of the news. His administration has been hugely focused, successful, and free of scandal or leaks. 1/
With only the mundane, boring work of actually governing the country to report on, the business of the News has suffered under Biden. Thier stocks are flat, their readership/viewership is down.

They're starving under the weight of Biden's quiet competence. So, he has to go. 2/
Which is why, either deliberately or just going along with the crowd, they've turned on the hand that literally isn't feeding them. The Maggie Habermans of the world, unable to commit anything but "Access" journalism long for salvation in a return to Trump's death and chaos. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Jun 27
There's a disconnect among people, especially on the Left, about money in politics.

On one hand, you need a lot of money just to buy your way into the game. But once you're there, money quickly hits the point of diminishing returns.

No amount of cash buys a 17 point margin. 1/
Please don't misunderstand me. Citizens United and the flood of unaccountable dark money it injected into our politics was one of the most damaging, distorting decisions inflicted on our democracy by a bought and paid for SCOTUS majority we're only now beginning to recognize. 2/
And yet, it remains true cash isn't king in American elections. Money can sway close elections, those within the margin of polling error.

But we've seen over and over big money media spending only goes so far before falling off.

But it's really good at money laundering. 3/
Read 7 tweets
May 21
A lot of otherwise very sharp people are saying "I can't believe the defense called Costello!"

The defense didn't call Costello. Trump did.

The defense did finally manage to get it through Trump's thick skull he couldn't take the stand without 1 of 3 equally bad outcomes. 1/
1) Self incrimination
2) Contempt of Court charge
3) Perjury charge

There was no other possible outcome. I sincerely doubt Trump would've made it through his own defense questions, much less cross examination. He's just too stupid, arrogant, and combative. 2/
We saw just how awful of a witness he was at the 2nd E Jean Carroll civil trial, where he probably rang himself up another $50 million in punitive damages on the witness stand.

I'm sure his lawyers used that to get through to him how bad an idea it was. 3/
Read 7 tweets
May 14
An open letter to the "Genocide Joe" crowd:

Biden is not the President of Israel or CiC of the IDF. He doesn't control Israeli foreign policy nor its military.

The man who does, Bibi Netanyahu, is a far-right fascist actively hurting Biden and trying to elect Donald Trump. 1/
Israel is a major developer, manufacturer, and exporter of weapons in its own right. They are fully capable of standing on their own in a limited engagement like the Gaza invasion, and Bibi has said he would do exactly that if need be. 2/
Biden could cut ALL military aid to Israel, including defensive aid for things like the Iron Dome AMS that clears the sky of Hamas and Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israeli civilians and Bibi would still have all the resources he needs to do whatever he wants in Gaza. 3/
Read 9 tweets
May 9
The problem isn't ICE cars vs EV cars.

The problem is cars, period.

EVs are only /marginally/ better for the environment than gas or diesel. But mining their lithium, shipping ore for refinement, shipping again to make batteries, shipping AGAIN to the EV factory... 1/
...refining the steel and AL for their bodies, all creates a CO² deficit the EV has to "work off" before it's truly carbon neutral. This deficit means the average EV has to be in the fleet for nearly ten years before working off its carbon debt. Only then is it a net positive. 2/
And that fails to take into account all of the vast infrastructure that has to be built and maintained to support driving. Hundreds of thousands of miles of concrete roads and highways. Tens of thousands of steel bridges. All of which is a further carbon debt. 3/
Read 10 tweets

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