Lutz on Tesla ...

[sp4rk]

Interesting article ... or am I late to the party AGAIN?

Tesla Beating Detroit? That's Just Nonsense - Forbes

[Lyon]

Lutz can be an idiot sometimes and this article is, in typical Lutzian style, overly dramatic. However, he makes a valid point. Namely that Tesla has lots of orders for cars but until they've delivered cars to many people and been profitable for several years there really is no case to be made for them being "better" than GM.

I think the point that Mr. Lutz is trying to make with this club-of-an-article is that 10,000 preorders are great, but that's not 10,000 sales and even 10,000 sales is bubkis compared to what GM sells worldwide in a month.

[brianman]

My interpretation...

Adam: Tesla is embarrassing -- "Beating" -- the established automakers in technological innovation and open-minded thinking.
Bob: Tesla is still an experiment until they have delivered (a) market-significant volume and (b) year-over-year profitability.

Merge their perspectives and the result is accurate, IMO.

[heems]

I am with Adam. This is just nay sayer 101. First they said you can't even build an electric car. Then when Elon makes one, they say that's just a concept. Fine, Elon says I'll make a sedan too. Then they say yeah but you can't make a bunch of it. .... And round and round we go. Until one day Bob realizes he's just an old grumpy dude with no vision or ambition to improve anything and got caught sleepin' at the wheel... pun intended.

[hj-45]

The comments are entertaining.

[dsm363]

I love how they never seem to get the price of the car right. $80,000-110,000 does cover some of the range but we all know it starts at $57,400-77,400 without options so he's exaggerating a little.