And by punish you mean fairly value?

What's funny is that nobody even believes the SpaceX/Tesla fever dream stuff - not even the fanboys. Data centers in space that violate the laws of logistics+thermodynamics? 30 trillion dollars worth of revenue?

No, they only believe that somebody else believes this shit. The entire valuation of Elon's companies is based on greater fool theory. But it notably is called greater fool, not infinite fool; we are going to run out of fools at some point...

>after losing to the Chinese

The total market cap of all the Chinese car companies combined is about 300B.

Tesla alone is worth ~5x that, because the market rewards this behavior of chasing new things.

If Tesla suddenly pivoted to 'caring about cars' and tried their best to produce low cost reliable EVs, the market is going to punish them by valuing them at less than 300B. That is, if they succeed at that. If they fail, which would be more plausible, they go bankrupt.

Why would they voluntarily do that?

We could do that by changing public opinion or regulating what public companies must do/report, but that seems somewhat unlikely. It's so much easier to claim that autonomous driving will be solved in six months :)

They've already "announced" a 14-20 passenger Cyberbus. Is that not better than an 8-12?

This is a strangly specific thing to want so badly.

In Europe, they are usually known as MPVs or "people carriers"; Renault has made their Espace since 1984 (though, it looks like they abandoned that format in 2012); there was also the Renault Grand Scénic, which ended in 2022. So not a uniquely American concept, but it seems like the market in Europe for them is thinning significantly. A shame though, I really like the look of that Espace mk1.

I feel like the opposite is true, Americans seem oddly opposed to vans, minivans, and people movers. Toyota alone make something like 20 different models with three rows of seats as standard, and school event parking where I am is packed with 7 seaters. Wasn’t Tesla Model X a 7 seater?

I've seen taxi drivers use them in Europe multiple times basically every time you want to transport more people. Beats using 2 cars.

Any more than the four-door full-size pickup truck that is the Cybertruck?

Not really. Peugeot has been making 7 seaters for over half a century now.

I can't really complain about the maintenance of the EV parts of my cars. I know some EVs fail there too, but my two EVs have been flawless when it comes to the electric drivetrains and the batteries.

But having an electric car doesn't make salt and potholes magically disappear, unfortunately.

What maintenance do they actually need? Tires, brakes, wiper blades, air filter, washer fluid? All fairly trivial to DIY. One thing that I would do is disable the cellular modem, to prevent unwanted "upgrades."

You still need things like brakes though, right?

> I'm reminded nearly every other day that EVs need no maintenance and should never see the inside of a mechanic's garage.

Are you being sarcastic, perhaps?

EV ownership is mostly about lying to yourself and saving face.

From direct experience.

Also worth noting that the fuel on a second hand petrol car cost less than the depreciation on the EV for me.

Lucid is also American made, no?

Never heard of them. But if they are made in America I will keep them in my mind when/if I buy a new car.

I understand not wanting to pay the cost of LiDAR like twelve years ago but the price has come down since then. At this point does it even make sense to stick to cameras? What possible reason is there other than an aging Elmo's ego?

Even if it prevents like ten deaths, the LiDAR will have paid for itself.

I take them regularly in SF, twice cheaper than lyft, 4x cheaper than waymo and works fine... it's literally the cheapest other than zoox (free if on tester list, which I am), but it's as fast as Lyft/Uber.