Comment by sgjohnson
7 hours ago
Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage.
For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla.
And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T.
GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B.
I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $50B automakers, and Tesla would still be worth more than all of them combined.
If Tesla was valued fairly, it would probably be at the tune of $5B. But I’ll never bet against it, because the markets can remain irrational for longer than I can remain solvent. And for some unbeknownst to me reason, the markets value Tesla as a hot tech company, not a 3rd rate automaker, which is what it actually is.
And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely renowned as better and safer than Tesla’s current “FSD”.
> And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely renowned as better and safer than Tesla’s current “FSD”.
My Huyndai's Autopilot equivalent (I don't even know what they call it) is better than the enhanced Autopilot in the Model 3 that I traded in. It actually changes lanes when I put on the blinker, instead of only changing lanes 70% of the time, and the other time just sitting with the blinker on and a clear lane.
I did not know this and explains why I see so many teslas with their blinkers on and not maneuvering despite having ample room and time. Ultimately this behavior makes them unsafe for their occupants as well as others around them.
Cars only work because we can predict driver behavior, if they break that prediction that’s when bad things are likely to happen…
Lately I’ve started to ignore Tesla blinker.
Autopilot doesnt turn on the turn signal or change lanes, what you are dealing with is humans.
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Kia Telluride here but I assume it's the same underlying system as Hyundai - I can attest that it's very good (and doesn't cost anything extra like Tesla charges lol) which makes sense considering they have the majority stake in Boston Dynamics since a few years ago.
Most probably because it has a radar that the Tesla lacks. That means your car has two sources of truth and can very efficiently and quickly make an informed decision about whether or not there's anything in the way.
My Model 3 has radar. It’s no longer functional and just a useless appendage. Until 2020-21 all Tesla had radar but Musk directed Tesla to disable the radar from the software stack, nerfing this hardware on tens of thousands of cars. Why? Because he staked on camera-only and to find out there’s still radar fusion would be against that. The real truth is probably they were derisking the part cost (during Covid) and the development timeline to improve the radar integration (after dangerous false braking incidents). It was wonderful when it worked, especially the time-of-flight ability to sense a decelerating car ahead of the car ahead of the one in front of you. When it didn’t work the Navy Seal guy driving and watching a video was the first statistic.
The real Tesla engineers must be in all kinds of frustrations getting whipsawed by their chief engineer-designer-physicist-scientist-government economist-savant but probably the stock options assuage that.
Lastly Tesla still doesn’t have real birds-eye view / 360 surround view for parking. It’s year 2026 and even cheaper cars have this.
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> If Tesla was valued fairly
I think it's a wrong mental model to think of stock market value as "fair" or "unfair" (or maybe it's just me thinking of "unfair" when I see the word "fair").
My impression is that if Tesla would be valued based on quantifiable things it would be much much lower (production costs, competition, revenues, potential, etc.). Of course, you shouldn't value something only based on quantifiable things, but in Tesla the "wishful thinking" part seems to be much larger than for others.
I assume OP meant something closer to "fair market value" than "fair vs. unfair." Tesla is not priced according to its underlying assets or technical analysis (e.g. P/E ratio), but solely based on hype/sentiment.
Interestingly, retail investors and company insiders collectively own more of Tesla than institutional investors.
Fair market value: the price at which a thing would change hands between a willing and informed buyer and seller.
A company's market cap is, by definition, its fair market value.
> Tesla is not priced according to its underlying assets or technical analysis (e.g. P/E ratio), but solely based on hype/sentiment.
You're right that it's not priced according to underlying assets, but it doesn't follow that it is priced on vibes. Its price is based on potential future earnings; the expectation that Elon can pull off his plans for a robotaxi fleet or building an Optimus robot that might unlock the massive demand for household and/or general use commercial robots. Both offer the prospect of being the first mover into markets which could be worth trillions. It's speculation, sure, but not mere "vibes". The company is also led by a man who has made and delivered on massive, seemingly impossible promises, which adds credibility to the idea that Tesla might actually bring these markets into existence.
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> And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely renowned as better and safer than Tesla’s current “FSD”.
Do you have any sources for that claim? I can attest that current iteration of FSD is very, very good, and very likely is a safer driver than I am. At least one major insurance company agrees [0]. I don't have any experience with Super Cruise though.
[0] - https://www.lemonade.com/fsd
> Do you have any sources for that claim? I can attest that current iteration of FSD is very, very good, and very likely is a safer driver than I am.
That's a damning statement about your driving skills, and probably not true or you'd have had your license revoked by now. I've had FSD for five years, and even today it regularly makes dangerous mistakes. For example, left turns and roundabouts are the equivalent of Russian roulette, but just last week my FSD started driving through a red light because it interpreted a green left-arrow as a sign that it could proceed forward.
If you need to do 50 miles on the interstate it's pretty solid though.
> If you need to do 50 miles on the interstate it's pretty solid though.
So L2 is great, the issue is calling L2 "Full Self Driving"
If your Tesla is 5 years old aren't you getting a degraded FSD model due to weak hardware?
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Do you think your anecdote is more likely to be true than an insurance company putting its money where its mouth is?
"Tesla Full Self-Driving is twice as safe, so Lemonade takes 50% off every mile driven with FSD."
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Lemonade doesn't support your claim that FSD is a safer driver than you are. It just says that, most charitably, they believe FSD and a human operator are safer than just a human operator (The co-founder said exactly this to Reuters [0]). Further, the program has only been around for a week and their marketing copy specifically cites "Tesla's data" as the source for the 50% reduction rather than any sort of independent analysis.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lemona...
They are putting their money behind their words, unless there is some backroom deal we don't know about. If a human operator + FSD is twice safer than human operator alone, then FSD is still a large safety improvement. Considering how human operators behave with these systems, I'd also wager having the human operator (many don't even look at the road!) makes only a small difference.
> At least one major insurance company agrees
You mean the insurance company that has only existed for 10 years and I never heard of before this Tesla tie-in marketing gimmick?
I think you're totally wrong on this. Tesla didn't waste the first mover advantage. They benefitted from it whilst it existed, but Electric vehicles turned into a commodity, which was entirely expected and there's no moat.
You've explained yourself why it would be untenable for Musk to pursue becoming the biggest car manufacturer in the world - if he succeeded in that goal... he would have succeded in shrinking the value of the company significantly.
It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.
Tesla's original "secret plan" (published on their website) was to become a commodity car manufacturer faster than electric cars became a commodity. Such that the other manufacturers would find them selling obsolete vehicles and Tesla just becomes the new General Motors.
This was the justification for their stock price for quite a few years: "It's logical that Tesla is worth more than all other automakers combined because it will soon be the only automaker."
Then in 2022 Elon basically admitted that they couldn't win on production and had to continue to win on technology and they'd do that with self driving. [https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-worth-basica...]
But now Tesla is way behind on self driving (which was oversold by the whole industry tbh). So what's their new plan? Now they're no longer a car company and will make robots!
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> It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.
But it's make-believe. Tesla is a car manufacturer. They haven't shipped anything else other than cars. And they even suck at making cars these days. Tesla Semi? All but dead. The new roadster? Also dead. Full Self Driving? Doesn't exist. Robotaxis? Even if they got them to work, at this point the brand is too toxic for widespread adoption of those.
They could have persisted at being a disruptive car manufacturer and still held a several hundred billion dollar valuation. Now they are a very mediocre car manufacturer, with their only actual success being conning everyone into believing that they are a bleeding-edge tech company so their $1.5Bn valuation seems justified.
> And they even suck at making cars these days
Aren’t model Y and model 3 considered the best cars in their class by most motor journalists?
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A quick search verified they also manufactured batteries, solar modules, and solar shingles.
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I know it’s popular to hate on Elon and therefore Tesla, but you need to be accurate when doing so. They’re still chipping away.
> Tesla Semi?All but dead.
They’ve been running a pilot all this time, and the factory in Nevada to mass produce them is on schedule. Production ramp is second half of this year. The factory is ginormous.
> The new roadster? Also dead.
Elon said yesterday the unveil is in April “hopefully”
> Full Self Driving? Doesn't exist. Robotaxis?
Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody in either front seat.
It takes automakers almost a decade to bring a new vehicle online, Elon just does it all publicly while everyone else doesn’t take the wraps off until the final 6 months.
Obviously everything is way behind elons hype timelines, but I do still think it’s all coming.
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Why is making humanoid robots a moat? Other companies have been making robots for longer, humanoid and otherwise, and doing it better.
Has Optimus signed up for any sports yet: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/02/china/china-humanoid-robo...
Is Optimus close to what Boston Dynamics is doing with Atlas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIhzUnvi7Fw
> Why is making humanoid robots a moat?
It really isn't. (1)
Also, what's the first billion dollar market for humanoid robots? Industry? "lights-out manufacturing" exists already, and doesn't require humanoid robots.
Hyundai and BYD (among others) say they're going to put humanoid robots in their factories (2). They won't be Tesla robots. Is this really such a huge use?
1)https://www.topgear.com/car-news/tech/here-are-nine-humanoid...
2) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgjm5x54ldo
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It's not that EVs are a commodity. Competition and speculative production capacity buildouts combined with lower than expected consumer demand made the market less profitable.
Pure logic would dictate that Tesla has a market cap of around $5B. It's actually fraudulent that it's not, and for some reason the SEC allows Musk to lie on every earnings call without repercussion.
Seems low on a company that is profitable and consistantly has around a $100B a year in revenue with only $13B in debt...
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Welcome to 2026:
Companies routinely, exaggerate, obfuscate and mystify investors. Most of investors don't care. The SEC is a joke.
Brand value is definitely a moat. Not the deepest of moats, but it is a moat nonetheless.
> It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.
Tesla is valued as if it is a tech company with a car business as a side gig. Its balance sheet is a car business, and I'm not even sure it spends enough on tech to have tech qualify as a side gig. And the other tech avenues it has been pursuing (autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots) are areas that other people have been doing for better and longer. Hell, Honda had autonomous (not tele-operated) humanoid robots working 20 years ago.
To be honest, at this point, I mostly consider the other bets that Tesla is pursing are just passion projects to keep the stock price artificially high. Were Tesla more realistically valued, it would lose probably 90% or more of its value, and Musk would be a much poorer man.
Everything tends toward commodification in a hyper-competitive, hyper-connected world. The only variable is time... and this "time" keeps shrinking.
As commodification accelerates, consolidation follows. In the current landscape, where private capital and state power are deeply entangled under the banner of national security, this consolidation no longer stays economic. It becomes geopolitical.
The end result... it translates to not just corporate monopolies, but geo-monopolies... enforced not by markets alone, but by coercion, conflict, and control over resources.
> > It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.
You can pursue everything with words, even you can pursue Sydney Sweeney but then you have to show the receipts.
The receipts of Tesla (Factories, lines of production, expertise of people hired, 25 years of history...) are one of car company.
But of course, it's all narrative so people will keep outbidding each other to own a piece of this company.
The financialization of hope, that's what it is.
Tesla's moat is constantly moving to the next thing and claiming it has a moat before moving on to the next thing.
Elon's business model is moving from one government subsidized thing to the next (see SpaceX now bribing for tax dollars to go to Mars).
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Bingo.
SpaceX will acquire Tesla and save the shareholders, just like Tesla acquired SolarCity.
Can they afford to do that? I would assume it would be the other way around unless the valuation of either/both changes drastically.
XAI acquiring twitter is probably a better recent example than solarcity.
GM Supercruise on my 2024 Silverado RST is a joke compared to Tesla FSD. It's not even remotely comparable. Supercruise only works on freeways/highways, does not understand ANY navigation. It's a better cruise control, that's about it. I own 2 Tesla model S of different vintages and FSD is a completely different animal. My 2017 model s can navigate from my house to, well, anywhere, with no intervention. I have been very disappointed in how long it took Tesla to get here based on the promises they made 10(!) years ago, but they are there now. Even a year ago FSD used to scare me frequently and cause me to disengage but that never happens now.
And Elon canceled the S and X models but not the Cybertruck? C’mon…
1. Tesla has $40B in cash and is profitable. To say it's worth $5B is beyond absurd.
2. The market determines what is a fair value, not rando haters on the internet. Even professional Wall Street consensus is that it's fair value at approximately $1.2T market cap.
$40B in cash/equivalents, minus some $13-20B in debt (depending what source you pick).
> Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage.
It's a study in many things.
Tesla only exists because of the transfer of wealth from the government. DOE loans, EV tax credits and other incentives are the difference between existing and not existing.
That's not necessarily bad. The problem is the government really gets nothing for their money. Look at how China incubates their businesses.
As an example, imagine where we'd be if the government had insisted on standardized charging infrastructure instead of Tesla's originally proprietary Supercharger network.
> If Tesla was valued fairly, it would probably be at the tune of $5B.
I could see it as high as $100B but not $1.5T. Not even close.
And I, too, would never bet against it. Nothing fundamental is behind Tesla's valuation. It's just gambling.
That valuation is sure interesting considering the people killed in crashes from Tesla's self-driving thing
Edit: I love making legitimate points and instantly accruing downvotes from 'Valley VC types. Look yourself in the mirror.
Oh their self-driving thing...Full* "Self" Driving (supervised)(see notes)(not liable for anything)
Sorry, I didn't remember what it was called. FSD, I think
We are in a time when people are in cults. Trump is a cult. Elon is a cult. Tesla is a cult.
Cults do not operate on logic, but almost always result in a mass casualty event of some sort.
It's baked into the foundations of the U.S. While perhaps not a cult as we describe it today, even the first puritans that settled here were considered extremists not welcome in their home countries. For such a young country, we have always had a burgeoning industry in upstart cults, grifts, and religions (but I repeat myself).
Tesla benefited from tax payer subsidies.
Trust me, I hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next naysayer
But just to keep the story straight
Tesla received ~$3 billion in subsidies.
When Elon exercised his Tesla options in 2021, he paid $11 billion in taxes on it.
By all accounts those subsidies were an incredibly good use of taxpayer money, and similar subsidies should keep being handed out, even if the byproduct is another big troll on twitter.
Dunno where that $3 billion comes from; tesla made 11 billion in regulatory credits alone: https://insideevs.com/news/767939/tesla-regulatory-credit-11...
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How should we calculate the enormous subsidy they received through high tariffs against their competitors?
> Trust me, I hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next naysayer
But then you go to defend them as if it were something you're obligated to do. I think you demonstrably do not hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next naysayer.
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That's true for a lot of (most?) car manufacturers?
I fully agree that TSLA is madly overpriced as a car company, and too hyped as any other type of company.
An important question is therefore: why didn't anyone else?
Of course they did.