Comment by Traster
7 hours ago
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?
No, not by a long shot, unless you define "class" so tightly as to only include those vehicles and no competitors.
A quick search verified they also manufactured batteries, solar modules, and solar shingles.
Ford Motor Company manufactured charcoal, but in the end it stayed a car company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsford_(charcoal)#History
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.
> Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody in either front seat.
This is a good example of Tesla being sketchy: https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/teslas-unsupervised-robotaxis...
Musk made the announcement before earnings, put a few cars on the road, and now has pulled them all back because the earnings report is out.
This is a little more than doing it publicly - remember, Musk has been saying FSD will be functional every year for more than a decade.
They’ve been running a pilot all this time
So did Nikola.
Elon said yesterday the unveil is in April “hopefully”
Who could possibly argue with that.
Obviously everything is way behind elons hype timelines, but I do still think it’s all coming.
At least you've identified it for what it is.
Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody in either front seat.
Unless the reporting was wrong, they've moved the supervisor to a chase car. The hobo-taxi still isn't operating on its own.
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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
I want my laundry robot!
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...
more like 12b in 2022 and less every years since down 30% in 2025
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.