In a panel interview on Autoline Afterhours, Bob Lutz, former GM Vice Chair, weighed in on Tesla, among other topics. Frank Markus of MotorTrend, Gary Vasilah of Automotive Design & Production, and John McElroy of Autoline TV rounded out the panel. One of the questions asked was posed by a college graduate who wants to get a job at General Motors, which led to electric vehicles, Tesla, and Elon Musk.
In the early days of Tesla, though the company had many fans, it also had many detractors. Some of those detractors may have had a vested interest in the company failing. No, I’m not talking about the armies of short sellers who still plague the company and its mission today, but about auto industry competitors and celebrities whose livelihood depended on the status quo. But Tesla’s continued success in manufacturing high-performance EVs has turned some of these critics into fans.
Renowned Tesla bear Bob Lutz has recently sung praises of the build quality of Tesla’s vehicles, saying of a Model 3 that he inspected, “not only was the paint without any discernible flaw, but the various panels formed a body of precision that was beyond reproach.”
I’ve followed Tesla closely for about 7 years. Confident predictions about Tesla’s imminent death have been commonplace for much longer than that. These have come from armchair auto experts, retired auto executives, non-retired auto execs, high-rolling short sellers, low-rolling short sellers, clueless or pretending to be clueless TV hosts and journalists, paid trolls, and probably others I’m forgetting to honor here.
Volocopter is testing its autonomous air taxi later this year, the ASX MOBi-One aircraft plans to use VerdeGo Aero’s IDEP systems, Eviation will use Siemens electric motors for the Alice 9-seat electric plane, Honeywell is developing flight-control & detect-and-avoid systems for urban air mobility (UAM) vehicles, Lilium says it will launch “much sooner” than 2025, and In-Flight Data snatches 3 Guinness World Records for BVLOS UAS flights.
I recently had some fun digging up old Tesla news, putting it in the context of the company up to today can make it fascinating. I’ve also elaborated on 11 years of hyped up FUD about Tesla and claims of its eminent demise for the past decade, as well as 8 “impossible” goals the company has achieved. I forgot, though, that a reader sent along a list of his own back in October. It’s a great list as well, so I’m writing about it here for another round of “Tesla Flashbacks.”
Big Auto’s executives have a long history of taking shots at Tesla. Now, two industry giants, VW and GM, have decided to dismiss the Silicon Valley automaker altogether and claim they’ll (instead) lead the EV revolution. Yet, their braggadocio, somehow, doesn’t seem to add up.
Editor’s note: For many moons and months, TeslaMondo was perhaps my favorite thing on the internet. It is a blog that offers insightful and hilarious commentary on Tesla. Hold on, let me rephrase that — it offers tremendously insightful and insanely hilarious commentary on Tesla. Alas, for more than one year, the person* behind TeslaMondo stepped deeper into the shadows and TeslaMondo went silent (*no, that person isn’t me, despite what some people have claimed and how much I wish that were the case).
Bob Lutz is ignoring all of the announcements by people still in the car business about the electric vehicles that they will be building. He’s now yesterday’s man (more like last century’s man, actually) and is shaking his fist at the newfangled gadgets that are replacing the things he built.
Mary Nichols, head of CARB, says the Tesla Model 3 is igniting a movement. Bot Lutz says Tesla is on its last legs and will be out of business in two years. Who you gonna believe?
