Tesla Is Producing Unicorns

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I’ve got a couple of little girls. With young girls, I now realize that unicorns are a much bigger part of life on earth than I once thought. They may be the most common fantasy creatures other than fairies. In fact, with all the propaganda around unicorns, I would not hold it against you if you thought they really lived on earth, somewhere in Siberia or something.

Though, the important thing to keep in mind, as an adult, is that unicorns are actually not real. Outside of coloring books, stuffed animals, cartoons, young imaginations, etc., unicorns don’t exist. I will come back to why this is important in a minute.

It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that even many adults like to engage in fantasies about what exists and what doesn’t exist. There are robust industries based around fantasies — the movie industry, the TV/Netflix industry, the video game industry, literature, and so on. Some political campaigns are built around fantasy. We know that fantasizing about what isn’t real is interesting. However, what we are probably much less aware of is that there are many adults, companies, and even industries that are focused on making you believe that something doesn’t exist actually does exist.

The coal industry or nuclear industry would have you believe that there’s no such thing as highly efficient, cost-competitive, reliable solar panels and wind turbines, as one example relevant to this website.

The biggest example of this, from my perspective, concerns Tesla.

Before I get into that, though, it’s important to realize that it’s not just one specific group of people or one industry that is scared of Tesla and trying to keep it from succeeding. There are several major industries and special interests that are terrified of Tesla’s success. I think the best rundown of them that I’ve seen is here: The Tesla Smear. Fear is a powerful motivator, and there is much fear out there about what Tesla means for the future.

Many of these people or groups are very eager to tell you that Tesla will come to nothing, that its death is just around the corner, that the Tesla story is all about hype and the illogical hype will come crashing down on itself soon. These claims are a mixture of tragic hope, business or political messaging, and desperate attempts to create the future you want simply by claiming it will be the future (attempts at self-fulfilling prophecies).

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

Okay, fine, all well and good — do what you can. However, I find that one type of claim in this communications war is truly mind boggling in its dishonesty — it’s mind boggling at the same level as Don the Con’s incessant and totally unbelievable lies. It is similar to someone consistently trying to tell you that unicorns really do exist.

This type of claim popped up again and triggered this article thanks to some anonymous commenters in discussion threads under some of my recent articles. You can also routinely find it on Twitter and in other popular Tesla discussion forums. Stated in various ways, the claim is that Tesla has not executed anything, does not deliver, has only had negligible sales, hasn’t achieved anything noteworthy in terms of automobile production and deliveries, isn’t a real carmaker, and has definitely had no impact on the auto industry or other automakers’ sales. You know, there are still only a few people, basically in California and Norway, buying Tesla vehicles.

In actuality, Tesla does deliver, it does execute despite years of claims that its goals were impossible, it does now produce and sell a lot of cars, and it is having a powerful effect on the rest of the auto industry and most, if not all, major automakers.

Certain critics would like you to believe that Tesla is producing unicorns — that its cars don’t really exist, that they don’t replace sales of many other automakers, that they don’t make money for Tesla or take revenue and profits away from gasoline/diesel automakers, and that they are basically silent and invisible fantasy creatures that exist only in the minds of Tesla fanboys. Well, they may be quite close to silent, but they are not invisible fantasies.

There are various reasons to downplay the tremendous execution and effect of Tesla, but the main one is that Tesla is indeed threatening many other companies, entire industries, trillions of dollars in investments, and countless careers. Many people are scared (unfortunately) to see Tesla succeed — or continue to succeed. But make no doubt about it, if Tesla was producing unicorns, it would already have an enormous army of them thrilling and amazing the world, bringing joy to millions of humans.

As I noted the other day, the Tesla Model 3 was the 11th best selling car in the United States last year in terms of units sold, the 4th best selling car in terms of revenue, and the best selling luxury vehicle (by far). The Model S was the best selling large luxury car (by far). The Model 3 was also the best selling car in the USA in terms of revenue in the second half of 2018, and the best selling vehicle in terms of revenue in California in the first quarter of this year. The Model 3 is the best selling vehicle in Norway so far this year and the best selling luxury vehicle in the Netherlands and Switzerland (near the top of the overall charts in those countries as well). The Model 3 had 55,000 more sales in 2018 than the second best selling electric car on the planet. Tesla passed up Porsche and Jaguar in global sales at the end of 2018.

If these are unicorns, watch out, little girls across the world are going to be super excited about them.

Oh, wait …

Read more Morning Monkey Business articles for more fun.

Interested in buying a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X? Need a referral code to get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging? Use ours: http://ts.la/tomasz7234 (or use someone else’s if they helped you more).


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan