Elon’s big grift is in trouble.
His EV operation – which made most of its money on stock valuation predicated upon the government making a “market” for battery powered devices – which forced other car manufacturers that were not making devices to buy credits from Elon in lieu of making them, so as to “offset” their “carbon footprints” – just lost about 40 percent of the value of its stock.
The reason why is both ironic and delicious.
The de facto EV production mandates (only EVs qualify as so-called “zero emissions” vehicles, never mind the “emissions” they cause to be “emitted” elsewhere) that made Tesla the highest-valued vehicle manufacturer on the planet served to prod the manufacture of battery powered devices by every other vehicle manufacturer. Once other vehicle manufacturers began manufacturing their own devices they no longer needed to pay Tesla for “credit” to “offset” the “zero emissions” vehicles they hadn’t been manufacturing.
The carbon credits grift is now basically kaput – and that is costing Tesla hugely. So also the diffused demand for Tesla’s devices, which is a consequence of the competition Tesla now must deal with from the now-many manufacturers of devices forced into being by the very “zero emissions” mandates that Tesla built its grift upon.
It was a grift that could only work so long as Tesla had the “market” all to itself.
It’s also similar to the business model that the Japanese automakers depended on when the first small Japanese cars entered the “market” back in the early 1970s.
What happened back then was similar in that the government created a “market” for Japan’s small (and small-engined) cars by imposing costly penalties on American car companies, which at the time, built much larger (and larger engined) cars. These used more gas than the government decreed allowable and were styled “gas guzzlers” and their manufacture was punished via fines for this “guzzling,” which ran afoul ofthe federal government’s fuel economy regs (CAFE), brought to you by Nixon, by the way. 
But after a few years, the American car companies began building “Japanese” cars of their own. That is to say, smaller cars with smaller engines – like the Japanese cars. These CAFE regs are why there are no longer any American cars – in the way that these latter were once very different than Japanese cars in that they were once larger cars, rear-drive cars and regularly offered or even came standard with V8 engines.
Now American cars are pretty much the same as Japanese cars (and European cars). All small, FWD and four cylinders (with a V6 still available, here and there).
They just have “American” badges.
But at least the Japanese made good cars – and there actually was a market for such in that people tend to be desirous of well-made, reliable things. And the Japanese cars were certainly that. Just like the Japanese motorcycles that came to dominate the motorcycle market.
But there is no denying the fact that the Japanese car companies were advantaged by the government – which disadvantaged the home-brand competition, which never recovered.
Just as Tesla has been advantaged vis-a-vis every derisively styled “legacy” vehicle manufacturer that wasn’t manufacturing battery powered devices – which was all of them initially – leaving Tesla in the enviable position of being – for a time – the only manufacturer of “zero emissions” battery powered devices.
This advantaged Tesla in another way – beyond the advantage of being able to mulct the “legacy” automakers (via “carbon credits”) to finance Tesla’s manufacture of battery-powered devices:
It had what market there was for battery powered devices all to itself – for awhile. And there was (and is) a small market for these devices. That is to say, there are a few people who are interested in a battery powered device and have the means to pay for one. These are necessarily affluent people; the same people who can afford to buy a luxury car. The problem is the market for luxury cars is limited – it is inherently small – because there are only so many people who can afford to buy a luxury-priced vehicle. And the average price of a battery powered device is just shy of $50,000.
What’s happened is another compounding problem for Tesla: Market saturation – the de facto forced (via the regs) manufacture of battery powered devices by every manufacturer of vehicles combined with the waning of market demand for these devices.
Most of the affluent people who wanted a battery powered device and could afford to buy one have already bought one. They are not in the market for another one. At the same time, the “market” is being flooded with devices for which demand is waning, creating what Ross Perot once called a giant sucking sound – of money, being hoovered into oblivion.
Eventually – when there is no more money – Tesla (and the manufacturers of other devices who’ve stupidly committed themselves to making only devices, just like Tesla) will find they have run out of money.
Elon, of course, will still have plenty of money. He is a smart grifter – and knows how to avoid being sucked past the event horizon, himself.
But it will be satisfying to witness Tesla – perhaps the greatest grift ever – go the way of WorldCom and Enron.
Sic gloria transit mundi.
Hopefully!
. . .
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Chinese EVs Are Catching Fire in HUGE Numbers!
Ban the sale of EV’s……..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0T-lCZcUZo
Dumb as a rock….GM CEO SHOCKED as EV Fiasco Completely DESTROYED GM’s Reputation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N0V0DGhq5I
Lawsuit: Tesla must be punished for “tasteless” sharing of car-camera images
Stupid EV buyers are clueless….the EV is watching and recording everything they do and say….lol….the tesla employees watch the videos and laugh at them…..
One ex-employee told Reuters, “I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don’t think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected… We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids.”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/tesla-sued-after-report-that-workers-shared-invasive-images-from-car-cameras/
Tell Tesla owners….tesla employees are watching you and laughing at you…..they say you are a goof….
Actually all new car owners have this problem now…….pay $60,000 for a car…..and the car company employees are laughing at your stupid face and everything you say and do…lol….you are now the village idiot for someone’s entertainment……do not buy any new car….
I believe this is not the end of Tesla, but rather the beginning. Tesla’s ultimate value may be in FSD (full self driving) and they are light years ahead of the competition. This is the future of transportation and worth more than any mere car company. So yeah, sell your shares to me when the market bottoms!
“Full Self Driving” is one of the gimmicks that tech laggard Tesla uses to pretend that it is actually a high-tech company, when in reality it’s so backward it’s not even able to come up with a technology that can can compete performance-wise with a primitive tank and pump even after 20+ years.
But I suppose the market can stay irrational longer than a lot of people can stay solvent…
Hi Ron,
Tesla’s “self driving” system is (a) very buggy and (b) if it is the “future” then why bother with owning a car at all? Just tap the app and rent the Johnny Cab. Bear in mind, you’ll be taken for a ride at a Glaucomic old lady pace – for saaaaaaaaaaaaaafety – and only if you are fully up to date on all your mRNA drugs that aren’t vaccines and haven’t posted anything “hateful” on social media.
Shoot me now, please.
Dems and globalists want us using mass transit and Uber anyway.
All new cars have reached saturation, due to EPA and Bidenomics.
I personally prefer hybrid cars. The sweet spot for sure.
Tesla and other EV makers should make 1-seated cars. That’s all the masses can afford new nowadays. Add a solar charging roof and no range anxiety or vandals unplugging in da hood.
I’ll walk before I steer a wheeled appliance.
Why did Stellantis stop making the Charger/Challenger? The CEO of Stellantis said it was because they did not want to pay Tesla carbon credits for producing Charger/Challengers. And now I’m reading that the carbon credits are a voluntary transaction. Could it be that the Stelantis CEO was using carbon credits as an excuse to get rid of the Charger/Challengers?
It’s probably just vanity on the part of Cheapskate Carlos, he wants to look “greener” than other automotive CEOs or something.
Were those credits as “voluntary” as our payments to the IRS are?
Hi Goundhog,
The “carbon credits” are as “voluntary” as the “contributions” you’ve made to Social Security. A manufacture that does not make a sufficient number of “zero emissions” devices or that has a too-large “carbon footprint” is effectively forced to buy these “credits” to offset the latter. It works like the indulgences people used to pay the Church.
Musk’s grant money from the US government over the years to build the EV industry is well publicized. Liberals should know this well, but it seems to be a surprise to them, now that Musk has turned mostly conservative.
Any, and EVERY wrong with the EV industry is the manipulation of the Deep State Cabal. Musk just got super rich from it. I imagine EVERY lawyer, judge, lawgiver and industrialist is jealous as heck.
BTW, don’t get your Cybertruck wet without putting it into “Carwash mode” first.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/20/cybertruck_car_wash_mode/
The advisor said that “it is a known issue in the Cybertruck that when you do a screen reset, instead of resetting in the standard two minutes, it takes five hours.”
I wonder if the charger will work while it’s rebooting?
Meanwhile, the story was also picked up on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s other business empire, where an X user plumbed the depths of the Cybertruck owner’s manual, which routinely turns up comedy gold.
In this instance, attention was drawn to a line saying: “CAUTION Failure to put Cybertruck in Car Wash Mode may result in damage (for example, to the charge port or windshield wipers). Damage caused by car washes is not covered by the warranty.”
People pay money for the privilege of owning a vehicle that will reboot itself if moistened? Bulletproof stainless steel that you can’t get wet. Reminds me of the Soviet tanks that were impenetrable, but the fuel tank was exposed and easily damaged by small caliber weapons.
“it is a known issue in the Cybertruck that when you do a screen reset, instead of resetting in the standard two minutes, it takes five hours.” — quoted by RK
If your crappy, buzzing old hard drive was dying in an early Windows computer, it might take five hours to do a disc defrag.
But five hours for a Tesla screen reset? That’s a blast from the past I don’t need — especially for $80K.
Most of the modern CEOs are playing “fake it ’til you make it” with investor money. See what sticks and act like you always planned it that way. Elon is no different, having gone through the experience of PayPal’s acquisition by eBay. Being too soon with something that becomes a fundamental part of the Internet has to frost him pretty hard. I’m fairly sure he looks at Amazon and Google and realizes he sold too early. That’s why he converted Twitter to X.com, he wants a third act. Tesla was a way to generate easy money to fund Starlink. Starlink is there to have a network under his control -one that has a built-in revenue stream by being the next generation Iridium network for the Military and commercial interests, not for rural broadband. His deal with T-Mobile to experiment with satellite to handsets is another piece of the puzzle, one that will make it possible for cash exchange with one less intermediary.
The slave owning control group works 24/7/365, making sure they control the narrative…brain washing the slaves…
Where can the slaves go to get deprogrammed?….
To get deprogrammed from the EV narrative go to Eric Peter’s site….
Everything is weaponized against the slave…..the legal system, big pharma…the medical system, the government, organized religion, the education system, big farma…the food suppliers…,Hollywood,…all the media, all the electronic devices, now their cars,…. life on prison planet….
Great post ‘anonymous1’ i whole heartedly agree 200%.
….And you didn’t even go into pitfalls of EVs; range is not what they claim, charging difficulties, weight, precious metals manufacture for the batteries, cold climates, and many more.
….And I’m happy you called ‘them’ devices and not ‘Electric Cars’. Calling them electric is a misnomer and a pet peeve of mine from the getgo. EV cars are no more ‘Electric cars’ than a DeWalt 18V drill/driver is an electric drill.
They are battery powered ‘devices’, thus ‘Battery Powered – Rechargeable Cars’ and Battery Powered Drills. An actual electric drill(with a cord) will likely work for anyones lifetime is not abused….I know this because I still have the first one I bought in 1967 when I got married and it works fine. I also have my Dad’s old electric drill, which would qualify an an antique, and it work too.
Recalling every Cybertruck yet produced isn’t going to help matters. Oh, and then there’s this:
https://jalopnik.com/tesla-cybertruck-no-match-for-car-wash-1851417011
I was always told not to buy the first year of any significant model change. Seems like that’s still good advice.
He should have come up with a Tesla phone a long time ago. He would probably have become bigger than Apple. Many of us who have no interest in an electric car at this point, would definitely have wanted to have a REAL choice other than Apple/Samsung and Android/Apple.
I, and countless others, would have bought a “Tesla.”
The so called “carbon credits” is one of the biggest grifts ever, Eloon gets all the other car manufacturers to subsidize Tesla; without that and the tax credits for the buyers Tesla would never have gotten off the ground. Now that Tesla has to compete on its own merits – or lack thereof – it is heading for the dumpster where it belongs.
@Eric – The question now is whether Elon follow Kenny Boy and Coach Ebbers into the orange jumpsuit fitting room at a Federal prision.
The establishment is definitely turning on Musk.
Musk will be fine…he is part of the slave owner, control group, aristocracy….
@34:40 in video….Musk’s control group monarchy connection
https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=GuoWtkt9Hj0
Another problem with Tesla is that, as the “market leader” in EVs, they’re spending a lot of money, time, and effort on making mistakes and wrong decisions. Turns out, being first to market doesn’t always mean being first in the marketplace. Tesla is taking the brunt of the effort, expense, and risk in being a “first mover” with EVs.
Other car manufacturers, particularly big Japanese manufacturers, are sitting on the sidelines and letting Tesla (not to mention Government Motors) take all the risk and all the losses on EVs, only stepping in once they’re sure EVs have a future (which isn’t now, if ever) and if/when they do, they know how to work the bugs out.
Were EVs proven to be viable, EVs produced by Toyota, Honda, Subaru, and others would be far better and cheaper than anything made by Tesla.
Trouble is, EVs are only viable as second cars for well-to-do people living in flat, temperate, urbanized areas.
So the big Japanese companies are wise in staying on the sidelines and sticking with proven technology, like hybrids.
Tesla has spent more than two decades unwittingly demonstrating why the BEV is a cul-de-sac, and why it deservedly ended up on the scrap heap of automotive history a century ago.
The only thing that could save Tesla is if it built internal combustion cars as a kit and had dealers screw in some body panels.
Dodge was their biggest credit purchaser. Now that they have suicided themselves that just leaves Mercedes.
“Market saturation”
Which means there is no way to maintain current EV sales, much less significantly increase it. The Psychopaths In Charge are yelling “everything is going just as we planned” as the car marked is tumbling off the cliff.
We drove down to Northern Neck yesterday to retrieve our quarterly abundance of fresh seafood. It is a long hike, but it takes us through counties that haven’t changed in 50 years. There is something tranquil and soothing seeing decades old John Deere tractors clearing fields to get ready for a new planting season, small BBQ joints, one gas station towns, and guys driving big Ford pickups heading to the next landscaping or trade job. It reminds you of a time when life seemed simpler, people were nicer, and politics were taboo.
I don’t see how EVs will ever succeed in these small rural areas. Big government can continue to push, but there is another world outside these big metropolitan areas that will continue to move at the pace that they are use to. Uncle Sam will go broke trying to erect the needed infrastructure to make these areas “current” and yet, it will not thrive. Government needs to learn that you cannot push people into something they do not want. Some people still have spines of steel.
I read an interesting quote yesterday on The Hedge. A commenter wrote that a Revolution does not need violence or Molotov cocktails to prosper, just perseverance. A parallel system that does not need large corporations or government handouts, just true grit and a willingness to survive. Yesterday actually gave me hope.
Galts Gulch.
Galts Gulch is anywhere and everywhere. You will find it in the black market everywhere, on every highway where drivers are speeding along, sans seat belts, minding their own business.
We didn’t notice a lot of EVs or even charging stations in rural Wisconsin when we visited the area last November, at the tail end of tourist season. However, even with traditional economic activity, the ending of the pause in student loan payments at the beginning of the month clearly had an effect on the struggling economies of the small towns we visited as many attractions elected to end their seasons early with very little notice.
Northern Neck is close enough to DC that I gotta wonder how much of the housing stock has been bought up for AirBnB and rental arbitrage by Blackrock, Vanguard, etc.
Doing taxes, I noticed that about 10% of the dividends I received from Vanguard VTSMX qualified for a special tax rule usually reserved for REITs. I knew the fund had significant investments in the trusts, including the one that holds the title on my wife’s nephew’s house here in Texas, but a double digit percentage of dividends from that fund, which isn’t supposed to produce a lot of income, was a bit surprising.
When the name of the fund is “Total Stock Market”, the expectation is that it will hold … stocks!
Silly me.
And for the record, we stayed in traditional motels. I’m not a big fan of AirBnB, having watched it trash many small towns within an hour or two drive of Austin over the last ten years.
The best ginger ale in the world was made in the Northern Neck area –Carver’s ginger ale. Sadly, it’s no longer made. The second best, Northern Neck, was bought by Coca Cola and was discontinued sometime thereafter.
As I’m originally from Michigan and Ohio, I always loved Vernor’s Ginger Ale. Vernor’s was founded in 1866, by James Vernor who owned a drug store in Detroit and is the oldest ginger ale brand in America. It is tough to find it in the mountain west, my present home.
The Vernor’s family sold out in 1966, interestingly after exactly 100 years. It has had multiple owners since….currently it’s under the Dr.Pepper umbrella. Probably doesn’t taste like the 1960s Vernor’s anymore
“I don’t see how EVs will ever succeed in these small rural areas.”….
The controllers…the slave owning monarchy…..spreads the fake science narrative that….. man was an invasive destructive species…. destroying the planet….so will to be banned from the wilderness and countryside….confined to 15 min.city/prisons to save the planet
Rural areas will be ‘rewilded’ …become gated private forests…just for the enjoyment of the nobility…no slaves around….
just for the enjoyment of the nobility….so gates can drive his 959 Porsche through there, with no useless eater slaves around…..
These (((controllers)))……who are they?
Yeah, I know. They are the same (((people))) who own and control the mass media and all the pro sports ball teams and leagues…. and Hollyweird….and the ‘Big Medical/Pharma Industrial Complex.’
Oh, and they own and control Washington DC as well.
The controllers are the people who own the privately owned federal reserve bank. They have purchased everything and everybody important with their counterfeit dollars. That is who is orchestrating all of this distruction.
Printing money out of thin air is satanism…an occult activity….
in video….
4:40
Reserve secret meeting at Jekyll Island
4:42
in 1910 and of course the Act was passed
4:47
in 1913 and there again john d
4:51
rockefeller son-in-law had set up that
4:55
whole meeting and run the whole thing so
4:57
Paul Warburg could bring a Rothschild
5:00
central bank to the United States and
5:03
the result of that meeting on Jekyll
5:05
Island is you have 1/4 trillion dollar
5:08
national debt created out of nothing and
5:12
that again is occult you say God can
5:16
create something out of nothing
5:17
but ordinary humans cannot do that
5:21
only through satanic means can you
5:23
create something out of nothing through
5:25
the use of their occult so that’s what we
5:27
have an occult temple and they have a
5:30
temple a marble temple right there on
5:33
Constitution Avenue in Washington DC
5:34
that is the headquarters of the Federal
5:37
Reserve System and it is a temple of the occult
5:39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zht0ok2DAQU
Tesla still has a certain cachet as a brand. The Cybertruck appearing in a parking lot around here draws attention.
Looking at the demographics of the crowd around a Cybertruck in the parking lot of Home Depot last weekend, I began to wonder if the reparations schemes could save Tesla or, at least, extend its downward spiral down a couple of years if enacted quickly enough.
If Big Mike really carries the Dem banner this Fall and he’s elected with a pliant Congress and a “mandate” to settle a lot of scores, well, as OJ used to say, “Watch out.”
Tallying their actual sales are sketchy AF.
Friend of mine said a month ago he saw a dead mall parking lot outside Atlanta had a sea of presumably unsold Teslas in it. I witnessed the same thing last week outside St Louis. Had to have been 100-150 of varying models (including about a dozen Cybertrucks) just sitting there.
The truth of the uselessness of these devices are slowly becoming obvious.
I’m reminded of an old Soviet joke as told by President Reagan about two Russians in Red Square talking that ends with “Hell no it’s going to get a lot worse”.
And that’s where we are now. The people are starting to realize there is something wrong but our glorious leaders are acting like Soviet apparatchiks and pushing their five year plans forwards. Border security everywhere but here! Is it too late to sentence them to 10 years in the Alaska Gulag (from the TV show Sliders), God I hope not.
My advice as always is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
An American tells a Russian that people in USA have the freedom of speech and that he even could go to the White House and shout: “Go to hell, Ronald Reagan!”
The Russian answers:”Oh, we also have freedom of speech. I, too, can go to the Kremlin and shout: “Go to hell, Ronald Reagan!”
Overhearing this exchange, a nearby policeman butts in. “Shut up you! Don’t you know if this were just a few years ago you’d have been shot for saying that?”
“It’s worse than I thought,” whispers the second man to the first. “Now they’re out of bullets too!”
Tucker Carlson on why Clowngress votes for warrantless spying on Americans, and permawars [2:38 video]:
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1781567790257758254
True “freedom of speech” died some time ago with selective (and illegal) prosecution of the J6 defendants although efforts to criminalize free speech was given a big “push” by the jews…(it’s always the JEWS) with the criminalization of “holocaust” revisionism in Florida which has already prosecuted a “holocaust” revisionist for passing out flyers questioning the “holocaust”.
‘Elon … is a smart grifter – and knows how to avoid being sucked past the event horizon, himself.’ — eric
Had a dream last night — after attending a classic car show yesterday — that I met Elon through a mutual friend. The three of us were casually hanging out in his garage, where Elon came across as just a regular guy, not an elite billionaire.
But the dream went poof with the dawn. Now we’re back in Grim Realityville, where the scams of Elon and Michael Regan and the permawars of Mitt Johnson and Chuck Schumer grift the living shit out of our economy and grow the looming $35 trillion Debtberg like a freaking volcano.
Welcome to Weimar, my friends — the Latin lament Sic transit gloria mundi is superseded by Springsteen’s ‘everything that dies someday comes back’:
‘The boisterous Claire Waldoff, who belted out tunes in Berlin argot, played both male and female characters from the city’s lower classes [in the Weimar cabaret]. Songs with titles like “Maskulinum/ Femininum” likewise dealt with gender fluidity.
“When the Special Girlfriend” was sung by Marlene Dietrich and Margo Lion as they portrayed two women on a shopping trip, both dissatisfied with their husbands and clearly taken with each other. The lighthearted song became something of an unofficial anthem for queer women. But on a more serious note, “The Lavender Song” with its march-like rhythm, was (and remains) a militant call for gay rights.’
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Articles/2024/02/01/Cabaret-in-the-Weimar-Republic
Sound familiar? Inflation unmoors society from its roots and traditions. That’s what permawars do. Any news from the Ukraine front, comrades?