Elon Musk and Tesla’s self-serving sport: Why India ought to be cautious

Recently Elon Musk, in a tweet let or not it’s recognized that Tesla’s India enterprise is “still working through a lot of challenges with the government”. While he didn’t seem to instantly blame the federal government, the subtext was clear. The authorities has been sensible and has seen via the self-serving sport. As Business Today studies, it is not going to bow to stress. But there are loads of helpful innocents and starry-eyed inexperienced warriors, to not converse of corrupt media ecosystem in search of anti-Modi sound bites who will use it to bash Modi for “making things difficult for Electric Vehicles (EVs)”. To preserve ourselves knowledgeable, and never be fooled, allow us to have a look at the background of Elon Musk.

First truth which will shock you is that Musk didn’t begin Tesla. That was accomplished by two different actual heroes who have been eased out. 

Elon Musk has at all times been dwelling off the fats of the land, milking subsidies. His center identify might simply be “Gimmedollah”. While the woke ecosystem led by the Pelosis are waking as much as this actuality slowly till Q2 2021 Tesla’s GAAP income in its complete historical past have been all due to regulatory credit! In different phrases, every of these “profits” would have been losses with out Uncle Sam and different Uncles handing out your {dollars}. Although lately actual income are inching up, taxpayer handouts are nonetheless very a lot a part of Musk’s enterprise mannequin. It is little marvel he needs extra of that from the Modi authorities. And particular therapy too.

While nobody can deny EVs are much less polluting, the very act of handing out subsidies to wealthy consumers of fancy vehicles that value $50-150,000 and may very nicely afford them, has been questioned. To provide you with some perspective, a brand new Honda Civic within the USA prices lower than $25,000. Even a Prius hybrid will not be that a lot greater. These subsidies are morally troubling, particularly contemplating how far that cash can go combating harm from the smoke of the chulhas, polluted ingesting water, children with out faculties and different urgent points in Africa and elsewhere.

Be that as it might, there’s NO actual want to provide something particular to Tesla/Musk that we don’t give to others as a result of their so-called technical lead in EV is a mirage. Let’s dig in.

Take the largest of them first. Tesla’s so-called autopilot or “full self-driving” remains to be in beta, 5 years after Musk mentioned, “3 months maybe, 6 months definitely”. It has been dismissed as outright fraud and lampooned by many specialists. One person mentioned he wouldn’t belief the “smart summon” in an empty parking zone! Tesla vehicles, a lot of them in auto mode, are ramming into pedestrians, parked vehicles and roadside timber and so forth., killing folks. YouTube has many movies of wonky driving and near-death experiences by customers of so-called autopilot. US regulators like NTSB and NHTSA are slowly waking up and the media is asking on them to finish what LA instances referred to as “madness”. Even on this area, others are miles forward. Cruise owned by General Motors usually dismissed as a dinosaur ready to go extinct, is working self-driving taxis!

Little do folks know that Musk’s vehicles use batteries made by a China firm – CATL who’s a market and expertise chief. There are others too like LG Chem. In any case, Tesla’s batteries are made and expertise owned by Panasonic who’ve made clear they will provide to different carmakers topic solely to capability constraints.

Even in semis (In India we’d name them vehicles or lorries), the much-hyped Tesla semi is nowhere in sight whereas Volvo is blazing forward. Mercedes has began manufacturing already.

In the pickup vehicles phase (these are Isuzu D-MAX sort of autos which might be virtually non-existent in India however represent an enormous and extremely worthwhile phase within the USA), Telsa’s overhyped “cybertruck” has been delayed additional to 2023 whereas Ford is saying document bookings, doubling of its F-150 truck manufacturing, and deliveries begin this spring! Rivian and GM Silverado aren’t too far behind. Musk’s hilarious stunt on “armour glass” window breaking through the demo is the stuff of web memes now however is an apt metaphor for his general character.

VW Is truly promoting extra EVs in Europe than Tesla and shortly that would be the actuality within the USA and different locations too. China has many firms making great-looking EVs and Tesla’s progress there’s slowing. Just ask IBM, Compaq and others how their story went on PCs.

So the writing is on the wall. Big auto, removed from turning into one other Kodak, could be very a lot catching up, even overtaking and can find yourself consuming Musk’s lunch.

As if all that weren’t sufficient, Tesla work tradition is poisonous, sexist (Any marvel left ecosystem loves him?) and Musk goes after anybody together with college students, whistleblowers and journalists that dare to criticize him and attempt to destroy their lives and careers. Read about Hothi and Cristina Balan and lots of others. As WSJ has revealed, Tesla even tried to get their regulation agency to sack a former SEC worker that was merely doing her job in her former employment! Thankfully in contrast to left academia and media ecosystem, which is able to gladly purge anybody on orders from Politburo or Palazzo, the regulation agency refused to buckle.

China has seen via Tesla gimmicks and its empty IP cabinet and has been squeezing Musks’ susceptible elements of late. Having achieved its preliminary goal of utilizing the media hype that follows Musk to push its personal carmakers and their EV efforts. Tesla has been compelled to open a showroom in Xinjiang and provides it a lot hype. Recalls ordered by China have been rather more aggressive too. It has additionally began making noises about Starlink satellites, yet one more of Musk’s much-hyped ventures that make large losses all instantly and not directly funded by EV hype and taxpayer {dollars}.

Musk’s largest and unquestionable success is blowing up Tesla inventory right into a twenty first century Tulip bulb, with a market cap greater than the following 12 large automakers mixed. That is sort of an achievement, and an affidavit to the gullibility of the typical investor no matter the place he lives or his pores and skin color. But that form of ticking timebomb is one thing India can do with out. We have sufficient of that nonsense.

Bottomline

Yes, EVs are good, Yes EVs are the long run. But we’ll get there with, or extra probably, with out Musk.

But allow us to not be fooled into parting with hard-earned taxpayer cash from tens of millions of laborious incomes Indians to a white Mehta. It is nonetheless unhappy to see many states even some BJP dominated, bending over backwards to “invite” him to proceed together with his methods and suck our cash.