You are right to have a healthy dose of skepticism for the future of Tesla. When I see reports that show all of the American automakers with declines of 15-25% in small car sales last year while SUVs and Crossovers grew, I wonder how well Tesla will do with the Model 3 - which last time I checked, is a small car. While many automakers seem like dinosaurs compared to Elon Musk, there are two things they do well. Produce vehicles and make a profit. Tesla can't seem to do either very well at this point. And the 2nd item means when there is a downturn - which I still think is years in the future, Tesla is not in any shape to handle it. Battery Electric cars are a niche market at best. The economics do not improve with mass adoption of these cars because the price of the inputs keep going up due to demand. And battery technology is very slow to change and improve. Charging times are not fast, and battery cost will continue to be a factor. Yes battery prices have come down over the past 10 years but there is a limit due to supply constraints on both lithium and especially cobalt. I look at fuel cells as being the future of electric automobiles much more than batteries. But that technology has years to go to catch up. So ICE isn't going away anytime soon because BEV's cannot get to a point where they are equal or better than ICE on both price and convenience, at least not here in the US.
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Uninvestable Tesla
You are right to have a healthy dose of skepticism for the future of Tesla. When I see reports that show all of the American automakers with declines of 15-25% in small car sales last year while SUVs and Crossovers grew, I wonder how well Tesla will do with the Model 3 - which last time I checked, is a small car. While many automakers seem like dinosaurs compared to Elon Musk, there are two things they do well. Produce vehicles and make a profit. Tesla can't seem to do either very well at this point. And the 2nd item means when there is a downturn - which I still think is years in the future, Tesla is not in any shape to handle it. Battery Electric cars are a niche market at best. The economics do not improve with mass adoption of these cars because the price of the inputs keep going up due to demand. And battery technology is very slow to change and improve. Charging times are not fast, and battery cost will continue to be a factor. Yes battery prices have come down over the past 10 years but there is a limit due to supply constraints on both lithium and especially cobalt. I look at fuel cells as being the future of electric automobiles much more than batteries. But that technology has years to go to catch up. So ICE isn't going away anytime soon because BEV's cannot get to a point where they are equal or better than ICE on both price and convenience, at least not here in the US.