Will Tesla Ever Grow Up?
The author of a new book about Tesla wonders whether Elon Musk can deliver on his promises to investors, car nuts, futurists, and himself
Last spring, I was bicycling through Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood when I came around a major intersection and was dumbfounded by what I saw, or rather didn’t see. The Tesla showroom was gone, an empty shell of what seemed to be a permanent lodestar of our gilded age. As someone who doesn’t follow the auto industry or Silicon Valley all that closely — and who abhors cults of CEO personality — I found this development shocking. Broad view, I knew Tesla failed to deliver on many fronts, but I had no idea what a major crossroads the company is at until digging into Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by automotive journalist Edward Niedermeyer.
The showroom closings are a perfect example. Elon Musk spins it as a natural evolution because people now prefer buying things online (even though multiple states ban direct-to-consumer car sales), but it’s also a cost-cutting move requiring consumers to purchase cars without ever taking a test drive. Musk says going online is necessary to bring the price of the Model 3 — the car he claimed Tesla would sell 500,000 a year of by now — down to $35,000 for the mass market. It also sounds like a way…
