My two cents: Tesla (along with space-x) is doing what is needed. These electric cars that Tesla produces have amazing reliability. These cars - aside from replacing the battery packs about every 10 years - will last very long times with very few problems. There's no extreme heat, no need for oil changes or air filter replacements, tune ups. Your engine starter failing is a thing of the past. It's a huge electric motor and some lithium ion batteries and a computer to control it all. The highway auto-pilot (self driving) is VERY impressive and would make driving long distances MUCH safer. Imagine being tired on a 12-hour drive. If most of that drive is done by auto-pilot, the chances of an accident caused by a momentary lapse of attention decrease dramatically. The odds of going over the white lines or yellow lines on long drives with auto-pilot decreases dramatically.
Sure, Tesla is making no money. We all know this, but we all know that what Tesla is doing is what NEEDS to happen. They will eventually become profitable - I don't know when that will be, but it MUST be the future. Have you seen the smog in L.A. or New York? It's disgusting - even if it's only local.
The problem is Tesla is NOT doing what needs to happen. Sure they are building a luxury electric car. But providing a fine ride for a few millionaires is not solving your smog problem.
The electric car technology, as it stands today, is not ready for mass adoption. And Tesla will not be the company to get it there. At some point the money spigot will dry up, Musk will move off to another “bold” idea and Tesla will quiver and die.
You're not following their plan very closely if you think it stops at millionaires. Do you think the electric companies strung lines out to the poor's houses first? Nope. If you'd listen to Musk's plan, it's to sell at high price in low quantity, then mid price at mid quantity, then low price at high quantity. This takes several decades to achieve.
Sounds great. Except they need to survive and the free money is not going to last that long
Big fans of the petro-dollar over here, didn't realize...
I think it will last that long - electric cars are going to be a multi-trillion dollar industry. The payoff is too large to miss out on.
"These electric cars that Tesla produces have amazing reliability."
This is an outright falsehood. They produce poorly engineered vehicles Frankenstein'ed from other automakers parts, because they can't machine their own accurately. They use a Mercedes steering column.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1115659_tesla-model-3-quality-is-terrible-but-does-it-matter-to-buyers
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-quality-insight/build-fast-fix-later-speed-hurts-quality-at-tesla-some-workers-say-idUSKBN1DT0N3
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/25/tesla-employees-say-gigafactory-problems-worse-than-known.html
http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/9085/why-is-teslas-quality-control-still-so-poor
http://fortune.com/2017/10/30/tesla-model-s-quality-problems-review/
On and on and on.
I've not completely read all the articles you've cited, only briefly did I skim through some of them. What I did gather is that none of these things are concerning the engine - and the engine is exactly what I verbatim referred to:
"There's no extreme heat, no need for oil changes or air filter replacements, tune ups. Your engine starter failing is a thing of the past."
I was thinking more about the links you posted. I could probably find a similarly long (if not longer) list of problems with other car manufacturer products. So I'm not moved by these links.
"Sure, Tesla is making no money."
I'm glad we both agree that they are utterly failing at what is, by definition, their one and only task - producing profit as a corporation for shareholders, who OWN them.