cover of episode ‘The Tesla Shock Wave’ Has Arrived

‘The Tesla Shock Wave’ Has Arrived

Publish Date: 2023/7/19
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This is one of those things that comes along very rarely. It's going to just completely revolutionize the world. The entire American auto industry was totally convinced electric cars were impossible. It was just kind of this perfect storm of technology, status, and consumerism. And the last thing that I thought was cool was saving the environment. About a decade ago, Tesla did something extraordinary. It started making electric cars people actually wanted to drive.

They were fast, they were high-tech, and eventually Tesla reset the future of cars. But the road to success hasn't always been smooth. There's been broken promises, fights with regulators, accusations of stock manipulation. There was even an internal clash that left the original founders on the outs and one man in charge of everything. Here we are today. Damn.

This brand is really caught up in an individual. Elon Musk is very much about Elon Musk. And there's like a real need for control. Elon Musk is more central to the Tesla brand than Steve Jobs was to the Apple brand. They became Elon believers.

As Tesla became synonymous with innovation, it also became synonymous with its leader, a man who promises worlds but may now be struggling to deliver. Welcome to the Cybertruck unveil. Tesla is marketing and trying to sell you a product that doesn't exist. Anyone here use the full self-driving beta?

I think he was maybe not the best person to lead Tesla. Ever since he bought Twitter, he's been obsessed with it. And it hasn't been good for him. The rich liberals are like, what the fuck am I giving this guy money for?

Now, with the rest of the industry racing to go electric, will Tesla continue to lead the charge or run out of juice? The Tesla shockwave hits Wednesday, July 26th. Follow Land of the Giants wherever you listen. New episodes out every Wednesday. Tesla's miles ahead of everyone else. I think that that gap will close pretty rapidly. This is an existential problem for these companies.