30 billion and a lawsuit for not keeping promises

Tell me you heard a loud clap this morning. The one so loud, your windows were shaking to the brink of breaking. Yes, that one. That was me hitting my forehead when I read about the news some investors are suing Tesla and more importantly, CEO Elon Musk, for misleading them. They claim they were told that the Robotaxi would be fully driverless and ready to be scaled to immense proportions. All of which they now have come to realize were - in the famous words of Musk himself - fake news.

I have to admit, they do have a point: the Robotaxi was never going to work like Musk was claiming before launch. But that's not the issue here. The problem is the investors believing Musk AGAIN, after what seems to be thousands of unkept promises from the man who's made a habit of underdelivering on almost everything he says.

Investors should be the ones who know what they're putting their money into. They should be doing their own due diligence and checking if claims made hold any water at all. If they would've done that for the Robotaxi, they would've found a lot - and I do mean a lot - of evidence that Tesla is any shape or form, is unable to drive itself without oversight. Heck, even with oversight it's a problem.

So suing Tesla and Musk is like losing at a game of marbles. The other kid wins fair and square and takes all your glass orbs. But you don't accept your loss and go complain to the teacher that your adversary was cheating. Which he might have been because he was telling you he was very bad at the game before hand. But if you'd seen the little boy beat every other kid in the school yard, you could've known not to play his game.

The investors that feel like they've been betrayed by their hero, are going to have a hard time making their case in court. They'll have to proof, without a doubt, that Musk and therefore Tesla were making the claims about the Robotaxi with malicious intent. They have to bring evidence that Elon and his henchmen knew about the shortcomings of their not so self driving taxi, chose to ignore the facts and deliberately communicated blatant lies to get the stock price to go up.

I'm not one that makes promised quickly, but on this one I'll promise that it's going to be an uphill battle in a Tesla with only 1 percent charge left in the battery.

There is a kicker to this story, because Musk is being given the generous 30 billion dollar pay package he was after. According to investors it's only fair the worlds richest man is being compensated in this way. It's hard to motivate him in any other way. Tesla claimed it was the right thing to do, because 'a deal is a deal' and you have to keep those. Even at Tesla, unless you're the CEO. Than you get rewarded for doing the exact opposite.

You can't make this shit up...

So what do you think the stripped out and cheaper Tesla Model Y will do in the market? Will it sell like hot cakes and be the world's most popular car again, or will people opt for one of the more well equipped and better looking cars in that price range? I know which option the Tesla-fanboys, er, investors are choosing...

In other news:

Lucid is struggling again, or still. Either way, the production of the Gravity is not going according to plan. We're not getting 20.000 immensely heavy SUV's this year, but only 18.000.

Mercedes is doing pretty much the opposite of Lucid. It's planning to launch 18(!) new models next year. It'll probably be about 9 or 10, because Merc is counting petrol and electric versions of the same vehicle as two separate models. Which is kind of like cheating. But still, it's going to be a busy year in Stuttgart.

Research has been done and open doors have been opened. It turns out people mostly buy cars when they have test driven it. Makes sense, right? Now apply that knowledge to people currently driving an ICE and eyeing a new EV. Will they buy a electric car sight unseen? Nope, researchers have found they need a test drive to see how an EV drives before making one of the biggest purchases of their lives. So the conclusion of the research is: test drives are unlocking the EV-transition.

"We can invent anything we want", said new Alfa Romeo boss Santo Ficili in a recent interview. Which is a good thing to hear, only not so much from Alfa Romeo. Let's face it, the brand has been synonymous with less than average reliability and weird tech-solutions to non-problems. The cars are usually very beautiful and good and fun to drive, especially when that 'quadrifoglio' is slapped on the sides. But new inventions from this Italian brand? No thanks.