Tesla's value plunged nearly $200 billion since mid-July – and the EV maker faces a bumpy road ahead

Well, I’d say the value of the Tesla isn’t the car at all, it’s in being the first to popularize Evs, the brand they’ve built, and in the recharging network they’ve built.

As far as the cars go theres just too many reported problems. Take the above things away and you’re left with just an ok car. Why would you invest all that money in something that’s just ok, especially when you can go to the nearest competitor who not only has way more money and experience in the industry but can produce a cheaper more reliable product. Not to mention the fact that they have the dealerships across the country to handle their vehicles and perform maintenance.

Where tesla shined really was in how the brand became associated with success and quality, and in how large a recharging network they built. Nobody else has come close to achieving either. With musk acting like a dumbass they’ve lost the it factor. Should have been obvious with the cyber truck. Elon basically acted out that episode of the simpsons where homer bankrupts his brothers car company by designing a hilariously bad car. They do still have the charging network, and I think that value cannot be understated, but in 10 years ev charging will become ubiquitous and that won’t matter.

Tesla was at its peak when musk mostly shut the fuck up and pretended to be the ambitious billionaire genius focused on the betterment of humanity.

Now it’s clear that space Karen was little more than a guy who got extremely lucky in the early dot com days and amassed an insane fortune. Strip elon of his wealth and ask him to do it again and he would never be able to.

It’s sad too, I wanted to get a Tesla but now there’s just no way. Not when Space Karen can just auto install some update that requires I pay a subscription to use the ac. Fuck that shit, too unreliable.

As used cars, they aren’t very attractive for 2 big reasons.

Repair facilities and even just new parts are rare and can take months to book (which is a problem for new teslas as well).

But a bigger problem is that Tesla iterates parts designs, so if you have a used Tesla and the door handle breaks, you might not be able to get the right part to repair it, or you might need to make a series of other changes for it to work.

When you buy a Tesla, your buying a test mule that is a work in progress. That’s why most car companies spend 3+ years developing traditional vehicles before coming to market. And they used decades of institutional experience and known good components instead of attempting to reinvent it all (even the manufacturing process, which Tesla learned hard lessons about early on).

So they have decent features, they're just built like shit. Great selling point.