Tesla Is Following A Timeline Laid Out Many Months Ago, Yet Critics Are Acting Surprised

March 10th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

This is a quickie. Sometimes, to set the record straight, quick & clean is the best way to go.

I honestly have a hard time determining when Tesla critics are intentionally misleading people and when they are just being idiotic. This past week or so is no exception, but it’s hard to believe it was the latter. (You’d have to be really idiotic to so blatantly get the story wrong on at least one of the two big Tesla news items I’m discussing below.)

Related story: CleanTechnica Exclusive: The World Inside Tesla Is Completely Different From The Media’s Portrayal Of Tesla

For more than a decade, Tesla had a target to sell an “affordable” yet highly compelling electric car. It was the final objective in Tesla’s 2006 Secret Master Plan. When I wrote more than 3 years ago that Tesla’s master plan was coming to life, I was highlighting the company’s progress but also the point that its end goal was this affordable $35,000 car (the Tesla Model 3). Tesla doesn’t want to just sell $60,000+ cars to rich people at great margins. It wants to get the mass market to drive zero-emissions vehicles. That’s its core mission.

Everyone who has followed Tesla for more than a day in the past few years has basically learned that the $35,000 Model 3 is what tens of thousands of Tesla employees have been striving to create. Additionally, we know that it has taken longer than hoped for that version of the vehicle to arrive.

Nonetheless, when Elon Musk unveiled approximately a week and a half ago that the $35,000 Model 3 was finally available to order, many in the press acted as if this was a Hail Mary pass on 4th and long (that’s a football metaphor for anyone who doesn’t follow American football). Instead of highlighting a tremendously difficult achievement that took more than a decade of hard work, critics skipped past any praise and started claiming it was a sign of crisis. When’s the last time an Olympic athlete won a gold medal and the TV commenters tried to spin it in a negative way?

Perhaps even more ridiculous was what happened a few days later. In the middle of last year, responding to a question on Twitter, Elon Musk said that the Model Y would be revealed on March 15. Last week, Elon tweeted out that the event would be on March 14, just a day earlier. Critics across the Twittersphere, TV, and the commenting threads of websites like this one decided the Model Y reveal was yet another sign of desperation, of crisis, of a failing company and scrambling CEO. Tesla is fulfilling a plan announced publicly several months ago, but this is nonetheless being portrayed as a reactionary effort to stimulate positive hype. Wait, what?

These critics also seem to ignore that the Model Y could hurt Model 3 demand (so announcing it right now could be dangerous if Tesla is searching for more Model 3 consumer demand). In any case, how is an event that was announced a few quarters ago a last-minute stock-pumping exercise? #MakesNoSense

One thing is clear: certain Tesla critics are so blinded by their hate for Elon Musk and Tesla that they will twist like a Twizzler to spin a positive or neutral story negatively. Every piece of news is apparently a reason to buckle down in pessimism. Every announcement is a sign of crisis. How could it be anything else?

This is just a Saturday night rant about the immoral or idiotic spin Tesla trolls try to put on every Tesla story. I’ve advised many times that people should not feed the trolls, so I’ll get offline now.

True (sigh) — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2019

True — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2019

Related stories:

CleanTechnica Exclusive: The World Inside Tesla Is Completely Different From The Media’s Portrayal Of Tesla

If A Tesla Pattern Has Emerged, What Does That Mean For Model 3?

Is Tesla Model 3 Actually On Original Schedule?











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