Tesla fails: Elon Musk miscalculated here

If Elon Musk is one thing, it’s ambitious. The ambitions of the Tesla boss are big. However, this also means that the billionaire regularly makes promises that he or his team cannot keep. We have summarized a few of the hasty promises made by the Tesla boss in this series of pictures.

Elon Musk announces his plans either on the big stage or on Twitter. The projects are sometimes more or less realistic and vary in their meaningfulness – just think of the flamethrower, the “Burnt Hair” perfume or the Tesla Roadster, which drifts lonely towards Mars.

Tesla: There is criticism for the car manufacturer

Elon Musk aims high in every discipline: E-mobility, space travel, artificial intelligence or robotics. Commenting on the Twitter purchase, Musk emphasized his need to help humanity. Yes, Tesla is trendy – the achievements of Tesla’s research department cannot be discounted. However, this often does not keep up with the fulfillment of the utopian demands of their boss. An example of this is the 4680 battery, which has delivered on few previous promises and the production process still does not want to work properly. One of the main problems with the battery is that unfortunately significantly less environmentally friendly is advertised as.

However, this phenomenon does not seem to be uncommon at Tesla. It was not for nothing that the Federal Association of Consumer Centers sued the electric car manufacturer in July 2022. The reasons for this were “misleading advertising on CO2 emissions and a lack of information on data protection” (source: tagesspiegel.de). Shortly before that, in May 2022, Tesla flew out of the sustainability index by the rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) – curiously enough, the oil company ExxonMobil was still in the top 10 of the 500 largest sustainable companies in the Dow Jones (source: taz.de). Tesla also seems to have some catching up to do when it comes to corporate governance and social compatibility: discrimination due to age, gender, skin color or disability does not seem to be uncommon for the manufacturer (source: nau.ch).

However, that is not what our photo series should be about. We are much more likely to present projects that we are still waiting for their implementation, that ultimately took much longer than announced or that were disappointing when they were published.

Do you remember when you first entered a Tesla Model 3 seen on the street? It was 2017 when the first Model 3 rolled off the assembly line. It was promised back in 2013 that it would not be a luxury item, but with a price point of $35,000 should also be relatively affordable for smaller purses. The promise didn’t last long. In 2019 Teslas went over the counter for the price, but in March the model became more than 30 percent more expensive (source: cnn.com) . In autumn 2022, the “little” Tesla will still cost at least 49,990 euros – even after deducting the environmental bonus of 7,500 euros, the car is still an average half a year’s salary more expensive than promised.

Apparently Elon Musk has not yet given up on the goal of building an electric car for a small budget. This is how 2023 should be a model for 25,000 euros (before tax) appear (source: businessinsider.de). We are curious.

A heart dream of Elon Musk has been since 2016 autonomous driving. All Teslas made since then come equipped with the necessary hardware, including sensors and cameras. At that time, the Tesla boss said it would take another 2 or 3 years. Far from it, because it will still be some time before fully autonomous driving at Level 5.

In July 2021, the manufacturer had activated “Autopilot”, a level 2 driver assistance system – the system is moderately successful. So far, Tesla has reported by far the “largest proportion of accidents with partially automated functions” (source: golem.de). At the time of publication of this photo series, however, the manufacturer has plans for a series launch of self-driving Teslas by the end of the year (source: auto-motor-und-sport.de).

With the new 4680 cell the production of rechargeable batteries should not only become cheaper, but also more environmentally friendly and more powerful. So far, it has not been possible for the electric car group to keep these promises – with the exception of the cheaper production. The XXL battery cells offer slower charging times, a lower energy density.

The cell chemistry originally advertised as revolutionary turned out to be backwards on closer inspection of the batteries. Also the manufacturing turns out to be due to the new drying process difficult.

Why should you stop at cars? After all, in Germany alone, 1.3 million trucks use the autobahns every day (source: vcd.org). In November 2017, Musk finally revealed the idea and at the same time the first Tesla truck.

The Semi should appear at the end of 2019, but as of autumn 2022 the electric truck is yet to be seen on the road. in the December of the year However, it should finally be time – at least that’s what Elon Musk announced on Twitter (source: finanzen.net).

As with the Tesla Semi, it also seems to be in matters robot taxi a breakthrough near. However, the postponed timing of early 2023 is unlikely, according to expert Dr. Mario Herger (source: deraktionaer.de). The main competitor is Cruise. Unlike Tesla, this one relies on lidar sensors.

Musk announced that the robot taxis will go into volume production in 2024 and will have no pedals or steering wheel (source: ecomento.de).

Besides the Tesla Semi, Elon Musk also had the in September 2017 Tesla Roadster announced an electronic sports car. The goals are ambitious: a top speed of 400 kilometers per hour, acceleration from 0 to 100 in 2.1 seconds and a range of 1000 kilometers. The numbers on the Tesla website are impressive.

It remains to be seen how the end result will ultimately perform and whether the anticipation of many Tesla and sports car fans will be rewarded. Those who already pre-ordered in 2017 and for that a whopping $50,000 have laid down have been looking down the drain. Especially because the first release date already 2020 passed. So far, the Sport Stromer should appear in 2023.

It should open its doors in July 2021: the Gigafactory in Berlin-Brandenburg. It has nothing to do with us, rather it is Tesla’s first European assembly hall (if you can still call the gigantic factory that).

Was typical for Germany the construction including the approval process a bureaucratic nightmare for Elon Musk. Nevertheless, it was opened in March 2022, in the presence of the Federal Chancellor and Prime Minister. An expansion of the factory premises is already being planned (source: rbb24.de).