Wednesday, December 14, 2022

"Put Not Your Faith In Techbros"--The Late Lamented Popehat Twitter Feed

What this proves is that Tesla is not a car company, not even a brand: it is a messianic hope.  "Messianic" in the Wall Street sense that it will make all its investors rich.  Will they finally realize the Emperor has no clothes?

Who bought a Model T because of Henry Ford (another anti-semitic racist)?  My father preferred GM cars, but it wasn't because of the Chairman of GM (whoever he was at the time over the decades my father owned cars). FORD became an mocking acronym for "Fix Or Repair Daily," but nobody bought Mustangs because Lee Iaccoca was involved with them (he was known for  reviving Chrysler's fortunes, but that was because he created the mini-van, not because he was a "visionary" who would populate Mars one day).  Nor do people buy Fords because Henry Ford's descendants are at the head of the company (or were; I haven't kept up).

Sure, you can name (if you try hard) car executives who can be associated with particular lines, but who designed the first Corvette?  Impala?  Le Baron?  Cordova (Ricardo Montalban?  No, he installed the "rich Corinthian leather," didn't he?) Suburban?

Tesla is a cult phenomenon.  People buy it because it's associated with Elon Musk.  Are people really ashamed of the car in their driveway because Musk is paying too much attention to Twitter, and Tesla "doesn't have a CEO"?  Or is it because of who Elon Musk is revealed to be?  The last sentence of that quoted statement contradicts the first one.  People admired the car owner because the admiration of Musk was commutative: admiration for Musk yielded admiration for owners of Teslas.

It's still a commutative relationship; and that's the problem.
As P.T. Barnum reportedly said, "There's a sucker born every minute." It's all about the marketing.
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