Bob Lutz Says Media Treats Elon Musk And ‘Wild Ideas’ Too Favorably
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We all know Bob Lutz is no fan of Tesla and CEO Elon Musk. We can’t begin to count how many times Lutz has taken on Musk and Tesla’s business to challenge its ideas and operations. But, the media loves Musk and his “wild ideas,” as Lutz called them.
And that irks Lutz. USA Today reported on Tuesday that the former General Motors, Ford and Chrysler executive thinks the media gives Musk a free pass on his crazy ventures. He went on to say if a traditional automaker, like one of Detroit’s Big Three, announced something similar, the media wouldn’t be so thrilled.
“He keeps announcing these wild ideas, like flying to Mars, and the media covers it and then they let it go,” said Lutz. “There’s no way they’d do the same if GM or Ford were announcing this same stuff.”
Musk’s most recent round of headlines came when he promised to produce a Tesla pickup truck following the Model Y crossover. It’s yet another product in the pipeline at the Silicon Valley-based carmaker. Tesla has produced the Model S and Model X for years and recently launched the Model 3, though the automaker’s had problems mass producing the affordable electric car. Following the Model 3, Musk announced the 2020 Roadster and the Tesla Semi. The Model Y is in the mix, and now a pickup truck is on the radar.
Lutz again urged Detroit’s automakers to boast more about their own accomplishments and even said he’s emailed top executives at the companies to encourage the practice. The former GM executive was pleased after GM CEO Mary Barra shared her automaker’s plans for 20 new electric cars by 2023 and shared plans for a commercial self-driving car service sometime in 2019.
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Lets face it if Elon was just another guy like Lutz or other normal Industrial leader he would have been taken to task for the outlandish claims and failed dead lines and lack of profits/dividends.
Pro or not Pro Tesla we all know this to be true.
Perhaps Lutz is smarter than he appears…What has he said in since leaving GM that has created mainstream media headlines? Nothing, UNLESS he mentions Musk/Tesla…He may secretly LOVE Musk/Tesla and plays the villain to ensure he’s in the headlines…
Regardless, GM seems to be taking reveals more seriously, there was a special Gen6 Camaro reveal and a surprise MY19 Silverado reveal…
Bob Lutz name drops Musk to stay relevant. No one gives a s*** what he has to say anymore.
I have a due regard for Bob, but me thinks he complains too much about Elon for a reason.
I think he hopes that Musk will fail, as it is the dream of most in Bob’s chosen vocation to do what Musk is doing. Start a new car company of significant scale. Something in which no one has been successful at in the postwar western world. His ego may be coloring his comments regarding Elon.
Musk is a Liberal Elitist Globalist, that’s why the Fake News Media love him.
I had no idea, so the Real News Media loathes him and never shares a single story of positivity, correct? All of the media love Billionaires who speak publically…No need to overthink this; like it or not when Billionaires speak, non-Billionaires tend to listen…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellewitt/2017/10/13/tesla-shareholders-are-you-drunk-on-elon-musks-kool-aid/2/#20526bef4716
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-investigating-tesla-for-possible-securities-law-breach-1468268385
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-probes-solar-companies-over-disclosure-of-customer-cancellations-1493803801
https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/14/tesla-was-under-federal-investigation-over-model-3-may-still-be-report-says/
Wow I was just going to say the same thing. may be not as nice as you did. LOL Darned Liberals.
Yup.
When you can back up your comments like Elon Musk has, the media are willing to give Musk the benefit of doubt especially doing something NASA has never been able to do which is return the first stage of a launch vehicle in a controlled landing for refurbishment and reuse.
Yet he still struggles to get the 3 into production, the X doors to work right or pay a dividend.
Imagine GM or Ford doing the same thing while taking orders on cars they may not be able to deliver for years.
It is not one world.
Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos was the first to take off and land a reusable rocket but the media did not cover it well. Elon was busy watching his blow up while this was going on. His people had not got it to work yet.
You’re right on all accounts yet there’s more to the story with everything you state…First to be fair, Tesla has been late with every product, apparently people are still waiting well over a year for their powerwall…Roadster 1.0, Model S, Model X, Model 3, powerwalls and solar singles…If Vegas would take a bet, I would bet the Model Y, the Semi, the Pickup truck and Roadster 2.0 would all be late as well…
With the Space X vs Blue Origin, if you care (and you probably don’t) you’re welcome to open this article that explains how B.O. was SUB-Orbital, never even escaping earth’s gravity before it went into landing mode which not designed to carry large payloads into space…Space X’s much larger rocket was orbital and went orbital, can delivery large payloads and went far deeper into space… : http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a18711/blue-origin-vs-spacex/
How long will it take to get all those other cars into production? 3 year 10 years?
Will they again have to presell years ahead to finish development?
Eventually it catches up as competition begins to take sales. They will not be alone much longer in the segment.
Too bad building rockets does not translate into car sales.
Besides rockets are mostly again goverment contract work. With the way they spend money it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Tesla delivers 1,550 Model 3s in Q4; Models S, X over 100,000 in 2017_ Motor Authority … Green Car Report I have seen several 3’s in my rural neck of the Oregon woods.
Yet they burned another billion dollar in the Third quarter.
Now I see they might make 1,000 cars a week now but have yet to really do it consistently.
Might note they had predicted they would be at 5,000 a week. Now that has been put off to second quarter this year or later.
No matter how you spin it the development and the start up of production of the 3 was a total disaster.
Tesla is a tech company with too little income to keep up with the delays in production as they are not a MFG company.
Next up is the Mission E Porsche that will rob them of many needed S sales.
Tesla has struggled with no competition and it will only get tougher with competition.
Here are the issues Tesla will face.
Increased competition.
They will not be able to presell every model to fund development 3 years ahead.
They need to get new products out on time and with no quality issues.
They will not be able to short cut things leading to MFG or they will have issues as they have.
They need a series of things to go right to succeed but can fail with one major blunder. The path to success is narrow.
They need to find more production facilities and this time they will have to pay. No more government hand outs.
No more tax credits soon either that will impact their price.
The 3 will have to face a public told it would be $35K but in reality it will be $45K-$51K.
They will face more money being burned as the 3 is still not up to full production.
They also face where if you order a 3 now it will be at least a year before you get it. That is if they get up to production now and that appears it is not going to happen.
No ill will to Tesla but they have been given more free passes than groupie Connie Hazmy. In time that catches up to you and just how long will Wall Street wait. The market being strong has helped them but if it should change that could change the way investors look at them as their portfolios decline.
How does a car manufacturer who’s never had an internal combustion engine get government carbon credits to SELL?
Not to mention all the money from that governments alternative energy grants. Something tells me Tesla is being used as a tool to motivate the rest of the auto industry by our government.
Who know, there may be a few others as well.
Seems like another Solyndra to me.
Do you have a history in forecasting which companies going belly-up? If so dump you penny you own into shorting Tesla (disclaimer, don’t do that) and get filthy rich…
Even if Tesla goes belly up, the trustee will most likely allow another company to acquire them for pennies on the dollar…A123 and Fisker have both come back from the dead…
They do not get “government carbon credits”…In 1967s due to overwhelming smog in metro areas within California the EPA allowed the state to create CARB, which combined two previous agencies which allowed the state to create its own regulations…Who was the governor in 1967 who signed this into law? Why no other Ronald Reagan…
Fast forward to 1990, before Tesla was even born, CARB mandated zero emissions for upcoming years and GM responded by bringing to production the EV1/S10 EV (Toyota and Ford also had offerings)…Mandate dropped, all EVs will killed until CARB passed rulings; ruling recently came back and all of sudden most automakers offer some sort of PHEV or EV…
As far as credits themselves, they’re called ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicles)…If automakers makes both EVs and ICE vehicles, they receive the full value of the ZEV credit…However, reselling them is based on supply and demand and at times any automakers (whether Tesla or GM) can only sell them for pennies on the dollar…Furthermore, the current CARB director drives a fuel cell vehicle and gives significantly more CARB credits (and CA incentives to buyers) for fuel cell vehicles compared to EVs…
A lot to digest with Reagan and GMs EV1 leading the pack; you’re welcome to google any of this, I’d take a Vegas bet you won’t…lol
Point being Tesla should not be getting any credits to sell.
“California, and nine other U.S. states that have adopted its ZEV regime, require automakers that (sell internal combustion engine-based vehicles) to earn a certain number of ZEV credits every year by selling zero-emission vehicles”. Tesla has never sold an “internal combustion engine-based vehicle”.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/09/01/teslas-lucrative-zev-credits-may-not-be-sustainable/amp/#ampshare=https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/09/01/teslas-lucrative-zev-credits-may-not-be-sustainable/
Tesla should not have access to this incentive. So much for your trip to Vegas!
Instead he snivels that he wants more!
CEO Elon Musk complained that they should be worth more
http://www.autonews.com/article/20161031/OEM05/161039992/tesla%26%238217%3Bs-sale-of-clean-air-credits-may-have-marked-peak-for
Oh God/ Bacardi The EPA did not allow CARB to be created. CARB was created before the EPA existed. That’s why they can set emission standards in California. They are grandfathered in. No other state can set their own emission standards. But they all have the option of using CARB standards instead of the EPA standards.
Carb standards and epa standards are a joke and should be removed! Let consumers deside how clean a car needs to be in order for them to make a purchase!
Been there done that with the results being most of California’s metros being covered in haze of smog…
News Organizations, like GM, are in business to make money. Elon Musk offers newsworthy stuff. Maybe if GM did something newsworthy they would gain more press.
GM makes products, Elon Musk creates visions, ideas and newsworthy announcements that people want to read about. Seems like GM can only buy commercial time to advertise huge discounts on trucks that piss off the people who paid near list price earlier in the year.
They did a surprise 2019 Silverado reveal event and it was both widely covered and praised by the media regardless of their political affiliation…
does anyone have any idea what percentage of teslas are leased vs purchased?
if i were in the market for an EV, i’d be hard pressed to blow $80K or $100K on a vehicle that may very well be obsolete in a few years.
Just reported today that 80% of EVs are but that’s all EVs but that’s all EVs, not just Tesla and most automakers do not breakdown leases vs purchases…Leases still count as sales as the lender owns the vehicle and “rents” to you…
And you’re right about making things obsolete; when the Hellcat came out if you could even get on a dealers list for one of their allocations, you had to pay 5 digits over sticker…Tesla became faster than it and I’m not saying that is only reason for the Hellcat demand decline but I do believe it biggest as there were various viral videos of the Teslas beating them in races…So fast forward to Feb of 2017, if you qualified for a bunch of incentives you could get a Hellcat lease for $499…Perhaps next month will have some good deals and on the MY17 Hellcats…
http://www.hellcat.org/threads/hellcat-lease-499-mo.62545/
Musk is the new Ponzi.
I would definitely have to agree with Bob about this.
It’s seems to me that the govt allows tesla to operate with a different Set of rules then GM! It’s like they know tesla is at a huge disadvantage and they feel compelled to level the playing field. Which if this is the case is completely wrong!
Really what needs to happen is tesla’s investors needs to make him put up or shut up! Start posting a real profit or pull funding and make him close his doors!
Lastly I wonder how much of the military/nasa money is being used to fund his automotive side of the business? In the same way boeing uses its military programs to help keep the cilivian aviation side of the business afloat!
With pre-selling/being on time/quality issues, they CAN indeed do what they always do and consumer demand will continue to decline as time has shown again and again…It’s the way they’ve always done things…
With the incentives thing, many major corps receive these incentives, it isn’t just Tesla…Let’s look at GM…” G.M. is the top beneficiary, public records indicate. It received at least $1.7 billion in local incentives in the last five years, followed closely by Ford and Chrysler.
A spokesman for General Motors said that almost every major employer applied for incentives because they help keep companies competitive and retain or create jobs.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-bankroll-corporations.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1
With the tax credit, most people already know about the tax credit…In fact with the new GOP’s tax plan with the very high standard deduction, many individuals may no longer qualify if purchasing but if they lease the lender will still get the credit…
With them never selling a $35K vehicle, Musk knows this is major promise, the more likely scenario is to do what Tesla has done in the past, ax the base model from future reservations even before a single base model is even delivered…