Promises, Promises, Promises . . .

Not too long ago I said that Tesla enthusiasts and owners who wanted to save the brand from Elon Musk should try to buy enough stock to make Musk a minority stockholder.  Uhh, yeah . . . there's just one thing wrong with that strategy - Elon Musk already is a minority stockholder.

How does the Musko Man stay at the top at Tesla?  How does he remain CEO of the company?  Well, you know how's always talking about how features on Tesla cars like self-driving technology are coming soon?  And then it doesn't happen?  That's Musk's game.  He's been promising that these wonderful and fantastic features will be available for Teslas next year for over half a decade.  Because he keeps promising how these features will soon be available, as early as next year, he leaves the board of directors no choice but to stick with him.  Except that, like Paul McCartney's mythical grandfather in A Hard Day's Night, he'll cost you a number of breaches of promises.  

But maybe it won't be Musk's decimation of the federal government or his unfulfilled promises that do him in.  Maybe the thing that does him in will be one of his own products - a product he's actually delivered. 

I am, of course, talking about the Cybertruck, Tesla's first (and likely only) truck model, which receives over-the-air tech updates and looks like a TV remote with wheels.  As with most Tesla products these days, the Cybertruck breaks down a lot, but now it has a newly documented problem, which has led to a recall of 46,000 vehicles produced.  Apparently the problem is that an exterior trim panel can, in the company's own words, "delaminate and detach from the vehicle," which increases the risk of a crash and create a road hazard. 

In other these trucks literally fall apart on the road.

I'm old enough to remember when Tesla quality was celebrated - right about the same time Trump began his first presidential campaign.  Quality has long since fallen by the wayside since then, and the Cybertruck is fast becoming an amalgam of Tesla's manufacturing flaws - all rolled up into one literally and figuratively ugly travesty.