Tesla: The Company That Won’t Stop Breaking Things

By someone who’s been watching this mess unfold since 2008

Published: Who knows anymore, November 2025

Look, Tesla isn’t just a car company. I mean, technically it is, but calling it that is like calling Apple a phone maker. Back in 2003 when Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning started this thing (yeah, not Elon – he came in 2004 with the money), nobody thought electric cars would actually work. The EV1 disaster was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Fast forward to 2025 and Tesla’s market cap hit $1.2 trillion in October. That’s more than Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford combined. Wild.

The Part Where Everything Changed

The Roadster in 2008 was basically a Lotus with batteries stuffed in it. Cost $109,000 and could go 244 miles. People laughed. Then the Model S came out in 2012 and suddenly nobody was laughing anymore. Consumer Reports gave it a 99/100 – they’d never done that before. Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. The whole deal.

But here’s what actually mattered: the Supercharger network. Tesla started building it in 2012 with just 6 stations. Now there’s over 50,000 Superchargers globally. GM and Ford basically gave up trying to compete and just… joined Tesla’s network in 2023. That’s like Pepsi deciding to use Coca-Cola’s distribution system.

The Model 3 production though.

That nearly killed the company. Elon was literally sleeping on the factory floor in 2018. They were burning through $8,000 per MINUTE at one point. The “production hell” tweets, the whole thing where he called that cave diver names, the SEC drama – it was messy. But they hit 5,000 cars per week eventually. Took way longer than promised but they got there.

What Tesla Actually Sells (Besides Cars)

Energy storage. The Powerwall thing started as almost a side project. Now Tesla Energy is pulling in real money – $7 billion in 2024. Those Megapack batteries? They’re installing them in Texas, California, Australia. The Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia (the big battery that everyone references) saved the grid something like $150 million in its first two years.

Solar roof tiles seemed like vaporware for years. Announced in 2016, barely anyone had them by 2020. Now they’re actually installing them, though the wait times are still ridiculous and the cost is… well it’s not cheap. Around $55,000 for an average house before incentives.

Insurance. Tesla started selling car insurance because traditional insurers couldn’t figure out how to price their vehicles. They’re using real-time driving data – Safety Score tracking through the app. If you drive like a maniac your rates go up the next month. Privacy nightmare for some people, but it’s way cheaper if you drive carefully.

The Manufacturing Story Nobody Talks About

Gigafactory Texas is bonkers. 10 million square feet. They’re stamping out Model Y bodies as single pieces now – the Giga Press uses 9,000 tons of clamping force. Traditional car manufacturing uses like 400+ parts for a car body. Tesla’s down to 2 with these casts. Saw a video of it running, the whole process takes 90 seconds.

But get this – they still have quality control issues. Panel gaps, paint problems, random stuff not working. My friend got a Model Y in 2023 and the rear camera just… didn’t work. For a $60,000 car that’s supposed to have all this technology, having a broken camera on delivery is pretty embarrassing.

China though, that’s where their margins are best. Gigafactory Shanghai cranks out 950,000 vehicles per year. Built the whole factory in 11 months – try doing that in California. Labor costs are lower, supply chain is right there, and the Chinese market is massive for EVs.

Full Self-Driving (Which Isn’t Full and Doesn’t Really Self-Drive Yet)

They’ve been selling this since 2016. Cost went from $5,000 to $8,000 to $12,000 to $15,000 and now it’s $99/month subscription. Elon keeps saying “next year” for actual autonomy. Every year since 2016.

The current FSD Beta v12 is honestly impressive sometimes. Neural networks trained on millions of miles of driving data. No more hand-coded rules – it’s all AI now. But it still does weird stuff. Phantom braking on highway overpasses. Getting confused by construction zones. There are entire YouTube channels dedicated to testing it.

Waymo’s actually running robotaxis in Phoenix and San Francisco with no driver. Like, actually no one behind the wheel. Tesla’s still requiring constant supervision. The technology gap is real, though Tesla’s approach might scale better if they ever get it working properly.

The Competition Woke Up (Finally)

BYD sold 3.02 million EVs in 2024. They passed Tesla. The Seagull starts at $9,700 in China. Even with tariffs that’s going to be disruptive when it hits other markets. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and 6 are legitimately good. The Kia EV6 won World Car of the Year in 2022.

Rivian’s R1T is outselling the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Cybertruck in some months. Though the Cybertruck… that’s its own thing.

Cybertruck production started late 2023, two years delayed. Looks like it rolled out of a PS1 game. Stainless steel body means you can’t paint it and every fingerprint shows. The whole thing is so divisive. Either people love it or think it’s the ugliest vehicle ever made. No middle ground. Starting price jumped from the promised $39,900 to $79,990 for the base model. Foundation Series was over $100k.

But it’s selling. Reservation list was apparently over 2 million at one point. Whether those convert to actual sales is different question.

The Part About Optimus That Seems Like Science Fiction

Tesla’s building humanoid robots now. Announced in 2021, first prototype in 2022 (which was pretty clunky), but the Gen 2 Optimus in 2024 can actually do stuff. Walking, picking things up, folding clothes. They showed it working in a factory doing simple tasks.

Price target is supposedly $20,000-$30,000 eventually. That’s cheaper than a car. If they actually achieve that – big if – the labor market implications are kind of terrifying to think about. But it’s probably 5-10 years out minimum for any mass production.

Money Stuff

Tesla’s operating margin in Q3 2024 was 7.6%. That’s down from the 17% they were seeing in 2022. Competition is forcing price cuts. They’ve dropped prices like 6 times in 2023 alone.

But they’re still profitable, which matters. Most EV startups are burning cash. Lucid lost $3.43 billion in 2023. Fisker went bankrupt (again). Lordstown went bankrupt. Rivian’s losing money on every vehicle. Tesla made $15 billion profit in 2023.

The stock is weird too. Trades more like a tech stock than auto. P/E ratio is usually somewhere between 40-80. Traditional automakers are like 5-7. The market is either pricing in massive future growth or it’s completely overvalued. Probably both.

What Actually Matters Going Forward

The $25,000 car that’s been promised forever. If Tesla can hit that price point, game over for a lot of competitors. They showed a prototype at an investor event but no timeline yet. “2025” keeps getting mentioned but that’s what they said about FSD too.

4680 battery cells were supposed to revolutionize costs and range. They’re finally ramping production but it’s been slower than expected. Typical Tesla – announce something ambitious, take way longer than promised, maybe eventually deliver it.

The thing is, love them or hate them, Tesla moved the entire auto industry. Every major manufacturer now has EV plans. The Inflation Reduction Act’s EV tax credits, the EU’s 2035 ban on new gas car sales, China’s NEV mandates – all of this happened faster because Tesla proved there was a market.

Whether they stay on top is different question. First mover advantage is real but sustaining it is harder. Ask BlackBerry about that.

Some people treat Elon like a genius, others think he’s a conman. Reality’s probably somewhere in between – smart guy who’s really good at engineering and terrible at timelines and sometimes says dumb stuff on Twitter (sorry, X).

The cars are good though. Like, genuinely good to drive. Fast, quiet, the software updates actually add features instead of just fixing bugs. My neighbor’s had a Model 3 since 2019 and besides some paint issues he loves it.

Anyway, that’s Tesla in 2025. Making almost 2 million cars a year, forcing the industry to change, constantly overpromising on timelines, and somehow still growing despite everyone else finally taking EVs seriously.