Feel The Burn

Even long cons can only run for so long.

Elon Musk’s electric car con may be on the verge – finally – of coming unglued. This week, he’ll be forced to reveal actual production numbers for the first quarter of the year which are expected to fall well short of what he promised investors – and buyers, who ponied up deposits based on those promises.

Last year, Musk breezily assured both groups that an improbable 5,000 Model 3s – Tesla’s first “mass-produced” electric car – would be rolling off the production line in Fremont, CA each week.

He’s come as close to reaching that goal as he has to sending space tourists to Mars, another promise.

Thousands of people who were promised cars last year are still waiting for cars this year.

They may still be waiting next year, given that Musk – so far – has only been able to build a relative handful of Model 3s. The backlog is giga-normous. Which means that even if he somehow manages to ramp up the production to what he promised last year, it’ll take an increase in production over that promised number just to catch up this year.

Meanwhile, the marks – whoops, buyers – wait.

And wait, again.

It’s scandalous.

If GM, say, took cash deposits from thousands of people and promsied them cars by “x” date but hadn’t delivered them by “y” (or even “z”) the abuse chorus from the press would be shrill and endless. There would be howls from the gypped, demanding their money back. But Musk gets away with serially breaking promises because what he promises jibes with the vision which the technocratic elites who control the press as well as the fanbois who practically worship him are desperate to see realized:

The electrified – and automated – future.

But what if it isn’t workable? Damn the facts! Full speed ahead!

It’s very much of a piece with Lysenkoism – the Soviet-era rejection of inconvenient facts in favor of politically correct bromides.

Wishes vs. reality.

But reality eventually bites back, whether it’s the idiot nostrums of Lysenkoism or the similarly short-bus delusions about electric cars.

And the reality isn’t “production Hell” – manufacturing problems – as Musk claims. Rather, it is that his cars – and electric cars in general – are not a market-driven product.

They are a mandate-driven product.

Economic (and functional) reality is suspended by mandates. It will be built – or done – because we  – the government – so decree. Not because it makes sense. Irrespective of sense.

If it did make sense, the mandates wouldn’t be necessary. It’s interesting that this basic axiom of economics is not only not understood by the gullible but deliberately stomped on by rent-seeking crony capitalist, Musk being perhaps the greatest of them all.

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