I sold all my Tesla shares (TSLA), here’s why
I fully divested from Tesla (TSLA), selling all my shares. I’m going to try to explain why. At Electrek, we like to be clear about our biases rather than claim we have none.
I’ve followed Tesla since 2008 and invested in the company after it went public in 2010. I started writing about EVs, and especially Tesla, full-time in 2015.
I invested in the stock mainly because I fully supported Tesla’s mission to accelerate the advent of electric transportation. I thought then, and still do today, that a combination of battery-powered vehicles, with the ethical sourcing of raw battery materials, battery recycling, and renewable electricity production to power electric vehicles, is the only solution to making the transportation sector long-term sustainable while decarbonizing it.
Over the years, I had become a fan of electric vehicles, but I was clueless about how they could become mainstream until I read Elon Musk’s 2006 ‘Tesla secret master plan’. The plan made sense to me: make a high-end electric vehicle that is uncompromising against its gas-powered counterparts. Once you prove that it can be done, make increasingly cheaper and higher-volume EV models with the same approach.
That sounds simple, but it was a difficult task from an engineering perspective. Either way, it seemed to be the only way to meaningfully move the industry toward battery-electric vehicles.
On top of Musk’s blog post, which Tesla has recently removed from its website, I was also convinced by lectures given by Tesla’s original two co-founders, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
While these guys have been forgotten by many as part of Tesla’s history, partly due to Musk’s own effort, I credit them as early pioneers of the electric revolution. They were great early communicators of the feasibility of electrifying the auto industry and the necessity to do it.
Not without hurdles, Tesla did it. I am not going to recap Tesla’s entire incredible history, but the company was successful in convincing the world and the auto industry that electric vehicles are here, here to stay, and the future of the industry — something that most were denying less than a decade ago.
Tesla engineered and designed several highly competitive and attractive EV products, managed to ramp them up to millions of units, and forced the rest of the industry to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in electric vehicles.
This was possible due to a lot of different factors. A lot:
- The vision of Tesla’s early leadership
- Elon Musk’s early funding and leadership
- The incredible talent that the mission attracted, including many early employees that became critical to Tesla, like JB Straubel, Drew Baglino, Deepak Ahuja, Franz von Holzhausen, and many more
- The support of early investors like Antonio Gracias, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Jeff Skoll, and Steve Jurvetson, among others
- The support from other automakers, like Daimler and Toyota, who both invested in Tesla at a critical time
- Government support was a big one, especially California’s support. California regulations, which spread to other states in the US known as ‘CARB states’, were critical in Tesla’s early success and were also factors in Daimler and Toyota’s investments as the automakers made deals with Tesla to help them produce EVs to comply with the state regulations. Later, the federal EV tax credit helped, the IRA helped, the solar tax credit, and more also helped.
- The support from passionate owners
- The support from passionate retail investors
I’m most likely forgetting some factors, but these are some of the most important ones, in my opinion.
Many will say that they weren’t equally important, and that might be true, but I seriously doubt that Tesla would have survived if you removed any of these factors.
If you contributed to any of these factors, it’s my personal opinion that you should be proud to have contributed to the electrification of the auto industry.
The Shift
In the last few years, Tesla has become a widely different company. My main issue with this shift is that I no longer feel like the original mission to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport or renewable energy is a priority.
Now, it’s all about AI, self-driving, and robots.
I’m not saying that those things are wrong or that they will not happen. I think all these technologies are important and will transform the world, but it’s simply not what I invested in.
I would also argue that Tesla is not the same company, which makes sense since the company is no longer about its mission.
That’s my main issue. It can’t be more evident than Tesla’s EV deliveries tracking down year-over-year for the first time in a decade, Musk canceling EV programs in favor of Robotaxi, and even the CEO going as far as saying that “Tesla is worth nothing without self-driving.”
My other issue is the leadership. I don’t trust Elon Musk anymore. I think a combination of social media addiction and the cult of personality around him has broken his feedback loop and set him on the wrong path.
I think he disqualified himself from running Tesla or any public company when he started threatening to breach his fiduciary duty to shareholders if he didn’t get 25% control over Tesla.
On top of my distrust of the CEO, I think that his own changes in the last few years, combined with the shift away from the mission, have driven a lot of the rest of the leadership away:
As part of my job, I track the comings and goings of top talent at Tesla very closely, and in the last few years, I’ve seen tons of high-level departures and very few new top hires.
There’s still a lot of great talent at Tesla, I’m not denying that, but I think it’s also clear that there has been a significant talent exodus at Tesla, especially over the last year.
Despite these issues becoming clear to me over the last few years, I remained a shareholder because I naively thought things could go back to normal. I thought maybe Musk would wake up from his social media-fueled madness, or shareholders would give him the boot.
This brings me to my next issue: I am becoming unaligned with the majority of Tesla shareholders.
It couldn’t have been clearer when 73% of them voted to reinstate Musk’s ~$50 billion compensation package without any change after a legal discovery process showed that the board and the CEO didn’t follow due process in getting the original shareholder vote.
Some greedy lawyers and a courageous judge gave Tesla shareholders an opportunity to tell Musk and Tesla’s board that the company deserves proper governance and not be “run like a family business,” as Tesla’s largest independent investor said.
The timing was incredible. The opportunity came right after:
- Musk threatened shareholders to not build products he himself claimed were critical to Tesla if he didn’t get 25% of the company
- He sold tens of billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares to buy Twitter, said he would stop selling and yet kept going
- He entirely lost his mind for a while and challenged Mark Zuckerberg to an MMA fight, then chickened out (I thought this was all a joke at first, and it might have been at first, but it undoubtedly became not a joke)
- Musk seemed completely uninterested in Tesla for about a year, when he was running Twitter, SpaceX, Neurallink, the Boring Company, and xAI – with many of those companies recruiting from Tesla. Then, he returned and fired 15-20% of the company, including the entire charging team for no good reason.
- Finally, he canceled the stock options of Tesla employees
The last one was a big one for me. Musk had just canceled the stock options for Tesla employees just a month before the judge’s decision to rescind his own stock option package. Right after the judge’s decision, Musk got interested in Tesla again, started talking about the company more, and, of course, started to fight to get his own stock options back.
In his view, his stock options are essential, but those of Tesla employees? Less so.
I thought that Tesla shareholders would see the hypocrisy in this. They would see that Musk has become a burden at Tesla more than an asset.
Instead, despite all those factors, Tesla shareholders convinced themselves that it was “the right thing to do” to give more money to the wealthiest man in the world. Not only that, they made “lists” of shareholders who said they were voting against the package and told them to go ‘f*ck’ themselves and that they wouldn’t be part of the Tesla community anymore.
I don’t want to be a part of that anymore. I still love many of Tesla’s products and I will keep reporting on them, but I am completely unaligned with the investor base, so I don’t think it makes sense for me to be a shareholder anymore.
Finally, and for full disclosure, the last reason why I sold has nothing to do with Tesla. I see a lot of signs that we are entering a recession. I prefer to be more liquid in those situations, and Tesla is up 10% in two days for seemingly no reason, so it felt like a good time to get out since I don’t feel aligned with shareholders.
I sincerely hope the best for them, though. I know that many of them are well-intentioned people. That said, I recommend caution as I think you are also in the company of low-moral individuals who are poisoning the TSLA community.
FSD side note: what if Tesla does solve self-driving? I am mentioning it because I know this is something that keeps a lot of people in, but there’s no FOMO for this MOFO. If it happens, it happens. I’ll celebrate it and shed a tear for my wallet.
I’m the first to admit that if Tesla can solve self-driving with its approach, it would result in unprecedented value creation, but I am simply not convinced that this will happen anytime soon or before others can solve it.
Why? As a Tesla shareholder, you have two options: take Elon at his word or trust the data.
For the reasons mentioned above, I don’t trust what Elon says, so we can forget about the former.
As for the latter, despite Tesla now openly using miles between interventions as a metric to track FSD progress, the automaker has never released this data. This is a giant red flag.
For the data, we have to rely on our own experience with the system and the experience of others. I’ve had Tesla FSD for years and I’ve been impressed at times and unimpressed other times. The only thing I’m certain of based on my experience is that it is currently nothing close to an unsupervised self-driving system.
We can also use the crowdsourced data, which is limited, but the best we have since Tesla refuses to release its own:
The average of the v12.5.1 versions, the latest to be released, is 32 miles between disengagement and 128 miles between critical disengagement.
This compares to 30 miles between disengagement and 189 miles between critical disengagement for v12.3.6, which is the last FSD version that went into a wide release earlier this year.
Elon is talking about 3x that this month and maybe 6x that next month. He has been consistently wrong about these predictions, but even if he was right, most experts are talking about 400x to 1,000x needed to achieve an unsupervised robotaxi service.
Even with exponential growth, this will take way longer than what Elon is claiming right now. Then, it needs to make that work on the current hardware and the HW3, which is already running a smaller model than HW4.
If the Tesla investment thesis relies on this program to work, which is what Elon himself is saying, it’s a pass for me.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
SUPER73 just pulled the curtain off its latest e-bike, the SUPER73-MZFT, and it looks like the brand is coming back to its roots – with a twist. Known for building retro-inspired, moto-style electric bikes that blur the line between fun and functional, SUPER73 now says the MZFT represents the first in a new generation of e-bikes that’s designed to welcome in a broader, more diverse group of riders – especially those just getting started.
If you’re familiar with SUPER73’s range, you’ll know the brand splits its lineup into several series – the Youth Series for smaller riders, and the Z, S, and R Series for full-size adults. The new MZFT splits the difference. It’s designed as a stepping stone into the bigger leagues, but still built with the same style and swagger that made SUPER73 a household name among e-bike fans, celebrities, and sneakerheads alike.
The bike features a 500W rear hub motor with a top speed of 20 mph, putting it firmly in Class 2 territory with throttle-first riding right out of the gate. That makes it ideal for new riders, younger adults, or anyone who just wants to rip around without worrying about pedaling uphill. Speaking of which, the company says the MZFT includes a new powertrain designed for improved uphill acceleration, addressing one of the most common weak points in budget-friendly e-bikes.
The 52V 10Ah battery offers 520Wh of capacity and is reportedly sufficient for a range of 15-20 miles (25-32 km) per charge.
SUPER73 says this is their most durable frame yet, and it comes paired with a resilient thru-axle setup, giving the MZFT a stronger and more stable feel under the rider. At 27 inches, the seat height is lower than most SUPER73 models, which will appeal to younger riders or shorter adults looking for something approachable but still styled like a street-ready moto machine.
New features include a modular second battery option (sold separately) that can boost your range up to 40 miles (64 km), and even a bit of built-in internal lockable storage, which is a rare find on electric bicycles.
Hydraulic brakes, LED lighting, and aggressive Vee Jakal tires round out the spec sheet. The total weight comes in at 85 pounds (39 kg), which is beefy but par for the course with SUPER73’s rugged design language. That said, while it may slot well into the typical SUPER73 weight class, it’s still a lot of poundage for a 500W e-bike.
The SUPER73-MZFT launches in two colorways: Cullen Berry (a dark, rich red-purple) and Titanium Ore (a stealthy gray metallic). Either way, the bike oozes the brand’s signature retro moto vibes without the steeper price tag of its S- or R-Series siblings.
But of course, the kicker is always the price, and here we’re looking at a $1,995 e-bike. While that’s definitely the most affordable in SUPER73’s lineup, it’s still a hefty chunk of change for a bike of these performance specs.
Electrek’s Take
SUPER73 has been riding the wave of moto-style e-bikes since long before it was trendy – in fact they pretty much built that trend. And while the brand is best known for its premium, eye-catching bikes with celeb street cred, it’s smart to see them lean back into accessibility. They’ve also been pushing for more inclusion of younger riders paired with proper e-bike education for those riders (believe it or not), and so this fits that strategy well.
The SUPER73-MZFT is clearly designed to attract a new wave of riders: younger and newer riders whose parents won’t buy them a 40 mph Sur Ron, but who still want to feel like they’re part of something cool. With a fun design, expandable battery potential, hydraulic brakes, and a few unexpected surprises like lockable storage, the MZFT could be a strong seller for riders who want something more than a basic commuter but aren’t quite ready to pony up for an R Adventure model.
That being said, it’s not exactly a leader in the watt-per-pound metric, and so we’ll have to see if it has the performance to match the look. And at $2,000, this is perhaps one of the most expensive teen-focused e-bikes out there. While it is true that it is the most affordable way to get into a SUPER73, that’s not exactly a great dollar-per-watt proposition. But then again, very few people have ever bought a SUPER73 because it made fiscal sense; they did it because they wanted a SUPER73.
And so if kids like this model and if it means more people are getting into e-bikes, especially street-legal e-bikes, then I’m all for it.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Tesla is launching a new car rental program out of its stores in the US, as sales are crashing due to the end of the federal tax credit.
It’s available at select stores in the US right now.
Tesla’s demand in the US, like that of most other electric vehicles, has crashed after the federal tax credit for electric cars ended last quarter, pulling forward a lot of demand.
With inventories piling up at stores and dealers across the country, Tesla has found a new way to use its inventory: it is now renting (not leasing) its vehicles from its stores.
The rental duration is a minimum of three and a maximum of seven days, starting at $60 per day and increasing depending on the model.
Tesla appears to be using this to show potential buyers how convenient it is to own a Tesla vehicle, since it also includes Supercharging and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) for free with every rental.
If a rental customer decides to order a vehicle within a week of having rented one, Tesla gives them a $250 credit toward the purchase:
Order your own Tesla within seven days of your rental to get up to a $250 credit toward your purchase.
The program is starting with a couple of locations in Southern California, but it is expected to expand before the end of the year.
Car rental giant Hertz has previously bought a large fleet of Tesla vehicles in an effort to electrify its rental fleet.
However, Hertz has been divesting from Tesla vehicles and selling them over the last 2 years, as declining resale values crushed its fleet economics amid Tesla slashing prices due to declining demand over the last 3 years.
Electrek’s Take
It’s rough out there for people selling electric vehicles in the US right now. The lack of policy consistency is resulting in inconsistent demand and discouraging automakers from pushing electric cars, as they do in Europe and Asia.
It’s particularly challenging for automakers like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, which sell only electric vehicles, because most people who planned to buy an electric vehicle in 2025 have already bought one in Q3 or earlier.
This rental service is not a bad idea, though, but it’s obviously far from a solution to the demand problem in the US.
It’s wild to think that Tesla’s own CEO is largely responsible for creating this situation by backing Trump in the last elections.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
NIU is back at EICMA 2025 (the Milan Motorcycle Show) with a fresh lineup of electric two-wheelers that push the boundaries of performance, design, and smart connectivity. The Chinese electric mobility giant, already known for selling over 5 million electric scooters and motorcycles across over 50 countries, used the Milan show to unveil its 2026 product range – and it’s clear NIU is looking to hang on to that leader status.
For those unfamiliar, NIU launched its first electric scooter way back in 2015 and quickly rose to prominence with sleek, connected vehicles that combined urban practicality with stylish design. There are a lot of electric scooters out there now, but NIU has consistently been known for high-tech and slick-looking models.
Now, a decade later, NIU’s lineup has matured into a globally recognized suite of smart mopeds, e-bikes, scooters, and electric motorcycles. And at this year’s EICMA, the company made it clear that it’s ready to dominate even more niches.
A smarter NQiX Series
The NQiX Series has already gained traction in Europe’s L1e and L3e vehicle categories, but for 2026, it’s getting even better. All models in the series will be updated with improved motor and battery efficiency for longer range and better consistency. Most notably, NIU is adding onboard navigation powered by Google Maps – a major step toward true “smart” scooters.
The biggest news, though, is the introduction of the NQiX 1000. Packing 15.5 kW of peak power and topping out at 125 km/h (78 mph), this model is aimed at commuters who want speed, range, and flexibility. With three removable 72V 28Ah batteries and over 100 km of range, it looks set to be a practical yet powerful urban workhorse. The NQiX 1000 will launch in Q3 2026 with a starting price of €6,499.
My first NIU scooter ever was an NQiGT that I got back in 2020, and it helped me fall in love with the brand. The NQiX series has extended what made the original so impressive, and the NQiX 1000 will push that model line into brand new territory, both for technology and for performance.
FQiX brings a fresh face to urban riding
NIU also introduced a completely new design platform called the FQiX Series, targeted at city dwellers who want tech-forward transportation with a bit of flair. Think sleek body lines, distinctive lighting, and a minimalist aesthetic – paired with smart features like a 5-inch TFT display, rear radar, and Bluetooth/NFC/keyless unlocking.
The FQiX 150 (L1e) and FQiX 300 (L3e) offer two tiers of performance but share the same connected tech ecosystem, powered by NIU’s new “Link Crown” interface. These will also arrive by Q3 2026, starting at just €2,399 – making them a compelling choice for first-time e-scooter riders.
This one definitely feels like NIU’s targetted attempt to bring on younger, more budget conscious riders while still giving them access to the technology that separates the brands’ scooters from much of the competition.
XQi goes off-road (and on-road, too)
NIU has been teasing off-road ambitions for years, but the new XQi 300, XQi 400, and XQi 500 take those ambitions up several notches. They follow on the heels of the successful launch of the NIU XQi3, which, for a lack of a better way to describe it, is NIU’s Sur Ron competitor. I had the chance to test it out recently on a trip to tour NIU’s factory. But unlike Sur Rons, Talarias, and most other light electric dirt bikes in this category, NIU made the XQi3 street-legal from the start, meaning riders could register it like a motorcycle and also ride on trails.
Now the XQi3 has been revamped into the XQi 300, keeping much of what made it a success untouched, but adding highly requested features like on-board charging so the battery doesn’t need to be unplugged to recharge. The XQi 400 and XQi 500 add even more power and performance, competing more with the Sur Ron Storm Bee. The XQi 500 Street, in particular, is likely to prove quite popular as a street-legal electric dirt bike with a massive 28.8 kW peak output and a top speed of 110 km/h (68 mph), all in a fairly lightweight 92 kg (203 lb) chassis.
Concept 06 maxi-scooter
NIU also showed off a concept for a potentially upcoming maxi-scooter, and it sounds like they actually want to produce it. This likely isn’t just a crazy concept that will never see the road, but rather a roadmap to what could be NIU’s biggest scooter yet.
The company is projecting impressive performance, including a 20 kW motor, speeds of up to 155 km/h (96 MPH), plus fancy features like a tray table so you can get some laptop work done while you’re charging up.
Electrek’s Take
NIU continues to impress me with its mix of smart tech, eye-catching design, and impressive performance. The addition of Google Maps integration and radar safety features is a clear step forward that I’m excited to see implemented. And with models like the XQi 1000, NIU is branching into serious performance territory. And the new off-road bikes (with street-legal status to ride on the road too!) take what was already a great design and make it even more powerful – and convenient to use.
While some of the subscription models might turn off some users, the base functionality of these vehicles seems generous enough to keep most people happy. And all of that tech on top is what helps separate NIU. If the pricing holds and the specs deliver, I think NIU’s 2026 lineup could shake up both urban and off-road electric mobility in a big way.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024