When was "Peak Tesla"?

Prior to Elon taking it over

Peak Tesla was the original Roadster. Mechanical door handles that didn't trap you inside after an accident to burn and no self driving to try to kill you with said accident.

2019 to 2022 they barely have competition and with good decision making they could have secure his leading position in the market

Model 3 release era which was when he also started to get weirder in public. I'm too lazy to google but he also famously fired his actual PR team and began doing securities fraud more in the open on twitter around then.

In Denmark, when cars turn 4 years, they are subject to a mandatory government inspection for road worthiness. Tesla Model Y has as 45% rejection rate, compared to the VW ID.4 which sits at 2%. Rejection basically means that the car is not road legal. That’s cars from 2021. To compare more generally, the EV fleet in Denmark has an average 7% rejection rate and that includes cars much older than 4 years. Tesla Model 3 is at 38% rejection rate. Peak Tesla was in my view somewhere between Roadster and the first generation Model S.

MIC model3 introduction

Model 3/Y You could not only not get a better EV anywhere at the time, it was also the same price as the competition which was inferior. I had a Model 3. I kind of wanted a Bolt but at the time, it literally cost the same or more than a Model 3 and the Bolt had way slower charging. Of course, that's changed a lot now. There's lots of superior EVs and cheaper EVs, so Tesla's advantage is gone on both ends. I have a Lightning and, coincidentally, a Bolt now.

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I chose to view peak Tesla as when the company were still doing good things and not ripping people off. So somewhere before them starting to rip people off why selling FSD. Maybe also a factor when the whole cult thing started, I hate people that aren’t capable of objectivity.

Before Elon got involved

Replace the CEO and the board. It’s the only chance to turn it around.

Is to late to turn around traditional auto markers are catching up and china and sk are superior already

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Yeah like 2019-2020. Once the stock took off as a meme musk dropped all pretense of building the company further and started the pure insanity arc.

With a dedicated CEO and board focused on the company and it’s core mission. I actually think it could be a great American company.

Even though it has pissed away, a lot of its advantage it’s still has something. It is not too late to turn around, but it would absolutely require replacing the CEO and it’s weak board.

The model x unveiling was when the downward slope began. What an over gimmicked and ugly car.

Tesla is not a car company, don't buy cars from them.

American auto markets are shit because they have to much protection they are outclased on everthing outside ford pick ups so being a good american company is bad in the long run for this market

When the model 3 came out. SInce then they have lost their way.

\> It feels like the end game is to make us pay monthly for things that used to just be part of the car. Their end-game is to keep the ponzi going and the stock pumping . \> Do you guys think the new simplified cars are actually better, or did we peak three years ago? You mean those cars that by far have the highest fatality rates of any other cars on the road? Tesla doesn't build cars, they build "cars", stage props to use in their massive charade to suck money from "investors".

Musks lies and "next year" bullshit has been going on all along.

And even then, chances are still slim, but at least not zero. It will however bust the bubble more quickly.

With a decent performance a meme stock will perform even better mistakes are mistakes the reputations of the stock doesn't matter

Bubbles always pop eventually

This could still be a great company… if it were run like one

Numbers from Finland is similar and they almost got banned from selling in Sweden due to issues with suspension.

Oh i agree. But in 2019 yhe company was still expanding and building put its technology.  Dont get me wrong. I had him pegged in 2016 as a nincumpoop. But the question was when was the company "Peak."

When the WSB sub pumped the stock price, along with GME, AMC, and Hertz. During COVID and the meme stock craze. Was only trading around 20-30 dollars a share. Before that. Elon, being great at marketing, ran with it. Heading back into meme stock territory again.

When did that Thailand cave rescue thing happen? Thats was peak for me. Lost all respect for Elon along with any desire of owning a Tesla. Also didn’t help that all his predictions were BS and nothing he said after that was convincing to me.

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The only thing I give credit to Elon for is being an awesome corporate “welfare queen”. No one else could get the massive lifeline of tax payer money and benefits that Tesla depended on early on. Both American tax dollars and also from other countries around the world such as China. Tesla might not have survived or been as strong financially without Musk early on.

I had a Model 3 from 2018 to 2021 when I traded it in on a Model S. The Model 3 was one of the early ones delivered (I had been on the waiting list for over a year). It still had stalks, a round steering wheel, etc. The software improved continually over the time I had it, there were updates constantly with new functionality being incorporated. Autopilot dynamic cruise control and lane tracking was included for free, it was just ok at the beginning but got better over the life of the car until it was quite good by 2021. I never had a single mechanical problem with the car in 3 years. So that was peak Tesla for me. The Model S turned out to be a downgrade in some ways - no stalks, weird steering yoke, it bottomed out all the time, bigger and harder to park, the coating wore off the steering yoke making it quite unsightly, the material on the driver's seat wore through in 2 places and had to be patched with tape. I was glad to get rid of it when Elon went off the rails.

2018-2020 were the absolute top years.

It'll never happen. Look at the Musk compensation package. The majority of Tesla shareholders are just as insane as Elon.

Geez what a loaded question... There is a direct correlation between elon's public political activity and the sentiment around the quality of Tesla vehicles, in which there is actually just a slight inverse correlation as Tesla has been getting better at manufacturing throughout the years. If we take elon out of the picture and you drove a 2018 model 3 v a 2026 model 3, no one would say the 2018 is superior in any way, except a turn signal stalk. But with Elon in the picture we have a bias towards hating the car and thus nitpicking every detail while putting non elon associated vehicles on a pedestal, even if they have objectively worse specifications or user experiences. Of course some competitors have great specs and user experiences these days and hats off to them for catching up to a more modern era of driving. Peak Tesla as a product, not as a gauge of how much we collectively like elon, is still in the future. I drive FSD daily and love it, the latest vehicles are the best vehicles and it's only going to get better in terms of safety, which is above all else imo. FSD as a subscription is like moving from buying CDs and MP3s to streaming. We won't own it, and eventually that will just be the way it is. That being said, I'm glad I bought fsd outright, but understand the business decision from the Tesla team.

I'd say around 2020. The Model 3 was established. While its quality was weak, it was a leader in the EV sector. If Tesla had launched the Model Y, consistently worked on its quality, and further developed the technology, they would have had a chance. Aside from the fact that FSD doesn't really work (you can text, read, sleep, etc. while driving), it's just a gimmick for many people. I, for example, can easily drive for 20 hours without any strain. Many experienced drivers feel the same way. If I have to keep an eye on FSD anyway, I might as well drive myself. I'm not going to put up with a low-quality car with outdated technology for that. Tesla is now completely outdated. Considering that BMW's research is 5 to 6 years ahead of its production line, that's a world of difference. What BMW is developing today, we'll see in the next generation of vehicles in five years. Furthermore, since established manufacturers are investing far more resources in electromobility, their lead will increase exponentially. Even in 2020, it would have been a major challenge for Tesla to compete against BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen. However, it would have taken a few more years before Tesla stopped producing cars. Now, that will happen in 2027. Otherwise, it would likely have been 2025.

Peak Tesla was 2020-2022. Tesla could charge close to $20k more per vehicle because of a pronounced automobile shortage. People were literally flipping Tesla's from year to year and making money because used vehicle prices were actually rising. Tesla itself enjoyed big profit margins from a combination of the elevated pricing and exporting vehicles from China to Europe for even higher margins in some cases. Things were so good Musk himself actually went back to bullshitting about how Tesla was going to make tons of money by manufacturing new and exciting vehicles effectively instead of ill defined AI products, at least for a brief time. Stock went to the moon and people considered all the disruption play backs like Cathy Wood as geniuses because of the hype around the company. SPACs and BEV startups in general took off like crazy before inevitably crashing and burning because it was just so obvious that BEVs were the future. Incumbent auto manufacturers similar scrambled and dumped tens of billions of dollars into building out BEV products and prospective self driving systems. Tesla was some shining star on the mountain that everyone was trying to catch up and everyone thought could do anything. As great as things were they would undoubtedly be even better in a few years as Tesla completed its battery project and FSD became a complete product, etc. Things were so good that no one cared that Elon Musk was an COVID denialist who was becoming more and more of a right winger. Tesla was so successful that Elon Musk himself thought it was a great idea to just pay through the ass for Twitter and promptly run it into the ground by attacking advertisers and firing employees doing meaningful work. Of course it would all start to slide downhill in 2023, but for a few years Tesla and Musk could effectively do no wrong.

The shareholders may feel differently when this breaks below 200. And may be hard to believe but it will. Everyday is counting on just printing more money, but the bill has come due.

Why they are not road legal?

They were always pieces of shit.

They don’t pass the mandatory road safety test, most European countries demand this test for cars that are a few years old — a car that is declared not road legal can also not be insured. https://www.a-katsastus.fi/en/vehicle-inspection-services/general-information-on-vehicle-inspections/vehicle-inspection-assessment-criteria/

Yeah ok, but why? Do Teslas have more break failures? More defects? Why are they actually failing the tests?

See: https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/teslan-puslan-kosto-lahes-joka-toinen-tesla-model-3-hylataan-ensikatsastuksessaan/#google_vignette

Thanks. So it's mostly the suspension. Bad, really bad

It was the boring company (2017), that gave me my first whiffs of fraud. Tesla started to look a lot more like Theranos, twitter and Uber. Much hyped companies that didn't bear scrutiny. This was around the same time he launched the tesla into orbit iirc.

I don’t know. If you replaced the board and Elon divested, they might bounce back once Trumpism fails. If they do actual innovation instead of marketing the buzzword of the hour. But they’d lose 90% of their valuation - at least. Otherwise, I’m not even sure they’ll survive into the 2030s.

I think peak Tesla was when I bought my model X in 2016. People were giving you the thumbs up everywhere, free supercharging and a real sense of community. I was accosted by a supercharger on the way to Germany by a guy driving a 250k€ race car who really wanted to see the inside. I remember a South American friend of mine drove it and thought it was dark magic when the car started reacting to traffic. Often we’d start chatting amongst owners by superchargers, they were heady days. Elon was not a mixed character but a real hero back then. I watched his unveilings, read his autobiography. It was also a relatively rare mostly luxury (100k€+ for a car) thing. It felt like car driving in the 1920s, a pioneer era for electric cars. It had flamed out before the real political activities started. The Model 3 launched and quickly became ubiquitous, it was a more spartan though still very good car but the slightly gentrified spirit was gone, it was (rightfully) mass market.

2022

After they announced products but before they "delivered" them. The semi was amazing in 2019, sucks today FSD picking you up across country was amazing in 2016 35k model 3 was sick with 7.5k subsidy to make it $27.5k $40k 500 mile cyber truck, etc etc etc

Literal peak Tesla was in 2023 in terms of sales. Best time to purchase them was probably 2022-2023 when they had stalks, USS sensors but also the heat pump and Ryzen processor.

Tesla was at its peak when Musk was not involved in DOGE, the Trump administration and cosplaying a Nazi.

Usually its suspension parts, which are not really up to the job.

The suspension has always been the weakest part. Even on the 26 refreshed Y the suspension is bad

Peak Tesla was 2021-2022

Yeah around that timeline myself. I didnt know who the ignoramus was until I heard about those stunts. He made some really dumb comments about my expertise at the time and the veil was never really closed for me. After that any quote or snippet that had him seemed pretty ignorant, if not flat out wrong, or coordinated brand by some team.  Anyways he is far more evil than I thought initially. Over time it became clear he was an enemy of our way of life.  Clear as day now.

Probably just before Model 3 launch or around 2021.

They would need to improve quality and refresh the car line first. But that will never happen. I think Elon would rather bring Tesla down than leave Tesla.

I thought elon knew more about manufacturing than anyone who ever existed

So before Elon.

In fairness the Model S handles were mechanical from the inside. Now of course they were electronic and unreliable from the outside. Had to have mine repaired multiple times.

Pre-cybertruck. After that point they just became a laughing stink, and Musk lost interest and focussed much more of his attention elsewhere.

2022. In the U.S. there was a 8 month lead time

peak Tesla is AMD + HW4 so 2023+. Can't be "Highland" Model 3s since they fucked that up. I'd go with my HW4 refresh Fremont-build Model Y AWD, purchased the last week of 2023 at just about 2021 prices less a $6000 inventory discount. Still had both stalks and also qualified for the $7500 off, the first Model Ys to get that. All in all I got it for $40K OTD.

ooh deep cut LOL

yeah my 2023 MY has AWD, Ryzen, Panasonic batteries, both stalks, heat pump. $6000 off list at the end of the year from a price that was back down to the 2021 level, plus I also got the $7500 tax credit that wasn't available until 2023. All the windows lined up on that one, except 0%, I missed that one.

I saw it from the early days of Tesla when he started with the "next year" crap while taking deposits on the original model S. Seeing the Hyperloop and fiasco in Vegas by the Boring Company though is really damning evidence.

Some states in the US have safety inspections too but it's not universal and I hear in some cases, can be pretty corrupt.

What an enineering failure in a Musk product? You don't say! /s

I am astound! Nothing broke in 3 years and that's considered a sign of a good car? I have an 07 Infiniti and an 01 F150, and I got well past 10 years with nothing but routine maintenance. Yeah, they're a bit cosmetically challenged now, but at their age that's expected. Your model S is a cosmetic disaster in 3 years and it was only "a downgrade in some ways"? Even a Yugo would do better than that.

I was going to suggest the day before Musk joined.

Redacted.

Sometime before the delivery of the first Cybertruck in 2023 damaged the brand and before Elon did the “Roman” salute at the Trump inaugural in 2025 and alienated his core customer base forever.

2015 realistically with AP 1

Peak Tesla by deliveries was 2023 (will never recover) Peak Tesla by earnings was 2022 (will never recover) Peak Tesla by company execution was the 2012-2017 period (will never recover)

No doubt, but OPs question was not about that.

No oil leaks...LOL....

Forgot the Teslas that would make money for their owners And also those robots that would work, doing everything for owners without being humans disguised as robots nor robots being remotely controlled, and sold by the millions each year, starting 2025~2026 or so And that new thing about Tesla not being a car company anymore but an AI company that will make huge amounts out of thin air, because.. it's AI..

The problem is if you bought a Model Y around 2021 or 2022, it was a $65-75K purchase for a horribly unreliable car that was inferior to $40K cars of the time. I recall the Model 3 was a decent value around 2018-2019

When the model y came out I saw so many people paying $70K then spending thousands on paint correction and paint protection for the soft paint like the cars were eco-yuppy jewelry. That was peak Tesla. Will never happen gain.

Whenever the original roadster came out. Maybe the model s

Elon joined Tesla when the number of employees could be counted on the fingers of 1 hand, he was literally leading one of the very first investment rounds in 2004. The very first roadster to ever be delivered (to Musk himself) was in 2008. Takes 30 seconds to google it.

Woosh

2023 LFP battery from China.

I see two possible futures: 1) Elon makes an insanely awesome new discovery and Tesla FSD goes mental 2) Tesla becomes BlackBerry and is wiped out by Chinese cars (iPhones)

No no no. He said 'currently alive', and the way he defines it, if you're not chasing rainbow dragons on a ketamine high 24/7, are you really alive?

No state in the USA has inspections even 5% as through as Germany/Denmark/much of Europe.

Tesla is too vertically integrated to lose that much stock price without collapsing. Their cost structure will never allow it.

What advantage do they still have? Their only autonomous advantage at this point is the fact that they just don't give a damn about risk management. The rest of the industry has already passed them on everything else except the supercharger network, which isn't really compatible with upcoming cars and will need extensive retrofits.

Please explain what you mean. What does „vertical integration“ have to do with it, and what do you even mean by vertical integration? They don’t even own their own battery _assembly_ plant (JV with Panasonic..?), as many of their normally valued competitors (e.g. BMW). They do not own anything to produce battery cells (as BYD with 90% lower valuation does). So I am honestly not quite understanding what you mean.

Global manufacturing footprint, solid EVs and home batteries. Best driver assist. The charging network. Hard to separate from the grandiose (?fraudulent) claims about robots, robotaxis and cars that drive by themselves but they do have a lot of good stuff. The biggest problem with the company is governance and toxic CEO. If CEO/board replaced this company could be on the road to recovery. Whether this needed action is taken or not, the share price is gonna take a dive. But one path has a future for this company. And dammit as an American taxpayer we should see that after how much money we plowed into their balance sheet.

> Elon makes an insanely awesome new discovery and Tesla FSD goes mental Elon isn't going to make any "discovery", he's not a scientist. He's not going to design a new "widget", because he's not an engineer. He's not even going to design a new product, because he's not a designer (as the CyberTruck showed everyone). All he's ever been, and still is, is a pitch man, making pie in the sky predictions and other bullshit and getting people to buy in to his ideas. More and more people are understanding that it's all smoke and mirrors. In most companies, he'd be kept in check by a board of directors or the stock holders of the company. >Tesla becomes BlackBerry and is wiped out by Chinese cars This is the obvious situation, at least internationally. The US is likely to protect the domestic car market from the Chinese, and Tesla will benefit from that as much as the other auto makers, but in the rest of the world, Tesla won't be able to compete, given how he interferes with the engineers now. Chinese EVs look fresher inside and out, while Tesla's look dated outside and worse than the stripped models of the old days inside.

I agree that option 2 is a very likely option. However a lot of people have gotten poor betting against Elon Musk. Tesla in 2017 wasn’t hype, the car was fucking miles ahead of the competition on quite a few levels (especially software integration). It’s just that the competition has caught up. A next move is necessary.

> Global manufacturing footprint Which they can't use in the US because of Trump and most other markets aren't protecting local auto makers from Chinese EVs, like the US is. Many of latest Chinese EVs are, by all rights, world class across the board. High quality, excellent features, and a reasonable price. Tesla will never be able to compete with them. > solid EVs and home batteries. That they don't make. >Best driver assist. Lol! Basic drivers assist tech is pretty standard from decent manufacturers. Tesla's Level 2 autonomous driving systems have been supplanted by actual L3 systems from Mercedes and some Chinese makers, and Waymo is running L4, though admittedly in limited markets. >robotaxis Robotaxis are nothing more than a marketing stunt. Waymo is estimated to have had ~2500 taxis at the end of 2025, while as far as we know, Tesa has ~30. >The charging network. This was a big win, and is still important, but they've diluted the value to Tesla owners by allowing anyone to use it. >The biggest problem with the company is governance and toxic CEO. If CEO/board replaced this company could be on the road to recovery. There's zero chance this will ever change. Elon owns (more or less) the board, lock stock and barrel. >Whether this needed action is taken or not, the share price is gonna take a dive. Obviously the stock price can't stand as it is forever. IMO, when it does collapse, it's going to be overnight - on the order of Enron, or faster. Some big holder will decide there's nothing of real value backing the stock and dump their holdings quickly. Other players will see the big drops and decide to get out too, and a second big price drop soon after a first will erode most confidence. IMO, despite how erratic he is, Elon knows this, which is making him frantic to find some value for xAI/Grok, since Twitter isn't worth a tenth what he paid for it (in real world value). >Hard to separate from the grandiose (?fraudulent) claims This is ultimately Tesla's failure point. As time goes on, more and more people are coming to understand the fraud Elon is perpetuating on the market.

Setting aside FSD, Elon, robotaxis, stock prices, and all of that just for a second: now-ish? I really do think the 3P with no other options is a phenomenal “performance daily driver” option for the money. Moreso than Tesla’s previous offerings…hopefully the MFG team put a little more effort into build quality with the Highland redesign. I’d love to see Tesla’s product line with all money being spent on silly nonsense things like FSD HW5 v15.42.069, redirected into core product improvements (build quality, refinement, driving feel,…).

>This was a big win, and is still important, but they've diluted the value to Tesla owners by allowing anyone to use it. Elon opening up the supercharger network to owner cars might end up being one of history's biggest corporate unforced errors

Lol so true. Why do they get rejected so much?

It's possibly true, but build quality is another issue entirely

> I actually think it could be a great American company. Tesla has zero fundamentals to make it even decent, much less good or great, either as a business entity or a manufacturer.

> Bubbles always pop eventually Of course they do, but any decently run company works to ensure they're not in a bubble market.

I'm fairly certain that "peak Tesla" is "by the end of this year" /s Second answer is "pre-Musk"

Before Leon.

2019 I was the sensation of my small town as nobody had an electric car and owning Tesla was saying „Me rich“

Imagine still trying to justify owning one of these pieces of absolute shit in the year of our lord 2026

Long ago. The products that they actually produce are stale and the endless promises not fulfilled have gotten old.

I feel like Tesla stopped trying to make the cars better and started only caring about profit margins sometime around 2021-2022.

I read teslas actually break down less but fail the safety inspection more in comparison to ICE cars https://m.arenaev.com/adac_study_reveals_electric_cars_prove_surprisingly_reliable-news-4611.php

I know someone that worked for a supplier, and he said that they started cheapening parts around early 2019. This coincides with my experience with their cars, I know the fall 2018 ones were quite nice. Crazy that was almost 10 years ago....

Possibly. But 45% are not road legal after 4 years and the competition sits at 2% for a comparable car. Reliability doesn’t matter, if you can’t drive your car.

In europe techincal inspection looks at a lot of things. Brakes, suspension all get checked and tested. Apparentlyy teslas quickly develop loose bushings in suspension arms, which can be a failed inspection or at least a immediate repair warning that you have to fix and get inspected again.

Best time? Buying an early Model S, when they had actual physical controls and Mercedes parts.

Peak Tesla is always in the future. Hasn’t gone anywhere

You have to pay an American to drive and Id 4 in America. It's why they killed the buzz in America. They sit in lots and nobody touches them like the plague. Terrible software, broken physical buttons. Screens turn off mid drive. Death traps here.

Where did you locate this data? It’s a tad sus so I asked AI: “Here’s what the latest (2024–2025) inspection data actually shows for Norway — and the clear conclusion is: *there’s no official Norwegian government statistic showing 45 % of four-year-old Teslas fail their mandatory safety (EU-kontroll) inspection. “

The best time was when they had LIDARs and leading the way on innovation. This time also coincides the time before he bought Twitter and drowned himself with his own ego, stopped LIDAR and the tech became stagnant. It was the worst business and mental decision ever if you ask me...

Compared to ICE cars, Teslas are super heavy (especially the LR versions) and their linkages are not made up to expected standards.

Probably peaked around 2017/18. They were a boutique brand at the time, and they treated their customers well. Every purchase included white-glove treatment and even free gifts. Every service appointment included a free loaner and a car wash. The cars came with unlimited free supercharging for life. They were not yet distracted with mass producing Model 3, so Model S was better built. Elon has lost interest in the EV business. Tesla should sell off the EV business to someone that will focus on making better cars. Let Musk keep playing with X, AI, robots, SpaceX, Starlink and colonization of Mars.

Probably around 2020-2022. Agreed. That’s when bored newbie investors sitting at home (pandemic era) were also buying into TSLA stock and call options at any ridiculous price. The stock was flying to all-time highs again and again during that period (2019-2021). Musk should have started a pre-order for a Model 2 (or whatever this cheaper/smaller model was going to be called) back then. Then he messed up completely by 2023+ - new mass-market EV projects canceled, Musk turning into a MAGA/Trump fanboy, and finally a sudden pivot to humanoid robots and AI. Elon is destroying Tesla, he should have been replaced as CEO by around 2023 (or even earlier than that). PS: I know a CEO change will never happen. He owns too much TSLA stock and the BoD is doing/approving whatever he wants.

Why do they get rejected so much?