thomas leverett weblog

Teslas and Edsels

These days I stare at the news pages in horror, and in particular at the business section which I had previously almost totally ignored. Why? Things are happening quickly in business. The stock market is plunging. Tesla in particular is plunging.

Mr. Musk doesn't seem to care, or if he does, isn't showing it. He is about to get billions in government contracts and some of this may go to Tesla. But if Tesla cars stop selling in Europe and the USA it doesn't seem to matter or maybe he feels there's nothing he can do about it. They are marked, here in the USA. Tesla owners have said, "It used to be that MAGA people gave us a hard time, now everyone else does." One should not buy a Tesla unless one is willing to put up with this for several years to come.

The thing is, I have heard that they are good cars. I went out in my daughter's Tesla (I don't really know how she feels about the current development) and we tried out some of its little song and dances, the show it put on when you left the car. I don't remember clearly and I'm not sure we even understood all the little features it had even when it was off and we weren't in it. But the whole experience reminded me a little of what I went through when I was growing up in the early sixties. It was really more of a common experience.

My memory has it something like this. Henry Ford wanted Ford to make something to compete with the Cadillac: top of the line, incorporating all the modern technology, also incorporating space-age design and space-vehicle feeling. He employed all the best scientists, technologists, engineers, designers - he put all his money into it. He named it after his wife Edsel and he had a really splashy introduction sometime in the early sixties.

It was a huge flop. For some reason people didn't want the finest, newest, fanciest, most space-age car you could possibly imagine. It didn't sell at all.

There was lots of speculation, all while I was growing up, about what had gone wrong. Maybe the high tech plus the space-age made it just too much. Maybe it was so big and nice that people were intimidated. The thing is, the people who really knew cars and technology admired it. They said it was the pinnacle of "modern" automotive engineering and was one of the finest cars there was. Also, Cadillacs were going through similar changes at the time - getting fins, getting space-age design features, etc., and Cadillacs were selling fine. Edsels were lemons.

In the seventies, in Iowa City, one friend of mine took me to an old Edsel graveyard. Some guy had collected at least a half dozen of them in an old apple orchard out between highway 6 and the interstate, roughly near where the mall is today in Coralville. The guy said that the owner just sold one off whenever he needed money. There they were, all six or seven of them, apples falling on them every fall, looking fine but rusting away like crazy. It's a sight I'll never forget. I'll also never be able to find it again. This was already fifty years ago.

Not sure what to tell my daughter about the Tesla. I have a son who recognizes Teslas wherever he sees them, but to me they look like half a dozen other cars, and if you just put a fake insignia on the back you'd fool me. I wouldn't criticize anyone for owning one though. Almost all of them were bought before this happened; very few have been bought since. It's very possible they'll go the way of the Edsel.

posted by tom @ 1:32 PM