Many people see the Tesla company as the "new Apple" without seeing potential problems showing up all the time. Here are several reasons why a big question mark hangs over the company's future.
**It is not profitable**
Tesla has not yet made a single cent of profit. It loans huge amounts of money from US Department of Energy and banks. Recently, on October 20, Tesla announced that it changed its warehouse loan agreement with Deutsche Bank to increase the amount by ~500 million USD. Where does all of that money go to? Tesla designs new models, builds huge factories like Gigafactory and improves the infrastructure. Basically, Tesla is now all-in. Upcoming Model 3 fail would mean death sentence for Tesla. On the other hand, if Model 3 gets popular, Tesla might even get profitable... But as for now, the situation is *tragic*: Tesla reported on 3rd quarter record-breaking losses — the collossal **619 000 000 USD**.
**Model 3 suffers from production delays**
But there is a problem with Model 3 already. Tesla does not meet its 1 500 cars production target, with only 260 made since car's announcement in July. Some sources even claim that the cars are now being built by hand, because production lines are still not functioning properly. With every minute of delay, company loses money and the car itself isn't becoming any more innovative — it is aging, and people are not as impressed with the car as they were back in the July. The "wow" effect seems to be gone.
*Tesla Model 3*
**Concurents are not sleeping**
Many major car manufecturers understand, that the future belongs to electric cars, and start developing early models. Some of them are available on the market already — for example, Chevy Bolt, BMW i3 or cheap-ish VW e-Up!. Probably the best alternative to Tesla Model 3 has been presented by Nissan in September and can provide similar range. Also, many of major car makers are about to present electric cars — for example, Porsche plans to present its Mission E (Tesla Model S rival) in 2019. All these companies are large enough to not to be suffering from production delays, so Tesla will face tough competition in following years.
*2018 Nissan Leaf*
**Company spreads itself too thin**
Half a year after Model 3 announcement Tesla is planning to announce its semi-truck. *It spends money on a new model, when the previous one is suffering from production delays.* Doesn't sound like the right thing to do. There are known cases, when similar tactics led to bankruptcy. One of them would be the company called LeEco, formerly known as LeTV, the Chines media giant. The company suddenly started to produce large amounts of smartphones for low prices (=with almost no profit), launching new models very frequently, and even tried to expand to US market, but failed. This mistake cost company reputation and money, and now it is at the edge of the bankruptcy.
**Company is slowly losing trust**
After a few fatal cases, when Model S crashed while being in the autonomous mode, customers lost a certain amount of trust in the company. These crashes occurred because the software and people weren't quite ready for autonomous driving, but Tesla wanted to show its potential by introducing the world's first mass production car with semi-autonomous driving mode. Same story with Model 3: company rushed to present it while production lines weren't ready, and now company is once again losing customers' trust because of delays. Tesla rushes when it is not necessary.
**Instead of a conclusion**
Tesla's ambitions are greater than the company's possibilities. Elon Musk tries to convince everyone that the company is doing great, that it will be as valuable as Apple in less than 10 years, but it is more of a science fiction than fact. It is very hard for young company to always be one step ahead of its bigger rivals. Till now, Tesla managed to do it. The question is — for how long will it be ahead and will it win the race?
**A few words about Mr. Musk**
If you are thinking skeptically that Mr. Musk is not able to change the world and will fail at his ambitious plans, then you are wrong: he already has changed the world. Development of PayPal is partly his achievement — think about it next time you buy something on Ebay. Tesla made other car manufacturers realize, that it is important to produce electric cars **now**. SpaceX is moving forwards and is making space exploration by private companies possible. I have great respect for such people and sincerely wish that Tesla survives, but **the facts say otherwise.** At least for now.
*Disclaimer: Everything said above is my private opinion and it is your right to disagree. If you have any counterarguments, prove that I am wrong. Also, English is not my native language, so I beg pardon for any grammar errors in this text.*