Bob Lutz he has long been one of the greatest executives in the automotive world. In the past he was in fact a member of the board of directors of BMW; executive vice president of Ford; president of Chrysler and president of General Motors in Europe. Today he is 90 years old and he recently did one thing: he changed his mind about Elon Musk and Tesla.
“Elon Musk is exhausted, has emotional problems, should be excluded from operations. Brilliant guy, he has ideas, but he doesn’t know how to put them into practice. In 25 years, the Model S will be remembered as the first really cool and fast electric car and people will say ‘What a pity they got ruined’. Tesla has no secret recipe; they use lithium-ion batteries, like everyone elseLutz said in 2018. Today, according to an interview by Hagerty, it’s a whole different story.
“In the past I have been highly critical of Elon Musk, I thought he was behaving irresponsibly, betting on the company rather than taking a measured approach. I thought he was a fool, but in the end his style paid off, and today Tesla is fine. I think it is perhaps pushing a little too much with the story of autonomous or semi-autonomous driving; I think people prefer a combination of sensors and digital maps like other car manufacturers are doing. Yet Musk did things that 20 or 30 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago, no one would have imagined. Nobody ever talks about this. It essentially took the technology leadership of the automotive world and brought it back to the United States, beating Germany and Japan. Miracle of miracles. In the seventies and nineties the world thought the American auto industry was retrograde, and now all of a sudden we are the benchmark for electrification.Lutz said.
“Plus, Musk didn’t just do that. He has created a premium brand where Lincoln, Lexus, Infiniti, Cadillac and Acura have failed, in relation to the challenge with BMW and Mercedes. Today even Tesla Model S sells more than the Audi A8, Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7 Series combined. This is truly remarkable. People forget the power of brands, and when people see an electric vehicle, they immediately think of Tesla. And it must be said that the Model S is not only solid and reliable, well designed, but also very beautiful. Let’s think for example of Cybertruck, which I can’t stand like many designers do. However you have to understand that it is an idea that goes in a new direction, and many people like to go against the tide. Orders are full and when it arrives it will be a hit “Lutz continued.
So what will the future look like? For a while, Musk again: “It will therefore not be easy to remove the leadership from Tesla; because it no longer matters how many kilometers of range there are, how fast you go, how long a battery lasts, how you charge it. Cadillac can make a perfect luxury car, but compared to Mercedes there will always be someone who will say they prefer the latter, because they want a prestigious badge. And now Tesla is the standard for everyone“.
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