CNN Just Now Learns Tesla's Secret Profit Sauce

I got a push alert to my phone over the weekend – CNN was saying Tesla had a secret to its profits. Intrigued, I clicked, but before the article could even load it dawned on me.

CNN was going to point out that Tesla made most of its money not from sales but from regulatory credits.

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China to Buy GM, Reloaded

It’s been year since we blogged Chinese press reports that China’s SAIC might buy GM. It turned out to be one of many Chinese rumors that followed. We became the target of hate mongering—some idiots even accused us of driving down GM’s and Chrysler’s stock price. Duh, buyout rumors usually drive prices up. At the time, the GM stock was worth at least a little money: the market cap of GM was less than Mattel. Months later, the stock was worthless. GM and Chrysler went bankrupt. Instead of the Chinese owning GM and Chrysler, the American taxpayer ended up holding the barf bag.

It took a year and six days to dawn on CNN Money that a Chinese-owned GM might not be such an outlandish idea after all. “A Chinese-owned GM, it could happen,” headlines CNN Money today.

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  • Duke Woolworth Weight 4800# as I recall.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X '19 Nissan Frontier @78000 miles has been oil changes ( eng/ diffs/ tranny/ transfer). Still on original brakes and second set of tires.
  • ChristianWimmer I have a 2018 Mercedes A250 with almost 80,000 km on the clock and a vintage ‘89 Mercedes 500SL R129 with almost 300,000 km.The A250 has had zero issues but the yearly servicing costs are typically expensive from this brand - as expected. Basic yearly service costs around 400 Euros whereas a more comprehensive servicing with new brake pads, spark plugs plus TÜV etc. is in the 1000+ Euro region.The 500SL servicing costs were expensive when it was serviced at a Benz dealer, but they won’t touch this classic anymore. I have it serviced by a mechanic from another Benz dealership who also owns an R129 300SL-24 and he’ll do basic maintenance on it for a mere 150 Euros. I only drive the 500SL about 2000 km a year so running costs are low although the fuel costs are insane here. The 500SL has had two previous owners with full service history. It’s been a reliable car according to the records. The roof folding mechanism needs so adjusting and oiling from time to time but that’s normal.
  • Theflyersfan I wonder how many people recalled these after watching EuroCrash. There's someone one street over that has a similar yellow one of these, and you can tell he loves that car. It was just a tough sell - too expensive, way too heavy, zero passenger space, limited cargo bed, but for a chunk of the population, looked awesome. This was always meant to be a one and done car. Hopefully some are still running 20 years from now so we have a "remember when?" moment with them.
  • Lorenzo A friend bought one of these new. Six months later he traded it in for a Chrysler PT Cruiser. He already had a 1998 Corvette, so I thought he just wanted more passenger space. It turned out someone broke into the SSR and stole $1500 of tools, without even breaking the lock. He figured nobody breaks into a PT Cruiser, but he had a custom trunk lock installed.