Fact of the day: the Ford Edsel ("a 1950s flop so notorious that it’s taught in business schools to this day") outsold the Cybertruck 2:1, "in a country with half the population."
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/ford-introduces-edsel
(h/t Luke Savage in the American Prospect, https://prospect.org/2026/01/30/teslas-wile-e-coyote-moment-is-here/)
@pluralistic And initial opinions of the Edsel's styling were actually quite positive. People really only started calling it ugly after its other flaws became apparent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgoqombGieY
@pluralistic And that was during the era where GM had about 50% market share. So for Ford to outsell makes it all the more notable. h/t Alex Taylor automotive journalist and author of the book
Sixty to Zero:
An Inside Look at the Collapse of General Motors--and the Detroit Auto Industry.
Which covers about half or so of the book to GM throughout and with other parts of of the book to all of the big three for those days til around 2008.
@pluralistic Of course henry ii was not a nazi
@pluralistic haha, a new business lesson for the modern ages.
Get ‘em while they’re hot! 😎
@pluralistic The Edsel would be a huge success for any small startup. The thing is, Tesla is still a small startup, but it's bizarrely overvalued so it gets compared to what was at the time the leading carmaker.
Note that Tesla is apparently leaving the car market in favor of robots.
A Tesla is a surveillance platform you drive.
It can be bricked remotely at any time.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/17/tesla-elon-musk-privacy
https://www.wired.com/video/watch/your-tesla-can-spy-on-you-is-it
Since people don't drive all the time, Tesla is switching to the more profitable market for surveillance offered by home appliances.
Data brokers adore these opportunities to aid fascism.
WIRED
@pluralistic nice to know EBSCO knows nothing about cars.
@pluralistic And it failed despite the best attempts of the star-studded Edsel Show in 1957.
@pluralistic The Edsel wasn't *that* bad.. sure, a rather offputting name and the one or other weird design decision, but if I could get one today, I'd totally drive it. (and probably try an electric rebuild). And it fulfilled its main purpose: transport a family and their luggage around the country. Which can not be said for the CT, since it fails at quite a lot of pickup truck duties.
@pluralistic lower population AND lower car ownership per capita
🤣 i've said this before & i'll likely say it again, Ford makes $ selling transportation (& the credit to buy that transportation)
Tesla makes $ emptying the US Treasury into their own pockets using the pretense that they sell transportation...
only 1 of these business models requires them to get a large number of regular people to desire & buy their vehicles
@pluralistic At least the Edsel wasn't a physicalized Dunning-Kruger study.
