So I saw a lot of “the Cybertruck will be the end of Tesla” posts today, and I started thinking about that a little. I think the answer is a very solid “nope!”, even in the event of actual massive failure. Allow me to explain.

I think the outcome really depends on how you define “the end of Tesla”, and who is really making the important decisions at Tesla. 

Scenario 1 is that the adults in the room (the board?) immediately cancel it. Stop the bleeding, end the PR disaster, and write everything possible off. Ship what’s in production and stop everything else. Musk gets to spend the next decade telling everyone they’ll try again in 2-3 years (remember when he said we’re be on the Moon in 2-3 years? In 2017?), and generally blame the wokes, the normies, whatever. Tesla the company will probably take a huge hit, and possibly set up a future actual failure, but mostly they’ll be OK. Other car companies have launched failures; it’s fine. It’s practically normal. Ford didn’t go under because a model of Mustang wasn’t super popular.

But, scenario 2 is possible: the adults try to stop it but Musk doubles down. “It’s the wokes”, or whatever, and he just needs to do his reality-distortion-field thing, you’ll see, the public will wake up to it. In this scenario, it puts them in sufficient financial trouble that they’re effectively Apple around the time of that Wired cover. What happens then?

Make fun of Tesla all you want – build quality is bad, their technology isn’t half as good as the fanboys claim – but it’s still a recognizable brand that also makes things. 

Are you gonna tell me the Big Three (and Honda and Toyota and ….) don’t have some binder in their strategy team’s office titled something like “On the possibility of a Tesla acquisition”? Are you telling me no one would want to scoop it up? C’mon, get real. Brands have value. Recognizable brands have a lot of value. The name alone has value. Even if they pants themselves with a shitty truck.

So no, I don’t think an utter failure of the Cybertruck will really “end” Tesla. It may transform it, but it won’t end it.