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  • Mark

Do you believe in conspiracy theories?

Updated: May 11, 2020

I cannot begin this better than the author of the conspiracy himself didst so here is the verbatim quote.


“I generally eschew conspiracy theories under the rubric that little explained by conspiracy cannot as well be explained by incompetence and that the occurrence of stupid is vastly more common than the occurrence of evil in the hearts and minds of men.”


The above introduces a recent and rather well written piece on Tesla by a certain Jack Rickard – on Tesla’s likely world domination and a deliberate attempt to kill Tesla through the stock market.


Whilst I might not share his optimism regarding the occurrence of evil, I can think of few conspiracy theories that were ever convincing enough to accept as possible let alone probable. This one however involves EV’s and oil, that’s two entities much like fire and water that don’t tend to get on with each other.


Possible it is though. And to save you reading through over 4000 words I’ll sum up some of the more interesting claims.


It starts by explaining why Tesla makes the best cars in the world – in particular the Model 3. Indeed, by most significant metrics it is indeed. Safety? Tick. Speed? Tick. Tech? Tick. Total cost of ownership? Tick. It might not have the best sound insulation of any car on sale but that’s the only measurable metric I can think of where it doesn’t beat every other car on sale.


The result of this coupled with the know-how Tesla have means Jack reckons a number of the largest car manufacturers will go bust.


It also means oil will be in less demand. And oil and motor firms are thus willing to do almost anything to DELAY this eventuality. Indeed evidence is presented about how battery tech patents have been bought out and banned from use in cars – by oil firms…


He then uses the above to explain why Tesla stock has been ‘shorted’ after falling (when it would make little sense to do so). The conspiracy is that ‘big oil’ is deliberately shorting Tesla not to profit – but as an ‘expense’ to derail the firm.


He makes some interesting claims about how illogical it is for anyone to short Tesla who in his view “can sell all they make and make all they sell starting at 360,000 units and topping out at 78 million. They are 0.46% of a $2.3 TRILLION dollar market. And they appear to my biased eye to already own ALL of it.”

Indeed, if you are interested to see the basis for his ‘biased eye’ I do recommend reading the article. There are certainly some good arguments.


All this conspiracy talk has led me to suggest one of my own! That is - why on earth the SMMT (that’s the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders) in the results table of the best selling cars this August, would list the Tesla Model 3 as ‘other’ (and thus totally anonymous).


Is it perhaps to ‘protect’ the legacy car manufacturers from the shocking news the Tesla has outsold every other car but two, beating even the trusty Ford Focus? With the obvious implication that electric cars really must be suitable for mainstream buyers and the terrible implication that has for every other noisy, slow, expensive to run and polluting car on sale?

Spoiler alert – it could also be due to a claim that Tesla won’t supply figures to the SMMT as part of a policy not to publish ‘regional sales figures’ – but hey conspiracy theories make life interesting.


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