BET You CAN'T Guess The BIGGEST Mistake Mercedes-Benz Made In Modern Time. Oh, It's A DOOZY

In business, you win some and you lose some.

Sometimes the amounts are small but SOMETIMES OMG you make a WHOPPER of a mistake.

And that's what this article is here to discuss.

Time goes by quickly and people forget VERY easily the history of things. And we're willing to wager that most of you don't remember this one made by Mercedes-Benz.

Did you know at one time they owned almost ten percent of TESLA?

In 2009, Daimler paid $50 million to acquire a stake in Tesla of under 10 percent — a stake the German company later sold in 2014 for roughly $780 million.

Can you imagine when they sold it for 3/4 of a billion how they must have thought, WOW, we're the smartest guys on earth because this Musk and Tesla is a fad like Starbucks.

They'll NEVER make it!

ALL their 'experts' must have been high-fiving each other in the boardroom while Doctor Z was twirling his mustache in ecstasy.

Well my friends, if they would have held on till today (just doing some rough math here) instead of 780 million, they would be holding about 55 BILLION.

And that my friends is in the words of Paul Harvey, the rest of the story.

SanJoseDriver - 7/25/2020 1:05:49 AM

+2 Boost

Of all the bankruptcy BS that gets posted here, that was the primary time where Tesla WAS at risk of bankruptcy. That $50M investment saved Tesla, so kudos to MB. Elon always gives a shoutout to MB when talking about the history of the company.

MDarringer - 7/25/2020 9:06:52 AM

0 Boost

Tesla so isn't out of the woods. Both the Model 3 and the Y were (and still are) plagued by quality control issues that would be unacceptable on a Kia Rio much less $50-60K cars.

The S and the X are woefully outdated but what's next? The pickup boondoggle and a coupe for a non-existent market. The allocation of resources is poorly placed in the latter case and in the former case, Tesla isn't even trying to make a pickup that will be a viable replacement to an F150, Ram, or Silverado.

Car4life1 - 7/25/2020 9:36:52 AM

+5 Boost

Wrong Benz still lives on in Tesla products like the X & S switchgear along with an upcoming collab on EV vans based off sprinter

Benz got something even better out of the deal, an ally with the king of EVs now from which mainstream manufacturers are scrambling to catch up with.

SanJoseDriver - 7/26/2020 12:42:03 AM

+2 Boost

There are very few things the F150, Ram, or Silverado will do better than a Cybertruck which wins at power, practicality, and cost.

MDarringer - 7/26/2020 10:01:41 AM

0 Boost

You clearly know NOTHING about how pickups are used.

mre30 - 7/26/2020 12:47:03 PM

0 Boost

SJD - what are you basing that assumption on? I think only Jay Leno has driven the CYBERTRUCK, aside from Elon's PR stunts driving around LA.

Tesla does not routinely make its vehicles available for testing by the media - so I doubt there will be an independent 'comparison test' anytime soon.

More 'vaporware'.

SanJoseDriver - 7/27/2020 12:07:28 AM

+2 Boost

The cost per mile will be less than any of it's competition, it will have far more hp and torque than the competition, air compressor and 220 power is standard, and it has 100 cubic feet of lockable storage. If the specs make it unaltered, it will objectively be a beast. I can understand people not liking the looks, but Ford/GM haven't even proposed something in their future roadmaps that will give the specs or power and range a run for its money.

cidflekken - 7/27/2020 2:08:30 PM

+1 Boost

How is a company that isn't consistently profitable worth $70Billion?

mpls - 7/27/2020 4:40:57 PM

+1 Boost

Toyta also has a stake in Tesla.. not sure how much they had back in 2010 but in 2016 they sold 1.43% of TEsla shares for around $481million. Meaning they;ve gt rid of all its Tesla shares...