Schumpeter
熊彼特
Tesla faces an identity crisis: carmaker or tech firm?
特斯拉面临身份危机。它是汽车公司还是科技公司？
Elon Musk’s fiendish conundrum
马斯克的大难题
- fiendish 极其困难的
- conundrum 令人迷惑的难题；复杂难解的问题（参见：小词详解 | conundrum）
ON THE NIGHT before Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s first-quarter results on April 23rd, your columnist brought his car to a halt, noticing a futuristic vehicle hooked up to a Tesla charging station in Los Angeles. It was a dark-purple Cybertruck. Twinkling lights glittered behind the tinted windows. It looked so wedgelike, angular and otherworldly that it could have moonlighted as an armoured personnel carrier in “Civil War”, a new apocalyptic film.
在伊隆·马斯克于4月23日揭晓特斯拉一季度业绩的前一晚，本专栏作者在洛杉矶某处停车，注意到一个特斯拉充电桩上连着一辆未来感十足的汽车。那是一辆深紫色的Cybertruck。闪烁的灯光透过深色玻璃窗映射出来。楔形车身棱角分明，超凡脱俗，简直可以在新末日电影《内战》（Civil War）中充当装甲运兵车。
- hook sb/sth↔up (to sth) 连接到电子设备（或电源、互联网）；接通
- twinkle 闪耀；闪烁
- glitter 闪亮；闪耀；光彩夺目
- wedge 引申指“楔形物、三角形物”，多用来形容蛋糕、奶酪、水果等食物（参见：小词详解 | wedge）
- angular 有棱角的；有尖角的（参见：小词详解 | angular）
- 拓展学习：熟词僻义 | moonlight 是瞒着老板偷偷做什么？
- apocalyptic 毁灭性的；世界末日的
Its owner, Dennis Wang, is a Tesla devotee. Besides his four-month-old Cybertruck, he has owned Mr Musk’s original (“sexy”) quartet: the Models S, 3, X and Y. He has held shares in the company since 2018. He has full faith in Mr Musk. Despite a 40% plunge in Tesla’s share price this year in the run-up to the earnings report, as well as the announcement in recent weeks of falling vehicle sales and unprecedented lay-offs, he believes the billionaire remains the best person to run the company. Even an embarrassing Cybertruck recall, caused by a stuck accelerator, was quickly fixed, he says, pointing to a new bolt in the pedal.
车主丹尼斯·王（音译）是特斯拉的“死忠粉”。除了这辆刚买了四个月的Cybertruck，他还买过马斯克原先的全部“性感”四件套：Model S、Model 3、Model X和Model Y。他自2018年起就持有该公司的股票。他对马斯克信心满满。尽管今年特斯拉的股价在临近财报发布时暴跌40%，近几周还宣布汽车销量下滑，并进行了前所未有的裁员，但他认为这位亿万富翁仍是掌舵特斯拉的不二人选。即使Cybertruck由于油门踏板会卡住而被尴尬地召回，他也指着踏板上的新螺栓说问题很快得到了解决。
- devotee （狂热的）崇拜者，爱好者；虔诚的宗教信徒
- plunge （价格、温度等）暴跌；骤降；突降
- lay-off （因工作不多的）解雇，裁员
