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This is a fairly asinine attitude, and if I were on the co-op board I'd actually sack the management for wilful financial misconduct, because no, "the provider of the cheaper option didn't come begging to me" is not a reasonable reason to buy the more expensive option
No, it's actually up to the buyer to phone up and ask about ordering the product. I mean, if you don't get a call BACK, then it's Tesla's problem. But you shouldn't be expecting salesmen to be knocking at your door, that's stupid.
They have more pre-orders than they can currently fulfill. They don't need to "make these sales", they'll just sell their capacity to someone else. If you want to get the battery, you need to call them up and ask them whether they can meet your timeframe.
No, not a very big deal.
The bigger problem is that it's a sign of a problem with the corporate culture which causes them to make stupid screwups, and there have been a *lot* of signs of similar problems with the corporate culture which have caused worse stupid screwups. (I won't list them all; you can find 'em in other forums on this site, easily.)
If there eventually arises a new electric car / battery / solar startup which doesn't have the same cultural problems, Tesla will have real and serious competition. Unless, of course, Tesla fixes the cultural problems.
I don't think you completely understood my point. Commercial customers care about and need maintenance support. If something costs 25% more, yet comes with much more assurance that it will be repaired quickly and with no fuss should something break, then often commercial customers will go with the more expensive option. My point being that a call center voice at the other end of the line is not enough to reassure an electric utility that Tesla has a response team to fix problems with their rather new and frankly little tested system should one occur. I mean, Tesla doesn't exactly have an unblemished record as far as releasing new products free of problems.
Also, you can bet that TE's competitors are saying their batteries are better, the longevity is better, their reliability is better, etc. You can't counter that with a web site. You need an outside sales force backed up by marketing support that writes up detailed glossy case studies with lots of quotes from satisfied customers. Tesla seemingly has utterly failed to do that so far.
As far as the backlog goes, well color me skeptical. I was on the mid summer Gigafactory tour where we got to see the Powerpack assembly line. It was underwhelming to say the least. It did not look like an operation that was production constrained.
erthquake
Active Member
Thank you! In that thread, someone linked to this video of the BMW plant. Lots of slow humans working there. It's not hard to imagine how solid product and factory design could eliminate people entirely.
Also, if six months is their estimate to get the Model 3 stamping dies worked out, it suggests that full production will indeed not begin July 1st.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
I have enough confidence in Tesla,Elon and JB that 25% of my portfolio is in TSLA.
But I am not putting 95% or 100%.
IMO that is nuts.
There is more than death or serious injury to VIP that can stop Tesla from being the Michael Jordan of industrial companies.
Exactly. Even regular hybrids are training wheels. I bought a Prius in 2010, and the first day I got it I decided that I wouldn't buy anything else again. Pretty soon I realised that I liked the Prius when it drove electric, and less so when it drove on gas. That's when I realised my next cat would have to be fully electric. I'm sure many hybrid buyers will have the same feeling.
So this may seem a bit random, but relates to the Supercharger monetization discussion.... The one thing that worries me a bit is how long before governments decide to slap electricity used for EV charging with tariffs and taxes. I suppose the fact that SC was "free", made me feel a bit safer about that possibility - granted, SC is not the only charging network out there so this is not a Tesla specific problem.
This may be a very European issue, but over here tariffs and taxes make out 2/3+ of the fuel prices and, in my country, about 10% of the total annual budget of the country. To give you one example, when crude prices fell by 50%, that presented itself as a 25-30% decrease at the pump in Hungary and the government raised tariffs last year to compensate loss of revenues for the state.
Now, sure, even if SC would be free, a government could establish a minimum fee if their losses from EVs not pumping gas got real bad, but what I am more worried about is, that once they start to put tariffs on it, they may go beyond parity with gasoline tariffs as they realize the final bill to the consumer is still a lot less than with gas, so they can "take" more.
This may be a very European issue, but over here tariffs and taxes make out 2/3+ of the fuel prices and, in my country, about 10% of the total annual budget of the country. To give you one example, when crude prices fell by 50%, that presented itself as a 25-30% decrease at the pump in Hungary and the government raised tariffs last year to compensate loss of revenues for the state.
Now, sure, even if SC would be free, a government could establish a minimum fee if their losses from EVs not pumping gas got real bad, but what I am more worried about is, that once they start to put tariffs on it, they may go beyond parity with gasoline tariffs as they realize the final bill to the consumer is still a lot less than with gas, so they can "take" more.
This is probably a big reason why goverments have supported Hydrogen rather than BEV as they could then tax the delivery, whereas electricity is used everywhere. There was a big push some years back to work out gantry systems for reading vehical use so that they could be charged based on road use. IMHO, I think that they (goverments) knew that this issue was coming.So this may seem a bit random, but relates to the Supercharger monetization discussion.... The one thing that worries me a bit is how long before governments decide to slap electricity used for EV charging with tariffs and taxes. I suppose the fact that SC was "free", made me feel a bit safer about that possibility - granted, SC is not the only charging network out there so this is not a Tesla specific problem.
This may be a very European issue, but over here tariffs and taxes make out 2/3+ of the fuel prices and, in my country, about 10% of the total annual budget of the country. To give you one example, when crude prices fell by 50%, that presented itself as a 25-30% decrease at the pump in Hungary and the government raised tariffs last year to compensate loss of revenues for the state.
Now, sure, even if SC would be free, a government could establish a minimum fee if their losses from EVs not pumping gas got real bad, but what I am more worried about is, that once they start to put tariffs on it, they may go beyond parity with gasoline tariffs as they realize the final bill to the consumer is still a lot less than with gas, so they can "take" more.
An interesting point regarding the introduction (or not) or Green Wave's to the UK (source Wiki)
In the UK, in 2009, it was revealed that the Department for Transport had previously discouraged green waves as they reduced fuel usage, and thus less revenue was raised from fuel taxes.[10][11] Despite this government Webtag documents were only updated in 2011. It is still unclear if the economic appraisal software used to apply these guidelines has also been updated and if the new guidelines are being applied to new projects.
I think that these days, there is a better understanding of the impact of paying some other country for a commodity that you just basically burn and the environmental impact, cost to society, health services etc. A few more tanks and pipes needed on the MONIAC computer.
Back in summer Tesla didn't have any 21-70s. It's obvious to me that Tesla at some point decided to go slow with the 18650-based TE products, wait for the 21-70s (while everyone worked on getting the production equipment and processes right), then when 21-70s were available, scale up massively. Tesla started receiving 21-70s from Japan in Q4 and cell production has now started at the Gigafactory.
This means Q4 2016 should be significantly better than Q1-Q3 2016, and Q1 2017 should be much better again. In Q2 2017 the Gigafactory cell production should be running at full speed, so a further improvement should be seen there. In Q3 2017 we *might* see phase two coming up, which should improve things further.
Tesla now has 15,000 Solar City employees that can install and maintain the Tesla Energy installations, and they will obviously scale up their sales structure as more product becomes available.
I expect something like this:
Gerardf
Active Member
MMD, I still think you do not understand my post. You are still missing the big picture.
As I already stated, Tesla will sell EVERY car and EVERY GigaFactory cell it can produce for many years to come. If you disagree with that, fine, build your case. Otherwise, stop ignoring that statement.
This one RFI and even sale sof 100k cars is not important with regards to demand for Tesla products. It is a confirmation that more and more big cities are beginning to make a full switch to clean zero-emission transport. And that is great.
Again, no matter how fast Tesla is able to ramp up production, all cars and all cells are sold. For may years to come. No need for low margin fleet sales. No interest in giving discounts. Demand will be bigger than Tesla production even in the most steep production ramp Tesla can imagine. So why go for selling low-price base configuration Model-3 in bolume to cities if there is more demand then they can deliver for well-optioned high-margin cars ? Tesla needs the cash flow and profit to build GF-2, -3 ....... -10.
Next to that, the citiy governments do NOT want PHEV's. . They want a switch to zero emission within cities and do not want end up with cars that are still capable of switching on the ICE or burg fues to charge the battery. A good market for BEV's with smaller batteries for sure, and that is a good thing, but I strongly doubt they will buy PHEV's.
There is only one scenario I can imagine where Tesla would wan to offer a low-price model for fleet sales, and that is in case the car production capacity would ramp faster than available cells. This could happen in case of of GigaFactory production and new GigaFactory buildout is not scaling fast enough to produce cells for new very big TE projects and all cars they can produce, resulting in a shortage in cells.
In that case it would be easy for Tesla to offer a 'city-special' with half size 30kWh battery to keep the car factory running ful speed. But that scenario would be very unlikely, and the offered product would still be very interesting as it is easily upgradeable to a full battery with a battery swap.
But I do not think that will be needed. As a shareholder I prefer Tesla to sell high-optioned cars and leave low margin city fleet sales to others as long at demand is higher than production. And that will be the case until at least 2022.
P.S. Maybe Tesla is actually keeping this in mind. While browsing through the recent patent filings I noticed a new version of the battery swap patent. One can imagine selling city cars to city dwellers that can be automatically upgraded temporarily with bigger batteries at service centers during vaction month or road trips. BTW the battery drawing seems a bit different to me in that patent. Maybe the Model-3 battery ?
I think most European countries will move to a tax per km, with higher pricing on congested roads and/or congested times to lower the current congestion. With the infrastructure in place, it will be no problem to tax the users of the roads instead of taxing fuel.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Maybe we should be specific with these contentions, especially outside of TMC.
Every automaker sells every car they make.
Tesla will sell every car they make with zero or minimal discount and minimal marketing budget.
In the US the average automaker spends ~$2k in marketing per vehicle sold. Tesla spends $6.
Tesla average discount is less than 1%. Including the $1k referral here.
dc_h
Active Member
That was one of the deliberate and biased articles I've ever read. He paints a picture of Elon as a Trump mini me. Bio says he worked at Intl Business Times and a national news editor at Bloomberg national news. Friend of Kory?
This is definitely not Europe only. Most of the rest of the world has similar issues. For example, here in Brazil direct taxes make 53% of retail price for the cheapest gasoline, but the net is actually around 70% due to the 27% ethanol included and the additional taxes imposed for "aditavada" the grade a modern vehicle requires. Similar effects are almost global.So this may seem a bit random, but relates to the Supercharger monetization discussion....
Just as in Poland mentioned earlier, Brazil and other countries are raising direct and indirect taxes for BEV's and PHEV's to compensate lost lost revenue from fossil fuels. The US State of Michigan is very well documented here with annual road tax equivalents imposed for BEV and PHEV.
For TSLA investors we need to have caution that electricity pricing incentives, road tax benefits and other such will disappear quickly once BEV's reach critical mass in a given jurisdiction, or sooner. Thus the intrinsic benefits of Tesla need to stand independently of any direct economic benefit. If that was your implicit conclusion, I agree.
So do residential customers.
So, when they called Tesla -- they DID call Tesla, right? -- did Tesla actually call them back promptly and answer their questions?
If Tesla didn't return their call promptly, then you have a very good point.
If Tesla did call them back promptly and answer their questions, then you don't have a point.
If they didn't call Tesla at all, *that* is asinine.
Which was it? These are very different situations.
True.
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anticitizen13.7
Not posting at TMC after 9/17/2018
It may be of interest that Peter Thiel also said something similar about Elon, and meant it in a positive way: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/...d-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html
In the Times interview w' Mr. Thiel:
According to Google, Donald Trump is worth 3.7 Billion dollars. Elon Musk is worth 12.7 Billion.
In terms of future potential, I think it is possible that Elon will also lead an entire planet (Mars) rather than just one nation on Earth
This is actually painfully hard to implement, because of the substitutability of electricity (most people charge their cars at home).
I think we're more likely to see a per-km or per-mile odometer tax payable at registration time. Some European countries already do this. A number of US states are already abusively raising registration fees for electric cars -- and the abusive part of this is that it's way too high a price for *drivers who drive very few miles per year*, so converting this into an odometer tax (for fairness) seems very likely. (And I'd actually campaign for that.)
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