Elon: No Discounts !

[number12]

I wonder if, like so many things, it was a calculated decision.

Take the hit from "having an underling discount without permission" then having to step in and "fix" it versus not being profitable Gap/NonGap for the quarter. The market was lining up to slaughter the company if they missed guidance this quarter.

Ding ding ding. Come on up... what do we have for the winner?


Please please everyone tell me if you think Elon Musk is being so genuine to the point he heard of this news scrolling his twitter and clicking on a reddit article. Think about it. Same guy building rockets and what not hears of company policy shaking news sitting in a lazy boy on twitter? Or is the new PR from apple invovled in this?? Now that's a stretch, but people asking me for evidence really need to think of what they are posing for the alternative or "face value".

 

[jeffro01]

At least you didn't say its because he runs three companies... if he doesn't have enough time to run each one well... appoint someone else. Not unheard of.

To your point... he has time to read reddit articles pinged to his twitter by general public but not time to get reports of a solid month's worth of reports of discounted cars till 2 days before EOQ? Convenient to say the least.

There clearly isn't a way to explain this to you that will allow you to accept what you're being told. I get it... You've decided you're completely in tune with Elon's day to day priorities and tasks. I could pick your post apart in great detail but what's the use?

It's extremely difficult for the average person to understand the demands of anyone in Elon's shoes without walking in them or walking next to them. I get that you can't understand it, I really do. Not to mention no two CEOs are generally alike although the high profile ones generally do share the same traits. My experience tells me that Elon more than likely didn't know what was going on but probably found out a day or two before he corrected it.

Jeff

 

[jeffro01]

Ding ding ding. Come on up... what do we have for the winner?


Please please everyone tell me if you think Elon Musk is being so genuine to the point he heard of this news scrolling his twitter and clicking on a reddit article. Think about it. Same guy building rockets and what not hears of company policy shaking news sitting in a lazy boy on twitter? Or is the new PR from apple invovled in this?? Now that's a stretch, but people asking me for evidence really need to think of what they are posing for the alternative or "face value".

You're still wrong... I don't know what you have against Elon\Tesla but man your persistent...

I wonder if, like so many things, it was a calculated decision.

Take the hit from "having an underling discount without permission" then having to step in and "fix" it versus not being profitable Gap/NonGap for the quarter. The market was lining up to slaughter the company if they missed guidance this quarter.

That's certainly one of the better theories floating around out there but it doesn't fit the narrative. You're suggesting that Elon intentionally deceived people in order to keep wall street happy... That just doesn't fit...

Jeff

 

[lolachampcar]

and your suggesting Elon did not know the P85D, as originally shipped, did not have 691 hp or that the P90DL, as originally shipped, was not capable of a 10.9 second quarter. I did a simple chassis CAN bus data logger and looked at the performance data available directly off the car at 100 Hz. There is no doubt the whole Tesla engineering team knew exactly what their cars were/are capable of.

Now you may ask what the above has to do with discounting cars and the answer is fairly straight forward; its called credibility. Once someone shows me that their intentional actions do not match their narrative, I begin to examine the narrative more closely. Where I might have taken the discounting at face value before the D announce, I've now experienced one example of what the company is capable of when pressed and thus am more willing to entertain alternative theories.

Of course my wanderings are are purely speculation as I have zero inside information. I have walked the walk and have taken significant hits making things right with customers at the expense of my companies. It is never easy and I can not imagine for a minute what it would be like doing so with the stakes Elon is playing with.

 

[number12]

You're suggesting that Elon intentionally deceived people in order to keep wall street happy... That just doesn't fit...

Jeff

0 against Tesla/Elon. Big fan.

Did you read Elon company wide email, his tweet, and then your statement?

Very plausible he did exactly that. Now deceiving might be to strong of a word but light stock manipulation isn't a capital offense. No one admits to it, but in a way every CEO does it if they even talk to press or have let's say... operate a lose twitter account?

 

[jeffro01]

0 against Tesla/Elon. Big fan.

Did you read Elon company wide email, his tweet, and then your statement?

Very plausible he did exactly that. Now deceiving might be to strong of a word but light stock manipulation isn't a capital offense. No one admits to it, but in a way every CEO does it if they even talk to press or have let's say... operate a lose twitter account?

Plausible is an extremely strong word to use when you have nothing but conjecture and circumstantial theories... Yeah... We're not going to see eye to eye on this... Ever.

Jeff

 

[jeffro01]

and your suggesting Elon did not know the P85D, as originally shipped, did not have 691 hp or that the P90DL, as originally shipped, was not capable of a 10.9 second quarter. I did a simple chassis CAN bus data logger and looked at the performance data available directly off the car at 100 Hz. There is no doubt the whole Tesla engineering team knew exactly what their cars were/are capable of.

Now you may ask what the above has to do with discounting cars and the answer is fairly straight forward; its called credibility. Once someone shows me that their intentional actions do not match their narrative, I begin to examine the narrative more closely. Where I might have taken the discounting at face value before the D announce, I've now experienced one example of what the company is capable of when pressed and thus am more willing to entertain alternative theories.

Of course my wanderings are are purely speculation as I have zero inside information. I have walked the walk and have taken significant hits making things right with customers at the expense of my companies. It is never easy and I can not imagine for a minute what it would be like doing so with the stakes Elon is playing with.

WRT to the HP "situation", I still think marketing ran with something that engineering didn't originally have much of a stake in. While I see your dots and how you connected them, we'll never know whether or not Tesla engineering authorized or had any input into the marketing of the details.

Jeff

 

[Canuck]

I see both sides but I'm willing to give Elon the benefit of the doubt on this issue. I certainly have doubt, but if I have to come down on one side or the other, Elon has earned the benefit of my doubt.

At the same time, we're all human which in my view makes us all inherently flawed. So I don't expect Elon not to make mistakes, or even play fast and loose with the facts. In fact, I expect him to. He's under an incredible amount of pressure with Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity. If he doesn't show cracks under that pressure, I wouldn't believe he was human. But he has, and will continue to do so.

 

[Reeler]

When the 60 was re-introduced recently, there were a lot of people with pending orders for 70s complaining that there was a strict policy of not allowing those orders to be downgraded to 60s. In a company that lays out such careful policies on pricing and order changes, I find it hard to believe that the recent discounts were the doing of a few rogue sales minions. That direction had to come from someone pretty high up in the company. Maybe it wasn't Elon but surely someone not too far removed from him in the hierarchy. That's why this recent statement from Elon looks so bad. I don't think it takes a lot of assumptions to reach that conclusion.

I was one of those folks with a 70D order that wanted to downgrade and could not. I just kept delaying my delivery, but when I saw I could get a 75D for less than my original order, I went forward with an inventory purchase. I might have just cancelled my order so am happy now with my car delivered yesterday.

 

[Canuck]

CNN picked it up:

Elon Musk to Tesla employees: NEVER discount a car

 

[u00mem9]

Media seems to have fallen for it, but unfortunately, they aren't the ones he needs to fool to borrow another $2B...

 

[Canuck]

Media seems to have fallen for it, but unfortunately, they aren't the ones he needs to fool to borrow another $2B...

Right, because an American company like Tesla that is outselling Mercedes, BMW, Audi, And Porsche in the US is for fools. And the last thing we want to see is fools loaning money to a company like this. I hope the gigafactory closes and puts all those Americans out of work, along with the Model S and Model X plants, and I hope there's no Model 3 since that will revolutionize auto manufacturing in the US and put all those overseas and Mexican plants in jeopardy. Please, don't be a fool and loan Tesla money. The last thing we want to see is an American company succeed. Romey called Tesla a "loser" in his debate with Obama and he was right on the money, even though Tesla paid back the government loan with interest and ahead of schedule. But he was right, Tesla is a loser and for fools. Be a patriot and support non-American automobile companies.

Right? (from this Patriotic Canadian who supports our best friend and ally - America)

 

[u00mem9]

Calm down. We all want Tesla to succeed and survive. But they already have the capital needed for that.

What they don't have is the capital to bail out musk's cousin's solar sideshow. And now the tactics applied to meet delivery goals for Q3 were so transparent that analysts were openly discussing the delivery goal might not mean much given what it took to accomplish. THAT is why the twitter / fake leak BS started up.

You should all be mad as hell that Tesla's future is being put at risk for scam solar shell games...but we've discussed all this before, have we not?

 

[22522]

Elon is like Blanche, he relies on the kindness of strangers.

It you think about it, he also relies on the kindness of people he knows and know him.

It is the second one that speaks to integrity. I hear his X-wife wrote a book. If you are trying to parse behaviors, read that for just the facts... Steve Jobs might not have had the most integrity.

In open forums, he gets some questions that mess up the narrative - from the "bicycle thieves" at the Tesla stockholder meetings to the "Let's make Mars a penal colony!" with "Questionable bathroom facilities?" At the Mars pride in work talk.

The fact that those questions see light means he is not so intent on controlling the narrative that he would... kill people.

Elon is pretty decent and he tries.

 

[Pawilson3]

Right, because an American company like Tesla that is outselling Mercedes, BMW, Audi, And Porsche in the US is for fools. And the last thing we want to see is fools loaning money to a company like this. I hope the gigafactory closes and puts all those Americans out of work, along with the Model S and Model X plants, and I hope there's no Model 3 since that will revolutionize auto manufacturing in the US and put all those overseas and Mexican plants in jeopardy. Please, don't be a fool and loan Tesla money. The last thing we want to see is an American company succeed. Romey called Tesla a "loser" in his debate with Obama and he was right on the money, even though Tesla paid back the government loan with interest and ahead of schedule. But he was right, Tesla is a loser and for fools. Be a patriot and support non-American automobile companies.

Right? (from this Patriotic Canadian who supports our best friend and ally - America)

Well put Canuck.

I understand the sting of those who narrowly missed out on a discount, but this was a limited time offer intended to boost sales for this particular quarter. I don't see it as a question of integrity. I would still rather deal with Tesla than any other dealership model. Tooling for Model 3 production is critical to the overall success of Tesla's master plan. Worth the risk of bad press in my opinion.

 

[u00mem9]

I would also point out that I totally understand not everyone stays in touch with what was going on in every thread in the ordering, delivery section over the last month.

If you haven't been watching the play by play then the question of discounts probably seems much more open to debate. For those of us obsessing over it everyday, the situation was pretty clear and developed in a predictable manner over the course of the month up to, and including, the denial.

It seems all agree we hope Tesla can make this a one time situation rather a pattern. I think we will know in about 2.5 months...

 

[Pawilson3]

I would also point out that I totally understand not everyone stays in touch with what was going on in every thread in the ordering, delivery section over the last month.

If you haven't been watching the play by play then the question of discounts probably seems much more open to debate. For those of us obsessing over it everyday, the situation was pretty clear and developed in a predictable manner over the course of the month up to, and including, the denial.

It seems all agree we hope Tesla can make this a one time situation rather a pattern. I think we will know in about 2.5 months...

Agreed.

 

[Canuck]

I hear his X-wife wrote a book. If you are trying to parse behaviors, read that for just the facts

Yes, because we can always count on x-wives for objective, unbiased facts.

Having said that, I don't know anyone who is not flawed, and for whom there are things I don't like, including myself.

 

[lolachampcar]

If we start this self examination stuff I'm really going to be in trouble