The failings of other manufacturers do not absolve Tesla for their failings. Itâs widely accepted that insurance premiums for Tesla drivers were higher at least at one time because severe parts shortages meant that repairs could take weeks or even months.Good to see this place is so welcoming to new members. Particularly the moderators.
Well itâs a good job that kind kind of thing never happens to BMW. Youâd never see an owner waiting months for such critical items as a door handle and it definitely wasnât supply chain issues in a pandemic impacting all manufacturers. Nope. Just Tesla being like totally evil.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Have you lost faith in Tesla?
- Thread starter DeejUK
- Start date
Astrape
Member
Someone who is a longstanding owner of multiple Tesla models was / is an early adopter. Early adopters may be inclined to move on and try something new when it becomes available. Many current buyers are still early adopters.willing to tolerate the experience of Tesla being a car with an experimental technology platform attached.
What is as yet unclear is how Family Joe is going to respond to getting in his Model Y. Does he enjoy the very easy to use electric car he has bought, or get annoyed by the undoubted quirks and foibles of the software and the customer service? The new owner experience in the qtr 3 / 4 threads seems generally positive apart from the USS storm. My impression is that for most people as for me as a recent new owner the primary experience of a move from ICE to Tesla is that the car does exactly what it is supposed to do in A to B terms, and does it much more pleasantly and economically than the ICE (Lexus IS) did. Yes the wipers / controls etc are imperfect, but no car manufacturer has that 100%, and they are a much less significant factor than the experience of the Tesla doing its driving job very well.
Is there a Blackberry crisis around the corner? I doubt it because until self driving comes of age, there isnât much to change in this experience, and cracking self driving is looking just like voice recognition, getting it 100% reliable (or even reliable enough) is still a long way off on single lane roads.
But this discussion is focussed heavily on whether there is faith that Tesla will continue to be a segment leader in the premium EV sector, and perhaps the more interesting question is whether people have faith that it can enter the highly competitive budget compact / family vehicle sector. Teslas trajectory is not only towards FSD, but also towards mass market EV production capacity. The existing 4 factories could take it to a size larger than Audi or BMW if demand is sustained, but competing with VW needs entries in the economy sector of the market. Faith or otherwise in that challenge is a more interesting puzzle. Will Tesla get there? Probably, because it has the supply chain and technology experience to get the A to B technology right, and mass produce the car economically.
Zilla91
Active Member
Oh dear, the q4 numbers are out and theyâre not as impressive as Tesla expected them to be despite throwing discounts out to shift as many cars as possible.
Looks like the days of Tesla being able to sell everything they make is in the past
stocks.apple.com
Looks like the days of Tesla being able to sell everything they make is in the past
Tesla Didnât Deliver Enough Cars During the Last 3 Months of 2022 â Barron's
Tesla stock had a rocky 2022, and Tesla investors hoped that fourth-quarter EV deliveries would help get 2023 started with a bang. It looks like theyâll be disappointed. On Monday, Tesla (ticker: TSLA) reported fourth-quarter deliveries of 405,278. Itâs a record result, but it missed Wall Street...
stocks.apple.com
He's a realist. He's not a hater, he's not a fanboy. I think his posts add great context and value.
I think in particular, fanboys (who have a higher chance of being an investor?) should listen to what he has to say, not as financial advise, but for some reality. I say that because I think some people have become detached and live in a Tesla bubble
Sales figures you mention?
405k just confirmed for Q4. Record quarter. But the observant people (yes, I claim to be one) look at data in a different way.
Troy Teslike is widely respected as a delivery and production analyst for Tesla globally.
If you look at the movement of order backlog throughout this year versus annual sales volume, you get a new picture outside the headline picture.
Headline: 1.3m cars sold 2022
Underlying: 1.1m cars sold (new customer orders)
So you see, with Troy's 2022 starting point of 345k cars backlog and end of Q4 backlog of 144k cars, you then realise that 1.1m people ordered a Tesla this year
Or in plain English. At start of this year, lots of deliveries were from 2021 orders due to waiting lists in various regions. These waiting lists have shrank by quite a bit which means for YOY, Tesla are entering 2023 with 200k less customer orders.
To make 2023 just FLAT, they need a 200k YOY increase in customer orders
To get to 2023 consensus of 1.8m deliveries, that means they need 700k customer order growth YOY
If you're still with me on this train of thought, then you'll know thats a YOY market penetration growth of 63% for Tesla to stay on track with Wall St consensus
And that's only YOY. When you do the maths quarter by quarter, the picture gets even more bleak. 417k new customer orders in Half 2, and that's with lots of Q4 incentives globally.
If 417k new customer orders for the most recent half turns into a run rate, you're at 835k annual. Catastrophic. There are demand leavers of course and the biggest is price via margin erosion. I've been saying this for a while now. People ignore. That's fine. But price cuts will come. Forecasting is what I do for a living. The above is just back of a napkin stuff but to quote a famous saying:
The devils in the detail....
I do not do forecasting for a living so I am interested to hear your assessment of to what extent global factors are responsible for the decline in Teslaâs fortunes that you predict, and what affect those factors are likely to have on other auto manufacturers?
I heartily agree that George can be relied on to counter the "irrational exuberance" of some, and the often undue negativity of others, including my own. Long may he continue to do so.
And I have come to rely on your clear eyed analysis of future trends and prospects. The year end orders outstanding versus deliveries is a great example. Facts over emotion every time.
Tesla cars aren't cheap. So who is the target? - the well paid with a salary sacrifice. That isn't average Joe. Tesla repair costs will affect the secondhand market once parts shortages stop and average Joe will avoid them. You can buy well equipped family Ice cars for 25k less than a Tesla which pays for a lot of fuel and servicing. If Tesla tried to hit the cheaper market then their profit plumments unless they knock out stuff with mere 120 mile ranges.. which will only sell to the second car market..school runs, shopping, city commute but will be overpriced for that market...
They are somewhat dependant on rules preventing the sale if Ice cars but they are still years away with rivals snapping...
Unless thry can get their promised software working...
They are somewhat dependant on rules preventing the sale if Ice cars but they are still years away with rivals snapping...
Unless thry can get their promised software working...
I agree. Very nice of him to clear up that little tantrum of yours the other day.
A very informative post. However, a true believer will be along shortly to tell you that you are completely wrong, the statistics are irrelevant, Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world in a few years, and Tesla is so far ahead of the competition that no other company has any chance of seriously challenging them for years, if ever.
I am going to reiterate something raised earlier, about Nokia, by George I think?
Worth over ÂŁ300bn at its peak, over 51% of the market, and very highly regarded products with high profit margins. 6 years later, sold for ÂŁ350mn.
What changed?
High profits are a signal to others that there is a high return on capital, so lots of new market entrants. They could choose from price competition (good enough products at an acceptably lower price) or feature rich products and then attempt to out-innovate the market leader at a similar price.
Secondly, Nokia became a bloated corporate bureaucracy. Lots of committees, coordination, programmes not linked to end or future products, no ability to react to changing tech or tastes quickly enough.
Finally, the advent of Chinese manufacturing hegemony, and with it, rampant corporate espionage. Intellectual property rights being non existent in China.
Of this sketch, Tesla meet criteria 1 and 3. Number 2 - not yet. But in its place is the "prime mover" who doesn't seem to care about the company and its direction any longer. I detect early signs of the same unknowing complacency that has been the downfall of dozens of companies who think they are the best and only at what they do.
the fundamental difference is that Nokia was an encumbent, the size led it to be lacking agility and hugely fragmenting its product lines for multiple different segments (all they knew at the time).
Tesla is Apple in this case, theyâre already disrupting traditional ICE manufacturers.
However, the core engineering of vehicles and the mass production doesnât change significantly, so there is still an ability for those big manufactuters to catch up if they can adapt quickly - some seem to be doing so better than others
When I joined this forum I was ridiculed for suggesting that Tesla would have meaningful competition within a few years. I was informed in no uncertain terms that Tesla was so far ahead that no competitor would even come close for at least a decade. That turned out to be complete guff. I canât believe that even now there are people spouting similar complete crap.
Why do you think âhalfâ the people on this forum hate Tesla? Is it just because they have the temerity to offer perfectly justified criticism of cars they actually own and use? Presumably you think this forum should be reserved for fanboys, true believers and those who live in a âTesla bubbleâ.
I'm a car enthusiast overall but my Forecasting is based on trends, historical caps, seasonal trends and other boring stuff, but there is some cross transferable skills that you can apply to anything really.
To do a proper forecast, I mean, a really good one, you're talking about a bill of at least a few ÂŁmillion for the market research alone, let alone, the data analysis of the market research followed by follow ups to come to a conclusion.
Big automakers will invest in such market research and the analysts. Mercedes have had a strategic rethink of market positioning lately, and there is absolutely no way this is via a board of directors sitting around, shooting the breeze and agreeing a long term road map.
No, the board will be presented with a wealth of market research, modelling, ranges, volume and revenue forecasts, full balance sheet projections to name just a few.
When you're making ÂŁbillion decisions, you'll spend quite a few ÂŁm making sure you get it right.
But long story short, I wouldn't invest in any automaker at all right now. Price trends have reversed globally, used car prices are dropping fast globally and you can see discounts from everywhere.
Tesla are selling sub ÂŁ50k MY from inventory right now, VW are selling ID4 for sub ÂŁ35k today (drivethedeal.com) so the momentum shift in customer behaviour is very obvious. When momentum shifts to the negative, then previous forecasts likely become obselete, so then you look at trend/trajectory
I don't have market research data, brand scores by region, economic data by region or anything resembling proper forecasting tools, which leaves me with a back of a fag packet forecast.
Only Tesla can tell you what's in store for next year, and same for VW and everyone else. They'll keep their very expensive market research to themselves.
So armchair analysts like me make the best with the limited info we have. For me, that's splitting out deliveries and backlog by qrtr to get to customer orders. That's the true demand. Then you can see if you can spot a trend.
It's about looking for clues, like in the UK when MY was released and the 2022 Q1 UK allotment didn't even sell out and as boats were unloaded, people were still able to buy them. That was a red flag.
Outside of the limited data at your disposal, you can apply some assumption if you want. I didn't do that in my previous post but here is an example.
MY is a new model for EU. The pent up demand while people waited for the release was satisfied in 2022. Lots of moves from M3 to MY customers too. So the 'one offs' are already satisfied. Tesla don't have that benefit in 2023, so thats a headwind in terms of 'where is the growth coming from?'
Its a simple sum for 2023 volume:
2023 sales = new customers + retained customers
With the new model Y in 2022, that would have given Tesla a boost from new customers as well as M3 to MY retained customer boost. That won't dissappear 2023, but the initial new product bounce is behind us now.
Thats a key headwind. A possible, and quite likely boost, is that the market for EVs expand, because that's the trend. And while the 2022 new MY boost was great for Tesla, its not like customers will dissappear completely. It's just that there is a hard to quantify one off initial sales boost in the 2022 numbers which needs backed out. However, the expanding market for EVs might be enough to offset that.
Hard numbers for customer orders 2022:
Q1. 435k
Q2. 261k
Q3. 167k
Q4. 250k
So you put all that into the mix and its fair to say that none of the armchair analysts can give you something to hang your hat on as we're only scratching the surface really. I keep talking about Tesla but BMW, VW and the rest, it's a similar story with different numbers.
Based on my own knowledge and experience, if I had to invest in some companies right now in this economic climate, it would be Tesco, Sainsbury and Walmart. How boring is that?
People need to eat though
Universities today routinely give âtrigger warningsâ to their snowflake students in case they might be traumatised by, say, the doings of Cecil Rhodes or the plays of Shakespeare. I think any negative comment about Tesla on this forum should be preceded by a trigger warning because there are certainly a lot of people who really canât cope with criticism. Those who dare to post a negative comment are dismissed as âmoanersâ or âTesla hatersâ.
Because of comments like âfanboysâ âtrue believersâ and âTesla bubbleâ from some as an attempt to slur others.
Another reason I use the Apple analogy, its the exact same shrieking that happened a decade ago, itâs actually hilarious to see people pulling out the exact same old lines again and whining about unimportant crap. Someone mentioned the âElon reality distortion fieldâ the other day which is just comedy.
Guys. Your auto wipers are crap, I agree, auto high beam crap (haven't tried it recently), I agree, removal of uss bad idea, also agree etc etc as do most people on here. By all means have a moan but to passionately stick needles here like you and some others do is imho taking the piss. There is just no balance in your comments other than have a dig around here to bait people... Then we have people saying they would not drive other makes of car simply based on the name... 10/10 for the passion but dont go blowing a blood vessel over it
Doudeau
Member
Before this thread was started I was thinking about starting a poll to get opinions from people on software updates since they purchased. I imagine views and discussions would have been very similar to those on this thread.
It was on the back of criticisms of software updates in new release notes with comments such as â1 step forward and 2 steps backâ.
The reason I didnât post the poll was that I was interested to see the difference in appreciation and criticism of the software updates based on length of ownership - and so I thought it would have resulted in too many choices. Personally, I have seen [what I perceive to be] significant improvements over 3+ years (car and app) which gives me a strong brand loyalty - and hence a reason to retain my current car longer than I historically have.
If I lose use of my USSs before a viable TV alternative comes along then my loyalty will be over tho.
It was on the back of criticisms of software updates in new release notes with comments such as â1 step forward and 2 steps backâ.
The reason I didnât post the poll was that I was interested to see the difference in appreciation and criticism of the software updates based on length of ownership - and so I thought it would have resulted in too many choices. Personally, I have seen [what I perceive to be] significant improvements over 3+ years (car and app) which gives me a strong brand loyalty - and hence a reason to retain my current car longer than I historically have.
If I lose use of my USSs before a viable TV alternative comes along then my loyalty will be over tho.
Speaking for myself Iâve posted numerous negative comments about Tesla on topics like the wipers and the way theyâve handled USS removal etc and nobodyâs ever objected or called me those things.
Of course I say things along the lines of âthe way theyâve done it is terrible customer service but if they canât get hold of the components and they were planning to move to a non USS solution at some point anyway then I guess I can see whyâ.
What I havenât done is storm in with a massive hate-boner for Elon Musk then roll around on the floor hanging a toddler tantrum. Perhaps thatâs the difference.
