How many of us are in a STEM profession?

[gtmotor]

I had an interesting discussion with a friend today about how Teslas are such a niche market car and how they will never succeed in the long run. In his view, only an small fraction of the country would ever buy something as underdeveloped and techno-geeky as a Tesla vehicle.

So... that being said, how many of us are engineers or scientists?

 

[McFlurri]

Nope. Just a bus driver

 

[ebmcs03]

Use to be a satellite driver lol

 

[RayK]

Senior Test Engineer here. Been doing this type of job since 1978 on various products such as 4000-series CMOS logic gates, SRAM, DRAM, ROM, EEPROM, very short time on Flash and currently working on STT-RAM. Basically it's a software programming job. I write test programs (now in C) that get executed by a memory tester which provides electrical signals to the tested device and compares the responses from the device to the expected results. Was in a production environment for many years and now, since the offshoring of those jobs beginning in the '80s, have been working more in an R&D position.

 

[gtmotor]

Use to be a satellite driver lol

USAF... SSO?

Senior Test Engineer here. Been doing this type of job since 1978 on various products such as 4000-series CMOS logic gates, SRAM, DRAM, ROM, EEPROM, very short time on Flash and currently working on STT-RAM. Basically it's a software programming job. I write test programs (now in C) that get executed by a memory tester which provides electrical signals to the tested device and compares the responses from the device to the expected results. Was in a production environment for many years and now, since the offshoring of those jobs beginning in the '80s, have been working more in an R&D position.

The fact I even knew what you're talking about shows how my friend could be correct... ya'll aren't helping my case here

 

[RayK]

Okay, before my employment as a test engineer, I used to be a FORTRAN programmer for NASA-Ames.

 

[Henchman]

Film and Television audio Post production.

 

[MosquitoFloss]

Camera Operator

 

[Tam]

...engineers or scientists?

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) does not only include engineers and scientists!

Financial advisers don't need a college degree but since it uses "math" (that's what counting money is about), it's a STEM too!

Career Counselor requires a bachelor degree in psychology which is a science, so it's STEM too!

Anthropologist is science (although it's social science) so it's STEM too!

 

[timk225]

IT Support / Data Center.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

The poll is going to reflect the demographics of owners on this usergroup which likely won't match up very well with real world Model 3 owners.

So I would suggest doing a poll on various Facebook groups for Tesla owners.

I definitely agree that early adopters (Model S, and maybe the Model X to some degree) are heavily weighted towards STEM. But, I think you'll find it's growing outside of that. Especially as we get close to the $35K car that will hopefully arrive in 2019.

What your friend doesn't seem to get is techie people are the ones people ask for advice. Heck these days you don't even bother building an engine without a laptop, and a nerd.

If Tesla fails it's going to be because of Tesla, and not it's owner demographics.

 

[boaterva]

The poll is going to reflect the demographics of owners on this usergroup which likely won't match up very well with real world Model 3 owners.

So I would suggest doing a poll on various Facebook groups for Tesla owners.

I definitely agree that early adopters (Model S, and maybe the Model X to some degree) are heavily weighted towards STEM. But, I think you'll find it's growing outside of that. Especially as we get close to the $35K car that will hopefully arrive in 2019.

What your friend doesn't seem to get is techie people are the ones people ask for advice. Heck these days you don't even bother building an engine without a laptop, and a nerd.

If Tesla fails it's going to be because of Tesla, and not it's owner demographics.

Right. There is always a subset that is even on forums and it may be made up of the STEM/techies. But my non-techie GF wants a 3. And she doesn’t do forums.

Edit: Oh, yeah, training as Electrical Engineer, been IT for decades, do everything techie from computers to ham radio back when to you name it.

 

[cellogig]

Cellist

 

[souslik]

Corporate Communications. Guess I'm just here because I like words and sentences and there are new ones every day.

 

[jbcarioca]

It seems to me that direct STEM employment certainly must be over represented for Tesla drivers. More than that, by their human interfaces all Teslas are unlikely to be a appealing to people with a low level of technical literacy. Zero question about it, mass appeal trends towards the lowest common denominator of competence.

By late 2020 there will be a plethora of BEV options that will be less demanding, ludditites for whom BEV is otherwise attractive will choose among those choices.

The market will rapidly shift from early adopters to mass. That will be wonderful!

There will be more and more STEM-literate people who will choose Tesla.

FWIW, old-style data modeling, including ancient use of LISP, Fortran, Assembler (beginning with System 360- so you know I am old). Later ran a sequence of financial services startups/turnarounds in a variety of countries. I am STEM only in the evolutionary context, utterly ignorant of current technologies.

 

[arctec1]

Architect. Traditional kind, not the software or IT kind.

 

[T34ME]

In his view, only an small fraction of the country would ever buy something as underdeveloped and techno-geeky as a Tesla vehicle.

How does your friend explain, for example, smartphones and personal computers?

 

[Robocheme]

Former chemical engineer retired from the dark side (oil company).

 

[75Shappyt]

I make T-shirts, Love this car, it doesn't matter what the the field of work you do, this car is so much fun to drive!!!

 

[MB30]

I run a team of data analysts and work with "big data" (man I hate that term lol). My training is in applied statistics so I guess I fall into the STEM