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Jerome reassigned to customer-satisfaction role

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Rotating Jerome back to full customer satisfaction focus is a no-brainer as the company gets ready for perhaps its most important event of the year in the coming months - delivering the very first Model X's to customers.

Similarly, the regional sales VPs reporting to Elon will give extra scrutiny to hitting his expectations. (Plus checks & balances of sales vs. customer satisfaction as others have said).
 
Rotating Jerome back to full customer satisfaction focus is a no-brainer as the company gets ready for perhaps its most important event of the year in the coming months - delivering the very first Model X's to customers.

Similarly, the regional sales VPs reporting to Elon will give extra scrutiny to hitting his expectations. (Plus checks & balances of sales vs. customer satisfaction as others have said).

This and also the regional focus allows for specialization and better feedback for each markets taste.
 
Yes Jerome will be great at post sales customer satisfaction. However, this type of announcement/move would not be done if sales were great. This is yet more evidence that sales, not just in China, but everywhere, aren't as good as Tesla would like.

Also the forums (here and Tesla) seem to me to have fewer newbies, which isn't what you would expect if sales were increasing.

Combine this with InsideEVs estimate of lackluster US sales for January and February, and I am now expecting a sales miss for Q1, which will tank, and I do mean tank, the stock price.
 
Also the forums (here and Tesla) seem to me to have fewer newbies, which isn't what you would expect if sales were increasing.

The first wave of Model S buyers are likely more tech-savvy & would be expected to search for information online. As the market grows, we'll see more of a cross-section of the buying public - meaning, a larger percentage will be less likely to come on a car forum in search of answers.

What this means for Tesla is that they'll have to provide more in-store education, since I'd expect the newer buyers of Model S to just call for help. Maybe like Apple's free sessions in-house. The first wave of X buyers will all be the early reservation holders & I'd expect to see them here on the forum. After that, no. And Model 3 will be a lot of people choosing between Tesla and ICE options.

My point is is that the market grows, my assumption is we will not see the same growth rate here on the forum - just a different group of people.
 
Yes Jerome will be great at post sales customer satisfaction. However, this type of announcement/move would not be done if sales were great. This is yet more evidence that sales, not just in China, but everywhere, aren't as good as Tesla would like.

Also the forums (here and Tesla) seem to me to have fewer newbies, which isn't what you would expect if sales were increasing.

Combine this with InsideEVs estimate of lackluster US sales for January and February, and I am now expecting a sales miss for Q1, which will tank, and I do mean tank, the stock price.

Insideev figures source isnt accurate at all its based off of registration estimates and leaves too much room for error. This has been covered at length. The assertion that this move was done because performance in various markets aren't as good doesn't exactly hold water. This has basically been what every bear has been utilizing.

If anything the move being done is a good sign about demand and a plan for future growth. Jerome is staying on board in the role till new hires are in. It shows me that the tasks were becoming too great for one person. To Bonnie's point, Tesla is getting ahead of the curve for the completely new customer base that will be entering the market soon. Again, this is a good sign that this is happening earlier in a supply constrained environment. You throw in the aspect of CPO cars and it shows how Jerome's duty will be growing and increasingly complex.
 
The first wave of Model S buyers are likely more tech-savvy & would be expected to search for information online. As the market grows, we'll see more of a cross-section of the buying public - meaning, a larger percentage will be less likely to come on a car forum in search of answers.

What this means for Tesla is that they'll have to provide more in-store education, since I'd expect the newer buyers of Model S to just call for help. Maybe like Apple's free sessions in-house. The first wave of X buyers will all be the early reservation holders & I'd expect to see them here on the forum. After that, no. And Model 3 will be a lot of people choosing between Tesla and ICE options.

My point is is that the market grows, my assumption is we will not see the same growth rate here on the forum - just a different group of people.

Bonnie i could not agree with you more. As the early adopters wane out and tesla become more mainstream the general absent minded consumer has a bucket list of questions that needs to be addressed with knowledgeable sales staff from tesla to ensure accurate information is disseminated The sales force for tesla aren't just representative for tesla rather brand ambassadors for Ev's around the world. They need to educate, persuade and to be honest need to have a substantial knowledge set of the functions and distribution of the complete system of ev's and electricity. From coal to the supercharger and even moving further than that all sales advisers need to fundamentally believe electric vehicles are the future, Not just bragging rights that tesla is a cool company to work for.
 
The first wave of Model S buyers are likely more tech-savvy & would be expected to search for information online. As the market grows, we'll see more of a cross-section of the buying public - meaning, a larger percentage will be less likely to come on a car forum in search of answers.

What this means for Tesla is that they'll have to provide more in-store education, since I'd expect the newer buyers of Model S to just call for help. Maybe like Apple's free sessions in-house. The first wave of X buyers will all be the early reservation holders & I'd expect to see them here on the forum. After that, no. And Model 3 will be a lot of people choosing between Tesla and ICE options.

My point is is that the market grows, my assumption is we will not see the same growth rate here on the forum - just a different group of people.

Hail to Tesla pioneers:cool:
330px-Le_Serment_du_Jeu_de_paume.jpg


The other side of the coin about the Tesla market growth cutting into the changing market demographics may deserve some discussion.

The market segment of potential Tesla buyers that are not tech savvy is likely to be increasingly shrinking. It is becoming increasingly difficult to exist, let alone accumulate wealth, without being tech-savvy. There are remnants of people who perhaps fall into such category, but I would be surprised if such segment is increasing in size.

Even tech savvy customers require ongoing support, more so with cars than with phones. I find Apple's customer support and education model outstanding, no doubt Tesla will need to achieve a similar or better level of support infrastructure as car malfunction can be deadly.

I find it difficult to see any differences on the forum, but I am not looking at any metrics if available. My understanding is that this forum is not part of Tesla's support infrastructure, Tesla's website covers such purpose. Tesla's website most likely has some traffic metrics.
 
Plenty of smart and successful people never tuned their engines, changed a spark plug, or even changed the oil.

"Tech savvy" doesn't necessarily translate to "curious about how their electric vehicle operates". Early adopters, yes. Mass-market? Doubtful (imo).
 
@Auzie, that picture shows French revolutionaries, half of whom would be dead within 10 years. Robespierre and blood are what I think of, though freedom,fraternity, and egalitarianism could also be seen.

Change comes at a cost both for those leading the change (Tesla) and the wider society. If we are lucky Elon's overall vision will help the world avoid the worst of the potential calamities.

I expect TSLA to drop. But this seems like a wise move. Minimal carnage.
 
Yes Jerome will be great at post sales customer satisfaction. However, this type of announcement/move would not be done if sales were great. This is yet more evidence that sales, not just in China, but everywhere, aren't as good as Tesla would like.

Also the forums (here and Tesla) seem to me to have fewer newbies, which isn't what you would expect if sales were increasing.

Combine this with InsideEVs estimate of lackluster US sales for January and February, and I am now expecting a sales miss for Q1, which will tank, and I do mean tank, the stock price.

As of today the U.S. Tesla website is showing late April delivery for a P85D and May delivery for 60/85/85D. We know that Tesla can build cars in a week or less, and deliver on the West Coast in a matter of days. So if they thought they were might miss revenues/deliveries in Q1, wouldn't they still be taking orders for Q1 delivery?
 
@Auzie, that picture shows French revolutionaries, half of whom would be dead within 10 years. Robespierre and blood are what I think of, though freedom,fraternity, and egalitarianism could also be seen.

Change comes at a cost both for those leading the change (Tesla) and the wider society. If we are lucky Elon's overall vision will help the world avoid the worst of the potential calamities.

I expect TSLA to drop. But this seems like a wise move. Minimal carnage.
Huh I thought they were Romans saluting their emperor. Anyway, no French Revolution symbolism was meant in posting that image, just to illustrate that pioneers always deserve credit for courage and for going ahead of others to clear the way.
 
Insideev figures source isnt accurate at all its based off of registration estimates and leaves too much room for error.

I've been following InsideEV for almost 2 years. Historically they have been VERY accurate. Most recently, they completely pegged the 2014 sales number and the 4Q number.

The assertion that this move was done because performance in various markets aren't as good doesn't exactly hold water. This has basically been what every bear has been utilizing.

Why doesn't it hold water? Simply because bears are using it? If so, that's circular reasoning and not a valid argument.

You throw in the aspect of CPO cars and it shows how Jerome's duty will be growing and increasingly complex.

Yeah, based on forum rumors, I was expected Tesla to announce a CPO program 2 weeks ago. I'm still waiting and kicking myself for believing it. They probably will have a CPO program ... a year from now.
 
I've been following InsideEV for almost 2 years. Historically they have been VERY accurate. Most recently, they completely pegged the 2014 sales number and the 4Q number.



Why doesn't it hold water? Simply because bears are using it? If so, that's circular reasoning and not a valid argument.



Yeah, based on forum rumors, I was expected Tesla to announce a CPO program 2 weeks ago. I'm still waiting and kicking myself for believing it. They probably will have a CPO program ... a year from now.

If you believe Elon is lying through his teeth, sell.. if you believe bears are lying through their teeth, buy. History has shown that Elon is quite honest about demand...

If you are investing based on only CPO and that it will be available in a year, sell. But if you have no idea when CPO or stationary storage solutions will be announced, you may want to hold or buy. Good luck on your decision.
 
If you believe Elon is lying through his teeth, sell.. if you believe bears are lying through their teeth, buy. History has shown that Elon is quite honest about demand...

Honest? Sure. Accurate? Well, Tesla had to revise their 2014 sales estimates down twice, and then didn't make the latest down rev number. Look, I'm long TSLA, but I'm just pointing out that it doesn't look good for 1Q sales. People thought that the 1Q numbers were sandbagged, especially since they supposedly had 1400 sales in hand due to logistics. Now, if you believe InsideEVs, it looks like they might not even make the sandbagged 1Q numbers. Does anyone know how the dock workers slowdown affected production? If it did affect Tesla, then that's another possible reason for a miss.
 
I've been following InsideEV for almost 2 years. Historically they have been VERY accurate. Most recently, they completely pegged the 2014 sales number and the 4Q number.



Why doesn't it hold water? Simply because bears are using it? If so, that's circular reasoning and not a valid argument.



Yeah, based on forum rumors, I was expected Tesla to announce a CPO program 2 weeks ago. I'm still waiting and kicking myself for believing it. They probably will have a CPO program ... a year from now.

They pegged deliveries not sales. There's a big difference there for the point you are making about waning demand. Deliveries do not = demand. And it doesn't hold water because your reasoning implies that Tesla isn't supply constrained. Its not doing as well as Tesla hoped in multiple regions? As I mentioned its to prepare for growth and to ensure long term organic growth by focusing on specific markets and tastes for Model X, S, and 3 configurations. For example, if they had a regional manager for sales in China they could have waited to roll out Model S till Tesla created the executive back seat option. Its not -- demand is bad here therefore we need to assign a dedicated person. There's no point generating the demand if the supply isn't there which leads me to think its a long term preparation moves.

There is a CPO program. In the Model S threads the brochure was posted from someone who bought. I also called Syosset and was told that it is being rolled out.
 
Honest? Sure. Accurate? Well, Tesla had to revise their 2014 sales estimates down twice, and then didn't make the latest down rev number. Look, I'm long TSLA, but I'm just pointing out that it doesn't look good for 1Q sales. People thought that the 1Q numbers were sandbagged, especially since they supposedly had 1400 sales in hand due to logistics. Now, if you believe InsideEVs, it looks like they might not even make the sandbagged 1Q numbers. Does anyone know how the dock workers slowdown affected production? If it did affect Tesla, then that's another possible reason for a miss.

I agree, nothing is a sure thing at this moment and for this reason, I keep spewing the same thing, go long if you believe in the company, there might be inaccuracies in between quarters, but that's investing for ya. Otherwise, we are just gambling based on short term predictions and rumors. It's either: buy the rumor sell the news, or believe in the rumor, and short the stock. A third option is wait and see, buy on good news and if prices are too good to resist, re-enter and go long.

The 1,400 number does work in the long's favor, while the dock strike somewhat works in the bear's favor. For me, I think Tesla has reasonably expected the strike delay, and would meet or beat slightly due to the 1,400. Can they miss? Sure, can these numbers be sandbagged? I wouldn't completely ignore that neither ;) If one invests for the short term, good luck I wouldn't want to deal with the headache. For me, a long, another day means a day closer to stationary storage, CPO, X reveal. It's going to turn around, eventually.
 
I've been following InsideEV for almost 2 years. Historically they have been VERY accurate. Most recently, they completely pegged the 2014 sales number and the 4Q number.

InsideEVs pegged the 2014 sales number (I am not sure how you can know the Q4 number, so I will just discuss the 2014 number), but so did Hybrid Cars (by the way, I can't find Hybrid cars numbers directly, so I used Good Car Bad Car, which posts Hybrid Cars estimates). Hybrid cars just does US estimates, but when you add the Canadian results to those estimates to get a comparable number to InsideEVs, you will see that they had very close estimates for 2014. InsideEVs estimated 17,300 and Hybrid Cars estimated 16,550 for US (add 847 from Canada to get 17,397). Tesla stated that North America made up 55% of its 2014 deliveries, which would works out to 17,410 cars. On a month to month basis, the average difference between the two estimations was 488 cars in 2014. That should tell you that they are guessing wildly for the months and adjusting data in the following months to be more accurate overall. Here is their estimates for 2014 (I added Canadian results to HC's numbers to get a comparable number to InsideEVs):

Month (2014)Hybrid CarsInsideEVsDifference
January1320800520
February1419140019
March14191300119
April14711100371
May14611000461
June15041800296
July1448800648
August1225600625
September149425001006
October1337130037
November14761200276
December202335001477
TOTAL17,39717,3005855
Also, InsideEVs was WAY off the mark in 2013. They estimated 17,650 deliveries in North America. Total deliveries in North America and Europe in 2013 were 22,477, and when we subtract 3,892 in European registrations, we get to 18,585 delivered in North America in 2013. Hybrid Cars, on the other hand, estimated 18,195 cars in US, and adding the Canadian results of 638 takes us to 18,833 total for NA, which is MUCH closer than InsideEVs. I don't think we should call any of these sources *VERY* accurate, and instead accept them for what they are: educated guesses. By the way, Hybrid Cars estimates 1500 cars in January.


Yeah, based on forum rumors, I was expected Tesla to announce a CPO program 2 weeks ago. I'm still waiting and kicking myself for believing it. They probably will have a CPO program ... a year from now.

They already have a CPO program, at least 2 people have posted about their experience buying a CPO car from Tesla. The only question is when they will announce it, which certainly will not be a year from now.

They pegged deliveries not sales. There's a big difference there for the point you are making about waning demand. Deliveries do not = demand. And it doesn't hold water because your reasoning implies that Tesla isn't supply constrained. Its not doing as well as Tesla hoped in multiple regions? As I mentioned its to prepare for growth and to ensure long term organic growth by focusing on specific markets and tastes for Model X, S, and 3 configurations. For example, if they had a regional manager for sales in China they could have waited to roll out Model S till Tesla created the executive back seat option. Its not -- demand is bad here therefore we need to assign a dedicated person. There's no point generating the demand if the supply isn't there which leads me to think its a long term preparation moves.

Well, on this front, Cosmacelf does have a point. It doesn't look good for demand when you miss delivery guidance 3 quarters in a row (Q3 2014-Q1 2015), especially when one of those quarters you missed lowered guidance, and another quarter you missed lower than the previous quarter guidance. So while deliveries might not necessarily be an accurate proxy into demand, if Tesla consistently misses guidance, you have to consider that maybe they are an accurate proxy. However, I highly doubt Tesla will miss Q1 guidance, and I trust Tesla by believing that deliveries are indeed decoupled from demand as of now, but if Tesla misses in Q1, it will be extremely difficult to continue to believe it.

Huh I thought they were Romans saluting their emperor. Anyway, no French Revolution symbolism was meant in posting that image, just to illustrate that pioneers always deserve credit for courage and for going ahead of others to clear the way.
Specifically, the image you posted is of the Tennis Court Oath. Gotta love history.
 
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Well, on this front, Cosmacelf does have a point. It doesn't look good for demand when you miss delivery guidance 3 quarters in a row (Q3 2014-Q1 2015), especially when one of those quarters you missed lowered guidance, and another quarter you missed lower than the previous quarter guidance. So while deliveries might not necessarily be an accurate proxy into demand, if Tesla consistently misses guidance, you have to consider that maybe they are an accurate proxy. However, I highly doubt Tesla will miss Q1 guidance, and I trust Tesla by believing that deliveries are indeed decoupled from demand as of now, but if Tesla misses in Q1, it will be extremely difficult to continue to believe it.

Specifically, the image you posted is of the Tennis Court Oath. Gotta love history.

I agree with Cosmacelf and you, missing guidances in a sequence is a metric of its own merit.

I never parse the delivery numbers as I believe that Tesla has a superior product that drivers are hungry for.

Having a great product may not be enough to win the tough war with traditional car makers.

By setting raising delivery targets every year and by meeting them Tesla demonstrates that the team is effective and capable of doing the business. If they can show that, market will go into a frenzy again. Current sp slumber reflects market's uncertainty in this particular metric imo.

Regarding French revolutionaries, well maybe that image was not soooo much off the mark
Our Tesla pioneers were equally determined and brave to change the world for the better:smile: