My Town Hall Notes

[AGR]

The general public, most people would like to see Tesla succeed. The public image and persona of the Roadster is a 100K electric toy for folks that can afford a 100k electric toy, the fact that "personalities" get the early cars merely reinforces the image.

The car was presented as a low production very exclusive, almost ready for prime time backed up with enormous engineering resources. Tesla took the attitude that they were several steps better than the rest of the "ordinary pedestrians" in the automotive industry.

In the meantime the car is not ready for prime time just yet, and the "pedestrians" are getting their pound of flesh in the same fashion that Tesla got its pound of flesh from the pedestrian.

Did Tesla reawaken GM to electric cars, possible. Did the venture capital from Silicon Valley reawaken GM to electric cars, possible.

In an ideal world,Tesla should have Roadsters on the road driven by "personalities", should have several "factory owned" dealerships/service centres up and running, and should be constructing the factory in New Mexico for the sedan.

 

[stopcrazypp]

It's striking how uninformed the comments become as soon as you move away from the "green" blog sites. Like for example, the comments on AutoBlog as compared with the ones on AutoBlogGreen.

Despite all the publicity, most people still don't know about Tesla. Among those who know the Roadster exists, most of them have no idea about the delays and problems.

Yep, I agree with those sediments. In many of the automotive blogs I frequent, most don't know much about the Tesla aside from what is posted in the blog. In terms of the delays, I think most of them know they exist, but they don't know the cause. They tend to make blanket statements about EVs, like it was problems with the battery, etc. Then they go on about: "well I'll be impressed when there is a 4 door commuter car not some rich man's toy." They still strongly hold the idea that EVs HAVE to be about practicality and basically an "appliance mobile." I don't see them have any problem being impressed with the current batch of sports cars, but when it comes to EVs somehow it's a different standard.

I guess it's true that we shouldn't expect them to know much. I just hope this general negativity in the blogs doesn't mean mass refunds for Tesla. I suppose this is why Tesla wants to release the first cars early. But I can't help but feel that this less than perfect transmission will just be a liability. I mean the press is bound to get wind of it and it can't be good for Tesla's reputation.

 

[TEG]

Yes, I agree too.

(By the way, stopcrazypp, I think you meant to say "sentiments", not "sediments")

 

[OhmExcited]

The Tesla website has the full audio of the town hall. Interesting "joke" from Elon at the beginning, expressing his dedication to completing a quality car: "I don't care what I have to do, who I have to kill...."

You had to be there.

 

[malcolm]

here's the link

http://www.teslamotors.com/media/updates.php

 

[TEG]

This topic has been mentioned in this AutoBlogGreen article

It appears that Martin's choice to post parting comments on this forum has perked up interest over here. There are a lot of new members lately.