One question via email from the Tesla Motors Club at each Conference Call of Earnings

[Benz]

One question via email from the Tesla Motors Club at each Conference Call of an Earnings Call.

I have sent the following request:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir,

You have many fans all around the world. And the Tesla Motors Club website is a very nice website where we can discuss all kinds of topics related to Tesla Motors and EV's in general.

We would like to ask you a favour. Would you please allow us to ask you 1 question at the Conference Call of each Earnings Call? That would be really great.

On the Tesla Motors Club website all the fans would get the chance to put forward their question which they think is most important (in their opinion). Then we can decide by voting which question is really the most important question for most of the fans. Which will then be sent by email to a certain contact person of Tesla Motors who will hand it over to Elon Musk before the Conference Call of a certain Earnings Call. Elon Musk will answer this question first and then continue the Conference Call as usual.

Looking forward to your reply.

Yours Sincerely,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


That would be real nice, if we would be allowed to ask one question at the Conference Call of each Earnings Call.

 

[bonnie]

Hopefully you checked with TMC mgmt before sending an email from TMC.

 

[Benz]

Hopefully you checked with TMC mgmt before sending an email from TMC.

They wouldn't mind, would they?

 

[Doug_G]

They wouldn't mind, would they?

I do believe they just did.

 

[bonnie]

Nah, not up to me. I am not one of the site owners. While I think they'd be okay with it, just seems like they should have been in the loop before sending something in their name.

 

[Benz]

Well, I am sorry if somebody would mind, let that be clear.
I wouldn't want to do anything wrong here.

I have sent a number of times an email, sometimes I do get a reply (Elon Musk, George Blankenship) and sometimes I don't.
It's one of the good things about Tesla Motors, that they communicate so directly to their fans. That's just wonderful.

I hope that they will grant this request. And I think it's a great initiative.
But that aside, maybe I should have first discussed it with somebody (who is in the management?).

 

[Doug_G]

"doug" is the head moderator and an admin, but you can ask any of the moderators and they will discuss it with the appropriate people.

 

[NigelM]

Use the "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page.

I do think that it was presumptuous to write to Tesla on behalf of TMC; too late now, but in any case it would also have been appropriate to check in with the moderators as they would inevitably be involved in managing the question selection process.

 

[Benz]

Use the "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page.

I do think that it was presumptuous to write to Tesla on behalf of TMC; too late now, but in any case it would also have been appropriate to check in with the moderators as they would inevitably be involved in managing the question selection process.

OK, presumptuous might indeed be the right word in this case. I apologise for that. And it's up to the moderators to decide how the question selection process really should look like. Agreed.

 

[doug]

As one of the site owners and the CEO of sorts, I ultimately make the policy decisions, though I do often discuss such things with our moderators (who are hand picked volunteers).

I don't have much of a problem with the intent of the email. The main thing I would advise people be careful of is presuming to speak for TMC. TMC has many members with many opinions. So no one, including me, can really speak for the entire membership. So when you represent yourself, you should be clear you are just one of many members of TMC. And please make sure you don't sound like you represent TMC management.

 

[Benz]

OK, but is there anybody who likes to mention if the idea is good or bad?

 

[MikeC]

OK, but is there anybody who likes to mention if the idea is good or bad?

I like the idea.

 

[Benz]

I like the idea.

Very well.

My intention was to make it more interesting for the fans of Tesla Motors when we listen to the Conference Call at every Earnings Call. As a fan I would be proud when my question would be chosen to be answered by Elon Musk during a live Conference Call. And I guess that every fan thinks that way. So, we are trying to do something good here. It could even become a new periodic feature/tradition on the Tesla Motors Club website. Actually I am already looking forward to it for that to happen.

Q2 2013 (August 7th, 2013) is a bit too soon for this to happen, I think. But Q3 2013 (November 2013) could very well be possible.

 

[Cattledog]

Benz - I like the idea and in no way is it too late. Heck, Tesla makes production changes on the fly all the time to the car, I don't think plucking a question off a forum would phase them. While I like the voting aspect, I imagine it would be unwieldly if we had 100 questions to vote for. I would support if we had a thread for questions to be submitted by something like noon on August 5th and then the TMC moderators could pick the one to submit. Not speaking for them, takes some of their time too to review and choose, just offering a thought to get something off the ground for the 7th. Good publicity for TMC if the polite person who announces everything on the earnings call said, "...and now we have a question submitted by the members of the Tesla Motors Club forum..."

 

[brianman]

And please make sure you don't sound like you represent TMC management.

Especially when you order the, um, "dancers" for bonnie's surprise party.