So people give Tesla a hard time for missing deadlines.....

[testarossa]

Could be people are holding Tesla to a high standard because Elon brags so much. Less hype, more modesty and maybe people would cut Tesla more slack.

Good reason why our El Presidente gets trashed in the media too.

 

[dramsey]

This! Tesla had roughly a year delay at hitting their production targets for the 3 and got a ton of negative press for it. Audi is almost a decade behind on the etron and has seen a small fraction of the negative press Tesla has.

Audi Says Ja! to EVs

There's a huge difference between Audi's showing etron concept vehicles for years, and Tesla's showing production vehicles, annoucing availablity, and taking deposits.

Audi hasn't been taking etron deposits and sitting on them for a decade. Aside from a few bespoke R8s some years ago, there has never been a production etron until this year, and as far as anyone can tell, Audi's on track to meet their delivery date.

Tesla, on the other hand, announces a car and a delivery date and starts taking deposits immediately. Then they blow past their announced delivery date by years. Elon's announcement of the Model 3 touted its $35,000 starting price as a major selling advantage, but to this day they're all but impossible to obtain; people who try report aggressive upsell calls from Tesla to move them into a high-spec and higher price vehicle. but one they can get immediately.

I've been following Tesla's announcements pretty closely since I bought my first Model S six years ago. They have never, to my recollection, hit an announced date on anything, car or software. In January 2017, Elon said my new HW2 Model S (for which I prepaid for Full Self Driving) would start to see FSD features in "3 months maybe, six months definitely." It's been two years and I'm still waiting. We're still waiting for all Superchargers to be solar powered (promised in 2013), complete autonomy (promised in two years in 2015), the autonomous cross country drive (promised by the end of 2017), the 500K vehicles per year production rate (promised for 2018, actual number of vehices produced 254,530), and so on.

Tesla gets a lot of flack for blowing deadlines because they blow every single one of their deadlnes. You don't need an evil shortselling cabal of ICE Tesla haters to explain the bad press. All you need is Elon.

Tesla has by far the best EVs in the world, especially with the new incremental updates to the S and X line. As someone who've given Tesla close to a quarter million dollars of my personal money. I desperately want them to succeed. But as I watched the autonomy presentation, I cringed when Elon leaned forward in the NN presentation and earnestly said "All Teslas currently in production have all the hardware needed for full self driving." That's exactly what the order page said on my HW2 car in late 2016. (I know, I'm getting a free computer upgrade. Some day...)

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

There's a huge difference between Audi's showing etron concept vehicles for years, and Tesla's showing production vehicles, annoucing availablity, and taking deposits.

Audi hasn't been taking etron deposits and sitting on them for a decade. Aside from a few bespoke R8s some years ago, there has never been a production etron until this year, and as far as anyone can tell, Audi's on track to meet their delivery date.

Tesla, on the other hand, announces a car and a delivery date and starts taking deposits immediately. Then they blow past their announced delivery date by years. Elon's announcement of the Model 3 touted its $35,000 starting price as a major selling advantage, but to this day they're all but impossible to obtain; people who try report aggressive upsell calls from Tesla to move them into a high-spec and higher price vehicle. but one they can get immediately.

I've been following Tesla's announcements pretty closely since I bought my first Model S six years ago. They have never, to my recollection, hit an announced date on anything, car or software. In January 2017, Elon said my new HW2 Model S (for which I prepaid for Full Self Driving) would start to see FSD features in "3 months maybe, six months definitely." It's been two years and I'm still waiting. We're still waiting for all Superchargers to be solar powered (promised in 2013), complete autonomy (promised in two years in 2015), the autonomous cross country drive (promised by the end of 2017), the 500K vehicles per year production rate (promised for 2018, actual number of vehices produced 254,530), and so on.

Tesla gets a lot of flack for blowing deadlines because they blow every single one of their deadlnes. You don't need an evil shortselling cabal of ICE Tesla haters to explain the bad press. All you need is Elon.

Tesla has by far the best EVs in the world, especially with the new incremental updates to the S and X line. As someone who've given Tesla close to a quarter million dollars of my personal money. I desperately want them to succeed. But as I watched the autonomy presentation, I cringed when Elon leaned forward in the NN presentation and earnestly said "All Teslas currently in production have all the hardware needed for full self driving." That's exactly what the order page said on my HW2 car in late 2016. (I know, I'm getting a free computer upgrade. Some day...)

No one's saying Tesla always hits their production dates/estimates. And they certainly take refundable deposits from customers, who can get those deposits back at any time prior to the start of their vehicle's production.

Having said that, Tesla's failings don't somehow absolve the failings of the rest of the industry. Audi's chairman said they would build the etron in limited quantities by the end of 2012. Did they? No. Not even close.

Never fear. Audi isn't going all Tesla Motors on us. You'll still see the gasoline and diesel models rolling out of Ingolstadt. Audi says building the sexy e-tron (pictured), promising a Q5 hybrid and rolling out an A8 hybrid concept alongside an A1 range-extended EV is all about about choice.

“In the future our customers will be able to choose from an increasingly broad range of driveline technologies," says Rupert Stadler, chairman of the board. "To accompany our high-efficiency TDI and FSI engines, we shall offer electric power in the best possible forms for a wide range of mobility needs. The hybrid driveline will be followed by all-electric vehicles.”

All of those cars will bear the e-tron brand.

“Just as 'quattro' has become a synonym for all-wheel drive, so 'e-tron' is to be the Audi brand name for electric mobility,” Stadler said.

Yes, we hear you there in the back row saying etron is French for "turd." Look at that car. The e-tron is anything but an etron.

Audi unveiled the e-tron last year at the Frankfurt auto show and then brought e-tron 2.0 to Detroit in January. Audi plans to produce the car, as a very limited edition model, by the end of 2012.

 

[sandpiper]

“Toyota misses deadline on new Camry” is not news.
It just shows how much interest there is in EVs.

I agree. Anybody who's spent any time in the auto sector has seen automakers blow deadlines. The 20XX model becomes the 20XX+1 model. Tesla is better than most from what I see.

 

[sandpiper]

Could be people are holding Tesla to a high standard because Elon brags so much. Less hype, more modesty and maybe people would cut Tesla more slack.

The difference between Elon and El Presidente is that Elon, while missing deadlines and sometimes not quite getting where he wants, and while maybe shooting off his mouth a bit too much, still accomplishes a lot of incredibly positive and inspirational things. So I'll cut him slack.

El Presidente.... well.... let's not go there.

 

[tomas]

The point is:

* Tesla announces a new product and the press is mixed but always has a smattering of Tesla killers are coming
* Tesla misses a date the the press doubles down
* Any other car maker announces vaporware and it's time for another recap of the Tesla Killers list.
* Any other car maker pushes back on the prior announcement and it's still going to be on the Tesla killers list.

It's not balanced at all as an overall coverage. Yes other carmakers see bad press from time to time, but in the same breath whatever they are doing will be used to talk down about Tesla by some media outlets.

Too true. Everyone seems to want to take them down in the US. Why, I don’t know. Heck, it’s the first new Made In America car brand to get this far and have global cachet in 100 years. I guess it’s oil bigots, shorts, and people who hate Musk’s unorthodoxy. Sad. This is the REAL maga.