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Tesla redesigning website a good indicator of no Model S refresh?

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Anyone notice the change today on Tesla's website? I'm hopeful that there will be a refresh in 2018, but I'm thinking that if they update the website with the same model S, then there will likely be no refresh anytime soon. Thoughts?
 
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I do think it's reasonable to assume there won't be a refresh in the very near future, like for the next quarter. I don't think it means there can't be one in the fall. For a company with Tesla's resources, new photography and video is trivial.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was originally going to be the site for a refreshed Model S that was delayed (possibly to the end of the year or early 2019). They're clearly going full force on down-selling the Model 3 and playing up the current availability of the Model S.

If I had to guess, they probably would've liked to refresh the Model S at the moment the Model 3 was released to consumers. Of course, sometimes real life (aka production hell) can get in the way.
 
I think @MarkS22 summarized it best.

@outie probably has a point too, though in general terms of course any site upgrade - at any time in history - is surely seen as a marketing effort that they hope has a positive effect on sales.

Overall it comes down to this: Companies have different interests than consumers buying their products. Companies don't want us to know, we on the other have an interest in knowing. That's the grey area where the speculation, leaks and rumor analysis roam. :)

FWIW, this is also being discussed e.g. here: Model S range and interior update imminent? (page 46)
 
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Maybe Tesla should start taking deposits for the redesigned Model S?

I would make a deposit so quickly!! And when my wife ask where (how much Tesla ask for) went I would have to start out my explanation like this...
ac8f8624263a01d52945157865df0632554f7bcbbd7e144f7ef9b786c844fffc.jpg
 
Anyone notice the change today on Tesla's website? I'm hopeful that there will be a refresh in 2018, but I'm thinking that if they update the website with the same model S, then there will likely be no refresh anytime soon. Thoughts?

Until they get Model 3 line up to near 10K/month, does it seem like a good idea pulling apart the production line that's bringing roughly 1/2 the cash flow keeping the lights turned on? Not just because maybe you need those people to help sort out the Model 3 line but also starving for cash (or drowning in a sea of very low/negative gross margin, where the Model 3 is right now) is bad, too.

The question after that, in my mind, is their design department deep enough to handle a significant S refresh while also sprinting to finalize the Y design? I don't know the answer to that but it strikes me as a critical question.
 
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The question after that, in my mind, is their design department deep enough to handle a significant S refresh while also sprinting to finalize the Y design? I don't know the answer to that but it strikes me as a critical question.

Mazda has 46k employees. Subaru has 15k employees. Tesla 33k employees.

Subaru doesn't own its distribution network but it does have a defense/aerospace division.

Tesla better be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
 
With my 9 trips to the SVC for all the problems I’ve had, I wrote a four page letter to Elon himself detailing everything and letting him know how horribly displeased I am with my car. I got an email from headquarters apologizing and saying that they hoped I would stay a customer because there are some “very exciting things comimg from the engineers for the cars, especially Autopilot and fully autonomous driving.”

Uuuummmmm. My car is an AP1 and will never be able to be a fully autonomous vehicle so what they’re really saying is....even though you hate your car, come spend a ton more money so you can try these new bells and whistles. I totally agree with some of the previous comments. They always make grandiose promises to keep people buying and coming back for more.
 
With my 9 trips to the SVC for all the problems I’ve had, I wrote a four page letter to Elon himself detailing everything and letting him know how horribly displeased I am with my car. I got an email from headquarters apologizing and saying that they hoped I would stay a customer because there are some “very exciting things comimg from the engineers for the cars, especially Autopilot and fully autonomous driving.”

Uuuummmmm. My car is an AP1 and will never be able to be a fully autonomous vehicle so what they’re really saying is....even though you hate your car, come spend a ton more money so you can try these new bells and whistles. I totally agree with some of the previous comments. They always make grandiose promises to keep people buying and coming back for more.

Meanwhile their competition have in 2018 yet to make an EV as sophisticated as a 2012 model S.

Please have some patience and understand this fact when you complain.
 
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Meanwhile their competition have in 2018 yet to make an EV as sophisticated as a 2012 model S.
Exactly!......... What is the competition? I have yet to see a electric car that can compete with what Tesla is offering today.
Lot's of "future" next two year kind of cars....but nothing on the market today.

Mic drop
 
Anyone notice the change today on Tesla's website? I'm hopeful that there will be a refresh in 2018, but I'm thinking that if they update the website with the same model S, then there will likely be no refresh anytime soon. Thoughts?
I see that their Model S submenu seems to be very updated, which I presume is what you're talking about.

I like it. It's really nice.

I can't read too much into their web site to predict what they're doing. Tesla updates their web site all the time out of sync with their product updates. The idea that they're prepping for new product also makes sense. Their new Model S section is updated as if they have a great product there, but there's just the same old cramped head-extremely-painfully-pushed-forward-like-a-smartphone-wimp side-bone-bruising hard-to-see-out-of head-hitting hard-suspensioned cold-feet uncomfortable Model S listed. While the Model S is a great car for people with tiny frames who live in tropical climates, a lot of us have been waiting for something more reasonable, especially those of us with normal and big frames. I think by now Tesla understands that a huge market segment would rather be in a Model 3 than a Model S and isn't going to spend extra on Model S. So, in view of both those things, Tesla may want to push Model S harder to make sure they can get more money out of that design, and perhaps get ready for a new influx of interest as it has a new design out soon. Who knows!

I recently sat in both the Model 3 and Model X side by side, and I slightly preferred the Model X. The Model X is the more reasonable Model S. Part of me wishes Tesla would have just stopped making Model S (except the performance Ludicrous models) and just made Model X from then on once they got its bugs worked out.
 
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Mazda has 46k employees. Subaru has 15k employees. Tesla 33k employees.

Subaru doesn't own its distribution network but it does have a defense/aerospace division.

Tesla better be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Tesla Motors creating all electric sedans and SUVs from scratch the likes no one has seen before, soon to include Semis and pickups and baddest ass super car, and are newbies at it, including developing a worldwide charging network, their own sales and service worldwide, building Gigafactory and more of those to come, building the machine that builds the machine, fighting to be able to sell directly to the consumer in several states, staying vertically integrated on a level that no other OEM has been in many, many, many decades, and Tesla Energy, Tesla Network, Tesla Solar...

Buddy, they are walking, chewing gum, singing a tune, texting and solving the world’s self-destruction. There is no time or resources available for a refresh anytime soon. Mazda and Subaru are dragging their butts so badly right now, maybe you ought to call them up and ask them where their Model S competitor car refresh is.
 
Tesla Motors creating all electric sedans and SUVs from scratch the likes no one has seen before, soon to include Semis and pickups and baddest ass super car, and are newbies at it, including developing a worldwide charging network, their own sales and service worldwide, building Gigafactory and more of those to come, building the machine that builds the machine, fighting to be able to sell directly to the consumer in several states, staying vertically integrated on a level that no other OEM has been in many, many, many decades, and Tesla Energy, Tesla Network, Tesla Solar...

Buddy, they are walking, chewing gum, singing a tune, texting and solving the world’s self-destruction. There is no time or resources available for a refresh anytime soon. Mazda and Subaru are dragging their butts so badly right now, maybe you ought to call them up and ask them where their Model S competitor car refresh is.

That was sort of my thinking. Having 10's of thousands of employees doesn't exempt you from in-house talent resource crush. A number of year ago (maybe 6 or so?) Apple was having a lot of trouble managing OSX & iOS development at the same time, because they just couldn't simultaneously do both at full speed. They had 60,000 or so employees at the time, IIRC, but 10's of thousands of them weren't working either project and while they had 1000's working on each product, key talent was shared between the two because they were so very similar tasks (iOS was created by branching off a variant of OSX).

Eventually, oven the years, Apple has been able to run both development rather than having to heavily tick-tock between them by hiring/training up enough people. They now have employment across the entire company at roughly 125K, BTW.

That is the kind of crunch I was wondering about here, if internally Tesla may not have the talent pool yet for a fully twinned team to do a full scale job of bringing the M3 advances to the more luxurious frame of the S while at the same time handling the Y....on top of all that other stuff.
 
That was sort of my thinking. Having 10's of thousands of employees doesn't exempt you from in-house talent resource crush. A number of year ago (maybe 6 or so?) Apple was having a lot of trouble managing OSX & iOS development at the same time, because they just couldn't simultaneously do both at full speed. They had 60,000 or so employees at the time, IIRC, but 10's of thousands of them weren't working either project and while they had 1000's working on each product, key talent was shared between the two because they were so very similar tasks (iOS was created by branching off a variant of OSX).

Eventually, oven the years, Apple has been able to run both development rather than having to heavily tick-tock between them by hiring/training up enough people. They now have employment across the entire company at roughly 125K, BTW.

That is the kind of crunch I was wondering about here, if internally Tesla may not have the talent pool yet for a fully twinned team to do a full scale job of bringing the M3 advances to the more luxurious frame of the S while at the same time handling the Y....on top of all that other stuff.

Tesla clearly doesn’t have enough bodies if whatever talent level they need because we were told that everyone is working on M3 ramp.
 
My guess: No refresh until Model 3 options and availability start to cannibalize Model S sales. On the recent investor call, Musk said interest in and orders for S and X are actually up as Model 3 brings people into stores. So no reason to divert resources to a S/X refresh in the immediate future. That said, I do think the refresh is coming this year, just more likely towards Q4.
 
My guess: No refresh until Model 3 options and availability start to cannibalize Model S sales. On the recent investor call, Musk said interest in and orders for S and X are actually up as Model 3 brings people into stores. So no reason to divert resources to a S/X refresh in the immediate future. That said, I do think the refresh is coming this year, just more likely towards Q4.

I agree.. I think a refresh is coming, but they have more than enough things on their plate right now. Model S and X sales and deliveries were higher than model 3 (due to timeframe obviously), but I think Tesla might want to add a wider gap between their model 3 and model S. I think they will definitely do an upgrade to the interior and perhaps slight modifications on the exterior, but they will also raise the prices up to the model X level... so perhaps a 5 - 10K increase on base prices?