Tesla to make announcement tomorrow [5/3/2013]

[Teriyaki88]

"Up the ante"...hmmm...he's buying Fisker? :wink:

 

[huntjo]

It's either clarifying the lease/ guaranteed buy back/ financing plan or else clarifying the service plan and battery guaranee

 

[vfx]

In the grand tradition of everyone projecting the announcement to be what the want for themselves all warranties also apply for the Roadster".

 

[Majerus]

I would suspect they are getting rid of the business expense on the model s calculator as a default setting and dropping the "True cost of Model S is $500 per month" .

 

[FalconNinetyD]

I would suspect they are getting rid of the business expense on the model s calculator as a default setting and dropping the "True cost of Model S is $500 per month" .

I love Elon, but if they are making this announcement with pomp and circumstance, they shouldn't. They should reserve big announcements for cool new things, not a bunch of build to a mea culpa...

 

[NigelM]

I want to start a new thread called: Elon has no announcement tomorrow

:smile:

 

[Majerus]

I love Elon, but if they are making this announcement with pomp and circumstance, they shouldn't. They should reserve big announcements for cool new things, not a bunch of build to a mea culpa...

With him saying "This is about getting a prior announcement right. Not part 4 yet." I do not expect this to be a "big" announcement

 

[SCW-Greg]

I'm betting that Elon's going to announce the delivery of VIN #10,000. Maybe he'll personally deliver it.

This.

BTW, the store staff was talking about VIN 10,000 yesterday, and were quite excited about it.

 

[FalconNinetyD]

Just by him giving a teaser over Twitter, it creates hype. If this is indeed about correcting the "$500 a month" statement, they should just revise the calculator and issue a press release and not keep everyone on pins and needles.

 

[vfx]

I want to start a new thread called: Elon has no announcement tomorrow

:smile:

What a fun site. Kind of behind though -or skewed towards Space X.

His latest is good, If a product needs a manual it's broken.

 

[bhuwan]

Just by him giving a teaser over Twitter, it creates hype. If this is indeed about correcting the "$500 a month" statement, they should just revise the calculator and issue a press release and not keep everyone on pins and needles.

Agreed.

 

[andystj]

I just want my Texas superchargers...I'm ready for that announcement. I will say the service agreement announcement last week was nice seeing as it saved me $3800 I was planning to spend otherwise...

+1 on both counts here. The March 21 G. Blankenship announcement indicated 3-4 months. June would open up the summer road-trip season. Temple, West Columbus and Madisonville ASAP. Everyone on the interstates, please keep your eyes open for installations in progress.

 

[vfx]

What would "fixing the calculator" even look like? The customer chooses parameters and a number spits out. Broken? Only if the math is wrong.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I'm betting that Elon's going to announce the delivery of VIN #10,000. Maybe he'll personally deliver it.

"Upping the ante" could be EM putting more of his money on the table, possibly in the form of exercising the TSLA stock options granted to him back in 2009. The last of the four milestones was conditioned on the completion of the 10,000th Model S. The exercise price was $6.63, and a total quantity of shares was 6,711,972. So there is a potential of additional $44.5M (or at least 1/4 of that) to be invested by EM in Tesla. Incidentally, these options expire in 2013.

The description of this grant was included on p.75 of 2012 10-K:

http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHtmlSection1?SectionID=9144882-285042-600529&SessionID=S2PKFFiYveR6Sg7

 

[DavidM]

Whatever the announcement is, it will be cool. And it will put a smile on my face. No other company adapts to feedback so quickly and effectively. There is a lesson to be learned here. Verizon and Netflix, are you listening?

 

[Ranch13]

Increasing 3 year residual value?

 

[vetboy45]

Why are we all guessing at new stuff when he said its a clarification of old stuff?

Because we have nothing better to do. Just wait until after the announcement when it doesn't live up to the hype that we created and we complain that Elon is making too big a deal on twitter.

 

[jeff_adams]

This company puts itself out there for it's customers. What other car manufacturer (or company for that matter) adds this much value and excitement to it's brand?

 

[SteveG3]

Increasing 3 year residual value?

I like that Ranch. If they take it up 10% over the Mercedes S, that is 4 percentage points from 43% to 47%, that would be upping the ante on Elon putting his money where his mouth is.

It would also drop the monthly cost on the Tesla style lease by about $100 for the 85kwh, about $80 for the 60kwh. They could also "fix" the calculator by 1) showing a savings of about $40/month on lower maintenance cost vs. some of the luxury brands, 2) getting rid of the time value of money and tax savings, uh, "stuff".

This would drop the starting point of 85 kwh under $1000, and 60 kwh to high $700s. Of course not cheap, but in range with what I saw for luxury cars (I think I was looking at ads for Jaguars) when I flipped through newspapers after the poorly received announcement.

As long as he is in fixing prior announcement mode, perhaps it would be nice if they could clarify options for customers who already bought service plan now that it's not required anymore, i.e. can they cancel... (unless this has already been clarified and I missed it).

fwiw, I think it's great this company is so unconventional and responsive to feedback. They really seem to be differentiating themselves and earning the enthusiasm many people have for the company.

I think even with tweets they may be responsive too... there was the first tweet announcement with a week or so wait, irritating. and now Elon tweeted with day wait two times in a row. playful irritarion

 

[Ven Rala]

A tweet is not 'hype'. Calling a press conference with all major media would be hype. If you are on pins and needles (as I always am about any Tesla news) that is our own fault for being great fans of the brand. I like the social media strategy and that Elon/Tesla are so responsive to errors/missteps. This is what makes them different from GM/Ford/Chrysler.

BTW, after owning some terrible American cars in the 1990s, It's great to be this excited about an American car company.