Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Causalien]

Someone up thread suggested using PBS as a place to put Ads. Brought to you by the Tesla/Musk Foundation with a link to Tesla.com.

One problem is that I hate the current Tesla website. When you open the page your greeted with "order now". They need to start with an option for information about the company and its products. A tab for "About Tesla" and "FAQ's" would be great for people just trying to learn the basics. There could be links to brief videos answering key questions such as:

• What is Tesla? Include history and mission.
• What does Tesla make. Include links to more details about each product.
• Where do I go to get service?
• What is AP/FSD and what is Tesla's involvement?
• Where can I see a car?
• Where can I get a test drive?
• (Finally) How do I order my car?
• etc.
• etc.

If you agree, how do we make this happen?

Not sure what you mean by how to make this happen. My post alreafy spelled out the most visible way to make it hapoen. By holding a public contest for a main marketing contractor. Tesla already have enough fanatics that made free commercials for it. Now it is a matter of harvesting that wholebenergy like they did with the owner referrals. The most important part is to allow entries from traditional media companies against fan entries.

The day after the announcement we'll get some negative articles about how tesla is running out of demand or tesla backtracks on no advertising promise. I currently got no rebuttal for these, so the messaging of how they open up the contest is important. I can only think of simply disqualifying those who attacks tesla.

As for the website, don't really have an opinion. Website should be A/B tested and whichever gets the most clicks throughs that leads to buying is the better one.

I suspect that Currently most ppl get their info from tesla elsewhere and by the time they visit the web it is for buying. So anything that lengthen the path to clicking that "buy" is no good. This is just a guess as I am assuming they a/b tested the *sugar* out of the website already.

 

[SunCatcher]

I want to see the action shots when it is charging!

James Bond's guns don't run out of bullets, and his electric car will never run out of juice. Just like in the movies!

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I know, it's just weird, right? How can this company build this huge building and have nobody care what's going on there? The place is half a kilometer long and has about 10 hectares of floor space (assuming it's only one story inside). I mean, it's not Tesla Factory or Gigafactory sized, but it's definitely big.

Acknowledging it in any way would undermine the narrative of Tesla on the verge of failure, so nobody wants to mention it. Same reason nobody went in any depth into the confirmed industrial sabotage at Fremont last year(well, in that case, it would have undermined the narrative of Elon being crazy and paranoid).

 

[madodel]

Looking around, the RAV4 wheelbase is only 104.7” vs the Model 3’s 113.2”. Even the Highlander is only 109.8”. Looking at length, adding the same 4” to the 3 that the X added to the S, you get 188.8”. Length of RAV4 is 181.1” and Highlander is 192.5”.

I’m thinking it’ll be much closer to the Highlander than the RAV4.

I went from a Highlander Hybrid to a Model X. Thanks to the frunk and trunk much more usable storage even without being able to fold the 3rd row seats in my 6 seater but the Highlander's squared off liftgate allowed for fitting bigger items in the back. If your assumptions are correct than the Y should be more desirable than the Rav4. One more day to see.

 

[Krugerrand]

I think so too since it is obviously maximizes the number of cars delivered before end of quarter. Still doesn't explain why they can't articulate correctly to customers in the Benelux where their cars are and when they will arrive, planning delivery dates only to cancel them a day later etc.

Human nature.

A lot of people think it’s a better approach to break the news ‘gently’ to customers, disseminate the information in little parcels, or tell the customers what they want to hear rather than risk their wrath, or string along a customer in hopes the issue will resolve sooner rather than later to hopefully avoid the wrath of the customer.

We have people here all the time saying this same thing; give bad news in little pieces. So you wonder why Tesla service people do the same thing? Seriously?

I don’t personally like that approach. Just tell me what’s real so I can adjust and deal accordingly, but that’s really not the reality of many.

I spent over an hour and a half in a SC last weekend getting my FSD sorted. I got to watch how customer after customer were handled, including myself. Conclusion: People will always behave like people.

It’s a talent to be able to quickly evaluate who you are dealing with in the moment and treat and service each individual customer as they uniquely want to be treated and serviced. Because each customer is in fact different. Service is not a one size fits all job.

90 minutes gave me a lot of observational time to evaluate half a dozen Tesla employees and their abilities to handle different customers. (And some of those customers could have used some input on their behavior as well.) I’d have fired 2 on the spot, 1 was borderline, 2 showed promise with some guidance and the 6th needed a hug, a kind word and a gold star. (The best I could do in the moment was a kind word.).

That’s not Tesla’s fault, that’s humanity’s fault for failing on so many levels. *We* don’t get along and we don’t try hard enough to get along and understand each other. *We* are selfish, self-centered creatures. *We* are rigid and ‘right’. *We* are ugly inside.

 

[PhaseWhite]

I'd caution against such "one more thing" expectations too for the Model Y unveil:

• The November 2017 event was "safe" from a sales point of view: neither the Tesla Semi nor the Roadster 2020 competed with any existing Tesla products seriously. Tesla could introduce them without having a bad effect on Model S/X sales.
• Tomorrow's Model Y unveil on March 14 is only two weeks away from the end of Q1, which are the two most important weeks of the quarter, with about 30%-40% of the sales being closed in that time frame (!). I believe Tesla is not going to do anything that endangers the end of Q1 delivery push.

If they announce anything else it would be something to spur immediate deliveries. That should rule out a refresh, IMHO. (Famous last words.)

I agree, and along those lines my guess is a HW3 reveal.

Another circumstantial piece of evidence: I called Tesla support yesterday because my Model S (HW 2.0) wasn’t showing the FSD upgrade option. They said it’s a know issue and the website update in 2 days should resolve the issue.

The latest sale prices and news that they will go back up on Monday we’re an effective demand lever to get people to fork over cash.

Perhaps the Y unveiling will provide even more reasons for people to throw money at their screens screaming “take my money!” before Monday.

I suspect all of this will have a surprisingly good impact on cash on hand when Q1 numbers are printed

 

[Off Shore]

I want to see the action shots when it is charging!

It'll probably be charged by a lightning strike sometime in the third reel.

 

[RobStark]

Jaguar doesn't manufacture the I-Pace so I don't think they can just move production to the UK.
Magna manufacturers the car, LG Chem supplies the battery pack. I don't know who makes the motors or other powertrain components, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was all outsourced too.

Jaguar CAN manufacture the car.

They have publicly contemplated it, global demand seems to exceed Magna's capacity to assemble it in Austria. They are under contract to build various vehicles for all three German OEMs in Graz.

 

[X Fan]

We've been explicitly told that the pickup truck won't be there. Leading guess is an S/X interior refresh, but I caution people not to get overexcited; there isn't always a "But wait there's more!" moment.

Wait a second...you’ve been suggesting for a while now on this forum that Tesla would not refresh the S/X.

You’re now on board with the that possibility?

 

[Bobfitz1]

I'm going to repeat my theory, since everyone missed it the first time.
We know China factory is only making *SR* cars (maybe SR+).
We know that there's a lot of worry about theft of IP in China.

My theory is that the SR cars coming out of China will use inferior battery cell technology -- always one generation back from Tesla's cutting edge which will be used at the Gigafactory. For the purposes of protecting IP. Each time the cutting edge moves forward, China will get the older tech. I could be totally wrong but it's a theory.

As theories go I think this one makes a lot of sense. Perhaps you may agree that an additional point in its favor is that the Chinese are happily on board with getting Tesla's previous best battery tech because Tesla (with Maxwell's battery tech) will soon be two generations ahead of other battery competitors. Leaving Chinese battery companies with a long term competitive advantage with everyone but Tesla.

 

[Cherry Wine]

There's only two things that I want to hear in the Model Y reveal:

• Deliveries will be starting in either Q4 '19 or Q1 '20, with full production by ~Q4 '21.
• Any evidence that tooling progress is in a much more advanced stage than the market believes.

It seems that the main market expectation is that Model Y will be a year later than that, and this would be a huge beat. If the unveiling includes the above, I'll be grinning ear to ear. Regardless of whether there's a "just one more thing" or not. Which there very well might not be (there isn't always).

1000x this. An accelerated Model Y production schedule would be a big catalyst in my opinion. Puts to bed some of the FUD surrounding involuntary CapEx constraint, moves up the timetable on new revenue streams, showcases operational competency.

Would be very big.

 

[Bobfitz1]

Isn’t the new Tesla policy that all orders are online? You could go to a store and they would simply help you order on your phone. That’s what has been said, no?

Maybe I'm mistaken but after the reveal, won't potential future customers be permitted to place reservations online, not orders.
The difference being reservation deposit is less than an order deposit and if similar to M3 reservation process, you aren't reserving a specific MY variant but just a generic MY.

 

[lklundin]

Did you guys see this!?! Finally! Should have been the new Roadster though.....

James Bond to drive electric Aston Martin in new movie

Maybe the super-villain will drive a Tesla...

 

[adiggs]

Maybe they will go with the "easy" route and put a charging inlet on both sides of the car and you can use two V3 stalls at the same time for a 500kW charging rate. Then we will get all sorts of complaints about 2020 Roadster owners hogging 2 Supercharger stalls.

I want to be the cause of that sort of a complaint!

 

[Esme Es Mejor]

OT


OT -- I love some of the old customs case citations.

"62 Cases, More or Less, Each Containing Six Jars of Jam v. United States, 340 U.S. 593 (1951)"

I don't quite understand why the tradition in customs cases is to sue in the name of the PRODUCT, which isn't done in most contexts.

I saw the citation to that case & thought: “Maybe that’s explains this Elon tweet!”
Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[lklundin]

Goldman: Tesla's earnings and deliveries likely to disappoint this quarter, so sell the stock

Well.. I mean... reading traditional medias, is there anything that's not disappointing regarding Tesla ?

That Tesla will not spend money on traditional advertising?

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

I think we can add Matt Robinson (and maybe Zeke Faux) and the list of troll reporters. He just wrote a long essay on Bloomberg today. It mis-characterizes Musk's exchange/interaction with Tripp in order to paint Tesla as a bully.

I haven't done an exhaustive search yet, but a brief one returned only negative headlines and an interesting defamation lawsuit in 2016: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...by-lemelson-capital-management-300266049.html

 

[lklundin]

Haven't seen a single one yet, it's all fake, the bears are right!

An hour ago I saw a Model 3 (AWD) on the street for the first time, with Rosenheim plates charging next to a Model X north of Munich.

Rosenheim is about 940 km from Zeebrugge.

 

[Lessmog]

OT

And then there's that other company of his that's clearly lost its way. /s

SpaceX on Twitter

Yeah. Out of this world.

 

[Fact Checking]

I agree, and along those lines my guess is a HW3 reveal.

Only if HW3 is being installed immediately or a free upgrade is promised to AP owners too - otherwise it would be Osbourning end of Q1 sales of HW 2.5 units ...