Just to give
@bonnie and
@Swampgator some hard data and fact checking on how misleadingly out of context Dana Hull has quoted Elon - here's the full context of what Elon said on the Q4 conference call a few weeks ago, answering two analyst question about demand:
Source: Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Earnings Conference Call Transcripts - Nasdaq
David Tamberrino:
"So like orders above, I think I've seen like
20,000 order levels for Europe and single-digit thousands for China is better than that, Elon?"
Elon Musk:
"
Yes, absolutely. The -
I mean, we're not even really trying, I should point out. I guess it's - we - our factory is like, right now, only making cars for China and Europe. That's all it's doing for - with respect to Model 3. And our whole focus is, okay, how do we get those cars made, get them on a ship as fast as possible, get the ship as fast as possible to Zeebrugge in Belgium then get them over to Drammen in Norway and get those cars to customers as fast as possible. We get them to China as fast as possible."
[....]
Daniel Ives:
So my question is around Europe. Obviously, with deliveries coming onboard in the first quarter, maybe what surprised you in terms of - your demand looks strong, but in terms of what you're seeing at the region, is it stronger than you expected in certain countries? What do you think is driving that? And maybe you can just talk about the opportunities and challenges in Europe especially from a delivery logistics perspective.
Elon Musk:
"
Well, like I said, we're thinking about demand almost zero right now. It's really getting the product there in time and not having a ton of cars on the water and in a quarter and then for China getting cars there before there's a potential rise in tariffs. That's really - put really at front of mind that cost reduction and then improving service in North America, yes."
I.e. first Elon confirmed to David Tamberrino that their EU demand is higher than 20k orders and that they are 'not even really trying' to create more demand. Then, after a similar question from a second analyst Elon reaffirms: "like I said, we're thinking about demand almost zero right now".
Note how brutally Dana Hull is mis-quoting Elon, completely changing the plain meaning of what Elon said, 180 degrees: the 'zero' was a shortcut for: 'we are not thinking about demand, at all, because there's plenty'. She also omitted the 'like I said', which would have alerted readers to the existence of the prior context.
Tesla is exclusively focused on getting cars to Europe and China, because they have tons of demand in both places and the bottleneck is logistics.
Also, the questions and the context wasn't about U.S. demand at all, but about European and Chinese demand.
No matter how I read Dana's piece I cannot come away with any other interpretation that she has misleadingly strung together those quotes from Elon, intentionally and in bad faith.
This is not about "good" or "bad" opinion - reporters are free to have whatever opinion they want, even if I disagree with them.
This on the other hand is clear evidence of Dana Hull materially misreporting key, very clear factual statements Elon Musk made about demand. There's nothing borderline about this, and it's not about Tesla fanboys and fangirls being upset about someone writing bad things about Tesla.
This is about Dana Hull breaking basic journalistic ethics of reporting.
