Top negative arguments when speaking to german peers on tesla are build quality and service -
OK, then, I see Germans read the mainstream media too. How many articles do they write on bad service at legacy Dealerships and state it as if it were a known fact? Why don't the horror stories that happen every day at big tire chain stores, oil change chains, Nissan, Volvo, VW, GM, Ford, et al, make the news? I feel the last place we should be re-propagating media bias is right here on TMC.
Those of you who know me know that I'm an investor that measures investment opportunities on long-term fundamental metrics using risk/reward analysis. That means this is an issue that I think goes right to the heart of an investment in TSLA. I can't just look the other way once it is claimed this threatens the success of Tesla. It needs to be addressed but it pains me to see how people are analyzing it in a woefully inadequate manner. It requires rigorous analysis and that is not what it is getting from the media or, sadly, from the Tesla community.
This is a very fundamental topic to an investment in TSLA.
You will also remember in 2019 how the media was endlessly stating as a fact that the competition was coming, and it was going to be fierce. Also, that Tesla had a demand problem and was on the verge of bankruptcy. I was constantly saying there was no demand problem as far as the eye can see. Yet, in 2019, people didn't know what to believe because the media voices were so loud and so adamant that this was a problem. People thought Tesla actually did have a demand problem for their electric cars. It was stated as a fact many times that after the "Tesla fan bois" had bought, demand would fall off a cliff. Alternatively, when the tax credits ended, no one would buy a Tesla. Yet they presented no data to support these claims - it was supposed to be self-evident.
Now that it's obvious those were false claims, now that Tesla is selling every car they can make for as far as the eye can see, they have switched to something harder to debunk - that Tesla has a terrible service network, worse than the ICE service network. It's a nightmare that is threatening to bring Tesla down. Yet, these conclusions are stated as a fact without adequate data,
without random sampling and mostly using antidotal evidence of poor Tesla service experiences without supplying data comparing it to the ICE service experience. This matters because consumers have an alternative to Tesla, namely ICE.
Rather than employing the same error of analysis using antidotal examples by saying I have had X number of Tesla service experiences and they all ranged from good to excellent while my ICE service experiences range from fairly good all the way down to infuriatingly terrible, I suggest investors need to use more rigorous, more creative thinking. I think the most obvious thing that points towards a possible error in analysis is the simple fact that Tesla still wins the highest ratings in consumer satisfaction and "likely to re-purchase the same brand" metrics. Any thinking person has to question this when trying to analyze the accuracy of the claim that Tesla's terrible service threatens to bring Tesla down. Why do these two metrics remain at the
very top of all auto brands every year?
The "service issue is a problem" needs to be analyzed in a competent manner which means avoiding the temptation of using media reports of antidotal incidents and applying them to the general population of Tesla owners. First principles thinking must be used which means any analysis must use random sampling of comprehensive data in a rigorous way. This data is hard to come by so the FUDsters have a productive method of attack here and I can see that it is effective, even on some loyal, die-hard Tesla owners. But Tesla has the necessary data and they address this very issue on just about every earnings call. Please listen for this on today's call and realize that Tesla is watching and reacting to this data so they can grow the organization in a smart, capital efficient manner.
built quality everyone thinks will be adressed by made in germany this year - but service is still bad, you can watch
KnowYouKnow video on details -
No, you can't watch NowYouKnow video for the details because that segment is awfully light on details and facts, it's complete psuedo-science the way they use made up numbers and 'facts', combined with antidotal evidence, to try to prove their point. They honestly are embarrassingly incompetent when it comes to comparing ICE service to Tesla. I get it, they have some bad service centers in Massachusetts. That needs to be fixed. But to interpret the media FUD through that local Massachusetts lens and apply it to Tesla's entire service organization is embarrassingly amateurish. Because they really don't know what the rate of bad service is across Tesla's service network and how it compares to all ICE service experiences, although they act like they do know.
Look, Zach and Jesse are good guys, and they are on Tesla's side, but that doesn't mean they are not making a major blunder of gigantic proportions here. I quit watching them for the most part over a year ago due to my observation that they did not use rigorous analysis of the topics covered, and this is one more glaring example of that. Data matters and it must be used properly to draw valid conclusions from it. Zach and Jesse butchered it.
As an investor one needs to constantly guard against faulty analysis because that almost always leads to poor performance. I recommend a quick glance at this to refresh just some of the issues with the NowYouKnow analysis:
en.wikipedia.org
