We're all waiting anxiously for news. As you have not added a note Frankc, should we assume that you saw no multi-coat red at the factory during your tour? Or maybe you postponed the tour?
Artsi and all-
I apologize for not sending this sooner. I had typed out a long summary very late last night as I was about to leave from SFO, and the system crashed as it sent, and lost the data. Bummer.
Update from the factory floor 3/20/2013:
My wife and I took the tour late yesterday along with a small group of owners that were taking delivery of their cars. I looked for ANY signs of red cars, panels, drips on the floor, etc. There were none that I saw as of 5:00 pm yesterday.
Then at the end of the tour, we were told that we were about to have another visitor. Elon Musk was coming by to congratulate the new owners, and just say “thanks”. At about 6:00pm Elon came in the lobby where we had assembled (about 25 of us in all). Elon stayed for the better part of an hour – shaking hands, signing everything from hats to car visors, and just chatting. There were no camera crews capturing sound bites for PR purposes later, no hidden agendas, just Elon saying thanks and listening to all the comments from real customers.
My respect for the man started out quite high, but increased immensely through the interactions over the hour. He answered questions in a straightforward manner. No vague sidestepping of issues. Quite remarkable.
Now to the question at hand. Elon, those of us who have been waiting for red cars are wondering just where that process is, and when can we expect to start seeing our cars:
Elon: “we are currently testing the paint systems this week. Not on full cars or even car panels, just test patches at this point. We will start to actually paint full cars at the end of the first week in April. You should start seeing cars delivered by the end of April, or first week in May”.
I tried to quote Elon word for word, but of course might have missed something.
Some will want to comment on why it will take until the end of the month to get deliveries and other topics. Rather than speculate on that here, I’ll leave you with my overall impression.
While I had gone on tour selfishly hoping to be one of the first to see a long line of red cars coming down the assembly line, I left with something quite different. Within a month or so, I’ll see a beautiful red Model S every time I open the door to my garage. However the memory of a CEO of Elon’s stature with a passion to build the world’s greatest car, not as perceived by Wall Street or even the NY Times, but as perceived by his customers has left an impression with me that will last a very long time. We desperately need more CEO’s in this country with that kind of commitment to making a real and lasting contribution.
Thanks Elon.
Frank C
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