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Tesla Reality Check?

https://electrek.co/2016/11/22/elon-musk-right-wing-trump-propaganda-campaign-against-tesla-spacex/

More fun for Elon.

Right-wing group led by Trump propagandist launches campaign against Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX

A right-wing propaganda group led by one of Donald Trump’s top propagandists recently launched a campaign called ‘Stop Elon From Failing Again’. According to their manifesto, the initiative aims to stop Elon Musk from “defrauding” American taxpayers through his companies, Tesla and SpaceX.
 

Is there a news category called, "Propaganda About Propaganda"? If not, there should be. Look, I salute Elon and his drive for innovation, and I believe the government should be investing in these types of programs - to a degree. At some point, the entrepreneur needs to commercialize the business and the taxpayer needs visibility into the money spent.

At what point is the business sustainable? That's the question I have for Tesla.
 
I don't know how I feel about Tesla. The cars are great, the technology is needed, etc.
But then they get approved to buy SolarCity, a deal that I don't believe in considering there are more successful solar companies that would have likely offered a better option than buying a company with over $3,200,000,000 in debt. I certainly hope their $5.2 billion in assets are worth this transaction price.

I'm also nervous about this Model 3 development.
They've been very transparent about the fact that they have no experience in manufacturing vehicles at this volume, they're still in the planning stage for production facilities (as of August) and they require significant investments just to make the car work.
And yet they're taking downpayments from customers for a car that, based on their past, will be behind schedule at best.

GM is slated to have a 200 mile range e-car in the market before the Model 3 and almost every manufacturer is working on their own.
Will the Model 3 really hold up if he can't get manufacturing where it needs to be?
 
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The reliability is a major concern to me. I was reading Car and Driver's long term report and it's disappointing. I think Consumer Reports said the same thing. I don't know how they're going to pull off ramping up to 500k vehicles a year out of that Fremont plant. That being said, I also wouldn't bet against Elon Musk. What they're accomplishing is mind boggling all while beating their competitors to market. I'm anxious to see how their retail and service strategy develops. They need to bite the bullet and franchise, even if it's a very exclusive list.
 
The left wing media is more in the tank for Tesla than they were for Hillary. Tesla can't even begin to meet it's production levels and it loses nearly $20K when it sells one. They are facing strong competition from the likes of BMW that threatens to produce a vastly superior product. If it loses the government subsidies it will only hasten the inevitable.
 
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If he can't get the manufacturing done in time then he's going to go from cutting-edge/most innovative to behind the times in a hurry.
Every major manufacturer putting big money into this, and doing so with intent to be profitable, is creating a whole new market that Tesla now has to compete in.

Looks like they'll hit around 80,000 units this year, which is about 10,000 shy of their initial goal for 2016 if I recall correctly.
Model 3 pre-orders have to be nearing 500,000 by now - that's a huge curve for him to overcome, especially when they're not expecting to ship until late next year.
I'm also confident that most of these $35,000 units will end up being closer to $50,000, but maybe he'll get enough investment and subsidies to take a loss on every unit again.

I applaud him for doing what he's doing on someone else's dime, but he has to pull off 2017 or he could easily run into trouble.
 
NEWS: Google Spins Off Self-Driving Car Business
Google announced on Tuesday that its autonomous vehicle project was spinning off from its research lab X and would operate as a stand-alone company under the name Waymo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/t...off-waymo-self-driving-car-business.html?_r=0

We'll be hearing the name Waymo in our space for years to come. If I were advising Waymo on strategy, I'd avoid building hardware (i.e. cars) and i'd be licensing the Level 6 platform (Level 6 is self-driving robots).

Waymo is a direct threat to Telsa's 1st to market advantages.


Summary:
IMO Elon will sell Tesla (automotive) in about 2-3 yrs.

Why Sell Tesla?
IMO, Elon clearly sees the timeline to NHTSA level 6 (a world of robotic taxis & trucks). http://www.sae.org/misc/pdfs/automated_driving.pdf Elon sees the Level 6 marketplace... it'll be an explosion of low cost robotic units that'll drive down car making profits, causing the weakest, slowest OEMs to die off. Surely, there will be lots of room for a 'boutique mobility experience', but, Elon is a GOAT, he's not here to be a niche player. IMO, Elon's passion is not building profits, it's breaking into new markets. Selling Tesla's car division to an OEM that will allow him to fund other GOAT projects (like that hyperloop ;-)

When would Elon sell Tesla?
Elon's knows that in 2016 he's the only OEM at Level 3, and he's got a 2-3yr head start. Elon knows there is a 'learning period' where self-driving comes out of the lab and gets tested and broken in the real world. Elon's very very aggressive deployment of Level 3s gives him 90,000 Tesla's per year that are "LIVE", harvesting driving data, streamed to Tesla HQ. ALL of the vehicle data from 90,000 units driving 1,350,000,000 miles per year (that 1.3 billion miles) will give Tesla a giant head start. Every time a Tesla driver slams on the brakes, swerves, or makes any defensive maneuver the algorithms will automatically see it and set aside that data leading into the reaction for analysis.


Why would an OEM pay stupid money for Tesla?
You get an ocean of brilliant employees and it's culture of performance. You get 2-3 yr head start. Your investors get some of the Tesla glow (i.s. higher PE ratio).