Musk endeavours

[redsturgeon]

https://1buv.com/bernstein-teslas-compe ... d-be-next/

This could be a worry for the future, It seems that Model 3 sales are cannibalising model s and x sales and new entrants from the likes of Jaguar and Audi are not growing the overall EV market but are taking Tesla sales too.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the ID3 appears.

It will be a real shame if Tesla is let down by its after sales servicing.

Oh look, Elon himself is starting to see the value of after sales service, (perhaps he has been reading this thread)

To improve sales, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company needs four things, including sensible pricing, charging infrastructure and consumer financing. Equal with those — and more important than retail outlets, according to Musk — is the availability of service.

Wherever all four elements come together, "our sales are great," the CEO said in July on a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings. "So we're rolling out service centers like crazy," he said. "Service centers are the key to sales, not the retail locations."

https://www.autonews.com/service/tesla- ... ce-central

John

[odysseus2000]

https://1buv.com/bernstein-teslas-competition-is-crushing-model-s-model-x-sales-model-3-could-be-next/

This could be a worry for the future, It seems that Model 3 sales are cannibalising model s and x sales and new entrants from the likes of Jaguar and Audi are not growing the overall EV market but are taking Tesla sales too.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the ID3 appears.

It will be a real shame if Tesla is let down by its after sales servicing.

Oh look, Elon himself is starting to see the value of after sales service, (perhaps he has been reading this thread)

To improve sales, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company needs four things, including sensible pricing, charging infrastructure and consumer financing. Equal with those — and more important than retail outlets, according to Musk — is the availability of service.

Wherever all four elements come together, "our sales are great," the CEO said in July on a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings. "So we're rolling out service centers like crazy," he said. "Service centers are the key to sales, not the retail locations."

https://www.autonews.com/service/tesla- ... ce-central

John

If one can get away from dealers who have a two fold job of selling and engineering, to a network of just engineering there will be savings.

If one can move further to having the engineering done at the punters place of choice there could be a convenience factor that weighs heavily on consumers minds.

We have e.g. got used to the idea of having windscreens replaced at home or where we work even though it may no be the best conditions for the job the convenience compared to having to take the car somewhere makes it a winner.

Extending this idea to repairs and service seems to be part of Tesla's plan to disrupt the entire car owning experience.

The end game in this kind of scenario would be to have any car that needs a service or has a fault that does not trouble its ability to drive safely, taking itself for repair over night and then coming back after repair for the morning driving or if not possible, sending a temporary loner car to do the driving until it can be repaired.

Unfortunately we are currently some way from this robotic scenario.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Has Fred been reading our comments on this site? If you look back some of us have made virtually the same statement a week or two ago.

There's a new BEV insurgency in town, converting the Tesla masses!

Indeed VW / VAG are one of the more likely survivors, ironically courtesy of dieselgate.

However they do have a problem and that chart illustrates it, and everyone shares the same problem. VAG are converting one factory to EV production, of 300,000 cars per year, and plan [that factory] to be fully converted by 2021. So clearly they are lining up the battery capacity to support that. Unfortunately VAG produce about 11 million cars/year.

Globally cars are about 70 million/year, and commercial vehicles 20 million/year.

This is going to be a long-haul changeover. However being a laggard in that process, at the point when ICE vehicles are worse than the comparable EV, is going to be a real "burning platform" moment. For some vehicle types, in some countries, that moment is now (I'm thinking Norway, or the upmarket sedans in the USA).

regards, dspp

The problem you are highlighting is that VW is big enough to make a granular conversion, taking ICE capacity out without significantly damaging output and converting it to BEV as and when it suits. The range of cars it produces is wide enough that it can move segments across to electric partially or fully as and when suits, with for example the up!, Mii and Citigo going completely electric whilst the Taycan introduces BEV's to that segment of their range. The number of cars they produce is so high that the unit cost of electrification which is giving producers which make 2.5 million cars a year some real problems are much lower than the competition, which gives them added potential for selling their MEB platform, and all the time making 14 billion euros a year in profits... To have such problems!

https://1buv.com/bernstein-teslas-competition-is-crushing-model-s-model-x-sales-model-3-could-be-next/

This could be a worry for the future, It seems that Model 3 sales are cannibalising model s and x sales and new entrants from the likes of Jaguar and Audi are not growing the overall EV market but are taking Tesla sales too.

There are some great fights BTL in articles reporting this, with the devout so desperate to deny anybody but Tesla a win that they are trying to argue that Tesla's falling sales of it's higher margin cars is entirely due to the model 3, and is a good thing for the company...

Can I add: "Forget about engineering minutiae and daft features. Make a quality product which delights the average customer and meets their needs for sensible motoring with a price range which starts at around £30,000. Offer VW quality sales and service and you have a winning formula for a BEV which will compete with ICE models and sell in volume around the world."

It will be interesting to see what happens when the ID3 appears.

The people's electric wagon!

Wherever all four elements come together, "our sales are great," the CEO said in July on a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings. "So we're rolling out service centers like crazy," he said. "Service centers are the key to sales, not the retail locations."

https://www.autonews.com/service/tesla- ... ce-central[/quote]

So that's another round of cost cutting blown then?

I would say it's encouraging that Musk has actually acknowledged the problem, but that then leads me to consider how big a problem it would have to be for him to acknowledge it.

Tesla closing in on Lower Saxony, Germany as final Europe Gigafactory location: report

- https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-europe- ... y-germany/

I found this report quite interesting. Guess which car company the state of Lower Saxony owns 20% of?

[redsturgeon]

I think there is sometimes too much made of the so called disruption element of the Tesla story when referring to the sales and after sales process. My understanding of the US situation is not great but from what a read/watch on you tube the process of buying a car in the US from a dealer is significantly different and lags behind the UK situation for instance. What things are like in Europe I have no idea.

Let me give you the process of getting my latest car. I decided that a VW Golf was the right car for me and I usually buy new. After dieselgate I wanted a petrol version. I read some reviews, it seems that the Golf TSi petrol engine in either 1.4 or 1.5 guise was what I required. My daughter was going to drive this car so my old fave GTi was not an option and besides, the roads in the UK these days are somewhat busier than twenty to thirty years ago when there was space to get some fun out of a hot hatch.

Having narrowed down the choice of car, I then decided that I would lease it to avoid having capital tied up. I wanted a two year lease which expires next year since I guessed that a decent choice of BEVs would be available by then. I arranged a test drive at my local VW dealership and that confirmed that the VW Golf TSi was a well sorted practical car that drove very nicely and would do for me. The VW showroom was an impressive building full of people doing not very much, I was offered free coffee and biscuits.

This is where the story gets interesting. The salesman asked how I was intending to finance the vehicle, I said I wanted a lease. He then had a long and complex form to fill in that was a real pain. He asked how much I wanted to pay, how much deposit and how long a lease I required. I said three months up front , 23 payments and £250 per month. He chocked a bit on this and then we had the "I'll have to see my manager" sheenanegans.

He came back after twenty minutes with the patronising comment, that at those numbers I would be looking at a Polo rather than a Golf. At that point I thanked him for the test drive, looked around at the expensive surrounding with a new understanding and went home.

I went onto a leasing website that I had been on before the visit to the dealership and within 20 minutes had ordered a VW Golf of my required spec at the aforementioned money. Job done, a few emails later and some weeks while they built the car and it was delivered to me, dropped off on my drive from a transporter, paperwork completed in about two minutes and that was it.

If I'd not wanted to visit the dealer I would not have had to do so and this is the case for any car I wish to lease.

One of my previous cars was bought from "Drive the Deal" (no connection many similar companies are available) I choose my car asked for a quote they came back with an offer of some 20% off list price. I asked around and could not beat the price. I picked up the car from my local Ford dealer a couple of weeks later.

These companies are real disruptors of the car dealership process, I can buy or lease pretty much any new car I like without ever setting foot in a dealership but I know the dealer is there to sort out any problems if they arise after the sale.

As I have said, I don't think the likes of Drive the Deal have a presence in the US and they might not even be allowed to operate under the law.

John

[odysseus2000]

We are still in August, Mad Hatter tea party environment, but VW CEO apparently wants to buy into Tesla:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-m-a-t ... KKCN1VC1BR

Regards

[odysseus2000]

I think there is sometimes too much made of the so called disruption element of the Tesla story when referring to the sales and after sales process. My understanding of the US situation is not great but from what a read/watch on you tube the process of buying a car in the US from a dealer is significantly different and lags behind the UK situation for instance. What things are like in Europe I have no idea.

Let me give you the process of getting my latest car. I decided that a VW Golf was the right car for me and I usually buy new. After dieselgate I wanted a petrol version. I read some reviews, it seems that the Golf TSi petrol engine in either 1.4 or 1.5 guise was what I required. My daughter was going to drive this car so my old fave GTi was not an option and besides, the roads in the UK these days are somewhat busier than twenty to thirty years ago when there was space to get some fun out of a hot hatch.

Having narrowed down the choice of car, I then decided that I would lease it to avoid having capital tied up. I wanted a two year lease which expires next year since I guessed that a decent choice of BEVs would be available by then. I arranged a test drive at my local VW dealership and that confirmed that the VW Golf TSi was a well sorted practical car that drove very nicely and would do for me. The VW showroom was an impressive building full of people doing not very much, I was offered free coffee and biscuits.

This is where the story gets interesting. The salesman asked how I was intending to finance the vehicle, I said I wanted a lease. He then had a long and complex form to fill in that was a real pain. He asked how much I wanted to pay, how much deposit and how long a lease I required. I said three months up front , 23 payments and £250 per month. He chocked a bit on this and then we had the "I'll have to see my manager" sheenanegans.

He came back after twenty minutes with the patronising comment, that at those numbers I would be looking at a Polo rather than a Golf. At that point I thanked him for the test drive, looked around at the expensive surrounding with a new understanding and went home.

I went onto a leasing website that I had been on before the visit to the dealership and within 20 minutes had ordered a VW Golf of my required spec at the aforementioned money. Job done, a few emails later and some weeks while they built the car and it was delivered to me, dropped off on my drive from a transporter, paperwork completed in about two minutes and that was it.

If I'd not wanted to visit the dealer I would not have had to do so and this is the case for any car I wish to lease.

One of my previous cars was bought from "Drive the Deal" (no connection many similar companies are available) I choose my car asked for a quote they came back with an offer of some 20% off list price. I asked around and could not beat the price. I picked up the car from my local Ford dealer a couple of weeks later.

These companies are real disruptors of the car dealership process, I can buy or lease pretty much any new car I like without ever setting foot in a dealership but I know the dealer is there to sort out any problems if they arise after the sale.

As I have said, I don't think the likes of Drive the Deal have a presence in the US and they might not even be allowed to operate under the law.

John

Perhaps this means that the well dressed sales folk one sees at most dealers doing very little might be an endangered species.

That would be terrible.

Based on your story what Tesla want to offer is very like what exists based on your experience, the dealer having been morphed into an engineering or what Tesla call service centre with no selling, the latter all being done over the net.

Regards,

[dspp]

These companies are real disruptors of the car dealership process, I can buy or lease pretty much any new car I like without ever setting foot in a dealership but I know the dealer is there to sort out any problems if they arise after the sale.

The dealer as we know it is a dead thing walking. That's all you are describing.

How fortunate for Tesla that they have not set out to create a dealer network. Instead they own & control the sales experience from top to bottom, and separate that out from the service experience.

- dspp

[BobbyD]

These companies are real disruptors of the car dealership process, I can buy or lease pretty much any new car I like without ever setting foot in a dealership but I know the dealer is there to sort out any problems if they arise after the sale.

The dealer as we know it is a dead thing walking. That's all you are describing.

How fortunate for Tesla that they have not set out to create a dealer network. Instead they own & control the sales experience from top to bottom, and separate that out from the service experience.

- dspp

Price discrimination is generally held to be a good thing. Sell the same product to two different markets at two different prices. It's just like mobile phone shops. Every couple of years when I pop in to handle the merchandise before getting a deep discount online there are a handful of folk signing up to pay twice as much as I am going to pay for the same product and the same service from the same company by going through a third party, and atleast one person who literally walks in and says, "I want an i-phone," and signs a four figure contract 30 seconds later. If Tesla had more than one sales channel they probably wouldn't have to indulge in their ridiculously frequent price changes.

...and if you don't want to go in to a dealer network, just go on to the website and custom spec your new VW Golf, at retail of course.

For people who look at things a little more in depth and are a little more conscious of their options there are plenty of other options, but the brand loyalty and reassurance of the badge applies as much to the purchasing experience as it does to the choice of car. Posters here are not typical.

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD
Price discrimination is generally held to be a good thing. Sell the same product to two different markets at two different prices. It's just like mobile phone shops. Every couple of years when I pop in to handle the merchandise before getting a deep discount online there are a handful of folk signing up to pay twice as much as I am going to pay for the same product and the same service from the same company by going through a third party, and atleast one person who literally walks in and says, "I want an i-phone," and signs a four figure contract 30 seconds later. If Tesla had more than one sales channel they probably wouldn't have to indulge in their ridiculously frequent price changes.

Yes, but this is all Yesterdays model.

Things are constantly changing as more and more folk realise they can have the same widget on-line for less, the more they will do it.

If you don't believe me look at any high street. Many of the old shops have gone, the ones that are left have to have some speciality, they can't compete with commodity products.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

BobbyD
Price discrimination is generally held to be a good thing. Sell the same product to two different markets at two different prices. It's just like mobile phone shops. Every couple of years when I pop in to handle the merchandise before getting a deep discount online there are a handful of folk signing up to pay twice as much as I am going to pay for the same product and the same service from the same company by going through a third party, and atleast one person who literally walks in and says, "I want an i-phone," and signs a four figure contract 30 seconds later. If Tesla had more than one sales channel they probably wouldn't have to indulge in their ridiculously frequent price changes.

Yes, but this is all Yesterdays model.

Things are constantly changing as more and more folk realise they can have the same widget on-line for less, the more they will do it.

If you don't believe me look at any high street. Many of the old shops have gone, the ones that are left have to have some speciality, they can't compete with commodity products.

Regards,

Most of my High Street is made up of mobile phone shops...

[odysseus2000]

Model 3 well received in Japan and attractive to South Koreans too:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3 ... c-approval

Regards,

[Howard]

I read yesterday that the Manager of the biggest institutional investor in Tesla, James Anderson of Baillie Gifford has suggested that Elon Musk should step down as CEO of Tesla.

This set me thinking. I was enjoying a glass of Chandon (Waitrose about £12.99 a bottle) in the sunshine, this reminded me of two enjoyable meals I had at Domaine Chandon, the Moet owned restaurant set in beautiful surroundings in Yountville in Napa Valley, California. And the many very pleasant experiences I enjoyed when visiting California, especially in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Why, I mused, was my view of Tesla, a product of that State so different from the quality of my Californian experiences visiting high tech businesses there?

I wondered what would make Tesla’s reputation as attractive as California and concluded that just a few changes would make all the difference.

1. If Tesla charged, perhaps only $500 more per car, they could fund a Pre-Delivery Inspection for all their cars. The aim would be to ensure that every new car they sold was as well-presented and faultless as a Mercedes, Jaguar or BMW. The PDI teams would be trained to correct poor paintwork, damaged tyres, non-functioning software. After a while it wouldn’t cost even $500 a car and the feedback from this programme would be invaluable in reducing transit damage and poor manufacturing.

2. They should produce a Model 3 with normal driver controls and screen and save the costs of the unnecessarily large and distracting display screen autonomous mode etc. Ideally this would also be designed as a more environmentally friendly model with less acceleration giving longer range, less tyre and brake wear. This would satisfy a wider market segment and possible more than offset the costs of better PDI.

3. The Tesla board should stop Elon Musk making stupid claims about volume production, $35k cars, profits, autonomous driving, delivery dates, insurance launches, robo taxis carrying thousands of paying passengers next year and a Chinese factory which will be making thousands of Model 3s in a few weeks time. These foolish claims haven’t enhanced the share price!

4. Tesla should immediately improve their sales and service operation and offer a decent response to customers and prospective customers. It’s not that hard!

With these changes they might build a quality reputation which supported their claim to be revolutionising the car industry. They’d almost certainly be far more profitable and their share price would be higher.

Perhaps it is time for Elon Musk to go? As an investor in Baillie Giffords’ fund I’d back their view.

regards

Howard

[dspp]

2. They should produce a Model 3 with normal driver controls and screen and save the costs of the unnecessarily large and distracting display screen autonomous mode etc. Ideally this would also be designed as a more environmentally friendly model with less acceleration giving longer range, less tyre and brake wear. This would satisfy a wider market segment and possible more than offset the costs of better PDI.


Howard

I can see you've never been up close & personal with the costs associated with NRE for conventional instrumentation, or the BoM costs, or the production assembly costs. And these offer no ability to deliver OTA updates. And these lock a manufacturer/designer into a short model life between (costly) design refreshes. And which lock the designer/manufacturer into a pre-existing industry supply chain & cost-base which they are intent on disrupting.

There is a reason that Tesla are doing it their way. In all respects, including the other ones you airily wave your hands at. It may be that Tesla are wrong, but they sure as heck are giving it a cracking good go, much to the envy of all the other automotive OEMs out there.

- dspp

[Howard]

2. They should produce a Model 3 with normal driver controls and screen and save the costs of the unnecessarily large and distracting display screen autonomous mode etc. Ideally this would also be designed as a more environmentally friendly model with less acceleration giving longer range, less tyre and brake wear. This would satisfy a wider market segment and possible more than offset the costs of better PDI.


Howard

I can see you've never been up close & personal with the costs associated with NRE for conventional instrumentation, or the BoM costs, or the production assembly costs. And these offer no ability to deliver OTA updates. And these lock a manufacturer/designer into a short model life between (costly) design refreshes. And which lock the designer/manufacturer into a pre-existing industry supply chain & cost-base which they are intent on disrupting.

There is a reason that Tesla are doing it their way. In all respects, including the other ones you airily wave your hands at. It may be that Tesla are wrong, but they sure as heck are giving it a cracking good go, much to the envy of all the other automotive OEMs out there.

- dspp

I think you are missing the point. Just the use of all your TLAs indicates you are approaching Tesla as an engineer who isn't in touch with a large and affluent consumer market. Your point would be made better if you explained yourself in plain English (or American ).

Achieving a better and more practical look to the interior of a Model 3 can't be that hard, other manufactures excel at these things and they make a huge difference to customers.

And making Tesla more environmentally friendly wouldn't be too difficult surely?

regards

Howard

[redsturgeon]

Hi Howard,

We are usually in agreement on things Tesla and BEV and on three of your points I would agree totally but I have to agree with dspp regarding the display costings, I don't think there are any saving to be made by ditching the big screen and it does have advatages as stated.

I don't have a problem with the one screen display as such, although I think a HUD would be a better ergonomic arrangement and I don't buy the argument that a HUD will become unnecessary with autonomic driving...that's still some way off. I guess there will be some folk who are put off by the unique interior styling but I guess that you can't please everyone and I'd rather companies tried to innovate their designs than stick to the age old leather and wood grain analogue clock style that has been around for the last century.

I think it is without doubt that Tesla have produced some excellent and different vehicles and anyone who has driven them seems to be impressed, as you rightly say it is just the surrounding service elements that are letting the side down massively and in order to move on from supplying just the Teslarati these must improve.

There is a part of me that would really like to buy/lease a Tesla but the head is ruling the heart at the moment and I seem to have avoided partaking of the potent Tesla special sauce that seems to affect some people.

John

[BobbyD]

[There is a reason that Tesla are doing it their way. In all respects, including the other ones you airily wave your hands at. It may be that Tesla are wrong, but they sure as heck are giving it a cracking good go, much to the envy of all the other automotive OEMs out there.

citation required

Hi Howard,

We are usually in agreement on things Tesla and BEV and on three of your points I would agree totally but I have to agree with dspp regarding the display costings, I don't think there are any saving to be made by ditching the big screen and it does have advatages as stated.

I don't have a problem with the one screen display as such, although I think a HUD would be a better ergonomic arrangement and I don't buy the argument that a HUD will become unnecessary with autonomic driving..

A simple costs argument might not hold, but as Tesla looks to go beyond the fanboy and people who were willing to make an outsized step on environmental grounds there is definitely an argument that providing an interior which people find familiar would potentially open up a far wider customer base. Then there are reservations previously expressed about the location of the only screen forcing people to look so far from the road. A company so obsessed with tech and 'clean interiors which puts so much effort in to safety claims should have been head over heels for AR HUD's, which unlike many of their pipe dreams have the small advantage of actually existing. A configurable HUD would have allowed them to address both familiarity and futurism in one seemingly self contradictory step...

[odysseus2000]

Hi Howard,

Point 1 Tesla problems here are just growing pains, they are all solvable and will be fixed and anyhow folk are doing far less complaining of paint work suggesting that fix is well underway.

Point 2 Regarding the model 3 display:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3 ... c-approval

Sezai likened the experience of using the Model 3’s display to his first impressions of the Apple iPad. According to the critic, when he first used an iPad, there was something immediately familiar and exciting about the system and how it freed users from the “mess of Windows.” This experience, Sezai noted, is echoed in the Model 3, as the vehicle gives drivers the impression that they are “in touch with a next-generation car.”

The Tesla display has become an iconic and loved aspect of Tesla, sure lots of folk say they initially don’t like it and then within a short time they get so used to it that it becomes a pleasure to use.

I have several times taken conventional displays to bits due to various failures and such. They are massively complicated things, full of tiny components and must cost a fortune. The Tesla display is so much simpler and easier to work on and repair and gives much more information.

Regarding performance, this is what drivers want.

Point 3 It is all about imagination, about what might be possible and selling dreams. It is not about mundane boring considerations. Doing this type of thing was what nearly killed Apple when they appointed Sculley and fired Jobs. Let us not forget that one can certainly cite Musk predictions that haven’t happened, but to go from nothing to the most talked about car company in history has not happened by thinking small and mundane.

Point 4 Just a rehash of your point 1. The whole concept of Tesla is to change the car buying experience, to control all the selling and have service as a completely separate experience. If they can remove the sales side of dealers they will be following the lead of the leasing companies as redsturgeon pointed out a few posts back. As things now are the days of the car show room, sales person set up are coming to their end.

If Musk was to leave, Tesla would collapse in the same way that Apple did when Jobs was fired.

The history of the world is that when new ideas arrive they are almost always destroyed by the folk doing what the new idea seeks to improve upon. The ones that are not destroyed invariably go on to change the industry and make their share holders a lot of money.

I offer you perhaps an opportunity to reflect upon your feelings towards Tesla in this little anecdote:

Once a stores guy where I worked had a sign:

Every successful man has an astonished “mother in law”

Are you being a mother in law here, basing the future on your experience of the past and your belief that existing legacy autos are the best that can be?

Regards,

[dspp]

[There is a reason that Tesla are doing it their way. In all respects, including the other ones you airily wave your hands at. It may be that Tesla are wrong, but they sure as heck are giving it a cracking good go, much to the envy of all the other automotive OEMs out there.

citation required

“I hate to admit it, but Tesla did everything right” [Audi’s EV CEO, Stefan Niemand]

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/a ... t%E2%80%9D

there are other similar quotes out there, and ultimately imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

regards, dspp

[dspp]

2. They should produce a Model 3 with normal driver controls and screen and save the costs of the unnecessarily large and distracting display screen autonomous mode etc. Ideally this would also be designed as a more environmentally friendly model with less acceleration giving longer range, less tyre and brake wear. This would satisfy a wider market segment and possible more than offset the costs of better PDI.


Howard

I can see you've never been up close & personal with the costs associated with NRE for conventional instrumentation, or the BoM costs, or the production assembly costs. And these offer no ability to deliver OTA updates. And these lock a manufacturer/designer into a short model life between (costly) design refreshes. And which lock the designer/manufacturer into a pre-existing industry supply chain & cost-base which they are intent on disrupting.

There is a reason that Tesla are doing it their way. In all respects, including the other ones you airily wave your hands at. It may be that Tesla are wrong, but they sure as heck are giving it a cracking good go, much to the envy of all the other automotive OEMs out there.

- dspp

I think you are missing the point. Just the use of all your TLAs indicates you are approaching Tesla as an engineer who isn't in touch with a large and affluent consumer market. Your point would be made better if you explained yourself in plain English (or American ).

Achieving a better and more practical look to the interior of a Model 3 can't be that hard, other manufactures excel at these things and they make a huge difference to customers.

And making Tesla more environmentally friendly wouldn't be too difficult surely?

regards

Howard

Nope. I am explaining this from the perspective of an engineering economist or technology strategist, both of which are far more relevant to the matter at hand than waffling about wine in California. And I am using nothing other than very standard TLAs.

Experiencing a Tesla for the first time is like your first encounter with Ikea furniture if you were in the 70s, or your first encounter with an Apple computer in the 90s, or with an Apple/Android smartphone in the 00s. Pretty soon you start to wonder why the old stuff didn't get ditched faster.

regards, dspp

[BobbyD]

[There is a reason that Tesla are doing it their way. In all respects, including the other ones you airily wave your hands at. It may be that Tesla are wrong, but they sure as heck are giving it a cracking good go, much to the envy of all the other automotive OEMs out there.

citation required

“I hate to admit it, but Tesla did everything right” [Audi’s EV CEO, Stefan Niemand]

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/a ... t%E2%80%9D

Agreement is not a synonym for envy, particularly when you are talking about two such different starting positions, a 3 and a half year old quote, or a company representative positioning themselves in a market they have yet to enter.