Musk endeavours

[odysseus2000]

FSD illustrates the huge emotional connection between buyers and Tesla corporation.

If Tesla lawyers have done a good job on the contracts then it will be difficult for any legal action to progress with a good chance of success albeit within the lottery of any litigation which makes prediction not worth the trouble to make.

One can easily get to feeling that Tesla is a shady company, but enough people keep buying their product and love the CEO.

All of these concerns go away if FSD does work and I would not rule this out. However, if FSD does not work I do not expect it will hurt the equity due to the strong emotional connection between many owners and Tesla.

You don't think the 'strong emotional connection' would be at all affected by being charged $10k for something that was promised never actually delivered?

It is a car manufacturer. I think you are vastly overestimating how much an 'emotional connection' matters.

I think viewing Tesla as a car manufacturer is the wrong way to look at Tesla.

The relation between a Tesla buyer and Tesla is very different than the relation between a GM buyer and GM.

Legacy auto is seen as a throughly busted flush of the last century whereas Tesla and BEV are seen as the future.

Add into this the ability of Tesla to flog you stuff over the air and one has a high margin tech company and not a low margin dinosaur with a long stained reputation for treating their consumers disrespectfully, still offering far more ICE than BEV and dragging their feet over any new emission regulations etc.

If legacies troubles were purely about consumer rejection they would not be in too bad a situation, but they are a long way behind in the technology of BE, their balance sheets are weak and a load of low margin Chinese competitors are about to go after their bread and butter small cars, offering BEV with all the pollution, low running cost and low service costs against the expensive ICE.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Folk once bought Porsche, Ferrari and Rolls Royce as status symbols but they are now so 20th century that that status is ebbing away quickly.

Porsche, commonly held to be producer of the best BEV available, Q1 biggest in company's history by mere 13.4%. Suffering!

- https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2021/co ... 24186.html

There has been a rally in the sales of expensive last century status cars, including lots of ICE Porche with VW reporting good Rolls Royce sales.

imho this show how far BEV have yet to go and how we are in the last hurrah for prestige legacy.

Regards,

[murraypaul]

However, if FSD does not work I do not expect it will hurt the equity due to the strong emotional connection between many owners and Tesla.

You don't think the 'strong emotional connection' would be at all affected by being charged $10k for something that was promised never actually delivered?

It is a car manufacturer. I think you are vastly overestimating how much an 'emotional connection' matters.

I think viewing Tesla as a car manufacturer is the wrong way to look at Tesla.

The relation between a Tesla buyer and Tesla is very different than the relation between a GM buyer and GM.

Legacy auto is seen as a throughly busted flush of the last century whereas Tesla and BEV are seen as the future.

I think you are describing early adopters and fanboys.
To become mainstream you have to sell your cars to people who just want to buy a car, not a fantasy or an ideal.

[BobbyD]

Folk once bought Porsche, Ferrari and Rolls Royce as status symbols but they are now so 20th century that that status is ebbing away quickly.

Porsche, commonly held to be producer of the best BEV available, Q1 biggest in company's history by mere 13.4%. Suffering!

- https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2021/co ... 24186.html

There has been a rally in the sales of expensive last century status cars, including lots of ICE Porche with VW reporting good Rolls Royce sales.

imho this show how far BEV have yet to go and how we are in the last hurrah for prestige legacy.

Regards,

Since the beginning of the 21st century Porsche has increased sales by 447%. It is very much a 21st century company.

VW don't make Royces.

[kiloran]

There has been a rally in the sales of expensive last century status cars, including lots of ICE Porche with VW reporting good Rolls Royce sales.

imho this show how far BEV have yet to go and how we are in the last hurrah for prestige legacy.

Regards,

VW don't own Rolls Royce. They own Bentley.
Rolls Royce is owned by BMW

--kiloran

[BobbyD]

VW don't own Rolls Royce. They own Bentley.
Rolls Royce is owned by BMW

--kiloran

Although Bentley did have its best year ever in 2020, so he sort of has a point, even if it is in direct contradiction to the point he was making 2 posts ago...

[odysseus2000]

Thank you for the corrections, I regularly mix up who owns Rolls and who owns Bentley.

Both have had good years.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

murraypaul
I think you are describing early adopters and fanboys.
To become mainstream you have to sell your cars to people who just want to buy a car, not a fantasy or an ideal.

Yes, but Tesla don't have enough production to sell to the entire car buying population.

Nevertheless, they can still make a very good living selling to early adopters and fanboys.

Regards,

[murraypaul]

Yes, but Tesla don't have enough production to sell to the entire car buying population.

Nevertheless, they can still make a very good living selling to early adopters and fanboys.

Right now, yes, but surely the ambition is to keep growing capacity and taking over more of the market.
A market cap of ~$650B suggests so.

[odysseus2000]

Yes, but Tesla don't have enough production to sell to the entire car buying population.

Nevertheless, they can still make a very good living selling to early adopters and fanboys.

Right now, yes, but surely the ambition is to keep growing capacity and taking over more of the market.
A market cap of ~$650B suggests so.

Yes, but they will need at least both Berlin and Texas on full production and perhaps a smaller car such as a model 2 to capture sales in the small car segment.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

You don't think the 'strong emotional connection' would be at all affected by being charged $10k for something that was promised never actually delivered?

It is a car manufacturer. I think you are vastly overestimating how much an 'emotional connection' matters.

I think viewing Tesla as a car manufacturer is the wrong way to look at Tesla.

The relation between a Tesla buyer and Tesla is very different than the relation between a GM buyer and GM.

Legacy auto is seen as a throughly busted flush of the last century whereas Tesla and BEV are seen as the future.

I think you are describing early adopters and fanboys.
To become mainstream you have to sell your cars to people who just want to buy a car, not a fantasy or an ideal.

Most religious organisations believe that it is up to the unbelievers to change their religious outlook, rather than for the faith to pander to the people by changing and modernising.

The fact that early believers and devotees might be atypical, and that what really gets them fervent might not go over so well more generally is usually met with disbelief or a 'if they want to go to hell that's their look out' shrug, much as the arguments that Tesla is going to have to start appealing to a wider, less enthused audience have been casually shrugged off around here.

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD
Most religious organisations believe that it is up to the unbelievers to change their religious outlook, rather than for the faith to pander to the people by changing and modernising.

The fact that early believers and devotees might be atypical, and that what really gets them fervent might not go over so well more generally is usually met with disbelief or a 'if they want to go to hell that's their look out' shrug, much as the arguments that Tesla is going to have to start appealing to a wider, less enthused audience have been casually shrugged off around here.

Tesla sold all Q2 production before Q2 started, indicating that they have a product that people want to buy. The products will evolve as production capacity increases and more people can enjoy the benefits of owning a Tesla.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Tesla sold all Q2 production before Q2 started...

Strange that you could still get a model 3 for May delivery anywhere in Europe last time I looked....

[Howard]

Tesla sold all Q2 production before Q2 started...

Strange that you could still get a model 3 for May delivery anywhere in Europe last time I looked....

Weirdly it's also a 2 - 4 week delivery for model 3 and 3 - 5 week for Model Y in China.

Have we discovered another fact which disproves yet another Tesla myth?

regards

Howard

Tesla: Massive Demand Report Seems Questionable
https://seekingalpha.com/article/442668 ... king_alpha

[BobbyD]

Tesla sold all Q2 production before Q2 started...

Strange that you could still get a model 3 for May delivery anywhere in Europe last time I looked....

Weirdly it's also a 2 - 4 week delivery for model 3 and 3 - 5 week for Model Y in China.

regards

Howard

Tesla: Massive Demand Report Seems Questionable
https://seekingalpha.com/article/442668 ... king_alpha

It's almost as if, and hear me out here, the unnamed, unverified source said to be familiar with the situation was imaginary or erm, telling non-truths... If only we knew who he was, or if he was, we could find out which...

ETA: TBC whilst this source must almost certainly be a Tesla employee, it is very, very clear that in absolutely no way did Tesla say that they had sold out Q2. Not at all. No statement on the record. It wasn't even in a leaked staff email...

[onthemove]

Tesla sold all Q2 production before Q2 started, indicating that they have a product that people want to buy.

You mean, like owning a self driving car of your very own?

Heck, if I had confidence that they were really going to be able to deliver on the FSD vision and promises, I'd probably be trying to talk myself into justifying a purchase! Though the practicalities of charging would be an issue for me; also I'm not convinced that they'd hold their charge for longish periods unused, and the range would still be an issue, etc, but heck the tantalising possibility of owning a self driving car... I'd be seriously trying to work out how to overcome these challenges. I'm fed up with speed cameras all over the place, with rush hour traffic, etc. I'd love it if I could jump in a self driving car (of my own, with my own personal space), go to sleep and wake up at home after work.

My mum and her close friend are both getting on in years, and I'd be lying if I didn't have concerns about their safety when they're driving around, which they do frequently. A (safe, and dependable) self driving car couldn't come soon enough! I think they'd both benefit greatly from having one. Sadly, I think in practice, an actually useful, reasonably affordable, real world self driving car is probably going to arrive a little late for them, but I hope I'm wrong. If I thought a Tesla would deliver on Elon's FSD promises, I'd be seriously looking at the price and seeing if them making a purchase could be justified and afforded.

You only need to look at the comments on the Tesla owner videos on youtube to see how eager people are to get the full self driving update finally released. Some clearly seem to think it's only a matter weeks or a few months. And after some of Elon's promises, you can perhaps understand why they might think that ... but, imv, what they're seeing in the videos should be dampening their enthusiasm, but most don't realise that and are just in awe of the things that it is able to do so far - which admittedly is impressive. But that impressive demonstration of what it can do so far, is surely going to be tempting people into getting their piece of the self driving action.

I really, truly struggle to believe that Tesla's growth so far isn't substantially due to them being the only vender in the world (afaik), offering the tantalising promise of you being able to buy your very own self driving car today. (Even if the delivery of said functionality is (supposedly) going to be a future software upgrade)

Quick quiz based on this great video...

https://youtu.be/qAZ6tJSj9T4?t=62

His Mom's reaction is great...

Questions for you... what was it about the car that elicited that reaction? Do you think that she'd react similarly if she were taken for a drive in an electric car, a Tesla even, being driven by her son without any FSD engaged?

I really do not believe that the promises Elon / Tesla are making re. FSD are not a substantial factor in people's choice of purchasing a Tesla.

JJ Rick's Mom in the video enthusiastically says in the middle of the video "I love it, when do we get to buy one of these?". Why do you think she said that? What was it about that ride that made her say that?

I mean, really to suggest that the promise of FSD is not a major factor in people's choice to buy a Tesla - the only company (afaik) in the world today, that is offering you the chance to purchase a self driving car, or car with promised self driving upgradeability, for yourself? Really?

[odysseus2000]

onthemove
I mean, really to suggest that the promise of FSD is not a major factor in people's choice to buy a Tesla - the only company (afaik) in the world today, that is offering you the chance to purchase a self driving car, or car with promised self driving upgradeability, for yourself? Really?

I see where you are coming from and I believe that there will be a huge market for robo drive if it can be made to work.

There are however other folk who buy Tesla for its pollution free credentials, its performance and want to have all that enjoyment to them selves and so do not pay for the FSD.

If FSD is made to work the whole car ownership equation may change. People may decide that having a robo-taxi is far cheaper and more convenient than owning their own car.

Let us hope that FSD comes along very quickly and that road accidents in the UK fall from about the 3000 deaths and serious injuries per annum to a whole lot less and the dream of being able to have ones own chauffeur that allows one to sleep while it drives you become a reality. If any company is going to do this in the short term I believe it will be Tesla.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Weirdly it's also a 2 - 4 week delivery for model 3 and 3 - 5 week for Model Y in China.

Have we discovered another fact which disproves yet another Tesla myth?

regards

Howard

No CEO of a S&P 500 company is going to make statements at shareholder meetings that are untrue, especially about demand.

One can cite delivery times in various markets, but as I keep pointing out, it is all about world demand and that seems to be very buoyant for Tesla cars.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

12 mins 59 seconds of Munro looking at the Polestar:

https://youtu.be/Y-ylbrNQveY

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Weirdly it's also a 2 - 4 week delivery for model 3 and 3 - 5 week for Model Y in China.

Have we discovered another fact which disproves yet another Tesla myth?

regards

Howard

No CEO of a S&P 500 company is going to make statements at shareholder meetings that are untrue, especially about demand.

One can cite delivery times in various markets, but as I keep pointing out, it is all about world demand and that seems to be very buoyant for Tesla cars.

Regards,

Where did Musk claim Tesla were sold out Q2 at a shareholder meeting?

The claim was attributed to an anonymous source.