Musk endeavours

[Howard]

Another comment from a Tesla customer about how noisy the model 3 is to drive. He makes an interesting comparison. It's more noisy than an e Golf!

As someone who has been lucky enough to purchase some nice, and immaculate, new cars in the past, I am surprised how relaxed he is about all the imperfections. And the amusing acceptance that a Tesla isn't a quality car like an Audi!! No way would I accept a new car in that condition. And road noise in an electric car would drive me mad! Especially after driving an amazingly quiet BMW 330e for two years.

"My "stuff":
- valve cap on front passenger side wheel missing
- wrong set of USB charging cables (Apple instead of micro USB). They told me I would have to buy the correct one - we'll see about that
- left trunk light not working (fixed by service person right there and then)
- green "eco" sticker (mandatory in Germany) missing, even though I had specifically asked for it
- a few paint imperfections, but overall acceptable.
Only a small white spot - i.e. looks like a tiny paint chip, too deep to buff out - above the driver door handle is a bit annoying, but ok, it isn't an Audi after all.

Speaking of which, it is amazing how noisy the car is, especially when compared to the e-Golf.
Those hard Hankook tires certainly are no match for Michelin or Continental ride quality. But since these will one day get replaced anyway, there is hope for improvement."

You can see his comments and other disgruntled customers' comments on:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... 764/page-7

regards

Howard

[Howard]

An earlier comment from the same poster as he waited for his Tesla. "apart from the range - the e-Golf is better in every respect than any Tesla I have ever driven or sat in up to now. The build quality (at least of mine) is perfect, the tech works flawlessly,"

This is only one Tesla owner's view. But it suggests that all VW have to do is improve the range of the Golf and if consumers forgive them for dieselgate then they have a Model 3 "killer".

Here is a fuller quote. See link in post above for the full story.


"I have been driving an e-Golf for about a month now, and to be honest, VW as a company might be an untrustworthy entity of Diesel-cheating liars. But this doesn't take away from the fact that - apart from the range - the e-Golf is better in every respect than any Tesla I have ever driven or sat in up to now. The build quality (at least of mine) is perfect, the tech works flawlessly, the efficiency is awesome (we are averaging - patches of Autobahn driving included - about 16kWh per 100km), the comfort level is even better than on my BMW, and even the voice controls work without a glitch - something I had never experienced on any car with such tech before.
If the e-Golf had a battery as large as the Model 3 it would take us over 400km on a single charge and we wouldn't even need the Model 3 at all."

regards

Howard

[BobbyD]

An earlier comment from the same poster as he waited for his Tesla. "apart from the range - the e-Golf is better in every respect than any Tesla I have ever driven or sat in up to now. The build quality (at least of mine) is perfect, the tech works flawlessly,"

I must admit whilst grateful for their money I'm a little surprised to see people still buying the eGolf at all, when the ID3 will be available from £8000 cheaper and with 50%-130% extra range depending on your choice of battery pack, and you can place your order next month for a September reveal. At the very least I'd hold back 5 months and take a peak. Yet even in February it sold 1703 in europe, which is only 500 behind the i3. Not bad for a place holder whose place is about to get held.

[redsturgeon]

An earlier comment from the same poster as he waited for his Tesla. "apart from the range - the e-Golf is better in every respect than any Tesla I have ever driven or sat in up to now. The build quality (at least of mine) is perfect, the tech works flawlessly,"

I must admit whilst grateful for their money I'm a little surprised to see people still buying the eGolf at all, when the ID3 will be available from £8000 cheaper and with 50%-130% extra range depending on your choice of battery pack, and you can place your order next month for a September reveal. At the very least I'd hold back 5 months and take a peak. Yet even in February it sold 1703 in europe, which is only 500 behind the i3. Not bad for a place holder whose place is about to get held.

It's the car I am waiting for. I have a basic petrol Golf on a 2 year lease which runs out in June 2020 just in time for the ID3 I hope. The petrol Golf is flawless too, has not missed a beat and I cannot find any imperfections such as those that most Tesla owners seem to have to live with.

John

[odysseus2000]

Howard
Another comment from a Tesla customer about how noisy the model 3 is to drive. He makes an interesting comparison. It's more noisy than an e Golf!

As someone who has been lucky enough to purchase some nice, and immaculate, new cars in the past, I am surprised how relaxed he is about all the imperfections. And the amusing acceptance that a Tesla isn't a quality car like an Audi!! No way would I accept a new car in that condition. And road noise in an electric car would drive me mad! Especially after driving an amazingly quiet BMW 330e for two years.

"My "stuff":
- valve cap on front passenger side wheel missing
- wrong set of USB charging cables (Apple instead of micro USB). They told me I would have to buy the correct one - we'll see about that
- left trunk light not working (fixed by service person right there and then)
- green "eco" sticker (mandatory in Germany) missing, even though I had specifically asked for it
- a few paint imperfections, but overall acceptable.
Only a small white spot - i.e. looks like a tiny paint chip, too deep to buff out - above the driver door handle is a bit annoying, but ok, it isn't an Audi after all.

Speaking of which, it is amazing how noisy the car is, especially when compared to the e-Golf.
Those hard Hankook tires certainly are no match for Michelin or Continental ride quality. But since these will one day get replaced anyway, there is hope for improvement."

Ha Ha

This guy should be a barrister. Nice how he seems to praise Tesla while at the same time instilling in the jury's mind that German marques are better.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Interesting, if this article is correct, that the VW id3 will initially be the high performance model first at Eur 30k with the base not for another year:

https://insideevs.com/volkswagen-i-d-neo-pricing-leak/

If this is all correct it seems VW took from 2016 (announcement) to 2021 to have the base model available. Kind of slow for such a supposed skilled maker of cars.

It looks to me that the id3 will have to compete with Chinese & Korean models in this super mini market, not with the model 3 so much. According to a neighbour he was told the Korean electric car he wanted was not available for 12 months, so likely lots of replacement Golf like cars available for that section of the market next year. He used to be in the scrap car business & predicted that the market for ice cars will suddenly collapse, not a smooth decline, in the relatively near future. If it does, as I also think, legacy producers like VW will take significant hits. The only thing that I think could prevent this is lack of supply if electric cars. Interesting to watch with the bonus of much improved air quality & probably scorn & hate for diesel drivers like me.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Interesting, if this article is correct, that the VW id3 will initially be the high performance model first at Eur 30k with the base not for another year:

If the article is correct and VW are putting out a decent sized (golf dimensions outside, bigger inside), 340 mile range BEV built to VW standards for £26k I'd imagine they are going to be busy making them for sometime. The £21k 205 mile version which would kill in today's market would be somewhat undermined by its big brother at those prices, whilst still making a great first/second car option for an awful lot of people.

If this is all correct it seems VW took from 2016 (announcement) to 2021 to have the base model available. Kind of slow for such a supposed skilled maker of cars.

Worth noting that the accuracy of the article has been questioned btl, along with a quote attributed to a VW engineer saying they are starting with the 62kWh and 48kWh packs and releasing the 83kWh version in 2021, which unfortunately is difficult to verify not least because it's in German.

It's also worth noting that VW have developed two BEV platforms in that time, extensively tested the ID3 pre-launch rather than using paying customers as beta testers and timed their entrance to market with an affordable equivalent of the best selling car in Europe just as BEV is seriously taking off in major markets. Rank amateurs...

Either way I've a good feeling about this. I'm beginning to think of it more as the BEV Beetle than the car Musk wanted the Model 3 to be although its not really an either or. Could mark a genuine turning point when it comes to BEV accessibility.

Nice to see a non-Tesla being talked about in such glowing terms btl as well...

[Howard]

Howard
Another comment from a Tesla customer about how noisy the model 3 is to drive. He makes an interesting comparison. It's more noisy than an e Golf!

As someone who has been lucky enough to purchase some nice, and immaculate, new cars in the past, I am surprised how relaxed he is about all the imperfections. And the amusing acceptance that a Tesla isn't a quality car like an Audi!! No way would I accept a new car in that condition. And road noise in an electric car would drive me mad! Especially after driving an amazingly quiet BMW 330e for two years.

"My "stuff":
- valve cap on front passenger side wheel missing
- wrong set of USB charging cables (Apple instead of micro USB). They told me I would have to buy the correct one - we'll see about that
- left trunk light not working (fixed by service person right there and then)
- green "eco" sticker (mandatory in Germany) missing, even though I had specifically asked for it
- a few paint imperfections, but overall acceptable.
Only a small white spot - i.e. looks like a tiny paint chip, too deep to buff out - above the driver door handle is a bit annoying, but ok, it isn't an Audi after all.

Speaking of which, it is amazing how noisy the car is, especially when compared to the e-Golf.
Those hard Hankook tires certainly are no match for Michelin or Continental ride quality. But since these will one day get replaced anyway, there is hope for improvement."

Ha Ha

This guy should be a barrister. Nice how he seems to praise Tesla while at the same time instilling in the jury's mind that German marques are better.

Regards,

He's just bought a Tesla and is realising that it has a lot of faults! He may also be a Barrister, as you need to be wealthy to buy a Model 3.

It looks to me that the id3 will have to compete with Chinese & Korean models in this super mini market, not with the model 3 so much. According to a neighbour he was told the Korean electric car he wanted was not available for 12 months, so likely lots of replacement Golf like cars available for that section of the market next year. He used to be in the scrap car business & predicted that the market for ice cars will suddenly collapse, not a smooth decline, in the relatively near future. If it does, as I also think, legacy producers like VW will take significant hits. The only thing that I think could prevent this is lack of supply if electric cars. Interesting to watch with the bonus of much improved air quality & probably scorn & hate for diesel drivers like me.

Regards,

I'm sure your Scrap Car dealer neighbour is an expert on the world car market, but you and he have predicted the collapse of the ICE market for many years and it hasn't happened yet.

Your neighbour nicely sums up the reason why Tesla isn't likely to meet their sales forecasts. Have you told him that Tesla have 20,000 plus Model 3s in stock waiting for customers. Within a month or two they may have 10,000 rhd model 3s and discounted S and X models for him to choose from. Will he forget his Korean electric car and snap up a Tesla? I doubt it because Tesla aren't making sensible cars for the mass market.

You may be right about the demise of ICE vehicles eventually but who will be the manufacturers who succeed in making tens of millions of cars for the family market worldwide? At the moment the Model 3 may compare unfavourably with an e-Golf hatchback for the affluent family man. It sure won't cut the mustard with the average family buyer if the Golf or its EV replacement offers quieter and fault-free motoring for half the price of a Tesla.

regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

Howard
He's just bought a Tesla and is realising that it has a lot of faults! He may also be a Barrister, as you need to be wealthy to buy a Model 3.

I think you missed what I was saying: My comment was meant to suggest that the poster was putting Tesla down in a subtle way that a barrister would use.

I have no idea if this is true or if there are any folk being paid to spread FUD, but I would be very surprised if people were not being paid to do this.

My thesis for the demise of ice is when there is enough supply of BE. That is certainly not the case now, but in a few years it will be. I originally thought about 3 years over a year ago which would put large BE supply mid 2021.

If e.g. VW do have a winner on their hands it means a rapid switch over to BE with a loss of about 1/3 of the entire VW work force & fired workers might not want to buy a VW.

Also as far as I know Tesla have not made any right hand drive model 3, with production not expected till mid year at the soonest, probably later as Brexit is now imho out of control making Tesla unlikely to be keen to supply right hand drive here to a now politically unstable union. They do not seem so interested in Japan either.

It is imho way too early to know if the model 3 will be a success or fail & even earlier to make predictions about the VW. This is a new and dynamic market & things can change very quickly.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

If e.g. VW do have a winner on their hands it means a rapid switch over to BE with a loss of about 1/3 of the entire VW work force & fired workers might not want to buy a VW.

The existential threat to VW is that they might produce a winner so big and that they can produce so efficiently that they have to stop paying as many people to build them... I admire your tenacity Ody, but if that's supposed to be a problem for VW I think we might have to redefine 'problem'.

[dspp]

Various stuff coming out to the effect that Panasonic's cell production is at about 23GWh, and that this is the practical Giga 1 constraint for tesla at present. I've seen analyses to this effect from various individuals on different forums, over the last few days, but this is a link to a subsequent comment by Musk saying much the same thing, to wit that model 3 is supply constrained, not demand constrained. If so that makes the Panasonic announcement that they will not invest in 2020 to move capacity UP above the current 35 GWh most odd. It is almost as if there is a definitions war going on in public regarding what 'production capacity' really means.

https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gi ... elon-musk/

all most curiouser and curiouser.

Oh, and a more thoughtful than usual long view piece

https://seekingalpha.com/article/425435 ... app=1&dr=1

- dspp

[dspp]

It seems Musk is baiting the SEC for all he can in the twittersphere. That will end badly at some point.

Anyway, here is my working hypothesis as I mull over the evidence:

early in Q1 order book was low
Tesla batch builds against predicted orders, and tunes batch sizes & marketing to match with sellers
you can do that if 90% of your market is in CONUS, but as soon as you start shipping to RoW in significant volume risk of stranded assets sitting in a foreign dock go way up
And so Tesla cut back on production rate to roughly match demand coming in
And in any case Tesla did not have spare working capital to keep plants running at max capacity building finished goods stock AND also stuffing the logistics pipeline
So in early quarter building at a car rate lower than the max capacity of Panasonic
Which worries the hell out of Panasonic who are facing a FID on expansion, and who are wondering what Maxwellisation might do to their product, and who need to make a factory move on the S/X cell against rapidly falling S/X model sales, and against a (soon-ish ?) S/X model refresh to the bigger cells.
Then late in quarter orders started rising
But when Tesla try to press accelerator they still have insufficient working capital, and they discover that the effective capacity of GF1 cells is constrained to below peak capacity
So Tesla end up throttled to ship less than orders over the whole quarterly cycle
And if they ran at a loss then (all = ) working capital went down still further
.....
They need to shift to a balanced quarter worldwide with all sales of all models roughly equal in all months in all markets as otherwise they will have sub-optimal logistics & sales channels in all of the world, i.e. people standing idle for 2m and maxed out for 1m
They need the working capital to build into stock, most especially at cell level, maybe also at pack level (and if spray shop is still a limiting constraint, then also at finished car level). That's a lot of MORE capital and MORE risk.
And at some point they need either MORE capital and/or LOWER margins to build out the lease option.
Oh, and MORE capital to build out charger and service network some more
.....
Staying viable long enough for China factory to come onstream (sometime in 2020) is going to be like deja vu all over again

No wonder Musk is having a twitter meltdown

Interesting.

- dspp

[BobbyD]

Various stuff coming out to the effect that Panasonic's cell production is at about 23GWh, and that this is the practical Giga 1 constraint for tesla at present. I've seen analyses to this effect from various individuals on different forums, over the last few days, but this is a link to a subsequent comment by Musk saying much the same thing, to wit that model 3 is supply constrained, not demand constrained. If so that makes the Panasonic announcement that they will not invest in 2020 to move capacity UP above the current 35 GWh most odd. It is almost as if there is a definitions war going on in public regarding what 'production capacity' really means.

https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gi ... elon-musk/

all most curiouser and curiouser.

Oh, and a more thoughtful than usual long view piece

https://seekingalpha.com/article/425435 ... app=1&dr=1

- dspp

Has that 35GWh figure which an awful lot of people seem to have taken as gospel previously been used on any official channel, like for instance Musk's twitter feed? That would be a 45% misstatement if it has.

If Model 3 is supply constrained why did it produce 14,000 more model 3's than it delivered, and why is it looking to dilute sales with leasing?

Meanwhile down on the farm:

Musk Tweets Another Tesla Forecast in Midst of Talks With SEC


Elon Musk
✔
@elonmusk
Replying to @KnightmarArchon and 2 others
Very much so. There are 2.5B cars & trucks on Earth. Even replacing 1% of that fleet would require making 25M vehicles per year. Tesla will make over 500k cars in next 12 months, but that’s a mere 2% of 25M or 0.02% of global vehicle fleet. Car industry slow -> demand >> supply.

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -next-year

Tesla are on target to make under 400,000 cars this calendar year, are apparently supply constrained, and will deliver 500,000 cars in the next 12 months... tweeted whilst in talks with the SEC about breaches of an agreement regarding his tweets not being properly verified bought about by a spurious prediction of Tesla's production

[PeterGray]

Various stuff coming out to the effect that Panasonic's cell production is at about 23GWh, and that this is the practical Giga 1 constraint for tesla at present.

You are perhaps right, dspp, but what I've seen, which may be much more limited that what you have has Pana saying they are constrained by demand from Tesla and Musk saying Tesla are constrained by Pana.

Perhaps the truth lies in between, but given Musk's relationship to proper reporting, I can't see how anyone could seriously choose Musk's version over Pana's without additional evidence. If, of course, it turns out he's right, perhaps he might learn the lesson that undermining his reputation for accuracy in the interests of short term attention grabbing will bite you back in the end. You never know - pigs may fly.

[BobbyD]

Oh, and whilst Tesla can't produce/sell anough electric cars China might have produced too many EV companies...

The $18 Billion Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

...There are now 486 EV manufacturers registered in China, more than triple the number from two years ago. While sales of passenger EVs are projected to reach a record 1.6 million units this year, that’s likely not enough to keep all those assembly lines humming, prompting warnings that the ballooning EV market could burst and leave behind only a few survivors.

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... g-in-china

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD

The existential threat to VW is that they might produce a winner so big and that they can produce so efficiently that they have to stop paying as many people to build them... I admire your tenacity Ody, but if that's supposed to be a problem for VW I think we might have to redefine 'problem'.

Paying redundancy to 1/3 of the work force would hurt VW.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

BobbyD

The existential threat to VW is that they might produce a winner so big and that they can produce so efficiently that they have to stop paying as many people to build them... I admire your tenacity Ody, but if that's supposed to be a problem for VW I think we might have to redefine 'problem'.

Paying redundancy to 1/3 of the work force would hurt VW.

Regards,

Not as much as not having to pay them would help VW!

More production, lower cost... Tragedy.

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD

The existential threat to VW is that they might produce a winner so big and that they can produce so efficiently that they have to stop paying as many people to build them... I admire your tenacity Ody, but if that's supposed to be a problem for VW I think we might have to redefine 'problem'.

Paying redundancy to 1/3 of the work force would hurt VW.

Regards,

Not as much as not having to pay them would help VW!

More production, lower cost... Tragedy.

You wish, the effect on VW of that sort of hit to them combined with increased competition, labour troubles, large capex, ... etc would be difficult for them.

Regards,

[PeterGray]

Ody,

There may be something in some of those points, but your really should recognise that any issue for VW, and other big auto is always seen by you as a major problem, whereas any issues that relate to Tesla are either false or evidence of imminent world domination. I can't see that as a sound basis for investment.

[odysseus2000]

Ody,

There may be something in some of those points, but your really should recognise that any issue for VW, and other big auto is always seen by you as a major problem, whereas any issues that relate to Tesla are either false or evidence of imminent world domination. I can't see that as a sound basis for investment.

Historically incumbents are murdered by secular change.

Almost everyone always believes that Goliath will beat David, but in practice David has a good run rate when their is serious secular change & a business model becomes untenable.

Most of the arguments supporting legacy auto revolve around the belief that they are too big to fail. Historically this has rarely been the case. It is especially a dodgy idea when incumbents in autos have a regular habit of being broken by cyclical business change, witness most US auto, all of the combined British Leyland business.

Regards,