The Crazy Tesla Play

[disneysteve]

well, that pretty much goes for anything. Some products are released before they're ready, and 1st generation customers are the beta testers for working out the problems. It is well known that first year of first model cars almost always have issues that are fixed with subsequent year models.

Its one reason why i never go to a brand new restaurant, even if it's franchise owned. Always best to wait a few months (at least) for the kinks to get worked out.

service is almost always slower and food quality almost always worse as the new chef and employees learn to work with the equipment, learn the menu, learn to work with each other, etc.

Agreed. I would never buy a new car that just came out or got redesigned. And we also won’t go to a restaurant until it’s been open for at least 3 months.

[JBinKC]

My issue with Musk is his using of crony capitalism to foot his agenda and is constantly trying to cover up his past mistakes by digging a deeper hole by masking the problems at Solar City through Tesla which was technically insolvent when he acquired it.

As for the cars itself there is major competition that is much better capitalized and it appears the price point of the low end model 3 is too low

Where I admire him the most is his relative cost efficiencies he has done at Space X in the space program.

[Singuy]

My issue with Musk is his using of crony capitalism to foot his agenda and is constantly trying to cover up his past mistakes by digging a deeper hole by masking the problems at Solar City through Tesla which was technically insolvent when he acquired it.

As for the cars itself there is major competition that is much better capitalized and it appears the price point of the low end model 3 is too low

Where I admire him the most is his relative cost efficiencies he has done at Space X in the space program.

The competition is years behind, but eventually they will catch up. Catching up is not a concern of mine or Teslas. In fact Tesla wants other companies to catch up since it's literally their mission statement to accelerate the advent of sustainable transportation. Their mission was and still is to light a fire under these car manufacture's ass to increase EV production. Tesla is the next level of energy supplier with battery advancement in technology and manufacturing. Cars are just a by product to get people excited about going renewables, because their intention is to completely change the landscape of energy capture and usage as a whole. Phase 2 of their mission is to accelerate the advent of sustainable ENERGY from super high volume battery production and increase innovation through the usage of less dirty materials while increasing density. It's a trifecta of Solar tiles, power walls/grid, and transportation. They will eventually supply every car manufacture batteries for their electric cars since the manufacturing capacity required to say bringing Honda Civic EVs at 18k/car to millions of people is only possible through Tesla's gigafactory.

I think anyone focusing on Tesla's car production is just short sighted since it's not even their goal to mass produce cheap EV cars. They would much rather produce a symbol of future technology and sell their tech to the mass market as they catch on. You really have to ask yourself why Elon wants a hundred gigafactories..he said this is needed to completely take the entire world off fossil fuel. Guess who is the only one in the world right now spearheading this project?

[james.hendrickson]

The competition is years behind, but eventually they will catch up. Catching up is not a concern of mine or Teslas. In fact Tesla wants other companies to catch up since it's literally their mission statement to accelerate the advent of sustainable transportation. Their mission was and still is to light a fire under these car manufacture's ass to increase EV production. Tesla is the next level of energy supplier with battery advancement in technology and manufacturing. Cars are just a by product to get people excited about going renewables, because their intention is to completely change the landscape of energy capture and usage as a whole. Phase 2 of their mission is to accelerate the advent of sustainable ENERGY from super high volume battery production and increase innovation through the usage of less dirty materials while increasing density. It's a trifecta of Solar tiles, power walls/grid, and transportation. They will eventually supply every car manufacture batteries for their electric since the manufacturing capacity required to say bring Honda Civic EVs at 18k/car to millions of people is only possible through Tesla's gigafactory.

I think anyone focusing on Tesla's car production is just short sighted since it's not even their goal to mass produce cheap EV cars. They would much rather produce a symbol of future technology and sell their tech to the mass market as they catch on. You really have to ask yourself why Elon wants a hundred gigafactories..he said this is needed to completely take the entire world off fossil fuel. Guess who is the only one in the world right now spearheading this project?

Singuy - everything you say is correct...and Musk needs to sell a lot of cars to make a profit. If he can't make a profit, or at least break even, his enterprise may not last.

[Singuy]

Singuy - everything you say is correct...and Musk needs to sell a lot of cars to make a profit. If he can't make a profit, or at least break even, his enterprise may not last.

Good thing his model 3s are profitable at 5k/week. But honestly a company like Tesla that is in charge of world changing missions probably doesn't have to be profitable for a long while. I mean he has 0.3 gigafactories built while other car manufactures are just rolling some EVs off the factories next year or 2020? It's like expecting Amazon.com to be profitable after they have just started to sell other products beside books. Time scale wise, Tesla is still in its infancy even though they have been around for 10+ years.

End goal is to have a world on 90% EVs, 50-80 gigafactories pumping out batteries for these EVs, and solar tiles on every house.
They are 0.01% from that goal. Asking a company like this to turn a profit is premature and hence why Tesla wants to go private.

[corn18]

Good thing his model 3s are profitable at 5k/week. But honestly a company like Tesla that is in charge of world changing missions probably doesn't have to be profitable for a long while. I mean he has 0.3 gigafactories built while other car manufactures are just rolling some EVs off the factories next year or 2020? It's like expecting Amazon.com to be profitable after they have just started to sell other products beside books. Time scale wise, Tesla is still in its infancy even though they have been around for 10+ years.

End goal is to have a world on 90% EVs, 50-80 gigafactories pumping out batteries for these EVs, and solar tiles on every house.
They are 0.01% from that goal. Asking a company like this to turn a profit is premature and hence why Tesla wants to go private.

SO have you gone long on TSLA? When I was building my 1 stock of each company I like, I wanted a share of SpaceX but that isn't available. SpaceX has been a royal pain in my butt as we compete with him on the launch systems. I love his arrogance and courage. I think he will get the cost to orbit down below $1,000 / lbs and might even go lower.

I didn't buy TSLA because I don't own one (but would like to). I also didn't buy it because of his arrogance towards investors. When you are public, you have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. He hates that. Leave me alone, I will make money when I get around to it. I don't care if the stock price is $100 or $1,000. Doesn't impact my plan.

He should stick with VC and self funding for Tesla and agree he should go private so he can have the freedom to accomplish everything you state.

[Singuy]

Yes, I went long on Tesla the minute I saw his production plant hit 5k Model 3s, and surprisingly I got my car delivery date just 2 months after reserving mine. I had to see if Tesla can keep up production because Tesla cars are required to keep their lights on while they continue to execute their long term vision. A company that can't self sustain themselves at least to some degree with such a crazy ambitious long term goal was too risky for my taste.

After this Sunday, I will be living my life on sustainable energy. Tesla solar panels that feeds my house 125% of the power I need, and I'll be using the 25% overage to charge the car. Of course my wife's car is still gas because Tesla Model X are way out of our budget but I would say this is close enough. This set up is to hedge against oil, world instability, and inflation with a byproduct of reducing carbon foot print.

[Tabs]

Well, as it turned out, I was quite wrong about a lot of things in this thread. Some things I should have been able to surmise, but did not. Others, however, I would not have been able to surmise until now that news broke about it. Although deep down, I confess I really would like to see Tesla succeed, for the sake of objectivity, let's take a look at a few facts, including ones that just revealed itself very recently. For example:

* Elon said "funding secured". Funding was not secured.

* Tesla (model 3) is actually the one that needs to catch up to the competition. Both the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt are already available on the open market. Even the Mercedes B-class is available now (which uses the Tesla powertrain). To be fair, none of them are selling all that well, and the Model 3 remains as popular as ever.

* Higher production numbers is not always better numbers. Turns out that, in a bid to meet quota, Tesla may be regressing from quality lean manufacturing to a "Build now, fix later" attitude that is resulting in a less than reliable Model 3.

* Tesla, or the Gigfactory to be more precise, will need a crap ton of lithium and cobalt to produce the mass quantities they are hoping for. To be fair, I am not sure how this will play out just yet, so this is probably more of a long term problem.

* EV range will always remain an issue. Within range, and with the right use case, it's great. However, beyond that limit, well any road trips might be an issue without some planning ahead. Even then, the fastest recharge is still 30 minutes on the supercharger. This is the reason why Toyota is touting the Hydrogen fuel cell as their alternative fuel champion instead, and until then, they are producing great hybrid cars.

Again, I can not stress enough that I actually do like Elon Musk, and is wishing for his success. Poor guy spends 120 hours a week trying to make his dreams come true. I can certainly respect that. I am also a fan of anyone willing to make the jump to EV. I think we can all agree that buying into Tesla is essentially putting your money where your mouth is towards what is hopefully a better future.

However, as a fellow SAer whose personal mission, like many others here I imagine, is also to make the best investment choices for your money. In that light, and although it is much less glamorous, I also recommend looking into the Prius, which is very affordable and is capable of reaching 200,000 miles at a realistic 50 mpg. This, with none of the charging issues, though of course, you are still using fossil fuel.

If you still prefer an EV, the Chevy Bolt has been crowned the EV car of 2018 by Consumer Report. If you think that is still too much money, Nissan's Leaf can be had, gently used, for a very small sum (sometimes, less than $10k), and maintenance will be equally gentle and small. I am not sure if everyone knows this as well, but Nissan also took a big gamble trying to bring affordable EVs to the masses. It's a shame their gamble so far is not paying off and went largely unnoticed. Hopefully, their gen 2 will fare better, and I hope people will give them a chance as well.

[greenskeeper]

battery packs should be "standardized" across the electric vehicle market. That way you could pull into a "service station" and someone (or robot) replaces the pack with a freshly charged one within 5 minutes. That would be the game changer to make electrics compete with ICEs

I'll keep driving my old fashioned fuel burning vehicles.

[disneysteve]

battery packs should be "standardized" across the electric vehicle market. That way you could pull into a "service station" and someone (or robot) replaces the pack with a freshly charged one within 5 minutes. That would be the game changer to make electrics compete with ICEs

I’ve said the same thing. Imagine if every car manufacturer used a different fuel that required different equipment to refill. Oh, and a refill took at least 30 minutes. We’d still be riding horses. Until they standardize things so they can be quickly and easily changed at a “gas” station, electric cars will remain a novelty.

[Singuy]

I’ve said the same thing. Imagine if every car manufacturer used a different fuel that required different equipment to refill. Oh, and a refill took at least 30 minutes. We’d still be riding horses. Until they standardize things so they can be quickly and easily changed at a “gas” station, electric cars will remain a novelty.

No doubt. I think Tesla is pulling ideas out of Apple's playbook. Increase desirability while building superchargers like crazy. Supercharges will be Tesla's app store. And then make their batteries only compatible with the infrastructure eventually forcing other car companies to buy from Gigafactory. The rate at which Tesla is building supercharges is borderline ridiculous. While bean counters are focused on Tesla's competition, Tesla is actually building a monopoly under their noses.

Just picked up the M3. Workmanship is I would say mediocre but then again I never inspected panel gaps with other cars I've purchased(my Infiniti's panel sits a few mm lower from one door vs the other). So of course I was more critical to the workmanship with Tesla considering all the complaints. There were some minor panel gap issues and two a few paint issues which are all getting fixed. They will provide me with a loaner so I'm pretty excited to try out a Model S.

So far the car is pretty amazing. You do feel like you are driving the future. My gas power cars all have micro vibrations while idle since they are 50k mile cars. Also the noise level is the same as my Jag@hwy speed which is pretty amazing. Everything is pretty automated...such as opening my garage door when I'm close to the house automatically, or high beam assist while driving at night(these are 3k upgrades for Mercedes usually). I was greeted to a small update this AM and the computer showed me a list of new features and functions. Elon said his next update will add karaoke and Atari games? He's insane. So I'm pretty convinced that this is the future or something close to it. Test drive one and you'll see why. It pulls like a high priced car, and its refinement feels like a high priced car(minus the exterior issues).

[disneysteve]

Supercharges will be Tesla's app store. And then make their batteries only compatible with the infrastructure eventually forcing other car companies to buy from Gigafactory. The rate at which Tesla is building supercharges is borderline ridiculous. While bean counters are focused on Tesla's competition, Tesla is actually building a monopoly under their noses.

If Tesla can be the one to come up with THE battery tech that every other company ends up adopting, that will be a game-changer for sure. As I said, until "fueling" an EV is quick and standardized, EVs will just be novelty items. There's no way I would ever buy a car that can only go 300-400 miles on a charge without a quick and convenient way to recharge it.

[Singuy]

I don't follow Tesla at all but I know I see more and more of them showing up on the road. And they recently opened a showroom near my house.

What is the main production problem? What has prevented them from making more vehicles?

Not quick but charging at home is way more convenient vs going to a gas station. You get 30 miles/hr so 10 hours get you 300 miles which is worth 1 week of driving. So to plug in your car that takes less than 10 seconds once per week is way easier than going to a gas station. Tesla supercharges are pretty quick at 400 miles/hr. Supercharges 3.0 is suppose to do 800miles/hr. You really need to worry about this only on those rare cases you forgot to charge at home or going on road trips. Road tripping my car to places beyond 150 miles one way is about 0% of my usage per year since I hate driving long distance(takes a long time to get out of FL and Georgia) so we usually just fly+rent a car.

[Tabs]

I don't remember where I saw it now, but Tesla's batteries are arguably the most advanced ones that can be manufactured today, although R&D continues on improving it. It is also one of the best in terms of longevity, projected to retain as much as 93% of its original total capacity even after 100,000 miles.

The problem with the battery isn't the tech really, but rather, having enough raw materials on hand to manufacture it. This useful infographic helps to shed some light on the issue at hand. Long story short, to get the supplies we need, we have to play nice with a lot of conflict countries that don't particularly like us, and even then, supplies are limited.

[Tabs]

Stumbled across a relevant video regarding battery swapping.