Mega Thread for Tesla Investors

Hey, serial Tesla bashers! Make your goal post moving easy with this inflatable goal post! Buy now; you never know when the next TSLA short squeeze will leave you with empty pockets!

Well, "anywhere" within the ~150-200 mile driving range away from the rather few hydrogen fueling stations found only in one region of California, anyway. Fortunately, Tesla car owners can drive anywhere in the country, and generally find a Supercharger station not far away.

Hmmm, 5 minutes after you spend all that time driving to one of the few scattered special stations where you can fill up...

If you don't find it unexpectedly closed, as H2 filling stations often are, especially lately with the growing hydrogen fuel shortage...

If you don't find you have to wait for the station to re-pressurize after the last customer, as many "fool cell" car drivers report...

If there's no waiting line, another frequent problem for "fool cell" car drivers...

From Green Car Reports: "Hydrogen supply shortage leaves fuel cell cars gasping in California"

I guess you didn't get the memo: BEV drivers charge at home or at work more than 90% of the time, and generally don't have to waste any time hunting for a fueling station, nor wait for charging. Not even 5 minutes. Too bad about all the inconveniences you put up with!

Plus: Gosh, those Earth-2 Superchargers are slow! Fortunately, the Superchargers here on Earth-1 will charge a Tesla car in typically 30 minutes to, at the most, 45 minutes.

 

Welcome to the forums! We are on the same page about Tesla's future.

I own a 2017 Prius Prime and 2014 BMW i3-REx and upgraded in 2016 from a 2003 and 2010 Prius. Having plug-in hybrids, I can compare the gas and electric costs. We'll leave off the 25 mi Prius Prime which works EV around town and is really a highway, gas car. But I did some benchmarks with the BMW i3-REx.

Using a loop from Huntsville AL to Nashville TN and back I found:

• $0.02 to $0.03 per mile EV in town, both cars
• $0.06 to $0.07 per mile on gas, both cars, typically highway
• $0.15 to $0.21 per mile EV on highway, only the BMW i3-REx has fast DC charging

VW's Electrify America network has start-up problems and I've only gotten charges 2 out of 3 times. At the BMW max rate of 48-50 kW (200 mi/hr.), I'm charged in 30 minutes IF it works. But I have to test them to find a working charger.

There are so few VW electric vehicles, they don't have the commitment to keep the charging network up and working. There are a lot of non-VW electric car owners but their manufactures are not helping VW get their charging network up and reliable.

I have a hard requirement to travel from Huntsville to the family homes in Stillwater OK and Coffeyville KS. Only the long range, Model 3 can make the Little Rock AR to Tulsa OK leg. When the Fort Worth AR SuperCharger becomes operational, any Tesla could make that leg.

Regardless, good luck with you Model 3. Please start a thread in the Model 3 forum about your 'lessons learned.'

Bob Wilson

 

That's what concerns me the most about the Electrify America charging network; that VW has no incentive to maintain the system.

Here's hoping the network is sold off to a for-profit company which will have an incentive to maintain the chargers. Here's hoping that happens soon!

​

 

That's strange; on my screen, the chart shows coal as the #3 source of electricity, behind natural gas and nuclear power.

Has my system been hacked by the anti-coal lobby?

 

Tesla Model 3 Races Past Toyota Corolla In U.S. Passenger Car Sales
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-sales-pass-toyota-corolla/

I know I am wading into a hornets nest by posting this. Let us neither dismiss it nor read too much into it. However, the very fact that a $50,000+ car has sold more than tested but tired model which sells at half the cost, is telling. The cars are not comparable and I will not subscribe to the argument that Tesla was the dominant cause for a decline in the sales of Corolla. It could have had a small impact and most probably did. Sales of Corolla have been in decline since last year, before the Model 3 came out and major reason is that customers are moving to SUVs and like as well as want more value. However the surge in Model 3 sales is to me, indicative of two things, there is a large interest in BEV's and that customers are willing to pay for advanced features including comfort. As I have always maintained, we need to see how the next few months fare for Tesla, but this is just one more reference point that the market is changing in BEV's direction. BEV's are taking off and IMHO, Tesla is the biggest beneficiary as even today there are the only real game in town.

 

Old joke, "I could tell you but then ..."

One answer is SuperCharger. You get a Tesla and you automatically have access to the largest, integrated, fast DC charger network in the USA. A network that unlike the competition is open 24x7 and easily handles +80 kW rates. A network that supports Tesla cars, part of what you buy. In contrast:

• dealer chargers - locked up after business hours
• VW's Electrify America - suffering a lot of infantile problems
• EVgo - in Nashville, two tested worked each time
• others - disappointing, low power, expensive, often down
• no commitment to support EV sales

Bob Wilson

 

As a percentage, yes Bolt sales have gone up by 25% compared to last month. In raw numbers it is 325 more units, which is not much when it is priced at least $12,000 cheaper (if not more). Here is my take on why other cars are not taking off, having looked at the Bolt, Leaf and I3 closely.

1. They do not have the range of the Model 3. The MSRP of I3 is about the same as that of Model 3 base price, yet, it has about one third the range. Yes, I am sure I can manage most days on the range of the I3, but I am not sure how I would like it to start every day with just a 100 mile range when for about the same price I can get something with a 300 mile range.
   
2. Even if those cars can be obtained cheaper, they do not have the premium upgrades that Model 3 has and the potential for self driving and other upgrades. The technology is considered as superior to the others.
   
3. There are smaller cars (hatchbacks) instead of a larger sedan
4. They do not have the dedicated charging network that the Tesla has
5. There is a certain cachet in the Tesla name, it has what marketers describe as "esteem" value, the other cars are more pedestrian (yes BMW is a luxury brand but is not considered top of the line in EVs)
   
6. The other brands are not pushing EV's with a lot of marketing and incentives. There is a simple reason for that IMHO: If they push the EVs, most sales will come at the expense of the other models that manufacturer has i.e. cannibalization, that they are not likely to draw new customers to their brand. Nissan might prefer to sell a new Altima instead of Leaf, unless they know the customer will either buy the Leaf or move elsewhere.
   
7. The cynic in me also thinks that the other manufacturers are waiting for the incentives on the Model 3 to get reduced, so that they appear more competitive. However that assumes that they do not think the $35K version will come out soon or if it does, it is so stripped down that their models shine.
   
8. There are very generous incentives in CA and some other states including the tax credit. Most people who can get the tax credit have higher incomes and can afford the Model 3, especially when you have generous incentives. Those states have higher gas prices, like California does. As I had mentioned somewhere else, if I were to drive to California (which I do about 2-4 times a year), I like to plan my journey so that I refuel on the Arizona side of the border.

To boil it down, there are enough affluent customers, who are willing to pay for value. They see more value for money in the model 3 compared to other choices.

Unlike both extreme sides of this argument (those who believe that Tesla is invincible and those who think bankruptcy is imminent), I believe that a well heeled competitor could take Tesla down as Tesla has some weaknesses. I do not see any such competitor on the horizon right now. It needs single minded focus, investment, willingness to think long term, and put together the right team. Current ICE manufacturers (except possibly Volvo) are not willing to bet house on EV's and as long as they dawdle between EV's and ICE's, there will be conflicting priorities. So for Tesla Investors and other bears to be right, a nimble competitor needs to emerge. For that reason, I will not bet against Tesla, till I see the real competitor. For now most appear to be paper tigers.

 

May be you should move it the Bolt forum, but the reason I think the 4Q was good was for people to take advantage of the tax credit before the year end. That will be case for Model 3 also, and hence I am not sure that there will be as big a jump in Q4. If I were GM, I might wait until Q1 of 2019 and push the Bolt then as incentives for Model 3 would have come down, but the $35K model may not be available, providing a small window of opportunity.

 

FYI, earning date "Oct 30 - Nov 5".

Bob Wilson

 

I don't merely agree; I don't see how any reasonable person can believe otherwise.

What I find puzzling (if not at least irritating) is that some are trying to belittle the rapid growth of Model 3 sales because the sedan market is shrinking. But that makes the runaway success of the Model 3 even more astonishing! The Model 3 is achieving (so far as I know) faster sales growth than any auto maker has seen for a very long time, despite the fact that it's entering into a shrinking market segment!

That suggests there may be even more market potential for the upcoming Model Y... which is somewhat mind-boggling. Is it possible that sales of the Model 3 and the Model Y will grow to eclipse every other model of automobile on the market, bar none? A couple of years ago, I would have laughed at that idea as hopelessly naive and utterly unrealistic. But now? I'm not so sure...

Well, I certainly hope so! I hope the surge in Model 3 sales does indicate the start of real growth in BEV sales; the event that is labeled "The Breakthrough!" on the chart below. But I've had similar hopes in the past, and I've seen them dashed. So I'm going to hold off on believing that, finally, BEV sales have entered the "S-curve" that marks the market growth of a new tech in every disruptive tech revolution. In hindsight, industry analysts may point to the astounding 455,000 paid reservations for the Model 3 as "The Breakthrough" event. Certainly at the time, there were a lot of remarks that it was a history-making event.

 

But why is there such a cachet to the Tesla name? Why is it that Tesla's cars are seen as so desirable? That didn't come out of nowhere. It's not a matter of fooling people into believing Tesla's cars are better when they actually aren't. There has to be some real cause behind the popularity and demand.

Other BEVs have the same silky-smooth, quiet ride, the instant response to pressing the "Go pedal", and prompt acceleration in stoplight drag races. So what sets Tesla cars apart? Why is there so much more demand for the Model 3 than for the Chevy Bolt EV or the VW e-Golf any other BEV?

I think it's not a matter of any one thing you can point to, but rather the whole, the gestalt, of the Tesla driving experience. As the "Everyday Driver" reviewers put it in their review of the Model X (see link below):

I get in it and we're sitting here and we drive it and we do all the functions and they just work. Things just work. It's fantastic.

It's intuitive and it's doing things that other people haven't even bothered to worry about, for whatever reason.​

I think the reason why we haven't seen more reviews talk about this is because you can't deconstruct what makes a Tesla car so much better than average. There's no one single thing that you can point to for why Tesla cars are seen by so many as the best cars on the market.

To put it more succinctly: Tesla cars are more than the sum of their parts. A lot more!

 

There are a variety of reasons for the cachet including those you have pointed out.

1. The larger than life presence of Elon. Most of Auto CEO's are heard not seen. We have had some recent celebrity Auto CEO's mainly Carlos Goshn and Sergio Marchione, but again in a more limited sense. Elon comes from the financial industry (many people have used PayPal), he has a great vision and his able to articulate it, is not bashful about using twitter. Hence he has a large following. Most people will not know who the CEO of GM or Ford are, many know about Elon and this has an impact on the brand.
   
2. As Bob Wilson has been pointing out, Tesla is a BEV designed from the ground up, not an ICE car retrofitted with BEV technology. This is significant as this addresses the driving experience that Pushmi-Pullyu talks about. When you are not constrained by previous designs, then you can focus on specific features that make a difference. This makes the overall experience better.
   
3. There is a paradigm shift in how we think of cars and of how cars are serviced. The first cars were mechanical products, you had to manually crank it to get it started. Slowly, electronics came in to manage actual automotive controls. So the mechanical portions (engine, drive train etc) became a smaller portion of overall cost and effort. As a part of this natural progression, electrical, electronic and electro-mechanical devices are replacing pure mechanical devices. As an comparison, even 15 years back, we were shooting photographs with film camera. Yes there were some electronics in the camera, but a lot of photography was based on manual settings. Today, with digital cameras, the roll of film has gone by the wayside. Yes the camera looks the same and does the same (and more) that the old film camera did, but the insides are different. Unless, I am a serious photographer, I would not use a film camera anymore. Similarly, a car is becoming more of a computer, a hardware and software device that automates your transportation. Being constantly exposed to technology, users are willing embrace this shift. Of all manufacturers, Tesla is the one who has recognized this trend and is acting on it. For example, with ICE's, if the check engine light comes on, I can go to Autozone and find out the code, but it does me no good as they are often vague. I still have to go the dealership, pay their fee and not know if I am being overcharged. With remote diagnostics, I can stay at home and someone in a Tesla facility can diagnose it, just like I can have someone remotely diagnose why a program is crashing on my computer. There is a convenience factor that cannot be ignored. The mobile service is another great innovation, again fueled by a different approach to servicing.
   
4. There are some people who relish going to car dealership, and they consider themselves great negotiators and feel they have got the best deal. (If that were true, most dealerships would have gone bankrupt.) On the other hand, most people dread the car buying experience. There is no reason you need the middleman who is trying to not only sell you the car, but other products and services you do not need (insurance, additional warranties, unneeded accessories, financial products etc.) The ability to go to a company showroom, (not a dealer showroom) where the sales person is more interested in talking to you about the product rather than trying to sell you the kitchen sink, is important to many people. Many people appreciate Tesla's willingness to take on a well entrenched system and hence a better opinion of the brand.
   
5. The dedicated charging network also gives a major confidence boost in the brand.

So better product, better use of technology, better buying experience, better service experience, better support infrastructure, and a celebrity CEO combine to give Tesla a brand and name recognition, unlike other auto manufacturers. Yes skeptic's will say that the features are over blown, it is just marketing lies at the best, others also have the same technology and capabilities etc etc. If that is true, let us see a car brand that comes out with a better product and changes the car buying and usage experience. That is my problem with the naysayers, they are not acknowledging that market for car buying and usage is changing and Tesla is creating a new trend. And, no, the change is not temporary, it is permanent. If you are competitor to Tesla and want to take Tesla down, you can do it but you cannot do it the old way. I would say this to the Tesla critics "Instead of waiting for Tesla to fall flat on its face, encourage other manufacturers to compete aggressively against Tesla."

 

Yeah, that's why the Tesla Model S consistently rates #1 on Consumer Reports' survey of customer satisfaction among car owners; because Tesla is so successful with false advertising. It's also why the Model X is in the top 10 on the same surveys.

Oh, wait...

Certainly personal recommendations and word-of-mouth advertising is the primary way Tesla's cars are promoted. I'm not sure how that could possibly be avoided or outlawed... or why anyone would want to.

What is illegal in some States (but not others) is "bird dogging", which is paying a customer to act as a commissioned salesman for a company. Tesla did have to revise the way it set up its referral program, because that did originally violate bird dogging laws in some States.

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Gosh, "TeslaInvestors", if I didn't know better, I might suggest your comments are so hopelessly biased as to be a waste of time to read.

 

Thanks for you very well thought out comments, interestedinEV. Definitely some food for thought there!

You're certainly correct to say that Elon's popularity helps advertise Tesla's cars. But I'm rather skeptical of the idea that many people are actually buying those cars because they admire Elon.

People are buying Tesla cars because they really are better. That's reflected in the way the Model S consistently rates #1 in customer satisfaction on Consumer Reports' annual surveys. I submit that people are not saying "Yes, I really like my car, and I given the chance I would buy it again" because they admire Elon Musk!

In fact, people have written long "love letter" reviews about the Model S without even once mentioning the name "Elon" or "Musk". Here's my favorite, and it's quite entertaining as well as informative:

"What it's like to own a Tesla Model S -- A cartoonist's review of his magical space car"

And amusing to me, as a "Grammar Nazi," is that the role of film has also mostly gone by the wayside! Both are true.

​

 

Here is the simple point where we are not in agreement. You believe that Tesla is doing something wrong by having current customers becoming product advocates. Any good marketing person will tell you that the best source of new customers is existing customer referrals. Now dealerships routinely give a gift card of $50 or something like that for any referral. Tesla may have done things wrong, but today if a Tesla customer recommends their car, it is based an genuine appreciation for the product, not based on a $50 gift card.

I had a friend who bought a Ford SUV recently. When I asked him about it, he told me why he preferred that car but made it clear that it was based on his particular needs and. It was not love at first sight, it was very matter of fact. On the other hands, we joke that when we have a Tesla owner in say social event, we should not get them started as they do not stop. These owners show enthusiasm, an emotional connection, a feeling that they are a part of something bigger. You have to experience it to understand it. And let us be very clear, these people do not expect me to use their name for referrals, they know I already have a reservation and that I know to do it on my own. They just seem to want to encourage me to take the plunge.

Let me tell you that I joined this discussion board being a Tesla skeptic. I wanted a good reason why I should buy a non Tesla BEV. I went and test drove these cars. I dealt with these sales people. And I came back frustrated as these sales people were only interested in getting me to sign on the dotted line. They either had poor product knowledge or they felt that they could use FUD tactics to scare me into avoiding Tesla. Even as much as 2 weeks back I was told that I could order a Tesla Model 3 and wait for months even for the LR model. One person told me that Tesla owners were complaining that doors were falling off hours after taking delivery. I asked him for some confirmation and he lost interest in me.

I do not own a Tesla, but more research I do, the more I like the product and strategy. I do not appreciate everything Elon says and does. He may not be person I want to have a beer with. I also think he needs to give up some of this operational responsibilities. But to give the devil his due, he has done something I can appreciate it. There is an intense loyalty to Tesla from their customers. No other brand has that. Say what you want, it is a cult, it is based on lies, it smoke and mirrors... That still does not change the fact.