I’m skeptical of an analyst that’s publicly slamming a company he’s betting will lose value. He’s lining his own pocket if people believe him.
With that said we all knew Tesla was grossly over-valued and people were investing in a dream. With all the back-orders and public desire for the Model 3 there’s a guaranteed market. Those orders have value on the books assuming nothing really bad happens. Hopefully the Model S recall is an easy fix and doesn’t drag the company down financially.
I’ve completely lost track of where we were on production estimates. Can you summarize your notices? It seems sooner than expected which would be a good sign.
Well, assuming those orders remain on the books. ”Elon Musk says people are canceling Tesla Model 3 orders because it’s like an ‘hour-and-a-half wait for hamburgers’”. While this is actually a good thing in the short term which allows Tesla to fulfill a larger percentage of remaining orders, it is problematic in the long term if they can’t get production rates up because while many of the people ordering Tesla cars are doing so out of a fannish devotion to Musk, for the general public a car is an applicance and if they can’t buy a Frigidaire they’ll get an LG instead. And regardless of the orders on the books, if Tesla cannot pay suppliers they’ll stop getting materials and parts; no supplier is going to wait for years to be repaid once the company starts getting positive cash flow, hence why meeting production targets was key to keeping investors comfortable and opening the tap when a new infusion of cash is needed.
It is even more of an issue if the cars that are produced have quality escapes and reliability issues that have been reported in the early Model X and Model 3 vehicles. Tesla got high marks for customer satisfaction on the Model S but those vehicles were essentially hand-fitted and sold at a premium, in the same price range as other luxury performance cars that owners are often willing to forgive flaws in exchange for the marquee. The Model 3 is in a very different market segment and will soon be competing with existing mass market vehicle manufacturers building all-electric and plug-in hybrids of comparable range and capability; these manufacturers have long established quality assurance programs and supplier networks they can leverage to get the lowest price on components. Despite its (ridiculous over-)valuation, Tesla is still a small startup in the car world, and the history of automotive manufacturing is rife with people with clever ideas and ground-breaking designs who went utterly bankrupt.
Stranger
I read the link and like so many things Tesla has said over the years, that statistic strikes me as bullshit. It says there have been 320 million miles driven in cars with Autopilot hardware. Who knows how many miles have been driven in Autopilot? As far as I can tell, the actual fatal accident rate is once in a… while.
I think at this point one good option is having the board clean house and hire car people to run the company.
I found a cite that says of the first generation Autopilot, about 300 million out of 1.2 billion miles driven were on Autopilot.
So out of the 320 million miles driven, maybe we can spitball that there’s one fatality every 80 million miles driven. So that seems roughly in keeping with the US average of about 1.2 fatalities for every 100 million miles driven. Except that because a computer was involved in Autopilot, people will be much more worried.
well, in the case of the way this steering system (and pretty much every other car with electric power assist steering or EPAS) is a total loss of steering. The electric motor which is coming loose from the steering rack is both the EPAS and the motor which steers the car in Autopilot mode.
Again I think it simplifies in the next year or two to either Tesla falls into a hole of combined cash burn and loss of market confidence (so nobody steps up with more cash from either from further equity or bond sales or bank loans at prices that make any sense) and goes bust (or sells out, the combined probability of doing that before or after defaulting is maybe more like 15-20% than the 7% default probability). Or it doesn’t, still more likely it would appear.
After that and assuming the still more likely case, all kinds of stuff could happen in the longer term but definitely including a large measure of b). And c) is beyond just ‘unlikely’ IMO. Autonomous cars’ long term effect on the car market could be very important, in the long term. But it’s far past the problem which could sink Tesla fairly soon. That make or break will happen when EV’s are still a marginal part of the car market and during a recalibration (time line shifting to the right) of when really autonomous cars are really coming in a serious way. In the critical short term ‘autonomous’ is mainly a PR risk for Tesla, that the company is too associated with a concept set to get more bad press, especially on the aspect of sacrificing members of the public as guinea pigs for the greater good of the future utopia.
Tesla took a big risk trying to expand from maker of cars like the semi-niche, clearly uneconomical but cool Model S, to setting a price point where (with big tax subsidy, of course) the Model 3 could actually appear to make economic sense to buyers not into it for the cool. And with no mainstay of profitable high volume cars otherwise (like big established car makers losing money on relatively few EV’s). No guts no glory, but it’s not surprising at some point in trying to pull that off possible collapse of the company would come within sight, which it now has. That doesn’t mean they will fail of course, or that the hype of EV/autnonomous won’t come to pass eventually with or without Tesla.
Well, I’m just one data point, but:
2016/3/31 10:20 am: Placed reservation in person at Fremont facility. Understood to be around 2 years until delivery.
2018/2/28: Received invitation to configure / configured. Got delivery estimate of 3-6 weeks.
2018/3/27: VIN appeared on configuration page.
2018/3/29: Got call from Tesla saying that they could deliver as early as tomorrow (3/30). Requested later delivery date due to being out of state.
2018/4/3: Upcoming delivery.
It’ll be under 5 weeks unless something goes wrong. Of course, it’s possible that I’ll refuse if the quality isn’t up to scratch.
Tesla’s statement implies that only the power assist is lost–it can still be steered normally at high speed and with difficulty at low speed.
If I’m understanding it right, it seems the fix should be to either replace the bolts with something that won’t corrode, or possibly seal it somehow.
As much as I criticize Tesla, this is so friggin’ cool and can’t wait to hear about your car.
the question I was replying to was what would happen if this occurred in an AV. try to keep up.
I hope all of the Tesla fans out there understand that Tesla delayed announcing a safety recall until after trading ended on a Thursday before a long weekend. Tesla values its share price more than it does the lives of its users.
interesting comment from Model 3 driver after 60 mph crash:
*If there was one thing that the Model 3 driver had comments on, however, it was on the 15-inch central touchscreen of the electric car. Describing the accident to members of the online community, the driver stated that the glass on the touchscreen shattered during the collision, which caused a gash on the arm of his passenger.
Apart from this, the driver stated that he had a difficult time accessing the vehicle’s title and insurance after the incident due to the glove box’s controls being on the central touchscreen of the electric car. With the display shattered, accessing the glove box proved challenging.*
I’ve given my opinion on the huge central display and lack of physical controls. It wouldn’t surprise me if it gets smaller and recessed into the dash along with a transfer of some of the controls back to individual switches.
I understand the need for a bunch of gee-wiz stuff to tantalize new owners but at some point it will frustrate people. Tesla isn’t alone on this. I was driving with someone who just bought a new Ford Escape. All I wanted to do is turn the defrost on. First thought was: REALLY"… there’s no obvious control for this? :mad::rolleyes::dubious:. Now the driver is distracted playing with the !#$% thing. Meanwhile, every car I’ve ever owned has had controls I could operate by touch without ever looking away from the road.
I guess those days are numbered or already gone. Get off my lawn future technology. You’re going backwards in convenience.
Ahh, yes. A truly responsible company would have waited until a hundred or so people died, then announced on a Monday to show conclusively that they had no financial interest in the matter.
Glad you’re sharing in the excitement! It’s been a long road.
I’ve got a bit of an after-travel cold at the moment, so I’m not sure how fit I’ll be for a proper write-up on Tuesday, but I’ll definitely put something together eventually.
Tesla lost 30% of its share price in the past few weeks, and Elon decides it would be time for a not particularly funny April Fools “prank” that Tesla is going bankrupt. I should take back my comment about caring more for the share price than for the customer.
I can’t think of anyone who’s having more irreverent fun being a billionaire than Elon!
13 hours till showtime.
In other news, it looks like Tesla is up to around 2,000 cars/wk. 2,000 is not the projected 2,500, but it’s not bad either, especially since it’s a full week. I expect them to spin this into having met their goal by cherry-picking a few good days that extrapolate to 2,500 (Musk did the same thing in the previous conference call).
Small correction: that should be 2,000 Model 3s/wk. Total production of S/X/3 is closer to 4,000/wk.
9,766 Model 3s in Q1:
Brian
In short: If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Showed up at the Tesla center at 9:50. Appt was for 10:15, so I hung around a bit. They have a coffee bar and a Model 3 to play around with. No limits on button-pushing; it was in “showroom mode” and wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Started to get excited.
At 10:30 they were ready. A friendly employee brought me out to my car, which was in a large room with kinda stylish showroom lighting (not just generic overhead fluorescents). Really made the car stand out–looks great! (I got red, BTW)
The woman gave me a quick rundown, which is all pretty simple. My phone pairs easily and works as a lock. We try out the RFID backup cards and they’re being finicky–I’ll keep an eye out on them, but a later test seemed to be fine. Might be some issue with having the phone there.
Go back to the main area, wait a bit longer, and hand a guy the check for ~$61k. Says they’ll have the paperwork done in a bit, and that they’ll have some techs check on the RFID thing.
All done at around noon. Time to drive off!
EVs in general are just so smooth. “So smooth you can’t tell how fast you’re going” is almost a cliche, but with EVs it’s really at another level. There is no combination of speed and degree of acceleration that ever produces something other than a perfectly linear response. It’s amazing.
Regen is stronger than I expected based on some minor complaints I’ve seen elsewhere. Maybe the Bolt is stronger yet, but this is more than adequate for one-foot driving except for the last ~3 mph.
I really haven’t had time to explore every little thing yet; still coming down from a cold and today was a work day. So there will be more to come. Haven’t found any serious fit and finish issues yet but there are probably little nooks and crannies that I’ve missed.
Anyway, here’s a pic. Color balance is a little weird; it’s a deeper red in real life.
Aero wheels look better in person than I expected. I’ll probably get the non-aero kit to compare, but I think I’ll leave them on for now. Better efficiency at any rate.
Just charging on 110 for now. Need to call an electrician.