Tesla 3 - as predicted

[Jack skis]

In the 1950's and '60's you could get a gas heater put in your air cooled VW. I hear they worked well, though I never had enough money to buy one. Could be an option for Tesla owners. Well, maybe not.

 

[laine]

@skibob - just to address your question about clearance....

This happened a couple of years ago - the 2015-16 Tahoe season. We had a ski lease on Tahoe Donner with two parking spots in the garage. My husband and I have Jeep Grand Cherokee (8.6" clearance), and our friends had an Audi S4 (not sure of the year, but I'm guessing between 4-5" clearance). We got maybe 8-10" of snow. The driveway had been plowed early, so there was a bit of buildup on it. But the street had just recently been plowed and there was a small wall of packed snow at the end of the driveway. Our S4 friends asked me to pull out first to clear an easy path for him.

Could he have done it? Probably. Was he happier that I made tracks first? Yes. Less risk for him.

 

[cantunamunch]

I wonder, given the market for dumb big button basic cellphones is there a market for auto makers of switch and dial only car models?

If there is, it will be in Japan fo' sho'

Touchscreen user interfaces are a dead end technology. (Pun not specifically intended but let it sit there). Voice cabin controls are the future...and I absolutely resent the slowness of dev work in that direction when voice-actuated home controllers are already here.

In the 1950's and '60's you could get a gas heater put in your air cooled VW. I hear they worked well, though I never had enough money to buy one.

My skydiving buddy lost most of his face, arm, and leg skin when a heater-equipped Beetle crashed into his car. He survived that, and managed to live with the damage for about 10 years. Fungal infection, who knew?

 

[skibob]

So we test drove the Model 3. Thoroughly impressive vehicle. We've decided to wait for the base model because we simply have no desire for any of the upgrades currently being sold for a premium.

Also, Tesla is likely to start losing the tax credits by the end of this year. That may sound like a good reason to buy now. But its false economy. The cheapest version is 43,000 right now. Think that's a coincidence? Nope. $8,000 more than the cheaper model with fewer features? Nope, not a coincidence. That is Tesla pocketing your tax credit. And I would do the same thing in their position.

Those articles that appeared a few months back saying that it costs Tesla $35,000 to build an M3 right now? Slick Tesla PR work. They are amortizing start up costs--for the gigafactory too--into those model 3s.

As tax credits disappear and Tesla needs to operate like a real company and not a start up, the real accounting will happen. They already know what these numbers are. They are real and sustainable, but only with big boy management. Elon will be out and that will be fine for Tesla and Elon both.

And Model 3s will actually drop in price. You read it here first.

Or I could be totally wrong. But we are not buying a tesla yet. Not because they are "going bankrupt" (ludicrous investor activism). Not because of quality issues (mostly resolved). But because it will only get better. Combined with the fact that my wife is totally happy with her current car, this spells "wait."

 

[scott43]

Elon keeping it classy....
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...k-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter

 

[Started at 53]

Musk has been sucking the Big Govt. teet for a long time, time for the subsidies to stop. He can sink or swim.... I don’t care.... But I do care about my tax dollars supporting his companies.

IF it is a good idea, it will succeed, no need to prop it up.

 

[neonorchid]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/17/tesla-elon-musk-thailand-diver-pedo

 

[skibob]

Elon keeping it classy....
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...k-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter

Yeah, that was kind of a jumping the shark moment for me.

I think he is a brilliant visionary and a joke as a manager. I actually hope he gets pushed out as CEO of Tesla. Will be good for the company, and ultimately good for him too, whether he likes it or not.

 

[neonorchid]

Yeah, that was kind of a jumping the shark moment for me.

I think he is a brilliant visionary and a joke as a manager. I actually hope he gets pushed out as CEO of Tesla. Will be good for the company, and ultimately good for him too, whether he likes it or not.

Ah ha,

“Over the last 6 months, there have been too many examples of concerning behavior that is shaking investor confidence,” the letter said.


Jing Zhao, who recently filed a shareholder proposal to remove Musk as chairman of the Tesla board and install an independent director, said the CEO was being unprofessional and that it was “not his business” to travel to Thailand and try to directly solve the rescue challenges.


Zhao said he believed Musk originally had “good intentions”, but that “humanitarian rescues … are professional tasks so we should trust others with local community connections.


“He should focus on his profession,” Zhao said, adding that if Musk wanted to help these kinds of causes, he should have a separate charity organization.


Zhao also said that this scandal offered further evidence that the company needed an independent chair: “He is not mature enough.”

^ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/17/tesla-elon-musk-thailand-diver-pedo

 

[Primoz]

I think he is a brilliant visionary and a joke as a manager.

Honestly... I don't think he's visionary at all, but he's definitely brilliant marketing guy selling you shi**t for big bucks. His cars have basically zero innovations, and his "visionary" projects are pretty much copy of Star trek ideas, which are basically as far away from any reality as original Star trek is. Unless someone really believe we will be traveling from Los Angeles to Shanghai in rockets (or maybe with teleportation) by the end of the year.
But I guess that's what's all about in nowadays business... selling old, long invented stuff as something completely new, making product pretty much a religion where believers are ready to pay any price just to be able to be part of "community".... even if product doesn't exist yet, noone knows how it will be and when it will be available.

 

[scott43]

And the non-apology apology...
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ses-for-calling-thai-cave-rescue-diver-a-pedo

 

[cantunamunch]

Honestly... I don't think he's visionary at all, but he's definitely brilliant marketing guy selling you shi**t for big bucks. His cars have basically zero innovations, and his "visionary" projects are pretty much copy of Star trek ideas, which are basically as far away from any reality as original Star trek is. Unless someone really believe we will be traveling from Los Angeles to Shanghai in rockets (or maybe with teleportation) by the end of the year.
But I guess that's what's all about in nowadays business... selling old, long invented stuff as something completely new, making product pretty much a religion where believers are ready to pay any price just to be able to be part of "community".... even if product doesn't exist yet, noone knows how it will be and when it will be available.

You're only part of the way to the natural conclusion of your argument.

Taking everything you say and amplifying it -

Yes, rebooting old ideas and concepts is the way of business nowadays. Every superhero movie made proves that over again.

Traveling from LA to Shanghai will be through a free-fall tunnel. Get it right.

Yes, making product a religion is the way of business nowadays. We call it 'branding' and 'franchise'.

Yes, Musk is a marketing guy with the egotistical social adaptation of a street thug. Isn't that exactly what it takes ? To take large scale old ideas, brand them and make them work in a capitalist system? It doesn't matter if the old idea is electric cars or a comic book or a Tolkien book or a Heinlein book.

And, no I'm not apologising for Musk. If he was worth apologising for, he'd be a failure at most other things.

And by saying ^that, I am taking an old idea from Machiavelli and selling it

 

[Primoz]

Isn't that exactly what it takes ? To take large scale old ideas, brand them and make them work in a capitalist system?

Yes to be successful business and I have no problems with this. But no, it takes way more then this to be labeled as visionary, inventor, scientist and god knows what else people think he is. So only problem, and it's not really a problem in real, is that he's labeled by most as something what he's not, even remotely not. And maybe, he's not even very successful businessman, but that's not really something I tried to discuss

 

[François Pugh]

There is politics too. For electric car to succeed against competition (existing auto and oil industry), you need a major brand to champion the cause and get people behind it. Otherwise we will have to wait until all the oil is used up. People are buying Tesla because it has the best chance of success.

I must give credit to Tesla for making electric car that actually has good performance (even if limited range and charging needs greater than filling up with gas, and currently problems with more gas stations than charging stations). Before Tesla it was mostly slow cars that few folk would prefer to a half-way decent gas car.

 

[neonorchid]

Proposed bill to extend the soon to expire tax credit for 10 years -
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6274/

 

[skibob]

Sure electric cars are a recycled idea. For a short time in the early 1900s electric autos were more plentiful than ICE autos.

But if he isn't a visionary, why didn't any of us make our own "Tesla" happen before he did?

 

[Seldomski]

why didn't any of us make our own "Tesla" happen before he did?

$$$$

 

[cantunamunch]

But if he isn't a visionary, why didn't any of us make our own "Tesla" happen before he did?

We don't have the egotistical social adaptation of a street thug - and we prove it by getting along on here?

Back on topic, for those of you who haven't seen it, I'll link it again:


Yes, I know it's an hour, put it on background.

 

[fatbob]

Sure electric cars are a recycled idea. For a short time in the early 1900s electric autos were more plentiful than ICE autos.

But if he isn't a visionary, why didn't any of us make our own "Tesla" happen before he did?

Well you might be sitting on mega millions from your initial investment in Paypal but many of us aren't. And it's not really that personal wealth that counts so much as the access to capital that being on a hit gets you.

I won't deny that Tesla has been a smart way of launching - make electric cars a sexy and aspirational thing and ride the wave of early adopters for all they are worth. But I'm still not sure that the 3 will really get delivered profitably in a way which fundamentally shakes up the auto industry. And once the critical mass of vehicles get out there only then do we see the recall issues and the class actions.

 

[scott43]

GM did a lot of EV work..and their conclusion was, at the time, they couldn't make money on them. And so far they're right. The climate (pardon the inference..) may exist now where people will pay more and costs have come down but that remains to be seen.