heads up: more roadblocks for Tesla
 

i'm pretty fascinated with what Tesla is trying to accomplish, it's the biggest launch of anything since we launched a man to the moon and i'm paying attention to it.

anyhoo,
Tesla just lost another 2 key executives, in addition to the several that have bolted the company in recent months. the latest 2 were the top brass overseeing production.

Musk's reaction to that was to bump up the timetable to hit 500,000 cars built to 2018 from 2020.

the bigger hurdle is the fact that the $7500 tax subsidy on Teslas will expire before any model 3s come to market. that automatically makes the base price jump from $35,000 to $42,500.

We must incentivize people switching away from oil.

This is one of the most obvious places to start. Add incentives for home solar panels and storage (Like what Tesla is making) and no one would have a reason to buy a new gas powered car.

My disappointment is the reliability is now considered considerably poor.

Tesla?s CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday during the company?s earnings call that Tesla will likely miss the first Model 3 production deadline. The statement came just minutes after Musk set the deadline.

Tesla Model 3 production deadline likely impossible | BGR

Famed short-seller Jim Chanos, Kynikos Associates, went on the record Wednesday revealing that he's shorting Tesla Motors. Chanos announcing his short on the heels of news today that two key executive are departing the company.

Jim Chanos is betting against Elon Musk - Business Insider

One of our historical sign posts, of a company in trouble is when numbers of senior people leave over a short period of time. Tesla fits that bill. We have a chart that we've had — I guess we're going to have to update it this afternoon — of senior executives leaving Tesla. It is a flood of people leaving in the past few years. And that is not a good sign and this is a company that can't forecast its deliveries one quarter out. And yet everybody is confident about what they're going to make in 2020 or 2025. I want to see them make the model 3 and sell it profitably. I don't think they can do it.

More than 40% of car buyers interested in a Model 3 told a KBB survey that they wouldn't buy one without the tax credit.


Most Tesla Model 3 buyers won't get the $7,500 tax break

The only way to incentivize is for the govt. to give tax breaks to the companies (not hand them money) and for the manufacturer to bring down costs.

This technology HAS to stand on it's own two feet in the marketplace without having to be propped up with money from the taxpayers.

Corporate tax rates would be a great place to start for ALL businesses. The U.S. having one of the highest rates in the world is part of what has caused so many problems for jobs.

State taxes need to be reigned in on some of these corporations as well. You want the price of Tesla to come down so more people can afford it...then we need to lower the cost of doing business for the company.

I don't see any reason that can't be done and that electric cars can't be CHEAPER to buy than gas powered ones.

another big roadblock for Tesla is the fact that their sales channel is still illegal in some states.

GM shuts down Tesla's direct sales chance in Connecticut

Musk is going to ramp up sales to 500,000 cars per year in less than 2 years while not being able to sell across the USA.

You got that the wrong way around man, the car price is $35,000 before the rebates.
Source = https://forums.teslamotors.com/en_CA...000-incentives

The Chevy Bolt has an asterix on its sticker price of $30,000. The price already counts the rebate, meaning it is $2500 more than the cost of a Model 3.

They have lost 5 executives in 3 months.

That should be of concern to anyone with an interest.

tesla has mastered TWO things

MARKETING

&

CASHING GOVT CHECKS

thats it

that's beside the point.

the point was people are up for buying the model 3 as long as there's a tax break on the car and i'm certainly not wrong that 40% of people up for buying a model 3 are otr stating they won't buy it without the tax incentives.

Doesn't that really kind of point out everything that is wrong with govt.?

GM has state legislators in it's pocket and makes sure that Tesla can't compete. :disgust

that and the gov handing out huge tax incentives for buying a fucking car.

As soon as the model 3 was announced my wife said she wanted to put a deposit down on one. I was able to talk her off the ledge and we are going to wait and see how things pan out in the next year or so. I want Tesla to do well, I do.

There are just too many unknowns at this point. The execs jumping ship is not a good sign at all.

i'm still stunned Elon's reaction to this is to bump up the goal to reach 500,000/year by <2 years.

he's a ballsy guy.

He's got 3 different "balls to the wall" projects going on right now with HUGE goals. Land on the moon style goals. I would love for some of these other rich guys to get involved with lofty projects like this but one man doing all of this is just... something is going to give.

sure does. he's just went otr about going to Mars by 2018
'
April 27 announcement from Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, that he intends to launch his first unmanned Mars mission in just two years and will beat NASA?s goal of putting astronauts on the surface in the 2030s by up to a decade.

Elon Musk's 2018 Mars Shot

sure is a warning sign:2 cents:

Why did they leave? Bigger paychecks elsewhere?

they aren't really saying. the latest, the top guy over production's excuse was along the lines of "taking a break". publically, he doesn't have a new gig lined up. i would imagine if the execs are being poached, it would come out. like with Apple's poaching.

pretty good article in Wired today:


Musk, apparently feeling his company isn?t under quite enough pressure, upped the ante during Wednesday?s call, saying he?ll deliver 100,000 cars by the end of 2017 and hit the half-million threshold in 2018.

It?s hard to understate the challenge ahead.

Yes, Tesla has enjoyed tremendous success with the Model S, and the Model X is undeniably cool. But that?s nickel-and-dime stuff compared to what Musk wants to do with the 3. ?It is an amazing achievement to engineer, build and market 50,000 examples of one model in a hotly competitive global market, as Tesla has done,? says Jack Nerad, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. ?It is a far more difficult assignment to reach the 500,000-unit sales mark with a multi-vehicle line.?


Hitting the benchmarks Musk outlined demands moving like the old-school automakers Musk so joyously ridicules. Tesla must ramp up capacity, develop a reliable supply chain, and finish the enormous Gigafactory battery plant under construction in the desert east of Reno, Nevada.

No less importantly, Musk must kick his habit of blowing deadlines?although he always makes good on his word, he usually does so two years later than promised?and master the logistics of a market segment that operates on a vast scale and small margins.

Tesla Just Made Its Huge Model 3 Challenge Even Huger | WIRED

I'm continually amazed that Musk has been able to run this scam and enrich himself for so long.
As soon as the billions in subsidies runs out, so does his ability to run his scam.

Did space? The military? The USGS?

Some things have to be done for the good of the planet and/or society. Reigning carbon in, reducing dependence on other countries and reducing the damage a large producer of all sorts of pollution (air, water and land) sounds like a great place to start.

Reduced air quality (not counting climate related issues) has a tremendous cost in terms of dollars as well as life expectancy.

Add the Internet to that list. Modern computers as well.

The WWII era brought a swathe of new technologies to the world that were created by joint efforts of business, universities (government), and the military (government.)

apple has been doing a great deal of headhunting recently from Tesla.. with the upcoming 'icar' or whatever, probably something with that