TSLA - Tesla Motors

[Dalal.Holdings]

Musk is indeed the type of CEO every shareholder would want to lead his company: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/

 

Is this a joke or an attempt at forming legitimate criticism from shareholder's pt of view? I can't tell. Yeah, we all know that the best type of CEO for shareholders is one that is very predictable and political in their management style. Someone more like a politician than like Musk. A Jeff Immelt type--what shareholder wouldn't want an Immelt type as their CEO?

 

Your article reminds me of another CEO who I'm sure you would have been a huge fan of 10+ years ago: a guy who founded some tech company and passed away in 2011. Noted for firing employees on a single elevator ride, and yelling and screaming at his workers in the early, stressful days (among other not so glorious details).

 

I don't remember his name, but I'm sure that CEO was no Jeff Immelt when it came to creating "shareholder value".

 

[Liberty]

A lot of stories about Steve Jobs are about him when he was quite young. He got a lot better with age, but then also got a lot more private, so when the media didn't have much new to report, they kept going back to these anecdote about the young "difficult" jobs. Not that he was a totally mellow dude in his older years, but much more calm and mature, as far as a I can tell from people who worked at Apple in those years..

 

If the stories on Musk are accurate, that's really too bad. No excuse to being a dick, people like Jobs succeeded despite that, not because of it. But it's really hard to know if anything reported about Musk is accurate these days...

[Dalal.Holdings]

A lot of stories about Steve Jobs are about him when he was quite young. He got a lot better with age, but then also got a lot more private, so when the media didn't have much new to report, they kept going back to these anecdote about the young "difficult" jobs. Not that he was a totally mellow dude in his older years, but much more calm and mature, as far as a I can tell from people who worked at Apple in those years..

 

If the stories on Musk are accurate, that's really too bad. No excuse to being a dick, people like Jobs succeeded despite that, not because of it. But it's really hard to know if anything reported about Musk is accurate these days...

 

Jobs was actually still very stubborn and aggressive during his second run at Apple. The Isaacson biography details a lot of this, but there were episodes where he stormed out of meetings when there was a decision he disagreed with (ie. launching iTunes on Windows) or went after Adobe re: Flash, or Gizmodo when they stole an iPhone prototype. Also the whole avoiding doctors' recommendations to treat his cancer and going the alternative med route is an exhibit of his persistent stubbornness late in life.

 

This might sound crass, but capitalism often thrives because of abrasive, aggressive, and eccentric CEO types like Musk and Jobs. Their shareholders seem to benefit tremendously in the long run too. It's the Jeff Immelt (or Ginni Rometty or Mark Fields or Rick Wagoner) types who seem polished on the outside that shareholders should really worry about.

[rkbabang]

A lot of stories about Steve Jobs are about him when he was quite young. He got a lot better with age, but then also got a lot more private, so when the media didn't have much new to report, they kept going back to these anecdote about the young "difficult" jobs. Not that he was a totally mellow dude in his older years, but much more calm and mature, as far as a I can tell from people who worked at Apple in those years..

 

If the stories on Musk are accurate, that's really too bad. No excuse to being a dick, people like Jobs succeeded despite that, not because of it. But it's really hard to know if anything reported about Musk is accurate these days...

 

Jobs was actually still very stubborn and aggressive during his second run at Apple. The Isaacson biography details a lot of this, but there were episodes where he stormed out of meetings when there was a decision he disagreed with (ie. launching iTunes on Windows) or went after Adobe re: Flash, or Gizmodo when they stole an iPhone prototype. Also the whole avoiding doctors' recommendations to treat his cancer and going the alternative med route is an exhibit of his persistent stubbornness late in life.

 

This might sound crass, but capitalism often thrives because of abrasive, aggressive, and eccentric CEO types like Musk and Jobs. Their shareholders seem to benefit tremendously in the long run too. It's the Jeff Immelt (or Ginni Rometty or Mark Fields or Rick Wagoner) types who seem polished on the outside that shareholders should really worry about.

 

Don't forget Bezos.  I'm reading "The Everything Store" now and he can be brutal.  An employee asks him at a meeting about plans on improving "work-life balance" and he responds that the fact that she would even ask this question shows that "this probably isn't the company for you".  There are many other antidotes of him flying off the handle and screaming at executives and employees.  Some of these highly driven people can be mean to those around them.

 

[Liberty]

Jobs was actually still very stubborn and aggressive during his second run at Apple. The Isaacson biography details a lot of this, but there were episodes where he stormed out of meetings when there was a decision he disagreed with (ie. launching iTunes on Windows) or went after Adobe re: Flash, or Gizmodo when they stole an iPhone prototype. Also the whole avoiding doctors' recommendations to treat his cancer and going the alternative med route is an exhibit of his persistent stubbornness late in life.

 

This might sound crass, but capitalism often thrives because of abrasive, aggressive, and eccentric CEO types like Musk and Jobs. Their shareholders seem to benefit tremendously in the long run too. It's the Jeff Immelt (or Ginni Rometty or Mark Fields or Rick Wagoner) types who seem polished on the outside that shareholders should really worry about.

 

I find the Isaacson bio is deeply flawed, mostly because Isaacson didn't understand most of the things that Jobs spent his life obsessed about (design, computers), but yeah, I didn't say he never stormed out of a meeting or wasn't opiniated. I'm talking about the stuff of legends from when he was younger (and a lot of the stuff about that in the Isaacson book is about his earlier years).

 

Agreed about the latter. To get extreme results, you tend to need an extreme personality. Someone obsessed about learning about one thing and getting one thing done at the cost of everything else (personal life, relationships, etc) is harder to compete with.

[Haasje]

It is established that owner operators outperform agent operators.

 

It seems counterproductive to continue to explore the jobs-musk analogy when there are hundreds (if not thousands) of owner operators. Jobs happens to have championed the most remarkable turnaround of all time (this wasn't all skill nor all his doing but he deserves lots of credit for sure)

 

If we go back to looking at the base-category of owner operators it is correct to ascribe value to the leadership aspect at Tesla. You could even go as far to put Musk at the top of the range in that class (I would argue that idea is already reflected generously in the stock price) 

 

On the flipside the celebrity CEO (a category I'd also include Musk in) is a negative(https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/124/4/1593/1917196):

 

We find that award-winning CEOs subsequently underperform, both relative to their prior performance and relative to a matched sample of non-winning CEOs. At the same time, they extract more compensation following the awards, both in absolute amounts and relative to other top executives in their firms. They also spend more time on public and private activities outside their companies, such as assuming board seats or writing books. The incidence of earnings management increases after winning awards. The effects are strongest in firms with weak corporate governance. Our results suggest that the ex post consequences of media-induced superstar status for shareholders are negative.

 

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

On the flipside the celebrity CEO (a category I'd also include Musk in) is a negative(https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/124/4/1593/1917196):

 

We find that award-winning CEOs subsequently underperform, both relative to their prior performance and relative to a matched sample of non-winning CEOs. At the same time, they extract more compensation following the awards, both in absolute amounts and relative to other top executives in their firms. They also spend more time on public and private activities outside their companies, such as assuming board seats or writing books. The incidence of earnings management increases after winning awards. The effects are strongest in firms with weak corporate governance. Our results suggest that the ex post consequences of media-induced superstar status for shareholders are negative.

 

Musk isn't in this category...he hasn't won "prestigious business awards" and doesn't spend much time on activities outside the 2 businesses he runs (compare that with celeb CEOs who sit on multiple boards). He's the kind of persona such bodies would shun (and he's the kind of person who wouldn't give a F--- about such awards). For such "award winning" CEOs, look to the board of GE during Immelt's time--it was stuffed with them. Look to the C-suites and boardrooms of big banks pre-financial crisis and you'll find such "award winning" execs.

[A Dhandho Investor]

New story about Musk funneling money from one venture to another:

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-new-boring-co-faced-questions-over-spacex-financial-ties-11545078371

 

The entrance of the two-mile-long Boring test tunnel is being constructed in Hawthorne, Calif., at the headquarters of another Musk-controlled company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., partly by SpaceX employees using equipment purchased with SpaceX funds, people familiar with the matter said.

 

The arrangement alarmed some longtime investors in SpaceX, including its largest outside backer, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, some of the people said. The investors learned in recent months that despite the diversion of SpaceX resources and staffing to the fledgling Boring startup, it was Mr. Musk who was in line to receive almost all of any future profits, these people said.

 

The investors questioned SpaceX about why their investment dollars into a company ostensibly devoted to launching satellites and carrying humans to Mars were instead partly used to start a separate company that principally benefited Mr. Musk. When the Boring Co. was earlier this year spun into its own firm, more than 90% of the equity went to Mr. Musk and the rest to early employees, the company has said.

 

In internal meetings this year, Founders Fund partners debated what to do about the diversion of SpaceX resources. Their concerns reached a SpaceX board member and other company officials, the people familiar with the matter said.

 

The SpaceX board never voted on devoting resources to Mr. Musk’s new venture.

 

The Boring Co. has since given some equity to SpaceX as compensation for the help, a move that hasn’t been previously reported or publicly disclosed. SpaceX hasn’t formally notified its investors of the exchange. Some investors say they aren’t aware of it.

 

SpaceX received about 6% of Boring stock, “based on the value of land, time and other resources contributed since creation of the company,” said a SpaceX spokesman. He declined to comment further on the circumstances surrounding the transaction.

[A Dhandho Investor]

Summary on Musk's unveiling of the Boring company's tunnel:

 

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/visionary-brain-genius-elon-musk-has-invented-the-world-1831210269

 

 

[A Dhandho Investor]

"We believe delivering vehicles to the front door of a customer’s house or office is superior from both a cost and customer satisfaction perspective"

 

Now they are even leaving Tesla's on the driveway instead of handing over the keys in person..

Tesla_home_delivery_experience.jpg_large

[rkbabang]

Summary on Musk's unveiling of the Boring company's tunnel:

 

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/visionary-brain-genius-elon-musk-has-invented-the-world-1831210269

 

There is so much wrong with this article I don't even know where to begin.  The author is either Musk hating Tesla short or just an idiot.

 

How much did the new subway extension in NYC cost?  A hell of a lot more than $10M per mile and you still have to sit in dirty cars on dirty seats near dirty people smelling urine from the homeless people who use it as a bathroom.  No thanks.  I'll sit in traffic in my own comfortable car listening to my audiobooks and podcasts any day of the week before using public transportation.  The author also claims you will need to buy a Tesla EV, Musk specifically said any autonomous EV could use the tunnel.  Isn't the short thesis that every car company on Earth is going to have a bunch of EVs to kill Tesla like any day now?  So this shouldn't be a problem.  Then there is the capacity, since you could drill 50 of these tunnels all going the same direction for the price of a typical subway tunnel, I don't think that is going to be an issue.  Also the author said 49 mph when Musk said they have already tested it well over 100mph.  You could go through this article line by line and take apart everything he wrote.

 

 

[Orchard]

It is established that owner operators outperform agent operators.

 

My question would be if Musk is an owner-operator? When you think about the owner-operator category, in the past, these used to be guys who over many years built up a company and then eventually that company went public. For guys who started out by raising venture capital and then went public within a few years, are they really in the same category? Do they have the same incentives? Would someone just investing his own money continue making money-losing cars for 10+ years?

[Liberty]

It is established that owner operators outperform agent operators.

 

My question would be if Musk is an owner-operator? When you think about the owner-operator category, in the past, these used to be guys who over many years built up a company and then eventually that company went public. For guys who started out by raising venture capital and then went public within a few years, are they really in the same category? Do they have the same incentives? Would someone just investing his own money continue making money-losing cars for 10+ years?

 

Musk used his own money (from Paypal sale, mostly) to grow both Tesla and SpaceX for many years before Tesla went public, and SpaceX still isn't. That's why he owns a large chunk of each. He didn't start out with VC money.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Summary on Musk's unveiling of the Boring company's tunnel:

 

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/visionary-brain-genius-elon-musk-has-invented-the-world-1831210269

 

There is so much wrong with this article I don't even know where to begin.  The author is either Musk hating Tesla short or just an idiot.

 

Isn't it obvious here? Look back the past few pages. Dhandho Investor is a TSLA short literally grasping at straws. Desperately trying to find anything that makes the stock/Musk look bad. Just flinging mud and hoping it sticks. Relevance doesn't matter. Incapable of sifting signal from noise.

 

Actually kind of amusing to watch...lol...

[A Dhandho Investor]

Summary on Musk's unveiling of the Boring company's tunnel:

 

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/visionary-brain-genius-elon-musk-has-invented-the-world-1831210269

 

There is so much wrong with this article I don't even know where to begin.  The author is either Musk hating Tesla short or just an idiot.

 

How much did the new subway extension in NYC cost?  A hell of a lot more than $10M per mile and you still have to sit in dirty cars on dirty seats near dirty people smelling urine from the homeless people who use it as a bathroom.  No thanks.  I'll sit in traffic in my own comfortable car listening to my audiobooks and podcasts any day of the week before using public transportation.  The author also claims you will need to buy a Tesla EV, Musk specifically said any autonomous EV could use the tunnel.  Isn't the short thesis that every car company on Earth is going to have a bunch of EVs to kill Tesla like any day now?  So this shouldn't be a problem.  Then there is the capacity, since you could drill 50 of these tunnels all going the same direction for the price of a typical subway tunnel, I don't think that is going to be an issue.  Also the author said 49 mph when Musk said they have already tested it well over 100mph.  You could go through this article line by line and take apart everything he wrote.

 

I guess a lot of journalists and casual observers are short Tesla then? Here is another article that definitely asks some good questions regarding the unveiling:

https://jalopnik.com/what-the-actual-shit-was-that-1831214583

 

Since when are Musk his statements actual facts btw? (cost of $10m, testing at well over 100mph - I am glad you did not mention that a throughput well in excess of 100k people should be possible!). If you follow Musk somewhat, you might know that he did not yet die telling his first lie...

[A Dhandho Investor]

Summary on Musk's unveiling of the Boring company's tunnel:

 

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/visionary-brain-genius-elon-musk-has-invented-the-world-1831210269

 

There is so much wrong with this article I don't even know where to begin.  The author is either Musk hating Tesla short or just an idiot.

 

Isn't it obvious here? Look back the past few pages. Dhandho Investor is a TSLA short literally grasping at straws. Desperately trying to find anything that makes the stock/Musk look bad. Just flinging mud and hoping it sticks. Relevance doesn't matter. Incapable of sifting signal from noise.

 

Actually kind of amusing to watch...lol...

 

Thanks for your constructive input Dalal! FYI: I sold my puts already shortly after the release of the Q3 numbers.

 

The straws I currently see:

- Lots of Model 3 inventory in the US (probably +10k cars)

- Model 3 production recently dropped to 3k/ week

- No EU homologation yet

- executive turnover continues (in the last week, the senior director of global sales and senior director of IR left)

- Service centers are overloaded (wait times of up to 10 months in some areas). Apparently more and more service centers are throwing in the towel, even in California, because of lack of parts.

- Saw some footage of a Model S catching fire wile parked at a tire center. Reminds me somewhat of this story: https://electrek.co/2018/12/16/tesla-fire-bullet-battery/

 

But I guess this is all just noise. Looking forward to your update on how Tesla is becoming the Apple of cars!

 

 

[Orchard]

Musk used his own money (from Paypal sale, mostly) to grow both Tesla and SpaceX for many years before Tesla went public, and SpaceX still isn't. That's why he owns a large chunk of each. He didn't start out with VC money.

The first year Tesla had any real revenue to speak of they filed an S-1 and went public.

[Liberty]

Musk used his own money (from Paypal sale, mostly) to grow both Tesla and SpaceX for many years before Tesla went public, and SpaceX still isn't. That's why he owns a large chunk of each. He didn't start out with VC money.

The first year Tesla had any real revenue to speak of they filed an S-1 and went public.

 

Which made a lot of sense.

 

Capital-intensive industry and your goal is to scale up very quickly to mass-market production and integrate manufacturing vertically... That's what the capital markets are for.

[Haasje]

Tesla sceptic here but Musk for sure belongs in owner/operator category.

[A Dhandho Investor]

So Tesla announced Q4 production and delivery numbers last week. They claimed they produced 61.394 and sold 63.150 Model 3's.

 

The production number points at an average production of approx. 4.700 Model 3's per week. According to a number of sources, the production rate is questionable:

- sources that observe Fremont have indicated that the factory was down on holidays in Q4 and there have been multiple weeks with production <2.5k week

- The Bloomberg tracker showed a trailing 13-week average weekly production rate of 4.000 Model 3's until 31/12/2018. On the 31st, a new batch of VIN's was apparently uploaded in the tracker by Tesla so that the production rate increased to 4.600+.

- Troy, who is known for accurately forecasting production numbers (based on VIN's), only estimated a production of 51.459 Model 3's in Q4. https://teslike.com/2018/12/31/tesla-q4-2018-production-delivery-estimates-survey/

 

At the same time, the discrepancy between the number of cars claimed to have been sold by Tesla and the number of registered VIN's with the NMVTIS also further increased to 40k as per 31/12/2018 (was about 30k at the end of Q3). Great twitterthread on a possible explanation for this gap can be found here: https://twitter.com/GreatPaulSmith/status/1080870548886892544

 

Will also be really interesting to see what the Q1 numbers will look like, given the numerous headwinds faced by Tesla:

- decrease in FIT-credit of 3.500 in the US (Tesla already dropped prices for all models with 2k to counter this decrease)

- end of the EV subsidies in the Netherlands

- start of the sale of Model 3 in EU in Q1 will lead to a drop in sales given the one month travel time from Fremont to the EU

 

edit: yesterday a SA article was posted about the gap between the sold vehicles and the vehicles registered by Tesla: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4231925-tesla-massively-delays-u-s-title-registrations-cars

[A Dhandho Investor]

And this one is due to a special request from Dalal: some mud related to the famous solar roof tiles that I hope sticks with the remaining bulls:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/24/tesla-solar-roof-tiles-where-are-they.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

 

edit: While I'm at it I also add some videos regarding Tesla's CPO program. This guy put down a deposit more than 2 months ago for a CPO Model X and still does not have his car.

 

The vid was posted about 1 week ago. As he has almost 300k Youtube followers, his message reached Tesla. This is the follow-up vid:

 

Some comments show that this is not a unique phenomenom:

 

Hey Rich, I've worked for Tesla for around a year and a half in the new cars sales department in Canada. I see this first hand with pre-owned vehicles..... If you notice at 2:56 in your vid, it says 70 point mechanical inspection. They don't provide a 360 point inspection as most other pre-owned vehicles have lol. In other words, if the car's exterior is damaged, they don't give a shit.  Let's just say when 9% of staff got terminated; the whole re-marketing department was dissolved. This just shows what happened clearly contributes to your shitty car buying experience. And the truth of the matter...I know people that work in the delivery department and most of them are clueless and careless as to what's going on with customers vehicles. 95% of them do nothing all day except watch youtube videos and watch the TSLA stock fluctuate lol. I've contacted upper management but no one really cares about anything aside from the fact they can tell people they work for Tesla. Good luck with everything.

 

This sound so much like my experience with Tesla.  But, it didn't stop after getting the car.  I was one of those people who paid for the car outright using a cashiers check.  The westchester service center misplaced the check and never deposited it.  This led to a long chain of additional screw ups on Tesla's part.  First, they accused me of not paying for the car.  I was smart and took pictures of the paperwork plus the check when I picked it up.  Plus had the check stub.  This caused the pay center to stumble and then back track.  Ended with them telling me they would look into it and get back to me

 

I have a model 3.  I paid all the money cash weeks before delivery and asked for a test drive before pickup.  They refused. I had to sign for the car to test drive it. I finally drove my car and came back 1min later and said there are too many problems and I don't want it. They refused and said I need to take it to service to return it. Service said they would buy it back for 30% of the value. A car with 4miles on it. They recommended I sell it used.  Who has time for that.  I've had a number of issues which I've taken it to service for and they did not fix or even diagnose but they are clear and obvious issues compared against other M3's. They damaged my screen and key card in service. I exclaimed on pickup and they noted it but did nothing. I still have a heap of issues

 

Thank you for this video because no one would believe me when I told them about my two month experience trying to buy a CPO Tesla. I traded my car in with them gave them a check and took a Uber home with nothing but a temp tag and a free key chain for my trouble. No one had any answers as to when I would get my car or where exactly it was located. When the car finally arrived my delivery driver called me and said he was tired of driving my car around and I needed to get it off of his truck!!! Mind you I had no damn idea that the car had  even arrived  in my state, when the car rolled off the truck it was dirty and only had 39miles of charge on it and I was 35 miles  away from a super charging station. This was in September and still today I have not heard from anyone about my concerns about the process. So welcome to the COP CLUB RICH!  I am giving you the short story not even touching on my interactions with my sales advisors.

 

I'm still a Tesla fan and a Tesla owner but I've had a similar experience in your same area so I know what you're going through. Reserved car in March 2016, configured in May 2018, paid in August. No straight answers on when the car would arrive. Then on a Friday at 2pm I got a call from a truck driver saying he was showing up at my house at 4pm! Car had a few cosmetic issues so I took it in to get it fixed and they had it for 2 weeks. Then I went to a detailer and got a Level 2 paint correction and ceramic coating, car had a mirror finish! Took it in to Tesla again for a skid plate issue and hung a sign in the car saying DO NOT WASH. Guess what? They washed it. Scratched the heck out of it. Detailer says $600 to fix. The service center says they can't pay to have it fixed but they'll comp my next service appointment ("a $1000 value!"). Tried raising it to corporate multiple times, everybody dropping the ball. Also I ordered winter tires and wheels from them in October, called a few times, emailed half a dozen times, NO response yet. I'm going for a factory tour in Freemont next week so I'll bring up my issues with them in person and hopefully that will get me some traction.

 

I ordered a model s that was already built just in Missouri and I live in Illinois. The car took 2 weeks to be prepared for shipping and then was delayed 5 day due to bad weather. Then after another week of no news about the car I called my local store, they claimed that the car was still waiting for a truck to be shipped on. Over all of this time I had no compensation not even a loner car, but the after another 6 days I get a call saying that the car is ready to be picked up. I confirmed the date and a few days later went to pick up the car. We got there the car looked great unities my son opened the front passenger side door revealing a large chip in the paint. I told the employee and he said they could tout his it up with some paint. A couple of days later I call to get the paint fixed and they say that scene the paint is discontinued they can’t fix it. I got mad because if the delivered the car when they were supposed to the paint would not be discontinued and they could fix it. After that I gave up and decided to look at the good things in the car, but still the paint chip is still there bothering me every time I open the passenger door. It took about 1 and a half months to get a already built car.

 

But I still love it ;)

 

Model S owner here... I can confirm Tesla customer service is garbage.  Also I can't believe you said everyone you dealt with did a good job. The litteraly ignored you question multiple times and lied/schedule things without letting you know.  (this is actually very reflective of my buying/getting things repaired under warranty experience)

 

This happened to my husband and I... literally the same exact scenario. Funny thing is - we had to fly to Chicago (from Kansas City) to pick up our used Model S. When we got there, they told us that the car wasn't ready (and wouldn't be until the next Monday). I lost my shit (after the horrible service we received up until that point) – and they actually figured out a way to procure the vehicle for delivery that day. That being said – we're on our second temp tag because they can't seem to find the title. So. That's fun. Love the car though!

 

 

 

 

[Liberty]

We don't have a general electric car thread, so I'll put this here. Nissan has finally unveiled its LEAF e+ with longer range:

 

https://newsroom.nissan-global.com/releases/190109-00-e?lang=en-US&rss

 

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1120780_2019-nissan-leaf-plus-revealed-226-mile-range-quicker-acceleration

 

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/01/20190109-leafe.html

 

Decent chance that this is my next car.

[jeffmori7]

 

 

Decent chance that this is my next car.

 

It's also on my list, with the Model 3 and the Kia e-Niro. Why is the LEAF your 1st pick Liberty?

[Liberty]

 

 

Decent chance that this is my next car.

 

It's also on my list, with the Model 3 and the Kia e-Niro. Why is the LEAF your 1st pick Liberty?

 

Model 3 is probably too much car for us and we wouldn't want one of the loaded models anyway, so I'm not sure what the wait would be on that. We'd like a hatch door in the back, when carrying stuff, and enough space for the kids. LEAF seems to fit our criteria so far. But if we end up waiting a couple years, maybe by then other options will be available, or maybe cheaper Model 3s will be out.

[Leverage Capabilities]

And this one is due to a special request from Dalal: some mud related to the famous solar roof tiles that I hope sticks with the remaining bulls:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/24/tesla-solar-roof-tiles-where-are-they.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

 

edit: While I'm at it I also add some videos regarding Tesla's CPO program. This guy put down a deposit more than 2 months ago for a CPO Model X and still does not have his car.

 

The vid was posted about 1 week ago. As he has almost 300k Youtube followers, his message reached Tesla. This is the follow-up vid:

 

Some comments show that this is not a unique phenomenom:

 

Hey Rich, I've worked for Tesla for around a year and a half in the new cars sales department in Canada. I see this first hand with pre-owned vehicles..... If you notice at 2:56 in your vid, it says 70 point mechanical inspection. They don't provide a 360 point inspection as most other pre-owned vehicles have lol. In other words, if the car's exterior is damaged, they don't give a shit.  Let's just say when 9% of staff got terminated; the whole re-marketing department was dissolved. This just shows what happened clearly contributes to your shitty car buying experience. And the truth of the matter...I know people that work in the delivery department and most of them are clueless and careless as to what's going on with customers vehicles. 95% of them do nothing all day except watch youtube videos and watch the TSLA stock fluctuate lol. I've contacted upper management but no one really cares about anything aside from the fact they can tell people they work for Tesla. Good luck with everything.

 

This sound so much like my experience with Tesla.  But, it didn't stop after getting the car.  I was one of those people who paid for the car outright using a cashiers check.  The westchester service center misplaced the check and never deposited it.  This led to a long chain of additional screw ups on Tesla's part.  First, they accused me of not paying for the car.  I was smart and took pictures of the paperwork plus the check when I picked it up.  Plus had the check stub.  This caused the pay center to stumble and then back track.  Ended with them telling me they would look into it and get back to me

 

I have a model 3.  I paid all the money cash weeks before delivery and asked for a test drive before pickup.  They refused. I had to sign for the car to test drive it. I finally drove my car and came back 1min later and said there are too many problems and I don't want it. They refused and said I need to take it to service to return it. Service said they would buy it back for 30% of the value. A car with 4miles on it. They recommended I sell it used.  Who has time for that.  I've had a number of issues which I've taken it to service for and they did not fix or even diagnose but they are clear and obvious issues compared against other M3's. They damaged my screen and key card in service. I exclaimed on pickup and they noted it but did nothing. I still have a heap of issues

 

Thank you for this video because no one would believe me when I told them about my two month experience trying to buy a CPO Tesla. I traded my car in with them gave them a check and took a Uber home with nothing but a temp tag and a free key chain for my trouble. No one had any answers as to when I would get my car or where exactly it was located. When the car finally arrived my delivery driver called me and said he was tired of driving my car around and I needed to get it off of his truck!!! Mind you I had no damn idea that the car had  even arrived  in my state, when the car rolled off the truck it was dirty and only had 39miles of charge on it and I was 35 miles  away from a super charging station. This was in September and still today I have not heard from anyone about my concerns about the process. So welcome to the COP CLUB RICH!  I am giving you the short story not even touching on my interactions with my sales advisors.

 

I'm still a Tesla fan and a Tesla owner but I've had a similar experience in your same area so I know what you're going through. Reserved car in March 2016, configured in May 2018, paid in August. No straight answers on when the car would arrive. Then on a Friday at 2pm I got a call from a truck driver saying he was showing up at my house at 4pm! Car had a few cosmetic issues so I took it in to get it fixed and they had it for 2 weeks. Then I went to a detailer and got a Level 2 paint correction and ceramic coating, car had a mirror finish! Took it in to Tesla again for a skid plate issue and hung a sign in the car saying DO NOT WASH. Guess what? They washed it. Scratched the heck out of it. Detailer says $600 to fix. The service center says they can't pay to have it fixed but they'll comp my next service appointment ("a $1000 value!"). Tried raising it to corporate multiple times, everybody dropping the ball. Also I ordered winter tires and wheels from them in October, called a few times, emailed half a dozen times, NO response yet. I'm going for a factory tour in Freemont next week so I'll bring up my issues with them in person and hopefully that will get me some traction.

 

I ordered a model s that was already built just in Missouri and I live in Illinois. The car took 2 weeks to be prepared for shipping and then was delayed 5 day due to bad weather. Then after another week of no news about the car I called my local store, they claimed that the car was still waiting for a truck to be shipped on. Over all of this time I had no compensation not even a loner car, but the after another 6 days I get a call saying that the car is ready to be picked up. I confirmed the date and a few days later went to pick up the car. We got there the car looked great unities my son opened the front passenger side door revealing a large chip in the paint. I told the employee and he said they could tout his it up with some paint. A couple of days later I call to get the paint fixed and they say that scene the paint is discontinued they can’t fix it. I got mad because if the delivered the car when they were supposed to the paint would not be discontinued and they could fix it. After that I gave up and decided to look at the good things in the car, but still the paint chip is still there bothering me every time I open the passenger door. It took about 1 and a half months to get a already built car.

 

But I still love it ;)

 

Model S owner here... I can confirm Tesla customer service is garbage.  Also I can't believe you said everyone you dealt with did a good job. The litteraly ignored you question multiple times and lied/schedule things without letting you know.  (this is actually very reflective of my buying/getting things repaired under warranty experience)

 

This happened to my husband and I... literally the same exact scenario. Funny thing is - we had to fly to Chicago (from Kansas City) to pick up our used Model S. When we got there, they told us that the car wasn't ready (and wouldn't be until the next Monday). I lost my shit (after the horrible service we received up until that point) – and they actually figured out a way to procure the vehicle for delivery that day. That being said – we're on our second temp tag because they can't seem to find the title. So. That's fun. Love the car though!

 

His saga continues: