Bob Lutz rumblings

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Until Tesla finds a way to make a $20K electric car, keep up with demand, and executes it flawlessly, they'll always play 2nd fiddle to the big players and their evil gasoline engines.

Selling hyperdrive performance sedans with 22in wheels does not a consumer car company make. (Unless they want to be like Ferrari)
 
Originally Posted By: Reddy45
Until Tesla finds a way to make a $20K electric car


First off a Honda Civic may be close to 20K, so lets not go there. Their Tesla3 is a real good effort for every body's car.

Lets leave it there... There is money invested into electric, TSLA cannot sell for anything less for a company that will one day kill the ICE
 
Originally Posted By: MaximaGuy
Originally Posted By: Reddy45
Until Tesla finds a way to make a $20K electric car


First off a Honda Civic may be close to 20K, so lets not go there. Their Tesla3 is a real good effort for every body's car.

Lets leave it there... There is money invested into electric, TSLA cannot sell for anything less for a company that will one day kill the ICE



Like I said, if they want to be boutique then they can keep selling $80K hyperdrive sedans, but their efforts so far to make a consumer car have been weak. If electric cars are going to take serious adoption, then it has to be done just like Henry Ford did with the Model T. Figure out how to mass produce it, make it affordable, and let everyone get a taste of it.
 
I cant come to grips with having to recharge every few hrs. I go back to Casper WY and its 850 mi I do in one day. Getting 40mpg I can stop once about anywhere get fuel and be on my way. Waiting around for a recharge is time I haven't got. Get enough people on electric cars and watch the power grid fizzle out. No more Bitog...BITED bobistheelectricdude
 
There is neither anything new or controversial in what Bob Lutz said to the LA Times (link in the Mashable story). Tesla's financial, production and raw material challenges have been widely reported by analysts and newsletters that professionally follow TSLA. Some have written that 2018 will be a very difficult, or even disastrous year, so Bob may have been simply repeating some of the reporting that came out after Tesla released 4Q numbers earlier this month. I receive TSLA articles from Seeking Alpha, and lately the "pro" analyst/newsletter articles are probably outnumbered by "con" articles 2:1.

For any that are interested in more detailed reporting than Mashable does, search articles on Tesla by John Petersen, Bill Maurer, Trent Eady or Robert Rapier. The newsletters Compounding Cash, EnerTuition and Investor Gator have also dived into specific subjects.
 
Well, before I got laid off I had to deal with them....

Smart company-but a confused owner- And it seems many departments are run on the fly. They had a hard time coming up with good solid numbers for production week by week.

I can only hope they get their stuff together.....
 
The thing that keeps this company going is a cult like faith, based on a very real threat: If Tesla falls,the future of the electric car is quite dim.

Will the BEV die is Tesla dies? Doubt it. But there are a lot of real cartoon characters and circus freaks out there saying and doing a lot of bombastic things to either further the cause, or further their own cause through image right now.

Tesla has proven very good at doing a lot of great things, except for building a car that the masses actually want.
 
Distracted driving is already a problem. The Tesla Model 3 makes distracted driving mandatory. That's a real problem. That touch screen's features are going to fade fast the moment you nail another car or a pedestrian while surfing the menus.

The comment about everything Tesla being a cult is well taken. Owners are blinded to fit and finish that a Yaris driver would not accept. It's going to be interesting to see the loyalty once these cars age a bit and start to need more service than expected or spend too much time with a tow truck.

Tesla is a fragile operation at best and if parts and service are a bit out of the ordinary now just wait until Tesla starts getting into difficulty for whatever reason. That other car that you might have purchased then it going to look a lot better now.

If your choice has to be a daily driver then any Tesla is still a shot in the dark.
 
Tesla is a house of cards, not moving enough cars so they sell tax credits to other companies. Can't see them lasting long when companies like Porsche are coming out with all-electrics.

Real competition may kill tesla very quickly...
 
Bob Lutz is an expert on companies tanking, so maybe we should listen to him.
wink.gif
 
I cant fault what Bob said. They are not making money. They have to actually produce cars, and sell them, in substantial numbers, to make money.

The CEO has actually loaned his own companies money, from his own pockets, to keep his companies going. Without big dollar govt contracts from Space X, Tesla would have folded years ago. He moves cash around from one company to the next, to the keep the other one floating.

I hope that they are wildly successful, but he has an uphill battle for sure.
 
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