Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive...

[WestyCarl]

or Tesla ahead of the competition (with JLR and GM) in cutting costs before global slowdown in Auto Industry.............

It all depends how you spin the story

[RobDickinson]

We hear Tesla cars too expensive, where is the 35k car etc?

So job cuts.. Tesla need to reduce man hours per car.

It's far less people than they added last year and they'll end 2019 with more just in different areas.

[DonkeyApple]

jjwilde said:

This thread has been posting this sort of stuff since 2017.

Surely THIS time it's the end for Tesla, right.... right?

Almost as long as Musk has been promising a profit and an affordable EV.

[anonymous-user]

RobDickinson said:

We hear Tesla cars too expensive, where is the 35k car etc?

So job cuts.. Tesla need to reduce man hours per car.

It's far less people than they added last year and they'll end 2019 with more just in different areas.

No need to reduce numbers of employees to increase productivity. Just build more cars.

If the demand’s there.........

[DonkeyApple]

Have they said where they will be cutting the roles? If they are getting rid of the staff who travel to fix customer cars then that is a good thing of it means fewer cars are needing after sales work. Likewise if they are roles on the production line that are now superfluous due to building them correctly on the automated lines?

[samsock]

Maybe it’s just a periodic cull to shed dead weight, plus a shift of resources to China

[gangzoom]

DonkeyApple said:

The sell premium priced goods that aren’t specifically needed. They can’t avoid global market forces regardless of what their product actually is or how desirable it is.

Market forces are going to hit everyone not just Tesla. On BMW and Lexus forums people have commented on how 'cheap' deals appear to be disappearing, despite the fact headline prices are all pretty static, the withdrawal of symptoms from years of cheap finance will be painful for everyone.

However good products will still sell, after all its not the first time time the world has experienced a recession, those companies with the right products people want to buy will be fine. If you had £70K to spend on a new SUV which one would you get??





Equally if Tesla can get a £30K Model 3 out they will be fine, I would argue £50K for a small saloon is even more niche than our £70K 6 seater X, even though Tesla have somehow found 150K people to part with their cash the 3 already.

[Heres Johnny]

DonkeyApple said:

...If they are getting rid of the staff who travel to fix customer cars then that is a good thing of it means fewer cars are needing after sales work...

Thats not going to be 7% of the global workforce

They're inundate with heater failures at the moment too.

Tesla are making a conscious effort to get serious and grow up, I suspect in part driven by the board changes

Examples:
- realign head count and job roles rather than just recruit in the hope of moving quicker. Hopefully this will pan out to more sensible time lines rather than Musks history of trying to make a baby in 1 month with 9 women and failing - although it has to be said I'm sure he's had a lot of fun trying
- referral scheme going which had fallen into widespread abuse with report of sales staff redirecting referrals inappropriately as at higher numbers they became lucrative (circa 4k a pop). The inability to actually ship rewards in anything approaching a timely manner is also a cause of some resentment, I've 7 awards across 3 years and I've not received one yet despite constant chasing. I can't see my carry on luggage bag every appearing.
- clamping down on goodwill in the service centres, out of warranty door handles and other bits and pieces. There was a time when pretty much anything and everything was fixed free of charge, an increasing number of stories now of people being charged on gray areas like door handles, I got hit with a £90 bill for a wiper arm that broke when cleaning the windscreen all because i lifted it more than an inch of the windscreen - to me that was a design fault I recon 2 years ago that would have been done for free.
-Free supercharging going for new cars, not even the 400kwh annual allowance, no referral, increases in kwh rates and increases in over stay charges

It's going to be interesting as most of the above are what created the fanboi community and they're going to start feeling the squeeze and change, and Tesla need to compensate the more hard nosed commercial side with hard nosed quality, both on design, build and software. I think they may slow down product launches as a consequence and strengthen the platform they have. Musk probably won't like that but its whats been needed for some time.

[DonkeyApple]

gangzoom said:

Market forces are going to hit everyone not just Tesla. On BMW and Lexus forums people have commented on how 'cheap' deals appear to be disappearing, despite the fact headline prices are all pretty static, the withdrawal of symptoms from years of cheap finance will be painful for everyone.

However good products will still sell, after all its not the first time time the world has experienced a recession, those companies with the right products people want to buy will be fine. If you had £70K to spend on a new SUV which one would you get??





Equally if Tesla can get a £30K Model 3 out they will be fine, I would argue £50K for a small saloon is even more niche than our £70K 6 seater X, even though Tesla have somehow found 150K people to part with their cash the 3 already.

Absolutely it will effect all premium goods vendors, that is what I was pointing out. The slowdown is in and Tesla won’t avoid it, it’s pure market forces.

You are right that the premium vendors will survive but most likely remain vendors have a Tesco’s or Aldi type product range in their books that will gain consumers as the premium sector loses them. Those that don’t have to have the margins to handle the volume erosion and the finances to survive a slowdown.

The problem Tesla has is that it has none of these and is trying to transition from a decade long period of burning investor cash to gain market share to finally making the end consumer pay for everything and give them a profit. It has no sturdy balance sheet, it has no low ticket product, it has no net profit margin in its luxury goods. If you had to pick a luxury car brand that was facing a near certain corporate restructuring then this is the one and that’s why I still don’t believe that the corporate structure of Tesla asbit currently stands will survive. I do think that they are staring at a debt for equity event which will eradicate the current shareholders and pass ownership to the bond holders.

[gangzoom]

Heres Johnny said:

They're inundate with heater failures at the moment too.

Are they? How many people have had failures?

I finally got round to replacing the key fob battery this week, and realised my 'spare' key fob doesn't work - probably never did. Infact any of the 'issues' I've had with mine were present at delivery, so Tesla could have saved themselves alot of time/effort if the car was delivered sorted in the first place.

Got through to service department within 3 minutes, and there is a chap coming to my house Monday 9am to swap me a new key. I made the call at 1pm on Friday!

I was half hoping they offer me a loner for a few days but hey cannot complain about efficiency.

[Heres Johnny]

gangzoom said:

Are they? How many people have had failures?

I finally got round to replacing the key fob battery this week, and realised my 'spare' key fob doesn't work - probably never did. Infact any of the 'issues' I've had with mine were present at delivery, so Tesla could have saved themselves alot of time/effort if the car was delivered sorted in the first place.

Got through to service department within 3 minutes, and there is a chap coming to my house Monday 9am to swap me a new key. I made the call at 1pm on Friday!

I was half hoping they offer me a loner for a few days but hey cannot complain about efficiency.

Based on the owners group, the last count it was about 10% of MX owners

[gangzoom]

I have to keep an eye on mine, but touch wood so far the car has been excellent, rolled over 18k this weekend, need to stop driving it so much if am going to make the 50k bumper to bumper warranty last till 2021.

Am also glad to see Tesla finally getting rid of 'free supercharging', I really hope it never comes back and Supercharger kWh prices become more sensible. Hopefully this will mean when the Model 3 finally arrives in the UK the Superchargers wouldn't be blocked by people too cheap to charge up at home or Taxis.

Conversely it reduces the chances of us PX our X for a new one. Yes Supercharging is still cheap, especially compared to the cost of the car, but why would I want to pay more £££££ to swap out of our X with 'free for life' Supercharging to one where I have to pay about £20 a pop with current fees - which I can see doubling quite easy when 200KW+ chargers appear. At which point 'filling up' an EV woudlnt be much cheaper than a combustion car especially when government taxes start appearing.

350Kw chargers will be great, but when costs hit £70-80 per fill up, I'll quite happily continue to charge up at a 'slow' 100KW but for £0 cost .

I can see used Tesla stock really dwindling as older 'free for life' Supercharging cars gets snapped up, and other owners like my self not selling up their non transferable 'free for life' Supercharging cars.

Edited by gangzoom on Sunday 20th January 04:00

[RobDickinson]

In places where you can frequently use them yeah.

Cost in USA is around 30mpg, OK for occasional use, home charging will be cheap and they were never meant to be your primary charging. But I think many have bought them doing just that.

Tesla did once say superchargers will never be a profit center I think

[Burwood]

Aren’t there membership schemes where EV drivers, not just Tesla owners can use ‘a network for as little as £10/month.

I’m starting to notice. Some garages charge 17p/kWh others charge by time. My home tariff is 13p. Local sainsbury has EV charging foc albeit weak ass 7kw but a parking spot is more valuable.

[RobDickinson]

Not sure of the UK schemes.

Here fast charging is 25c per kWh and 25c per min. Currently 50kw. This is fine for now.

Plenty of slower up to 22kw but typically 7kw free ac.


I'm not sure if many Tesla owners will use other networks(in Europe) ? You need the chademo adaptor and limited to 50kw. That'll change with the 3.

[Heres Johnny]

Burwood said:

Aren’t there membership schemes where EV drivers, not just Tesla owners can use ‘a network for as little as £10/month.

I’m starting to notice. Some garages charge 17p/kWh others charge by time. My home tariff is 13p. Local sainsbury has EV charging foc albeit weak ass 7kw but a parking spot is more valuable.

Plugged In Midlands (PIM)/Polar/Chargemaster (all more or less the same thing) charge a monthly fee (£7.85) or they have a PAYG model - I had it for a while but dropped it as the points they had which I used to try and use were constantly broken, and then PIM decided to make them accessible using any card and free vend which made the subscription pointless for me. In other locations the experience will be different no doubt.

I think membership cards will soon disappear and they'll all move to contactless credit card payments. Whether they thought there was some massive value in locking people in or the data they could collect or not, when the points were few and far between we all just signed up to half a dozen networks, and as the number of points increased you'd stop signing up and just find one where you had membership or was free. Those trying to get you to use a free app have issues too, its as typically bad as having card.

[DonkeyApple]

The logical step forward is for home chargers to be fitted with payment systems so that EV owners have the commercial option to advertise parking/charging on networks such as Parkopedia and earn an income.

[skyrover]

Toaster said:

AstonZagato said:

This type of thing is just not and issue if you have a Tesla.

It won't be the first or last vehicle to have run out of Fuel........

Let me know when you can quickly pour a can of electricity into your EV

[dmsims]

DonkeyApple said:

The logical step forward is for home chargers to be fitted with payment systems so that EV owners have the commercial option to advertise parking/charging on networks such as Parkopedia and earn an income.

That's pretty much a non starter, how many homes can provide 50Kw (and above) ?

[DonkeyApple]

dmsims said:

DonkeyApple said:

The logical step forward is for home chargers to be fitted with payment systems so that EV owners have the commercial option to advertise parking/charging on networks such as Parkopedia and earn an income.

That's pretty much a non starter, how many homes can provide 50Kw (and above) ?

It’ll work in places like London where there are already empty driveways during the day that the owners rent out to commuters for parking. It doesn’t need a super fast charging station as the commuters are parked up for 6-8 hours and just need top-ups.

It’s not going to help the chap who commutes daily to Mogadishu from his Penzance lighthouse but then that chap is the statistical anomaly.

I’ve never seen charging EVs as any kind of hurdle as electricity is ubiquitous and Western enterprise rampant. Anywhere that people park cars can ultimately become a charging point.

For super fast charging for long distance journeys they are just going to have to build hubs. Some of these will use park and ride concepts others use service station carparks and it will all eventually become standardised as automakers have already conceded that fast charging won’t be a battleground but a cooperative. Eventually as many parking spaces as are commercially viable will be fitted out with charging points and our EVs will communicate in advance to secure a bay etc.