Dreams and Electric Sheep

Income potential? Check around your area for a "career coach" - usually who work in the area of personal therapy services. Very helpful if you can utilize your insurance for the visits.

Also - use Musk and company as your "catalyst", pick some role models in life and copy them. Find a couple top of the line guys and just try to work just as hard. In your current firm, try to be the most important person in the company and you will get noticed and advance.

Quick story. I worked as a computer programmer at a firm in 1987-1988 and worked with two "consultants" who were in there making things actually work. Imagine that - they stayed late after work and did extra hours and were really good guys to work with. I stopped goofing off and leaving at 4:30pm or 5:00pm and worked late with them. They let me help and I learned a lot through self-guided learning and doing new stuff. Paid off in the end as through my career, income levels have gone up by a factor of 8 (I make about 8 times what I did in the early years of 1987). However, I think in the computer world, we have not had much salary increase across the industry. You had to hook up with a stock-bound company like FaceBook or Google to make the "real big bucks". Stock payoffs is what people are looking for now. And many cases, Tesla buyers are those who have had stocks do very well (including the Tesla stock).

If you are making less than $100K a year, owning a Tesla "new" is probably a bad idea. However, you may be able to buy one at 100,000 miles for $35K in about 2 years. Model S 60 will be the lowest priced version.

I have heard of professional dog walkers in NYC making upwards of $50K to 70K per year with a packed schedule. It can be done.

I think you will be able to get a used Model S in one or two years for a very good price. Tesla has started a trend in the car industry that is equivalent to the computer or phone market. The product cycles are quicker and make the previous version become "old" quicker.

The 60 kWh battery for example is pretty much obsolete right now. All cars from the first two years are lacking the hardware that enables auto pilot or even adaptive cruise control. Early cars are limited to 90 kW Supercharging. Rear drive only cars are now history. Soon there will be larger batteries available which make the old ones less desirable. The competition is also not sleeping. More lower prices EV are coming out with a range that isn't far from Tesla. All these things will make prices come down. The development is going fast making the old cars drop in value. You will be able to get a used Model S for a reasonable price.

Agreed that Tesla is introducing significant improvements so fast that it may be accelerating depreciation to some extent, but I think the market for used Model S is going to remain robust because many people want one and can't afford the new price, and for those who have never owned a long range EV even the most basic Model S is a revelation.

Disagree that "Rear drive only [Model S] cars are now history".

I think Tesla will continue to offer RWD Model S for quite a while, and am certain that the base Model 3 will be RWD to hold down costs.

bonaire said:

Also - use Musk and company as your "catalyst", pick some role models in life and copy them. Find a couple top of the line guys and just try to work just as hard. In your current firm, try to be the most important person in the company and you will get noticed and advance.

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@ bonaire: This is great advice. Surround yourself with people you want to be like; stay away from the naysayers and those that you don't want to emulate. I'm only 42, but this has worked for me so far!