What Question Would You Like to Hear at the Shareholder Meeting?

Suggestion for Upcoming Shareholder Meeting

The annual shareholder meeting is a little over three weeks away.

I've always found live Q&As between Elon and Tesla and/or TSLA owners very entertaining and often quite revealing. Of course, at times, many of us are left wishing those who had the opportunity to present a question had asked Elon something else we'd had in mind.

This winter, Elon did a Reddit "AMA," on SpaceX. Reddit has a voting system that moves a particular question posed toward the top or bottom of an open list depending on how many people like the question in relation to other ones. This format allowed us all to have some impact on which questions Elon choose to answer, even if the particular question we added to the list was not chosen.

So, my suggestion is that Tesla combine these two formats. Open the floor as usual to live questions to those who have made the effort to come to the meeting, but also have some questions chosen by a Reddit-like voting process that will more effectively represent what we are collectively interested in, and open the floor to those of us for whom showing up in the Bay area for the meeting is a bit more challenging (fwiw, I could see Tesla either creating a page on their website for this, or arranging something with Reddit). These two different sources of questions could be blended in whatever proportion Tesla wants to try out. The Reddit voting and selection of questions could be done before or during the meeting.

Any interest?

the meeting is just over three weeks away.


I'd ask:

"You've suggested we'll see a 400 mile range Tesla around 2020. If this were paired with SuperCharging dropping to 15 minutes or less, I think the appeal of such an EV over an ICE vehicle would be obvious to the vast majority of the public. What do you see as the prospects for such SuperCharging in the next 5 years, or 10 years?"



Note, I do realize one could say home charging would still be an issue for a fair amount of people, but in my view, the very large part of the market for whom this is not an issue would leave Tesla supply constrained for at least another decade beyond 2020.

I just want to reiterate my suggestion that someone ask Elon tomorrow how he sees the prospects and potential timeline for substantial improvements in SuperCharging speed. How probable does he see 15 minute SuperCharging, and by roughly what year? What's the fastest he sees SuperCharging getting, how probable, by when?

I say this as,

- Elon's already suggested we'll see 400 mile Tesla's in 4-5 years. If this were combined with 15 minute or less SuperCharging, the only remaining argument I can see for an ICE car is the "vroom vroom" sound some consumers actually like to hear. At that point, it will be nearly globally obvious that EVs of Tesla's caliber are decidedly preferable to ICE offerings.

To put this in context... market participants wonder what S/X sales will be this year, next year, etc. Will they hit 100K year in 2016? Will they be hurt by the Model 3 introduction? Well, if there's a 400 mile Model S/X in 2020 with 15 minute or less SuperCharging, that all becomes pretty moot. I say this as I'm highly confident that such an S/X and every EV of similar caliber made by another manufacturer (which looks likely to be a modest amount in 2020) would replace an ICE sale in 2020. That is, S/X would not be "defending" a 150K portion of the large luxury sedan/SUV market, but virtually the whole market would choose Tesla quality EVs. Nearly the same will be so for the Model 3's price range.

- It's been nearly two years since we heard JB suggest the aspiration is 5-10 minute SuperCharging. We've heard nothing since as far as I know, and the would be competing technology to SuperCharging, battery swap, is now something Elon sees as not likely to be deployed outside of commercial applications (i.e. trucking).

- Bottom line, I think a large improvement in SuperCharging speed is a massive lever in convincing the bulk of consumers that they'd prefer a Tesla quality car, but it is almost never discussed.

Johan said:

How is it that two distinguised members of Tesla Motors Club started overlapping threads with communicty questions and now both are asking similar questions?

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Lets not waste that question on Elon I started this thread in the investors section, and a few days later AIMc started a thread in the Tesla Motors section. The moderators moved AIMc's thread into the investor section... and now we have two threads on the same topic. People made the effort to ask some good questions in both threads worth being seen. heh, heh, though too late at this point, I'll put in a plug for my part Reddit-like source of questions for those of us who can't make it to the meeting for next year.

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Jonathan Hewitt said:

I really like this one. Today at the conference Elon said they are looking at faster supercharging so it might be something he would like to talk about. Certain topics are easier than others to get Elon to spill the beans on.

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Thanks. Again, I think it's fair to say if there were a Powerful Lever to Shared Information statistic this would be tops... we know they think they'll get battery costs under $100 by 2020, we know they plan to do multiple GFs, auto plants in multiple continents, but knocking out the last thin pro ICE argument, we know nearly zilch about.