TMC Connect - Ricardo Reyes questions

bonnie said:

Ricardo Reyes, Tesla's head honcho of communications, will be speaking at TMC Connect. Some of you may remember that Ricardo left & then returned at the end of last year, replacing Simon Sproule (who replaced George Blankenship).

Are there specific questions you'd like to see him address during his talk? His staff has reached out to me for input & while I may have an opinion or two , I thought I'd throw the question out to the broader group.

Ricardo Reyes Rejoins Tesla As Communications Chief, Leaving Square - Businessweek

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The only part of his area I am very interested in is the web presence and are they going to bring that into the 21st century.

I guess what interests me most is whether there has been any progress on APIs and support for a third party ecosystem around the car. Look what it did for Apple and the iPhone, and imagine what the 'car as a platform' could do.

Sort of a leading question, but I'd be interested in knowing how they currently (and would like to) leverage us. I know they (as a corporation and individuals) monitor the forum for ideas, but that's a bit random - any specific examples would be cool. A lot of us really enjoy showing our cars off and I love watching brand recognition grow - what can they crowdsource to us? For example, we had a lot of ideas on how to handle Model X reservations ...

How does he view the state of communication between Tesla and its customers? What is Tesla looking to do to improve this communication? What does Tesla wish we as customers and in particular active community members would do to improve communication from our end?

I'd like to hear him frankly talk about the challenges of having a boss like Elon. I can only imagine that Elon's candor is the biggest challenge to a "Communications Chief".

Things like the change in Supercharger policy and other things...

Does Elon meet with the PR department before he communicates with the public? I enjoy his frank comments, but they seem like they are not always thoroughly vetted before release.

It would be interesting to know how many cars there are by country; like Australia, Europe, USA etc. Also how many have gone dark.

Given that it has been illegal for many years for any car maker to have a service center in Michigan (except for their own fleet vehicles), why does the website still show (for over two years now) a Detroit service center as "coming soon"? Is it because Tesla is in talks with the state regarding this? It would be very exciting if progress was being made on that front!

Actually, any report of progress in cracking the Michigan market would be great to know about!

1. Right now Tesla doesn't really 'advertise' - does he see that changing in the future? If so, what's the trigger?
2. If Tesla does advertise, it's through e-mail contact with existing owners, Elon's tweets, Facebook, their web page, etc. - these days, that's pretty conventional stuff. What new methods do they see coming down the road that look promising (it is in Silicon Valley, after all).
3. Does he see a value in expanding the 'face of Tesla' and use more of JB Straubel, Franz von Holzhausen, or others to connect with different constituencies?

Thx.

When will Tesla officially sanction / sponsor owners' clubs? Minimal things Tesla could do:

- license their trademarks for appropriate use by clubs
- give new owners information on how they could join a club
- have information available on teslamotors.com and at stores / galleries / service centers on club activities.

Those of us who are car enthusiasts know how other clubs work, and could make them fun ways to promote the brand. It's just so much harder without manufacturer support.

Thanks for organizing, Bonnie. My question would be about the overall communications strategy to Owners. From our side of the fence I think most people would agree it has been one of Tesla's weakest aspects. From my perspective it seems ad hoc, reactive, often late (or not at all), and idiosyncratic to say the least. I'd love to know whether his perception is the same or completely different, and whether they plan to change anything.

Adding to what Nick said - how do they measure communication effectiveness? I think it's gotten better, but that's just one person's impression.

bollar said:

When will Tesla officially sanction / sponsor owners' clubs? Minimal things Tesla could do:

- license their trademarks for appropriate use by clubs
- give new owners information on how they could join a club
- have information available on teslamotors.com and at stores / galleries / service centers on club activities.

Those of us who are car enthusiasts know how other clubs work, and could make them fun ways to promote the brand. It's just so much harder without manufacturer support.

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I know Tesla is getting close on this. They have a manager of consumer retention and engagement who I have been in contact with.
I don't think we can expect an announcement at the conference but believe me they are working on it. From what I know we should be happy with their progress.

For those of us with reservations, can they add an estimated delivery date/month based on what they know now, shown when you log on?

I realize this number could change but at least, as we get closer, it would give us an idea. Right now it is all a big unknown (in my case, this year or next year).

If they could predict the stock price for the time that my car ordering comes up would be really fantastic.. :wink:

markwj said:

I guess what interests me most is whether there has been any progress on APIs and support for a third party ecosystem around the car. Look what it did for Apple and the iPhone, and imagine what the 'car as a platform' could do.

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+1 on the API question. It would be great if we could have an app that has access to the car's information (Odometer, GPS, power state, etc.)

Hi Bonnie I would really like you to ask about the new Roadster battery and the 3.0 upgrade. Yes we are old technology but battery cost and upgradability is the most common question at car shows about the long term viability of EV'S.

Besides the SDK question (and rough dates for when it might be available for third parties to create apps and submit them to Tesla via an App Store), does Tesla monitor articles for comments (pro/con)? And if so, do they work to address common incorrect arguments? Ultimately I'd like to see a FAQ of some type that was easily linkable regarding common arguments (long tailpipe, cost to environment, battery longevity, etc.) to the crackpot ones (battery swap is fake, etc.). Owners and fans do a lot responding to such arguments online, but Tesla could curate a better set of answers with pointers to more detailed answers. Some answers might merit a blog post. Some like the battery swap could addressed by getting a few journalists to take the ride from LA to SFO and back and writing an article able the experience. And so forth.