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So much for deliveries by 7/31.

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Elon promised customer deliveries by the end of July. It's now official that this goal was missed. (I don't consider founders to be customers.)

Not criticizing, merely observing. Could this be partly the reason for the low stock price?
 
Elon promised customer deliveries by the end of July. It's now official that this goal was missed. (I don't consider founders to be customers.)

Not criticizing, merely observing. Could this be partly the reason for the low stock price?

Disagree with your assessment the founders are not customers. In the sense they paid for their cars, I believe they qualify as Tesla's first customers. Where they fall short in being a typical customer is the customer/manufacturer relationship they have with Tesla is very skewed toward Tesla. As pointed out in another thread, they are less likely to publicly complain about any initial quality issues and highly motivated to publicly praise the EV virtues.
Right now investors in any company seem to be looking for a reason to either not buy or want to sell what they own. So, yes IMO that could partly be the reason for some investors; they're a skittish bunch right now.
 
I agree that *these* founders are not real customers, as they are obviously accepting cars that don't even contain the final design. These deliveries surely come with the caveat that the car will be "updated" to match what is eventually delivered to "real" customers in late August. I wouldn't be surprised if "updated" actually means "replaced", but who knows?

I'm not any less excited about the car because of this, but it's disappointing to see another missed deadline and PR tricks. Did Elon take the money from that bet he made about deliveries by July?
 
Disagree with your assessment the founders are not customers. In the sense they paid for their cars, I believe they qualify as Tesla's first customers. Where they fall short in being a typical customer is the customer/manufacturer relationship they have with Tesla is very skewed toward Tesla. As pointed out in another thread, they are less likely to publicly complain about any initial quality issues and highly motivated to publicly praise the EV virtues.
Right now investors in any company seem to be looking for a reason to either not buy or want to sell what they own. So, yes IMO that could partly be the reason for some investors; they're a skittish bunch right now.

I agree, it was a nice marketing thing to deliver "early", but ten cars doesn't really count IMO. That said it's perfectly understandable to take some time and iron out the wrinkles. Car manufacturing is not rocket science but it still takes lots of things working in unison. Just getting suppliers organized is an accomplishment let alone what happens inside the factory. The big uncertainty that is affecting the share price right now is just plain being able to produce them. As soon as actual deliveries are being made to non founder customers, the stock should respond positively. Anybody know if that is looking like that is going to be next week or the end of this month(I've got Aug calls I need to do something with)? After production starts it's just going to be a question of demand, with maybe some annoyance if they do another stock offering.
 
I don't consider missing this goal to be of any significance other than an issue of pride, perhaps...regardless of whether Founders are customers or not.

I just want Tesla to deliver us the best car they can.

I do too, but these missed deadlines are more than pride, and they cost people money. As an example, I made my car selling-buying plans last year based on an April delivery of my car this year, which was conservative based on what Tesla advertised. It is now costing me extra money to have something to drive between then and whenever my car is delivered. I would of course prefer to have the best car possible, but it's still disappointing, and has implications other than pride.
 
:confused:

Why aren't Founders customers? They paid full price (except for those with employee discount) just the same as everyone else.

The few Founders who have found there cars, are certainly customers because they have paid a lot of money for their cars, but they also appear to have been muzzled in terms of their ability (or willingness) to comment on TM or TMC on any challenges they've experienced wih their cars. I still want the S and fully believe in the principles, but am frustrated by the manipulative theatrics of unveiling the car early and then halting production while they fix the problems. If it wasn't ready for prime time, they should have more thoroughly tested the S before announcing that it was ready for delivery.
 
I agree that *these* founders are not real customers, as they are obviously accepting cars that don't even contain the final design. These deliveries surely come with the caveat that the car will be "updated" to match what is eventually delivered to "real" customers in late August. I wouldn't be surprised if "updated" actually means "replaced", but who knows?

I'm not any less excited about the car because of this, but it's disappointing to see another missed deadline and PR tricks. Did Elon take the money from that bet he made about deliveries by July?

Does that mean Sig buyers are not "real customers" either? It's unlikely that my car will be the final design, but what will count as the final design?

As for the bet, a) it was always going to Doctors Without Borders and b) if journalist Dan Neil felt that Elon won who am I to question it.
 
As an example, I made my car selling-buying plans last year based on an April delivery of my car this year, which was conservative based on what Tesla advertised.
Tesla has said Summer 2012 for a long time now. If you thought you were getting a car in April 2012, you have an incredibly odd definition of summer. And if you made assumptions on initial delivery rate that left you no flexibility, that's purely your responsibility.
 
The few Founders who have found there cars, are certainly customers because they have paid a lot of money for their cars, but they also appear to have been muzzled in terms of their ability (or willingness) to comment on TM or TMC on any challenges they've experienced wih their cars.

Muzzled? Steve Jurvetson's said that he had been asked not to talk about his car prior to the Shareholder Meeting, but that is standard legal practice as he's on the board. Elon has said that the Founders are giving feedback to Tesla.....the Founders that we know about are entrepreneurs and some high flying investors, quite honestly I'd be shocked if any of them found their way to The TM or TMC forums.
 
Elon promised customer deliveries by the end of July. It's now official that this goal was missed. (I don't consider founders to be customers.)

Not criticizing, merely observing. Could this be partly the reason for the low stock price?

Let Tesla take their time to get the final details of the car right. It will be cheaper and better for them to delay production than to to retrofit cars with updates or be subjected to negative press from real-life users which would adversely affect sales.

Take the time to do things right and to release a great product. At least that's what Jobs' said he did in his biography and look what he did to computers and mobile phones...
 
Tesla has said Summer 2012 for a long time now. If you thought you were getting a car in April 2012, you have an incredibly odd definition of summer. And if you made assumptions on initial delivery rate that left you no flexibility, that's purely your responsibility.
You're correct, but when I reserved mine (P1635, in March 2010), the delivery target was "Winter 2011".
 
I am less concerned with the fact that my car will be delayed and more concerned that Tesla has gone on "radio silence" with information to customers. I haven't received one e-mail or phone call from them since I locked in my final options. You would think from a PR standpoint they'd want to keep a constant flow of "it's almost here" messages to customers, especially Signature customers.
 
I agree that *these* founders are not real customers, as they are obviously accepting cars that don't even contain the final design. These deliveries surely come with the caveat that the car will be "updated" to match what is eventually delivered to "real" customers in late August. I wouldn't be surprised if "updated" actually means "replaced", but who knows?

If Roadsters are any indication, the Founders have to be willing to accept that their Founders' car is going to be a little less "done" than future production versions. Yes, they could do some updates, but only up to a point. As far as I know, they didn't offer to replace Founders' Roadsters even though it was known that they weren't quite as refined as some of the later ones. If an investor buys a Founders' car and then later decides they want something more up-to-date, then they can get in line to buy a 2nd one out of regular production.