Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Navin]

It's even worse: this is the "annual" report, CR only updates their ratings once per year AFAICS.

Thus CR will continue to libel and slander Tesla until the end of February 2020, by which time Tesla will have sold more than half a million of Model 3's, all the while CR pretends the safest, most satisfying car in their survey is not a "recommended" car, based on feedback from "made before September 2018" models ...

While, perversely, CR's own data is not even backing up their negative rating:

Note that there's no real exclamation point: there's a single "average" score, two "above average" scores and 14 top ratings.

WTF is CR doing?

Let me help you.
Consumers Union - Wikipedia
Read first footnote on background of consumer reports CEO!!

Most reliable cars: Tesla Model S plunges in Consumer Reports ranking
It’s an old trick they are using

 

[Dan Detweiler]

Yep. In that interview Consumer Reports comes very close to slandering Tesla, in addition to the libel in their press release two days ago. CR also went out on a limb to spread libel against Tesla by "reaching out" to several media outlets beforehand, basically gifting shorts with material non-public information, significantly harming Tesla investors.

It would be a slam dunk court case: the slander in the interview and the libel in CR's press communications is refuted by CR's own data:

What the *sugar*?? Why isn't CR giving Tesla an award for outstanding Model 3 reliability???

OK, so at what point does Tesla go after this stuff...in court. That's really the only way its going to stop. I understand they have bigger fish to fry at this point but there is no question, as you point out, that the dissemination of this data was slanderous and had a LARGE negative impact on the stock giving the shorts "inside trade" information.

I am all for turning the other cheek and just focusing on what you can control but, as in other aspects of life, the bully only stops his behavior when the victim fights back. Until their are significant financial and legal consequences that are understood, this type of activity will just continue to be the norm. Tesla is guilty until proven innocent...costing them a sh** ton of money, time and resources just to maintain their good name.

Dan

 

[KarenRei]

OK, so at what point does Tesla go after this stuff...in court. That's really the only way its going to stop. I understand they have bigger fish to fry at this point but there is no question, as you point out, that the dissemination of this data was slanderous and had a LARGE negative impact on the stock giving the shorts "inside trade" information.

I am all for turning the other cheek and just focusing on what you can control but, as in other aspects of life, the bully only stops his behavior when the victim fights back. Until their are significant financial and legal consequences that are understood, this type of activity will just continue to be the norm. Tesla is guilty until proven innocent...costing them a sh** ton of money, time and resources just to maintain their good name.

Dan

This will never, ever happen. Even if they'd win (and this presumes malicious intent rather than just stupidity), imagine the optics of Tesla suing a consumer advocacy organization. Imagine how that'll be spun. Just, no. It's lose-lose.

 

[Driver Dave]

WTF is CR doing?

Ignoring their own data.

Ignoring satisfaction score from drivers.

Ignoring reality.

Giving final score based in click bait headlines they read that day.

Handing over to their social media manager to get their own clicks.

 

[Hock1]

OK, so at what point does Tesla go after this stuff...in court. That's really the only way its going to stop. I understand they have bigger fish to fry at this point but there is no question, as you point out, that the dissemination of this data was slanderous and had a LARGE negative impact on the stock giving the shorts "inside trade" information.

I am all for turning the other cheek and just focusing on what you can control but, as in other aspects of life, the bully only stops his behavior when the victim fights back. Until their are significant financial and legal consequences that are understood, this type of activity will just continue to be the norm. Tesla is guilty until proven innocent...costing them a sh** ton of money, time and resources just to maintain their good name.

Dan

It does appear that Elon and board have decided to take a "turn-the-other-cheek" attitude, opting to put our resources fully behind the building of more and better BEVs. I agree with this position, yet would not be surprised if some sort of action ensued, at some point, against those behind these fraudulent, collusive hits on the Company. The criminality of these coordinated hits rise to the purview of the DOJ (FBI), IMO. I don't know where we stand with the case against the "saboteur", but if we actually get to depose him, I'm hopeful some big names might ultimately emerge.
Does anyone have knowledge as to the status of this case? TIA

 

[BornToFly]

I typically roll by close the day before expiry to try and minimize this risk.

Well, that didn't help! Yesterday I rolled my remaining 320 Puts to next Friday. So they are a week away from closing now, and they still got assigned to me this morning (after hours Friday). They are less than 10% below the SP! I don't know if this means that some very powerful market manipulators are expecting the SP to go up or down a lot as a result of the Bond payment?

 

[Tslynk67]

Just test-drive a P3D with wifey. What can I say, but wow! Obviously I’ve read everyone gushing about how well it handles, but it’s actually even better than I could have imagined. Makes my Model X seem antiquated, which is crazy!!

She wasn’t sure about M3 as she prefers a more upright position, so we’ll see how the MY looks, but she said she liked the M3 and could live with it. Progress.

Have to say that the seats are super comfy and the build-quality seems excellent. CR can go procreate with themselves.

Small data-points:
- 4 test drives per hour from Tesla Brussels, booked ahead 2-3 weeks
- 750 M3 sold so far in Belgium
- deliveries started last week
- deliver team overwhelmed (I have offered to help three times, but they’re not taking up on it)
- car much more suited for European roads

 

[ggies07]

"It's a mid range meme." -Elon. Bah-hahaha.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Hi all,

Can we let off the CR stuff for a while?

This may be an interesting redirect. Maybe not.

I read the article about the six cars that lost the Recommend (behind paywall). They list the cars in alphabetical (Make) order and don’t stress any one of the cars in particular. Two are named in the first paragraph, and one of these is the REAL news here, and it’s not the Tesla.

Here’s the meat. Acura can do OTA software updates!

 

[CorneliusXX]

OT: Yeah, I get nostalgic thinking about it I loved invading bases by building walls of turrets into them. Although nothing was ever more fun than having an APC pick up a package that confers stealth, letting you haul five engineers straight into their base One game that really stands out in my mind was one where both sides managed to destroy the other side's base, but my GDI foe had lots of tanks and troops left over, but I only had a single damaged stealth tank. The game went on for hours, and I actually won, via hit-and-run tactics and the occasional health crate

I was also Queen of the Recon Bike Horde. So underappreciated they were. They could outrun a nuclear weapon launch, dodge with 'X', do hit and runs all over the map, same attack power as a (60% more expensive) medium tank but with a 60% faster firing rate, damaged vehicles could quickly retreat and be repaired, they had innate air defense, and you could churn them out quickly and cheaply. It was an extremely effective tactic for dominating the map. Particularly deadly for taking out enemy harvesters.

I hardly ever play games anymore, but I think back fondly about my days in college playing on our home-built LAN that we had strung up to the ceiling with duct tape

The bikes were way OP and so much fun to use. I also loved using artillery with cloaked scouts.

I had a similar LAN setup, but got in quite a bit of trouble for drilling holes between rooms in my boarding house to run cables. Good times.

 

[Krugerrand]

"It's a mid range meme." -Elon. Bah-hahaha.

He was very good. His wicked sense of humor was on full display.

 

[Zaxxon]

It will be interesting if Tesla tries to add a 3rd row, maybe jump seats. Would be much more useful in a cuv when compared to an S. And it's a pretty simple option to add.

I hope they do. Even though it wouldn't be the most functional 3rd row, for families like mine it's useful to have for those times we have family in town and want to pile in for short trips rather than taking two cars.

 

[PhaseWhite]

It's even worse: this is the "annual" report, CR only updates their ratings once per year AFAICS.

Thus CR will continue to libel and slander Tesla until the end of February 2020, by which time Tesla will have sold more than half a million of Model 3's, all the while CR pretends the safest, most satisfying car in their survey is not a "recommended" car, based on feedback from "made before September 2018" models ...

While, perversely, CR's own data is not even backing up their negative rating:

Note that there's no real exclamation point: there's a single "average" score, two "above average" scores and 14 top ratings.

WTF is CR doing?

The only conclusion we can draw is that the data didn't support the rating but someone made an editorial decision. Tesla can't attack the messenger as that will make them look like the bad guy, but the owners can. This picture needs to be retweeted @ConsumerReports thousands of times. They should be challenged/shamed publicly and forced to explain in more detail how they went from the results to the recommendation.

I don't subscribe to ConsumerReports but if I did I would probably cancel my subscription and let them know why. Organizations like this will pay attention when people speak with their wallets.

There's a good discussion of this on Tesla Reddit as well.
Either Consumer Reports is bad at math or I am.... : teslamotors

 

[Fred42]

Published 11 hours ago, and already hit nearly 1 million likes.

Marketing effectiveness at its best. It is ridiculous for him to do anything else. There is no need for mainstream media other then to advertise&promote his internet appearances.

I still want to see him do the hot sauce show with his kids right there to laugh with him as he eats hot wings and answer q’s in agony. It’d another hit to add to the list.

I wondered if people who watch meme reviews are in age groups that buy cars. Per dexerto.com 28% of viewer accounts are for people age 25-34. 44% are 18-24. Age 55+ 1%. But they say Google doesn't allow people under age 13-16 (varies by country) to set up an account, so an unknown number of children are watching using someone else's account.

 

[anthonyj]

Tesla could go bankrupt and Elon Musk could run afoul of the SEC and it wouldn't matter — because owners love the cars

 

[ggr]

Can someone who subscribes to Consumer Reports tell us the detail on the other 5 cars that were disrecommended? Does it look like the Model 3 was treated unfairly?

I had a conversation with a friend the other day who said that the Model X still had reliability problems according to CR, but when I looked at the publicly available (less detailed I assume) ratings the X looked the same as her Camry, namely all green. So I guess I'm sensitized to the fact that subscribers see more than non-subscribers.

 

[hacer]

Reliability and Durability is CR's Auto Survey raison d'être.
...
CR Auto Survey is what it is: it tells us about how often we need take the car in for the shop.
...

I don't get it. Since paint chips require a trip to the service center (your words), this should be a huge problem for reliability of nearly all cars. I mean after a year of driving there will always be a lot of small rock hits that produce chips in the paint. So aren't all cars in the shop regularly for this reliability nightmare? How does CR handle this issue?

 

[traxila]

CBS News Technology Analyst Larry Magid speaks with Consumer Reports Auto editor Patrick Olsen on why the magazine pulled its coveted "Recommended" rating from the Tesla Model 3

Consumer Reports Auto editor Patrick Olsen on why Tesla Model 3 lost the "Recommended" rating

My commentary notes:

Consumer Reports did not do a sufficient job justifying their "Not Recommended" rating.

The interviewer is great. Owns a Tesla Model 3 and is very knowledgeable about his car and how Tesla's "work."

Interviewer asked very reasonable questions that made sense. How can such a well regarded car not be recommended. CR response was not sufficient.

Consumer reports is going to wait ONE MORE YEAR to verify that Tesla fixed the issues. The owners were surveyed in Summer of 2018.

Paint/Trim/Electronics/Glass was the issues behind the rating. Back in the day, engine, transmissions were the issues of concern. The Tesla equivalent is motors, inverters and batteries. No complaints about those!

Consumer Reports LOVES Toyota and their very methodical and minor incremental improvements. Opposite of Tesla - and where is our Toyota EV?

I think the very modest price drops in TSLA reflect the overall inconsequentialness of this downgrade.

Just canceled my CR subscription. Tesla fanboyism aside, I just do not see the same quality product or unquestionable objectivity that had been the hallmark of CR. At this point it can go to dustbin history far as I am concerned.

 

[Navin]

Elon just posted this photo on his new website on memes. What does it mean? Is there a millennial in da house who can interpret?

 

[KarenRei]

I don't get it. Since paint chips require a trip to the service center (your words), this should be a huge problem for reliability of nearly all cars. I mean after a year of driving there will always be a lot of small rock hits that produce chips in the paint. So aren't all cars in the shop regularly for this reliability nightmare? How does CR handle this issue?

Glass too. Window repairs are a very common occurrence in cars. I had one a year or two ago in my pickup. No impact that I recall, though there might have been a minor one at some point previously. I just went out one cold day and there was a crack spreading across my windshield. By the end of the day it had spread across the entire windshield.