Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
I'm willing to concede that in all likelihood the TSLA stock price is not likely to be affected by whether or not Tesla meets deadlines for delivering firmware updates. And it appears that the stock price also isn't affected much by the reputation Tesla has built for less than stellar communication. But do you know what probably is affected by that? Word of mouth sales.
I love my P85D. I would highly recommend it to many people. I have a friend who I actually thought would really appreciate the car. Unlike me, he has owned high end cars in the price range of the Model S for as long as I've known him--about 15 years. He's the CFO at his company. If he bought a Model S and liked it, he'd probably be responsible for at least half a dozen other sales. He's that kind of person.
The day I was going to tell him about having ordered my P85D, I was also considering sending him some information about it if he was interested, sending him links, etc. This was a few months ago, and I had not yet seen first-hand what I've seen now with respect to the communication problems Tesla has.
As I was telling him about having ordered the car, my friend told me that he had actually started to order one last year too, but that he wound up not going through with it. It sounded to me as if he had actually placed a deposit, without understanding that the car was going to be built to his specifications, and uniquely for him. I think he understood roughly the time-frame, but he wanted to specify the color closer to when he'd be taking delivery. Because he had not researched the car much at all, and probably just didn't understand the differences between the way Tesla sells cars and the way other car makers sell cars, he was completely put off when someone from Tesla was, as he put it, "bugging him to pick a color when he had told them he'd pick the color later."
It was a short call, and I didn't have time to fully explain the Tesla buying process. I plan to the next time we get together in person. But my point is that knowing what I now know about Tesla and the way they communicate I absolutely would not recommend that this particular friend purchase a Tesla. Why? Because I know my friend. I know that he would never take the time to read internet forums to educate himself on the nuances of the car. I know that he would have no patience for a car that occasionally had bugs that needed to be worked out. I know that the way Tesla communicates and the way my friend expects to be treated as a consumer of a six-figure automobile would not be a good fit.
So though I love my P85D, and though I think my friend would ultimately be happy with the car itself, I can't in good faith recommend that he purchase a Tesla. And I bet most of us have a friend or two just like that.
So perhaps that's not negatively impacting the TSLA stock price while the company is supply-constrained anyway right now. But looking at the big picture, it can't be helping. That's what bothers me.
