Your comments on Elon's letter to Tesla employees

[fresnoboy]

I think Tesla is focused on being able to make money on electric cars. I don't think it's an accident that while they are cutting jobs here to the bone, they are investing in China. Lower wage workers and much less aggressive environmental laws there should enable them to make more cars faster and with less cost. It's not that Tesla would like to pollute more - it's just the rules there don't require the same amount of paperwork and costs to approve as they do here.

My bet is once they have lines up there, they will start exporting from China to Europe and other countries. And if they need more money, building large production there they could get Chinese investors to write checks too.

I doubt they'll end US production of course - it will take time to get China up and running, and with this administration they would suffer. But with tax breaks ending, they have to cut production costs significantly to make up for that, plus address the demand for lower cost versions. All of that is much easier to address in China than in the US.

It's not clear they can cut production costs enough here to make that happen. They have to go to a lower cost of production country.

Now, if I am wrong, you'll see them slow down their gigafactory and plant work in China, and they will buy an old GM plant and spool up a second production line in the US. But I don't think he can hit the numbers he has to hit and build in California.

 

[sandpiper]

IMO Tesla should give up making cars.
They can neither deliver new ones, nor CPO's. And service, if you can find a center is, sadly, today so bad I avoid it at all costs.

Tesla should focus on its batteries, charging network and maybe the semi's. Companies will pay for the semi's.
Consumers are a hard lot to satisfy.

Seriously? You clearly have no idea of how challenging it is to build an organization that is capable of doing what Tesla has done. It's vastly more complex than building some tech company/software firm.

They're already surmounted a whole series of company-killing obstacles. I'm not trying to say that Tesla doesn't have issues; they do. And they need to be dealt with. But they will. The company is slowly stabilizing.

 

[GreenT]

Seriously, yes.
"But they will"? Not any time soon.
I have every idea ... and Elon cannot delegate. It's his way or the highway. (Sorry.)

 

[Barklikeadog]

Seriously, yes.
"But they will"? Not any time soon.
I have every idea ... and Elon cannot delegate. It's his way or the highway. (Sorry.)

I'd like to know how they come up with many of the predictions and promises that end up being self inflicted damage.
Some of those are obvious... i doubt the people working on FSD actually told Elon it would be operational in 3-6 months.

How did they conclude that $35k was the magic price for the Model 3? And how did they conclude a 25% profit margin on $35k?
Did they actually figure out that 35k was legit, or was this some magic number Elon wanted? Just go with it and we'll get there somehow!
Same for the 5,000 per week in 2017 and 10,000 model 3s per week in 2018... everyone and anyone not in the tesla boardroom knew that was BS.
Are these numbers all Elon? Elon & the board? Employees? They wouldn't be the 1st board members in the world that get a goal in their heads
and think it can be accomplished by throwing more people/money at it.