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Tesla dissolves its PR department

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#111

Post by kanox »

gamblor956 wrote: post #93
rsynnott wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, without him, electric cars would still be in their infancy and rockets would not be landing themselves This seems... dubious? The chronology is: Smart EQ: 2007 (in tiny numbers; niche non-mass-market product) Tesla Roadster: 2008 (in tiny numbers; niche non-mass-market product) Nissan Leaf: 2010 Renault Zoe: 2012 Tesla Model S: 2012 The Leaf was a big seller, and the Zoe outsells Tesla's entire line-up in…

Mitsubishi's iMiev (2009) was the first EV to sell more than 10,000 units. Toyota RAV4 EV was released in 2003 though it was only available for lease (leasors could buy the vehicle at the end of the lease). Indeed, the RAV4 EV 2nd Generation is the reason Tesla exists as a going concern today; without Toyota's cash infusion, Tesla would just be another Faraday Motors in car history. Ford released an EV truck in 1998…

> And the US granddaddy of them all (excluding vehicles only available to fleets) is the GM EV1, released back in 1996.

Yes, GM deserves much more credit for the EV revolution than Tesla.

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#112

Post by qznc »

mapgrep wrote: post #74

"There are obviously still people arranging test-drive promotions for YouTubers but their role isn’t in a traditional public relations capacity. " That's absolutely traditional PR for an automaker. "Arranging test-drive promotions" means deciding who is eligible for test drives, viewing what is published on YouTube, and deciding if the person will be eligible next time. Even if no words are spoken/written to the YouT…

You could say it is the most traditional PR technique of the whole automotive industry.

> On 5 August 1888, 39-year-old Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her sons Richard and Eugen, thirteen and fifteen years old respectively, in a Model III, without telling her husband and without permission of the authorities, thus becoming the first person to drive an automobile a significant distance, though illegally. [...] The novel trip received a great deal of publicity, as she had sought. The drive was a key event in the technical development of the automobile.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#113

Post by belval »

simion314 wrote: post #26
prasooncc wrote: post #11

Good for them. Why do we need a biased filter (journalists) between customer and company.if it is damage recovery journalists and their employers can be easily bought for cash.in this world of direct communication it would be childish to assume papers and journalists are still relevant

Because trust, I seen yesterday some customer reporting a dangerous Tesla quality issue on reddit and it was "attacked" by fanboys and strong evidence was requested. If a journalist would like to report this problem then you would probably like Tesla to have some competent person to respond but seems you prefer the "Tesla did not responds to journalists anymore". Btw I am referring to this post https://www.reddit.com…

Maybe it's the reddit filter but most comments seem to be jokes? I don't see comments attacking OP on the post you linked...

Now to address you actual point, what would a PR person do here exactly? "Tesla is investigating the issue and will not provide any comments at the current time"? They fixed the car so their internal metrics will ensure that whatever issue caused this will get fixed. It's not economically sensible to fix any percentage of cars right after delivery.

I understand that Tesla light passions and that PR has got (ironically) bad PR in the last few years, but I fail to see how your comment is related to the issue.

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#114

Post by AtlasBarfed »

gamblor956 wrote: post #89
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's full of the usual anti-Tesla cherrypicking, sarcastic one-liners, fumbling for clickbait headlines that zombie gawker Jalopnik has to use every day to eke out any engagement possible. Clearly you are unfamiliar with Jalopnik. All of their posts are full of cherry-picking, sarcastic one-liners, and clickbait headlines. They don't single out Tesla for special treatment (good or bad), nor should they.

Go ahead, go through the last two weeks of headlines and show me three headlines about GM, Ford, Toyota, FCA, etc that are as negative as the typical Tesla headline.

The mainline auto makers get kid gloves compared to Tesla. But then again, auto press always knows who pays for the buffets and junkets.

I've been on jalopnik for what seems like a decade now, through the Univision years and the PE Spanfeller years, and the death of deadspin.

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#115

Post by themantra514 »

dawnerd wrote: post #83
mapgrep wrote: post #74

"There are obviously still people arranging test-drive promotions for YouTubers but their role isn’t in a traditional public relations capacity. " That's absolutely traditional PR for an automaker. "Arranging test-drive promotions" means deciding who is eligible for test drives, viewing what is published on YouTube, and deciding if the person will be eligible next time. Even if no words are spoken/written to the YouT…

I can't imagine they like responding to every request for comment on everything Elon tweets from every blogger out there.

No questions to be answered by PR that might invalidate the hype from tweets* long forgotten that "motivated" buyers and investors. *Tweets are non binding, we reserve the right to keep it at hype.

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#116

Post by messick »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #114
gamblor956 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's full of the usual anti-Tesla cherrypicking, sarcastic one-liners, fumbling for clickbait headlines that zombie gawker Jalopnik has to use every day to eke out any engagement possible. Clearly you are unfamiliar with Jalopnik. All of their posts are full of cherry-picking, sarcastic one-liners, and clickbait headlines. They don't single out Tesla for special treatment (good or bad), nor should they.

Go ahead, go through the last two weeks of headlines and show me three headlines about GM, Ford, Toyota, FCA, etc that are as negative as the typical Tesla headline. The mainline auto makers get kid gloves compared to Tesla. But then again, auto press always knows who pays for the buffets and junkets. I've been on jalopnik for what seems like a decade now, through the Univision years and the PE Spanfeller years, and…

How many roofs of cars from those manufactures were torn off during the drive home from the dealer?

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#117

Post by thebruce87m »

panpanna wrote: post #22

Wait, reddit is shutting down??

If Reddit is their marketing, then it failed on me yesterday. Reading about the brand new Model Y having its sunroof come off on the drive home from the showroom finally confirmed that the build quality is not worth stretching my wallet for.

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#118

Post by warkdarrior »

chrisseaton wrote: post #81
michaelt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not just present your own releases direct to consumer/elector via your website and social media? 1. You can't do without some press coverage, because you want to sell to people who aren't already superfans. Toyota sold 10.7 million cars in 2019 and has 803,000 Twitter followers. If their message only appears on Twitter, the vast majority of their customers and potential customers will not see it. Of course, the…

Can't you advertise? Put your own message out on your own terms. Why work with journalists who may turn against you?

Advertising by definition is biased. In contrast, journalists sometimes provide balance to company announcements.

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#119

Post by iqihs »

messick wrote: post #116
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead, go through the last two weeks of headlines and show me three headlines about GM, Ford, Toyota, FCA, etc that are as negative as the typical Tesla headline. The mainline auto makers get kid gloves compared to Tesla. But then again, auto press always knows who pays for the buffets and junkets. I've been on jalopnik for what seems like a decade now, through the Univision years and the PE Spanfeller years, and…

How many roofs of cars from those manufactures were torn off during the drive home from the dealer?

Are you seriously implying that Tesla is the only major manufacturer that experiences defects/recalls...

Re: Tesla dissolves its PR department

#120

Post by thesz »

mola wrote: post #98
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Musk actively endorsed a personality cult around him myself as part of his PR. Maybe if he hadn't done that he'd get different kind of coverage.

How so? What did he do to achieve that? What moves did he taken?
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