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Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

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221–230 of 376 posts

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth noting that Jon McNeill (Pres. Global Sales and Service) took the time to post on a user forum in direct response to service delays and spoke with a fair bit of detail about how they are fixing the problem. Whether or not you are a fan, I think everyone can agree that this level of engagement is a strong positive for their cause. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/2004525/

That's really interesting. Seems like the answer is they need a lot more third party shops - the problems that McNeill describes sound like the kind of thing that happens when there isn't enough competition. If I'm a model 3 customer, I don't really care about your service record in Palo Alto. What can you do for me in Skokie? Very interested to see how all this plays out. The success or failure of the Model 3 could…

The problem McNeill discussed was related to 3rd party body shops. Tesla does not do any body work in its repair centers.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#222
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they lost access to $1,000 until they cancel (plus 3-6 weeks, since it can allegedly take Tesla this long to refund the money). I don't think 400,000 have just $1,000 to spare for a really anything they will just cancel. The $1,000 mean that the person who reserved it really wanted the car and is unlikely to just refund it unless they have a very good reason to do so.

The sort of people who would consider buying an expensive sedan can probably afford to loan Tesla $1000 for a year or so. I reserved a Model 3 because I figured that if I didn't, I would be at the end of a very long waiting list and would probably lose out on the federal rebate. The most likely outcome is that I'll decide that's too much to spend on a car and cancel, but it still made sense to me to keep my options o…

Fair enough but there are many foreigners who do not have a tax credit and still made a reservation.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> environment as well It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

What would you propose instead?

[deleted]

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there will be tons of people who cancel... but then there will also be tons of people who wanted to wait until the car was fully finished before signing up to get one. They'll be fine.

This is the car version iphone, with people queuing up at the store days before the product is seen. I would believe they would stop production exactly at 400K cars, the current waiting list and start a new Model 4 waiting list. They have an air of exclusivity now with their current models. People still gawk at the sight of a Tesla. They would want to maintain that awe factor with Model 3 as well.

You're assuming a pure profit motive. Literally everything Elon Musk is doing has a strong element of trying to save the world.

The goal of Tesla is to make every new car sold electric, if they have to command 100% of the market they will do that, but they'd rather there be some competition.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#225

Tesla shorts can't get a break. First a smooth $1B+ capital raise without a stock hiccup and now this.

I didn't short the stock but I can understand why someone would. They are expected to generate over 90% of their value after 2020 [0]. There's the expectation that Elon Musk will definitely deliver, that Tesla market share will not be eaten up by other carmakers when they seriously start releasing electric vehicles. The expectation that electric and not another form of energy, such as hydrogen, will dominate, etc. Th…

> another form of energy, such as hydrogen

Hydrogen is unlikely to win, it's fair to say that it has already lost [1]. The hydrogen economy was mostly a myth [2]. 95% of hydrogen is made from natural gas [3].

[1] http://www.salon.com/2016/11/19/who-killed-the-hydrogen-car-...

[2] http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/02/hydrogen-is-not-the-fuel...

[3] https://energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natura...

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again. Tesla is more like a luxury brand so its biggest potential competitors will be the big 3 in Germany and possibly Lexus (which all have a pretty good reputation), and currently none of them propose that many options. Audi and Lexus have none. BMW has two, but only one of them can sort of compete with Tesla (can't go far with the i5 batte…

Oh there's a very good reason why the German carmakers are only now just getting started: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-governme... In short, German carmakers' historical expertise in designing good internal combustion engines are worthless if electric cars take over. The auto industry is ripe for some serious disruption.

btw. mercedes buys the batteries from asia and their engine did come from tesla, however they broke up and now they have a new partnership which helps them. german manufacturers have no interest in selling electric vehicles to the masses.

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really interesting. Seems like the answer is they need a lot more third party shops - the problems that McNeill describes sound like the kind of thing that happens when there isn't enough competition. If I'm a model 3 customer, I don't really care about your service record in Palo Alto. What can you do for me in Skokie? Very interested to see how all this plays out. The success or failure of the Model 3 could…

The problem McNeill discussed was related to 3rd party body shops. Tesla does not do any body work in its repair centers.

Yep :)

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#228
post #120

Tesla recently announced they are ramping up their Model 3 production even more than what some people thought was already optimistic numbers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/tesla-mod... > For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the electric cars sold planet-wide last year. > Even if half of the Model 3 in…

> environment as well It's not going to do anything great for the environment and we've been over this on previous Tesla threads (years ago). Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

> Driving electric cars where the electricity is from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment

Some of the widely reported research about the power generation and electric cars is flawed [1]. Electric vehicles and hybrids come out about even in the worst markets, like Missouri [2]. But nearly everywhere else, an electric vehicle is better for the environment. People don't always consider that the electric grid is moving away from coal [3], which means your electric car will get greener during the time you own it without you having to upgrade it.

[1] http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/04/20/minnesota-study-chal...

[2] http://blog.ucsusa.org/rachael-nealer/gasoline-vs-electric-g...

[3] http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/08/renewab...

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that really any different from any Silicon Valley company raising a new round of money? So long as the valuation goes up enough to compensate for the dilution, the per share stock price will be the same or higher. I'm not saying the valuation is correct but the fact that dilution happens and stock price goes up isn't that had to reconcile, right?

> So long as the valuation goes up enough to compensate for the dilution, the per share stock price will be the same or higher But per stock price is the "valuation". My comment re: being detached stems from the fact that on Day X, you can buy Tesla for price $Y. Then Tesla sells more shares (dilution). So now each individual share represents a smaller proportion of company ownership...yet the next day people are wil…

It seems to me that people viewed Tencent's purchase as signifying confidence in Tesla from a legitimate, cash-stacked player.

As a result, it was all aboard the hype-train for retail investors to secure their seat in yet another speculative rocket ship.

Tesla's ability to deliver has been in question for a bit. This cash will be used as fuel to prevent the rocket ship from experiencing a sudden, gravity-induced trajectory into the earth's crust

Re: Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To sell that many $35,000 sedans in the U.S. “would be absolutely unprecedented based on what we know about car markets today and how people spend their dollars,” said Salim Morsy, electric car analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “It could happen. I’m pretty sure it won’t.” Model 3's will sell literally as fast as Tesla can push them off the production line. The pent up demand for this thing is insane. Over 40…

Or withdrawals from people. The deposits are non-committal so people can cancel without losing anything.

A $1000 deposit is a significant commitment to ordering the car, even if it is fully refundable. Very few people would do this until they are basically decided on buying this. For everyone who would reconsider, there are for certain plenty of people, who are interested in the car but would not put down money without a test drive first. So, judging from the deposits, I would rather assume the actual list of interested buyers way exceeds the amount of people who put money down.
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