SpaceX has bought an advertising package on Twitter for its satellite internet service Starlink, said Elon Musk, who owns the rocket company and the social media platform that is seeing an exodus of advertisers.
I suspect that Musk is in more trouble than he pretends. There are a lot of reports that the fit and finish of his cars are somewhere inbetween a 1970s Chevette and a 1980s Yugo, which is pretty damning for a six-figure car.
My suspicion has been that once traditional auto companies started putting out EVs, that they would eat Tesla's lunch. Because Tesla is run like a tech company-- they push out craptastic products and use their customers as unpaid testers. The auto companies tradiditionally test the loving shit out of new products (they have their own test tracks for that) before releasing them. That may be why Tam observed that there were no Teslas among a pack of EVs at a traffic light.
Fit and finish has long been a bugaboo for Tesla based upon customer reports and reviews. There’s also a slapdash approach to “fixing” fitment issues that reportedly includes techs simply gluing trim pieces back in place and such. Tesla also has pretty much abandoned early Tesla users, and even harassed those setting up service centers for older Tesla’s even when the vehicles they were working on couldn’t be handled in the actual Tesla shops. It’s a strange combination of tech business and copyright fanatics that doesn’t make much sense…but as long as the Supercharger network is the best out there (probably has a couple of more years), Tesla is the answer.
ReplyDeleteFit and finish is more a Freemount problem . The Chinese cars are reportedly much better according to the Europeans.A team from China is in Freemount trying to fix the situation .(I'm probably spelling Freemount wrong.)That plant has been plagued with labour problems . Lots of complaints about racism.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that will hurt Tesla will be their push back against vehicle to vehicle/home/grid . All the other companies either have it or are promising it .
But Tesla sells Power Walls.
Glenn: Yeah, nobody I know who worked there when it was NUMMI thinks very highly of the Tesla plant in Fremont. Fit and finish are the first things to go when you are abusing your workforce.
ReplyDeleteOn the lighter side, Musk is now saying that he doesn't want to be the Chief Twit for EVER...
-Doug in Sugar Pine