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Forbes reports on Tesla's reaction to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's crash test safety rating for the Tesla Model S:
Tesla does not take criticism well. Tesla has long had an attitude that anything said about the company, its products or CEO that isn't absolutely hagiographic is tantamount to heresy and anyone who disagrees hates humanity and the planet. Thus I was disappointed but not at all surprised to see the company's official, dismissive response this morning to the latest batch of crash test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which didn't reinforce the company line that everything it does is the best ever.
The Tesla Model S received only an "acceptable" rating from IIHS on its small overlap frontal crash test, a notch below the top rating of "good," with slack in the seat belt allowing a crash test dummy's head to hit the steering wheel despite the cushioning of the airbag. The less than optimal result comes after Tesla had said it had corrected the problem in the wake of a similar result in an earlier test.
A Tesla spokesperson's response was to besmirch IIHS. "IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes." Yes they do. IIHS's purpose is to protect drivers and of course, in turn, reduce the payouts for insurance companies.
Also at CNET and Business Insider.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Open4D on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:48PM (2 children)
Wasn't that because the court realized that it's not their job to prevent a TV show from misleading its viewers? If so, then JNCF's point stands.
I haven't seen anyone claim that you can't have apprehension about Tesla's ability to hit their target numbers.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. Tesla talk about fast growth and scale being important, and how they think the Model 3 will give them that. And in response you're quoting Model S & X figures?
This characterization of the situation doesn't match the impression I get. My understanding is as follows. The S & X are profitable in their own right, with high margins. Tesla knows that it's much harder to make money on a low margin car like the Model 3. But they still think they can do it. I haven't seen anything to suggest that they've "changed the plan that the Model 3 will be the cash-cow". Are you just assuming that based on the fact that they have announced their plans for new classes of vehicle in the future? But those announcements (Model Y, Semi, Pick-up) are also 100% consistent with their stated mission [tesla.com] "to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy". I was very glad when I heard those announcements. I hope that incumbent manufacturers in those specific markets and in a lot of other markets now will be accelerating their own programmes to introduce products that can run on sustainable energy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by n1 on Sunday July 09 2017, @03:01AM (1 child)
Top Gear is an entertainment show and throws shade on subjective and objective grounds at lots of different cars, Tesla is not special in this regard. Tesla claimed lost sales, malicious intent and libel... An upholding of the complaint would have basically ended Top Gear as an entertainment show. The portrayal of the Roadster in the episode it was featured would have been illustrative of their experiences and opinion, but not definitively accurate play-by-play analysis. That would require a completely different format and would be more a feature length documentary, rather than a segment of an entertainment show. There was no claim of objectivity and it is abundantly that sequences on the show are and have always been scripted and staged.
What we are left with is a he said/she said, and the ruling says it was not malicious, which was the original commenter's contention. On a related note, people use UK courts for libel because it's one of the easiest jurisdictions to win in, but they couldn't on this one.
I have, but fair enough. I just happen to follow Tesla closely because it's good entertainment and far less depressing than what's going on in politics. The loyalists are salivating over the '10-20' ... pick a number out your ass gigafactories that are going to spring into existence, so for them, there is no cap on how many units they can make... Even today in Musk's M3 tweet, people are expecting a China factory to break ground any day now, because they're 'in talks' with the Shanghai government.
In 2014 Musk said they were aiming for 50% annual growth in just Model S [seekingalpha.com] for 2015 and beyond... 2014: 31k ... 2015: 50k ... 2016: 51k ... 2017: ??? but with figures so far, they're going to still be around the 50k mark.
Tesla does have high gross margins, industry leading even... (I am not an accountant) ... However, they do not include R&D, Sales or Admin costs in their margin calculations.... This is significant, most manufactures do include R&D... Tesla has continual R&D on a longer timeframe than most manufactures, since they have so far continued to make significant updates to their existing product lines. The there's the sales and admin costs... Tesla beats other manufacturers because they have margin on wholesale whereas Tesla has margin on retail... But other manufacturers do not own and operate all the sales, service centers and supercharger network... These are hugely significant costs, and will continue to grow in line with revenue/sales as the need for more infrastructure to support the potentially millions of vehicles they hope to sell. Tesla SG&A costs are 10x higher than industry standards. So that, along with their R&D costs means their notable gross margins are not representative of the true costs and margin.
My problem is they make announcements about reveals of the next big thing a year or two before they happen, and before the the last product revealed comes into production. It just indefinitely extends the time horizon on which you can evaluate Tesla on tangible information as a sustainable business model worthy of support or investment. I am actually looking forward to the pick-up, but i'd rather they announced that just after actual customers got their hands on the model 3, rather than 6+ months before non-insiders got their hands on the M3. And in the midst of all the other announcements.... It's in-keeping with their mission statement, I don't disagree. My issue is with the timing of these announcements and the material information that is released or held back... There's been no updates on M3 reservations, they initially omitted less favorable 'in transit' figures from the latest financial statements, which until then had been included when they were increasing...
We are in agreement here... I want a BEV or alternative fuel vehicle, the current situation with ICE is unsustainable.... But I also think Tesla's business model is unsustainable, they want complete control every element of the business, manufacturing, sales and servicing while not accounting for the extra costs that involves. I do not like their 'walled garden' business model. I want the option to service the car myself, or get a third party to service it, the option of non-OEM parts. I do not want OTA updates in any form. What they offer is certainly what some people want, but it's not what everyone wants, or is practically available... I don't want every product I buy to be inextricably linked to an *aaS (as a service) infrastructure.
As someone outside the US, the majority of people I know do not have a driveway or garage, do not have adequate parking in their place of employment, let alone any real possibility of putting in infrastructure to make it so people can charge at work. Charging a plug-in BEV is not practical for the vast majority of people... Tesla wants to change the world, but it expects the world to change for it. But of course, there's always a project on the horizon that will be the tipping point, which will make the world change for Tesla.
While pushing the world to move onto 'sustainable energy' is the stated goal, my perception is the focus is on 'S3XY' ... the optics, status, ego more than the noble goal. The solar roof is an example of this, existing solar tech is pretty good and could be improved upon... What doesn't improve the efficiency, availability and wider adaption of this technology is making it into aesthetically pleasing tiles... For all the 'futuristic' elements of the car design, the solar roof is being designed to fit in with a century+ old visual. What it looks like is more important then getting a solar roof onto as many homes as possible.
Please do not construe any of this as an argument against EV's, solar or 'green energy'... I am extremely supportive of those products and ideals, but my opinion is Tesla in it's current business model and approach is not the solution we need.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Sunday July 09 2017, @12:46PM
I don't have a problem with Top Gear showing, say, a 1 day journey by James May from A to B, but including footage filmed the next day with a different driver, on a stretch of road that May didn't even use. IIRC, what they actually did with the Roadster was show a scene of it running out of energy mid-lap. This gave the impression that charge levels could be a surprise to a competent driver (as if you could be driving in the outside lane of a motorway and suddenly come to a halt or something), and furthermore that Tesla as a company was incompetent enough to provide Top Gear with a test vehicle with a certain level of charge and not properly communicate how much driving footage Top Gear would be able to obtain with that much charge. The reality is that these impressions are false, and (IIRC) the test vehicle provided by Tesla never ran out of charge; the scene was faked. I do have a problem with that, and I consider it to be either malicious, or so bad that we should treat it as such anyway.
But so what? I don't consider it the job of any court to prevent a TV show from maliciously misleading its viewers. Honesty is a moral imperative. It should only be a legal imperative in very select circumstances (contracts, under oath, etc.). I am British and I gave money to the UK libel reform campaign that achieved some success earlier this decade. I think further reform is needed. I am glad Tesla lost their case against Top Gear. But I think JNCF's point stands ... well, sort of. On reflection I note that s/he used the word "conspiracies". AFAICT, there is no evidence that the NYT or Top Gear incidents were conspiracies, and I think they probably weren't.
(What does irritate me is that whenever I find myself cheering on a court for refraining from overstepping what its mandate is / should be, my 'tribe' seems to lose out. In this case my tribe is pro-EV. Another example would be decriminalizing assisted suicide - which is something I very much want to happen by the time I might need it myself. Reading the words "that's a matter for Parliament" coming from a judge is like music to my ears. But the one time it happens, why does it have to be the one time that I disagree with parliament on one of these matters?)