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The Model Y will be a test of Tesla's popularity
Tesla announced at the end of February that it was finally ready to make and sell the long-awaited $35,000 Model 3, an affordable electric car that was part of Musk's original "master plan" for the company, published in 2006. Closing most of the company's stores and switching to a completely online sales model was how Musk was able to finally achieve this goal, and it also allowed Tesla to lower the price on its other cars.
Normally, that might be seen as a good thing. But many customers who purchased Teslas before the price drops felt jilted. One of the most vocal critics was comedian Chris Titus, who complained to his 125,000 Twitter followers on March 2nd about how his wife bought a Tesla two days before the prices dropped. "@elonmusk lost a loyal customer," Titus wrote. "[T]he people that supported you, praised you and cared about you [sic] dream got boned."
Anger about the price cuts bubbled up in China, too, which is the world's largest market for electric cars. After Tesla cut prices on all of its models there, a number of owners protested at the company's store in the Hunan province capital city of Changsha. The upset owners wrapped the store in a banner that apparently translated to "don't buy now, buy tomorrow at a discount."
[...] [There] is some data backing up the apparent change in sentiment around Tesla. In an Axios-Harris poll of 18,228 adults conducted between November and January, Tesla's ranking slid across a number of categories. It dropped from being the 14th most trusted company out of 100 to 46th. The company's "character" ranking fell from 7th to 57th, and its "ethics" ranking slid from 5th to 56th.
See also: Did Ford just tease an electric Mustang as Tesla debuts Model Y?
Tesla's Model Y sales goals 'aggressive,' analyst says
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 16 2019, @05:21AM (1 child)
That photovoltaic cells work much like computer chips originally led them to be built in "Wafer Fabs", that is, the very large, very clean factories where slices of refined Silicon Crystal are the wafers we speak of.
As demand - slowly - grew, special such Fabs were constructed, leading to better Economies Of Scale - slowly - reducing the price of photovoltaic electricity to the point that it is competitive for certain applications where energy is costly, as with tropical islands.
Due to the oil industry's great desire to create jobs for the American people, they bought up all the patents for solar and other renewable energies throughout the seventies and eighties, with many of them actively funding original renewable research so as to lock up the patents for as-yet undreamt of technologies as well.
Thus during my time in Pasadena, ARCO Solar hired a great many newly-minted California Institute Of Technology [pasadenastarnews.com] Alumni.
But now we have the problem that all those patents are expired, with the so-sad result that jobs are being created not here in America, where Clean Coal is mined, but in China, as Fabs of every variety are quite labor intensive.
My own take on Economics is in start contrast to those of the public enemy Federal Reserve Board, as exemplified by former Chair Janet Yellen's to tax Carbon - a "Pilouvian" Tax - then for no reason I can fathom, to distribute the proceeds to the American people in general - including those in, say, Santa Cruz - rather than to the economically displaced peoples of Appalachia, Montana and Wyoming.
In the parlance of my own Economic Theory, such a broadly-applied Pilouvian Tax is a "Push". By contrast we have that Socialist Whore Alexandria - a restaurant waitress! - foisting her Green New Deal upon the unsuspecting public. That in again my own parlance is a "Pull".
As I myself really can speak to every feline - even jungle wildcats! - just like Dr. Doolittle could, I advance my Pushmi-Pullyu Hypothesis [guacamoleroad.com]:
Were you to offer to Mr. Musk to work together, in a purely bipartisan spirit of cooperation, quite likely that with such appropriate job-creating incentives as suspending traffic and parking mitigation fees, my friend and yours Elon could be convinced to construct Photovoltaic Wafer Fabs in Appalachia, in Montana and in Wyoming.
As I know very well that despite our great friendship, you as the Leader of the Free World have an uncommonly full appointment book, please accept my suggestion to delegate my letter to the appropriate Federal Agency.
As I am a Novelist [warplife.com] - self-published at that - and so Economics and the like are for me largely Armchair Expertise, I do not actually know just which Federal Agency to which you would best delegate.
#MAGA!
Jonathan Swift [warplife.com],
Vancovuer, Washington
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:57PM
> Elon could be convinced to construct Photovoltaic Wafer Fabs in Appalachia, in Montana and in Wyoming.
Not happening, Musk can't even get the solar cell plant near Buffalo NY up to full capacity: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/inside-elon-musk-s-forgotten-gigafactory-2-in-buffalo [bloomberg.com]