5 ms·
> Much the same way Starbucks isn’t really a coffee company, Tesla isn’t really a car company. > Tesla is a promise company. It makes promises to its customer
by teruakohatu 3y ago
> Much the same way Starbucks isn’t really a coffee company, Tesla isn’t really a car company.
> Tesla is a promise company. It makes promises to its customers, various governments, and other businesses. Those promises require up-front payment, and whether they come to fruition or not, the company keeps the money while continually blowing through deadlines.
This is a silly statement to make. It produced the world’s top selling car in Q1 2023.
- jeron 3y agoThis is Jalopnik. They used to be a good website but now they’re just a silly publication that writes silly articles with silly statements
- huytersd 3y agoJust because you disagree with them doesn’t mean it’s now a “silly” website.
- lazzlazzlazz 3y agoJalopnik is a silly website, and not because the person you're replying to disagrees with them. :)
- duluca 3y agoYet it still sells vaporware. I was really excited for this company, but the self driving promises and fails, in addition to build quality issues made it a no go for me. While I buy new/unproven tech all the time, I guess I draw the line at cars.
- nxm 3y agoBuild quality issues are common with any new products (ask legacy automakers) and are really a non issues in Teslas now.
- alpaca128 3y ago> Tesla Is the Most-Recalled Car Brand—By Far—of All Cars, Trucks, and SUVs > Tesla Model Y was the highest, with 62.4 recalls projected over its 30-year lifetime > The brand with the fewest projected recalls is Mercedes-Benz, followed by Toyota and Lexus. https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a43625242/tesla-is-the-most-recalled-car-brand/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a43625242/tesla-...
- varjag 3y agoMy ID.4 had one recall but it's been at a shop over a dozen times now.
- renewiltord 3y agoMy Subaru has had far fewer and they're not a big deal. You just get them fixed when you take them in for scheduled service. It appears that the Tesla recalls include things like https://repairpal.com/recall/22V063000 https://repairpal.com/recall/22V063000 Those get fixed over the air. Can't say I'd care that much if I owned a Tesla. The number doesn't matter that much.
- hef19898 3y agoIt should. Cars get recalled for serious flaws. That means Tesla is shipping flawed products to paying customers that get used in the road, and then try to fix those OTA like some app on a phone. That is bad engineering, period.
- renewiltord 3y agoWell, I don't think I'd be much bothered if I'm honest. Instead of going to the mechanic's it just gets fixed while parked outside? I think I would prefer that to my Subaru.
- hef19898 3y agoYou still don't get it. If a product requires so many fuxes after being shipped, it was not fully developed when shipped, and defective in tip of it. Hardware ain't software, and those recalls are just the peak of the iceberg, because a lot smaller issues come along withbsaid bad engineering that cannot be fixed with a recall: suspension, power train... And the latter already shows in data published by the German TÜV (cars here get an official road safety check every two years, the results of which are being aggregated by brand and model and published regularly): Teslas are among the cars with the highest failure rates for cars older then three years.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoWhat is Starbucks if not a coffee company?
- Asparagirl 3y agoArguably, Starbucks is a mid-sized bank that also sells coffee. “Here's the shocking part -- Starbucks has about $1.6 billion in outstanding gift card balances. That info comes courtesy of its annual 10-K filing with the SEC. This essentially means Starbucks is getting a $1.6 billion loan from its customers at a 0% interest rate. And it's paying that loan back in coffee, not cash. It's already a great deal for Starbucks, but it gets even better. Some customers don't end up redeeming their gift card balances, which means the coffee chain doesn't even need to pay back the full "loan" amount. For the 2022 fiscal year, Starbucks reported $196 million in breakage, meaning unused gift card balances…” https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/banks/articles/this-is-the-worst-bank-in-the-world-according-to-wall-street-expert-vivian-tu/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/banks/articles/this-is-the-w...
- xcdzvyn 3y agoI've heard similar things said about airlines, but I'm not convinced; this relegates every company selling something they'll exchange their products for a "bank" rather than what they obviously are - supermarkets, department stores, airlines, coffee shops, petrol stations. Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Steam? Banks. Chipotle? Bank. Even if it technically conforms to a broad sense of the word, what's the point? I go to Starbucks to buy coffee. So it's a coffee shop.
- meheleventyone 3y agoI guess the way to look at it is does Starbucks sell coffee to make profit or does it sell coffee to get people to buy gift cards to make profit. The idea of a loss leader being part of the core visible business isn’t that strange. Even better if you can make money on both though! Hopefully there is enough nuance in the world to recognise that they are both coffee shops and a bank. In the same way Google is both a search company and ads company.
- jjulius 3y ago>This is a silly statement to make. It produced the world’s top selling car in Q1 2023. A company, on the whole, can operate as described therein while still simultaneously producing "the world's top selling [whatever]". I mean, this article basically proves that point - Tesla took up-front payments from people six years ago for a car that it still hasn't delivered, and the Model Y was the best-selling car of Q1 this year.
- teruakohatu 3y agoI am not defending Tesla making promises, but does anyone who popped down $250k on a preorder with no release date care? They probably are on a secret mail list with Musk and are enjoying the secret progress updates.
- jjulius 3y ago>I am not defending Tesla making promises... Ah, got it. Just a heads up, maybe try and refrain from quoting long sections about a company making promises and then immediately follow that section with, "This is a silly statement to make". I don't think I would've misunderstood your approach had you only quoted that first sentence about Tesla not being a car company.
- jrflowers 3y ago> They probably are on a secret mail list with Musk and are enjoying the secret progress updates. This is a good point. They probably have his phone number and call him up to chat when they can’t sleep. They probably have one long tandem bike that they ride around on together but you’ll never see the mainstream media report on that
- siddheshgunjal 3y agoBut we cannot deny the fact that, musk introduced the roadster out of desperation to get some up-front payment and save Tesla. It is possible that roadster specs were made up and now the RnD department is suffering to achieve the same, delaying the deliveries of the final product. So he basically did sell the promise but now Tesla has to deliver it as 6 years is a very long gap.
- HaZeust 3y agoThey refunded everyone who wanted one years ago...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hef19898 3y agoThe alternative would have been a credit line from a bank, that also needs to be reimbursed, eithbinterest! Reimbursed down payments from customers are an interest-free credit. Well played actually... And quite despicable.
- borski 3y agoNot true.
- HaZeust 3y agohttps://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-roadster-pricing-founders-edition-removed-website/amp/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-roadster-pricing-found... > Tesla does note that the reservation is still refundable, so if the final price is too high or it doesn't materialize, you can cancel and get your money back. If you don’t wish to trust the media, here’s the Reservation Policy itself: https://www.tesla.com/sites/all/modules/custom/tesla_smartling/smartling/api-translations/documents/reservation-agreement/en-US/TeslaRoadsterReservationAgreement.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/all/modules/custom/tesla_smartli...
- 3y ago
- hirako2000 3y agoStarbucks too. the world's stop selling coffee chain. Was wondering whether Tesla did deliver these sales, and for that quarter they did: 466,140 units. Like for Starbucks, goods are there.
- tanepiper 3y agoMight be the worlds top selling car, doesn't make the people that buy them any less worse drivers
- throwaway2037 3y agoWoah, I cannot believe it. You are right. You can Google for: <<Tesla Model Y was the world's best-selling car in Q1 2023>> https://uk.motor1.com/news/669260/tesla-model-y-best-selling-car-q1-2023/ https://uk.motor1.com/news/669260/tesla-model-y-best-selling...
- borski 3y agoBeing a "company that builds cars" and being a "car company" are different things. Tesla is a sales and R&D company, which happens to occasionally produce cars worth buying.
- hef19898 3y agoAnd other car makers don't have sales nor R&D? Tesla is a car maker, not a tech company regardless of how hard want to spin it otherwise.