[x622]

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

when the cheapest model you offer is $44K and also sell $130K SUV , yeah you are considered a luxury brand


https://electrek.co/2023/01/11/tesla...auto-brand-us/

Oh ok.

GMC: Luxury
Chevrolet: Luxury
Acura: "Luxury".

That's pretty funny, any more jokes?

[chad86tsi]

Originally Posted by x622

Tesla is a luxury brand now?

Remember the Cadillac Cimarron?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Cimarron

[Socal_R8]

Originally Posted by x622

Oh ok.

GMC: Luxury
Chevrolet: Luxury
Acura: "Luxury".

That's pretty funny, any more jokes?

Sorry if it upsets you

Take it up with the car industry and what they consider luxury...

the article wasn't written by me...


either way, Tesla dwarfs the competition in sales in the US

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-now-th...ing-1849976321

[Socal_R8]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

"little old ladies or young people or other uneducated people " who buy Chevy Sparks, Toyota Corollas, Kia Rios, etc aren't gonna whip out their phones and order one.

There are plenty of no-haggle dealers and if you & your neighbor both want the same BMW price then go to one and pay the same no-haggle price and Bob's Your Uncle.

So why don't you always do that?

Because your fear is I got a lower price than you, and now you're a sucker paying your no-haggle price!

What Tesla has done is simply institutionalized sucker-dom: now you're all suckers. But, hey, if everyone gets screwed then I guess you don't feel as bad about it?

The point is, no-haggle is available today but it's not popular because you're pissed I got a better deal than you, and you'd feel better if next time I get the same shitty price as you.

TRY THIS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Tomorrow Tesla announces 200 new dealers; you can still order MSRP from Tesla or buy from a dealer where you may get a better deal.

Do you & your neighbor:

(a.) Just keep paying MSRP from Tesla because middleman & stuff, or

(b.) Try to haggle for below MSRP with a dealer?

RESULT
you answered b because you're not a moron, but also have a large capacity to lie to yourself about this.

lol...you sound like a car salesman worried about losing his job.

I don't want to see dealerships go away. I just can't stand the deceptive advertising or the ridiculous side stickers.

Tesla does away with all the nonsense...You know what you are getting and if you don't like the price buy a Chevy Volt or Mach-E....it's that simple.

What ever it is they are doing it is working as they dwarfed BMW and Mercedes last year in sales..

Don't know how that is so upsetting to some

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

buying a car on line where everyone pays the same price is "Democratic" because everyone gets "screwed equally ", then God help us all. That's actually called Socialism. Lol

Well, not unless the state set the price and/or owned the dealerships but it's a ... let's say, commie-curious notion

The other thing is back to my point about airline startups in the 1980s:

• Get some investors & buy 4-10 new aircraft
• charge one low price always! or some other attractive it's-easy-for-suckers pricing
• Get tons of customers
• Sell out before all the headaches happen: maintenance, service costs, customer service infrastructure, etc etc

Musk has sold ~$25B this year! He's a 1980s airline guy!

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

What ever it is they are doing it is working as they dwarfed BMW and Mercedes last year in sales..

Tesla is skating right now:

Growing at a rate & size & time where they can have:

• no advertising,
• no dealers for showrooming & sales,
• few options and little config help
• little service for customers (6 month waits! Musk had to address this publicly),
• small parts business,
• no fleets business,

etc etc

But the 2023 Tesla headline is: free lunch is over. Costs rising!

Tesla is taking a big hit on margins now due to price cuts and the competition hasn't even shown up yet!

By the end of 2023, their costs are going to rise quite a bit & margin will fall further.

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

What ever it is they are doing it is working as they dwarfed BMW and Mercedes last year in sales..

Tesla will have dealerships soon, probably MSRP dealerships, and they'll have them maybe even this year.
And then it won't be long until you haggle with those dealers in addition to buying mods, services like PPF, etc.

The upsetting part isn't dealerships or no dealerships; it's people who think business gravity has disappeared & Auto Peter Pan is real!

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

lol...you sound like a car salesman worried about losing his job.

lol...You sound like a business moron who's too much of a pussy to negotiate!

We can keep going if you want. I'm pretty good at it & I obviously have tons of time to burn.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

What ever it is they are doing it is working as they dwarfed BMW and Mercedes last year in sales.

And the OTHER thing is, where's the competition?

• If GM has Ultium & lots of factories, where are the sales?
• If Hyundai/Kia has a hit in the Ioniq 6, where are the units?
• If BMW & Mercedes & Audi & Porsche can make great car like the i4 & Taycan, where are sales?
• If Toyota has been making BEVs & Hybrids for 2 decades where are they?

Well, the most likely answer (and industry rumored answer) is:

(1.) Legacies have profitable ICE businesses and are in no rush to go risk-on with expensive BEV inventory going into a recession

(2.) Legacy auto doesn't have their dealers fully on-board yet and they realize without it dealers will torpedo sales so slow roll the inventory a stitch until you get signed contracts (which $F, $GM and some others JUST got, like last week) and get staff fully trained and on-board.

(3.) Legacy auto waiting on gov't regulation so they don't get into a pricing mess like $TSLA

That stuff seems reasonable & makes complete sense, especially when you see $GM easily building BEVs like the Bolt, and BMW's i4 & iX (if one can stand looking at them) ... but it's not as emotionally pleasing as "ZOMG YOU GUYS TESLA'S BEATING EVERYONE!"

I have a feeling Jan 2024 isn't going to be as fun for the cheerleader-types.

[RM7]

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

makes no sense ....Tesla simply cut out the dealer and the bullshitt games they play from ADM nonsense, to the lame side sticker crap that dealers stick uneducated buyers with like etched windows, paint protection and nitros filled tires.....you don't get any of that nonsense with Tesla. You order on line with no games and no surprise fees....the easiest car buying experience you can have.
Order your car and choose where you want to pick it up...it doesn't get any simpler or fair than that.

Yeah, ADM tricks arent the only BS we are all tired of at dealers. Thats just the tip of the iceberg.

[P1]

Originally Posted by x622

Tesla is a luxury brand now?

They aren't. Just look at the fit and finish. Nothing luxury about it. Could actually be one of the cheapest interiors I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

[ASAP]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Well, he brought to the discussion [incorrect] use a political term (of sorts). Everyone getting screwed equally is sort of everyone being treated the same, but that's not the traditional use of the term "Democratic". Rather it means everyone has an equal say in how they are governed. But let's stay away from the Politics section.... LOL

as opposed to the real definition of "democratic" which is selective screwing and let's see what everyone can get away with

if the dealers weren't worried about the Tesla model... there would be no need for them to be fighting tooth and nail against their direct sales model... like you said, consumers won't want an equal price point... so as a dealer, I would add on an ADM and then discount it, just for you lol

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by ASAP

as opposed to the real definition of "democratic" which is selective screwing and let's see what everyone can get away with

if the dealers weren't worried about the Tesla model... there would be no need for them to be fighting tooth and nail against their direct sales model... like you said, consumers won't want an equal price point... so as a dealer, I would add on an ADM and then discount it, just for you lol

The dealers ARE worried about DTC, just not for the reasons most people think. WHY?

Context:

1. BEVs are like 5% of the US market
2. The country is headed into a recession
3. In a low supply World, dealers have the leverage

For those reasons, Legacy dealers aren't on-board selling BEVs because there's no incentive for them to be.

For example, only 60% of Lincoln dealers signed onto Ford's BEV plan - which just happened, like, this month.

So if you were Farley (Ford CEO), and you knew 40% of your dealers didn't want to sell even 1 BEV and 100% will push people into ICE simply because there are more options there for profit and they know how to sell it, how excited would you be to push BEV inventory to them?

So what do you do if you're Farley or Barra?

You threaten the dealers you're going to cut them out of the loop entirely!

You get back some leverage to push dealers into BEV sales contracts, and THAT'S what legacy automakers are "fighting tooth and nail" for.

Automakers don't want a DTC model - who wants to deal with customers?? - but legacy can't transition to BEVs without getting their dealers on-board.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by SoCal_NSX

I don't even own a Tesla and don't care much for Elon Musk, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what they are doing is working just based on sales alone...

I get you're new around here so just some history for ya:

* In Oct 2017 I advised the few who listen to me to buy $TSLA

The reasons were:
(a.) good product some customers wanted,
(b.) proven ability to produce that product at scale

Right here & elsewhere I said the same and took all kinds of arrows from Efthreeoh KRS_SN and many others (yes, some of them even threw "lol"s, "rotflol"s and emojis at me, nevertheless I persisted. Then all of those threads here got deleted (or at least hidden).

* In Jan 2022 I advised those same few to sell $TSLA

The reasons were:
(a.) Risks piling up across 5 key areas
(b.) Product segments saturated (MS/X) or near segment limit (M3/Y)
(c.) No new volume products in the pipeline

Since then $TSLA has fallen 60%+

So, it's not a question of "working" or "not working"...

It's a question of "is Tesla sales growth accelerating"?
NOTE: linear growth is NOT THE SAME as accelerating growth!

And the clear answer is "NO." Comparables are irrelevant; $TSLA is priced for explosive accelerating growth and, for the last 4 months, $TSLA's growth is linear NOT accelerating nor explosive.

Further, the Tesla product price cuts are looking to be hitting an inelastic demand trend for Tesla products, which means movement OF the demand curve vs movement ON the demand curve.

AND

This matches consumer retail trends overall For example, December (holiday) sales fell 1.1% which doesn't sound like much but is the highest in decades. WORSE, in 2022 retail sales fell mostly for the bottom 50% of Americans (= below $70k household income) BUT IN DECEMBER this extended all the way up to $150k household income.

So what? Well,[b] interest in Tesla is down and retail sales are falling so we're probably not out on a limb thinking auto sales, including Tesla, might fall this year vs linear growth (Tesla?) or accelerating growth (nobody?)

More than BMW or Mercedes?

Enough to hit $TSLA and cause investors to flee? Very likely.

If you're not an investor you probably don't care about this stuff, and most people here probably don't care. Really I'm just indulging myself with this post.

Anyway, thanks is my point.

[M3WC]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

* In Jan 2022 I advised those same few to sell $TSLA

The reasons were:
(a.) Risks piling up across 5 key areas
(b.) Product segments saturated (MS/X) or near segment limit (M3/Y)
(c.) No new volume products in the pipeline

Since then $TSLA has fallen 60%+

I don't think that was any sort of revelation or some Tesla specific event. The auto sector was just one of many sectors battered in 2022. Legacy automakers also took it on the chin. Ford down 50% in 2022, GM down over 40% in 2022.

Funny enough with all the additional fud starting the year. Tesla stock has outperformed all legacy automakers by 2-3x returns. Tesla is up nearly 20% YTD.

With that said the entire auto sector is likely in for another bad year.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by M3WC

I don't think that was any sort of revelation or some Tesla specific event.

Nothing I advise people on, including $TSLA, is a revelation; more, look at the data and make the call.

That said, find me another former $TSLA bull who called for a $TSLA sale in Jan 2022 AND THEN DID IT!

The in-retrospect call is never a revelation: it's the balls it takes to ACT BEFORE everyone is looking hindsight months later and saying "oh yeah that wasn't a revelation"

2022 was the niche demand for Teslas pulled forward, but that's over ... I hate to do this but

I would compare Tesla's business to Netflix: great 10 years when it was new & cool, but now there are plenty of options while demand overall is falling

[M3WC]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

I
It's a question of "is Tesla sales growth accelerating"?
NOTE: linear growth is NOT THE SAME as accelerating growth!

https://markets.businessinsider.com/...on-musk-2023-1

Tesla's price cuts will help boost volume growth to 53% this year - more than triple Bank of America's prior forecast

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by M3WC

https://markets.businessinsider.com/...on-musk-2023-1

Tesla's price cuts will help boost volume growth to 53% this year - more than triple Bank of America's prior forecast

That assumes demand will move *on* the demand curve yet every shred of data we have says there's movement *of* the demand curve, ie inelastic demand, meaning price cuts won't move stale product in a risk off high interest rate environment

Worse, it's looking more like Tesla's 2022 sales numbers were demand pulled forward due to COVID and shortages.

And even worse, the very early inventory data is showing this trend post-price cuts.

And even worse are retail purchase data showing major weakness already this year in Tesla's core market segment.

Remember that whole "it's not a revelation" thing?

Well another not revelation January post: Tesla has a demand problem, especially with the model 3, and the price cuts didn't fix it. Only fresh product will.

Anyone still in $tsla best boogie on out

[Hit_Apex]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

I would compare Tesla's business to Netflix: great 10 years when it was new & cool, but now there are plenty of options while demand overall is falling

I don't disagree, and would add that many investors put a huge premium on TSLA evolving into much more than an automaker which has yet to materialize. So far their just a car company led by a brilliant man-child facing a wave of competition from entrenched automakers, particularly from Germany, with loads more design appeal. It's going to be a rough couple years as Tesla is tested.

[KRS_SN]

I sat in a tesla model s in 2017. The way it was put together and the interior and the plastics immediately made me realise the 'con' for the 80k vehicle. Since then I've been amazed at the rise probably because I can't get past the way it looks inside out as in poor looks poor fit and finish stripper interior scratchy plastics etc.
I've argued with GrussGott that surely people won't buy this at that price point and it will fail..Well some buy the car...it did get called a luxury product.. amazed how meteoric the rise was in terms of share price.
The fall shows you can fool some people for sometime but fooling everybody forever is impossible.

Ps ton of money to be made in the process for the astute like grussgott :-)

[Housekeeping]

Originally Posted by P1

They aren't. Just look at the fit and finish. Nothing luxury about it. Could actually be one of the cheapest interiors I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Have a look at a 2021 or 2022, drastic improvements overall. I prefer the interior of my model S vs my F10M5. Not a creak or peep or noise, not stupid vents, tech is insane, handling on par. BMW may have better seats…maybe.

[TXSTYLE]

https://fb.watch/i9c2wkrJz_/?mibextid=NnVzG8

https://www.reuters.com/legal/tesla-...ource=Facebook

[chad86tsi]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

That assumes demand will move *on* the demand curve yet every shred of data we have says there's movement *of* the demand curve, ie inelastic demand, meaning price cuts won't move stale product in a risk off high interest rate environment

Worse, it's looking more like Tesla's 2022 sales numbers were demand pulled forward due to COVID and shortages.

And even worse, the very early inventory data is showing this trend post-price cuts.

And even worse are retail purchase data showing major weakness already this year in Tesla's core market segment.

Remember that whole "it's not a revelation" thing?

Well this post is another not revelationn: Tesla has a demand problem, especially with the model 3, and the price cuts didn't fix it. Only fresh product will.

Anyone still in $tsla best boogie on out

When Tesla is making ~$10K in profits per car, and is slashing $10K off their sales price to move stagnant product, I don't see this sudden sales surge creating anything but liability : service/warranty work, tied up capitol, and additional labor.

Diminishing returns?

I know some companies use loss leaders to drive up business, but when almost all your product becomes a loss leader, it's tough to make money. A person could take over just about any business and dramatically drive up sales volume by adopting massive price cuts. Why don't we see that done more often?

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

surely people won't buy this at that price point and it will fail

Originally Posted by chad86tsi

I know some companies use loss leaders to drive up business, but when almost all your product becomes a loss leader, it's tough to make money.

Well, 6 days after a pretty large price cut, Tesla US inventory ALREADY creeping back up...