Tesla is hitting up Model 3 reservers for more money.

If you have a reservation for a Model 3, I sincerely hope this concerns you:

Tesla Bonds Slide As Musk Demands Model 3 Reservers Pay $2500 To Keep Order.

A week before CEO Elon Musk is due to admit his Model 3 production numbers - will he or won't he hit 5,000 units a week - Tesla is sending out emails to all Model 3 reservation holders in the US and Canada explaining that they need to pay $2,500 to confirm their order online or lose it.

Mind you, all of these people already placed a $1000 deposit when they made their reservation, 2 years ago. Tesla is still burning cash at a ferocious rate, so probably that money is gone now.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

He needs cash for his underground transit project .

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

I follow the capital markets and various securities pretty closely.

Elon Musk is portrayed as a "black sheep" among the CEO crowd, but has been praised by the globalists and MSM. His earnings call back in May demonstrated that he seems to be under more pressure than usual and may not be able to control himself: Earnings Call

I'm unimpressed and think anyone holding Tesla stock for the long term is out of their minds. I could be totally wrong but it definitely seems like Tesla is coming up between a rock and a hard place. Tick tock

a reply to: FamCore
I'm becoming more & more convinced that most of the people who reserved a Model 3 are going to end up filing a claim with a bankruptcy court, hoping to get their thousand bucks back.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Musk is a technology genius. He transformed the world proving electric vehicles are feasible with today's technology. He has advanced space travel and several other fields and for that we should all applaud him.

But a great technical mind does not necessarily eqaute to great business acumen. Tesla may very well go under. I think Musk is more likely to be bought out though, because the brand name itself likely carries tremendous value.

He may be a genius but as Plato pointed out the best ship builder is the one who became an expert at shipbuilding and the best business man is the one who became an expert at motivating and delivering on promises to the consumer. And very seldom do you find one man who is truly an expert in more than one field.

I don't blame Musk for trying, rather I applaud him for having the audacity to change the world.

I think Tesla will survive. The issue is that the capital requirements and legacy manufacturing processes required to build a mainstream car company are extreme, not even getting into basing said vehicle on electric. It simply has not been done in what... 100 years?

I think the threat to Tesla will be legacy car companies finally stepping up their game offering electric cars that people actually want, not the slush box prius's that have come to define the segment.

originally posted by: Isurrender73
a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Musk is a technology genius. He transformed the world proving electric vehicles are feasible with today's technology. He has advanced space travel and several other fields and for that we should all applaud him.

But a great technical mind does not necessarily eqaute to great business acumen. Tesla may very well go under. I think Musk is more likely to be bought out though, because the brand name itself likely carries tremendous value.

He may be a genius but as Plato pointed out the best ship builder is the one who became an expert at shipbuilding and the best business man is the one who became an expert at motivating and delivering on promises to the consumer. And very seldom do you find one man who is truly an expert in more than one field.

I don't blame Musk for trying, rather I applaud him for having the audacity to change the world.

See, that's the thing. None of that is true, he is a CEO and not a very good one at that. His IS NOT a technological genius, he offers direction to the geniuses he employs, at best.

His only job is to keep his shareholders happy and his company profitable.

He hasn't managed to do either of these things.

a reply to: Dem0nc1eaner

His job title is CEO.... but the truth is, Musk is a dreamer and a motivator with a technical background. And it sounds like he's about to blow the best deal he ever had. I know if I had paid a grand and waited two years to get what I had put the grand down on, and the company came back to me and said they wanted another $2500, I would reply with something along the lines of, "Please hold; my attorney is on the other line."

Some hungry lawyer is going to file this as a class-action and Musk is going to find out the error of demanding more from someone who has already paid. Only government gets away with that.

Worse, if this gets much press at all, he's going to lose his business. Once people hear that the price they pay can change after they pay it, the Tesla will go the way of the DeLorean. Best thing he can do is to walk this back as fast as he can, apologize profusely for the next few weeks, then crawl into a back cubicle and stay there for a year until this (hopefully) blows over.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
,,,the Tesla will go the way of the DeLorean.

I'd like to think if he built a time machine people would pony up the extra loot, so maybe this is a brilliant idea after all.

Looks like the bloom is now officially off the rose:

Tesla Compared To Theranos After Report Musk Halted Critical Brake Test To Boost Output

Basically, in their race to hit their goal of producing 5000 cars in 1 week, Musk apparently ordered his quality control team (starting last Tuesday) to skip a safety check called the "brake and roll" test. I don't know about this particular test (my area of expertise is plastic testing) but if Musk is willing to cut corners on safety to meet his production goals, that is deeply concerning.

If you ever get an offer to work at Tesla, you should probably politely decline.

Tesla Facing New Probe From California Regulator As It Builds Car In A Tent

The main focus of the story is that Cal/OSHA has three probes going at Tesla. One regards them under-reporting safety incidents, a second one regards complaints that they're not doing enough to protect workers. They're not saying what the new one is about.

What I'm actually more concerned about is reports in the article that Musk has his workers working 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week, in a mad scramble to hit their goal of producing 5000 Model 3's per week. Can you imagine what the morale must be like there? Also, imagine what this is doing to the production quality.

Per the reports, Musk met the production goal by diverting workers from the other production lines (Model S and Model X), to the effect that Model S production is now behind schedule. Also, the paint shop is now overloaded. So, it seems that Tesla isn't really able to produce 5000 cars per week. They were just able to fake it for 1 week.

Frankly, I'm wondering if there was some financial incentive for Musk that kicked in once the company hit that production rate.

I'm normally pretty critical of labor unions, but: damn, this company needs a union.