Again, context can make a HUGE difference. Maybe Musk called him to apologize or to make things right, only for the guy to make unreasonable threatening demands. Like say demand that Tesla give him the car for free for his inconvenience. And by end of the phone call it resulted in a cancelled order.

You may be on to something, I mean he has a backlog of thousands of cars, and he can solve that by making an excuse to cancel 1 car. /s

So let me ask you this question, if hundreds of people complained, and only 1 person got punished for complaining. That tells you that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Just like the guy going 150mph on the highway pointing out how everyone is going over the speed limit at 85mph, so why is he getting…

I call BS. This isn’t the first time Musk has been late to an event (like almost all of them?). And he isn’t the only guy who complained about the delay in the launch.

Possibly an issue finding it on the world map?

The assumption of poor maintenance has nothing to do with thinking Africa is primitive. In general aircrafts in Africa seem to have rather high rate of planes crashing. A lot of it comes from poor maintenance due to lax regulation.

At this point, Tesla has no competition, so they can virtually set any price they want. As long as they can garner enough demand to fit their production.

Patrick, by the way did you see the official statement Tesla spokesperson put out?

The answer varies by state. In some states, Tesla has dealerships (owned by Tesla). In other states where laws are more prohibitive, they have showrooms. Tesla also has their own service centers, sometimes as part of the showroom/dealership, sometimes in a different location.

It seems my suspicion was correct, Tesla is NOT going to franchise. Here is Tesla’s statement according to auto news:

Sure, but again, it is impossible for anyone to offer a lower price on a Tesla. Because Tesla decides on the price. If you add franchised dealers, Tesla will still decide on the price, but now you gotta pay for the extra markup of the franchised auto dealer. What drives prices down is competition from other brands,…

The factory sets both Invoice price and MSRP. End of the day, the dealer is not going to go below invoice price unless the factory is offering the dealer a bonus.

Sorry, but no. DoJ studies have shown that franchised dealership do not create competition but the opposite hurt competition and increase prices for everyone.

There is no reason why a manufacturer owned dealership can’t provide all the services you listed.

They don’t need to franchise to reach their sales goal. And it is too early to make a call until Tesla actually grants a franchise. It is possible they found a loophole in the law.

While the direct sales model has its benefits, it may be hard for Tesla to achieve the volumes it seeks without brick-and-mortar stores—and their repair facilities. In Tesla vs. The Dealers, the automaker may end up joining the other side rather than trying to beat them.

Profit on the car sales.

The NUMMI factory in its prime had somewhere between 400k-450k production a year. Tesla also has the Tilburg plant in Netherlands which has capacity for 1000 cars per week (so about 50k)

This isn’t a race on who makes the most profit. But Tesla sold what like 7X more cars than Ferrrari last year? And they continue to grow rapidly.

They could make money right now building cars, but then they would be stuck being a niche manufacturer. Which is not what they want. So they are spending money for rapid growth.