Is Tesla Doomed To Failure?

The car business is a tough business...Are you listening Apple? Are you listening Google?

I'm not going to defend Tesla, but the author of this article seems sort of out of touch with how rich folks live.

Driving between cities, long distance? Not so much. Plus, most have two or more cars. Should they need to make this trip (unlikely), they'd just pick another vehicle from their garage.

There are quite a few people whose long-distance car is the Model S and they may or may not have another electric one for commuting. With the ever-growing supercharger network driving across the country in a Model S is easy, and with the growing destination charging network getting around town is simple. Things are changing, it is no longer 2012.

Sorry - I have been saying this one all along - they have a virtual monopoly on long distance Electric vehicles - have complete price control - and even control the service market completely for their cars. And yet - they have yet to turn a profit. AND this is before competition comes out from other manufacturers that are flush with cash - and their cars will not have the problems that the sales/service model of Tesla.

They have SET prices - no haggling - but when competition comes in - will they be able to address it? Saturn tried and failed at that single price thing. And as for service - the lack of a dealer network has limited the availability of service (No auto body repair - maintenance) to their few locations - and that brings two problems - what happens when the cars go out of warranty - and the customer is responsible for that 200 mile tow all the time - AND -what happens to their resale value when other dealers cannot service the cars they take in on trade - Dealers do not send cars to other dealers for used car service.

ADD in that Tesla is a current "it" car among its customers - what happens when a new "it" car takes its place. I Always thought Tesla was doomed.

They have yet to turn a profit because they continue reinvesting their revenue into R&D, new models, manufacturing, and a tiny little factory out in Reno, NV that will make batteries and change the way we produce distribute and consume electricity.

That's all.

Gee Elon -- I would never have guessed it was you.

Sorry - But they are losing money on every car they produce - so they cannot be reinvesting their revenues. That would require them to actually make a profit on the cars - which they don't do right now. The loss is not because of R&D - the loss is in addition to the loss in R&D.

I don't know if Tesla will be around in a decade, but for entirely different reasons than the writer in link suggests.

I like Bob Lutz but he's been a Tesla naysayer since the days of the roadster and I believe he will be proven wrong on this.

Lutz is one of those Wealthy folks, owns many vehicles and a jet fighter, who are target buyers for Tesla. Having worked for Ford, BMW, Chrysler and GM he knows something about the industry and the market segments. His point is that all markets have limits to the population that will buy a product. Tesla is maxing out on the segment it currently serves. Moving down to new lower priced products will be difficult with limits on cash to develop vehicles, manufacturing, distribution and service, will be sub-optimal. In the venture capital world it is know as "Crossing the Chasm" and that is where many young firms fail or need to sell out to larger firms to get the cash or existing functions like distribution needed to be successful.

The only problem with Tesla is that I can't afford one. Build the Model 3 and I'll be the first one on that line.

I think Elon has another 3-6 months of "coast" time - where he can caress the CNBC microphone and wax melodic about "potential" and "synergy" and "Nevada, tax-payer subsidized battery factor" before the grim reaper comes a callin'.

Auto-pilot may in fact kill some customers; Falcon Doors may water-board and drown some car-seat strapped toddlers with Houston Thunderstorm water when they open at the River Oaks Club; pre-owned sales may dry up because of parts shortages on cars that are not salable; and lastly, as Lutz says they will likely, flat-out, run out of money.

Great effort, nice car, not for me, at least the last 500 of them won't go up in a Hurricane Sandy Fireball at the Newark, NJ port, like the last of the Fisker Karma's before that went belly-up!

No engineering chops. Emperor's new clothes products. Idiot customers. #Clusterwhambam

Musk is a automotive version of bernie madoff...a big ponzi scheme.

Tesla cannot be same as Apple nor can apple suceed in cars if it every does cars)...
Cars are multi thousand dollar/pound products, not even fan boys can save them as most of them don't have the disposable income for big purchases.. it's not like a small few hundred dollar/pound item..
As far as teslas vision may be, it cannot survive and is not sustainable jumping so far into the future.
More traditional companies like BMW, Benz, Toyota, VW can bridge that gap very quickly, especially Toyota, transitioning with normal ICE lines, Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid, Fuel cell.. Now if battery technology improves many time over in the next few years, won't these traditional car companies jump onto them too and intorduce them as products to the market at reasonable prices..
Tesla by targeting high end luxury may not survive in its current form when that time comes..