They are delivering product and people want to place deposits. I’d say whether this is right or not is between the customer and the company.

Right now I have more faith in them than I do GM delivering the Volt or in Phoenix Motor Cars delivering their SUT.

The “S” is really, really nice looking. Might not be as good in person – dunno. Have always liked GM products better in pics than in person…

I’m glad to see a company putting usable, refined EVs on the road. Not GEMs, not little pyramid looking things from the 1970s, not spacey Apteras (though congrats to them to for getting them out there).

I’d buy an “S” but they belong to another tax bracket. I suppose I’m more likely convert my daily driver as it’s value approaches nil in a few years.

The Rogue Valley Entrepreneur isn’t nearly the phenomenon it once was, especially now that a) larger companies are more favourable to R&D than they used to, if for no other reason than it provides patent fodder and b) it’s nice to work for someone who can facilitate your every whim.

You’ll certainly see the occasional out-of-left-field win (like, say, Twitter) but that’s not what Tesla is pitching. They’re just a glorified coachbuilder/integrator with a good PR machine, and wouldn’t stand a chance against the likes of Toyota, Honda or even GM’s depth of engineering and research resources—if the big boys thought that the market Tesla and Fisker were playing in was commercially viable.

Moreover, many car companies raise money for their upcoming models through deposits. Ferrari and Bugatti, to name a few. Given that Tesla is well on its way to fulfilling their initial orders for the roadster, I have a hard time seeing what the problem is

So now Toyota is the measure of all things automotive?

It seems to me that cutting edge technologies are more likely to be embraced by smaller specialty firms than large, full-line manufacturers like Toyota. Toyota is considered by most to be risk adverse, and it’s not surprising that they would go with a parallel hybrid drivetrain rather than swing for the fences with a complete EV.

A smaller company like, let’s say, Lotus, can be technologically advanced and contribute to the state of the art.

The Prius is neither cool nor ultra cool. I’d say I’d consider it “interesting” more than anything. It’s not economical & it is not particularly fuel efficient compared to other modes of non-4-wheeled-not-necessarily-individual transport.

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I’d consider it a lie more than anything.

The Prius is more economical and fuel efficient than a Camry, or a Accord, or an Altima, or a Malibu … You get the idea.

As for non-4-wheeled-not-necessarily-individual transport, no, that’s not Prius’ competitor.

The car traveling at 45mph in the fast lane is not, nor will it ever be cool.

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Well then, a Porsche 911 is just as un-cool as a Prius. Yes, I did see a 45mph fast lane 911 once, and I never saw a 45mph fast lane Prius.

To be fair, that’s a term that refers to candy-esque on-screen buttons. It also very dated; it was used to refer to the MacOS look-and-feel around 1999.

I haven’t heard it in a while, at least not since dittoheads in middle-management were parroting it eight or nine years ago.

- Lickable display; yes in a meeting with the new head of infotainment they got from Nissan Elon described the display as needing to be “lickable”, draw your own conclusions.

- Child roaster – In all of his infinite wisdom and as a loving father, Elon pressed the team to find a way to put two child seats in the rear of the car. No not the rear seat, but in the rear hatch area. Against everyone’s concern for safety, and maybe roasted children, Elon pushed to have a design. The team found the Orbit car seat system from a California company and packaged it in the rough architecture. So you may be able to order your own roast a kid feature for when that toddler acts up.

If Musk is such a Valley hotshot, he should be familiar with the Osborne Effect.
* Talking up how great your product is when you’ve got nothing but napkin sketches is good.
* Talking up how great your product vis a vis the competition is when you’ve got nothing but napkin sketches and your less-dominant competitor is already selling something is better.
* Talking up how great your next product is when you’ve got nothing but napkin sketches and you can’t make money off of your existing product, well, that’s Osborne territory. It’s also what Tesla is doing right now. And it’s suicide.

I believe that Musk is following his Silicon Valley paradigm when he does things like introduce a new model before the old one is fully rolled out. Selling ‘vaporware’ is an old and accepted practice in the software business.

I am not so sure that this business model works as well on cars as it does with software. With software, once the engineering(programming) is done, the product exists and the rest is just packaging. With cars, there’s still the sourcing, manufacturing, and assembly to reckon with. Sometimes I feel that Mr. Musk doesn’t fully grasp that distinction.

With software, getting the merchandise on the shelf is the most important thing. You can debug and offer free upgrades to early customers later, but does that work with cars?

The Prius is neither cool nor ultra cool. I’d say I’d consider it “interesting” more than anything. It’s not economical & it is not particularly fuel efficient compared to other modes of non-4-wheeled-not-necessarily-individual transport.

I also disagree with you with the iphone being cheap. On my last contract renewal, t-mobile PAID ME $30 to take 2 phones. ($70 upfront & $100 in rebates). With the iphone being “cool” thats debatable. I personally think the N95 is a ton more “cool” with more features, but it really is subjective. Sat phones are very cool, but indeed impractical (cost-wise).

I won’t dispute that the Roadster, S and Karma are cool cars, but they’re not going to inspire anything when it comes to the green movement. A Prius or Insight parked in on your street will do that because they’re just cool enough and lack just enough compromises to convince people that they’re a real car.

So are the other tons of other fuel efficient, conventional, proven techs that do not take batteries. Prius(pluralalized how you like) are EVERYWHERE here. I barely even notice them anymore. They are just another car. Maybe this is why I don’t think they are cool either.

I DO think 40k is expensive for an unproven sedan, but not necessarily a luxury one that is reliable. The tesla sedan doesn’t necessarily fit that definition which is why I wouldn’t consider it.

First thing, this Model S has always seemed an unecessary diversion from the Tesla core business which should be to satisfy the first round of buyers.

Then, when the gearbox problem showed up, his Plan B should have been to offer a middling gear of 10:1 since the EV1 was not around to raise a performance threat.
Then sales should have temporarily abandoned the first in, first out customer delivery program in preference to those who would trade a lesser performing vehicle in exchange for an early delivery. The release should also free Tesla from a commitment to provide a free upgrade post delivery. While in the interim it gets things moving along so that the procurement and testing out of a larger electric motor can be made.

Whether it was Musk or not, who made the fateful decision on cost reasons to risk the use of an untried twin ratio gearbox with a smaller motor is neither here nor there. It was comcomitant that chief of engineering staff or somebody should have walked out to call attention to the oncoming trainwreck. Easy to say, but I have done that when an unwise engineering decision was forced on me. In essence someone wanted to avoid doing 10 hours work that would, further up the road, make 100’s of hours of work for me necessary instead.
The sky didn’t fall. Two days later I was back in my old job under a revised management structure.
However I’ve noticed that most of us do have a comfort zone that allows poor decision making to pass over our heads with the thinking that however bad management screws up somehow I can work extra hard and circumvent the inevitable problems. Sometimes that is just not possible as proved here. And it sure slowed up production. In the event heads rolled at Tesla anyway.

Anyway i doubt this will be the last time that someone comments on the focus at Tesla.

The car traveling at 45mph in the fast lane is not, nor will it ever be cool.

Other than the greenie stuff, I agree with psar, in order to succeed, and 20K cars at $40-50K would be quite successful, the car has to be practical, useable, and reliable, more than just cool. What celebrities who have 3 or 4 cars will tolerate for the sake of seeming green far exceeds what a normal BMW/Lexus/Mercedes/Audi owner will tolerate.

Because let’s face it, to most people, the Prius is not cool.
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Please, prove it with hard data.

I think that to most people, the Prius is a very cool $20k car. I don’t have any survey data either. But since you started it first, you should provide your evidence first.

Tesla will continue to be opaque as long as the Greenies continue to be as fundamentally challenged by basic math.

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Who is Greenie? What’s his/her name?

Frankly, I have absolutely no interest in either offering from Honda/Toyota – just too ugly for me (but then I don’t consider myself a “greenie” at all – even if I ride/rollerblade to work in the summers!). I’d consider a Tesla if the price was significantly cheaper, just because it’s a good looking machine with respectable performance that I’ll seldom ever use!

To you, it may not be. But to those who buy them, it most certainly is.

Toyota did an excellent job of designing the Prius to appeal to the types of buyers who would not just buy the car, but who would extol its virtues to their friends, carry the message and develop loyalty to the brand. The cool factor is certainly there, but it is a tech-green sort of cool, as opposed to a swooping curves/ high horsepower version of the message.

Being “green” does not give you a free pass for being sleazy, and Tesla should be held accountable.

But the mysterious “Signature Edition” stuff is hocus-pocus.

The Prius is not supposed to be ultra-cool. Cool, must as it pains people to believe, does not sell unless it’s cheap and practical. Think about the iPhone: it’s cool, yes, but it’s also relatively inexpensive and fairly practical. Now think about the Satellite phones: cool as well, but hideously expensive and useful only to a small subset of the population. One is a commercial success, the other only works by charging the bejeezus out of a select few customers who need them.

I won’t dispute that the Roadster, S and Karma are cool cars, but they’re not going to inspire anything when it comes to the green movement. A Prius or Insight parked in on your street will do that because they’re just cool enough and lack just enough compromises to convince people that they’re a real car. What Tesla and Fisker sell are, fundamentally, toys for either well-off car nuts, or for well-off techno-barons. They reinforce the idea the “green” walks hand-in-hand with “elitist”

The Tesla and similar projects are good because they aim to show that EVs are better cars than the ICE variety. Now just that they are greener, more efficient, etc. Better.

But they’re not. They’re cramped, slow to recharge, crushingly expensive and sold either by coachbuilders or by a company that behaves more like a Valley start-up than a “real” manufacturing firm.

If they were a) better and b) workable, Toyota would be making them. That they aren’t is telling.

Of course, this annoys hardcore greenies who take EVs as a necessary evil and would rather we all bike everywhere, but hey, can’t please everybody…

So this is where we get to a fundamental point. Ron’s point is that Greenies buy things like Teslas, damn the impracticality. Yours is that Greenies want everyone to ride a bike. If I’m a Greenie and drove into work today in a Honda Fit on ambitious tires, and a greenie friend of mine drives all over Northern Ontario in a Ford Ranger every day, where do we fit? Are you really a “Green” buyer if the Tesla is parked between an F43 and an H1?

Or is it perhaps that “Greenies” aren’t who we think, or wish, them to be?

If I was a millionaire, I’d give them $5k just to support the cause of EVs. And maybe I get a cool car at the end. Why not?