Tesla Calls Town Hall Meetings to Calm Angry Buyers
January 23, 2009 by admin
It seems that even an email from CEO Elon Musk has had little calming effect on the anger felt by locked-in Tesla Roadster buyers at being told they will have to pay more for their cars. The company is turning to a previously-successful approach and has announced a set of town hall meetings to quell buyer fury.
Scheduled for the 26th and 27th at the Los Angeles and Menlo, CA stores respectively and hosted by Elon and other staff, the events can be attended in person or by phone.
The ineffective email attempted to explain the price increases by linking the need for Tesla Motors to show they can make a profit (so they can get loans to advance the making of the Tesla “S”), with the cost of building the Roadsters originally costing far more than they would be sold for. An audit in the summer of 2007 revealed to them that their $92,000 car was going to cost $140,000 to build. Thus the eventual change of top management and the slew of other cost cutting measures that followed.
Tesla Motors may well build the most desirable electric car of all time, but that doesn’t make the company immune the same economic realities as every other automaker. Last week, Tesla CEO delivered a keynote address at the Society of Automotive Analysts “Outlook 2009″ conference that took place during the press previews for the Detroit Auto Show. In the last few months, Tesla has had to abandon plans for a public stock offering as well as an additional private fund raising round.
Musk sat down to talk at some length about the current state of the business. He did acknowledge that new orders have slowed down recently while some existing orders have been canceled. Musk declined to be specific about numbers but did acknowledge that the overall economic environment has affected some customer’s ability to pay.
He also discussed the battery supply deal with Daimler and indicated that he would like to see more OEM deals in the future. Tesla is likely to have a very difficult time going forward unless the economy makes a dramatic turnaround in the next few months. In other words they are going to have a very difficult time, which would be a shame considering the standard bearing lead they have taken in kick-starting the electric car industry. Just look at the difference between the Detroit Auto Show this year and last.
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