carpedatum
Well-known member
- First Name
- Dave
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
- Threads
- 0
- Messages
- 84
- Reaction score
- 138
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Vehicles
- Ridgeline, R1200RT, 4285 Express
I find that I generally agree with the OP, but I get that it depends on where you're standing. IMO this is in many ways a re-run of the Model 3 launch. If you were disappointed that you couldn't get a Model 3 for $35k at launch or were worried about range, you walked, either to get your $1k back then, or at the moment they called and offered that much-more-expensive RWD long range that they could actually make.
That didn't stop Tesla from selling every M3 it could make at an enviable profit, because the thing was just that good. If you'd consider an EV seriously and were in the market for a small luxury 4-door sedan, the Model 3 was impossible to beat. Good thing for Tesla, because the Model 3 was also a four-door sedan launched at a moment when most of its target demographic wanted an SUV or crossover, and it was a "bet the company" product. Had it not been so awesome, so dominating in the market it could actually hit despite its many initial flaws, none of us would be talking about Tesla today.
Thankfully the CT isn't a "bet the company" product and I guess that is why the stock price hasn't taken more of a beating today. The range and price issues will shed a lot of its potential market, but frankly the world has never seen a potential market for a new vehicle like that before - it was bound to shrink on something. Getting your hundred bucks back now may be very much the right decision for any given person or family, but even if a really big rush-to-the-exit thing happened, I would bet it wouldn't make much difference to Tesla in the end.
They'll still sell every CT they can make for quite a while, I think, because production capacity can't outstrip demand for a product this good, even at these price points. Witness Model 3.
As for me, I'll keep my hundred bucks on the table even though I may not end up buying, but my situation isn't everybody's - the pricing failure isn't really killing me. I just paid $85k for a hybrid F150 Platinum, paying MSRP and waiting six months for it because Ford can't make those fast enough either. That experience made me nauseous and sometimes angry, but it reset my expectations about today's truck market. What may get me that hundo back is the range - the CT will probably tow my travel trailer way better than my Ford, but I need it to do that for more than a few hundred feet on a strip of dirt.
Not knowing anything about the range-while-towing, whether or not the CT will need a weight-distributing hitch to tow my trailer, or what real-world charging infrastructure will look like when my turn comes up, I'll just sit on it. Nothing happened yesterday that's going to make enough reservation holders, or real buyers, go away that Tesla can't sell every unit it can make of such an awesome thing somehow. In my case, might as well wait for more facts to show up.
But damn, I was really looking forward to that 500 mile range spec... ?
That didn't stop Tesla from selling every M3 it could make at an enviable profit, because the thing was just that good. If you'd consider an EV seriously and were in the market for a small luxury 4-door sedan, the Model 3 was impossible to beat. Good thing for Tesla, because the Model 3 was also a four-door sedan launched at a moment when most of its target demographic wanted an SUV or crossover, and it was a "bet the company" product. Had it not been so awesome, so dominating in the market it could actually hit despite its many initial flaws, none of us would be talking about Tesla today.
Thankfully the CT isn't a "bet the company" product and I guess that is why the stock price hasn't taken more of a beating today. The range and price issues will shed a lot of its potential market, but frankly the world has never seen a potential market for a new vehicle like that before - it was bound to shrink on something. Getting your hundred bucks back now may be very much the right decision for any given person or family, but even if a really big rush-to-the-exit thing happened, I would bet it wouldn't make much difference to Tesla in the end.
They'll still sell every CT they can make for quite a while, I think, because production capacity can't outstrip demand for a product this good, even at these price points. Witness Model 3.
As for me, I'll keep my hundred bucks on the table even though I may not end up buying, but my situation isn't everybody's - the pricing failure isn't really killing me. I just paid $85k for a hybrid F150 Platinum, paying MSRP and waiting six months for it because Ford can't make those fast enough either. That experience made me nauseous and sometimes angry, but it reset my expectations about today's truck market. What may get me that hundo back is the range - the CT will probably tow my travel trailer way better than my Ford, but I need it to do that for more than a few hundred feet on a strip of dirt.
Not knowing anything about the range-while-towing, whether or not the CT will need a weight-distributing hitch to tow my trailer, or what real-world charging infrastructure will look like when my turn comes up, I'll just sit on it. Nothing happened yesterday that's going to make enough reservation holders, or real buyers, go away that Tesla can't sell every unit it can make of such an awesome thing somehow. In my case, might as well wait for more facts to show up.
But damn, I was really looking forward to that 500 mile range spec... ?
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