Tesla – Page 2306 – I wish I had more to offer

NIO Dazzling Showrooms in Peril as Tesla Nears China Launch

1 / 2 NIO Dazzling Showrooms in Peril as Tesla Nears China Launch (Bloomberg) — China’s most high-profile challenger to Tesla Inc. has had a tough year, and 2020 isn’t looking any easier. Electric-car maker NIO Inc. has accumulated a deficit of almost $6 billion since its founding in 2014, spending extensively on marketing and… Continue reading NIO Dazzling Showrooms in Peril as Tesla Nears China Launch

VW’s prototype charging robot can find your EV in the parking garage

Tesla isn’t the only car maker with grand visions of EV charging robots. Volkswagen has created a prototype charging robot that would navigate to your car in the parking garage, saving you the trouble of hunting for a coveted (and likely rare) EV charging spot. The autonomous helper would hitch itself to a “battery wagon”… Continue reading VW’s prototype charging robot can find your EV in the parking garage

Uber just quietly bought 600 acres of land to build a new test track for self-driving cars in Pittsburgh (UBER)

An Uber affiliate has purchased nearly 600 acres of land near Pittsburgh to test self-driving-car technology. The purchase marks the company’s latest expansion of its autonomous-driving efforts, which it resumed testing on public roads in Pittsburgh in December last year after suspending the program for nine months following a fatal accident in Arizona. “I can… Continue reading Uber just quietly bought 600 acres of land to build a new test track for self-driving cars in Pittsburgh (UBER)

Is This Enovate ME7 The First Production Solid-State Battery Vehicle?

The next big thing about EVs is the adoption of solid-state batteries – SSB, for short. While we were waiting for the first vehicle with these batteries to appear, it already had. It was last January that Enovate showed the ME7, the first electric car to take power from SSB. It was presented at the… Continue reading Is This Enovate ME7 The First Production Solid-State Battery Vehicle?

Johnny Appleseed Tesla Seedsters & The Tesla Market (& Stock Price) In 2013 — Tesla Inside Out

Invest
Electric Cars
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Solar Energy Rocks
RSS
Advertise
Privacy Policy

Cars

Published on December 25th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Johnny Appleseed Tesla Seedsters & The Tesla Market (& Stock Price) In 2013 — Tesla Inside Out

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

December 25th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

In this episode of “Tesla Inside Out,” we talk about David’s role getting sent down to Florida (from New York) in 2013 as a kind of Johnny Appleseed character — part of Tesla’s “asset light” program — in order to respond to consumer interest and stimulate sales in the region.

Ironically, David was sharing this story with me on Johnny Appleseed Day!

Clearly, the approach worked well in this city and region. David chose Sarasota because of its location between major metro areas in Southwest Florida, and the city now has a 20-stall Supercharger station, a service center, and a lot of Tesla owners. It’s not Silicon Valley or Amsterdam, but it’s a pretty hot market. I wondered aloud how much this market’s relative maturity was due to David planting the flag here and the benefits of the local Tesla store (which is a couple of minutes from the Supercharger stall we were filming at). How much more consumer demand might there be in the US and worldwide if there were 100× more Johnny Appleseeds sent around the US and the world to open up new regions in such an active manner?

I then asked about FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) issues at that time. There was indeed FUD, David noted as he chuckled, and as you know if you read our Tesla flashbacks posts, but he emphasized that 1) their sales process was very targeted at people who had already expressed interest in a Tesla, and 2) they found in their guerrilla marketing efforts (parking a car on the sidewalk and talking to strangers walking by, for example) that most people hadn’t heard of Tesla and all they needed was a test drive to get excited about it. Today, most people seem to have heard of Tesla, but much of what they’ve heard is negative messaging — a test drive is still all that’s really needed to fix that problem.

We changed location to get out of the brain-melting sun and David highlighted that back in the early days many buyers thought their Tesla would be a less-used, around-town car in the household. The Tesla sales staff would tell them right up front that they’d quickly start using the Tesla much more than they thought, and that was indeed the case for customer after customer. In fact, that raised a topic I’ve noticed for years on the Tesla Motors Club forums and David confirmed from his end — that many spouses end up “stealing” the buyers’ cars. The good news is this then leads to multi-Tesla households, something that was occasionally a thing back in 2013 but has increased significantly with the Model 3, and is expected to increase much further with the Model Y and Cybertruck. David shared a story of one such case with one of the earliest Tesla buyers in Florida.

Switching gears, David highlighted a story showing that back in those early days there would be a serious meeting at Tesla HQ just to consider where one single car should go for test drives. One car was such a major, important asset — and the company was so young and unknown — that it warranted that. It’s wild to consider that was the case just 7 years ago, but it was. Imagine Elon Musk, Jerome Guillen, and others debating today whether it’s worth it to send one car to a certain region for an event and test drives.

We took a scenic route around Wall St. in this episode to run through some of David’s memories and reflections on the Tesla [TSLA] stock price. He was awarded stock as an employee back when the price was $20 or so, and he joked that back then staff would say things like, “It could go to $50 one day!” Ah, how things have changed. Also, note that this interview was conducted 3 months ago, when the stock price was around $242. David was talking even then about how the stock looked great from his perspective when you take that relatively short history into account. Jumping to today, you can see the stock price increase got even much more dramatic, rising to a record and historically interesting $420 earlier this week and $425 yesterday. I noticed on Twitter David was still enjoying the ride:

We ended this episode with a short chat about how David and the team went about finding new customers in 2013 Florida. The methods varied, and the buyers varied, but there was clearly interest — and it’s not hard to sell the car once you get people to sit in it for a test drive or test ride.

You can listen to this podcast and future Tesla Inside Out episodes on your favorite podcasting platform. You can subscribe and listen to this podcast and other CleanTech Talk podcasts on: Anchor, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, Radio Public, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher.

If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X and want 1,000 miles of free Supercharging, feel free to use my referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404 — or use someone else’s if you have a friend or family member with a Tesla who has helped you more. The referral code can also be used for a $100 discount on Tesla solar.
Follow CleanTechnica on Google News.
It will make you happy & help you live in peace for the rest of your life.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.

Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.

Support CleanTechnica – $3/Month

Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.

Elon Musk says you still don’t need a college degree to work at Tesla. Here’s what he looks for in job applicants instead. (TSLA)

You still don’t need a college degree to work for Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO tweeted on Sunday. “Yes,” Musk said when asked if he didn’t require potential employees to have a college degree. Musk’s answer echoed one he gave during a 2014 interview with the German automotive publication Auto Bild. “There’s no need even to… Continue reading Elon Musk says you still don’t need a college degree to work at Tesla. Here’s what he looks for in job applicants instead. (TSLA)

Canadian electric vehicles startup opens India office to cater to Indian Industry

Encouraged by the latest Electric Vehicle policy announcements by the government, MakerMax System, a startup dedicated to the advanced lithium battery technologies and Online EV education, has expanded their operations in India with a series of new products and services. One of the product recently launched by the company is a indigenously developed desktop model… Continue reading Canadian electric vehicles startup opens India office to cater to Indian Industry

EMBARGOED-Electric vehicle startup Rivian scores $1.3 bln investment from T.Rowe Price, others

Dec 23 (Reuters) – Electric vehicle startup Rivian said on Monday it closed a $1.3 billion investment round, led by fund manager T. Rowe Price but also including existing investors online retailer Amazon.com Inc and No. 2 U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. The investment round, which also included BlackRock Inc, is the fourth this year… Continue reading EMBARGOED-Electric vehicle startup Rivian scores $1.3 bln investment from T.Rowe Price, others

Gigafactory: Tesla and Brandenburg agree to sell property

Monika Skolimowska / dpa-Zentralbild / DPA Brandenburg, Freienbrink: The electric car manufacturer Tesla wants to build the new factory for electric cars on this piece of forest After the agreement to sell the property to the US electric car manufacturer Tesla, further important steps are pending. In January the purchase contract is to be discussed… Continue reading Gigafactory: Tesla and Brandenburg agree to sell property

Exclusive: Tesla to take new $1.4 billion loan from Chinese banks for Shanghai factory – sources

FILE PHOTO: China-made Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles are seen at the Gigafactory of electric car maker Tesla Inc in Shanghai, China December 2, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and a group of China banks have agreed a new 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion), five-year loan facility… Continue reading Exclusive: Tesla to take new $1.4 billion loan from Chinese banks for Shanghai factory – sources