Tesla Motors should find a new spokes person : Elon Musk sucks Jann Scotts Journal
Betty Lu on Bloomberg news today. He said you can lease a new Tesla for $500 dollars a month for a three year lease. That is completely false as it turns out. Tesla does not have a payment plan for $500 dollars a month. The closest plan Bloomberg could find was closer to $1000 a month.
According to Bloomberg , “Musk dodged questions, refused to answer questions, was not straight in his answers” and he basically lied through his teeth about Teslas new lease program. At best Musk was devious in his explanations. Musk also announced that the Tesla electric car was the best manufactured car in the world. Well, that is according to him. Most reviewers would rank the car in the middle. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, Lexus are considered to be the best manufactured cars in the world. Even ford has come a long way. But Tesla ?? Well, Tesla is the darling of the Boulder and Palo Alto social media crowd, but nobody can afford one. You have to be a rich millionaire ap developer with a back up car.
Musk has had his run ins with the media too. Like every time he opens his mouth. He sued a British auto review TV show because they criticized Tesla. He went ballistic over a New York times reporter who accused Musk of lying about the Tesla performance.
He showed up on Bloomberg looking disheveled, acting unprepared and smug. Not confidence inspiring for CEO of the best auto manufacturer in the world. Hah. In fact Musk acts like the arrogant fat cats at GM who appeared before congress just before they collapsed.
Tesla couldn’t have a worse person to be the face of their boutique car company. I would recommend that they hire somebody like hip pr girl Erika Napoletano, but she is a foul mouthed wench who would probably sink the company.
There in lies the problem for Elon Musk and Tesla. He, like Erika come from the hip web developer world where marketing to mass appeal are of little interest. They live in their own narrow corridor and when they stick their heads in to the larger media culture they end up with people like me taking a swing at them. ( yep I live and work in popular culture if you think of being on tv 3 hours a day pop )
Is Tesla a worthwhile car? I have no idea. They didn’t have a display at the Denver Auto show which tells me they are not a player to the American car buying public. I sat in one a few years ago at their show room in Boulder, but I could hardly fit into it. It was built like a space capsule. Has the car improved since then. I dunno. I have never driven one. But since Elon Musk has huge Boulder connections, he’s in my beat to write about. Plus I am the car reviewer of record from these parts.
Anyway, Elon fire yourself as spokes person and put somebody up front who people will like and can relate to like Dennis Haysbert ( the all state actor)
OK That’ll be $10,000 for saving you from yourself.
Jann Scott
from a city with more therapists than electric cars
Boulder Colorado
7 Responses to “Tesla Motors should find a new spokes person : Elon Musk sucks Jann Scotts Journal”
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“Is Tesla a worthwhile car? I have no idea”.
Enough said.
No Andrew . Not nuff said. You missed the point of the article. The point is that when you calculate lease payments in a car deal, there is no way any lease payment can come out to $500 or $600 the way Elon Musk presented it. Tela Motors uses the same bate and switch ploy as most disreputable car manufacturers. Go try to buy one and see what your down payment comes out to. see what your monthly payment is. Now I know all of this because I have worked in the auto retail business and know how they work. Elon Mush is depending on his loyal fan being stupid.
So you are the famous Andrew Baron of Rocket Boom. Nice Vlog. At least it was when Amanda Congdon was there.but you two were too stupid to monetize it. But that figures.
for me, no down payment, the bank uses the 7500 dollar tax credit to cover the 10% down payment. My monthly payment is about $1100 a month, similar to what an S class would run me. Factor in fuel cost savings of about $320 a month, an oil and filter changes of about $30 a month, then any tax benefits i could list for driving an ev for my employment would come out to another $100 or so a month. So now you take that $1100 that i would be paying for this or a comparable Mercedes and subtract the$450 a month i’d be saving. That gives me an effective cost of ownership of about $650. Is it really that complicated? If i wanted to i could also put a price on the time i waste pumping fuel, the time i waste at the dealer getting serviced, the time i spend sitting in traffic when i could be in the car pool lane driving along, then the effective cost of ownership really goes down since i price my time at least $100/hr.
::warning, this is a lot of text, if you are unable to read lots of text, turn back now::: Sir, you are an idiot. As I seem to understand, basic comprehension of facts is no longer a requirement to write for the news media. (see “Fox News”) Let me list the ways in which you have no idea what you’re talking about. #1. No one claimed there was a $500 dollar financing option, there is a however a really neat calculator on the Tesla Motors website that determines what your end cost of owning a Tesla model S would be, depending on your own personal circumstance (my personal cost would be around $690 a month, if i used my car for business it would be around $500). If you listened to the Bloomberg piece and visited the web site, you would know these things before beginning to write. Moving on. #2 The best car in the world statement is what Tesla strives for, they have said that since the very start. MotorTrend, Automobile, and even Yahoo Motors agree that it is, at least for this year. #3 Musk’s media run ins have been very entertaining actually. The reason they sued Top Gear is because the Roadster they provided was shown to run out of power in the episode. This was written into the script of the show, and the car in fact still had plenty of charge. To compare, it would be similar if the show showed a Ferrari spontaneously burst into flames with the suggestion that it is simply what they are known to do, with no clarification that while yes, it can happen, it is not the normal experience of being a Ferrari owner. Sadly, Tesla lost the case on the premise that the show is generally understood by the public to be a scripted show and the events in the show are often fictitious. (Sorry for the Big words) Anyway, the issue with the NYT guy was that he blatantly lied in the article stating his travel speed, time charged, and other various factors. What the NYT reporter did not know is that the car he was driving had every variable including position, travel speed, even how warm or cold his HVAC system was set recorded. The data proved he either intentionally or unintentionally fabricated a great many facts in his story to make it more sensational. NYT released a statement saying as much. Also, Consumer Reports made the same trip in a Tesla S a couple days later with absolutely no incident. That, however, does not an interesting story make. “Tesla electric car drives from a to b just like any other car” Not very interesting is it? #4 in the list of things that anyone writing about cars, should probably know about one of the most exciting cars to come out since the beginning of cars, is that apparently the price seems to be right where it should be. The car is priced competitively with the cars it is intended to compete with. Do NOT read this as “Honda Accord” , try Aston Martin, Jaguar, BMW 7 series, S Class Mercs. They retail for right around the same price range, and have a much wider customer base than “rich millionaire web developers”. By the way go check out the Tesla S. vs. M5 drag race that Automobile had on Youtube. Back to the price, you get what you pay for, and the public has already spoken. The cars are being sold faster than they can build them, even faster than they anticipated. Also, if you read the article, the cars that are selling are the higher end more expensive versions. I suppose I should wrap this up, as fun as it is. I could go on about your inability to do your job for quite some time. “Is Tesla a worthwhile car? I have no idea.” is the only statement in your article that you are correct about. You sir, have no idea, and yet, like the inner 6 year old in all of us, you insist on blurting out the first thing that comes to your head about a topic you know nothing about. Only in this medium, for the whole world to hear. Next time do some research, or just walk away from the keyboard. As many a father has told to a son that if you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, it’s best to just keep your mouth shut. P.S. You sat in a different car. The Roadster is based on a Lotus, go sit in a Lotus and let me know how well you fit. If you were however, not able to comfortably fit into a model S then you are in fact a gigantic monster of inhuman proportions. ( I was able to sit in the BACK seat with a friend, and had room for easily TWO more friends) –Think Before You Write, D.G.
Dan Gurney ? Another famous guy? The son of Race Car Driver Dan Gurney ?
You are another true believer in bullshit. No matter how calculate a Tesla auto lease the way Elon Musk presented , it does not come out to $500 or $600 a month.
That is the whole point of this story. Once a guy starts lying in public about things like that , that can be checked, what else is he lying about??
Musk like you and Andrew are blind true believers even when you’re being conned. Wake the fuck up.
No, just a distant relative through marriage.
Anyway, NO ONE SAID YOU CAN BUY A TESLA FOR 500 DOLLARS! What Elon said was that the monthly cost of owning and operating a Model S, could be as low as $500 depending on what you use the car for, what kind of gas mileage your old car had and what the cost of electricity and fuel is. It is called effective monthly cost. If you were to figure it out for a gasoline car you would need to figure factor in fueling time, oil changes, maintenance etc. He clearly explains it in the Bloomberg interview and it seems every other news organization was able to understand it, except you. Here, figure it out for yourself: http://www.teslamotors.com/true-cost-of-ownership Also, i’m not a blind believer, I personally do not want the model S, hence i did not purchase it but opted for a subaru brz. The S is a monster, much too large of a car for me. I have however checked the car out myself and am very impressed. i’ve kept up with the companies progress since the very first electric lotus was powered by a hand made battery pack made of laptop batteries. I think that they will succeed, and i back that belief by purchasing their stock every time it takes a dip, because by 2016 i’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. You guys are missing the Apple of the automotive world growing right in front of your eyes.
From Email:
Bill Williams
editors note: bill Williams is a retired Mechanical Engineer who worked on guided missile systems for the US air force. For the past 20 years he has been an electric car, bike, and moped pioneer here in Boulder. He is also a staffer at Boulder Channel 1.
Jann
Well you are spot on with your evaluation of Elon Musk and his Electric Car! “The Solution for which no Problem exists!” There is no problem in the world that a $100K car solves! Build one for under $10K and you will solve some problems! A very good article; I await Elon’s lawsuit with interest! Bill