I haven't read this whole thread, but I want to chip in a few things to consider. I'm a huge Tesla fan, but with that said I would not buy one. There are too many qc issues and big question marks with the cars. Because of that, I suspect that the stock is overvalued right now.
Issues with the cars for me:
Production QC problems. Now, this has been hammered on many forums and there is expected to be some growing pains with a new production company. I'm not necessarily knocking them for some of the issues, but others raise concern for me. Tesla just announced that they consider an expensive memory chip a "wear item" and thus doesn't qualify for a recall. I don't want a computer based vehicle to have computer based wear items. Replacing a timing belt with a computer chip (that doesn't have a service interval, btw) is a lateral move at best.
But the bigger issues are things like knobs and door handles. Teslas work great in the California climate. They have issues in the cold. If their door handles are frozen shut, their recommended fix is to warm up the car one hour before driving to defrost them. This would be OK if they did it on the roadster or maybe model S, but they are still doing bogus things like this in their current vehicles.
And speaking of door handles, every single vehicle they make has a different handle. That's not a good move for a company trying to scale decent quality vehicles. It's basically the opposite of a Toyota move, and more of an exotic car move. I don't trust that they'll keep the stock or knowledge base to fix these handles in 10 years. If it's any kind of clue as to how they are designing the rest of the vehicle, I don't trust them.
Other issues:
For the price, there are other options that meet my needs better. The Rav4 prime has Toyota quality and for all intents and purposes is a more refined model Y. Maybe it doesn't have the 0-60 times, but the doors can open in the cold. And it will be more reliable and more capable as and SUV. Plus it can do in town trips on full battery charge. Oh and Toyota has sold every single one of these made too. Or perhaps I like the 7 passenger aspect. Well, there's a Plug in Hybrid Chrysler Pacifica that is pretty sharp. Sure, it's a Chrysler, but I would trust the build quality of it over a Tesla.
Tesla pushed all of these cars into this space. I think they obviously have the best electric cars on the market. But I suspect that it will be easier for companies like GM and Toyota to move into this space than it will for Tesla to prove out their production capabilities. That's a suspicion; Tesla does have a head start, but I think that it's easy to underestimate how quickly a company can change if they put their whole weight behind a transition. For instance, BattleBorn used to be the only reasonably priced Lithium battery in the retail market. They have a 5 year head start, and still make arguably the best product. But there is now heavy competition that makes them on in a sea of options. The folks who are optimistic about Tesla should apply that optimism to Ford or Nissan too.
Self driving: To paraphrase. 95% self driving is easy to do. It's the 5% at the end that's really hard. So if we see a company with a 90% self driving car, they might still only be 1/4 of the way to a fully self driving car. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, it's basically just lane assist.
Can you explain how Tesla Insurance increases value to the company? They're not an insurance company. Making a move like this makes sense temporarily to correct for market analysis issues but long term? I would hope that their goal is to get out of insurance industry. But perhaps I'm missing something.
