[qaq]

On the scale of Tesla's own history how would you rate that rough time? E.g. is it more rough vs 1st year of Tesla 2nd year? 3rd Year? How rough is it for people who actually pulled through all the challenges they faced from the founding till now. I think people are overestimating the "rough times" part. Musk and Tesla have a ton of good will that no other automaker has and they can leverage that in a rough situation.

[jacquesm]

There are a lot of things coming together that each individually would have been a serious challenge, to have them all at once and within 6 months of each other is pretty rough. Even so, I would not bet against Musk, he has a habit of making it through somehow. There is a book with a character in it called Reid Malenfant, Musk reminds me of that character.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_(Baxter_novel)

You get to chose: you're part of the bulldozer or you'll end up part of the highway. Even so, it will not be easy to do right by Tesla and not to ignore SpaceX, and that's before going into the fact that Tesla is now effectively subsidizing Solar City.

[qaq]

I'll give you a hypothetical about what I tried to convey. Qatar is spending 200 billion in relation to world cup 2022 in large part as a part of PR effort. Now imaging 2 hypothetical news stories VW AG is opening and innovation center in Doha, Qatar. Tesla Inc. is opening an innovation center in Doha, Qatar. What would be a PR value for each of them be for Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani just ballpark a figure that he would be willing to put up for each one.

[jacquesm]

Oh sure, but then you're in rescue territory. But that's not what we are talking about here, we are evaluating - or at least, I am trying to evaluate - how serious the problems are in isolation. That there will be some white knight is beyond a doubt for me even if things do go very wrong.

[dmode]

This. When the first Model X came off the line and it was full of quality issues, that was a rough time. When NYT wrote a tough piece on the early Model S, that was a tough time. When the early Model S caught on fire that was a rough time. This is definitely NOT even close to rough time. 2000 Model 3 per week is close to Model S numbers.

[jacquesm]

It does not matter that the numbers are 'close to model S numbers', the Model 3 is far less profitable than the S ever was and you'd need to crank out a multiple of them on that line anyway to be in the black in the long term.

It surprises me that people think that making a budget car is easier than a luxury sedan. Make no mistake: successfully launching a budget vehicle is much harder than making a luxury vehicle.