Not Shockingly, Tesla CEO Elon Musk Criticizes 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV Rollout Operations
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This report should come as no surprise to those familiar with the increasingly chilly cold way over electric vehicles. Specifically, General Motors and Tesla have been butting heads for years over retail sales, technology and innovation.
However, the latest comes directly from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who stated he feels GM is seriously hurting itself by holding back volume on the upcoming 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV. The Motley Fool reports, during a November 17 shareholder meeting, Musk commented on GM and other manufacturers over their timidness to flood the market with EVs. Musk was quoted saying the following:
I am a little concerned about the pace and volume of what they’re doing since they seem to be mostly aiming mostly to just target whatever the incentive threshold is, and then not really do serious volume beyond that. … The major manufacturers are not, from what we see — maybe with the exception of what Volkswagen says they’re going to do — none of the competitors are planning to do serious volume in electric vehicles yet. They’re just sized to stay within the volume constraints of the incentives.
He went on to say GM’s target sales of the Bolt EV, which have ranged from 20,000, 30,000 and even 50,000 vehicles sold, is much too low. Rather, he feels GM should be pushing for 300,000 to 500,000 vehicles per year to make a difference.
But, there are plenty of things working against the Bolt EV. Gasoline is cheap, Americans have fallen in love with larger crossovers and trucks (again) and $37,495 is still a chunk of change for a vehicle like the Bolt. We won’t know how consumers take to the Bolt EV until deliveries begin, but we won’t have to wait long. Bolt production has already begun at the Orion assembly plant, and owners should be receiving their vehicles quite shortly.
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I think Elon is essentially right, 20-30K of production units for what is supposed to be Chevy’s halo car is way to low.
Technologically this is a very good car, so GM should be aiming a min. of 100K/year.
Elon Musk says GM should make even more, and you call that criticism, while GM actively fights to keep Tesla from selling cars in many states? If that’s criticism I’m sure Tesla would welcome that sort of criticism from GM.
Elon loves to see the advancement of sustainable transportation. GM and many dealer associations across the US are scared, that’s why GM lobbies like crazy to prevent Tesla from selling in many states. Also, dealer associations realize that the dealership model is a thing of the past. You can still have competition in the automotive industry by allowing manufacturers to do direct sales. Direct to consumer is a much more friendly and convenient experience.
Elon is like a politician and tells the tale to suit his needs.
GM is not like Tesla where it has to build and sell cars to survive. The S funded the X model. With the delays and quality issues along with not building the volume they predicted it has put the 3 behind due to the lack of money.
He then has to pre sell more cars than he ever built total to fund the finishing points of the three that is still not out and may not even make its now predicted late date.
GM like other full line MFG are building these cars to build a segment and establish first a market and second planting the seeds for suppliers to have a reason to make parts for these cars. The suppliers need to make money as were GM can break even or lose some to invest in their growth so the ultimate goal is to sell enough cars to drive prices down and everyone makes money.
Right now GM may be losing up to $9K on each Bolt. This is to seed the growth of the segment and suppliers and in time it will be made back.
If the segment is not invested in no suppliers would join in and the cost of the technology would make it not profitable for a very long time.
Think of it this way. GM and other MFG are like the government funding NASA. While at first no one was making money it planted the seeds for new technology growth that grew in all the companies supply the program. In the end not only did we get more technology by the bucket fulls we also got cheaper prices and just plain better everything.
As we move on GM will offer more products and spread the cost out.
Tesla can not do this as they have nothing to fall back on. They do not sell 2 million trucks a year or millions of cars that do make very good profits. Hell even as it is they are very questionable making money now.
The SEC is now smacking Teslas accounting practices and I suspect we will see more irregularities if they become more desperate.
Also you may want to look at the Volt. The first gen was very expensive. The new one is a much better car all the way around and a little cheaper. GM is able to sell more of them now and things will continue to improve. Same with the Bolt as this car will be replace in the near future with a better cheaper car and sales will grow.
The EV market is a slow grow high investment segment. There is no easy way to the big time here and it will take time and money to grow it.
GM is not stopping Tesla from selling cars anywhere. They can sell them in any state as they like. Be honest here.
GM is not wanting them as do most other automakers burdened with a dealer network from selling them direct with no dealers.
GM and all other MFG can not afford to buy out their dealers to be on even ground. IT would put them at a disadvantage not only with Tesla but even more importantly any automaker from China that would choose to enter our market.
Yes it is China that has the ability to build tens of millions of cars that is a threat. While they have struggled with their own cars they are learning fast from working with all the western automakers and they will get it right in the near future. Once they do it is game on and unless the Government lets the automakers out of their dealer franchise deals with little or no cost they will be at a great disadvantage to these new automakers.
At the rate Tesla is going they will not be a threat to anyone for a very long time. Hell they can’t even get the 3 out on time and with the rate of their production it will take them years to build the pre sold cars if people wait that long.
GM will be onto the 2nd and 3rd gen models by then and the new Porsche will rob many of the S model sales as it grows stale in a fast moving segment.
EV cars will be like smart phones and they will age fast as technology grows even faster.
Elon has much to worry about it is easy to lead when you are the only one on the track. Much deeper pockets at companies with much larger tech centers are now arriving.
“GM is not like Tesla where it has to build and sell cars to Survive”
GM could survive if it didn’t build and sell cars?
Isn’t there something to be said about a CEO who wants his competitors to do more for the industry?
Like PT Musk knows what is best?
Once he sells as many cars as GM and turns a profit greater than GM. By then he can advise others how to run their business.
Clearly, you are extremely misinformed. Please allow me to respectfully correct you.
“GM is not like Tesla where it has to build and sell cars to survive. The S funded the X model. With the delays and quality issues along with not building the volume they predicted it has put the 3 behind due to the lack of money.”
GM would surely die as well if they didn’t sell vehicles. The Tesla Roadster (Generation 1: high cost, low volume) funded the Model S (Generation 2: mid cost and volume). The Roadster and Model S funded the Model X (also Generation 2). Both the Model S and X are funding production of the Model 3 (Generation 3: low cost, high volume). Sure, the Model S and X were delayed a bit. Tesla was a young automotive company in its early years, that stuff happens. However, the Model 3 is NOT delayed, it is on schedule to begin production in mid 2017. Tesla has time and time again beat their own expectations in the number of forecasted deliveries and will continue to do so. Quality issues? Yes, very early Tesla vehicles had minor QC issues but, Tesla goes above and beyond to fix those and improve their production process. Every car from every manufacturer has QC issues from time to time. Lack of money? Where is your source to back this up? The Model 3 currently has over 400,000 reservations, that’s astounding for a car that hasn’t even been fully revealed. No other automaker has ever accomplished that, ever.
Another correction, again respectfully.
“GM like other full line MFG are building these cars to build a segment and establish first a market and second planting the seeds for suppliers to have a reason to make parts for these cars. The suppliers need to make money as were GM can break even or lose some to invest in their growth so the ultimate goal is to sell enough cars to drive prices down and everyone makes money.”
Why on earth would GM build cars if there isn’t a segment/market for them? That’s extremely risky. Suppliers are usually already contracted to make parts for vehicle production before they’re even revealed to the general public. How can GM lose money and still invest in growth? They would have to raise more capital. GM’s ultimate goal is to make a profit like most for profit corporations. If they cannot profit, they will die out.
More respectful corrections.
“As we move on GM will offer more products and spread the cost out.
Tesla can not do this as they have nothing to fall back on. They do not sell 2 million trucks a year or millions of cars that do make very good profits. Hell even as it is they are very questionable making money now.
The SEC is now smacking Teslas accounting practices and I suspect we will see more irregularities if they become more desperate.
Also you may want to look at the Volt. The first gen was very expensive. The new one is a much better car all the way around and a little cheaper. GM is able to sell more of them now and things will continue to improve. Same with the Bolt as this car will be replace in the near future with a better cheaper car and sales will grow.
The EV market is a slow grow high investment segment. There is no easy way to the big time here and it will take time and money to grow it.”
Sometimes offering a diverse product line can be your downfall. Remember when GM filed for bankruptcy then killed off more than half of it’s product lines and offerings in order to restructure? Point 2, Tesla does have other products to fall back on, sustainable energy products. Solar roofs, home batteries, and power packs for organizations. Tesla makes money through vehicles sales like any other manufacturer does. If that’s questionable, you might want to investigate GM, FCA, Ford, Toyota, etc. The SEC isn’t punishing Tesla, Tesla has been using GAAP as of Q3 2016. More irregularities? Doubtful. More desperate? Tesla is seeing explosive growth in vehicle sales. Point 3, the Volt is a really nice car, I agree. The only reason GM even did the Volt was because Bob Lutz was inspired by the Tesla Roadster.
Elon hits a point that i did not see. GM is not building to sell, they are building to get the incentive.
Very bad marketing.
P.T. Barnum opens his mouth again. In my opinion, in 3-4 years Musk will not be viewed as Steve Jobs, but rather more like the Joker as his Solar/Auto company’s stock craters and his space vehicles flounder.
You talk smack on a message board.
Musk and team made effectively the worlds fasted road car (that happens to be electric).
What does the fastest do for making profits?
Not making a profit or keeping the cash flow going leads to drops in quality and a failure to release new models needed for more capital on time.
This leads to preselling cars that do not exist in a finished state and leaving people waiting after you take some of their money and not even giving them a finished price.
This leads to canceled sales as other large MFG come to market with finished products and you end up losing sales and lost profits.
This in time leads to a company in decline that either sells out or fails.
This leads to someone posting well they did at one time make one of the fastest 0-60 cars that really means nothing in the big picture.
Sorry Dude but this is not smack this is reality. Bragging about performance numbers means nothing at the end of the day. GM may make a Corvette with great numbers too but in the end if they do not make money and do not grow and expand new product on time it leads to failure.
If GM or any other company had done the same things as Tesla many of the blind followers would be critical as duly deserved.
The path for Tesla is only going to get more and more difficult as they fall behind. It is hard to get back lost time and money in a segment they owned for a good while. Once the others enter this segment it will be against companies that are making money with other products and they will do a lot of damage to Tesla.
On the web there are many blind followers. Some that know the risks and many plants but in the end it comes back to the balance sheet and if they do not show a legitimate profit no matter how they skew the numbers as the SEC has caught there is a price Elon will have to pay.
Elon has made a plan that could work but it requires each product to be on time and for it to suffer no delays or quality setbacks. The X model has not lived up to this and has really set back the 3. Now that that has happened it is ground that will be difficult to regain that ground. The truth is everything did not go perfect and this plan relied on it. This is not criticism just a pure honest observation.
If things go bad Elon could go from Hero to Zero faster than you can say Delorean.
You are correct, Tesla must deliver to succeed and it is under relatively tight constraints. However, to date Elon has maneuvered Tesla through many challenges and there is no particular reason to think that he won’t do it again. If you look at what he has done in his life already it is clear that this man is no ordinary man. He appears to be focused on the right things (sufficient scale to lower battery price, simplified engineering of the Model 3, advanced production methods, maintaining solid partnerships – Panasonic) and has all the pieces in motion to bring the model 3 to market in an acceptable time frame (which I would put as no later than summer 2018).
Well he has some success but he has also had many failure. The truth is generally successful people try often fail most of the time and success some of the time.
Edison was a prime example as he failed much more than he succeeded.
But in this case he has mapped a path to the future build on each and every model. One model is slowing in sales. The next one under performed.
Now the three is several years late because of the lack of X income. This was all the while there really was no competition.
Moving forward there will be more competition that will be very formidable in play as he tries to get a new model out and then tries to build more cars than he ever has to this point.
2018 is not good for a 3 release. It need to be this spring or the lack of income will really be hitting hard.
To be honest Tesla would do much better if they turned supplier and made batteries and systems for other MFG. This is where the real money is and no burden of development cost of cars.
But Musk ego is too much to just go with that.
Most people understand even in the computer industry the suppliers to Apple are much better investment than Apple anymore.
Why would his space vehicles flounder? I can see that Tesla might suffer from the coming wave of competition and perhaps solar for the same reasons, but not Space X. Space is a clear leader and will continue to be as far as I can see. I know you’re trying to portray him in a particular way, but the facts don’t justify it.
Space X is one of the leaders in some areas. There are some very compelling companies that have as much and more to offer in the game.
He has consistently promised more than he has delivered both in quantity and in time frame. Doing that with space vehicles is not necessarily the path to success.
Its really an LG Bolt with a Chevy cabin isn’t it? LG is reported to make the complete power & drive train platform.
So how can Chevy ramp enormous upside when they are so dependent on LG?
Likely outcome is 3 years from now Korean EV will rule the road.
Test drove one January 18th, 2017, in california, dealer said they sold about 80 since the beginning of the year at that location. Price is higher than expected, $43,500 with the premium trim. Specs say it accelerates faster than my 2015 eGolf but did not feel like that in person despite setting it to sports mode. Handling and acceleration and interior are better on the VW eGolf, but Range is 2.8 times as much on the Bolt. Bolt is a nice compact car and cheapest on the market for that range, 238 mile EPA. It lacks automated cruise control (stop and go automation for your commute) and supercharger network for long distance driving but is an adequate replacement with proper range for say an eGolf or a Leaf. It doesnt have its own GPS but android and apple car play allow you to mirror your app from your phone onto the car display. It does have a roof rack option.
It’s supposed to have 200HP and 0-60 in 7 seconds or less. How can it not be faster that your e-Golf? Did you floor it? Otherwise it could of just been the accelerator pedal mapping.