I was one of the first handful of journalists to get to drive the Roadster back in January 2008 http://green.autoblog.com/2008/01/28/abg-first-drive-hitting-the-road-in-the-tesla-roadster/
While the car was a blast to drive, it exhibited a number of flaws which in combination with the economic collapse later that year, no doubt caused to fall well short of its sales targets.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long had a contentious relationship with the media and it looks like he doesn't want to risk any bad reviews ahead of delivering cars to customers. Hopefully the Model S will live up to expectations, but I have a feeling a lot of people will be surprised at their actual out the door cost and range once they hit the streets.
#teslamotors #ev #electricvehicles
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Tesla not to let journalists test Model S before start of deliveries
Tesla Motors held its fourth quarter and full-year financial results conference call, as well as an extensive Q&A session last night with investors and journalists – revealing an aspect of the Mod…
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I can't imagine Musk would release a flawed vehicle to consumers. It would completely destroy Tesla's reputation. I can see how the move is worrisome, but I can also see that he's trying to get the car to people that have reserved one as quickly as possible.
+Sean Pereira I think flawed is perhaps too strong a word here. I don't think the Model S will be fundamentally flawed, but it may well turn out to be underwhelming, especially in the base "$49,900" flavor.
I also see a lot of potential issues with the 17-inch all touch center stack. Take the biggest complaints about the original MyFord Touch and magnify it many times over.
+Sam Abuelsamid The base version may very well be underwhelming, but the signature series is the first tier that is going to be released. I think Tesla will try to iron out all of the noticeable issues with the beta models and keep refining from there. It will be interesting to watch it all unfold and I am, obviously, on the side that hopes they succeed.
Roger Ebert used to give the "Wagging Finger of Shame" to films that weren't made available to reviewers for advance screening. Auto journalists need to give some sort of equivalent to that to the Tesla Model S.
+Jac Carter It's not really the same thing with cars. With movies, going out and dropping $10-15 person on the opening weekend before word of mouth gets around is not a huge hit to the individuals although having hundreds of thousands or millions do that in aggregate is big for the movie producers.
The limited production rate of cars, especially those like the Model S means that if the word of mouth spreads that there is a problem, relatively few people will be affected.
This decision will certainly annoy writers and if the car does turn out to be less than hoped for or claimed, they will certainly not cut Musk any slack going forward. In the end it's really just a bunch of hacks (a group that used to include myself) getting whiny. It won't take long after deliveries start for the reviews to roll out anyway.
Yeah I don't think Tesla is doing anything seriously wrong. "The Wagging Finger of Shame" isn't really a serious condemnation, more of a taunt to the producers for not having confidence in their product. Another thing to consider is that the quality of a movie is a matter of taste and opinion whereas whereas many elements of the quality of a car can be more objectively defined.